Mini Master Class: How to Sell Your Ideas and Offerings to Anyone with Matt Easton: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down a mini masterclass, how to sell your ideas and offerings to anyone. To drop these value bombs, I brought Matt Easton into EO Fire Studios. Matt is a catalyst for success in sales, business, and life, known for helping people achieve in minutes what would normally take years. And today we talk about how you should be step obsessed, always set a next step in every conversation and how to learn to push through adversity without being pushy and oh, so much more.

0:38John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Matt and our sponsors. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 50-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, 50 days will fly right on by. The only question is, will you have something to show for it? I created a free YouTube series called 50 Days to Something, a step-by-step path to build a real product, service, or offer in just 50 focused days.

1:22John Lee Dumas:Start today for free at eofire.com slash YouTube. Matt, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. JLD. I can't believe I'm talking to the man, the myth, the legend. Do you ever know when you do something really important in your life and like the mayor gives you the key to the city? I feel like you're giving me the book of matches to Fire Nation, and you're saying, light the fire, brother. So it's an honor to be here. Something that I believe about being successful that most people disagree with, and I'm curious to get your opinion on this, JLD, because you might have a similar opinion, you might not.

2:06This is something that I realized at eight years old. There was a crossroads in my life. I thought my life was going nowhere. I was a son of a single mom raising two boys, making$4 ,000 a year. And there was a person that came into my life for a few hours one afternoon and hit me with a little bit of knowledge that changed my life. So here's what I believe that most people totally disagree with me. I think that everyone can agree, especially on the entrepreneurial side, that already successful people, already successful entrepreneurs have a tremendous advantage over normal people, or dare I say, disadvantaged, or people just getting started, money, connections, power, influence, access.

2:51I think that's not a very controversial statement. I also agree with that. But here's where I disagree with most people, and most people disagree with me, JLD, and I'm curious to get your opinion is I believe that anyone, no matter where they're at in the process, can catch up to successful people and level that playing field almost overnight. And money has absolutely nothing to do with it.

3:22John Lee Dumas:Interesting. I would need more before I would fully agree with that statement. One thing that I am a big believer in, in that realm of what you're talking about is you can win from any starting point if you're willing to create the number one solution to a real problem in this world. And that means you're probably going to have to micro niche down to find that solution that is not being solved at the highest level it could be for any number of reasons. It's just a void in the marketplace. And the person with no dollars, no influence, nothing to their name can become the number one solution to a problem in that micro niche if they identify and go all in so i agree on that level is that kind of what you are talking about i'm going to push back on you it a little bit we can talk about that a little bit there's a big mistake that everybody makes they get that part of it right but there's still one mistake that they make and and we can talk about that in a second but we're where i'm talking about being able to level the playing field is if you simply have a process, who am I going to talk to?

4:31What am I going to say? Who do I need to meet? These barriers that most people put in their head of, oh, I can't do this. It takes money to start an ad agency. It takes money to start a training company. It takes money to open my own restaurant. There is so much you can do. I mean, by the time I was 24 years old, I had already had three businesses and all of them were profitable. And I never borrowed money. I didn't even know anybody that I could borrow money from. My mom made$4 ,000 a year. It was all in just having the courage to learn a little bit and realize, okay, where do I need to go? What do I need to do?

5:11Who do I need to talk to? And most people spend all of their time focusing on exactly what you said, which is a good thing to focus on, JLD. You've got to have the right solution. But most people are spending their time meeting their friends for coffee, talking about how their app or their business or their restaurant is going to be the best and what color beige should the logo be when they miss this one point. And the biggest mistake, in my opinion, that every entrepreneur makes is they underestimate the amount of effort needed to close a sale. You can get everything else right. Most people do.

5:50You can have a solution that is the number one solution. But you are still going to have to communicate that solution to other people. Nothing sells itself. You have to be able to sell your ideas.

