Attention High Achievers – Part 2

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In the second of a two-part series on some tips for high achievers, Bill Caskey takes a look at why you should start building your online platform and how it all ties down into your personal branding. He talks about digitizing your connections and making digital content for people to sample you, get their trust, and ultimately do business with you. Finally, he dives deep into accountability and emphasizes why it’s needed.

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Listen to the podcast here:

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Attention High Achievers – Part 2

We are on a journey here to part two of our two-part series on how to be a higher achiever. That’s not the title of it, I don’t have a title of it, but I do know this. I get a lot of email and sometimes even calls from people who are high achievers, already good at what you do, but you want to do more. You want to be better, but you don’t want to burn yourself out doing it. Grinding is not the way to go from $200,000 a year to $900,000 a year. There are not enough grinding hours in the day to do that. We’ve been taking a look, if you have not read to last episode, read this one and then go back and read to that one. They’re not necessarily sequential, but I’ve got seven tips here. We talked about some of the traps that a high achiever faces in last episode. I’m not going to go over those again, but I will quickly recap the first four of my seven tips.

Number one is get clear on vision. Where are you going? What do you want life to look like? Not that it’s bad now, what do you want it to look like in your ideal future? Number two, what’s your required mentality in order to get to those things? If we don’t change the mind, we can’t change the market. Change your mind first and figure out what those things are. Number three is limiting beliefs. Where are you limiting yourself? You might even call this limiting self-beliefs because these are beliefs about you. This has nothing to do with the outside world.

This is only what you believe about you, about your future, about your potential, about your role on the planet, about your purpose, which brings me to number four, purpose. Why do you do this? What’s behind it all? Not just why are you here traipsing around the earth, that might be part of your purpose, but why do you do what you do in your business? Is there a real purpose or is it to make money? Hopefully, it’s more than that. I think most high achievers have a purpose beyond money. Money can be a by-product and a submission, but I don’t think it can be your sole purpose.

Those are the four things that we talked about last episode. I also mentioned that I am considering putting together based on the feedback that I got from the last session and over the last few months, putting together a high achievers small group coaching session series. These would be for people who are in the $200,000-ish range and want to grow more. If you’ll go to BillCaskey.com, at the very top, there’s a thin banner. You’ve got to have to look for it. Get on my wait list. There’s no commitment there. I’m not going to be charging your credit card or anything, but I want to know who’s interested and who’s not. If you’re interested in something like that, get on the wait list. As I start to craft this thing, I will let you know and keep you updated. Let’s get back and talk about 5, 6 and 7.

BCP 7 | High Achievers

High Achievers: If you’re a high achiever that wants to get to the next level, you’ve got to digitize your connection points.

 

Number five, the high achiever needs to think digitally by building his or her platform. I dumped this into the same area as personal branding, but a lot of the way you got from where you were several years ago to where you are now, was from grinding. It was from physically showing up at networking events, making calls, doing deals and getting referrals. I think all those things still work although I know with COVID the networking thing probably hasn’t so well, but it could be online. I’m interested in you building your brand online, building a platform. A platform could be LinkedIn. I’m not just talking about getting on LinkedIn and linking to a whole bunch of people until you have 5,000 connections. What are you going to do with that?

I’m talking about creating digital content online so people can sample you. People can say, “I’ve been watching Phil’s videos. It’s time for me to buy a building in downtown Chicago. I like Phil’s videos. I’m going to call him and see if maybe he’ll work with me.” The idea here is that high achievers want to get to the next level. They’ve got to digitize their connection points. Building your platform and your brand is all part of that. I’m not necessarily talking about blogging or vlogging. I’m saying, “If you’re not consistently producing content, and I like video and I like audio, written is fine, that’s helpful to your market.” That’s critical. It can’t just be all about you, how great you are, how great your company is. We know because we’ve asked you. You say it’s great. This content needs to be, “How am I going to help my customer? How am I going to help them walk through the processes?”

Number six, as we talked about with vision, you’ve got to have a clear understanding of where you’re going. Number six is building the plan. I call it the plan suite. The plan suite are 3 or 4 different plans. There’s the longer term 3 to 5, if some of you want to go ten, you can. I know some people have 25-year goals. I feel like that’s a little too far out there especially for a guy my age, but 3 to 5 is a good starting point. Let’s say, “What do I want to be, do, have, earn? What is my lifestyle? What do I want it to look like in five years?” That’s a good space. That’s the end goal, 3 to 5 years.

