Ryan Stewman is the founder of HardcoreCloser.com where he creates a tonne of great content for sales professionals who want to up their game and leverage the internet to close more deals. In today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast, Ryan shares his thoughts on the future of the sales industry and the skills we need to learn now to thrive in a few years time.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- HardcoreCloser.com – Ryan’s homepage
- Break Free Academy – The online training that Ryan mentioned in the show
- Hardcore Closer on Facebook
Transcript
Ryan Stewman:
As a salesperson, when you can generate your own leads and you can close your own sales, you have power.
Will Barron:
Hello sales nation. I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman Podcast, and welcome to today’s show. And today’s show we have a special guest, and that is Ryan Stewman, who is The Hardcore Closer. And he’s sharing some real practical step-by-step ways that we can improve our lead generation in the internet age, and really take advantage of the optimization software, and the tools, and the platforms that we’ve got available to us now, which we just didn’t have a few years ago. You can find out more about Ryan over its HardcoreCloser.com. And with all that said, let’s jump into today’s show. Hey Ryan. And welcome to The Salesman Podcast.
Ryan Stewman:
What’s up, man? I’m excited to be here. Man, I’m glad that you thought enough for me to bring me on your show, man. I’m actually a fan. I listen to your stuff, man.
Should Salespeople Be Relying on Marketing for Leads? · [01:39]
Will Barron:
I appreciate that. And we’ve just discussed before, I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now and I appreciate the content. I appreciate your angle on it all. And yeah, I know you’re going to bring the fire today. And today I want to talk about lead gen, and you’ve got some unique insights. Whether you are fully like conscious of this or not, but versus other guests that come on the show from the more B2B kind of like corporate, suit and tie world, you have some unique insights on this that I know are going to give a lot of value to the B2B salespeople that are listening to the show. And where we’re going to start with all this Ryan is, and I can guess 99% where you going to go with this answer, but this’ll tee up the rest of our conversation. Should the salespeople listening to the show now, should they be relying on marketing for their leads? Or should they be making conscious efforts to have control of that lead gen effort?
“As a salesperson, when you can generate your own leads and you can close your own sales, you have power. The power to go wherever you want, the power to demand a raise, the power to demand a higher commission split, the power to get sign on bonuses.” – Ryan Stewman · [01:50]
Ryan Stewman:
Well, I believe this, as a salesperson, when you can generate your own leads and you can close your own sales, you have power. The power to go wherever you want, the power to demand a raise, the power to demand a higher commission split, the power to get sign on bonuses. And a lot of salespeople lack that power because they have one side of it. They’re good at sales, they have no clue about marketing, or advertising, or anything else. But here’s the thing, just like those little cashier stands and those little kiosks are replacing people at McDonald’s, technology is replacing sales people. They’re like, “This isn’t doom and gloom over here. This is reality.” Look I trade on E-Trade, just a regular little stock platform. And every day they’re talking about this company’s getting rid of sales people, Wells Fargo, they just announced that they were going to shut down over 200 locations because they don’t need a salesperson inside a bank location anymore.
Ryan Stewman:
They’ve figured out how to automate this whole process. And so, what I believe the salesperson of the future is someone who understands the advertising, automation, and marketing side of things. Not so much the sales, but here’s the thing. If you’ve done the marketing, the advertising, and the automation part correctly, then there is no need for a salesperson because the salesperson setup that stuff correctly and it’s done its job. A lot of that’s what we do at Hardcore Closers. My stuff pretty much it sells itself. I know it sounds crazy, but me, I’m a good enough sales person where I created the sales model of the future instead of going out and creating a human sales team. I have that, but I also have a technology. We call it the robot team, and my robot team beats my human team’s ass every day in sales.
Will Barron:
Dude. Right. You’ve just gone totally deep-
Ryan Stewman:
And I have good sales people.
Will Barron:
… you’ve gone totally deep on this in an instant, which is awesome. What is-
Ryan Stewman:
Boom. Right out of the gate.
The Sales Model of the Future · [03:30]
Will Barron:
… the sales model? What is the sales model of the future, Ryan? And forget the rest of the questions I got here. I assume we’re going to talk about funnels, and automation, and that kind of thing, but what is, or what do you consider, the sales model of the future?
Ryan Stewman:
Well, if salespeople are going away, and let’s just be real, let’s talk about anything. You’ve got Rocket Mortgage, Quicken Loans has Rocket Mortgage where you pick up your phone, you put in your deal, you take a picture of your check stubs, the next thing you know, they’re like, “Boom, you have $500,000. Go buy a house.” They have Carvana where you go and you apply online. You pick out whichever car you want, they give you a token. You put the token in the vending machine, the car comes out and you drive the damn thing away. They have Esurance where you go online and you apply for insurance. They tell you what everybody’s price is. You pick the lowest rate. Those are salespeople. And so, the person that sold those, is really the closer. If you think about it, who’s the best salesperson in our time right now, it’s Jeff Bezos, because he’s created robots on Amazon on that sells shit all day, every day.
“The future salesperson isn’t the person that shows up at the job and says, “I’ve got 20 years experience. If you put me in front of somebody, I will close them.” The person that’s going to get the job in the future is the person that says, “I’ve got five years experience. Here’s my funnel. Here’s my book of business and the leads that I’ve generated from my funnel. I’d like to sell your product to the audience that I created.” – Ryan Stewman · [04:23]
Ryan Stewman:
And so, the future salesperson isn’t the person that shows up at the job and says, “I’ve got 20 years experience. If you put me in front of somebody, I will close them.” The person that’s going to get the job in the future is the person that says, “I’ve got five years experience. Here’s my funnel. Here’s my book of business and the leads that I’ve generated from my funnel, I’d like to sell your product to the audience that I created.” That’s going to be the future. These millennials, people bitch about them. I love them, because they find ways to get technology to do the things that they don’t want to do, to do the menial tasks like sit around the car dealership for 12 freaking hours when nobody shows up. They got technology talking to people and stuff like that so they can go out surfing, or doing drugs, or whatever the hell they’re doing.
