In this episode, Alex shares insights into effective presentations and sales techniques. Emphasising the importance of neural spikes like the ‘one big clap’ and the use of the Pomodoro timer, Alex explains how these methods help maintain audience engagement. The discussion continues with lead generation strategies, focusing on the 12-4-3 method for creating consistent, valuable content. Alex then elaborates on the importance of familiarity and consistency in social media marketing, using platforms like LinkedIn and tools like Dripify. The conversation concludes with essential steps for a successful first-time appointment, stressing the importance of thorough preparation and understanding the human element of sales interactions.
00:00 Introduction and Icebreaker
00:37 The Concept of Neural Spikes
02:14 Sales Techniques and Lead Generation
03:21 The 12-4-3 Marketing Method
06:10 Creating Engaging Content
13:08 Driving Traffic to Your Content
25:07 First Time Appointments and Sales Calls
29:04 Conclusion and Next Steps
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Connect with Alex Smith on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-charles-smith
Connect with Daniel Welling on LinkedIn by clicking here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-welling-54659715/
Connect with Adam Morris on LinkedIn by clicking here – linkedin.com/in/adamcmorris
Visit The MSP Finance Team website, simply click here – https://www.mspfinanceteam.com/
We look forward to catching up with you on the next one. Stay tuned!
Transcript
Daniel: Alex, welcome along to the show.
Alex: Hello, how we all doing? Thanks for having me.
Daniel: very good. And, we were just talking before we hit the record button about, how we first met, I think a year ago at a ConnectWise events where you were presenting a And, the now infamous one big clap. So can we do that? Three, two, one.
Alex: Here
Adam: Oh, the timing was out. Come on.
Alex: Yeah
Daniel: I’m sure we can sort that out in the editing process.
Alex: Post, postproduction, you can get that, right?
Daniel: so, Alex, perhaps you could, elaborate for our listeners. exactly what the one big clap thing is.
Alex: Oh, so when running presentations and any form of kind of where you’re holding space or running an audience, there’s something called neural spikes, is where, so if you imagine any presentation, be that 5, 50 minutes, you’ve got 70 percent of people’s attentions usually at the start. And that will very quickly dwindle off to about 20 percent through the middle or something, but that’s mostly where you need people listening to what you’re having to say.
Alex: So what you have is, or what you need is like neural spikes. So I have usually two, which is either the Pomodoro egg timer, which is how we can only concentrate for 25 to 45 minutes. And I’ll usually wind the timer up. I did a talk with, With Hannah Lloyd, I think Manchester last year, and that’s where I introduced the Pomodoro Timer.
Alex: So you just basically have a neural spike of where you constantly reference back to something, and it just brings people back into the room. And the 3, 2, 1, the one big clap, it’s the same thing. So instead of it just being this monotonous rolling clap, it’s just 3, 2, 1, we celebrate everyone in the room, we all clap together.
Alex: And what it does, It’s just a neural spike that brings you straight back into the moment. It’s just brings you, get you out of your 20 and you’re back up to 70 percent attention. Oh, should I be listening? Should I be doing something? And it’s just, how do we keep audiences engaged the whole way through while talking to
Adam: and of course it’s something that’s just slightly different and quirky, right? So you get remembered.
Alex: Whoa. Yeah, exactly. Cause I feel. Yeah, I mean, my character, it’s very hard to be remembered these days, so having little nuances like that, just define our character and make us, somebody remembers it a little bit more. Yeah, exactly that.
Daniel: and I wonder if, either of those, techniques could be deployed in a sales meeting or does it only work in presentations?
Alex: In the world of sales meetings, you have the same kind of things, you’re looking, so buying signals are usually met with like, Like a summary or a TED. So TED is like tell me, explain, describe. So you can do the same kind of things. It’s where, so the neural spike, what you’ve got to think about is if the energy or the concentration is dwindling, it’s how do I get us back on topic or back into the moment?
Alex: How do I become present again in this very moment? So you can use them at any point. It’s just, it’s got to be a moment where you get someone out of the, what you thought was going to happen and bring them back into what is actually going on in front of them.
Daniel: Very good. And for our listeners that haven’t yet, picked up on what the topic for today’s, conversation is, sales and lead generation, in particular, so again, talking in the green room before we click record, you, you were describing what you felt was the sort of right way to go about lead generation in today’s environment.