We’ve got the one-year plan. We’re shortening it up and saying, “The next year, what do I want to accomplish? What skills do I need to have? What are my mindsets? What are some of my limiting beliefs I need to break through? How am I going to build my platform?” Virtually anything that we talk about in these seven could appear on a one-year plan. I have all of my small group coaching clients, if we do this high achiever program, we’ll do it there, create a one-year plan. You would be shocked about how many people come to me six months into the year and say, “I’m done for the year. Everything that I had on my plane has come true.”

It’s not any kind of magic. It’s when you write something down and you refer to it often and as you’re building your monthly plan, you’re referencing those one-year milestones, goal-setting and goal-achievement is not that difficult. When we don’t write it down and we don’t have a plan and we don’t have an action-oriented way to implement those things, then it becomes a difficult. The third element of the plan, we’ve got the five-year, we’ve got the one-year, we got some a 30 or 90 day. Some people like the 90-day thing. I’m more of a 30-day guy. That would be the next one. You’re using your one-year plan to reference when you’re planning your 30-day plan.

If we don't change the mind, we can't change the market. Share on X

If your one-year plan is, “I need to improve my video skills,” and it’s August and you haven’t done it yet, then get to work. That should be part of your monthly plan is, “I want to reach out to someone and have them coach me on video skills.” The other plan is probably the short-term, one day, one week. I like the weekly plan, but at some point, you need to know what you’re going to be doing every day. I like to do that Friday for the next week. That’s up to you. Those are the four plans in the plan suite. Number seven, the last one and I can’t overestimate the importance of this and that is an accountability factor. I call it a factor because it doesn’t have to necessarily be a group, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a person, but you’ve got to find some way to be accountable to someone outside of yourself for the behaviors required to get to your level of success that you want to.

I don’t like it to be a spouse or a family member. Preferably I like to have a coach, someone from the outside who doesn’t base on whether I win or lose. There’s too much garbage and drama that goes along with that. That’s why I don’t like spouses to be your accountability partner because they’re in the game with you. A coach has to be sitting on the sidelines, looking at the game. That’s why I like coach and small groups. We have a group called The 2X Group, which is a sales B2B sales group. That is exactly that. We hold each other accountable in a nice, gentle way. We don’t spend a ton of time each session on it, but we do spend a little bit of time.

When I commit to another human being and look them in the eye and say, “By the time we meet next, I will have this lead generation program written.” I have an extra added level of incentive and commitment to do it. How many times have you written the paper the day before it’s due when you were in school? It’s accountability. It’s due. I put it off until the last minute and that’s not good, but at least I got it in. It’s the same thing with any accountability group, factor or coach. Have somebody around you who holds you accountable. They don’t babysit you. They don’t call you at 6:00 AM to make sure you’ve rolled out of bed or lifting weights already. They don’t make sure you’re not eating donuts all day. That’s not what an accountability partner does. Accountability partner meets you on a frequent basis, weekly, biweekly and you check in with each other.

Those are my seven things. If you liked these and if you feel like, “I’m doing well, but there’s another gear, but I don’t want to work harder. That’s clear. I don’t want to go from 50 hours a week to 90 hours a week to make an extra $200,000.” You should not. If you might be interested in what I’m putting together, I’m working out some of the details now. I don’t know exactly what it looks like or what costs, but I’m looking for 10 to 15 people who might want to join me on this journey of high achievers.

We’ll talk more about the money later. If you’re interested, go to BillCaskey.com. On the top upper part there’s a little thin banner there. Click on that, it’ll take you to a page. We’ll also be sending you out something too. I’m working on this document called The Required Mindsets of the High Achiever. It’s not done yet. It will probably be another couple of weeks, but I will send that to anybody who puts their name on the waitlist as a gift. I enjoyed having you. I’m glad that you read every week.

Attention High Achievers – Part 1

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BCP 6 | High Achievers

 

High achievers usually have a slightly different view of what’s possible in the world. In this episode, Bill Caskey talks about the constant need of high achievers to re-envision themselves as they grow and operate on a different plane. Learn the traps that most high achievers fall into that you may be trapped in as well and the things high achievers need access to. Tune in and learn why you may need to rethink your own goals and possibilities.

