Offer value, invite engagement—that’s the key to winning in sales. In this episode, Mark Cox sits down with David Newman, the author of Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees, to dive into the secrets behind his no-fluff, high-impact approach to sales. David’s journey from a theater major struggling in New York to a successful consultant is filled with hard-earned lessons that every entrepreneur can relate to. Together, they explore how to overcome the aversion to sales, the power of asking the right questions, and the importance of consistent, value-driven content. Whether you’re new to the game or looking to refine your strategy, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you land better clients and close bigger deals.
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Do It! Selling: Strategies For Success In Today's Market With David Newman
We've got a great conversation here. This episode is with David Newman. He is the author of Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees. He is a professional services sales expert. He works with leading consultants, coaches, and speakers who want to land better clients, bigger deals, and higher fees. He's got a specific target market, but these 77 instant action ideas are universal in terms of smart methodical B2B sales. They're applicable to all sorts of folks, which is why I was excited to get him on the show.
The other thing is that it's an extremely well-written book. With these 77 ideas, David has gone through the effort of making them concise and powerful, leveraging core concepts and B2B sales, and providing tools you can download to apply the idea. I love the way the book is laid out. It's a book that you're going to leave on your bookshelf and go back to repeatedly because it gets specific on things like scripts, ideas, and approaches to conversations.
One of the things I like so much is David's simple clarity in the way he writes and speaks. He's got this simple and clear but powerful definition for something like marketing words that offer value, invite engagement, a simple definition of selling, send invitations, and spark conversations. We talk about a couple of different concepts in the book, not all 77, but we do get to the first conversations. He's got five powerful tips for first-contact calls. We get into all of them. We get into the four ways to create follow-up magic. It’s powerful. A little bit of a spoiler alert. The first one always leads off with the prospect's comments from the previous call.
David started this career after starting in the theater. We're going to read about that journey. He’s an interesting fellow. He’s the host of his own podcast called The Selling Show. It's got over 400 episodes. You're going to enjoy this conversation with David Newman. I know I did. If you do, please like and subscribe because that helps us. Thank you for doing that. That's how we get great guests like David.
David, welcome to the show. I was excited to talk to you.
Mark, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
We only interview the folks who've written books in selling that we like, David. I got a call that said, “There are many things I like about Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees that I've already bought Do It! Marketing.” I haven't gotten it yet. I did it this morning, but I've got the Do It! Marketing coming my way because I'm in your target market. A lot of these things are so applicable, and I learned many things from them. I had a chance to listen to a few episodes of The Selling Show. I got asked this question because it seems clear that you were a Theater and Drama major. How does a Theater and Drama major end up being an expert in selling, professional services, and coaching?
From Theater To Sales
I started college pre-med. I failed out of Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus all in the same semester. I decided to change my major to Drama and English. I had so much fun doing that. I went to graduate school and got an MFA in Stage Directing. I did several years of professional theater in New York City. That was a crazy episode, but I wasn't making any money because it's hard to make money in theater in New York City. It's like going to LA to be an actor. You end up waiting tables.
A friend of mine says, “There's this adjunct professor thing opening. This was a guy who had the job. He was moving away. Would you like to interview for my adjunct faculty position?” I started teaching in my graduate school. I did that for a couple of years to make ends meet. Another friend says, “You could do this teaching thing for companies.” That's called corporate training.
In 1992, I launched my corporate training and consulting career. That spanned three different jobs. I did that for several years. I ended up with some HR consulting management, technology, and firms. Dumb as I was, in 2002, I said, “I can do this on my own. I know how to teach, train, and consult. How hard can it be?” Mark, I found out how hard it can be because when you're on your own and leave the corporate nest, it's about selling the work. It's not about doing the work.
I knew nothing about marketing, sales, lead generation, and business development. I was a babe in the woods. I was also a generalist consultant and trainer. I had 30 different workshops and 30 different topics. I realized that if I wanted to eat, I needed to learn how to sell. I read all kinds of books. I connected with mentors. I took courses. I became a student of the game. About several years into this, I'm like, “I have no niche. I have nothing. The sales and marketing thing is pretty cool. Why don't I teach what I'm learning to folks who are several years behind where I am?” That was the whole genesis of how the drama major ended up in a marketing and sales training role.
