Sales Therapy Webinar: Fix Your Sales Problems

0:00Zach Thompson Brimstone Zach's best friend it says below there doesn't it and no it's fine it says nothing you've not you've not gone for anything witty you've not tried anything smart you've just no but this is the usually part you say oh that's not appropriate are you trying to get us to consult you've taken it too far you've ruined we have a meeting um so we are we are live obviously some people might be listening to this on youtube or on spotify or apple thank you for listening to it today's session is going to be a sales therapy session. So we have been asking people for their questions. We have received some questions.

0:39We're hoping we're going to get some live stuff as well as the audience comes in. And basically the premise is for anybody that's coming into the conversation now, sales dilemmas, top of funnel dilemmas, business dilemmas, business bottlenecks, sales teams, training, whatever it may be we want you to chuck all of the problems you just put that in the private chat by the way i don't know if you meant to put that in the that sent me a message privately saying zach looks great today but i think you meant to put it in like the main chat so everybody can see that um so that's good that's really good actually so it says on linkedin it says it's happening now i'm just going to make sure we are live we have had uh a few comments already somebody said this sounds like a fantastic opportunity for growth how do you plan to engage the audience and that is a great question uh to start with how do we plan to engage the audience at thompson i'm going to throw that over to you well i'm a man who's been known to engage so i'm going to be throwing out questions and i'm also going to be throwing out answers when you think you know the answer maybe i'll change the question wow i like that and i've had a request straight away can you come close to your microphone you sound like you've got an echo you told me it sounded good backstage so i'm asking the audience who are listening now does this sound better anyway enough admin let's get into it let's get into the show um so the first question that we had before we went live uh is and i'll chuck it to you to see where we go is how do you generate consistent sales pipeline how do you generate consistent sales pipeline i think the word there is consistent quite big that isn't it does that mean pipeline as in uh opportunities money meetings a bit of everything i think pipeline this this is what so i have we have like a lot of new business a lot of people come to me and a guy came to me on monday and was like i need pipeline quick and i said well like there is no silver bullet in this game can you get pipeline quick probably not because pipeline is I've got a number of people that have the problem, are motivated, there's a first discovery, and then they're in the pipeline.

2:56So it's like a next step, a decision is going to happen. That's what I'd class as pipeline. Some people would class pipeline as I've sent them an email, and they're now in my pipeline. But I think the word there is like consistent. So when you think about making it consistent, where do you start, Zach? I think consistent pipeline is, I think of bit like a net, right? Not a net, the receptionist. I'm talking about a net that you might fish with. And each layer and channel you can get working for you makes that net wider, right? So we talk about cold corner because cold opportunities tend to be the ones that people don't go after.

3:33But that is part of the net. The next is referrals. But I mean this in two ways. I mean, a referral program. So there's a bit of an incentive for you to come back to me and introduce me to people and get a 10 % discount, blah, blah, blah. But the one that people tend not to do is proactive referral. So you're my customer, Jack, and I realize I'm getting you some good results. At that moment, I should be knocking on your door saying, who else can you introduce me to? I spotted you worked at this company before. Who do you know that I should be speaking with? I should be using you as a vehicle to get me into other businesses.

