540 – How To Sell With Matthew Kimberley

Podcast: Download (Duration: 45:03 — 41.5MB)

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In the episode:

02:07 – The hemorrhoid guy
07:15 – When the student is ready…
11:51 – A love story in disguise
12:37 – Who are you meant to serve?
14:27 – This does not get you clients
18:52 – Be credible and likeable
19:49 – The first thing you need to implement
24:35 – Why do they buy?
29:14 – Your personal brand identity in 3 parts
35:01 – You’ll be judged on this
36:53 – The opposite of a sales funnel
38:50 – They want to hear from you
39:42 – What infoproducts do for you
41:23 – When you can close the business

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Transcription:

James: Please welcome up to the stage, Matthew Kimberley. Come on mate. Do you want me to stay up here and support you?

Matthew: Stay a second James. Hold my hand. I don’t think it would be inappropriate if we all took a second to give James…

James: You’re trembling like a leaf.

Matthew: [laughs] Thank you darling. I don’t think it would be inappropriate if we all took a moment to give James the standing ovation that he absolutely deserves. So could you please just join me in doing that.

James: Oh wow. Thank you. Thank you very much. (Here you go mate) That’s nice to have one that I didn’t orchestrate in the morning with my own introduction.

Matthew: I hear from a colleague of a mine who’s a great public speaker, he says, “If you want to get a standing ovation every time, get them standing up before you finish your presentation.” And then get them to clap at the end. Standing ovation!

Matthew Kimberley on stage at SuperFastBusiness Live 11

Speaking of standing up, would you please do me a favor of standing up. I’ll tell you exactly why I’m asking you to stand up in a second. Can you stand up and shake out your arms like so. Just shake them out. I’d like to see everybody standing up, unless there’s a very good reason why you shouldn’t be. Thank you so much!

Now center yourself, put your arms in front of you like this. That’s great. That’s great. And then slowly stop the shaking and put your fingers out, like you’re doing the diving I’m OK sign. And you’re actually clutching a pair of imaginary sunglasses. And as you put those sunglasses on, you can slowly sit down. And the reason you’re all wearing sunglasses is because you are about to be dazzled. Kaboom! Thank you! (pointing to audience) One person eh?

[Audience laughing]

Matthew: Love that you laughed.

A little background on Matthew

That’s me. That is the face of a man with terrible hemorrhoids. Sparing you any medical details, the year was 2009, and I was hustling and grinding like the best of them. I was the CEO of Target Recruitment. Target Recruitment did 1.1 million in its first year, did 2.6 in its second year, and its third year, my ass was falling out. I was feeling like death. My relationship with my business partner was terrible. He hated me, I hated him. I left with my tail between my legs, and I changed my life. And that was my road to Damascus moment, which every speaker apparently has to have in their presentation.

But it took me a while to get there. I was running a recruitment company. It had been a long time. I’d started out selling stuff when I was about 15, when I’d lied about my age to sell double glazing on the telephone. At meal times. So I was the nasty, little bastard who would call you up just as you’re sitting down to your dinner and say, “Hi. So tell me, happy with your windows?” And you say, “No. Please never call me again.” So two days later I’d call you back and put on an accent and say, “Hi there. Are you happy with your windows?” And you say, “Please never call me again.” And it was an awful, soul-destroying job, but it gave me a bit of a buzz. I got turned on to selling.

I did a bit of street performing. I used to juggle. We got another juggler, Dan Dobos, who spoke so beautifully yesterday. He’s a much better juggler than me. And I learned that when you’re juggling, if you ask somebody to give you money, you’re more likely to get money. And if you just leave your hat in front of you when you’re not asking and hope that people walk past and drop coins in, then you don’t do so well at all. And that was my first lesson in sales.

I then went on to do various other sales jobs. I sold Timeshare. Could you raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a Timeshare presentation? Yeah, some of you raised your hands. And the rest of you did not… It was unbelievable. This is when I really got switched on to the psychology of selling.

So firstly, as I was dressed pretty much like I am today, all style, no substance, and people would be dragged in off the street, often clutching inflatable toys, with a promise of watching a dolphin show or winning a free holiday or something like that. They’d scratched off a scratch card and they’d won. They’d never win anything. The tickets that are drawn from the bottom of the pile are winners. The tickets that are drawn from the top are not. The lady normally won. The gentleman never won. But the lady would put the pressure on the gentleman and they’d come along for what was a commercial presentation. Very often, there’d be screaming kids in tow, we’d sit them down over the space of one hour, two, five, seven, nine hours.

