Closing big deals in Australia

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[Music] buddy welcome to the unspoken pitch show where we're sharing stories of people closing deals today we have our special guests Sanjay the director of visionary Digital Studios it's a digital agency based in Australia the create animated videos to help people really distill their unique selling point my man welcome a show thank you thank you thank you it's definitely a lot of time runnin oh you were now we did a show before and never really uploaded it but now it's for official buddy I'm still waiting for my coffee in that job of that production definitely will be tagging you in that one so my man I definitely want to get right into it right so um visionary Digital Studios I'm curious how did you get the name yeah you know who you understand the high IQ putting together business things we went through a few different ones I guess I want something that inquired that we won't just kind of run-of-the-mill company trying to put out really quick and dirty products I wanted something that showed that we were trying to make an impact in the world and visionary was the first thing that came to mind we originally a registered visionary animation studios four years ago and then we realized that was going to severely limited us to what we could produce right so we changed to be him area Digital Studios and that's where a smart move buddy smart move I like that man I like that so I did a little bit of stalking a little bit of understanding of your background I love it you came from Deloitte buddy and then you know moving into you know starting your own agency like tell me what was that transition like for your why actually what why did you start all of a sudden yeah absolutely so I climb the corporate ladder I guess like any good Indian kid I did that for a good ten years you know so started off with a lot of medium-sized enterprise companies so medium sized corporate companies so we were managing ecommerce systems it was great and then one of the companies that I was working for got poured over by Deloitte so really started working one of the biggest corporate consultancies on the planet which was super super exciting I was running a team that were running big enterprise application software at the time so once I brought that team across to Deloitte I think for me I'd done everything that I needed to do in corporate IT I was super super passionate about the marking the branding the sales side of what my team was doing it to it so I thought you know it's time to embark on that next challenge on the next journey and here we are how did you get into video animation okay it's an interesting story so about four years ago while I was working forward to White's I kind of saw an ad that appeared up on my facebook it was one of those typical start your own business today it's super easy type ads something that I would go get today but for some reason at the time it really kind of appealed to me and my idea at the time was to quit my job start one of these 4-hour workweek businesses and travel all over the world right but once I got into the course once I got into business I learnt that you can't make any impact you can't really change the world you can't enjoy the passion of business if you're working four hour work weeks so we got a full scale agency obviously we started with just animated videos for startups but these days we're working with a lot bigger corporate companies usually tech companies and we're producing all sorts of digital marketing services on the back of those videos so that we can create a bit more impact and to bigger things exciting exciting just because of an ad that's why you got into it I certainly think so I feel like it was a Facebook ad it's a good four years ago now I can't quite remember but I feel like it's a Facebook ad and it's funny now that my company is selling products and selling digital products now using the same solid Facebook Ads so that's interesting buddy I know today's show is really about people closing deals I'm curious how did you I begin with getting your first client do you record that moment yeah absolutely absolutely I think every business owner recalls that first sale for me we were making $600 sales in our first four sales and even though it was a little sale I can still remember the jubilation that I thought making those deals we were basically we were actually losing money on each sale at that time but my idea was just to get my foot in the door with four clients so we can build out our processes our systems and then have some testimonials and case studies to go after some bigger clients and how did you do it yeah so I mean from there when we were small we were still using things like coal Dino there was a stage where I was sending out something like four or five hundred emails all over the world every single day those were crazy times I mean a few years ago sending out cold emails wasn't as unusual so it wasn't as common as it is today so we actually were getting quite a few sellers from just sending out Corinne I was getting responses from CEOs and taking them there but I guess in the last couple of years the email servers Gmail especially it's gotten a lot smarter so you can't get your emails through to important customers basically so that's how we've made our first few sales I used to have some tactics and little techniques to contact people on LinkedIn and things like that before we get into the whole specific like I want to get back into that very moment right like share me about that don't record that moment what you wrote in that email to get that very first sale do you recall what you