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Attention High Achievers – Part 1

We are going to speak about high-achievers. Those are the people who you might be one and you might not be one. There’s no shame if you aren’t, but this is going to be speaking to those people who are in the $200,000-ish range and above, either an entrepreneur, a business owner, a VP of sales or a sales professional, and primarily someone who has upside potential in that income. We’re speaking to the elitist achievers. If you’re not in that income range, that’s cool. You can still read. I will never ever know, but the topic deals with that group. I might even make this a 2 or 3-part series because I have so much to get to.

Here’s where this topic came from. I have quite a few people in one of my small group coaching programs. We call it The 2X Group, who is in that income range. They’re at higher levels of income. What I have found is that those people have a slightly different view of what’s possible in the world. They have accumulated some assets, have some money to invest in themselves and their business. I was watching a guy named Benjamin Hardy, who’s written several books on Psychology and personality. He said that we have to keep re-envisioning ourselves every few years because we learn things, have experience, get wisdom, and get financial wherewithal. If we say, “I set my vision ten years ago and we haven’t changed it, then the person we are now is capable of so much more or so much different.” By more, I’m not talking about working harder either. I’m talking about reaping the rewards from that knowledge and wisdom.

BCP 6 | High Achievers

High Achievers: You have to keep re-envisioning yourself every few years because you learn things, have experience, get wisdom, and get financial wherewithal.

 

I have found that the highest achievers in the top 2% or 3% range of income earners have different needs of different things they want to work on. If you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy, they’re not looking at shelter as a big foundational need for them. They’ve got that checked off. They’re not looking for belonging. They have that checked off. They’ve got good families, got good works situations, got good clients that they are also friends with. As we get higher in Maslow’s Hierarchy, self-actualization, self-esteem, what’s possible and visioning, all those things they do need help with. That’s the purpose of this episode. It’s to introduce you to some of these things.

You are saying, “Where is this going? I feel like this is going somewhere.” It might be, I don’t know. I am giving some thought to spinning up a group of 8 to 10 high-achievers. I don’t know yet if there’s interest. There might be but I don’t know. Here’s what I would ask you to do. Read this blog in my website, BillCaskey.com. At the top of that, there was an orange bar, click on that, and there will be a waitlist for you. If it opens up how much it is, when it is, how it is, what’s going to be covered, but get on the waitlist. I’ll send you a couple of valuable emails to some other things follow-up to this. You have to earn $200,000-ish a year to get into this program.

If you’re a $30,000 person, it’s not for you. There are several traps that high-achievers fall into. I don’t think this is just high-achievers, but it’s everyone. There’s the ambition trap where it’s never enough. I’ve got an appetite for more. I’ve got to work harder. I’m doing well, but there’s much more I could be doing. That’s that trap. At some point, you lose sight of what’s important because you’re always striving for the next hill to go take. Two is the imposter trap. It is the feeling of fraud. It’s those deep inadequacies. I have a little bit of this or a lot of it. I’m not sure, but I know I struggle with this. It shows up for me is I will come up with an idea of a product similar to look at high-achiever product.

If you get the mindset stuff right, everything else trickles up from there. Share on X

It used to be that I would talk myself out of it as quickly as I talked myself into it. That’s the imposter trap, “Do you know what I could do with this and that? We could do this. We could do a show, LinkedIn video and have a website.” At some point you say, “It’s not me. That’s not for me.” That’s the imposter trap. In imposter syndrome, you’re saying, “This is a great idea,” but then you’re talking yourself out of it. The third trap is the comparison trap. I’ve always heard the term contrast, but don’t compare. It’s hard not to compare ourselves to others. It’s not just others, but it’s what we envisioned for ourselves. “By this time in my life, I thought I would be X, and I’m not.”

That’s a trap you get into. Finally, there’s that perfection trap, which is a perfect as my line in the sand, and anything less than that is not good enough. It is a constant reminder when I’m putting something out there, and there’s a mistake made in the copy or, “Why didn’t I think of that? I should’ve.” That’s that perfection trap. Those are traps we can’t follow into, but we do. Here’s what I find is going on inside the mind of the high-achievers. Number one, they want to continue to grow their numbers, but they don’t want to burn themselves out.

The idea of going from $200,000 to $700,000 if I have to work 40 more hours a week, “It’s not going to happen. I don’t want to do it.” You shouldn’t do it. There are ways to get you to that $700,000 mark without burning yourself out. Another thing that I hear from high-achievers is, “I don’t feel like I’m leveraging my talents and skills. I don’t feel like I’m doing enough of the things I’m good at, what I would call the zone of genius or the high pay activity.” Zone of genius was a term by Gay Hendricks in a book called The Big Leap.

