22: Sales Channels

hey everybody it's john barrows with make it happen mondays happy monday to you i'm coming at you from my backyard here in woburn massachusetts and you can probably hear in the background why my whole upstairs is being renovated and putting in a new master bathroom and uh and also redoing all the hardwood floors so it's a bit of a nightmare up there so i figured i'd come back and enjoy the weather since it's a nice day here in boston and uh come at you from a little bit of a different viewpoint actually i spent the weekend here you can see this i spent the weekend putting together a uh one of those american ninja warrior set uh obstacle courses for my daughter she's six and a half and for some reason she's all into it which i love so uh we uh we spent the whole weekend building out the uh little obstacle course going across the swing sets down the slides over to the zip line all the way throughout the yard and have to play a little bocce on the way out so needless to say had some fun with it um but today it kind of plays into today's theme um the theme of today is is really you know which communication channel is the best one and kind of the overarching answer to that question for me is be wherever they are all right so wherever your clients are wherever your prospects are that's where we need to be you know so for instance this is where i need to be today because it's way too loud in my office today so anyways keep uh fire off questions again i'm gonna apologize for the background noise it'd be a lot worse if i was upstairs um so fire off questions in um you know at facebook here or do them before during and after too i'm gonna actually pick a couple of questions that a few people came up with on the posts on previous posts and i'll address those but the the theme of today which i wanted to talk about because i get asked a lot is you know john is it email is it phone is it you know uh social is it twitter is it in mail what is it right and i also hear all these people talking about you know cold calling's dead or social's overrated or whatever and you know at the end of the day it's not about any one of those tools okay let's put it this way back in the day when when sales was there was no technology no phones or anything there was the killer app which was knocking on doors like you had to walk around and knock on doors and that's how you communicated with people and then the phone hit right and that that was the killer app that was like holy crap you know we have one way of communicating with people so that's all in on that and then email came out and that was the killer app so all of a sudden that was became the primary form of communication but then after email and when social started to hit it it kind of blew everything up and so now it's not you know it's not about any one of them it's all of it and my best analogy here for where i think we need to be today is is the movie focus all right so i don't know if you all seen the movie focus with will smith but it's not one of his best but whatever it's a decent one and in in the movie he's a con artist right so he's a guy who goes around with a group of people and he swindles people out of their money right so he either runs uh gambling rings with them or pick pockets or or whatever so needless to say he goes into the super bowl uh the events and he goes with all group of people and they go pickpocket and everything else and they get together and they they got a million dollars out of everybody right so they put it all and pull it together and they give it to will and they say hey will you know what um why don't you uh you know take this and we'll see in a couple weeks right please don't spend this money because they know he's a degenerate gambler so anyways he he's like yeah yeah no problem so he leaves with the suitcase and with his girlfriend who's part of this whole thing but she doesn't really know what's about to happen so anyways the next thing is they're they're in the suite at watching the super bowl and and they're betting on random stuff so they start betting on all sorts of ridiculous things like hey i bet you that guy eats his popcorn before she eats the hot dog or something like that and they're they're betting with an earshot of this guy who's sitting a few rows back and the guy eventually leans in and says hey um you mind if i get on that bet and so will turns to him and says um yeah sure why not right so they start betting on random stuff so all of a sudden he's like hey i bet you 50 bucks is going to be end around to the tight end he's like ah he loses right hey double or nothing this is going to go to the running back and whatever loses again so long story short doubles doubles doubles doubles loses the million dollars and so you're free you know you're watching this whole thing going dude are you kidding me what are you doing right now and his girl's freaking out about it because she doesn't know what's going on and so as he's leaving he looks back and he says you know what i got one more bet for you and the guy's like man you're a glutton for punishment what do you want to bet on now so will goes i'll let you choose any number you want on the field any number you want on the field and i'll bet you i'll guess what number that you choose and the guy's like excuse me like there's a there's two football teams down there you out of your mind and will's like you know what i'll do you one better i'll you can choose the number and my my girl will guess what number you choose and she's like absolutely not no way like no no no i don't i don't want nothing to do this it's