[00:00:00] Rory: [00:00:30] [00:01:00] [00:01:30] Come on and zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. Ha, yeah baby! Come on and zoom by zoom by zoom by zoom. Good, I got you loud and clear. Are you going to use any
[00:01:58] Corey: video? Nope, nope, we're just [00:02:00]
[00:02:00] Rory: going to have a conversation. No audio.
[00:02:01] Corey: Okay, great. Oh no, I'm sorry, we are going to
[00:02:03] Rory: use video. Okay, hang on now, I'm going to turn on my lights.
Okay. Turn on the lights, the party's over. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. I'm a lot more handsome in the light.
[00:02:22] Corey: It changes everything.
[00:02:23] Rory: It does. Mmm. Okay, there we go.[00:02:30]
Hi, I feel you on that. How you doing?
[00:02:36] Corey: I'm good. I've had a day. Um, it's been I just got off a podcast. I had two client calls Uh, all of which were amazing And, uh, but I wanted to save my juice for this call because I knew it was going to be the highlight of my day.
[00:02:51] Rory: It's going to be juicy. Yeah. And you, you know, you rich people, you have it rough working so hard.
I don't, you know, it doesn't happen for me
[00:02:59] Corey: like that. [00:03:00] These are high quality problems,
[00:03:01] Rory: Rory. They are. First world problems.
[00:03:04] Corey: That's it. Um, so I, I have a list of questions. I did, um, I did take notes from our call yesterday, um, but there was one thing I didn't get down. So, uh, we were talking about the, the target audience is these founder led business, founder led agencies who are struggling to kind of separate the sales function from themselves.
And you talked about, or you mentioned something about, you know, the 10 steps. [00:03:30] that they're, they need to do. What was that? Just so I have it
[00:03:32] Rory: down? Well, yeah, it's the 10 steps to take a sale from start to finish.
[00:03:37] Corey: Okay. That I think is a great thing because what you, what you ends up happening or in it, and we are recording right now, but this is not going to go on the podcast, but, um, uh, is that you have a lot of these founders who don't have any sales training.
They don't have any, you know, business training in some respects, right? And so they end up. Um, doing the best they [00:04:00] can, maybe learning from a YouTube video so they don't understand like the art and science of sales, right? And so I think that you sharing this would be extremely valuable. So I look forward to going through that.
Okay, good. Um, we also talked about the, the, the three, the three critical things, the moneyball example, which I love. I'd love for you to ask about, I'd love to ask you about what is a uniquely striking impression.
I was thinking about asking you, when should a [00:04:30] founder hire their first salesperson?
I don't know if you, if you have an opinion on that, and then I'll, I'll ask for your, just your advice, um, your overall advice for, um, you know, uh, companies that are, that are struggling with sales. Like you, you probably touched on that, but just kind of a recap question. Um, those are the questions that
[00:04:52] Rory: I have.
Okay. Wow. Let me, let me pull something up here. Please.[00:05:00]
Oh, there it is. Beautiful. Okay, I got what I need.
[00:05:20] Corey: Um, what is a win for you, Rory?
[00:05:24] Rory: So, I would like, I think there are, [00:05:30] the companies I really want to work with, are companies that are medium and large companies, maybe 500 million to 3 billion who have 120 people who want to be trained. Yeah. I mean, that would be ideal for me, but if I'm working with smaller companies, like you're talking about, it would, there would be a part of focus selling that would be really valuable to them.
And I call that the momentum skills, [00:06:00] approaching, connecting, uncovering. Yes. Get an appointment, find a project, write a proposal. It would really be five expertises. Approaching, connecting, uncovering, presenting, and adjusting. The social style stuff. And so, if I'm going to work with small companies, and they wanted to develop a sales function, that's how I would work with them.
But they would need to have people. You know, so it'd be best if they had [00:06:30] salespeople and they don't, I don't know what to do with these
[00:06:31] Corey: people. Yeah. And that's going to be definitely relevant for this audience. There's going to be people who are like, ah, you know, I won't say the name because of the recording, but you know, one of my clients, they, you know, they had salespeople and they were just not, not closing deals.
It was, it was not good. They just were clueless. Right. And so they just needed, they needed the Rory juice, you know, they needed, they needed your, your perspective and your systems and processes. So
[00:06:55] Rory: that's very valuable. Look, if you can't open a deal, you're not going to be able to [00:07:00] close the deal. Exactly.
Right? And most of the salespeople don't know how to open a deal. Yeah. So, the closing is like falling off a log, but if you don't know how to open, you're not going to close.
[00:07:13] Corey: Beautiful. Okay. Excellent. So, the way that I, any other questions for me before we get started?
[00:07:20] Rory: No. Let's
[00:07:21] Corey: go. I'm just writing that quote down.
Falling off a log.