10%. Exactly 10.2% of the couples who walked through the door that day with no intention of ever spending any money on a Timeshare property left between 10,000 and 20,000 pounds sterling poorer. Wow! There was some power to this sales thing. It was a great lifestyle. It was all fast cars, and drugs, and hangovers, and it was very unhealthy.

So I got out and I moved into corporate sales, where I’d make 50 or 60 telephone calls a day. We’re going to hear from John later about how to get corporate clients. I’m just making these corporate telephone calls all day long. 50, 60 calls a day, just sweaty and harassed procurement executives who didn’t want to hear from me. And I learned that persistence pays. Right Ash? Persistence pays.

And I got good at it, and I started my own company. I knew I was going to be a huge success because we had table football and bean bags, and I got everybody trader jackets because I read that’s what startups did. So I had all the trappings of wealth. And it got to the stage where the company was doing fine. I was hiring hungry people off the street, young kids, turning them into salespeople so they also had the great pleasure and luxury of making 50 to 60 telephone calls a day to people who never wanted to hear from them.

But something was going wrong here. Something was going wrong here. My first son had been born and I wasn’t seeing much of him. My walk to work got longer and longer each month. When we first opened, I’d rush straight in in the morning and sit down and check my emails. Then a little bit later, I’d stop for a coffee. There’s a coffee shop on the way. The trouble is by year three, there were four coffee shops on the way into the office and I’d stop at every single one of them. And you know you’ve got a problem, you’ve got a real problem with a company when the CEO is hitting the snooze button every morning and not wanting to come into work.

So I decided that something had to give. They say when the teacher is ready, no they don’t say that at all, do they? They say when the student is ready, the teacher… well thank you for paying attention, the teacher will appear. Because I was a salesman, and because I was a student of sales, I’d been subscribed to various mailing lists. And there’s one guy who’d been emailing me for four or five years, and I’d been ignoring his emails consistently, archives, spam, delete. Until one day, he sent me an email saying, to me and 60,000 of his closest friends saying, “Do you want to become a certified coach?” I thought, well something has got to give. My hemorrhoids make it impossible for me to sit down. I’ve got to stop using that analogy. People come up to me weeks after I give a talk and they go, “Oh, you’re the hemorrhoid guy.” Oh crap!

So the hemorrhoids were a problem. I needed to change. I knew that I enjoyed selling, and I knew that I enjoyed training people to be salespeople. So I became a coach in the Book Yourself Solid system. Could you please raise your hand if you’re familiar with Book Yourself Solid, or its creator Michael Port? That’s fantastic. I’m glad that many of you aren’t because this stuff really did, really did change the way I viewed business building because I’d done it the old way, and it made me physically sick; the grind, the hustle, the relentless pressure, the idea that sales is a numbers game. It was a race to my bottom.

And so the Book Yourself Solid system created by the man who became my business partner, Michael Port, is also the godfather of my second son, good Jewish boy, promised to bring out my son in the Catholic faith. I live in Moulton by the way, and that’s Moulton apparently here in Australia. I had to repeat it five times yesterday, every time I spoke to somebody. “Moulton. Where’s Moulton?” Moulton.

OK. I live in Moulton, which is deeply Roman Catholic. I live there and I made that move from Belgium, which is where I had the recruitment company, which is sh**. If you’ve ever been to Belgium, it really is. Everything they tell you about it is absolutely true.

So I now live in Moulton. Fast forward a few years ago, here I am, traveling the world, coming to meet people. Interesting story, James, I met James at a conference in the Philippines last May.

When we got home from the conference, I dropped him a note saying, “James, it was really great to meet you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you or anybody you know.” And he replied, “Yes. You may write to me whenever you like.”

Next line, “I consider you a friend.” Whew! Jeez! I got the green light. I’m officially friends with James Schramko. Completely lost my train of thought. OK.

