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Kickoff Sessions
Weekly podcast episodes with the sharpest minds in the world to help you live a richer & more fulfilling life.
Previous guests include Luke Belmar, Justin Waller, Sahil Bloom, Gad Saad, Peter Schiff, Stirling Cooper, Jack Hopkins, Sadia Khan, Matt Gray, Daniel Priestley, Richard Cooper, Justin Welsh, Arlin Moore and more.
Kickoff Sessions
#251 Ned Phillips - The Ultimate Sales Playbook to Close More Deals
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Ready to close deals like never before?
This episode will change how you approach every sales call.
Ned Phillips, founder of The Sales Movement, and a veteran in the fintech world, joins us on Kickoff Sessions to break down the exact strategies that helped him turn every “no” into an opportunity.
With years of experience helping startups drive more revenue, Ned reveals how he’s built a winning sales mindset that’s resilient, effective, and result driven.
From mastering the art of listening to crafting compelling stories that close deals, Ned shares actionable insights to elevate your sales approach and get real results.
You’ll learn how to handle rejection like a pro, create an environment where sales thrive, and use digital tools to improve every step of your sales journey.
We also dig into the common mistakes holding most salespeople back—and how Ned learned to overcome them to build a career focused not just on selling, but on creating impact and meaningful connections.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more episodes like this!
Connect with Ned
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ned-phillips/
My Socials:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/darrenlee.ks
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-lee1
(00:00) Preview and Intro
(00:33) The Reality of Getting Leads
(03:25) The Importance of Cold Calling
(05:38) How To Build a Sales Team
(09:17) Ned’s Approach to Sales
(13:21) Cold Calling Tactics from the Early Days
(16:37) Learning to Handle Rejection
(19:52) Stages of Sales Competency
(24:50) Gap Selling and Understanding Client Goals
(27:09) Storytelling Over Product Marketing
(30:28) Overcoming Rejection with Storytelling
(34:30) Effective Cold Outreach Techniques
(38:50) The Importance of Targeted Sales Efforts
(43:00) Importance of Continuous Effort is in Sales
(54:45) Decoding the Sales Process
(57:52) Self-Admission and Imagery Techniques
(01:01:02) The Problem with Sales Scripts
(01:06:17) Leveraging Content in Sales
(01:08:27) Importance of First Impressions
(01:13:52) Challenges in B2B Tech Sales
(01:17:02) Sales Fundamentals
That's the single thing they don't do. People don't do sales. They sit and think about sales. They're not making 100 calls a day. They're not sending 100 emails a day. After 35 years of it, I truly, truly, truly, truly don't care if somebody doesn't buy from me, Like I don't care.
Speaker 1:And that's the problem. Every second you spend on that negative energy, it's so wasted. I say to these people, because they're my age, we're not used to telling our story vulnerably. I was like put it online. They're like but what if people don't like it? I'm like, just to be clear, the people who ignore you you're worried that they will carry on ignoring you People don't have a leads problem, they have an engagement problem. That's such a great statement, man. When people say you don't have leads, I'm like guys.
Speaker 2:Before we start this video, I have one small favor to to ask of you. If you've been enjoying all the effort we put into making these videos as best as possible for you, please hit the subscribe button down below so we can help more people every single week. Thank you, all right. Where I want to start is what's one thing people are not doing with their sales that if they did, it would actually transform all of their business.
Speaker 1:Sales. That's the single thing they don't do. People don't do sales. They sit and think about sales. They don't make it. 100 calls a day. They're not sending 100 emails a day the single thing. People, the reason I'm laughing I was with a client the other day I'm not going to name them and they were wondering why they weren't getting any sales and they've been thinking about sales. How many meetings are you doing a week? They're like one, maybe two. How many outreaches are you doing? Five, maybe ten? The reality is people don't do sales. They don't sell because they're not committing to do the sales. Why do you think that is? You go to the gym, right? How many people are in the gym doing reps regularly? Not that many. Same thing. People are lazy.
Speaker 2:So do you think people get started with the idea that they're going to do sales and then they come up with any excuses or they're in fulfillment hell, like what's the actual.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it. So, yeah, the high level thing is, people, if you did a lot of calls and meetings, you would get deals if your product wasn't crap right. Ever since I started. So, when I started sales in commission-only, door-to-door sales in London, this guy, he actually did this right, he actually did this.
Speaker 1:So we came into a room, all the young guys and he was like okay. He was like okay, everybody, how did you get to work? And I'm like on the bus, how did you get to work On the subway? And he said stand up. He was a real douchebag, Stand up, all of us like 20 of us Come to the window and he parked his Porsche outside. Literally this was 1989, I don't remember. You see that that's how I came to work Sit down, how did I get that? And they were like because you're a good sales guy, no, Because I do the calls every day I do the call. I haven't always enjoyed it. You're on the Porsche, do the calls, Make the calls. I'll never forget that. Like, yes, it's a bit dick bag, no, I love it. But he literally made us stand up. He walked us to the window. He said that is not a function of how good I am. That's a function of how much I do it's a Lambo equivalent of today.
Speaker 2:Correct, like, if you see it. You can say may not like it, but it's a series of inputs that contribute to the outcome that you deserve is.
Speaker 1:So when you start cold call sales, is it fun to dial, smile and dial? Not really. No, the only way to make it fun again. I was with this client the other day. They're like so how do we do this? I'm like, well, I'm just an advisor, but if I was the sales lead here, I would lock that door until we've all made 50 calls. If you have any questions, you can't stay in the room. We're going to make 50 calls. If you have any questions, you can't stay in the room. We're going to make 50 calls right now.
Speaker 1:So why don't people do it? A because I think they're not in a sales structure. Let's say you're a solopreneur sitting at home. You're a different dude. You're focused. I know you do the calls in your room by yourself. You have a unique ability to focus 99.9% of people, won't you make the first 20 calls and you get told no, people have a little boo-hoo and they go home, right, well, they're already at home. They stop If they're in the office and it's not a great sales environment. It gets dispirited really quickly and that's the problem. You need to give yourself a sales environment to want to do it, and I've worked in some of the greatest sales rooms and if you work in a great sales room you're making all the calls. I think you. Just I think so many people are not set up right so go a bit deeper on that environment.
Speaker 2:So how do you create that environment, whether it's a company or whether yourself, like a small business owner, online business, how can you create that ethos right?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask you a question. A group of salespeople is called a sales team, right apart from sports, namely another profession where it's called team. You don't have a team of accountants. You don't have a team of lawyers, you don't have. It's not. Hey, I'm in the lawyer team, I'm in the accountant team, I accountants. You don't have a team of lawyers, you don't have. It's not. Hey, I'm in the lawyer team, I'm in the accountant team, I'm in, maybe, the tech team to a degree Not really, though it's not the same concept.
Speaker 1:How do you do it? You create a sales team, you create this environment where it is Absolutely. I said it is absolutely. This is a sport, this is a game. Like, we want to win. If you don't have a bit of an ego and you don't want to win, don't be in sales. And if you're in a room, so if you want to create the right environment, have the person. The sales leader shouldn't take any of the glory, should create the environment that sales people can sell.
Speaker 1:And I sat in a room. Man, there was me, jeremy david peter, and this lady called suze, still a great friend of ours, and she was just like sorry, pardon, you're talking to each other, get dialing, like she's laughing but she's telling us right, and when you won, when you got a deal, you'd go to the whiteboard and you'd put up a deal. It's competition. It's competition, create a good competition. Right, it's healthy. Like, if you're in sales and you don't want to be top of the sales board, you're not in sales. No salesperson's like yeah, I'd like to be bottom of the sales board. We all want to be top. Someone's going to be bottom. And I think today and I'm fascinated today by these remote sales organizations how they make that happen, because in my old school head it's like creating a great, so you've got to create a great team, a great environment, with the right incentives to deal through the no, no, no, no, no. Like if I even you, you're a dedicated dude. I'm sure after a thousand no's you get a little, uh, a little demotivated, right?
Speaker 2:true, but I've become more desensitized to the whole process, as in like I because I don't want to go deeper on this as well like facing rejection or just the concept of this at first is more the mindset side. Right Is that in the beginning I remember getting like fucking hate emails coming back and then having my ego strokes, like feeling like like almost you did something wrong in school. You know you have that gut feeling, but then you get to the point whereby one you believe in your product, so you know that actually helps people, yeah. And then if they reject you, it's actually not to do with you, it's honestly to do with them half time because they're not in a position to buy or they're not willing to make a risk or make a change. So then it becomes more decentralized.
Speaker 2:And then, on the other side too, if I have a long deal cycle that ends up not closing, at beginning it used to feel tough, but now it's just I've done it so many times that I just it's just part of it. So usually my gut reaction this comes from, like you know, growing up with very little money, getting lucky to some degree where I'm at now and get into a position that's pretty solid for most people that at this point now it's just an interesting frame. It's just like like my gut reaction is always like more. So if something goes wrong, I don't dwell on it, I just fucking send more emails, send more linkedin messages, I make more calls, I set up more, more things because there's a time delay. So that's what I've understood a lot. You know, it's the actions we take. The results we want is under a variable time that we honestly can never quantify you said you got lucky.
Speaker 1:I love this phrase. It's by a baseball coach the harder I work, the luckier I get yeah, it's increasing the surface area of luck. The other side is so you, it's all fine, now right, because you're getting I hate the word success sucks you, do you're? You're getting positive feedback for your behaviors. Yeah, imagine you've done all this work and you hadn't got a single deal today. Do you think you could still keep going?
Speaker 2:you have to change your behavior, though, do you get me? And this is where, like, education comes in. This is why what you do helping people with sales is so valuable. Because this was me in my earlier instance, right, you know like? I ran parties when I was a kid. I ran e-commerce stores. I ran, I tried to build a passport app and it was never a problem with the vessel. At the end, the problem was with me, and I went on the path of, like, learning and learning more about these constructs, and because I didn't have money, I did it for free. I had a podcast on youtube, and now I'm at the stage where which I have I've bought ak for training programs for sales specifically.
Speaker 2:I'll put into other ak 12k programs because I know that that's the knowledge that I'm acquiring. But that's an observation piece, and if you're working for a company, like salesforce, they give you the two years of education, right? I'm like you're a dummy if you think you're better than education, right? So it's just like if something is wrong, it's not actually to do with you often. Well, it's to do with you, but I mean, like you're not fundamentally flawed. You can fix it right, unless you can't speak. You can you?
Speaker 1:say sales, you need to be able to dial you to be able to speak. You know um from that side. But but I think the other side of it is that you said you don't let it bother you. I so, after 35 years of it, I, I truly, truly, truly, truly don't care if somebody doesn't buy from me. Yeah, like I don't care, and that's the problem. People dwell on the and you've been doing it for what? 10, 15 years now? Entrepreneurship, selling stuff from just in the game. Yeah, you know, and you know it's okay, somebody doesn't want to buy your stuff. What happens is people are like, oh my God, that fucking guy didn't buy from me. It's fine.
