Episode 54: David Newman – How to Scale Your Business From Where It Is to Where You Really Want It to Be

David Newman 00:00

Making sales social for me is really about helping before pitching and serving before selling. You know, everyone is so concerned about being a better salesperson, be a better salesperson, improve your sales skills. He says, “You know, don’t worry about being a better salesperson. Just be a better person, and you’ll sell more.”

Bob Woods  00:24

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast! Featuring the top voices in sales and marketing. Join hosts Brynne Tillman and Bill McCormick, as they discuss the best tips and strategies they are teaching their clients. So you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Here are your hosts, Brynne Tillman and Bill McCormick.

Bill McCormick  01:02

Hey, welcome to Making Sales Social! I’m Bill McCormick.

Brynne Tillman  01:05

I’m Brynne Tillman. 

Bill McCormick  01:06

Thanks. So Brynne, who’s joining us today?

Brynne Tillman  01:08

One of my favorite people in marketing and in life. So before I introduce him, this would be David, but I’m gonna just tell a quick little story. Well, we met were local, he had been to one of my classes and I was looking to really scale my business and I actually had one client in particular and there’s a longer story around this, that I was a little stuck with, “How do I get in front of them?” So I had taken one of David’s remote classes, even though we were still in real life-time. It was all audio, which was really wonderful and he taught me a couple of things but one thing that not only helped me close at the time, my biggest client ever, but I now carry it through all of my mindset. And I’m going to share the tip and then introduce David. So it was just from the concept of “What are your prospects doing before they know they need you or before they think they need you?” And Bill, you’ve heard me say this a lot, inspired by my friend and amazing marketer, David Newman, welcome to the show!

David Newman 02:23

Thank you, Brynne and Bill, it’s great to be here. I love that story, by the way, and so it’s totally fantastic!

Brynne Tillman  02:29

I love it too, because it helped to transform my whole business. So much appreciate it. And we’re excited to share your insights and magic with our audience.

Bill McCormick  02:39

So David, tell everyone just a little bit about you and what you do in your company. 

David Newman  02:44

Sure! So I run a company called “DoIT Marketing” and we are a mentoring and coaching company. We work with entrepreneurs and executives who really want to embrace the thought leadership marketing playbook. Meaning that they want to add value. They want to write, they want to speak, they want to publish, they want to use content marketing, and really I call it marketing your smarts, marketing, your spark smarts and monetizing your expertise, and we work with them to help them get more clients, make more money and like Brynne said, scale their business from where it is to where they really want it to be.

Bill McCormick  03:22

Well, that’s great and we’re gonna get to that. I do want to talk about scaling for sure but before we get to that, we always ask every guest one question. What (David) does making sales social mean to you?

David Newman 03:35

I think making sales social for me is really about helping before pitching and serving before selling. So I remember about 10 years ago, I got this advice from a friend of mine who was, you know, pretty seasoned sales trainer. He says, you know, “Everyone is so concerned about being a better salesperson, and be a better salesperson, improve your sales skills. He says,  “You know, don’t worry about being a better salesperson, just be a better person, and you’ll sell more.” Be a better person. So to me, social selling is about being a better person, period. And that’s really the key.

Bill McCormick  04:20

I love it! I love that! I love the “Serve before selling and help before pitching.” So from a marketing standpoint, what are some ways that salespeople can serve before selling and help before pitching?

David Newman 04:35

Well, you know, it’s funny, it’s one of these things where like, when we talk about the sales process, whether it’s online,offline, in real life, on LinkedIn, on any social channel, email, phone, zoom. Are you acting like that person’s new friend? Or are you acting like a salesperson, right? Are you kind of getting ready for the close before the close? Are you kinda doing that “Always Be Closing”  The ABC. Are you leading with your products and services? Or are you listening? Are you asking penetrating questions? Are you really figuring out how you can be of the deepest service to this person. What they really want, what they really need, take off your sales glasses and put on your human glasses, put on your relationship glasses. Understand that if you’re talking to 10 people today, online, each of those 10 people is a distinct human being with their own sets of needs, problems, heartaches, headaches, challenges and gaps. Treating them all the same using your cookie cutter scripts, using your templates blasting out the same message no matter who they are, where they are, what their situation is, is a surefire recipe for disaster. So I think we really have to bring a new level of personalization and customization and tailoring to an established… And that’s what I love about what you guys do, of course, bring that to an established methodology, but without being robotic or overly templatized. So is there a method to the madness? Is there a skeleton of conversations that need to happen? Of course, but when you treat everyone the same, no one feels connected to.