Ryan Stewman:
I love them. I’m just saying that that’s the future, and it’s only going to be more and more of it. I’m 37 years old, Will, I don’t know how old you are, but I’m 37 years old. And if I don’t embrace this stuff in my lifetime, I could miss that boat. I could go from The Hardcore Closer who had millions of dollars, to the hardcore loser sleeping on the corner because I didn’t adapt to what I see is coming. I mean, we look around there’s artificial intelligence, there’s artificial reality. Right now, dude, I just saw something the other day for $30, you can buy some goggles that you put on, and a little machine for 200 bucks, and you can do yoga anywhere in the world. You could be on the beach in California doing naked yoga, and you feel like you’re really there. And I wonder if they’ll let you bring whoever you want with you. That would be really good. Anyway, so-
Will Barron:
As you said that, I’m less worried about me being … Doing naked yoga and having naked people around me. That doesn’t sound like something that you just buy from a normal shop though. That sounds like top shelf stuff there. But Ryan, I agree with everything you’re saying 100%. We’ve talked about AI on the show before, we’ve had experts come on and talk about that and how it’s the data will eventually be to the point where you plug your AI into the potential prospects, AI, they find out the best deal, they find out the best value, the service, everything that you can do. And the conversations so far have been that perhaps you have two people at the top end of things, signing it off. And that’s the negotiation. That’s the conversation at the far end of the sales funnel.
Will There Ever Come a Time When Complex B2B Enterprise Sales Don’t Require a Salesperson? · [06:50]
Will Barron:
But what you’re describing is, and this has happened many times over in different industries, not just in sales, but at the smaller value it can be automated. People get happy with the optimization. They would rather not deal with a salesperson. They become comfortable with handing over money and having the service provided for them. The whole SAS industry is of course based upon this. And then, obviously it goes up the food chain. Do you think that we’ll get to the point where in complex B2B enterprise sales, that we won’t need a salesperson? Or will there always have to be kind of human interaction when you’re dealing with large numbers of large amounts of cash?
Ryan Stewman:
That’s a tricky question really, but I believe that it’s just like anything else, it’s scalable. So, why wouldn’t it work for that as well? It’s just more zeros and commas, but it’s the same end result. A product’s getting sold in exchange for somebody’s desired results. So, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in large B2Bs. I mean, think about this. I watched the movie War Dogs, with Jonah Hill the other day. That’s a good movie if you haven’t seen it. And dude, they go on this exchange. And so, this is how the government works according to this movie. I mean, it’s Hollywood, but whatever. They go and they log into a computer, and the government just puts bids on this website that you have access to, it’s like, “We need $5 billion in tanks. Who wants to sell it to us?”
Ryan Stewman:
And so, the future could be that for everybody, like there’s the giant exchange and your artificial intelligence, like you said, is trying to make sure that it’s sending the right signal to let it know that it has the best process, or the best price. Check this out, up the street from me there’s this place called Nebraska Furniture. You ever heard of it?
Will Barron:
Nope.
Ryan Stewman:
Okay. So, you go to nfm.com. You can check it out. Nebraska Furniture Mart. Warren Buffet owns it. We all know who Warren Buffet is. When you go in this place, it’s 1.8 million square foot, first of all. Put that in perspective, you can fit six IKEAs inside this bitch. That’s how big it is. Six IKEAs. When you walk in there, just like Vegas, there’s eyes in the sky everywhere, but everything in this place has a digital price tag.
Ryan Stewman:
And so, all day long, these eyes in the sky are scouring the internet, Walmart, CompUSA, Target, Kmart, looking for all the prices, Best Buy, on all these electronics, all these furnitures, anything that’s advertised anywhere in any database, where they can get it from, and they’re adjusting the price constantly. And so, man, that’s how competitive this artificial intelligence is. And we know that if Warren Buffet is doing that, think of what Warren Buffet’s bought in the last five years. He’s bought Nebraska Furniture Mart, retail sales. There’s where they get the data. He’s bought Berkshire Hathaway. He bought, what was it? Sotheby’s, and turned it into Berkshire Hathaway. Sotheby’s Real Estate turned into Berkshire Hathaway. A lot of people don’t even know this but he just bought the largest chain of car dealerships that has ever existed as well. They’re actually located here in Dallas is why I know about it.
Ryan Stewman:
They own like 15 or 20 different dealerships just in Dallas. They owned over 150 nationwide. I’m forgetting the name of it right now. It’s a well-known organisation here in America, but he bought that for $1.2 billion, too. So, this dude that has this technology already working has stepped in and bought the world’s biggest car dealership chain, he’s bought the biggest luxury real estate brand that’s ever existed. And now he owns the retail side of things because Nebraska Furniture doesn’t just sell furniture. I bought this computer there. I bought my phone there. I bought this microphone there. We bought couches there. We bought TVs there. Dude, it’s retail city, it’s anything and everything you want to buy in 1.8 million square foot. So, this dude, this stuff exists, and this guy’s bought these other industries. It’s coming. And so, the salesperson of the future is the person that can adapt this stuff. Or either find somebody who’s selling this shit and start selling it to places.