He talks about, “You have things and I have things that we’re naturally good at,” but we only spent an hour or two a week on those things. It was like, “Why are we spending twenty hours a week doing things we’re not good at or don’t get paid for, and then that sacrifice is a time in our zone of genius?” A lot of people feel like, “Am I leveraging my God-given talents and man-acquired talents along the way?” Here’s another concern, “I feel like I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m earning a good income and have a good stable job. I know some people don’t. I’m thankful, blessed and grateful for that, but is this all there is to it? I keep doing the same thing. It’s like Groundhog’s day. It’s the same thing day in, day out. I’m trying to infuse myself with adventure and for other things but sometimes, I feel as if this is all there is.” I know we’ve heard that saying a long time.

6BCPCaption2

High Achievers: Building your brand is not always about making more money. It might be how are you going to give back.

 

I feel like high-achievers have that because they operate on a different plane and a different perspective. “I don’t feel like I’ve built my personal brand well enough.” This goes for almost all high-achievers. There’s a certain amount of reluctance to build a brand. Once you get to a place where you deserve to build a brand, it’s almost like it has the opposite effect. We’re reluctant to do it because we say, “Why would I build a brand? I’m doing fine. I’m reaching out to people going to networking events. Everything is going well. I’m pulling in my $250,000 a year. Why would I want to go down another path?”

My reaction to that is, “Why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you want to tell your stories? Tell the stories of prospects and clients, tell your stories of how you’ve helped people, tell stories of how people have come to you in bad shape, and through your wisdom and talent have helped them transform their lives or improve their business results or outcomes. Why would you keep that from the general public? Would you keep that from your audience?”

It’s going to take the opposite approach. Building your brand is not always about making more money. Usually, it is. It’s about how are you going to give back? How are you going to take the experience you have and send it back out to the world and the market? This is not an exhaustive list, but I hear this idea of accountability. Whenever I start a small group coaching program, as we do, I always ask, “What’s one thing you want to get out of this group? It’s bizarre in a way. Almost always it’s the highest achievers who say, “Accountability.”

It comes from the high-achievers knowledge that that’s exactly what’s going to get him or her to the next level. It’s accountability. Yet we’re reluctant to ask for it from our managers when a guy like me comes along and does a small group mastermind program. That’s where people want to go, especially the high-achievers. Accountability is huge. I’ve got a couple of clients in The 2X Group that I offer extra accountability sessions. It’s transformed their business because every week we chat only 10 or 15 minutes, and it helps them. When they’re thinking about putting something off, they know they can’t because they know I’m going to ask them about it. They do it and doing it works.

Here are a handful of things. I’ve got about 9 or 10 things that I think the high-achievers need to get access to. I’m going to share with you a handful and then we’ll come back next episode and talk more. I have this in a pie chart. One section might be 25% of the pie chart. One might be less depending upon the importance of each one, but this one is important. I’m not sure what percent to give it. What is your vision? What is your ideal outcome for 1, 2, 5 years down the road? Do you have constructed a vision of where you want your life to be? Your financial life, business life or relationship life. We’ve got lots of different lives. Where are you going? High-achievers need this. They must have this. They must start thinking about it differently than just assets or financial because there’s more to life than that. That’s one part of life, but there’s more to it.

The second thing is, what are the required mindsets that you’re going to need to adopt or embrace if you’re going to level your business up? What kinds of mindsets do you need? How do you look at the world? How do you look at your value? How do you look at your customers? How do you look at your roles in the customer’s life? Those are all mindset issues. If you get the mindset stuff right, everything else falls from there. It trickles down from there. It trickles up. If you get your mind right, everything else follows. Mindset is an important part of this. We’ve got vision and mindset.

Number three, it’s important to pay attention to limiting beliefs. We hear a lot about limiting beliefs. We don’t hear much about how to unlimit them. The first step is you have to get clear on what you believe about yourself, and that’s not easy. Sometimes you need another human being there to help shine the light on what your current beliefs are. One way to look at your current beliefs is what are your results? It’s almost impossible for you to believe something different than your results are getting you. If you’re a $200,000 a year person, and you say, “I’m a $500,000 a year person masquerading as a $200,000.” You’re not. Your beliefs are you are a $200,000 a year person. If you thought you were $500,000 a year person, you’d be earning $500,000. That’s not always the case but generally, your beliefs are congruent with your results. If you want to go from $200,000 to $500,000, you’ve got to check out those beliefs that might limit you from getting there.