Do It! Books
Here we are, fast forward 1,800 clients later, you've worked for some of the largest organizations in the world. I’m having finished my first book. David's got three books, Do it! Selling, Do It! Marketing, and Do It! Speaking. I'm amazed at a couple of things, David. I'll call out to those folks who are going to pick up this book, and you should. First of all, the design and clarity of the book, it's a good-looking book. It's easy to read. I love the fact you don't see a lot of color books out there. These things matter. We dream in technicolor. That’s something I'm taking away from myself next time.
Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees
The way you've laid this out, these short snippets and action ideas that are clear. It feels to me like you're the example of that Mark Twain quote, “I wrote you a long letter. If I had taken more time, I would've written you a short letter.” You took the time to write a short letter. It's all gold. There's no fluff. There are no stories that aren't relevant. There's no filler.
In many of these action items, there are tools you can download to apply the concept in the book. It’s a bit of the Bucky Fuller. Those of you who are Mensa candidates remember Bucky Fuller, the Founder of Mensa, who said, “If you want to teach someone, don't bother teaching them. Show them how to use a tool because that's how you teach them for life.” It's a spectacular read.
A lot of times, when we have guests on the show, David, what I'll do is I'll read and highlight the book. I'm going to go back and dictate my highlights. I have a two-page summary. I can go back to it someday because I want to retain it. I'm not saying this for the show. This is the book that would stay on my shelf because I'm going to go back. There are some things I've picked up here that are helpful. There's a clarity of message. It's the way you are. Maybe it comes from the theater background, but was that an intentional focus to make sure it's short, clear, and powerful?
All three of my books are written in this format. I call them microchapters. When folks come to me and say, “David, I want to write a book, but I don't have time to write.” I say, “Don't worry. They don't have time to read. Write short.” If I put my whole publishing philosophy into four words, it would be to write short and market hard.
It was a book publishing blog. This was in the last couple of years. They were saying about short attention spans. Everyone wants to write the 50,000 to 60,000-word mega monster business book. They were saying, “If you're sending this to CEOs, VPs, or busy senior corporate leaders, they don't have time. Don't write a book. Write half a book.” That was the advice.
Two hours and thirteen minutes is the flight time from New York to Chicago. If they can read it, scan it, or skim it and get enough of an idea of your professional expertise in those two hours, because, Mark, folks like you and I don't get hired based on books that clients do not finish. It’s like, “Did you read David's book?” “I only got about a third of the way through it and put it aside because it was too dense and hard to read.”
Microchapters do two things to help experts. Number one, it helps to encapsulate your thinking in a short, sharp, little package. It also makes the book more digestible because, Mark, I'm sure you read a lot. I read a lot. We want to have that completion complex. We want to have that little happiness going off in our brains with dopamine. I finished another chapter. It's like, yeah, you read a page and a half. If you read a page and a half, and you're seeing the next chapter right there, you're like, “I'm making progress.”
The best compliment that I got on all three of my books is a backhanded compliment. They said, “David, I love your writing style. It's perfect bathroom reading.” I was like, “I will take that in the spirit it is intended.” That was the nature of the microchapters and the short, sharp, clear little nuggets that are the writing style.
We're critical of sales books. Because of the show and my nature, I've read hundreds of sales books. We've had over 100 guests on this show. Out of consideration, we read the books they write before they come on the show. There are some fundamental truths that you've got in here. We've heard that people who have lived this life understand. Because you've got a specific target niche that you're trying to support and help coaches, consultants, and trainers looking to get bigger clients, bigger deals, and higher fees, you get practical. When you're talking about a sales process or a first call with someone, you give specific examples of the four things to do. Here are a couple of turns of phrases you can use.
If you're in that category, this is the book you can pull away. You will go back to it, and you'll start to leverage some of the, I won't call them scripts as much as guides, but they're logical. You're also referencing some sales fundamentals that are universal regardless of who's reading. Whether or not you're a trainer, a coach, or a consultant, getting through that first call is critical. There are a couple of ideas that are powerful. People can take away these tips no matter what they do. If you don't mind, we'll jump into a couple to get right into it.
Whenever someone has the book in front of them, there's a little voice in my head going, “I hope I remember what I wrote and what he's about to call out here.”
When we're in front of a group of people, every once in a while, there's somebody who's a zealot and reads every episode. They go, “Mark, you referenced this data point, and this reference point from CSO Insights back in 1987,” I go, “It doesn't even ring a bell. It doesn't even sound like me.” I'll give you some context.
