Episodios

  • Creating Certainty in Uncertain Times

    Creating Certainty in Uncertain Times
    Apr 29 2025
    I've been having conversations over the past couple of weeks about this very topic of creating certainty in uncertain times. So much of it boils down to the specific steps I can put in place in my business. Reach out to the right people, say the right things, in the right order, consistently. That will not only improve your confidence in yourself. It will improve their confidence in you and their certainty that you can do the job for them. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I'll be discussing creating certainty in uncertain times. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Great to see you again, David. Wow, uncertain times. There's an understatement of the year, huh? David: Yeah. There's been so much discussion on the forums and inside the social media groups and everything like that. A lot of people are uncertain about a lot of things, and that does not generally bode well for businesses. Kevin: No, no, it definitely doesn't. So what does it really mean to create certainty? When everything around you feels unstable. David: Yeah. We had talked in a previous podcast about our circles of influence. Like the things we can control and the things we can't. It really does circle back in a lot of ways to this. When we talk about creating certainty, we can only ever do that within the realms that we control. We can create certainty in specific aspects of our business. So when we're talking about things like tariffs, which obviously is a big topic these days, a lot of our clients are in the promotional products industry, and a lot of that product tends to come from overseas. Much of it is coming from China. So in those situations, we're not able to create certainty with that, right? That's not within our sphere of influence. So what we can do and what our clients can do is to look at the specific things we can create certainty around. Can we identify suppliers who are can provide products for us that are not impacted by that? Can we look at more domestic suppliers? What are the specific things we can do to create a level of certainty for our customers? Something our competitors might not be able to provide? Kevin: And I think there's a level of authenticity too that has to go with it, right? Because certainty you can sort of project certainty. but you don't wanna pretend to have all the answers when you don't. So how do you balance that? David: Yeah, you can't really fake certain, well, I guess you can fake certainty. Kevin: You can try. Yeah, David: You can pretend you're certain, but I'm not really talking about that. I think there's certainly an air of confidence that you want to be able to convey to your clients, and sometimes when you're conveying confidence, you may still not be certain about things. But in this conversation, I'd like to look at, okay, what are the things that we can do? What can we be certain of? You know, are we certain that we can help our clients? And if so, how are we certain that we can help our clients? What are the things that we know that we can do that will help them? And if it's about sourcing things that are more in line with exactly what they're looking for, trying to get around the obstacles for our clients. If we're certain we can do those types of things. Just identifying the very specific steps that we can take, what can we be certain about, and then focus on those things. Kevin: You mentioned that, a lot of our listeners are in the promotional product space. There's still a lot of uncertainty that's coming our way. A lot of flipping and flopping going on with tariffs and whatnot. What do you recommend businesses do to sort of like help prep? David: Well, first thing you should do is recognize that your clients are not unaware of this. Like they are aware of the fact that this stuff's going on. Kevin: Right. David: And I've talked to a lot of business owners recently who are just really concerne...
