Mastering Sales Fundamentals with Thomas Ellis

Damon Pistulka  00:03

All right, everyone. It’s Friday. And you know what time that is, it means it’s time for Manufacturing eCommerce success. And I am one of the CO hosts, Damon Pistulka. And that guy right over there. That is not Curt Anderson, Curt Anderson, but it is Thomas Ellis, and he’s going to be with us today talking about mastering sales fundamentals. And Curt is on sabbatical today. He’s off doing some incredible things that he’s going to be able to tell us about next week. But I’m so happy to have you here today. Thomas.

Thomas Ellis  00:40

I’m delighted to be here, Curt. I mean, Damon,

Damon Pistulka  00:45

we got we’re ready to go bad. This is good. This is good. Well, you know, Thomas, we always like to start out learning a little bit more about you. So tell us about your sales journey, how you got into sales coaching, how you got into helping all these sales professionals and businesses just learn how to do what they needed to do better?

Thomas Ellis  01:10

Well, that’s a great place to actually start. So my journey began many, many, many years ago, over 35 years, actually, I started out as a sales rep selling copiers. And downtown Boston. And if anybody knows about the copier industry, is a very tough, tough business and we sell copies around door to door and sell these products. I realized that I love sales then. And from that point on, I moved on to the wireless industry I work for a small company that became a big company connects tel and it was a startup organization. And I had a tremendous opportunity to learn about everything sales, marketing, engineering, and be able to sit in the room and just just come up with sales contests and compensation programs. And we started out, I started out with eight sales reps. By the time I left, some 13 years later, I had six sales managers and 65 reps under my umbrella. And we covered from the federal government’s state, local government, b2b and what we call an enterprise. So that I mean, and that’s what I really learned and really understood the importance of building a dynamic sales environment, and the importance of, of empowering people to get the job done. And from there, Nextel was purchased by sprint, I got this tremendous bio package. And I’ve always wanted to do sales, coaching and training. And that’s where the journey began. And I’ll tell you, it’s been a fun, fun journey. I have the pleasure of working with some outstanding small businesses, small businesses is what I love, I love the small businesses, because I’m talking directly to the small business owner. And if he or she doesn’t learn how to sell, then they’re out of business. And so and I can see improvements quickly. And so my main focus is has been small businesses, and they range from it to project management to landscaping. There’s a wide variety of industries. And the main, the things that I watch a lot is that most individuals are very good at what they do, right there. They’re mainly operations, people are technical, but they have a fear of selling. So I immediately come in and help them you know, first of all, forget about that word cell and replace that with the word help. And it gives you a different perspective on what you’re trying to do. And that’s my story.

Damon Pistulka  04:49

All right. That’s awesome. Because, I mean, it’s great to hear, how you how you started and what you’re doing today because the experience that you got next Now, starting in a startup to where you ended up had to be a huge transformation going from beginning to end. Yes. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, Wesleyne Greer has joined us last lean. Hello. Hello.

Wesleyne Whittaker  05:15

Hello. How are you? Great to be here.

Thomas Ellis  05:19

Yeah. To say I hope all as well down in Houston area. And did you guys get power back? No,

Wesleyne Whittaker  05:28

no, we don’t have power. I’m actually working from my friend’s condo downtown because she has power here. But now it’s been five days. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well,

Thomas Ellis  05:40

I’ll, I’ll pray with you guys.

Damon Pistulka  05:44

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Hopefully it comes back soon. Because power with heat. Without power, the heat is not good. It’s not,

Wesleyne Whittaker  05:55

it’s not it’s nice. Thankfully, it’s not too bad right now. But I wanted to jump in. And Thomas, you were really speaking about working with small business owners and helping them overcome their fear of selling. So where do you think that fear is really stemming from?