Brynne Tillman  06:23

I love that! You know, we do talk a lot about, there are templated messages, and there are tailored messages. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time. Right? But if you can create a template that is “tailorable” Is that a real word? That you can tailor, right? All of a sudden, it makes a big impact on building that relationship. So I love that and it does completely align with the way we think of things

Bill McCormick  06:51

Absolutely, it does! I mean, there is a place for automation and in the sales process today with so much, you know. I’ve been off for less than four days, I’ve got an email list today that’s unbelievable that I have to get to and so am I going to lean on some automation? Absolutely. However, we can automate for information we don’t automate for relationships. I think that’s really the key. And I love that idea of customizing and tailoring. We just made up a new word.

Brynne Tillman  7:20

We made up a word for word. Is it tailorable?

Bill McCormick  7:22

The SSL Dictionary. You know, that we can use that and for our clients’ benefit. And what I like to say is let’s forget about the sales process. Let’s talk to our clients about their buying process. Because that’s what’s important. So you mentioned “scaling” in the beginning, actually Brynne did. Brynne said she was struggling with scaling. 

Brynne Tillman  07:49

He helped me. Yeah. 

Bill McCormick  07:51

Yeah. However, I said it. So what we want to talk about now, because a lot of the folks that are listening here, our sales reps that are kind of independent, they’re looking at a huge quota that they’ve got to hit and they struggle with scaling. What are some tips that you can give them to help them to scale at their level?

David Newman 08:11

I got nothing. It’s not possible. Sorry. Not possible. Nah, I’m kidding…

Bill McCormick  08:15

Ohh Okay. It’s gonna be a short show everyone!

Brynne Tillman  08:19

Welcome to David. Fabulous human.

David Newman  08:23

It’s like, “Oh, my God! its a heart attack moment right there.” Well, I did want to do a little pattern interrupt, because people watching and listening need to be writing this down. And the answer to your question Bill, is they need to adopt a “Three PR Game Plan” And three PR is an acronym stands for Personalized Professional Public Relations. And I’ll repeat that for those that are taking notes which should be. Personalized Professional Public Relations. Now, this has nothing to do with traditional public relations, like sending press releases or talking to the media. This is your as an independent seller. This is your personalized platform building game plan to scale up your level of prospecting, inbound lead generation, outbound lead generation, everything. Three legs to the stool, and your three PR gameplan. The first leg is speaking and I don’t mean public speaking. I don’t mean going out and doing these $10,000 keynotes like Brynne Tillman, I’m not talking about being off fancy pants and all that. We got to put speaking in a bigger box. Right now this is a speaking opportunity for me. I am on your fantastic show. People are getting to know me depending on what they hear and if they resonate with that or not they may take a next little baby step and they may not. What are you doing to get in front of your folks in a micro speaking opportunity? Meaning on a podcast, on a live stream, on your own Facebook Live, on someone else’s Facebook Live, on webinars, on videos, on your YouTube channel. What are you doing to get those micro speaking opportunities on the calendar so that it’s one to many prospecting. So speaking, raises your visibility. Next thing is writing the second leg of the three PR stool is writing. And again, I don’t mean writing books and I don’t mean writing 5000 word white papers. I mean, can you write a 250 word post on LinkedIn? Can you write a 100 word email that adds value, invites engagement and sparks your prospects thinking. Not a sales email, a value email. Not a sales post on LinkedIn, a value post on LinkedIn. Because writing raises your credibility. And then the third component of your three PR gameplan is social media. Yes, of course, primarily on LinkedIn, which is the world’s greatest B2B online social channel. But also where are your prospects? So depending on what you sell, and who you sell it to? You got to fish where the fish are. So it’s very possible that your people are on Instagram, your people are on Facebook, your people could be on YouTube, they could be consuming all different kinds of content. Are you on those social channels? Are you adding value? Are you engaging with those people? Are you liking? Are you commenting? Are you sharing? Are you in those communities, the blogs, portals, communities, groups and forums where your prospects are already gathering and they’re probably already talking about the problems that you’re brilliant at solving or that your products and services are brilliant at solving. So social media is the third leg. So taken all together, your three PR gameplan speaking and micro speaking for visibility, writing for credibility, and the social channels for spreadability.

Brynne Tillman  11:57

Love it. That’s brilliant.

