This is the transcript of this episode:

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Mark Shriner [00:01]:
Welcome to the Grow Fast Podcast, where we talk with leading sales, marketing, and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses. Fast. Let's go. Hey, Bill, how are you today?

Bill Caskey [00:15]:
Mark? Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Mark Shriner [00:18]:
My pleasure. Hey, I gotta say, I've done a lot of podcasts. I thought, All total, maybe with my cybersecurity podcast and some of my sales and marketing podcast, maybe I've done close to 300 episodes. But that pales in comparison to what you've done just from your sales podcast, Bill. I see the Bill Caskey Podcast has 362 episodes, and the Advanced Selling Podcast has over 950 episodes. That's amazing. How did you get out in front of this podcast wave so early on?

Bill Caskey [00:51]:
Nobody knew what a podcast was. You used to go into a mall and say, "Who's ever heard of a podcast?" You'd get maybe one. And now you go and say, "Who has a podcast?" and everybody does.

Mark Shriner [01:01]:
Right. Well, you've also written several books on sales and everything. And I'm wondering, was there a reason, aside from just getting the word out, that you started doing podcasts and writing books? Does it help you in any other way?

Bill Caskey [01:18]:
Yeah, we had a radio show, Brian Neil and I, who have the Advanced Selling Podcast together. That's the one that we actually have about 1800 episodes, because it only shows 900, because we changed providers. Anyway, the point is, we've been doing it since 2006, 50 a year. So that's 10 years. So that's, I don't know, no, it's more than 10 years. So the point there is we had a radio show, and it was a local, it was like a 5000 watt station at noon on Saturday. Nobody was listening. And we had good guests. We had like David Allen, we had Jack Canfield, we were getting good guests, but nobody was really hearing us. And so a buddy of mine said, why don't you do a podcast? And I'm like, what, what's that? And he explained it to me. I'm like, no, I don't really want to learn technology. He said, Look, I can teach you how to do this in five minutes. Okay, I got five minutes. And he came over and taught me and I'm like, Well, hell, why aren't we all doing that? That's easy. And so we started in '06 with a podcast, Advanced Selling Podcast. And we've got 13 million downloads over that time, about 100,000 people a week, and it’s a top 50 marketing podcast on iTunes. I find that it's helpful, and you probably have experienced this too, helpful just to get your communication style better. Because when you're talking, and you're trying to bring complex subjects to your audience, it forces you to become better and more skilled at communicating. So we've generated a whole lot of business from it. But the real value to me is how it's helped me communicate.

Mark Shriner [02:49]:
I would totally agree. Doing podcasts have helped me become, I think, a better conversationalist. And I also learn a lot from the people I talk to. I learn from the message that they're sharing, but also the way they communicate and the way they do business. So there's a lot to be learned there. The other thing that helps me with doing podcasts, writing summaries, and I've actually published a couple books on selling as well, is going through that process, it helps me kind of crystallize my thoughts and put things together. So when I go into like a training environment, for example, things are much more structured in my mind. And so it's kind of like, you know, if you want to get better at something, talk about it with other people who are good, or actually go out and try to teach it.

Bill Caskey [03:32]:
You couldn't, I couldn't agree more, Mark. That's exactly it. And yet, we usually, whenever I suggest to a company, they should be doing a podcast, they will hear those things like, "Ah, nobody in our industry listens to podcasts." And I'm like, who cares? Who cares who listens? Are you going to get better? Well, yeah, I think our team would get better, then do it. Forget about how many listeners and how many views and how many likes and how many comments, forget about all that crap. That's irrelevant. It's more relevant that you're working on yourself, becoming a better communicator. In a way, that's all sales is. I mean, yeah, you got to take action, you got to pick up the phone or pick up whatever the vehicle is, but it's really about how you're communicating your value. And if you can get better at that, why wouldn't you?

Mark Shriner [04:16]:
Absolutely. And that is, you know, in my first book on selling, I broke it into two parts. One is the external activities like, you know, building rapport or giving a presentation. But the other half is all these internal activities in terms of, you know, the mental games that we play with ourselves. And, you know, things like we should always be learning and developing ourselves because if you do develop your communication styles and your knowledge and your industry expertise, it's going to make it easier for you out there in the field. Hey, Thoreau, right before we started this, you brought up the fact that you're working with salespeople in terms of trying to help them get more for the same amount or even less effort by leveraging their experience, leveraging their knowledge and so on. Can we talk a little bit about that?

Bill Caskey [05:06]:
Yes, we can. Do you want me to tell you the quick, dirty story of how all this happened, or do you want to ask me now, please?

Mark Shriner [05:14]:
I like your dirty stories.