Thomas Ellis  06:11

So that fear comes from a lack of knowledge, right. And the perception that to be a salesperson, you have to be this hardcore, shifty, kind of person that you got to go for the clothes all the time, you got to be pushing? Do you you know, and so, because our experiences when, when we encounter a salesperson normally happens when we buy a vehicle, right, that’s what we mainly experience, the salesperson is when we buy a vehicle. And that that process kind of turns people off. Because there are they don’t understand what the process is. But from the car dealership, they have data that basically says, you know, if this person comes in and is looking for a vehicle, if we let them leave, the chances of them coming back are slim to none. Yeah. So when, when you know that you have to, you know, you get trying to eat, pay mortgage just like a buyer, you have to become aggressive and assertive. And that’s where people’s first encounters but I tell people I say that is most salespeople are very consultative in nature, and they’re there to help you solve a problem and not force anything on to you.

Wesleyne Whittaker  07:45

Yeah, that’s so good. But and you know, I see that also, right, like people are, oh, I don’t like sales, it’s sleazy. It’s pushy. It’s this, it’s that and that they lose before they even start, right? They don’t even try because they’re like, I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be like that. And when you mentioned what you did, you said you teach them that sales is helping people, right? Like they are more consultative. So what are some of the things that you find work when you’re helping these small businesses go from that I don’t like to sell to I am being helpful as a salesperson.

Thomas Ellis  08:19

So one of the first things is they, you know, they have to believe that their product or services can make a difference in people’s businesses, right, it can help them do better. Okay. And so, once they feel that, because it’s all about their mindset, right? You know, if I know that I have a product and service that’s going to help you do your job better, make you have better productivity, all those great things, then my attitude towards speaking, that you totally changes from, well, you know, I’m not quite sure I walk into you, and I really want to understand what your problems are. So I really teach to my Son, listen, everybody that you’re going to talk to is not buying. So just understand that from the beginning. And that is that, you know, the national average for closing sales is about 28 to 33%. So when you talk to 10 people, three those people are going to buy. We don’t know what’s three. But our job is to is to make a connection with that person to really understand what issues they’re having, what problems are they trying to solve, they just can’t seem to solve and that you may be the person that can help them solve it. And that’s why I kind of help them think about, but that is a mental adjustment for them. It takes time.

Damon Pistulka  09:57

Yes, yes. That’s a great way to say it though. because the fear is real, it definitely is real. And I never had thought about that before. It’s our most of our experiences are from car sales. And that is, that is, you know, one of the more aggressive because they have to be because the reasons you said it’s just part of it. But yeah, the 33% I always thought about baseball, you know, if you’re, if you could hit 33% of the time baseball, you’re doing really, really well. So if you like baseball, like baseball player, maybe that’ll help a little bit or use the analogy. Gotta get used to failing. Yeah, oh, yeah.

Thomas Ellis  10:43

Sailing is you’re gonna fail more than you win. You know, and baseball is a prime example of that. If you hit 300 You’re in Cooperstown? Yeah, you’re, you got to the best of the best. Okay. And baseball. You know, in basketball, if you shoot 33% in threes, you know, bomb. Right? And so, but in baseball, it really applies and I try to tell people, listen, you’re gonna strike out more than you hit the home run or the single. But guess what? So is everybody else. So 33% of the people that you talk to are going to be customers. Right? You know, we don’t win all the time. And no, is your best friend. You know? Tell people no is your best friend.

Damon Pistulka  11:44

Yeah, yeah, I want to just drop. We got a lot of comments coming in here, but I’ll just say Sadia. Hello, great. See here today, Harry. Thanks for stopping die. He said, Hi, happy Friday, Joshua. Hello, everyone. And then Evan saying the same thing. Hello, everyone. And then we’ve got a question or not a question. But a comment from Harry in sales in life, he can’t win unless you fail. That’s right there. So it’s good stuff. Good stuff. And it’s so the No, you just hit me with a no there. And I’ve seen salespeople that don’t want to be pushy, that just keep going without getting to a no, or a Yes. Talk about that a little bit,

Thomas Ellis  12:30

you know that the whole sales process is to get a decision. Right? We just want a decision. And, you know, the more mature you become in the sales walk, you accept those knows, they’re hard, but you accept them, because you’re not going to bet 1000 You’re not going to close everybody. And we just want to get through the prospecting phase, the discovery, the presentation, the proposal and get a yes or no. Yes, I’m going forward or No, I’m not. That’s all we really want. You know. And when we get that, then we can move forward. Because no was wonderful. No means I’m closer to a yes. From somebody.

