Why the Setter-Closer Model Still Wins (And How to Build One That Actually Scales)

24:57They don't see like – I'm basically your HR department, your recruiter, your developer, your sales trainer, your sales manager. And as you know, you're probably worth sitting on the marketing calls. So now I'm operating as a sales director and a CRO for your company. And even accounting, dude, it goes into everything. Like commissions, accounting, compensation, accounting is like the most challenging type of accounting. Maybe the one exception is like a really complex business that has really in-depth whip schedules, you know, work in progress and complicated stuff. But typically sales compensation accounting is one of the most challenging.

25:36And, you know, we do all of that. So anyways, we could go back into it. But I just I had to say that because when you're on the concept, there are so many different hats to run a proper sales function. And everybody groups it together and says sales manager. Yeah. And this is one of many of a sales department. Right. So let me ask you this, because I know you were. And this is this is the fight that I always have. And I actually try not to have it. it just seems like it's always there in the business for some reason is the sales versus marketing, the MQL versus SQL. What's your thoughts on that?

26:14We have a slide on it. I always like to say, if we have a slide on it in our engagement deck, it shows how important it is. Cause it's like, it's literally an expectation going into the engagement of like, Hey, you know, working with our clients, there's a very clear line drawn in the sand. One of the most expensive things is the gap between marketing and sales. We have to have a really strong feedback loop and we have to have a clear line of separation. So it's super important. I'll also say that we have something we call the golden formula, which is lead flow times sales performance equals revenue.

26:48The importance of that is there's only two variables to get to the desired outcome. And each side has to own their variable in a really, you know, regimented way. And we have to be on the same page with the accountability. So there's a few things that I've found that make a significant difference in smoothing out that relationship. And by the way, most of these big problems, you ever heard of the difference between problems and polarities, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Explain to us. Well, you know that I love this. I read it in some book. I can't remember what, but it made a big difference to me because I was always frustrated solving the same things.

27:27I'm like, why isn't it fixed yet? And I read in some book that problems are things that can be resolved and come to a final state. Polarities are things that will always be there and you'll always have to manage for the optimal outcome. So, so many of these concepts we talk about in sales operations and the one you brought up between marketing and sales, it's just a polarity. It will never go away. So how do you manage it for the optimal outcome? And there's a handful of things that I found that make a really big difference. One of the first things is remove the word lead quality from your vocabulary, because it's not helpful for anybody.

27:59It's very subjective. Nobody knows what to mean, what it means. And it's not actionable. If you say, Oh, the lead quality is low. How? And what do we do about it? And how do we correct it on the marketing side? So for sales, we take a lot of ownership. I don't want anybody to say lead quality. Now you can address lead quality, but it needs to be a specific thing backed by a lot of data. So the second thing we have is what we call a validation sequence. Validation sequence is a process of exactly how it sounds validating lead flow or a new process or a new offer. So when we come into a brand and they have a new offer or service or whatever, it needs to be validated.

28:39And so the levels of the validation sequence are number one lead quality. right now again we don't use lead quality like poor lead quality but as a topic we need to validate that so in other words do we have the right icp on the call if we have the right icp and we're talking to the right people is the sales rep performing so sales performance is number two this is where everyone gets stuck though a lot of the times they'll have good avatars good prospects pretty good sales reps and they're still not getting the conversions that they want and they get stuck well at that point number three is pitch design you have to transition and iterate through multiple versions of pitch design.

29:12I have sold so many things in my career where nothing about the offer changed, but the way that we pitched it did. And that's what made all the difference. So you have lead quality, sales performance, pitch design, which could also mean process, like tweaking the sales process. And the last thing is offer design. If you've really exhausted those options, you might not have an irresistible offer that's resonating to the degree that you want, right? So two more things on this topic. So first of all, remove the word lead quality. Second of all, run a validation sequence. Third of all, use a validation matrix.

29:45So the sequence is the concept and the methodology of how we do that. A validation matrix is how we document this because it's all about data. So we'll take that concept, lead quality, rep performance, pitch design, and offer design. We break that out. It's a series of columns in a spreadsheet. And they'll grade a few dozen calls with every single one of those touch points so we can get data confidence on this is the thing, right? It's like, Hey, we just analyzed 30 calls, 25 of them were actually good calls and pretty decent conversations. But half of them had this same objection when it came to the pitch and the thing that blocked the moving forward.

30:22So it gives you that clarity that is super helpful. And sharing that information with marketing makes all the difference because it gives them the visibility, right? Like it's not, I used to say a long time, why is it just a sales manager's job to listen to sales calls? Why doesn't marketing do that? Because it's the same data that they need. And there's two parts of a sales call, rep insights and lead insights. And they need the lead insights to know how to optimize the campaigns. So since I don't manage marketers, this is a process that we follow to give them the data that they need to make the right decisions.