So Michael Port, I became a Book Yourself Solid certified coach, and sucked up, sucked up big time. I’m going to teach you the art of sucking up because relationships I built my life, I’m responsible for 89%, official statistic, of the good things that have happened to me. Building relationships. I sucked up hard. Teacher’s pet, left a virtual apple on the virtual classroom table at the end of every session. And every time he needed something to do, he’d ask the eager guy in the front, “Can you cover this for me? Can you do this call for me? Can you write this copy for me?” I’d just say yes. I worked for a very, very long time for free. Until he felt guilty enough to pay me. So he paid me a little bit. After a while he said, “We might as well make it official.” So he put me on staff, he became my most important client. Then we moved to a profit-share agreement and now I’m the partner.

I run the Book Yourself Solid worldwide programs. We’ve got the school of coach training, licensing program. And I started to apply it to my business, and I became a coach, and I taught other people how to get booked solid. And remember, I was first certified. I went out to my first client and said, “Listen, I’m the guy who can help you get more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling.” And they said, “Well, that’s great Matthew,” (accent) because we’re in Belgium, “That’s great Matthew. How many clients of your own do you have?” I said, “I don’t have any. I don’t have any. But I do have the system.”

And what I’m going to share with you, with your permission right now, are the 16 components of the Book Yourself Solid system, which will show you how to get more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling. And it will apply to you if you’re in startup mode, if you’re in dreamer mode, or if you’ve already got a fully-mature, fully-functional business. Would you like to hear it from me? Say yes or otherwise, we go to break.

Audience: Yes.

Matthew: Woah! How about that? One thing I teach my sales students by the way, if you want people to say yes, tell them to say yes. Could you say yes, Greg?

Greg: Yes.

Matthew: There we go. It works. Fantastic.

Book Yourself Solid system components

The beautiful thing about Book Yourself Solid is that it’s not like everything else. It’s a love story disguised as a business building system. I know this will go down really well in Australia as well as it goes down in America.

Love story

It’s a love story disguised… it goes down really well in Germany this, by the way. ‘What is he saying? This is not a love story. This is business.’ (German accent) But the idea is that we can fall back into love with the business that we’re excited and enthusiastic about when we started.

When we started, we loved our clients. When we started, we loved marketing. We were excited. Everything was a new venture. Everything was a new project. Then gradually, we start to fall out of love because our expectations get raised. We start to hold ourselves to a higher standard, we stop having fun, we get caught up in delivery, priorities are being juggled, and it doesn’t become fun anymore. And we say, “Well hell.” We say, “Heck,” depending on the audience. These guys say, “Fu**ing hell! We only live once.” Right? If you’re going to be doing it all day long, you’ve got to love it. So love story disguised as the business system. Fundamental, philosophical principle of the Book Yourself Solid system.

Meant to serve

Number two, very, very important, there are some people who we’re meant to serve and others not so much. If you’re in a service business especially, or if you are in a product business, where your reputation is important, there are some people that we’re meant to serve and others we should forget about. We should actively forget about them. You do not have to chase anybody who’s got a check book and a pulse to become your client. When you apply this golden rule, the first part, the love story part, becomes a lot easier. Are you with me so far? Super!

Marketing does not get you clients

And the third practical element, which is absolutely contradictory to an awful lot of stuff that you hear, which is an anathema to old-school marketers, which is sacrilege to the conventional business building training, is the belief… not the belief, is the certainty that marketing does not get you clients.

All that marketing does is raise awareness about who you are and what you have to offer the world. It attracts eyeballs. It attracts interest. And it’s what you do with that awareness that counts. Now admittedly, there’s good marketing and there’s bad marketing, right? There are different ways of attracting attention. I could, if I got enough encouragement, take my pants down right now, do a lap of the bay, come back in here, and I’d attract a lot of attention and probably a few followers. Some of whom will be holding handcuffs.

But good marketing, even good marketing doesn’t get you clients. Let’s take an example. I’m not going to embarrass anybody by asking them to put their own hands up as I’d embarrass myself. With an imaginary example, let’s say, Clint was telling us great stories yesterday about health, so let’s take the current passion for fecal transplantation. For those of you who aren’t aware, it’s the benefits of putting other people’s poop in your own body.

So you decide to take it one step further because you’re a futurist. And you’re going to sell a sh** sandwich. That’s exactly what it sounds like, doing two pieces of bread. And here’s the thing, you’ve got an unlimited marketing budget. Unlimited. You’ve got millions and millions of dollars that you can spend on a dozen different agencies who will compete and work together to win you as many eyeballs and as much custom as they possibly can.