[00:07:27] Rory: I love that.[00:07:30]
[00:07:32] Corey: Okay. So there's a pre recorded intro. So, uh, we don't have to do that. I will, uh, we'll just kick it off by saying today I'm joined by Rory Clark. Welcome Rory. And I'm going to ask you to just introduce yourself and a little bit about your background and we'll go into the questions. Okay, great. So, I have an editor who will edit all this other stuff out, so don't
[00:07:51] Rory: worry about it.
Good.
[00:07:54] Corey: Today, I'm joined by Rory Clark. Welcome,
[00:07:56] Rory: Rory. Hey, thanks, Cory. It's good to be with
[00:07:59] Corey: you. [00:08:00] So good to see you again, my friend. Could you introduce yourself to those listeners who may not be familiar with you and
[00:08:06] Rory: your background? I can. So, I think I can tell you a funny story. I never wanted to be in sales.
Okay. I wanted to be a hockey broadcaster. But the job for the Chicago Blackhawks was taken by Lloyd Pettit, so I had to look for something else to do to get to Chicago. And really, a lot of my [00:08:30] teachers and mentors bullied me into sales because they said, Well, you've got a great personality, you should go into sales.
And so I did, and I started working at CBS Radio in Chicago, and then they said that word that scared me to death. You have a quota.
But after six years in selling, I realized something very important that whenever I didn't know what to do, and I went to my managers, they [00:09:00] couldn't tell me what to do. So I was thinking, and they used to always. They used to always say to me, Rory, if I have to tell you what to do, why do I need you? And I would say, well, if you can't tell me what to do, why do I need you?
And so they said, well, God, Rory, you're so difficult. But I didn't think I was. So it was really apparent to me. That if I was going to be in sales and if I was going to ever be excellent at it, that I was going to have to make my own system. [00:09:30] And that system is called focus selling. And what I like doing is taking it into a company and helping them double sales in a couple of years.
So I think that's the essence of me. I mean, I can tell you that I was PO and now I ain't. I can tell you that I was a bat boy for the White Sox when I was a kid. I can tell you I went to Northwestern University, which is why I always root for lousy football and, and other sports teams. But I think that's the essence of it, that [00:10:00] over the last four decades, I've become an expert in sales and I'm probably one of the best salespeople
[00:10:06] Corey: in the world.
Well, I can tell you firsthand and the people listening to this that I've, I've learned tremendous amount from you personally and professionally. You and I met back in my days at Scorpion where you were, yeah, the sales trainer there and you, you helped to revolutionize everything we did there. And I can attest that you more than doubled the revenue in a couple of
[00:10:27] Rory: years.
Oh boy, we blew, yeah, [00:10:30] we blew up. We really blew up,
[00:10:32] Corey: it was great. Yeah, I mean, obviously it was a, it was a team effort, of course, but you were, you were a part of that. Could you share a little bit more about what focus selling is and, you know,
[00:10:39] Rory: how it works? Yeah, so focus selling is a complete customer development system, and when companies take it on as a, as a company, typically they'll put 50 people in a session, there'll be 5, 10 person teams, and they'll be working on an account [00:11:00] and a project as they learn, and they'll learn every expertise in customer development In 30 business days, 10 three day sessions to learn 18 expertises.
And as they learn the expertises, then they'll go and use them. Smaller companies ingest that on a smaller basis. They use fewer of the expertises. Let's say five of the expertises, but the result is the same. They, they revolutionary change, [00:11:30] revolutionarily change how they approach selling, which is
[00:11:34] Corey: fantastic.
And I think just for the listening, just the listening audience is probably going to be on the smaller end of the, uh, of the spectrum here. These are probably agency owners and founders who have, let's say between, you know, maybe as few as a couple, but most, uh, you know, including agencies that have 10, 20, 30, maybe 50, a hundred employees.
Obviously there's a lot of. Variants in there, but how would [00:12:00] you apply sort of focus selling to an agency who's looking to maybe separate sales from the founder? Many agencies are sort of founder led, uh, sales where they may be tapping into their professional network and they're getting leads and closing deals, but.
When they want to grow, you know, the, the founder can, they have to separate that sales function and really develop a professional approach, uh, to, to sales. That doesn't mean the founder isn't involved, but it's not [00:12:30] dependent on the founder. Like how do you, how do you approach that, that problem?
[00:12:34] Rory: Well, Corey, founders really aren't important.
No, here's the thing. If you've ever read the book, The Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, he nails it. He says we typically get our money in, in our careers from four sources. Maybe we start as an employee, but then we get really sick of it. So we become self employed. Well, when we move from [00:13:00] employee to self employed, what we really have done is put a noose around our neck and choke ourselves to death.
And that's where the book, The E Myth by Michael Gerber comes in. He says that most people who become self employed are technicians. And they want to keep being technicians. And in the case of a marketing agency, they're, they were good at marketing as an employee. They want to be good at marketing as a self employed owner, but that's not the only thing they have [00:13:30] to do.