6:04John Lee Dumas:Let me break in here for a second. So one thing that I really had a conversation about just yesterday, actually on a live call, was a lot of people were asking different questions about this and that. And one of the questions was, well, John, don't you need money to make money? Isn't that the thing? And since that's true, how can anybody that doesn't have money ever make money? And I actually did reply and I said, I think a lot of times money can be something to hold you back. Money can actually be a crutch because - 100%. When you have nothing, which I had very close next to nothing when I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, I had to grow a business that was lean, that was mean, and that was profitable as soon as possible.

6:45John Lee Dumas:And I had to learn how to create a business that way. And if I had been given a few hundred thousand dollars and said, hey, go create a podcast, it would have looked a lot different. And it would have maybe succeeded. It maybe would not have succeeded. But I'll tell you, it would not be the lean, mean, profitable machine that I learned through experience how to build because I was forced to do that. So I did really come back to that person and say, in a lot of situations, I am very pro people that have nothing or next to nothing starting off in what they're doing and bootstrapping their faces off because they're going to grow a business that is powerful beyond what they could think and is going to serve them in the long term because they're going to learn lessons doing that.

7:23John Lee Dumas:They can apply that. So when the money is rolling in or does start rolling in down the line, they still know how to run a business the right way. And now you did talk about the biggest mistake that is made. So let's kind of reiterate the biggest mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make and then talk about a system that you've created that entrepreneurs can use to close any deal. Break that down. You're at coffee with your friends. You're like, man, I have this great idea for this particular app and I'm going to revolutionize the garbage truck industry or whatever it is. but you spend all of your time talking about product development talking about what logos are going to look like what your price is going to be and nobody is like okay well wait a minute when i'm ready to sell this how am i going to ask somebody to do business with me like i'll give you an example right now the things that you don't talk about how to how to how to sell their ideas And I'll give you right now, if you don't mind, a simple system that any entrepreneur, and you can steal this for your team, JLD, because you guys are growing.

8:28I mean, I don't know if you guys are at$1 million,$10 million. I guarantee you guys are going to be at$10 million a month if you're not. And by the way, if I just offended you because you're way over that, I apologize. You guys are going to be at$10 million a month in revenue in no time flat because you're doing everything right. You've got$100 million listens. But one of the things, and borrow this when you huddle your team up, is like, hey guys, what do we say to close any deal? And this isn't just, you need to know how to close as an entrepreneur before you even have a business. Why? If I have no money, I'm going to have to close you on working for me for free.

9:07I'm going to have to close you on investing some dollars into my business. I'm going to have to close somebody to be my first customer. I teach things that work not just in sales, but they work. I wish I knew this because I never went to a high school dance. It would work if you wanted to ask somebody to prom. It would work if you wanted to ask somebody to marry you. It would work if you wanted to ask your boss for a raise. Just simple, effective strategies to close a deal. If you'd like, I can give you an example. We can even use Fire Nation as an example with your team of how to close maybe a deal on sponsoring an episode.

9:44John Lee Dumas:Let's lock it down. Okay. So really simple. Here's why people don't close. They don't know what to say. They're really nervous. They just keep talking and talking and talking. They don't know where to go. Or worse, they do, we'll call it an all or nothing request. By the way, listeners, if you're in the car right now with your children, turn this off. And it's not because I'm about to say bad words. It's because you don't want your kids to know this. This is way too powerful. Okay. Kids make all or nothing requests. Dad, can I have$20 to go to the mall? No. Darn it. Right. Same thing. Right. You're calling, we'll just call it ACME.

10:18ACME. Hey, ACME, man. We love, I love that you guys love Fire Nation, JLD. Super excited that you guys are a fan. Do you guys want to sponsor an episode? No. Right. Hey, man, I love seeing you here at Pilates. It's great. Would you like to have lunch with me? No, I can't have lunch. Okay. There's a much better way to close deals that every entrepreneur needs to know. And that is, instead of asking a yes, no, or question, you need to stop asking yes, no questions in your life because it's basically relegating yourself to a coin flip, right? Heads you win, tails you lose. Just start asking people if it makes sense.