wrote yeah I mean not word for word but um we've actually we've actually put together articles that are available on our website about exactly how you see it clients through cold email and for some peach trees it still works so we've still got the templates up here some of our clients are using them at the moment but you know it was just a really like a really simple six line email basically hello and then the clients name or the prospects name then a two line explanation of a problem that they might have been experiencing right now you have any trouble explaining your service to prospects and then after that we'll study of how we solve that problem using video for a client contact me if you're interested you know just a short email if we were sending out 500 birthday we might get say 10 or 15 responses of which one of those responses may become a client after very good it's pretty good that's a pretty good yeah absolutely and do you say that you recall your very first person that you actually closed yeah absolutely as they are called my first sale it's it's funny it was actually quite a good client like they were quite well established a start-up and had plenty of funding and I'd sent them a cold email saying something along the lines of look we're just starting out our business here's it an example of what we can do we want to do a cost price video project for you all that you'll have to do for us in return is write us a spectacular testimonial if we do a good job and so I remember I was at my job at Deloitte at that stage got a response and that client happened to be down the road so super excited to remember super excited I feel like I was a child then but you know I was dressed up really in my best shirt I was like so prepared I spent hours preparing for this meeting when walked in you know ran a three hour meeting got a sale absolute excitement whereas these days I kind of I can do the preparation in ten minutes so I would never wear a tie into a meeting anymore it's a lot more casual cheese that's amazing so you went during your lunch break and then you went to the meeting and you closed the deal is that kind of what happened absolutely that absolutely that's so literally when during my lunch break walk to the client in my best shirt ran a random message sales meeting and then you know like close that sale for it would have been $600 and then came back to Deloitte where I was earning six-figure salary and continued my job absolutely well that's definitely where the adventure begins right and I'm curious like were you did you have any I mean you know obviously someone who was interested did you have anything you know prepped for like were you kind of oh my god I don't know what to do I'm just kind of winging here is that what happened or did you kind of prepare it we've really prepared I'm inside at the same time Scott so I I was very very prepared for those for maybe the initial ten strategy sessions I ran super pro said you knew exactly what I was going to say had done so much research but also especially there's the first few sailors meetings I don't know if you remember but certainly for me I remember being super super anxious to be thinking about it days before very nerve-wracking walking into a business representing your own company selling your own deal obviously we've done hundreds of times now so I don't even think about it but I'm really enjoying the trip down memory lane absolutely how long you down operate now yes so we've been going for years Wow four years but it this is amazing I'm curious you know yourselves men ship must have changed dramatically correct dramatically yeah absolutely walk me through the journey of what they like him and I guess probably to very much begin like what's being a proudest moment and their deal being closed tell me about that yeah let's do it so I you know my my proudest sale of all time I'm not gonna say was the biggest seller made I'm actually gonna say it was a recent sale of a few months ago so we made a 20k sale through a Facebook ad and the reason that is so exciting for me is because I'm 36 years old right so for me it's still it's still amazing that you can could an ad so in our case we put we do video marking right so you can put a video up on Facebook you can have someone that you have that has no idea who you are see that video see your ad click on your ad ask for a call and then go through your sales process become a customer and you can make a 20 grand sale with someone almost like that you had know that you didn't know so you kind of create this money out of nowhere which for me is really really exciting and I you know the other thing is like that with that Facebook funnel we can attract the exact right customers that we want so that's for that that's a really proud moment for me and I like I know a lot of potential in our Facebook funnels from now on how big was that deal yes is 20k pulls that absolutely Congrats on that buddy it's always really exciting I remember I closed my very first 20k deal and I was electrified I was like oh my god I remember that very moment when the clown was asking how much it was and I literally did say 25,000 allegedly kept my cool and really not flinching on that part in it was awesome similar situation I did it over the phone I didn't actually have to meet the climbing person and it was just really phenomenon to really have that experience and I'm really glad that you went through that whole experience but obviously through Facebook which is a really really cool it's beautiful man it's actually something that I've learnt a lot from you obviously mean you do a lot of masterminding together and I noticed that you you have no fear