The ABCDE Method with Wes Schaeffer

Transcription of Episode

[00:00:00]Ryan Chapman: And this is Ryan Chapman with the Fix Your Funnel interview series. I'm really pleased to have Wes Schaeffer with me today and the reason why is because I've known Wes. We've known each other for a long time, right?

Wes Schaeffer: Maybe too long, but yes, sure.

Ryan Chapman: I'll give you that. But Wes is a guy that has been focused like a laser on one of the most important characteristics in the business, which is sales. And it's something I've always admired about your West is your tenacity on the right topic. 'Cause I see a lot of people bounce around, you know, they're, they're on one thing one week and then another year there another thing, you know what I mean?

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ryan Chapman: And they don't know what they're about. And that's the thing I think I really appreciate most about you is you know exactly what you're about and you stick to it. You, your tenaciousness on being about sales is great. And it's really important, I think, in a world of marketing automation.

Wes Schaeffer: Yup.

Ryan Chapman: The, the thing that we were just chatting about before we started recording was, this fact that so many people [00:01:00] try to automate themselves out of the business. Why do you think that's a problem? Or do you think it's a problem?

Wes Schaeffer: They're trying to do what out of the business?

Ryan Chapman: Automate themselves out and they end up automating themselves out of business when they do that. But that's my opinion.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. It's yeah... I just made a post last night before I went to bed and I said, Oh, maybe I'm tired. Maybe I'm just grumpy and old. I don't know. Maybe I'll delete it. Maybe I'll keep it. But it's, it's still there. There was a guy, he messaged me on LinkedIn.

Ryan Chapman: And you get a lot of those.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh my gosh. I get, there's so many, Oh...

Ryan Chapman: There's an easy way to resolve that Wes, you just don't go to LinkedIn.

Wes Schaeffer: No, I know. I actually, I get business from there. And I do like the platform. I was an early user. I got a message from them years ago. They were like, I think they said I was the first one of the first hundred thousand users, like 400 million they have now, whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I was using it way early. I do like it and I like connecting with people and, but it's, it's, it's easy to [00:02:00] skim over cause it, they just pitch me immediately. So I just, I just ignore it, you know, and just, I don't engage with them.

Ryan Chapman: So, so what did this guy do?

Wes Schaeffer: So he says, Hey, you've been, I've chosen you right for, it's like some, some top entrepreneur thing for a Yahoo article. I'm like, okay. Can you elaborate. And it was basically a pay to play gay, pay me 1500 bucks, you'll be number one out of 20 pay me 1200 bucks, you'll be in the top five, pay me a thousand, you're in the top 10. So I reply like, wow. So I just, I pay you, you say nice things for me? He says, yeah, yeah, ha ha. I said, what if I gave you 10 grand, just to see where he'd take it. All right. And and he's, Oh, we can do all this, that and the other, make you an influencer. And I was like, so basically I told him straight up, so this feels like lying to me. Well, maybe you're not a good fit for this. Yeah. So now his outreach was probably automated, but you know, to bring back to the point that there's so much automation, we have forgotten [00:03:00] and people have always forgotten, to be honest, greedy salespeople have given selling a bad name. Because they look at humans as an object, as a means to an end. It's a means for them to make more money. And so they give the good guys a bad name. And marketers, you know, savvy salespeople/marketers now just use automation to reach more people and treat them as objects, as means to an end. And so people... Our BS meters are really quite high. People know when something just doesn't pass the sniff test. And a confused mind says, no. Okay. And so if something doesn't quite make sense, they don't understand. They're hesitant, they pause and then time goes on and time kills that deal. So, you know, use automation to a degree. I'm all for using the right [00:04:00] tools to get the job done, but you need to be sprinkling in some humanity. Okay. Some, some personal...Send the video to these people send the real time. I give people my cell phone that people will text me. Is this really Wes? You know, and you know, I'm at my desk most of the time, like I just got back from jujitsu. Otherwise I'm at my computer, got my phone on me. I mean, I'm pretty accessible. Okay, I'll have my chat on my website and I'll say, Hey, what's going on? They're like, is this really Wes? They want proof of life. This is really me. This is not a VA over in Indonesia, you know, and it blows their mind. Just that little touch, you know, treat them like humans. It'll go a long way if you try it.

Ryan Chapman: I doubt that you've had time to read my book. I don't even think I've sent it to you, which is on me. The Messaging Connection. Have you?

Wes Schaeffer: No...

Ryan Chapman: No, that's fine. The reason I even bring it up isn't to put you on the spot or anything, but I have a chapter called how you [00:05:00] see contacts. Talking about that same topic. And, I think, I think the way that you see the people that you sell controls everything that you communicate. Like if you see somebody, I call them, you know, seeing people as money bags instead of as humans going through the same experience we are, trying to figure things out, having challenges in the process, and hopefully someone's there to help guide them on the next step on their journey. And if you see people as money bags, you can't help but communicate that in everything that you do and say. The way you set up a campaign is going to reflect it. The words you put in that email are gonna reflect it. The things that you ask them to do are going to reflect it because you're seeing them as an object to be manipulated by your automation.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ryan Chapman: As opposed to saying, Hey, I'm going to use automation to facilitate me communicating the initial part with the customer so that I can engage in conversation and you know, I [00:06:00] know. How long have you been around marketing automation? It's been a long time.

Wes Schaeffer: Well I became a partner with Infusionsoft in '08. I was using some other software by a made by a small local company in 2006, I think...Late '06, early '07, somewhere in there.

