consulting – Page 2 – Sales for Nerds

090 Erica Holthausen on turning expertise into authority by publishing in magazines

If you prefer the video…

Publishing a book is a great way to turn your expertise into authority (see this episode with Rusty Shelton for more details), but you don’t have to go all the way to a book to gain many of the benefits.

Erica Holthausen will show you how to publish articles in magazines and journals to raise your profile and attract ideal clients.

Erica was a recovering lawyer, turned marketer, who realized with the help of a business coach, that her true passion was helping her clients get published. She talked to other editors and consultants and realized that this could be her business.

In this episode, Erica outlines her methods so you can get published.

First, who should try to get published?

Anyone in an oversaturated market who needs to differentiate themselves.
Anyone who wants to build a reputation and personal brand.
People who have an idea that they want to spread.

Why don’t people do this?

Publication guidelines tend to be clear as mud.
Most online resources are for freelancer writers, not experts trying to publish.

And some people should not pursue this path.

If you need revenue ASAP, don’t waste time trying to get published– it’s a long term play.
If you’re only trying to publish for the SEO boost. There are more effective ways to boost SEO rankings. (Although SEO improvements are a nice side benefit. Note that if SEO is an important focus, look for publications that give you an author blurb with a link on every article, not just a link to your author page.)

If you do want to pursue publishing, (in magazines and journals), here’s what to do…

Consider your goals. Publishing will not magically make money fall from the sky. It’s a part of your business strategy. (One of Erica’s clients wrote articles in an industry journal for individual prospects. Others write content that they don’t even expect their prospects to read– but the credibility boost opens doors. Others want to interview key players in their industry.) Your target publications will depend on your goals, and of course who you’re trying to reach. Often, industry publications are more effective for reaching prospects than more widely known media properties.
Figure out the rules and guidelines for your target publication(s). Everyone has different guidelines. Some are published (Google “write for us [publication name]” or “author guidelines [publication name]”) and some are not. Some have lots of detail, some don’t. But make sure you understand what you can (for example, Inc lets you do interview-style articles, while Entrepreneur does not). Do not be “high maintenance”. Editors are already too busy. Consume the content in your target publication(s), which you’re probably already doing.
Write your article. Yes, before your pitch it. This has several benefits.
1. You know what you’re actually pitching… the ideas may evolve as you write.
2. You avoid writer’s block and you can submit the content quickly if you get a “yes”.
3. Unlike a freelance writer, whose business is getting paid to write, you can use this content elsewhere (even your own blog) if editors don’t want it.
4. Make sure you fact check everything. Be clear and specific. Don’t write “studies show…”. Link to the actual study. (Which of course you have read and understood.)
Submit your pitch (depending on the publication, you can pitch an article and/or a column). Be clear and concise, not clever. These folks are already overworked. Have a subject like “article pitch: [title]”. (Have a good working title.) Explain why this story matters, and why you should write it. The editor doesn’t care about you, but about the audience.
1. Show how your piece adds to the conversation already happening for that publication. Look for ways your perspective lets you build on other pieces, with “yes, but…”, “yes, and…”, or “no, because…”. Editors are starving for great content and they can’t afford to pay for it. (Just don’t make your article pitch a pitch for you and your services. That doesn’t serve the audience.)
2. Include relevant credibility boosters– other publications, quotes in other people’s articles, podcast appearances, industry experience, degrees, etc. You don’t need to list everything, but provide third-party validation of your authority to write on this subject.
3. Conclude with something like, “If I don’t hear back from you, I will reach out to you in 10 days.”
Follow up. Building on the last point– follow up when you say you will. Editors are busy. They inundated with pitches. They may be sick or on vacation. Give the benefit of the doubt. Follow up by forwarding back the original email, so everything is in one place. After 3-5 attempts, conclude with something like, “If I don’t hear from you in 10 days, I’ll assume you’re not interested and will pitch elsewhere.” (Always pitch one publication at a time.) If you get any response at all, call it a win. (“Nice piece, but we’ve got too many article about XYZ for now…”) If you keep getting no response, get help with your pitch. Would you want someone coming on your podcast with that pitch?
Submit. If you actually get a “yes”, submit your article. You can also ask questions if you need help with guidelines at this point.
Leverage your article(s).
1. Send a link via personalized email to the key circle of people you wanted to read the piece, including mentors, other experts you cited, key prospects, etc.
2. Send to your newsletter, on social media, your podcast, YouTube, etc. Multiple times. It may be old hat to you, but not everyone will see it each time.
3. Put an “as seen in” logo on your site. Just make sure it links through to your article or author page. Erica will assume you’re lying if the logo doesn’t go anywhere.
4. If you got published via pay-to-play, that’s fine, just don’t pretend that you’re the next Brené Brown. That will cost you credibility instead of gaining it.