4:05And then things that have worked really well for us are things like the podcast, doing things like this, posting on LinkedIn, direct mail. but suddenly the net is getting wider and wider and wider so in terms of that consistency piece what that starts to feel like is all those different channels some of them are more regular some of them you might get an extra meet in a month but it should feel like you're not just relying on one channel and being reactive it should be a mixture of inbound and outbound and it should become quite predictable and consistent is that a good answer i don't know i'll throw that back to you jack that's a really good answer it removes you from that feast or famine one one think i i it's top of brain so i'll give you something so i had a discovery called before lunch and we had a conversation and they're they're starting from the ground up so they've got a basic website but one of their things when it comes to winning new customers is testimonials and case studies and the the prospect that i spoke with said i'm pretty crap at getting case studies and testimonials out of people and the advice i said i think everything is done up front because if you're thinking about consistent uh pipeline like you say referrals is great and actually if you've got a testimonial from somebody so i've got a testimonial from zach at wham i can use sales navigator i can look at people that are in a very similar industry that zach's connected with and i can use my prospecting and my targeting to go after those people and i can double down on those case studies and testimonials the the thing i'd say with like anything like that if you struggle to get other people for referrals is is do it all up front have that conversation so if you're onboarding somebody say like obviously we want to onboard you and blah blah blah what would need to happen for it to be worth you referring us to other people or what needs to happen within the first three months for us to get a case study or a testimonial for example so you can set everything up front that when it comes for the ask it's not weird because you've delivered your end of the bargain and i think for sas as well like if people are ever asking for discounts obviously people might know we don't do discounts there is no such thing as a discount there's how many kids we got between us about 32 now there are no discounts but but you can ask for you can say if you are in that game of sas and giving discounts cool yeah yeah i'll do that but it requires um experts or you need to yeah you need to do something for me last thing on on case studies as well case study is one of these things where the word is taken away from what it actually is the words should i say the two words a case study is a story it's a story of here's what i did for this person here's where they started here's the beginning middle end what are all the different ways that you could tell a story in the modern age you don't have to just have like boring things sat on your website you could say to someone like you've just said there oh you're only a new company so i want a little bit of a discount to protect us you could go cool all right well i want to be able to actually document the story so the good the bad and the ugly the onboarding how we got you the results your feedback would you be comfortable with that and i want to do it across a few different things i want to have like a little mini interview with you at the start of the campaign i want to do a bit to camera with you and do some stuff with text carousel and suddenly the case it becomes like a real live asset that you can document across the business and someone can actually tune into front middle end doesn't have static things on those that can become this creative marketing asset for you yeah that's really good and i know we're going off on a tangent about case studies and we're going to go to the the next question in a moment from sebastian chapman um but i was doing some training with the team this morning and case studies and testimonials is going to come up early on like for some people well i want to see a case study i want to see something if you're prospecting and people say i want to see stuff you can use that and say like but the way where my brain goes is like obviously you can have a case study for someone in the same industry or a similar company that doesn't necessarily mean they have the same problem so there's so i don't i'd rather maybe show you a case study for someone that had the same problem in a different industry rather than someone in the same industry that was trying to solve something else and that's the leverage that you can use when it comes to asking deep questions qualifying rather than just having a 40 second conversation sending an email over the loads of case studies that you think are relevant and then actually being ghosted for life um speaking of being ghosted for life sebastian chapman we are going to come over to you if you're in the audience as well watching please give us your your live questions this is designed to be interactive We're here for like the next 30 minutes.

8:47We want you guys to chuck as many weird and wonderful questions at us to do with sales and new business. Zach Thompson. No shows on meetings. It's not a question. It's a statement. Where do you want to take that? Tends to be upstream. So, I mean, try and test it. I think I could listen to a cold call and it could have gone on for five minutes, eight minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever. I reckon I could listen to all those and go, oh, it was missing this fundamental bit, which means they're not going to show up. And that bit is, should we say it together?

9:26Emotion. Wow. Did we do that together? Because you were going to say motivation. Similar. But usually it's the emotional bit missing. You know, like people are talking about, yeah, I've got this problem. It's pretty annoying. I want it to be better. I've been let down by existing supplier. and they talk about where they are right now. But the hidden objection in all human beings, the thing that we're most allergic to and want to stay away from is change. So for people like, well, how do I get more emotion out of a prospect, blah, blah, blah. The question to ask them is, if all this is going on, it's been going on for a while and it sounds like you've got some infrastructure in place, there's different decision makers.

10:09I said, why do you need to change something now? and when you ask that question that you will get to that emotion that motivation and suddenly you will find that your um show up rate becomes much higher the the latter part of it is these three questions before we book in if we sit down you don't like what i have to show you are you comfortable telling me no yes i am equally if you do like what you have to see what are the natural next steps for you i would have to show cfo ceo blah blah blah cool let's pencil those in if we get that in that meeting would you be comfortable doing that yes and the last one the weirdest one of all if we is there any reason other than an act of god that i'll be crying into my coffee because you haven't shown up so those are the different bits that i would probably say to people the why now question and that at the back end of the call what am i missing jack there's probably some technical elements which i think are probably going to be helpful um one is sending the invite with them while they're still on the call i think that is definitely helped for our 10 minutes right so like making sure that okay brilliant i've just sent that over to you there zach if you can click yes that lets me know that you've received that brilliant okay that's one i would also um yes and making sure they've accepted that.