10:51And listen to this. If I ask you, JLD, if I ask you if it makes sense to sponsor an episode, I didn't ask you to do anything. So I'm not being pushy. I'm not being manipulative. And you cannot reject me on sponsoring an episode because I've asked you a timing question, okay, which perfectly positions me if you say no. Listen to this. Hey, let's say I'm Easton. You want to Easton University to sponsor an episode of Fire Nation, right? And let's say it's Heather as your sales rep. Heather says to me, hey, Matt Easton, man, we love that you're a fan. We loved having you on the thing. Hey, does it make sense to sponsor an episode of a podcast?

11:37Yeah, yeah, it does. Congratulations, you made a great decision. The next steps are bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, right? Boom, you're off and running. But here's where the magic happens. Hey, Matt, does it make sense to sponsor an episode? No. Got it, got it. What's a good next step then? Well, I would need to see the cost and how, you know, this and that. Perfect. You're now moving forward, right? Hey, Matt, does it make sense to sponsor an episode? No. What's a good next step then? I just need to think about it. Even if they push back on you, totally, I just need to think about it. Got it, got it.

12:13What's a good next step for me? Or what's a good next step on my end? right notice how i'm asking you globally what's a good next step then i'm leaving it wide open if you still push back and say no i don't know i'm just not sure i need to think about it now you just point that question at yourself what's a good next step for me or what's a good next step on my end you're going to be shocked at there's an 87 chance that they're either going to tell you yes they're going to tell you what's a good next step then or they're going to tell you what's a good next step for you. Okay. Call me back Tuesday afternoon at two 30.

12:49Let's say there's that small percentage that they don't have an answer for you on anything. JLD, right? Hey, Easton university, does it make sense to sponsor an episode? Uh, no, got it. Got it. What's a good next step then? I don't know. I just need to think about it. Makes perfect sense. What's a good next step on my end. Uh, I'm not, I'm not sure Heather. I just need to think about it. It makes perfect sense, Matt. I'll call you Friday at 2.30 if I haven't heard from me before then. Fair enough, right? You have to have a flow in your life. In this same flow, listeners, go back. Re-listen to this episode.

13:24I'm literally giving you millions of dollars worth of just simple, the greatest things in life are the simplest. Hey, does it make, you know, we're starting a new app that's going to revolutionize the garbage truck industry. Does it make sense for you to be an angel investor? I'm not sure. I really don't think so. We're not doing any apps right now. Got it. Got it. What's a good next step then? Well, we'd have to get this in front of Rob Montgomery. He's in charge of venture capital here. And Rob is in Portugal for the next three weeks. Perfect. And so when you say three weeks, when exactly will Rob be back?

14:00Rob's going to be back September 1st. Perfect. Does it make sense for us to get on Rob's calendar the 7th of September? Yeah, that's perfect. Boom. you're now moving what ends up happening now is these entrepreneurs have these great ideas fire nation if i can connect with one of you out there you have a great idea and you're like hey would you like to be an investor in the new app that's going to revolutionize the garbage truck industry and they go no and you go ah i wasn't expecting that or worse we go back to that biggest mistake that every entrepreneur makes and you hear no 10 times and then you give up You're under, number one, you're underestimating the amount of effort needed to close a sale, the amount of people that you're going to have to talk to, the amount of people that you're going to have to have the conversation with.

14:47And then number two, even worse, you don't have a system, right? Listen to this in the kid version, JLD. Let's say my son was like, hey, dad, can I have$20 to go to the mall? No, Anderson, beat it, right? I'm doing a podcast with great and powerful JLD, right? versus, hey, Dad, I'm going to the mall with my friends. Does it make sense to give me$20? No. Got it, Dad. We're going to be having lunch, and I need money for lunch. What's a good next step? Go bug your mom. Got it. Got it. Perfect. So I'm going to go talk to Mom, and then if I'm unable to find her, I'll come back and talk to you before I leave.

15:29Fair enough? Yeah, son. I'm going to give him the$20, right? You just have to have a better way of asking for what you want in life.

15:36John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, do you have a better way of asking for what you want in life? Are you getting what you want in life? Well, maybe you're asking things the wrong way. And I love how you kind of broke down the reality of how you can kind of continue to be moving forward and probing without being pushy, without feeling pushy, without sounding pushy. And Fire Nation, we have some really cool things to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner.