Of course, if you want and/or need help with any of this, connect with Erica. (See contact info below, including how to register for her free monthly Pitched to Published sessions.)

The Wine

Erica enjoys some Pfeiffer Wines Rock It Like a Redhead Cabernet Sauvignon (“The Rebel”).

Reuben has Chateau Galateau from St Emilion, Bordeaux.

Where to find Erica

Catchline Communications (prices are public). Check out the free monthly Pitched to Published mini training and Q&A, the 2nd Wednesday of the month.

LinkedIn.

listen-on-apple-podcasts-sales-for-nerds

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

It also has a “mad-libs” style wizard to help you lay our your mission and positioning, including your origin story and customer stories so you can hone and share your unique perspective. Plus, Mimiran makes follow-up a breeze, so staying on top of those busy editors is easy. And lead magnets let you convert your exposure into leads and conversations.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

089 Rochelle Moulton on not avoiding conversations

“The sooner you can get to a niche, the faster you get to a sustainable, vibrant business, and we don’t feel like we’re on the hamster wheel. Niching is king.”
Rochelle Moulton

If you prefer the video…

Rochelle Moulton started her career in a big consulting firm, becoming a partner, then left to start her own firm.

She had to learn to consult without having a big name behind her, and then sold this firm to Arthur Andersen (until the Enron implosion destroyed Andersen).

Within Andersen, Rochelle had been coaching accounting partners on selling. She helped subject matter experts build relationships with clients, not just spout off their expertise.

Here’s why they weren’t good at sales:

Too focused on their knowledge, “being right”, and sounding smart.
Not paying attention to building a genuine relationship.
Not putting yourself in the clients’ shoes
Talking too fast, too much, or insisting on pitching your pitch regardless of the conversation

Sound familiar?

Later Rochelle went back to work for herself, and started coaching other consultants like she had internally at Andersen.

She had a client who ran a financial consulting firm who kept hiring people who “couldn’t sell”, because the owner wanted people who could listen. They were amazing at winning deals.

“Introverts can be really, really good at sales because they listen.”

Rochelle helps people build market authority– positioning your expertise in a niche with a powerful message. The idea of building authority is that people seek you out, and you do more of the qualification than sales.

Rochelle likes to think in terms of an Authority Spectrum– from low authority, where you have to do a lot of work for each deal, to high authority, where ideal clients are eager to work with you and seek you out.

This is a spectrum, and it’s not that you ever completely stop reaching out to people, but you get more leverage out of higher authority.

This improves sales efficiency, but does not mean avoiding conversations– just that you have conversations with the right people.

If you really don’t want to ever talk to anyone, have a business model that lets people buy by clicking a button. If you want to do high end consulting, you need to talk to people.

If you do this right, you make low to high 6-figures per project, or even low 7-figures, as a soloist.

If you have a good network of referral partners, you can have high-leverage conversations with them, which leads to a stream of high qualify referrals. (There is a danger of over-reliance on a single referral source, so keep building other options.)

Your niche is a combination of your skills, and how you ideally help with those skills.

