Have you ever been ghosted by a prospect that you thought was a sure thing? Or maybe you had to cave on price just to close the deal? And your coach or your manager said, look, you're just not a good closer. It's not that at all. It's how you're constructing and expressing your offer. This month in The Insider, we're tackling the three biggest offer mistakes salespeople make and how to fix them so that your prospect does not hesitate. And they start saying yes. We go, and they start saying yes. We go live May 1st at noon Eastern. If you're not a member yet, go to advancedsellingpodcast.com slash insider and join before then. I'll see you there. Welcome everybody to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast and history of podcasts. My name is Brian Neal. My name is Bill Kasky. Here every week for your listening enjoyment. If you've not already done so, become a member of the Insider Program. You hear us talk about it. You think about it. You kind of want to do it. What are you waiting for? It's the best bang for your bucks. 97 bucks a month live training with Bill. And Bill, you mentioned you were going to add a follow-up session now? Yeah, I felt like one a month is not quite enough because I introduced concepts in that one time the first Friday of the month. and I feel like instead of just moving to the next concept the next month, I want to do a little bit of reinforcement and problem solving and implementation around it. So we're having two meetings a month. The second meeting is one hour. It's usually two weeks after the first. Anyway, all you need to know is that we're trying to improve it so that you get, you know, extreme value out of your $97 a month. Yeah. So we feel like we've got it dialed in a little bit better. So in May, we're going to be talking about how do you construct and articulate your offer, the solution that you bring how do you do it in a way that is compelling fantastic uh let's see it's a little poll question for you bill okay sitting here in april um i was going through our pantry and i there were two items there that i want your um take on okay if you're in or out on the two items they're food items and if they are are these are these two items um an aged based item me me and by that i mean are they do you think they are air quotes old people food okay the answer will be yes the first one you'll be asking me go ahead is grape nuts cereal in or out on grape nuts well i don't buy i don't buy or eat cereal but i i really like grape nuts and the reason is because i like crunchy things yeah go okay i don't like spinach salad because There's no crunch in her. I want crunchy. I want nuts and cabbage and stuff like that. So I do like grape nuts. I've heard it's good for you, but I don't know. I don't eat it anymore. But it is an old, you're excited. It's an old person's food, isn't it? Kind of. I mean, it's a thing. I just wanted that. And if you're really looking for crunch, I mean, that's the place to do it, right? It's like eating broken teeth. Oh, yeah. It's bright teeth. You're eating your roof, your mouth's all bleeding afterwards. What about this one? What about cream of wheat? Cream of wheat. Oh, never. out never i hate cream you hate cream of wheat oh my god i love cream of wheat do you really is it an old person's food because i ate it was a kid but then i always felt it was at my grandma's house yeah i think it is i think uh or old people yeah old people introduced it to us and then yes get care of the tradition and same with oatmeal too i i just test oatmeal and with oatmeal meal i get i'm i have some kind of allergy to oats or something because i get real phlegmy and cough and interesting and so yeah those two yeah i think they're old i think they're old i think so i don't know bobby kennedy would approve of those or not we'll have to uh have travis put the little poll are you in or out on grape nuts or in or out on cream of wheat what about you i'm in uh on the both okay yeah i love i love grape nuts uh i always ate at my grandma's house and cream of wheat was one of my favorite foods growing up now of course i put 18 teaspoons of sugar in it when i was a kid because yeah exactly exactly man i love cream of wheat i was always i felt like we were rich we're eating cream of wheat i just like the generic oats or or mush you know fried cornmeal like oh it's cream of wheat it's like a big day the house well my mom used to make oatmeal and she used to put brown sugar in it and a lot like a lot and so it was never enough. So I'm just dumping brown sugar to hide the nasty taste. All right. Topic topic today. Um, you know, when we do these recordings, it's, I'm always thinking, cause we usually, you take a topic and I take a topic and that way it keeps it fresh. And so I was thinking, what's a good topic for mine. And I sometimes don't think, I sometimes think we need to go back to kind of the original reason we did this podcast for and have for 20 20 years This is our 20th anniversary Is that right Oh six Yeah in September In September in September And and I think the original reason we did it was because we want to help people solve problems We want to help people bring we want to bring ideas to problems that are unsolved or frustrating or creating suffering in some way. And so I wanted to get back today. And so I've got a question to you is here we sit, April 2026 or May 2026. And what's the one problem that you see sales organizations, sales professionals, customer acquisition people, in other words, could be an accountant, it could be an attorney, it doesn't have to be a salesperson, but somebody who's in the business of acquiring customers. What's the biggest problem you see they have today? and I thought you would go and explain. I'll go with the one I think they have and explain and then maybe we can arrive at some solutions. Okay. This is hard to narrow it down to one. That's why you asked the question, right? I know. It's really hard. And I tend to, when I hear these things, I get 18 things flashing your head and then usually your brain just keeps going back to one. And you said, Bill, because we haven't prepared. I don't know what Bill's going to say. He doesn't know what I'm going to say. And Bill said, I bet ours are different. I bet they are too. I'm going to say the number one problem is the poor allocation of time spent for salespeople. That in all things with their calendar and their time spent, they don't have a systematic way to effectively produce at the high level that most of them want to produce at. I would say. There's no systematic allocation of time. So what happens is, here's the problem. Salespeople have way too much to do on a