Episode 319: Creating A Strong Sales Pipeline with Lee McQueen
As entrepreneurship gains popularity and businesses continue to evolve, one constant remains: the necessity to drive revenue growth. As business owners, our primary objective is to generate profit and succeed in our endeavors. But how can we ensure consistent action and progress?
In this episode, Lee McQueen emphasizes the importance of having a strong sales pipeline and executing sales strategies to drive revenue in your business. He highlights the need for entrepreneurs to focus on sales and understand their customers’ pain points in order to provide effective solutions. Lee shares his five-step methodology for bringing prospects through the sales cycle, from discovery to closing the deal. He also encourages business owners to have confidence in their sales abilities and to prioritize revenue generation in their daily roles.
As the business landscape continues to evolve, it is clear that execution and sales remain fundamental to success. By adopting a proactive mindset, focusing on the right activities, and consistently measuring and tracking progress, entrepreneurs can position themselves for long-term growth and profitability.
Lee McQueen is a successful entrepreneur and business owner. He gained recognition after winning the reality TV show “The Apprentice” in the UK. He is the founder of several companies, including a recruitment business and a software company called Phoenix 51.
Show Highlights:
- Having a strong sales pipeline is crucial for business success
- Understanding your customers’ pain points is essential for providing effective solutions
- Confidence and knowledge of your subject matter are key to successful sales conversations
- Defining your role as a business owner and prioritizing revenue generation is vital
- Regularly reviewing and measuring your sales pipeline is important for tracking progress and making improvements
Links Mentioned:
Get your Business Growth Secrets SUCCESS PLANNER for FREE and profit like a pro: https://adamstottplanner.com/free-book47315172
Adams website: https://adamstott.com/?el=Pod
Watch the Episode on Adam’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/adamstottcoach?el=Pod
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Join Adam’s network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-stott-coach/?el=Pod
Business owners: Monetise social media, get more clients, increase your following, and make more sales: https://socialmediamonetisation.com/unlockfb?el=Pod
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
[00:00:00] Adam Stott: So, should we give a huge big welcome and round of applause to the one, the only Lee McQueen!
[00:00:10] Lee McQueen: How you getting on? Well, I’ve got the energy. What have you got?
[00:00:17] You just on? Good! to sit down, Ed? Yeah, go for it, man. Go for it. How is everyone? We all good? Brilliant. Thanks for bigging up. You’ve done my intro for me now. Don’t need to worry about it. It’s quite nerve wracking. Yeah, good to be back here. It’s to Sonny Stansted on October. Happy days, mate. Absolutely. So I’ve got a question, if I can, straight away, to the audience.
[00:00:36] So how many of you know S E I S? Raise your hands if you know about S E I S. Literally one person. That is pretty amazing. Okay. So off the back of that, how many people know EIS? Okay, one person. Fantastic. Thank you. Okay, so yeah, probably quite a good audience then for the, uh, high ticket value deals that we’re going to be running.
[00:01:00] And 25th, 26th of November. There’s my little plug. Is there anyone coming to support? Is anyone going to come along and support? Put your hands up. All right, I have to change you. Look, no, oh, she skis off. But anyway, yeah. Okay, yeah, so good to be back, mate.
[00:01:13] Adam Stott: Brilliant. Well, look, Lee, obviously having known you a long, long, long time, every time we, I sit with Lee, you know, he brings lots of energy, lots of creativity.
[00:01:24] Um, really fantastic with people, but his major background is, is in this execution topic, which we’re talking about, which is going out and making things happen. And it’s a skill set that in order for you to succeed, which we’ve been talking about today. is the one thing that we all need to get better at.
[00:01:42] How do we just push it further? How do we take more action? Uh, one thing, every time I have a conversation with Lee, he’s talking to me about his pipeline. Every time I have a conversation with Lee, he’s talking to me about how many meetings he’s got. Every time I have a conversation with Lee, he’s talking to me about what deals he’s doing.
[00:01:59] Lee McQueen: I’m obsessed. Who else is obsessed with sales pipeline? I want to Are you obsessed with sales pipeline? Are you obsessed with getting new customers? Are you obsessed with growing and making more money in your business? Okay, some of you are, but who said that wannabe? Oh, I love it. Let’s go. And that’s one of the things, because actually, it’s interesting hearing you generally.