So you’ve got PayPerClick ads, you’ve got Facebook social campaigns, you’ve got Pinstagram stuff going on, you’ve got billboards, you’ve got celebrity endorsement, you’ve got sandwich boards, you’ve got the guys who walk up and down outside saying, “Sandwiches. This way. This way.” And you run this fantastic, multi-million dollar TV slots, radio slots, infomercials, direct mail, everything. All geared up towards opening day.

And on opening day, Manly’s new sandwich stop has a line out the door of 4,000 people. All queuing up for the latest, greatest thing in sandwiches. You get the king of Manly, or James Schramko, whoever’s available, to open the sandwich shop. The ribbon is cut, the door is opened, and the unmistakable stink of sh** wafts out the door, down the line outside, and the queue get shorter, and shorter, and shorter, and all of your marketing has been for nothing. Do you agree?

Audience: Yes.

Matthew: I’m not suggesting for a minute that any one of you are selling a sh** sandwich. Or its equivalent. Metaphorically. Definitely not, really. But it does illustrate the fact that marketing doesn’t get you clients. And when you’re told by our future speakers like Jen, “This is how you use Pinstagram for marketing. This is how you use this new technology, this new tool, this new system, this new approach,” it will work when you’ve built out your system.

Marketing comes last

Marketing comes last. We start at the bottom. The bottom is what happens when the marketing works. So we do marketing last. But when our marketing is done, when the rest is set up, people come over here, and they’ll check out what we call your foundation. They say, “Do I belong here? Does this person understand me? Do I like them? Do I like what they stand for? Do I understand what they do?” And if the answer is yes, then they’ll feel free to move forward to the next step.

And the next step is credibility and likeability. Earning trust and credibility. People start to make small investments in you based on the amount of trust that you have earned. And you can fast forward that trust using various strategies that I’m going to share with you.

And when trust has reached a significant and sufficient level, and when your pricing is perfect, and you know how to have a super simple sales conversation, then you will close the business. And you’ll have the system that goes from eyeballs through to foundation, you have a chance to earn trust and credibility, and then you can close the business. That’s your system, your funnel, if you like, that is in place. And then you invest heavily in marketing, and then you know when you can close the business you should be spending time on social media, time on direct mail, when you know that you’ve got your first profitable product. I think we heard that yesterday. With me so far?

Audience: Yeah.

Matthew: Super.

Red velvet rope policy

But let’s get started. The very first thing you need to implement in your business is the red velvet rope policy. The red velvet rope policy is exactly what it sounds like. It’s having a bouncer on the outside of your business. It’s having a policy in place that says, “If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in.” It’s a policy that acts as a filtration device that only allows into your business the kind of people who energize you, and inspire you, and allow you to do your best work.

Now, your red velvet rope policy can be flexible. If you’re selling products, for example, it doesn’t matter too much who buys your products. You probably wouldn’t want to be endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. And you take steps to actively prevent them from becoming your loudest cheerleaders but you can have a pretty slack red velvet rope policy.

But if you’re working one-to-one with clients, or in workshops, or similar, you’ve got to be tight. You’ve got to have a red velvet rope noose. And you’ve got to say, “You can only come in if I let you in.”

This is the biggest luxury that any service business owner can have. Choosing their clients. There is no greater luxury than turning down business that you don’t really want because you know that there’s more coming because of the system that you built.

Could you please raise your hand if you have today or have ever worked with a client that you don’t like. Every single one of you. Why would you do that? I mean why would you do that? For the money? You know what that makes you? Turning tricks for cash. No fingers here.

The way that we determine who gets to work with us has got nothing to do with demographics, nothing to do with spending activity, nothing to do with profession, nothing to do with the kind of car they drive. It’s everything to do with their deep core characteristics. And the easiest way of telling you how to put yours into place is to share with you mine.

My ideal client doesn’t take themselves too seriously. If they take themselves too seriously, we can’t joke together, I can’t do my best work. My ideal client is responsible for themselves. If I hear in our pre-engagement chats that the economy went down, or competition was too tough, or landlord cancelled the lease, and that’s why I haven’t done any work for the last 12 years, then we probably won’t work together. They realize the buck stops with them. It’s very, very important to me. They do what they say they’re going to do. They do what they say they’re going to do. I don’t work as a coach anymore, but when I did, I felt that a lot of it was therapy rather than coaching.