11:30I'd also look at like booking it as soon as possible. As we know, more time that goes on, you're going to lose people. So if you book something in three weeks, obviously you might have a no-show. If you book it for tomorrow, you've got more likely chance of them attending. So try and book within the week where possible. And then prequels. We do a prequel the day before or the day of just to double down on the emotion, make sure they're going to get everything that they want out of it. and that just allows them i would also think about your icp so who you're selling to if you're selling to if you're selling to nursing homes or construction okay ask yourself they're just the two or plumbers or something tradie ask yourself are these the type of people that are sat in front of a desk all day living and dying by microsoft calendar because we are we know that we're not going to lose a, we're not going to miss a meeting, Zach, because it pops up saying somebody's already in the chat box and it's probably fireflies.

12:30But we know we live or die by the calendar. Think about your audience. Do they live or die by technology in their calendar? If not, maybe just saying, right, well, some people struggle with Teams or Zoom or whatever. I can give you a call five minutes before to make sure you're logged on. Would that be helpful? yeah no thank you um hope that helps as sebastian said it was really helpful thanks so i mean that's a good start um keep the questions coming please please please um chuck as many questions your way no matter how niche of it's fit for you guys we want to make this as interactive as possible um zach thompson you've got one directly for you straight from edward ingham and it's very complimentary and I'm I'm I'm really really thankful Edward that you picked me out here because I suppose I am yeah I'm a tall guy and I'm pretty handsome and I've got Zach Thompson have you ever worked on your tone when speaking to prospects in the fair state I've admired the way you run cold calls suspect it might be natural but something I want to work on so like anything Edward I would say if you're spotting something in yourself because I spotted this in myself before anything you want to get better at has been probably documented and put on the internet and it's probably not been documented and put the internet for sales people a lot of the best stuff doesn't actually exist in sales so before I started selling and getting on the phone and there was no real person to look up to in the business that I first worked for when I was fresh out of university but there was a TED talk from a guy called Julian Treasure check him out on our podcast we've interviewed him a couple of times and he's got a really famous TED talk called How to Speak So That People Listen.

14:10And he just gets you thinking about the voice as an instrument. So you've obviously got things like the depth of your voice, talking about the speed that you use, and really thinking of your voice as an instrument. And then what you can do is figure out the bits of kind of cadence on a call. So what are the bits where I should be accenting, and what are the bits where I should be talking louder, quieter? But a thing that I'd leave you with is most people out there buy from people like them. We've all heard this. What does it actually mean? I would say if Jack answers the phone and he sounds super upbeat, happy chappy, I also sound super upbeat, happy chappy.

14:49If he answers the phone, he sounds a bit quiet like he's in a library. I'm going, oh, Jack, sorry to bother you. And I just match who he is. I'm not just trying to be a bull in a china shop and just kill him with kindness, American style. I'm trying to actually do my best to become Jack. So a few things there. Treat your voice like an instrument. Think of all the wonderful things it can do. And the second thing is try to match and become the person you're speaking to, people by and people like them. Hope that helps, mate. Anything, Jack, from you to add to that? It wasn't for me. So, you know, like when someone knocks on your door, I'm not going to answer it.

15:26You live in a nice house. I live in a nice house. But they are different houses, Zach Thompson. so i thought you answered the both got nice kitchens i could actually let's say let's see we get enough people by the end of this asking questions maybe we want a kitchen reveal yeah i'd do a kitchen reveal because it's very easy i just have to twist this little thing over here callum collard how are you building lists you're comfortable calling through without people being there that isn't relevant using glossary etc it's great i find it's not always relevant if you do it mass i'm gonna bang zach you you take the lead on this i'm gonna bang something in the comments as well for our for people that are watching that that might be helpful because we've started using a new data provider it would be unfair for us not to plug them at this time because yeah i think they've got like 98 so so at the minute we're getting really good results from from something called prospio um jack will put a link in but they basically bought out a platform that has about a 98 % accuracy.

16:28So starting from that point where it's 98 % accurate is huge. I think your luscious of the world just can't possibly compete with that currently. And then if you are someone who has the luxury of being able to do this, having some ability to reference actual buying signals that are live is really useful. Sadly, a lot of the intent data that we're sold isn't isn't amazing but if you're able to use things like clay to enrich lists or even more manually if you're able to scan a few lists on sales navigate and find out things like people who just started roles in the last 90 days people who are actively hiring for teams that would indicate they're trying to solve the problem that you help them with there's lots of little things that you can do but definitely starting off with a really good list is a powerful thing I think I of the school thought when I started the business that, oh, maybe I'm overthinking it.