about presenting your value I like obviously you've made some really big sales recently that we've talked and talked about and yeah I love that I think there's no there should be no divide these days just because you meet someone online it doesn't mean that you can't present the value of your product absolutely dude let's get into details I love details because I want our fellow listeners to really understand you know indeed you construct you know what it was like when you were closing that person now when you spoke to him obviously it's a facebook lead that came in and were you prepared like have you ever did you know that they had 20k or was it kind of yeah walk me through that process in and how you rent where yeah sure so I guess every sales person knows you especially that never a sales still never goes exactly to plan it's never leave to the bank to say oh and so of course this is the same thing so for us we were really really well defined sales process although all that cause descripted we got a really good content strategy but the good follow-up process retargeting ads everywhere all that sort of thing and this is one of those deals I like that carry on mandatory mandatory right so these this is one of those deals where all of that came to play and obviously it was just the right client like he's really great guy like the perfect client for us we get along really well he likes my style I like his style which is really good but yeah you know so we originally went through our discovery call which is our initial sales call that is a 45-minute video conference we took him through obviously understood his situation what they needed and then we made it made some solution recommendations based on their situation to be honest when we when we progress deals we usually give three different options so that even if they're not hundred essential yet then they can take a lower option and perhaps grade into a lie option but in this case yeah the prospectors and I we we bonded from the word go and he chose the higher option Wow so it's almost like you go through an analysis of finding out what it is that they want first before most because it's a warm prospector came from Facebook and then from then onwards you analyzed and presented three options that would help be best suited for them correct yeah hundred percent so the thing with digital advertising is that only a certain type of people person will respond to your ads so depending on the words in your ad the type of video in your ad only a certain person will feel the desire to click through so by the time a lead comes to me I generally already know what their problems are I generally already know what their situation is but I think menu are exactly the same in that I really dislike companies who will just sell the same product to every single person for me it's all about understanding exactly what the situation is and then designing a solution that achieves what they need rather than just trying to sell any product and hope for the best I like that a lot you know I use the analogy which is being a doctor and really going in and really actually having a full analysis of the situation and then offering a perfect solution that suited for their situation and I really like that what you did was really give the clients three options for what would be best suited for them in regards to I guess that's more for options and in budgets is that kind of the reason why your strategy of that kind of works yeah exactly that exactly that so we were digital agency right so with our clients we work on a video first and then off the back of that video we can put that to use in Facebook Ads LinkedIn ads or Google Ads or or you know a website or whatever so for us what the attitude we take is when we get onto a sales call or understand the situation then we say okay what what would we design for this prospect if they had a completely unlimited budget so that's always our top option and we include a complete bells and whistle solution now not every clients not every prospect can is necessarily ready to go into that first big package so then we'll design subsets of that package where we can still get them results that they're after but perhaps it isn't grandiose as the full package I really like what you just shared earlier I mean this is such a very subtle thing and what you just said was really having the perception as if they had an unlimited budget and really offering like what the best solution would be for them in I think that's a definitely a great takeaway from that because I mean that's such a really great concept because I know from other things that I've learned it's really seeing the claim you know and really making sure that you give them the best possible opportunity to help solve their problem my current I totally agree and then you have exactly the same attitude with these sorts of things like first of all there's no tricky snake-oil thousand ship nothing like and I feel like in corporate companies they're just kind of trying to get people over the line it's not like that at all it's it's more understanding the situation also I mean I've got to say that more more often than you would think the clients choose that option aid because they realize that you've taken a consultative approach you've shown them exactly what their problems are and exactly how you would resolve them and you know I've just found it not in every case but in more cases than you would think the prospect actually chooses the highest solution because they have more budget then they've let on I like that buddy because I think there's a little bit of a mindset in that I know when I started out in this whole journey I