Daniel: So maybe you could. share your thoughts there and then we’ll, then we’ll find it out from there.
Alex: Yeah, so one of the main reasons I encouraged IT Nation to have Daniel Priestley speaking as a keynote for this year is I think a lot of MSPs I’ve spoken to over the last three years have all talked about when you eventually get them down to their biggest problems, it usually relates down to the word growth of consistently growing be that 15 to 20 percent a year.
Alex: One of the most One of the best ways to kind of predict that growth is that they start to position themselves either as an MD, as an owner, as what is known as the key person of influence. And that’s the key person that you go to in an industry or in a market or in a segment for a particular task or for a particular piece of knowledge.
Alex: So one of the things I think is important to talk about is instead of it just being kind of like Ad hoc marketing or sporadic marketing. What you move towards is very much what I call is the 1243 method, which is 12 really crucial themes for key ideas each month to talk about broken down into three main videos that cover that theme.
Alex: And that’s where I think most people need to shift their thinking towards or their marketing towards is actually, instead of how do I just create sporadic downloadable reference papers, how do I actually have this continuous stream of value and content going out? Throughout the month, throughout the quarter, throughout the year.
Daniel: And the 12, 4, 3, this is, this is mumps, weeks,
Alex: That’s it. And then three
Daniel: the 3 is,
Alex: each video.
Daniel: right,
Alex: Yeah, so to, to cut, to double click on the methodology or the thinking a little bit more. If you take, say, cyber essentials or a cyber security order or a dark, a dark web search. If you take that as the solution you’re trying to sell, you then break it down into what’s 12 ideas.
Alex: What’s 12 months of content that fall within that. So it could be. Why your passwords get leaked, how often to refresh passwords, why you come up in certain dark web searches, how to do a dark web search. And you take that for like each theme is a month’s worth of content. You then break it down into four weekly ideas.
Alex: So you’ve got 12 months, four weeks in each month, roughly on average. So that gives you a whole month worth of content. And in each of those three weeks or each of those four weeks, you create four different videos that fall within that. And then making sure that each video has three main points for it so that you’re hitting on three really crucial points for each video for two reasons.
Alex: Firstly, it gives you an amazing amount of structure within each video so that you’ve got three main points you’re hitting and gives you kind of a structure. But also. If you take, say, a five minute video that hits on those three points, you can then break that five minute video up into, say, four or five individual videos, where you’re hitting on each of those points in three separate videos.
Alex: So just, you’re creating four times as much content out of the same piece of content.
Adam: and so just explain a little bit more about what this might look like tangibly for an MSP owner. you know, you mentioned, security, is that everything or is that just one stream? And we’re doubling up on other aspects, you know, of, You know, AI, you know, infrastructure, you know, pick a cloud, pick a subject area.
Adam: how might this look for an MSPO, you know, with this sort of 12, 4, 3 rule set? Sure.
Alex: So what we need to really do then is think about is go backwards one step is we need to stop gatekeeping almost valuable information and we need to realize that a lot of our content is probably already out there already. What we do isn’t actually that exclusive anymore and what we need to start charging for is actually the implementation of said content.
Alex: So if we think about cyber security or audits or any form of assessment, That’s not really the value anymore because a lot of people and there’s a lot of free tooling that probably does this. What we actually need to start charging for is, Hey, this is how you do it in a compliance standpoint, and this is how you consistently do it.
Alex: Here is a free tool to go and learn how to do this yourself. And when you see how hard this is, then that’s when you engage us. But most people are still gatekeeping. Thinking that their recipe is the secret sauce. The secret sauce is no longer the KFC recipe or the Coca Cola recipe. That now has been leaked.
Alex: That now is out there. What we need to do is, how do you create your own competitor to Pepsi and Coke? How do you create your own version of this and actually sell the product off the back
Adam: Sure. And of course the video content is all about demonstrating expertise, you know, and, starting to. build that, that, that trust, isn’t it ultimately, it’s some sort of demonstration and then, you know, from that you, you want some other activities. but just going back to that, that 12.
Adam: 4. 4 rule, because for me, it’s not quite, it’s not quite sitting yet. So just explain exactly what you mean by. How you would interpret that rule to deliver consistent quality content that, you know, is focused on your target audience, which would start to, you know, build that credibility, that expertise and lead to some marketing interest.
