by Nancy Calabrese | Feb 13, 2024 | Podcast
About Chris Weiher: Chris Weiher owns CLEAVER Creative, which produces high-quality videos to get clients’ ideas out into the world. They believe that now there is more need than ever to own and understand the value of effective video marketing, and they seek to not only tell the client’s story but make sure your audience hears, sees, and feels it. Chris started his career directing and producing short films before founding CLEAVER Creative in 2013. He grew the company by creating animation videos for companies including Accenture, Salesforce, and SAP. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, Chris discovered significant organic traction by creating videos on LinkedIn. Since then, he’s been helping businesses develop their video strategies through B2B videos on LinkedIn to grow their brands authentically. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Chris.
In this episode, Nancy and Chris discuss the following:
- The importance of video in the modern sales world
- Starting your way in video marketing
- First video creation suggestions
- The most beneficial places to post videos
- Chris’es recommendations of mixing personal and professional topics to engage viewers
- Why should your dress code match the style of ideal clients
Key Takeaways:
- The hardest part for most people is to try and get started.
- LinkedIn is still the best place to post business-related content and videos.
- I think where people go wrong with video is they want it to be perfect because we want to be seen as perfect.
- You must continue to be creative and think of other things, but that can be as easy as just going into your living room and filming a video there: it’s not rocket science.
“So, a really easy way to get started is to write out 10 FAQs, frequently asked questions, that you receive from your prospective clients. And then 10 questions you don’t get asked, but you wish somebody would, you wish someone would say. Well: “Why do I need to be using your service?” That’s often a question that people don’t come to me with because, by the time we’re talking, they know they want to use video, but they don’t ask why. And those frequently unasked questions are a good place to start because it gives you a chance to speak your mind about things that people aren’t asking you but are very important, and you want to tell them.” – CHRIS
“I recommend one video a week. There are a lot of folks out there who are in the social media game that are saying you need to have something out every single day. I disagree with that. For most people, it will burn out your audience, and they will ignore you. If you are a real B2B company, one video a week is plenty for people to see your face, see you. It’s just like going to a networking event. You don’t go every day; you go once a month or weekly. And then you want to have some other supplemental material you’re also putting out. That could be an article, that could be newsletter, or it could be other kinds of posts to supplement that video. But for some of my clients, they were doing one, one of my newest clients, he’s doing a video a week, and he’s already getting referrals from that.” – CHRIS
“Technology is moving very quickly. That said, the human component will be the hardest thing to replace. And if you can leverage video as a part of your communication strategy, I think that element is never really going to be fully replaced, but it will be supplemented, I think, by AI.” – CHRIS
Connect with Chris Weiher:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Chris Weiher, the founder of Cleaver Creative and a video producer with over 20 years of experience in the industry. Chris’s company has created B2B animations, sales presentations, and commercials seen by millions and now works with business owners to help them create their own videos and he only cares about the results. Chris believes that B2B sales require human connection. Therefore, it requires a strategic funnel that builds trust and moves people to make a decision. So they offer a solution. They help you make authentic videos that connect with your network and get your content seen. It is a pleasure to have you on the show, Chris. Welcome!
Chris Weiher: Thank you, Nancy. I’m excited to talk to you. This is a lot of fun. [1:20]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, this is a hot topic for me. You know, I’ve been procrastinating about doing video work. And why is video so important these days?
Chris Weiher: I would say that it is important because it allows you to, for most small and medium sized business owners, you as the business owner or your staff are the biggest resource and it allows you to scale your biggest resource, which a lot of people don’t think of it that way. [1:51]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, but how do you get started in video?
Chris Weiher: I would say that is the hardest part for most people is to just try and get started. And there’s no other way to do it than to just do it and to allow yourself to fall on your face a little bit. I often tell people just because you record a video doesn’t mean you have to post it. But you do need to practice, and you do need to try and evaluate what you record and say why or why not, what about it is good, what can I do to improve on it? So usually when we start working with a new client, I say let’s work together for three months, let’s put out a video once a week, and let’s look at the results, let’s look at the reactions that you get and change your strategy based upon how people are reacting to it. [2:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Interesting. And so how do you make your first video? What are your suggestions?
Chris Weiher: So, a really easy way to get started is to write out 10 FAQs, frequently asked questions that you receive from your prospective clients. And then 10 questions that you don’t get asked, but you really wish somebody would, you really wish someone would say, well, why do I need to be using your service? That’s often a question that people don’t come to me with because by the time we’re talking, they know they want to use video.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Chris Weiher: but they don’t ask why. And those frequently unasked questions are a good place to start because it gives you a chance to speak your mind about things that people aren’t asking you but are very important and you really want to tell them. [3:43]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. And so, is there a certain place you recommend posting videos to get a big bang for your effort?
Chris Weiher: Absolutely, LinkedIn is still the best place to post business related content and videos. There’re people doing them know that weren’t doing them two three years ago but there’s still a very big opportunity to talk about real business issues. So, if you are a legitimate person with a legitimate businesspeople are hungry for that content. There’s a lot of people leveraging the social aspects, leveraging the, it’s my kid’s birthday party, or I just celebrated my anniversary, or I got a new job, the kind of fluff type stuff. But if you have real things to say, people are hungry for it on LinkedIn. [4:44]
Nancy Calabrese: Interesting. Yeah, you know, people have complained online that LinkedIn seems to be coming like Facebook. Do you agree with that?
Chris Weiher: It is in the sense that the algorithm wants to promote things that get eyeballs. And things that get eyeballs are never going to change. It’s the easiest step to engage with. And there is really nothing wrong with talking about your anniversary or your kid’s birthday party on LinkedIn, if the next week you talk about a client success story or a case study or a win or a failure of something that didn’t work out with your business, maybe last year or two years ago. If you intermingle those two, then the Facebook type content serves your other content because it gets people to know you and to like you. And when you do talk about maybe something that’s a little bit drier, they’re more apt to pay attention and more apt to then share it or tell somebody else in their network about you. [5:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. What’s your opinion on teleprompters when you’re recording the video?
Chris Weiher: So, I have been, like you said, been in video production business for a long time, worked with a lot of teleprompters. There’s no reason to be completely shy of them and say, you know, I’m never going to use a teleprompter. Generally, though, I try and advise people to work from notes, even if you’re looking down at your notes and then back to the camera to deliver your content it comes across more organically and naturally. And even if you mess up and you find a way to recover from that mess up, that tells us something about you. I think where people go wrong with video is they want it to be perfect because we want to be seen as perfect. And a teleprompter can give you perfection, but we don’t really relate to perfection. We relate to human and humans are inherently flawed. [6:50]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh. How long should videos be?
Chris Weiher: Generally, when you first get started, I say, let it be as long as it needs to be, because people are very forgiving when you first get started. As you keep going, you do need to improve your content, so it’s better to be short or get to the point. But when you first get started, I say, if you talk for four minutes for your first video and you like it and you think it’s quality, put it out there, see what people say. As you keep going, it is better to get shorter and shorter. But I’ve put out videos on LinkedIn that were eight minutes long tutorials, and because they were very valuable for my network, people watched them, and people thanked me for that eight-minute video, which, you know, if you have the content as good, the best rule of thumb I’ve heard is make it as long as it is good. Once it stops being good, cut it short. [7:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah. I’ve heard contrary to that, that they should be shorter, like four minutes or less. Have you heard that?
Chris Weiher: Oh, yes, in my mind, four minutes is actually very long on LinkedIn. But I don’t want to say that to people who haven’t gotten started with video because that then puts an added level of pressure on them. Like, oh, geez, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to get into three minutes. How am I going to do it? As you’re getting started, give yourself permission to do it a little wrong and to do it a little longer than it would be. And as you go, you can improve and make it shorter and shorter. But once you’re kind of moving along, I really recommend two to three minutes max. [8:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Two-three minutes. Yeah, I don’t have a long attention span. That’s my problem.
Chris Weiher: Nobody does, and our engine spans are getting so short right now.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. So, are there any particular skills that you have to have to create, you know, a video that’s worth watching or compelling videos?
Chris Weiher: There are skills and like I tell folks is that to do video it’s a skill and a talent. Some people are just naturally talented at this, and they just start doing it and it works for them and other people must build up the skills and it’s not unlike public speaking. I think we all remember probably the first time I got in front of a group. I hated it. It was terrifying. [9:18]
Nancy Calabrese: Hated it. Right?
