Paul Guyon Video Podcast transcript

Welcome to the lead machine grows show. I'm Paul Guyon, your host, lead machine coach and the founder and creator of the lead machine mastermind group. I'm dedicated to helping you tackle your tech, master your message, and design your dream, whether you're just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level.

Let's get this conversation started and turn your dreams into reality. Katherine Minett, that's Katherine with a K is a sales success business coach and trainer with 30 plus years of front-line sales experience. Winner of three representative of the year awards in a consistent track record of exceeding budget in several multinational corporations.

She's an experienced corporate trainer and coach and she transitioned from corporate to business owner, establishing Minett Sales Academy. She now coaches and trains female business owners 40 to 60 years old who sell face to face and are struggling to make consistent sales. Her clients learn how to handle their sales fears, find their ideal customers, and double their sales without feeling salesy or cheesy.

Was what I like to say, Katherine does this through her unique group, online transformation sales training and coaching program, the sales confidence formula. So, Katherine, Minett, Katherine with a K Minett like fishnet. That's you. Thank you so much for coming.

I know it's early in Brisbane Australia. Right? Yeah, it's really there and it's almost dinner time here in Michigan back in the USA So, thank you again for coming. And I'm interested, a lot of people that I work with and including myself have this entrepreneurial dream.

And they, they're, they feel kind of stuck in the corporate world and I don't really feel stuck in my job in the corporate world. I because I love what I do, but there's that entrepreneurial dream. So there at some point, there was this spark that ignited your passion to go.

Ok? It's time. So, tell us a little bit about how that happened. Yeah. Well, it's funny, it wasn't just a spark. I think it was a for me, for me, it's been a slow burn, like just slowly, slowly getting stronger and stronger.

And then there was a situation as an event that happened that made it go because, and I describe it like that because I have always wanted to have my own business and be my own boss since I was a little girl. You know, you sit around the din dining room table and, and your parents say, so what do you want to be when you grow up? I used to say I want to be a businesswoman and I want to own lots of shops.

So, I don't know, I was probably about seven or eight. So, I've always had this idea of, of having my own business. And then when I went, I graduated from school and I went to university, I did a business degree and marketing. And so again, it was all that, you know, business idea.

But of course, when I graduated, I decided, uh you know, I didn't have anyone around me with that entrepreneurial spirit. I wasn't surrounded. My parents were not self-employed. I didn't really know anyone that was self-employed.

So, although I wanted to be a businessperson, I really, it wasn't an influence from someone external that was able to mentor me in any way. And so, I did the traditional thing, which was get a job, which most people do, you know, you leave uni you get a job and the job I got was in sales.

And the reason I got a job in sales is because I needed a car. So of course, the job, a lot, often jobs sales jobs come with company cars. So that was the first desire. But also, I decided to do sales because I've been talking to friends who are already in sales and they said what a great job it was and how much I'd be well suited to it and they were right, of course.

And when I finished, so when I got into sales, my bigger plan was to get into marketing because I'd studied marketing, at uni. And so that was so I thought, well, sales will get my money into marketing. And so that's what I did. I had a job in sales but the, my first job in sales was terrible.

I was really bad at it. And the main reason is because I wasn't taught how to sell. Now, you would think that maybe doing a business degree would set someone up to be a good salesperson. It doesn't really, I mean, a lot of degrees are very theoretical. So, I understood the whole concept of business and how things worked, but not specifically how to sell.

And many companies, they don't teach their sales reps to sell, they just expect them to know they tell them all about the product and expect them to go out and sell it. So that was the situation I was in. So needless to say, I quit before I got fired.

But i, and then I continued my career in sales and the idea of having a business went to the back burner as I focused on my corporate career. And then I had the goal to get into management. And I thought, well, I'll climb the corporate ladder and I did over the years I did, I got into middle management.

I didn't really enjoy that because that took me away from the customers and the face-to-face sales. And I eventually, when I switched from pharmaceutical to medical and made a transition, I went back into account management and dealing with customers directly and again, but all I was just pursuing that career, within the corporate.

But in the back of my mind, there was always this desire to have my own business. And I'd say for the last 20 years, I have been dabbling with online marketing. I was fascinated with it when it started, I mean, started before, before 20 years ago.

But for me, 20 years ago, we didn't have google or Facebook or I mean, even emails and internet was just all fairly new, and I did dabble, and I learned about network marketing, about internet marketing. I did do network marketing as well. But I found that, um that because I was in a good corporate job in sales, earning a lot of money and I was the breadwinner and I had by now I had mortgages and car expenses and school fees.

It wasn't really possible to make that transition with my family were dependent on me to bring in that income. So, it was always on the back burner until, so that's what I mean by the slow burn. But then the event the ignition that made me go. This is it. This is time was i, I restructure after covid and I was made, my position was made redundant, which was great because I was ready for it. And I told my boss that's what I wanted. So, I basically got what I wanted.

You get what you ask for. Nobody else got made redundant. They all got put into positions. Maybe they didn't want, but I got what I wanted. And so, then it was like in my time in life, empty nesters, my husband had already retired, and it was like my husband said to me, Katherine, you have always wanted to have your own business.

There's no better time than now. And that's how Minett sales academy was born. Wow, that's great. And how long ago was that? Just a couple of years ago, I guess. Yeah, just over a couple of years ago. So, the first year has been about, I say, you know, the pareto rule 80:20.

So, 80% of my time was in that product. Well, not even product creation. First of all, it was more about working out the business structure and my messaging and how was this going to work? And how was that? What did I want to do? And how did I want to do it?

A lot of learning, a lot of coaching, learning, internets moved on. There's a lot of videos now learning messaging and video production and then it sort of morphed as it came about it morphed. And I was very fortunate that I, while I was still working, I had written a book on sales, haven't published it, it was in the editing stage.