[00:02:22] I don’t think that I do talk like that, but obviously I do. Hi Lee, how are you? Ad will say to me, and I’ll be like, yeah, my sales pipeline’s this. You know, so I am obviously obsessed with it. But I think that is the, that is the machine that actually runs the businesses that we’re starting up. Regardless of why we started our businesses, does everybody know why we started our businesses?
[00:02:43] Does everyone know? We’ve got a why, right? Yeah? You’ve done the piece, right? So everyone knows what our mission is and what we’re going to do. But do we go into that knowing how to make money off the back of that? Some of us do. Not everyone does. I didn’t. I didn’t know. The apprentice gave me the courage and the conviction to go and set my own companies up.
[00:03:00] I worked in corporate before that. Who’s worked in corporate? Okay, so a lot of hands, right? So we’ve gone from corporate going into this world’s completely different. Is it not? Would you agree? It’s completely different So, you know for me That’s quite interesting to hear you say that about kind of I’ve been drilled into How many sales what the deal is what the sales pipeline is because that’s how that’s our metric I’m nicking this off, you know, but that’s our metric of success, you know business is a game and the results are How much money do you make, right?
[00:03:30] That is that. That’s what you say. So I’ve got a few. But ultimately, that is it. So are we are we winning? Or are we just competing? Or dare I say, are we not even competing? Where are we on that scale? And do we actually want to win? Do we want to win? So that’s what it’s really about. For me, the metric is about, okay, have we got a big enough pipeline, sales pipeline, customer pipeline to be talking to, to be nurturing, to be having conversations with?
[00:03:59] Is that five conversations a day? Is that 20? Is it 100 conversations? I’m loving what Calvin said is, you know, all that outreach now doing 20 demo like 20 zoom meetings. Can you just do me a favor? I’ve got to get off. I’m really sorry. Um, who’s got a phone? Put your hand up. If somebody don’t put their hand up, they are not participating.
[00:04:21] Literally, I just asked a question like even my my daughter’s got phones. Well, if you’ve got a phone, put it up in the air. Look at that, that is brilliant, okay?
[00:04:32] Adam Stott: I’m not participating.
[00:04:33] Lee McQueen: You’re lying, you’re lying. I don’t know where everyone is. What do you use your phone for? Everything. Do you use it to make phone calls?
[00:04:46] Honestly! When you pick this phone up, is it the first thing you do with it? You can put your Is the first thing you do with it to make a phone call? Exactly. I’m happy that we’ve got authentic, truthful audience here. Because the majority of the time, we now pick our phone up, don’t we, to do what? Social media, have a surf, a WhatsApp, a text message.
[00:05:08] Come on, we’ll do it. We know where we’re coming from. Send an email via LinkedIn. Let’s ping an email out. What can you do? So if I, I’m going to learn to, Sonal, I’m going to pick on you because I know your name, already. If I send Sonal an email asking her to buy something from me, what could she do? What’s her options?
[00:05:27] Well, ignore it. So that’s one. What else could she do? Delete it. That’s harsh. We know where you’re coming from. That’s two. Could delete it. What else could she do? She could open it. Exactly. Positivity. She could open it. She could reply, can read it, and ask what it is. She could cook on a landing page. But what is the key point that I’m making here?
[00:05:51] What can she do? She’s got lots of different choices, hasn’t she? When you use this little device, that used to just be something you could dial out on, and I have a conversation with someone, what can she do? She’s got one choice. And that choice is what? She’s gotta have a conversation with me, isn’t she?
[00:06:09] She’s gotta have a conversation with me. It could be a short one. Don’t call me anymore, bye. But at least we’ve had that conversation. Does that make sense? And I just feel, and I say this to my people, my teams, I say this to my, uh, the clients that we work with, especially in the recruitment space, because Adam mentioned about, um, my recruitment business.
[00:06:27] It focuses on hiring. Sales teams for organizations around the world. So when you’re talking about sales, and if you don’t like sales, you need to start liking it because it is the absolute fundamental of your business, your mission, the way that you want to be, the way that you want to drive your business forward with everything amazing in it.
