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#329 Joel Elster: The Only Sales System You Need to Scale Your Business

• Darren Lee

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Guest: Joel Elster
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Nomadiccloser
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joelelster/

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Why Owners Must Sell First

Darren

What's the main constraint that most business owners are facing right now that's preventing them from hitting their revenue milestones, whether that's 50k a month, 100k a month?

SPEAKER_01

The first issue that we always see is business owners need to get really good at sales. They actually see if the product works, they understand the objections, they know how to then pre-handle objections in the marketing material. And once they get to the stage where the offer is proven and they're on the phones, they're making sales, then they can bring on a closer. They can't bring on a closer thinking that a closer is this magic wand that all of a sudden's gonna take their business to the next step. The business owner needs to get good at sales first.

Darren

It's kind of like trying to outsource a problem that you can't solve. And it's funny, dude, if you think about it, the best founders ever have always solved a problem for themselves first. What's the main constraint that most business owners are facing right now that's preventing them from hitting their revenue milestones, whether that's 50k a month, 100k a month? What's what's generally the core constraint that you see in the business?

SPEAKER_01

The biggest thing that I see, business owners they come to us, you know, recruitment agency, and they're like, oh, we really we we need a closer. I don't want to be on the phone. I just I need a closer. I've got this great idea that I'm gonna be hitting 200k a month. I'm like, slow down a second. Slow down. Where are you at in the business? Oh, we're doing about 20k, 30, 40k a month. I'm like, okay. What are you doing to be able to make more money? Oh, well, uh, you know, I don't really want to be on the phone, so I'm not really taking a lot of calls. That's why I want to close up. That's the first issue. The first issue that we always see, business owners need to get really good at sales. So first, first they actually see if the product works, they understand the objections, they know how to then pre-handle objections in the marketing material. And once they get to the stage where the offer is proven and they're on the phones, they're making sales, then they can bring on a closer. But they can't bring on a closer before proof in the pudding. They can't bring on a closer thinking that a closer is this magic thing that's gonna, you know, magic wands that all of a sudden's gonna take the business to the next step. The business only needs to get good at sales first.

Darren

100%, dude. I think this is where I guess even for myself, dude, I didn't even know you people can do this up until a certain point. Like back in the day, I was just intuitively taking all my own calls, right? And what was I doing? Reading spin selling, reading gap selling, just chewing glass, just taking these calls, just learning yourself, because it's kind of like trying to outsource a problem that you can't solve. And it's funny, dude, if you think about it, the best founders ever have always solved the problem for themselves first. Like Steve Jobs was a designer, right? You'd have other guys that were like engineers, they were always able to work intuitively with the problem that they're trying to solve versus bringing so bringing someone else into the business.

SPEAKER_01

It's so true. It's so true. But when when when people start businesses, all they're thinking is, okay, I've just invested into a mentor, right? I'm gonna, I'm just going to start running ads. Uh, and then all of a sudden they get the leads come through, they're like, oh my god, I can't, I can't, I can't close this. How how do I get the confidence to jump on the phone and speak to these people? Uh, okay, well, I need help. You need help by improving your sales, your sales skills. That's the first step.

Darren

So let's take a step back on that. So the way that I just intuitively think about things is we always think about it from the way of the offer, the content, the sales process. Generally, where I would just position in terms of like link like making a linear sales would be at the latter end because it's obviously the last part, right? Do you would you be working specifically with people to look at, okay, let's go upstream, let's look at their product, let's look at their offer, let's look at their service. And do you start looking at it being like, this has potential? And maybe what's what sort of potential have you seen in specific offers? You're like, all right, this shit can scale, you need to get better sales, but is there a litmus test you do from like an offer perspective?

Find The Broken Link With Data

SPEAKER_01

I like to kind of look at this as links in the chain. If you're holding a chain and one of the links is broken, nothing else works. So it's always good to break down every single step. Where is that chain of sales breaking? Is it on the ads? Is it the communication? Is it is it the landing page? Is it the funnel? Is it is it the thank you page? Is it the messages? Is it the pre-handling objections? Like, what are you doing? And every single step needs to be broken down, and then you need to figure out where you're losing the deals, right? Maybe it's not the sales, maybe it happens before, or maybe it's the sales because people are jumping on the phones, but you can't get them to convert, or maybe you can't get them to convert because you're pushing the product rather than you know, future pacing and selling the outcome, or you're just confusing people. So it's so important to understand each and every process into detail because at the end of the day, without data, you have no idea what's broken. So that's about breaking down into data points.

End To End Sales Tracking

Darren

And next question off that is dude, fucking no one tracks their data, right? Let's be clear. The guys that are big get there get big because they track their data. But how many people have you worked with that have approached you and they're like, I want a closer? And you're like, okay, show me your closer. And they're like, What's that? Like, that is a common. So it's like you get big by being on top of your numbers, even if it's like marketing numbers, just lead flow, leads, and so on. Is your sales process right now an absolute mess? You have a spreadsheet tracking a spreadsheet, you're trying to use a zap or flow, and everything is just kind of falling apart. Well, scaling your high-ticket sales team is tough. Getting to the next level with your sales team is difficult, and you need the right platform to get there. Check out Aura down below and you'll see exactly how to track every inch of your sales process from scheduling your calls, tracking your leads, tracking all your analytics, and most importantly, all the closes inside your business. Aura is the only sales platform that does full end-to-end management of your sales process. This is the main solution right now for high-ticket sales teams to optimize every inch of your sales process. So if you're a coach or a founder or an agency owner, check out Aura for a full free seven-day trial.

