Summary:

In this week’s episode of The CEO Warrior Podcast, Mike Agugliaro interviews Carl Gould, who is an entrepreneur, business mentor, and award winning coach. Carl created the world’s largest business mentoring organization, which oversees the development of thousands of small businesses across six continents and has conducted over 50,000 coaching sessions. Carl is also the author of Biz Dev Done Right, and during the podcast discusses how to take the mystery out of your sales and marketing programs.

Main Questions Asked:

• What is the problem with the business owner being the sales manager?
• Have you noticed that there are so many solutions it’s hard to know what to do and what not to do?
• What are sales issues you see today?
• Why do people decide to change the sales process?
• Talk about the power of limiting beliefs.
• Is fear an internal protection mechanism?
• What is marketing?
• Where does ‘lack of self worth’ come from in business owners?
• How do you find out what marketing will work for a business?

Key Lessons Learned:

Owner vs. Sales Manager

• A classic mistake owners make is also working as the sales manager.
• Being a manager and sales manager are two diametrically opposed set of skills, and what makes you good at one often gets in the way of you being good at the other.
• A producer is someone who goes out and, through their own skills, hustle, and determination, does the sales.
• The manager’s job isn’t to do sales but rather to get sales through other people.
• A good sales producer can also be a good manager. It’s rare, and they have to be prepared for the time where they don’t do any production.
• As soon as you blend the two, you have mediocre positions.

Too Many Solutions

• Most of what you read is the ‘what’ to do, but there’s little information on ‘how.’
• If you aren’t being told the how, then it’s impossible to implement.
• You have to be reading information that is relevant to your business right now.

Sales Issues

• Sales is a predictable process that you repeat over and over to achieve certain ratios.
• The sales process has nine steps that happen predictably regardless of what business you are in.
• If you could take each of the nine steps and improve them by 9%, your close rates and revenue will almost double.
• Professionals practice, and amateurs improvise.
• Every top producer has a script for the entire process.
• Sales people are independent and competitive in nature.
• The entrepreneurial nature can be the downfall of a sales person, as they will sometimes break their own rules.

Limiting Beliefs & Fear

• A limiting belief starts out as a liberating belief and once served the person very well. The issue is that they outgrew it.
• Beliefs establish a minimum standard and protect you from going below.
• Limiting beliefs appear when we get fearful. This is when we learn something new.
• Fear is simply a self-defense and safety mechanism.

What is Marketing?

• This is a mechanism to generate leads.
• Marketing is brand building, exposure, and connecting with the audience.
• The practical application is to get someone who is qualified in your product or service to express interest to you.
• Marketing has two components. 1) Traffic, 2) Offer
• The market tells you what you are worth, as they vote with their dollars.
• The offer isn’t just price; it is also terms and conditions and what is included in the package.
• Marketing is about messaging, and sales is about closing and the execution of the marketing plan.

What is Important to your Client?

• Understand who your ideal client is and ask what is important to them.
• Who is your client?
• What keeps them up at night?
• Want do they want to become?
• What are the life and business problems on their mind every day?
• Price and package your bundle to meet those needs.

Lack of Self Worth

• You can never outperform the definition of yourself.
• The strongest force in human personality is to behave as how we define ourselves.
• The challenge business owners have is that they have a definition of themselves and what they think their business can be or what they can be as a leader.
• Business owners need to continuously upgrade themselves, otherwise the business will outperform you.

Finding Out What Marketing Will Work

• Get your marketing effective before you get it to be efficient.
• One of the least efficient ways to get a client is to network and word of mouth referrals, but it is one of the most effective ways.
• How many leads do you need per month in order to close a deal?
• Online gets most of the play in marketing, but there are so many buyers at all times in all markets.

5 Ways to Generate Leads

1. Tradeshows
2. Online and banner ads: E.g. Facebook and LinkedIn
3. Personal networking
4. Print/Radio/TV
5. Social media

• If you are not getting a response via the above, then your messaging is off or your offer isn’t right.
• The best way to know if your offer is right is to interact with prospects.

Being A Trusted Advisor

• What people these days want from businesses is a trusted advisor.
• Customers need someone to help them disseminate the information and make good decisions.
• 93% of offline purchases are researched on the internet.
• People want a balanced set of options that they can make the best decision on.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5 star rating and review in iTunes!

Links to Resources Mentioned

Carl Gould
7 Stage Advisors
Biz Dev Done Right

Click to Tweet

93% of offline purchases are researched on the internet. What does this mean for you? @carlgould @CEOwarrior https://ceowarrior.com

Business owners shouldn’t be the sales manager too. Find out w/ @carlgould @CEOwarrior https://ceowarrior.comhttps://ctt.ec/dLWNH

P.S. – Master your business, Master your life. Get a FREE Chapter of The Secrets Of Business Mastery Book!

P.S.S. – Mike discovered you need to stop the excuses to succeed. Warrior Fast Track Academy Testimonial.