Ryan Chapman: So I would consider that one of the pioneers, cause if we want to call email autoresponders, automation, we could do that. But it really, those were really becoming popular in 2004 to 2006, you know, and then you had this company kind of jump onto the scene for small businesses. I think Salesforce has been around longer than that, but that was nothing for small business. And Infusionsoft kind of popped on the scene and then the others have followed since.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ryan Chapman: But I think for people that have been around marketing automation this long, we've, we've moved past the infatuation period.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh yeah.

Ryan Chapman: So we're not, it's not about the automation anymore. That's [00:07:00] kind of, yeah. Okay, it does that, it's more about now how do we build a business that's actually sustainable and you know, creates, you know, customers that enjoy interacting with it. And it's interesting to me that the, the conversation always comes around to the same topic. I mean, people that are listening to this podcast will probably notice that the topic comes up. And I didn't, it's not like, we didn't agree ahead of time to talk about this point. This has organically came up, but it comes up almost time after time whenever I talk to a partner who's very seasoned, you know, that's been around the block a few times. And...

Wes Schaeffer: I'm old, is that what you're saying?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. Old. Even though you could probably still kick my butt in a half second. Not that I'm younger than you. I don't think I'm much younger than you. Probably like five, six years max.

Wes Schaeffer: That's a long time in jujitsu years.

Ryan Chapman: I know. I would, you would probably break my back in five seconds. We'll, let's put it that way. And you also mentioned something else that is [00:08:00] coming up a lot from you, which is that humanity point, expressing your humanity. You've been in sales such a long time. There's an interesting thing, which is the the cycle, right? The feast or famine cycle. Every salesperson, almost every sales person I've ever met has that as their "that's just the way life is". What do you think is the cost for that feast or famine?

Wes Schaeffer: Well, it's just human nature, man. In anything. Right? You're not feeling well. You go to the doctor like, yeah, you got this bug. You know what, like, here's a 10 day supply of penicillin, right? Antibiotics go, you know, take two today, kind of double up and knock it out and take the medicine until it's all gone. Okay, doc, I'll do it. I'll do it, right? Okay. Three days later, you know, you're back to normal. Maybe you take it for five days and the other five you just, yeah, whatever. You don't take it. Right? [00:09:00] And so it's just human nature. We don't, we don't stick with things. It's, you know, I wrote a blog post about it just today or yesterday, I think it was this morning. I get up early, I forget the days run together, you know what I'm saying?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, I do.

Wes Schaeffer: But you know, the in, in physics and in thermodynamics, you know, the, the universe tends towards entropy, right? And entropy is, is the tendency for things to just fall into disrepair, right? If you just left your home the way it is, and you know, came back a thousand years later with nobody around, it would be in bad shape, right? Things just, you've got to maintain things. So as, as humans, we have to get up every day and put forth effort. You know, the good news is the brain, your muscles, you know, they're one of the few things in the universe that get better when you use it, right? The more I [00:10:00] drive my car, the more it gets worn down. The more I do jujitsu, the more I lift weights, you know, assuming I have proper form and all that good stuff right here, my muscles get bigger. My stamina gets better. But it's an effort. You're tired. Some days you're sore some days, so you just, you don't do what you need to do and you don't make as many calls. You supposed to make 30 calls in a day and one day you make 25 and then you let that go and slide two 25 the next day, and then, you know, it's happy hour or the middle of the week. So you're pointed that day, I'm gonna make it up. You know, maybe the next day you get back up to 28 and next thing you know, a month goes by and instead of 30 your averaging 22.

Ryan Chapman: And you're starving.

Wes Schaeffer: And, and you know what those extra calls add up. You might say, I don't make cold calls and like whatever it is, emails, blog posts, newsletters, webinars, trade shows, chamber of commerce functions. You've got to keep doing these things. There is no magic [00:11:00] bullets, and even when, every now and then they do come around, right? That some bleeding edge stuff, a fax broadcasting, right. In the 90s Woohoo! Whoever was first to that made money. Text messaging, you know, still kind of viable. But you know, everyone was first to, that was ahead of the pack. But over time, everybody, you know, I get text messages now all the time stuff I did not opt in for. So you know, the, the magic, you know, the silver bullet lasts for a little bit. But if you're, if you're always looking for those silver bullets, cause you know, back in the day with black hat SEO, you could gain the system and rank well. And then once the algorithms and search engines figured it out, wrote better algorithms and they black listed you and now you went from top to zero, literally invisible. So try rebuilding from zero. It's hard.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: So, so stop swinging for the fences, you know, go get a bunch of singles. [00:12:00] Every now and then you're going to hit a double every now and then they're going to hit an error. You're going to end up with a triple from a single. Every now and then, you're gonna hit one over the fence. Okay. And, and the more you do that, you'll, you'll end up with more home runs and more doubles and triples. The longer you stick with it...

Ryan Chapman: Focus on the base hits.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. I've, what I've noticed is along those same lines, is that it's the human nature that causes those cycles in our revenue. It's our, you know, like you're saying, they only take five days instead of the whole 10 day course of antibiotics. We, you know, we start dripping off on the calls because we don't really know if it's making that big of a difference in the moment. And so in my mind, automation serves the purpose of mitigating the impact of human nature. You can't eliminate it. But you can mitigate it with marketing automation.

Wes Schaeffer: Sure.

