Everyone's in Sales, and Everyone can Get Better at Selling with Lex Friedman

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level. It's time to take your agency to the next level. Today we'll be breaking down how everyone's in sales and everyone can get better at selling. To draw these value bombs, I brought to Lex Friedman into EO Fire Studios. Lex spent 15 years on the business side of podcasting as a co-founder and chief revenue officer. He's been acquired five times and now runs a revenue growth consultancy. and we're going to talk about the secret to five acquisitions, how podcasting has become very commercialized, but you can still make money.

0:35John Lee Dumas:We're going to talk about sales, how to get better at that and consultants. We'll talk about the details when it comes to consultants and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Lex and our sponsors. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash onfire. Use code onfire for 20 % off. Your next chapter starts today. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place.

1:15John Lee Dumas:And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial, plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Lex, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation. I was thinking about this and to me, the crux is that luck and timing are as important as talent. Not more important than talent, not more important than skill, but that, you know, good luck and the fortunate benefit of being in the right place or the right industry or the right space at the right time are really important.

2:01And I think it's very easy to forget that when you've been successful, when you've had a couple, you know, successes under your belt, it's a very human thing to think, well, I'm great at everything, but you might be great at many things. You're definitely great at, you know, whatever it was that just had that big success or acquisition or whatever it was, but luck and timing absolutely always play a part.

2:19John Lee Dumas:I can tell you that that's definitely a story in my life. And we've known each other for a long time. I mean, you know, I go back 13 years with entrepreneurs on fire. And, you know, when you were working, you know, at the mid role at Stitcher, Art19, I mean, you know, we always kept in communications. We did a lot of deals together. We've had a lot of fun together. And what blows me away is that you've been acquired five times thus far, thus far, because I mean, there's many more to come, I'm sure. And you have the secrets to getting acquired because of these five acquisitions. So tell us more about that.

2:47The number one thing, which maybe sounds a little bit hokey, is you don't build things to get acquired. You build things to be great, right? So you build a company to be great, to solve a problem, to do something, especially ideally something you're passionate about. And that generates, in my experience, at least acquisition interest. If you're building to sell, I talk to people who are doing this. Like, I think I can build this thing today. It's if I build a thing that leverages AI, that'll be acquirable. Maybe, but build a thing that's great. And that makes it a lot more acquirable. And the other, I think, biggest tip I can offer is be great on the human side.

3:22When potential acquirers are meeting with you to learn about your company, to consider acquiring it, they're acquiring you just as much as they're acquiring your product or service. So the more likable and joyful to work with that you can be, the easier it is to be considered as an acquisition target.

3:41John Lee Dumas:So maybe not like in 2012, 2013, 14, because things were pretty early in podcasting back then. But I mean, you know, certainly once like 2016, 17, 18 came and beyond, I mean, podcasting just really picked up steam, became, you know, red hot. And, you know, frankly, we've been hearing it for years now. So I kind of shrug it off when I hear it. But the fact is, you know, everybody's going to podcast. I mean, it's become very commercialized and it's on every topic imaginable. With all that being said, is it still possible to make money in podcasting. Definitely. But it's not the same as it was 13, 14, 15 years ago.

4:15You have to, not every great podcast can make money on its own. Not every great podcast can find audience on its own. That's what's so hard. It's very similar to how blogs evolved 20, 25 years ago, where if your name was Ariana Huffington, you could always rise to the top, but not all the cream could rise to the top because some stuff just doesn't get discovered. So the way I think if podcasters make money today, if they are not the massive giant hit makers that sit at the top of the charts, is by thinking about ways to monetize that aren't just ads. So, you know, typically ad buyers want to reach the biggest number of people that they can at one time.

4:51But if you can have a content that's really niche, that hits an audience that is lucrative for what it is, then you don't have to worry about pricing with CPMs and everything else, right? You can, you can say this is a valuable audience and there are advertisers that specifically want to hit these people, so I'll cater to them. But you can also know if you have that kind of niche audience, you can build a really strong subscription product. You can expand on what it means to be a subscriber to your show, a paid subscriber to your show, because maybe it includes not just access to bonus content or ad-free episodes or whatever else, but maybe it also includes a Discord or a Slack or another place where the fellow listeners can form a community and even interact with you.