Damon Pistulka  13:18

Yeah. What do you think about that? Wesleyan, you’re helping people with sales a lot, too. Yeah.

Wesleyne Whittaker  13:23

You know, I think that the that people that fear of rejection, right, it comes from a deep seated, well, you know, your third grade teacher told you, you know, or your spouse told you, no, or you heard no, so much in life growing up. So you’re scared to hear no, but when I hear no, kind of like what you said, Thomas, it’s yet no, it was good, because you’re not the right fit for me. And what that should tell you as a business owner is maybe this isn’t the right type of client that I’m calling on. Maybe my services or products aren’t what they need, maybe I need to do a little bit different, something a little bit differently. And so those notes for me have helped me build my business stronger, better product offerings, better niching better focus, right. And I also think that some people are on the flip side of that, and they hear too many they hear yes, too often. And so what I tell them, I’m like, if your close rate is way above 33%, if you’re like, oh, I want 60 or 70% of the deals that come through, then you’re not being risky enough. You’re saying too close into your comfort zone. And you’re not being risky enough, because everybody shouldn’t like you, like everybody’s sitting give you easy yeses.

Damon Pistulka  14:33

Yes. You know, when you think about that, Thomas, that’s a great thing to talk about.

Thomas Ellis  14:37

I tell people all the time, you know, a third, a third of people are going to buy from you no matter what you do. You could show up late, you could not call back in time. There’s just some connection there that says they’re buying from you. There’s a third of people they’re not going to buy from you no matter what you do. You could be on time pricing is good, every product has a good fit, they’re just not going to buy from you. And then there’s a third of the people that is up in the air for everybody. So depending on who gets the connection with the company, and a product fit is right and everything else. That’s what happens. So once I start to explain to my clients, these data points, then it all so you mean everybody know, a surge of people? So when we do our sessions, we say, okay, which bucket does this person fall into the third that like you, the third Ademola key or the third is going to give you the opportunity. Okay, and we work the strategy from there, because it’s very important that a lot of this is is meant to preparation, and we need to always be focusing on can I help this person? Okay, who is my ideal client? Do? Am I talking to the right people for my products and services? Because, like one of you said, if you get a bunch of yeses, you know, there’s something wrong because nobody’s that good. And, but you should be getting some nose and nose always lead to a yes. With the right people.

Damon Pistulka  16:23

Go ahead Wesleyne.

Wesleyne Whittaker  16:25

There’s a good quite a good thought. And

Damon Pistulka  16:28

I’m gonna go back here. Yeah, we’ve got a lot here that says rolling in. So Samuel, first of all, we’ll answer this later. He’s asking us what our favorite baseball team is. But thanks for dropping the comment. We’ll do that near the end. Joshua, he’s saying Wow, I love that you’re gonna fail more than you win. so inspirational. And it’s right that sales it’s just the way it is. And Evan talks about failing forward. But Dalat he he asked, Do you touch one cold calling? And why is it important to find a potential client? But then he comes up with a second question is, can you share your thoughts on cold calling and sells and how it helps in long term? So I’ll let you guys answer that forever. No more roll down?

Thomas Ellis  17:14

That is a that is a great, great question. So this call currently does a bait on there is cold calling dead and all this kind of stuff. You know, I personally don’t cold call, I use other tools to make a warm calls. Like my favorite tool in the world is LinkedIn. I use LinkedIn to kind of write content, share my ideas, and concepts. And if people respond to that, that gives me like, a license to reach out to them and have dialogue to say, Hey, thanks for liking my, my post comment or whatever. So I don’t cold call anymore. Cold calling. You need to be very strategic number one, and you need to be different, because people are still talking marketing every day who get those calls. Right? Hi, I’m Sandra Sasso, right click, you have to do a lot more strategic thinking before you pick up the phone and call people. But if you’re going to cold call, you should have a strategy that you just don’t do at one time that you call this person regularly. So one day that they’re going to say this damn, Thomas, please call me every three or four weeks. He I’ve okay, they sent me calls. I’m going to talk to him for 15 minutes. That’s successful cold calling.