Alex: The first thing I want to highlight there is the word you’re using is credibility and I want to switch it to the word or just make it complimentary to the word familiarity because familiarity comes down to do I consistently see the same kind of message going out there? And Daniel Priestley talks extensively about 7 11 4, which is seven hours of content on a particular topic or subject.
Alex: 11 interactions or touch points. So someone engages with your content 11 times. And this is not based upon Daniel’s research. This is based upon what you saw from Google and what he’s seen from the market itself. Right? So this is Dunbar’s numbers, right? Of like, how do we build familiarity with an audience?
Alex: So seven hours of content, 11 touch points. And the number four is across four platforms. So if we become familiar with someone, They see our content regularly, regular, regularly enough. We start to become familiar to them. Therefore we’re trusted by them. And that’s ultimately what we’re looking to do.
Alex: Then the whole thought of marketing is no longer about vanity metrics, such as how do I get more likes, more hours of you, all of this thing to monetize whatever your KPI is. It’s how do I consistently show you that I can actually do the things that I say I can do. And that’s what marketing has to move towards.
Alex: It can no longer be about gatekeeping, making it seem like you can do it without giving it away. You just need to prove consistently, Hey, we can actually do this stuff, and we realize there’s no value in us showing you this anymore. You don’t want to go and do this stuff. Let us come and do the heavy lifting, but let me use marketing to prove that I can actually do it.
Alex: So then to break down 12. 4. 3, most of the time people think marketing is this confusing term because it’s such a broad word, marketing. The 1243 is just your social media presence. It’s nothing to do with referral marketing. It’s nothing to do with PR. It’s nothing to do with brand awareness. There are elements to that, but the whole 1243 is how do you as an individual start to become familiar with your target market?
Daniel: And I guess that is, not incompatible with the, the sort of no like trust, concept of, if people are becoming familiar with you, and, and I seem to recall. back in the day, there was something like a, you needed seven touch points or something like that. So this all sounds, yeah, very sensible.
Daniel: and, and I guess it’s distilling it down into, an actionable way that, that people can build this into their day and, or their work schedule overall, and, and I guess plan it out so that you break one big. Overwhelming task into smaller, more bite size, realistic, achievable targets every day, every week, every month.
Alex: So, that’s the idea of it, is that you don’t need to create 30 40 minute YouTube videos. That would be a lovely thing to aim towards. This can be as simple as like the 12 4 3, the 4 weeks of content, 3 weekly ideas. It could be a 90 second video. on how to be cyber compliant. It could be 90 seconds on why password management is so important.
Alex: It could be 90 seconds on privilege manager, access management, just in time credentials. It could be just 30 to 90 seconds or pieces of value of how you do these little things. The crucial thing you need to worry about is not necessarily the content itself, but it’s the destination you’re driving people to.
Alex: And this is where most people go wrong in sales is, or with marketing and sales is that they give tons of value away and they leave what is called money on the table. So they go, here’s loads of great stuff and there’s no call to action. There’s no next step. And the next step is crucial that you need to drive people towards an event, such as a webinar, downloading something, joining you at a conference, booking in for a call.
Alex: You have to take people from this knowledge. Like I’ll end this webinar today with, Hey. There’ll be a QR code. I’ll share with you both underneath this. I do a free 25 minute call completely free on this whole topic that anyone can book onto. And I have about 15 of those a week, usually. Right. And it might say, why’d you give so much away for free?
Alex: But when people start to master marketing and they get an influx of inbound opportunity. Who do you think they might turn to when it comes to well, how do I now convert these? How do I now have a sales conversation and then I charge for the implementation there? It’s exactly the same process exactly the same
Adam: and of course that’s been proven over and again, hasn’t it? That even the most meticulous, and detailed videos that explain how to do something, or, you know, implement some service or whatever it may be. all that people do is just go on and buy that person’s service, right? Because it doesn’t matter how brilliant the video instruction is.
Adam: People look at it and go, no, do you know what? I haven’t got the time. I’m not the expert. This guy clearly is, why don’t I just pay him? and that’s how it works. Of course. Alex, explain a little bit about how we drive our target audience to all this content that we’re generating. And it, you know, it’s taken us quite a bit of time to pull this together.
Adam: We’re having to diarize out half a day’s here and there to do all this stuff. How do we make sure people are actually going to listen to it?
Alex: The first thing I would go to is before anything you go near content is I’ve mastered three questions, which is who’s our persona? So who’s our customer, what’s the challenge that they have, and what’s the result we get them. And because if you think most people buy in three main things, which is they buy with emotion first and then justify with logic after, and they need to understand if it’s urgent.
