Expert Closers use Digital Marketing
How Digital Marketers can learn from seasoned sales professional PJ Cammarata of XpertClosers.com
Number one Rule!
Stay motivated & never give up - every no you receive is 1 more no closer to YES! Those who think they can & those who think they can't are both right - Stay Positive!
Best recommendations for sales success for Digital Marketers - It is still Sales!
1 - How to embody The SPECS for Success - Strength, Passion, Enthusiasm, Confidence & Sincerity!
2- Your Mindset is everything!
3- How to make a great statement followed by an even better tie down question & create YES momentum!
4- How to force a response using: Fair enough, Make sense & am I right or wrong!
5- Straight Line Persuasion!
6- Read the book Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Here’s an industry secret: LinkedIN is not the only way to get known!
Enjoy the show about Sales and Closing Leads with the PJ Cammarata of XpertClosers.com
The transcripts are also below! If you would like to be a guest, learn more and schedule your podcast with Jeff Stanislow here.
Also, if you like this and want to up skill your digital marketing networking and sales sills using social media. Check out this course!
The Host: Jeff Stanislow, CEO of Chief Internet Marketer
Transcript of the Digital Marketing Podcast
Jeff S.: 00:02 Hey, this is Jeff Stanislow, the Chief at Chief Internet Marketer, like to welcome PJ Cammarata from XpertClosers.com here with us. Today we're going to talk a little bit about sales and how digital marketers can improve their sales game. Welcome, PJ, how are you doing today?
PJ C.: 00:21 I'm doing well, Jeff. Thank you for having me.
Jeff S.: 00:23 Yeah, it's a pleasure. I think we talked a little bit before we got on the show and we talked a little about how a lot of digital marketers out there know their game whether it's a web developers or analyst or analytics specialist or Google specialists, but one of the things that they don't know is maybe how to sell.
PJ C.: 00:43 Yeah. I find that to be the case. I've been in the digital marketing world for about 12 or 13 years now and it always surprises me that many digital marketers their weak point is the sales side communicating their unique sales proposition and things of that nature.
Jeff S.: 01:07 Yeah, I mean, that's always one of the challenges in regards to it. You know, they might be from a technical background, but we always have the argument about like, which comes first, the product or the sales of the product. It's like almost equivalent to the chicken and the egg in the industry but one of the things that I have a question on personally is you see a lot of people in the digital marketing space relying on social media, maybe specifically Linkedin for B2B. You know what are you seeing out there in the marketplace and what are people, you know, missing the boat at when they're just using these social media sites to perform their sales tasks?
PJ C.: 01:52 Well, first let me say that using Facebook for instance, is great, but Facebook is changing its algorithms every few minutes. So it becomes very, very difficult to master Facebook. So what I do is, and what we do here at my companies is we use Linkedin to reach out to folks. Linkedin has about a half a billion users worldwide, and I think the number is about 200 million, are actively using it on a monthly basis. So what I do is I reach out to my perfect client or prospect through Linkedin, and of course you would want to have a sales navigator working for you as well. You can use that tool for free. There's no cost to it. You could reach out to about a hundred people a day without raising any red flags. Then there were also tools in the market, automated tools that can be used for digital marketers to use Linkedin to their advantage, and it basically works automatically to reach out to folks and then send multiple messages, continual messages, for an extended period of time until somebody responds back to you. Of course, once you get that response back, that's a conversation, whether it be, "no, thank you I'm not in need of anything, or any services of that sort," or it might be a question that is basically a buying signal.
Jeff S.: 03:34 So that's really interesting. In regards of Linkedin is a very powerful tool. Any insight into what type of messaging that someone might want to use to get a connection? I get often these messages and they're just not even close to being on target, you know. So maybe a few things that you would recommend for someone that's thinking about doing a Linkedin marketing campaign and the types of messaging that you think is successful.
PJ C.: 04:04 Well, you know, at first you have to not be salesy in that messaging. You know, you want to be more conversational and the initial message is basically just a connection message. Something like, "Hi Jeff, I see that we know many of the same folks after reading your profile so I thought it would be wise for us to connect. If you agree please accept," something like that, to get them in the door and then to start that messaging sequence whether it be manual or automatic. Then again, when you do message folks you want to be as conversational as possible without being salesy just sort of feeling out that prospect and looking for areas in which you can strike a nerve.
Jeff S.: 04:58 Yeah, I completely agree. You know, conversations work in real life and they work online. Nobody wants to introduce themselves and get yelled at about what they do. Right? You have some dialogue, you find some common ground and you respect each other and provide some value and then the relationship takes off from there. I think translates well into the digital world, if you take the time to do it.
PJ C.: 05:24 Absolutely. I agree.
Jeff S.: 05:26 So, you have this called "SPECS for success." Tell me a little bit about that process and what does it entail and what type of impact do you think it can have for someone?
