Optimize your marketing agency sales process for organizations

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hi Joe so I a couple of sales calls what was going on in those yeah so I think our process is pretty good is okay but definitely can be improved so both calls yesterday were second calls with roofing companies one in Florida one in Minnesota and on the first call I did not talk about price okay so that's the thing that walk the fix moving forward not the change before right so that's why the second call you know I get are supposed to be a commitment on a second call if it wasn't because the second call is talking about price okay I'm going through that so so that was that was so we talked about their budget like what their expectations were what they had budgeted for next year what they've been doing in the past and then I went through like this is what you know company of your size should be budgeting based on you know these stats and these studies and things like that and both of them were aware of the you know the percentages right one was actually kind of right on and actually a bigger company had a smaller percentage like two or three percent so that was it's not surprising but but yeah they showed that they should be doing better and I think a lot of people get complacent like they've built to a certain stage they did it off of sweat equity right and they made that money and then now you're telling him oh it's gonna cost more to get more and and they don't they don't like that idea if they've never done it before so we're these calls strictly about engine was that like the thing you're trying to sell yes okay so so with with it being a new thing for us like a new product it has like everything in it it's like everything in the kitchen sink being able to pitch that without a debt it's gonna be hard okay and one way that you can convince construction partners you know these construction companies to get on their computer and actually watch something with you you know they say hey you know if a space was really important in our in our industry right in construction we'd like to do some face-to-face well it's hard to do when we're spread out all over the country so one of the best things we can do is faith which I do face to face we'll do a video call but what's great about that is I'll be able to show you what we do because it's well marketing's of a visual medium so we can show you what is inside what we do right and that's one way to get away from just being on a phone call where where you're trying to describe something is very abstract but are trying to describe this abstract thing and and without any visuals but the visuals allow you to take an abstract concept because it's so all ideas and make it feel like it's a real physical thing right and for people who are used to dealing in physical objects we take physical objects we put them together and now they've become a new physical object that's construction industry they're used to that so if you give them something visual it will feel more concrete so that's that's what I for the sales process we need to move over to doing something around a deck where where we can just show them in things and say okay here's what we did here here's this here's what a facebook ad campaign actually looks like physically here's what a website looks like here's what's behind the scenes especially if they don't have a wordpress site or if they could ever even if they have one that they've never been in behind it which is likely right like hey you know here's here's the guts of this thing that these things are we have all this we put all these things together and and didn't that become something very powerful to explain the abstract idea of we're gonna get you more business by doing marketing by building your brand right right so so I think that you got to go there then I think another thing we need to start looking at it's the actual procedure to get through the calls so first of all what was it's just a discovery quality just ask questions and yes okay were they were that what's the business look like in revenue eyes where the goals were they been doing marketing lies why they're why they think the different marketing is gonna help that and just get em to kind of explain like why they want to do what they wanna do why they think they want to do okay so so I think in the discovery call what we wanna do is get away from the the légion mentality you know there's tons of digital marketing agencies and if you see anything online they're always about how to get more leads for your clients and then those clients will be super happy with you because you got more leads right well you've been said that's not the case right it doesn't matter if you get them a ton of leads doesn't matter if they get a bunch of business they still hate your leads and they still blame you for anything that doesn't make them money so getting somebody who's gonna buy a lead gen system it's basically who are you how much money do you make how much money are you willing to spend and what kind of lead level do you want right there's not much else to qualify that but when you go into something more more esoteric more abstract in life in the engine we need to know what are your problems why are we having this call in the first place right so so somebody says well you know I know you guys do a website for for construction companies so I want a website well why why do you want a website well because of this mine looks like crap okay great we can make you a pretty website but is that all you want from your website do you want it just to be pretty this isn't flippant it's not a great question saying some people do yeah sometimes that's all it's like we don't actually do business with our website but we do know people coming sound so we want a website that represents us that reason right whereas so so you have to learn is that why you're talking to me right yeah do you have a good sales process off line and all you want is a website and a digital footprint that that supports how to support to you by saying hey we're a real company we're not going to disappear on you we've got you know here's all the stuff about us we've got a real brand company if that's all they want great now the conversation goes too well okay so what are you looking for in that right right you don't go into anything else but the