Damon Pistulka  18:44

I love that. I love that. What are your thoughts on that was lean?

Wesleyne Whittaker  18:48

I 100% agree with that. I don’t believe in cold calling. I call it a warm calling. And so when I say warm calling, it’s I know who my ideal prospect is right? So I know that I am focusing right now this quarter this month on Operation managers in the state of New Jersey. And so I want to find all operations managers in the state of New Jersey and I’m going to know the challenges the problems or whatever they have going on in their world. And then I’m going to laser focus on that one specific ideal prospect, right? And I say that because if you are I say dialing for dollars if you’re making 50 dials $100 however many dials you’re making if you already know who you’re talking to, what their challenges are, what you what that next step is, rather than I’m calling operations managers today, and tomorrow, I’m calling an HR managers and I’m calling small businesses, then you just seem like one of those robots that I feel like I get a gazillion of those calls every single day, right? So know who you’re calling, and then it makes it much more beneficial. And again, there’s so many more. There’s so many good tools out there using LinkedIn. And you really have to use this. People call it multi threading. So if you’re calling them, you should be emailing them touching around LinkedIn, doing different things and not just solely focusing on cold calling. And

Thomas Ellis  20:12

that’s excellent. So you we’ve talked about, yet multiple ways of reaching people is going to be tremendous, because they may see you on LinkedIn, they may see an email from you. They may see you on a podcast, right? They may see you have an article, and then they begin to think, oh, wow, I need to talk to this person. They’re everywhere. And they’re talking about things that matter to me. Another tool that will I love using was Imagine if she’s called operations managers in the state of New Jersey. All right, I will use chat GPT to kind of kind of say, okay, what are the five biggest problems that operations managers are having in the manufacturing space in the state of New Jersey? That’s gonna give me a list of five things. So now when I’m reaching out, I’m talking intelligently, because I have specific data. And now this separates me from everybody else who’s just dialing for dollars. And I hope that answers that person’s

Damon Pistulka  21:24

question. Yeah, yeah, that’s great. It’s great to hear both your perspectives on it about cold calling, and, and going through that. So I’m gonna go through a couple more questions here. And haven’t mentioned as to what you guys talked about earlier, you got a 60%, close, maybe your flow isn’t high enough. Or maybe you’re overqualified, and prospects that are overqualified and prospects that that’s could be a big one, if you’ve got that many prospects, and you’re over qualifying them and throw a bunch in the garbage that you could be talking to.

Wesleyne Whittaker  21:52

Yeah, I would love your take on that, Thomas, because I see that often people, you know, they’re like, oh, okay, I’m closing all this business, I have all these new Kleinhenz. What do you see, especially in that startup, small business space, where they’re over qualifying con, over qualifying prospects. So putting people maybe in the wrong product, that prong service, just saying, I need money, I have bills to pay? Talk to us more about that.

Thomas Ellis  22:20

And that, in that that is a problem that I’ve faced with many clients? And I have to pull them back to say, wait a minute, are you in this for the long the short term or the long term? Because long term, you want to make sure that whoever you pick up as a client, they become a raving fan. Right? And so and so, like, when I started my business, you know, I had a lot of raving fans, because I did more than what they expected. Okay, my rates went crazy. And they became raving fans, actually, this afternoon. I have a call with a client that’s coming back. We talk every now and then, but, and she’s given me referrals. Because she is a raving fan, because I didn’t oversell, I didn’t know if I qualify, and I try to teach people listen, first of all, you need to know what your three core products are. Right? You know, people well, I so what are my three core products? Okay? And what is my signature, because we all have a signature product, just like every restaurant has a signature dish, right? We all have a signature to a product or service, okay? That we know that if this client does this, they’re going to be singing my praises forever. That’s what we got to focus on is those types of opportunities. And forget about the money, right? We all need money. That’s no secret, right? We all need money. But if you’re helping customers, because you want to make money, that is not the proper way, and you’re going to fail, as quickly as you start, your motivation will should be I’m here to help somebody solve a problem that’s going to make their lives better. And if they pay me, it makes my life better. So it’s a win for everybody.

