How to Sell Anything: The Art of Timing, AI, and Authentic Sales with Ben Swart

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. The only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down how to sell anything, the art of timing, AI, and authentic sales. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Ben Swart into EO Fire Studios. Ben is a sales strategist, firefighter, and lead gen expert, helping businesses scale with targeted outreach, AI automation, and affiliate partnerships. He is specializing in sales engineering, affiliate marketing, and firefighting tech innovation. and today Fire Nation we'll talk about the 80-20 rule.

0:37We'll talk about sales engineer and what that means. Is AI replacing jobs and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ben and our sponsors. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Ben, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:19What's up, Fire Nation? Happy to be here. So one thing that I think most people might disagree with is you don't need to have the best idea. It's really about execution and action. A lot of people think you need to create something revolutionary, something new, something different. But I believe selling great products and services and talking to the right people consistently is the real shortcut to success. I love that because so many people never start because I don't have a great idea. I don't have that perfect idea. Well, you may never have a great idea or a perfect idea. And guess what? You don't need one to be a massive success.

1:56Was launching a daily podcast, interviewing entrepreneurs, Was that some novel, new, great idea? Well, not really. But guess what? I executed. Other people didn't. I had success. And you can too, Fire Nation, with what you execute on. Ben's going to prove that he has as well. Because we're talking today about how to sell anything, the art of timing, AI, and authentic sales. And Ben, you strongly advocate to be a user of what we sell as entrepreneurs. Tell us more. Absolutely. So people trust people who actually use what they sell. If you don't believe in your product, neither will the customer you're trying to sell to.

2:35It's just that simple, John. And I have a lot of examples to kind of explain this, but I'll kind of keep it to three really good ones that I found were meaningful to me. So for one, I've been a volunteer firefighter for seven years now, and I know the field well. I operate on the ground, and I sell personnel tracking and command software to firefighters and fire chiefs, and I use it. I'll give you an example of that. I was deployed to a wildfire last year in Orange County, New York, where we had a gigantic 6 ,000 acre brush fire. And I used my company software to track me and my crew as we operated.

3:08And now I sell that very same software to other fire chiefs around the country and the world. Another one, I started cold email outreach a couple years ago using a few different strategies, and I found great success with it. And now I have an agency that I work with, and we sell cold email services to other business owners to help them get their word out about their product. And it was really important for me to be a power user and someone who's in the trenches using my services, and then to be able to sell that to a customer is just that much easier now. And the final one here, John, is I have a good friend who's in medical sales, and he actually wears the medical device that he sells to doctors and he's able to show them in real time how it works by actually wearing the device.

3:50And if that doesn't show how good something is, I don't know what does. Right. I mean, that's a little bit of a cheat code right there, Fire Nation. I mean, of course, that's a dream scenario, but I think you understand what Ben is dropping right here as far as just being a user of what you sell. Now, let's talk about the 80-20 rule because it applies to sales, obviously. But what do most people get wrong with the 80-20 rule, Ben? Yeah. So a lot of people, they spend a lot of time on pitch, persuasion, their messaging, everything like that. And that's really the 20 % minutia. 80 % of your sales success is going to come from finding the right person at the right time and having that right offer.

4:29And really, the person and the timing is most important, in my opinion. A lot of people waste time trying to sell to the wrong people, but instead you should focus on qualifying leads upfront and focusing on the people who are actually going to care about what you have to sell. I'll give you an example. When I do cold outreach, whether it's cold calling, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, whatever it may be, I target business owners and people very specifically. And now with AI tools and other strategies, we can see when people are actually using, you know, looking for specific services and we can target them directly and go right to that person.

5:03Right person, right time, right products. That's so key. And one thing that I want to know if you agree with this, Ben, but if you really do feel like you've found the right person, because you've done the due diligence, you've really understood what they're looking for, and you just know that they are the right person that you're looking for, for this sale, for this product, for this service, you stick with them. Because that second part, the right time, you don't necessarily know when the right time is. You reach out like, Hey, it's not the right time for them. Maybe for a lot of reasons, it could be illness.

5:37It could be family related. They just had a kid. It could be, you know, vacations coming up. It could be a million things that you have no idea about and that you have no control over. So on that point, what is your thought on the follow-up? Like, how do we follow up where we don't get annoying, but we just are following up because we know that they're the right person. This is the right product, but we just need to hit the right time. Yeah, that's a great one. So I actually do a lot of work in government sales and the government, no matter how you do it, is not fast. So follow up is just absolutely critical in what I do, especially when you're dealing with fire agencies where they work on a one year kind of budget cycle.

6:18They might want your product right now, but they can't do anything. Their hands are tied until they get the budget approved, usually in the following year. We've had deals go three years in the making before they fully close, which feels like forever, and it is a long time. But the follow-up is key. Just being transparent with who you're working with, who's the champion with whatever business or agency you're trying to sell to, and just keeping a cadence with them. You don't need to be pinging them every single week. You don't need to follow up and have meetings just to talk, right? But just setting up a mutual success plan I found is really great.