SOPs And Onboarding Prevent Churn

SPEAKER_01

I mean, I was I watched the video um with Alex Mozi the other day. He's like, everyone's now thinking AI, AI, I want to be an AI company. There's like, you can't be an AI-driven company without the data. First, you have to have the data to be able to install into AI. So, with that being said, if you take a few steps back, as a recruiter, before we even try and find a closer, we're like, okay, what's your close rate? What's your show rate? You know, what are uh how how many leads are you getting? Um, how much, you know, how many um how many leads are getting booked in the calendar? Um, how many have certain objections? Um, so we have a whole list of questions that we need before even entertaining if we can place a closer on your off or not. So that's that's one thing. But then also as well, we see that so many businesses have no SOPs, right? They they know they can do it because they're in it, they've done it, but they have no SOPs, they have no training videos, or they have no idea how to onboard a closer, right? So the biggest and craziest thing that we see is yes, they don't understand their data, but they don't have an onboarding process. So when we first started recruiting five years ago, we were getting a 36% churn. We were just placing closers, getting a 36% churn, and we're like, what are we missing? We asked for the data, they're now providing the data. Now that we're we're we're passing these closures over to the business owner, why is there still such a high churn? So we started doing some investigation. We started looking after the onboarding process, and we realized that there's no fucking onboarding process. They're like, here's a couple of cool recordings, here's your here's your logins, go do your job. And then all of a sudden, the closer uh walks in, and this this is the example I like to give. So imagine, imagine it's your first day in a new office, right? You've you've you've just landed this most incredible job, everything sounds amazing. It's in a beautiful high-rise building, the building that you've always dreamt about working in, right? You've now turned up on your first day, the receptionist has welcomed you, everything seems lovely, great product, great reputation. You've met the manager, the manager says hello, or the business owner, and then they walk you over to your office. They open your office door, and all of a sudden, you've looked around, someone's left the window open, and there's paperwork blowing all over the place, like paperwork everywhere. And then you look at the manager and he looks at you, and he turns around and he just says, Good luck on your first day. And you're like, But where do I start? Just pick up the fucking paperwork, like it's there somewhere, right? That's how closes feel jumping onto offers with with no organization. And they're like, Well, F this, I'm gone. Like, I'm not gonna stick around and try and pick up paperwork. I'm here to make money, I'm on commission. Like, help help me help you make some deals, and that's and that's where I see the biggest giant happen.

Darren

And dude, if you take a step back, right? Because I'm gonna share this directly with my clients, and you know, I'm really grateful for the partnership we're bringing out together as well, where you're gonna be working with some of our clients in placement. I think it's gonna be very valuable for our high-end clients. But at the same time, before you even get to that point, you go back, you need these documentation for across your entire function. And what I mean by this is even for you, right? So let's just say I'm a business owner right now, I'm making 10K a month, 20K a month. If I have a document, which I do, who the fuck is my ICP? And I took screenshots of their Instagram, and I'm like, this guy is my ICP. I can then just align myself even to that. And then it's even just like, what are the what's a tech stack I use? We use Slack, we use XYZ, we use Stripe. I think what I'm trying to say here is like you can go even deep, as simpler for your own business so that you're able to get to that process. Because if you're running, let's say, an agency or whatever, you'd have like SOPs. But you need this for everything that you do, and that's what's going to give you that kind of like um exponent in your business. It's gonna allow you to get to the next level. And you even said it to me. You were like, you know, do these businesses have documentation? I'm like, man, we have a thing called the sales brain, which is the most like autistic thing I've ever seen in my entire life that we spent like years building out. But I think it's the small, subtle nuances that give people the roadmap to add to your analogy, though, and it's funny because we're cut from the same claw. What I always say to my clients is let's just say you bring in five. Um, you say you get a restaurant, okay? You bring in five Michelin star restaurants, you pick the best restaurants from five different big best chefs from five different restaurants. You bring them in, and you just put a bunch of raw material down, and you're like, cook me my favorite dish, my favorite dish. And then one person makes a pizza, one person makes a steak, one piece of makes pasta, and you're like, I'm vegan. And it's like, well, you never fucking told me that you're vegan, so it doesn't matter how good you are, I can't do that thing. And I use that example for everything, like an editor, a designer, setters, and so on. And again, who does this fall on? The business owner. What's the constraint in the business? It's the business owner. But as we discuss offline, man, the business owner, in my opinion, is a bit too, I call it a princess syndrome. They have become very much, very big princesses when it comes to this stuff. Because they're like, I don't want to work a nine to five style job, so I'm not gonna create an SOP. And it's like, brother, like you need to come back down off your fucking high horse a small bit. How are you gonna get someone to do anything if you're not able to help the team around you, basically?

Brand Standards And Princess Syndrome

SPEAKER_01

Facts. No, that's that's so true. But it's something else I see as well. Yeah, you know, a lot of business owners want to leave their nine to five to start their own business, and they do, they start their own business, they start making a little bit of money, and then they need to start hiring someone. But because they're so used to just working by themselves, they they're only thinking about themselves. They're not thinking about the image of the company, they're not thinking about how other closers will perceive them or salespeople will perceive them. So then what happens is if they don't start having a certain level of decency, of uh brand awareness, what happens is when they start bringing on a closer, the closer is going to try and be too much like that business owner. And there's a big difference between a business owner and a closer. Like the business owner is the face, so there's a lot more trust. But when you bring on a closer that kind of is now imitating that business owner, what if the business owner is is you know, someone like yourself, you know, you got good muscles, you wear, you know, you're you you look good, you're wearing a vest. But then what happens is what if you bring a closer on that is doing the same, right? A closer's now, you know, wearing his gym stuff, speaking to B2B clients. Those clients, they've seen your content, they know who you are, they know what you do, they respect you because you've achieved what you've achieved. But then closers think, oh, if you know, if the business owner hasn't said anything to me, I'm just gonna go do the same. No, you need to be able to tell the closer, this is we work with B2B clients, you need to turn up looking smart, right? Because you are representing my brand. Okay. But then how does the business owner want their brand to be represented like? And if you don't know how, like you said, the ICP, who's the ICP, what type of clients are you going to be speaking to? What I'm spending money on ads to get a client to speak to you. The closer is your business card, right? It's the first point of real contact that a client's going to have to potentially buy your product or service. So, this is why I say to business owners as well as closers. I'm like, you need to understand exactly the type of business owners or the type of clients that you're bringing onto the call and what their expectations are. You're the business owner, you can get away with things. But what does the closer need to do? How do they need to turn up? And if you're not guiding them, you don't know, you're going to get people turning up in baseball caps, in hoodies, in vests. But you don't want that person representing your brand. Yes, you can do it because you're the business owner. And I think that there's there's a huge miscommunication between those lines because business owners don't know. And that's the thing. We I can't blame a business owner because they don't know what they don't know. So it's part of what we do as well to educate them. Hey, listen, how do you want your clothes to turn up?

Darren

So I have a uh an amazing client, her name's uh Sophia, and she's grown so fast and aggressively. Like they've she's she's really, really on it, and she's brought in closers now, and it's like that, it's the first time that you go big with a sales team that it's it's like a it's a growth pain, growing pains, right? Because she's so used to getting on a call, everyone's like, Oh, I love you so much, and I watch your webinars, and now there's just this random person, and this is this is a change of the guard. You need to hand off that responsibility, you need to set expectations that that woman needs to come on and be like, hey, like I'm here to assist you and set those clear guidelines. And I feel like these are all the specific moments where people are like, I'm not gonna do this, and then they stay small. That's the biggest inflection point for me is like every single time that this happens to you, you make this decision that I'm gonna stay small. So you have to you have to figure out a way to work the fucking way through it. And I feel like this is where you know the education that you that you provide and hopefully that I provide is very valuable because it's like if you don't solve this, you won't reach your goal. And I don't think people realize that. Because I think they especially when it comes to closing, right? Like let's just look at it from like a like a weighing scale perspective. If you're bringing in all these leads, well, then someone needs to take the calls. But if you're a business owner and you're closing the calls, you have to do fucking delivery, right? Because you don't you don't have the money for a coach, you know, the money for flick on your TV if you want to flick on your TV behind you. But the irony is, you know, you're saying, you're saying to me that you don't have the money for a hire a coach, and then you're taking the sales calls, and now you can't do delivery. And it have you ever noticed this uh observation that a business owner will almost be secretly happy that they're not booking calls because they don't have to they don't want to do delivery. Oh my god. They're making a bit of money, but they're almost fearful of booking more calls and closing more clients.