Often the sophomore year of a consulting business is the hardest, because the initial flow of referrals dries up, and you have to figure out how to get clients and what your niche really means.

“Do not try to avoid having really conversations. It may feel risky or intrusive, but if you have something to offer them, they would probably love to have a conversation, provided it’s not a pitch. You just have to ask…”

Talk to your Authority Circle– the ~150 people who want to help you and you want to help.

If you’re nervous about having these conversations, start with low-hanging fruit, even your next-door neighbor.

Have conversations and listen. Listen to their concerns, their pain points.

Humans are pretty simple.

Reuben: “figure out exactly who you want to talk to, and have good conversations with them, and good things will happen.”

Rochelle: “I’m not gonna argue with that.”

There you have it, folks. Keep talking to people. And make sure you’re listening.

The Wine

Rochelle enjoys some Fess Parker chardonnay from the California Central Coast, while Reuben has some Domaine Guion Cuvée Prestige Bourgueil, a nice cab franc from the Loire Valley in France.

Where to find Rochelle

Soloist Women Podcast

The Business of Authority Podcast (with co-host Jonathan Stark, whose Sales for Nerds episode on ditching hourly billing you can check out here).

Don’t forget to check out her book, The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise.

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

It also has a “mad-libs” style wizard to help you lay our your mission and positioning, including your origin story and customer stories. And great ways to help you have more conversations, as Rochelle recommends.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

088 Bridget Hom on hiring and firing the right mental team

“When you’re feeling out of your mind, you’re probably in somebody else’s. And when you’re in someone else’s mind, you’re out of your own.”
Bridget Hom

Bridget Hom’s mom was in public relations, her dad was in sales, and they had scheduled family meetings every Sunday, so you might think she was destined for entrepeneurship.

But she started her career as a journalist. And then got a masters in theology, planning on going into the ministry. She realized later that journalism, ministry, and marketing all share a similar theme.

In her twenties, she lived a self-described “bougie” lifestyle with 3 nannies, house cleaners and traveled the world as a stay-at-home mom (“domestic engineer”).

But she got Zoom-divorced and moved into a small apartment with her 3 boys.

She got certified as a coach and met a man while salsa dancing who became her business partner in a placement agency, but that dried up with the pandemic.

Fortunately, that dance partner gave her the best advice she ever receieved:

“Wherever you go, just be you.”

In this episode, learn:

How Bridget showed up and started her “Bridge to Freedom Coaching Program” and how you can apply her techniques to your program(s).
Why being “Stuck on Ready” (the title of her book, btw) is so important for an entrepreneur. In other words, always be ready to take (imperfect) action, instead of waiting for perfection.
To hire and fire the right mental team, before you try to sell your prospects your own limiting beliefs.
Why feelings aren’t your friends– action is your friend.
How to create empowered referral partners. (Hint, it has a lot to do with some of the core concepts about referrals and conversations in Mimiran.)
Why having an ideal client profile is important, but why you shouldn’t get wrapped up in that idea when you start. (And how to figure it out. Hint, it’s really easy, especially with the right (anti)CRM.)
Why you need to look and feel “the part”.
How to stay accountable and on track (and why a 1% deviation from your course will lead you miles astray). (You do have a destination and a course, right?)
To make sure your actions are moving you towards your destination.
To address your headspace every single day. Be intentional. Brain dump. Hire and fire the right mental team. (See video below that Bridget mentions.) “As entrepreneurs we’re typically in relationships with our thoughts about people, versus people themselves.”
Why if you have an endless todo list, if it’s not digestible each day, you’re going to think you’re a failure every day. Set a 2 minute timer and write for 2 minutes (pen & paper). Then hire & fire the right mental team. Shift negative ideas to positive, with action. For example, if you’ve hired “resentment” on your team, fire that and hire “motivation” or “serenity” and then do something in line with that team member.
How to know if and when to actually change course.

Why you need to keep having conversations.

“As entrepreneurs we’re typically in relationships with our thoughts about people, versus people themselves.”