Bill McCormick  12:01

I tried to write all that down.

Brynne Tillman  12:03

We’ve been quoting you for years.

Bill McCormick  12:03

For sure. For sure. Thankfully, I can go back and rewatch this so…

David Newman 12:08

People may need to back up the truck, like beep…beep…beep…beep… Rewind! Let’s play again.

Bill McCormick  12:13

And that’s what I was gonna say. You need to stop and go back and listen to this and write those down. Yeah, for sure because this is the way. If you’re wondering how you’re going to scale, how you’re going to reach more people. This is the way, one to many. I love that! It’s so so good. So I hope that you do that. Stop right now, go back, we’ll wait here for you and go take those notes. So there are two things that Brynne talked about. One was scale, so you’ve talked about that. Another thing she talked about, she was kind of stuck. So I’m curious and maybe you can give us an example, if there’s a salesperson that’s stuck. How can they use the “Three PR Model” to kind of get unstuck in their outreach?

David Newman  13:01

Well, such a great question, Bill. I think a lot of sales reps and sales professionals and solo business owners, you know, all of us who basically we eat what we kill, it’s easy to get stuck. And I’ll tell you where we get stuck. We get stuck in analysis paralysis, we get stuck in overwhelm, we get stuck in in-action. The best thing… The folks listening right now. If you’re stuck in your current sales situation, you got prospects that are stuck in the pipeline, you have no idea where to go to find new prospects, or how to just get out of a rut, how to get out of a sales rut, how to get out of the slump. My recommendation is three simple words. It’s easier said than done but we’ll dig into it. “Action eliminates fear” Action eliminates fear. Do something you will never figure anything out, sitting alone in your office, have a conversation. Go to your LinkedIn network, go to your past clients, go to your trusted circle of friends and advisors and networking buddies say, “Hey, you know what? Can we just have a 15 minute coffee chat? I would love just to connect with you, share some ideas about what’s working for me and really find out what’s working for you.” So when you have those coffee chats, those informal connections, this is something where you will get ideas, you will get insights, you will get mine sparks, you will get micro actions that you could take right now. Someone’s gonna say, “Well, you know, I haven’t seen you do a lot with webinars. Have you ever thought about doing a webinar for your prospects?” “Oh webinar? That’s a great idea!” What’s the action step then? Put a date on your calendar for your first or next webinar. Why? Action eliminates fear. Even putting it out there on the calendar is going to help motivate you and spark some activity and spark some intelligent action. The more that we get into these actions –This is Newton’s second law of physics, right? “An object in motion tends to stay in motion, an object at rest tends to stay at rest.” While we’re stuck, the biggest challenge, the biggest threat is now we’re stuck on being stuck. And we forgot what being in motion even looks like. We forgot what being in motion even feels like. I mean, look at Bill’s hairstyle, look at my hairstyle where we’re used to the wind, just going through our hair, as we’re driving down the highway in our Mustang convertible. We would never think of stopping or stalling or being stuck on the side of the road. So get used to the feel of the fingers of the wind blowing through your hair, as you get into massive intelligent sales activity.

Brynne Tillman  15:52

I love it! So I think… I love the idea. So I’m just gonna do this. All through the pandemic, every single day, I walk two miles, listen to your podcasts, like listen to podcasts, like that was my world. And then like, we opened up a little and I stopped walking. And I kept saying, I got to get back to walking and every day, it was like, dreading. I have to get back to walking and I don’t know why it just was. And then finally,  I just… I’m doing it today and all… I’m like, “Oh my God, I love this! And it was so easy, and I’m happy.” So it’s like, it’s a mindset thing, like you’re… The stuck is fake. The stuck is like, we’re, you know, we’re stuck in this. So I love that! In addition to that, I want to add an action thing that you can do around podcasts. So as long as you’ve been on a couple, so you have a few for credibility, go to the Apple iTunes Store, not the store. But if you Google Apple iTunes Podcast Directory, you will get a directory of every single solitary podcast on Apple iTunes. You can search by category, and then identify all the podcasts under certain categories and when you click through, you get to see who the hosts are right in the platform, copy the name, go stick it in LinkedIn, find these people now go listen to a couple of their podcasts, see if there’s a match, and then reach out to them and say, “Hey, David, I was just listening to your podcast, I was blown away by this interview and that interview, I speak in the you know, kind of the same world, I’d love to throw my hat in the ring. If you’re exploring guests. Here’s a link to some of the podcasts I’ve been on.” And so you can go out to vast amounts of people. And you’ll get on podcast. One of the things when I talk to podcast hosts is sometimes they’re challenged with time to get guests. So they can get a few easily. They’re like, “Oh, that makes my life so much easier. Absolutely!” So I just kind of want to throw in an actual action step that you can take right now.