So that was my plan, publish a book. And then later on, I would use that as my, you know, launching my business. But I got made redundant to probably a year before I was really ready. So, I ended up changing the book that I'd written into the online coaching program.

So, I'd spent 18 months already, you know, putting all those thought processes together, structuring it all. I then just needed to turn it into an online product. And so, yeah, then I sold that concept. I started networking, getting out meeting people, building my social media profile because I had nothing.

I was a corporate person, not an entrepreneur, businesswoman. So, I had to, you learn all this stuff. So, it took a while. And now 80% of my time in the last two years has been in, in investigation, research and product development and setting up the business and 20% was organic marketing.

Now, I'm switching it to 80% is going to be marketing and selling and 20% will there be that, that support and creation content and updating stuff. So, and that's very important. I think for all business owners to understand is that 80% of your time needs to be on marketing and selling your business, not tweaking your website, not tweaking your product.

If you're in business to sell market and sell that business. Yeah, I think that was a smart move though. Taking your book and repurposing it as a, as a program that uh you can use to teach uh and leverage your expertise and then create a group coaching program around that. That's a great way to go.

And even in, for those who are listening, if you have that idea, 11 great ways to launch that idea is to get people to pay you while you're creating it. Which is, which is a, a strategy that I learned from Alina Vincent and a number of folks, but I just never took, took, took that to, to mind, but having that content already ready to go and something that, you know, that works is, is a fabulous way to start.

So, now, you're working with business owners, and you've got, you kind of help them overcome this a couple of things. And so, what, what's the number one or the big problem that's uh business owners struggle with uh with successfully selling their products.

I think the first thing is what's the thing when people get into business for the first time? Generally, they're not getting into business saying I want to be a salesperson. I want to be a marketer. They get into business because they're passionate about a product or a service, whatever that is.

And they don't, a lot of people don't, a lot of business owners don't want to be the salesperson. They don't want to be the marketer. And like I said before, eight, but 80% of your time needs to be selling and marketing. And so, they don't have the skills and if they don't have the skills, they don't have the confidence.

And the reason why so many people are afraid of selling specifically is because we, we've all experienced a poor salespeople, people who do not know how to sell the right way. They sell very much the old traditional way that was taught back in the, in the fifties and the sixties. It was that, you know, it was manipulative.

There were tactics and strategies for trying to get someone to move towards a sale and get them to say yes, yes, yes. Three times. There were all these little things and, and people and they may have worked years ago, but people are smarter than that now and we're more educated and we, we've, we've experienced that being, being pushed into itself as the sleazy, pushy. What was the word you use?

Pushy? Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy, cheesy salesperson. And it's icky. It's horrible. It doesn't feel good they come into you and, and people are trying to sell you straight away on their product. And so, because of that, people say, well, I don't want to be that person, so I don't want to be a salesperson because that's what they think being a salesperson is and that's who they have to be.

And, and that's the biggest myth, you don't have to be that person. And when you understand the difference between what, how selling shouldn't be done, what selling isn't to what selling really is. And you have that shift in your mindset about what selling is, then that will be, that can be the trigger that makes it changes their whole actions because their whole belief system and their mindset has changed which means.

And I say that's why the confidence area, the mindset area, has to be worked on first before you start learning and implementing the sales strategies or sales conversation skills. Because if you haven't shifted this mindset, uh then you're not going to take the actions needed to be successful selling your products and services.

Yeah, you really have to change your mind about how you feel about selling so that you can actually get in there and learn how to do it. And really today now that we have the internet and there's so much information about uh what you can do. I mean, 11 of my colleagues was uh just posted on YouTube just or on, on her social just a few minutes ago and said that, you know, through the power of YouTube, I learned how to knit and so she'd knit and pearl and all that stuff.

Which I don't know anything about but, but yeah, they can, they're educated, they, they know about what it is they want usually unless it's mindset and that's kind of where you come in. They don't always know that there's a mindset problem that they have.

And they, they want to learn how to do this and I'm an action taker. So, I want to learn how, what, what do I have to do from A to Z to get this to happen. But really, there's so there's our role as salespeople is, has changed and as marketers especially uh because we have to educate and entertain uh before we can motivate them to, to get a sale.

So, can you talk about how you help them overcome their fears? And also, about that, that difference in our role? Yeah. So, the first part is understanding the difference uh to being a good s bad salesperson, I think, you know, poor salesperson not doing it, the, the using the, the sales skills the right way that they're too uh pushy and shifting that belief to being uh more as you say, you know, the education.

So, what is a good salesperson? So being able to educate, I like the entertain as well. These days, we need to be, we need to be entertainers. I'm not talking about the, there, there's a Tik Tok where people jump up and down.

I'm not thinking about that entertaining, but you know, maybe using stories and analogies, metaphors to make your message interesting and attention grabbing and keeping people following the story. As you're, as you're presenting it, whether it's on video or live on stage.

And so, uh yeah, so being able to uh switch, switch over from, from the way of thinking about that. So, there's a reframing involved, but also the other thing that comes up with this whole self-confidence mindset are the fears. So, there's this fear of judgment, fear of failure.

Some people even have a fear of success. So, people have these fears and they, they come from their limiting beliefs and all our limiting beliefs come from, you know, childhood uh events that may have happened, you know, a teacher, a parent, a sibling, a school bully may have said something uh to you that has given you a belief that's not true.

And you're still carrying that belief today into your adult years and into your business. And if that belief is, you're not good enough or that you're a shy person, then if you're still believing those beliefs, you're not going put yourself out there. And so, when you do have to pick up the phone or have a conversation on a zoom meeting with someone or present on stage. All these fears start coming up.