Speaker 2:Every second you spend on that negative energy, it's so wasted Well, hormozy puts it like all the wasted energy you put on dwelling on why something enclosed, you could put that time into making the next deal. So always I think about that from like a sponsorship perspective. For instance, I'll get these hate emails like, oh, I wouldn't pay 10k or 20k for this. And then I just immediately like reiterated my energy and then, like I faced that from like when I was younger, selling I was selling bus ticket events to parties and I had people who I thought were like friends or leads that didn't buy it and like it was my first instance being like I just take that energy and just sell it to all the other people and it still worked, you know. So I think I don't think that's like the sociopath in us, you know, to put it that that way, from that side and I said it to you the other day being like it's like I actually have the opposite of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking that, like anything can work. So I'm like, all right, just keep, you know, run the offer. And this is what's interesting. Right Is because, like, what we're talking about today is like the constructs of sales and how that feeds into offers and whatnot, because at the end of the day. For me in particular, if I run an offer and no one buys it, my immediate reaction is let's run a re-offer. This is what I just think immediately.
Speaker 2:I don't think, oh my God, it's something wrong with me. People don't like me. I just think I'm going to run the same thing with a different slant in 24 hours.
Speaker 1:And I think this is. But sales doesn't change right, Whether it's 1900s, today. If your product doesn't work, it's okay, it's totally fine, Just change it right. And but the other side is that you know sales, is this idea right? When I, when I that guy's the porsche, right, I learn a lot from him. I don't like porsches, I'm not a car guy, but I still get the bus so broky. I know like I have a. I don't know man, it's just me.
Speaker 1:I grew up as a hippie. We grew up with as self-sufficient man. We were like kids. I was like the hippies from the woods. But they gave us a sales script. So I was brought up on this. I think I've told you this story.
Speaker 1:So we sold insurance, life insurance. The company was called Allied Dunbar, known as Allied Crowbar. So we will get your money from you. That that's what it was called. We were known it was like a chop shop man. I was commissioned only and it was. They were like okay, so here's the script. But they were clear You're selling them these products. It doesn't matter what they say, they're like, we're selling these products. So it wasn't great sales. But within there, what they were saying was never sell the product. They will buy the product but never sell the product. So knock, knock, knock. This is door to door combat.
Speaker 1:I am walking the streets of London wrapping doors selling life insurance, Old school. Every morning we get the yellow pages. You know what yellow pages is the phone book. So we got you know and each rep. So when I started there, I would, they would give you the phone. We didn't have the the internet. You get a phone book a, b, c, d people. Right, I started, you know I was given a and I always joke. You know the first person, mr aardvark. He's like oh, why do you fucking people always call me? I'm like dude, you're the first person in the phone book. Change your name. You know his name is aardvark a. A. It's not obviously, but but you ready for this? Not only was I given Hardvark, his name was already crossed out by the previous rep. That's what you're starting with, right? You're starting with a phone book with the name that already says don't call me and his name crossed out. And he's like that's your lead. I'm like really. I'm like you got a better idea. I'm like no.
Speaker 2:No sales navigator. No, no dude you have a better idea.
Speaker 1:No, that's why today, you know, I go on about crms and sales. Now I'm like, dude, these are the greatest things you've ever seen in your life. So you would call. And if you call, you're only asking for a meeting and look, we're going to sell specifics. When people call me like, hi, I have a product to sell you, I'm like, stop, stop, stop. You're asking in the first call. You're asked because they're trying to get me a meeting with one of their reps or whatever. Yes, you're asking for time. Yeah, like, think about it, you're asking for time anyway. So we would.
Speaker 1:So when I started, I was making meetings, I was a sales development rep, sdr. As they called today for account executive, right, I'd call him hey, can I, you know, get my hey. He's hey. Aren't you the same guys who called me and scratched your name out of the phone book? I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry, but then in the afternoon, so we'd be asked to make anywhere between 50 to 100 calls every morning, and then in the afternoon we would pound the streets right, knock on doors, cold knocking on doors. Hello, you know and you're trying to make it. You know and you're trying to make it.
Speaker 1:The sales pitch was this it's terrible. So you knock on the door yeah, oh hi, mr Lee, how are you doing? And you say straight up hi, look, I'm here to offer some value. Have you got any? I don't know if you remember I told you about sport. Have you got like 42 seconds? Greatest little pitch in the world. Why not a minute? Why not some? I just really want to ask you one question and then I'll be gone. Is that okay? Do you love your family? I'm like pardon, because I think you're going to say hi, have you got some life insurance to buy? Do you love your family? And they're like what? Some of you? Well, of course, and that's great, because I just wanted to make sure you had insurance for them, because if you love them, you want to make sure that everything's okay. So I'm just here to help you make sure everything's okay. Of course, you're here to sell them shit, but it was that. And then lots of funny replies you get to that question.
Speaker 2:What was the funniest response you got?
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, I think it's you know. The reality is, you know all the ones is like you know the sad ones? Oh no, my parents just died Fuck dude.
Speaker 1:And you're like okay, bye, crawl out, crawl out the thing to. I remember one, somebody, I remember this one. He's like no, I fucking hate them, I killed my family. Yeah, no, he, literally one dude said no, I fucking hate them, can't stand them. And he just stood and looked at me. I'm like, okay, well, well, I, I appreciate your time, sir. Creep off into the background, right, but you but. But those stuff are good stuff, you get used to it, right, he's not. When he said and he's like look, can you? He's not saying hey, ned, I don't like you, he doesn't know me. And that's, honestly, that's what this training taught me. The guy who had the ball said you're gonna get to get told to fuck off. You're going to get told they don't know you. They're not saying Ned, I don't like you, exactly.
Speaker 2:Don't put that in your head. They don't like you, they just don't like the product or the process or whatever. Wrong time wrong place.
Speaker 1:They're trying to argue with their wife, husband, whatever. So we would great because I think, obviously because you love them, you would ensure, in case something happened to you, they were taken care of. And if they said, yes, great, well, are you happy with that, you know? And if you are, it's fantastic. I'm out of here. Oh, you don't. Oh well, I'm sure you'd love to show them how much you love them, yeah. But what I realized, even though that and the script went then, sell them every product you can get your hands on, right, right. So it wasn't a good place, but what it was was this understanding of two things Number one, don't sell products. Tell a story, sell transformation, yeah. And number two, if they tell you to fuck off, it's totally. I did a year and a half of that dude Knocking on doors, walking around, and I got told all things.
Speaker 2:And by the end I don't care no more.
Speaker 2:So sales has never been easier with the tools that we have, but people have never worked less because even when I was going through sales trainings, they would say that your rep that you hire, you know, can barely make 50 call calls a day. That was at the baseline and like the best reps will do like 100 a day. Like you were walking the streets in the evening, you get me and these guys are at home in their underpants, right, and they're not able to actually do it. And bear in mind they're doing nothing else but to set up lead calls with people that are already qualified. Like a lot of these guys that would work. These roles will be working off inbound leads, so they're people that have come into them and that's how dial these coaching programs are, because agencies are that they have very good lead magnets to get you know 10 000 downloads a month. So it's like so fucking easy, whereas today if you try to hire a sales rep, the guys are like they melt. They're like, oh my god, apollo, oh my god, sales navigator, I'm like dude. We do realize that's easier for you understanding how it works, it makes your life easier, but they think that it's more complex, which is just hilarious anyway. So let's look at specifically you said around that training.
Speaker 2:So basically people are not doing sales. What is it within that component that they're not doing? Are they're not finding leads? Are they not following up on leads? Like, you're consulting with a bunch of entrepreneurs and an older guys and these guys are not getting the full, maximum potential, which is hilarious, because the only purpose of business is to sell shit genuinely. You need to make money to get people to build the actual business, which is hilarious for me. I started the opposite, dude. I? I frequently sorry, I know I'm on a tangent, but I don't know how I told you this but I? I often sell things that don't exist, you notice?
Speaker 3:yeah, so my whole thesis is that I will think of an idea, of course I, I will sell it, of course.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'll hop on 50 calls, I'll sell it and then I'll build it afterwards, like two weeks later, you know and I think it's just funny because I always just start from that perspective which is like I don't understand. I don't understand this.
Speaker 1:We should talk about building and selling. But to your point, do you? Six, nine months ago, I remember I came to the gym with you. Yeah, how apparently clear was it? I had no idea what the machines were. Yeah, that's the same scenario. I'm not a gym dude. I can run a long way and I see these machines. I'm like, think of it like that, with CRMs, even with sales. Just me walking in the gym, even the clothes I was wearing, I stood out as not a gym dude, right, good, I was wearing. I stood out as not a gym dude, right, good point.
Speaker 1:When I meet these fans, they've not done sales, they've just not done sales. So it's like taking them to the gym and they're like what's that? And you're like, well, that's obviously a certain arm machine dude that does your like, you know what that is. It's a, it's a thing, it's the. I thought of this analogy the other day because somebody asked me the same question. It's like what don't they know? So they don't know, they don't know. You know these three. You know unconscious incompetence. You know this all the way through.
Speaker 1:So there is four stages of incompetence and competence right. So there's unconscious incompetence you don't know, you don't know. So when I walked into that gym, I just didn't know what. I didn't know, like I didn't. I just didn't know what to do. I don't know what, I don't know, I just don't know.
Speaker 1:The next stage of learning any art is unconscious competence. Sorry, conscious incompetence, let me get this right. So it's unconscious incompetence. You don't know, you have no idea. You don't know where to start. You don't even know what's wrong. The next stage is conscious incompetence. Let's say, you put me in the gym and told me what to do, how to do it. I know what to do. I'm still doing it wrong. I'm conscious about the fact I'm doing it wrong, but I want to learn. So I understand that I'm doing it wrong and I'm trying. The next stage is conscious competence. I'm doing it right and I know I'm doing it right. Great. The last stage is unconscious competence. I have to think about it. I just do it like when you go to the gym, you don't really need a thing, do you? You just go.
Speaker 1:You know, like in sales now I'm working for a company. It's like so, can we prepare for the sales meeting? I'm like no, you show up. I just show up. I have done 25,000 sales meetings I just show up. So to your question what am I training?
Speaker 1:I'm meeting guys who are unconsciously incompetent. I watch them in sales meetings. They're like hello, this is my product, my product does this and my product does that. And when my product does this, it does that. And then they literally turn to me and go how was that? I'm like you know, you don't know. Like you know, that was horrible. Right, they're like why was it horrible? And in the same way, if you'd left me alone in that gym and come back, you'd be like, oh my God, Dropped a dumbbell on your head. What is he doing? Doing? And you would have almost said to other friends he's like he doesn't even know what he doesn't even know, whereas you see you in the gym, you don't have to think about it right near those machines, you just do it. So what I'm teaching people is I try to take them through that.
Speaker 2:I'm like okay, let's start how do you go through first principles of that? Because that's use a gym analogy. It's like weight must increase to add more muscle. And then the sales. It's like you must speak to more people to make more money. You must.