Ryan Chapman: And then you've got to enhance the humanity of your business so that those connections that you do make, so when you do get ahold of somebody, you're there [00:13:00] 100% instead of stressed out because you're like, Oh shoot, did I do that other stuff I was supposed to do, right? And what I've noticed is that in your, in your optimal situation, businesses turn that marketing automation into that underlying current of setting up conversations and the people just are responding to those conversations that are being initiated by the automation.

Wes Schaeffer: Right. Exactly.

Ryan Chapman: And so that that's the, the big transformation that at least I... It's interesting... So that's why I was so interested and I brought that up, is because you're saying the same things that I'm thinking about and I've been talking about in my own little world, and we really don't always intersect very often, but it's fascinating that we both come to the same conclusion that tells me that must be close to truth.

Wes Schaeffer: Yep.

Ryan Chapman: That's interesting. So on a sales, from a sales standpoint, where do you see trends going right now? What are people doing that's dumb. And what should they be doing?

Wes Schaeffer: Well, pay attention to the Superbowl, [00:14:00] right? W hat ad did Facebook run? Do you remember?

Ryan Chapman: I haven't watched the Superbowl, believe it or not.

Wes Schaeffer: Facebook ran one ad and it was talking about groups. So where do they want you to focus? Right? Facebook advertising. It's tough now , people are, everything's a pendulum, right? You know, paid traffic, people going back to like Google display networks, but driving people into groups, engaging them there. But again, doing just what doesn't scale. You know, the old adage know people, they, I forget exactly how it goes. You may remember, like, they, they won't remember like what you taught them, whatever, but people will always remember how you made them feel.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: And so when you make a phone call, send a text, may also have been physical, right? I send welcome packages with my book and, you know, a handwritten no to little things like that.

Ryan Chapman: It's probably weird for people that a software company like ours sends a [00:15:00] book and sends brownies and you know, and cards and stuff like that because so many companies, they just want your money and then hit the road right. You show up differently for people, don't you?

Wes Schaeffer: What's that?

Ryan Chapman: You show up differently for people.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. I mean, great companies, you know, look at Apple. Does Apple sell you an iPhone and then leave? No. Right? I guarantee you Apple was thinking, how do we get you to buy five things from us?

Ryan Chapman: They did.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay.

Ryan Chapman: I did. Wait a second.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, dude, I you, you'd be amazed. I mean how many Apple things I got with nine or seven kids, you know, family and nine. We got stuff everywhere. But you know, great companies, you know I created my A B, C, D E system, and instead of a pipeline, right? Which is one direction shove stuff in hope. Something comes out the end or you know, a funnel, shove stuff in the top, [00:16:00] hope something comes out the bottom. Those, those concepts are fine within my ABCD model, but this is a circle, right? You remember the old, the old water like the water cycle? We've learned as kids, right? It, it's nose in the mountains and it melts and it runs down the, the mountain side into those tributaries in the streams which run into the big rivers and the big rivers run into the ocean and from the ocean. You know, the water evaporates becomes a cloud, the cloud goes back over the mountains, becomes snow, so it never ends. Right? It's a constant cycle. So look at selling the same way in this cycle. So A, B, C, D, a is attract, right? What are you doing to attract people to your website, to your trade show booth, to your bakery, your restaurant, whatever? What are you doing to get them there? And then what are you offering them [00:17:00] to provide some type of contact information? Right? I worked with a local family chain with a Mexican food. They had four restaurants, and we implement it just to, you know, birthday on your, birthday burrito thing, right?

Ryan Chapman: Sure.

Wes Schaeffer: So now all these people are opting in, so now you bond with them, so you attract them. To your place of business, you attract them to opt in for something enticing. Now you bond with them. So, you know, let's say you opt in, you know, in February, but your birthday's in January, right? Do you wait 11 months? Or maybe I can drip on you. Hey, it's Valentine's Day. Or Hey, it's, you know, Daytona 500 Hey, it's President's Day. Have a sale, right? Bring a friend, you know, buy one, get one, whatever. So now you're staying in touch or the six months anniversary, right? So you know, July rolls around, Hey, it's, it's your half birthday. Come on in for half [00:18:00] off. So now I bond with you. And preferably it's multimedia and multitouch. Okay? So if you opt in with a text message, let's say, then I'm going to send something to drive you somewhere. Again, attract you, entice you with something. Hey, get a, get a free, get a, you know, free appetizer, free dessert . You sign up for our newsletter. So now I've got your email address. Okay, now maybe I sell you, you know, gift cards. Hey, 20% off, you know, if you spend $100, whatever. And people think, Oh, but nobody would spend that. My wife and I eat at a local Mexican restaurant. It's a change she grew up with. Okay. And, they sell their gift cards at Sam's Club and they sell them at 20% off. Yeah, we eat there's so much we buy them $100 at a time.

Ryan Chapman: Absolutely.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay. So people will spend, so now, but see, they don't get that info. Sam's Club gets that info. [00:19:00] So now, now you, if you can do this on your own, now you're going to have my cell phone, my email, my physical address, and my credit card on file. Okay. So now you start gathering some more info. And so you're bonding multimedia, multi-step. Now the C is the, the cash, the customer. The client. Okay? But if you notice now, ABC, we got two more steps to go. So we're, we're at a halfway point. Great salespeople, great businesses know that the sale is not the end. The goal. It's the beginning of the relation. It's just like a marriage, you know? On your wedding day, like when you got married, was it over or did it really just begin? You know, your real relationship, right? That's when the real work kicks in. Yeah. It's a great party. It's a great event. Great ceremony. Lot of meaning. Now the work really begins. So now you [00:20:00] D you deliver, you deliver a wow experience. You delight the customer. When you do that, okay? And you do it by, you give a little bit more, it's the Baker's dozen, right? You give them 13, they order 12. And it doesn't have to be huge. A company that, I was in the telecom space for many years and the parent company, owned it. They did headsets, they bought job WRA later on, but, but when you, you know, it's a B2B sale, very high end. You a hundred multi, multiple hundred dollar headsets and, but they would include a Tootsie roll in the shipment. Okay.