Alex: So what we need to do is emotionally connect to people through their challenges first. And that’s where marketing comes in of, hey, are you trying to solve this problem? We then logically connect to them by saying, here’s the step by step that you need to follow to achieve this outcome. We don’t need to create urgency by saying, Hey, if you want to speed this up and ask me questions in real time, join my webinar, join this event.
Alex: And I’ll let you show you step by step or step one of how you get through this. And that’s where the crucial thing is. If you’re going to drive anyone to a webinar or an event, it’s not a sales pitch. It’s a, it’s as many quick aha moments or epiphanies or realizations you can give in 25 to 45 minutes.
Alex: Because if we go back to Pomodora effect, I’ve got 25 to 45 minutes of attention and I run a webinar. I have 20, 20 minutes to give you guys as many aha moments as I can. And then I need to go to get you to do the next step to buy my thing. You might get a 50 percent success rate. You might get a 40%, but either way, you’ll quickly see, I’ve given you loads of wins.
Alex: If you were, if you actually wanted to solve this and you realize how invaluable your time is, you’ll buy my stuff because I’m going to do it at scale. Or if you’re just here for free stuff, you’re going to leave and not buy anything, which means you weren’t a customer anyway, which means I don’t need to worry about you. And this is where this stuff is just a constant. Instead of having 15 individual sales calls. I just have one webinar where 15 people join and if seven people sign up, I’ve saved myself seven times, 45 minutes of sales calls. That’s where I think we are. We become invaluable.
Adam: but initially I’m creating content and I’m posting content, LinkedIn, YouTube. I guess, I guess, whatever else you may recommend. How do I get my target audience to actually see these videos? you know, let alone sit and listen to them. How do I actually get them there in the first place?
Alex: . So how do we get our actual, the crucial two words are, is familiarity and consistency. So I would think about a day in the week when you can actually devote the time to filming this content. It then you create a really compelling message consistently where you’re actually solving people’s issues and you’re driving everybody to a central point because remember social media is not about selling.
Alex: It’s about creating enough value where someone goes, Oh, you can actually solve my problem. Now, here’s the crucial thing. I see very few people really do very well. Is when someone signs up to any form of event, instead of just relying on email saying, Hey, excited to see you on the 12th at four o’clock.
Alex: What you say is, Hey, before you join my webinar, who’s two or three people you were talking to about this same topic that would also value. From joining on the same content. How do you feel about bringing those to it? And then you all discussing the same content off the back of it. And these little referral tips, one of the best books out there for referral marketing is J Abraham, 93 referral schemes.
Alex: It’s one of the best books for how to leverage this technique, but that’s how you get in front of your ideal people is you create a load of content. You get 10 or 15 people to sign up, but then you email them saying, Hey Adam, really glad to see you’re joining tomorrow at four o’clock, really excited to, what kind of questions have you got?
Alex: But in addition to that, who’s a person or two that you’ve been talking to outside of your immediate network that you feel would also benefit from the same content? You might get no one, but you might also get Adam say, Oh, you need to speak to Dan. Oh, you need to speak to Scott, Sarah, Rachel, whoever, and it’s just, it just builds in this network.
Alex: And if you consistently put out the same message, and it’s just sharing value each time, it will naturally spread like wildfire.
Daniel: and I guess, just by having people engaged, but beforehand, perhaps increases the chance of them attending said webinar or event, whereas perhaps otherwise they might have registered and then not come along. but I think Adams, quick question was actually, How do people find it on social media or how does it find people on social media?
Daniel: So, for example, do you need to, have gone through a process of connecting to your target audience on LinkedIn? or is it hashtags or, yeah, what gets your video seen by, by people? I think was Adam’s question.
Alex: So in that case, and it would be looking at what makes content go viral, and it’s making sure that at the very first three seconds, there is a hook of some description that entices people to actually want to look at it and dig into it. So instead of it being just launching into content, it’s you open the video with, Hey, if you struggled with this recently.
Alex: or you say something that you know is going to trigger and engage someone that your audience based upon who’s the persona of the challenge. Hey, have you got this problem at the moment? In the next 20 seconds, I want to show you one of the easy steps of how you solve this. And what you’re looking for is that someone watches past that initial five seconds.