What do you think I do? Let people tell you…

Look at your day– do your actions line up with revenue– clients, prospects, prospecting, and content creation.

Is there an even exchange of energy? Especially with collaboration partners. If you’re not talking about profit in your collaborations, you’re not being serious.

Put that energy into your business development.

Be problem aware and solution seeking. Be aware of anything that keeps your from limitless potential. A lot of entrepreneurs have the wrong mental and they don’t reach out to anyone.

Here’s the Juggling with the Jenkins– if my brain had a morning meeting video.

The Book

Stuck on Ready: Master the Entrepreneur Mindset, Break Free from Self-Sabotage, and Access Your Limitless Potential

The Coffee & Tea

Bridget is in recovery so we’re not drinking alcohol today. Bridget has some coffee, and Reuben having already had his coffee, has moved on to tea.

Which brings us to Bridget’s version of the Serenity Prayer:

“Give me the courage to accept the people I cannot change… the courage to change the people I can, and the wisdom to know that that’s me.”

Where to find Bridget

BridgeToFreedomCoaching.com

LinkedIn.

Brigethom.me (direct calendar link)

https://www.bridgetofreedomcoaching.com/about-4

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

087 Kevin Whelan on selling your expertise, not your labor

Kevin Whelan was a philosophy major, but he had created a website about computer security in high school, just as a hobby.

Later, that experience led to creating websites as a freelancer and then a job in the marketing group at a law firm, where he saw how digital agencies operated from the client’s perspective.

He also started building an agency in his “spare time”.

Hear how Kevin:

Got his first clients
Moved from building 4 figure websites to 5 figure websites
Increased his productivity and effective hourly rate (without having to bill hourly)
Used specialization helped him get better, bigger projects
Moved from charging for implementation to consultation to advisory services (actor to director to producer)
Handles outsourcing pieces of project delivery, and why he doesn’t take a cut
Handles scheduling conflicts between different clients
Gives away as much of his expertise as possible, to attract people who appreciate the way he thinks

If you want to move from selling your expertise, to selling the results, don’t miss this episode, and connect with Kevin for more info.

The Wine & Whisky

Kevin is enjoying a Nikka Japanese Whisky (on the rocks).

Reuben has a glass of Youngberg Hill Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.

Where to find Kevin

at Kevin.me
HowToSellAdvice.com for training and courses
LinkedIn

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

It also has a “mad-libs” style wizard to help you lay our your mission and positioning, including your origin story and customer stories.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

085 Tom Jackobs on selling with storytelling

Tom Jackobs never set out to be a sales coach. He started a fitness business because fitness had made such a big difference in his life.

Unfortunately, he almost went broke because he didn’t know anything about sales.

Learn how he turned sales from a weakness to a strength, without becoming “sales-y”, by connecting via storytelling.

Storytelling isn’t a new topic for Sales for Nerds, but you’ll appreciate how Tom guides you to find the right stories for you, and how to tell them.

Tom joins from Taipei, where a 2 day layover turned into 3 years and counting, thanks to COVID.

In this episode, learn:

How to make sales about solving people’s problems. (No one wants to exercise, they want to lose weight, get in shape, etc.)
How he became a sales coach for the company that he hired to coach him in sales.
How having a process let him sell without stress and much more effectively.
How to use your story and your clients’ stories to help prospects.
How you can succeed in sales as an introvert
How to pick a story and tell it the right way.
Don’t forget to have 3 versions of that story– from about a minute, to about 5 minutes, to a 10-15 minute version, for different situations.

P.s. Here’s part of Tom’s story that made him good at selling personal training:

And if you’d like to watch the episode, here’s the video:

The Water

Due to scheduling challenges between Austin and Taipei, we are both drinking water. 😉

Where to find Tom

tomjackobs.com/storybook for a free workbook on story telling
LinkedIn

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

It also has a “mad-libs” style wizard to help you lay our your mission and positioning, including your origin story and customer stories.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

084 Steve Buzogany on Client Appreciation

Steve actually started his career in sales– as a real estate agent. One of his mentors told him he was working too hard and being too transactional instead of focusing on the relationship, limiting his referrals. But as an introvert, Steve felt awkward calling people up to cultivate referrals.