to-do list in a week. And that tends to occur, those to-dos tend to be around either internal deals or operational things or customer service things. And they're really, really, really busy in a week. And they don't do anything to systematically behave in the week for the next two or three weeks. So when you look at any salesperson's calendar, you'll typically see it full in the week that you're in. And if I flip two pages and go to two weeks away, there's nothing other than the internal meetings. But when you get to that two-week mark, it will be full. And I don't think people think about that as a big problem. And I think it's a huge problem so is it the is it the reallocation of where you spend your time is that what your solution is i think i think it's where and and it's not systematic so here's an example let's use what a lot of people have as the top problem i don't have enough in the top of the funnel okay so i go okay let me look at your calendar you say what you do every week is the thing that determines your output the most and let me look and look for those spaces where you've got a systematic place held on your calendar to do activity that's strictly geared around filling the top of the funnel. And most people say they don't. They might try to do a time block, like a prospecting time block, but they're really quick to cancel it when a customer calls or when something else pops up. And then they never know why their sales go up and down, up and down. They get behind before they know to get behind. Similar to our last episode we talked about. The behavior that I do months and weeks and days before determines what spits out later. So that would be one example. We talk about LinkedIn all the time. People say, I need to be more active on LinkedIn. I'm like, let me look at your calendar and show me where you systematically put time in your calendar to do the work you need to do on LinkedIn. Well, I'm really busy and, you know, kind of do that when I'm, you know, you know, get some downtime. It's very fluffy. And I think it can be more structured in a calendar setting. that would allow them to consistently behave and do behaviors that, that will feed them down the road. That's really good. It's different. It's good. Yeah. It's well, yeah. I mean, if you're, if your problem is you're not generating enough leads, then, then one place to look at it is how much time are you spending and what are you doing with that time? And I think mine was some, mine was lead generation, but in a slightly different, different way. And that is at almost every company that comes to me, comes to us, and we have a conversation. It's almost always lead gen. Either new logos, new business, brand new business, or expanding business within their current client base. I think they're both, I would put them both under lead generation because I'm selling, if I'm selling a company $100,000 worth of product A, but they can buy product B, C, D, and E, and that's a million dollars. Well why would I go out and find somebody brand new and I can just you know work on that But that still new business acquisition I don care how you say it even though it the same logo And I think most people don they don think of creating a system And you said it. I like that word. I think that's true. I think we have the selling system. Okay, when we go in, we ask all the right questions. We do the upfront agreement. We find out what the dilemmas are and the problems. And we are able to share our offer. And so that's all sales process stuff. But you don't get to the sales process if you don't have a lead gen engine or a system of some kind. And maybe that is a labor thing like you're talking about. Maybe it's a leverage thing. Like, could you create a podcast where every week you have a topic and every week you offer a free assessment to listeners or to, you know, a free strategy session or maybe a document that you've created? So we're leveraging the assets. We're giving voice to these things. And then people are raising their hand and say, yeah, Bill, Brian, I'd like to see that. Yes. That's a systematic way that just most sales professionals don't think of. I think marketing people do to a point, but it doesn't have to be super clever. It's just something you do on a weekly basis that allows people to raise their hand and say, yeah, you know what? I might be interested in that. Instead of making these god-awful cold outreaches, trying to get people to book an appointment, why don't you let them raise their hand first? Let's see if there's any interest at all. if there is, then the next call becomes a lot easier. Hey, I noticed you downloaded a thing. I noticed you signed up for this. Would it make sense to have a call? We talk about that. Yeah, that'd be great. So now I'm not just bullying people into a meeting, but I'm doing it in a more sophisticated way that's available today because of digital technology. And when you look at systems and processes around this, like Bill said, this doesn't have to be, It's not overly difficult. I will use us as an example of keeping a podcast going for almost 20 years, one episode a week for the most part. What was our system to do that? We have held recording time every other Monday from 9 to 10 recurring to perpetuity. And that's it. that's that magic allows us to create this uh asset that we can leverage in all sorts of ways it's always there for people to find yeah people can listen to us and call us or if we are in the market and and we're in a prospecting mode say hey by the way if you want to get to know our voice a little bit i've got podcasts here's a link you can listen to it so i'm leveraging that but the system is easy the system is we we record the thing we it's uploaded already to stream yard our producer gets it does a little bumper music and post it up that's the system every other monday for 20 years essentially literally it's so simple it is though and and you know travis who does all the that that's i mean he does that i'm just talking about you and i yeah it's not a whole lot of i mean we're we're just talking about what we do in the world so we're not trying to we're not trying to learn a brand new lesson, we're just saying, look, I had this client the other day. You said, hey, I had this dance marathon thing. It's just all experiences. But if you try to plan something out and try to outline a script, you know, I'm going to start a podcast. I'm going to devote eight hours a week to it. Ain't going to do it. No, I'm sorry. I know you're full of vim and vigor and ambition. You're not going to do it. You're not going to go from zero hours a week producing something to eight hours a week. It