PJ C.: 05:41 Well, I think it's critical to sales. I see selling as a sport most people see it as a difficult road to hoe, but for me it's a sport and I enjoy it. I teach my students to always be in control and to own it because if you're not in control, then the other person is in control and it's very hard to be persuasive when someone else is controlling the conversation. Most of what I do is by telephone. So, the SPECS for success came about 20 years ago when I was teaching folks this sort of strategy and technique. One of my students said, "well, that actually could be an acronym called SPECS." I said, "you know, you're right." SPECS stands for strength, passion, enthusiasm, confidence and sincerity. With those five traits all working in conjunction you become magnetic. It's very attractive because people, human beings in general, are attracted to strength and passion, enthusiasm, confidence, and folks that are sincere. So I find that to be a critical part of selling and being able to persuade someone whenever I speak whether it be to a prospect or while teaching of course, or maybe even right now, you'll notice that I speak with strength, passion, enthusiasm, confidence, and sincerity. It's not something that I tend to have to work on, right? I don't wake up in the morning and say, "Hey, PJ, you have to be strong today." That doesn't happen for me. It's just, it's a natural state of mind, and it's, like I said, it's essential to being successful in the sales world and it comes from having the proper mindset and without that proper mindset a salesperson loses before they even get into the fray. So that's something else that definitely needs to be mastered.
Jeff S.: 08:03 Yeah, I completely agree. You've struck on something that was really interesting about controlling the conversation and the dialogue. You know, one of my favorite conversations when I did some sales training a while back with a company called Max Sacks International. It's been a long time, but it was always like, ask the question and then shut up, and listen and be a listener.
PJ C.: 08:27 Well, you're right about that. As long as you ask the proper and the correct question, right? So what I teach is actually making a great statement followed by an even better question. I'll give you an example. In my digital marketing business where we generate a mortgage leads for mortgage pros. The way I might do that is by saying to a mortgage pro, "Jim, most home buyers will gravitate to the first or second quote they receive." That's the statement followed by an even better question, which is, "if I could put you in a position where you're giving the first quote, I would imagine you'd be a client of mine for life, am I right or wrong?" That prompts an answer, and when I get the answer that will give me my next direction. It'll help me to navigate through this conversation, to get from point A to point B, which is what I'm trying to accomplish. I call it staying on the straight line, straight line persuasion.
Jeff S.: 09:35 Wow, that's really fascinating. In regards to the, you know, just thinking about how powerful sales is and what have you. I also know one of the times it was like when sales becomes a process it ceases to become a problem. So it kind of aligns with your straight line sales model.
PJ C.: 09:57 Absolutely, you need to have a process when going into a sales call. That's what most people miss. They go into a sales call woefully unprepared in most cases. Of course when you're unprepared, you basically get your tail handed to you, and that's no fun. So, like I say one thing that I noticed in the 30 years that I've been doing this is that sales pros don't believe that they need to work on anything. It always surprised me because if you look at a pro athlete, every one of them has a great coach with them on a daily minute by minute basis. Sales pros also need that kind of a coach to help them through the difficult situations that may occur and to help them navigate that process and to be able to persuade someone and turn them from being negative, which is natural, right? A prospect is typically not a negative. It's just that their mindset is a negative mindset from the get go. So if you could take someone from that negative mindset and move them into a more positive mindset during the course of that conversation, it's very, very effective. I call that creating yes momentum. If I can get a client to say yes to me two or three times during the course of a call, it's very difficult for them later in the conversation to say no to me when we get to the point where we're closing the deal. So I will often equated to being in a car on a highway going 65 miles per hour. It's impossible to throw that car into reverse without, of course, turning the transmission into dust. So the same applies in a sales setting, and human nature. It's the same thing. It's all applicable. So if I ask a client a certain question that I know will bring me a yes response, I'm moving according to plan and process to get that client to say yes to me a number of times. Like for instance, when I was on Wall Street, I might say to a client, "Jim, you know, I've brought you three or four great deals in a row and we've not yet done business, but let me ask you this: if I could bring you three, four, maybe five great deals that double in value over the course of the next year, I would imagine you'd be a client of mine for life am I right or wrong?" Now that's going to prompt a yes answer most of the time, unless the person is completely illogical and not sensible. And I'm not shooting for those people, right? I'm targeting those that are logical, and sensible. So I ask questions that can only bring a yes response. Again, if I get the client to say yes a couple of few times I take him out of that negative initial mindset that a potential prospect usually has. I bring him more in, into a more positive mindset with a yes momentum going for me. Again, by the time I get to the end of the conversation, oftentimes the client is actually talking himself into buying my product. We all know that nobody likes to be talked into buying a product. They'd much rather make that decision for themselves. Make sense?
Jeff S.: 13:44 Yeah, it does. You know, oftentimes, like you mentioned, people kind of go into a sales environment. They got their guard up and you can get that momentum going in the right direction and get them agreeing with you. Their guard goes down and then the momentum continues to a logical decision, you know.
PJ C.: 14:02 Absolutely. I call it closing the deal without actually closing. So, you know, most sales people in sales methodologies are taught to close, always be closing. You hear that everywhere you go, the Sandler methods and this and that. I take a different approach to it. I speak with absolute logic and common sense so that when I get to the point where it's inevitable that we're going to be talking about using or buying my product, the client actually makes the decision for himself and I find it to be a heck of a lot more comfortable for me and also the client or the prospect.