Ryan Chapman: A little thing, huh?

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. It just differentiated them. And so, so I'm not saying, you know, somebody buys a burrito from you, you give them a rolls Royce, right? It's, I mean, obviously you gotta got a scale, but you delight you, [00:21:00] you, you know, imagine if you're keeping track and somebody orders a bunch of food from you and the manager, even the owner calls. You know, Hey, Ryan it's Wes over at you know Miguel's Jr, what dude? Yeah. Really me. It's me, the CEO. That's the owner, you know, no Wes Junior of, you know, the West the third of, you know, Miguel's Junior's like, I just want to thank you. You come in a lot. Sure appreciate you coming in. How far would that go?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. Nobody's doing anything like that. So I think that's the thing to us about these points that you're making to the ABC. I know I'm excited to hear what E is. But if you really consider how different some of these things are, they're just an inch above what everybody else is willing to do.

Wes Schaeffer: Exactly.

Ryan Chapman: And, but it feels like a mile as far as the receiving side. I think that's the big takeaway. Hope people are getting from this.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, it's the old thing when you're camping, right? Like, Hey, there's bears out here. Can I outrun a bear? Like I don't have to outrun a bear. I just have to [00:22:00] outrun Ryan.

Ryan Chapman: Yep.

Wes Schaeffer: Cause the bears going to eat you. The first one he catches. So and in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King.

Ryan Chapman: It doesn't take it. And that's the thing. People get intimidated by stuff, but all it takes is a little bit of thought, like given the guy in the Tootsie rolls now, and the guy that dropped the Tootsies here in the box really didn't take much more time or money did it?

Wes Schaeffer: Oh man! Exactly. And just, you know, sales is a zero sum game. If I am 1% better than you, when we're competing on a deal, I get 100% of the commission. This is not, you know, the Masters Golf Tournament, winner gets 1.6 million, the loser, you know, second place guy gets, you know, 800, 900,000. It's like, okay, I'll settle for 10th place. You know, if I'm second on a deal, right? My family, we're losing the house. The kids are going to eat, you know, beans and weenies and I mean, it's [00:23:00] not good.

Ryan Chapman: So, so what is E than?

Wes Schaeffer: Oh yeah, E, well, I've made a landing page. If your people will pay 99.99 per month for 18 months. I'm going to go ahead and tell them what E is. Okay. But yeah, I've got to go. Sorry. I can stick around. Hey, thanks for having me on though. I did give you the URL. So, all right. So, so you've delivered a wow experience, right? You've delighted the customer. Now you endear yourself to them. This is when people start taking pictures. They go, they go live. I'm over here at Brian's place. These guys, man, I sign up for a workshop. Oh my gosh, they've so over-delivered. I mean, they were, I got books before I showed up. Things were done when I wrote my name plate and they had food. I didn't even expect it. I got parting gifts and they gave me all these templates that even all, it's so great, man, these guys rock. Now they're singing your praises. Okay. If I start jumping up and down and saying, Hey, I'm this really smart [00:24:00] sales guy and I'm really good at it at Infusionsoft and HubSpot, and you really should come, come to me, buy all your stuff. You're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. But if you say it about me, your friends will trust you. You're like, Hey, Ryan's a good guy. If he calls it like it is, he says, Wes is good. I'll go check the guy out. So now what happens? We're back at the top of the mountain. The clouds are, you know, they're snowing. Boom. We're back at the attract phase, but it didn't cost me anything.

Ryan Chapman: So when you're working with a company, you're thinking about how do I create evangelists? That's kind of the, that's where you say, okay, now we've, we're done with our work.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah.

Ryan Chapman: Essentially is when we, our business creates evangelists because that's what the E in endearing could also stand for.

Wes Schaeffer: Yep. Sure. Evangelist. Yep. That works.

Ryan Chapman: You're getting, you're getting people to that point where they want to go out and talk about your business because they've had such an amazing experience [00:25:00] and the value that they feel for doing business with you is at that point where they're like, this is the best thing ever. Everybody should be doing this. Yeah. I love that concept because I think if you, if you go into it like, okay, as soon as I get the money, I'm done. You've missed half the business. And I assume more than half because I think you won't be in business very long.

Wes Schaeffer: Dude, I think back, 2004 I bought my first Mac computer. I had iPods. I had one or two iPods before then. Maybe around 2002 I don't know was about that timeframe, but I mean, I would always try and like, I forget all the names now. Like Zune. I think the, the Microsoft Zune, Dell came out with something. There was a..., there was a leader in the industry, and, hell, I forget what they are now. It's like Nokia used to be the leader in cell phones, right? But I had their device and it was fine. It was [00:26:00] bulky, but it was a, it was a hard drive. I could carry a bunch of songs. And I got my first iPod, I bought it used on eBay. Cause this guy was selling like all of his Tony Robbins stuff. He left on there like gigabytes of stuff.

Ryan Chapman: Crazy cool.