To get around this, Steve started sending gifts to people to give him a reason to call someone. This led to organic conversations about real estate, without the ickiness. (It was also much more fun.)

Using this gifting strategy, Steve got his business to 73% referrals, and made good money while taking a month off. He didn’t have to chase cold leads, and he won business in about half the time it took the average agent. Other realtors asked him how he did it, but complained they did have time to give thoughtful gifts. Steve had the insight that he could provide gifts as a service for other people.

Steve’s first gifts were “cheap”– like little bottles of vodka around the holidays. Not always appropriate, and even if it was, it was gone quickly.

Over time, he developed a more intentional gifting strategy, that you can implement by following his 6 Rules of Gifting:

Focus on the client, not you. This is a gift, not a promotion.
The gift must be high quality.
You must personalize the gift.
It must provide deep emotional impact (painting of client’s dog?)
It must have staying power and not be a one-time use item.
It must increase your connection (come with a handwritten note, video, etc)

Here examples of bad gifts:

Thank you email. This is just a transactional item.
Consumables like food and wine, flowers, or events, which are one-time events. (This means don’t give a bottle of wine, or don’t just give a bottle of wine– give a personalized corkscrew or some fancy wine glasses.)
Swag bags
Promotional items
Gift cards (lazy)

Here are some other tips:

“Attack the kitchen.” Things like ice cream scoopers, pizza cutters, etc get used repeatedly.
Take time to get to know your best clients and partners. Trying to figure out a great gift is a good perspective for asking good questions and getting more connected.
Focus on the top 20% of your clients and partners who provide 80% of the referrals.
Plan to spend 5-10% of the revenue these clients generate on the gift. Gift 1, 2, or 4 times per year.
Have fun doing radically nice things for your best clients and partners.

And if you’d like to watch the episode, here’s the video:

The Wine (& Beer)

Reuben enjoys Para Maria Syrah/Petit Verdot blend from Santa Barbara county. (The second half of the bottle from the Wayne Mullins episode.)

Steve has a UFO American Style White Ale.

Where to find Steve

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”. (It also tracks referrals and how much business you get from them and makes it easy to follow up and have conversations, just like Steve suggests.)

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

083 Wayne Mullins on Full Circle Marketing

Wayne is the founder of Ugly Mug Marketing and author of Full Circle Marketing: Transform Your Marketing & Turn Customers Into Evangelists.

Wayne’s parents got him some Zig Ziglar CDs (he still needs to ask his parents why they got him this gift) and wanted to get into sales, but wasn’t very good at it. But he realized that sales provided instant feedback, if you could separate the emotional response. He got better at sales by focusing on the prospect’s perspective, rather than his own.

As he got better at sales, he decided to start his own firm, in the only other skill he had: lawn care.

His lawn care clients started to ask him for marketing help because they were impressed with his growth. When he sold the lawn care business, this turned into Ugly Mug Marketing.

The Ugly Mug name comes from David Oglivy, who said, “I would rather you show me an ad that’s ugly and effective over one that’s beautiful but isn’t.” Wayne wanted the ultimate goal to be client results, not beautiful ads or creativity awards.

His first clients were clients of his landscaping company, who wanted to know how we was growing so fast.