engine you don't talk about it because otherwise you can kill the sale all right if they say this is what I'm after and you know you're gonna give them the engine anyways it's kinda like a grant cardones part of the university right where the way they sell that is hey you want follow up your sales guys aren't doing follow up so we have this follow up system and the follow up system costs $10,000 what you get all these other things for hurry it's the same product it's the training say yeah you get it all anyways no matter what the price is but it but if you don't kill the sale why are you going oh so this is what you're really after and and you only want your brand to have a solid presence right that's all you're after until you dive in a little deeper make sure that's truly the case right is they truly only want that and and and so how do you know that they're not going to tell you because they don't know they're not experts so you have to ask them all how's your sales process offline are you getting so you're getting plenty of leads referrals things like that coming to you offline the wall you know we're buying them from home we're buying them from Angie's List Oh see so you don't actually have control of your brand offline so maybe we need to discuss that is that I do like buying leads from them and we know the answer yes let me know but then but then they may not but we've also learned that just because somebody doesn't like buying leads from from homeadvisor one of the others they they don't dislike it enough to stop and to take control of their business so you so your next step is if you find out that they don't have a good marketing presence offline is to find out oh so do you want to get control of that and if they if they're like yes now how serious are they right right so this discovery call is going from here's my superficial desire why I'm speaking to you right - okay what's a little what's under the surface of that superficiality then what's under what's under that it's kind of like Toyota's five whys why do you want a website you because of this well why do you want that right because of this other thing well why do you want that because of this this thing okay and you go down you know five lines deep you have an underlying you you understand their psychology right because now they've told you that what they really want is a stop to stop worrying every winter when business shuts down whether or not there's gonna be business in the spring yeah right that's that's what that's what they're worried about you find out that that's the reason like hey you know we were in the northern states so so what we do is we set up a shop down in the south and we move I give you nice if I didn't have to do that if I could just stay with my family have Christmas in Michigan right instead of having Christmas in Georgia all the time yeah like I would like to do that thank you all then take control of your business and here's how you do it so so by the qualifying calls have to go away from just being about the numbers like the superficiality is if you're just selling leaves you don't need you don't need to know why right you don't you don't care yeah and neither does neither does the customer so but if you want to solve their problem you've got to dive into why why why why why why why you go down those wise and then now the person's like man I I get this right you know I understand it now because you just made them think through why they're having this phone call chances are they've ever thought through that now that problem is crazy they went to the superficial stuff right that's all they did they did the superficial thing and that's why they're only asking for the one thing right right so then if it's not a website and it's like hey I hear you guys be Facebook Ads we got yes we do but what are you looking forward to Facebook at why looking for leads like whoa we discovered that you know 50% of the leaves are proud like they're just not good leads at all they're not even leaves 50% of the traffic that comes through for some reason it's just some random person who doesn't even own like they don't own a house yeah and yeah the the ad and everything was all about getting getting a home remodeling right yeah it happens so if you're trying to get leads you will get them you can get them but you're going to have to have a filtering process to go with it have you thought about that do you have a good filtering process for the phone calls that you get do you have something like that no oh okay let's go a little deeper right so you find out well and you may find in the course of I want to fix look at is giving leads well why do you want those leads from Facebook and it could be all I just heard yeah Hurley right or and so somebody says so Joe yeah heard that you can get good leads off of Facebook like Facebook's a place to give them okay so what would you hear well it was this this mist like okay great but but how are you getting leaves now and buying them and and a lot of them are crap say quote you're going to have a lot of them that are gonna be crap on Facebook too getting cold leads is is like gambling right hey yeah you won't know what those cards are until you flip them over yeah when we hear playing poker you don't know what your cards are until you flip up up those leads coming in you don't know what they are until you get on the phone with them right and then you're like you don't even have a house why are you why are you putting in your information about a home remodel so so knowing that about leaves why why are you wanting to do your own leads oh you know think the crap part okay yeah we got that but but why would you want to take control of these things and and and then you can go into well you know I really want to build a brand or I really wanted and they wouldn't call it that but they would most likely say you know one I want a solid company I want people to recognize who we are and be able to choose us over someone else when you're just buying leads we're no different than anyone else and and the other person who's calling this lead could be just some guy with his pickup truck doesn't have insurance doesn't have a license doesn't have any of these things and the homeowner doesn't know right and the homeowner all they know is that or just based on price and they're gonna price shop us mm-hmm so yeah I don't like that