30:53And the last thing, Kayvon, I know it's a long answer, but you said it's how important it is. The last one, man, is a form. You have some sort of disposition form in the actual CRM. You have a non-subjective way that you qualify a lead that the team has to be trained on based on some simple criteria. And after every single call, they fill out that disposition form in the CRM. So now you, again, have quantitative data linked to actual contacts that marketing knows now how to optimize for it. And so that kind of combination of things, it's not a problem that will be resolved. It's a polarity, but you'll do way, way better with it.

31:29Yeah. But you're, you're, everything you're saying is like, sounds all great. You're, you're assuming that marketing's doing that and taking that and listening. Right. So the challenge is I find if, if marketing is trying to get, for instance, Oh, cheapest book call. A hundred percent. That's, that is. People are like, like, like, like, like marketers can cheat Roaz so easily and like literally harpoon the back end of the business. Well, so let's stem off of that though. After we just talked about the process and kind of the best practices, now you actually have SQLs. So if you have a smart marketing team, and if you don't, you have to communicate this stuff to them.

32:12They can start optimizing the media buying and the campaigns based on the SQLs, not the cheapest leads. And so if you're optimizing for SQLs, or once you get enough data, you're optimizing for actual buyers. Now you're going to be paying more for people that are a lot more qualified. And so, um, but listen, we don't, we, in our company, we say control the controllables. We're not media buyers, but since lead flow times sales performance equals revenue, it's our most important relationship. And frankly, if there's a media buyer that we know, cause we've done this for a long time, if we know that they suck, we got to bring somebody in that's advanced that knows how to run this the right way.

32:47Yeah. I agree with you. I was going to say um if you believe this or not i either i was i and i love this because this was at a market i was at a marketing conference and a marketer on stage said this and i was like i wish every one of my clients was here because it's different when a salesperson says that as you know but he's he said that's what he said he stood on stage he said listen if your sales team has to do marketing over the phone marketing isn't doing their job if marketing can't get the set like you can't produce leads, quality leads for the sales teams. But basically, like you just said, the offer product is not doing their job.

33:27I'll tell you what, man, I agree 100%. But I have a couple of caveats to add. But I agree 100%. It's so important. Now, before I say what the caveat is, one of the most frustrating parts about that, it's really hard to explain to people why it's not the same when they come to the call with little marketing. Because what do the clients say? Well, then just communicate the stuff that the ads would have said. Or why don't you just spend more time with them? Work a longer sales process. Do XYZ. There's something about it that is so hard when you start right back here. And now you're spending so much time with them just to get them to the point to actually have the sales conversation and dialogue.

34:11But it's frustrating for people because to them, they're like it's the same person, just a little bit less awareness. Why can't you just increase awareness? And now it's the same thing. But it's hard because of a concept called peak interest, right? Peak interest is super important. And that's why speed to lead is so important in sales. Peak interest is in peak buying state is what you want somebody in to have a sales conversation, it deteriorates quickly. So if somebody is not in that peak interest state, they don't have the level of awareness, the interest dies off as the sales rep is in the process of trying to take them there.

34:45I think a lot of people fundamentally don't understand how marketing actually works. It's not like they saw one ad or one video most of the time that got them to that level of awareness. It's been over a period of time that they've been conscious of it to make it really a good lead, right? So even if we do that on the sales call, it doesn't completely solve the problem. So that's the frustration. Here's the caveat I wanted to mention. You're correct. It is true. It's the most important thing. But we have a training called 10 Steps to Wires from Strangers. That's like our proprietary selling methodology.

35:22And we have a step called Step Zero. And Step Zero is exactly the topic you're talking about, where it's like, hey, in an ideal world, yes, our conversions will be much lower if marketing doesn't do their job. But if it hits your calendar, we're not flushing leads down the toilet. No, you got to do the very best you can. And so step zero is the concept of doing that marketing piece, basically increasing level of awareness and then taking them into a sales process. It's how to modify our process to take a lead that's less aware or not fully ready. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what are you seeing some things in the marketplace today?

35:59You know, I like it's changed. The marketplace is changing a little bit. uh i i personally have seen um for instance no shows are you know just on average i've talked to a lot of people are seeing a little bit more increase in no shows yeah uh you just i think the market is just where it's at today just with everything going on but what what are you seeing some things sticking out right now when it comes to whether the lead i'm not going to use the word lead quality but the the leads that are showing up and or the conversations that are happening the offers that you're working on? Is there any common threads that you're seeing that's changing from the last couple of years?

36:35Yeah. You know, funnels and sales topics kind of come in and out like clothing trends. I think you and I may have talked about that once before. You know, it was like in 2020, VSLs were all the rage, dude. And you're getting 25k one call closes. And yeah, and it was a surge and a perfect storm of so many things, right? Ad costs were at an all-time low. Demand was at an all-time high because people were staying at home. They didn't have much to do. There's fear and uncertainty with their current job. There's so many different factors that made a lot of people just want to spend more money online.