SPEAKER_01

The the fear of not being able to fulfill, so they just become content. You know, it's it's the uh uh the the breeding ground of mediocrity is just being too comfortable with what you have. And then all of a sudden they're too comfortable with what they have, the market changes, something happens, and then the leads aren't coming through. There's there's there's no way to there's no way to bring in new leads, and there's not enough clients to upsell to further down the line. So it's it it's a two-ended sword.

Sell The Outcome Not The Mechanism

Darren

Yeah, uh because we've you know we've had an agency since the very beginning, and we work with agencies, I feel like this is the agency curse, right? It's because you know delivery for an agency is quite difficult. So they turn on acquisition until they get clients, client, singular, then they turn off acquisition to do delivery, then the client turns and then you do it again. Does that make sense? It's like this uh it's a it's a hamster wheel. Um, okay. I I really want to kind of double down a small bit on the on maybe the mentality of this, right? Because what other observations are you seeing in this space specifically, maybe around like how they're approaching their sales initially, maybe how they're approaching bringing in their first-time sales teams. What are some of those observations that you're working directly with people to almost unblock for them mentally? Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today.

SPEAKER_01

If we speak about business owners before bringing on a closer, there's the pros and cons of knowing too much about your product, right? The the pros is you seem super confident, you know what you're talking about, right? That's a pro. Like you know exactly what you're talking about. Someone's jumping on and you get so passionate about talking about how things work, how you're gonna help them, you know, change their life or scale. But on the negative side, you speak so much about how the product works that people get so lost, clients get so lost, they get so confused, and all of a sudden they're like, Well, you've confused the fuck out of me. I've got no idea what you're talking about. I'm gonna go think about it. Most business owners create their own objections because all they do is they speak, right? And I think something really important for business owners to understand is the less you speak about how the product works, and the more you speak about how your product is gonna help them get to their future outcome, that's where you start building the gap. That's when you become the authority. And it's the example I like to give is when you're booking a flight from Bali to to Miami, when you're booking the flight, you're not figuring out how the how the buttons work in the cockpit, right? You're trusting that it's going to take you from A to B, right? So, what are you doing when you're buying a flight, a ticket? You're selling the destination. And it's the same with business owners, they need to focus more on selling the destination rather than the small little details in the product. So that's when business owners start speaking too much and they don't they don't really investigate and ask what the client's looking for, what they've tried in the past, you know, what they're currently doing, why is that not working? Why not try and do it themselves? What if all what is the perfect scenario look like? And what happens if you don't get there? Right? There's a process. So if you're a business owner that has no process and you just think that you're gonna speak about your own product and be successful, it's not gonna work. There's only, you know, I always say 10% of people always buy, 10% of people never buy, and 80% is skill. That's what I really want business owners to understand is just because you're the business owner doesn't mean people are gonna buy from you.

Darren

What we true done. So what's what is that skill acquisition and how would you break that down for someone?

SPEAKER_01

Learn sales, right? Understand the the base understanding of you know, that there's many sales coaches out there that that that say, hey, you need a script, or hey, you need a framework, or hey, you just need to know how to have a good conversation. That is marketing, it's all the same thing, right? You need to have a script to have a framework to have a good conversation, it's all the same thing.

Darren

I yeah, I would absolutely agree, man. I think it because comes well, it comes from first top down in terms of like what's the painful problem that you're solving for a specific user that's easy to find online. And then how are we conveying that message? Because the reason why I love sales calls so much is because they're they're a personalized marketing message. That's it. It's the same shit that's in my marketing, but it's just said to you specifically, Joel, for this painful problem that you have and tying that specifically to them. I'm uh, you know, I'm obviously deep down like the software sales world right now, and listening to a lot of Dan Martell's uh like old, old stuff. And it's interesting because he talks about technical co founders, technical founders selling their product. And he said that these guys will not let you off the fucking phone until they go through every single granular. Background setting, and they're like, this setting is going to change your world. But all you had to ask, all you had to ask was setup questions. The answers that you want the questions to, you ask those specific three different questions, you show them three different solutions to three different problems, and that's it. And it's funny because it's like uh he did like a profile of it, and the guys that were non-technical love this. They're great, amazing. I don't need the setting detail. Yes, the less, almost the less detailed, the better. Like almost the less detail, the better, you know. Um, of course, people know they know it's gonna be hard, and there's a journey and there's a transformation you need to go on, but man, people want to fucking solve their problem, right? And just like the final point I'll say on this is like, you know, we all kind of do the same shit, especially anyone that's selling info, you help people get leads, you help people close them. But the mechanism is almost irrelevant once you're trying to figure out how to once you can solve that problem. So let me give an example. If I can confidently tell you that I can solve your problem by follower ads, you don't give a shit if it's follower ads or VSL ads, you just know that I can solve your problems with getting leads. And you're like, oh, I'll try this thing. I'll try, I'll try this thing. And I like you. That's actually most important for info. It's like, I like you. And it's like, okay, I like you, and I'm willing to do this mechanism. And I think I just try to make things a little bit simpler for people sometimes, uh, just so that they can get out of their own fucking way and just get on the sales cars.

SPEAKER_01

I I totally agree, but I just want to I just want to double-click on something you just said, and I mentioned it before. Business owners create their own objections. Why? Because they don't know how to ask the right questions, they don't know how to get the information out of their clients. So all of a sudden, it becomes a guessing game. And it when it becomes a guessing game and you don't know what they're looking for, you start presenting shit that they don't want. You start telling them things that they don't want to hear. So all of a sudden, because you haven't investigated, you know, gone down a discovery or or get them to really, you know, extract what they're looking for, what they want and what they don't want, that's where the objections come from. So to have, you know, to have this objectionless selling, you need to be able to extract what they want and what they don't want. Even if what they don't want is in is kind of in the presentation, don't fucking mention it. Right? It's not something that they need. Just focus on things they need.