Speaker 1:So first principle of sales every word you say takes away from the sale. So this is what I teach them you must not speak. I want you to say as few words as humanly possible. That's the single thing we start with in sales. Every word you say decreases the chance of you getting a deal, which, coming from me, who speaks all the time, is hysterical. Think about it.
Speaker 1:So when you go to a meeting, if you talk all day, so let's say you were my client or I was a prospect, hey Darren. So I sell coffee beans. So let me tell you my coffee beans come from Brazil. My coffee beans are great. Now everyone buys my coffee beans. They're really great coffee beans. Do you want to buy some? Hey Darren, tell me how's your coffee business going. Every percent over 50% that you speak, I get a deal. If you speak 90%, I got a deal Because you tell your story. You know what people like to hear. Do you know what people like to hear? Do you know what you like to do? And I like to do, I like to tell my story. If I allow you to tell my story sorry, if I allow you to tell your story and you have fun telling your story.
Speaker 1:You're like that dude listen, he understands me and at the end of the story you go so yeah, my coffee business, what we just need is some better price beans from brazil. I'm like, oh, I, I have better price beans from Brazil. I'm like oh, I have better priced beans from Brazil. Do you want those? They're like yeah, that is the number one unconscious incompetence thing that people who are not in sales don't understand. Don't say shit.
Speaker 2:Let them speak. What do you think about Keenan's approach in gap selling when he says people don't buy from people who they like, know and trust. They buy from people who can solve the problem but that's but fair enough.
Speaker 1:So I got the book. You. I didn't get the book.
Speaker 2:You sent me the book I actually read the book and it's an amazing. It's an amazing book, but that point is a very controversial point. Yeah, because he's saying it's not about relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I nothing's black and white in this world, apart from the sun comes up in the morning, it goes down at night. It's pretty black and white in this world, apart from the sun comes up in the morning, it goes down at night. It's pretty black and white. I find it very hard to believe that the majority. So if you go to a car showroom and you really, really, really want a Porsche and it solves your problem, and the sales rep's an absolute dick, I think you're going to struggle to buy it. I think you may. To struggle to buy it. I think you may. It's a nuanced point. If you're an amazing person but your product doesn't solve the gap, the problem, people won't buy it. So I think it's nuanced. I read that point. The gap selling point is fantastic, so I use it a lot. Now I say to people it's an amazing book.
Speaker 1:If you're bored, you buy Netflix. If you're hungry, you buy food. If you want to go somewhere, you buy a plane ticket. If you ever wrote anything without a problem, if you're happy with your current state, why would you go to a future state? To his point. I actually changed my pitch a little bit. I asked them to describe their future state imagery. Yeah, what is what do you want to like? Your coffee we're talking about, you know. What do you want your coffee shop to get to? Yeah, I want to have three. I want to have this, I want to have that, but that's what you want to be, what you need to get there and also, before you get to that point in the process, there's also the visual.
Speaker 2:So it's imagery and he doesn't actually call it as imagery, but I learned from will brown that it's basically imagery is what you're trying to create. But way keenan describes in gap selling is more so the fact that there's the professional goal, which is I want my coffee shop business to be doing 10 million a year, but there's also a personal goal, which is 100 ego, yeah, and it's non-tangible, which is I actually want to talk at a coffee conference and have a book around coffee. So it's almost. So you need to obviously have the process for the professional, but then the second that's taken care of. You move on to the personal and dude.
Speaker 2:Like we sell status and as a result of that, there's the front end business that grows, but on the back end there's the status driver of like fame and it's always easier to appeal to that and like there's nothing wrong with that. It's just the logic of business, right, because like people, they almost don't want a huge business without them knowing that it was them that has it. So that's kind of how I appeal to it. So there's a professional side which has to be taken care of for sure. That has to be the first buy-in, but then you almost like move with more emotion on the.
Speaker 1:On the personal your product has to be good and the client has to need you know, if I went to a podcast studio, said I have coffee beans, they're like you know, help. Well, I know they have coffee out there. Be not helping me. Yeah, if I, if you come to the right person at the right time, that gap selling in that personal oh, why do you want a 10 million dollar coffee business? Oh, because I want to win the world coffee championships or because I want 10 million dollars. So, from that side. So the number one thing I find is that people are so. They don't know how to sell. They think selling is about telling people what you have. They don't have the tools. They don't have CRM and I'm B2B tech right they don't have a CRM. They don't have LinkedIn. And the last bit which I learned from you, good sir, is they still product marketing. They're not storytelling.
Speaker 1:And my generation, 50-year, 50 year olds we didn't grow up posting or telling our stories. We never told our stories. You know, we wanted to get on. I was going to say jim will fix it, but that's a that's a different manner. Nobody wanted to get on that some some listeners might get that um, or blue peter, or it wasn't. We couldn't make you see you when I was kid. You can't make yourself famous as a kid. It was someone else's choice. Okay, do you want to get?
Speaker 2:on. Oh, you get on shows. Do you know what Top of the Pops is? No, I get the idea, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so other people decided Today, literally, you can decide. Well, you are making yourself famous, you literally do the effort and you do the reps. So in the sales environment, b2b tech, the winner is the person who understands how to sell, which most b2b tech companies are not.
Speaker 2:They understand how to use the tools and they understand how to tell their story using content yeah, and I think, just for context, for people too, like, what you're doing in b2b sales is not exclusive to b2b sales. It's the same shit for everyone. So, like, whether you're selling a course, it's the same thing. Like you ideally need a crm of people coming in, you have a mechanism to follow up with them and then you're telling your story. I think one of the things that the online space absolutely nailed is the storytelling component because, like they follow the russell brunson heroes journey, which is like they have a challenge, they're in a current state, they have a future state. There's a challenge and then there's a protagonist. So let's give an example I'm broke, fat, lazy, I work in mcdonald's and I hate my night to fight my boss. My boss is an asshole. That's a protagonist.
Speaker 2:The journey I go on is learning how to build a business, and that's a. It has many peaks and troughs. It's the same storyline as harry potter or lord of the rings, and then there's basically a hero's journey. So you meet someone who comes in and helps you, so like that can be taken out of context, for sure, but it's also the same concept of everyone you know and I do, like you've been a part of my hero's journey, like you've literally given me the mentorship when I needed it, like, bear in mind, you were the first person as well. Remember that. I said to you, I did.
Speaker 2:He said to you many years ago I was like I think this could be a 40k a month business, which is bigger and we're in a restaurant in a corner here, I remember, and you were actually the first person that ever said it was possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is that that is completely authentic and it's also the reality. But most guys don't understand the concept of storytelling to be able to just go and tread the story better. So if you sell a boring b2b software compliance product, it's the same shit, because you saw something that happened and you didn't like working at this bank and then you went off and did it yourself. So, honestly, like the fact that, like if you think through that lens store, selling becomes a lot easier when the story is involved, because you just tell stories. 100 and even when you started today and I asked you about what people aren't doing, you told that story back in 1989 and people resonate with the story, people buy the story and I brought it and and your point, like I remember you were at revolut and then you're gonna leave to do this.
Speaker 1:I remember I was like you can do this, right, but I wasn't sure. But like you had this, like we had a plan, yes, you had a plan.
Speaker 1:You're gonna go do it and you do it and I tell people, because people my age are like ah, these kids are all fucking lying. No one's making internet dollars, it's not true. I'm like the wi-fi money's real man, I know. And I'm like no, like I. I know some of these people. They're like yeah, that's what they're telling you. I'm like, and after a while I'm like it's totally fine. Like again, as I said about sales, if somebody doesn't want to buy your thing, it's totally fine.
Speaker 2:You're not trying to change beliefs right, because there's many other people who will believe it. It goes back to the rejection, like if that person doesn't believe it, so what? You can speak to somebody else who will believe it and if they do and they don't.
Speaker 1:And to your point about stories, so what I've noticed as well. So the reason I do b2b tech is that's been my life, that's what I sell. My startup failed, as people know. I've certainly not hidden that. And I think people look at me. They're like, okay, this dude can sell and he's got scars like I can scars, right, I can literally see his scars. They're on the internet, right, and they see that and they're like shit, this dude's going to tell me as it is. So when I meet the salespeople, I'm like I'm just sure this is a commercial transaction. You're going to give me money, but I'm going to tell you as it is, and I think it's that storytelling side of it bit rather than here's my scripted story, because each startup founder has a different way of thinking about sales.
Speaker 2:But yeah I you've taught me about that too right, because when you're coming out of bamboo you were saying to me for advice and I was trying to tell you it's time to play it down but you want to do what it felt more intuitive to you, yeah, and you were just a bit more open about it and, as a result because most people are living behind shields, right, yeah, so they either have a facade or they just have a shield which is like a compliance shield, you know, and like, people are like not approving it, but you were like, fuck it, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna tell my story and then, as a result, now your business has fucking blown up because people realize that it's like authentic I got told.
Speaker 1:I got told if you don't exit as a founder, no one will speak to you. Like if on linkedin it doesn't say exited founder, no one will speak to you right today. So when that article went up which was the tech in asia article got half a million views, got a thousand dms, all that type of stuff. Many, many people. And I wrote my linkedin now says was the founder of bamboo. The amount of comments I get from people going dude, that's so cool. And and people and they ask tell me the story. And when I go to sell my sales they want to hear this. And then I say what's your story? And it's amazing. I can go into this. If I say to them tell me about your product, they're like well, thank you very much. Here's my 10 slide product, here's my product and this is what I do.
Speaker 3:I'm like no. No if I say tell me your story that I jeez.
Speaker 1:You know, I was working at a bank and like I kept doing this compliance thing. It was so dumb, yeah, and it didn't work and I was like, oh my god, I can't. And then I was 45 and I had the opportunity and I started doing it. But I'm like that's why somebody buys your product 100 percent. And you know this is the justin welsh.
Speaker 1:You know the slide he put, which was promote yourself online every day, tell your story. They'll either ignore you, hate you, like you, whatever. And I say to these people because they're my age, we're not used to telling our story vulnerably. I was like put it online. They're like but what if people don't like it? I'm like so, just to be clear, the people who ignore you, you're worried that they will carry on ignoring you, like it's just checking. That's your biggest problem that you have and I always get that response right. I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I'm just saying it's your choice. Now, like I'll, I'll talk to you about the source and a lot of them just want me to say it's okay to post, it's okay to tell your story, it's okay to never talk about your product, never until they ask so you're the coffee shop owner? Tell me your coffee story, man. How did you start Like? What was the?
Speaker 1:deal, how's it going? All right, and what's the challenge? Yeah, margins, hardly in time, like I'm going to get better beans and they're like. And then you again, it's a sales skill. You're pushing them to the. You're taking the story, that's right, until they say so what do you guys do, again, exactly, if you can get them to tell the story and at the end of it they go. So what do you guys do? You can't close that deal. You're always closing that deal. They have to ask you, they have to say to you I'd like to buy your product. And when I talk to people about sales in that way, they're like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:So what's the timeline there of discussion? So you're speaking to someone. Let's take a step back on. One thing that I definitely struggle with is definitely handling inbound outbound messages, because you can't get into this dialogue, you can't sense tonality, you can't open up like I think calls are easier than messages 100%. How do you move and navigate that through DMs?