Chris Weiher: Hated it, right. The worst feeling and it can feel that way too with video. When I first did my videos on LinkedIn, every time I put the upload button, I was like, oh geez, this could be the one that tanks and ruins my reputation. But you just, I don’t know, its practice makes perfect in a lot of ways. The skills are you know talking to an inanimate object that gives you no reaction. So, if that means you need to have a friend or a spouse or somebody behind the camera that can nod and smile at you while you talk, do it. To some extent, I think that ends up being my role with some of our clients is just to have a face on the other side of Zoom. Right, and go, that was really good. And then I also can go, that was not good. Do it again. [10:07]
Nancy Calabrese: All right. to be the rah-rah person. Okay. And so how much content does a businessperson need to put out to really start driving results?
Chris Weiher: I recommend one video a week. There’s a lot of folks out there that are in the social media game that are saying you need to have something out every single day. I totally disagree with that. I think for most people it’s going to burn out your audience and they’re going to ignore you. If you are a real B2B company, one video a week is plenty for people to see your face, see you. It’s like just like going to a networking event. You don’t go every day; you go once a month or once a week. And then you do want to have some other supplemental material that you’re also putting out. That could be an article, that could be newsletters, it could be other kinds of posts to supplement that video. But for some of my clients, they really were doing one, one of my newest clients, he’s doing a video a week and he’s already getting referrals from that. So yeah, it’s…
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Oh wow!
Chris Weiher: It’s just about showing up and being there consistently, providing value. [11:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. What about the cost? Is it expensive to do this?
Chris Weiher: It doesn’t have to be. It really doesn’t have to be. I mean, so for most folks when they’re getting started, I say use your phone. If you have a little tripod at home, then put it on the tripod and put it on your desk and write out your 10 questions and record them and see if any of them are good. And if they are put it out. That’s about as cheap as you can do it. You know for our clients for four videos a month, we charge $7.75. I don’t know if that’s cheap or expensive for people, it depends on your business, but I really do think it is, it’s an invaluable skill that I think people should learn because yeah, it’s just one of those skills that you want to have in your tool belt. [12:13]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, you talked earlier about, you know, posting videos that you’re frequently asked question list. But what kinds of things should we be talking about besides the FAQs? Any examples?
Chris Weiher: Absolutely. So usually, I recommend that people pick three areas that they want to speak to and depending on how niche and narrow your business is, so one of our clients is industrial engineering consulting company and that when I first started working with them, I was like I don’t know how we’re going to make this interesting. To people who do process improvement and Six Sigma training and lean, they can talk about this for hours. So that’s one sort of area that Matt talks about. And there’s other things that he talks about as well, like he’ll talk about his family life, about vacations. So, he really kind of does just a little bit of the personal side. But the more niche you are, I recommend don’t go much more than three topics. Another one of our clients, Allison, works in the Caribbean, and so her company is based there. And so, they talk, she talks sometimes about just issues that are around the people of the Caribbean countries to get conversations started about like, not necessarily political, but things that are happening in the government or what have you. And that gets the conversation going. And then she also talks about her media marketing company. So those other topics bring people in and get them interested in you as a person and interested in what you care about. And then you can also talk about your business. And when you’re talking about your business, yeah, I mean, the key things to talk about are client wins, case studies of things that have gone well, projects that have gone well things that are new, so maybe if you have a new service or a new product that you’re working on, great, but then also talking about the challenges of your business and usually the bigger the challenge and the closer it is to current events, the more time you want to kind of give it. So, if you lost the client this month, you don’t really want to talk about it that month but maybe next year you do and you want to talk about how challenging that was and what you did to recover from it and how it felt because that’s what we really connect to is the emotional side of things. The good and the bad. Yeah. [15:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Sure, sure. Oh sorry, I think I cut you off. I didn’t mean to.
Chris Weiher: Oh no no, that’s kind of, I was kind of rapping, rapping him.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, and so when you do video, do you make recommendations for the background, what it should look like?
Chris Weiher: I do. I usually help people figure out where they want to film things and oftentimes it starts out in their office, but I usually push people once they’re comfortable doing that in their office to say, okay, let’s change up the background. Let’s either film something in another part of your house or if you are going into an office, film something in a conference room there. Something that’s becoming a little bit more popular is like the walk and talk, which depending on your coordination levels, it can be easier or harder to do. I tend to like it. Yeah. But yes, I think there is a strong reason to change up your environment because, you know, you put out your first four videos and people will probably get a great response on LinkedIn. The fifth one, if it looks the same as the other four, it’s probably going to get a little slight lesseree.
Nancy Calabrese: Right. You don’t want to trip and fall.
Chris Weiher: So, you must continue to be creative and think of other things, but that can be as easy as just going into your living room and filming a video there. So, it’s not rocket science. [16:31]
Nancy Calabrese: And what about a tire?
Chris Weiher: I would say wear what you’re comfortable in, wear what you wear to work. Wear what’s going to attract your ideal clients. I’m sure you’re aware of a customer avatar and you’re marketing to one person that represents a bigger group of people. If that person is going to respond to you being underdressed, then you should probably dress up for your video even if you don’t have any meetings. [17:03]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah, yeah, you need to match their style as best as you can. I would think so, right?
Chris Weiher: Yep. And but also to do what’s natural for you. If you don’t ever wear a collared shirt, then don’t certainly put it on for your video. If people know you as the t-shirt guy who does six figure deals, then don’t change for video. Do what feels right to you. [17:25]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Yeah, t-shirt guy. I like that. Who do you like to work with?
Chris Weiher: Hahaha! I like to work with small and medium sized business owners. I really like to work with a team that has maybe five to 10 people and work strategically with them where we’re really making a difference. We’ve done a lot of videos for big companies and obviously those are very fun too. But most of those videos are seen internally. And I really like to work with companies that were making a difference to their bottom line, they’re seeing results, and it’s more satisfying for me. [18:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Last question. I mean, where do you see the future of video production going?
Chris Weiher: I think it is never going away. I think that AI is going to disrupt things. There is an app now that I was testing out this week called HeyGen, and you might be blown away by the facsimile that it can create of you on camera.
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Chris Weiher: I’ve shown it to a couple of people and they didn’t even realize that it was AI generated.
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, how do you spell that?
Chris Weiher: h-e-y-g-e-n, and I think it might be a dot com, I could be wrong, but it’s wild. Now, the longer the clip you watch of it, the more obvious it becomes that this is not a human, this is generated by a computer. But it is only a matter of time before it gets better and better and better, and in five years it’s going to be a very different landscape. [19:18]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, cool.
Chris Weiher: So, technology is moving very quickly. That said, the human component is going to be the hardest thing to replace. And if you can really leverage video as a part of your communication strategy, I think that element is never really going to be fully replaced, but it will be supplemented, I think, by AI. [19:42]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Well, I’m with you about human conversation, human connection. Just like you said, that’s never going to go away. How can my people find you?
Chris Weiher: They can most easily connect with me on LinkedIn. That’s where I do most of my networking. They can just search my name, Chris, C-H-R-I-S, Weir, W-E-I-H-E-R, and I should come up easily there with my company, Cleaver Creative, and connect with me. And I’m always happy to have conversations and help people out. [20:15]
Nancy Calabrese: Awesome. Well, I told you before we went on, I was going to learn a lot and I sure have, and I’m sure my audience has learned a lot as well. Hey, take advantage of Chris’s expertise, get in touch with him, connect on LinkedIn. And Chris, you’re great. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Chris Weiher: Thank you, Nancy. This was a real pleasure. I really appreciate it.
Nancy Calabrese: I really enjoyed it. And until next time, folks, happy selling, happy video making. That’s all for this one, OK? See you next time. [20:54]
by Nancy Calabrese | Dec 12, 2023 | Podcast
About Brian Jackson:Brian Jackson is the Owner of The Sandler Sales Coaching Program and a sales coach of the Sandler Methodology since 2006. His passion is helping seasoned, professional salespeople reach their greatest potential – both personally and professionally – by watching them win. Before owning Sandler Training, Brian invested over 20 years in healthcare equipment & SAAS sales, having served the most recent 12 years in various leadership roles. He enjoys coaching Owners, Executives, and all customer-facing, “selling” people within the Technology/SAAS vertical. Also, Brian has spoken on a wide variety of business and personal development topics and is available to speak at corporate events, trade shows, etc. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Brian.
In this episode, Nancy and Brian discuss the following:
- A nerd at heart: the sales nature of Brian Jackson.
- The art of persuasion is all about selling, and the selling is all about communication.
- Brian’s way of getting into Sandler’s world.
- What differentiates Sandler from other sales methodologies?
- Features and benefits versus consultative selling.
- DISC and Sandler go hand in hand.
- Useful tricks to learn from DISC.
Key Takeaways:
- Not many people grow up saying, “I want to be in sales,” but I’m one of those.
- I always knew that in the back of my mind, being a Sandler trainer was something I could do and enjoy, so here I am.
- Take advantage of the technology out there to prepare for your conversations.
