Andy Gole - Urgency Based Selling

Time is precious and so are our pets, so time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24/7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to 5 pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments, and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care. Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 442-22. That's exit plan to 44222. Again, text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Thank you for listening. I really appreciate you listening in today. My next guest has been with us before a few times, and it's, it's always fascinating when guests come back because then we're able to take our interviews to the next level, to the next step, and I hope we're going to do that today with Andy Gole. He's here from Urgency Based Selling. He's been helping business owners improve profitable sales for 27 years. has an MBA from NYU in marketing. He's a member of Visage Group in New Jersey for 5 years and presenting seminars for 10 years, and he taught selling skills for 8 years at the Roffman Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. At FDU in New Jersey has started 3 businesses, a sales agency in packaging built to $7 million in sales, a gift product company sold to retailers including Walmart, and sales consulting since 1993. He's worked with over 120 clients, typically 5 to 20 team members. He developed urgency-based selling from thousands of sales calls. Let's get into it with him and let him tell us the rest. Andy, it's always a pleasure to have you. Thanks so much for joining me again today. Hey, thanks for inviting me, Bill, appreciate it. My pleasure we've, you know, we've covered a lot of ground. I'm sorry? I thought I'd just give your uh your listeners a tip right off the bat something new I'm doing. Oh, excellent. OK, let's let's start with that. So in case people can't hang on, they can't listen. This, this is mind blowing, and I, I know I kind of interrupted your flow, and I'm sorry, but um one word subject lines. I don't know. Maybe you've heard this before and it's old hat, you know, I read a study that it just blows the open rate off the chart, and so I have many lists and I experimented with them and I'm getting up to a 100% increase in open rate as an example, like from 20% to 40%. Wow. So it, it, I would say on average it's a 30-40% increase in open rate. So I just felt like, let's, let's give the listeners something right away to think about. I'm sorry again if I threw you off your game. No, you're right. And sometimes people listen in and they need, they want something right off the right out of the gate. How did you, um, start or what made you think about one word subject lines? Well, you know, uh, do a lot of emailings, always looking, you know, e-letters. I have an e-letter that goes out. If any of your listeners are interested, they'll get something every 2 weeks. It's a selling idea and, uh, just always monitoring the results and trying to do better, so, um. You know, once every few months I'll read a study on how to improve, uh, the effectiveness of, of your emailings of your e-letters, and, um, there I don't know, 1020 ideas in this one study, and this one on, you know, one word subject lines, it just, it just stuck out. And um I figured what the heck, it's easy, let's try it and see what happens. So I wanted to give you an idea, that's it. Well, you know, newspapers know that a certain number of words are optimum for headlines. Why wouldn't it be so for emails? Now, when I think of that, you know, the first things I think about are kind of adjectives that, you know, amazing. Fantastic. And usually you need some kind of another word to complete that. So what, what, what could be some examples of one word subject lines that you found might be impactful if you don't mind. So the first one I did was paradoxes. That's it, just paradoxes. And it was to promote a webinar. I do, um, a free webinar at least once a month. It's a, it's a twenty-minute webinar and one of them was the, the central paradoxes and selling, which we could talk about if you're interested. And now I'm doing one coming up in 2 weeks, 12 days rather. And it's the 6 levers of business development and the subject line I used was levers, L E V E R S. So it's just trying to, you know, it's not it's, it's not always easy to do it. But that's, and I could tell you I've tried a few that were duds, so, uh. It's, it's, it's not a slam dunker, but if you're thoughtful about it, it, it really can make a difference. So you know, like this, the central paradox. I don't know if we talked about this before, but I love talking about it and maybe it'd be useful to your listeners. To me, the central paradox in selling. Is, is the, uh, the, the contrast between urgency and neediness. So when a prospect uh raises their hand, talks to you, responds to your call, and is willing to talk to you, he, she, they, they want you to respond with a sense of urgency, like, you know, jump how high? That's what they want you to, you know, tell me how high. And so, uh, you know, we get right back to them, we get them quotes, we do whatever they want, but when we're responsive that way. Um, a certain kind of a buyer, and maybe it's all of them, wonder if you're needy. Is there a fire sale possibility here? And so they do many, many, um, You know, bad behaviors including hanging us out to dry when we're selling. They don't get back to us. They put us off. And so the, um, the classic remedy we call it the PIK, the payment in kind, is that your presentation is so strong from the beginning. That you can make behavioral requests that are reasonable and you're actually doing your, your negotiation over money right then and there, but it has nothing to do with money, it's the behavior. So you might say to a decision maker with whom you're talking, if they're not the owner, can I, you know, could we get your boss into the next meeting? And if, if they do that, then they're putting political capital at risk and that is a PIK a payment in kind, and they're putting skin in the game and you're being bold right from the beginning. So this ties into something I think we talked about before, bold vision, bold behavior. So you need to be really powerful in your sales presentation to earn the right to a strong PIK. Another one might be fill out a credit