So, it's about identifying what those fears are and starting to work through, work through them because you need to have that self-confidence mindset before you can get out and start prospecting and before you can go and even have a sales conversation, you can still do it, but you won't be as effective.

As you would be in if you haven't released all those fears and unleashed your sales confidence. Yeah, I think there, there is truth to the fact that we, we've learned to as children to avoid the, if we're afraid of something, if we're afraid of the dark or if we're afraid of being judged or humiliated, we avoid situations that, put us in that position.

Whether, whether it's, we, we have what we keep the nightlight on in our bedrooms or we, uh, we don't, we, we stay away from certain situations or certain people, because we don't want to fear, we have a fear of what could possibly happen. But the, the funny thing is that unless you, you actually face those fears, you really can't get past them.

And, and the thing about it is, and I've learned this from one of my guests, was that fear of, of something that's going could possibly happen is imagined. It's not as real as the desk that you're sitting at or the pencil that you're holding.

That's more real than that thought. And when you, when you realize that you go, oh, I'm worrying about something that might not happen, but I'm spending all this energy on this thing. Do you have a method of, of taking your, your clients through, uh, that process that, that helps them or do you just, I don't think, just telling them, hey, you've got a fear of this, you got to get over it.

There's, there's got to be some, some formula that you system that you take them through. Yeah, I mean, the whole Sales Confidence Formula, that it's based on three modules.

The first area is the importance of the confidence. It's that confidence, sales confidence mindset. And you've got to get that right before you get into the. So that's all about knowing how to think before. And you've got to be able to get that right before you go to what to do, which is the strategic sales actions.

And then there's the third part which is the sales conversation, which is what to say. So, what we're talking about here is specific, working on that mindset. So yeah, it's uh I mean, the reframing techniques that we use, but we also dig down into, I call my framework is the Fear Busting Framework.

And so, in the fear boosting framework, we work through those fears, we uncover what those fears are for you and we work through uh reframing some of those internal, the internal dialogue. And then there's also talking about the who you are knowing exactly who you are and who you need to be.

So, there's who you are, your values, your beliefs, your behaviours, because they're all pre-programmed from birth or childhood. You know, they're, and, and uncovering what they are and framing them.

And then also looking at who do you need to be? Because to be a successful entrepreneur, business owner, salesperson, whatever your title is, whatever you want to be good at, you need to look at, well, look at the successful people who are already doing what you want to do and then looking at the behaviours and the values and the habits of those people.

And there's going to be a gap, there's going to be a gap between what they're doing to what you're doing now. And I can't remember who taught me this, but it was, I repeat it all the time. I wish I could give credit. But that whole idea of you make a, if you make your decisions based on the person you want to be rather than the person you are today, then that they are going to be better decisions because the decision how uh people who are already doing what you're doing and successful in, in the business that you would like to be in, they're making decisions differently to what you are.

So, learn about the successful people, you're reading autobiographies, people that have done what you've done follow like do the workshops, the training of people, you know, are already doing what you want to do and learn from them, get mentored, get coached and find out what their behaviours, values and habits are and, and then bring them into your daily life.

And for a lot of people who are leaving, you know, you, I know you speak to a lot of people who are in the corporate world. They want to have a business. They, they're looking at that transition, do the work before you leave, don't leave, and then start doing that work in that process of learning while you're working, you've got the income coming in while you're setting everything up.

Now, that was my plan. But that never happened for me. I had to start because I got made redundant. I wasn't quite ready. The book was in draft. I'd written the, the content for the program. That was great. Thank goodness, I'd spent 18 months doing that while I was working.

But you need to do as much preparation before. And one of the things you can do is look around you and get training from the mentors and coaches that can help you with the skills that you're going to need to be able to run this business. Yeah. And I like the idea of modelling the success of others.

A lot of people have taught that Napoleon Hill who wrote thinking grow rich uh teaches that. And Brian Tracy and lots, lots of people standing on the shoulders of giants. I like to say because really there's nothing, nothing new under the sun. It's just we're implementing it faster and there's new technology, there's new channels of communication, but it's really the same, same thing.

But yeah, that's a good, a good way of approaching it. You mentioned the framework. What was that called again? The Fear Busting Framework.

Ok. Fear Busting. Yeah, because it's the fears that are weighing you down. Imagine it's like it's, the people's fears are like, it's like they've got a bag of rocks on there, a rucksack and they've got rocks in it and they're going on a hike.

They're trying to get to a the here they want to get there. They're on a journey but they're carrying all these rocks with them and it's weighing them down, it slows them down, it can stop them in their tracks, they can give up because the, these rocks are too heavy and, but if they can put that rucksack down and leave those rocks behind them, they can finish the journey a lot quicker.

A lot happier. The weight is like that. Literally, the weight is lifted off their shoulders. So, I suppose how do you get rid of those rocks? And those rocks are those limiting beliefs and those fears, and everybody has them, everybody, even the successful people that you're following, they all have rocks to some great, but the most successful ones have been able to release those rocks, they've been able to leave them behind.

So, the people that make it faster have done it quicker have got rid of the rocks quicker. So, working on the mindset is important, first release your rocks, release your limiting beliefs so that they're not going to hinder you on your journey towards becoming a successful business owner, entrepreneur.

Ok? And so now that we've, that's what the framework is all about doing. Ok. so now that we've busted our fears, what's next? How do we turn that into a, a selling machine? How do we, how do we take the next step and, and increase our sales?

And because a lot of people like me are impatient, we, we, we may know that we want to overcome these fears and yeah, let's work on that. But, ok, I've got a business to run, and I've got to make sales and I've got a, you know, I've got bills to pay and all that.

So how do I turn that into selling, uh you know, to, to getting it, to make it, to make it start to happen, to start making it rain as we say, yeah, make it rain, make it rain. Well, there's two things.