right I don't I want people to want to do business with us like okay great well that's fantastic to know that that's what you're actually after is we've gone through this spectrum of helping construction companies go from leads to actually having a company that people raise their hand yes I want you to do my to do my house right I want you to come over and put the roof on my personal building I want you to come over and do this thing I don't want any of those other people does that mean that you don't have to talk price no obviously you have to talk price I have you contacted us and we're going through finding out what your real needs are and yeah we're sort of going to have to discuss price because we build a couple we can help you build your brand you know if you build your company so people want you they'll raise their hand for you not just a lead right they raising their hand because they want you to talk to them well you're not talk price we're gonna have to tell the price right now and now we're right into the money talk right without it without it seeming weird Yeah right I use the natural progression of how excit Ana is we can get you somebody who likes your company who wants to do business with you but if you're still too expensive for them they're not gonna balk right I am same thing with us yeah you contacted us you raised your hand wanting to do business with us we didn't buy some believe to get you right you're hanged to have a cold call with you know you contacted us because of our marketing and our branding position and now we still at least even even with that we still have time this price discussion is import too expensive for you if you don't have the budget to invest into your company not just invest in our services but to invest in your company then then okay it's not fit but we can guide you to do something that is a bit right it's that something reasonable yeah exactly that's the kind of response so then now now they're ready to have a money conversation well how much money do you actually spend on your marketing right now while I buy ten thousand dollars a month worth of leads okay now what about anything else I spend ten thousand dollars a month I believe yeah that's all I do okay Oh while I do some flyers oh I do some door-knocking I do some of these other things oh yeah I'm gonna do a radio spot on so on right and then all of a sudden things are telling you all these different things that they've done randomly right I paid some dude to do my SEO I don't know what I'm getting with that I paid some agency to do some Facebook stuff and I don't know what happened I got some social media expert and I don't know what they do yeah it's all time yeah so then you know okay great well you're trying to do these things and what's missing is a strategy you you can't go running forward and throwing money and things without a strategy or you get kind of a mess that you're in right right yeah I understand that completely and so that so then the next part of that is Easter finding out what kind of budget is and when they say well what's your price yeah what are you gonna say they say well we don't know what you need yeah we need to diagnose you know well you're all your problems first before we can prescribe a solution it's going to fit your business and actually move the needle for your business yeah okay but what's your promise well I reign for something like this for a business your size companies are typically investing between you know sixty thousand and thirty thousand for building out that strategy in that foundation okay so so okay now what was the know what's the strategy the strategy is where we come in and we do a deep dive on your business audit everything that you've been doing take a look at your market your competitors your build-out a good customer habit ours really dial in to exactly the types of customers that you want to grow your business and we build out a plan with a timeline and suggested budget expectations on for a whole 12 month marketing plan and what we're going to do to achieve those you know to build your brand in your market okay so I'm gonna pay you 60 grand for a plan that's where its trouble yesterday right so it's like it's ya know it's nobody nobody wants a sixty thousand dollar plan right or $30,000 plan or a $10 plan right right it's a point like okay I'll risk money on a plan right right and that's yeah that's it's kind of new that were they kind of sell in Russia that's why it was a little bit of struggle yesterday okay said the words but I don't know how much conviction I had or you know obviously say the one-percent perfectly right oh so that's the so going forward the plan is critical and and so you have to get them to understand well is strategy even important and and they most likely have never done it right totally like we just had what the other day when we were meeting with the one company they don't have a marketing plan right but they make hundreds of millions of dollars a year and they end yet they don't have a plan right right they are going to have to invest in a plan there's there's too much money at say there's too much too many people like all the salaries and and all this of this is stay so we have to get them to see that you're spending all this money on all these people and all this activity that's random activity without any direction and that's why your that's why you're unhappy you're like oh and so you would ask are you happy spending money on things that you don't know what they're doing you don't know what the results are right don't know what the outcomes are are you happy with that yes or no and so well but they may not give you a yes-or-no answer right they may start going all the way you know what do I need to be doing something well that doesn't mean you're happy or not right right do you like spending money without knowing what it does right that's why you're asking me about the strategy right well strategy the the true deliverable of a strategic plan is that you know what your money's buying you okay that is NASA's this is that's the one result you're truly getting but here's about what else that we do with this program with engine this is the other things that we do with engine then that builds out for construction companies so phase one is we figure it all out phase two is where we start crafting your brand message for the different