Action item number four, do you love selling? It was the one that jumped out at me. Given the title of our book, Learn to Love Selling, do you love selling? You have to believe in selling. You have to understand that people have some of these challenges. I love that down at the bottom, we might be feeling anxious and depressed. We get paralyzed, overwhelmed, and mystified. The summary point that says no sales, no clients, no money, no bueno. That's simple. You have to do it. Are we going to be the best pizza parlor that's never had somebody come in the front door, or are you Dominoes?
This is where it's not selling expertise that comes from the book. There's this expertise you have as a growth-oriented entrepreneur. There are many of those other entrepreneur books. There wasn't a question on this one so much as we wanted to call it out because of the title of our book. Let's go to the definitions. I love the definitions. You've come up with these four-word definitions. One is for marketing. Let's talk about the top end and sales.
This leads to a mindset. It makes it so much more helpful for those who didn't grow up in sales or those of us who didn't decide we wanted to be in professional sales when we were ten years old. That's 99.999% of anybody who's in professional sales now. On the marketing front, forward definition, offer value, and invite engagement. It doesn't sound so hard.
Marketing
My first book was about marketing. My second book was about speaking as both a marketing tool and a sales tool. This book has a sales focus. People are not afraid of marketing. They might not understand it. They might not do it well. They might think it's pitchy and like, “Buy my stuff.” The sales part, which you're an expert in, that's where the fear comes in. They don't want to be salesy. They don't want to be pushy. There's a whole population of entrepreneurs that are sales averse, which is why your book is important.
Conversation
From a marketing standpoint, when people say, “I'm hesitant to market my stuff. I don't want to be always talking about me, my offers, my services, my programs, and my products because that gets old.” I would agree with you. That does get old, and it doesn't work. Offer value invite engagement is about how to be radically generous and radically helpful. Provide content that people will benefit from even if they never buy from you.
Is your marketing content, and I mean your social posts, newsletters, LinkedIn profile, and LinkedIn posts, can people extract value from them? When you read Mark's book, LinkedIn, and articles, and when you watch the YouTube channel, are you saying to yourself, “This is valuable. Imagine if I became a client?” That's offer value. Out the goods out there in the marketplace.
A lot of folks are afraid of doing that because they’re like, “That's my stuff. If I give this away, they're not going to hire me. If you don't give it away, there's no way they're going to hire you. If you give it away, a small, teeny, tiny percentage are going to be able to run with the ball and get some initial result. No way are they going to get the massive transformational results of the clients who hire you. Part one is offer value.
With invite engagement, I hear this a lot from clients and friends who say, “David, I've been sending a weekly newsletter for several years. It's never given me a shred of business. David, I posted the one-minute video on LinkedIn every single morning for the last several years, and it's never brought me a shred of business..” I look at these newsletters and watch these videos. I say, “There's no invitation. There's no next step. There's no like, comment, subscribe, opt-in, or book a call.
The call to action and the invitation to participate further are not buy my stuff and hire me. The invitation could be simple, like, “Can I get an amen?” Comment and like are the easy ones. A little bit more involvement and engagement is like, “Do you want to download this thing? Are you willing to trade your email address for a free PDF, video training, and mini-course?” That's level two. It’s more of a commitment because you know that you're opting into their world.
Level three is like, “If you think this might be helpful to you, let's book a chat. Let's discuss where you're at. If we can help you, it’s great. If not, we'll point you in the right direction, and there will be no harm or foul.” When I look at these several years of email newsletters, and there's not a single invitation to take the next step, people are lazy, busy, and befuddled.
All the folks that are reading are saying, “They know the next step. They could have replied to that email. They could have called my phone number, which is right there on my website.” They could have, but because they're lazy, busy, and befuddled, you don't tell them exactly what to do. Inertia is going to take them off into something else. They're going to click off, scroll by, delete that email, and say, “This guy, Bob Jones, has an amazing email newsletter.” They might even be hiring someone else because they don't know all the things that you do.
How many times have we gone to a prospect or even a new client, and the client hires you for something, and you found out that last year, they hired someone else that does something that you do, but the client never knew that you did? They’re like, “Mark, I wish I knew that you did sales assessments and sales kickoff meetings. We hired this other person to do our sales kickoff, and it was disappointing. I wish we knew that you were a speaker.”