Darren

Yeah, and it's also like if I I kind of I joke sometimes to people, and I'm like, if I just solve this problem for you, it's gonna be worth it. Right? All the other shit, yeah, yeah, we're gonna help you with your content, whatever. But if we just solve this thing, it's gonna be one, like the Ora Y is there, but then two, that'll be worth you going on this journey, right? Because you said that you've had issues building a group coaching program. So if we just do that, does that solve it? And I think it, yeah, it's just it's just different levels, I guess, right? And I think this is where we went back to the very start of the conversation where you said the most important thing is sales, because I always think about how the fuck could you train a closer if you can't even train yourself on sales? It's like it then it becomes a blind leading the blind, right? You're trying to install a sales process into a sales team when you can't clearly articulate it yourself. How do you solve that problem? I'm actually very curious. Are you kind of generally working people who who have solved that problem for themselves initially? I'm curious how you how you think about that.

Track Objections Then Pre Handle

SPEAKER_01

We don't deal with clients that haven't hit 80k months by themselves, right? Now, let's say you let's say a client comes to me and says, Hey, I'm doing everything, I'm closing deals, I'm doing the fulfillment, I'm capped out, like I'm doing 40 grand uh 40 grand a month, but I'm working part-time and I'm closing part-time. Fine. If we had a closer that came on full time, they could do 80k plus, I'll work with you. For those who are struggling to get to the first 40k, they need to simplify their sales process. They need to simplify how they're speaking to their clients. What are they presenting? How long is that going on for? Because if you can't pre-handle objections, you're gonna get a lot of objections. But I always say to clients, are you tracking your objections? No, I've got no idea how many objections are how how can you have no idea what objections you're getting? How about if you start tracking all the objections? And then once you have data, right? We keep speaking about data. Once you have the data, then what you could do, you could be like, oh my god, 80% of all the closes that I'm I'm losing has X objection. Let me try and front load that and pre-handle that objection in the marketing, in the in the in the pre-material before getting on the call. Once you can do that, things become much smoother.

Darren

It's like trying to lose weight and not owning weighing skills. Like, sure, you can look at yourself in the mirror and whatever. But I mean, there comes a fucking point whereby that isn't enough of a feedback loop to say that you're doing something that's positive. You don't track your macros, you don't you don't track your macros, you don't track your workouts, you don't track your weight, and then you're trying to lose weight. And it's like if you just put the instrument in and you looked at the instrument, the instrument will give you a leading indicator. It's not necessarily the whole picture for sure, but it's definitely a leading indicator. And it's ironic because if I take a step back, obviously I know we're we're trying to solve this problem for people through software. But if I look at my old trackers back in the day, which I said, look at, like, you know, we we did this, man. We had like 19 different, not 19, but like 10 different objections that the closer would select or I would select. And it was kind of like I will use an example. If it was money, then I would just be like, ah, we're attracting the wrong leads. We're attracting people making 2K a month. We should be trying to go after someone that's making maybe 8k a month, you know? And I would I would figure shit out. And then small things like if it's a partner, it's like, okay, well, how's a booking form look? How does the application form look? And then I think that becomes a lot easier. And the reason I'm saying this is because when we work with first-time sales teams, a lot of the questions that we get, and it's nothing, it's nothing necessarily wrong with them, a lot of them are emotional questions due to a lack of data because they don't have insight. So it's kind of like it's kind of like, have you ever crashed a bike or a car? Have you ever crashed something? Yeah, so I crashed, I crashed a motorbike outside here about a month ago. It's fucking terrible. Anyway, I got up and I looked up and I was like, where the fuck am I? It's like in the road, and I'm like, where the hell am I? And it's kind of like that feeling. You're in somewhere that you shouldn't be. There shouldn't be a person on the road standing. And I'm looking around and I'm like, I feel like in no man's land. And I and I always think about that as an example. It's just like the reason why you feel unclear, the reason why you feel insecure, the reason why you feel like you're not making progress is because you don't have a way, it's because you don't have a way to retrospectively look at your progress.

SPEAKER_01

And that's, I mean, as as a business owner, that's what I do on a daily basis. I couldn't do anything if I didn't have data. I'm, you know, I speak with a team, they need to send in the end-of-day reports. We need to see if there's any any common patterns that happen. Um, we get all the closes that we place to send in end-of-day reports as well. Because there's that there could be so many, like I was talking before, in terms of the chain, there could be so many links that are broken in that chain that won't allow you to progress, that won't allow you to get to the your destination. So again, back day to data.

Referrals Lead Flow And Marketing Reality

Darren

Something that I found very interesting about your process is, you know, you I know you obviously have your closures and there's a huge database of that. I think that's the kind of second part of this, but the first part of it is the setting process, right? And I know that you you don't really work directly with DM setters. You're saying that it's a it's a bit of a tough, a tough kind of machine to crack. Um how do you think about scaling your sales as a result? So let's just say you're at that point whereby leads are coming in. I made a note about lead flow earlier. You made a good comment about lead flow about you know lead flow going down or up. How do you think about booking more calls? Like what's your approach towards that? Is it more on the dialing side? How do you think about it? Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At VOX, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025.

SPEAKER_01

There's multiple different answers and roads I can go down. Um one of the biggest I'm gonna I'm gonna mention a few things here because I think it's very important. One of the biggest issues most businesses never think about are asking for referrals. Right? So there's multiple different ways you can ask for referrals. You know, Alex Homozy, 100, you know, 100 million dollar leads. Always always go to your closest first and ask for referrals. So I always say on calls, whether someone buys or not, always ask who else do they know that could also benefit, right? That's on the South Score. If we're going back a few steps in terms of setters, setters can only do so much if the business owner has switched off all types of marketing, if they're not doing any uh social media posts, any, you know, any podcasts, uh like how are they gonna go and source leads? Setters these days, they're not gonna go and find leads, cold leads for you and then close them because then they can go start their own business. So it's so important for the business owner to be able to provide those. It's true, right? And and and business owners come to me all the time. They're like, oh, do you do you do like like cold outbound? Well, no, um, that's what marketing does. Oh, yeah, but can you not find some closers that can go into some Facebook groups and try and close deals cold? It's not their responsibility.

DM Setters Vs AI Setters

Darren

So, really, when you're at that 40k, 50k, or even you want to get there, you're kind of focusing on nailing one channel from a marketing perspective. Is that correct? So we we nail one channel, we double down to one channel. So I'll tell you a funny story. For me, that was LinkedIn. Like LinkedIn for us got us to like 80k a month, and then we added in Instagram for info, basically, to keep it simple. So that was you know three, four years ago. Three years ago. Um okay, so we have one channel that we're going to basically put setters there that we're gonna basically nurture and finalize, and then you're adding in setters to that to make sure that it's tightened. Is that the way you describe it as? And why are you against uh DM setters, or just why do you kind of stay away from that side of the business?