Jeff S.: 14:45 Yeah, that's fantastic. I think you take a look back just at sales in general and it's a process. It's a procedure. And I think you hit on something that was really interesting that a lot of people in today's environment their over taxed with all this media input or all the things going on in their lives that they're not preparing themselves for a conversation or preparing themselves well, and what we know is the internet now also opens up a world of research capabilities for customers. So where the salesperson might've been a gatekeeper for information, they may not longer be. So you really have to rely on that process.
PJ C.: 15:28 No doubt about it. I also use something which I call going past the sale. What I mean by that is in the midst of the conversation where I'm making nothing but pure common sense and, and making a logical argument for my product or services, I will oftentimes go past the sale. I might say to the client, something like, "Jim, you know, if I'm able to hit the ball out of the park for you here all I would ask from you is that you give me a good referral, a good reference, and maybe a great testimonial that I could place on my site, would that be fair?" When you do that, you're putting the client in the position of ownership before he actually owns the product.
Jeff S.: 16:14 Perfect. Perfect. Hey, so one of the questions that I had for you being in a sales and marketing guy yourself, is I ask, tell me a little bit about maybe a current marketing campaign that you really like and why do you like it?
PJ C.: 16:31 Well, you mean like a television ad campaign or something like that?
Jeff S.: 16:37 Yeah, yeah. Just something that you're seeing that resonates with you being a professional salesperson and a consultant in that space. You know what do you think is doing it right?
PJ C.: 16:49 well, I'll tell you, I always find that humor is very effective. One thing that pops to mind is the Progressive commercials where the girl with the white suit or uniform on, she walks into her sister's home and the sister is on the spinning bike and she's pedaling at a snail's pace. The sister with the white uniform, Marge, I think her name is, and she's trying to get her attention, and the girl pedaling at a snail's pace says, "I'm blasting my quads, or cycling is my passion," and I find that to be very amusing and humorous. So, yeah, that's something that strikes a nerve with me.
Jeff S.: 17:35 Well, a lot of times too, in sales, that humor is a great icebreaker and it's catchy and takes down that guard, which is part of what you teach.
PJ C.: 17:47 Absolutely right. If you can get somebody to smile you're halfway home.
Jeff S.: 17:55 So, what best advice that you can give to someone that might be listening to this podcast about what you do and then tell me a little bit about that. Something that makes you unique and how you like to operate.
PJ C.: 18:11 Well, you know, I have a Wall Street background and on Wall Street we were taught initially to dial the phone 3 to 400 times a day. A lot of folks could not do that, but what it did for people that were able to do it was that it really trained you to become an expert on the telephone, and that's critical. So, what I do is I generally tell folks that those who think they can and those who think they can't are both correct. So it's a mind game. I'm a big believer in the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I've been teaching my students or telling my students to go read that book since the 80's when I basically started. That book is extremely instrumental in my career and my successes in life because Napoleon Hill, the author of the...and by the way, the book was written in 1936 but it's still to this day, a preferred book by many, many folks in the sales world especially. What Napoleon Hill did was something very unique. He created a mastermind group with I believe it was Alexander Graham Bell and Nelson Rockefeller and many other big millionaires at the time, you know, Henry Ford and so on. They would get together on a regular basis and just throw ideas back and forth and talk about what made them successful, and their failures as well they learned from. So, I think a good mastermind group is essential to success for any company, or any endeavor. If you could put together a great mastermind group it will definitely bring to the table ideas, strategies, and techniques, that one person alone may not have ever thought of. Many brains are more effective and valuable than just one in my opinion.
Jeff S.: 20:29 That's right. Yeah, I completely agree. You know, you bring the right like minded people together and you can do some great stuff. Tell us about how to contact you. You mentioned that you have an offer for a discussion that if someone is interested and then do they take advantage of that and you know, a little bit more on... close us, PJ.
PJ C.: 20:55 Well, my company is xpertclosers.com and that starts with an "x" for the x-factor, right? So, I invite our folks to contact me through xpertclosers.com, and I will actually offer an initial sales huddle, I call it, or think tank, where I will teach either an individual or a sales team. I'll give it about an hour of going over some of the topics we just discussed here today, Jeff. If that company or that person finds benefit and value in that, then they may want to become a paid member of our group which is very affordable and I guarantee ROI. So anybody that joins that group will clearly make more money than the fee to be involved with us.
Jeff S.: 21:50 Well, that's fantastic. I appreciate that offer, and it's xpertclosers.com with an "x."
PJ C.: 21:58 Yup.
Jeff S.: 22:01 Yup. Fantastic. I'll put the link in the page as well. PJ, I really appreciate your time and I think our listeners you know, one of the things that I know everybody struggles with is sales and no matter which platform or how you do it, if you're sending out smoke signals with a campfire you're looking for a reaction, you're looking for some dialogue. From that comes a process to doing some business together. So I appreciate your time, PJ.
PJ C.: 22:34 Certainly. Thank you so much, Jeff.