Speaker 1:Or email. I love this. I love this analogy. So people say cold is dead. Right, I don't think cold is dead, right, but cold cold is dead. What I mean is just really lazy cold is dead. I used this analogy with you yesterday when we had dinner Cold, emailing, like pure cold.
Speaker 1:Hey, john, I have a product. I don't want to pick on Vietnam because it's a beautiful country, but the amount of hi. I'm John from the Vietnam outsourcing agency. We do. We have PHP developers. Would you like to buy some? No, I fucking wouldn't dude. Or do you have 15 minutes of time? Even more? No, I don't Like nothing against you, like really nothing against you. I get it Like that cold is dead.
Speaker 1:The analogy is that type of cold is like going to someone's house, taking a brick, throwing it through the window in the middle of the night, creeping up to the bedroom, waking them up and screaming buy my shit. And then be surprised when they don't want to Like. Literally, it doesn't work. All they needed that Vietnamese place not one, there's many. All they needed to do was Google, ned Phillips at LinkedIn, and go hey man, I'm sorry to hear about your startup. I'm wondering if you're still in tech, if you think I'd love to see if we can help you to start again if you're doing it. If not, best of luck. I am replying to that and I know you. You look at that. So the other, I guess let's say you're working, you've done a lot of cold, you've done a lot of DMs, just put and you do it. But saying to people listening, just put the effort in, you can find out something about anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can also scale cold. We can talk about that Like. I think honestly, like my biggest skill is cold email. Like, out of everything, I'm probably better at sending cold email than I am at sending calls. Why? Because I know what triggers people and I know like where, like you know, people run away from pain versus towards pleasure. So let's just give an example Like so I'm selling a very expensive podcast product to people. If we're going after like investing podcasts that are in america, I know that for the most part, they're doing it to get leads, and then the email that can be scalable, that's completely automated, can lean into this.
Speaker 2:These different variables being like that are like financial lingo. Using their language, using their tonality and their future. Their current state is that it's just embarrassing. It's time they could be putting more time into their existing clients. So that's what they're running away from. The goal that they have, then, is that they're generating inbound opportunity. The business is growing, the brand is growing and other financial advisors or investors think that they're credible and they become like a one-of-one, kind of like an acquired or one of those VC companies. So when you're writing that email, it's very easy to be short, snappy and then also have like the social proof that we have of like managing 200 shows or you know, work for 200 shows and then showing like a basically like a case study. And then when I'm sending these emails as well, all I'm doing is getting looking for a hand raiser which is just basically like can I just show you super quickly, like how I can do it for you just over email. And then they're mostly like the response is always like yeah.
Speaker 1:So the reason you're good at cold is you do what 99.9% don't do. You put effort in, exactly, you think about it.
Speaker 2:But the effort is so funny because it's not even personalized. It's just personalized to that avatar which is a rich guy in his forties and fifties, he's working in finance, he doesn't have status, he doesn't have a growing podcast and he's probably overburdened. So it's just like an avatar outline and then it's just like bing, bing, bing bing.
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Speaker 1:Again, I hate to pick on vietnam I know that that email they send. They send it to dbs or me, exactly. They're completely different. It's completely different.
Speaker 2:So you're doing thoughtful, targeted cold right yeah, mine's like an ad, yeah, an email.
Speaker 1:You've thought about it, right? Hey, I think your pain is this. I know the solution is this. If your pain is this, there's a possible solution. Over there they'll be like oh wow, that's how did he like?
Speaker 2:you're right, my podcast sucks I actually got an email today for something like how did you know that was my problem? It was automated. It's already got happened. This morning someone responded going how did you know? That was the problem that I have.
Speaker 1:That's because you've done the work right. That's so. The point is, I think you can do it and, of course, the next stage is just go to linkedin. I mean if, unless you're emailing thousands, if you're email, emailing tens, fifties of people, which a lot of the B2B are like yeah, my LinkedIn cold sucks, I'm like did you check their profile? No, guys, this is like. So what I do is that what's obvious to me and you as guys who are spending time doing that? Again, the gym analogy I don't know how to take the pins out the machine.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know where to put it. I don't know. I don't know where to put it. I don't know which machine to go on. You had to literally walk me around there. That's a machine. I don't even know which way to sit on the remember there was one machine. I didn't know if I was meant to sit forwards or backwards. No one told me. Well, you told me. I'm like why didn't you check the profile? And you only said it never occurred to me, but of course they don't do sales. So so I went through a list with somebody who had had like. He sent 50 call, got no reply. We built a list of just 25. We said hey, I saw you just changed jobs. Hey, I saw you just posted on linkedin great post about that. Hey, I see you've been at hsbc. There's always something, there's always an edge, and of the 25 we sent, we got nine replies. He sent 50 and got none.
Speaker 2:That's why people don't have a leads problem, they have an engagement problem. You know, that's such a great statement man, they there's.
Speaker 1:When people say you don't have leads, I'm like guys if you don't need more leads, if you get me. Yeah, if you have a lead problem, you have no product. If there's no one there to buy your product, then you have no product.
Speaker 2:You have no product, exactly it's that you haven't gone out to go and get these people exactly, and I think that's an interesting observation, right? Because, like even the people that are in your crm, like, let's say, you're capturing the data somehow, whatever, like, the fact that you can go to them just means that, like, you're just not doing enough, do you?
Speaker 2:get me, yeah. So, like we and we you know, we've been riffing on this too in terms of, like, different business models and different products. Like, effectively, you just need to keep on showing the people that you haven't died yet, you're just still alive, by just telling them, showing them, showing them case studies, and it's almost like it's the same shit. It's just like you. You show them what you do, you show them the results, you show them the kind of changes you've made and improvements you made, and you just like, honestly, just you keep doing that until the day you die. It's basically as simple as that, and that debt can be in a business and exit or you physically get hit by a bus so when bamboo died, my startup, the three months I was kind of off linkedin.
Speaker 1:I was kind of, you know, hiding in my bedroom a little bit, to be honest, crying, crying, that sucks. Uh, realize it doesn't really help, doesn't move you forward at all. And I was off linkedin because I was like, yeah, I was traumatized by the crying founder, remember that. Oh yeah, and I don't want to say anything about him, but I mean, he took, he got absolutely torched right. So when your startup fails, there is some sensitivities about what you say Anyway. So I was like, oh, I'll say it. Anyway, some article came out, blah blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:And then I started posting on LinkedIn every day and I'm now back to doing it. And then I started posting on linkedin every day, and as I and I'm now back to doing, I do it every day sales six days a week running, one day a week, it's just me, it doesn't really matter what you post about. I was like, oh, and I get, you know, I get. Now that seems like you're doing great optics. Optics are, and they're like you know. And I wrote salesman at the top. I was like, ned, it's great to see the sales like. You're such a great sales guy. Whether that's true or not, it's irrelevant, the perception of it and of course I sell sales, so people have to know that I'm not selling myself.
Speaker 2:And you have to be good at what you do, correct, and, like you know, you do more reps on the sales side than me, probably. Well, just, that's just a ball point in general, but I think one of because, like I'm doing other stuff too, yeah, of course, but like you're known as a sales guy, like you're taking calls at three o'clock in the morning and whatnot, and you're putting in the reps continuously. I am, I started at 21,. This is 36 years in right, but even the reps that you're doing now are like incredibly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the bamboo reps were. I want to say there was a time during COVID dude, like I wonder I'll sit, we'll go back through my diary 50 meetings a week was minimum you were taking. Absolutely 70 to 80 was average per week Because I do East Coast and West Coast America, so I started, you know. Okay, so how do you book 50 to 70 calls a week? We had demand Because we had a huge content machine. We had podcasts, newsletters, LinkedIn, outreach. We were relentless. Your podcast was shit, I know, but in WealthTech there's hardly any. That's what I mean and this is the only guys.
Speaker 1:We did 130 episodes. We were always there and remember WealthTech's a very niche little area and my newsletter was just me ranting. It was basic and shit, but we were just doing it. Like I never once came to a podcast studio for my WealthTech Unwrapped, it was me on a headphone with Danny, just the two of us then me, not even Riverside. We did it on like Zoom we had no quality.
Speaker 2:And this is a really interesting point because, like you are at the top end of the sales game me on, like the content side in terms of production and whatnot, but you don't actually need all the bells and whistles to actually make a huge dent. Now we have some like extremely high quality clients, right, and they still, to this day, are in their bedroom. Some guys like uh, they're a little bit older so they don't understand like technology and stuff for this, we just put them on like zoom and they crush it. And then I show them to other people and they're like sorry, how much like I'm making. I'm like, yeah, because like it's not about all the bells and whistles and obviously, obviously, to be honest, some of that can be optics but you at the top of your game, need to have best practices. You need to run the calls, you need to do the content, you need to have the right CRM. Same with me, I can't record on Zoom anymore, but because that's a position of authority.
Speaker 1:When I talk to clients, so I'm helping them with their CRM. Okay, so you ask what I do. I meet founders who are struggling with sales. They're struggling with revenue. Their revenue is lower than they hoped it would be. I ask them why are you not selling so much? They're like almost always and this is for me we don't have enough people to sell to. So it's a leads problem. It's not a lead gen problem. It is to a degree. But they're like I say, if you had 10 meetings a week, would you say like, yeah, how many do we have a week two? So if we can get you 10 meetings a week and I'm not going to book the means for I'm going to help you like, absolutely, let's do. Okay, right, let's start. What do you do to get leads today? What do you mean like so? So where do you get the leads? That's the problem. Okay, what CRM do you have? We have Excel. Oh, jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:No dude, that's super common. But how much have these startups raised? Because this seems crazy to me. Oh, okay, this seems crazy to me.
Speaker 1:Some have not raised any. There's one that's raised a lot Tens and tens and tens of millions. They don't have a CRM. There's one that's called, I suppose, a lot Tens and tens and tens of millions. They don't have a CRM. They have Excel. And then I'm like and LinkedIn as the founder, are you on it? No, content, no. And then let me see your pitch deck and it's just product-led. And let me see your demo and they're basically they're just getting the basics wrong. They just don't know. And it's fun Like it's. I sometimes honestly I shouldn't say this because I sometimes feel bad it's like, you know, the kid taking candy from a kid. It's so easy. I'm like guys, it'd be like me asking for a trainer in the gym and I don't need a high end trainer, I just need somebody to go bro you don't know it.