16:10John Lee Dumas:High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business. And their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at HighLevelFire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

16:49John Lee Dumas:Visit HighLevelFire.com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, if you've ever thought, I know I'm capable of more, but you're not sure where to start, I've created something for you. It's called 50 Days to Something. Not 50 Days to Perfection, not 50 Days to Overnight Millions, just 50 focused days to build something that matters. Maybe a product, a service, a course, a coaching offer, something real, and something that will generate real revenue. 50 Days to Something is my passion project. Each video is short, is tactical, and is designed for you to take one meaningful step forward each day.

17:27John Lee Dumas:Picture this. In just 50 days, you will have built an asset. And the best part, it's completely free and is on my YouTube channel right now. If you are ready to create something that matters, visit eofire.com slash YouTube. That's eofire.com slash YouTube and start your 50-day journey today. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The question is, will you have something to show for it? Matt, we're back. And this whole mini masterclass is about selling your ideas and offerings to literally everyone. And if you told me that I could grow 76 % faster by doing just one thing, I would likely do it if it was legal, of course, and moral.

18:10John Lee Dumas:What is that one thing? And here's the thing. It's not sexy, JLD, but 76 is probably on the low end of this number. you need to be next step obsessed. The example that we just talked about in How to Close. Not a ton of tools, but they're very powerful tools and they all integrate with each other. If I was an entrepreneur right now, starting a business like I was years and years ago, I've started many businesses, the one piece of advice that I would give Fire Nation is anytime you communicate with somebody, anytime you send an email to somebody, set a next step right does it make sense for you to invest in our company uh i'm not sure what's a good next step what's a good next step for me you have to constantly be asking these questions and then you're not waking up one of the biggest stresses that we have as entrepreneurs is is this going to work is it not going to work you know it's this constant roller coaster of emotions of oh my gosh, I got booked on this podcast or oh no, 20 people told me no, whatever it is in our journey.

19:17But if we simply make sure that every conversation, whether it's with an employee, whether it's with our spouse, whether it's with an investor or a customer, make sure that you know what's going to happen next because then you're in control of that situation.

19:33John Lee Dumas:Be next step focused, Fire Nation. Momentum and traction. I mean, those are some of the hardest things to get in business in life. So once you get even a little bit of that momentum, even a little bit of that traction, you want to keep that momentum and traction going. You do that by being next step focus. I mean, I like to use the analogy of like, there's this huge rock at the top of a mountain and it doesn't want to budge. It doesn't budge for centuries, but like, if you can just get that leaning a little bit downhill, then momentum and gravity takes over. And now it's just going on its own.

20:07John Lee Dumas:And those are people that are next step focused. You're able to get that initial momentum going and then the things just start to move forward along on their own accord by continuing to be next step focused. So let's talk about entrepreneurs who look at objections and they look at resistance differently. What is the message you like to share with those individuals? If we were hanging out and we were friends, this is something I'd put my arm around you and tell you, and this would really change their life. And I'm excited for Fire Nation to learn this because I'm going to tell you right now, what scares me more than folks hitting a little bit of their dreams and not reaching their true potential is there's people listening to Fire Nation right now that have, like you said, JLD, the number one solution.

20:57They have the next best thing. And some of it might be entertainment and fun, and that's cool, but there's probably some people in Fire Nation right now that have things that are going to help us as a society. And we need all the help we can get right now, right? Maybe somebody has the next medical invention, maybe has somebody that has an idea that can help somebody with mental health. How every one of us, no matter where we're at in our entrepreneurial journey, no matter where we're at in our business development journey, we need to realize this. And there's a lot of, call it sales training that's what we do at easton university's sales training there's a lot of it that's left over from bygones that just simply does not work today and a lot of it that never did work and when i hear people talking about overcoming objections that is a huge red flag for me and here's what i mean okay when i talk about like one of the mantras we live with at easton university is the training that you learn needs to work in your personal life if you go through your personal life trying to overcome everything that you think is an objection, you're going to be a jerk.