Alex: Instead of just scrolling, You’re actually resonating with them right now. That’s why you need to do the work to start with, of like, who’s the perfect person for what you sell, and what’s going on in their world right now. Like, what’s something they’re experiencing that you could save in three seconds?
Alex: Hey, as a sales director, do you really struggle onboarding new employees? New sales people? Well, yeah, every sales director struggles with their 90 day onboarding plan. So I’ve immediately got them. Hey, Do your sales people struggle to make no more than 90 a day? Hey, do your sales people struggle to convert more than 1 in 10? I’ve just hit on three triggers there that every sales director pretty much has. And if that’s the organic route, alternatively, you can download a piece of application called Dripify, which does two things for you. It looks at your current contacts and it builds lists with sales navigator who would be potential next customers for you.
Alex: You can then also could then create cascades of content that message people and say, Hey Adam, Hey Dan, whoever based upon your profile, it seems like these pieces of content would be relevant for you. Is it worth you joining a webinar? Is it worth us having a chat? To actually explore this next step.
Alex: And what I’ve started doing, if I film a YouTube video such as how to onboard anyone in 70 days, I then use Dripify, reach out to a sales director who’s in my target market, and say, hey, watch this video, I’ll teach you how to build an onboarding plan. And what I teach for is how you identify someone 70 days, whether they’re, you should hire them and keep them, or whether we should be saying, it’s not going to work here for you, for certain parameters.
Alex: Which to a sales director hiring five, six people a quarter, that’s invaluable. So what I found is my challenge to sales directors is X. The result I can give them is my webinar, but I need to get them there first with their challenge.
Adam: yeah, just look that up actually. Dripify. io, basic 39, pro 59. On an annual program. So definitely worth a look listeners
Alex: So 150, you use Sales Navigator, 150, 150 a month for Sales Navigator and Dripify. Get really clear. On who your target market is get consistent with a piece of content consistently going out And then make sure that you do not leave money on the table and you’ve either got them downloading a reference paper Joining a call joining a webinar.
Alex: You’re doing something with that I don’t see how you couldn’t start to see attraction with
Adam: and just be absolutely clear. We’re talking about LinkedIn here. Yeah, this is,
Alex: Oh, Yeah
Adam: we just all made the assumption it’s LinkedIn is the platform that we’re focusing on here as the mechanism
Alex: You can do the same for Instagram with something called many chats. So many chats is if you can create the content idea, create easy links to look up with many chats, and it creates the same kind of cascading effect through Instagram messenger. Personally, I would stick to YouTube with shorts and long form content.
Alex: So like 10, 15, 20 minute content, and then drive people towards either webinars or drive people towards LinkedIn. and in short form on LinkedIn, 30 to 90 seconds, absolute
Adam: and we’ve got people talking about TikTok now also. I mean, I don’t even know what this top gram Insta tick thing is, but, you know, I mean, we need to start worrying about this.
Alex: I would say get, build a process on one thing. You have to bear in mind, most people doing this are owners, therefore they do not have four hours a day set around twiddling thumbs to play around differently. I would just get really good on one thing, and then it’s, because if you think most people listening are probably on two, three, four hundred pounds an hour, You’re talking about a 10 to 15 pound an hour task to edit content and then distribute it.
Alex: I would either go on to like five people per hour, find somewhere in South Africa or inexpensive markets. Philippines are usually very good. These very good labor for where the pound is much stronger. The dollar is much stronger. South Africa is really good for English first speaking country.
Alex: A lot of the Philippines English first speaking individuals. I would outsource this. I would film the content myself if I’m an MSP owner, or a leader, managing director, sales leader. Outsource it to either a marketing associate or a system, and then I would just forget about it altogether. I film the content on a Monday, I upload it to Google Drive or to a secure drive, they edit everything, they post it, I then run the webinar at the end of the week.
Alex: That’s all I wouldn’t, if I’m on 500 an hour. I don’t want to be doing a 15 pound an hour task. It’s like, it’s not beneath me. I’m just much better elsewhere.
Daniel: And, you talked earlier as well about the call to action being a webinar or being, a number of, a limited number of calls that you’re going to offer, every week, presumably with some form of, calendar booking link, that would follow the webinar or would you go straight or could you go straight to book a call?