- If you’re a salesperson, you do not need to feel so much pressure to be the one to convince, persuade, and manipulate others magically.
- Sandler takes your career to another level.
“ Be the contrarian salesperson. Get out of your way. Stop trying to sell, persuade, and manipulate people. Stop trying to script out what you’re going to say. Instead, guide people on a path of self-discovery instead of trying to convince them. Go for the no. Guide them to self-discovery. Let them argue with you why they have the problems you solve and why they should be committed to fixing them. My favorite saying in the rule is, “People do not argue with their own data.” To finish answering your question, I believe the art and the science of selling are to guide people on that path of self-discovery because they don’t argue with their own data. And if you can do that, then you don’t have the objections in the first place.” – BRIAN.
“Sandler is important in personal communication because you want other people to feel that they’re heard, understood, and prioritized. Like you said, selling is not about you. It’s about the other person. So, there’s no question that people like me who have bought into the standard franchise model or participants see improvements in our relationships just as much as we see improvements in our selling efforts because it’s a different way that we treat people in our communication because of understanding Sandler. ” – BRIAN.
“When I’m teaching DISC, I explain to people that once you know DISC, you can’t go through your life the same way ever again. I’ll be in the grocery store checkout aisle and overhear a conversation. I’ll know somebody’s DISC style. You know, when I meet somebody, I can subconsciously register their eye color, hair color, ethnicity, background, and distance. And you treat people how they would want to be treated. You’re going to ask why it is so important. You’re going to keep your conversation short and tight, to the point, focus on, you know, you’re going to dab naturally. And that’s just critical to selling.” – BRIAN.
Connect with Brian Jackson:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi everyone, it’s Nancy Calabrese and it’s time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today, we’re speaking with Brian Jackson, owner of the Sandler sales coaching program. A sales coach of the Sandler Methodology since 2006, his passion is helping seasoned professional salespeople reach their greatest potential, both personally and professionally by watching them win. Brian has accrued over 25 years of sales, sales leadership, and consulting experience. He has personally closed over $100 million of new business throughout his career and he has proudly hired and mentored several leaders of enterprise sales organization. Brian’s sales coaching business has served over a thousand participants achieving results with any revenue-generating professionals. Welcome to the show, Brian. You know I love Sandler.
Brian Jackson: Thank you, Nancy. It’s good. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. [1:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, so in doing some homework on you, you call yourself a nerd at heart. Why is that?
Brian Jackson: Well, I mean, you know, when you’re short fat kid with braces and glasses and you have to learn how to talk away out of fighting that content that qualifies you as being a nerd but I’m a sales nerd. My dad was in sales, in sales leadership. I am kind of a weird case study in that I’ve kind of known that I was going to go into sales from a pretty young age just because I saw my dad’s lifestyle working from home and doing well financially so there are not a lot of people who grew up saying “I want to be in sales” but I’m one of those “So here I am now sales coach and I do love coaching salespeople”. [2:08]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Well, it’s funny, I think everybody is in sales whether they admit it or not. The art of persuasion is all about selling and the selling is all about communication, right?
Brian Jackson: Right. Yep, I agree with you 100%.
Nancy Calabrese: So, what made you get involved in Sandler?
Brian Jackson: Well so I was dragged kicking in screaming in the Sandler back into 2006 because I was uh… another twenty-year-old hot shot that never failed in any sales job but I was told that hey you have to go through Sandler if you’re going to be in our sales leadership bench and ultimately once I got into Sandler, I realized how different it is compared to other methodologies and different sorts of training programs. And because of its sort of purity and consultative nature, it’s the opposite of traditional selling, I took on to it and became very passionate about it. And eventually, you know, when I wanted to be my businessman, I always knew that in the back of my mind being a Sandler trainer was something that I could do and that I would enjoy, so here I am. [3:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. So why is Sandler’s different than other sales methodologies?
Brian Jackson: Boy, there’s so much to that question, right? But it goes back to the beginning I mean it’s kind of an interesting story if you read about you know what David Sandler went through before starting center key, he went to countless sales coaching training workshops and found that they were just teaching salespeople to go out and say the same scripty things, so he stumbled across this book begins people play which is what gave birth to transactional analysis sort of a paradigm of psychology that it gives us more or less a predictable model of human behavior and he said you know what I can apply this to selling and so what it comes to is this is that in Sandler we have a rule: “If other salespeople are doing it stop!”. [4:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Brian Jackson: Be the contrarian salesperson. Get out of your way. Stop trying to sell, persuade, and manipulate people. Stop trying to script out what you’re going to say. Instead, guide people on a path of self-discovery instead of trying to convince them. Go for the no. Guide them to self-discovery. Let them argue with you as to why they have the problems that you solve and why they should be committed to fixing them. And my favorite saying in the rule is that: “People do not argue with their own data”, to finish answering your question. I believe the art and the science of selling are to guide people on that path of self-discovery because they don’t argue with their own data. And if you can do that, then you don’t have the objections in the first place. [5:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Features and benefits versus consultative selling. What are your thoughts on that?
Brian Jackson: Well, one of the things I liked about your website and your LinkedIn page when I was sort of researching and doing some background on your NANCY is you talked about how you broker Conversational Selling, right? And you know, feature benefit selling is a monologue, right? It’s a, hey, you know, feature benefit selling is a monologue, right? Here’s my pitch and that’s a lot of that’s not a conversation is you’re giving information in their gathering information so I knew this is going to come up in our conversation Nancy there’s a Sandler Rule which is that you prove your value as a salesperson not by the information that you disperse but by the information that you gather that’s how you prove your values as a person so that only happens when you can have a conversation and when you can keep your prospect talking the majority of the time guiding them on that path of self-discovery that’s your question. [6:17]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, to me, selling is all about them, not about us. The way you learn and understand your prospect’s needs is through the quality of the questions that you ask, right? Wouldn’t you agree?
Brian Jackson: Yep. 100%. Yes, absolutely.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And why is Sandler important in personal communication?
Brian Jackson: Oh man, personal communication. I mean, it’s important because you want other people to feel that they’re heard, that they’re understood, and that they’re prioritized. Like you said, selling is not about you. It’s about the other person. So, there’s no, no question that people like me who have bought into the standard franchise model or participants we see improvements in our personal relationships just as much as we see improvements in our selling efforts because it’s a different way that we treat people in our communication because of understanding Sandler. [7:30]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, it kind of also ties into DISC, which I love. And I know you’re a big proponent of why DISC is so important in communication.
Brian Jackson: I don’t know. Yeah, you’re right. I mean, DISC and Sandler go hand in hand. You know, when I’m teaching DISC, I explain to people that once you know DISC, you can’t go through your life the same way ever again. I’ll be in the grocery store checkout aisle and I’ll, and I’ll overhear a conversation. I’ll know somebody’s DISC style. You know, like, so when I meet somebody, I can register subconsciously their eye color, their hair color, their ethnicity, their background, and their distance, you know? And you just treat people the way that you, that they would want to be treated. You’re going to, why is it so important. You’re going to keep your conversation short and tight, to the point, focus on, you know, you’re going to dab naturally. And that’s just, obviously, that’s critical to selling. [8:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. I love DISC. You know, it’s interesting when you mentioned, especially from a personal point of view, that I know my daughter’s DISC style. And I know because I understand her way of communication, I get more out of her. She doesn’t know I know that. But it’s just amazing to me.
Brian Jackson: Yes. Nancy, have you noticed that you know how they say opposites attract? I think some people think that the wrong way. Like they think that like people with opposite political views or things like that. I think what they’re talking about is DISC because I’ve noticed that couples often have opposite DISC styles. In my case, I’m a high DC or CD, and my wife is the opposite. She’s like an IS, and that makes sense, right? It makes sense because we kind of fill each other’s gaps. We make a good team in that way. But then there’s also a lot of, there can be a lot of friction when, I can be very direct about things and she sometimes does not express herself and I see that in a lot of relationships, opposite disc style. So going back to what you said, obviously Sandler, DISC, is very, very relevant to not just selling but your own life. [10:10]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, you remind me, I was dating a fellow. I’m a high D and he’s a C. And that’s about the time when I was introduced to DISC. Anyway, that relationship didn’t go very far. He drove me crazy.
Brian Jackson: Maybe a little too much overlap, too much head-banging.
Nancy Calabrese: Uh, way too much. Yeah, way too much. So, is there anything in particular you would like me to spotlight? Anything going on with your organization that you want to share?