You're a speaker, but if there's no invitation at the bottom of the email newsletter, for example, hire Mark for your next sales meeting, sales conference, or sales kickoff, here's the info packet. Put that in there so that you're not trusting people to use their own initiative. You're giving them a clear next step in how to engage with you. That's an invitation.
I love the focus on those four words. This is something that you refined over the years, but it's powerful. I couldn't help but smile when you were talking about that, David, because we do many things where we're training big groups of people. It's hard for people to process the fact that they may have explained to the community, a client, or a prospect exactly what their business did. They have a hard time understanding Hermann Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve, which says, “An hour after the meeting, that person forgot between 50% and 75% of everything you said. A month from now, it's 90% to 95%.” People go, “What do you mean? It seems difficult.”
One of the things that has been helpful for me going from the corporate world to becoming an entrepreneur several years ago is that I am befuddled by many things that are on my radar regarding things that I want to do with the business. These things are passing ideas, and the night they come, they go. Every day, I can only get through the three things that are most important for our business.
This idea of staying front of mind, that the number of times somebody engages us and we end up into this conversation. As we get through the conversation, they say, “I've been following you for several years.” You go, “For several years, didn't you think to trigger a conversation several years ago?” We do have those calls to action, but they don't. They want to get familiar with you. They want to make sure there's some value in what you share. It's on their timeframes. It's such a helpful point and a beautiful definition.
Let me do a public service announcement. If you've been following Mark Cox for the last several months, you know he is the real deal. Get on his calendar, pick up the phone, reply to the email, and comment on the show. Several months is all you need for Mark Cox. You don't need several years to wait.
David, remember you said, could you come on more often? You're going to be on every second episode now. There you go. If you're open to doing that in that voice, you're on every second episode. Let's do the episode together.
Clip that out and use it as a commercial.
The four words from marketing are offer value and invite engagement. Double-click value. The four-word definition for selling is to send an invitation and spark a conversation. What do you mean by a conversation?
One of our mantras that shows up somewhere in the book is nothing good happens outside of a conversation. You can send emails until you're blue in the face. You can post on social media. You can even send cookies in the mail. You can send an amazing $50 pen to an executive with whom you want to have a conversation. None of that matters until we are voice-to-voice, screen-to-screen, or face-to-face. This is an area where the sales-averse. This is the part that terrifies them.
Mark, what happens when the dog catches the car? I got a call on Tuesday. The guy replied to me. He wants to have a call with me on Tuesday. Their heads explode. Everything that we do in marketing and the front end of sales, like prospecting and lead generation outreach, is designed to bring you into that first conversation. People have this like, “This is a huge pressure moment. I have to sell, pitch, and blast them with my amazingness. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
No matter what business you're in, you could be selling products, services, or expertise, the framework that I recommend that you hold this initial conversation in, and there are a lot of guides, frameworks, and language that you can use in this first contact meeting. Think of it as if you're already hired. They're already a client. You have nothing to hide and prove. The way that I open these conversations is, “Mark, great to speak with you. Let me ask you. Do you mind if I treat you like a fee-paid client during this call?” People will say, “That would be great. You can even see their body language change.” Sometimes, they go, “What does that mean?” I say, “I'm glad you asked.”
It means a couple of things. Number one, it means that I want to make sure that we maximize the value of our time together for you, which also means that I'm going to ask your permission to interrupt and productively redirect if I feel our conversation is going off track. I would do this with a paying client. Number three, there may be some things that you share with me. I'm going to tell you the honest truth. I'm going to tell you what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear about you, your company, and your team.
Do I have your permission to do that? They say yes. They're already in the house. They're already in the family. All the pressure that's on you as a seller has gone away. You can start doing your initial diagnosis. What's been going on? What prompted you to book this call? What's wrong with your leadership, sales team, technology, and innovation that we're helping them with? How long has that been a problem? What do you think is costing you time, dollars, hours, profit, percentages, rework, wasted time, and wasted effort? We're in a conversation. Look at every prospect as if they're already a client, and they don't know it, or they haven't signed off on the paperwork. The more you treat prospects like clients, the more clients you will get.
This is tip number 29. Five tips for first contact calls. The first one is a great opening question. The second one, do you mind if I treat you like a feed-pay client? It's the same script that David went through, which is powerful. This is the dirty little secret that trainers, consultants, anybody in professional services, lawyers, engineers, and consultants don't know.