Alex: Remember, marketing and webinars are just about consistently proving you can actually solve these issues. So whether, so marketing is just, Hey, we can do this thing. If you want to do this on your own, here’s lots of free content. You can do it. The webinar is, Hey, join live, never record them. You can, if you want, if you’re selling like a hundred dollar course or something and you just want to do.
Alex: High volume, and it’s called Evergreen, so it’s always on. You can run those things, that’s fine. I personally, in the MSP world, it’s relationship led. I would be running live webinars once a week, where I’m inviting 7, 10, 15 people. It’s completely live. The first 25 minutes, by the way, guys, is going to be, I’m going to solve these problems for you.
Alex: The next 20 is going to be your questions about this topic. And that’s where you say, hey, yes, I’m going to solve questions, but what really I want off the back of this is for me to show you how working together It’s going to make this and speed this process completely up for you. That’s where I would be aiming for is, and that’s where you’re testing people, right?
Alex: It’s called Toad. It’s a form of closing technique. But what we’re checking for the whole sign is signals of intent or signals of buying. So people joining a webinar, that’s a signal. Hey, I’m interested. If they don’t buy off the back of that, you didn’t cover enough value or you didn’t convey enough value in the webinar for me to think it’s worth my time. People do, if people buy or they join off the back of a webinar, you shed enough value. And then the first time appointment is all around, Hey, basic discovery, three main criteria. We can get into, we can do basic first time appointment if you want, or we can stay on marketing. Depends what you two would rather have.
Daniel: I think that the time we’ve got left, it would be great to, to go into that, that first, first appointment actually, cause we’ve, we’ve, produced our content. we’ve got it in front of the right people. we’ve done our webinar, and, and our call webinar is, have a chat with us.
Daniel: and we’re in there in that call or the owner manager of the business is on that call. what are they going to do?
Alex: So I just want to quickly highlight something for three years. I work to Amazon Web Services and the solution and the experience we literally just talked about is the only way Amazon sells. We only, BDR, so basically, when I, how I got the job at Amazon is during my interview, I pitched, I want to take a BDR role, I want to go back a few pegs, learn how Amazon is selling ground up, and then I’m going to come in and rewrite the way you sell across the whole of Europe, which is what I did for Amazon Web Services.
Alex: All we did is really good live content, webinars, driving traffic towards it. Amazon had an influx of inbound opportunity. We then had BDRs ringing before and after with the before questions were as simple as, Hey, what’s brought you to the webinar? What have you seen that you like the look of? I want to make sure the content is relevant to you.
Alex: Afterwards, Hey guys, gals, what questions have you now got? And what’s the struggle you see implementing what you saw? Because Amazon is a building platform. So Amazon web services is loads of things that you have to build yourself, which is why solution partners at Amazon do so well. So the equivalent of MSPs.
Alex: So before, hey, why are you joining? what’s excited you about this webinar? What do you want to learn afterwards? What are you, what questions have you still got? And what are you thinking you’re going to implement next? And then we go into our first time appointment, is you need six main phases always covered.
Alex: The first is before the call, which is preparation. The most important point. What are you doing around preparation for the individual, for the business and for their industry? Making sure those three factors are completely ticked off. We’re opening the call. We’re setting a very clear agenda. Hey, We agreed to speak today for this topic.
Alex: Is that still relevant or has the need shifted a little bit? Where are you at now? We then move into basic discovery, which is three main areas, which is success first. Most people start with current state, but the downside of current state at the start of a call, I immediately remind you of all the things I’ve taken you away from.
Alex: On this particular call. Hey, what are you struggling with? Oh, I’ve got this burning thing over here and I’ve got this over there. And yeah, I don’t have time for this call. I got to go and do all of that. And I’ve lost you. Whereas if I say, Hey, Adam, I imagine this call goes really well. And a year from now we’re celebrating.
Alex: What would you love to tell me? You’ve been able to go and do because of this call. I’ve immediately thrown you into current state and position myself as a guide. On your hero’s journey towards that future state. What’s preventing that at the moment? What’s holding you back? What have you tried to do so far to fix that?
Alex: I tap into that emotion. The frustration of six months trying to solve. I get texts leaving. I’ve got compliance coming out my ears. I’ve got insurance renewals. We failed an audit. I’ve got all of these. I don’t know what to do. And what have you tried so far? What’s the blind spots is the third point. So you’ve got success.
Alex: Future state, tried so far as current state, blind spots is where you sell the service of what you offer. Hey, we don’t have the team and the resources. We’ve got level one internally. We don’t have level two people, don’t have level three. So project work is halting and we’re behind on our number. All right.