6:55So being upfront with them, laying out how you're going to cadence with them, how that's going to develop, and then just be on it. But you don't have to do it all the time, right? You can follow up once every two months. If you know that they have a long budget cycle, there's no reason to be spamming them, right? You don't want to do that. That's going to turn people away. So space it out. Be upfront with your customer. know what their cycle is and work with them on it. And don't just follow up by saying, hey, following up is now the right time to buy. Exactly. Use some value add every single time you message them.

7:25Like say, hey, I was thinking about you because I came across this article or this video or this new thing. And I thought that this might be very helpful for you. And you just are providing them something that is truly valuable to them. It doesn't have to be this crazy thing of value. Again, it could be a news article or it can be some idea that you came across, whatever that might be. And guess what? you don't even have to necessarily ask for the sale at that point. You're just saying, hey, if there's anything else I can help you out with, let me know. And boom, they know what you've been talking about.

7:52The conversation history is right there. And that can be a very good way to go about that. And that's kind of on your path to becoming a sales engineer. So what does that word sales engineer mean? And how do we become one in our own business? Yeah. So I actually do have a traditional background. I have a degree in industrial engineering, so I know the engineering side quite well. And I think that's helped me grow as a salesperson even more. But for non-engineers out there and people who are into sales or entrepreneurs starting their own business, to be a sales engineer, it's not just being a salesperson.

8:29You have to deeply understand the product that you have or the service that you provide and relate it to how it can solve real problems for your customers. It's not just being able to show a demo from a slide deck. It's actually knowing on an intimate level what your product can do and if it has limitations where it can grow, because sometimes you might not hit all the needs of a prospect, but you might be able to work with them and grow your product, which I've seen numerous times in my industry. We've actually built features custom for customers and now they're product features. And so being an engineer of your product is critical in being able to sell and kind of be nimble and adjust your sales strategy as you need to.

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12:44So is AI replacing jobs or is it the ultimate extension tool for us entrepreneurs? John, I can't speak to AI 10 years down the road. It may be replacing some jobs there, but for right now, I really don't think it's replacing jobs. I think it's making the best people 10 times more effective at what they do, whether it's sales, engineering, coding, whatever it may be. AI is an extension of your ability as an employee or as a business owner. For example, I use AI for almost every aspect of my life. Right now, I'm a super user, I'd consider myself, but I have GPT projects for stuff around the house, for my weekly and daily organization, for my cold outreach campaigns, even for my fire department where I'm a board member and interior firefighter.

13:30And any client I work with for sales strategy coaching or cold outreach, I open up a project just for them and teach them about the business. And then I use that throughout the client relationship. I think a common misconception is AI will just do everything for people. It's not the case. It's really a tool. It's not a magic button. You need to know how to prompt it, how to get information into it so you can get meaningful information out of it. And my actionable tip on that is if you're not using AI yet, start by automating one repetitive task in your business, whether it's lead gen, email follow-ups, or even just brainstorming ideas on strategy.

14:10work that into your daily workflow and you're going to see it's extremely powerful. What would you say is your favorite tool right now? Something that you do that you just love when it comes to AI? There's a few that I use, but I really just like GPT, chat GPT. I have the paid version. It's 20 bucks a month, which is a drop in the bucket. And I use it all the time. And I find myself, especially when I have long and drawn out tasks, I'll do a speech to text and speak to AI for six minutes straight and then just upload, you know, that whole speech. And then it'll give me the results that I want out of it.

14:45Right. I use it almost as a business partner. A lot of the time. It can be so helpful in so many different areas. Like we've had somebody babysit for us a few times and they're like, Hey, can you write me a recommendation, like a letter? And I wanted to do it, but I'm like, man, that's, I gotta sit down. I gotta like really like brain dump and like think about this. But then I was like, wait a second, chat GPT, um, write me a recommendation letter for somebody who babysat for me a few times was very responsive and very helpful. And it has a nice personality. And then boom, like I had a like 500 to a thousand word letter recommendation that was perfectly written.

15:19And it took me like 30 seconds and she's so grateful. I'm so grateful that I have to just sit there and like try to like use a ton of brain power to write this out. And I actually use it every single day as well, because I have another show on YouTube that's called MSTR today. And it's just reporting on this one company, but I don't want to write these show notes every single day for it. So I literally just grabbed the transcript from YouTube. I dropped it in the chat GPT and I had this prompt that just says, create a 300 word summary of this, you know, using keywords about Michael Saylor, MSTR, blah, blah, blah.

15:50And boom, I've got this beautiful 300 word summary that's so well written and has emojis and all this stuff. I wouldn't even have a good summary every single day without this because I wouldn't take the time to do it. It was just too much work. And this is an amazing tool when you use it right, Fire Nation. Now, Ben, you believe that selling other people's projects is actually one of the easiest ways to learn sales. Tell us more about that. You don't really need to create something new to make money, right? You can just sell something that's already valuable and connect the right buyer to that product or service, and you get a huge win out of that.