Wesleyne Whittaker  24:28

Yeah, Damon, and I’m curious, because you see business owners that are, you know, on their way to sell their business or get out of it. So how does that really good product market fit? How does that impact people as they’re trying to sell businesses?

Damon Pistulka  24:42

Well, if they have a down I mean, if you really understand your product market fit and you’re you’ve got a good sales process in place and your people know how to sell. It is so critical for the long term value of a business. I mean, you see it you guys know this working in those businesses. You See when a sales process can keep the engine running like it needs to, you don’t see the up and down of the revenue cycle nearly as much. And you see that even in harder times these companies can weather the storm much better. And that’s that’s very apparent when you’re looking at the the value of the business and the attractiveness to the next owners. So the strong sales engine, strong sales process strong salespeople is critical to you know, really ensuring a much better exit

Thomas Ellis  25:34

a you make sales process sales engine, when I do a lot of presentations and workshops and talking to small business owners. You know, I tell them, if I’m doing a workshop in front of swappers, my first opening comments are, pay attention. This is the best workshop you’re ever going to attend. Because if you cannot get people to buy your products or services, I don’t care what kind of back room you have your CPA, none of that stuff matters, you’re going to be out of business. So focus in on this next hour. Because this makes a breakthrough. Nothing happens until a sale is made.

Damon Pistulka  26:18

Yeah, that’s for sure. We got some more comments. Now. They’re just coming in like crazy. So anyone who has Harry says anyone has a high closing rate in their CRM isn’t entering the data of all of their meetings.

Thomas Ellis  26:34

Bingo, I love that. Are you having? Are you saying that they may not be they’re not being honest with themselves? And see. And that brings up another point, okay, that when, you know, I just got to doing a quarterly review with one of my clients. And their numbers are not where they thought they were going to actually be. So we had to have that come to Jesus meeting to say, this number isn’t right. Okay, because they were counting things that hadn’t sold yet. They’ve gone to sell. But I say it’s a done deal. We have a side order appeal. Do you have any windows or check? Well, no, I have a promise to, hey, let me call my mortgage company, tomorrow, say, I promise to pay her mortgage on the fifth, right, and see what response they’re gonna give me. So honesty, looking yourself in the mirror, and making sure that we are being truthful and honest with our numbers, and our activity will really help you be saved. Because otherwise you have, you’re going to be very frustrated. Yeah.

Wesleyne Whittaker  28:00

I love that, you know, like, well, I, they told me it was going to come in. Okay, how long ago was that? What is actually happening as you said, it’s not closed one, until you have a Purchase Order signed contract, they have signed on the dotted line, or maybe your business is one where you collect revenue, money up front, like whatever the thing is, it’s not done until it’s done. And on the flip side, if you don’t keep track of the deals, that you’re actually losing one, you don’t have a statistical data to go back to see what things are not working well for you. And you know, the more diligent you are with that CRM data, if you track your products and your services, like you should be able to go back and see, wow, I lost 80% of the deals with this particular product or service, do I need to be continued to sell this 70% of my business is coming from this particular product or service actually doubled down this right and then and when times are a little bit tough, you can go back to those clients that you’ve lost business with. And you can just reengage them have the conversation, like even just this year, and me going back to the old CRM data re engaging with clients, it opens up new opportunities. So use your CRM, I’m like a CRM, Ninja, so use it, use it. So the data helps you tell a story.

Thomas Ellis  29:23

That’s exactly what it is. I just had a conversation with a good friend of mine who’s kind of helping me do things in the AI space. And he was telling me that he had deals people promised to close deals but no check. No nothing. And I said well, Marvin out I hope Marvin is on a call. But I said Marvin, I said how many of these deals do you have to say I got about four or five of them? I said oh, I said let me I have this E email that I crafted and I’ve used this for many, many, many years. And it’s basically fire the prospect email. Either you move on, so I some more than I’m going to send you. And by the way, if anybody on this call wants that email, email me, I will send this to you. It works doesn’t work all the time. But like in sales, it didn’t work 33% of the time. So more than sends this emails out, right? And the next night, he emails me at 10 o’clock at night. And it’s even oh my god, Thomas. I did I sent the email and the guy that I was working with, and is told me why didn’t move forward. And it’s not anything of me. But he promises we’re going to talk on Friday. The problem that small business owners have is that they don’t know how to follow up. Right? That’s the other key thing. Well, I’m waiting for Johnny to call me, well, my son Son son’s going to be born before that customer calls you back, you have to take the bull by the horns, and you have to pursue that customer. And that’s one of the biggest problems that I have most small business owners. They’re kind of timid with the follow up, right, I’ve given them the proposal. And now I wait. No, you don’t wait. You’re pushing for an answer. Yeah, yes or no. And that’s the other big hurdle that they have. The other hurdle was finding that right customer, right. And the other photo is, is asking for the business over and over and over until the person says yes or no. Hmm, yeah.