Alex: Okay. And then you, that’s where you, that’s where you position. And then the third piece is real value. The fourth piece is real value. Real value is roadmap. How do we give you success maps? How do I give you the blueprint of what you need to do? And then that’s where you sell the next step. Hey, I just want to give you a reassurance.
Alex: We’ve helped people in this way before. Next step is this, and this. Does that sound like a good next step for you? And that’s when you’re booking me in person. This is all usually these first time appointments are usually, of course, I covered a lot there in a short amount of time, any thoughts, any questions where stood out to you both?
Alex: Yeah, very cool. Very
Daniel: I think we need to book another appointment. you, you had me at Hello. and, and yeah, in, in, in truth, I think, I, I’ve got loads of questions from what you’ve described, but yeah, we are, we’re pretty much at time and, I, I.
Daniel: We’ll, we’ll schedule another call, another podcast episode and, and you can take us through, that, that first time appointment and crucially, what we’re going to do on that in person as well, because presumably that’s where we’re then going to, we’re then going to sell, whatever we’re going to sell at a question mark.
Daniel: but you have to tune in again to find out listeners.
Adam: And.no. I was just going to say indeed, but, what I’m strongly in favour of is the preparation piece in particular and, you know, trying to prepare in advance, you know, what type of person is this that you’re going to be meeting, you know, have you done your background research on him on the business?
Adam: I have you got your checklist of things you want to cover? do you have some kind of plan around how you are going to control this meeting and what kind of outcome you want from it and how are you going to pivot if you need to? and what kind of objections might they ask?
Adam: And I have you got answers to those things. So for me, there’s so much around the whole preparation piece. and you know, look, these, clients that we might win in the MSP world, they can over 10 years, they’re literally worth hundreds of thousands to us, assuming they stay with us for 10 years.
Adam: So, so, you know, what’s an hour of preparation? It’s nothing, is it? If we just, you know, Focus on these are like gold dust these things. So I think it’s for me. That’s one of the biggest steps
Alex: Two things I would quickly mention, you’ve alluded to time there, unless it’s the third or fourth call and we’re at proposal or SOW stage and no one gets an hour of time for prepping. What I teach is that within 10 minutes, I can give you everything you need. To have a really good conversation.
Alex: Absolutely 10 minutes. The second thing I’d finish on, most people make the biggest mistake when it comes to first calls, is they immediately launch with business based questions and we forget there’s a human and a heart at the end of a phone. The crucial thing we teach Mainly for ConnectWise, but Andrew Plunkett, one of my mentors, has really helped me with is how we separate the individual from the business.
Alex: So even if you’re owner led, there’s a human being at the end of that phone first. Most people launch with, Hey Adam, Hey Dan, talk to me about your business. And we forget that I’ve just completely bypassed, even though you might associate with your business, and it might be a baby to you, it might be a fundamental.
Alex: 20 years in the making, there’s a human first that we all forget about. What I teach is that the human actually needs to be the first point of contact. Hey, could you talk to me about what you need to look good at the moment? Could you talk to me about what’s your motive for joining this? Could you talk to me about some of the frustrations, level one tech that you’ve had in your role, and how long have you had them?
Alex: Because I just want to make sure that you’re heard first. And what people don’t realize, is if I leverage and understand the human first, they’ll tell me everything I need to know about the business. But most people go in with, Hey. What’s going on in the business? Why are you trying to grow? And they forget the human.
Alex: And if you go down the human route first, they’ll tell you everything. Trust me. You create an environment where someone feels heard, understood, and valued, they’ll tell you everything. And this is where you cannot abuse it, though. You cannot manipulate it. This is why, I should have started with this.
Alex: This is why integrity and morals And like, really caring and loving what you do has to be fundamental in every salesperson we hire. Because if you teach people how to prep for call and they abuse this, they leverage things like Chris Voss has never split the difference and they start using manipulation tactics, last three words, mirroring, and they start to manipulate to control.
Alex: it’s terrible. Whereas if you get on the route of just listen to understand someone. Yeah. Anyway, I think we’re over time, but I, let’s do a, let’s do a part two where we talk about first time appointments and, God bless you both. Thank you for listening. And, thank you for having me on.
Adam: Good stuff. I will speak again
Alex: Yeah. Thank you so much. See you