Here are some of his tips:

He started by creating a Top 100 prospect list by driving around town.
Then he brought dozens of boxes of donuts to those businesses about once per month. When the manager would complain about the lawn, the staff would refer Wayne’s company. (He had a big sticker with his business info on the top of the boxes.)
He picked up the phone and called. Don’t hide behind your inbox. The best way to connect with humans is face-to-face, then video, then phone.
Don’t think of marketing and advertising as the same thing. Advertising is a part of marketing. So is the way your lawn looks, the way you answer the phone, etc.
What are you doing to create raving fans for your business? Buying donuts and birthday gifts created evangelists. Taking care of your customers and ignoring the fads is much more cost-effective than trying to get new customers.
Your customers carry a contact database and social media access in their pockets. What are you doing to encourage them to use that on your behalf?
Create great experiences for your customers. (Wayne does this for clients based on not only their direct spending with his firm, but their referrals and referral potential.) The idea is to make people feel special.
Educate your customers to help them succeed in adjacent spaces. (One client would send a single email follow-up to leads that included phone numbers.)
Focus on the problem, not just the demographics of “who”? If we focus too much on “who” instead of the problem, we sometimes target the wrong people. What problem does your offering solve?
Magic Journal Exercise… you should know your ideal customer so well that you can write the journal entries for them.
Full Circle Marketing: move strangers to friends to clients to evangelists.
Opportunities in print and direct mail, if you can personalize it.
Eugene Schwartz: “enter the conversation that is already taking place in the mind of the prospect.” Look for places to tie your messaging to what they are already doing. (Breakthrough Advertising: https://breakthroughadvertisingbook.com/)
How do we turn customers into evangelists? What does a reasonable person have the right to expect. Expectation Litmus Test. On the left, right down all the steps someone goes through doing business with you. What should a reasonable person expect during each step. What does it look like if we don’t meet expectations? Now you can test if you’re actually meeting expectations.
Bain surveyed 4,000 small businesses and 92% of the owners said they provided the highest level of services. Then Bain surveyed the customers. Only 8% of the customers agreed with that assessment.
You have to hit those expectations, at a minimum, to turn customers into evangelists.
Call those evangelists and ask them if they know other people who are dealing with the same problem you helped them fix.

The Wine

Reuben enjoys Para Maria Syrah/Petit Verdot blend from Santa Barbara county.

Wayne is sipping on his trusty water bottle.

Where to find Wayne

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

082 Jay Kingley on Referrability

Jay Kingley on Sales for Nerds to talk about referrals

Jay was a chemical engineer who went into management consulting, because he loved solving problems. His family was in business, so he grew up with this.

He joined a firm that had spun out of Bain in London and loved the work. But as he moved up and became a partner, he had to sell, which he didn’t find interesting at all.

He looked at what the other partners did– they entertained clients. Jay didn’t want to do that.

He wanted to solve problems. So he’d read about what was going on in his clients’ industries, then he’d call the CEO and talk about what was happening.

Jay decided to start helping smaller companies. He tried the networking groups and all that. It worked but was not a good use of time.

In this episode, learned what Jay learned, including:

How the 98% Typical elevator pitch (I solve these problems, for these types of clients, by providing this type of service) differs from the 2% elevator pitch, which makes the client the hero. This goes back to the great Christmas movie of all time (Die Hard– this is why Jay and I get along)– you have to be able to identify with, and root for, the hero.
Don’t confuse marketing (1 to many) with sales (1 to 1).
How to get someone to really listen to your advice.

Plus the 3 stages of marketing:

0: Spray and pray (“random acts of marketing”)
1: Targeted outbound prospecting. Can work quickly– in about 90 days, but not efficient.
2: Referrals. (Introductions are often a waste of time. Referrals are a bit better, but if you are one of 3 referrals, you’re going to waste a lot of time.
3: Provocative Perspective. Offer a contrarian perspective that people can tell to their network. Then the people who find the story resonates want to talk to you. Simon Sinek is a great example of this strategy.

Why should people help share your Provocative Perspective? Because these people know they need to nurture their relationships and provide a lot of value, but they need something to say.

The Wine

Reuben enjoys Sorpasso Italian red.

Jay has a (giant glass of) California Merlot.

Where to find Jay

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

081 Michael Roderick on getting people to talk about you when you’re not in the room

Michael went from a high school english teacher to Broadway producer in 2 years, powered by a network that he not only created and nurtured, but empowered to help him.