Bill Caskey [05:15]:
Ugly story just to tease you a little bit. Yeah, the story was that a few years ago, I was struggling in my business. I mean, I was coaching and training salespeople for 25-27 years at that point. And financially, things were going well, I was helping my clients, but it was just that, you know, you've probably felt there's something missing, there's something not right about this. I felt like I wasn't really teaching the things that were going to make a huge impact on people. And so I hired a coach, which I typically do when I'm in a down, you know, in a downstroke place. And we talked about that, and we talked about, you know, his goal to me was, what are you mindful of? What's important to you? And I said, you know, the most important thing to me as a coach and a trainer, is to help people get the most out of what they have, is to help people reach their potential, and not feel fulfilled in their own lives. And we forget about the money and how many calls, forget about that. The individual human being, do I feel like I'm using all the skills that I have, and the assets and the benefits that I've had? And so he said, that's your business, then I said, Well, I'm not going to change my business. He said, You don't have to change your business, you have to help people focus on how do I get more out of what I have? How do I maximize the results by modifying some of the inputs in the effort? And so that was the time that I started to switch from 100% sales skills, to 25% sales skills, 75% leverage skills, how do I take these assets that I have, my knowledge, my God-given assets, if you believe in a higher being or acquired assets, you know, my personality, my ability to solve problems, my ability to find problems, my customer relationships? My phone is an asset that we don't use very well. So I switched my training about a year ago, and people love it. Because it's, it's more, you know, at some point, you can teach sales skills until you either got it or you don't. I mean, come on, right? And plus, I find that if you do the other things, right, you don't really need to be that great at communication and persuasion and all that stuff. Because people say, you know, listen, this is a call I got about two weeks ago, "Bill, I've listened to your podcast," you probably get this call too, "for the last two years, and I'm ready to work with you. I've got five people on my team. It's a small team, how much is it?" I told him, he goes, "Okay, let's go." Well, excellent. How good did I have to be at selling? I didn't. I really didn't. So my point in all this is that if we look at leverage, and we say, let's, let's work on that, because that's how we can get to a higher level without working harder, we can just make better use of our assets. That's been my focus the last couple years.

Mark Shriner [08:07]:
Well, I definitely want to learn more. And it's very timely for me because I've been listening to a very successful business person turned philosopher, writer, Roberto Nabil Conte. He has the Roberto Nabil Conte Almanac. And he talks a lot about intellectual compounding. I think everybody knows about compound interest. It's one of the wonders of the world. But he says, you know, you can have the same effect in business, you can have the same effect intellectually, when you start developing yourself, and then you create this compounding and then you create leverage. And at the same time in parallel with that, I've been listening to Tim Ferriss's book, "Tools of Titans," which is all about all these different hacks that these super successful people use and bring to the table. And, gosh, I've learned so much and just taking pages and pages of notes. And so there are ways to create leverage. Now, you're talking about specifically in the context of selling, so maybe you can give some examples of how leverage can be created and how you teach that?

Bill Caskey [09:13]:
Yeah, I am talking about it primarily in the area of business with sales, because I have a lot of VPs of sales that I coach and luck organization. So the way I look at it is that we all have different places where we are along the spectrum. You know, we all we're all on a spectrum. I'm not talking about the spectrum, but a spectrum in life. And it could be from, you know, from knowledge or competencies or skills. But here's the way it works. At the bottom of the spectrum, there is a group of people I call the survivor. And the survivor is just somebody who's barely getting by trying to make ends meet. I doubt if any of your listeners are survivors. I mean, they're survivors but they're not in that role. The next level up is the ascender. It's the person who has some goals, has a plan, wants to do more, wants to create wealth, wants to be successful. They are ascending in life, they're moving upwards. And this doesn't have anything to do with age. Although I do feel like a lot of times the plus 50s, they feel like they've made it and so they're not on the ascension route. My birthday is today. We're recording this on my birthday. I won't tell you how old I am. But I'm way above 50. I still feel like I'm ascending. I don't feel like my best days are behind me.

Mark Shriner [10:23]:
Well, first off, happy birthday. That's awesome. And, you know, nothing gets me more excited than learning. And I think it's really important just to have that beginner's mindset all the time. But please continue.

Bill Caskey [10:35]:
Yeah. So anyway, that's the ascender. The next level up is what I call the orchestrator. And that's the person who's really good at pulling focus, as you say, on the film business, pulling focus, looking at things and being able to say it's kind of the Roberto Nabil Conte, why I'm good at this, and I'm good at this. So how do I combine those things? And I'm good at speaking, and I'm good at technology. Why don't I have a podcast or I'm good at speaking. And I'm really good at problem-solving. So why don't I go on a speaking circuit and talk about how to solve problems or whatever that is? That's the orchestrator. The next level up is the amplifier. This is the person who has orchestrated and now it's time to amplify your results. It's time to get on other people's podcasts, it's time to start your own channel, maybe it's time to take your messaging and get it to your marketplace in unique ways. And then the final level up is at the very top, of course, it's always the master. And we started talking, I said, it's the Joe Rogan, you know, Joe Rogan had a set of skills, he had talent, and he stacked that talent together. And he came up with something that only Joe Rogan can do. A lot of imitators, but only Joe Rogan's getting the 200 million from Spotify over the next five years, because he's really good at what he does. And he's taken technology, his ability, his relationships, you know, his personality. And he's combined all that to do the Joe Rogan show, which is really him just talking.