Will Barron:
Well look, what you were saying then reminded me of, and this is the vision I’ve got in like 15, 20 years, it might even be further out having spoken to people in the AI industry and in the VR industry. But I don’t know if have you seen the latest Star Wars film, Ryan?
Ryan Stewman:
No, sir.
Will Barron:
So, you may have just been massively turned off and now that you think I’m a huge nerd that I like Star Wars, but we watched it, me and my girlfriend-
Ryan Stewman:
No, you’re good, man.
Will Barron:
… went to watch it. and there’s an actor in it who was in one of the original films. And I think he’s dead now. So, either way, he was old in the original films. So now he’s obviously ancient, if he is not passed away. And they do a kind of like facial reconstruction of him, and he’s a main character. He’s not just in the background. It’s not a, how to describe it, like a cameo. He is a main character in the film, and you can tell there’s something not quite right. You can tell there’s something weird about it. It’s not quite perfect. Your brain isn’t sold on the fact that it’s not CGI, but it’s not far away from that. So, when you can have VR goggles on and it puts you in a boardroom, and you’ve got the technology to have AI, which has been surpassed for years now, that can convince a human through a conversation over text, that it is AI and not a human …
Marketable Skills for the Salesperson of the Future · [11:49]
Will Barron:
I can’t remember what the … There’s a competition essentially to get the first AI to prove that. And that was passed years ago over text. It’s not unconceivable that you’re dealing with and negotiating with an AI in the future that has the best interest of the company at heart. But all that aside for a second, Ryan, let’s come back to the current reality because there’s … Probably 80% of the audience are probably shitting their pants thinking they’re going to be made redundant and sacked after the first 10 minutes of our show here. What can we put into place now? What skills do we need to learn so that we’re not irrelevant in the shorter timeframe in the next 24 months, five years? So, you mentioned marketing, what marketing, and what areas of marketing do we need to master? And how do we need to meld that in with sales so that we are relevant, and so that we are one of the few people left who are clearly going to be even higher paid than what sales is traditionally at the moment?
Ryan Stewman:
Well, first of all, there’s three things. I believe we got a good five, maybe 10 years, if we’re lucky. That’s my prediction. I’ve been saying this actually though, since 2011 on video that it was coming by the time we got around to 2030 at the latest. And so, here’s what you need to learn as a salesperson you need to master, not just learn. It’s like the kids that are coming up, they have to know how to work iPhones. They have to know how to code. They have to how to do all this stuff if they’re going to make it. You have to learn some of these things too. The first thing that you need to learn is who it is that you actually sell to, because the audience is huge. If you’re doing online advertising, or even if you’re going to live networking events, you got to make sure that you’re putting yourself in front of people that have a possibility to buy your stuff.
“A lot of things about sales are simple, but salespeople often overlook the fact of who it is that they’re actually set out to serve.” Ryan Stewman · [13:08]
Ryan Stewman:
And so, a lot of people they say, “Advertising doesn’t work,” because they just put a billboard up on a freeway and they’re trying to sell luxury houses, but that freeway’s running through the hood. Those people ain’t buying luxury houses. Of course, that shit doesn’t work. You’re in front of the wrong audience. So, people need to learn, and it sounds so simple, but a lot of things about sales are simple, but salespeople, they overlook who the fact it is that they’re actually set out to serve. So, first of all, like I said, there’s three parts. The first one is who, the audience. The second part is the message. Because I always say people don’t buy a mortgage, they’re buying a house. And a mortgage is the mechanism that gets them a house. People don’t buy insurance. They’re buying the security that if they get pulled over by the police, they’re not going to lose their car because they don’t have insurance.
Ryan Stewman:
Or if they get into an accident, they’re not going to get sued into oblivion because they don’t have insurance. People don’t want it. It’s forced on them. So, if you’re trying to sell insurance, they don’t want that. A lot of B2B stuff, it’s things that you have to have. People don’t want a lawyer, they want to make sure they don’t go to jail. People don’t want a chiropractor, they want to feel better. And so, you have to understand that message and that offer. And oftentimes people are saying, “Hey, come on in and check out the chiropractor.” And people associate the chiropractor with a hurt back. And meanwhile, you’re like, “Come on in, and let us give you a massage and make you feel better than you’ve felt in the last six months of your life.” Dude, that’s so much more enticing, especially if you run that … Right now by CrossFit gym.
Ryan Stewman:
They’re on Facebook, and they take pictures, all these elite athletes that are ripped like me. I’m just kidding about the ripped part. But they take all these pictures of these elite athletes doing all this crazy extreme shit. And then they say, “Well dude, nobody’s signing up for our programme. We have all these ripped chicks, and all these ripped dudes and nobody’s signing up for our programme.” Like bro, look around there. There ain’t no young people in this neighbourhood. Those six people that you have pictures of on the website and that you use on Facebook, those are the only six young people in this entire class of 50 people that workout here. I’m like, “Dude, you have to be old and rich to live in this part of town. So, what you need to do is you need to start running ads that say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to be an Olympic athlete. And there is life after 55. Have you considered CrossFit?'”
Ryan Stewman:
Next thing you know, the front doors are going to be flooded with a bunch of baby boomers because that’s who lives in this area. And so, again, it’s a message and your audience. And then the third thing that people are going to have to know if they want to survive in the future, is technology. And I believe that it’s going to work like this with technology in the near future. It’s not that we are, we already have created a solution because here’s how it works. We’re going to live, in the next two or three years, we’re going to live in what’s … I call the API economy. You’re not going to have to invent new software anymore. All that shit’s pretty much going to … It’s going to be like the 1930s when they thought everything had already been invented.