Brian Jackson: Well, I’ll tell you one thing I’m just really proud of being a part of Sandler’s we’re really on top of our game in terms of all the technology innovations and technology disruptions to modern selling. We’re having a virtual summit, which is a half-day event on October 11th. And it’s birthed from about two months ago, we did a webinar on how to use chat GPT to drive more sales revenue. That webinar registered over 5,000 participants, which is crazy. Yeah, and so they said: “Hey, to their credit, let’s expand on this”. So, they’re doing this virtual summit on October 11th, and I’ve already invited all my past clients and current clients. And I can’t even keep up with how many have registered. I think I’ve already registered over probably 50 myself. But I encourage anybody who’s listening to this, if it’s not too late, to register or to go. I know that they’re going to record the sessions. And so, if you’re listening to this podcast beyond October 11th, go on to the podcast a Sandler website, go on to mine and find that and you can watch the recordings of that summit. [11:55]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Well, I signed up for it. I’m going to be there. And you know, you kind of beat me to it. I also sat through that webinar with chat GPT. How is that? How does that play into sales? Your point of view.
Brian Jackson: Oh God, well, you know, so much of selling is, or at least so much of communication nowadays is over email. And, you know, as a sales coach, I’m constantly having to pull my clients to say, hey, stop trying to sell over email. You got to get ear to ear, you got to get face to face, but we can’t avoid it. You’re going to have to use email a lot. And so, what ChatGPT can help with, and this is kind of coming full circle. Nancy, but it can help you adapt your emails to different DISC styles. You can take an email and say, hey, help me write this email to somebody who has a high D DISC personality. That’s what AI can do for us. And it’s not just ChatGPT. There are other platforms out there. I believe one is Humantic, I think that the name Crystal Nose is another one. Others can help you with steering your messaging to specific personality styles or just sharpening your messaging altogether. I mean, that’s what ChatGPT can help you with. [13:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I’ve used Crystal Nose and I think it’s Humantic. And it’s a really valuable add-on to LinkedIn. So, before I meet first-time appointments, I go to their LinkedIn profile and then I have a synopsis of who I’m communicating with. Are they a D? And you know, in many cases, Brian, many of the people that I speak with, they’re business owners. They are Ds or Cs, I find.
Brian Jackson: Yeah. And if you think about how hard it in your prospecting efforts is to get somebody on the phone or somebody face to face, boy, you better put some effort into preparing for that conversation because nowadays with all this technology that we have, that technology makes people accessible. It also makes it easier for people to hide. So, you know, take advantage of the technology that’s out there to prepare for your conversations. And you know, you only get so many chances to email people as well before they ghost you, block you, unsubscribe, or whatever. So, I mean, that’s why it’s critical to use these platforms. Make sure your messaging is sharp. [14:37]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Recently in our Sandler class, we were encouraged to reach out to people that we hadn’t spoken with in a couple of months. I have HubSpot. I think you guys promote HubSpot too, right? Yeah. So, I did a reconnect email, very simple. And I emailed it to, I don’t know, a thousand contacts that I hadn’t spoken with for 90 days. And within two days, I got responses, and I booked in my first week, 30 appointments, 30. I always felt like it was too much. When I look at my calendar now, my calendar is blowing up, but I was shocked at the number of responses I got, number one, and a couple of them are leading to second and third appointments. Other ones are, you know: “Hi, how are you?”. But the value to that is, you know, you’re top of mind again. And I’ve been getting some referrals from these people. So, I encourage anybody out there to do something like that. It works. [15:59]
Brian Jackson: Well, send me a template, send me that template you used. I want to see what the template bullet looks like.
Nancy Calabrese: I will do that, I promise. What’s a fun fact about you?
Brian Jackson: Oh gosh. Well, a fun fact. Well, I see I have four kids, you know, 16, 14, 11, and five little five-year-old girls and three boys. So, I don’t know if that’s a fun fact, but that seems to be kind of the center of my life. My life is centered around my kids. That’s my passion. [16:32]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, well, I would say your life isn’t boring, that’s for sure.
Brian Jackson: No, it’s not. It’s not at all. They keep me very busy, yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Hahaha. Yeah, so tell me something true in sales that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Brian Jackson: That’s such a wow, God. Something true in sales that almost nobody agrees with me on. You know, one of the things that I get a lot of pushbacks from for people that are brand new to Sandler is the component of the upfront contract where I coach people that upfront, one of the fastest ways to gain trust and instant credibility is to tell someone something that’s not in your own best interest. Before we start this conversation, let’s just take a very, very generic example going to give them sticker shock that it is a high price every single time people say wow well tell them upfront before we get into this I just want you to know people often have sticker shock when they find out how much this is here’s a range of how much it is and I still this from john ross so one of our most uh… sort of famous center coaches but he would say, should we stop the conversation now? And I love that. I love that we and Sandler do all that upfront. Get it all out front, the agenda, the expectations, what the outcomes are going to be, what we call our fears. So, should we stop the conversation? And you know what? Most of the time they’re going to say, no, why? Because they’re curious. Why would anybody want that, right? And we know that ultimately people are there to do that because they want information they’re going to stay in the conversation until they get that information which means that we keep that leverage that information take to our chest until they’re properly qualified and then by the time we get to the budget we tell us because hey there’s not that sticker shock anymore because we told them up front it takes courage to do that though and a lot of salespeople question Does it work because they’re afraid of losing the business and that’s where we have to teach them, hey, you got nothing to lose. You can’t lose something you don’t have. Do it. And so that’s the thing that I think a lot of people, they don’t believe it first, but then once they do it, they say, wow, that does work a lot better. [19:18]
Nancy Calabrese: I agree. Yep, I am totally in agreement with you. And I can’t believe we’re out of time. What is the one takeaway you’d like to leave the audience with?
Brian Jackson: You know, one takeaway is that you know, as a sale, if you’re a salesperson, you do not need to feel so much pressure to be the one to magically convince, persuade, manipulate others. The Sandler way teaches you to let go and just simply sort through prospects as to whether they have the problems you solve and whether they’re committed to fixing them. It takes the pressure off you; it takes the pressure off of them. So, if you want to be more successful in a career of selling, come and check out Sandler and see what we do. It’ll take your career to another level. [20:05]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Love it. How can my audience reach you?
Brian Jackson: Let’s see, LinkedIn is probably the best. That’s Brian Jackson. I’m located in San Diego. You can also go to, my Sandler URL is salesrevenue.sandler.com, I believe.
Nancy Calabrese: Awesome. Everyone, if you haven’t taken advantage of what Sandler has to offer you, get in touch with Brian. It’s a life changer. I personally can’t get enough of it. And it’s impacted me both professionally and personally. And Brian, a huge thank you for being on the show, and maybe you’ll come back sometime.
Brian Jackson: I’ve enjoyed getting to know you today, Nancy, and anytime.
Nancy Calabrese: Love it. Make it a sales day that you’ll never forget everyone. Have a great one. [21:04]
by Nancy Calabrese | Oct 10, 2023 | Podcast
About Jessie van Breugel: Jessie is the Founder of Realigned Coaching creator of Brand Yourself as A Creator: The Ultimate Guide and The Branded Creators Community. Co-founder of Build Your House Club, a vibrant community of creators to clarify your message, produce consistent value, & grow your audience. He views himself as a visual copywriter, using words and design to share his message. His vision is to bring wisdom to everyday life and inspire others to live on their terms—currently, 3x Top Writer on Medium in Inspiration, Social Media, and Entrepreneurship. A former employee of one of Europe’s hottest tech unicorns turned digital creator. He is building his business at the crossroads of writing, visual design, product management, and digital marketing. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jessie.
In this episode, Nancy and Jessie discuss the following:
- How to make the most out of LinkedIn.
- Master the art of selling on LinkedIn without sounding too pushy.
- Understand how building connections on LinkedIn can lead to successful sales.
- Explore why the term ‘sales’ often has a negative perception.
- Determine the ideal posting frequency on LinkedIn for optimal results.
- Gain insights into the algorithms that LinkedIn uses to block certain accounts.
- Avoid common mistakes when creating content on LinkedIn to enhance engagement.
Key Takeaways:
- You never know who’s watching on LinkedIn because people are scrolling the feed and waiting for that message or content to help them act.
- Sales has a negative connotation because people often think about the door-to-door salesman or woman, car sales dealers, etc.
- To sell your stuff to your audience, people need to see it. That’s why reactions are essential.
- A lesson that I learned over time is that you want to let a post-run for a few days because if a post does well, even a week later, it could still reach new people.
- I am like, “Hey, educational content is great, but move towards more authority-building content, and then we can transform it into lead-generating content.”
“I would say the traditional thinking of LinkedIn is that it’s still a place where people share updates about new jobs or certain company updates. I had that too out of sight till about three years back, but I also figured out that LinkedIn is still the number one business platform in the world. And as we see with all the content platforms, like the social media platforms, there is a big drive towards content creation. I started writing online, and at a certain point, I wondered why not go to LinkedIn. Because as I just said, there are so many decision-makers, potential people watching there waiting for that, waiting for the call to action also say.” – JESSIE
“One of the frameworks that I heavily use for myself and my clients is the acronym FODOFs. It stands for fear, objections, desire, obstacles, and frustrations. Of course, we don’t want to always use them all in one piece of content, but by strategically using each for a specific type of content, we can show our audience or our prospect that we understand them.” – JESSIE.