like just will's like just do it right so anyways the guy grabs the binoculars looks around looks around and he finally sees down standing next to the the coach this big dude with number 55 across his chest and so he looks at will and he goes hey uh you want me to uh you want me to write it down i was like no i trust you and so you know he gives the binoculars to the girl and she's like please don't make me do this please don't right and he's like just look right so she's sweating it sweating it looking around and all of a sudden she sees down standing next to the coach on the field their their friend who they'd been hanging out with all week with the number 55 across his chest and all of a sudden she kind of looks at will and he kind of shrugs his shoulders and she goes 55 and the guy the the guy who they bet was like no no no way did you guess that like how in the world did you guess that right and and so doubles up the money and will leaves and everybody's happy except for that guy but the the point of the story is like this guy was a mark all right and will knew it will knew that this guy was a degenerate gambler from i forget where in asia but uh and he loved betting on the most ridiculous things and he was a billionaire so a million dollars meant nothing to this guy so will had it set up where when this guy landed in new orleans everywhere he looked he saw 55 so the license plate on the car that picked him up was 55 the um the protesters outside his hotel room were union 55 the chandeliers in his in his hotel room look like fives the song that was playing in the suite was um rolling stones woo woo and apparently in mandarin woo woo was five five so everywhere he looked and everywhere he saw or everywhere he heard it was 55 so by the time it was his time to to make a decision on what number to choose that was the number he was choosing and that's where i think we need to be these days i'm going to follow you on twitter i'm going to retweet you every once in a while i'm going to send you an email i'm going to join a group on linkedin and make a comment or two when when you're in there i'm going to send you an email i'm going to make a phone call uh you know and i'm just so i'm going to be everywhere so everywhere you look you see 55 and and if every piece is adding value and not always trying to sell not always trying to be like hey you know i want to i want to sell you something based on what you're saying there eventually we start getting people to come to us instead of us always pushing on them and so that's really what i'm trying to figure out right now i mean my contact strategy used to be you know mixing it up between emails and calls and really that was it it was email call email i had a six touch campaign right where i would go after somebody six times in 30 days that was my contact strategy six unique touches in 30 days and and it was really email phone email phone email phone and people would ask me well it was a better email first or phone i don't think it matters now mine is six touches but it also includes a bunch of the social stuff so usually my first touch is an email right so i'll fire off an email because i saw something i'll look for that trigger where somebody's like hey you know i i was quoting a magazine or you know they're doing something as a business whatever they open up a new office launching a product whatever right and there's a genuine connection there where i can say hey you know what i saw this happen within your business i wanted to reach out to you because you know we work with other companies where that's happened and this is kind of the results we drive them whatever i'd love to have that conversation with you about that then though you know you don't always have to ask for the meeting or the referral and that's where i've evolved a little bit because i used to say every call to action you know every single time you send an email or make a phone call have a really strong call to action right make sure you ask for what you want i i've loosened up on that a little bit um now i kind of follow the uh almost so gary vaynerchuk i talked i talked about him a lot here you know he has a book called jab jab jab right hook and the whole concept there is add value add value add value then ask and so that's why i've kind of loosened up a little bit on my calls to action and i might jab you uh or i might i might ask the first one like i said hey i saw this and that prompted me to look at you in the first place but then as i educate myself about your business and i follow you on twitter and those type of things what i'm trying to do there is just add value i'm trying to share things and say hey you know what uh retweet you and say hey really good quote on that or thought and then find some piece of content and maybe share it with you and say hey thought you might find this interesting i noticed you were talking a lot about this here's an article i read the other day that really speaks to that and you know here you go with no ask if i see they get an award or something like that those are ones where i'll just say hey congratulations on the award hopefully that means good for you personally and professionally and then maybe do some persona based stuff where it's hey we're working with other vps of sales in the sas industry show them how to drive these type of results share a case study find another trigger and and the key is is is really being where they are all right so in addition to using all the various tools out there we also have to use them appropriately for the audience we're going after as an example you know i'm a 41 