Wesleyne Whittaker  31:58

No problem. But you know, I like to say the fortune is in the follow up, right, like, so if you’re not, you can get the initial meeting and then even and we can go into deeper things. Like don’t let them get off the call without agreeing to what the next step is, right? Like if you just say, okay, so I’ll just wait for you to come. But no, you’re putting it in the prospects hands? That’s not right. You’re the salesperson, you take ownership of it. Okay, so let’s put time on the calendar for this time this day, right? And you have to really focus on that. So when you see that people are doing okay, just having one call, or they’re not as aggressively going after prospects, what are some of the things that you can get people who don’t really have the ante to follow up to just start doing that follow up motion.

Thomas Ellis  32:48

So I tell them lots of stories about how to follow up. And this is, people who, who know me, will call me the follow up King, I’m going to follow up until you, you know, I’m gonna follow up until you say, Thomas, okay, I surrender or, or, you know, I want to know, when I tell them the stories about from different clients that how this process works. I say we have this is a must do, we have to follow up, we have to figure out a way that’s comfortable for you to follow up. You may not follow up the way that I do, but we must follow up. So let’s try some ways to follow up. And guess what happens magically, when a follow up and a person gets, they get a response? They’re hot. They’re hot. They may follow up because they’ve had success. Right? They got confidence. What times I thought I was going to be a pain in the butt. I said, Listen, being a pain in the butt is in your mind. You are paying to take your opinion but but if you’re following up with with data information with something not to say, hey, hey, Jill, did you look at a proposal yet? Or Monday or Tuesday? Hey, God, look at the proposal your your past? Yeah, your past staff, professional, or professional press. And so I teach them once I teach them and I say you got to try it. But once they get success doing it, I won’t worry about it anymore. Every now and then I’m never gonna say so. So what are you going to do with this customer next? Well, I think I’m going to know what are you going to do with the company? I’m going to call them when, what time and then at our next session, right? We go over did you do this? Or I tell them I said listen, when you follow up, send me a text message to let me know how they’re called. Because that’s how involved I am with my clients. I want every single one of them to be successful, but they need nudging. Sometimes they need a knock upside days, sometimes they need their push. Yeah.

35:08

Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  35:10

Well, you know, the thing that I’ve seen too, and you talked about this was lean is the CRMs. The CRM is a simple CRM, I mean, simple and very affordable CRMs now have great follow up sequences that you can build in them. And not just because you’re gonna pump out emails or text messages, but actually to give you tasks. So you know, if you if you want to, and you can, and you’re working in a situation where you can get your CRM to be able to, to, I mean, identify a specific problem point that you want to follow up with. You can even do that in your CRM. But the thing that I think I’ve seen is really cool, is when you integrate multiple methods, because somebody may respond better do a text, somebody may be email, some may might be who knows Instagram message. But you can do all that now. And you can integrate. Okay, what’s the right time for me to make a call? Yeah, in a simple in a standard process, right? Because if I’m a process guy, I’m like, I do 1234. Like that 1234, I can tell you what’s going to happen at the end of each call, I can tell you that we’re going to know by the end of the second call, whether we’re moving forward or not, that’s just the way it is, it’s going to take us to four, maybe five to get to get the deal done. But if you don’t have it like that, and you don’t know your steps, a general steps, right, and you’re not following them, I just see that the CRMs now are so much better at keeping you on task. You know, with so many days, I’ve waited 24 hours, it’s time to do this. Because otherwise we’ll go oh, I got this to do. I’ve got that. Got that view. And the next thing, you know, the sales, follow up his last thing and you go, Oh, it’s four, four o’clock. I don’t want to call somebody at four o’clock in the afternoon, then the next day.