They also have to be, they have to be a great technician, of course, but they also have to manage and they have to be entrepreneurial. And typically the technician doesn't want to do those other two things. So when they figure out that they need them, they just get somebody and say, here, you do that. That doesn't work.
That does not work. And so then they feel like they have to be connected to every part of the business. You can't grow that way. Now, I want to [00:14:00] say that again, you can't grow that way. And furthermore, I know founders know they can't grow that way, but they're going to try to grow that way anyway. Yeah. You have to separate yourself.
Okay. So let's say you separate yourself and you bring in a sales team. How do you manage those beasts? That's what I can help with because I, uh, a friend of mine just hired five people, five salespeople now. [00:14:30] He's going to nurture them for two years while getting no revenue. And then he's going to get tired of it after two years and let four of them go.
Well, I think there is something that you can know in 30 days about a salesperson that will let you know whether you should keep them or not, which is that it, that is, are they able to set and keep appointments if they aren't able to set and keep appointments, if they can't start a sale? [00:15:00] They'll never be able to finish a sale.
[00:15:03] Corey: What about the agency that says, well, hey, you know, we have a lot of inbounds, but we want to, we want to also do some outbounding. We want our sales guys to actually pick up the phone and, you know, help us to sell more deals outside of what's already coming in the front door. Like, how would you
[00:15:19] Rory: approach that?
Well, the problem with inbound is that you get what comes, right? And if you like donuts and all [00:15:30] that's coming in is cookies. That's not good. But when you outbound, if you say you like donuts, you go out and look for donuts and that's the benefit of outbounding. You can go get the exact customers you want instead of taking what's coming to you.
And so if you can't develop a Salesforce that outbounds, then you'll never get what you want. And what that means is you won't be getting profitable [00:16:00] accounts. You'll just be getting accounts.
[00:16:02] Corey: But how do you, how do you profitably bring in an outbound, um, uh, sales effort to an inbound only
[00:16:09] Rory: sales team? Well, you have to teach them how to go out and out.
And I think there are five expertises that they need to know. They need to be able to approach customers. Which is calling them to get appointments. Once they get the appointment, they need to be able to [00:16:30] connect, which means to get the person they're interacting with to let their guard down, because adults are big phonies.
They'll be smiling at you, but behind that smile is. I hate you, I hate salespeople, and I don't believe anything you're saying. You've got to get them to relax and let their guard down. Then the uncovering skill, you've got to shut up and get rich. You've got to not talk, but instead question them so they tell you what they want.
[00:17:00] And then once you know what they want, and you've told them that you know what they want, and they've said, yeah, that's exactly what I want, then you make a proposal. So that's presenting, and then one of the most important skills is recognizing the, the different, four different social skills of people, so that you can adjust to them, because 75 percent of the time, we're interacting with people who are different from us.
So rather than always trying to [00:17:30] bring them to us, we need to go to them. So I am open and direct, but when I'm interacting with somebody who's indirect and contained, they don't want me to say, Oh, you just trust me. It's going to be great. You'll love it. I guarantee. I promise they want evidence. So if I'm trying to sell to them that way, it won't resonate with them.
But if I bring them tons of evidence so they can make decisions quickly. Then that's better. So we need [00:18:00] to understand those four social styles and how to appeal to each one.
[00:18:05] Corey: I know there's a lot behind each of these five, um, steps, um, that you mentioned.
[00:18:11] Rory: That's right. Yeah.
[00:18:12] Corey: Five expertises, five e excuse me, five expertises.
Could you, could you maybe share one or two behind each? So like approach, like what is, what do you have to get right to
[00:18:21] Rory: for approaching. Okay, so when you call somebody, you're interrupting them. You've got 45 seconds to make a point. [00:18:30] So if you say, I want, cause I want, I want an appointment, cause I want, I want, that's not appealing to them.
But if you say, you know, Corey, my understanding, is that you're the founder of a business and you really are not able to get your salespeople to make outbound calls the way you want. Now, I don't really know if I can help or not, but it would at least be worth a 30 minute conversation where you [00:19:00] could tell me what you're trying to do and I can tell you if I can help.
That's something that people would want to make an appointment for. When I'm talking to them in other focus language, which is what they want to hear. Now what I want to have, that's effective. They'll make the appointment with you. All right, when you get the appointment, you've got to get them to let your, their guard down.
And so if I tell you, Rory, if you want to be good with customers, you got to connect, you'd say, [00:19:30] duh, Rory, you have an amazing grasp of the obvious. But if I asked you the seven things that they need to hear to reduce their suspicion and to let their guard down, You probably don't know what those are, but once you know what they are, you can do them in 10 minutes instead of 10 months.
Can you
[00:19:51] Corey: share, yeah, so what, can you share the
[00:19:53] Rory: seven? I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, I cannot share the, uh, yeah, so what do they want to know? [00:20:00] What's the objective of the meeting? What's the agenda for the meeting? What are your motives? What's in it for me to have the meeting and what's in it for you to have the meeting?