It really depends on where the person is in their journey to entrepreneurship. If you're just starting out building your business, then obviously you need to be able to develop your marketing plans, your business plans, your marketing plans of how you're going to attract customers or prospects.

Let's call them prospects. They're not customers yet. You need to attract those prospects. People who are uh are potentially going to become a client of yours or a customer. So, the marketing part is, is this is where you're, you're putting out stuff on social media, you're doing your advertising, maybe it's organic, maybe it's Facebook advertising, maybe networking.

There's lots of strategies uh out there and choose what's going to work best for you. So, you need to have your marketing machine or what you say your lead machine, like what you do to bring in the leads. But what do you do with those leads? That's, that's all marketing, bringing in the leads. What do you do with those leads because they're not customers, they're just leads, but they're warm leads.

If they've come through your marketing lead machine, they're going to be warm leads, then you need to convert those leads into customers paying customers. And that's where the sales come in. The sales conversation. And so, there's a lot of overlap between marketing and sales. I tend to focus on the sales component, but I implement a marketing strategy.

So, I'm actively working in marketing, but I'm teaching coaching the sales component of that whole sales process. It's the point where they've got these leads and having a conversation. So, I specifically work with people who need to sell face to face so they need to have, it's not a click, a button on a website, you know, for a widget, it's someone who is, they, their clients may be homeowners, their clients may be c suite.

Their clients may be supply managers they need or CEO’s or decision makers of business or corporate small or large businesses and they have to go out and have sales conversations because they're high ticket sales, they're not just going to spend, you know, $10 they're going to be spending thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars and no one's going to spend that money, anyone until they've built that relationship and they know who they are.

So, there's a whole strategy around that. But of course, the first thing you do is you need to find those leads and where there is an overlap between sales and marketing is and I teach these strategic sales. Once you've got the headset fixed up your mindset and confidence, then you can move into, well, what is it you need to do strategically to get those sales.

So, it's working with your marketing and it's about prospecting, for example. So prospecting, I say is the key one. I talk about the five strategic sales steps and prospecting is the key one getting out and, and you can do this straight away.

I mean, you can, if you're already in business, you've already got access to potential customers, whether it's in your phone, whether it's in your friends on, on social media, people, you know, that may be potential customers directly or they may know people who need what it is you're offering.

So really working your network and that's what prospecting is all about. And there's many elements to how to go about doing that. But yeah, you need to bring the leads in through marketing. You need to be constantly prospecting, talking to people and getting yourself out there. And if you're afraid to put yourself out there these days, it's going to be a struggle because the expectation now is that you are on social media that you are doing interviews on podcasts that you do have a book.

I'm not saying you do necessarily have to do all of them, but you have to choose which medium is going to work for you so that you can put yourself out there and you know, bring in, attract those, the prospecting, it's attracting those, those warm leads and warm leads are more likely to turn into hot leads who are more likely to turn into customers.

Right. And so, we've got, so we've got a lead. They, they've made an inquiry or they, they've downloaded your, your, uh, or they've been to your master class. And so, and now they want to learn more. And so, many of my customers, clients, are coaches or they are having those one-on-one conversations either via zoom or not usually face to face.

But, but they're still, they're still doing that. They're doing some sort of discovery or an interview or like, like we had before you came on the show. We talked and we got to know each other, and we started to build some report and said, yeah, we're a great fit for each other.

You teach sales and I teach how to get leads. And, and so what happens when they, when you have that conversation? Can you talk about that? There's a, you have a formula for that as well. Yeah, so you've got your warm leads. So, you've been working through my model, you've got your mindset, you've got your, if, which is your Fear Busting Framework, then you've worked through the five strategic sales steps, which includes prospecting.

You've got your leads, you've been doing your marketing, you're getting your leads in now you've got your leads. You need to take, go have a conversation with them and this is where the sales conversation process comes in. Now, a lot of sales trainers just focus on that. I mean, I know I used to be a sales trainer for a large company when I lived in Sydney, an international company and I was a face-to-face communication skills trainer.

And when we did sales training on sales, we just taught the sales process. That was, that was what we, we basically taught. We didn't talk about the confidence and the mindset, and we didn't talk about the strategic stuff. And so, that's why what I've put together is the Sales Confidence Formula is, it's not just one component, it's three components.

And when all three work together, that's the sweet spot where your money is made. So that's where you're achieving what you want to achieve. So, this third component of The Sales Confidence Formula is all about the sales conversation. So, I call it the SPAR Conversation Process. And basically, you mentioned the word rapport that is critical.

I mean, all the way through uh everything you do. Building rapport with people in your networking and market, you know, marketing, you need to be building rapport. But even when you get in front of that client, in the first instance, building rapport is critical.

So, there's lots of techniques that you can use to build rapport naturally that doesn't become look too icky and pushy and sleazy cheesy as you would say. So, there's a whole process that you go through. So, it's from opening, building a rapport, opening up that conversation with your objective.

What is it you want to achieve from the conversation? Now, remember some uh conversations, the objective might be to get a sale at the end of it. That's great. And a lot of coaches get on a strategy, discovery call with the intention of making a sale at the end.

That's fine. But some people, they may have to have several meetings in order to be able to for the high-ticket sales to build that report. So, the first meeting, the objective may not be, get to the sale. The first meeting maybe, make an appointment to show to do a demonstration or maybe a tour of the factory or whatever you decide your objective is.

But it's about moving them through the sales process, the sales continuum and building the rapport as you go and as you're building the rapport, you're educating them. They're getting to know like and trust you. And by the time you do pitch and do your presentation of, you know, start talking about price and what your offer is.

They're already warm to you. They already know whether you're going to, they're going to be arrived and equally, you're going to know whether you want them as a customer. So, you know, you that good fit, you have that conversation all the way you're working out.