application. Another one might be check a reference. So in different businesses, the appropriate PIKs, the payments in kind. You know they're different for different businesses. So that was one of the subjects we discussed in the webinar, you know, the central paradoxes in selling. To me this is the central paradox. Every time you take a step forward, show urgency, you know, it's almost like you get pushed back a half a step. And so if you sell strongly from the beginning, if you make a, you know, a compelling case, make a very compelling case, if you prove your case, if you create a sense of urgency in the buyer, the cash in is that you're allowed to ask for a PIK. And by doing that, you're, you're, it's never purely level, but you're leveling the playing field so that, you know, you, you're, you're in a better position by the time you get to talking about the economic, uh, the economic value of your offer. There you go from a one word, a one word subject line into something that might be a useful idea for your listeners. Well, what you know, what you bring, Andy, are always valuable for our listeners. We've gotten so many great comments from from our interviews and the information that you put up, like for instance I'm looking at your website right now, you go right into your first message is, are you ready for the slingshot recovery? Let's talk a little bit about 11 thing here, and that is in this day and age right now. A lot of people are concerned about how should I be playing my sales game. Should I be so I can, is it time to turn on the jets on selling, or, you know, empathy was was all in for the first few months of this COVID-19. Now we're in this hopefully recovery mode, although maybe we're looking, maybe we're looking at a slowdown on that a little bit. So a lot of people are concerned about, well, should I be, should I be asking for the deal now or what phase do you think we're in now? Well, Many people went bankrupt, right? And perhaps more will go bankrupt, you know, there's some sections that are getting like wiped out. I'm in New Jersey and uh I think I heard the other day that 23% of the restaurants have gone out of business. So, um, That's part of why I say it's not a slingshot but a double slingshot, and we'll return to that in a moment if, if you're interested. So I think in the early days when COVID-19 hit, certainly empathy was important, a little bit of a wait and see. Um, but I have this principle, um, that I think applies here. I very often hear from a sales person. Um, you know, how often should I be in touch, uh, when I'm working on a campaign on a project, on a, on a deal or whatever. And you know you don't want to call every 5 minutes. My general rule of thumb is when you have something that's really material to say, when you can make a material difference. So, um, and another thing I recommend from a bargaining point of view is, you know, don't, don't show everything on the first go around. Keep half back or keep a quarter of it back because the, the buyer is, uh, going to sometimes peg, uh, their, their offer to you to everything you have presented. So if, if, if, if you want a buck and they say, OK, what you showed me is worth 75 cents and you want a buck, you've got to come up with another quarter of value. So if you, if you haven't shown everything, you can say, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about this, this, this and this, and those things are worth a quarters. And, and so if, if you've taken an approach like that. After you've made your presentation, very often, you know, there's a waiting period, there's an evaluation period, the decision maker may be talking to other vendors. They're engaging in risk mitigation strategies, and you need a reason to re-engage. It's not usually a great idea to call somebody and say, Hey, you got anything for me? or did you make a decision? It's much better to say, Here's something that might be compelling to you. Discuss it a little and then, then ask if there's any news. And so that principle I think applies also to COVID-19. And that what I mean by that is that for those people with whom you have a relationship. Um, if you're doing your homework from a sales perspective, you're looking for new compelling things to share, and when you have new compelling things and particularly new compelling things that make sense in COVID-19. I think it's OK to reach out every week or two, particularly if you have uh what we call type 3 knowledge, what they don't realize they don't know. Type 1 is what they know. Type 2 is what they know they don't know, and type 3 is what they don't realize they don't know. So if you have useful information to help somebody, um, navigate during COVID-19, I don't think there's any reason to hesitate and offer that to them. And then a further metaphor we use is that of the prospect being On a false peak they're on a peak looking down looking at how far they've come, and they're not noticing the higher peak of well-being that's that's just near them. And so the act of persuasion and selling is getting somebody who's looking down to look up. And again, to the extent that you understand your prospects context. And you could, you can do that. You can help someone who's looking down, look up. I don't see why you can't reach out every, every week or two, at least to find out first, you know, if they're OK, if they're operating, uh, if you know they're operating, if you know they're ramping back up, and you know you can help them do that, um, why would you hesitate in reaching out? So that's my perspective. Now, with respect to people who you don't know. Um, I think it's OK to do marketing. I've probably, March was really slow, but I must have had at least 11th phone calls, uh, 11th calls in the month of April. And then it was a little lower in, in, in May and then it kind of blossomed up at the end of June. So I, I wouldn't say stop your marketing, keep your marketing. The people who raise their hands and come to you, they obviously want to talk to you. Um, I have seen that people are delaying some programs for sure that is happening, um, but that, that, that's it in a nutshell is. People have needs right now. There was a famous, uh, Harvard Business Review, uh, article written at the time of the last recession about what the marketing should be done in, you know, in times