Mark Shriner [12:07]:
Or he gets paid to tell jokes. I mean, you know, he's a stand-up comedian. He also does television shows. And I mean, that's a whole nother case study in himself. I just as a quick aside, you know, he was, he still is a very high-level, one of the probably the best stand-up comedians in America. Now, that can be debatable, but he's had a very top level. He's also, you know, he's a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He's a very high-level pool player. He bow hunts. And these are all skills that are incredibly difficult to master. And he's applied himself. So when you go back to that earlier message about, you know, always be learning and, you know, continue to try to develop yourself. I mean, he's a great example of that.

Bill Caskey [12:56]:
Yeah, he has a philosophy, I suspect of anything's possible. I mean, why are we limiting our limiting ourselves to a radio station in Austin? 50,000 Watt, why aren't we broadcasting to the world daily and having the best and brightest people on and people around? Like, what? How are we gonna get there? Oh, we can get there. It's the same. It's the same as learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It's the same process one day at a time.

Mark Shriner [13:24]:
Exactly. Yeah. One time one data well. And the thing that differentiates the lower level from the upper level is pretty simple. It's analog versus digital. An analog person is out there making cold calls every day trying to get people to talk to them. The digital person at the higher realm of that spectrum is broadcasting and sharing information and allowing the prospect to call them and say, "Hey, I like what you have." That's a whole lot better model for me than reaching out to people who don't want to talk to me and trying to get them to talk to me.

Mark Shriner [14:00]:
Okay, so when you when you go in, I mean, what you're saying makes sense. But when you go into engage with a customer, and he's got, or they have, you know, five salespeople there, and you want to kind of help them to use leverage to become more effective, and ultimately become more kind of settled and satisfied with the life that they're living, right? Because that day-to-day grind thing that's survivor, nobody enjoys that. I think we've all been there at some point. And we can all agree that it's not fun. Okay. But when you get into the ascender, or especially the orchestrator, that area there, things start to get, you know, you got a little wind in your sails and things start to become a little bit more enjoyable. But how do you teach that? I mean, you can say it, but like, you know, What's that process like?

Bill Caskey [14:45]:
Well, you said that, you know, we've all been there and the work hard one ounce of effort equals one ounce of result. Here's what I find. That's a hard game to get out of. We have convinced ourselves because of our upbringing, because of our religious convictions, that hard work is the only answer. That's a conviction that we have. And so if I come along and say in an arrogant way, which hopefully I'm not, "Hey, you don't have to, you can work four hours a day and get and double your income." People will say, "No, I can't. No, I can't. I cannot do that. Don't tell me that. La la la la, I can't do that." Because we're so invested in our belief about work that we literally cannot see. Or there's so much shame in having to admit that the way I've been doing things for 25 years is not right. And so now you, Caskey, come along, and you're blowing the lid off of me. But if you handle it, right, people, you know, it's like, Come on, let's have some fun with this. Let's have some fun. Do you think we could create something that would fight it? You could. I've got a client right now, just a quick aside, that kind of explains it, Adam, he's a salesperson for a freight logistics global shipping company. And, you know, there's a lot of a lot of upheaval in the shipping markets, especially in the Middle East, a lot of problems. And so he started publishing a video in December of last year, a weekly video where he updated his client list on here's what's happening. He had some footage of Suez Canal and Panama Canal and droughts and wars, and there's a lot of stuff going on, I had no idea until he started talking. Every week he publishes a video, guess what, he's written three to four pieces of business. People see the video, they call him and say, "We're not getting this from our current vendor, we need to work together." Wow. Now, total views of his videos, probably 100. Because he's not looking to be Joe Rogan. He's looking to connect specifically with a group of people. But he had to have the courage to shoot the video, edit the video, post the video. It took me three months to get him to do that. But now he's like, "I got to do more. Maybe I should go to a daily." I mean, if I can generate four or five new clients this way? What about if I went to daily? So now he's thinking about things very differently. But you're right, Mark, you have to take that first step and then realize, "Oh, that wasn't that hard. I can take the next step." And the next step before you know it, you're Joe Rogan.

Mark Shriner [17:15]:
Yeah. Now, it's funny. I think that a lot of people, especially our generation, are stuck in the mindset where, you know, we sell our time, or we hire people for their time. And, you know, I hear this all the time. So, you know, what's your hourly rate, or people, you know, they'll be negotiating, again, based upon how many hours is going to work. And I kind of look at it as like, you're not buying my time, you're buying my results, okay? My time is the most important asset that I have. So if you really want to buy my time, you know, you're gonna, you better get out your checkbook, because my time is super valuable. I want to give you the results. And I think that, you know, when I talk to salespeople, and I coach them, I also say that, you know, we're not looking to pay you an hourly thing here, we're looking to get the results from you, right. And if you deliver the results, the payment is going to work itself out. Right. So the amount of hours that you spend on it is really not meaningful. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

Bill Caskey [18:19]:
Yeah. I got, I have no thoughts other than total agreement. My daughter was with a SaaS company in Denver, and she was in the biz dev. You know, she was making calls and she hated it. She hated it, which I understand why. And I said, Well, how much commission are you getting? Because she was on a commission. So if she threw up something over to the sales team, and they closed it, she got a little piece of the action. And I said, you know, if you don't sell anything, how much is your time worth per hour based on what they're paying you? And she said, like, I don't know, 50 bucks an hour or whatever? Well, then she's closed like five deals or had deals closed. And she generated $10,000 of commission on those five deals. I said, How much was that hour, those hours worth? She said, probably $1,000 an hour. And I was like, okay, that's why sales should be appealing to you. Your dad kind of understands this stuff. But you know, dads never know, never know quite as much as they think they do. That's why you get into sales, you can help more people and make a whole lot more money than an hourly attribution to that. So I totally agree, Mark. Totally.