Thomas Ellis  36:59

Is that because people don’t. People don’t like doing the things they don’t like doing. Right? They don’t want to and then they put it off and put it off and they put it off. And I have a follow up process that sees clients, every three to five days, jump to something, do something. Three to five days, you you pick it up 3040 50. But between three and five days, you have to do something. Let’s figure out what that something is. Let’s figure out the next three or five. Something’s in sequence. Like you’re talking Yeah. Okay. Okay. I said this on Monday, Thursday, what am I gonna do? I’m gonna make a phone call, okay. Okay, if I don’t, and you’re not going to get a response. So you know, because we have to condition condition. These folks that you’re going to call people, they’re not going to respond and respond to the email that was sent to voicemail. And there’s this chart I’m sure you guys seen that says 80% of sales are made to shift to talk contact. So if I text you once or twice, and I know I have, because the prospect saying hmm, this person is only going to call me one time I got to work. Right? The prospect knows that. But the fifth time, you’re still reaching out, now’s the process call or wait a minute. This person is different. Because it’s gonna be different. They’re still there. Right? And certainly we did develop his follow up process with things to do. Okay, maybe on the fourth, no response back. I sent them an article, not that I wrote, but on a topic that they may be interested in. Okay, write, write, I write and then I repeat, I rinse and repeat for Texas intervention. Eventually, people respond, because they said, wow, this person really wants to talk to me. They really have something a value for me. I owed her 15 minutes.

Wesleyne Whittaker  39:13

Yeah, yeah, that’s good. And one of the key things that you said is know how your customers, your prospects communicate best, right? So some people I know that I need to pick up the phone and call them because that is the best way that I can get them some people to text message summit to email some it’s a LinkedIn message, like you have to get creative enough. And so that’s why you try all of the different things. You can’t just email or only send a LinkedIn message or only call because your prospect might like to communicate in a different way. And then the first time I get on a call with somebody or have the opportunity, I asked him that question, what is the best way to communicate with you? And then it’s like, bingo, I know what to do. Something like some people have said no Voice Now, some people like videos, like you have to really speak the language of your prospect. It’s not about your comfort zone. It’s about what works for them,

Thomas Ellis  40:10

and teach the small business owners that when they’ve been in an environment that’s been very structured and regimented, and how they do things, that takes a while for them to grasp. Yeah, right. And and the more time that I could spend with them, the more they begin to try these new things, and then it becomes Oh, because our assets are so good to call them yet. So what are you going to do next? Well, I could, what are we going to do next? Let’s think of something right now that we’re going to do next. Do you have today their cell phone number? Yeah. Oh, I can’t text them. What we meet gets extra. If there is a multimedia personal phone number, that’s a license to text to me. Right? you text them. I’ve text people five o’clock in the evening, Saturday morning. Yeah. Right. Well,

Damon Pistulka  41:18

you say Saturday morning, Saturday morning is often a good time, if you if you’re depending on what you’re doing. It

Thomas Ellis  41:24

is a great time, because most business owners are kind of relaxed that they’re wrapping up. And they’re prepping for Monday. Right? So if you get them between seven and I found between 7am and noon time, right? Because if they have a family that fills up at 7am and 10am, I’ve booked so many appointments and get unbelievable. But once again, people Oh, I can’t I can’t do that on Saturday. I’m interrupting them. Okay, are you want to be in business? You want to stay in business? This is what you got to do. We got to do this stuff. Trust me. Nobody’s gonna knock on your door and say, Don’t ever do this again. They’re gonna be appreciative because you’re different than everybody else.

Wesleyne Whittaker  42:16

And if they tell you to go away, they’re not the right customer for you. Yeah, exactly. Just keep going. Don’t take it personally. They’re just not the right person for you.

Damon Pistulka  42:25

Exactly.

Thomas Ellis  42:26

One so that we talked about, they’re not going to buy from you no matter what. So keep it moving. Yep.