He read Seth Godin’s book Linchpin, and realized he was part of a system for churning out factory workers. He realized he needed to pursue his Broadway dream, and “it not now, when?”

Later, he deconstructed how he’d been able to pull off this transition, and he realized it wasn’t just that he met with a lot of people– he empowered these people to talk about him (in a good way) when he wasn’t around.

He codified his learning in a set of easy to remember (and mention) frameworks. For example…

Why do people refer you? To make themselves look good. Use the S.U.R.E. framework to assist:

Shortcut– make it easy to process and use
Utility– make it useful for the person hearing it
Reputation– make the referrer look good
Expedient– make it easy to mention

Don’t think of your offering, think of the problem your ideal prospect wants to solve, and help them solve a small piece of it, like a magician showing how he does one of his tricks.

This could be an assessment or other useful, actionable piece of information. For example, Michael often talks to experts who have valuable intellectual property that they deploy on behalf of their clients, but they don’t package it the way Simon Sinek or Brené Brown did. So he says that if you know an expert who’s far more obscure than they should be, fill out the “Jargon Grid” to get ideas for packaging your ideas.

I call this a “verbal Lead Magnet that your network can deploy on your behalf”, which Michael says is right on.

To get people talking about you, follow Michael’s 3 Principles of Referability (A.I.M.):

Accessibility— can people understand it outside the “Echo Chamber of the Enlightened”— anchor in something someone already knows
Influence— will people share it without you asking— make them look good
Memory— make it easy to retell the story— focus on L.E.S.S.

Expanding the L.E.S.S. framework:

Langage— have your own way of saying things that carve out mental space for you (“venti coffee”)
Emotion—illicit emotion to access memory
Simplicity— don’t share a 27 point checklist. Keep it simple.
Structure— provide order to process information– short lists, quadrants, etc.

What are you going to do to get more people talking about you (in a good way) when you’re not in the room?

The Wine

Reuben enjoys Chateau Jander from Moulis-en-Medoc, Bordeaux.

Michael has a Sales for Nerds first: Whiteclaw Ruby Grapefruit.

Books

Linchpin: Are you indispensable? by Seth Godin

Where to find Michael

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”.

It tracks referrals and helps you grow and nurture your network. Plus, the “Mission and Positioning” screen will help you refine your message, and give you lots of ideas for catchy phrases that will make you more referable. Meanwhile, use Lead Magnets to help turn those referrals into leads and conversations. Get a list of 25 Consulting Lead Magnet ideas here.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):

080 Franklin Taggart on creating a creative (and profitable) business

Franklin Taggart, host of the “Your Own Best Company” and the “Daily Virtual Coffee Break” podcasts, coaches freelancers, solopreneurs, and artists on how to connect with audiences and find clients, in a way that suits their skills, personality, and lifestyle.

He was a professional guitar player, and still teaches and also helped kids with anti-gang interventions. He fell into coaching accidentally, after a friend asked him to help facilitate a coaching retreat.

In this episode, learn:

How Franklin fell into coaching, and why he didn’t even think of it as “coaching” (plus, why he’s still suspicious of coaches, and what’s a sign of a good coach).
Why you’re not a “thought leader”, and why humility is important for successful work.
How to ask the right questions to find the people you really enjoy working helping (and the questions Franklin asks).
Why “following your passion” is not good advice, and what to do instead.

The Wine

Reuben enjoys Prodigal Pinot Noir while Franklin is still working on his coffee.

Where to find Franklin

Where to find Reuben

@Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com.You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.

Want a way to make sales and marketing fun, without being “salesy”? Try Mimiran, the CRM for elite solo consultants who love serving clients but who hate “selling”. It tracks referrals and helps you grow and nurture your network. Plus, the “Mission and Positioning” screen will help you refine your message, and give you lots of ideas for videos.

Get alerted when there are new episodes (1x/month):