I’d say, “So have you done the six things that I asked you to do before we got together last time?” And they’d say, “Well no because the cat was sick.” And then I’d say, “OK. So what do you want to talk about for the next 45 minutes?” And it became a therapy session. That’s no good for me. So they must do what they say they’re going to do. And they’re not late. Tardiness for me is indicative of a deep lack of respect for other people. I understand if you get caught in traffic but if you’re habitually late, we’ve got a problem.

So if during our chat or even during our engagement I see that’s you, (making sound), finished. We don’t work together. It’s like a nightclub. If you decide that your nightclub is for goths, or punks, then you’re going to want to attract these goths and these punks. And your door policy will determine that. And the way that you do business and the music that you play will determine that.

And if one day, a high-spending couple in ball gown and dinner jacket show up, waving their platinum Amex, you have a duty to not let them in, because it will make your core clientele feel uncomfortable. And it won’t be an optimal experience for these people because your nightclub is for punks.

And what happens is, your core market will go away and they will say, “Well it wasn’t such a great night at Bob’s punk bar last night. There was a crowd of people there that really weren’t like us.” And the ball gown couple will say, “I’m never going back in that establishment again. It was absolutely atrocious. It was full of people with pins in their noses.” And no good happens.

When you do your best work with your best people, good things happen. They leave your sessions, they leave your workshops, they leave your consultations, they leave your meetings, they go, “I’m so happy. I’m so happy to be working with this person.” And people talk about you and you attract more of your right people. Are you with me?

Yeah. So look at your clients today. Dump the duds. Apply the 80-20 rule to the energy levels of your clients in your business today. Dump the duds. Prune them out. Get rid of them. Look at your midrange, see if you can make them star clients if you can. Get rid of them. Concentrate on finding more star clients.

Why people buy

Next thing that you need to put in place – understanding why people buy what you’re selling. If you don’t understand why people buy what you’re selling, then don’t be surprised if they don’t either. In order to do that, you need to put four elements in place. First element, target market. Second element, needs and desires of your target market. Third element, single big result that you give your target market. And fourth element, the associated benefits.

So we take the first one first. First part is your target market. Your target market is a group of people or companies who have something in common. You want to exploit their commonalities. What do they have in common? Well there are three things, which are benefits but also determinants of whether you have a target market.

So if you look at a group of people and say, “This is my target market,” you should be able to go to where they hang out. Can you identify where they hang out? Question number one. Second question: Do they have existing networks of communication that you can hijack or exploit? Those are nasty words for a nice thing. Do they have existing networks of communication that you can hijack or exploit? Third question: Are there other people already serving them? Because if there are, you’re probably onto a winner. And it makes it easier for them to choose you.

So the first part, do you know where to go to speak to them when they hang out? Let’s take an example. My target market is women. Where am I going to go to hang out with women? Everywhere. Why is that a problem? You can’t be everywhere. What about if it’s women whose kids go to a particular school, who don’t work, and who are at the school gate at 3 o’clock every afternoon? Would you know where to go to hang out with them? Of course you would. You’d go to the school gate.

What about if it was members of a congregation? Members of a community. Members of SuperFastBusiness. Ash? What if you were selling podcast services, who would your target market be in the first instance?

Would it be a group of people who already know you to whom you have access? You know where to go to hang out, you know what their existing networks of communication are, and you can exploit them.

Another existing network of communication example would be, if you arrive in Florida and you decided you’re going to offer dental services, no, you’re going to offer services to dentists. We have a dentist? Shout if you’re a dentist. You say you want to talk to every dentist in Florida. You can either go knock on their door, which may be effective, but won’t be very efficient. You can get the yellow pages, you can go through the phonebook, you can call every one of them, which might be effective but won’t be efficient. Or you can make friends with the president of the Florida Dental Association. You make friends with him or her, and she will introduce you, with borrowed credibility, to your target market.

And when you go to them and you say, “I am here to serve you,” they will find it very easy to choose you because you say I serve dentists in Florida. And they will say, “I’m a dentist in Florida so that must apply to me.” Specialists always get paid more. Specialists are always chosen when the problem is specific. Specialists always get paid more. I am a general marketing expert. I’m a general marketing expert who serves people who live in Australia. I am a general marketing expert who serves a community of people who are specifically interested in online marketing in Australia.
Who’d you choose? Third one. Every single time.