16:26I've made money selling tax credits for businesses, AI tools, firefighting foam, a physical product, the first response software that I'm currently selling, as well as cold outreach systems and sales strategy and coaching. It's not about creating a super novel new product. There's plenty of great services and affiliate partnerships out there. And especially for someone who's new to entrepreneurship or new to sales, selling someone else's product that's already proven and you like it and you know it's good is a great way to start and really build those sales skills that you can translate into just about anything down the road.

17:01You know, repping great products has helped me immeasurably in my sales journey. And it's just something I recommend to anybody who's looking to get into business or sales. Now, something else I found pretty interesting is that you believe that talking to strangers can completely change our business. It's probably one of the more scary things that people can think about on a day-to-day basis, like just walking up to a stranger. and starting to talk to them. I mean, not because they think anything dangerous is going to happen, but who knows how a stranger is going to react. Are they just going to say like, don't bother me, I'm busy or whatever that might be.

17:33But this is one of the reasons why I actually think that people that have done door-to-door sales early in their life make great entrepreneurs. Because when you get the door slammed in your face like a hundred times, you realize it's not the end of the world. It's okay. In fact, you want people to slam the door in your face because that means that it's over and you can move on to the next sale because it's going to take a hundred doors to get one sale. So they just sped up your process. If they invite you in for tea and they, you know, talk your ear off for an hour and then they say, no, that's a waste of time.

18:04So it's interesting. So let's talk about this talking to strangers. What does this mean? And give us an example. Yeah. So I have two really good examples in some different spaces to kind of go through this, but your next big opportunity could just be one conversation away. And literally, I mean one, right? Most people never take that step though. And so you just never know. Um, one example with the fire department I'm with, I landed a six figure grant for my fire department just by picking up the phone one day and calling the right person in local government. We're getting a huge grant to buy all new fire gear just because I made one phone call and I was blown away by that.

18:39And another one more on the business side, um, I'm, uh, you know, habitual user of Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. I'm on all the socials all the time, probably too much time, right? and that can be distracting. But I really try to engage in meaningful ways when I'm talking with strangers on the internet, whether it's DMs, comments. And I met a guy on Reddit one time, absolute stranger. And for those of you that use Reddit, it can get a little wild. But this guy ended up becoming one of my best friends. And we've done multiple six figures in business together through affiliate marketing of some tax credit stuff a few years ago.

19:16and I would have never met him if I didn't reach out to him on Reddit. So you never know where the next opportunity is. And the only way you can find those opportunities is by taking action and engaging with people that are complete strangers. Okay, just to make sure I heard you right, one of your best friends you met on Reddit. Absolutely. I love that. Complete stranger. And we actually, you know, we got to meet in person when we got flown out to Miami for a work trip. It was amazing. See, I love that, Fire Nation. You just never, never know what doors are going to be opening. That's why I'm saying especially, and I mean especially at the beginning of your journey as an entrepreneur, you need to be saying yes to as much as you can.

19:55Say yes to everything because you have no idea. I mean, later in your journey, then you start to be a little more discerning and you say no to a few things. And then finally you get to a point, hopefully when you're successful as you want to be, where you're like, okay, now I'm actually, my default is no. And I'm going to say yes to just what I think are the key opportunities here because you only have so much time, energy, bandwidth, and desire to do stuff. But Ben, of everything we talked about here today, I mean, our whole conversation was wrapped around how to sell anything, the art of timing, AI, authentic sales.

20:23What do you want our listeners, Fire Nation, to walk away with? What's the key takeaway? One key takeaway is if you want to get more business and more sales, set a goal to reach out to at least five new people every week, whether it's DMs, emails, phone calls, you know, in person, whatever you can do to meet new people, it's going to elevate your personal life. It's going to elevate your business and it's going to elevate your revenue. Fire Nation, five people. You got this. You can do this. Ben, if Fire Nation's loving what they're hearing from you, what do they need to do to connect with you, to learn more from you?

20:59Give us a call to action for you. Absolutely, John. So yeah, if you want to turn me into a friend and not a stranger, feel free to go to subzerooutreach.com and you can book a free strategy call with me. We can talk about AI, our cold outreach methods, partnerships, affiliate marketing. I do a lot with cold email right now. So that's kind of where I'm spending most of my time. So that's my focus, but I'm happy to connect with anybody from Fire Nation and talk business and strategy and level up. Okay. Just to be clear, you're offering a free strategy call to my listeners right now. Absolutely. Oh man.

21:34One more time. What's that URL? Wow. Subzerooutreach.com. Fire Nation, I don't like to call you crazy ever, and I definitely don't do it often, but you might be a little loco if you don't take Ben up on this offer. I mean, that conversation is free. There's almost a 0 % chance you're not going to walk away with value and a better just overall understanding of maybe your next step from that conversation. So make it happen because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with BS, who, by the way, does not give any BS, and JLD today. So keep up that heat.

22:08And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com. Type Ben in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Ben, just one more time. What was that URL? Subzerooutreach.com. Thank you, Ben, 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. Thanks, Fire Nation. Thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Ben for sponsoring today's episode. And question, are you an entrepreneur on fire who's looking to share an amazing message with the world? If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire.

22:45To learn more about becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest, and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Fire Nation, this is your year to get unstuck and to grow a successful business. Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.