The truth is this is the easiest part of the conversation because all you are doing is pulling information from them with amazing questions that get them trying to paint this better future for themselves. They're emotionally connected to either the pain they're in or the better future. You are sitting back and asking questions.
My belief is that most of the folks get a lot of these folks, like lawyers, financial professionals, and consultants. Their concern is they think they need to pitch. We're going to get the PowerPoint. My rule of thumb is never to open PowerPoint again during a conversation. It will kill your conversation. Don't go anywhere near a demo. Don't go anywhere near PowerPoint. Have a conversation.
Get Into Action
The easiest one in the world is thank you so much for setting up time with me. I'm delighted to chat with you. I took a look at your website. It looks like you've been growing. Congrats on the acquisition. I'm excited to hear about that. On LinkedIn, it looks like you've got 125 employees, but you get seven open job postings. Things are moving in the right direction. I’m excited to hear all of it. What prompted you to reach out to me?
It’s something crazy easy, nice, and open-ended. We can sit back and have this conversation. You and I are having this conversation. You've packaged this up for your audience in a new way. We've been doing this for several years, packaging up. The reality of it is that this is what Dale Carnegie suggested we should be doing in 1939.
You'll love this, David. At one point in time, I had this, and I wouldn't call it imposter syndrome, but it was perplexing me that in our company, we hadn't come up with a brand new way of helping another human being that no one's ever thought of before. That would be the magic potion that would completely change B2B selling. It perplexed me so much. I went down to see one of our friends, Frank Cespedes. Through this show, we got to know him from Harvard. He has written nine books on B2B selling. He is fantastic. He's been teaching the sales program at Harvard for many years.
I had this conversation with him. I said, “I feel like an impostor at times because, Frank, I've been doing this for many years. Nothing's changed. This is what I was doing in 1995 to be successful.” He brought up a great point. He said he had had this big group of super high-end entrepreneurs at a Harvard course. He was having a conversation with them. It wasn't resonating. He went back to some principles in search of excellence back in 1992. He said this thing lit them all on fire. He said, “Sometimes, you have to take these universal principles, but they need to come out in the voice of that generation for that particular group.”
There was a theme of this in your book, David. A lot of these are fundamental truths. The second thing I thought was that you should take it a level down because you make it simple for somebody in professional services to understand the concept but immediately apply it. The other thing I love about early in the book is that after about section one, David says, “Let's take a pause. What have you done with the information in the book so far? Are you going to make some behavioral changes here? Are you going to read another book?” What a great move. That screamed right from the page. You want me to do better, not to sell another book or do another workshop, but you want to change someone's behavior. I bet you get a lot of feedback on that.
The whole Do It concept and get into action are all about implementation. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. This is why there are a million weight loss books and how to get rich books. The key to weight loss is to move more and eat less. The key to becoming a zillionaire is to spend less and save more. There are a million personal finance books out there. The ideas are useless. The implementation and the execution of the ideas.
Given the stage and phase of the business that you're running, your market, audience, and prospects that you're marketing and selling to, you'll know how to adapt these ideas to your own personality preferences and strengths. It’s the same thing, Mark. In your book, we can keep reading until we're blue in the face, and no one is going to sell anything anymore. It's about the implementation of the ideas.
Sometimes, we can be relentless. People will say, “Mark, I love your podcast. This podcast is amazing. I read your book three times. I highlighted every other page. You say, “That's beautiful. Thank you for the kind compliments. I'm curious. How has listening to the podcast or reading the book impacted your sales results?” They start looking at their shoes. Their shoes start to get fascinating. They're looking down, and they’re like, “I still love your ideas so much. You're such a rock star. You're amazing.”
You and I leave those conversations a little bit deflated. We're not here to write books and publish podcasts. We're here to help people tap into their inner potential that, for some reason, has been blocked up until now because they're sales averse or they don't have the sales skills, discipline, or conditioning that they need to reach their goals. I love it when people appreciate my ideas, but I love it more when they make money with them.
Follow-Up Magic
David, I couldn't agree more. There are two stories. We end up with some of the clients we work with. We used to help them and teach them how to interview salespeople. It’s a tricky thing to do with one in three churns every year. I want you to hear a lot of interviews with professional salespeople. You'd say, “Is there any methodology you follow? Have you had any training before in your career?” They'll come back and say, “I read The Challenger Sale by Matt Dixon and Brent Adamson.” We're going to go, “We've had both of them on the show. What are you applying from that book?” This is where the shoes get attractive. They've taken nothing from it.