37:11Because we're talking about remote sales operations, of course. And so one big thing, obviously, ad costs, if you look at it with Meta, and this is one of the frustrating things, they're a public company, they need to continue to increase their own, you know, what is it shareholder value. So you don't have a year where ad costs are lower. So one thing that's been challenging, which is a difference is that people are paying way more for the same leads and the same opportunity. And so I think that it's a much more important or more attention needed on the efficiency. You can be pretty inefficient in prior years, call it 2020 to 2022, the end or early 2023, you could do really well being pretty inefficient.

37:56And I think that companies are really realizing like, that's not going to cut it. We need lead to close rates to increase, we need reactivation campaigns, we need really strong setter motions. And we have a big focus on expansion revenue, which is, you know, upsells an ascension for existing customers to be able to increase LTV, which also helps with company profitability. So that's a big, big change. We work with our clients on rolling out expansion revenue, because most of the industry and most of these companies are so focused on front end profitability. It's like, if they don't, it's feast or famine, you know, if they don't make all their money on a front end row as they're screwed.

38:34And I just don't like that business model. We like to give our clients a lot more sustainability. So we help build out that back in and expansion revenue. That's one big theme in itself. The other theme I would say, and these are the two that come to mind for me right now is trust is a real big thing again. And so the trust is the trust, man. And like, credibility and authority is very different. We're leaning a lot heavier on sales enablement. And conviction assets is what we call them in the actual sales process. People want a lot more proof, they want a lot more time with you. And they want to know that you're the real deal.

39:11And so I actually believe that a lot of the company, because there's different philosophies out there. I've always sold with what we call a closing deck. Always. For almost 13 years, I've always used a closing deck. And a closing deck is just a actual deck. Like you actually would share your screen and wow. For almost 13 years, Kayvon. And I love it. So, and I'm going to say you've done probably, if not, I mean, I'm going to assume over hundreds of millions of dollars like I have in my agency. I think this is really interesting right like this is where i want people to hear this is here's an amazing you obviously you have an amazing operation i was actually talking to someone the other day and i was like there's only two people that i know that run a good operation and you are one of them thank you i appreciate that two others i would say outside obviously i would say myself in another group but yeah it's interesting because i've done like we've done over 500 million in the last like six, seven years, never once used a deck.

40:06I don't use the deck and yet you same numbers, you use a deck. So I just tell people it's not, there's no perfect sales process. There's just, it's auto. It's there. It's what works. It's what I tell people, it's what works and what feels good for the salespeople. Dude, we call it Jedi mind tricks. Our, our, our chief sales officer, my partner, Rai guy, he always says, he says, it's Jedi mind tricks, whatever you believe is going to work as the thing that does. And so I totally agree with that. But here's the funny thing too. There's so many different ways to skin the cat. You seem like somebody like myself that always wants to be the best.

40:42Like that's why we're obsessed with the details. So dude, let's be honest here. I'm sure it's the same for you. You know how many times over the years I've questioned, should we get rid of the deck? You've probably considered at times, should we use the deck? Yeah, 100%. I was going to 100%. I was talking to someone the other day. I was talking to my manager the other day and I'm like, do you think we should turn this more into a SaaS sale? Like where you do a demo. And he was like, No, it's not what we do. And I'm like, good point. Okay. But yeah, let me share. This is interesting. Let me share it.

41:09Because I even know Cole Gordon, I've talked to him about this. He does he teaches no deck at all. I mean, like in his training, it's like they teach like the Google Doc bullet point thing. Now, I agree. Anytime I get into the conversation of don't use a sales deck, I agree with all the points they make. But then I say, but why don't you still use a sales deck and not do any of those things? So the most common thing to simplify it is they say don't use a sales deck because it's the quickest way to create objections Because you'll talk people out of deals because it seems too salesy because it's a little bit too fabricated because you can't flow organically It's a little bit too rigid.

41:44It's all the same stuff But for us, we have a very simple deck You do not want to have too much content because I agree all of those things And we practice something called pitch personalization And so pitch personalization is how to use the same sales presentation but go through it and pitch it differently to every prospect you talk to. And that's all about just tying back and anchoring to the core desires and the dominant buying motives in the discovery. So it's the same stuff. We just do it with the deck and there's very little content. It's minimal. So we can kind of share the narrative that we want on it.

42:14So we have a certain way we do it. But so, so when people say, don't use the sales deck because of these things, I say, I agree with those things. Therefore I use a sales deck and I make sure to not do that. Yeah. I want to make another comment, but, but, but speak to that real quick. Oh, I wouldn't, I think, I think what you're doing is incredible. Like, I think it's great. Like I have not, like it comes down to like, what you just said is like the conviction and it works. Like if it's working, like I would say, if it's working, why, why wreck it? Right. So you, from the sounds of it, you guys have nailed obviously a sales presentation that works and it's, it's personalized per, you teach it to every one of your reps.