[00:06:48] That’s not the fundamental part of your company. Do you know what it is? It’s revenue and it is sales. And that is the reality. You don’t have them two things. What don’t you have? You don’t have a business. You have an idea, and you have a hobby. But you don’t have a business, because coming back to your, um, point, Adam, business is a game, and the way you win the game is to make more money.
[00:07:12] So it might sound crass. Does it sound crass to anyone, by the way? Okay, makes sense. That’s good. So, honestly, you don’t have to answer now. Write it down on your pad, or however you’re recording today. How many phone calls do you make a day? How many phone calls do you actually make? How many conversations do you actually do a day?
[00:07:34] Because this is execution. This is waking up in the morning going, How am I going to sell my business today? How am I going to say, name me a business, fight out there, whoever’s business it is, name him. Name me a bit, what’s your business? 80 is you, your training company called 80, right? Waking up in the morning, how am I going to sell 80 today?
[00:07:53] How am I going to sell big business events today? How am I going to sell Phoenix 51 today? How am I going to sell War Talent Academy today? Name me another business, somebody at the back. How, how am I going to sell you Charlier today? Are we doing that? Or are we waking up in the morning going, gotta go to work today, brilliant, my business is awesome, let’s check it out on social media, ooh, I’ve got a little nice like on that, oh, that looks quite good.
[00:08:15] What are we actually doing?
[00:08:19] We’re wasting time. Now, I was at an event, uh, with, uh, with Ross, Ross was running, uh, last week, and they talked, he talked heavily about time. We got a lot of time, to be honest. Have we? To be fair, we haven’t got a lot of time. So what, what is our legacy? What do we want to leave behind? What do we want to do?
[00:08:38] What do we want to achieve? This isn’t on the government. This isn’t on the war in, uh, Ukraine. This isn’t on Brexit. Who’s it on? It’s the facts. The facts are on us. There’s customers out there that don’t want to buy it. I’ve seen my sales cycle, I’ll be truthful with you, I’ve seen my sales cycle go from 60 days, 55 days, to over 100 days, in terms of a sales cycle.
[00:09:06] What we’re gonna do we are problem solvers Entrepreneurs are we entrepreneurs show your hands. We are entrepreneurs, right? It’s not it’s not like a nice word That’s actually who we are. But actually if we are are we driving? Are we driving more customers? Are we solving their problems? Because that’s what an entrepreneur does.
[00:09:27] Do you agree? You know, our businesses are about solving a problem, a gap in the market, um, or a problem that just doesn’t, hasn’t been solved before. And it’s quite simple. Now Phoenix 51 is a software and a big, big up for Adam. Thank you. But simply we just digitalized. Recruitment. We just digitalized the people assessment process.
[00:09:47] It’s actually quite simple. Instead of writing things down on a piece of paper, you just do it in a digital format. So it’s not, you know, you’re never going to get rocket science from me. I’m sure if any of you have heard me speak or know me, you’ll know that I’m not a rocket scientist at all. I just think keeping things simple and making things better for somebody else, that’s our job.
[00:10:05] Does that make sense?
[00:10:06] Adam Stott: Yeah, and I think the picking up the phone piece that you talked about is really critical there, right? Really, really, really critical. And it’d be interesting, how many of you did you write a number down? Write a number down now, like Lee said, on how many phone calls you are making per day to new prospects or people that potentially could be, but phone calls, not e mails, not Facebook messages.
[00:10:32] Now, if you’ve got a team, how many phone calls are your team making, right? Because you might be the business owner, you’ve got five people in your team. You need to be holding them accountable for how many messages that they’re, how many calls they’re making. Actually, how many physical calls they’re making for, for both of those camps.
[00:10:51] And then what is that number? Who wrote down zero? Raise your hand if it was zero.
[00:10:55] Lee McQueen: Well done, by the way. I’m giving you a round of applause for that, to be fair, because that’s honest. That is honest that you’re running the whole day without making an outbound phone call I mean just think about that for a minute think about that for a minute if you run a business in and well done What number being honest You think about running a business in 1980s right in the 1980s what how many outbound phone calls would you make Hundreds, of course you would, because now we’ve got an excuse, haven’t we?