Wes Schaeffer: And, but I was leery to buy that computer, but I started a new company and the web guy said, look, if you get, if you get a Mac, I'll show you how to use it. Okay, becuase at my company they would reimburse you up to $2,000, and you can buy whatever you want it. And so, so I got that right. And now I'm like, Oh man, I'm digging it. And then you watch out, right. We've had pretty much every, I got the first iPhone, if at all, but the 5S I think, you know, I got an Apple watch on my third one, my second set of AirPods at home, I'm on my fourth iPad, you know, I mean, just can't even count, you know, the Apple pencil, you, you name it. We got it.

Ryan Chapman: It all started [00:27:00] from that first experience.

Wes Schaeffer: Hey, I got the iPod, I loved it. Then the Mac was easy to use, loved it, and we got an iMac at home, the old colorful ones, you know, it looks kind of like ET's head or whatever.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: So yeah, you gotta be thinking through, what can I do? How can I reach? How can I keep?

Ryan Chapman: And for people that are thinking, I don't know. It sounds like a lot of work that Wes has talked about. Thinking through that whole, you know, all five letters there. That seems like a lot of work. Well look at, here's what's the most work. Starting a new business. Once you get a business off the ground, you don't really want to be landin' that thing or crashin' that thing and having to rebuild the new one. From my perspective, the best thing you could possibly do is keep it up in the air and make it really fly. And the way you do that is you have to start thinking differently than transactions. You've gotta be thinking relationships. I think that's at the core of everything you've said in this whole interview so far, [00:28:00] is how do you develop relationships that can last, relationships that are meaningful. And if you do that in business, I guarantee you're going to be around for a long time. The only way you can mess that up is if you're giving things away. Right. If you're not making money. But you know, you'll wise up to that pretty quick.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, for sure. And it's, sometimes it's hard to, you know, we, we do get too close to our own stuff, right? There is a such thing as a curse of knowledge.

Ryan Chapman: Absolutely.

Wes Schaeffer: It's, it's hard to, to see the forest for the tree sometimes. And look, I hire outsiders to come in and tweak my stuff and I do it for others. I'm working with a lady right now, a big, big Infusionsoft list, 13 years I think she's had it...?

Ryan Chapman: Wow. And, it's probably really dirty.

Wes Schaeffer: She just got tired, right? It's a lot of work. All these launches and everything. I'm like, if you have a list of [00:29:00] thousands of past and current customers, okay, I can easily show you, if you have thousands of customers and a decent reputation, of course. Right? And assuming you're not selling paperclips or even if you are selling paperclips. Right? Somebody on that list. Well, the people that are buying office supplies, they also are buying $50,000 copiers and printers and, and computers. Right? I can find $50,000 for you in your list fast, because from an outsider looking in, it's easy.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay. But we all get, we all get stuck in a rut. You know, it's the, the person selling office supplies,they may think, you know, I, I can never sell a, a computer or, you know, even that though, you go to office Depot, of course you can buy computers, but I'm just trying to think of an analogy, right? But, a roofer [00:30:00] could talk with a local gardening company or a dog walking company and say, Hey, I'll do a mailing for you. You know, or, you know, give me an offer. Give me a, you know, a a gardening offer, I'll mail it. You don't have to give up your list. Right. Say, give me your offer, I'll mail it. What will you give me? I ain't gotta say, I'll give you the first month.

Ryan Chapman: There are opportunities abounding if you have the relationships.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Chapman: People for a long time, I think talked about the size of the list as if that meant something. But anyone that had been around for very long realized, no. The size of the list really doesn't mean anything at all.

Wes Schaeffer: Yes. As long as... Quantity does not matter if the quality is not there. If the quality is there, then yeah, go big.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. Okay. Good. But that, that was always the real thing. The other thing is, I've got a little, I call it Marketing Rule Number 19, and it [00:31:00] is know how you're going to sell before you decide to have the lead capture. And I think so many businesses failed to do this. I am sure you run into this all the time where you come into an organization, you want to help them out, but all they've collected is email addresses. How big of an impact is it for you? Cause I mean, you just were talking about mailing people and calling them. You mentioned email as well, but you know, email is so tough if you have not been in touch with them for awhile, but you can mail anybody any, any day of the week and it doesn't matter. I mean, even if they're, you know, the worst case scenarios, their address is cold, but that's at least very less likely to happen than the email address to go cold.

Wes Schaeffer: Sure.

Ryan Chapman: We get a cell phone number. People rarely change that. You know.

Wes Schaeffer: I've had the same number for 15 years.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. That's not, that's just, it's almost part of that. It's better than a social security number, let's just put it that way. So, you know, if you get these other contact information, that's great, but a lot of people don't think about that. What do you, what do you do with somebody [00:32:00] that's just been collecting email address? They come and say, Hey Wes, I need your help. I want to improve my sales. What's kind of your GoTo checklist that you start talking to them about?

Wes Schaeffer: You've got to get down to the fundamentals. You know, what do you sell? You know, who, who do you sell it to? Why do they buy from you? You know, just...

Ryan Chapman: It sounds to me like you're starting to construct the solid offer.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah, for sure. Because the offer is...The offer is what really trumps everything. Okay. A great offer will get somebody's attention.

Ryan Chapman: And they'll give you what? Anything.

Wes Schaeffer: For sure.

Ryan Chapman: With a good offer, what will they not give you?