42:54So your reps are coming and they know this is what we're going to sell. So when they show up, they're not having that belief that, oh, this is salesy. Oh, there's going to be objections. They have the belief that this is what needs to sell. And thus it works. I was going to use an example of even one that's even more minute than deck, no deck, right? Because that's a pretty big fundamental change. Yep. Price before offer or price after offer? Yeah, right. That's a whole other one. and show every price point or just lead with one and have some pocket drops there there's so many let's let's so i've we've i've mastered the one call close that's what like more what we do now obviously today it's maybe two calls now but you know we ideally it's the one call close yeah and when it comes to price it's i oh it's one you don't offer i am like i know there's all Like we had an expert come in and offer three, our closing rate tanked, tanked one.

43:53We offer exactly what the price is. And then after, if there's nothing left, then you go, okay, suppose, can't make any promises. Suppose we can, I don't know, turn this into a couple, you know, monthly payment plan. Would that make a world of a difference for you? Right. Then I'm going to introduce that because here's what I believe. Maybe it's what I believe, right? And what I believe is the energy put out. sales reps will always find a way to go to the cheapest price. You give them an option, they'll go to the cheapest price, especially rookie salespeople, right? And like beginning of salespeople.

44:25Absolutely. So I always, one price, it's what it is. It's clear. It's that. Now, when it comes to presenting, I don't do the value stack. It's here. And I've tested this personally for me. And I tell my sales reps, if you're so gung ho that you have to put the value, then the price go. I'm not going to change your juju and wreck a sale, but I can tell you right now, I've tested both ways multiple times. And I'm price first. And I'll tell you why. Price first. Then I go in and here's what you can expect. And you just a little bit of details, anchoring everything to obviously the dreamland and where they are to where they want to go.

45:07And then you shut up and you and you just you shut up and you wait for their response. Now, why I like doing the price first is because in their brains, as they hear this shock, oh, 20 grand. And you're saying, oh, you're going to get X and you're going to get Y. They can start justifying that a little bit to themselves. OK, that makes sense. OK, that makes sense. So then when you get to the price, they can put that they can actually put the value stack themselves instead of me showing it. I have the ickies like I use the word ickies like I can't handle because I know it like the value stack. oh, you're going to get this and it's valued at$3 ,000.

45:44Like that works on webinar and on stage. Yeah. Do that one-on-one. Oh, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I agree. We don't, we don't value stack at all, assigning a value. Um, listen, here's the thing with what you're, you're the subject you're talking about for me makes no difference. I would sell both of those. Now, you know, this more than anybody, right? This is what I've experienced. There are some things that I personally may do differently on a sales call, but I have to optimize for what's going to work at scale. Yeah, that's like, so important, because like, I'm not my entire sales force.

46:17Yeah, like, obviously, we have a lot of sales reps. And so they're like, there's ways that I might do things. And then I think how hard is that going to be to teach and scale and duplicate, etc. So I like what you're saying. And I've played with all of this as well. I like what you're saying about price first, and then justify the value. For us, what I've just what I've landed on is with the sales team, the way that we feel for the most part is that when you go through the entire offer and can tie them down on the actual thing itself before price, now it gives so much more clarity that the price is the objection.

46:52So I think it's a way to separate like, hey, let's tie down on each piece here. And if they're bought in, and then they object, it's like so clear to me that it's the price. So I love this. Here we go. So the way I eliminate that completely in my sales process is before I even go to price, before I even go to product, I asked a very simple question. How committed are you to changing XYZ? Not, I want to be very clear, not committed to buying my product. Right, right. How committed are you to actually changing the situation you are or how, you know, how important is it? So that eliminates all the objections, every objection, except price.

47:38Here's what I find though. And in, because we have commitment questions as well. And we do that right before we transition into the pitch. See, this is fun, man. We got to do this stuff more often. We do that too, right before we transition into the pitch. What I find though, is they say, well, I am committed to solving it. I'm just not convinced that this is the solution because they're committing to something without having any the details. And I know you specifically said it's not to the program, but my point is, well, that's the thing I want them to commit it to is like the actual details of this program, of this offer.

48:10Now, again, to go back to my main point here, I think that you could be like, to me, this point can be successful either way. It's, it's, well, we've proven that you and I. Well, that's what I'm saying. This is why I, why I'm happy about this conversation is like all these people, it's almost, I want to like, you know, we talked about these sales trainers selling this bullshit. Like all these people saying, I have the secret formula. There is no secret formula to sales. There is formula to sales, but it changes based off of the target, based off of the product. There's so many factors and there's a process, but there's no secret sauce.

48:45There's more, as you said. This goes back to what we started the podcast with. When we said we're laughing at sales trainers, not laughing or mocking, there's talented people. But when we're talking about the difference, sales trainers are talking about like objection handling and discovery questions and all this stuff. This is still under the sales ops umbrella, what we're talking about right now. It's all the specific process refinement in the order and the sequence of how you do things that can really change and increase close rates. Right. And so, so this is the stuff I obsess over and we just have so much data that we can validate things so much faster than any individual, you know, sales team.