17:24Just get a list together and start dialing it. Having a really powerful list to start off with really, really does massively change things. It motivates the people that are working for you. It motivates us. And it means that your connect rates are a bit more impactful. So yeah, I'd start with a Prospero and then I'd maybe look at Enriching from there. But yeah, Prospero, definitely king for numbers. I think the question that I've started asking potential clients, and I think it's really a strong question to get into the brains of, of like, where are the people that you want to work with hanging out?

17:57And I spoke, I gave you the story on the last episode of the podcast, so I won't give that one again, but just like, ask yourself those questions. Are they hanging out at expos? Are they like doing events themselves or like, where are these people? What are you find what are those in like what are those intent signals the the the next wave of selling and i think i see this on linkedin all the time is like intent selling and i get it but people are thinking that intent selling isn't cold selling okay they think it's like warm selling it's not it's there's a signal doesn't mean they know you doesn't mean they have the problem but you're looking for clues in the same way that you build a cold list you're hoping that when you call a hr manager at a 50 person firm, they have a problem when it comes to hiring.

18:46You're looking for clues to make it, does this person, it's as old as ICP. So just ask yourself, is it that they're using a certain technology? Is it that they're hiring for a certain role? So if somebody is hiring for a social media marketing manager, it shows that they've got a marketing gap that they're trying to fix. So if you're a marketing agency, ring those people. Oh yeah, but they're trying to bring it in-house no they're trying to solve the problem they just haven't found the solution your job is to be the technical the the doctor and find the people that have the problem most people don't really give a shit about the solution as long as the problem disappears um so that's what i'd add on the data front do you know the number one question that people stop me in the streets and ask me zap thompson are you a fully grown bloke that's only happened three times and all three times it was you asking me no most people are asking me where do you get your contact data from and do you know what i tell them no i'm gonna tell you right now it's prospio p-r-o-s-p-e-o that's prospio to you that's prospio to me do you know why we use prospio no i don't know please tell me i'm gonna tell you because they are 98 better at finding mobile numbers and email addresses than any other data provider.

20:11If you want to check it out, there's a link in our bio, and you can use it right now. Hold on a second. That's P-R-O-S-P-E-O dot I-O forward slash WAM to try it for free. Forward slash WAM to try it for free. Waleed, great question here. What's your end-to-end text app from list building to calling? Are you parallel dialing and how are you weaving in LinkedIn and email to your process for outbound? So we've got a few. so we've covered the data side of things i think that's like fair like we'll leave that we have two dialers one is a power dialer which we use air call and one is a parallel dialer called nooks and i think it's i'm watching stranger things at the moment so you can tell i'm very sci-fi but it's about having the right weapon for the right campaign so there are going to be some campaigns where you need to get through more data and make sure you're having more connections we know in the United States of America, your connection rate is going to be lower.

21:09That's where something like Nooks comes in handy. If you've got thousands of leads that you need to get through because you're running an event, Nooks is really, really helpful. If you've got a list of 50, you probably want a power dial like Aircall. We are using LinkedIn. We've got a new LinkedIn offering and a strategy to that. And if people are interested in the strategy, I can talk about that a little bit more but we've been seeing some really really good results because so many people struggle when it comes to linkedin outbound messaging um and we use hayreach instantly we've we've dipped our toe in a few different tools like lemlist and zopto but there's a variety of different tools and salesforce is crm that's a big one um should we go to jess yeah any secrets to help closing relationship-led deals for a service-based business.