year old man on snapchat like i still don't know what the hell i'm doing with snapchat like i i figured that was just for sending inappropriate pictures to people and not getting in trouble about it but when gary v last year started talking about snapchat i started looking into it and i was like well all right and i read a report last year this was last year before instagram kind of took over the stories and stuff but last year i read a report that said the number one social media channel for kids under the age of uh 26 years old was snapchat and by the way there wasn't even a close second it was snapchat instagram everybody else and a huge demographic for me your kids between the ages of 22 and 26 years old so if my number one demographic is on the number one social media channel snapchat well then where do i need to be snapchat right so john m barrows check me out i do some dumb shit on there and i answer a lot of questions too um i actually like it a lot because kids can snap me questions and i can snap them right back as opposed to me typing because i suck at typing so emails are rough but uh feel free to hit me up john m barrows all one word but anyways you know that's the point right because you ask well is it john is it uh linkedin is it emails what do you think about emails i'm like i don't know do they have a really um robust profile with 500 plus connections and are really active on linkedin well then sure send them an email um do they have 50 connections and a really weak profile and nothing posted in the past two years then probably not right same thing with twitter like should i engage on twitter i don't know you know they have a really robust twitter profile and a lot of stuff going on and can you see them conversing back and forth on twitter or do they have the egghead logo and six tweets in five years okay i mean that should determine your approach there so the point is is again it's not any one of them it's all of them and it's also being where they are if they're if you're not where they are it doesn't matter but what i my experience today is is that everybody's talking everybody's talking right and it's just you got to find out where they're talking you know it might be old school it might be at publications and it might be at seminars it might be you know but or it might be on podcasts it might be on twitter so that's why i think it's so important to really hone in on who your target audience is and i always recommend everybody have like a top 25 list you know have a top 25 list i call it your hit list right of these are the these are the clients that fit that profile and and then surround them everywhere they are so spend maybe an hour or two a week really sitting down and and diving into each one of those accounts and figuring out who the top people in those accounts are and where are they right are they on linkedin are they on twitter where and then surrounding them ends listening and then as you listen you can pick up on those triggers to to leverage as part of the contact strategy and that's again what it comes down to it's not about the one email it's not about the one tweet it's not about the in mail it's not about any one of those things it's about the contact strategy and the story that we're telling people all right so really kind of sit down and and like i said surround your prospects uh the target accounts that you're going after and and listen to where they're they're talking and leverage the social channels appropriately that's where i'm finding a lot of luck these days is when i go after people i want them to see me everywhere they are and i want to add value every single time the two things that have to be in place when you're reaching out to people is uh you have to be adding value and you have to have a reason so you've heard me say this before on these sessions you know one of my favorite nuggets is is starting all your calls off with the reason for my call is right because if you can't finish that sentence you shouldn't be making the phone call so you have to have that reason for the call and you got to be adding value because if think about it this way the most valuable asset any of us have i don't care i don't care who you are what you're doing you're the most valuable asset any of us have is time it's the number one thing i can't get back so if you want my time it better be pretty damn clear that i'm actually going to get something out of this so for that's why for instance when you send when we send emails to people who say hey you know i'd like to talk to you about your 2017 priorities and how we can help you achieve your goals that adds zero value and by the way that's what every other rep on the planet says so at least if you're going to do that by the way here's a small recommendation is add the word share into your vocabulary so for instance hey i'd like to talk to you about your 2017 priorities and how we can help you achieve your goals and share with you some of the work we're doing for other companies in the industry show them how to drive these type of results something like that right so there's something in it for me but make sure you you think about that every time you reach out to people because if you don't have a reason and you're not adding value i actually think you're doing far more harm to your brand than good if you're calling to just touch base or check in or whatever it is all right so i'll take a couple questions here marcos how you doing man um so i like this question what do you think about whatsapp and other apps uh chats and channels of communication with a prospect so i'm going to