Speaker 1:I'm unconsciously competent. I just know sales. I can walk into any room. It doesn't mean I'll always get a deal, but I feel comfortable in any room. You want me to sell microphones, glasses, this I don't give a shit. I'll sell it Because all of those habits are in there. Right, we're just teaching people. I hear on your podcast a lot. There's three things that trigger people health, wealth and relationships. Right, so sales is wealth, to be able to, but it's. But if it was health, I spoke to somebody last night who literally, dude, literally, it's like what do you mean? It's bad to eat mcdonald's? No, to you and me, that's pretty obvious, right? Yeah, he he's like with which is if the pancakes of breakfast are okay, right, I'm like no, dude, the fucking pancakes so general general awareness, just that they just don't know what self-practices are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a cognitive dissonance there, because people don't want to know what the actual answer is. So if you're looking at matt donald's pancakes, you're thinking, okay, these are probably good for me, right? Okay, close that off, versus opening up and realizing these are actually incredibly bad for me, terrible. Likewise with the sales aspect that, oh, instead of actually going out there and talking to people the lean startup method we'll just keep building the product and so we'll build a ship and then people will come as a result, whereas, like, people don't consciously think of what is the acquisition channel? Right, correct, and it's, it's.
Speaker 2:And this is quite interesting because, like, I learned sales from you, but you never actually taught me anything. You just told me in the very beginning no, you didn't tell me, I just knew it from you was I need to just have more conversations? Yeah, so, just, I just would message people on linkedin. The messages would probably be shit, and then it didn't matter, because most people weren't sending good messages anyway, so it was better, and then people would get on calls and I would just figure it out. I just figured out. I think it's just funny because, like, would you consider this to be something you learn intuitively? Or do you need to have the mechanics? Because, like you know, I didn't build a seven figure business off intuition, but I definitely built a six figure business off intuition from a sales perspective some people are not going to be sales people, but what actually is a salesperson though?
Speaker 2:because I know there's elements of like persuasion and psychology and all this and there's like the nerve. You know like as in, like the, you have nerves of steel, like you're able to like sit in a call, get people to close out.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's salespeople. That's what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's like that's a, that's what someone would say is a salesperson.
Speaker 1:You is a salesperson. You know, when you meet someone and you walk away like I like that person, that's a salesperson, so it's a charismatic, and it's not even charisma, so there's. So I'm working. I'm talking to a guy now. Right, he's like I don't want to be a salesperson. I'm like why not? He said well, they're all slimy, suited, slimy, selling you shit.
Speaker 2:No one wears suits anymore, but you don't want to be yeah, but that's what I mean, that's not true, you live in part.
Speaker 1:I live people don't.
Speaker 1:Lots of people wear suits I don't even bro, I don't even have shoes, I know. And his perception was oh, it's somebody on the phone trying to sell you something you don't want. That's not to me. That's not sales. It took me a long time. I dude, I used to have the ties, the cufflinks I'm never going to be fashion. I used to sit next to the most fashion more jeremy slade, if you're listening, dude, like this dude taught me sales. Like this dude was a killer and I remember coming in first time in my you said you have to be professional.
Speaker 1:Your podcast has high quality. I remember I joined this team and I'm in my marks and spencer's suit and he's like what the fuck is that I'm buying from you? I'm like I seriously I grew up as a hippie in the woods. I thought marx and spencer's was pretty sweet, right, and I work and he's got you know, if you know thomas pink hermes like his church's shoes. Like he's a good looking dude, like he's. He's like the man you walk in the room. You're just like it's jeremy, the man is it. And he's like what's buying from you? Dude, fuck you're doing. And after a while he's like he said to me you're a good dude, people you're, you're gonna be a great sales people because we're a great sales person. But let me take you to the shop to put you in a suit because that will give you.
Speaker 1:In the same way that I tell people you can't sell with Excel unless you have CRM, some people just can't be salespeople, no matter how hard they try, because intuitively they don't like people. It's not that they don't like people. You have to love people. What do I love most in the world is people. I love people. I don't like tech. I've sold so many things in my life. I've sold garden fertilizer. I've sold tech. I'm giving a shit, I'm no interest. I'll sell you anything. You know why I like people. I like storytelling. You have to love being around people. You know some people don't want to go to that event. You know, in the social events I think it's pretty hard. Now, it's not that you have to be the most outspoken person at the event, but you want to have to listen to other people's stories and you want someone to want to tell you a story, to be a great listener, go deeper on that you have to have empathy, like it's empathy.
Speaker 1:Some people don't have like storytelling empathy. They don't want to sit and listen to other people's stories. Can you learn that, though I don't have like storytelling empathy, they don't want to sit and listen to other people's stories?
Speaker 2:can you learn that though?
Speaker 1:I don't think so.
Speaker 2:You can learn it to a degree, but I think because that empathy component versus logic, like the debate is like you can hire around the area that you have. So some people are highly illogical. Like I would be more logical than empathetic. Um, especially in a business sense, I'll give it exactly. Well, maybe not in a sales sense, but definitely in a business sense. Like if I have a client who's just not doing the work, I'm just like dude, do the fucking work. Whereas, like, I've hired people deliberately who are more empathetic, who sit in front of me so I don't say something stupid. Genuinely, that's literally. The logic is because I just identified that sales is kind of different, but there's an outcome. So I don't know, I'm a little bit caught between this explain a bit more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, there's some people who are naturally great salespeople because you like them as a person. So we had a guy, a few trade alum guy, a guy called tim low. He'd never sold equity equity trading company. He walks in and he used to sell medical equipment with his dad's company. Knows nothing about finance. Three minutes in I'm like you're just the nicest guy on earth, man. He had such charm, charisma First year in. I don't even want to tell you how much this dude earned. It was out of control, knew nothing about the product. Could this dude earned? It was out of control, knew nothing about the product, could have sold anything because he just had a sense that he listened and he understood. A huge smile on his face. Conversely, I've just been talking to a guy right now I'm in singapore, I think he's singapore. He's very singaporean, very just, you know, just risk averse, I mean.
Speaker 1:But he's a consultative seller advisory yeah, he's like okay, so we have a product. Yeah, I can help you with that. He's not flashy but he wants, he really wants to listen to it. Uh, I'll give you. I, I can tell you very quickly if you give me a day with anybody and then I'll tell you if they're a salesperson. You want to know if anybody wants to hire salespeople. Simple, here's a few things. If you go to buy coffee or go for dinner with them and they don't look the waiter in the eyes, not just say thank you, a great salesperson would look them in the eye, catch their name badge and be like hey, john, thanks for the coffee, they're a salesperson.
Speaker 1:The other thing is when I'm on the road driving I always tease my wife about this. No one's ever honked their horn at me, ever in their lives. No one's ever honked a horn at me. Why? Because I don't allow them, because I don't think about it. When the horn goes I keep smiling Totally fine. Sure, I drive erratically. Sure, people honk the horn at me. It's like saying no. And if you spend the day with that person, you sense that they are happy in that environment around them and they're always polite to people and they're nice, great salesperson for me and you know this thing. I think warren buffett said it. If you, if I had dinner with somebody and they had any rude remark to the waiter, I would never hire them in my life. End of can't sell, they could sell in the short term. Long term, never selling. You can find out really quickly. Some people just intuitively are great humans.
Speaker 2:They're the ones how would you describe my sales process?
Speaker 1:so you, so I think, so I, you know, I don't know if you caught that a few minutes ago when you said you have more logic and empathy. You have a lot of empathy, dude, you do. Yeah, I think, so I mean.
Speaker 2:I have limiting beliefs of myself. We're super close, so I, you know I. That's a nuanced case, though I understand that.
Speaker 1:But I see you, I've seen you like I've interrupt somebody. You always stop and step back. You say it a lot and, if you notice, if yourself said, oh I'm sorry if I interrupted you, please. You do that all the time, which is a super good thing to do.
Speaker 2:That's also beaten into me by my wife, though you know like we're very conscientious about like at least as she would she keeps a very close monitor of me, so so that I don't like do stupid stuff.
Speaker 1:We're all better men because of our wives. No, that's what.
Speaker 2:I mean, but like, I, like I actually ask Elise for feedback always and that, like, if we were going to a podcast afterwards, I'd be like, oh, like what would I have done differently? And she'd be like, oh, like you know, if the person is talking about X don't just talk about Y some feedback.
Speaker 1:You still dwell a bit. What does that mean? I've noticed you do it way less. When I first got to know you, you used to quite often say, oh, that deal went. And you were like, ah, that and I didn't get it. Yeah, that's all right, dude, let it go, let it go right. You also have a very which, as you can tell uh, I'm not methodical. You have a clear, methodical sales process, right, which I think sometimes takes some empathy away, right For sure, if, the, if, the, if, the prospect knows you're, you're, you're painting by numbers. Hey, I say this, you say this.
Speaker 1:I say you can put more empathy in there because, for me personally, it has to feel like a conversation that is unique to that person.
Speaker 2:You're familiar with sales blocks, so it's like the building blocks of our calls basically. So, like there's like a, a process, and the reason why you know you mentioned that I'm much more methodical is because I wasn't, and I would get on a call. I'm like all right. So, like you know, what are you up to? Like this podcast going great, great, and it was going like a random direction, whereas, like when I started getting sales training that basically I started using like building blocks so just to process and I went through this with michael yesterday it was like initially just like understanding, like, uh, like they call it a magic wand, so like what's the magic wand we could solve? What's the pain that they're having right now? And they're like really articulating the pain. That's very early on. And the next stage then is understanding them financially, just making sure that, like you know, it's all on both board. You can do it externally or internally, whatever. Then the next stage then is more self-admission. So they have to admit to you they have a problem. So, before you move on, it's like we've realized that the podcast isn't growing and it's impacting the business and like you have to get them to say it and like this is this is where I was kind of thought as a result, and like this is actually, it's interesting, our application process is exact same on the dot. You got to check the box that says it's not growing for us to move on. So that's self-admission comes on and you can critique it, critique this as much as you like. You know, of course.
Speaker 2:The next stage then is imagery. So understand imagery where you, where they want to get to, the future state. And the last part then is so you have an idea of their imagery, they have an idea of where they want to get to. Then you're asking them about the process. Sorry, they're asking you about the process. So you're like I'm done, I'm done, my question's done. Tell me a bit more.
Speaker 2:So we get the process done and then I explain the process. We do the podcast for you, or you go into our program and then you stop and then you get a temperature check and then you want to put them on eight, nine or ten and you don't move on unless they're on eight, nine or ten. After five, six or seven, you clarify they're below five, you're out, um, and then at that point then they're qualified financially. They know they have a problem, they know where they want to get to they, they enjoy the process and if money wasn't an option, they'd already be in. And then it's just a combination, then of what sort of economic model can we run?
Speaker 2:Paid in full retainer, split pay, weekly pay. That's the only last part. And the reason why I'm doing, reason why I'm saying this, is because you know, I was, you know, very much stuck at like 70k a month for a long time not a long time, but like maybe like two quarters. And then we added this in straight away pop straight to 100k, straight on the pad for a lot more. Um, because it was like methodical, because all those things I was admitting that I was telling now I'd forgotten, I'd missed them, yep, I'd missed them. So it made it easier and it actually allowed me to go into calls almost like unprepared it's fantastic, but it's stage three or four.