SPEAKER_01

So try and find a really, really good DM setter is is probably one of the most difficult jobs in the world because you want to have a DM setter that understands who you are as a business owner, sounds like you, replies like you, talks like you, and and represents you, right? Then you've done all the training to find that DM setter, which they don't really get paid that much, and then all of a sudden they get a better opportunity. And I just don't feel like a lot of DM setters um are very loyal in this industry. That's that's my experience. Other people may have you know different experiences, but then we're at a stage now where I personally feel that there aren't enough AI DM setters that you that will understand you better than a human, will be able to reply, you'll be able to give feedback to, and and works 24-7, right? For a fraction of the price, you don't have to pay them commissions.

Darren

And I I I'd love to double tap on that if you don't mind. And uh I'm looking at a few different platforms there. So yeah, yeah, I I agree, I agree with you, right? It's like we I just try to change the frame a little bit, the positioning. So, what I try to do is I try to work with DM setters to be like, hey, we're gonna teach you the skill of sales, and whether you want to build a fucking software company or whether you want to work as a closer, this is gonna be a skill that's gonna you know pay you for the rest of your life, basically, the skill of sales, and then we try you know get that kind of in place. That makes sense. I do find that obviously it can it can be like a house of cards if it's if it's the wrong person doing that task. How have you seen AI setters pop up over the past couple of months? And where do you do you think that's a valuable path? And I'm saying this because even for our software company, we're actually connecting with AI appointment setting platforms on the front end, so we will have that connected. So I do believe like that is like the future. I just feel like sometimes it can be a bit clunky or it can misrepresent the brand, just like a setter. There's cracks with everything, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01

Unfortunately, though, there's there is no perfect fix at the moment. You know, I do feel like DM I uh AI DM sets is again extremely advanced. There are some incredible companies out there, and there there are certain limitations. Um, but I I feel like there's there's a lot less room for mistakes when it when you have trained an AI DM setter the right way. Um response rates, uh you know, the the tone, the way that they reply. The the thing with DM setters, if you can find an incredible DM setter, then I was like, I I know a few DM setters that make like 10 grand a month in commissions. But then are you making enough revenue to be able to find and pay you know one of these top DM setters? If you're just starting and you can and you can only pay on commission or a small base paying commission, what's that quality going to be like? So I think it just also depends on the level of where your business is. If a brand new startup, there's there's not much money coming in, um, you can't really afford to pay a base pay plus commissions, AI will be absolutely perfect. So that's if you're just starting. Then when you you've got to the next level and you want to get the DM set to do things that the AI can't do, certain type of outreach, um, going going into so this is something that we do, right? We get we get about 1,500 applications a day. Uh sorry, 1,500 applications a month. Sorry, I wish it was a day, not yet. 1,500 applications a month from closers looking for roles. Just in my, I don't know how they found it, but just in my personal Instagram and WhatsApp, I get at least 600 messages a day, right? Thank God AI now is organizing it. But what are a lot of closers, what a lot of DM setters do is um or closers do, they've never really been taught the right way on how to do outbound. So I get these messages saying, hi, I heard you're looking for a closer. Here's my intro video, right? I say, hey, go and do some research on me. Find out a reel that you liked and pay me a fucking compliment, right? How hard is it to do a bit of research and say, oh, hey Joel, I just saw a reel that that you mentioned XYZ, super inspiring. Oh, by the way, I made you a personalized video. Let me know if you like it. Right? AI DM setters can't do that. So it just depends on the level of DM setting that you want to do. Um, AI still has certain limitations. So if you can train a DM setter to really send extremely customized DMs, people are going to trust you a lot more. But you can't do that when you first start. There's no budget there.

Darren

Agreed, man. Agreed. And I think what's interesting here is it goes back to the skill of sales, right? Let's say you do you work with an AI appointment setter, you still need to know what a good DM is to look at it. And a bad DM. Right? You you need to be able to look at it objectively. And I think this is where having a good understanding of product is important, right? Because if you're just if you're just letting them run wild, well, that's not going to benefit anything. So is there, is there, I'd love to get your thoughts on this for let's say just earlier guys, right? And this can be super value for earlier guides. Would you suggest putting aside two hours or whatever a day to do that personalized, outbound, not outbound, but like personalized, personalized connections of people for as long as they're able to make more money?

SPEAKER_01

I think every business owner needs to understand each and every process. How can you fix something if you don't know what's fixed? It's as simple as that. So if I if I need to figure out why the DM setters not working, what are the messages? Uh oh, I don't know what to do. Well, if you don't know what to do, how can you tell them what to do? And that's that's what I said right at the beginning of this. Most business owners expect to just wave a magic wand and all of a sudden a DM setter is going to help them sell more, or clothes is going to help them sell more. No, you need to have systems, you need to have structures, you need to teach and tell them what to do. Yes, they should know what to do to a certain point, but without your guidance, they're just gonna go do their own thing. And that's not what you want as a business owner.

Phone Setters And Speed To Lead

Darren

I call it the skill part, the product, and the EQ. You can't train EQ, they have to come with it, they have to have a breakup or a heartbreak when they're younger. The skill they should know, and then you should be teaching their product. I'd love to go a bit more detailed into the setting process. So you're working with you're placing phone setters, correct? Yeah, where would you generally see a lot of your phone setters being placed on? Would it be like webinar funnels? Yeah, what are those specific areas whereby you'd use phone setters that you're placing? I'm very curious about that.