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. I mean, think about, you know, black Friday. Right? I mean, you're calling your family, your friends. You're like, okay, listen, I know I said this year would be different and I wasn't going to go out on Thanksgiving, but this is too good of a deal. Let's go. All right. And so, I mean, it's an extreme example, but when, you know, [00:33:00] I've always told people deep down, I really hate selling. It's kind of crazy. I don't, I don't like the traditional concept, what people selling, of what selling is. Sure. You know, Hey Ryan, I'm going to be in your area next week when Monday or Tuesday be better? Morning or afternoon and you know who they're, as a matter of fact, you know, we're kind up to the end of the month. And what kind of budget do you have? And are you the one that really authorizes that really dude? Like, man, that is so, you know, 1970. So I think great salespeople, and this has always been the case, great sales people sort, sift and separate, great salespeople disqualify. Oh yeah, no, they qualify all Wes. You're just splitting hairs. It's like, yes and no. You know, if you just bought a new set, you know, four new tires, right? You just dropped $1,000. On new tires, you probably, you probably got one of them fancy, jacked up four by fours, don't you?

[00:34:00] Ryan Chapman: Yup. It's an electric model 3.

Wes Schaeffer: All right. It's $1,000 we probably spend $1,500 on tires.

Ryan Chapman: You know all too well, how much I spend on tires.

Wes Schaeffer: So if you just bought tires right? And your wife spent on you with all your toys, and you know, the garage is kind of crowded with your quads and your dirt bikes and your snowmobiles. And I come up to you and I say, Hey man, I got this great deal on tires.. Those $1,500 tire, I got the same, exact same, well, I got this smokin deal. And they're only $800. Okay. Yeah. Some people, I can buy them and sell them on Craigslist. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Take that aside. A lot of people won't, they're not that creative, right? Most people are like, dude, it's a great deal. I don't have room. My wife would kill me. I just spent $1,500 on tires. I'm sorry I can't do it. You know? [00:35:00] So it doesn't matter how good I am, how many, you know, do I have the alternative choice? The Ben Franklin close, whatever. It's like you just bought new tires, okay? Now, conversely, if you were driving home from the mountains and you skidded out because you were cheap and you let your tires get bald and lost all the traction, and you swerved and almost killed the whole family. Now, your wife's chewing your butt, you cheap SOB. After you didn't get new tire, I told you, you're killing the family. You will get tires tonight or you will not. You will sleep in the dog house. Those same tires are $2,000 do you care?

Ryan Chapman: Not at that point.

Wes Schaeffer: Right.

Ryan Chapman: I'm definitely in marketing...

Wes Schaeffer: So I am disqualifying and it's, it's a different approach. It's kinda like playing hard to get, you know, if you remember back in your dating days, if you were, if you were [00:36:00] too desperate, if you came across as too freaky too stalker-ish, it doesn't matter that your potential future wife, you know, thinks you're cute. Yeah. He's cute, but nah, he's kind of weird.

Ryan Chapman: Yup.

Wes Schaeffer: So you've got to have that right mixture of interested, but I'm not desperate. You know, and, it takes, it takes a little bit of time to learn that. But like anything you, you, you can't, you can't read a book and just learn it. You got to go do it. Because in the heat of the moment, you will not rise to your potential. You will fall back to the level of your training. Okay. And it just happens. And that goes way back. I forget who said it was like a Marcus or really a, so one of those dudes, right? That's what happens. So you've got to train amateurs, rookies. Train 'em till they get it right. Professionals train until they can't get it wrong. [00:37:00] Okay. My, my son, he's 21, almost 22. He just started jujitsu with me. He started back in, October. He's got his first tournament coming up this weekend. And I told them it took me three tournaments to finally calm down. Right? And you know, I'm almost 50 years old, man. I did my first tournament a couple of years ago. It was, it was literally the hardest thing I had done as an adult. You know, cause you, when you train in your school, you know everybody, and it's not, everybody's not watching. When you're sparring, it's not like to death. You can reset. You do this tournament, man, there's, there's 200 something people and this is, that was just an inhouse tournament, not like a big thing in an auditorium. One of our fellow schools, you know, in the area, there's like four or five cities here, and we all rotate going each other's school and there'll be, there'll be 200 people in a tight area, right? And just screaming man, it's like the loudest thing. [00:38:00] And, and, and everybody's like, they just tape off the mat. Imagine like a boxing arena size and they tape it off on the mats. But there's no, there's no rain, no snow. So is just right there, man. My first one, I'm fighting this guy and I'm on the ground. I'm pulling him in and one of them, one of my black belts, right? He was literally six inches from me, screaming with all of his might "do not let him pass your guard!" You know what? I'm just like, I just dug deep. You know, I kicked this guy off of me and you know. And I'm, dude, I couldn't, I couldn't talk. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't swallow. I mean, the worst cotton mouth I've had ever. I'm so amped up at the end, you hug it out. You're like, dude, good fight. You know? But I forgot everything, man. Everything. I mean, I was literally, I was, I was just a nobody, and this was, this was September, so I've [00:39:00] been training for eight months. Forgot everything, except like literally the fundamentals. So three, three entire tournaments so I finally wasn't antsy. I was present, right? I could show up with a game plan, execute the things I wanted to do. Okay? They didn't let guys go to counter that. That's fine. I've got a counter to his counter. Let's, let's, let's do this thing. So I mix it up so you gotta be ready to do that. Don't you love Apple? See, there's my Apple. Somebody's calling me.

Ryan Chapman: When you get into, working with somebody and they haven't had this discipline, you know, they haven't been trained on sales and they don't have any approach in terms of their process or anything. Is it, do you look at it as this is going to be a multi-month experience because setting up the mechanics is one thing, but actually operating them properly is a whole nother thing.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, yeah. You know, it's what I [00:40:00] tell people in sales training. I tell them straight up, you're not going to learn this in a one hour workshop or a two day intensive.