A lot of times we tell them what's in it for them to have the meeting, but we never tell them what's in it for us to have the meeting, which raises their suspicion. They want to know what we have in common. Are we alike? Because the more I perceive that you're like me, the less threatened I am by you.
They want to know if you're their kind of person. If I [00:20:30] come to a meeting in a t shirt and they're in a suit, Maybe I'm not their kind of person. If I, if I'm like talking like this and like, like. And they speak the King's English. Maybe I'm not their kind of person. So I have to let them know that in dress and manners and in speech, I'm like them.
Then they want to know who my company is and they don't want to know, well, you know, our founder grew up in a station wagon and [00:21:00] made shoes in the back seat. They want to know 50 companies. The 50 best companies around the world have trusted us to help them double their sales. And here's what they've said.
Not what I'm saying about myself, but what others say about me. And then they want to know about my personal credentials. And they don't want to know, well, I am, I am, I am. They want to know, you know, when you work with an executive like me. You get a person who's taken [00:21:30] five companies in the last two years to nearly triple their sale.
And I can certainly provide that information so you can talk to them. Yeah. So,
[00:21:42] Corey: go ahead. Real quick, I, you know, having been in sales myself as a sales guy selling high, you know, high end B2B. Agency, you know, deals, six, seven figure deals. Um, I just, what I love about working with you already in the past and just, you know, what you're saying is that your, your [00:22:00] system really clarifies the specific things that are needed and, you know, at the same time excludes all the other noise, right?
You have seven things specifically that you need to do to be able to connect. I think that is so, so powerful. Um, so I just, it was just occurring to me as, as you were going through those seven, which I am familiar with, but it is. Um, you know, it is very much a science and, and, uh, I just, uh, admire, admire all of this.
Let's talk about uncovering. [00:22:30] So what, what happens once you've been able to connect
[00:22:31] Rory: with them? Yeah. And I just want to say, it's not a science, it's a discipline. Okay. And, and the difference between a science and a discipline is a discipline is something with that you do the same way every time. And that's what the magic is.
One of the parts of the magic of focus selling is that you're doing the same thing every time, and all of your people are doing the same thing every time. So when you say, well, how did you connect with them? Oh, well, I had a plaid jacket on, and we [00:23:00] back slapped, and we went to lunch, and we were schmoozing, and I was giving them my spiel.
Now, there were seven things I had to communicate. I communicated them, and as I did, you could just see them breathe, and their whole guard came down. And we're all doing that, as opposed to we're all doing something different. A leader doesn't want to have ten people and manage ten processes. They just don't.
Okay, uncovering. Alright, [00:23:30] so, I've got the appointment with you, and I've gotten you to let your guard down and be comfortable with me. Now, what do I want to do as a salesperson? I want to tell you what I, what I've got. I want to tell you about my stuff. Features one, if it, yeah, I wanna show you a PowerPoint presentation with 60 slides and 10 point type that you can't read, and I want to talk a hole in your ear, not a no.
Shut up and get rich. So now you move to the next part. [00:24:00] And this next part, the way I envision it, is I've invited you into a sacred room. I've connected with you, and I've invited you into a sacred room. And in that room, everything I do is going to be clinical. And what clinical means is non interference.
I'm going to let you talk, and I'm not going to interfere. And there are three questions that will get [00:24:30] 70 percent of the information from you. If I don't interfere, uh, salespeople don't like that. They want to interfere. So Rory, you said you want to grow your business. Tell me one thing you want to do.
Well, you know, when I get a lead, I don't. I have to follow everything up personally. So if I have 10 leads, I have a lot of activity. Oh, Rory, we've got this thing where we automate your, [00:25:00] your 10 leads in it. All right. All right. Go ahead. Tell me all about it. 'cause I'm just gonna shut up now, right? Yeah, you lost them.
You lose them. All right, so I'm gonna ask you three questions. The first question is, in this project you're working on, what's your desired situation? In other words, what do you want? Excuse me. What salespeople will do... Is they will ask them what they have [00:25:30] now. They'll ask them about the current situation and 75 to 90 percent of their questions will be about the current situation.
That's not where the money is. But as soon as you ask somebody what their desired situation is, it's just like you turned electricity on under their chair because they really haven't thought about it because they're all in the current situation. So they say, okay, well, one of the things I want is to.[00:26:00]
Have a way to automate contacts with customers, so they always feel like I'm there even when I'm not. Okay, what else do you want? And then they'll tell me another thing, and I'll say, what else do you want? And they'll tell me another thing, and I'll say, what else do you want? And I'll keep saying what else.
What else do you want until they stop? And as they're telling me it, I write everything down that they say word for word. Can I ask
[00:26:27] Corey: a question? Yeah. What do you, [00:26:30] what do you do when you're, um, you're dealing with someone on the phone, a prospect who's resistant? They're, they may not be crossing their arms, but that's their, that's their energy.