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    14 m
  • Don’t Sabotage Your Sales Success

    Don’t Sabotage Your Sales Success
    Apr 22 2025
    Don't sabotage your sales success. Anytime there is any sort of issue in your business that’s not quite going the way it should, you want to ask yourself, is this because the process that I have in place is not working? Or is it because the person who is supposed to be following the process just didn’t do it? David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist and will be discussing How Businesses Sabotage their Sales. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Good to see you, David. How you been? David: Been doing great. It's good to see you too. Kevin: Yeah, for sure. I'm excited to talk about this. So, sabotaging sales, what do you mean by that, when you say businesses are sabotaging their sales? David: You know, I had some experiences recently and I'm like, did they intend to do this? Is this what they were trying to do? Did they set out to do this when they were doing it. One of the experiences I had recently was I was going to buy a pair of earbuds, right? And there's a particular brand of earbuds that I like. It's not the ones that would normally leap to mind. It's another one. But a good brand, they work really well. And I got a text from them saying that they were having a sale. And I was like, okay, cool. Maybe I'll buy an extra pair of earbuds even though I don't need them. And so in the link that they sent me, they said, click through and you get 35% off. I'm like, cool. So I click through the link and it takes me to a picture of what I think are the earbuds that they're selling, and it says 20% off, with a certain promo code. And I'm like, okay, well I'm looking for the 35% off, but there was a different promo code in the text, so I'm like, okay, I'll just plug the correct promo code and it'll work. Right? So finally figured out how to do that. No, it said this is not applicable to this particular product. So I'm like, okay. But they had some sort of chat person or chat being or chat AI, I don't know what it was. Kevin: Chat AI agent. Yeah. David: Yeah. Something not quite what I thought it might be, but. I thought, okay, well I'll ask the question. And none of the answers that I got were relevant to what I was asking. And I was like, I'm here. I've got my wallet open. Kevin: I'm ready to buy! David: I want to buy exactly the thing that you sent me a text to, and you're making it hard. Why are you making it so hard? Kevin: Yeah. David: And it replied quickly to a lot of questions and then, it was just like ghosting. It's like, okay, I didn't hear anything back. So I'm like, I'm like, are you AI? And I didn't get an answer. I thought if it was AI, it would at least tell me it was AI. So, I didn't get to order that day. The next day I tried again. I actually reached out to their customer support, had another non-experience there. But eventually I was able to figure out that apparently there were two sets of this earbud in a similar color, and the link took you to the wrong one and applied the wrong link. And so that's why it was saying it was wrong. And I didn't care about the color. I was like, I wouldn't have normally bought this color, but it was 35% off, so I was like... Kevin: Yeah, yeah, whatever. David: Right. Kevin: Earbuds. David: Anyway, long story short is what should have taken three to five minutes and been an exceptional experience took a whole lot longer and diminished my passion for this particular product. So I thought, you know, there are a lot of businesses that do this sort of thing, and the words that leap to my mind is that they're sabotaging their own sales, which is kind of the purpose of this conversation. Not for me to vent, but for us to talk about what businesses can do about it. Kevin: Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest, David. David: Thanks. Kevin: It's probably something you needed to do. David: I feel a lot better. Kevin: Good, good, good. Well,
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    13 m
  • How to Get Information from Clients

    How to Get Information from Clients
    Apr 15 2025
    It's not always easy to get information from clients. If you're in a situation where you have good relationships with your clients, but you're struggling to get the information you need from them, there are very specific things that you can do that will help you to accomplish that a lot faster and a lot more organically. It'll just feel better when you're doing it right, and they'll be a lot more likely to help you with it. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing getting information out of clients. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Hey, welcome back to you too. I'm really excited to talk about this because let's be honest, like we're all very conscious of the fact that everyone wants our information, so it's a bit of a struggle sometimes. David: Yeah, it really is. And when we're looking at trying to extract information from clients, sometimes it's like trying to pull teeth. Or trying to get the information that we need to either advance the sale or to be able to get an order completed and that sort of thing. And it can definitely be challenging. Kevin: Yeah, no doubt. How much of it do you think is how people ask for the information? Instead of saying like, give me this. Is it better to kind of think about it in more of a storytelling narrative kind of way to pull things out? David: That's a great question. I think a lot of it depends on your personality and the way that you communicate with people. Many salespeople, many of the best salespeople, I think are natural storytellers. You ask them what time it is and it starts with a story. Right? So... Kevin: Well, it all started back when I was eight. David: Let's talk about time, shall we? Kevin: Yeah. David: Yeah, so I think it can take that form. I think there are also situations, a lot of times, where we know what we need to get from them, and sometimes if we're just