“I hear that perspective, and I would say earlier on in my career, I also had this notion that selling is bad or self-promoting is bad. So, I had to debunk that for myself. And now I believe that if you genuinely know that you, your service, or your product is helping your audience or your clients, it’s almost a disservice not to tell them about it because I know I solve a very hot topic, like lead generation on LinkedIn. And I know that I help a lot of people with that. Like if I look at my clients’ results, I’m helping them get more business. I’m helping them make more money. So sure, like I’m selling to my audience, but I also know that the right people were like: “Hey, this really helps me!”. And I think that’s for all of us. Like if we know that because that’s what entrepreneurship at its core is, right? It’s like, someone has a problem, someone else has a solution, and it’s either a service or a product that helps them get from A to B.” – JESSIE.
Connect with Jessie van Breugel:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi everyone, it’s Nancy Calabrese and it’s time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Jessie Van Breugel, a LinkedIn expert and founder of Realign Coaching and the Creator Academy. He is also a Co-founder of Build Your House Club, a vibrant community of creators to clarify your message, produce consistent value, and grow your audience. Jesse identifies himself as a digital creator who’s building cool stuff and helping as many like-minded experts generate high-quality leads for their service business through LinkedIn and email. Jesse was named as a top-50 LinkedIn creator worldwide. Congratulations on that, Jesse, and welcome to the show.
Jessie van Breugel: Well, that’s an interesting introduction, but thanks for having me, Nancy. I’m excited to chat with you and the audience today. [1:18]
Nancy Calabrese: The one thing that jumps out and you have posted on your website, LinkedIn has over 63 million decision-makers. That’s amazing.
Jessie van Breugel: Exactly. And that brings me to, I’ll say, one of my favorite sayings that I keep repeating to my clients. You never know who’s watching on LinkedIn, because there are always people scrolling the feed and waiting for that message or that piece of content to help them act.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. So how, you know, as a novice, right, you’re the expert, how do you leverage the potential on LinkedIn?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, that’s a great question because most, I would say, the traditional thinking of LinkedIn, okay, it’s still a place where people share updates about new jobs or certain company updates. I had that too out of sight till like three years back, but I also figured out that LinkedIn is the, like, it’s still the number one business platform in the world. And as we see with, like, all the content platforms, like the social media platforms, there is such a big drive towards content creation. I got started on writing online and at a certain point I was like, why not go to LinkedIn? Because as I just said, there are so many decision-makers, potential people watching there waiting for that, waiting for the call to action also say. [2:51]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Sure. How do you know what to write to really get the attention of the audience?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, I think that’s like trial and error. It comes in the beginning from like speaking to as many people as possible from your target audience, like from peers, and competitors, but also from your prospects and to really infuse those emotional angles in your content. So, one of the frameworks that I heavily use for myself, and for my clients, it’s the acronym called FODOFS. It stands for fear, objections, desire, obstacles, and frustrations. Of course, we don’t want to always use them all in one piece of content, but by strategically using each one of them for a specific type of content, we can show our audience or our prospect that we really understand them. [3:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh, okay. Can you repeat that acronym?
Jessie van Breugel: for sure. So, it’s FODOF, which stands for fear, objection, desire, obstacle, and frustration. So those are the main five buckets.
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, okay. So how do you sell on LinkedIn without being salesy?
Jessie van Breugel: That’s a good question because I think that’s one of the bad raps selling on LinkedIn has because people feel, okay, it’s too much promoting and like in your face. And I think that’s where like implementing the photos has been a big game changer for me, but also really applying like storytelling principles. Because in the end, we learn as humans through stories. And especially as we’re all working with our clients, mostly on a one-on-one or a group setting of service providers, we have tangible results of before and after with our clients. So that’s of course where a case study framework always comes into play because we can write a story about how their life was before working with us and that’s often painful or frustrating. [5:01] We did work together.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Right.
Jessie van Breugel: And at the end, it’s rainbows and sunshine. It’s like the desired state, and it comes with a lot of peace of mind and relief. So that’s, I think, a simple example of how we can infuse selling into storytelling. Because people on LinkedIn, they see the post, they see the first two, or three lines, and they want to click see more. And only at the end, if the story’s, of course, captivating enough, they will see, oh, I’m being sold to, in a bit of a quote, instead of straight out of the gate, like asking people for their contact details or whatever. I don’t think that’s the right way of doing it. [5:37]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, I have a colleague, and we didn’t agree on this, but she also works in the LinkedIn space, and she doesn’t believe that connecting in LinkedIn should be used to sell. And I disagree. You know, I mean, it’s very nice to have a conversation, but…You know, the goal is to connect with like-minded people in the hopes that it might convert to business. What do you have to say about that?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, I hear that perspective and I would say earlier on in my career, I also had this notion of like, like selling is a bad thing or like self-promoting is a bad thing. So, I had to like, like debunk that for myself. And now I really believe that if you genuinely know that you, your, service, or your product is helping you, your audience, or your clients, it’s almost a disservice to not tell them about it because I know I solve a very hot topic, like lead generation on LinkedIn. And I know that I help a lot of people with that. Like if I look at the results of my clients, I’m helping them get more business. I’m helping them make more money. So sure, like I’m selling to my audience, but I also know that the right people, they were like, hey, this really helps me. And I think that’s for all of us. Like if we know that because that’s what entrepreneurship at its core is, right? It’s like, someone has a problem, someone else has a solution to it, and it’s either a service or a product that helps them get from A to B. [7:13]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. I mean, why is sales such a bad word? I don’t get it. It’s just, you know, an opportunity to communicate with someone else. And if it’s a match, that’s like you just said, I think it would be a disservice not to want to go to convert to, you know, a client.
Jessie van Breugel: Exactly. Yeah. And I think sales have a negative connotation because people often think about the door-to-door salesman or woman the sleazy cars, car sales dealers. Back when I was in high school. I liked for one year I did like the door-to-door sales, but of course, like it’s Super cold because I was just walking like a small village in Holland where I’m from and that’s of course like that what gives selling a bad thing because people are just enjoying their dinner because we always went to like dinner time or like the end of the afternoon. And people were not waiting for us. So, they opened the door and there I was like pitching them straight out of nothing. So of course, that’s like the old way of like doing sales. I think has given a bad rep. But as your show is, of course, also like brilliantly named, it’s like Conversational Selling is a different aspect of that because you’re selling something based on like the conversation and like a mutual connection, understanding that you can help this person, or this group of people get closer to where they want to go. [8:37]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, you know, you just triggered a memory when I was in, I don’t know, even think I was in high school, maybe junior high, I went door to door selling cards, and I hated it. I hated it. You know?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, exactly. It was not my favorite job either, but it taught me a lot about rejection and just putting in the reps and all those things. [9:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Right. You know, it’s funny. I want to talk to you about impressions. And maybe you can tell the audience what an impression is and how to convert them to conversations.
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, so in a nutshell, impressions on any platform, but let’s take LinkedIn for the example, of course, is someone that sees your content. So that’s the pair of eyeballs that sees your content. And it’s often said that impressions are like a vanity metric. You don’t want to care too much about it. But still, to sell your stuff to your audience, to put it plainly, people need to see it. So, it’s like a fine line between, okay, I need to have people see my things, but I also don’t need to care about too much. And I think the interesting part is where, there is a difference between like, let’s say transactional things, like let’s say consumer goods or like high ticket services as we’re here doing here, because people that see my content for the first time the chances are extremely low that they will buy instantly, because especially with high ticket service, it also needs to be a lot of trust and credibility built. And by just having a consistent output of content, each piece of content will of course move the prospect closer to reaching out to you signing up for your program, or booking a call. And I think that’s why content is such a highly leveraged asset you can build. That’s how I see it because I push out content every day knowing that I see it as like an army of digital warriors. So, they all go out and they travel the world as to say, getting impressions, getting people to see my name, to see perhaps my profile, to get them closer to working with me. So, I think that’s like the short answer to the impressions and how they, I would say tie into getting people to buy your things or to do business with you. [11:15]
Nancy Calabrese: So how do you find the impressions of people who looked at it?
Jessie van Breugel: Do you mean where you can see them?
Nancy Calabrese: Like for instance, if you had 300 plus impressions, how are you going to find those people?