I love the idea of clarity in your book, which is something people should apply almost every day. You talk about that. One of the important things is it has to be a habit. It has to be something we think about and do every day. We had another client who was one of our first clients ever from several years ago. They used to continue to send all their new salespeople to our training, and their leaders who would come to our training.
At one point in time, they brought us into their office to do some work. We could still see these templates that we had given, but they were the ten-year-old templates from the early days. They were still leveraging them. We felt happy that they were trying to operationalize and still get value from what we had done.
We do it differently now when we're doing large group training. We'll do the training, but before we do the training, we define specific desired outcomes, metrics, and outcomes that we want several months after the training. As part of the training, we regroup with the leadership team to track progress with senior management. We keep the sales leadership team accountable to make sure we're executing these things, and they don't go through another sales kickoff where it was fun but didn't change any behavior. We want to make that change critical.
I want to call out one other thing. We're not going to go through 77 of these ideas. Many of the people who are reading this are looking for something they can take away and apply. Item number 58, 4 ways to create follow-up magic. The number one need of most human beings outside of food, water, and sustenance is to feel like they are heard. Always lead off with the prospect's comments from the previous call. Did you even hear what they were saying, “Start there and break the wall completely down?” This is all part of feeling like they're already doing business with you.
One of the top sales minds out there, in our view, is a guy named Andy Paul. He's probably into 1,500 podcasts. He's spoken to everybody. One of the phrases he loves to to use, which we like, is, “The folks who win in a sales situation are the folks that the buyer believes understand them and their situation better than anybody else.” You get comfortable.
It's not about prices you bring up or service features. Those things oftentimes don't even matter. Does this individual understand our world and what's important to us? They didn't hear us. They understood what we were saying. I love the easy one. It’s to ask follow-up questions to every statement they make. Who, what, how, and why. These multipliers keep them talking.
It's the who else, what else, how else, where else, and why else? Who else will notice these improvements? What else would be important to them? How else do you think you might benefit? Where else has this been a problem? All of those who, what, where, and why else questions are sales multipliers. Those are revenue multipliers because, from the prospect, you're inviting them to share with you what the problem multipliers are. When you have problem multipliers from your client, you have sales multipliers for multiple different ways that you can help them solve those multiple problems.
Sometimes, people believe this is self-evident, but you'll ask a question like that of a senior executive. They haven't thought about the answer until they say it out loud because you ask the question. It imprints. They are emotionally tied to it. You ask a question. How big a priority is the firm for this? Somebody comes back and goes, “It's an interesting question. If we don't fix this revenue issue, I won't be in this chair several months from now.”
There have got to be a top three. What are the other two out of interest? What are the implications if we don't address this? I'm not going to have a job. These are the things that crystallize in the mind of the buyer. I love a conversation in a follow-up call where somebody comes back and goes, “That's a good question.” That means we did our job. You talk about that in the first conversation, doing some myth-busting and adding value.
It occurs to me that even if we misread the situation badly and ask a question about something that's not important to them at all, and the executive comes back with, “Mark, that's the least of our problems.” Have the presence of mind to say. “Got it. What are the top three?” We don't care about that at all. That's the least of our problems. What's the top three in the most category? Have some fun with it. The other thing is amateur sellers put so much pressure on themselves. They're serious. Professional sellers like you and me like to have fun. We like to make the prospect smile or maybe even sometimes laugh. We humanize the sales conversation with humor. That makes selling so much more easy and fun.
Amateur sellers put so much pressure on themselves whereas professional sellers like to have fun.
We were talking about dopamine at the beginning. We’re familiar with dopamine. Curiosity also triggers dopamine. When we're asking them those questions, this is why it's so easy if you do it this way and have this conversation. The whole conversation's about them. To be authentically curious about the answers, they're not answers leading to my sales pitch. They're answers where I'm authentically curious about how to help this person get a better future. You or I are clear. If we can help them, it’s wonderful. If we can't help them, but there's somebody else we know who could help them, we'll be the first to do that. We understand good things come when you take this approach. Your intent comes across.
More so than any sales technique you come from. What you're talking about is where you come from, your intention, and your character. No matter what script, template, or framework you use, they can tell if you've got the old sales breath or commission breath. They can also tell when they're talking to someone who is genuinely curious, genuinely there to help them and serve them, and completely detached from the outcome.