going for it all the time, that can come across as a little too pushy in some ways. So I think there's a natural give and take that needs to happen, so that people can feel engaged with us. If they feel engaged in the conversation, if they feel that we're listening to them, paying attention to what they need, and that's woven in with getting the next piece of information that I need without coming across like an interrogator. Like I'm going to shine a light on you. It's like the third degree in the cop movies. Right? If it feels like that, they're gone. But when you're able to just engage them and let them know that you care about getting them a result, then they're a lot more likely to be free with the information. Kevin: Obviously at the front end of a sales cycle, it's more basic information and it keeps going, getting more detailed as things go on. Should people change their approach as they go on from first contacting someone to maybe having a warm or even hot lead? David: Definitely, and I think you raised exactly the right point there, which is that it does generally start out more general and then it gets more and more specific as you're getting down to it. Sometimes salespeople will lead with things like, what's your budget? Right? Which is kind of intrusive, right? Kevin: Yeah. That's the one, right? David: You don't need to ask me about my budget if I'm not buying anything from you, right? Kevin: Yeah, yeah. What's your budget? What's your timeline? Right? Isn't that what everybody always says first? David: Yeah. And that's not the kind of thing that generally needs to come first. Initially, what needs to happen is they need to feel some sort of connection. They need to have a clear idea of what you do, how you can help them, and all that sort of thing. So I think a lot of times, in the early stages of a relationship when we're first meeting a prospect, it is information gathering from us, but it's about trying to find out what they need, what they're looking for,
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    15 m
  • A Step-by-Step Approach to the Sales Process

    A Step-by-Step Approach to the Sales Process
    Apr 8 2025
    When we discuss a step-by-step approach to the sales process, we're taking a scientific approach, which most people don't do. They just keep going out there and getting in front of people, smiling and dialing, whatever it is they're doing. And when you take a more strategic approach, you just get far more consistent results. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing a step-by-step process to the sales approach. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Great to see you, David. Excited to talk about this. David: Yeah, it's great to see you as well. This actually came up because I saw this question going through a Facebook group. I thought it's an interesting topic because everybody's got their own idea of what that is, what that should be, and very few people actually have what they would describe as a step-by-step approach to the sales process, which I believe is critical if you want to be able to create consistent results. Kevin: Why is it you think that people don't implement a step-by-step process? Is it just because they just like to shoot from the hip a little bit more or what is the reasoning? David: Well, there are a lot of salespeople who do just like to go with the flow and they go with the conversation and everything like that. And there are some people who can do that extremely well. Kevin: Sure. David: But my feeling is that even those who can do that extremely well are essentially harming themselves, by not having at least a framework that they go back to again and again and again, so that when prospects or clients inevitably get them derailed, they know exactly where to come back to so that they're not missing any steps. That's why I think having the sales process in place is pretty important. Kevin: Obviously, there's no universal sales approach for every industry because you know every industry is a little different, so how can a business lay out a good step-by-step sales approach that is suitable for what they do? David: Great question. So in our business, one of the things that we help our clients with is exactly this. And a lot of our clients are in the print and promotional products industries, but this also applies to any other B2B business. It actually applies to a B2 C business. I haven't really found an industry where it doesn't apply. And so when we initially laid this out in a program called Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition, we basically laid out six steps to customer acquisition. I'll put up a graph here to sort of demonstrate it as we're going through. But the first step that we've identified is the targeting. Who exactly is it that I'm going to go after? Because if I don't know who I'm targeting, I've got no one to sell to. I've got to have a really crystal clear idea of who the people are that I would like to go after. And so for me it always starts with that, who is it that I want to sell to? Kevin: And in this day and age, we have so much data, we have so much information that there shouldn't be any reason you can't figure out that pretty precise target. David: Exactly, and a lot of times people want to feel like they sell to everybody. But the problem is that, as the saying goes, if you feel like you're selling to everybody, you're probably not selling to anyone. Because people don't always get it. They don't resonate with something unless they feel like the messaging is actually directed toward them. So, it's a really good idea to. target small, Aim small, miss small, as they said in the movie the Patriot, right? Aim small, miss small. You want to be able to do that with your targeting because when you do that, you can be more consistent in what you're saying to the people that you're approaching. It'll make a lot more sense to them, and you'll be able to get a lot more traction with what you're doing. Kevin: All right, so after targeting the right people, what's next?