5:29Maybe it includes a newsletter. Maybe it includes monthly Zoom sessions, whatever it is, finding ways to build value that's not just based on audience size, but rather on audience affection for you and for what it is that you're talking about. That's the way that up and comers in podcasting, I think today can make money. That is not what they're immediately thinking. Everybody's kind of initially thinking, let me get huge so I can get, you know, all the, the mainstay podcast advertisers to buy ads on my show, but they have plenty of inventory they can run against already. So building something that can be more niche and targeting more niche advertisers, and then where you can really build a community that is eager to support you, I think that's the key.

6:05John Lee Dumas:And I can tell you for sure, Fire Nation, even some of those biggest shows that you see at the top of the charts that are getting decent amounts of sponsorship revenue, a lot of them are still not crushing it financially because those shows might've been super expensive to make. They have huge payrolls. They have this, they have that. There's a lot that goes into it. So I love what you were saying, Lex. And to me, it's so true. I mean, I started, you know, Entrepreneurs on Fire. At the time, it was kind of a niche because it was just interviewing entrepreneurs. And now it's kind of more of a broad topic.

6:33John Lee Dumas:But man, the niche topics that I see now are so powerful because of the things that you can do that you just kind of laid out there. And I don't even think you probably know this, Lex, but back in October, I launched a second daily show. I just became obsessed with this one company. It's called Strategy, MicroStrategy, the ticker symbol is MSTR. So I did a show called, and I'm still doing it, seven days a week, by the way, called MSTR today. And it's just the last 24 hours of what happened in this one company, because I love the founder. I love the company. I'm very passionate about the direction that are going in.

7:05John Lee Dumas:I just happen to love it. So I'm like, I'm just going to do something that I really enjoy around the show. And it's unbelievably micro niche. I mean, it's one company in the world and I'm just doing, you know, a 15 minutes last 24 hour update on it. But this show has found a very niche audience. You know, it gets seven, 10, 12 ,000 listens every single day. I mean, it's right there on YouTube because you can see the numbers right there. I mean, my show, the other day I interviewed somebody pretty cool. It got 31 ,000 views and these are like, you know, just on a niche topic. And this show is already turned into a five figure show because it's niche.

7:38John Lee Dumas:If it was broad, it wouldn't because that's not big enough for a broad show. But because it's micro niche, I've had sponsors that have come in that like, we just want your audience. You can do this. I have swag sales. I have a membership site. So I've been able to do those things that Lex was talking about because it's niche that I could not have done if it was broad. Now, Lex, there's one reality here. If there's one skill that will keep food on the table, it's sales. So how the heck do people get better at sales? This is really what I do these days is help people get better at sales. And the number one thing, the number one piece of advice I share is to be human.

8:15There's, there's a perception that some salespeople have, and that certainly people who are being sold to have of what sales is, what salespeople are, you know, they, they picture the kind of quintessential used car salesman with a blazer on and everything else. And that there's that, that sales is about tricking you or, or maximizing how much I can get from you and the gross side of things. It doesn't have to be that away. So I always encourage people to be human, to be really honest and transparent. Here's what I can offer you. Here's what it's worth. People get really hung up on the haggling side of things.

8:49What should I, you know, if I'm on the buy side, how should I haggle? If I'm on the sell side, I should start high so I can close lower. I don't like any of that stuff. I like to tell people, here's the price. Here's what you get for that price. I'm giving you the best price I can, because that's why my customers like me. That's how I get deals done. I'm telling you, this is what it costs and this is what you get. And if they come back and say, oh, I'd like to pay you less. Okay. What would you like me to not do? Right? I told you exactly what I can offer and exactly what that cost is. If you want to pay less, then I have to offer you less.

9:16So it's being really human and transparent and honest. Certainly there's some buyers who are always going to try to push to see if they can spend less. But that approach of saying, I am being incredibly transparent with you. I'm telling you exactly what I can do and how much it costs. It wins you a lot of friends because you're, you're striking them immediately as honest. When you say this thing costs$10 ,000 and they say, I'd like to pay$5 ,000. And you say, let's close to 7 ,500. They now know that you, you kind of lied to them about$2 ,500 Delta. You said it was 10 ,000. We were willing to sell for 7 ,500.