Jessie van Breugel: That’s an interesting question because I currently don’t use any external analytics for LinkedIn because I had my account flagged a few times, so I don’t want to risk it to add additional tools to LinkedIn. So, I’m currently just staring at the native analytics from LinkedIn. Basically, what it shows me is the people who are engaging or who are seeing my post. [12:00]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah.
Jessie van Breugel: But I don’t use it as a steering metric in my business. As I said earlier, sure, it’s nice to see for me that my impressions go up week after week. But I rate the success of my content more by the conversations it starts or the inbound leads it gets me.
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. So, you mentioned that you post every day on LinkedIn. Is there, you know, could people be posting too much content? What are your thoughts on that?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Before I got to LinkedIn, I was active on Twitter. And on Twitter, there was much more frequency. So, tweeting a few times a day is there the norm. When I got to LinkedIn, I kind of adopted that mindset. Understanding it wouldn’t be the most strategic decision because the LinkedIn algorithm works in such a way that the posts have more of like a long tail. But in the beginning, I really understood like, okay, for me to get more data on what works and what doesn’t work, I just need to put in the reps and to see what resonates with my audience. Ideally, it’s like one post a day, which for me works the best, but a lesson that I learned over time and that ties into having LinkedIn or LinkedIn having the long-term effect of a post is that if a post of you does really well, so let’s say it’s like sometimes it’s like it does like three to four times better than other posts, you just want to let it run for a few days because if a post does well, like a week later, it could still reach new people. So, I think that’s where the difference comes into play. And that ties in with what I said earlier, like the good piece of content, I see that as like an army of digital warriors for me just conquering new ground. [14:05]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah.
Jessie van Breugel: Tapping into new audiences and looking for new people.
Nancy Calabrese: Huh. You mentioned that you’ve been flagged. Why does LinkedIn flag accounts?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t have a finite answer to that. I know they are wary of third-party tools. So, I know certain accounts just have issues with it. I’m not saying that’s the case for everyone, because I know a lot of my connections, they thrive with those tools. I think my account just got, I don’t know, marked somewhere in the system. So I’m really hesitant about that. So yeah, I don’t have a finite answer to that. It’s hard to get. clear on the algorithm and the restrictions there. [14:51]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, huh. So, what are some of the common mistakes providers make when creating content on LinkedIn?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, so the first one would be right out of the gate, like promotional posts, which ties into the quad, one of the questions you asked me earlier, because especially as a service provider, no one buys from the get-go, right? There needs to be some trust and some credibility built, which is often done to like case studies and testimonials and seeing like, okay, this works. So, I think that’s one of the big mistakes that I see happening. And then on the other side of the spectrum is that when service providers, post consistent content, they stay too much on the educational side of things. So, all they do every time that they post, they educate their audience on, let’s say the benefits of their solution or certain elements or insights from their industry, which is great to a certain degree, because I know that my clients, for example, they’re not looking for more information. Like the internet is full of information. [15:57]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Jessie van Breugel: they’re looking for implementation, guidance, support, accountability, like all these things that are currently missing, because if the information would be the answer to their problem, they would probably already have fixed it. So, I think that is like a big… It’s a minor tweak, but it has a massive impact. So, people that I work with, I’m like, hey, educational content is great, but move towards more authority-building content, and then we can transform it into lead-generating content, because…We’re all experts at what we do. So, I think, as I said earlier, our audience deserves to know it. But we don’t want to educate them only.
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. And that brings me to something that I get a lot of. I get invited to attend events. How do you feel about that?
Jessie van Breugel: To LinkedIn events? Yeah, they’re an interesting thing because even like the, like, let’s say you’re in a LinkedIn event, the comments on the event itself count as comments to the actual posts. So, there’s like an interesting dynamic going on there, but I never really used them that much in terms of my growth. Like I prefer to do like a webinar perhaps on Zoom. [17:14]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah.
Jessie van Breugel: Just use LinkedIn for the promotion and have people then sign up to the link. So that’s been my way of doing that. Plus, the fact that I don’t see that many events on my timeline and within LinkedIn’s inner circles that I’m part of, it’s just like, it’s not really talked about that way. So, for me, that’s a little bit more validation that what I’m doing and what I do to my clients, it’s not the best way of moving forward.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Wow. And you know, and we’re almost up in time, but tell me something that’s true, that almost nobody agrees with you on.
Jessie van Breugel: Hmm, within which context Nancy?
Nancy Calabrese: Maybe with LinkedIn, your area of expertise.
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, I would say within my spheres, I think more people agree with me on that, but it ties into what I said earlier, is like selling on LinkedIn is not a bad thing. Like I’m pretty like hard on that stance because sure you don’t want to like to be this annoying salesman every day all day. But again, like if you do a great job at speaking into the emotional angles of your target audience, if you hint at a better solution, if you tell them…what better future is possible? And you showed that other people got results through that as well. I do think there is, I do know that there is a lot of potential on LinkedIn because so many people are watching there at this stage. I think we have over 900 million people on LinkedIn and less than 1% of people actively like post content. So, people are scrolling, they’re scrolling and lurking on LinkedIn. So yeah, I would say. If you know, okay, I’m genuinely solving this problem for the right people, that you’re doing a service to those people. And not everyone is part of your audience. So certain people will be tuned out by you taking a more promotional angle. But I think that’s fine. [19:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. Wow. So less than 1% post?
Jessie van Breugel: Consistently, yeah. So, the stats on that differ a little bit, but less than 1% like post weekly. So, you can assume that even less than that post daily, like I currently do.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Wow, interesting. How can my audience find you?
Jessie van Breugel: Yeah, so the best way of course is LinkedIn. My full name is Jesse van Breugel, pretty Dutch. So that’s why I think a year and a half back I added a purple dot to my name. So, if people just type in my LinkedIn, my first name, Jesse, and then furlough the purple dot, they can connect with me. Or if they’re interested in one of the courses that I’m building, they can go to premiumleadsystem.com. And it has all the content and modules and all the strategies that I discussed today in different forms. [20:12]
Nancy Calabrese: Cool, how do you spell your last name?
Jessie van Breugel: It’s V-E-N-B-R-E-U-G-L.
Nancy Calabrese: You got it. Everyone, take advantage of what Jesse has to offer and make it a great sales day. Jesse, I hope you come back sometime.
Jessie van Breugel: Well, thanks again for having me, Nancy, and I will take you on that.
Nancy Calabrese: All right. Have a good one, everyone. [20:40]
by Nancy Calabrese | Jun 6, 2023 | Podcast
About Lynn Whitbeck: Lynn Whitbeck, the Founder/CEO of Petite2Queen and Future Forward Sales, uses her expertise to guide entrepreneurs and business leaders to successful sales growth. Building on her 30 years of success and experiences as Vice President of Business Development and COO of direct consumer technology start-ups, Lynn is focused on catapulting sales teams and educating individuals daily to superior performance and success. Lynn is committed to lifting business leaders with the ingredients for growth and a profitable sales recipe. She helps transform thinking to the client’s perspective and end sales chaos with a robust strategic plan to harvest the hidden profits. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Lynn.
In this episode, Nancy and Lynn discuss the following:
- Secret ingredients of a profitable sales recipe.
- Building Successful Sales Strategies on Referrals Basis.
- The difference between ghosting and a no-show.
- 7 reasons why salespeople get ghosted.
- How do we bust the ghost?
- Lynn’s story about a huge multimillion-dollar account.
Key Takeaways:
- The primary reason that you get ghosted is that people are busy.
- It’s all about the right message, the right audience, and the right time.
- People are ready to buy at different stages.
- You demonstrate worthy intent by asking the right questions and listening more than you talk.
- They will respond if you demonstrate value and worthy intent without hounding them.
- Getting a handwritten card or package that ties to your product or service will move the conversation forward and build reciprocity.
“A profitable sales recipe has to include the core foundation of sales strategy, which is thinking like your client, truly understanding your ideal client avatar, the client journey, and then the human-to-human relationships and building those relationships with worthy intent. So, when you have that recipe, then you can execute on that and then (part of like the client journey) to build that profit in is, of course, you seed the referral process from the very first conversation and then all the way through your client journey so that when you’ve earned the right you ask for the referral. That shortens your sales cycle, brings you a more profitable business, you create introductions, and you feed your business. And in addition, of course, then you also can sell more to your existing clients.” – LYNN
“It’s really asking for an introduction, not a referral. So, to me, a referral is longer. I would ask for an introduction because that’s not as threatening, and that’s not. That differs from a referral trust you and is passing on this trusted relationship. So that would be a formula that I would apply to.” – LYNN
“There’s a difference between ghosting and a no-show. With a no-show, they don’t come up or show up for the meeting. There are all kinds of extenuating circumstances and reasons around that, but I’m going to focus more on ghosting because it will cover some of that for the no-shows. But the first thing about ghosting is my question, which is rhetorical, but it’s who’s ghosting Because I want to be honest with sales, we sometimes ghost our prospects because we’re not following up. Okay, so that is absolutely critical. So, let’s talk about the reasons that people get ghosted because it is a morale killer for salespeople. And it’s one of the top three things that salespeople list as one of the things that really hurt them in their business.” – LYNN
Connect with Lynn Whitbeck:
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi everyone, it’s Nancy Calabrese and it’s time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today and it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Lynn Whitbeck, founder, and CEO of Petite2Queen and Future Forward Sales, where she uses her expertise to guide entrepreneurs and business leaders to successful sales growth. Building on her 30 years of success and experiences as a Vice President of business development and COO of direct consumer technology startups, Lynn is focused on catapulting sales teams and educating individuals daily to superior performance and success. Lynn is committed to lifting business leaders with the ingredients for growth and a profitable sales recipe. Welcome to the show, Lynn. This is gonna be a fun discussion. [1:15]
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, Nancy, thank you so much for having me. And I am really excited to be here with you. And I can’t wait to shed some light on the topic.