Ryan Chapman: Sure.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay, I can move the needle but I, I actually driving, driving back from the gym, I got an email from a guy. We just landed a deal. I actually is Infusionsoft guy, he's their technical side, and he's bringing me in for sales and I told them straight up, I'm like, look, if you want to move the needle, then you know, it's like, I'm fine coming out on site with the team. So I'm co going on site for two days, but we're prepping for a month before I come out. And then we are reinforcing for a month afterwards.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. That's a bare minimum, isn't it?

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And...

Ryan Chapman: Because of the likelihood that in a quarter they're going to be off the mark fairly significantly are pretty high.

Wes Schaeffer: Right. But you know, 60 days of of good [00:41:00] training, I can build some new habits.

Ryan Chapman: Okay. So you're, you're looking at the whole 60 days to be able to get them there. So yeah, that's really important. But just too often, people think, Oh, I'm just going to fix this thing. I'm going to go do a two day thing with somebody, and then boom, it's going to help be, I'll be better, but I can't, I can't imagine a scenario where you don't need to have at least you know that 60 days, that sounds good. You know, it's not every day for 60 days, but obviously over 60 day period you're training and then keeping them on track and you know, answering questions about those things that come up cause they're going to hit all sorts of situations. If they're training...

Wes Schaeffer: You've got to go out and do it right? You know, you come out to the driving range and you're like, Hey Wes, yeah man, I need help. You know, I need some golf lessons. Okay, what's going on? Yeah. My, I'm, I'm not hitting, my driver will tell me about it. You know? Yeah, I'm slicing. Okay, great. Let's work on it. Boom, boom, boom. We get some things like, Oh yeah, this is so good. Thank you. Boom. You're hitting these beautiful straight shots. Then you're on the [00:42:00] tee number one tee box with your brother, your best friend, your cousin, and they're like, Hey, loser man, I can't believe you spent money on lessons. They're no good. I bet you a dollar. You slice just like you always do on number one. Now the pressure's on. Right. And, yeah Ryan, whoever hits a slice, they're buying, you know, the first round, or you know, they're buying the hot dogs at the turn. Oh, the pressure's on. So you have to train the way that you compete. All right. And that's why I put pressure on people. They, you've got to train under the same circumstances, man. My first job out of the air force, I was a stockbroker and we had this old army drill Sergeant. This was 1997 flew out to Memphis for two weeks of training. And so back then, you know, the whole non-smoking thing had already taken over, but he was the one dude that was allowed to smoke in the building. [00:43:00] This old former army drill Sergeant, and there was, I don't know, 25, 30 of us, right? For two weeks. And we had to go into another room and call into the auditorium where he put us on speaker phone and we're doing our cold calls. You talk about pressure, right? Cause he's jacking you up and you're performing in front of 20 or 30 of your peers. So if you could handle that pressure once you're back in the office, just in your own cubicle, right? It's a walk in the park. But people don't, they don't train the way they're going to fight. Right? So you've got to do that.

Ryan Chapman: So when you work with people, you do sort of this kind of setup where you do some pre- main event training preparation. You do your, your main training for a couple of days, then you're doing some followup over the next 30 days. Is there like a, a periodic review that you do with them to make sure that, you know, maybe in the old habits, the filled back in get corrected. If they're running into new [00:44:00] things that are challenging and them you're able to give them some more direction.

Wes Schaeffer: Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that's why I do it that way. Cause you just like the golf analogy, right? I work with you. And then you go back, you know, come back a week later. Like, how'd it go? You're like, ah, under pressure, you know...

Ryan Chapman: You get in your own head, you know?

Wes Schaeffer: Yes.

Ryan Chapman: And then when you're in your own head, you fall back to whatever your default pattern was.

Wes Schaeffer: Exactly.

Ryan Chapman: And so you gotta go back and have it stretched out again. Okay, this is the way to do all right. Got it. And then go back to it some more and you know, okay, okay, I'm getting better, but it takes some time. How long do you see where people actually get into their own stride and they actually go, okay, I know this, I understand that now it's, it's working well. Do you see some sort of timeframe?

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. And a lot of it, it depends on a few things, right. If, when I'm remote like this, the sales manager has to buy in. [00:45:00] Right? They, cause I'm not the boss. Right? And I've had companies, I've trained them, you know, and I said, look, your people, you'd be making 25 outbound calls a day. And he'd say, well, okay, yeah, y'all do 25 a week. I'm like, Oh my gosh. And then they don't do 25 a week and there's no repercussions. I'm like, dude, I can't help you. Yeah, I can't help you.

Ryan Chapman: They're fighting against you the whole way.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. And so it, it depends on the culture, right? At the organization. Cause I can get people to buy in. Cause the stuff that I teach is, is very honest. It's, it's not forced, there are some scripts in there, but, you know, life is a script.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah. It's not a tricky close. It's not tricky, but it's like, do this and the real quick before they have a chance to think, say this.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. Yes. None of that. But, you know, I tell people all the time, so like this, you know, Hey Ryan, how you doing? And you say:

Ryan Chapman: I'm doing good, or I'm living the dream.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. Or you know, I'm good. How are you? Hey, [00:46:00] I'm good. Thank you for asking. So is it still cold in, in Utah?