kind of default to my answer before of be where they are um but at the end of the day you know if somebody's on on whatsapp yeah go after them and i think you know cell phones for instance i'll go a little bit more old school you know cell phones i'm personally a little uncomfortable just randomly calling people on cell phones because i know how i feel when somebody calls me on my cell phone unsolicited and it's a sales call i get a little annoyed um so i tend to shy away from cell phones but man there's some people i know that crush it calling cell phones and there's actually a tool let me find it there's a i'm going to give a little promo here for a product i came across the other day that helps you find cell phone numbers of people uh let's see sales research yeah it's called lucia l-u-s-h-a go take a look at lucia you can get cell phone numbers of anybody i don't know how they found the information but you know apparently it works so so you know but if if somebody has their cell phone in their signature file that means they're pretty open to to getting calls on their cell phone same thing with um whatsapp if somebody's very active on whatsapp you know see what happens i know a lot of companies that are playing around with that i mean these chat bots are um these chat bots are pretty crazy as far as what they're doing these days and engagement models so you know whatsapp um any one of these chat bots that i'm playing around even slack and there's a ton of slack channels out there right now where you can dive into a slap slack channel and get invited to it or whatever and again i might not try to try to hardcore sell but i might try to you know add value and butter them up a little bit and do the jab jab jab and then right hook with maybe a little bit more traditional but it depends on your market it depends on who you're going after i will say uh because marcos sorry lost it but um i will say that uh yeah marcos um what i absolutely do is when i get somebody on the phone so everything for me is about getting people on the phone right is it because if i can get you on the phone um i can develop develop better rapport i i can qualify better and so everything i do like whether whatever social media channel it is is to drive that initial phone call and then but once i have that phone call then i'm going to ask you hey what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward here is it emails it sells a whatsapp what is it because i don't want to guess right like and but once you tell me that's pretty much the way i'm going to communicate with you moving forward here and man if you can get a whatsapp come if you can get a text relationship with a prospect or a client those are fantastic because you know that they're getting that text you know that they're getting it so if they're not responding to you that tells you something um so just as a to bring that uh what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward a little bit further because i love giving nuggets and tips um you know i think life is about expectation setting i think i've said this before where you know think about the last time you were pissed off about anything i almost guarantee it's because your expectations were miss set and so if you think about why do clients get upset with us right because we miss set expectations about what our product or service can do why do we get upset with clients because they miss set our expectations about what their communication structure is what their timeline is what their priorities are all that stuff so that's why for me communication expectation communication expectation setting is key so for instance what i'll do is i'll say to somebody hey you know what thanks for your time i appreciate it so some next steps and action items here just out of curious what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward here is it is it emails it sells a text what is it and then when they say usually email i'll say great you know what look as we go through this process together if you need something from me i promise you i'll get back to within 24 hours right hopefully even sooner um what should i expect from you and then wait for it now i will say i'm going to go from a rude version of this approach to a very direct version of this approach that works a lot better when i because i used to be so frustrated with people having good conversations with people having them tell me all sorts of cool stuff and then yeah yeah follow up with me and then completely disappearing so that's where i started and this is rude a little bit rude was i would start with hey um you know what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward email so okay email great i'll get back to you within 24 hours what should i expect of no no i'd say i'll get back to you in 24 hours can i expect the same from you i was pushing it a little bit you know i got a few people be like dude what the hell who the hell do you think you are right then i backed off a little bit i said look i'll get back to you within 24 hours what should i expect from you and i got better responses especially like vps of sales and ceos who love being direct i was getting real but everybody else i started you know they're still a little uncomfortable now i say hey i'll get back to you in 24 hours what should i expect from you the reason i ask is because i don't want to be the annoying sales rep here you tell me to wait a week i'll wait a week you know and now i get mostly oh yeah absolutely you know if you don't hear from me within a week or so john feel free to call my cell or whatever it is and and