platforms for the different things that we've identified with you because this is a collaborative process or partnering here or building a company together we're going to when we identify together the best places for or for your company to grow its brand to grow awareness among your customers after we identify who your best customers are after we do those things in Phase two we start building that out we build out your brand messaging we build out all these different things for the specific platforms phase three we go live with it we go live with the the new the new website if that's what's necessary we gonna live with your first facebook campaign we go live with your first Instagram campaign if that's if that's necessary we do these things we go live with that and phase three so when when we're selling this strategic plan it's more than a plan it's it's your launch platform even though you've been in business for twenty years we're gonna launch your business like its brand new okay does that sound like it's worth sixty two thirty thousand dollars right or for a bigger company does that sound like it's worth three hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars even bigger company does that sound like that's worth five hundred thousand to two hundred thousand does that sound like it's worth that to be able to have those answers to be able to have this launch platform absolutely hopefully yeah but if they say no well thank you thank you thank you for calling right I'm not going to chase you down right thank you for your mind thank you for calling is there anything else that I can help you with okay did you know you're going through your sales process you might have stumbled and this is something mm-hmm and and you just educated the person on something completely different right that they never even heard of right you just blew their mind over this there's this whole other world other than this well now now I'm like right so so so they're if they're not comfortable with going forward to the next stage of the sales process because you're just not gonna take 60 thousand dollars or three hundred thousand dollars off of somebody without going to another stage right all we want is to find out aren't even capable of investing in it right and and and not just capable but willing to invest in it and then after that it's like great now now here's the next step but if they if they let you know that no I don't like that together okay thank you thank you for time you know I wish you luck is there anything is there anything that I missed anything that came up during this conversation that you're like okay I'm not too keen on on this strategic planning thing not too keen on you building out your this engine for me but I still have this problem is there anything like that I shut up just go quieter is there anything like that and then in that nervous quietness human beings blurt stuff out and so you see one of the things you'll have to practice is shutting off when you ask a question to shut up and stay shut up until they answer that one's tricky especially for me I'd love to talk yeah right I love talking so so for me it's like I'm on the other side just like ever say something I want to say something but I gotta say I got to stay quiet right or they're not gonna tell me what I need to know right so you see you asked that question I think see you're starting to smile right yeah it's awkward so see that is power that is the one of the most powerful strategies you have available to getting the answers you need when you're on a sales call is to shut up right so you'll see something stuff about selling oh say listen listen to what they saying yeah listen they'll tell you but they won't tell you the real stuff until you shut up go quiet and then they get uncomfortable and and blurts out here's my thing yeah here's my problem fix it for me right like I got this other thing right and then it comes out of them and now you can have a real discussion oh well we thought we were talking about this one thing I mean I cliff I clearly missus I apologize for missing this right I'm sorry that I missed this part that you that you really care about do you have a moment and and because I know when we've been on this call for you know 35 minutes yeah do you have a moment to discuss that we haven't lost the sale yet right we lost the sale but we haven't wants to sale right because now we've got a second opportunity to help them and and then in that second opportunity if there isn't one of those things no no I don't think so you know is there anybody who can refer me to oh there are some people that are know and and I'll be more than happy to refer you to somebody who will make you an inexpensive website right I know I know some people I'll set you up good okay thanks all right great I'll sell sent you out and you know with some other stuff and I'll send your information over to a friend of mine you know and and hopefully it'll go well for you over there all right great call Thanks right no begging all right if you're not willing to do that if you're not willing to walk away from a lead and just say yeah we're not right for you you're not willing to do that then you're going to struggle always in sales always because you have a bigger need than baby totally right it's transparent Yoho big time cuz you're like okay you didn't want that thing well then well how about you buy them so this yeah right so when I switched over from you don't want the one thing it's out of your budget I just asked are there any other needs right you did mention these other things are these other needs right so oh there is well then then maybe now I can give them a damn sell maybe I can sell them something that is it's still within our within our wheelhouse and still within the things that matter to our company the stuff that we know will actually work for them yet get them to just enter or ecosystem right it's like okay we're not gonna make much money but let's let's just move on right and maybe we get on it maybe it's like okay this is interesting like it I'm confused I need I need more information great Melissa a single is there anybody else who needs to be on this call right that needs to be able to hear this information if I would make an informed decision to be able to move forward right let's get that person on on that schedule too that's not good that's call one