Mark Shriner [19:36]:
Absolutely. And speaking of which, I have three boys and the two that have graduated are in sales roles. And they were, I guess, the unlikely salespeople because they're kind of reserved, not super outgoing. And they thought, how can I do sales? And I said, You know what, you're empathetic. You can have a conversation with people you can understand what they're looking for. And that's all you need to be, but that's a whole other conversation. I would like to go to that orchestrator role, because, you know, I brought up these two books that I was listening to. And they both talk about Tim Ferriss and Roberto Nabil Conte, you know, that it's very difficult to be the best in the world at one thing, because, you know, there's just a finite number of things. And there's a lot of people aiming for that. But maybe you can be one of the best in the world at a couple of things. And I think the Scott Adams Dilbert thing is, you know, hey, he, he was good at jokes, but he's also good at, you know, illustration and in car, writing cartoons. And so there, he had his thing. And those two things combined, plus his experience in the corporate world, combined to allow him to just, you know, reach a super high level of fame and success. So, how give some more examples. I mean, the example that you just gave of the salesperson who was creating this content, which was ultimately delivering value to his audience, maybe you can give some more examples in terms of how you teach it and some results you've seen?

Bill Caskey [21:04]:
Yeah, here's that I've had a guy named Jeff Well, and he's always okay if I use his name. I don't usually use names of people, but he's given me permission because he's independently wealthy now, because of what I'm about to tell. He came to me many years ago, and he was in the physical therapy supply business. And so he would, he had four or five salespeople and they had vans, they'd go out every morning to the hinterlands of Indiana and call on physical therapists and try to sell bands and Kramer cheesecakes and things like that. And he wasn't doing very well. He was making a little bit of money, but a lot of work for not much juice. And he said, I'm thinking about hiring three new salespeople, put vans, you know, seven. I'm like, really? I mean, come on. Can you sell across state lines? He goes, Oh, yeah, but I don't want to put salespeople all over the world. I said, No. Okay, but can you sell? Yes, I can. And do you have a lot of relationships in the physical therapy business? Oh, yes, I have a lot. You've been in it for 10 years. He was actually one at one time. And he had a local video show on local origination. In our little village. He did like interviews of prom queens, Emmys, little piddly stuff, but he had all the gear. And I said, Why don't you do a podcast? And after about a month of convincing me, he said, okay, I'll do it. Well, he did a podcast called PT Talker. And PT Talker, he would interview people who the physical therapist would want to hear from marketing people, clinical outcome people, office books, you know, financial people. And he would interview them once a week, not video audio, and it would go out and people started listening. His people started to circulate this in the state of Indiana. One thing led to another. Six months after he started this, he gets a call from a 300 unit chain in Pittsburgh. And they start to talk to him about buying supplies for their 300 offices. And you would know who this is. And he said, How did you hear about me? They said all of our PTs listen to your podcast. That's awesome. And he landed that deal. It was about 1.2 million over a year for and I think they're still working with him. Two months later, he gets a call from a company in Atlanta, a large in the southeast have 500 chain stores, outlets. And he gets that deal. And that grows his business from two and a half million to 12 million almost within three or four months, all because of a podcast that he was spending $20 on to host on Libsyn. And he had the gear, he had a $200 mic, and he had, you know, he bought, he sold his business last year, he took me to lunch in December of last year. He said I owe a lot of this to you. And I'm like you're taking me to lunch after all the money I've made. He sold his business for multiples of his $2 million net profit. So I'm sure he did very well, all because of just using this asset that he had.

Mark Shriner [24:08]:
Yeah, and you know, if you contrast that with the traditional, you know, methods of selling where you've got people cold calling and trying to beat down the doors and get in there through the front door and stuff. One that's going to take a lot more time effort to your received as somebody who's trying to get in versus somebody who's at higher levels, sharing information, you know, you position yourself as this kind of expert, this industry expert. And now the whole dynamic of the conversation changes.

Bill Caskey [24:43]:
I wrote that down just you are positioned differently when you're not a needy salesperson trying to bang your way into the front door or the phone. Now I'm not saying that doesn't work. It does work. But I think you still have to have a different strategy for that than just Hey, would you like to buy? Or would you like to book a call?