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    13 m
  • The Things You Can Control in Your Business

    The Things You Can Control in Your Business
    Apr 1 2025
    What are the things you can control in your business? What are the things that we can look at? Identifying the very specific companies, the very specific industries that we need to be able to interact with, to be able to get our customers as close to what they need as possible. We might not be able to get them exactly what they want at the price they want it. But most of them are going to understand that. Most clients are not going to blame you for the fact that the economy is doing certain things, or that there are things happening in the world. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, cohost Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing focusing on things you can control. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Hey, it's great to be here, David. I always am a big preacher around the house of "control what you can control." You know, I can't do everything. So control what you can control. So I'm excited to talk about this. David: Yeah, it's a really good topic, both from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on outside our own environments. Especially with the news. Everybody's talking about different things that are happening regarding the economy, the stock market, all kinds of things that are happening. When we focus too much on the things that are outside of our control, we basically abdicate the things we can work on that move the needle for us. Kevin: Do you feel like people are even more focused on stuff they can't control? Like what's happening in the world and in the news now because of how much news is thrown at us in so many different ways with social media and whatnot? David: I think so. Yeah. I think it's always been like this. But yes, it does seem to be more of an epidemic lately, than maybe it has been in the past. I remember being exposed to this concept, I think it was in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey was talking about your sphere of influence. Kevin: Mm-hmm. David: Where you basically draw a circle and you say, okay, inside this circle is what I can control. And everything outside. It is what I can't control, which is basically the world and everything else. Right. Kevin: Which is, which is a lot of stuff. David: It is a lot of stuff. If this is the circle, then everything outside the circle off into infinity is the stuff you can't control. Exactly. In a situation like that, the more you focus inside your sphere of influence, the bigger it gets. So when you're focusing on the things that you have control of, you end up having control of more things. When you focus your attention outside the sphere of influence, the smaller it gets. That's because you're not working on the things you can actually control. And so for those of us in business... When we are able to really pay attention to that, you can grow your sphere of influence. You can control more of your own environment to accomplish the things you're looking to accomplish. Kevin: Absolutely. So let 's get a little specific here. Let's talk about sales for a second. 'cause one of the things I think about with sales is that sales teams can get really tied up with market conditions and what competitors are doing and all that. How can sales teams kind of focus on what they can directly influence. David: That is such a brilliant example because it's so true. In sales meetings very often you'll have conversations. "Well, this person's doing this, or this person's doing that. Or these people are cutting their price." It's all valid. Those are all things that may actually be happening in the marketplace that we have to respond to. But the first thing to do in that situation is to say, how can we flip the script on this? How can we turn this into something that we can do that is going to be better, different, and received by the market in a way that makes what they're doing less important...