Your beliefs are congruent with your results. Share on X

Here’s the fourth thing, and then I’ll pause and we’ll do the others later. Why are you here? Why are you on this planet? What’s your purpose? What are you here to do? Alignment of purpose is critical because it’s the fire that will be released and the energy will be released once you decide what it is and land on what it is. My purpose in life that I’ve come up with here over the last couple of years is to use my experiences, my talent to share with the world, so people can expand what’s possible for them. My purpose is not to have everybody be a top-level achiever. My purpose is to take what I’m learning and share it in a way that people can consume it like we’re doing on this show. It’s one good example so that people can expand what’s possible for them.

Everything that I do needs to be focused on that purpose whether it’s a fee-based program or a free video on LinkedIn. I always believe that is focused and aligned with my purpose. What is your purpose? This is not the special purpose like Steve Martin had in The Jerk but it’s why are you here? Are you incorporating and aligning what you do in your business to why you’re here? You’re not here to earn money. It might be an output of the purpose, but that’s not the purpose. If you can get clear on this, it will unleash energy in your world.

We’re going to go through this a little bit deeper next episode. If you like the overall topic and might consider being a part of a group if we do decide to assemble one, go to BillCaskey.com, the orange bar at the top will say something like High-Achiever. Click on it, put your name and email address. There also might be a question there too that I ask you about what you might want to include if you decided ever to do something like this. I have no pricing other than I know I’ve got a handful of people who want to do this. I’m opening it up to my readers to get on the waitlist. Hopefully, that helps. I love you, guys. I appreciate you. If you want to leave a review on iTunes, I would love that. Thank you. Bye.

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Are The Experts Misleading You‪?‬‬

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BCP 4 | Mislead By Experts

 

Are the experts misleading you‪? In this episode, Bill Caskey thinks you should be questioning the experts you listen to as he talks about challenging beliefs and how experts can easily mislead you. Thinking that experts know best can sometimes be detrimental to you instead of advantageous. Bill shares five areas in which you need to take a deeper look at and challenge your own beliefs and the expert’s beliefs. Tune in and take charge of your own beliefs and be wary of experts.

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Are The Experts Misleading You‪?‬‬

I am happy to be with you. Happy New Year. I’m glad to be back with you. Hopefully, 2021 is starting off well. I know that everybody’s talking about 2020 and 2021 and what it’s going to look like. I’ll leave that for the experts. I don’t have any predictions. Predictions that I’ve made in the past have not come true so I got away from the prediction game. One thing that I did notice in 2020 is that we had a lot of experts on the scene. You can call them scientists and experts. Primarily, it was around the COVID and the pandemic. It seemed like you’d hear an expert say one thing and then a month later, they’d say something different or far enough off that you’d say, “Did you know that a month ago when you had other advice? How have you changed your advice so much?” We have become a little leery of experts. That’s understandable. I even said something on Twitter that I’m leery of experts. I had a couple of people holler back at me and say, “Aren’t you an expert? Should we be leery of you?” I should have answered, “You should listen to what my advice is because I give a lot of advice and a lot of tips on this show, but you’ve got to use it and make it work in your world. If it doesn’t, don’t use it. If you don’t believe it’ll work and you know it won’t work, then don’t use it.”

BCP 4 | Mislead By Experts

Mislead By Experts: Better questions help, but the questions need to be primarily around their current circumstance.

 

I always suggest trying things, give it a go, or give it a shot. If something that I say resonates with you and you say, “That makes a lot of sense.” Put it to use and try it. Double down on it if it works. Throw it out if it doesn’t. One thing I’ve realized is that some of the experts in the sales training and coaching business have misled us. I don’t think they’ve lied to us. I mentioned on LinkedIn that there are some lies that are out there, but a lot of what has transpired over the last several years is that coaches and trainers have their set regimen. They have their curriculum and they’ve made no changes in it. These large coaching companies can’t go and change curriculum all at once so they live with what they’ve been using. I’ve got five areas that our trainers and coaches have misled us. I’ve got fourteen, but I’m not going to go through all these. I’ll go through five and then I’ll hear what my audience wants. If they want more, we can do another episode on five more. The reason I think this is important is if you can look at what you’ve been taught to believe and reconfigure it a little bit based on the current model, the current circumstances, the current environment, then challenging beliefs is okay. It’s healthy.