You know, can I trust this person? Do I want to work with this person equally if you're selling a product to someone? And, whether someone's selling a product to you in the mind is always how does this fit with me? So, this is all part of that sales conversation. And then there are the typical things that, that people will have heard about the asking good quality questions, listening skills, understanding who your prospect is, who you are so that you can communicate effectively with that person.

So, they do hear your message clearly and also being able to handle any objections that come up. And that's a whole, that could be a whole training in itself. I mean, people do some programs which is purely on handling objections and then there's the asking the business. Well, if you don't have confidence, sometimes there's limited beliefs will come up and it will stop people from asking for the business.

Their voice changes, they go, I can talk about the price now and their voice goes up and up and the nerves and they start getting really nervous when it comes to presenting the price. And that says to me, there's some limiting beliefs there that haven't been worked on.

So yeah, and then at the end of the day, there's all the, you know, the follow up once you've got them as a client. That's great. But then, you know, what do you do next?

How do you nurture that person? How do you get more sales from them? And so it continues, you don't just sell once in this high ticket sales, arena and, and let them go, you got the sale and run away because they won't stay a customer for long and they certainly won't.

What you want to work with then is well referrals. You know, a lot of people rely on referrals for their business. And so, that's the importance of building a relationship with your client so that you will get good referrals and you can continue to work with them.

And do you, do you teach people how to, how to work their referrals also? Yes. Yeah. Well, that's all part, it, it sort of, it links back into that prospecting and prospecting is looking for new people, but also looking at your existing uh clients and being able to look for opportunities, maybe to sell other products of your own or affiliate products, maybe you're building your, you know, you want to have more income streams and you use other people's products to be able to add to your income stream.

So, these are products that would be, uh they would be s not, not the same as they're not competing with your own product, but they would be what's the word s they're in synergy with the product. So, for example, you know, you start off, you need the Lead Machine from Paul.

Once you've done that and you've got your leads, then you come to Katherine and you go, oh, well, now I'm ready to try to, uh, turn those leads into clients. So, you know, there's that synergy of working together with people, right? And then of course, there's, there's, you have your core offer which may be your group coaching program or your, your main product.

And you know, then there's opportunity to bring them into your, your mastermind group or to a retreat or to a one-on-one coaching, there's, there's all kinds of things that you can establish in a ladder of ascension where, you know, your highest.

Yeah, the highest level of access that they can get to you is one on one. And so, uh, a lot of coaches have, have multiple levels to their, to their programs. And, also businesses do, I mean, there's that, I work with a client who has, they sell a physical product, and they have a whole team of people that remind them, these are, these are products that are used at an, and usually at an annual sporting event.

And so, they have a group of people who, contact their customers a few months in advance and say, hey, it's time to start planning for your order. This year and it's, it's a service that they're at, they're doing to, uh, to get them so they can avoid ex expedite, you know, expedited costs and things like that and, and late fees.

And, so that's, that's how they keep them, you know, I think they're in the high eighties, 88% I think, of reorders and their customers stay for years and years and years, you know. And so it's not a one-time thing.

It's not a one-off thing. So, you have a, a cycle that you follow and, and it just, it goes, it, its circle, it goes around in a circle and all the while you have to keep that, you have to keep that rapport, you have to stay in touch with them.

Do you have some tips on staying in touch and, and keeping that after the sale of that dialogue going? Yeah, absolutely. So, with technology, the way it is now, it's so much easier to do than it would have been years ago.

Even in my early days in my corporate sales career, we didn't use, we didn't use Zoom meetings until covid hit. And so, it was all face to face, and it was a case of following up. One of the tips I'd give is when you're in a meeting. Now write this down if this might be golden. I remember with a client, when I mentioned this to him and he said, and I asked him, what was one of the most important things that you learnt?

And he goes, the one thing that I still do today, he said, and this is i, I've coached him a few years ago. He said, is when I'm in a meeting at the end of the meeting, I always make a time for the next meeting. You don't just say, I'll call you in a week.

And even if the customer or the prospect says, let me get back to you, I'll have a chat with someone and I'll call you in a few days. Don't leave it at that. You have to schedule in the appointment, someone I was talking to the other day, and they were talking about proposals. I'm going to spend all this time writing this proposal and I said, when are you delivering it?

And she said, what do you mean when am I delivering it? She said I'm just going email it to them. And I said, no, don't email a proposal if you're going to do a proposal. And because sometimes people say, oh, give me a proposal and I'll have a look at it and you spend hours or days working on a proposal, you be mail it to them and then it's crickets.

Has anyone experienced that? Lots of people? Now, how about we change the way we approach that and say, if someone says, yeah, just send me a proposal because that could be, uh a way of their way of trying to just get rid of you because they're not interested.

And so, but then you spent all this time. So, what you can do instead is said, yeah, absolutely. You could then ask some more questions to say, well, in order for me to be able to write a proposal that's really tailored for your needs. Can we have a chat?

Can we have a meeting so I can sit down with you and find out more about you? Or you could ask the questions there and then face to face either way, depends on, you know, the situation. But you would also say if you said Well, ok. Oh yeah, sure. I can get a proposal to you.

So, ask the questions, find out more about it. So, you can get the specifics to make it tailored for them. But then say, now let's pull out the diary. When are you free? Either Tuesday or Thursday next week, I'll have it done by next week.

Is Tuesday or Thursday. A about which time is best for you. And they'll say, 00, Thursday. And then you can say, is it 10 or two, you give them two options. There are a few tips there. Never just email a proposal cos you'll probably never hear from them again because they're not really interested.

Always instead ask questions to get more information so that when you do prepare a proposal, it's tailored to their needs. Make sure you've already scheduled an appointment to deliver that presentation live in person and explain, you give them a reason and say, oh, this isn't something you can just read. I need to explain the whole explain it to you.