They're not opening up. How do you, how do you get them to open up more?
[00:26:45] Rory: You failed in connecting. A lot of times what we'll do is we'll go right into uncovering without connecting. And so connecting is where you move them from resistance to readiness. But if you don't do that [00:27:00] successfully, when you get to uncovering, you're going to feel the resistance.
[00:27:03] Corey: Is there a signal? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:05] Rory: Well, it's just like when you go to McDonald's. You go to McDonald's, what's the first thing? May I help you? Okay, they're in uncovering. When you go to In N Out Burger, what do they say? How you doing today? They connect before they uncover. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, the signal of resistance is very little information flow.
Yeah. So if the information flow is [00:27:30] surfaced, And a little bit, you didn't connect. Maybe I should tell you why I'm asking these questions. What I think is in it for you to have this meeting is you'll get to know whether there's somebody outside of you who can help you do what founders do while helping the salespeople do with salespeople.
Now, what I get to do is work with your salespeople and you'll [00:28:00] pay me. And I like being paid.
[00:28:04] Corey: But the, the, the, the lesson here is that if you're getting sales resistance, um, you know, then the, uh, then the uncovering, sorry, the connecting piece is, is where you have failed to date or in that, in that exchange, you need to go back and, and reconnect with them so that they can feel, uh, ready to start to share their true desired state where they really
[00:28:26] Rory: want to go.
Absolutely. And you know, if I had [00:28:30] known this when I was dating, I would have had a lot more dates because you know, you can't, you can't figure out why a woman doesn't want to go out with you again. Well, you never connected, right? Because in the, in the date, you were doing all the talking about you and she didn't find that fascinating.
But when you were doing all the talking about her, maybe she goes, she lets her guard down and now you can find out what she likes. Yeah. [00:29:00] It's really cool.
[00:29:01] Corey: Yeah. So you, you ask, you open with desired situation. What are the two other
[00:29:06] Rory: questions? The next question after you got all of the desired situation is what are some of the obstacles that are blocking you from getting to the desired situation?
They'll tell you one because people will communicate the superficial all the way down to the meaningful. Okay. What's another obstacle that's blocking you from getting to the desired situation? [00:29:30] Okay, you write that down. Okay, what's another obstacle that are blocking you from getting to the desired situation?
Now when I teach this, people say, won't they be sick of your repetition? No, people are never sick of you finding out what they want and then shutting up and listening to it because that never happens for people. People aren't listened to and they really, it really bothers them. All right, so now you've got all the desired situation, you've got all of the obstacles blocking the desired situation.[00:30:00]
When salespeople get those two pieces of data, they know what the cost of inaction is, so they won't ask it. But the next question is, what's the cost of keeping the current situation the same? And you don't ask that because you don't know. You ask that because they haven't thought about it. So these three questions are creating internal angst.
in people so that [00:30:30] they go from, or I already know I got, this is my situation. I already know what to do too. Wow. I never really thought about what I wanted. I really never assessed what was in the way of getting it. And I really didn't assess what happens if I do nothing. That's 70 percent of it right
[00:30:50] Corey: there.
What's the other 30 percent I'm curious.
[00:30:53] Rory: Well, the other 30 percent is them filling in, uh, the current situation. Are you asking questions that are important [00:31:00] to you? Like, are you going to be buying in the next 12 months? Did you bother to put a budget aside for this? Who are the people in the organization that are participating in this decision?
What's their level of influence? There's a lot of self focused things you want to know, but only after you found out the other focus things,
[00:31:21] Corey: the next step is proposal or presenting.
[00:31:23] Rory: Yeah, well, there's a step before that. Okay. You might check their alternatives because [00:31:30] you aren't the only person who sells what you sell.
So you can ask them, okay, so I've gotten you to let your guard down. And you've told me what you want, but you've probably talked to other companies, correct? Yeah. All right. Now you're going behind their eyes and you imagine that they have three, three proposals in front of them. You say, okay, who did you talk to?
What did you like? What do you wish was different? And they [00:32:00] tell you all that. Oh, so she was like, oh, I can't ask them that. Okay. Well, don't just make your proposal. Without knowing what their alternatives are so that your proposal will be like every proposal that's in front of them. And now you're a commodity and you're going to, it's going to be about price.
But if I know that this company has X, but they don't have Y, this company has A, but they don't have Z, I can make a proposal that is [00:32:30] different than the others, not better. I can talk about, yeah,
[00:32:35] Corey: go ahead. I was going to say, you do that before you start writing the proposal. Like that, those are questions that will allow you to get to the point where you can start creating a proposal.
[00:32:43] Rory: That's right. Cause your proposal does three things. Here's what you told me you wanted. And I wrote it down word for word. Here's what we have that can do what you want. And here's why this is different from what else [00:33:00] you're considering. That's a proposal. Now, typically in a proposal, you'll see two of those things, but you won't see the third.