i think it goes to the power of giving people reasons that's what going back to the reason for my call is and why that's one of my favorite nuggets giving people reasons for your questions tends to let them let their guard down a little bit a lot of people are wondering sales just why are you asking that question why are you doing this whatever so i tell them why i'm asking that question and when i do that that i get much better answers so play around with that one that one's a fun one to to say hey what's the best way to communicate with you moving forward email and preface it email cell text whatsapp whatever and um and i'll get back to you in 24 hours what should i expect from you the reason i ask is because i don't want to be the annoying sales rep and see what happens okay try that one out that one's fun so let's go down to a couple more questions here uh brandon how you doing man uh your thoughts on multiple calls the same contacts per day i've heard that uh third call might make it seem urgent and you open with the reason for my call so this one's interesting i mean i think if it is if it's tied to something that you saw very recently i think you can kind of get away with it right i think if you know if you just saw somebody you know launching a new product and they just did it within the past week or so or something like that or just opened up a new office or or had a really good quote in in a magazine or an article or something like that and it's something like holy crap like we have to we have to talk about this right now because i have something that can solve that problem immediately i think you can be more aggressive with your outreach and i think you can maybe call two or three times to to try to catch them live for instance i wouldn't leave two or three voicemails but i would you know i wouldn't mind calling two or three times you just got to be careful though with you know with all of a sudden them recognizing your number and and putting you into being like yep there's that phone number again like there's a couple of people that are not in my cell phone and i get the same and i see the number and they're these are more spammers right uh the ones who are you know the auto dialer with the voice message whatever but um i'm seeing those numbers i see that number come up now frequently and i avoided it all i've actually put it on my block list at this point so i think as long as you're not overly aggressive but i will say brennan um that uh my my mentor jeff hoffman and if you're not following jeff i highly recommend it mj hoffman.com uh he's a guy that i resell some of my ip through and i've learned a lot from you know he has that exact philosophy he says look i i want to show urge i want to create urgency by showing urgency so that's where he's gonna like he had this i don't know if he's still doing it but he had this five touches in five days approach mine's six touches in 30 days because i like that it's kind of like a monday thursday tuesday friday wednesday monday type of contact strategy but he's got a five and five and his whole theory is you know what i gotta create urgency by showing urgency so i think if it fits your style and and you have something to talk about and you have a legit reason why and you're not just gonna pitch them and say hey we're the leading provider of some dumb shit um then yeah go for it man try it out see what happens and and it goes back to what i'm gonna say to everything which is uh you know try it out but split test it and be thoughtful about it right so for instance for an entire week get a list of accounts and go heavy at them and and track to see how many times you got a conversation and it flipped into a meeting versus how many times somebody said take me off your list you psycho right and if the positives outweigh the negatives keep doing it man you know it's not necessarily my style because i'm i'm not that aggressive with hey we got to talk but um some people and you know also keep in mind i'm not making the 400 dials a week like i used to be doing i'm a little bit more i'm a lot more targeted these days with my approach um but i'm also not being held to metrics all right so absolutely try it out um you know call you know three four times a day or whatever it is and see what happens but have a reason just to make sure if they pick up that phone and and are kind of pissed off you have a legit reason and you can flip them all right uh another question good tip for annoyance uh good tip or annoyance um what do you mean give me a little bit more color do you mean on on yours as far as calling them uh five three or four times or something i said earlier hit me up again on that one uh mark is another one for inbound customers whatsapp is a great way to communicate with my prospects specifically for prospects from an asian oh absolutely yeah there's i mean that's why i said market is dictating i mean whatsapp here in america is is nothing like no but i don't i don't know anybody who uses whatsapp uh but i know in other countries it's huge so i would absolutely and and again you're talking inbound man i mean no question about it inbound is is fantastic for chats and chat bots and whatsapp and those type of things so by all means run with that if you're if you're in uh if you're outside the us and you're dealing with inbound then yeah i think whatsapp's almost a no-brainer because again that's how people like to communicate now i will say i would say um you know do your best to try to get them on the phone if you can unless the language barrier is that bad just because again it's it's you can develop some