think you know to really put together a package of that twenty five twenty thousand is completely out of a magnitude but really being able to see it from that perspective of you know what would be the best value for them and the best return I think it's definitely a big shift so could I see on that hundred percent but by the way I gotta say that when I came out of the corporate world that wasn't the way that I was selling at all in fact when I came out of the corporate world my mindset was very much how do I close them like it was they weren't they weren't even a person it wasn't like how can I help them it was just like how can I close close close whereas now I'm much more in line with okay cool what can I do to produce the most possible value is personal that's amazing because I guess it would be such a different attitude you know coming from a corporate to obviously starting your business right you're definitely seeing the real truth as to what it would really take to help close the deal I like that a lot I really like that a lot excellent I'm curious I'm curious on Jay you know really getting into this whole thing and you know I think you're briefly mentioned about this but I'm curious you know walk me through what it's like when you prepare for a meeting you know do you do a little bit analysis on them prior to the phone call or do you kind of just go in to really just have a clean slate nice yes it depends on the type of meeting of course so if think if the meeting is already for a customer and I'm running what we call a visionary strategy session so something to kick-off the project then me and the team do an exhaustive analysis and there's so much preparation that sort of thing but in context of your office conversation we're talking about a sales call what we call a discovery call in that case my preparation time is 10 minutes so that's really tough for me I usually try to do as much as I possibly can in the 10 minutes but reason being because we have a Facebook funnel because we have leads coming in consistently it means that I've got a limited time to work through sales calls during the day and our discovery process goes for 45 minutes if the prospect is a right fit so I'll give myself 10 it's a strict timer and generally what we'll do is first of all we've got a HubSpot CRM so we'll check it out all of the communications that have been made make sure I understand exactly what we've discussed so far then do website review LinkedIn review all the standard things what I need to have prepared well what's the standard thing I don't know what the standard thing is I've get 100 miles an hour so I suppose in my eyes the standard things are just checking online profiles in social media so we'll go through their website and make sure we understand what they do obviously their LinkedIn profile understand the content that they've recently been releasing what content have been engaging with so what they're interested in is important and then we'll check their company Facebook pages Twitter pages that sort of thing so that is my video do you know what you're looking for like when you do these researchers what are you kind of is this something that you're kind of extracting when you're doing that research are to curiosity yeah so I am looking for unique value proposition more than anything so I want to understand their company what's unique about their company so that when we get on the phone and we start discussing videos I can ask them about what's unique about them why they're different from their competitors and then we can focus our discussion on that I like that and is there a reason for just like so you can have the opportunity to help them close more deals is that the reason why you want to find their value proposition essentially I haven't actually thought about this until you've asked us but it goes back to that a year ago we'd put this into our process intentionally the reason is because on on the discovery core I don't want just to be a sales call where I'm just like trying to close the deal as I was saying actually my aim is to try and enlighten them about their business so my feeling is if I can really mastermind their unique value proposition with them and show them that show them the exact type of message that would make them stand out in video with I would generate results in video then I feel like we'll both be on the same page I've given them value they can see that we're good at this and we know I like that approach babies like that's a really amazing thing it seems like I'm hearing a lot of care and you wanted to understand that business holistically right and really finding out how you can add value by understanding the value proposition and as a result then presenting a solution that's best suited to their situation yeah absolutely and I mean don't get me wrong Scott you know me I've got a massive ambition for this coming in I guess I don't like revenue super super important for us and that's obviously part of the growth of any business but I feel like the best strategy for growing is actually actually carrying that not only prospects but everyone that's around your business further food clients whether it be joint venture partners employees that sort of thing so that care strategy is like because we actually care and it's also a business tactic you know I think I think most forward-thinking business leaders agree that wow that's a really nice approach yeah you're definitely right about that you know when people know that you're trying to sell them yeah they can really feel that and you have a chair like when you have that genuine careness it's a good different level so I'm totally related with that 100% I