I find a lot of people, when I go in and start coaching a group or coaching individuals, they’ve been taught something when they were young and it’s carried over years and years. When you’re first out of college or school, you take a sales position and you have a strong mentor, coach, or manager. They will say something and it’ll stick with you because you’re fashionable and still forming your opinions. Yet often, we wake up when we’re 50 years old and we say, “How did that ever get into our brain? Where did that come from?” I am a big proponent of checking out your beliefs. Your beliefs and your actions are almost always congruent. If you check out your beliefs, which we’re going to do here a little bit, you might find some ways to improve them.

If it resonates with you, try it. Double down on it if it works; throw it out if it doesn't. Share on X

Here is my list. I’m going to go through five and I’m going to give you the alternative here too. Think about these as if someone has told you this, suggested this, you’ve read it, you’ve heard it, or if you watched it. Number one, if you would ask better questions, the customer will be more likely to buy from you. I love questions. I love finding out what the issues are that a potential client has, understanding those issues, and then crafting a solution to help them solve those issues. There are beautiful things that happen when you ask questions. Number one, never interrogate. I see this a lot. I get it used on me a lot when I’m the prospect. It’s somebody on the phone or face-to-face will be pummeling me with questions. All in the spirit of getting to know more about me and what my dilemmas are.

You’ve got to be careful when you ask questions. You’ve got to deserve the permission to ask the questions. The alternative to that so that you don’t interrogate people is upfront in the process. Simply make the statement to the prospect of the question. “Is it okay if I ask you some questions about your current circumstance, what you’re facing, and what you’re trying to accomplish so that I can better understand whether we can help you or not?” That’s how you get permission. It lowers the resistance for the prospect because now they know why you’re asking the question, as opposed to shining the light in their eyes and getting interrogated. It’s not a good system. Better questions help but the questions need to be primarily around their current circumstance, not around what your budget and when you want to have this implemented. Those are questions you can ask down the road but primarily upfront, you want to get permission to ask questions. Create a safe environment so the questions you ask will be answered truthfully.

You’ve heard the saying that prospects lie. They do, but 90% of the time, they lie because of us because we forced them to lie by not providing a safe environment, not asking the right questions, or asking questions that are too assumptive at the beginning of the sales process. That’s something our trainers and coaches have told us. Ask more questions, ask better questions but there’s a little bit more to it than that. Do that upfront thing where you ask for permission. Number two, if you would work harder, longer, and grind more, good things will happen for you. The old grind it out mode of selling and achievement. Here’s where the old trainers and coaches are a little bit right and where they’re wrong. Number one, they’re right because working hard is not a bad thing. I would rather see you work hard in the market than sit around, eat dark chocolates all day and wait for something to happen because you know that’s not going to be the case.

Hard work is not a problem, but I’m not sure grinding and longer work is the answer. This is where strategy comes in. Here’s an example. I can make 100 cold calls trying to get somebody on the phone, trying to get them enthused, and inspired about training or developing their people or I can create a web page that is designed specifically for the person who is not sure whether they want to purchase training or work with their people and it walks them through some of the elements of that. Should I even invest in my people? How do I know my people are right for investment? How do I know my people are coachable? What kind of metrics would we use if we invest in a training solution? How do we know it pays off? There are lots of questions that people have at the beginning that will be good strategic ways for you to determine whether a person is a prospect or not. Rather than make 100 calls, I would rather you send out 100 emails linking your potential prospect to a page where they can work for themselves. They can decide for themselves if they’re a prospect for you.

I heard a stat from Gallup that was done in November of 2020 survey. It said that 33% of buyers prefer a sales-free process and 44% of Millennial buyers prefer a salesperson-free process. What does that tell you about someone who feels a cold call from you who’s not expecting your call and not even thinking about the problems they have in your area? They’re not going to be open. Whether you believe those numbers or not, I do. Gallup is pretty solid with their research. The question is, how you make the initial part of the process salesperson-free and give them enough information, educate them, and teach them why a lot of people are not prospects for you. That’s okay too. Beyond bias and be brutally honest. On that page, you have a place for them to calendar a call, schedule a call with you, or you follow up. Grinding out a bunch of cold calls, you’re only going to get 5% to 10% of people to talk to you. Those people are probably not thinking about you when they pick up the phone and answer.