9:47If you can start and say it's$10 ,000, or if you can start and say it's$7 ,500. And that's the best price I can give. And it gives you these things. You are building such a foundation of trustworthiness that those people don't just become buyers. They come, they become renewal buyers who are my favorite kind of buyers.

10:00John Lee Dumas:Lex, that was so powerful. and something that I've definitely experienced throughout my lifetime as well. And I just love the message we're sharing here. And we have so much more to talk about Fire Nation around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Trying to get a traditional bank loan for your business, it's slow, it's complicated, and it rarely moves at the speed you need. With tighter lending standards and more hoops than ever, you're often left waiting when you need capital now. That's why I wanna tell you about Revenued. Revenued is built for small business owners who need fast, flexible access to working capital without relying on your personal credit score.

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11:07John Lee Dumas:That's revenued with a D dot com slash fire. Apply today and be ready for whatever comes next. Fire Nation, I know you've been sitting on an amazing idea. Well, it's time to move from one day I'll launch this project to taking action. Seriously, the barrier is way lower than you think. And that's where Hostinger comes in. Hostinger is your all-in-one home base to get online, domain, website, hosting, business email, even email marketing all in one place. No tech headaches, no juggling five different tools at the same time. So many people never pursue their dreams because it feels complicated or expensive.

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12:35John Lee Dumas:Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support, so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack, a 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something execution roadmap, and more. Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. All right, Lex, we're back. And listen, consultants, it's an interesting topic.

13:14John Lee Dumas:I mean, some people love them. Other people do not. And some people are just indifferent. So let's have a conversation about who should use consultants and specifically, how do we evaluate them? You know, obviously I'm biased because I now work full-time as a consultant. When people, the hard thing about being a consultant is that people don't know what that means. They don't know what it is that you do. And I mostly help people on the revenue side. How can they grow their sales team? How can they close more deals? Sometimes that feels more like executive coaching. Sometimes it's sales team coaching, but people, when they come to me and are, you know, considering using me, my question is always, what do you need help with?

13:51And if you don't know that answer, if you can't formulate that answer, then a consultant is not going to help, right? You have to figure out what actually, what your business needs, what you need, whether it's a single person business or a small, midsize, huge company, you have to know what it is that you need help with before a consultant makes sense. But there are consultants, obviously, that do everything. You can get a consultant to help you in any area of business or life, frankly. And the number one thing that I think you have to do to evaluate them is, I guess, a vibe check, right? It's knowing, do you like the way that person talks to you?

14:23Do you like the way that person communicates? Because obviously you're going to have your initial meeting to vet them and all those things. And you have to be able to trust your gut. By the way, this is the same advice I give people on hiring. If they have angst about potentially hiring somebody, or if it's an employer who's like, you know, I think I have to terminate this person. They definitely have to, as soon as they have the thought, it's basically over, right? Once you know, you got to do it, you got to do it. When you are vetting, when you're evaluating consultants and there's one that you feel like you have a connection with, that's the person, right?

14:52It's, it's worth doing. Now I've worked with a fitness trainer for the past, I guess, six months. I'm down 47 pounds, but who's counting? I am. And when I, when I evaluated him, you know, it was, did I, did I feel like I would be, he wanted to know, was I coachable? And I wanted to know, was I able to be coached by him? Was he the kind of person I could respond to? And for both of us, the answer was yes. The, the, the consultant is evaluating you just as much as you're evaluating them. So it's a lot of it is about like, do you feel like you could work well with them? Cause obviously, I mean, you're going to look at who else they've worked with, what their successes are, what their resume is, their history and why you should trust them.

15:31I always get a little bit shaky if it's a consultant who's never done the work, who's only ever done the consulting side. Like I prefer folks who've been in the trenches as well. But it's, I think it's really important to think about what, what do I need help with? What's the problem that I'm looking to solve? Then when you're evaluating whether a consultant makes sense, make sure that they, they can understand your problem, diagnose your challenges before they immediately want to start solving it.