Mark Shriner [25:04]:
We'll talk a little bit about that. Because, you know, I think it's important to bring value to every engagement that you have with a customer or prospective customer. And I mean, even Jordan Belfort the, you know, The Wolf of Wall Street in his book, one of the things that resonated with me is, you know, you've got a limited window of opportunity to hear, and you have to convince them that you're a subject matter expert, and you're sharpest attack, and you've got just a limited amount of time to do that. But if you can do that, you can keep the conversation going. Now, he was selling primarily B to C. And so the dynamics are a little bit different. B2B, you probably have a little bit more time, but you do know, it actually feels better when you can bring value to the table. But you know, maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

Bill Caskey [25:47]:
Yeah, I've got another got a story, Mark. Excellent. Question. I have a story. Got a guy who is in the meeting planning space. He sells AV to meeting planners for large meetings. And if you've ever been to a meeting that has a really good AV, and lighting, and it's like, I walked into one of his programs, I'm like, I would love to go to these kinds of meetings usually gonna end up in a, you know, third floor of a Holiday Inn somewhere.

Mark Shriner [26:16]:
Who's got the projector? Who's got the LCD? Yeah.

Bill Caskey [26:21]:
So, but he was reaching out to meeting planners for these entities, organizations, associations, trying to get them to see him. And you know, you make 100 calls, you might have two conversations, and it was beating the hell out of him. And he came into my program, I said, You gotta get out of this game. This is a terrible game. So I said, What's the biggest problem that a meeting planner faces and he said, they want to give their people a unique and compelling experience. When they attend their meetings. I said, Okay, I want you to write a five-page piece on how AV will help the user experience for meeting planners. Oh, Adam, when we titled it something different. He goes, Oh, that'd be easy. Within a week, he had put together this thing, he sent it to his design studio. Internally, they created this PDF. Now what he does, is he calls people cold on the phone. And if they're not there, which most of them aren't, so he's leaving messages. He says this. I don't know if this would help you or not. But I know I talked to a lot of meeting planners, and one of their goals is to have a unique meeting experience using AV, I published a seven-point guide on how to do that, would you like to get a copy of it? So when he's making, if he's talking to somebody, he's asking the question, they say, Well, yeah, I'd love to. Okay, well, what's your email address? Be glad to, by the way? Do you have any meetings coming up? What is your experience with, with user, with, you know, with experienced users and attendees, and you start a conversation, but you start with a gift, you start with something, even if the guy says, Look, I'm happy with my current vendor, I'm moving, I'm still sending the gift. I'm still sending it to him, because I don't know if he's lying. He may be lying, trying to get me off the phone.

Mark Shriner [28:08]:
You know, well, one that leads into another topic that I'm going to bring up with you in terms of, you know, the art of the first call, that was one of your recent podcasts. But I'll come back to that. The what I love about it is it's very short and concise. It's who he is, why he's relevant, and what does he want? And in this case, he wants to offer you something, but he's not saying, "Hey, I want to sell you something." Obviously, that's there. I mean, we all kind of understand the end game. But if I was a meeting planner, I want that guide. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great advice. You know, find out what your target audience wants and put something together that that can help them.

Bill Caskey [28:52]:
But see, that's the key. You can even leverage your assets on a cold call. The cold call itself takes time you're not your analog, you're in an analog world you got to pick up the phone and dial but then what do you do with that call is where the leverage is so he has created this asset. I call this an asset, this document that he can now use for the next five years. It's not like this changes month by month. So if somebody calls him out of the blue and says, "Hey, you know, I heard about you, you're working with John Smith over orthopedics." Yeah, I am. "Before our next call, let me send you this document. It'll be some of the things that we talked about." So he can use it in the sales process too. This asset now takes on a lot of different looks. And I would recommend to any of your listeners, if you have an asset or if you don't have an asset that you can send or you can offer as a gift and I use the word gift loosely but it kind of is, then you need to get one and this shouldn't take you six months to do. This should take you a solid afternoon with a couple of drinks and a cigar and maybe coffee. You should be able to

Mark Shriner [30:00]:
get creative, creative inspiration there, right? I know, it's interesting because my day job that because podcasting doesn't pay all my bills, is running, I'm a co-founder of a SaaS startup. And we have a very defined target market. And right now we're in the process of aggregating and creating information that will be of value to our target audience. And the idea is, let's invest in good quality research and content. And then because like you said, you can reuse it and reuse it and reuse it, and only have to update it from time to time. But that's it's Yeah, and you're delivering value. I want to, you know, I looked at some of your recent podcasts, and there was one called The Art of the First Call. And you know, the times have changed. You know, used to be back when I was started in sales, it was all about, get somebody on the phone and then get a meeting, get a meeting. And then that kind of held through up until we had the Do Not Call list. But then there were ways around and you could do emails, but you want to always get that meeting. And then we had COVID, and then nobody was meeting anybody except for online. But let me let me ask you, whether the first call is an actual phone call? Or if it's an email communication? You know, what are your some of your guidelines and recommendations around that first kind of engagement?