ain't happening. So don't, don't put that in your calendar, put in your calendar. I'm going to do one hour every two weeks and I'm going to hit record. I'm just going to fricking hit record and see what happens. And some weeks it's going to be worth saving. Some weeks it'd be not, but, but it's a simple, it's the, that's a system. It's not a complex system, but that's the beauty of it. Yes. And combine these two things. Then you see it when you inspect calendars and you can expect my inspect bills there's a standing meeting every other Monday from nine to ten to record our podcast and now do we hit it every time not not exactly but it's always there we can catch up if we need to catch up and it just it's always there that's the system and your calendar will show you what your systems are so combining the two you go okay um you know top of funnel activity is always an issue I I should see if you're listening to this after this episode, time blocks in your calendar devoted to these things, whether it's podcasting, whether it's doing research and they're themed and you just do them. I mean, that's just, I don't want to oversimplify it, but that's the truth. And that's what, and people make excuses, you know, I got a customer call and I got this thing and, you know, and I get it. I mean, someone just said, we've got some new people coming on board. So we onboard them, you know, and we have this little link to a learning management system that expires So we get notes from people and say can you send me a link Mine expired And it expires in three days We tell them all this But there always a reason that they use as an excuse of why they couldn't log in. I was at a trade show. I was traveling my territory. And I'm like, you know how long it takes to log into the LMS? 11 seconds. You click on the link, put your email address in and make up a password. Hit enter. That's all you got to do. And so let's be real with ourselves here. It's not that you were at a trade show. It's that you didn't see that as a valuable allocation of your time. That's right. Between the time we sent it to you and now. That's right. And sometimes building the system doesn't seem like a good allocation of time. Building the system that you're going to run every week for an hour, two hours, four hours, whatever, seems like a waste of time. Let's just do the behavior. Let's just make the calls. Let's not build a system. And it's like, wait a minute. If you, when you build a system, now you're leveraging a framework. You're leveraging intellectual properties. Even if your system, I've got a client who they reach out five times a week to past relationships, acquaintances, and clients. And here's the call. Hey, this is Bill from Smith Jones. Hey, man, we worked together a couple years ago, and I just want to see how you're doing. Awesome. and the guy your lady says oh yeah yeah we did we did well no things are good uh don't don't need anything right now but i appreciate your call and one out of five says you know what we need to talk yep one out of five and that's been his number one out of five and he's done this now for three months and he's generated business but also a reacquaintances more better relationships and he's getting ready to go through all of his, I think he's got 200 of these people. So at some point he'll reach the end of that. We're going to have to build a new system or go back to some of those people who he didn't talk to. The point is that he knows it's five a week, takes him an hour. And if I see time on his calendar, now I know we got it. He's inked in, he's got a little space. Even if it's half an hour, it says this is when I do my five old client outreach. it's from noon to 12 30 every friday is when i do that behavior and then you do it and that's the system and you just keep doing it and you won't have to worry about the top of your funnel i promise your guy does not have to worry about the top of his phone no because his system worries about it for him his system worries about it and you can get all clever with ai you can create you can create systems in ai but at some point you you're the one that's going to deploy it unless you have an advanced ai degree and you're using agents and stuff like that but nobody nobody I know is doing that and doing it well it's really gets back to what are you going to do each day that's going to be systematic and that way you don't you're not needy you're not desperate he makes these calls he really does he likes these people he just and it comes across that he likes them and so it's not a pitch it's not it not at all now what what I'm telling them to do is take the next step and create a one webinar per month that you can then call all these people, there's like 10 people in this company and they each have 100, 200 people. You could populate that webinar every month with people from your past acquaintance list. So now you're actually not just connecting, you're saying, hey, we've got something coming up. I thought you might be interested in it. It's a 45-minute panel discussion on how to do X, Y, Z. Would you like to see it? And they're going to be doing that come the summer. And now there'll be something, some other reason to call. So it's still a system. They're still calling, but they're inviting people to something. so good yeah so good and it's so easy but we make it hard you building the system is valuable i want you to hear that there's a mic drop from bill building the system is valuable if you don't set that time aside you'll never build the system you'll never have one you'll always be chasing the months always chasing yeah you always chase that little time spent to build the system is what starts the thing in motion yeah so that's good so it's good those are two things and they kind of They're kind of two sides of the same coin, how I lose my time, but specifically in new business development. And if you have a problem that you have seen surface over and over or maybe something you're struggling with now, go to our LinkedIn page. You probably are already a member. If you're not, go to advancedlinepodcast.com slash LinkedIn. Join our group and ask us a question. And we'll solicit some opinions from you guys. Maybe put a couple more on here in the coming weeks. That'd be great. Good one. Two good ones. Yeah. So if you are interested in the Insider program, I don't know what the release date is on this podcast. I think it's before the first week in May, but the first Friday of May, we're doing our Insider. And this week, this month, it's on how do you construct and articulate your offer to your potential customers. Awesome. All right. See you next time. See you. Bye.