15:55John Lee Dumas:Now, Lex, at the end of the day, most of us, not all of us, but most of us want to make more money. so let's talk about some of your best tips for growing revenue oh man i think i have a lot of them uh and obviously revenue is a big term and businesses make money in a whole lot of different ways uh a whole lot of individuals don't price things well they price things too low um when i'm giving advice to a lot of the clients i work with i ask them what the most is they think they can charge for a thing and then i typically tell them it should be even more than that So it's, you know, that's one big one, right?

16:29Actually charge what the thing is worth and it's probably worth more than you think. Two is hire help for the things you're not good at. We, none of us is gonna be good at everything. So if you're really good at sales, but you're not good at marketing, that's me, then you gotta hire the right people to help you with the marketing side of things. If you're really good at marketing and not sales, hire the best people to sell things. The other piece on growing revenue is to really think about the same thing I talked about on the sales side, right? it's it's honesty and transparency it's much easier to make money if you're proud of what you do if you're passionate about what you're doing if you believe in the thing that you're selling it's so much harder to make money if you feel like it's all uh snake oil um and by the way you you won't feel good about yourself either so building things and i i love to feel like i'm doing something to help the world be better i'm also uh you know living in a capitalist world and I want to make money.

17:24But if I can help other people make their companies better, which means they can in turn employ more people, they can live better lives for themselves and for their families, and they can offer products or services that help all their customers be better, that is making the world a better place. It doesn't mean that I have to, you know, work at a nonprofit and save the environment directly, which is, I think, a wonderful and noble cause. But finding stuff where you know that you can be benefiting, not just on the micro level, the company or companies that you're working with or the customers that you're catering to, but even broader, I think it just helps all of us have more motivation.

17:57And it's that motivation bleeds across, not just on your side, but to the buy side as well. Like if you're actually helping them, I think you're, it's so much easier to make money. The only other piece I would say on this is you, my, I said this earlier, I think too, my favorite customers are renewing customers. There are folks out there, there are businesses out there that make the attempt of saying, let's get this deal closed and then we'll move on to the next one. There's other folks who say, let's get the deal closed and then let's ensure it's successful. Let's check in with this customer or these many customers.

18:30And that gets hard. It gets harder and harder the more success you have to keep tabs on everybody to keep following up and to check in. But happy customers that really like what you do, renew. And those are the best customers of all. So those are some of my quick tips on revenue growth.

18:43John Lee Dumas:Value bombs have been dropped by Lex, left and right Fire Nation. So Lex, if you want to leave Fire Nation with one final value bomb, maybe the biggest takeaway that you would want them to have from this entire conversation, what would that value bomb be? It's so easy to forget the human side of business. People say it's not business, it's personal. Business is personal, especially when it's your business, right? If you're entrepreneurial and you're running your own business, everything that you do is your business and it's personal. Remembering the humanity on both your side and any customer side, any prospect side is the key.

19:14The more human we can be and not hide behind, well, this is a company, this is a corporation, this is a business. The more human you can be, which again is about honesty and openness and transparency and really just dealing directly with the challenges and the customers and the wins and the losses. That's what makes it a win, not just financially, economically, but also on the human satisfaction scale. So just remember the humanity of it all. And I think that's the key to success.

19:39John Lee Dumas:Remember the humanity of it all, Fire Nation. And Lex, if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more, what is your call to action for our listeners today? Lexfriedman.com slash consulting is the easiest way to find me. There's another person in podcasting with a name very similar to mine, just one letter off. So remember, mine is spelled like Friedman, because otherwise you'll reach the wrong person. But you can find me at Lexfriedman.com, and I'd be delighted to hear from anybody. Lexfriedman.com. And Lex, wow, great conversation. And Fire Nation loves it because they know they're the average of the five people they spend the most time with.

20:13John Lee Dumas:And Fire Nation, you've been hanging out with LF and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Lex, L-E-X in the search bar. And the show notes page will pop right up. And Lex, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Lex for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, what can 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment?

20:44John Lee Dumas:My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, is a 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle that you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, stop putting off launching your website or business. Hostinger makes it incredibly simple and affordable to get online with everything you need to succeed all in one place. Visit hostinger.com slash on fire. Use code on fire for 20 % off.

21:20John Lee Dumas:Your next chapter starts today. Stop duct taping your business together. High level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30 day free trial. Plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com.