of a recession of which COVID-19 is one manifestation, and one of the comments it made is that, you know, there's a lot more demand for lower cost alternatives, so, um, If we've got lower cost alternatives to help people navigate the chasm right now, it's something to offer. So that's my view is, you know, if you got something that should be compelling, be bold about it. I mean, be thoughtful about it, but reach out to people. Is that responsive or was there something else you were looking for there? No, no, that's good. I think a lot of people are just concerned about, well, you know, I don't want to be, I don't want to be pushy because I don't, you know, the point is. This isn't a normal economic problem that we're having, right? We knew in 2008, 2009 we knew everybody, every industry was, was pretty much in trouble. There was obviously there's always companies that do well in spite of or because of a recessionary time. This is, this is a stranger, a stranger, different time, and so you don't know what you're going to get when you call someone. So I think the first point is. It is, uh, you know, tell me where you are, where are you on the scale? How are things going? That's, you know, how can I be of assistance, right? Yeah, I lost my revenue is up 25% this year. And you know, in the month of March. I wasn't always in contact with people, you know, when the, when the shutdown started, and I, I waited a while to give people time and then after, you know, 34 weeks if I hadn't heard, I'm talking about the very beginning, I reached out and I had one client who I thought, you know, they're they're in trouble. Well, they didn't communicate with me cause their sales were double what they would normally. They were in the food business and people were stocking up on food. So, uh, pretty much all my clients have continued. With one exception, every program that was in place, new ones, um, have started. And part of the reason is because of the double slingshot. And so I thought I, if it's OK with you, I would just give you, give you listeners just a thought on it, you know, you've probably heard talk that we're going to go into this V where, you know, sales plummet, you know, crash, and then as things open up, at least in many industries, it goes up on the other side of the V. So that's the slingshot, but there's a double slingshot and the double slingshot is there's going to be underserved. Um, segments, because so many people are going out of business and I don't, I don't wish this on anybody, but the, uh, um, you know, the way the government handled the shutdowns has bankrupted many businesses, and they took care of market segments. So I would not be surprised for your average listeners who can make it if their native demand is up 5 to 30% as the year progresses, because as as demand reasserts. Some people just aren't coming back and that's the double slingshot unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm hearing that from some in some areas where competitors, yes, have gone out of business and not only did these these customers, these clients remain busy, but now they're even more busy because now they're taking on that market share that's gone that was going to a competitor. So yeah, so in that type of a situation for your sales team. Uh, urgency basically you can really create a lot of urgency if you can say look, we, we've got I've got 5 more calls, 5 more clients that want to engage us right now. We really need you to let us know if you want to move forward, right? Yeah, I mean, if there's, if there's some kind of, um, you know, limited availability of production or services, I think the key always is this. If you're looking for a gift, you're, you're not going to get one. If you don't know what's going on, you shouldn't be surprised if people won't take your call or they reject you. If you focus on the fundamentals and you deliver, um, you know, to those fundamentals, if you have a compelling message, then, then, then people will be, this is my experience. People will reasonably communicate with you or get back to you. So I would encourage, um, I would encourage the listeners to focus on fundamentals and ask themselves, what can I bring that's compelling? What can I bring that's compelling so that they shouldn't scream at you? I mean, of course you could couch it with, you know, and cushion it and say, look, I don't know if the time's right to talk, but I was thinking of you and you know, I know you have this need or anybody has this need and um I have a solution for you. And particularly good at this time are things that are freebies, by which I mean, you know, they don't have to buy from you to utilize the information or the idea. Um, I, I just don't, I haven't seen that people are acting in a, in an angry go away. I'm never going to talk to you a perspective. If your focus again is them, and how can you help them. So that's my yeah, very, very good points. You know, we didn't even get to your main three questions you wanted to ask today, and I apologize for that, but it's always so fascinating talking with you. But we did get to the one word subject line, and we did talk about some very important things. The PIK's very interesting insights from Andy Gold, urgency-based selling. He, he's offering a free copy of Innovate Now, his book to business owners, a terrific book, a free 30 minute consultation, and also has a webinar coming up on July 21st, the six levers of business development. So excellent, always great stuff available. The website is urgencybasedselling.net. Correct? You got it, and thank you so much. Yeah, it's a great website. There's a lot of terrific information there and again, Andy, you're always welcome back. We always, I always enjoyed talking with you and I hope that you, you continue to thrive and and help others as you do with your great information. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Have a great day and I hope everybody has a great day. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. Time is precious and so are our pets, so time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24/7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to 5 pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments, and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year-round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.