Bill McCormick  18:09

Yeah, and so you can become the “low hanging fruit” for a podcast host for sure. So one thing I want to add too, because I love the collaboration piece about getting a hold of some in your network, some folks in your network saying, “Hey, let’s get on a call, let’s talk.” And I do this with a couple of other sales trainers and we’ll just jump on the phone about once a once a month and a big part of that also is accountability. So we’ll talk about the things that we can do to up our game and I’ll say to that person and that person will say to me, “Okay, when are you going to do this by?” And because accountability is one of the things that keeps us in motion. Because oftentimes, David, I won’t do something for me, but I’ll do it for you. If I know that you’re going to ask me.

Brynne Tillman  18:56

We actually hired someone to keep us accountable because, you know. For each of us, It’s –I mean, we’re in sales, we’re in delivery, we’re in all. So we actually have someone who does project management and on a daily basis is, where are you on this in the pipeline? Where are you on this in the pipeline? And we’re like “Oh my God, I got to follow up and then I forgot.” So…

David Newman 19:20

You’re bringing up– You’re both bringing up an excellent, excellent point. The way I sometimes talk about this, I said if you were your own sales manager, you would fire yourself!

(Brynne:100% ) If you were left to your own devices, and you looked at your level of activity, and you looked at your level of results, and you are not you but you are someone outside of yourself who’s responsible for your performance, you would fire yourself!  I guarantee it but not if you do what Bill just talked about and not If you do what Brynne has talked about.

Bill McCormick  19:50

Yeah, So really good stuff. Go ahead Brynne.

Brynne Tillman  19:52

me?

Bill McCormick  19:54

Yeah, I thought you’re gonna say something.

Brynne Tillman  19:55

I don’t know there’s so much I could say. David, do you want to say something?

David Newman 20:00

I Do! Well let me… I want to throw… I want to throw some fuel on your podcast fire and maybe change your life again? I don’t know. (Brynne: You know, you have a way of doing that.) You’ll never know. So there’s a fantastic podcast search engine. Doing what you said would totally work, but it’s a little bit labor intensive. You might not know that there’s a podcast search engine called “Listen notes” listennotes.com It is the strategy Brynne that you just said, except it’s on steroids. You can search by show, you can search by guest, you can search by topic. And also it will show you how many episodes it’ll show you the ranking like Top 1%, Top point 5%, Top .25%. So shows that have a big following, but you can’t necessarily tell from iTunes. So secret ninja trick to throw some fuel on the strategy that Brynne just shared. listennotes.com

Bill McCormick  20:57

And you heard it here first folks at Making Sales Social.listennotes.com We’ll put that in the resources. Man, you know, we could continue to talk. So we’re gonna have to have you back as we’re coming up to the end of our time. But  David, tell everyone, how can they get a hold of you. Talk about your podcast, how they can find that. And then you have some, a manifesto and some webinars?

David Newman 21:24

Yes, yes, yes! So we have lots of free goodies for folks. We do have a podcast, it’s https://doitmarketing.com/podcast/ 

Brynne Tillman  21:34

Must… must….  must… must add. Absolutely!  It is one of the two that I listen to all the time. Well, now three, I added a third. But so one of my top three.

David Newman 21:45

Thank you. Thank you, thank you! And then our two free gifts for folks that want to take these ideas across the finish line. One is our Do It Marketing Manifesto, which is part marketing, part sales, part mindset, which Brynne mentioned is very, very important. That’s doitmarketing.com/manifesto. And we have some free web training for folks that are interested in taking their thought leadership business to the next level. And that’s it, doitmarketing.com/webinar

Bill McCormick  22:13

Fantastic. So thank you so much for sharing that. We’ll have all of those links in the resources here. You can click through to that. So David, thank you so much for being with us. And thank you all for listening to us and as you’re out and about this week. Don’t forget to make your sales social. Bye bye, everyone.

Bob Woods  22:31

Thanks for watching, and join us again for more special guest instructors bringing you marketing sales, training and social selling strategy that will set you apart! Hit the subscribe button below to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social Podcast. Give this video a thumbs up and comment down below on what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com For more information.