They'll only need, you know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes of your time. Let's make appointment. And then the third thing when you are making an appointment with someone use the two. So, you give them two options of 22 days. So, they're not thinking, you don't say well, when, next week and they're left trying to make a decision of when and they go, oh, I don't know.

I'll call you, if you say Tuesday or Thursday, they're more likely than to choose one. So they'll go, oh, Thursday. And then you'll say, you don't just say, well, what time cos they'll go? Oh, I don't know what time, you say 10 o'clock or two o'clock and of course you've adjusted. Depends on if they say, well, I can't do either of those. Oh, ok. What about three o'clock? you make the decision for them, make it easy for them to meet with you so you can deliver your proposal. You've got a better chance of, getting a success on your proposal when you deliver it in person and you're able to explain it.

I mean, of course, some people will just say no, no, no, that, you know, you're not going to win all of them. And that's part of the sales game. But you're more likely to, once you get that follow up appointment you're in with the door, you're moving them forward, they're building the rapport again, you're moving them because not here's a key thing as well.

Paul, people don't understand and they're shocked when they hear it. Only 3% of people are ready to buy from you. When you're standing in front of them, you're having a sales conversation. Only 3% are desperate. I need your help. Now, where do I sign three? The rest is built up with people who are, they may, there's some researching, they're not quite ready.

They don't know who you are. They're trying to get to know you. They're, they're doing their shopping around or, and, and they're not even, some people are not even problem aware. They don't even know they've got a problem and sometimes you have to educate them that they, there is a problem and that you have the solution.

So, and then there's people who will never ever buy your product. They're just not your clients and, and the, the skill of prospecting and, and, and being a salesperson is knowing who you're talking to and where they are on that. I call it in my program, the sliding step, the sliding scale of urgency.

That's what I call it. Where are they on that scale? Now? You don't ignore people. Now, this is the fault of a lot of business owners who are new to selling is, they just focus and even with the marketing, they're just focusing on those people that want to be in.

Now, the 3%. But you, you're missing out on the 67% of people that will eventually buy, they will eventually need your product. And of course, everybody wants to be talking. Yeah, I'm sorry. Everyone wants to talk to that 3%. But your marketing needs to cast a wider net.

You have the obligation to teach them, to educate them and to entertain them to uh tell them so that they can know like and trust you so that when they do reach out to you, they've already consumed your blog posts or your videos or your lead magnets or all those things.

And eventually, when they do have that sales conversation, they're more, they're more likely to have been educated, have had a lot of their questions about what they don't know about your product or how, how it's delivered or, or how it's configured or what they need to know in order to be able to buy your product that will save you a lot of time if your marketing is and it takes time to develop that, that uh marketing but that's what your marketing is for and that helps you in today's age.

That's a lot of people are. They want to be educated; they don't want to have a conversation with you yet. Because they want to see what you've got, they want to learn, they want to research and learn that, learn about the problem they're trying to solve.

And they'd like to, a lot of them want to find out how to solve it by yourself. Your idea or your, your, your role as a salesperson is to help them do it faster or better get better results more consistently, more reliably. And, and that's what you're, that's, that's what sets you apart from, from everyone else, you know, and uh can you talk about that a little bit about that cycle of, of educating and then bringing them warming them up on that journey?

Yeah. So, the marketing brings leads, use the lead machine to bring the leads into your business. And so, as we've said, you know, only 3% of them may be ready to buy now. So, what do you do with those other people? How, you know, they're going to just sit there.

Well, if they just sit there and you do nothing with them, they will just become because they warn leads. Now they've come to you, they've put their hand up and said I'm interested. They've clicked on a link they've attended a meeting, they've been told, workshop, whatever they've done, whatever you've done to bring them into your business as a lead, you then need to nurture them.

So there needs to be some form of nurturing campaign. Now, in the old days, I would, my nurturing campaign was, I would have regular meetings and I would, if I was in a hospital environment, I would be popping in. I'd just, hey, dropping some stuff off.

How's everything going in a nice polite of service way. So being of service helping, I'd provide education, I would do education on the products called in services. We call them in the hospitals. And now I would do that to people who were using our products, but also people who are considering using our products to educate them about the product. So, a lot of education and in today's environment, we've got the internet.

I mean, it's a gift really with the tools that are available. We can do uh podcasting to educate, which is what we're doing today. We're educating your listeners about marketing and sales, and we can also so we can do events, we can invite them to events that we're putting on.

We can keep in touch with them through. The easiest thing is a email marketing campaign. The technology is so simple now. And with AI you can create emails really quickly and easily, but you need to edit it and fine tune it with your own voice and your own language. You don't want to just use straight off AI, but that way you're nurturing them, you're educating them.

Yeah, plenty of free stuff and you might even point them to, you may have found an interesting article or something that would be relevant for your market, and you think this would be good for them to read. So, send them to that article. So, you do that nurturing but you don't sell in these emails.

You, you the ratio should be around. this is what I follow the 4 to 1. So, four piece four emails that would be building the relationship, educating, keeping in touch with them consistently. And then on the 4th, 5th one, then you might you pitch an offer depending on how, how warm your audience is.

But you might then pitch uh an event for them to come to. If they haven't already been to say my sales masterclass, I will then remind them that I've got another training coming up, a live training or a podcast has been released. I've got some new content there that you're going to enjoy.

And so, it could take months or years depending on the client, the prospect and where they're at in that scale of urgency. And but if they're staying in your, in your ecosystem, you're there watching, they're following you on Facebook or LinkedIn.

They're attending events, they're opening your emails, they're getting to know you more, more. So, when that problem arises and it's like, wow, I need, I need someone to help. I've done my leads and I need someone to help me with my sales.