Speaker 1:You are consciously competent. Yeah, exactly, you're doing it because and it's the right thing it works. In 10 years time you will do that. You see to me, because I've done me. You don't need to think about any of that. Everything you said. There is what I'm much more chaotic for, what I think I do, because I just know it, and it's not because I'm great or anything. It's because I've done it for 30 years. I had sales training, same thing, step, step, these things, everything, all the analogies of band doing it. It's absolutely right. You're doing it the absolute right way you do 10 years more of that, and that's the thing right it's.
Speaker 2:It's a decade of it. It's a decade of it at least.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm in my fourth decade of it, right, and after a while you just so that's exactly actually you take me back. I had the sales. Take them through the problem, get them to admit their problem, understand. If it's theirs, they admit that they need it. If money wasn't the object, would they buy it.
Speaker 2:What I find now is and you're right, it's funny that you say that, because I think I'm like yeah, that's all correct and what's interesting there and sorry you're up to, is just the fact that that works only in a us setting, doesn't work with europeans that are like, oh, saved environment. It doesn't really really work in like an Asian market where it's much more relationship based. It's much more of like a like old money wealth in.
Speaker 2:Asia that you need to like play like a different game, whereas in Europe everyone's looking for a fucking discount, but in the States, like you can bang the script and it's going to fucking work but if you, if you do it here without the script, but this, your same intent, same, let them.
Speaker 1:And if they want to move the pieces around, right. So this is how I think about sales. It's in their hands you're fine without.
Speaker 1:You're fine either way if they want to take the. You see the problem with scripts. So, do you get cold calls a lot or you don't get it so much anymore? I don't have a phone number, okay, good, so that's just fucking great. When you, I don't even know what to say anymore. When you get a cold call, and I always take them. I always take them, I always listen, I always say thank you very much, I appreciate your work. Always, every single call, I appreciate your work, thank you, it's good work. You know, you don't know the poker movie, but there's this incredibly famous scene. It's noble work you're doing. It's noble work, right, it's basically saying it's not.
Speaker 1:They have a script and they are hi, is that ned? Yeah, hi, I'm, and for some reason it's at the moment selling financial services. It's mainly, uh, ladies, mainly from different countries. Hi, I'm, you know, mary, from xyz financial services. But the reason I'm calling you is that we feel that for people like you, having an investment advisor would be something really important.
Speaker 1:Now, today, what I'm here to talk to you about and I'm like that, that is the exact problem. So you guys are so far ahead of that. Right, you have your process, but you're not dialed to it. You've got to get to a stage where you it's like, it's like the alphabet, right, you don't have to think about it, right? But if I said to you right now what's the 13th letter of the alphabet, you don't quite know, right, it's somewhere in there. But you've got to get to the stage whereby it doesn't matter what order any of that is in. Really, to me, like I would never have an order go into a sales meeting, never. Yeah. To me, like I would never have an order go into a sales meeting, never you must let them Okay, yeah, let them set that agenda. And if they say, oh yeah, by the way, I just want to buy it. So I tried it on the call the other day, just for fun I said, oh yeah, I'd like to buy it. So what we'd like to do is talk to you about it.
Speaker 2:Dude, you know where I learned that from was when I was selling, when I was buying in revolut. So I was buying software and, uh, we'd need data to do like the markets and we'd already know who we're going with. But due to like some bullshit regulation, we need to do like five due diligence they have to line up.
Speaker 2:So but I would know exactly I'm going with already and I was doing the financials, I was signing off the paper and everything and ring the company. I'd be like, hey, we, I know it's like 4k a month, can I just get it right now? And then like, all right, we got to do a demo next week and then from there and then we got to put you in a sandbox. I'm like dude, just give me the fucking product and then we will go off and do our due diligence over here. But we're only calling you.
Speaker 2:Do you want to know how we book the most amazing guests on our podcast? Like you're seeing today, I've created a full template and guide and every single script that I've ever used to get the best guests in the world, and I've put everything together in a simple, step-by-step process. If you click the link down below, I'll give you the exact guide to book any guests on your podcast and have a full guest management system for you to manage every single guest. If you want to see the process behind booking guests like Justin Waller, luke Bellmer, sterling Cooper and every guest in the online business space, click the link down below and you'll get the full guide for free, thank you, because it's already been done, because we'll often do that in the background and this is what's kind of interesting, you know. So when someone comes to buy, like, yeah, have the buy button.
Speaker 1:So you have to have and this is where you get to in sales, it's this absolute intuitive sense to listen. And I know everyone says, oh, listen, listen, listen. But don't you see your methodology absolutely correct and everyone else in your company? They have to follow it, right, but I'm sure I haven't been on business with you you're either out, you get into the stage where none of that matters, right, they come on the call and you feel it. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:So my son has been trying to get jobs. He's interviewed with some of the world's biggest companies and one of his biggest challenges is because they, in today's world, you get an interview over Zoom, right, so he puts on his suit. I was like, are you literally going to wear a suit on Zoom? He's like Dad, you need to be respectful. I'm like, hey, and to be fair, when I interviewed salespeople at Bamboo, if somebody came in a suit, I'd be like respect, like really, but fair, you made the effort, right, you're never going to mark them down for wearing a suit, right, they're trying, right. He said but, dad, the real problem that I find and this is the sales problem you can fix one single problem in your sales. So they come on, so my son's 21. They're 50-year-old dudes at McKinsey. So he's like they're a partner at McKinsey and to begin with many people the partner goes, hey, tom, how you doing? Fine. So I tell him hi.
Speaker 1:So my name is Thomas Phillips and I'm here today to talk about, about you know all the pre-scripted stuff like. But the minute you start that you're almost over. Like the interview's gone same in a podcast. It's the same, more scripted, it no, but it's that. He's like what do I say? What do I, what do I say? And they're like tom, you have to ask them about them.
Speaker 1:Simplest question in this post-covid world hey, where are you calling in from? I don't care where. They say oh, I'm calling in from tokyo. Oh, my god, tokyo's a. How long have you been tokyo? Oh, I'm calling in from new york. Are you from new york? No, I'm actually originally from virginia. Oh, I'm at university in virginia. How long have you lived there? You know in the background like you don't.
Speaker 1:They've got a guitar, they've got a window, they've got like don't look at the person when that screen comes on. I never look at the person. I look all around them because they have something I can ask them One million percent, you know. If they come on, like, let's say, this was a screen coming, I'm like, hey, darren, how you doing? Hey, man, are you in a podcast studio or is that a real? You're in a wow, how come you're in a podcast studio?
Speaker 1:Give them the chance to tell their story. And so I did this with tom and he was like, and I said, tom, in the first five minutes you must never talk about you or what you're doing. I want to hear it. I want to hear you, want to eke out their story. Every single person will tell you their story if you ask, every single one. And that's sales, because then you're friends. And to Keenan's point, I will challenge him. If we both have to sell a problem, he has to go in cold and I can get five minutes of making a friend and I'll close him. How do you tie that back to what you're selling? Never do, it's irrelevant come. Never do, that's never. No interest, I don't give a shit. I see a skateboard, I see something in the background. We're friends. Oh, like, let's say, they come on the screen, they're my age. Hey, how you doing, man, it's great to see you. Remember, when we didn't have to do this. Remember we used to meet in real life. Dude, I don't care who's on the the queen street sweeper, I'm going to talk to them. You want to be a great salesperson. Every time you get in a taxi, I want you to talk to that taxi person and find out their story.
Speaker 1:You want to ask one simple question how's business today? It's pretty shitty today, man. Oh, how long you been doing this? Oh, two years, if they're 60. What used to do before? Oh, I used to this dude the other day I said got in, how you doing man, how's? Uh, how's driving today? Yeah, I really enjoy it. He said yeah, I've been doing it for a couple of years.
Speaker 1:He looked 60 something. He said, oh, cool, what he used to do? He said I used to paint aircraft. I'm like which ones? Is that singapore airline? I'm like so what did you paint at the logo? Said, how long for? He said uh, since I was 18, 47 years painting the logos on singapore airline planes. I said so, every plane I've seen in the sky is your logo.
Speaker 1:Is like yeah, dude, I could have sold him any product at the end. You never need to connect the first conversation to the product you've've got. He was happy that I had asked him. You know what he said? He said yeah, people never ask me that Of all the hundred people who got on his taxi in the last week, who's selling him something? Every time me, every time me.
Speaker 1:And I didn't do that to sell him something. That's why you want to know who's a great salesperson, the person who wants to ask that question, and was genuinely interested. So I said to tom, my son take the time, get to know them. And then when? And he said to me but what happens if we're still talking about something after 15 minutes? I said, bud, if it's an hour interview and you never get onto the interview, you've got the job. Yeah, you have the job every second past five minutes, not you, them, not you, because it's there. If they say, right, tom, anyway, let's get into it. If they want to carry on talking about whatever you decided to talk about, at the end they'll be like, oh, this is great, anyway, we'll get back to you.
Speaker 2:So do you find in that regard, if you're hopping on a you so do you find in that regard, if you're hopping on a call with someone and you're building that rapport, that you might have multiple calls?
Speaker 1:to get to the same goal. Well, I'm selling B2B tech, so you're never selling B2B tech in one call.
Speaker 2:Never, but even now that you're selling a sales offer.
Speaker 1:See everybody I sell to now. I know I have done no cold yet because I have just a big. I don't think you're ever closing in the first call. No, never. I don't think you're selling B2B in the first call. I think it always takes a bit, but I don't again. It's this unconscious competence, I know you have an expectation.
Speaker 2:You understand the expectation.
Speaker 1:So to your point, if you phone me up and said I have 5k to give you for the sales movement, I'll be like fantastic. Thank you, darren, I really appreciate it. Man, I didn't talk to you any like we know, but so I just got another deal and the guy's like yay, so you wanted to meet for a coffee. Fantastic. He said let's have another call. Fantastic. At the end of the call I'm like so anything else? He's like no, send me the contract you've.
Speaker 2:You've, just slowly no can you spend that a bit more?
Speaker 1:you missed that a small button so that that you you asked me, like how many, what the meaning is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how did it flow? So see you have the personal side. But I mean, like, how does the deal flow?
Speaker 1:nothing. It's they tell you. They ask you. They tell you the deal. You don't sell the deal. You never sell a deal. You never. You never sell a deal. You make them ask you. This is the thing I think sales is so backwards when I watch people try to sell deals like so let me tell you about the. What are you talking about? Tell you about the deal? That would be ridiculous yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of at the point where I would say you stop, you're sort of. And then they just hit like oh, what product you have, or what is it that you can?
Speaker 1:they, but they have to ask you the price. You can't tell them the price. They must ask you and they must ask you. Oh, so how does this go forward? Oh, I'd send you a contract. You already stopped the deal long ago without them knowing. If they know they're buying it, they won't buy it. It's subconscious. It's a subconscious thing. Now, this is me speaking as somebody who often done it for so long. If you're starting in sales, I understand you've got to do the reps of asking for deals yeah, but it's.