[00:33:11] Corey: What would you say to someone who came to you and said, gosh, you know, I keep saying these proposals out and they ghost me. Don't hear back from them. What am I doing wrong?
[00:33:21] Rory: I would say, I would say, take your medication. So look. One of the things that I always [00:33:30] do when I meet with a customer is I tell them to show me their email inbox.
And so I went to one CEO and I said, show me your inbox. And he had 500 emails in the inbox. I'm going to send my proposal. into a 500 item inbox? No, I'm not doing that. I don't send proposals out. I deliver proposals. We make an appointment. I take you through the proposal point by point. [00:34:00] I don't send it.
And they're not ghosting you. They're busy. And if you don't get their attention, you're not going to be in good shape. So I'll get a person's name, their email address, and their mobile phone. I send them an email. Then I send them a text. Check email. I sent you this. And then if they don't respond, second send.
I sent you this. Here's another text. And I just had a guy, had this happen with a [00:34:30] guy. I sent him, uh, the notes from our inquiry call and he didn't respond for four days. And then when he did respond, the first thing he says is, Rory, thanks for your patience. Well, he was busy. He wasn't ghosting me, he was busy, but, but I had his email address, I had his phone number, I texted him, I, I sent him the email and he finally responded and he told me what his concern was.
And now we're on to the [00:35:00] next step.
[00:35:00] Corey: Beautiful. Um, anything else in the proposal slash presenting step before we get to adjusting
[00:35:07] Rory: social styles? Yeah, so in the proposal, what I want to do is now that you've told me what you want, I want to show you how you can get what I have to offer you for free. Like, you're going to invest in it, but if I give you a return on investment that is equal to what you invested, then it's free, but you still [00:35:30] got what I gave you.
So, for example, in the, in the 10 five person team situation, I'm teaching your people focus selling. You're paying for it. You're paying for them to come to the session. And let's say you paid a million dollars for it. Well, I've got 10 teams that are working on million dollar proposals or a million dollar accounts.
One of them wins it. They paid for it. Three of them win it. [00:36:00] You paid for it, plus you got three other things. That's what I want to create for a customer. I don't want them to have to pay for my services.
[00:36:08] Corey: Yeah, and the subtext there is that you're explicitly showing them how they're going to get to ROI versus letting the, you know, assuming that they are making the, sort of connecting the dots for you.
So you have to be literal in that, in that
[00:36:21] Rory: communication. Yeah, that's right, because what they're not articulating, but what they're thinking is how much return on investment, how [00:36:30] soon, and how certain. And if your proposal doesn't answer that, then they go off thinking it, but you're not there to help them work through that.
So
[00:36:43] Corey: talk a little bit more about the four social styles. There's a lot, there's a whole sort of discipline around this, but you know, how do you, how would you boil it down? Just give people a sense of how that works. Yeah,
[00:36:55] Rory: so it's really easy. There are two questions that you can [00:37:00] ask when you're looking at a person who's in front of you.
Are they direct or indirect? That's the assertiveness scale. Do they keep feelings in or are they open? And that matrix provides for social style. The direct, the direct and contained style we call drivers. They're very results oriented, and when they're mad at you, they dictate. [00:37:30] There's the direct open style, expressives.
They are collaborative, and when they're mad at you, they attack you personally. There is the indirect and open style, we call them amiables. They are relationship oriented, and when they're mad, when they're mad at you, they comply. They say yes, but they mean no. So you could say, well, do you like this? And they'll say, oh, yeah, this is [00:38:00] great.
As a matter of fact, let's sign up for it. And by the time you get home, they call you, they call you to cancel. And then there is the indirect and contained style. We call them analytical. They are very proof oriented. And when they get mad at you, they avoid you. They retreat to rethink and reapproach. So I'm expressive.
I'm direct and open. [00:38:30] So when I'm working with somebody who's direct and contained, I need to turn my emotion down because they just want the facts. They don't want the feeling when I'm working with somebody who's indirect and contained, they want proof. They don't want yabba dabba doo. Trust me, you'll love it.
And when I'm working with amiables, I need to turn down my direct because they don't necessarily appreciate directness. What, what is
[00:38:56] Corey: the importance of this in [00:39:00] terms of sales? I mean, why, why should I adjust my. My directness, um, if I'm just trying to close a deal.
[00:39:07] Rory: Because you want to do unto others as they want to be done unto.
When I teach in Japan, it's not a direct culture. And so, when I interact with a Japanese guy and I'll say, Hey, how'd you like the session? They do what I call the teeth suck. When I'm too [00:39:30] direct with them, yeah, nothing. Roy san, it's very interesting to know how you Americans think. What does that even mean?
Well, they're being indirect and they're saying the way you Americans think is awful. And you don't find that out until you go out with them at night, because there's a rule in the Japanese culture that If I say something mean to you at night, you have to forgive me in the [00:40:00] morning. So that's where you find out what people really think.