love the way that you said that as well they can feel it's like you know you know when someone's trying to sell you and you know when someone's just trying to do the best for you were you always like this Sanjay no in summary no I I guess I've always been a nice person I guess everyone would say that but the the real kind of intention to give as much value as possible is something that I've learned I mean I'm gonna say over the last couple of years when I first got into business again I started my business wanting for our work week wanting to travel all over the world when to not work hard winning everyone else to do work well that sort of thing everything was about me me me whereas I've grown in business I've realized that the pleasure the glory in business is actually how much you can give to other people I don't mean to be really worried war you know really happy-go-lucky I'm just saying that that's the most inspirational way to run business then you're like wow beautiful spoken like you're right about that right especially when getting into the journey for this you realize that it's not only just a surface level but there's underlying pin for it and it's just really interesting to hear how people go through that journey you know realizing that hey it's not just about money there's also about caring factor of it this is important yeah this is awesome like I'm curious about this right um I guess I want to find out you know obviously you weren't like this before and then you transition to this you know where did you learn from like how did you kind of learn this whole experience to become so good at closing deals and doing big deals yeah tell me about that nice so my my original mentors were spectacular I know you that you know some of them as well and to this day I have so much gratitude because they basically took me out of the corporate world showed me how to set up a business showed me how to get things up and running and it was a beautiful thing but I guess the way I was originally taught was to build a business that was all about me all about my life or that me being how to do what I want and then I feel like I evolved to my next set of mentors who have told me that look business is all about giving it's all about making an impact if you don't want to give and you don't want to make an impact then it probably shouldn't be in business because there's no longevity there or even if there is longevity you're going to suffer in general so I yeah I've just I've just evolved I guess I've got new mentors now now my pleasure and my adventure in life is the hard work is leaning into the fear and the stress of business and as you know it's like super hard lots of lots of anxiety and lots of tenuous moments all the time but that is the pleasure of business you know it sounds like what I'm hearing over here you definitely set yourself up for success right and I'm curious which is now getting to more of the specifics for it what kind of advice would you give someone who is looking to get and evolve into that mindset of being able to closed and really just have that giving attitude you know what kind of advice would you give them and really going for the first step in the baby stone to becoming that type of person I think I think having the right type of people around you the right type of content around you and the right type of mentors so I hate cliches but I am a fan of the cliches like your network is your net worth and you are the average of the five people you spend most time around that sort of thing so I think first of all is just if you've got a if you've got a firm set of goals and you know what you want to achieve then make sure you have people around you that have similar goals or bigger goals is super important I think the right type of content so we're surrounded by content especially as digital marketers so just gotta be super careful with that what sort of video content you're watching what sort of books you're reading what sort of training you're getting that sort of thing and then I'm gonna say mentors and a mastermind I think a masterminds a super super super important I've always been in one whether it's the one that I'm currently in or the one before I think like when you're when you've got a mentor that's already achieved what you want to achieve and then you've got a whole group of people that are working together to get each other up to that level I think that can be extraordinarily valuable I think that's also what me and you do a lot of money together yeah just to give you some context of me and Sanjay we have a monthly also weekly accountabilities where every single week we touch base and really make sure that we're accountable for reaching our goals definitely a pleasure to have you absolutely sometimes for anyone that's watching sometimes it turns into a bit of a therapy session which is also super valuable because where they ended that hour depending on who of us is going through the stress or Google bus is celebrating we kind of feel clear again and ready to start the next task I think what you just shared is a very valuable thing I know through our sessions that we go through the master mining it's interesting because what I heard in what you just shared is almost having a terminal especially when you've got a situation that you don't know how to close or you don't know how to engage you're done that approach there really is that moment of reflection and really having another terminal to be able to go and speak to and have that advice or have a different light shunt to a situation like I had a moment I think um maybe it was with yours with my other mentor but I had a client that just wasn't too