Damon Pistulka  42:30

Yep. Yeah, Evan says something here. It’s pretty good. Reach out when people are well fed, well rested and relaxed and are relaxed. As you go. Yeah, absolutely do it. That’s way to do it. Tons of good comments in here. I want to thank everyone for dropping them, I could be able to get them all up. It is this is great. Being able to get to talk to you today, Thomas. And whereas lean, thanks so much for dropping that the knowledge bombs in here to the we always have to ask one of our questions on it. And Kurt, I would be in trouble if I didn’t ask her this question. So what is the best business advice you’ve ever had? Thomas?

Thomas Ellis  43:10

Wow, that is a great question. The best business advice I ever have. Never give up. Never give up who has one of them. And the second one is pivot before you have to pivot. Right. Right. So you may see things happening. You know, I’m going to write it out. Right. So you got another three to six months. You shouldn’t pivot three, six months ago. Yeah. Because you saw the handwriting on the wall. But I’m going to stick it right. So those were the two things that and and I teach my clients, I talk to my clients about that all the time about let’s look at the fork, look at your business. Look at where it’s going. Oh, wow. Why is this segment doing well? And this is it. We should be focusing on? Like we said earlier, we should be focusing on a consistent with activities. You want it to be over here. It ain’t happening here. Yeah, we gotta go to where we got, as they say, gotta follow the money.

Wesleyne Whittaker  44:24

Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.

Damon Pistulka  44:27

Those are great. Great points. Great business advice, for sure. For sure. So as we’re wrapping up here, what are some of the just one, you talk about this a little bit? What is the one thing that will help small business owners make their sales days better?

Thomas Ellis  44:50

There’s there’s not once but you know, I would say the follow up, right? I mean, that is You know, because we can get appointments, we’re gonna get meetings. Okay, but how do we follow up? Following up one? Are we listening? Listening to what they’re saying? Asking the right questions. Okay. And always, always, always get the next step while you’re in the meeting. So, Joe, you liked this conversation? Yeah. Great. Like to get together again? Yes. When would you like to call me two weeks? And this is a $50,000 nugget right here, pay it. Pay attention. Most people get up and leave. And they call Joe in two weeks, and they can’t find him for two more weeks. And I say, you weren’t funny. Joe, you are sitting right there with him. Why didn’t you say hey, Joe, that’s great. Two weeks from today is August the fifth? You’d like morning or afternoon? Let’s book it on the calendar. I’ll sing me. And then the kicker is, hey, Joe, what are we going to talk about in the next meeting? So now you have the meeting and the agenda. So those would be like my four or five nuggets that if people do consistently, their sales will skyrocket.

Wesleyne Whittaker  46:21

And I have one I just want to add, yes, all of the stuff that Thomas just told you, my biggest piece of sales advice is you need a sales Power Hour on your calendar every day. So when you don’t, and I like to do it in the morning, before the day gets away from me, because as a business owner, you have to sell you might have to execute, you might have to do finance, you might have to do a lot of stuff. And so if you really want to excel in sales, you have to schedule time for it. So when you’re doing those follow ups, it’s like okay, nine to 10 have it on your calendar book time with yourself so that you can focus on sales.

Damon Pistulka  47:01

The sales Power Hour. That’s, that’s another one. So thank the both of you for being here today. Thanks, Thomas for stopping by dropping your your just golden nuggets of wisdom here. And whereas Leanne for the incredible, co hosting and dropping those other comments and questions in order to really get the conversation going. And I also want to thank everyone that was here, drop in the comments today, asking the questions. You know, we had Sadia Evan dalet Harry, Samuel Wow, there’s just a bunch of them saw Peter. Man has a ton of good comments in the in the in the feed today. But just want to thank everyone for being here today. We’re gonna wrap up today. I wanted to say go out and be awesome this weekend. I’m not as good as Kurt at saying it, but I want to make sure we do it. Wesleyan, thanks once again for CO hosting. Thomas. Thanks so much for being here today and sharing your sales wisdom with us. We will be back again next week. Thanks everyone hanging out lined up offline.

Thomas Ellis  48:17

Take care everyone