22:05I'm getting lots of traction and positive responses, but no final yeses. Zach, I feel like you might be the perfect person to have this conversation about help closing relationship-led deals just because you probably will bring maybe a realistic truth to what that actually is. I was actually talking about this this morning on a podcast that I was on. um obviously jess i don't know what you mean by called relationship led deals so i don't want to just like poke holes in what you mean by you could mean something different i think the thing to be conscious of anytime there's a relationship relationships bias decision making so short term they can certainly bias decision making positively but some things that can be impacted from from having like a relationship with someone that kind of crosses that it's like semi-personal semi-professional relationship is people feel uncomfortable giving you a firm answer so like a thermal no or a thermal yes so thermal formal final whatever i'm trying to say and things can drag out a little bit longer the long-term impact of having a relationship-led approach is you you end up playing like a bit of a discount game long term so just if your profit margins aren't amazing to start off with i don't know if they are they might be amazing so you might be able to do this but you find that actually a relationship means that you gradually have more and more discount added each time you try and renew working with someone so that there can be a slight issue with it and the thing i would say if you're looking for like a little short-term actual actionable tip to throw in to do something here is a few things if you've got lots of people in pipeline that you have these relationships with and a bit of i only have capacity to take on x amount of clients at the minute it looks like this is probably a no for now or you come with me closing the file and we can work together in the future actually trying to actively push a few people away you find that then people will buy and the i've got a few people to work with at the minute you've only got certain capacity which maybe you do have that is a really good way of just kind of shaking the tree and and creating a bit of that with or without you energy so there's a few things there to but I'd probably have to know a bit more about the business and stuff just but so feel free to to message me after this yeah I think expectations is the key thing as well like I've had uh prospecting and I know that you have as well prospecting uh conversations discovery with people that you know very well I've had conversations like this with family members in the past so it's a case of like just making sure those expectations are really really strong it's like any relationship you you nail it before you go in um this is a really good one so how would you cold call a product that is primarily a sign up online so we so you get them from the phone call to the website to sign up um i'd have to know what it is but i mean the i think the reality is i'd probably do it in the same way because if the product is primarily sign up online so it's a phone call to get on the website signed up regardless of what the product or service is it will solve a problem for someone there will be a fundamental problem that you're trying to solve the bit that might be the issue is getting people to act now in the moment um which i would say so so we've had that before where the sales cycle can be quite short but actually people have a bit of reactance towards the end of the call so you're going through the process you're like well I can just get you signed up now if you want and they're like oh actually that was all a bit quick and I feel like you're trying to put pressure on me and now I'm all right so actually giving people the room at the end to what would you like to do next I can get you signed up or I can give you some time and give you a call back but that call back that you do having that as something that's like this that's in the diary I'm going to call you back tomorrow at 10am we both agreed to that and it's in the diary is is really really useful thing to do there but I would say don't try not to think about that as anything different try and solve that bit at the end that reactance bit would you add anything to that i think with we and we've run a few campaigns like this in the past so that's probably where your head's going but i think like the question you want to ask yourself is can i remove friction so the first question i would ask myself is do they need to sign up online or can i sign up for them so if it is name and website like name an email address cool i'm guessing anthony by the question you're probably it's some sort of like sass 29 pound 99 um so it's about like managing the expectations next steps making sure they want that so it doesn't feel forceful but if it's something that you can remove the friction with and you can do it yourself then then i would also say like if there is any opportunity to move uh Remove friction from any part of the sales cycle.

27:01Make it easier for the prospect. Some good questions coming in. So please, guys, please do keep them coming in. It means we don't have to go to the bank of earlier sent questions. Forget those guys. They might not be here. How do you typically structure guarantees or commitments around deliverables for your clients? We've said it a few times. Expectations is the big thing. so like what are their expectations remember if you sell it perfect you have to deliver it perfect so like when we have a discovery call now we'll say like this is typically what we'll get for our offering you'll get x by month one 50 percent month two 75 percent by a hundred by month three we should be at the 100 guarantees is a really really scary world and i think especially like if you're you're living in the legion world or the cold calling world because it's a case of like how do you guarantee anything because there's so many different factors you think of like why a campaign would fail it could be the product offering is shit it could be the uh the data list is shit the reps shit it could be a number of different things um and not making it work so i think like be very very careful before offering guarantees and remember not to sell it perfect and manage expectations anything else that you'd uh you'd offer on that yeah so guarantees i would say if we've never worked together before there is no guarantee because there's no there's no science there's no data behind anything i wouldn't be able to tell you that it does it doesn't work because we've just not worked together before what i would be asking people is what do you think is a realistic time frame to see results from whatever it is that you do go and then when they tell you that answer say okay and what results would you want to see so that you then commit to a longer term of working with working together so for us that might be if this doesn't work in in six months i'd like to not work with you anymore i think that's realistic as long as we understand what what what doesn't work looks like but equally having a little bit skin on the game if if we achieve those results that you're after then i'd like to be able to say we've achieved those results are you now happy to work with us for a longer term so it's kind of a shared thing this this commitment piece around if i do my bit can you do your bit and then we all work together longer and both have some some skin in the game around it so that's probably the only other bit that i would add we've had this question i've actually had somebody message me today about this when is the live cold calling coming back so that a few people are pining for it if you're watching now and you want the live cold calling, let us know.