I don’t like grinding. It’s better to take a strategic approach and say, “Let’s map the buyer journey. The buyer upfront is not looking for a sales call. What they’re looking for are information and education. How should I be thinking about the product or service you sell?” Number three, I hear this a lot from people like VPs of Sales and CEOs. It’s all about the numbers. Are they making the calls? Are they getting their results? What’s our revenue? How many new customers did we get? I know I have a love-hate relationship with CRMs but in the world of data and all the CRMs that are out there, you’re logging everything into your CRM and somebody can look and say, “Johnny, you only made ten new calls this week. No wonder you don’t have enough stuff going on.” There’s more to it than just the numbers. We’ll say, “What’s behind the numbers?” If I’m not making enough calls, not producing enough LinkedIn videos, or if I’m not doing the behavior that I have decided as a sales professional, I have decided it’s going to take to generate the results I want, then there’s something else stopping me. That’s where people need to look.

BCP 4 | Mislead By Experts

Mislead By Experts: If you’re not offering them any value in the sales process, what makes them think you’re going to offer any value once they buy?

 

Why don’t you like cold calls? Rejection? You’ve got to flip the script. Instead of trying to get them to see you or invite you on a Zoom call, you change the script to, “I’ve got something that would be beneficial for you. Would you like to see it?” When they say yes, you send them a link or you send them a document. That way, it’s not you calling and trying to get something. It’s you calling and giving them something. It’s a whole lot easier to make a cold outreach call. I’m not lobbying for those cold calls to me are one element of prospecting. Unfortunately, most sales organizations still live and die by the cold call and cold outreach. I don’t buy that. There are better ways to do it but if that’s what you are doing and you don’t like doing them then find a way to love and like it. One way to do it is to invite people to a process and something of value for them. If you’re not offering them any value in the sales process, what makes them think you’re going to offer any value once they buy?

I’m a big believer in educating your prospect and making them a more sophisticated buyer. Sometimes, I miss that. I jumped right to, “What are you trying to accomplish? What is the pain costing you?” I don’t educate the buyer. They go off to two other places who might educate them and I’m out. It’s a double loser. They don’t get me. I don’t get them. Is it all about the numbers? The numbers matter, but I want you to look behind the numbers. What is it that’s stopping me from executing the numbers? Number four, don’t worry about your personal brand and who do you think you are. Nobody’s going to say that to you, but they’re thinking that. When you go into your manager or if you’re a VP of sales and you say to your people on the executive team, “We’re going to undertake an initiative this month or this quarter. We’re going to start building the brand of the sales professionals that are on our team.” This applies primarily in the B2B space, not the B2C space as much, but it could. What kind of reaction are you going to get from people? “That’s a great idea. Let’s put them on video. Let’s work on the LinkedIn page. Let’s work on the profile. Let’s have each of them do a podcast.” No, they’re not going to say that. They’re going to say, “Our brand is fine. Our marketing department works on our brand all the time.”

The reality is, in B2B sales, your brand matters. If you have a LinkedIn page, you have a brand. It may not be intentional and sound but you’ve got one so why not take the time to improve that? I’m not talking about being an Instagram influencer or being all over the internet. I’m talking about LinkedIn primarily here, but you need to create your own brand. When someone looks you up online because you have set an appointment and they see nothing of value from you, all they see is a Contact Me page and there’s no video on it, there’s no special advice, suggestions, or education, how important are you to them? I’ve told the story about the purchasing manager for a Fortune 1000 company. He says, “I get a lot of requests for meetings from salespeople. I go to their LinkedIn page. If they don’t offer me any help or I can’t see anything of value they bring, I decline the offer. I’m not going to see people who haven’t taken the time to create something on their LinkedIn page that says, ‘Here’s what we do or here’s how to buy.’” Your personal brand and B2B sales matter. It’s going to matter even more in the next couple of years. Not less but more.

These trainers who are out there saying, “No, I got a cold call. Don’t produce content. That’s not your job. Stay in your lane.” Stay in your lane was the worst piece of advice I ever heard. You’ve got to build your personal brand. Ignore what the coaches and trainers say. It’s remarkable to me how many trainers and sales coaches still don’t believe in personal branding. It’s unbelievable and yet, I can point to twenty different case studies of people who have done it and what’s happened to their income. Here is number five, don’t worry about scaling your business. You let me scale our business by hiring a bunch of more people like you. You need to get out and make calls. Worst advice in the world. That advice might’ve worked several years ago when we didn’t have media platforms that you could create content for and catch the eye of prospects. When it was only a one-to-one game, it was a physical game, and how many people are you reaching out to connecting with and seeing on a weekly basis. I understand that, but if a sales coach and business trainer are telling you don’t worry about scaling your business, that’s poor advice. I want you to scale your leads and the processes.