That is the other magnificent point for everybody reading. Anybody in professional services, training, and consulting, the idea is you're not trying to find another sales opportunity. You're having another conversation with the right actor for you, the right person. The ballerina and not the truck driver is another theater analogy.
The idea is you're not trying to find another sales opportunity you're having another conversation with the right actor for you the right person.
I'm having this conversation about helping them. He's a guy from Harvard, Dr. Nick Morgan. His book is called Can You Hear Me? He talked about how we can sense another human's intent with nonverbal cues in milliseconds. How do we go into that conversation? When we got ready for this episode, I heard you on your show, but we met for the first time. We got on this Zoom call. I thought to myself, “This is going to be fun. This is going to be a great conversation. I already like David.” These are things that we can connect.
The truth is that it is better for the process. It's also better for the individual because this is what you want to do with your life and career. It's not about pitching and cajoling. I'm not trying to get one more opportunity in the funnel. I'm trying to help another human being. What ends up happening is great things happen for everybody.
David, we are going to chat again. I have to call out the last thing I loved about that number 58, which is four ways to create follow-up magic. It's not a need or a pain until you hear it from them. You think, “I know the reasons people engage in sales training. I know the reasons people buy enterprise software that does financial reporting.” It doesn't exist until they say the need, the paint, or the opportunity. The return on investment doesn't exist unless it's in their model with their metrics and hitting their goals, whether it's MPV or payback. Those things have to come from them. I love it has to come from that.
Reach David
Tim Hughes is a great guy. He wrote a fantastic book called Social Selling. He used to sell large-scale enterprise software to massive retailers in Europe, including Marks and Spencer, which is one of the largest retailers in the UK. Every business case they write had to come back to how many more pairs of undergarments because that's their number one category killer. Do they sell because of this project? It was always that. Would this result in more undergarments being sold or not? That's the only metric we understand. David, a couple of things here. Thank you for joining the show. We are going to, if you're open to it, have you back for Do It! Marketing when I read that book.
That would be amazing.
We'll get that on the radar. A lot of the folks reading are going to want to reach out and engage with you. Who do we want? Who is that ideal client profile for you? How do they best make contact with you or learn more about you and your fantastic offering?
We work with professional services firm owners. If you're in the business of selling your expertise, which usually takes the form of a training company, a consulting firm, or a coaching company, and all B2B. Mark and I are brothers from another mother. As far as some resources, we have our podcast called The Selling Show, which is at TheSellingShow.com, and some free resources on the main website, which is DoItMarketing.com. There's a blog there and a free 37-page sales and marketing manifesto. That's at DoItMarketing.com/manifesto. Our free on-demand web training is at DoItMarketing.com/webinar.
When you buy the book, Do It! Selling, you go onto an online system that's going to provide all the tools to execute some of the core concepts in the book. You're going to get your payback immediately from the book for downloading these tools. You can apply these concepts to you and your business. David, thanks again for joining the show. What a pleasure meeting you.
Thank you, my friends. Same here. As they say at the end of Casablanca, “The beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Thank you so much for joining. As you know, we run the show because we want to improve the performance and professionalism of the world's most important business discipline. In doing so, we believe we're improving the lives of professional salespeople everywhere. Thanks a lot for reading. We're growth-oriented. We know we can continue to elevate the way we run this show. Please keep your constructive criticism coming to us at MarkCox@InTheFunnel.com. That's my personal email. We respond to every single person who gives us good ideas and keep them coming because that's how we get great people like David. Thanks again. Continue to sell well. We look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
Important Links
Do It! Selling: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Land Better Clients, Bigger Deals, and Higher Fees
David Newman - LinkedIn
Frank Cespedes – Past Episode
Matt Dixon – Past Episode
Brent Adamson – Past Episode
About David Newman
David Newman is a Certified Speaking Professional and member of the NSA Million Dollar Speakers Group. David is the author of the business bestsellers, “Do It! Marketing”, “Do It! Speaking and “Do It! Selling”.
David has worked with over 1,800 consultants, coaches, and speakers to help them accelerate their revenue and grow their business by 50%-500% in less than 15 months. Nothing makes David happier than client results.
He has been featured and quoted in the New York Times, Investors Business Daily, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management, Forbes.com, and CNBC.
David also hosted the national audio magazine of the National Speakers Association, Voices of Experience, and over 300 episodes of The Speaking Show and The Selling Show.