Now, if they're in my ecosystem then they're going to go. Well, I know Katherine, I know Katherine, I've been through her. I know what she does and how she does it. I like her content. I like her, her voice.

Uh I like what she says. She, they've got to build that rapport that no like and trust then they're more likely to then reach out and call me and book a call and then I can have that conversation to see if they, we are actually the right fit. And that's another thing with, with coaches especially you don't necessarily want to coach everybody.

There's going to be clients you don't want, those clients that are going to be annoying. I mean, they're not the right fit for you, your business and who you want a client. So, I don't take everybody on board. I find I also select when I go through the process, even though the client, the prospect is deciding whether they want to work with me.

I am also deciding whether I want to work with this particular person. Are they suitable? And for me, a suitable client is someone who will, can make decisions, they will commit to taking actions and doing the work because there's a, there's a training program to go through.

But if they don't go through it, then they're not going to get the benefit. And then what does a lot of people do? They say, oh, it didn't work and, and it, is it that the course didn't work or is it they didn't work the course? And so, you want make sure you get the right people into your programs?

And so, there's a whole process, with that sales conversation that you, you, you're de decide it's like an interview. Ok. For a job interview? You don't, yeah. You want, have you walked away from an interview and gone? Ah, even if they made me an offer and that with a, with a ridiculous amount of money, I still wouldn't go and work for those people because you just did not connect with them.

I've had that situation where they want me to go to the next stage in the interview process years ago when I was interviewing, and I was like to the recruiting agency. No, thanks. I don't want to be part of that company. I didn't, didn't enjoy that. They wanted me, but I didn't want them.

So that does happen. And it's the same for coaches be selective who you work with. You could be working with them for a long time. Yeah, I like the fact that you brought that up because that's one thing that I like to teach my clients is that they have to align, uh, when you grow a business, I believe that a lot of businesses that are, let's say many of them start out as family owned businesses.

They get to a certain point of growth where they have to hire middle management, or they bring on more people onto their team. And if they don't have a way to convey what their morals are, what their values are, and they don't build that into the growth of their company eventually. You're going to have employees that don't like to work for you.

You're going to have clients who don't want work with you or you're going to have the wrong kind of clients and also your supplier, same thing. I if you're treating so if you start out a business and you're treating everybody right and then you grow it to the point where you're not doing that anymore, then you haven't succeeded in my opinion because business has to embody the values of the people that started that business have to have people that work with them, whether they're employees, suppliers or clients, they have to align their values with them. They have to be aligned like you don't want to work with people who are going to cheat lie or steal.

And you don't want to have employees or associate with vendors that, that don't that do the same thing? Do you feel the same way? Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I came, I came through the corporate route with major, medical and pharmaceutical companies where they all have mission statements, and they all have their values and the values are very clearly communicated throughout the organisation.

They have them on posters in the walls and things like that and you're constantly reminded of it. And so everyone in the organisation needs to be focused on those values and, and those values will shape people. If you know, you get young people coming into an organisation straight out of uni well, from school, those values of an organisation will shape that young mind into who they're going to be as an employee or a future manager, uh a future owner of a business in the future.

So, they will be shaped by those original values. And they also need to be linked to the values of, of I say, if, if you've got your own values, if you're a dishonest person and you go into an organisation where honesty is the key value, choose that one value of honesty, then it's not a good fit.

And so, the interview process that the, the questions need to be asked to find out and this is why companies do per personality profiles and assessments and things like that now, to find out what the values and behaviours are of the new recruit to make sure it does fit with values of the company. But you're absolutely right.

If you're starting a new business, you still, you're going to be bringing your values into the business. So you need to look at your own values and know what they are and what values do you want your business to, to be as it grows and also monitoring like anything with sales, you have to monitor, monitor those values to make sure that as you grow and you get new staff on whether it's a VA or an assistant or someone to do your face partners to do like Facebook advertising for you and outsourcing companies, you need to make sure you've got a that they are in alignment with your values. So, working on your own personal values and your business values, they need to be in alignment and the values to everybody who works with you, whether they're employees or contractors.

Yeah. And when we first started out, you, one of the things you said that you need to know who you are and where you want to be. And that's, that's kind of the core of that knowing where, where you stand and what you will and won't do.

And you know, I won't grow my business at any cost, you know, ii I won't cut corners. I'm, I'm not going to, and I expect that of the people that I work with. And so, I'm very, very selective about the people I work with and also the guests who I have on my podcast because I want them to be teaching and things that my audience, I want them to know about.

Some, some guests I don't have on because they might be teaching methods that are cheesy, are sleazy. And we've all experienced it. People on LinkedIn, they say, hey, I see that we have a lot in common. By the way, would you?

Let's, let's get on your, let, let's get on a call. We'll talk about how I can sell you. Yes, that's exactly right. We all get that. We'll get that's something I never ever pitch on an introduction when I see someone I want. I'm what I'm using social media for, for my strategic alliances and it's like networking when you're in a networking meeting, whether it's online or face to face and there's free ones and there's paid ones or whatever you're in.

If you're using networking as a strategy to build your business, you don't sell to the person in front of you, you don't sell to them, you get to know that person and find out how you can work together and support each other. So, it's all when I'm reaching out on LinkedIn or at networking meetings, I'm looking for strategic partners.

I'm looking for people who want a joint venture with me as an affiliate so that they can recommend they send people to my sales master class. I think that person eventually uh you know, cos obviously, it depends on where they are and the urgency the urgent sliding scale of urgency. If, and when they become a client of mine, then I can pay out commissions to the person that's referred them.

So that's one strategy. But i I don't get out on LinkedIn or networking and say, hey, do you want to join my Sales Confidence Formula? No one will ever ever hear me pitch to them unless they're on a telephone. They've gone through my whole sales master class. They've got to know me through podcasting.