[00:11:24] Our excuse is, ah, but we can use, but I’ve just highlighted to you, the scenario of Sonal, if I send an email to Sonal, what? She can, she’s got all these different options. If I make a phone call, she can hang up on me, right? Is that what we’re fearful of? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a rhetorical question. Is that what we’re fearful of?
[00:11:42] Because I love having conversations with people. I want to understand, what are your problems? How can I possibly serve you if I don’t know what your problems are? So if I have a conversation with someone, I get to know what your problems are, get to know your problems, get to know your problems. What can I then do?
[00:11:55] I can put a solution together, and therefore, what can I do? I can sell you something. And that’s what we want to do. We don’t want to… Sales isn’t about knocking on 150… That’s what I’m saying, by the way. Pick the phone up a hundred times, knock on and see what happens. Sales isn’t about knocking on 150, uh, doors and forcing somebody to buy something.
[00:12:15] That is not… That might have happened back in the 80s. I don’t know, it might still happen now. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about understanding who your avatars, the people that you’re going after, What are their pain points? Do we have them conversations? Well, some of you just wrote down zeros.
[00:12:31] You don’t have them conversations. You don’t know Adam. Tell me where your pain points Tell me where your issues are. Tell me how I can help you. That is being consultative. That is selling your service to a new prospect or to a new client. Does that make sense?
[00:12:47] Adam Stott: And that consultative piece that Lee’s mentioning there, that, you know, that is consultative selling, which is the place you want to be, which is looking at it from a paying perspective of what problems people have, and looking to solve their problems exactly as he says.
[00:13:01] And that’s the style that you want to adopt. Now, for those of you that wrote that, how many of you actually do… Make calls every day. You make outbound calls every day. Raise your hands. Okay, so there are some hands going up. That’s really good. All right. Now, for there’s two, two camps. The people that do zero, and there’s the camp that do do some calls.
[00:13:22] The people that do zero, if all you did, if all you did is make five phone calls a day, and that was all you did, you would have a massive change in your business within the next 30 days. You know, for those of you that do do it, If you just doubled the amount of calls that you’re making, you’d have a huge change in your business within the next 30 days.
[00:13:45] And for those of you with teams. Actually knowing the numbers that they’re doing in terms of calls and actually analyzing that and then doubling it. That would change your business in the next 30 days. So I think it’s a really important point that Lee’s making, but I want to bring it to fear, Lee. You’ve got, you’ve got good energy, you know, this is something, you know, you’re always vibrant.
[00:14:08] And it’s funny, actually, because we, I hadn’t spoke to Lee in a few months and he had to give me some, like, some bad news on something a few months ago, probably about six months ago. And we booked a call and he got onto the call. It was a Zoom call. He come on the call and he went, Adam!
[00:14:29] And I was like, yeah, I’ve got some bad news. And I was like, oh, but I Because of the energy brought to the table. Do you understand what I mean? I think that you’re really good at that. Um, do you, you know, you’re still doing this day in, day out. One of the things that we did earlier, Lee, I just want to bring some context around what I’m talking to you about, is one of the things that we were talking about was about taking someone on a journey from being cold, To warm, to hot.
[00:15:05] And, and you just referenced this with different language. What language did Lee just use to reference this? Anyone hear it? Sales cycle. So he said, where are they in the sales cycle? What is the period of days? That’s what he’s talking about. He said it went from X days to X days. What did he say? 55 to 100, right?
[00:15:26] So the sales cycle got longer. And what I was talking about, Lee, is the warming of clients through the period. And you have five points in your pipeline that you, and Lee is always talking to me, about these five points, all right? And that’s exactly the sort of language that you should be using. So do you want to talk a little bit about the way you treat pipeline, the five, the points that you do it, the sales cycle, and then how you push people through, you know, that.
[00:15:55] That journey. And it’s not about pushing them to sell them, it’s about nurturing them across the journey.
[00:16:00] Lee McQueen: It’s understanding, isn’t it? It’s about understanding, isn’t it? You know, and there’s certain people in the room, um, put your hands up if you work in e commerce or in retail or that sort of stuff. Um, there’s a, there’s a few of you around.