Ryan Stewman:
We’re really going to hit that point to where pretty much anything that you need as a software, there’s going to be something out there that already exists, or … And so, what the solution’s going to be to start fusing things together. And so, we’re going to live in the API economy where I pay to tie into your API, that API’s eventually going to have, like you said, artificial intelligence and everything else on it. But you need start learning things like lead pages, and click funnels, and lead pops, and you need to start learning AWeber and Infusionsoft. And as a salesperson, that’s where you become valuable. You can walk into an office here in a couple of years, with a diploma from Yale, and that’s really cool. But if you walk in with your own Infusionsoft behavioural of dynamic response system for you to be able to deploy into their organisation, dude, that dude from Yale can kiss your ass.
Will Barron:
Let’s take a step back and dumb it down here for a second, Ryan. I understand everything that you’re saying, and all the tools, because I use them to promote the show. But when I was in medical device sales, I was at a push, and I was at the forefront of this, I was literally sat with our marketing team for the UK side of the company. Multi-billion dollar really prestigious, one of, if not the best, medical device companies on the planet. They revolutionised and almost invented endoscopy, endoscopic surgery, keyhole surgery. Yet it was a huge push for them to accept my plans of getting everyone on LinkedIn, because all the surgeons were popping up on LinkedIn. So, I want to take a step back from all the enterprise tools, and all the Infusionsofts and everything for a second.
How to Use Technology to Develop that “Know, Like and Trust” · [17:20]
Will Barron:
Because I don’t want to gloss over the fact that some of the audience perhaps might … This might be brand new to them. So, traditionally we all know what a sales funnel is. We all know that we got to get contact details. They’ve got to know, like us, and trust us. And then you got to have a conversation. You got to engage. And again, I understand what you’re saying here, but I just want to keep dumbing it down so we don’t lose anyone. Tell us how we can get know, like, trust, phone details to have a real life conversation. What does that look like when you are automating it? And when you’re leveraging the tools of marketing versus doing it all by phone and text? Which sales are traditionally done for the past 30, 40 years.
Ryan Stewman:
Well, let’s look at it. I’ll give you a real life, right now happening, example. Traditionally in the past, if you wanted to write a book, you had to figure out, A, how to write it, B, what you were going to write about, and then, C, you had to find a publisher who would publish it and turn it into an actual book, and all this. And all that costs money along the way. In today’s economy, you can write a book, you can upload it to some place like Logo Tournament. They’ll make you a cover. You take that, you upload it directly in a Word document to Amazon. And the next thing you know, Amazon’s your publishing house.
Ryan Stewman:
And so, that’s basically what I’ve done. But I want to sell books, because I believe the more books you get in people’s hands the better. But I’m not in the book selling business, that’s not my … There’s no money made, just like people think rap stars and stuff are all expensive. You think about it. An album costs five bucks. They can sell millions of them and it’s still not that much money. And so, same with books. Authors don’t make money from books. We make money from the services that come from positioning us as experts with books. And so, but I want to get the books into people’s hands. And so, what I did was I, instead of going and relying on Simon & Schuster or something like that, upload it to Amazon. Then I took Amazon’s actual, their framework that they automatically … Their smart robots put together, sent it to a place to print them for me, and then I offer my books for free plus a shipping fee, because I can’t pay for it all for you. Stamps, envelopes.
Ryan Stewman:
So, people go to ElevatorToTheTop.com. They get my book, and they opt in there. They get the book for like, I think it’s $7 that they’ve got to pay in stamps and stuff like that. And that’s worldwide. But what happens from there is as soon as they take me up on that offer, it says, “Hey, by the way, here’s the way of the modern salesperson. If you’d like to know how to deploy this stuff into your business, then click here.” And it tells them a little bit about a programme that we have that runs about $300 a month. And so, this is the process that I’m using. And this is the process that I believe sales people are going to use in the future as well. And it’s real simple. It’s like, “Hey, here’s something that’s really cool. If you like it, awesome. Then you might even like something a little bit cooler,” like the second money, just like with a car dealership.
Ryan Stewman:
You sell them a car, then you sell them a warranty. It’s like the second offer. And then in the end and we deliver the service and everything digitally, they get a log in and all the stuff that we promised to them for the money that they’ve given us. And so, the future salesperson is going to be the same way. Last night, I trained my car guys that are in our Break Free Academy Entourage Programme. We did what we call car funnels. And I showed them how people don’t look at Fords, because the person that buys an F-150 is not the same person that buys a Mustang. So, we did a Mustang specific lead funnel. If you’re looking for the fastest Mustangs in Dallas, we sell them over here at Park Cities Ford.
Ryan Stewman:
And so, I made up a funnel with lead pages for that. And a lot of people have tried these car things in the past and failed, but I’m into the audience and the message. And you can go on Facebook, and you can create a picture of a Mustang and say, “Give me your name, email address, and phone number. And we’ll call you and talk to you, show you the inside information on flat rate brokers,” or it says, “Flat rate dealers, on the fastest Mustangs in DFW.” You can go into Facebook and you can target people who need to buy a car. That’s literally one of the options. People who are likely to buy a car, and people that like Ford Mustangs, and people who are likely to buy Ford Mustangs in Dallas Fort Worth. And there was 60,000 of them.