SPEAKER_01

Phone setters, I like to call them the disqualifiers. So a phone setter is really just making sure that the all the information that the client or the lead has added into the form is correct, and they are going to turn out to the closer's call. Right? Because if you're if there's no filtering process, everyone lies on their application. It's like, how many times do you fucking lied? Like when you when you applied for a job one day and you had to build a CV, right? Like how honest are CVs? Let's be honest. So some business owners want to pretend they're making less than what they are, some some business owners or leads say they're making more than what they are. So it's that central point. Um, phone setters need to be able to make sure that there's all the information is correct and they actually turn up. One of the things that I always really get business owners to understand is when you're dealing with a setter, setters are phoning, generally, setters are phoning up people that haven't uh aren't ready or aren't um that that aren't waiting for you to phone them, they're just phoning phoning you out of the blue. If you can train the setter the right way, the setter needs to sound like they're busier than the than the lead you're just calling. Because there's a lot of times a set of phones up, hey, how are you doing? Is that Joel? Oh, hi Joel, it's just Joel from XYZ Company. I'm busy. See you later. Call me back, right? But if you train them the right way, and it's like, uh, hey, is that Joel? Uh yeah, it is. Hey Joel, listen, I'm just just real quick, I'm just about to jump onto another call. Sorry, I've only got a second here, right? They can't turn around and say, Oh, leave me alone, I'm busy. You've already told them that you've only got a few seconds, and then and then you go into it. That's that, like, how can you sound busy? How can you always be the person of authority, whether it's a setter or a closer, right? How can you set the authority from the get-go? So then, so then on there, there's a there's a few things that we always say. Um, so it seems like you booked a call on XYZ date. Um, can you quickly do me a favor? Can you quickly open your calendar and just to make sure that there's no overlapping meetings? Oh no, there's no overlap meetings. Can you just click the the the the yes button that you will attend? Yep, perfect. And um just want to quickly run through and then just ask a couple of questions, make sure it's all correct, and then double check if they can turn up. So before I go, is there any crazy reason why why you can think of that you may not be able to attend the meeting? No, no, I can definitely attend. Okay, and and and I'm sorry, I I've got to go, I've got to go. But um, can you make sure I've just sent you an email um or XYZ sent you an email a couple of hours ago. Can you make sure that you got it? Can you just quickly open your email and can you go through that email and write down any questions that you have before jumping on the call? So they're they're doing it, so they turn up, the show rate goes up. Um, they're doing their research and homework. So it's super important to send out the right information before that call, right? So phone sets are so important. So, you know, without that having that phone set at your your show rate goes down, more people turn up not prepared. So that's where they they play a massive key role in uh in disqualifying.

Darren

Something there that that comes up for me that's like a huge, a huge contributor is getting them to take ownership, right? Getting them to take ownership to of their responsibility of like, okay, let's let me see what Thursday looks like. Oh shit, Thursday is actually really bad for me. Because a lot of guys put them in without even thinking, just without even thinking. And the other part is getting them to do research. Have you ever heard about the the kind of idea of getting you know your prospect to write down their scenario on calls, like on actual sales calls, where you get them to actually document like, okay, write down Johnny, you're making 10k a month, like writing that down. That's kind of what this is like, but before the call, they're prep, they're preparing for it so that they're bought in, they're invested. Where, where would you where does this fit into the process? Just want to double tap on this for people. Do you have phone setters that are hitting leads cold that come in from a like a lead magnet? Or do you just have them for when they're booking calls? What's the process there?

SPEAKER_01

So first of all, it speeds a lead. And let's be let's let's be honest you could be you know you could be on your lunch break, you're you're you're scrolling, you're seeing ads that you like, you're like, oh, I want to get more information. And then you you put a you know maybe you put your phone number and your and your email uh and your name and then all of a sudden you're like oh my god they're asking more questions I don't have time for this right doesn't mean they're not interested they're interested because they stopped they scrolled they left their details but they have no time to fill in the rest. It's not a shit lead. So that's where that that's that's a warm lead. So absolutely as soon as that happens right get get that closer speed to lead try try and phone them up hey I see you know you've you only got so far or you try and find a better time for them to have a conversation to be able to fill it back in and then book them onto a calendar right that's one side um but also if they if a lead is booked into a closer calendar absolutely you phone them up speed to leads just double confirm tell them that you're really busy I've got to get off the call real quick that will confirm but there are occasions where so many leads are coming in what happens is Setter sometimes takes a 15 or 20 minute triage call to really go into into into detail to really pre-qualify them. So it all works it just depends on the offer itself and how many leads you're bringing in.

Closer Pay Commission Breath Expectations

Darren

Yeah it's an equation right and I think it's also organizing operational complexity so that you're able to actually hit the leads and they're not they're not getting I what I find sometimes in our business is that we bring in a shit ton of leads that they kind of fall between the cracks a small bit they won't get the same care as if you only had 10 of them. Does that make sense? It's like when you have less you can you can care from them more but as you this is why scaling info is so difficult. Like as you grow you just need more people to be taking care of them step by step let's chat about on a closer side. So you said something very interesting in the beginning about 36% of your closers were churning I would say that number is probably low for people who are hiring their first time sales rep like sales closer most people bring them in they don't want to have any onboarding as we discussed and drop off.

SPEAKER_01

How do you ensure that those early hires whether they're positive or negative are learning experiences what would you do in that instance to reframe for a business owner closers come to me and they're like and there's there's this whole stigma or this whole uh idea in the industry that hey a closer should make at least 10 grand a month commission so the first thing that a closer wants to see is like hey what's the OTE on this offer what's the on-target earnings on this offer if I turn around to the business owner or or they say to me hey it's a really new offer um I don't know how much money they can make but give give me an estimate I I don't really know is it 2k 3k 5k uh I don't well how much have you made in commission yourself if you as a closer earning 10% with the lead flow how much are you making uh you know three grand a month okay I don't think I can help you at the moment I don't think I can find you a closer that will be willing to risk jumping onto a new offer commission only and only potentially making 3k oh yeah but I really want to scow okay so if you really want to scal you may have to pay a closer base pay plus commission so things can you know because at the end of the day they've got to feed their family and if they're on commission only and they're not making any base pay they're gonna churn they can't you know afford to feed the family and you're gonna lose them and you're just gonna have to start all over again. So that's why going back you need to be able to get your business to a certain point or have the cash flow to a to be able to get a good closer and just be able be able let them be able to support themselves for a couple of months if the worst case scenario happens.

Darren

It's almost like dude if you're not able to pay them enough or like you know generate them enough revenue that they will end up being very very needy on the calls and very like anxious and trying to close every deal and then they're gonna fuck up more.

SPEAKER_01

Commission breath because at the end of the day every if you're not getting enough leads in if those leads aren't qualified and you're on commission only you need to do whatever it takes to close the deal because if not you're gonna be moving back in with mom and dad you know you you you've just spent all this time investing into the right coaching um you know moving out of mom and dad's and now all of a sudden you're on commission only and you can't close the front door you're like oh my god I need to do everything possible and then they just start trying to just be aggressive and sell and rather than coming from a place of of love and kindness and whatever happens that closer wants to feel that hey I'm here for you like whether we can help you or not is my it's my mission in life to be able to make sure that you make the right decisions. When you come from that kind of place of being in service to others with no expectation in return with no attachment to the outcome that's when the sales happen leads can feel clients can feel the the the aggressiveness and and what especially if you're not there to help them and you just want to close a deal they're gonna run Amara.