So I hire a translator when I'm in Japan who softens my directness. And he speaks Japanese and a lot of times he'll, I'll say something and he'll translate it and I'll say, that's not what I said. And he'll say, I wasn't willing to tell them what you said.
[00:40:25] Corey: Yeah. You don't
[00:40:26] Rory: want, you don't want them to, you don't want them to hear that.
They don't want to hear that. I said, [00:40:30] you do know these people speak English, right?
[00:40:36] Corey: I'd love to go to Japan with you sometime.
[00:40:38] Rory: That's awesome. Yeah, it's a blast. I love it
[00:40:40] Corey: there. But the, uh, the, but the takeaway here that you, uh, help your clients with is helping to meet the buyer where they are so that they can ultimately, uh, connect and uncover, which is, which is really the, the, the, the raw material you need as a salesperson to be able to be, uh,
[00:40:59] Rory: successful.[00:41:00]
That's right. The foundational book for focus selling is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's the best book on sales ever written, that it's not a book on sales, it's a book on how to treat people. And it's how to treat people the way they want to be treated, as opposed to the way you want to treat them.
That's a huge lesson. That's why focus selling is a system. It's not sales training. And every part of that [00:41:30] system is other focused and none of it is self focused.
[00:41:35] Corey: Can you talk more about that? I think that's super powerful, uh, you know, coming from a market now, a marketing focus, you know, what companies tend to default to is Being the hero of the story versus being the guide is, you know, our, um, when the people, you were just on Donald Miller's podcast, he talks a lot about the, um, uh, the hero versus the guide and that [00:42:00] the client is the hero.
That's very much, to me, that's more of a, of a other's focus when you're writing copy or when you're selling, helping to make sure that. You know, it's about them versus me and my, my business, my, my, my glass surrounded building and my product and my features and benefits and all those things.
[00:42:18] Rory: Yeah, boy, I love Donald Miller.
He is so crystal clear about how to make things other focused and how to make things appeal to other [00:42:30] people instead of us just talking about ourselves all the time, which is a complete waste of time. And, uh, so. Yeah. Well, I lost track of the question you asked because I got so into thinking about that.
I know. I know.
[00:42:46] Corey: I just, I think we're just connecting on the, the, the, the other's focus and the, the power of that. And I love that you, that, that sort of is a line that, that goes all the way through your system. Um, I wanted, I wanted to ask [00:43:00] you this, this terminology that we adopted at Scorpion, um, but I think it's yours.
It's, it's uniquely, uniquely striking impression. Could you define what a uniquely striking impression is?
[00:43:12] Rory: Yeah, so if I'm calling you on the phone to get an appointment, I'm just like everybody else to you. This is just a telemarketer trying to waste my time, but I can actually do research before I call you and [00:43:30] send you something that predisposes you to want to take my call.
So I do research on you and I find out that you went to the University of Wisconsin. So I get on Amazon And I get a little badger doll because the Wisconsin badgers. And so I have that and I attach my business card to it. And I say, don't mean to badger you, but I sure would like an appointment. And I send that to you.
You're going to be much more [00:44:00] predisposed to meet with me than if I just call. And so there are some really inexpensive ways. to predispose somebody to want to meet with you because you bothered to let them know that you did research. Before you called. And that's what a uniquely striking impression is to me is something that, wow, it just gets the person's appointment.
I remember early [00:44:30] on in my career, and this spans back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, this guy was interviewing with my boss for a sales job and he came in and he had this gigantic framed item and. In the picture frame, it said money back guarantee. And so he's toting this into the boss said, what is this?
He said, if you hire me, I'm, it's a [00:45:00] 90 day process. I'm going to be on probation, self imposed probation for 90 days. And when you give me a check, I'm not going to cash those checks for 90 days. And on the 91st day, I'm going to come into your office. I'm going to put the checks on your desk. I'm gonna ask you if I can cash them.
And if you say, no, the money's yours. So you have a money back guarantee, you have nothing to lose by hiring me. And in 90 days, if you don't know if I'm any good, then that's on [00:45:30] you. But you'll know whether you want to keep me or not. The guy was hired without an interview, . Why? Because of a uniquely striking impression.
Right?
[00:45:39] Corey: Right. No one's doing that. You're, you're capturing their attention, you're leaving a positive impression, you're interrupting them in a positive way. That's, that's, well, we, we took your, your idea and you were a part of this. We, we just ran with it and hard. We ran way down the field with it. Cause it's so
[00:45:56] Rory: powerful.
Yeah. And it worked. That's the cool thing. It [00:46:00] worked. Yeah.
[00:46:02] Corey: Well, I wanted to, I have just two more questions for you as we wrap up here, Rory. I think all of this wisdom is super powerful and it's really relevant for the audience. Um, what would you say to a small agency owner who maybe has a couple of salespeople, but they're just not effective?