49:22Now, back to the point, though, real quick on the on, you know, talking about price point, we do a ton of training on what we call a funding waterfall. And our number one metric that we measure a rep on a CDPBC, which is collected dollars per booked call, we don't look at close rate, we don't look at gross revenue, because we call it AAV, average appointment value. But yeah, 100%. That's the actual game. Exactly. Gave away the secret sauce of any sales organization right there it is that is like and nobody knows that close rate means nothing nothing dollars collected for every every book called assigned booking assigned exactly whether they showed up whether they canceled whether they're good lead bad lead dog got sick someone ate my homework it if it landed on your calendar it's being counted A hundred percent.

50:13So it's return on rep. It's ROAS on an individual level. And so that's, and by the way, there's, there's, dude, we could do a whole podcast on that one metric. Cause it's like, what do you do when that goes down? And what's the reason? And what rep do you look at it? Like there's so much to it, but what I was going to say is in collected dollar per book call, it takes everything into consideration. Like we said, show rate, close rate, revenue, average sales price, collection rate. And so you have to train and optimize for all those metrics. And so and it's it's it's a little bit different than just like sales training.

50:41And so when you talk about price point, the way I'd finish that is, well, now you have to talk about collection rate and funding waterfall, because so many sales reps, like you said, if you have pocket drops, we call them, which are down sales that aren't initially showed, or if you have payment plans, you know, and ways to break it up, the the amateur reps, the not best reps, the differences, they drop to those almost immediately, and they don't know how to position around it. And so we train the order, we call it a funding waterfall of how you maximize collections and how you maximize the average sales price.

51:14So regardless, if you do price before pitch or after pitch, now it's like, well, what is the process to collecting the money? And I think that is like a really heavily missed thing as well. Explain that. What do you mean is a missed thing, the process to collecting the money? So what I mean is... That's interesting. All right. So what I mean is, let's say that you have payment plans. You offer... It's a 10K price. Yeah. Or sorry, let's say it's 8K painful or it's 12K spread over six months. Yeah. And you could do a full pay, a two pay, a three pay, or a six pay. Let's say those are your option stack that you have.

51:52What I'm suggesting is that the first time people get met with resistance of like, wow, that's too expensive for me. They don't have a regimented strategy of how they go through those things. And so all of a sudden, I literally watched a call today. I needed to give an opinion on something. And he literally said, I mean, it went from this guy, I fully believe should have been a full pay. And this person put him into a 12 month payment plan. And there's no strategy around it. And so how do you go about that talk track to maximize collection rate upfront without blowing out a deal or making it awkward?

52:27There's a lot of strategy in that. yeah yeah there is i've been i i said my strategy is i i don't talk about any other prices except the until it's near the until like you're about they're about to hang out like you know what i mean like what if but what if that's my whole point though what if they say that they need a payment plan like right after you present price you show them it's 8k and they say oh there's no way i could afford that up front okay well before before we go into that then let me ask you if if if you had the ak would you be comfortable moving forward yes or no okay so there's nothing about the product right so get eliminate objection handling to start with right well i don't call that objection and i call it eliminating eliminating all the objections like eliminate all the bullshit that they could say so now it's just price price and then that's when i it's a little different than i do and i go

53:19i can't make any promises here but suppose i don't know i mean would you be comfortable spending $2 ,000 a month so that you can X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z. And then you just hold. That's the second drop, right? Like, so what are the second drop and you hold and they might go, it's a lot. I go, okay, well, let me ask you what's, what would be comfortable to you? Let them come up with it. Right. And then obviously if it's like, you know, too cheap and you're like, well, listen, you know, you figure that out, but yeah. So what you're saying is very similar to how we do it. My point is exactly that though.

53:51What we're talking about right now is very often missed. Yeah, 100%. Because the sales reps don't care. We're talking about, see, we're two seasoned sales reps that done this. We've had our 10 ,000 hours, right? Yeah, I totally hear you. And then the idea, though, this is what's – so let's actually take that because this is actually very important because we run sales teams. You're running sales teams at volume. Well, how do you solve for that? Well, very simple. A, what you have right now is AI call analyzer, which was one of the triggers. When X happened, you know what I mean? So, like, right away, they get the train.

54:29Hey, you're not doing that. The training goes to the manager. Manager knows John keeps fumbling, fumbling. Hey, John, we'll keep working with you, working with you. Hey, you're fired because you're not learning. You're not growing. You're clearly not, right? Like, so we do have you. Obviously, I know you have those things in place. But here's the coolest thing. Like you said, it's never been easier than ever to have these things in place. Right. Ever. Right. Well, so, so here's the thing though, going back to that one, even one more step. So what you said is, and I know you're just giving an example, right?