You’ve got your target market. You find out what their problems are. You ask them. Find out what their needs and desires are. You ask them. And you provide a single, big result that serves them.

That single, big result should be specific and measurable, which means if you’re a life coach and you help people step into their greatness and uncover their wonderful self, I haven’t got a fu**ing clue what you’re talking about. But, if you can tell me that you can help me jump three feet higher, or you can help me increase my lead flow by 26% in three months, or you can help me sleep better at night, then I’m going to be able to choose you.

Single, specific, measurable, tangible result. And the associated benefits to go with that, financial, emotional, physical and spiritual. Sleep better at night? You’ll have more energy during the day. You’ll earn more money. You’ll get promoted. You must understand the benefits that are associated with your single, biggest result.

Develop a personal brand

Then you put a personal brand into place. Your powerful personal brand identity is made up of three parts. How many?

Audience: Three.

Matthew: There’s so much information here. There’s so much information here.

And if you walk away with one, one useful insight from this presentation then I will die happily. Hopefully not soon, but happily. Just one. Let it wash over you. Don’t even take notes. Just listen.

Your personal brand identity is made up of three parts: your who-and-do-what statement, your why-you-do-it statement and your tagline. Two of them are very important, one is a bonus. Your who-and-do-what statement is not, “I’m Matthew and I will help you make more sales.” It’s, “I help Australian online marketers increase their lead flow by 26%.” It’s your target market plus the single biggest result that you get them. You always talk about your audience and what you do for them. Never use your job title. Never use your job title. For reasons that will be revealed.

The second part is your why-you-do-it statement. What do you stand for? What’s your reason for doing what you’re doing? James mentioned this yesterday.

When you truly stand for something, whether it’s conservatism, liberalism, human rights, animals’ rights, gay rights, whether you stand for nudity or being very well and fully-dressed, you will attract people who share your worldview and you will repel those who don’t.

The most magnetic personalities attract and repel. If you want to be invited to be a talking head on a TV show, you better have an opinion. The worst thing I understand from a colleague of mine who trains people to go on TV, the worst thing you can say when asked by the anchor, “What do you think about this?” is “I don’t know.” You’ll never be invited back unless you’ve got an opinion.

Seth mentioned this: the higher you stick your head out above the parapet, the more likely people are to take shots at you. Look at the people you admire the most. Look at the people who have the most admirers. Without exception, they have the same number of detractors.

Justin Bieber has his Beliebers. Lady Gaga has her LittleMonsters. Donald Trump has his Trumpets, or whatever they’re called. Who are yours? Who are your LittleMonsters? Who are your Beliebers? Who are your Trumpets? (makes sound) I’ll be your trumpet. So what do you stand for?

And the third part is your tagline. This isn’t the way that you’d introduce yourself at cocktail parties. “Hi. Meet Matthew. He’s the guy that’s cool when you’re tired of thinking small”. Because people would say, “See you later.” But it’s the way you might be introduced on stage or it might be the tagline on your book, and it’s absolutely not necessary to get booked solid. But if you choose a good one, which aids and rhyme and recall, it makes you slightly more colorful character, then it’s easier to see that you’re standing above the crowd.

If you’re going to a BNI meeting, anyone? Yeah, no one’s proud of that, “Hey, let’s get together. 7 o’clock in the morning”. Bad breath, sitting next to a guy in haulage, “Hi. My name is Steve. And if you have any haulage needs…” How you talk about what you do is very important. And when you go to events like BNI instead of using your elevator pitch, which I’m on a mission to kill.

The only times you’ll ever use an elevator pitch is when you are faced with a VC who has 15 million dollars. Then you drop your pants. You give your elevator pitch.

The only reason the elevator pitches are invented was to get you out of the room as quickly as possible. You’ve got two minutes, go! Well that violates my red velvet rope policy. If you’re only going to give me two minutes, why don’t we have a conversation when you’ve got a little bit more time. No elevator pitch. No labels.
If I bumped into you, Greg, and you said “I’m a lawyer”, I’d say, “See yah!” If I bumped into you, Walter, and you told me you were a policeman, (whistles), I’ll be out of there. Tim, if I found out you were a personal trainer, well I’ve got my own beliefs about personal trainers as well because I hired one once and I’m still unfit. PE teacher. Yeah. I’ve got memories. You bastard.

[Audience laughs]

From the cane, from the cane.