How would you, what would you say is, you know, the way out of that situation? How would you
[00:46:22] Rory: coach them? Yeah. So, one of the things that I would have them do is watch the movie Moneyball. [00:46:30] And what's really cool about Moneyball is... There are all these guys who are experts in baseball, and they're scouts, and oh, I know talent when I see it, and I know this when I see it, and then, and then in comes this nerd out of Yale or Harvard or somewhere, and he said to the baseball community, you're overpaying for the guys that you purchase.
And [00:47:00] everybody said, no we're not. Said, yes you are, and let me tell you why. What kind of guys are you looking for? And they said, oh, we want guys who can run, hit, hit with power, throw and catch. And the guy said, no you don't. You want a guy who can do three things. First, you want a guy who can get on base.
Because if the guy can get on base, he can score runs. If your score runs, you win games. You win games, you get to go to the playoff. So every person that you bring in, you're paying [00:47:30] them to get on base to score runs so you can win. It's the exact same in sales. It's only three things that I'm watching with salespeople.
Can you keep appointments? Can you identify projects? Can you write proposals? Can you keep appointments? That's called approaching. Can you identify projects? That's called connecting and uncovering. And then can you write proposals? That's called presenting. That's how you win business. But [00:48:00] what will small business owners do?
They'll be looking for the magic formula and the potion. The potion is, you get a salesperson in for 30 days, you tell them your first assignment is to set and keep 60 appointments in a month. If they can't do that, they can't start the sale. If they can't start the sale, they're never going to finish the sale.
So you have to have somebody who not only can set appointments and keep them, but who [00:48:30] wants to set appointments and keep them. Otherwise, they're just going to be sitting around waiting for inbounds. Sorry. And you could find that out in 30 days. That's not what, because owners don't have the expertise in selling, they don't look at it that way.
[00:48:48] Corey: That's right. I can't think of anyone other than yourself to help these type of agency owners to, um, you know, coach them through this process. So one last, one last question, Rory, [00:49:00] what is your motivation? Well,
[00:49:03] Rory: my mom ruined me, Corey. Now, my mom was 38 years old with four kids under the age of 11, two kids under the age of two with two divorces under her belt, making 14, 000 a year.
So she raised four kids all by herself and three of the kids didn't listen to one thing she said [00:49:30] and really wanted nothing to do with her. My strategy was whatever you're doing, I'm going to do the opposite. So I listened to her. So when I was 14 years old, she gave me a book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
And she said, I want you to read this book from cover to cover every month for a year. And at the end of the month, I want you to tell me the three things you learned this month. And any, if any of the things you [00:50:00] tell me in a month are the same as anything you told me in another month, I'm going to add another month onto the end.
So it had to be three different things every time. Well, I did that. And it ingrained a philosophy in me. And the philosophy was them first, then you. So when I'm interacting with somebody, I want to help them first. And then I know that they will help me. That's my motivation. [00:50:30] My motivation is all about people and all about being there for people.
And I know that if I'm there for them, they'll be there for me. And when you take that into the selling profession, you're completely unique, because salespeople don't think that way. They'll walk you, a car salesperson will walk you in. Now this is the sales board, and if you buy a car from me today, I'll go from number two to number one.
Oh, oh, oh [00:51:00] wow, I can't wait to give you 50 grand, cannot wait, I am so excited to help you. And that makes no sense to me, you know, and I'm a Christian. So I believe in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I believe that he has directed my entire life and, and the way he's directed my life is to serve people that way.
And I just absolutely love it. Work is not work for me. It's, it's just [00:51:30] passion. I'm passionate about it. I love doing it. And, you know, I like getting paid, don't get me wrong, but the real pay is when I see people take something that I've helped them with and use it for their benefit. That's beautiful.
[00:51:46] Corey: Where can people find you and if they want to reach out to you, what's a good way for them to do that?
[00:51:51] Rory: So I'm on LinkedIn and they can also contact me through GoFocusSelling. com, which is the [00:52:00] website, or they can send me a note at RoryJClark at AOL. com. I'm one of the five people still on AOL. Me and about four other really old people.
So those are three ways. So LinkedIn, GoFocusSelling. com or RoryJClark at AOL. com. I'm not hard
[00:52:23] Corey: to find. No, we'll, uh, we'll make sure that that's in the show notes and, uh, Roy, thank you for taking time out of your [00:52:30] busy schedule to meet with me and to, to share all this wisdom with the audience. It's been great.
So
[00:52:34] Rory: thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me on. I'm a close friend of yours. And what am I, the 800th person that you met on the podcast?
[00:52:42] Corey: I'm saving the best for, for, you know, you know, last. Evidently.
[00:52:46] Rory: Yeah. But thanks, Corey. Best of luck to you and everything you're doing. You are killing it.
[00:52:53] Corey: Aw, thanks, Corey. I appreciate that.
All
[00:52:55] Rory: right, man. Take care. See you, bud.[00:53:00]
[00:53:01] Corey: Cool. I'm just going to stop the recording.