54:59Like there's so many examples we could get, but what you said works really well if you only have payment plans. But then we have what we call the funding waterfall. So these days, pretty much every offer, if they don't, they should, but pretty much every offer has a bunch of different financing. sources yeah funding yeah they have the painful and then you said the wrong word though what'd i say you said financing funding we don't people finance their cars okay we fund people's dreams okay right on i love that yeah i tell them i literally like that's like so if they use the word financing it gets like when we used to use gong for instance gong is i think you and i both know what that's about right one of the words was like if they use financing trigger yeah financing actually triggers especially the lower conscious people that we were speaking to sorry right to say that like these are a little bit lower conscious like they think financing they they in their brains they were always raised oh financing is bad you don't you don't take cover you know right right right no i i get that and i that's again jedi mind tricks right because like i agree that those things can make a difference the the wording doesn't bug me that much it's like when people say never say the word contract say agreement yeah yeah to me i'm like i've never lost a deal in my life because i called it a contract yeah yeah or you never even say agreement you say a simple agreement it's gonna send you a simple agreement easy no issues right exactly so you know i agree with what you said and and i i also what was that sorry for saying a thing uh it's not to be rude but yeah some of the some of the lower sophisticated avatars and i don't say that to be rude.

56:40There's just people in different situations and we respect that, but some of them do have those triggers that are, that are more important. You have to be a little more careful with them. But, um, but what I was saying was, so funding your dreams options, you'll have a painful cash pay. Right. And let's say they have, you know, we won't, we won't name our sponsors. I'm joking, but we won't say the names, but let's say it's like funding option one, funding option two, funding option three. And then if they can't qualify for any of those, then it's in-house financing or payment plans, right? Yeah.

57:09Are you going to the big party next week in Miami for one of your... I got in. I did get invited to that and it sounded really fun, but I just had the baby. No, I'm with you too. I want to go, but to fly from our side over to Florida for one night just doesn't make sense to me. Exactly, man. I probably would go though, if I didn't have the little guy here. But anyway, so you have this stack, right? And you have to prioritize them based on different things. And typically it's whatever will net the most amount of money for the client. That's what you want, right? For the business. And so if you have those options though, well, then, you know, there's other options depending on what you're selling.

57:46Some things would be sort of inappropriate because it would just seem out of place, but then you have credit cards. We call them ZIC. Yeah. Zero interest credit cards. Yeah. You have a HELOCs, right? Stock accounts. So you have all the different things where they can liquidate money. And so if you have all these options on how to find money as a closer. When somebody says, I can't afford it. The question is, you literally don't have the money or it's like not in the bank account we're talking about right now. So you have to do an open wallet and have the conversation to figure out where is the money?

58:20How would they find it before you just drop into it? And so I cannot tell you how many times we just will get a zero interest credit card and they're a piff in a couple of days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But again, in hopes that they obviously have, you know, good credit, everything, right, is a massive one on that. So, and that's, and that's the importance of the funding waterfall, because if they don't have the right credit, and they can't qualify for the zero interest credit cards, then what's your next option? That's probably the prime lender that will, you know, that will qualify high credit, but slightly below.

58:53So you have to know which order to consistently go through and you train the reps on that. So it's like clockwork every single time, other than just going up, expensive, uh, three pay, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, I tell my, I mean, I tell my clients now, like because of the options of credit cards and all the options we have, I tell them don't do an in-house fine. If you're doing in-house finance, financing, max three months. 100 we are not a fan of long financing why would you in-house when someone else is willing to give their money up so he so this goes to though why i'm out of getting out of my business here right is is in going to different clients i'm done and i'm just saying i don't like i am done working with clients that are selling to people that are in that position where they can't even afford $5 ,000,$8 ,000, like getting the business of helping winners win more.

59:47The conversations are so much better and easier. Oh, absolutely. And like, even in our training on funding, we train on the difference between like somebody that like needs help getting creative and somebody that would actually put them in a poor financial position. Well, yeah, that's a whole difference. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole last dollar rule. Like we're not trying to, we, we, we have a couple of funny lines. We even say on the calls to kind of soften the, the mood but we say like hey if it's going to take the cheese off your macaroni you know if it's going to turn off the hot water this isn't for you so like yeah so we're not doing it for sure i mean if you're going to pay the rent next month like this is you know it's not for you and then i tell i don't know i tell my sales guys there's so much power in saying no you don't get paid for it but i will tell you there's so much power in that and that power you bring to the next conversation to the person that should be saying yes and you watch what happens it creates It's the mental frame, the posture that they can hold, knowing that at the end of the day, they can hold that.

1:00:43That's all the posturing that they need. And I even tell them, too, and if you sell somebody to financing and they get denied, that's a sale in my books. Like, you know what I mean? That's nothing that you're... I'm so surprised slash happy you said that. We actually created a term we call the technical close. And so what that we track it separately now, where if somebody closed a deal, but the they got rejected for financing, we track that data separately to say their effective close rate would have actually been X. Yeah. And that's another thing. The going back to the conversation with marketing for the feedback loop.

1:01:19Well, yeah. Like, look at all. Oh, you want X ROAS? We could have had that if the leads were better. And I love it because at that point, like, and I told them, I always say this to the sales, because if the client has an issue, you better believe I'm going to have your back. Because if you had sat on the call, convince them to buy, then convince them to go outside their comfort zone to put in their social security number into some website that they don't even know. You press enter and then you went through the whole process. They submitted the paperwork and then they got denied. That's not on you.