[00:16:14] Um, so, look, you know, making outbound phone calls for people coming into your shop or from an e commerce perspective might be slightly different, but actually the premise is still the same, um, in a sense of, you know, how many customers may you, uh, foot full, for example. If you’ve got a shop, do you let, if you’ve got a shop, as an example, right, so you’ve got a shop, how, do you measure how much football, uh, football?
[00:16:34] Got that on the brain. Top of the league Spurs, come on. Um, how much footfall have you got coming through the, um, uh, through your shop? How many you convert? And it’s the same thing, right? So actually you’ve got footfall coming through, you’ve got leads coming into your business, or you’ve got phone calls that have been
[00:16:48] Adam Stott: On that note, Lee, right? So for example, you know, working in retail for many, many, many years, we would spend all of our spare time Prospecting. So we wouldn’t rely on footfall. Oh, interesting. And, and, for example, whether I was at Powerhouse, when I was in retail at Powerhouse, yes, there would be the people that would walk in and would want to buy the big TV, the washing machine, the cooker, sometimes the toaster, whatever it might be.
[00:17:14] You know, when I was at Ford, we spent all of our time making appointments into the store. Right? When I was a BMW, we spent all of our time making appointments into store. So footfall was our responsibility for appointments. And we would be spending, in Ford, I told you, 100 phone calls per day in order to drive more footfall into that business.
[00:17:35] Now we were, we were the best performing Ford dealership in the country. But the reason we were the best performing Ford dealership in the country, is anytime there weren’t someone in that place, you add 12, 14 salespeople banging the phones, 1400 phone calls a day, so you were going to be busy, and that was it.
[00:17:53] So the footfall is still your responsibility, right, and driving those people in.
[00:17:58] Lee McQueen: It’s interesting, actually, as well, because I spoke to, does anyone know Ricky Martin? Right, so he won The Apprentice a few years after me, obviously I inspired him, uh, obviously for, for, I won, he won.
[00:18:07] Adam Stott: I thought you meant the Latino dancer guy.
[00:18:09] Lee McQueen: Oh, that’s it, do you know? Oh, did you mean that as well? Yeah, I, I don’t know him, I don’t know. But I, I ain’t got as good dance moves as that Ricky Martin. But the other Ricky Martin, he won The Apprentice a few years after me. Um, he’s got a business does seven figures, uh, similar as well. Um, operating profit, fantastic life science recruitment company.
[00:18:28] Um, and I was with him two weeks ago and he said to me, do you know what Lee? He said, um, I’m still sick of these new people that are coming into the business. I said, what’d you mean? He said, well, you just need people that kind of have a bit of old school about. Right? And I was like, okay, well, what does that kind of mean?
[00:18:46] We had a, you know, we’re just having a conversation, two business owners together. And what we come up with was that getting on the phone, like just being a bit more proactive. Like I think COVID’s made us all a bit, I don’t know if I can use the word. I’m not, I’m not sure I’m allowed to use it. Soft. It just made us a little bit like, oh, let’s hide behind our screen.
[00:19:04] Let’s get on the phone, people. Let’s make stuff happen. Let’s talk and like, let’s get in this. It’s interesting, even on the footfall, you’re saying about let’s not just wait for something to happen. Let’s do an email campaign together. We’ll get our webinars together. We’ll do our pay per click stuff. All the social media stuff that you’re working with via the Golden Circle.
[00:19:20] Brilliant. But then we’re just going to wait, or we’re going to take action. What are we going to do? Because all this stuff needs to happen as well, right, Ad? All that stuff needs to happen. But you just need to be proactive, you need to execute. The bit, you’re going to have a massive funnel of stuff coming into your business, whether it’s footfall, whether it’s leads, whatever it is, then what?
[00:19:40] Conversations, right? Let’s go. Let’s start talking about conversation. So, so look at these, the, the aspect that Adam was talking about earlier. We have five fundamentals, uh, or, or what we call our methodology of bringing people into our business. And what we found, weirdly enough, what we found the hardest thing is to get them in the first bit, which is all the stuff that you talk about in your, in, in the social media, um, uh, events that you guys do.
[00:20:04] But actually, once you’ve got a hook, or once you’ve got somebody in, Then what do you do with them? How do you nurture them through the funds? We’re having conversations in the first one. Has anybody got a list of pain points that your avatar or your customers, your prospects will have in their business?