29:45There may be some conversations in the works. I'm not saying that NBC have offered us a seven-figure deal to bring the live cold calling show back to LinkedIn, but there are some conversations happening where that could be the game. Josh Lau, Mr. Lau, hold the sluts. Not doing anything to get out of picking up the phone, Josh Lau. What is the new LinkedIn offering? So I won't talk about it from a business sense of what we're selling. Like if you want to have a conversation with us about like LinkedIn outreach, I'm happy to have that chat, but I'll give you the strategy that we're finding is working.

30:22And I think this might be beneficial for some people. I'm calling it, and I might change the name of this. I'm calling it the poke the bear theory, theory, poke the bear system, whatever. The goal is with anything is to signal some kind of reply. I was talking about this this morning in training, you want to open up the curiosity gap. So you want to have that open loop. The second a prospect has closed that gap and the circle's complete, they have no need for you because they've scratched that itch. The same way that you'd look at a YouTube thumbnail, you go, oh, I wonder what that means. I click it.

30:57I find out more. I've seen the hook on a YouTube video. I'm going to watch it, whatever. The second you close that curiosity gap, then there is no need. So what I've been finding is reaching out to people in your ICP, hitting them with a very vague, but also just quite honest and upfront message. Zach, I've got a proposition for you. Zach, I've got a question for you. Something very, very simple. Getting a reply. So I always think LinkedIn and email, the goal of LinkedIn and email is typically to get a meeting. So have a conversation. So if you can get them on the phone, do that. And then when they reply and there's some level of permission, that's when you pick up the phone immediately or as soon as possible zach i've just got your reply i i thought rather than going back and forth on linkedin i thought i'd be brave and pick up the phone can i run through why i messaged you originally i've seen a 99 hit rate of people saying yes like not booking meetings but actually just just having the conversation so if your goal is to have more conversations so that you can qualify i would suggest using that we'll probably write a book about it at some point and try and make millions of pounds off the poker bear um the system but you can have it for now um let's go to you zach any advice on the approach when it comes to booking meetings with senior level i.e c-suite fortune 500 for i mean that's that's a lot of what we do is c-suite fortune 500 companies and and large large large corporates and blue chips the the thing is just to really put the proposition that you've got into their world so ringing someone up and you know we've got an award-winning piece of tech that does xyz people don't really care i think actually putting things into their world in really really simple terms.

32:56The other thing people want to do in sales, I don't know why, is make what they do sound as complicated as possible. I heard someone once, I always talk about this example, referred to as a dialer as a weapon of mass penetration, which I mean, that sounds like something that you might be getting out on Valentine's Day. It certainly doesn't sound like a dialer. So make the offering something that you could explain to someone in the pub without them looking at you like an alien. Make it very emotional and put it in the world of the person you're talking to. I'm speaking to other C-suite, Fortune 500, and I'm hearing that they're experiencing problem one, two, or three in very, very simple terms.

33:36What does that look like for you? And that would be my strategy if you're an established product, if you're not, there's other things that you can do. But key things, make it simple, put it in their world. Yes, very good. I would say if you are selling to C-suite, Fortune 500, and you can't get them on the phone for whatever reason, remember that the the ceo of tesco bank is receiving hundreds of cold emails thousands of linkedin messages so you've got to think of a way to disrupt and interrupt the pattern if you can't get them on the phone i would also say direct mail is a great way to disrupt and think of something outside the box that is you know what i see i see it on linkedin a lot like i sent you a letter and a kitkat which i think is like all right you've you've you've done more than most people's sloppy work with an email call but i also think like can you can you be a bit disruptive or can you do something that's actually linked to what you're doing so one of the recent campaigns we're doing is we're selling uh we're sending fortune cookies in the post but inside the fortune cookie says you all win your dream clients this year and then there's a sales letter that goes alongside it which is like uh are you struggling to get in front of your dream client that's just the way the cookie crumbles hiring costs a fortune blah blah blah but but you can just a little bit of thought and if you can't think in 2026 it's fine because you've got ai and ar will take over but just a little bit of thought goes a long way and then when you follow up with linkedin or email if you can't get them on the phone for whatever reason then it's going to stand out more when you say, Ree, I sent you a pinata in the post.