Your beliefs and your actions are almost always congruent. Share on X

What if you had five people who set appointments with you every week because of something they saw online, something that you reached out, and they could book an appointment with you right online to have a discussion? What would that be like? Forget about the week thing. You had people who were seeking you out and reaching out to you. Would that allow you to scale your business more? Of course. What if most of those people or 80% of those people had been through a process of some kind so that when they got with you, they were serious about solving a problem? They may not buy, but if somebody is serious about a problem, they’ve consumed your videos, they’ve watched your content online, they feel comfortable with you, they’ve seen you so that you’re not as scary as maybe you are if you’re just another salesperson that they’re reaching out to, how well positioned would you be if that’s the case? If your phone is ringing or your calendar is dinging because you have new appointments, how well-positioned are you going to be? You are going to be great. You don’t have to be all that good, but you don’t have to be a wiz or a master if people are calling you, saying, “Here’s my problem.”

Those are the five pieces that trainers and coaches missed. I’m going to give people the benefit of the doubt that a lot of the world has changed around these people but I am convinced that if you were to check these five things out and you’re doing these or you’re thinking this way, it’s because somebody has imprinted that in your mind from a long time ago or you’re scared but I don’t buy that. If you’re interested in talking more about some of these, you can reach me at BillCaskey.com. We’ve got peer groups and mastermind groups starting where we teach these things. If you’re interested in that, go to BillCaskey.com. There are plenty of ways to get in touch with us there. Hopefully, this helps. Connect with me through LinkedIn if you like. We’ve got some interviews scheduled here in the next few episodes that you’re going to like. We’ll talk to you soon.

Important Links:

Selling Using Social Media with Connor Dube

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On this episode of the podcast, I sit down with Connor Dube, Director of Marketing and Sales at activeblogs.com.

We discuss the most modern methods of using social media to conduct sales. Connor gives us 4 methods you can use to get the most out of social media when it comes to selling.

Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

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The Survey Results Are In!

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A few weeks ago, I asked you to share your perspective on THE most important skill heading into 2021.

If you did so, thank you. If you didn’t, no worries…I wanted to share the results.

I shot a quick video laying out THE #1 skill area on the minds of our subscribers AND gave you a couple of tips on how you can improve immediately. 
 
Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

Establishing Authority in Your Market

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If you want to be influential in your network, you must establish authority.

On this episode, I’ll give you some ways you can position yourself as a relevant influencer in your market. The first step is to answer the questions that are on your buyer’s minds. 

Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

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Are You Feeling Adrift in Your Life?

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On this episode of the podcast, Bill gets personal into his own struggle with being adrift in life. 

He also gives you some ways you can either help someone you know who might be dealing with this issue or maybe even yourself.

Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

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The Dilemmas We’re Facing

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My roles as a coach is to bring to the surface the things that we are not always aware of, but are effecting our business.

On this episode, I share 7 dilemmas that we’re facing as sales professionals. At the end of the episode I top it off with the primary dilemma that I believe has the most profound effect in your world.

Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

[smart_track_player url=”https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/the2xpodcast/10-28-20-Dilemmas.mp3″ title=”The Dilemmas We’re Facing” artist=”The Bill Caskey Podcast” image=”http://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BC-Podcast-Artwork-copy-300×300.jpg” color=”#0f344a” background=”#0f344a” social_linkedin=”true” social_email=”true” ]

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Back to the Basics

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On this episode I get back to the basics. These are the basic sales skills that are essential for all salespeople to master in order to achieve their goals and properly serve their customers.

This is a perfect time to brush up on your basics as we start to transition out of this disruption.

Also, enrollment is now open for both The 2X Group and The 2X Academy.

The 2X Group (Small Group Coaching): http://the2xgroup.com/

The 2X Academy (Online Virtual Training): http://the2xacademy.com

[smart_track_player url=”https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/the2xpodcast/10-21-20-Basics.mp3″ title=”Back to the Basics” artist=”The Bill Caskey Podcast” image=”http://billcaskey.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BC-Podcast-Artwork-copy-300×300.jpg” color=”#0f344a” background=”#0f344a” social_linkedin=”true” social_email=”true” ]

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