Speaker 2:But you don't, though, because if you have the same structure, like you have right now, and you're either on an offer or you have your own offer and you're having these conversations, that it happens naturally, like a lot of. I have a lot of deals that have happened like organically, like this Yep that I've just built relationships with people. Again, michael Campion is a really good example. You know, he builds relationships with people and then he says, like know, nine years from now, that might come knocking, and you know, and um, and he, we really think the same from like an infinite game perspective, that we're playing longer games. And the reason I'm saying this is because, like a lot of people like connected in the podcast space, they see what we do specifically on the monetizing monetizing side, and just eventually they cross the chasm naturally like hey, dude, send me the link for the program or whatever. So it's an interesting observation, because I'd never got to that point, but I just I'm interested in people that are interested in the stuff that I'm interested in, but that's it.
Speaker 1:You're really interested in podcasts, right? Yeah, so were they. They just talk podcast shit until they ask to buy some shit from you.
Speaker 2:And I even make observations of like how I would buy. How I buy things and I think that's a good way to go through is like what is the actual process of how I would go about buying, buying something and setting that up? Yep, so like I bought letter of program recently and like how I bought that, was that friends each other, we have podcasts together. She's helped me so much already and I was like Jesus Christ, like I just she's helped me so much already, and I was like Jesus Christ, like I just I need the structure. And then I just bought the stuff and I have the structure, but the hardware didn't sell it to you, nope.
Speaker 2:That sells.
Speaker 1:Mm, now for people I'm helping to start with. If you have no basics and haven't done it, you can't do that. I understand you can't do that, but you're not getting there unless you've done the base. So unless you've done the bait. So like you have to be able to do the basics first, have outreach. Like you, you nobody brought anything. They didn't know about People. If you're listening, you want one phrase about sales you can't buy something you don't know about. Have you ever bought?
Speaker 2:something you didn't know about? No, but at the same time, can you expand more on that idea? If you didn't know about? No, but at the same time, can you expand more on that idea if?
Speaker 1:you don't know about something, you cannot buy it. I can only buy a coffee because I went to the coffee shop. I can only buy a software product because I saw it. You I when I have to be seen, when I'm in the hawker center in singapore, I will buy some chicken rice because I see it. When I want to buy a show on net is because I see it. When people say, why are people not buying my product? They have not seen your product. Why does Lara sell a lot? She has 200,000 followers and a good product. Everyone sees Lara. They buy her stuff. You can't buy something that can't be seen. So when I go to see founders, they're like no one's buying my stuff. Like, how many people have seen it? None. What CRM do you have? I don't. How big is your sales team?
Speaker 1:none do you think you need a sales team. Yes, um, founder-led sales. So if you're a type, so if you're a tech founder, you need a sales team. If you're a sales founder, you do not. To start with, first few years, till you're in seven figures revenue and the chance of your product going viral by itself is close to zero. What I would say is you need sales and not marketing, but a group content. You need a content team to support your sales team.
Speaker 1:Let's say you had a product and just a salesperson and the company did no content, no podcast, no video, no linkedin, no newsletter. Terrible pitch deck. You're setting that sales guy up for failure. Yeah, do not hire. Actually. I actually said the other day don't hire a salesperson without content. You're giving them a unless they are a very experienced person with all the network.
Speaker 2:But no one is.
Speaker 1:Um, uh. The problem is they're very expensive and it's very hard to get an ROI on them unless you're a massive organization. If you're a startup I meet tech founders and you know build it and they will come. It's crazy. Here's an analogy I love. So you haven't met my friend, Luke Jansen, but fucking adore that dude and he's a musician, a very good musician. He was the world whistling champion. So Luke is the world champion of whistling. You have to listen to me. Well, you sent me some videos. I've watched some videos. You should get him on the pod. He's a.
Speaker 1:He built a business, sold it for close to 100 million Like genuine entrepreneur, Genuine killer and he said you want to know how few people are coming for your product. He had a band, he recorded a demo tape and he sent it to to his best friend to listen, to get feedback, Called him a week later. He said oh sorry, dude, I hadn't had time. Your best friend's not listening to your shit. What you think? Somebody who doesn't know you's looking at your shit. That's such a good point. No one's coming. Like you have this phrase no one's coming to save you. I hear it on your podcast Build it. No one's coming, so you can't buy something you don't know about, you just have to say it. You have to say it, and say it in a story type of way. So to your question do you need a salesperson? If you're a tech founder, yes, if you're a sales founder, no. But when you get a salesperson you must have content.
Speaker 2:it's impossible to do it otherwise so let's talk about the content side of it, because that's been a bit of a revelation for you too.
Speaker 2:Right, just the kind of concept of on the front end because, like you know, as simple as my business is just basically a con on the front end and off on the back end, like it's just so, like, not complicated, but the biggest problem that I see is the connective tissue in the middle, so I call it the ligament. If you look at your knee, there's a top of the leg and the bottom of the leg. There needs to be a connective tissue, which for me, is either calls lead magnets, increased funnels, just taking them in a step further in their journey, which could be like an email or whatnot, um, and I work with some of the biggest guys in the world on the content side and they can't make any sales. And then I work with guys who have amazing offers and they can't get anyone to the offer because they don't have the content. How do you think about that? And how do you think about how has it changed your business now from what you've been creating?
Speaker 1:My previous startup died twice. We died two years before we actually died. We ran out of money really hard and we just survived and we had to cut everything to zero. So we used to spend on what we call traditional marketing product marketing, linkedin ads, events and we were getting about 600 incoming leads a year. So that was 600 companies would call us for a demo year two a day, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Then we had no budget and a young man. I mean, we had a really great team Laura, danny, josh. There was a young guy called Josh, singaporean guy, absolute killer. And he's like so you understand, you have to do content. Now I really didn't quite know, I didn't. We were doing podcasts already in Newsletters, so the team had. But he's like you have to double like. You have no more budget, you have to double down on that. So we'd already done podcasts and he said to me you're an old guy who runs, what are you talking about? Make a video. I'm like of what he said you're running. I'm like for what he said for people to watch. I'm like why would they watch that? What are you talking about? Don't be stupid, you won't believe it. I forgot. He's like have to be horrible to start. You have to be horrible to start. Every person's first product, first effort, their musician first song is terrible. So I started with content and we'd already had our podcast and we were doing it, so we had a good idea that it worked. I used to have a TV show as well. We built our own TV shows. It was hilarious.
Speaker 1:I had no marketing dollars and our leads went up. We had more leads spending no money, and I'm just a believer. I believe the data. Like hold on, we spend less money, we get more leads. Like yeah, because you're doing content. And I started posting. I took the justin welsh course so I posted on linkedin every day. I had a thousand followers. Now I've got 19 000 followers. What and like I get today for my, for me, today I haven't launched my business, it's launching soon. I get five to seven incoming requests a day now, every day, every day, and I'm so.
Speaker 1:When people say, how do you know content works, I'm like because it fucking works, like I can just show you. Now it's been two years. That's what changed for me. I ran out of money really hard for old school marketing. I had no choice. We were already doing some content, but I was doing it with product.
Speaker 1:I had to go all in and I did and it gave us leads and then, as I told my story, coming out of bamboo and again I'm in a different world from you. I'm in the 57 year old world. None of my friends post, none of my friends do shit. And they come to me like, how do you do it? I'm like, well, I just I press the button. What they're actually saying is how did you get up there? It's internal, internal. How did you start doing it? So how has it changed things for me, dude? As I've said to you, many thanks many times before. I don't know if it was only because when it came out I'm still I wasn't quite sure. You were like, dude, you got to do this, dude, you got to do. I'm like, maybe the dude is right, so it has fundamentally changed. I feel unbelievably grateful.
Speaker 2:It's the least risky thing you could do. Right, you said that yesterday dude.
Speaker 1:Honestly, that was the. Actually I told Jackie, my wife. So when you lose your job in your mid fifties, everybody thinks the least risky. Let's face it, I was 57 and lost 56 and lost my job. Not my job, my life's work. Lost it all in one go, not in one go, took eight years to do it, but it felt. It is one day when you close it down, every single person of my age will tell you the least risky thing you can do is get a job. Like that's the definition of the least risky thing you can do. And then yesterday we were talking.
Speaker 1:As you know, my little sales console business is going okay, seems to work. It's pure services. People pay me to help them with sales. An amazing call this morning with a client who went by the way, ned, we've done what you suggested and we've got loads of leads. This is great, thank you. I was like what the fuck was that? And you this is great, thank you. I was like what the fuck is that? And you said yesterday yeah, this is the least risky thing you can do. It was the craziest thing to hear, because when I tell people, yeah, I'm doing my own content consultancy sales they're like why didn't you get a job? I can feel it now. I'm like because this is my like I can feel it.
Speaker 2:You control it. So like, for instance, like if you're writing on linkedin and you get a point whereby you don't want seven leads anymore, you want 20 leads, well then you learn a copywriting program and take it four days and now your copywriting has improved by 100x. And then on video, if you're releasing video right now and it looks kind of shit, you put you in a studio like this and you have 10x more views. The dials can actually all the dials have grown and revenue and leads there. You can manipulate them and most people think you can't, but you actually can.
Speaker 1:I can see the dials now, what you have done and listening. I have not listened to every one of your shows, but many of my runs, for I'm going to say our run tomorrow because we're doing it together, brother, I can. I haven't thought about that until you just said it. I can literally see these dials.
Speaker 2:I literally can see them, and that's when you get better at like a broad level of skills. Like, let's say, from sales on my side, like I'm fucking good at sending cold email. I have 27 emails running at the moment and I just dial up. I can send 270 emails a day as of right now, and it just I know which dial to push Now when you're opening up a new avenue. Yes, you got to learn the skills like we're learning ads right now, and it is a lever that we are not good at. So we need to lose money before we make money. But if you don't have money, like you didn't have, content is the best process to de-risk everything you want in life, because you control in and out flow.
Speaker 2:Dude, you could have got a job at a big company and then I was off the jobs but but got fired four months later because you have a ruminating brain and we were running around 10 o'clock at night trying to figure things out with a whiteboard, like that's. What's ironic right is because, like you have to think about the character you get me, because the least risky job for someone who's not an entrepreneur, not a salesperson, is to take a job. Right, but, like for someone like us, whoever like has like a ruminating brain, like we're going to stay out for three days straight tomorrow and like that's who you want to be going to war with. Is someone that's willing to stay up three days straight to do a race to an event or take calls at two o'clock in the morning stuff. Does that make sense? So, like it's a lot of self-autonomy and it's like that is what like a self-sovereignty is, by the way, but it's so.
Speaker 1:It's so. The world has changed so much. I have this uh phrase strong opinions loosely held. As you know, I hated the lockdown, like most people did. I hated remote work. I'm not for it. I've changed my view. I think it's amazing what can be done from anywhere. I, you know, I have a view. I'm never retiring now. I like what I do now.