type of rapport even over chat i mean chat i think is better and whatsapp is better than uh email because email is one of those things where i send it to you and or i see you in my inbox and i can delete you without even really trying um but with whatsapp and and and text and those type of things it's more of a conversation so if you go dark on me like i can tell you're going dark on me and that feels weird as far as like if you were chatting with me right now on whatsapp and all of a sudden i just went radio silent like i know what i'm doing there you know what i mean and it kind of feels weird because there's a there's a person on the other end of that phone um but just be careful with all the chat bots going on right now like i've gotten fooled a couple of times from chat bots thinking that they were actual human beings and i'm going to be investing in a chat bot myself by the way when you go on my website i'm going to light up a chat bot it's like hey thanks for visiting my website and all that other stuff to gather information from people but some of them are pretending too much to be you know with artificial intelligence and that type of thing so i think chat bots and uh email in the next couple of years here i don't think too many people are going to trust them as far as being an actual human being that we're communicating with because as soon as you get duped as soon as you get caught in a conversation or as soon as you get into a conversation when um you think it's a human that you're talking to and then you realize it's an actual robot you're never going to trust that medium again so i i would just be cautious to go all in on any one of these things because i think in the not so distant future artificial intelligence um is gonna significantly impact um our our trust factor in any one of these channels that's why i actually think phone is is such a good thing to make sure you stay your skills stay up to date on because that's the one thing i think that the robots are going to have a hard time taking over all right a couple more here uh let's see bernan right on with your answer five contacts five days strategies just a different approach uh i like more of six and 30 like you thanks for making the time no problem man thanks for chiming in uh marcos i use this uh used to use chats appear after my first call or when i cannot reach out for the first call with my prospects cool man like i said if you're using here at the end of the day if whatever medium you're using if it's working keep doing it i don't care you know what i mean i i talk about guidelines and structure and tips and stuff like that but man if you're getting crazy conversations on whatsapp if you're if touching base and checking in is working for you god help us all then you know keep doing it but um you know but just pay attention right and and like i said before i've said it all you know split test everything you do put a conscious effort into saying you know what i'm you know like i'm gonna try this this week and i'm gonna be thoughtful about how i'm using this and i'm just i usually keep a pen and pad next to my desk and just do one two three four five one two three four five like how many times i use it and how many times it work and not work and then just kind of you know pull up the results at the end and and say at the end of the week okay did that approach work or did it not work all right so that's about it for today we're about two minutes left here i do got to bounce here for another five calls and then i'm off this week to uh let's see i'm going to san francisco wisconsin and new york so if you're in any one of those areas hit me up say hi and um and also oh just two things two quick things here i'm turning all these facebook live things into podcasts so um people keep asking me john you're going to do a podcast and i you know i got a million other things going on right now so i don't have time to sit down and do a formal podcast so i'm going to be putting these facebook live sessions on podcast so you can go on and download them it's going to be make it happen mondays and uh also next week i am going to have a very special guest my good friend coca sexton who is if you look at any one of the top uh you know influencers or our number one social sellers in the world that type of stuff coca is literally the number one social seller on the world he started uh well first he got a military background but then he went inside view and he went into linkedin for a while really ran social there and helped them define what social selling was and then now he's over at hootsuite and crushing it over there and what i'm going to be talking about uh coca about is is personal branding versus professional branding because i'll tell you right now i'm having a and this is me asking him questions because i i want to learn something myself here i'm having a hard time struggling between my personal facebook page and my business facebook page there's been so much crossover that now i i have to be very conscious of what i put on my personal page and i want to talk to coca about his approach to that and and if he has any recommendations for the rest of us who are doing um who are trying to balance those too all right so anyways keep the questions coming hit me up on snapchat instagram uh twitter they're all john m as in michael barrows one word uh take a look at the store buy some of my make it happen shit uh it's fun stuff it's getting some uh getting some good pictures and stuff out there i appreciate the love and uh yeah just make it a great week everybody alright make it happen thank you you