happy with it and the cell didn't really go as well and from the conversation that I had with my mentor you know what what I unraveled was it definitely wasn't a right fit and then sometimes like having someone who is an outside perspective someone who's very experienced to really see what the situation is and so I think you know what you're doing having that terminal out there is super important because number one you can really have someone see your situation in a new light and that you won't get drowned in your situation so this is awesome I like that I love it I totally agree and you know like you you pick up things by osmosis from the people around you so if you can have a mentor that's already achieved the goals that you achieve then it kind of normalizes it so you know like I've had mentors that have done million-dollar months for example so a few years ago before I met that mentor I would have thought that that is ridiculous and impossible but when you then see that person is just a normal person they've got their own faults they've got their own issues sometimes you know they might be shy or whatever in certain situations they're not bulletproof but you realize okay cool if they can do it then no reason I can't do it yeah definitely having that a possibility pod I know I used to definitely be in the low ranges you know closing a thousand two thousand was like oh my god already and now getting it to the ranges of a closing a five-figure deal was like a standard now and that's like such a shift in mental mentality right and you know I'm not definitely in the marks of making a million a month yet right but really having that idea of you know make having that very possible in your space I think is is really really valuable do you have been amazing at that yeah I understand you're like yo obviously very good at mindset so things and obviously I'm saying this because you give me some mindset coaching as we go but I love the way you just said it you like you said it so comfortably and now I'm in the space of five bigger deals it's not it's not a strain of you it's not something that's like that's outrageous it's just what you are beautiful mmm that's right that's right um buddy like I guess I thought I might get back into this which is do you have a favorite form like what's your favorite way of closing it like do you have like a strategy that you will kind of advise other people on how you like to close deals yeah I think as long as you have a tried and tested documented process I'm gonna say is my favorite way and the reason I say that's super important is because closing deals is hard you know it's super hard especially when you start closing bigger and bigger deals and especially with a company like mine were an online company right so I'm closing deals to be people that I've never actually met them they've actually shook their hand before sometimes they're in foreign countries so Trust is a really really big factor and because I mean there's a lot of different variables right so I say my favorite way to close the deal is to have a very well-defined and structured process that you've planned and rehearsed many times it has lots of moving parts and in the one in every 50 times that that process runs spectacularly perfect to the dot that's my favorite closes well that sounds like definitely setting yourself for success by having systems in place and being able to practice in knowing your stuff in order to really provide for your clients right yeah that's so important Scott so I can't believe the amount of companies that don't have a documented process in fact I used to work at Deloitte right so when we would put together a sales process when we put together a sale to these big multinational companies there was no process not a lot of people don't know these so I'm not sure that I should be saying but I guess I've already said it these big corporates they they don't really have a process everything's just pieced together so how can you measure what's successful and what's not how can you tell where the bottleneck is how can you tell where you need to focus your improvements yeah definitely super key on that part um I definitely want to wrap this up and find outside J like what kind of advice would you give other people looking to improve their ability and closing doors and yes based on the theme of today's conversation reached the more bigger deals I would say get a mentor that can teach you a defined and tested process and then monitor that define and test the process I think that's the key for me I had no idea how hard this was going to be by this time now I think I've run that nine hundred leads which probably means I've done it over a couple of thousand sales calls or sales meetings right so I did not realize how intensely typical it was going to be even to this day excuse the swearing but I'm gonna say that every deal is a show right every sales process is a show so I think if you feel like you can just do it on your own I think I think you're kidding yourself especially as digital technology gets more and more pervasive especially when you're trying to close deals online with someone that you haven't met so yeah I'd say get a mentor who has a tried and tested process and then getting follow and test sergej definitely let some very viable themes today what we discussed I'm curious I'm you know if someone wants to find out more about your services and what you do where can they find you yeah great visionary Digital Studios comm fill out a lead form and you can see our sales process in action lives perfect so Jay pleasure to have you on today buddy it's been real man thanks so much Scott talk to you soon job [Music]