Speaker 1:Why would I see, when I was a kid, retirement meant at 60. You stopped going to the office nine till five, yeah, and there was no other choice. And whatever money you've saved, you slowly eke it away until you die. Right, that's what it was. And I'm like hold up. So you know, I put a lot of my chips into bamboo, didn't get any back, so have to, uh, uh, run it up again. As we say in gambling, we have to, we have to run it up, build a stack.
Speaker 1:And I realized but it's okay, because I'm never gonna retire, because, whether to jk melina's point, he wants to do three hours a day, to jasmine alex point, he wants to do one, a few hours a day, to your point, you can decide that life. And because, but dude, like, like, I know, I say this to her, I know I I don't want to say you can't see it, but you don't talk to that. I know, you know it's like that, that phrase of the dials. So many of my friends so not apart from doing this b2b selling, I meet my friends who are 57 or 16. They want to earn some more money fractionally and they're like, how do you do it exactly? They can't see the dials Just because I wouldn't have seen the dials unless Bamboo, you listening, I'm like the buttons are just there. They're like where, like that LinkedIn content you don't post, they're just there and what's Reach out is just there. And it's so obvious to me. Now I see them.
Speaker 2:And we just go back to complexity, though right, because this so obvious to me now I see them. And we just go back to complexity, though right, because, like this is the. This is the ironic with the online space is that it's a he's risky, the least complex, the most straightforward you can possibly do. Think of what you do at bamboo you raise a ton of money, you build software, then you have to go find a bunch of people to sell it to and then you have to get due to his long procurement process. The flip side is, let's say, you are your friend and he's 56 years old and he's he wants to retire in a couple years, but he needs an extra 300k a year to really retire in five years. The easiest thing to do is to create an offer of this consulting, and then he works people that under non-compete right. Did he build anything? No. Did it take him anything? No, it took him like six minutes to muster up the balls to send the dm, and I've had people that are in my, my network that thankfully, don't talk to me anymore, but there are people that I'd advise when I that were much older than me and, uh, they needed money for children and for mortgages and all this kind of bullshit.
Speaker 2:And I was like you physically just message people who have the money that are you solve a problem for someone. That's painful enough that they're easy to find and you can go direct and you can solve. You can repeatedly solve the same problem with the same mechanism. That's it enough that they're easy to find and you can go direct to and you can solve. You can repeatedly solve the same problem with the same mechanism. And then the delivery mechanism can be hopping on a few calls, sending over a few decks, a few notion documents or maybe a course. But what I'm trying to say is that that model is so low risk because you didn't spend anything, you didn't need employees, you know, know, and what's ironic is like you can go very, very fast before you even have a company formed.
Speaker 1:That proved yourself I don't even have a company formed because I'm a pr here, I can bill it to here. I'm a digital guy. Yeah, I haven't even launched my company publicly, I haven't. No, I don't have a company, I'm just ned. I don't have a company. Dude, I'm just ned and I'm doing you know solid six figures. I have over 10 clients. I haven't done any outreach. There's all been incoming. I haven't even uh, I haven't even fucking crazy, I haven't even turned the dial and I get five to seven incomings a day going. Can you work for me?
Speaker 2:and think of what you could do if you added more things on steroids 100 you know, so we add in like a second ned take a call. Uh, you run up more content, do you do?
Speaker 1:what I'm gonna say is that the levers are just so easy because I think and you know it's uh I'll say, uh, the bamboo wasn't a bonfire from a bad way. Ie, we just tried our best. It didn't work but it turned. You know, everything got, we lost everything, somebody said to me, but at least there are some embers that you can still warm yourself by to a degree.
Speaker 1:The reason I get so much incoming is that after 35 years of sales this is on my LinkedIn I'm a sales guy and the people I sell to are founders who have been into battle from there. The reason I get so many leads incoming is that I am quite unique. I'm a guy that's solving a problem sales revenue for people who are quite unique, founders who really and I don't want to pick on SEO agencies, but founders fucking hate SEO agencies because they've had experiences where they don't get what they want. They don't want marketing. Nobody wants marketing. You want leads, you want revenue. So when I never talk to these people about marketing or content or growth, I'm like how are we going to get your leads? Because I know and they look at me and they're like you know, like I am not a gang member, but it'd be like me turning up at a tough gang. I have a huge scar down my face. I have a massive visible knife cut on my face. I have been visible about how I got that knife cut and you can see it. You want to talk to me about it? I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:I was on call with a founder the other day. He's like can I ask how much you raised? I'm like you can ask me anything. We liquidated a firm. I've been through shit you don't want to do and I'm proud of it. I wish my company had done differently.
Speaker 1:I'm more happy that what happened and I realized that that part of it adding on to this, it's a combination of 35 years of sales, a startup that we tried our best and it didn't work. And, kind of honestly, meeting you introducing me to this world, these dials like you say, these risk dials which honestly meaning you introducing me to this world, these dials like you say, these risk dials which, honestly, if I hadn't met you and had done content, I'd be working in a corporate right now and it might be fine. Look, I don't want to be a dick bag, but like I'd get paid well in a corporate. You know I'm not a junior SDR guy, right, I get a good role. And somebody said to me could you do corporate? Oh man, after running my own startup, 18 hour days with wage bills and everything, be like a holiday camp man like I would be.
Speaker 2:It would be, I would, I would crush, I think, not being yeah, but you would also get like we're talking about this last night at dinner. You just get. You're like what am I?
Speaker 1:doing. Do it for the money, man. Do it for the money. I know you love dogs. I posted the street dog analogy. I've worked in corporate. I just have high energy, but for the last eight years I was a street dog. I was hustling for every sale I was hustling. You put me in a bunch of corporate dog sales and there's me like a bijon freezes.
Speaker 1:As you know, when I send out my running post every weekend I send out over a thousand dms one by one, hand combat one by one. And linkedin actually told me because I asked them. I asked them can I automate sending out messages? Like no, I said how do I send a thousand? They said, well, you could do individually. They actually wrote to me but you wouldn't do that. I'm like well, of course I would do that. Like what are you talking about? I'll just spend my sunday doing it, as I said to our friend because he's like you can't actually do it. I said I do. What do you do with your weekend? So if you put me in a corporate, I'll rip these people to pieces, right, but you don't need them, I don't want. Six months later after well, it's nine months since my startup closed I feel unbelievably grateful to any client that's come with me.
Speaker 1:I feel unbelievably grateful that I have an opportunity and you know I still have a lot of work to do. I still don't need to be taking calls at midnight. I still have other stuff to do. I still need to improve my practice. I need to learn more. I have a long way to to go to figure it out, but I feel very grateful that there is a path and I think it. You know it comes down to everything we talked about sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you understand sales, you're fine for life one other thing I want to say before we finish up on that is um, I think the environment you had a bad environment coming out of bamboo in terms of the market, but the market is more favorable for these fractional people to come in, as so on, and like that's what I had identified in 2022 was that you know, marketing departments were getting caught and I was like all right, I'll be a fractional, you can sign a contract. It means fuck all. I ended the day and I'm like well, I got 10 employees for the cost of one. My group, and no one gave a shit about hours, booked all this stuff, so it was very, very easy.
Speaker 2:And I would say that, on calls being like, you get 10 people for the price of one, and if you don't like us, you can leave tomorrow and you don't need to pay us, uh, any sort of health care, and I just come in. I do a better job than you would have. Which are, which are marketing manager. So for you, you know they're getting, they're getting you at a fraction of an executive price. You're charging them 5k, right?
Speaker 1:an executive charged them 15k 100 or more the world of fractional, to this point when I was a kid. When you retire, you literally stop going to work. Is what we were told. You stop going to work even 10, 15, 20 years ago, but 30 years ago. You work till you're 60. Then you stop and you sit at home and retire and do nothing and watch TV and eat cake. I like cake. I shouldn't eat cake. I'm not eating cake anymore. The idea that like it has changed. What that is, that the fractional role, and as I, the 50-year-old guys and girls are like, is this fractional real? I like yes, yeah, 100, because it wasn't. We didn't, we were never told that. So if you're 57 now, until you were 50, that was never a thing. Yeah, not a thing. Covid accelerated, covid accelerated. I hate it, we'll hate covid, but accelerate it. And now I'm like I said to guys, I'm like like, are you actually like selling?
Speaker 2:fraction. I'm like it's an amazing offer. It's it's it's Cause you get the best of someone without any of the drawbacks, and I'm with you.
Speaker 1:So you know my little website and building and like what's your policy on cancellation? I don't need policy. They don't like it, stop 100%. What's the policy? This is stupid. There's no guarantee you pay me your money. I'll do my best job. If you don't like it, we're all good. Do you remember remember one time when you called me and you were like, oh my god, I had this contract with this dude and it wasn't quite working and I was like dude, it's a piece of paper, leave it, it's okay yeah, I was old 20k, I know it's okay and that's another thing.
Speaker 2:We have our contracts and shit. They're just uh, they keep the wife happy contracts, don't mean shit dude like I, and I learned this brutally.
Speaker 1:So I worked another company a long time ago. We had this is during the asian financial crisis of 1997, um, and we had a contract with hspc worth I can't remember a million dollars, call it and the asian financial crisis, which was like the original global. Well, the original financial crisis was hundreds of years ago. We've had crises since the day of dawn, the Asian. Do you remember the Asian financial crisis in 1997? So in 1997, be ready for this the Indonesian rupiah was 2,000 rupiah to the US dollar.
Speaker 2:What does that mean? No, it's 1,700 or something, 17,000.
Speaker 1:So that indonesian rupiah was, you get eight. If you gave one us dollar, you get 2000 rupiah back then now you get 17. So the rupiah has weakened eight times. What happened unbelievably was a taxi company in indonesia in 1997 called steady, safe taxi went bust and that's all safe and it's not so safe. And the corporate the corporate they had corporate bonds that went bust. That started to run on the banks in asia and everything fell apart. Everything fell apart. Everything got right, fundamental changes. But there's been so many of these ups and downs, right, it comes to this point today, there's this realization that you have your own freedom to be able to do these fractional things. I don't remember how I got into the asian financial crisis thing, but it it has been there, always going to be these ups and downs, there's always going to be these different things there and I think I'm too news. It doesn't matter. Points that when I talk to these guys in their 50s and girls in their 50s, I'm going to use your phrase man, it's the least risky thing you can do.
Speaker 2:100 yeah, and like me as like a 20 year old, like I have a setup in a way that it's like maximizing my life. You know I can travel, I can do what I want, but particularly if you're in a later stage or even in your 30s and you have a kid and a family, whatever it's more important. So it's like the mortgage that you want to pay, the private school you want your kid to go through, all of those things are actually possible, whether you just like take your head out of the sand and be like here's the offer that I can help someone.
Speaker 1:Here's the offer and this is what here's. It is about sales. Come back to everything we've been talking about. Even if you're never going to be all in sales, learn the basics of sales and you'll always be okay.