Nancy Calabrese: You know what, I’m looking at the word that I just read catapulting. I don’t hear that word that often anymore, do you?
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, I mean, you know, there’s so many different…the English language is so rich, there’s a lot of different words, and sometimes something just sort of comes to you and it’s that taking that leap, but it’s a really boosted leap, right?
Nancy Calabrese: Well, I like that word. I think I’m going to put it in my vocabulary moving forward. So, I guess I’m most intrigued by the statement that you help business leaders with the ingredients for growth and a profitable sales recipe. What is a profitable sales recipe? [2:11]
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, a profitable sales recipe has to include the core foundation of sales strategy, which is thinking like your client, truly understanding your ideal client avatar, the client journey, and then the human-to-human relationships, and building those relationships with worthy intent. So, when you have that recipe, then you can execute on that and then part of like the client journey to build that profit in is of course you seed the referral process from the very first conversation and then all the way through your client journey so that when you’ve earned the right you ask for the referral. That shortens your sales cycle, brings you a more profitable business, creates introductions and raving fans, and feeds your business. And in addition, of course, you can also sell more to your existing clients. [3:10]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: And because once again, that is the easiest sale that you’ll ever have to make. The second is a referral sale. So those are ways, but you must have that foundation in place to really execute that flawlessly.
Nancy Calabrese: You know, you picked up on something, and I’ve debated this with some people, asking for referrals. We here at One of a Kind Sales, my team is cold calling, and they’re not interested, for instance. We always ask for a referral. What are your thoughts on that, and is there a certain strategy around that?
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, of course, there’s a little bit of difference when you’re doing the cold calling because when I look at referrals, I really look at that ear. So, you’ve earned the right, right? And that it’s all about really asking them and then getting the referrals. So, in a cold call situation, you haven’t necessarily earned the right, at least from my perspective. Now it’s a little bit different, do you know of anyone else that we could have an impact on? [4:21]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: So, there are different ways that you could phrase it. That would be how I would approach it because then it’s really asking for an introduction, not a referral. So, to me, a referral is longer. I would ask for an introduction because that’s not as threatening and that’s not, that is different than a referral. trust you and is really passing on this trusted relationship. Whereas an introduction, you know, I mean, hey, Nancy, do you have an introduction that who would you like to be introduced to? How can I help serve you? So that’s different. And then making it a give, who can I introduce you to that would help you? And then the get an introduction for myself. So that would be a formula that I would apply to get the get and I would get an introduction. [5:17]
Nancy Calabrese: I like that. I like that a lot. We’re going to start using that as well. So, before we jumped on together, I know that we had gone back and forth about some topics that would be of interest. And your observation, rightfully so, is very few people on my podcast have ever really spoken about what we hate in sales, ghosting, no shows. And I know that’s something that you want to speak more about. So why does it happen? Why do people just say they’re going to do something and then don’t do it and don’t get back to you?
Lynn Whitbeck: Wow. Well, okay. So first, there’s a difference between ghosting and a no-show. With a no-show, you know, they don’t come up, they don’t show up for the meeting. There are all kinds of extenuating circumstances and reasons around that, but I’m going to focus more on ghosting because it will cover some of that for the no-shows. But the first thing about ghosting is my question, which is rhetorical, but it’s who’s ghosting Because I want to be honest with sales, we sometimes ghost our prospects because we’re not following up. Okay, so that is absolutely critical. So, let’s talk about the reasons that people get ghosted because it is a morale killer for salespeople. And it’s one of the top three things that salespeople list as one of the things that really hurt them in their business. [6:55] So,
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: Number one is that people are busy. They are busy, busy, busy. And it is the primary reason that you get ghosted. And I’m just gonna go quickly through this. Number two, as you just haven’t nailed the pain point or the urgency, there hasn’t formed that spark about why they need to make a follow-up or they need to show up, right?
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: Number three is to solve it. Really, you haven’t answered. why it matters to them. And you haven’t solved, given them that vision of the so they can, what’s the goal, the dream that they’re trying to achieve. [7:38]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: So, when you haven’t answered that, then it’s easier to brush something off or ignore it, right? Okay, next, maybe you are pushing too hard and you haven’t failed to honor the exploration phase. So, depending on the type of follow-up, the type of ghosting that’s occurred, that could be one of the things that’s happening. All right, there’s number five. I’ve got seven of these, magic seven. So, number five is they don’t know how to say no. Now some people will simply, you know, that fight, flight, you know, freeze, and I call it finesse is number four. Some people just simply don’t wanna deal with it, right?
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: So, you need to create a safety net so you can get to the yes or the no because at the end of the day, we want people to be upfront and honest so that we can spend our time more effectively. Number six. So, this is my, you haven’t earned the right. So now here’s the thing. What if this prospect has had a really bad experience, maybe even with your own organization before, you have to respect that recovery time if they’ve had a negative experience. And that it all goes into it. [8:55] So thinking about that is important. And number seven, what did you do?
Nancy Calabrese: All right.
Lynn Whitbeck: You know, come on, you could have unknowingly turned someone off. And so those are my seven reasons, but I’m absolutely the number one is that they’re busy. It’s just they’re busy.
Nancy Calabrese: Yep, yep. And I guess, you know when that does happen to me, I will email them, I’ll call them, and then I’ll email them. And my goal is always just to get at the truth. You know, if this is really not something that you anticipate doing in the near future, it’s okay by giving them permission to say, no, it’s not the right time. And then you just, you still salvage the relationship, right, in the conversation and you follow up with them in the future. [9:45]
Lynn Whitbeck: Yeah, no, absolutely, because it is. It’s all about the right message, the right audience, and the right time. People are ready to buy at different stages, and you have to have that into your strategy so that you can plan for next week, next month, next quarter, and next year.
Nancy Calabrese: Right. And I’m a big believer in getting to the no as soon as possible. So, you can free up and do work and find those yeses that will drive business to your company. So, you talked about the common reasons for ghosting. But how do we bust the ghost? How can we move that sale forward? [10:25]
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, there’re a lot of things that you can do to avoid ghosting. So, the first step is really to know your client: Why? Why does your client want to buy? I mean, what’s in it for them? You know, why does it matter to them? So, they can: what? This is that whole client-thinking exercise. What do they want, need or lack? Why does it matter to them so they can’t now, if you don’t have an understanding the desired destination you’re basically selling them what you have, not what they want, need, or lack. So, that’s the first thing is you really got to go through that client thinking and then reverse engineer their way into your strategy, into your messaging, into how you’re communicating. Okay, so one of the things that you can do when you have that is that then now you can create or leverage absolutely existing content that you can have to help answer that client why to make those reminders, especially if it’s like a no-show, like how do you create the reminders so that it’s like: “Yeah, I gotta show up”. This is important, I need to be there. You throw in a video; you do some other things that remind them about the value of coming maybe to that very first strategy session. [11:41]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: And then you use that so that you can put that into your communication strategy. And so, an easy place… to understand your clients’ thinking. If anyone’s wondering, like, I’m not sure how to this is, so, of course, you can do like a Google search, but one of the things you can do is you can use the platforms also asked or answer the public. And essentially on those tools, you can type in a phrase, maybe whatever you do, maybe, you know, for me, I might type in sales strategy. And then it’s gonna give you the long tail searches that people are actually typing into Google. And now there are going to be some things that don’t even they don’t match. They don’t make sense to you, but you’re going to get some insight into what people are thinking who are searching for what you do. Right. And so it’s a great starting point. And it also helps you to think about, okay, well, what kind of content do I want to create? Do I want to, that’s going to make sense so that I can create that spark and attraction to bring people to me. [12:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: And so, um, that’s one of the things that you can do. But another point that I want to make is that to bust the ghost is another thing that you need to do is you need to demonstrate that you have worthy intent. And what I mean by that is that you generally desire to help and serve them.