Ryan Stewman:
Do we put that funnel in front of them? Then we got the right message, the right audience. And guess what? Then the dude doesn’t have to wait at the dealership all day long. You know what he gets to do? He gets to wait until this phone rings and he goes, “Oh, you want to take a look at some of our fast Mustangs? Awesome. Well, I’m going to shoot you an email over and I’m going to let you look at it while we’re on the phone together. And then you ask me any questions about engine requirements, emissions, race tyres, whatever extras that you want on it. We can go over all that right here on the phone.” Guess what? When that person reaches out to them, they’re ready to pay. That dude didn’t have to up them and chase them on the lot, and test drive the car, and all that other stuff.
Ryan Stewman:
The robots did that stuff for him. Same thing, a lot of car guys are trying to sell cars from just directly from their Facebook page. “Hey, here’s what we’ve got.” And I’m like, “Look at all these groups.” We searched on Facebook, just the word cars. There’s groups with millions of people in them that are car aficionados. You take in an old hooptie that somebody else may not give a shit about in your area, but you post it in one of those groups. Somebody might be in to restoring them. So, there’s a lot of ways that the modern salesperson has more tools than just the phone. And I’ll say this too, Will, the salespeople, when we think about sales people we say, “Oh, they’re smiling and dialling. They make a bunch of cold calls and all that stuff.”
Ryan Stewman:
Did you know that the phone app is like the least used app in this whole device? The text app gets used more, the email gets used more, the Facebook, the Snapchat, Instagram, those apps get the most use. And you can actually, if you don’t believe me, look in your own phone, not you, Will, I know this. But I’m talking about for your audience, then can look under general, and then you can go down here and you can look through usage, and it tells you … Yeah, it’s usage. And it tells you what you use the most, and what apps you don’t. Dude, the phone app’s like the 15th in a row down on me. And we did a deal in our sales talk with Sales Pros Group, where we had everybody post theirs. Nobodies. The phone was not even the first one, not a single person.
Ryan Stewman:
And so, that’s the future. So, we got to figure out ways to use the phone and get these funnels in front of them and communicate with them, without getting face-to-face and getting on the phone, because those are really inefficient these days.
Will Barron:
Yeah. I totally agree with everything you’re saying. And I want to just, again, slow down slightly and break this down because what you’ve just described is just a sales funnel that’s been in place for probably even millennia if it was studied, if sales are studied in some kind of scientific way, a couple of thousand years ago. And that is you have sussed out where your audience is, you’re getting in front of them and you’re getting their attention. You’re doing the whole know, like, and trust. By letting them opt-in to the ads, or the content that you put in front of them, as you describe you are qualifying them, and you can qualify them, qualify them, qualify them. But what you are doing differently, and what obviously Sales Nation needs to learn to do and implement some of this, and I totally agree whether your marketing team does it, and you kind of get on the other end of it.
The Benefits of Developing That Know, Like and Trust with Prospects Online · [23:40]
Will Barron:
Or however you want to work it within your industry, and within your specific situation. You’re leading with value, you’re qualifying first, and then the buyer is already doing all their own education. We know that we’re getting later on in the sales cycle that we’re engaging with them. But if it’s your ads, if it’s your content, if it’s your automated email funnel that they’re consuming the content of, you’re going to be the person that they’re going to call, aren’t you? Immediately. They’re not going to even call anyone else.
Ryan Stewman:
That’s it. People buy from people they know, like, and trust, and guess what? You have every opportunity for them to know, like, and trust you. You feel like you’re friends with people on Facebook you’ve never met in person before. I know that I am. I’m like, “Dude, this guy’s got my back. I never even met this guy before.” But they’re familiar. We know like, and trust them. It’s the same thing. You’re just creating that know, like, and trust, you don’t have to see them in person. And it’s like you said, it’s been around forever, Direct mail, you have to send people eight to 12 pieces of mail before they recognise your brand. It’s just, now you can do that a lot faster because we can get on a video chat, and they know who the hell you are really quick.
Will Barron:
And some of the audience will have seen this, and consciously will be aware of it. Some people will be listening to the show now and go, “Oh shit, you got me with this.” I’ll just give you a very quick funnel of one of the ways I grow the show’s audience. I put together snippets from the show that goes out to, for example, Ryan’s audience, has a huge audience on Facebook of sales professionals, of B2C salespeople, and everyone in between, to people like Grant Cardone, Jeffrey Gitomer. I send out clippets from our show, and then everyone who watches 10 seconds of that snippet, obviously they’re somewhat interested in some way, even if they’re thinking that that dude’s a dickhead. There’s still attention there. So, I make sub segment that audience down into another video.
How to Create and Cultivate Virtual Familiarity with Prospects · [26:10]
Will Barron:
Everyone who watched 10 seconds of that gets another one, gets another one. And then the third step, they get an opt-in form. So, it literally is my big cheesy grinning face saying, “Hey, want to get a episode of the Salesman Podcast in your inbox every day? Just drop your email address in here.” And this is how we grow our email list. And Ryan, you are far more intelligent with all this than what I am, mate, of making it all work on the backend, and making it kind of cost effective. But I’m a total amateur of all of this. And that is the number one way I’ve grown the show. And that could be if you are selling … If I was selling medical devices, even better. There’s even a smaller amount target audience of surgeons that I’d be selling to.
Will Barron:
So, it’s even cheaper to target and market towards them. And what the very practical aspect of it is, if there’s two or three reps on your patch, and the surgeon, every time they look at Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter, or whatever platform they’re on, which is obviously a battle in itself to suss all that out, if they see your face, even if it’s subconsciously, they notice you. And they notice the company’s brand, and everything else that goes along with it. They’re going to, as you described, have that familiarity with you, aren’t they? You’re going to be the person they’re going to call, whether they realise that you’ve been following them around the internet or not.