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, it is freezing cold in Utah, so that's why I'm in Arizona.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right, man. Oh wait, you got family? Oh, Arizona. What part of Arizona are you in? Right. So you know what's coming. Right? So that's a script. So we're all in a script. So people are like, Oh, I don't like scripts day. I feel restricted and whatever. But I'm like, okay. Yeah. But the thing is your, your prospects, your buyers have, have buying patterns, processes, you better have a selling process. And so people, routines help us. Right? So I, talking about sports, you know, the, the Masters Golf Tournament coming up here pretty soon, but you know, I love it. But if you watch a professional golfer, if they have a little three-foot put, right? Most of them are gonna make most of those puts. It's not a [00:47:00] physical thing, or it's a mental thing, but, and, and they could walk up and just tap it. If they just walked down and toddler with one hand, they'd probably make 98 out of a hundred of those. Okay. But money's on the line. So they have the exact same routine, whether it's a three foot putter, 30 foot putt, because the routine takes the mental pressure off.

Ryan Chapman: Right.

Wes Schaeffer: Okay. So when I have a routine, I'm not anxious. Okay. If I'm making truly a pure cold call. Yeah, I've got a script for that, you know? Hey Ryan, this is a sales call. I mean, I take 30 seconds of your time to tell you why I'm calling. You decide if we ever talk ever again.

Ryan Chapman: Okay, so you don't have mechanisms like that that facilitate your ability to create a consistent outcome.

Wes Schaeffer: Yes, because I know human nature. And how are you going to rely if I just leave it up to a whim? [00:48:00] Yeah. Good luck with that.

Ryan Chapman: Yeah, that's like going to Google and hitting I feel lucky when you're trying to find something.

Wes Schaeffer: Yeah. Maybe you're on today, maybe you're not. Yeah. You know? But if you like, let's say, every time you swing the golf club, right, you use a different grip and you go to the golf pro, like, Hey, I'm not scoring well. Well, show me your grip. Well, it changes every time. Well, I can't help you, you know, unless we get one grip and then work on that. But the same thing with golf, right? It's like well, I grip the club like Tiger Woods, right? It's like, okay, but you're, you're five foot seven and you're 200 pounds. You can't swing the club like Tiger Woods. So we've got to modify your grip, your ball placement, your stance, your takeaway, your follow through. We've got to change everything because it all matters. You know, but what happens is people will be like, well, I see that Tony Robbins that he's using click funnels, so I need click [00:49:00] funnels. Well, are you Tony Robbins? I guarantee you, if I give you Tiger Woods golf clubs, he won the masters last year. I guarantee you, if I took those exact clubs out of his hands and put them in your hands, you would probably, not only would you not score better, you would score worse.

Ryan Chapman: There's no probably about it.

Wes Schaeffer: I mean, he's got some custom clubs, super stiff shaft ride, unforgiving club heads, but you got the same tool, doyou have the same ability? Okay. So on the one hand, I, I take what I'm given and I help help them perform better with what they have, but then I slowly give them better skills, you know? And yeah, I could teach all this in one day. But it's too much. You're not going to internalize it.

Ryan Chapman: I teach early morning, scripture class for some high school youth, and it's an hour, just short of an hour a day. [00:50:00] But I guarantee that even if I put all that I could into every class, they don't get a fraction of it. Because you have to be ready to receive some things. And that's not true just for religious stuff, that's true for everything. Like if you're not prepared for receiving instruction, the best instructor isn't going to help you. That's like the also, like that guy that you say is, you know, Oh yeah, no, just do, do a seventh of what he asked. That'll be good enough. You know, he's not ready to receive what you have to give to them. And so part of it is we got to prepare ourselves to be ready in the way you prepare yourself to be ready is go do all that you can do and, and develop that attitude of being open to being taught new things. And then, you know, be curious about the world around you. You know, I can't even, I think I do okay at sales, but I know I can learn stuff from Wes and I know [00:51:00] I can learn from you because it's what you eat, drink and breathe. And so, you know, paying attention to the little nuances of the things that Wes has shared during this interview can really help you to start to get a better feel for where you're at in the sales game and how you can start to move towards improving your outcomes within sales and just in marketing in general. I really appreciate you being on Wes. This has been a great conversation. Mean we've covered a lot of ground. This is a definitely a listen to multiple time episode. Because there's a lot of different things that were touched on here. And if, if you're paying close attention, you picked up on some really important, really important principles that are important for longterm success in business. I mean, the ABCDE thing is phenomenal alone. If we would have stopped, there would have been a great episode. We got more than that. But that right there was, is phenomenal. If you, if you're not thinking about how to build evangelists in your [00:52:00] company. You need to, because from my perspective, if you don't get the heart you, you haven't really gotten much at all. So you want to go for earning the heart. You have to earn the heart, right? You don't just get it. You got to earn it. And if you earn the heart, boy, it's tough to lose somebody. They'll give you a lot of, a lot of grace. They'll give you a lot of room to make mistakes, which we're all gonna make. And so I think that's another reason why it's worth going the extra mile doing the things that Wes taught you guys here today. So again, this is probably one you want to either listen to again or go read the transcription on the website because there's some things you're gonna want to highlight. You may want to print it out, highlight some of those things, and make a game plan so that you can implement some of these principles. Because Wes is a... Wes is not just a student of the here and now, Wes, I know as a student of, of history and the time and the more important things. And so that comes out in some of these [00:53:00] things in ways that you may not pick up on initially. So really appreciate you as well as appreciate, your constant community. You know, you're always given to the community with your post. And I know you have a great podcast as well, and, just wanted to say thank you for being on. It's been a real, real honor.

Wes Schaeffer: Man. My pleasure. Appreciate it.