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    13 m
  • Eliminating Waste in Your Business

    Eliminating Waste in Your Business
    Mar 25 2025
    We'd love to help you to get from here to there in terms of eliminating waste in your business. When you're focused on getting those things done and when you've got processes and procedures in place to allow you to accomplish it more quickly, then everything gets a whole lot better. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, co-host Kevin Rosenquist, and I will be discussing eliminating waste in your business. Welcome, Kevin. Kevin: Great to see you. David. Excited to be here. David: I'm excited to have you here. Kevin: Yeah, so we're talking waste, obviously waste in business. There's different kinds of waste. A lot of people will immediately think of money, but that's not really what we're talking about, is it? David: Well, some of what we're talking about, I guess. Yeah. There's been a lot of talk about finding and eliminating waste in the news. So I thought, how does that really apply when you're operating a business? Kevin: Mm-hmm. David: Anyone in business, particularly small to medium sized businesses, must be aware of the fact that there is always likely to waste in the business. And as you pointed out, I mean, very often it starts with money. We're afraid that we might be wasting money, and in many cases we are. Kevin: Sure. David: But for most businesses who are reasonably run well, that's usually not the biggest thing. Kevin: What would you say is the biggest thing, or can you give me like your top three? David: Okay, sure. Yeah. I think for most of us it probably starts with time. Kevin: Yeah. David: Because the time that we waste is something that we can never get back. I think I heard Brian Tracy say this years ago. If you lose money, you can always make more, but if you run out of time, that's it. All the money in the world won't help you. That's pretty much how it went. Kevin: Yeah. I mean, there's no going back. So far they haven't figured out a way. David: No. We have not figured out a way to do that. So when we look at our days, weeks or even hours, we look at things like meetings. Are our meetings productive? Are our processes organized or disorganized? What are the distractions like during the course of a day? Because when we're focusing on one thing and then we're distracted and we have to switch back and forth, it requires flipping the switches in our brains and getting ourselves adjusted to the new thing that we're thinking about. All of those things consume time, which is, in many cases, even worse than money when we start wasting it. Kevin: You brought up a good one, meetings. And I think that's something, especially in this day and age of Zoom calls and all that stuff. I have a lot of friends who are in the corporate world or in the business world, and they talk about the needless meetings, the constant need for them, for people to feel like you got to get the crew together. Why are small businesses and medium sized businesses so focused on that and how can they like pull back? David: Yeah, it's a great question. I think there are some people who just feel like it's necessary. I think there are some business owners, some managers who feel like their presence in everyone's day-to-day life is critical Kevin: Right. David: And that's true more of some people than others. Some employees are happy to be able to just do their own thing and get everything done. Others do need more interaction. So it is an individual kind of thing. I think most business owners have to take a look at that and say, how much of me do they need? How much of their sales managers do they need? But being aware of the fact that each time we force everyone to get together, the clock is running. The clock's running on everyone. And when you have a bunch of people on one meeting, that means that all those people are tied up for that period of time. And if it's not productive for everyone on that meeting or in that meeting,
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    13 m
  • Reactivating Your Client Base

    Reactivating Your Client Base
    Mar 18 2025
    If we look at the idea of reactivating your client base in as many ways as possible, it means interacting with the people who have spent the money with us and doing that at a personal level, building the relationship, that’s about the best thing we can do. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing reactivating your client base. Welcome Jay. Jay: It’s good to be here. You know, it’s funny. I hear this everywhere I go now. If I watch Shark Tank or anything else, I hear this term CAC. You know, what is your CAC? And it’s your customer acquisition cost. And I have to believe that your CAC, for a customer you’ve already worked with, has got to be lower than trying to bring in a brand new customer. Am I right? David: Oh, absolutely. And I think instinctively as business people, we probably already know this. We’ve probably heard it a hundred times, but the purpose of this discussion is not to have you hear it again. The purpose of this discussion is to ask, “are you doing this?” And if so, how well are you doing this? How much better could you be doing this? Because as you pointed out, once you’ve invested that money to acquire a customer, now you want to be able to leverage that relationship as much as possible to provide them with additional help, additional solutions so that you can generate the revenue. They can get the results they’re looking for, and you’re not spending more money to attract people. You’re able to just expand the relationships that you have with the people who you’ve already acquired that first time. Jay: Yeah. And I think it’s disappointing if you spent that money for customer acquisition and then you don’t have a system to retain them or keep them online. And so now it’s almost like you’re spending the same money twice. If you’re trying to get them back again. David: Right. Yes. And so when we think about reactivation, there are a couple of aspects to it. One is just people who haven’t bought from you in a little while, to touch base with them again, to reengage those people and to see what they want, what they need. Essentially, requalifying them to find out where they are in that process. Are they ready to buy more things? Do they have a date in mind when they want to buy? Are they ready to go now? Or are they just not ready to do anything? Are they sort of disqualified for the moment? Are they unresponsive to you? Because they’ll generally fall into one of those five categories. They’re either ready to buy. They have dates in mind when they want to buy. They’re open to the idea, but not sure when. Or they’re disqualified, or they’re not responsive. When you are able to go back and sort of requalify your existing clients, you can reactivate the ones who are ready to go now. You can schedule the ones who know when they want to go next. And the ones who are generally receptive, you can just stay in touch. Jay: Yeah. Or what about the ones who were disappointed, but they didn’t take the time. Right? So many customers will never tell you that they had a bad experience. They just move on and… David: Yeah. Jay: you had no idea. So you’re not improving your customer service and your chance of reviving that customer is very low. David: Yeah. And that’s an excellent point, too. Because as you indicated, if you don’t know that, but you’re reaching out to them to see how you can help next, and you find out about that problem, then at least you have the possibility of restoring the relationship, if not doing anything about the previous order. Jay: Yeah. So what are we talking about here? Like good drip campaigns? Is that kind of where you would start? So you’re in constant contact? What do you think is the best way to go about this? David: Well, I do think it starts with engaging your people. You can engage your people in a lot of different ways. It can be done via email with a drip campaign.