1:01:51I don't care what anybody says. That's a marketing problem. absolutely and so we have a separate tab that tracks all of it i i don't do that i i love that like actually what you're like i thought you were going to say my brain went to and maybe every five would you call it the um the technical close the technical close because they technically closed them but i almost think like hey for every five technical goals you get a little bonus or something like that like you know what i mean like because here's here's why though there's two things so first of all, so helpful for marketing, like, and the client too.

1:02:25Like a lot of what we do cave on is cover our ass. Right. And it's like, I want to, and by the way, like if the data is against me and it's accurate, I got to live with that. That's what it is. Absolutely. We have that detailed of data. They need to see it and they need to know what I stand by it. But the other thing outside of marketing and client optics, it's dude, it's so important for the sales reps because now when we talk to a sales rep, instead of them complaining about, Oh, financial capability, It's like, dude, you didn't even get a technical close. Like they bailed out before you even talked about money.

1:02:55What do you mean financial capability? You don't even know for sure. Cause you didn't take them there. So it solved a lot of problems for us by, by measuring this whole technical close metric. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's, uh, I love it. Like, I love the fact that you're going that nitty gritty. And again, I could tell that you're, as why you said you love sales operations, your data, you're more of a data scientist kind of brain and you're, and every little nuance matters and you, the levers, these are all little levers and they do matter. And I, and I do love that you can take that. It's just a safety net with a client, but you can also take that back out the market and be like, Hey, you know, and then the reality is this, how many of those actually happened, right?

1:03:34Like when you think about five, 600 book calls a month, like 10, 20 of those, it's, it's the significance not there. If it's a lot, I personally would be, there's a marketing problem but yeah that's it that's when you start the conversation i just know because when you're on a good product like i i've been on good like we one of my clients right now we're doing about two five a month like there's no ever objective the the close is easy like we i don't even need to have great sales people and that's like that's the biggest thing too i was going to mention this is when marketing is done right sell you don't need a 10 out of 10 closer and you don't want to build a business out of 10 out of 10 closers right it's a scary hero selling if you're a hero seller it's going to be impossible to scale because you just need these unicorns to be able to do the lead types exactly that's not where you want to be so i always tell people like a good business it's a mix it's a mix the marketing's good and like and sales isn't hard if sales is hard like it's our grind there's something going on and it could be the sales process for sure.

1:04:39It could be the sales person, but I'm saying if all of those things have been checked out, truly checked out, then, you know, so then I always say this. So I had one client, Oh, you're getting me going now, man. I just one client. He asked that. Well, hold on. Pause real quick. Just a quick line. It goes back to the slides again, we were talking about. So I have a slide that says a pretty good sales rep with great systems will beat a great sales rep with bad systems any day. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's because A hundred percent agree with you is what you say. A pretty good rep with great systems will out beat a great rep with poor systems.

1:05:16I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. The only way that works is if you're in the one in which you and I, if they're, if they're you and me's, you and I don't need systems to be great. But here's the challenge with that. You and I, we don't go and become salespeople. We go and build business. Exactly. Right. So I couldn't agree with more. But what I was saying was one of the challenges I saw was we had a client where we built a 100-person sales team for them. And the leads were just – they promised they would get better, and they were not great. And then they kept saying, oh, your guys suck.

1:05:50And then I started thinking, maybe our guys do suck. We got to go back and like, okay, what is going on? Our guys would leave. They go on other people's accounts, and they go become their top closers on those accounts. Yeah. And it happened not once, not twice. We've had it internally for ourselves. A client's all pissed that this rep can't close a deal. We're like, well, they're a great rep. We put them on a different offer of our own and they crush it. Yeah. Now, by the way, some of that to just take some ownership is not all reps sell all offers equally. Well, I was just going to say, yeah.

1:06:22But let's assume that it was the right. So we call it ICP and hiring. Not ideal client profile, ideal candidate profile. So you have to have the right hiring avatar for the business. but let's say it was the right fit. It still happens exactly what you said, where it's like, they're not performing that well, but then they go crush it somewhere else. And it really does tell you a lot about the offer and the marketing. And it happens time and time again, man. And also the closer though. Like, so I'll tell you a story that happened with me. And this is where I was like, and you know, when my earlier days, when I was closing, I was on a couple of accounts and this one account, I just was like, I couldn't, the leads were good.