35:16Do you know what I mean? Rather than just our SAP system. I've not read this one yet, so let's... Zach, do you want to read this one out? I love your Peebies approach to qualification, but sometimes you send some tension when you call someone out of the blue, and you've asked lots of questions for several minutes before explaining what you do. Are you kind of answering when they ask, then going right back to the pain, or do you just sit in the tension? Might be nice to have an example. What do you reckon an example of that might be, Jack, like of something that people would get on a cold call that might make them like, oh, do I answer that or do I?

35:46What do you do? Yeah, what do you do is probably like the classic one. That, Waleed, that sounds like a lot of, it might be, it might feel like an interrogation rather than a therapeutic conversation. We were talking this morning about connectors, okay? So a lot of people will know the right question and they'll say, I'll give the example. So say like, we're typically welcomed in by people, blah, blah, blah. You might tell me none of those problems exist. And then somebody says, okay, so like, are you a cold calling agency? A bit like air marketing, right? Someone might say that to you. What? They'll be like, no, they don't.

36:28They're a competitor. So the connector, the question to go back into is, out of the three problems I mentioned, what one stood out to you the most? But if you just say to them at that point, okay, good question. Out of the three things I mentioned, it sounds avoidant and you are going to piss people off and this is where being human and connecting it comes in it's like oh that i mean i'll be honest with you i i haven't heard of those schmucks before uh i guess for me to really understand like what we're being compared to out the three things i mentioned what one stood out to you the most it's it's can you make it as conversational as possible if you feel some sort of tension i would probably lean on the fact like it might not be as therapeutic it might not uh be connecting the dots enough it might feel like question question question rather than conversation um zach anything to add on that uh another and i mean we'll stick on the same thing right this this like can i answer what i do without having that yeah not interested that afterwards so i imagine well maybe you've got through the problem bit and you maybe asked another question like what what is it that you actually do using their words back to them is much better than your pitch and I would use some sort of like an Ikea type framework where you're kind of building it a bit together so I'd say yeah really good question you know how you mentioned before you had x problem yeah does it ever show up as said impact yeah yeah yeah it does okay and I suppose if you were building your your perfect agency to try and solve that problem and make life easier for you what would it have to look like to stand a chance of working so i've kind of it feels like i've answered the question because i've used their words back i'm showing that i've listened to you but then i'm putting it back on you to like well let's actually build it together and see what we get to really good really good and we have had a comment weirdly someone with the same last name who's watching but i imagine they're probably also in the same room as you they can probably hear you through the walls what do you mean where could they be um um get her on the show come on emma come in shot um kane barlow based on the linkedin message you mentioned would you use a similar one-liner for email or expand a little bit more so we've got a guest got a guest on the podcast next week called chris fenning and the whole episode is based on writing emails okay the the goal is less is more remember people are skimming and people are in that fight or flight monkey mode and they're seeing something and thinking like i'm going to respond to this straight away like something very very simple remember your subject line the only goal of a subject line is to get them to open up the email so spark curiosity and then something that's just simple that's going to get you a reply and then you can lean on the phone zach i know that you love cold email so do you uh do you have anything else do you want to add on that uh again keep it keep it really simply someone's first time interacting with you so think about emails that you read that you want to delete too complicated too long blah blah blah the the goal of the email is to get a reply so that in their signature you see their number and you give them a ring that's what you should be looking for the subject line i know there's all these subject lines that get thrown around forever the subject line i've used my whole sales career so over 13 years is as discussed i put it in the email subject line every time as discussed i've used all sorts of daft ones as well is this you can't believe you did this re can you help all that sort of stuff but yeah and then and then a one-liner jack i've got a bit of a proposition for you just in something quite interesting what's the best way of getting hold of you yeah curiosity gap i want to have that conversation to scratch that itch.