Don’t lead with your label. Lead with your who-and-do-what statement. “What is it you do?” “Well you know how some entrepreneurs are great technicians but they’re not very good at getting clients? Yeah, I help them get clients.” “Well that sounds interesting. You should talk to my mother. She’s an entrepreneur. You should talk to my sister. She could do with more clients. You should speak to my dad. He’s struggling.” It doesn’t have to be relevant to the person you’re talking to but it should be simple enough that you can easily be referred. It’s got to pass the supermarket checkout line test.

If somebody asks you what you do and you say you’re an SEO analyst who helps integrate vertical solutions for maximum stakeholder engagement, you’ve lost me. If you say you help people with websites get more visitors, “Oh, you should speak to my dad. He’s got a website.” Don’t use lingo. Clear?

Audience: Yeah.

Matthew: Yeah. I love this stuff.

You’ve got those four pieces in place as essential. That’s your foundation. Without a good understanding of your target market, good understanding of who your customers are and what you do for them, your marketing has been for nothing.

Credibility and likeability

It brings us to credibility and likeability. Super short, super simple one. People will judge you on first impressions. That is why I’m wearing a tie today. I’m interested.

This is the 1% thing. It’s a great book. Is it called 212 degrees or something, I forgot who wrote it, but water doesn’t boil. I’m going to use Celsius because I can’t because I’m not in that space. Allelujah! Water boils at 100 degrees, right?

Audience: Yeah.

Matthew: Yeah. 99 degrees, it doesn’t boil. So this credibility and likeability part is how to tweak things that one degree. For example, have you hired Greg to do your website or did you do it yourself? What do your headshots look like? And tell me the truth. Were they taken by your uncle when you were slightly tipsy at your cousin’s christening? They tell me I look so pretty. Flushed. Slightly blurred background, somebody being sick. Or dog taking a dump.

Ask yourself. These are things that could be fixed in three minutes flat. Hire Greg today. James said, “No pitching from the stage.” Greg, you owe me one. I’m not pitching me, I’m pitching Greg. Hire Greg to do your website. If you did it yourself, it’s not OK. Unless you’re a graphic designer, don’t design your own logos. It’s a small, simple fix, it will cause you 100 bucks, not if you use Greg, it will cost you much, much, much more than that.

Your headshots. Go to a photographer. You will find a photographer who will give you a better headshot than you have today. It could be fixed in a minute. Or your business cards. Were they printed off at a bus station? Not looking at anybody here, but you know who you are. It’s a small thing, so make the world a difference. Question is, am I going to invest money in you if you’re not prepared to invest any in yourself? Is your email address still [email protected]? Give me a break. Credibility.

The sales cycle process

Your sales cycle is the opposite of a sales funnel, but it looks like it might be the same thing. You should have three things for sale: one costs nothing, the other one costs something, and the third part costs something more.

One that costs nothing. I recommend that you have an “always have something to invite people to” offer. If that’s a mouthful, you can remember it by the acronym HAAHSTIPTO. It’s free, it’s regular, it’s the alternative to can I pick your brain? Can I have coffee? Can I pick your brain? Yes. Come to my event. It’s a live teleconference call every Tuesday at midday Eastern. I’m on there for an hour we can get to know each other. Yes, come to my coffee mornings in Manly. First Wednesday of every month. We can get to know each other.

Always have something to invite people to offer event. People invest nothing but their time. People’s trust develops at different stages, and people make investments in you that are directly proportionate to the amount of trust that you have earned. And trust develops at different speeds.

When I speak sometimes on stage, people come up to me afterwards and they say, “I’ve only known you for 45 minutes, but I’d be really interested in doing some private consulting with you”. And I say, “Great. That will cost multiples of thousands of dollars.” And they say, “Great. Let’s get started.”

There are other people who’ve been reading my emails for the last four years, who write to me and say, “Hey Matthew, just thought you’d like to know, I bought your book.” Well, I’m glad it took you four years to get there, but I’m glad we got there.

Have opportunities for people to invest at a commensurate with the amount of trust that they’ve earned. Right? So something paid and something more expensive. And show them, display them like a carousel. Don’t put people into your funnel. If any of you walk up to me at the end of this presentation and say, “Matthew, I’d like to do some consulting with you.” I’ll say, “Great. Give me your email address and I’ll put you in a 55-part autoresponder so you can buy my free ebook.” I’m not going to sell you that. I’m going to say, “Great. Jump into the sales cycle. It’s like a carousel. It displays option one, option two, option three, minimum.”