Bill Caskey [31:23]:
Good question. I have a framework I call the Lead Parthenon and the Lead Parthenon, the idea of it is that the Greek structure, the Parthenon had pillars had six to eight pillars out front. And that's the way I look at lead generation. I don't look at putting all your eggs in the cold call basket. I look at it, some of your leads, gonna come through the website, some through email, some through just networking, some through cold outreach, some through a podcast, you want to have six to eight different inbound sources of leads and a couple of outbound sources. So cold calling would be an outbound source. But so that's the framework that I teach that let's work on needing to work on them all at one time. But generally over the next six months, let's have a lot of different sources of leads. So we're not having to rely on trying to, you know, pick up the phone and get through to people. So that's the first thing is, what's the strategy? Is there a strategy? Or is it just banging out cold calls all day?

Mark Shriner [32:21]:
Yeah. And I think that's a lot of very smart. It's kind of like having multiple income streams. That's right. Yeah, it is. So let's say, you know, you get that initial call, somebody says, "Sure. Let's have a call." Okay. What are some of the rules that you or, you know, strategies that you'd like to use when you have that initial engagement?

Bill Caskey [32:45]:
Yeah, so we have, that's part of The Art of the First Call. Thanks for mentioning that that was a popular podcast. And I think sometimes we get way out ahead of ourselves on sales. It's like, sometimes we just go back and say, Okay, what does that sound like? And how do we, how do we master that first engagement? Because that's where everything gets set, all the power and control gets set, and all the bonding and rapport get set. So here's my philosophy. My philosophy is going to be different from probably 90% of the people you have on your podcast. My philosophy is, I don't really care whether that person books an appointment with me or not, I don't care because I've got a lead generation funnel system that's always putting leads in front of me. So I could care less. And I don't mean that I don't care from a human standpoint, I don't care from a personal revenue standpoint, whether they book a call or not. I'm reaching out as a service to them. Because I know that people in a certain market have pain, they have problems, if I could just be there, show up, listen to them. They tell me whether they want to see me or not. That's my approach. And you know what, I find that you'll close you'll get a lot more appointments with that approach than the arm wrestling approach. Trying to get people to see you. Now it takes a certain amount of detachment, I call it this concept of detachment like, look what I'm here to help you. If you think I'm here to sell you. I haven't I haven't spoken correctly. I'm not here to even book a call. I don't even want a call with you. What I want to know is do you have problems that I can maybe help you fix? And would you like to get to a destination you're having trouble getting to and maybe I can help you there, but if not, we're done. Yeah, and if you I'm not necessarily saying that in that realm, but that's my attitude. That's how I live my life is serving but not expecting, I expect nothing. So there was a I was speaking to a group down in I don't know where it was about two or three years before COVID Everything is either before COVID Or after COVID before COVID And there was this you would know who he is. And he is a like a driver a hard driver sales trainer guy, and I was speaking before him and I said, Look, guys have no expectation, when you make a call have no expectation, because your expectations get in the way, you get in the way, if you have an expectation, you're not going to sell them that gets in the way. If you have an expectation you're going to sell them gets in the way. So the idea is to create a pure environment where two people can come together without any kind of pressure to sell or buy or not buy or not sell it, just have a conversation. Then this guy got up after me and he like, abused me, and I was sitting in the back room, he was still there. I'm like, I can see you, I can hear you. It's like you have to have high expectation, everything you do. And I'm like, Oh, my God, he's teaching the wrong thing?

Mark Shriner [35:45]:
Well, it's not. Well, my thought on that is your approach is a mentally healthier approach for a salesperson, because remember, we went back and I said, I think the mental game that inside game is really, really important for the long-term viability of anybody who's in sales. Because if you're, if you've got these expectations, I mean, this is a very Buddhist thing, actually, if you're living your life with expectations based upon other people, especially in a sales environment, where you're dealing with companies and multiple individuals and their dynamics, and you are at the mercy of them, that's a recipe for a lot of turmoil in your life. Okay? I like what you're saying is don't go in with any expectations. And, you know, it's also it's similar to this idea of scarcity versus plenty. If you have multiple, you know, leads coming in and you have several calls every day, you don't have to worry about the outcome of this specific call or this specific meeting. But if you've got one call today, and one meeting this week, oh my god, the pressure for a positive outcome from those occurrences is tremendously high. So you want to be relaxed, book more calls, book more meetings, because after a while, it's just like, like you said, I don't care, I just I'm going to do my job, if they're interested, great. If they're not, okay, I'll move on to the next person.

Bill Caskey [37:08]:
That's right. That's right. And you have to have kind of a sense of obligation to your marketplace. Because if all you're interested in is making money and creating income, and you really don't give $2 about the marketplace, and what their needs are and what they're trying to accomplish and your mission. That's why I love, I love some of the not-for-profit, because they have a mission-centered focus versus just a money-centered focus. Once you get back into the mission-centered focus, my mission is to help you decide whether you need help or not, that's a whole lot more, there's just a whole lot more energy behind that and you are more empowered. You mentioned detachment, I have the triangle, the triangle here, everybody's got a model, everybody's got a triangle, right? Detachment, abundance, intent, detachment is the predisposition to being just detached from the outcomes of something. It doesn't mean you're disengaged, it just means you're detached from the outcomes. Two is abundance, what you just talked about scarcity and plentiful, or I call it abundance, is we have to look to our marketplace and say, "My gosh, there's a lot of pain out here." That might not be in my pipeline yet, but there's a lot of pain people have that I can help them with. And then intent is the third stool there. And that is the third leg is what is my intent when I get in front of somebody? We talked about cold calls earlier. What's my intention? Is it to sell them something and book a call? Or is it to help them figure out whether they even have a problem or not? That's the That's a better higher intent.