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: And so, when you do that, you demonstrate that by asking the right questions, by listening more than you talk. benefits, that big dream, that goal, what they want. And then, while doing that, that really helps you make that connection when you do have the conversations. And when someone goes to you, you’re gonna go through a process of follow-ups, a follow-up cadence, and that’s one of the things that you use. So, what are their top questions? What are their top 10 pain points? What are their top 10 objections? Those are also another great place to start with creating content that will drive engagement and then mix up the types of methods. Now remember, people are busy, busy, busy. [13:59]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: So, here’s a story. I don’t wanna go over, but back in my corporate days, with a huge multimillion-dollar account, I’d had this great initial meeting, another conversation, and they went, they ghosted me. Then I heard another word, and I was going like, okay, they were really interested. This is a great fit. We can help them. And I stayed on it. I would do my Triumph and Triangle. I would leave a voicemail, really excited about something new, like a case study or something, a new upgrade to the system, whatever, because it was an enterprise sale. [14:31]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Lynn Whitbeck: And then, I would send the email with a link. And then three days later, so I did that one, two, and then three days later I would send a message. So like on LinkedIn, like a DM. So it’s wherever your audience hangs out. So, then sometimes I would send a package. Sometimes I would send just a note, you know, but I did this consistently. And, one of my Hail Mary passes is number 12 is I sent a lunch invitation and he accepted.
Nancy Calabrese: Oh!
Lynn Whitbeck: And so I flew in to have this lunch meeting, you know, and it ended up being a three-hour lunch and we moved the sales and he told me flat out. He said, every time you left me a message, every time you sent me an email, you delivered value. I’ve just been so busy dealing with so many things. But then I got the lunch invite and I went, I got to eat. [15:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Ha!
Lynn Whitbeck: And he said, so let’s get this, let’s get this to the next step. And that was what we did. And I did eventually, you know, corporate sales often take 18 months to three years. I did close that, that sale, but it’s that consistency. And my final, step 13 in my Hail Mary, true Hail Mary, is to send an email that, like, I’ve done you a disservice.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Lynn Whitbeck: And I can guarantee you people will respond. If you’ve been demonstrating value and worthy intent, and you haven’t been hounding them, you’ve respected the cadence, they will respond. And if nothing else, they’ll respond with, no, no, no, I’ve just been so busy, and… but you can at least get them to the next part of the conversation. Like, should I follow up in three months? Should I follow up in six months? [16:12]
Nancy Calabrese: Great.
Lynn Whitbeck: Would you like, is there another way that I can serve you? Would you like some introductions? Who do I know that could be of service to you?
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, and I guess what I’m taking away from what you’ve done, it’s all based on activity, right? To mix it up and to live where your people live and communicate through various channels. Is that the essence of it?
Lynn Whitbeck: Absolutely. And I want to, one final point is I want everyone to remember their friend, the post office person, or the, the Brown suited UPS driver because it’s so unusual these days to get an actual handwritten note or a package that’s hand addressed. Now, obviously, if you’re using UPS or some of the other things, but the thing is, is people are going to, it’s going to get to their desk and they’re going to open it if you’re dealing B2B. with a larger business, they probably still have a fax machine. That is also a very unique way to get something on their desk. And literally, they’re going to run through the building going, Oh my God, I got a fax today. [17:16]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow. Wow.
Lynn Whitbeck: But trust me, it’s going to get to their desk.
Nancy Calabrese: They pay attention, it’s different.
Lynn Whitbeck: And so it’s like, it gets their attention and everybody, you know, they, people love getting a card, a handwritten card or note or a package. Um, that makes sense. That ties to your product or service that will move the conversation forward and builds the reciprocity so they’re gonna respond.
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, you have some really amazing tips and tricks. And I can’t believe we’re almost up with time. So, we’ll have to do this again. But what is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with?
Lynn Whitbeck: If someone’s ghosting you, it’s probably because they’re busy. And that means that you need to do your job as a sales professional and start following up because that is where you close your sales. You build a relationship, you’re establishing what it’s gonna be like to work with you, that you’re gonna be there, that you’re gonna deliver value. And it’s gonna build that trust and the like known trust, and you will be able to move your relationship forward and eventually the sales floor. [18:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep, professional persistence, we say here.
Lynn Whitbeck: Yes.
Nancy Calabrese: The key is not to harass them, and the no is just a not now, and keep moving forward, right?
Lynn Whitbeck: Absolutely.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, Lynn, you were fabulous. And I want to thank you genuinely from One of a Kind Sales and everybody out there for sharing your expertise. How can my people find you?
Lynn Whitbeck: Well, you can find me at Petite2Queen. That’s the digit two, Petite2Queen. I’m also the only Lynn Whitbeck on LinkedIn. So, two super simple ways to find me. [19:09]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, and Whitbeck is spelled W-H-I-T-B-E-C-K, correct?
Lynn Whitbeck: That’s correct.
Nancy Calabrese: All right, well everyone, go out there, use some of Lynn’s pointers, get in touch with her, and make it a great sales day. [19:23]
by Marta Malyk | Nov 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
At One of a Kind Sales, we LOVE Cold Calling. And I am a huge fan of Cold Calling Scripts. Here are some tips on how to create an effective Cold Calling script for yourself.
First, any salesperson who says they don’t need a script should reconsider because I am confident that they are leaving money on the table. I stand by that 100%.
The truth is that many people who “wing it” on the phone, sound like they’re winging it. And they are less effective because they don’t have a structured process to follow.
An effective script grounds you, providing you with the words you need to work your way through a conversation and allows you to think ahead while speaking with the prospect.
Here’s an outline of an effective Cold Calling script:
- An Introduction:this should be unique and non-salesy.
- Ask Permission:ask them to give you 30 seconds to explain the purpose of the call.
- Introduce your Company:provide a brief description of what your company does. Focus on value you deliver. According to a study by HubSpot, 96% of buyers say a focus on the value your company can deliver, impacts their purchasing decision.
- Offer three examples of problems you solve:these ‘case studies’ allow people to relate and see how you can help them.
- Ask a Question:something like: “Is any of what I stated compelling and worth a conversation?”
Memorizing this will allow you sound more natural and less ‘salesy’. And it will free you up to address and overcome any objections.
The truth is that you really won’t know what the objections will be until you have this conversation, but you should prepare for those by having scripts for the ones you usually hear. (Check out this post for more on overcoming objections on Cold Calls)
Shut up and Listen!
An effective Cold Calling script will include questions which elicit important information. When they start talking about their pain points, your role is to listen, empathize and allow them to express their issues in detail.
The key is to actively listen and probe to keep them talking about their problems.
Set an Appointment or Move On?
The information you gather will help you determine whether or not you can fix their problem. If you can, great! Go ahead and set an appointment.
If not, no problem. Thank them for their time and ask them if they know of anyone else who might need your services. Ask them to keep you in mind if their situation changes or if they learn of anyone who might be a good fit.
Then pick up the phone and dial your next number!
Consistency Is Key
Developing scripts for everyone on the team ensures consistent messaging and branding.
The Conversational Selling Script™ , like the one outlined here, is for when you speak with a decision-maker. You will also need to develop voicemail scripts and email templates that match the voicemail scripts.
How to Create an Effective Cold Calling Script
Here is the process I recommend for developing scripts.
- Develop five case studies on past clients. Think about what their issue was– that’s the title of the case study. Talk about what their problem was, and how you helped them resolve it.
- Each case study should cover a different problem that your prospects may also have. Those case studies become the ‘meat’ of your script.
- Extract the “pain” from those case studies and put it into your script.
- Adapt the right case study to the prospect you are calling.
You don’t have to know everything about that client. You don’t have to be an expert. You’ve got your script. You’ve got your pain points. Go!
Remember
Don’t go into sell mode on a call when your goal is just to have a CONVERSATION and, if they are a good fit, to set an appointment.
That’s it, never sell. You are there to uncover information. And this information then becomes the ‘meat’ of your appointment conversation.
Rinse and Repeat
Once you have an effective Cold Calling script, it should be reviewed and updated periodically but it should serve you well for hundreds of calls.
And yes, there is an art to creating an effective Cold Calling script. It isn’t easy and can take years of practice. If you don’t want to wait years to reap the benefits of an effective Cold Calling script and need one NOW, call us – we can set you and your team up with the scripts YOU need to set appointments that close more deals. Call us today at 908-879-2911 to learn more and to get started setting more, and more qualified, appointments.
Note:
This is an excerpt from a chapter of my book, “The Inside Sales Solution“. Click here to buy a copy from Amazon or here to download a FREE digital copy.