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    14 m
  • Why Clients Don’t Buy & the Solution That Addresses Them All

    Why Clients Don’t Buy & the Solution That Addresses Them All
    Mar 11 2025
    There are reasons people buy from you, and reasons they don't buy from you. Today I'd share a presentation I put together for my clients in the print and promotional products industry that reveals many reasons why clients don't buy from you, and the one solution that addresses them all. Hi and welcome to today's presentation Why Promo Clients Don't Buy from You and the One Solution that Addresses Them All. I am so happy to have you with me today. This is a topic I find extremely interesting and extremely powerful. It's information that I've shared with my Inner Circle clients and our Total Market Domination clients. But I wanted to give you just sort of an overview of some of the things that you might be addressing. And when you address them correctly, you can actually create amazing solutions inside your business. So with that said, let's take a look at why promo clients don't buy from you, and then what we can do about it. Well, first of all, why don't they buy from you? One of the first, primary reasons that people don't buy from you is that they have no idea that you're alive. If they don't know you're alive, they can't buy from you. Next is that they don't know what you do. Obviously, if people have no idea of what you do, they're not going to come to you for solutions. This also ties into the next one, which is that they don't know how you can help them. If they have absolutely no idea how you can help them, no one is going to seek you out. Sometimes they may know you're alive, they may know what you do, they may know how you can help them, but they don't yet trust you. Another reason is that they don't know if they should trust you. Even if they can, they might not know if they should. Many of your prospects aren't going to know why you're different, and if they don't know why you're different from what they already have, or what they've already tried, then they have no incentive to try you. Next, they don't know if they can afford you. Obviously, they're not going to know what you charge or any of the above until you first overcome the problems that we addressed earlier. They won't take your calls. Obviously, if people aren't going to take your calls, then you're not going to be able to sell to them. Same thing if they won't return your calls. If you're calling people again and again and again, and they don't return your calls, they're not going to be able to buy from you. Next we have, "they already have someone." Have you ever heard that one? The answer, of course, is yes, you've probably heard that quite a lot, unless you have not been in business very long. They view you as a commodity. In the promotional products industry, this is relatively easy to do, because they look at it and they say, "Okay, if everybody has access to the same products and services, then why should I choose you?" Right? And one of the problems is that many distributors don't have a good answer to this either. If you don't know why they shouldn't view you as a commodity, you can't convey it to them, and so they're never going to know either. They're on social media and you're not. I've heard distributors tell me this. The reason they won't buy from me is that they're on social media and I'm not. I can't reach them. Okay, we'll talk about that, but the reverse is also true. They're not on social media and you are. "Oh yeah, they're not on social media. I'm trying to reach them and I can't." This is true. It's objectively true. If either of those scenarios are the case, if you're on social media and they're not, or they're on social media and you're not, then yes, you're not going to be able to reach them there and get those customers to buy from you. They don't know if your recommendations are any good. How can they possibly know that until you have an opportunity to really communicate with them? They don't know if your recommendations are going to work for them.
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    13 m
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