Darren

Yeah and it's an energy thing right energetics it's how you show up what you say how you even deliver yourself and we talk about this privately as well but body language tone voice the typical Jeremy Minor NAPQ approach it's like if you're can't if you can't buy bread it's very hard to talk in a very slow language tone right you're gonna be fucking up the walls basically I would love to talk about um some of the as you say like stigma stigma's probably the wrong word but mainly maybe some of the unrealistic expectations given to closers by sales bros so look full transparency might one of our closures last month made$32000 right so we pay our closers well the guy's a fucking animal is a toll fucking animal and he deserves every every cent of it but the the idea that anyone can make 30k a month is not necessarily possible right and even you said 10 right like I would still say 10 is like it's what I'm trying to say is you should make 10 but I'm saying the business and the constraints of a business don't always allow the closure to make 10 what are some of your just like how do you feel about that in the industry approach where you know you might have some people telling you you can make 30k a month what what's your opinion on that? Like how do you think about that?

Reputation Blacklists And Continuity

SPEAKER_01

It's very different when a business owner has been running for a certain amount of time um for example we one of our clients they they they did three million dollars last month the average closer there makes 25 grand the top closer makes 50 grand so the commission structure's incredible so it's it's it's a lot easier for me to find the best of the best to jump onto that offer because it's proven even if it wasn't proven and it's starting from the beginning could I potentially get the best of the best closer on that offer possibly not because there's no data. So going back to data if you're a business owner that has data where you've been in the trenches you've done the setting you've done the calling you've done the closing you know your close rate you know your show rates you you know the objections how to pre-handle um once you've got all that in place then you have something to show a good closer hey these are the numbers you'll you'll be able to find a good closer if those numbers make sense but if you want to get a top tier closer and you don't know your numbers and they can't make any money it's just gonna be very hard for a closer to stick. And then what happens is if you tell them you can make 10 grand a month just because that's what you need to say you're gonna get you're gonna we have a blacklist closers and businesses this blacklist is shared with all the other recruiters now this is this is something that a lot of people may or may not know if we don't publicly announce it I think I've mentioned it twice in the last two years if a closer really fucks up and is an absolute arsehole to work with blacklist we share it to the other recruiters. But it's the same with business owners if a business owner lies about their numbers are doing anything fishy um manipulating stealing selling something they shouldn't be selling um anything again you know FTC straight on the blacklist and then if you're on the blacklist how are you going to get other recruiters to help you? How are you gonna get closers you've got a bad reputation so it's so important to just make sure you're going through the right processes um but again you need to be able to prove the numbers which goes back to data.

Darren

And I think at the end of the day right it all goes back to unmet expectations if I bring you in I'm like hey Joel you're gonna make 20k a month as a discount it's like you can but you're not going to in the first 60 days and you're not going to unless you're really like a very experienced closer. You know if you've gone through the wars. It's like my expectations for you right now is where I want to see you I want to see you hit five to 8k I believe that you're good enough. I believe we can give you the lead flow now it's up to it's up to both of us to fulfill that hypothesis I'll do the business order stuff you'll do the sales stuff and then we'll rendezvous every two weeks and in a one-to-one I think it's just about being very clear it's like a relationship right it's like if you're clear with your intentions up front if you're clear what you want to do with your business if you're clear where you want to go to that's important. I think there's one other thing as well though that we always kind of forget is obviously you've been in this space a lot longer than me but like a lot of these business owners they they kind of like they kind of heave off a small bit and I I don't even mean like the the small guys I actually mean like the very big guys you'll see like a big guy do like a launch and they'll do like two million on the launch and then he's like on a yacht afterwards and then everyone's like where's the leads and it's like I'm busy I'm on a yacht I think that's an interesting thing too like like business continuity. You're running out of leads or you've run a launch or you've run an offer or a resell where are you going to get the leads from and someone who's an active business owner like you you'll do your your grunt work you know like you'll work your six to eight hours a day at a minimum if you got to go up to 10 or 12 I think that that's that's that's tough for a closer too right because they don't they don't know is the business owner always going to be pushing on the marketing.

SPEAKER_01

Now if we're talking about average churn um over 12 months that's pretty high that's pretty high most closers stay on to stay on an offer on average eight to nine months and that's that's just because a lot of business owners like you said they they get to a point where they're making enough money and they just get too comfortable or they haven't hired the right team or two they've just been so focused on one channel on one lead generation channel that they've never gone into creating more more leads in different areas when that channel you know once that shuts down what are you going to do? You can't wait until that shuts down to them do other things. At the beginning yes just focus on one channel but once you see the business moving always keep trying different channels to bring in more leads that's how you keep on scaling and then it then it goes back on on team right hiring the right people and and and understanding as a business owner that no matter who you hire they may not do it as good as you but you need to be able to let go in order to scale.

Darren

It's a Dan Martel approach 80% good is 100% awesome is their approach to bring someone in uh dude like we the last year we really kind of kind of how to describe it like we squeezed all the juice out of like a DM funnel to like 300 350k a month and then it was like okay what do I like doing this shit let's move into a webinar so we started webinars at you know in H2 of last year and it it kind of worked out of the box but it was obviously it was obviously small initially but now it's been like this second thing that we can really really hammer. It's more scalable than the DM funnel long term I think it's going to be a better machine for us than the DM and it's ironic right like what got us there won't get you where you want to go to we're still going to have a hybrid of course but I feel like we we we did a lot of we did a lot of things wrong last year uh but that was one thing that worked. Now we did a VSL funnel too that didn't work. Now we can get that to work I'm not saying it doesn't fucking work I'm saying it just in the context you weren't getting the feedback loop like we were with a webinar and now the webinar has been something that's going to work for us uh true and true they're they're not doing seven figures right yet but they're gonna do they're gonna get there I'll say it that way.

SPEAKER_01

But you're but you're always trying different avenues you're not just like hey this works I'm never going to change it you're always there experimenting and try it trial in and then you as you just said the VSL funnel works but it didn't work as well as the as the webinar right but you probably what what if you never tried the webinar you would have just stuck to the VSL funnel and just be content.

Darren

The biggest thing here that I'm seeing like the biggest theme here is the ability to figure shit out and to always be looking forward for the business owner. Like that's the biggest theme here right is you need to be looking at your offer to see how much it can scale you need to be looking at your client base. You need to be looking at your your acquisition channel are you good at sales and then also can you the team you bring in also support you on that mission to get to where you want to go to or even or even like your goals don't need to be a million a month but it sounds like to me that even to get to a hundred or two hundred you're still going to need to be consciously thinking of these steps ahead of you.