22:03You're going to lose all your friends. You're going to get divorced. Your kids are going to hate you because that's not how life works. What we need to realize both in our entrepreneurial journey, our business journey, and our life journey is that 90 % of the things that we're hearing from somebody else and we're labeling as an objection and we're proing on our gloves and getting ready to fight, getting ready to overcome them, is just a complaint. It doesn't mean that they're not going to do it. And what so many entrepreneurs do is they hear a complaint and they start to try and overcome it. Hey, I've got the next best app to revolutionize the garbage truck industry.

22:40Would you like to become an angel investor? Oh, no. The garbage truck industry does not need apps, okay? I beg to differ. Let me show you some research of why it does. Slow down. I hear you. I totally understand on the garbage truck industry not needing apps. Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by that when you say the garbage truck industry doesn't need apps? And now you're having a conversation. We teach eight steps to handle any objection, whether it's a complaint or an objection. And these are little things that I have to keep reminding myself of, like step number six. I'll just give them, if they want to jump, it's not as effective if they jump to step six.

23:26But step number six, just asking them if they're still going to do the thing that you want them to do. So many times we hear what we think is an objection, and we keep trying to win that. We think we need to win that argument, right? Oh my gosh, it's way too expensive to sponsor an episode of the podcast. So I just want to make sure that I'm clear here. Is the cost of sponsoring the podcast, is that stopping you from sponsoring the podcast? Well, no, no. I mean, it's just really expensive. Got it. Boom. You got what you wanted. I just ran into this two weeks ago with my beautiful, lovely, much smarter than I am wife, Heather.

24:10There was a party down the street. We call him Creepy Bob. Okay. There's a guy down the street from us. He is creepy. He's genuinely creepy. And he was having a party. And I remember having maybe a seven minute, call it a mini argument with my wife because I wanted to go to the party. She's like, creepy job. Bob's going to be there. I'm like, listen, babe, I'm a black belt in jujitsu. I would love to choke creepy Bob out, right? We have an umbrella policy. Even if he sues us, we're going to be fine. And I'm going back and forth with her. And she's like, I don't want to go. He creeps me out. I get weird feeling around her.

24:43And then finally, I remembered step six. hey heather i just want to make sure that i'm clear here is the fact that creepy bob's gonna be at the party is that stopping you from going to the party she was like oh no ashley's gonna be there amanda's gonna be there jessica's gonna be there i mean i'm gonna go to the party it just sucks that it's where it is sometimes people just want to complain and as entrepreneurs this is so important for us to realize, JLD, is these are our babies. These are our children. These ideas for a lot of us, myself included, I'm not going to say they're more important than my physical, actual children, but they're right up there.

25:23And when somebody objects, we get the same type of emotions and adrenaline and aggressiveness as if somebody called your baby ugly. You have to realize that most of the time these people are just complaining. Let them complain. Agree with them. I show up late to my son's hockey practice. My wife's upset. You're late. I don't say, oh, the traffic was bad, or I was on the best podcast in the world with JLD. I just say, you're right, and move forward. We're spending too much time trying to overcome objections and not enough time trying to realize, okay, most of these are complaints. What is my system that I have where I treat everything else the same, and I stay cool, calm, collected, and I move everything forward.

26:09And at the end of that conversation, I set a next step. If you can just do that, you'll go from zero to 500K a year, a million a year, 10 million a year, because you have a process. Just like you said, JLD, if somebody gave you 10 million, I can't remember the number you used, 100 ,000, 100 million, I can't remember what it was. At the beginning of your business, I agree with you. I don't think you'd be as successful as you are today. And you're one of the most, if not the most successful in your niche that you do in the world. Nobody does it the way that you do it. But because of the fact that you had to learn how to just keep pushing through adversity, and I would bet that you pushed without being pushy, and that's why you're so successful, that if we just dumped capital into your idea, you would have moved that rock an inch, you would have bought$100 ,000 worth of Facebook ads, and then the next month you wouldn't have known what to do.