They've met me at live events, they know who I am and then they ask for a have a strategy or coaching call so that I can help them and figure out whether I want to work with them. And they can also figure out do they want to work with me? And if I think it's the right fit, that's when I will sell.

That's, I mean, there's the wholesales process, but that's when I'll actually present my offer. People don't know my offer unless they've been on a, a sales conversation with me because they're not ready. They will come to me.

It's about pushing away the interested and attracting the committed, the committed people who want to work with you that have the shared values that are ready to work with you and, that you want to work with them. So, it's, you've got to build a relationship otherwise it just won't work.

No, I'm not talking about selling widgets, you know, like a bottle of water. It's a different, we're talking high ticket sales here. They're people that I work with, business owners or entrepreneurs who are selling, face to face high ticket sales, they have to be able to build a relationship and that's the same for, for me as well.

Right. Well, we're at the top of the hour, we're a little bit longer than I hope. I hope that's not a problem for you. But, ok, it's been a pleasure meeting you and talking with you, having this discussion about authentic sales, and just this whole idea of busting our fears and having building built that rapport and get really be getting permission to almost, to take that sale to the next point, to the next point.

And I like the idea of, of having those objectives in the sales conversation that may not be, be the end, all, be all sale. It might be a step along the way. And so especially that happens with when you're working with larger organisations and where there's committees involved and things like that.

There's, there's a whole process that you have to go through. So, Katherine with a K Minett as we wrap up with your final words, what are three things our listeners can do today to put these ideas into action. Well, the first one with the mindset I would say is uh start seeing yourself uh as what as a salesperson as a marketer, you need to realise that 80% of your time needs to be selling marketing and selling your business.

Because if you don't do that, you won't be in business for long. The second thing regarding, and I'll pull this from my, obviously, my Five Strategic Sales Steps is that prospecting is critical. If you're not prospecting, you will not make sales.

You have to be out there as part of that constantly in sales and marketing prospecting and, and a and a tip as well. The people might be right in front of you. They may already be your phone that they may already be in your network, but don't go out just to pitch. Remember, build a relationship, ask them questions like do they know someone who would be uh interested?

So, they might make referrals and recommendations? So, use your, your, your, your network to do that. It's all part of prospecting. And then the third one I think is that to do with the having that sales conversation and, and knowing the right things to say is the only good thing is to asking question.

I'll just pull out one. There's so many things I could say, but they're asking quality questions. You need to find out more about your prospect first before you pitch your product, the pitching of your product and your offer should be at the end. So, use quality questions to be able to uncover what their problems are so that you can then pitch your product to them or make your offer that will then in their ears they're going to go, oh, this is the perfect solution for me. So, there's three tips from the three modules of The Sales Confidence Formula.

There's many more, obviously, obviously. Yeah. And the first thing I teach in my lead machine program is to understand your audience, know your audience and your offer. And part of that process is we, we do look very deeply at who your customer is, what problems they have, what keeps them awake at night.

And we, that's where you can develop lead magnets or content marketing assets that you can use to uh to help solve that problem. And they have many. And so, when you're on that, in that sales conversation, you've already done this research in your marketing. When you have that conversation, you'll be able to uncover by, by a strategic questioning, which problem it is that they're, that they're trying to solve and that will help guide you in your conversation.

Absolutely. Well, that's part of that research that research in the, in the, what I call the strategy stuff is researching your prospect. Exactly. Right. Not just for your marketing but for your sales conversation. And yeah, if you really know your customer, your client, your ideal client really, really well, you already know what their problems are but you don't go in there assuming and saying, hey, I know what your problem is.

There's no way to get them to tell you what their problem is, and you may be wrong. You may have assumptions, you know, you make assumptions, but there might be other things going on that you're totally unaware of. So, unless you ask questions, you will never know.

Right. Right. Well, thank you so much. Katherine has a, a couple of ways that you can connect with her. Number one is the, speaking of strategy calls, you can get a 60 minute strategy coaching call with Katherine at www.leadmachinegrowthshow.com/coachingwithkatherine and that's Katherine with a K, KATHERINE that's that right.

Yes, that's correct. Thank you. So that again that link is www.leadmachinegrowthshow.com/coachingwithkatherine And you can find that on the show notes of the page here and also there's all she's got a sales masterclass coming up, sales training without a sales pitch and you can go to https://www.minettsalesacademy.com/salesmasterclass

That's www.minettsalesacademy.com/salesmasterclass you got one of those coming up. I think you have those on a regular basis. I do them regularly there. They are. I'm doing one this week as well. But yeah, whenever you're listening to this, if you go to that link the, the most, the, the, the next class is always up there.

So, register for that. Yeah, it's live, it's on zoom 60 minutes pure sales train. You get to learn more about me, more about The Sales Confidence Formula, but you go away with some golden nuggets. And also, yeah, it is, it is, it's self-training and you know, at the end, I will invite people if they want to take that step further to come and make a call. But that obviously dependent on where, where you are on your scale of urgency, maybe you still need to use the first contact.

That's fine. Stay in my stay connected on LinkedIn or Facebook, Minett sales academy on Facebook and Katherine Minett sales coach and trainer on LinkedIn. So, connect with me and let's start building a relationship. It'd be great love to see you on the sales master class though.

Cos they're live, they're fun. Great. Ok. Well, thank you so much, Katherine and remember faith and action go hand in hand. So, keep the pedal to the metal until next time. On the lead machine growth show. I'm Paul Guyon and Katherine Minett.

Thank you so much, Katherine. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for tuning into the lead machine growth show with Paul Guyon, where we show you how to tackle your tech, master your message and design your dream so that you can transform your vision into reality.

Remember to visit our website at www.leadmachinegrowthshow.com​