Mark Shriner [38:45]:
I totally agree. And I don't know how many sales calls you receive these days. In my position, as you know, in relation to this startup, we're looking at multiple different, you know, marketing platforms and different types of tools. And one of the like, pet peeves that I have is when we book a call, and it will be a demo because I want to see how the thing works, right? And it's a half-hour or 45-minute call, and the salesperson will spend, you know, 20 to 30 minutes, qualifying me and it's almost like this script that they go down. You know, so tell me about this. Tell me about this. Tell me about this, but they're not really trying to it's like they're qualifying me because whoever they report to says, "Hey, you've got to go through this checklist." It's not a conversation and it's not a sincere kind of attempt at trying to understand what I'm trying to do. And what I'm really trying to do at this point is see a demo because that's what I booked right. And I think a lot of companies are missing the point by saying, Hey, here's the script and do that because I would be a lot more, I don't know, likely to follow up with you and trust you and reach out to you as a trusted adviser. If we have a sincere conversation. I mean, are you seeing that at all?

Bill Caskey [40:02]:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think sales trainers and coaches have screwed people up here. I think, guys like me, not me, hopefully. But guys like me have come along and said, Oh, don't give any information until the 23rd Minute. Even if you're promising a demo, we got to go through the questions you gotta qualify, we got to make sure they're right. And I feel like really, is that where we are? You can get in from you can probably find the demo on YouTube. Here, here's my I think, I think a lot of that is expectation too. It's like, okay, if I got a 30-minute demo, I'm going to coach my people who if they're clients of mine to say, look, we got 30 minutes today, I want to get to the demo as quickly as we can. Can you give me three minutes of your time to answer a few questions before we begin so that as we go through the demo, I can share the things that are appropriate for you? Nobody's saying no to that.

Mark Shriner [40:55]:
But you got it. You got it. That's excellent. So you get the first meeting. And this is this comes from another podcast that you have done recently. And it's something that I firmly believe in, but it's, you have to build rapport and trust. And you have to do this oftentimes, in the digital age, which is maybe not in a face-to-face meeting. I personally, I feel like I do better in face-to-face meetings. I'm adapting to this kind of environment here that we're working on right now. But maybe you can talk a little bit about the importance of rapport and trust. And then and then maybe some ideas in terms of how you can kind of facilitate that and accelerate that when we're using these kinds of tools.

Bill Caskey [41:44]:
It's a great, it's a great avenue to go down because we're all zoomed are all zooms, Riverside's Streamyard. It's all we do. It's just, it's remarkable. Here's I have a little bit different view of this. I think that a lot of rapport is physicality. So when you say that you enjoy being face-to-face more. That's because it's easier to establish rapport, isn't it? You know where to stand. You know how to look. You look around you. There's a vibe that you get from the other person and then from you so it's easy. Physicality is easy. If you look at report models, 75% of reports, physicality, not tonality, your words, we think it's all about words. It's not. But when you're virtual, how do you establish that physicality? I mean, I'm, I try to sit up straight, and I try to look at the camera. I try to have a good microphone, but a lot of it is in the technology, too. So you've seen people who are on Zoom calls, and this is what it looks like.

Mark Shriner [42:52]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I actually, I gotta be honest with you, how you, you have your setup, like, okay, when I get back home to my home studio, I'm going to work on my setup. I really like how you've framed yourself in the picture. And so I mean, but go ahead.

Bill Caskey [43:06]:
Yeah, so, how your camera, I mean, this is part of rapport online. People laugh at this, but this is it. How your camera is positioned. Are you looking down at it? Are you looking up at it? Where's your head? You know, like, I just did the whole mock-up thing mocking people. So that number two is, Can I hear you? You've got a really good microphone there. Mark. I've got a, I'm having microphone problem. But this is an old iPhone mic.

Mark Shriner [43:35]:
Sounds good. Definitely have the radio voice. But go ahead.

Bill Caskey [43:39]:
But at least I'm not talking to a microphone that's six feet away from me. And I tell people the other day I had a, I was a financial consultant, large financial consultant. I come in every year and do about six, six weeks over the business for their new people. And there was a guy who was like, Mister Mister, okay, he was like all over. But you couldn't hear him because he was talking into a mic that was three feet away. And I said, Bob, James, James, do me a favor. We got 50 bucks. Yeah, 50 bucks, go out and buy a microphone before our next session. We have no idea what you're saying. And he goes, really? I've never heard that before. And everybody in the class is like, yeah, we can't hear what you're saying. Because he wasn't conscious of it because he's not listening to himself.

Mark Shriner [44:23]:
I've even found myself when somebody's not clear on a call. I get this visceral kind of little bit of frustration with them. And I'm like, I can't blame them because I can't hear them. But for some reason, it's there. And so I totally agree with you.