40:21That's what's happening. And then once you're in, then you move them through the process. Another little hack that I would suggest is if you are prospecting and there's certain people that you've got a list of accounts that you're dying to get into, but you're really, really struggling, summer and Christmas are going to be your best friends to set up automated email campaigns. Have low expectations, but if the goal is out of office, i was i i did some podcasts so like the email we typically don't use email for our client but for our podcast guests email is the only way to get hold of them when we're talking about like some of these big names or whoever it might be we are going to be using email um so it's a case of like how do i get their contact details or how do i get make sure i'm speaking to the right person i email people on boxing day automate it schedule it you'll get a load of out of offices all the right person or getting in touch with my assistant blah blah blah which makes it easier so summer and christmas that's a little sales hack for you thanks man jai chahan i hope i didn't butcher that do you want to read it zach in regards someone saying that they have a current customer base that they work with and they don't do any new business what would you say to them to allow them to be open to looking into getting new business jack what do you think where would you start someone saying that they have current customers imagine we've rags when they're like i'm all good i've already got enough clients okay so so that's where like we talk about this in the book so when we talk about p me is this is where like aces comes in so the first step is always to accept what they say but accept it in a genuine manner yeah yeah of course i thought you might say that and then we're gonna explain what they actually mean so they they have a current customer base they work with and they don't do any new business is that they're not doing new any new business at the moment they've never done any new business they uh they they don't do any new business but they still have the problems that you solve you've got to clarify and then that allows you to get further into the conversation to start exploring it remember your job isn't uh like the The best person to deal with an objection is going to be the prospect, the other person.

42:40So it's your job just to ask the questions, get them to open up and try and extract the information. All you're trying to do is have a conversation. Should you do a little soft role play on that one? Just to, just to sound out how ACES works. Yeah, please. Do you want to hit me with that? Yeah. Yeah. So we already have a current customer base that we work with and we don't do any new business. Yeah. I thought that'd be the case. Okay. Fair. Do you mind if I ask you something just while I've got you? Yeah, please. Yeah, yeah, go on. You said you've already got a customer base. I suppose what is it about the current customer base that means you don't have to go after new customers?

43:18They're quite reliable and they're quite consistent in terms of like coming back to us. Okay. I'm going to pick up on something there, Jack. I hope you don't mind. You said quite reliable and quite consistent. You didn't say amazing, perfect. and I'm sat on my yacht right now. I mean, listen, if everybody was 100 % always coming back, that'd be great. But I think 75 % is strong, which means do we really need to be massively proactive for this? Probably not. But, yeah, it's not causing any headaches at the moment. Okay. So it sounds like 75%, I mean, that sounds good, 75%. And actually, if you got that extra 25%, it makes no real mad difference to you.

44:08And you'd probably turn that extra 25 % away. I wouldn't turn it away. And I mean, top line, it's always going to be good. But how hard do I want to work for it? Not very hard. Oh, okay. So it's less about the customers. It's more about I'm quite happy what I've got going after that new 25%, but actually add some existing work to me. And I don't know if I have the stomach to do it or the resource. Yeah. Yeah. It's more like I don't have the resource all the time or the stomach. OK, so if I could help you with that extra 25 percent, what do I have to do to have a have a conversation with you about that?

44:48And that is called redirection, which is the R in ACES from the best selling sales book, Sales is Therapy, available on Amazon.co.uk. Okay. So A says that I accepted what Jack said. I clarified what he meant by his point, which in this case was have an existing customer base. What do you mean by that? Why would that stop you even new customers? And then I explored until I found a gap in something. And when I found it, that was the aha moment. And then I redirected. So the redirection is me taking what he said, and then saying, it sounds like it's less this and more this. Is that correct? Yes. Okay.

45:25And now we move on. very good Zach where has 45 minutes gone it's flying by and I've loved it and I don't normally like spending time with you no no me neither it's been really really fun if we can help you or you want to buy the book you probably know where it is just type our names into Google it will come up listen to the podcast all that fun and games if this has been helpful drop us a message let us know what you've liked and I'm going to put it out there I think the live cold calling show might make an appearance in February or maybe March. Thank you guys. Have a lovely day. Take care.

46:04Our books are now open. If you need help getting in front of your dream clients, we might just be able to help. If you're a business who's wondering how to grow in 2026 and beyond, but there's not enough meetings in the diary with either the right person or the person who genuinely wants to solve the problem, we might be able to help. wehaveameeting.com