Ryan Stewman:
Yeah. Well, like real estate, for example, they don’t call Keller Williams. They call Ryan Stewman, the Keller Williams Real Estate Agent. They call the people that they know. Nobody calls the front of the office and goes, “Hey, can you send me an agent?” That’s not how it works. They know an agent personally. When you go to a law firm, the law firm may be like the Jim Adler Law Firm, but you know Ryan Stewman inside the law firm, and that’s the person you got referred to. I think it’s the same exact process. You know what I mean? People want to do business with other people, but they want to … You don’t have to do that up front. You can create the familiarity with them to where … Here’s the bottom line that I think, Will. It’s like salespeople, they spend … Our number one resources are our ability to close sales.
“As salespeople, our number one resource is our ability to close sales. That’s what makes us money. That’s what makes us salespeople and that’s what makes us good at what we do. Unfortunately, that is the resource that we use the least amount of.” Ryan Stewman · [27:26]
Ryan Stewman:
That’s what makes us money. That’s what makes us salespeople. That’s what makes us good at what we do. And that is the resource that we use the least amount of. Even Alec Baldwin in the famous movie, Glengarry Glen Ross, he’s like, “Always be closing A, always B, B, C, closing.” And so, he goes through that. But yet most of us are not. We’re always prospecting. We’re knocking on doors, we’re making cold calls, we’re texting people, we’re sending emails, we’re doing face-to-face meetings, and we’re … And if it takes eight to 12 times for someone to become familiar and buy with you, then we’re spending more time bullshitting, not closing, than we are actually closing. And so, we’re using our talents in the best, most efficient way. So, what I’ve learned to do is those talents I think …
Ryan Stewman:
And plus it’s frustrating. Let’s just talk about that. Out of 12 touches, 11 of them are going to tell you no. So, that’s why you go bald, we go grey, we get overweight. Salespeople, we can look great, or we can look like hell. It can be a stressful job. And so, part of that is because we’re getting told no all the time, and that subconsciously hurts, man. That’s acidic to your brain. But when you’ve got robots taking that for you, when you’ve got your advertising, your familiarity, your drip campaigns, and all that stuff taking things for you, it changes your quality of happiness, too. Imagine if every day you go in and you spend hours working, and seven of those eight hours are prospecting. And one of those eight hours you actually got paid. You closed sales, collected a credit card, a payment, a commission check.
Ryan Stewman:
What if you didn’t have to go into work eight hours? What if you could just go into work one hour and you’d get paid the same amount of money, and the other of the seven hours you could be smoking pot, playing naked yoga on that new virtual reality thing that they got, that we talked about earlier in the show. I would rather do the latter. I like working, but I don’t like it that much. I like naked yoga better. I’m just saying, especially with the right girl.
The First Step Towards Generating Leads Via the Internet · [29:42]
Will Barron:
Good man. Look, Ryan, I want to get really practical with this for a second. And I know you’ve got a content, and courses, and we’ll come on to that at the end of this show. I know the audience is going to be biting at the bit to get ahold of some of this stuff, mate. But for everyone listening who wants to take that first step into this world of getting attention, pushing across value, and then qualifying, and then lead generating from that point onwards, is there a clear first step? Is there a way to experiment with some of this? Because I’m very conscious as well that a lot of the corporate guys and girls listening are going to be, “Well, my boss, isn’t going to let me do that.”
Will Barron:
So, putting all that bullshit to one side-
Ryan Stewman:
Yes, that’s a real threat.
Will Barron:
… putting all that to one side, and I always say on the show, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. So, ignoring all that, where should we be started? Where should we be starting with all this? How can we implement it and experiment with it, and see, and learn from it? Because obviously it’s going to be a process of iteration to get it right.
Ryan Stewman:
Yeah. So, a couple things. If you are looking for a free for place to start, let’s just start there. If you’re looking for a free place to start, then there’s plenty of resources that I have for you on HardcoreCloser.com. And if you sell B2B, I’ve got B2B stuff in there. If you sell B2C, I’ve got B2C stuff in there. If you don’t sell to anybody, I’ve got stuff for people who don’t close shit on there either. And so, I would start there. If you’re looking to get technical and learn the ins and outs of this, look, you can go to YouTube for free and you can look up a bunch of people’s how-to videos and things like that. But it can take you down a rabbit hole that’ll oftentimes you don’t need to go down, because we’re sales people. And we just need something that we can set up simply and something that works for us.
Ryan Stewman:
And then we make adjustments along the way. And what happens to a lot of people is they go down this learning hole because they’re scared to react. So, I do have a programme, and it’s if you’re looking to have it all in one place, it’s step-by-step. And we have a network, it’s really … It’s a programme, but it’s more than that. But it’s called Break Free Academy Entourage. You can go to BreakFreeAcademy.com/entourage, and find out all the details. But I have been running live events and training salespeople on this stuff for … Since 2011. And I’ve helped thousands of people, and I’ve helped people become millionaires through this technology. I’ve helped huge mortgage companies take massive amounts of market share through this tech, using this technology. You go there, I’ve got it lined out where you get started. Because here’s the thing, Will and I, and I apologise to everybody because I just jumped right down this shit from right out of the gate.
Ryan Stewman:
But it can be overwhelming, just like maybe this episode and a lot to take in, and I’ve broken it down into bite size chunks. Plus, it’s a community of people who have this same vision who are on three different levels. They’re in the entry level, like maybe some of you are. You’re going, “Dude, what the hell is this guy’s language [inaudible 00:32:04] being about over here?” Then there’s people that have made that first step, got success from it that are trying to help those other ones get up to their level. And then you’ve got the guys who have made millions of dollars and built empires on this stuff, helping people in there as well. So, there’s there’s room for everybody in there, but really that would be your best step.
“Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. If you were going to buy whatever it is that you sell, what’s the first thing you’re going to do? It’s probably not going to be driving there or calling somebody there. You’re going to go to the good old Google, and you’re going to see what’s going on.” – Ryan Stewman · [32:26]
Ryan Stewman:
There’s plenty of free stuff online as well, if you’re not ready to invest, if you’re still not sure this internet thing is real or not. But the truth is the only way to really find out is to put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. If you were going to buy whatever it is that you sell, what’s the first thing you’re going to do? It’s probably not going to be drive there or call somebody there. You’re going to go to the good old Google, and you’re going to see what’s going on. And you’re going to go down the rabbit hole of looking for whatever it is. You should be doing that anyway, because your competitors are on there. You should be going through those funnels and seeing what they’re up to. And the good thing is once you learn how to do this stuff, you can just copy their things. A lot of my mortgage guys are like, “What will work?” I’m like, “Well, Zillow’s generating 100,000 leads a day. Why don’t you just go through and make exactly what they have, and then run the ad in your local market?” It’s pretty damn easy.
Will Barron:
Definitely. Appreciate that, mate. And I also appreciate the fact there that I was … And I’ll be very blunt and clear about this, because the audience will enjoy it. I was giving you an opportunity to pitch your product and everything later on. And I thought there might be some kind of middle ground where we can get our teeth sunk into it. And a testament to you, Ryan. I can’t even think of anyone else who’s done this, but 99% of the other people that come on the show would’ve given some bullshitty, wishy-washy answer then, but you were clearly so proud, and confident in your product. So, that was the first thing that came to mind. So, I appreciate the pitch. And I’ve got one final thing on that, Ryan, before you can tell us a little bit more about your website and where we can find out more about you as well in a second.
The Successful Salesperson of the Future Will Have a Strong Personal Brand · [33:50]
Will Barron:
But one final thing that I think is going to wrap all of this up, and you can … It’s going to be open ended so you can dive into this as deep as you want to, considering the time we’ve got left together, mate. How valuable is the attention that you can bring to a company going to be in the next five to 10 years? So, rather than you come in and you’re going to use the leads that are generated for you, and you’re going to be the closer or the account manager, and look after customers, and have those relationships, and all the cliche stuff that we talk about all the time. How important is it going to be for the sales professional in five to 10 years time that you say, “Hey, I’ve got this number of emails. I email every day that, I’ve got this ongoing relationship with.”
Will Barron:
Or, “Hey, I’ve got this funnel,” or, “Hey, I’ve got this other way, or this method of getting attention, which I own, me, as the individual own, but I’m going to leverage to bring revenue and cash into your business.” Is that going to be the most important selling point for a salesperson in 2020 and beyond?
Ryan Stewman:
Well, I can answer that really easily, and I’m not the biggest fan of the guy. And it’s actually how I found you, was it was through one of his videos that someone at … Your videos that someone had sent for me, but this dude, Gary Vaynerchuk, like I said, I’m not the biggest fan of the guy. But he is a prime example of someone who’s earning probably 20 to 50 million dollars a year through having his own list, and being able to advertise that list for Coca-Cola, and Pepsi, and shit, the Jets, and all these other huge accounts that he has. And you think if you got to go up against that guy, like if you and him are … So, let’s say Gary’s investments take a shit and he’s broke again. And you got to go to work against this guy who has a list, and has millions of followers, and can just say, “Hey, try this product.”
Ryan Stewman:
And thousands of people will go try it even if it’s shit, versus you, who do you think is going to get that job? Let’s just take this a little bit further. So, let’s just take Gary. He’s the extreme end of the spectrum with two million fans, and stuff like that. But let’s just say that me, I’m uneducated, I have a eighth grade education, I have a GED, I’ve been to prison twice. I am adopted, I am society reject for the most part. I should be. So, let’s say I go in clear about all of those … The person that’s thinking about hiring me versus the person listening to this podcast, is clear that I have all of these flaws. And in a possible drug addiction too. Let’s just throw that in there to make things a little bit worse. And you, you have a degree from SMU, which is a great university right here in Dallas, Texas, which is a very prestigious private school.
Ryan Stewman:
And your father is a very prestigious businessman in the area, and you’re just getting started out. Who do you think is going to get the job if I walk in and say that I have 250,000 people that follow me on Facebook, plus another 65,000 emails that know, like, and trust me, and will buy anything that I send to them. And you’re just getting started in the business with your fancy degrees, who do you think is going to get that job? Who do you think is going to take money out of that company?
Will Barron:
No brainer.
Ryan Stewman:
And so, think about this, guys. That’s who you’re about to be facing. I see guys out there like Dan Henry who are super young, they’re like 21 years old, and they’re making 20 grand a day selling little things from Facebook. Man, these guys are out there. The millennials are sharp. They’ve grown up with iPads almost all their life. They’ve grown up with laptops for sure all their lives. And they’re paying more attention to the internet than they are the TV. And so, these people are using technology and everything else. And if you got to go, if you’re an old school dude, and we all know old people are harder to hire, because they’re set their ways. They can be stubborn.
Ryan Stewman:
If you’re an old school dude or a chick, and you got no list, and no assets, and no funnels, and you show up at a job and you’re like, “Well, I’ve been selling and talking to people for 20 years,” versus the dude that’s 25 with no degree, but a list of 100,000 people that buy that product, that he came in already generated for himself. Dude, you’re collecting social security. Your commission days are over.