Bill Caskey [44:41]:
If you're on Zoom calls for six hours a day, the research says it will wear you out because your mind is constantly trying to figure out, okay, did I say the right thing? Did he look away? But we don't have to do that. When we're physical. That's why those meetings don't wear you out. They inspire you. This kind of stuff wears us out. So how do you reduce the wear-out factor that you're putting on your prospects? You get your video, right? You get your audio, right? And you get your words and your context, right. But all this stuff matters. And we've never thought it mattered before. And it matters a lot. And I have so many people who thank you for your comment on my setup, but a lot of people, clients do, it's like, "Wow, you got a big studio." No, I've got a bedroom that I happen to put some nice lighting in. And we went to a park tour last year, I got some pictures here. So anyway, that's the whole idea of building rapport virtually.

Mark Shriner [45:38]:
Awesome. Last thing I want to touch on with you for this episode is the importance of developing or building trust. I kind of feel that, you know, we have our objective. Okay, so what do we want to talk about in this meeting? You know, what do we want to do in this presentation, but whenever you're engaged with a customer, you should also be trying to facilitate trust building, but trust takes time, right? So what are some of the, I don't know, tactics or strategies or just methods that you use to kind of accelerate that trust-building process?

Bill Caskey [46:18]:
Well, we talked about it earlier. And I'll, you know, kind of bring it to the surface here, we talked about detachment. Detachment creates enormous trust, because the prospect gets in their mind that you're not really trying to sell them anything. Now, you can't use that as a con game, you can't pretend like you're detached. And then when they say, they might be interested, you bring out your pots and pans and dance. You got to be careful with that. I want you to truly be detached, I want you to truly not care whether a prospect does business with you or not. That's going to position you from a totally different place when it comes to trust. Because they're not going to have to put up any guards and put up any resistance because they're like, Well, look, yeah, you don't know if you want to work with me. I don't know if I want to work with you. So perfect. So let's figure it out together. Okay, that's good. So I think trust and rapport come through our approach. And that approach is detached approach.

Mark Shriner [47:18]:
You know, it's interesting, because I just was thinking about a different context. Imagine you went to go see a lawyer or a doctor, and they were trying to sell you, and then they got all excited when you said, you're going to work with them. And you'd be like, wait a minute here. You're not making that choice, based upon, you know, their hard sell tactics. Hopefully, you're making the choice on, Do they seem like they know what they're talking about? And do you trust them? And I think we, if we could take that same approach, no matter what we were selling, because they're selling services too, but no matter what we were selling, if we could take that approach, it would be healthier. And like you said, people would trust us more readily.

Bill Caskey [47:58]:
I've always said that the surgeon, you know that the high-level surgeon is one of the best salespeople. You're going to them because you have a problem. A, B, they don't have to take you as a customer because they probably have a waiting list out the door. So they're not worried about trying to close you. See? Or three, I can't remember what track I was on. There's a certain amount of lab work and research and understanding of the problem before they even cut or even recommend anything. And then when they cut, they're damn sure that they understand how to fix the problem. They're not cutting from a place of, I don't know, hope. His total conviction, but think about what's had to happen before that before they cut. And you have total, I mean, great doctors you go into the operating room like, "Okay, man, I am ready, because I know you know how to fix this." Excellent salespeople should be the same way.

Mark Shriner [48:50]:
Now, totally, totally agree with you. Bill, let me ask you. I mean, you know, we talked earlier about the importance of continually developing ourselves and learning. And I know you've written several books, you've done these podcasts well over, well, I thought it was 1000 episodes, but it sounds like closer to 2000 now. But outside of that, do you have any book recommendations in the context of sales or personal development or anything else that you think, "Hey, man, everybody should be reading this book," or webinars or workshops or something that you'd like to kind of highlight?

Bill Caskey [49:25]:
Well, when will this be released?

Mark Shriner [49:29]:
Hopefully within a week.

Bill Caskey [49:31]:
So here's what I would recommend. I just finished a book. It's a mini-book, but I don't like 400-page books that I have to sift through to find the 12 things I should do. So I wrote a book called The 12 Bold Moves. This is the cover of it. We're publishing it this week. You can get a PDF of it. Go to BillCaskey.com. And it's a 35-40 page book, 12 things for 2024. Some of the things that we talked about today, most of which we haven't, about how to execute bigger moves in the sales process to help you close more business and be more effective. So that's what I would recommend. BillCaskey.com. Look for 12 Bold Moves. And I'll send you a link for the show notes too.

Mark Shriner [50:14]:
That'd be great. I appreciate that. Well, hey, Bill, I really appreciate you coming on the Grow Fast Podcast. It's been great talking with you. I took a page of notes here and learned a lot and we'd like to wish you and your team a great remainder of 2024.

Bill Caskey [50:30]:
Awesome. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for what you do on it. You know, the podcasting thing, it sounds fun, but there's always a lot of there's some work to a lot of loose ends and I appreciate any podcaster who goes out and does something every week to help their clients. So I appreciate you too.

Mark Shriner [50:44]:
Likewise, cheers.

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