Keep in touch

Your keep in touch strategy. One to one, one to many. Write to people all the time. Do not view communicating with your list as communicating with your list, or blasting your list, or sending a blast. These people have put their hands up and said, “I want to hear from you.”

What does your mother do if you don’t get in touch with her every two days? She worries. Your audience are worried about you if they don’t hear from you. They’ve put up their hands to say “Please talk to me.” I used to send an email every single day in 2013. Every single day, I’d send an email. On the odd occasion that I didn’t, what happened? Anybody?

[Audience speaking]

People would write to me and say, “Where’s your email?” Don’t be afraid to keep in touch. Keep in touch, keep in touch, keep in touch or be forgotten.

Information products

Your information products. Which I’m not going to go into any depth on. Don’t think information products don’t apply to your business. Don’t think you have to sell information products. Here’s a way of thinking about information products: information products have been around since the beginning of time. Since the beginning of commerce. If you’re sitting at home and you say, “I feel like a Chinese meal tonight,” you do not have to have a conversation with the Chinese restaurant to find out what it is that you want to purchase from him. You just read the takeout menu.

Your brochure, your takeout menu, your books, anything which does your brand building and marketing for you when you’re asleep at a conference on a boat is going to be doing your business service. You can normally put it in its place very, very quickly.

When your pricing is perfect, and here’s what you need to know about perfect pricing, you should always be able to answer the question, “Why does it cost this much?” And that should always make sense from two sides; from your client’s side or the buyer’s side and also from your business goals’ side. It’s OK if your product is not making a profit. If it’s a loss leader or if it’s a market penetration product. That’s OK, but you should be able to justify that to your shareholders, and your shareholders are you, the people who depend upon you and your business, and the other members of the SuperFastBusiness community who have a vested interest in seeing you do well.

When you can close the business like this, (picture shown) “Kerry, what do you need help with?” “Matthew, I need help with getting you off stage.” “OK. Why is that important to you?” “Because otherwise, the event will overrun.” “Great. Would you like somebody to help you with that?” “Yes, I would very much, Matthew.” “Would you like that person to be me?” “Sure.” Sale has been made. What do you need help with? Why is it important to you? Would you like somebody to help you with that? Would you like that person to be me? That doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a yes but it does guarantee you’ll start discussing pricing, which means you’re having a sales conversation.

The reason that people don’t like to have sales conversations is because they don’t like to sell, they don’t like to change the nature of the relationship with their prospect. And so this approach allows you to effortlessly slip into sales conversations with people who would otherwise be allergic to having a chat with you. “What is it you’re looking for? Aha, aha, aha. You need some help with that? Because I do that.”

“Well I don’t know, how much does it cost?” Boom! You’re talking about your products and services. Nobody’s ever offended when you ask them to buy something, ever. Nobody will ever be upset or try to avoid you if you ask them to buy something. They will be very pissed off if you don’t take their no at face value.
They will be very pissed off if you persist too much.

And people lie to salespeople all the time. It’s OK to lie to salespeople. You walk into a shop, Dan, you’re after a new shirt, and the sales assistant says, “Hello sir, are you looking for something specific?” And you say, “No thanks, I’m just browsing.” No you’re not. You went in there to buy a shirt. That was your intention. And yet we always say, “No thanks, I don’t need any help.” It’s our natural response to salespeople.

The canny sales assistant will say, “OK, sir.” Pause. “Were you browsing for anything in particular?” And Dan will say, “Well actually, I was looking for a shirt.” “Well come this way sir, and I’ll show you our great selection.”

You will close the business, when you’ve got a firm red velvet rope policy in place, when you understand why people buy what you’re selling, when you have a powerful personal brand identity, when you can talk about what you do without sounding boring, or confusing, or bland, or ever using an elevator pitch, when you have trust and credibility in the marketplace, when you’re likeable, when you have a sales cycle that allows people to invest in proportion to the amount of trust that you have earned, when you have a keep in touch strategy that keeps them coming back, and information products that do your work for you when you’re asleep and you know how to close the sale, at that point, it’s time to start marketing.

Ladies and gentleman, I’ve been Matthew Kimberley. Thank you very much for your attention.

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