1:07:01Like the leads weren't bad, but I just couldn't get it to be was hard. It wasn't easy like the other ones. Right. So like my close rate was like 15, 18 % instead of 30, 40 % type of thing. And, and I'm talking to my mentor and he's like, cave on. Do you like the prospects you're speaking to? I'm like, no, man, they fucking drive me really analytical. Cause they were like, it was, there was a Forex trading. It was a Forex trading. It's all analytical people, right? I'm not an analytical person. I thought, especially back then. Right. And he goes, do you know anything about Forex? right i'm like nah and then and then he just and then i just said i just stopped and i'm like oh my god like i never like just because you're good at sales doesn't mean you sell everything and i always tell people you gotta sell the thing you're in alignment with because when you do that you become embodied with it yep and then you actually ooze it and then now you're selling here's someone uh a person a sales rep with a little skill with 100 conviction yeah sells some sales rep with all All the right skills, zero conviction.

1:08:03Absolutely. A hundred percent. And it's not even just the prospect congruency. It's the offer itself. If they're not fully bought in on the offer for whatever reason, then they're screwed. And it's an energy thing, man. They could be doing all the right things, but for some reason, they're not getting people across the finish line. I'm not going to say the name because there's just enough people that would know who I'm talking about. And I respect and like this person, but we had one client where it just didn't work out with. it was what I would consider the only time in our business that we had a team that did really well with numbers.

1:08:36We, we tried it. They didn't do as well. Then they left and they started doing better again. And I spent so much time on it because it was the only time that that had happened to us. And I'm like, what, what could have been the reason? And dude, we, we did not feel in alignment selling to the avatar. It was, again, I won't describe the avatar, but it was like, it was a very, very broke lead with a specific background. And these sales reps felt like they were taking advantage. And it was just like, I don't know, we could we couldn't figure it out. Even me. I just resonate with what you said, because it was like, I'm like, why can't we do this?

1:09:14And you look at it and I'm like, I don't know if I would have wanted to take that guy's money either. Yeah, 100%. No, 100. You couldn't I couldn't agree with you more. We again, remember i said there's power in saying no we i had a i'm watch too i'll watch a little bit but we had a client where like it was going to be a massive contract this is going to be like a 60 grand just a month to just a um what do you call like a recurring fee just to have us there on top of our commissions like this was a big one and i was and uh i i pulled it the last second and everyone's like are you freaking crazy i said no i said like they were they were using religion i'll say this they were using religion to females oh dude at a certain level where females are in their lives and then where they're going through uh you know changes as they get older and their harmonic changes right i'm just trying to be very p right pi whatever it is right now pc uh and um and i just and i was like i can't i can't like just just i can't do it and it was we've had that happen recently um very i'm faith-based that's irrelevant i don't like using faith type of stuff in conversations, it feels manipulative.

1:10:24Um, if done the wrong, you know, some people, you know, maybe it works for them, but, but I personally don't, I just feels like the wrong time to bring that stuff up. Um, I know some people it works well if like that's their community, they just, they want people to know that that's their community, but they're not using it in the actual sale. That's a different story of saying, Hey, we're a Christian faith community. Are you, that's very different than, Hey, God wants you to do this. Exactly. Take a second and just pray. What's God telling you? Well, let's go a hundred percent. And that's what I'm saying as well.

1:10:58Now let's take it one step higher than that, even outside of religion or whatever it is. I was literally on the phone with somebody yesterday about this. And to be fair, like I've talked about it a ton of times, but just yesterday I had a conversation with somebody and he couldn't comprehend why I wasn't going to take on this brand. Cause again, financially, it was a pretty large relationship. And he's like, I just don't understand. Like, they literally are ready to start today. But one of the things that I have learned is like, you can't make a selfish decision, Kayvon, on behalf of yourself.

1:11:25I personally, yeah, I would like the additional income as a business owner. But I have to make that decision on behalf of my team and my sales management and my sales reps. Because at the end of the day, I know if there's all these problems or, you know, there's these, it's just a bad offer or bad energy. Nobody's going to want to work on it. And I'm not going to be able to force the success there. I always say that, you know, people often talk about culture internally, but they don't talk about culture and alignment and partnerships and enough. And for me, it's like, are we a culture fit for the client?

1:12:03And, you know, if it's not a culture fit, I just know it's going to be chaos for everyone involved and we don't take it we part way yeah no i couldn't agree with more culture i mean it's everything it's uh it's especially with the sales like the sales reps got to the managers everybody the whole mechanism the it needs to be aligned and work together and on both sides like one of our core pillars is one team like it's we become one team right because it doesn't work when it's their team, our team is just, is there's division and division causes chaos. We say where you're outsourced in house sales team.

1:12:41Yeah. Same. Yeah. That's why I love it. I mean, we've gone over here, man. I think there's a part two coming up. What do you think? Yeah. I would love to. We could talk along. Here's what I want to do because I think it's super important. I think we should do a part two. We're going to get this live. We're going to put the show notes. So anybody who wants to work with you, we're going to have all your links in there, but most important we're going to take the time to say congratulations again congratulations to you being a father this week that's massive man like this is a huge like as a as a father of two daughters you know two and a half and four and a half like i'm going to tell you your life's going to change in all the greatest ways and i'm just i'm happy and excited for you of what's what's to come thanks so much dude i couldn't be happier and thanks for an awesome conversation this was cool of it

1:13:33beth