Will Barron:
Love it. I love the way [crosstalk 00:37:26]
Ryan Stewman:
And so, that’s how important this shit is.
Will Barron:
… I love the word you used then of asset. That is what I’ve taken away from this conversation, Ryan. And again, final context on this. I built a list of surgeons, of urologists, specifically with the last company I was with, started email them, got a huge pushback from the company I was working for. I just started the podcaster stuff by then, so that was one of the reasons why I was happy to jump ship because I could see how effective it was. And I knew that I could do the same in the sales industry, and on a much larger scale than what I could have done in the medical device world.
Should Salespeople Be Creating Their Own Content? · [38:01]
Will Barron:
So yeah, I think classing it and seeing it as an asset, I think that is the best way to look at all this. And I’ve got one final question. Ryan, I want a yes or no answer. I know what you’re going to say, but I want you to say it because it’s a split decision with the experts that we have on the show. And so, I want a yes or no answer. Should salespeople be creating their own content?
Ryan Stewman:
Yes.
Ryan’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [38:20]
Will Barron:
Good man. Ryan, I’ve got one final question I ask everyone that comes on the show. That is, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at sales?
Ryan Stewman:
Man, if I went back in time, it wouldn’t be about sales. The one thing that I would say if I went back in time, and I’m a unique scenario, I guess, in this situation, because I’ve been through some hell in my life as I explained earlier. But I would just whisper in my ear, “Hey man, keep doing what you’re doing. It gets a whole hell of a lot better on the other end of this thing.” So, that’s all I’d say. I’d just encourage me to keep going through what I was going through.
Parting Thoughts · [38:50]
Will Barron:
Nice, nice, appreciate that, Ryan. Ryan, appreciate your time, appreciate your insights. I appreciate the angle that you’re going out of all this, and not being bothered by, or scared to … I know you’re not directly attacking people, but you’re not scared of rustling feathers in the status quo of the sales industry. Clearly it’s changing, clearly there’s a collision of sales and marketing, and I put you as an expert at the forefront of all that. So, I appreciate everything you’re doing. Tell us a little bit about the website, what we can find there, and where we can find out more about you, mate.
Ryan Stewman:
So, two things. I want to give something to you guys. And I started a technology company two years ago. It’s C-L-X-Y-O.com, Clyxo.com. It’s free. No up sales, no bullshit, it’s absolutely 100% free. There’s no gimmicks. And what it is, is a social bookmarking site. Because listen, we got Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, websites, blogs, podcasts, we have all these different places for people to find us. It’s starting to fill up our business cards. It’s starting to take up space on our websites and our emails signatures. Clyxo solves that problem. You just go one URL, and put all your social media and all your contact information on one page right there. It’s super easy to use, drag and drop. You can put it in whatever order, and it’s free. I pay the bill every month for you guys, the sales community, to use. It’s Clyxo.com.
Ryan Stewman:
And then you can check me out a Clyxo, C-L-Y-X-O.com/closer, and that’s all my social media channels and everything else. Number two is, if you’re looking to learn this stuff and surround yourself with people who are … Who get it, and even though your company may not, because that’s a struggle, like Will mentioned as well. But if you’re looking to surround yourself, you can go to BreakFreeAcademy.com/entourage, and you can see for yourself the type of stuff that we’re doing. It’s a different programme than most. I mean, it’s not only learning and online stuff. I give out a monthly newsletter that I actually write. This is a typed newsletter, like a magazine. One of the first things you get is the year long workbook and stuff. We take care of our members. There’s no other programme like what we do out there.
Ryan Stewman:
And I put it up against anybody. I’m still sitting over here holding the belt. Nobody’s come knocked me out yet. So, we’ve created millionaires through the programme. So, if you want to see the future, and the best part is I’m active here. So, when I start getting visions and I see this stuff, and the things that are changing, and everything else, then I get to help you be on the forefront so that it’s not a slap in the face down the road and you didn’t see it coming. Once you’re awake, you get to make that decision. So, I always say if there was one thing that I could do other than what I do now, would’ve been a stock analyst, because I’m really good at spotting trends.
Ryan Stewman:
I make really good living in the stock market as well. And I’m really good at spotting and trends, just out of common sense. And if it makes sense, you make dollars. And that’s how I spotted this trend with the robots, because everybody’s trading on the tech. So anyway, that’s what you get BreakFreeAcademy.com/entourage, and then set up your account over at Clyxo. Man, I appreciate you having me on here, letting me talk to your people. I hope I didn’t scare them too much. Now they’re not going to be able to sleep at night, and like …
Will Barron:
I hope you did. I hope you did, Ryan, because-
Ryan Stewman:
Got to see the sandman.
Will Barron:
… occasionally we need a kick in the ass. So, we need to get out of that status quo. Sales is a job we need to be constantly reinventing your process and yourself. So, appreciate all that, mate. We’ll link to everything you just mentioned in the show notes in this episode over at salesman.red. And with all that said, Ryan, you’re welcome back anytime. And thanks for joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Ryan Stewman:
Yeah. You know what, man? I appreciate you having me on here. I’d love to come back on here, and I want to end it with this. It’s like, a lot of people in the sales, and training, and stuff like that, they motivate you. They’re like, “Just do a lot of work, and everything’s going to be okay.” And I’m not here to doom and gloom you, but I’m sharing the reality with you. And I believe that if you’re a motivated individual, then that reality that I just shared with you will be all the motivation and inspiration you need to make it successful for yourself in the future.