SPEAKER_01

Which then if we go back to what we were talking about before setting expectations you got to set your own expectations you know the the the what if scenarios and always have different root you know different routes and routes to go down in case something doesn't work. It's mad. But so talking about expectations it's like a at the beginning of of any good relationship. You know the difference between a bad relationship and a good relationship is every good relationship I've ever had whether it's a business partner or or a a loved one is setting the expectations from the get go. This is who I am this is this this is this is uh these are a few things that I'm never going to change. If you don't like it that's it's not gonna work. And I've always found if I set those expectations from from day one no one's ever going to try and change me and and and if they accept to be with me absolutely same with closers if you're not setting the expectations from day one and you manipulate in numbers or you don't you don't have a good understanding of where you want to take the business and then the whether it's a closer or anyone that you're hiring on the team if they see that you're congruent with what they came in for they're gonna leave. So it's about being congruent from day one and understanding you know your mission your vision your value your purpose sharing that with the team and just being on the same page.

Darren

Yeah I think about like the goals that we have so like we've set like a we've set a goal of a million a month and to get to a million a month we need to get all of our clients to six and seven figures a year right so we get there by by getting amazing results for clients. Get them to get their I call a six figure a year and six figure a month. So they're two different kind of milestones for us. Why that's important is because look if they get those results that's going to give us the results that we want. And that allows us then to have the delivery team and allows us to have the sales team and it's like hey like when we asked you to set those calls it's to it's to hit these two different goals and feeding in maybe testimonials to the sales team making sure that they're connected to the results that they're generating too one thing I want to I want to mention I haven't mentioned it building the right culture because as a closer as a setter as a business owner it can get very lonely working in your room or in your office that you know you're not interacting with people physically face to face it's all over Zoom.

Culture Mentorship And Team Retention

SPEAKER_01

If you don't create culture banter uh motivation it just becomes a bore and it becomes very monotonous on just doing the same thing over and over again. And I think that's where business owners also need to understand how to motivate people uh have have a boom channel um post the testimonials um oh hey we just got a great testimonial watch this before you jump onto your next call like it's incredible right and you just start feeding off each other's energy it can be virtual but I think a lot of businesses forget about culture and that's such a big factor of why if something if shit hits the fan and your ad your ad account gets shut down but you've had that culture closes aren't going to turn because they know it was there and you're gonna turn it on and it's gonna come back. But if there's no culture and something happens they're like ah listen I didn't like this anyway. It's just a good excuse for me to leave.

Darren

Completely agree man completely agree that's one thing that I really fucking focused on. That's why we have an office dude like in front of me all the guys are literally in front of me. It's because like we're we're in the shitter together right and we we win and lose together. So when things have not worked in the past it's like all right like what are we gonna do about it? Like let's figure things out we do like lunches together we do events together we did an annual retreat in Bali we had like rented a fucking crazy villa in North Bali and we just brought all our team there and that's the stuff that really clicks with people man on a long enough time horizon. And that's how you get people to stay it's it's a it's a lifestyle right like we're all we all have like a health habit right we all have a health habit we all have a work habit and we kind of we vibe on shit beyond what we're doing but with then we also equally love what we're doing. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01

Like our habit is work put it that way you know I always you know always when people ask me what I do for a living I say I socialize I socialize for a living that's what I do and I love socializing because I've got people in my life that motivate me my team my team are incredible like the the the feeling as a as a as a founder receiving messages from your team saying oh you're a great boss you're super inspiring uh thanks for the motivation thanks for allowing me to you know to to buy 20 buffaloes for my farm like just just the feeling of being able to um not just get someone to work for you but to be a true leader and then they eventually lead by example and start impacting other people in their life and so forth. It's just leading by example and being in service to others.

Darren

I love that dude I love that and it's it's you give people the power right does that make sense if you give people tasks they follow you but if you give people like autonomy power responsibility it may allow them to be their best self like a lot of our senior team they'll coach they'll coach the side of our program content offers sales whatever and they love it. They fucking they they really enjoy it. It's something that they do on a side and they're like oh this is great I love working directly with our clients and it becomes a a great value ad basically once the a lot of business owners have have also mentioned I don't want to have too much connection with the team but when they when when there is a connection and you're leading by example and you're leading a life that they respect and want what does everyone want everyone everyone can only grow if they have a good mentor.

SPEAKER_01

And if you're that mentor for them if you're the person that they want to aspire to to become if you're living that life that they would would love they'll do anything to to to be in in service you know they want to be you they want to become you so if you if you're leading from truly inspiring your team to be able to live the life that they can you know that they always wanted to live by showing them the road it's it's an incredible feeling incredible feeling. And then once they see that you're in service to others they it's it's just a down you know it's a spiral effect then they just want to give back and do more and help more. And then when they're you know when closers are on sales calls that commission breath goes because they're like oh well for such a great company you know I my my mentor is actually the the the the business owner this is the way that they they act looks you know feel uh help others I'm gonna do the same on the sales calls.

Darren

When does that become applicable or helpful for you too so obviously you want to mentor for many reasons but let's just say you had a bad month right but you're giving them a lot of professional growth as well I call it personal so sorry you're giving them lots of personal growth as well as professional growth professional growth is their career path they're making more money but if you're actually also involved in their skill acquisition they're like okay I am Money making as a closer, let's say 4K, but this dude's fucking teaching me a lot about business so I can get there in a couple of years, I can become a business owner. They get so much more involved than just commission at the end of the month. And a few things, right? I would also recommend too that sales reps should try to get more out of their business. And what I mean by that is they'll they'll come into it with the business intention of asking the right questions, like they want to learn. And if you're someone like Joel, Joel will be happy to teach you. But if you're just gonna sit there and be like, okay, give me fucking leads, it's like, okay, we don't feel a connection. There's two sides to the equation, right? Like I just remember when I started in in the startups, I was 19. I lived in Ireland at the time, and I worked for a startup, and I asked to work there for free. And then he paid me, obviously, maybe like$2,000, 2,000 euro a month. And I would fucking chew that guy's ear off, dude. It was as if I was in a smoking area at four o'clock in the morning back in the day. I would literally be asking him so many questions, like, why is it like this? Why is it not like this? And he, for the most part, enjoyed it. Because I guess he may have felt that it was when I maybe similar to him when he was younger, and he was very receptive, which became some of the most valuable skills that I've ever built in my entire life.

SPEAKER_01

But then also, if you're a business owner and you're too busy, then you have your sales manager. You know, you have your downline that takes over. So it doesn't, it doesn't have to fall on the business owner, right? It it but but then but then that's a whole different topic, you know. I know a lot of sales managers, they're incredible sales managers, but terrible closers. Which again, we we we we can talk about that topic for a long time. But it's the same as um, you know, um Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan's coach wasn't a better basketball player than him, but you know, he needed that coach because that coach saw things that he he he couldn't. So it's about having just having the having the right knowledge, trying to do it yourself before then passing that responsibility down to others.

Darren

Agreed. You gotta do it for yourself before you gotta do for anybody else.