[00:20:22] Put your hand up. Brilliant. So quite a few of you. Good for you. We’ve trained them on that, which is good. And yeah, and actually, for those of you who haven’t got that, that has to be one of the first things you do away from today. Or if you need some support and help with that, here comes the plug. Why don’t you sign up for the 25th and 26th of November and I’ll talk you through it.
[00:20:42] No, so, I mean, all seriousness, if you haven’t got that list of problems, I guarantee you now, if you just sat down with a person opposite you, the person, you know, part of the golden circle, and just brainstormed, did people brainstorm? Yeah, love her brainstorm. Uh, if you do brainstorming, you will find 10, 15, 20, 30 different problems with your prospects, right?
[00:21:04] They are the problems that you’re gonna solve. Does that make sense? And that is what we call, Adam’s wrote, wrote it down, cold, we call discovery, okay? We are discovering… What your problems are, Mr. Or Mrs. Client. Does that make sense so far? Who does that right now? A few of you. Brilliant. So, um, you know, build on that.
[00:21:24] So if, again, so the next part of that stage is what are we converting from discovery through to, in my software company it’s called Demo. Or what you guys are calling Demo of Power. Okay? So how many discovery calls are we getting through to Demo? Make sense so far? So it might be that you’ve had Let’s just keep the numbers round so I can do the math.
[00:21:46] A hundred leads into the business, and out of them a hundred leads, you’ve managed to speak to fifty people and have a discovery with them. Out of them fifty people that you’ve spoken to, you’ve decided thirty of them you can’t help. Because you can’t help everyone, right?
[00:22:01] Adam Stott: I think that’s important what you just said. Because a lot of people, as small business owners, feel discouraged if they speak to those people and they’re not the right leads. But that is a part and parcel of the sales process. Yeah. And it’s just acknowledging that actually, you can’t help everybody. You shouldn’t want to help everybody.
[00:22:22] And not everybody is your customer. Not everyone’s your dream client, right? Not everyone is.
[00:22:26] Lee McQueen: 100 percent and I think that, again, I’ve got the, like the, the mental scars. I’m sure some of us have as well. But I’ve got the scars to know that that is a key element. In our pipeline, because the minute, excuse me, the minute that you let discovery go into demo that aren’t discovered.
[00:22:47] So, i. e. I haven’t really questioned them properly. I don’t really know what their pain points are. Oh, I’ve got a demo. Woohoo! You haven’t really, and what’s going to happen is you’re going to waste a lot of time. Put your hand up if you waste time with customers that don’t buy from you. Right. Okay. Who’s done that before?
[00:23:02] So, ultimately, it’s really about understanding, have we got the right people at demo? And that’s at stage 2. So, at stage 2, it’s like, Okay, I understand what your problems are now. Now I’m going to show you how I can solve them. So, we’ve done a 30 point, 25 point, 30 point, 40 point problem. Brainstorm and exercise with the people in the room, right?
[00:23:24] We’ve got that. We’ve now asked all of our prospects them questions around, um, around them problems. So we know exactly where their pain points are. Guess now what we’re gonna do. We’re going to solutionize them problems, because what do entrepreneurs do? Provide solutions. That’s what we do, right? So, if we can’t provide a solution for that particular customer, that particular prospect, through our business model, we then make a decision.
[00:23:51] And the power is in our decision. We either say, you’re not right for us, thank you very much. And that’s quite hard to do, because you’re kind of seeing power notes at that point, and you’re going, oh, but if I can help Juliet, or if I can help Son, or if I can help Adam, but if I can’t help you, what’s going to happen?
[00:24:08] If I can’t help you, what’s gonna happen? I’ll take you on, I’ll try and take you down the funnel, what’s gonna happen? Gonna be awful for credibility, you’re wasting time. It’s just not the right thing to do. I call that chasing the golden goose. Yeah? There is no golden goose. Fact. Right? It’s not, it doesn’t exist.
[00:24:24] So, get the right avatar, get the right people, get the right qualification, and go to that demo. Now you know the audience that you’re talking to. The people that you’re talking to, you can actually solve their problems and you’re going to solutionize the problem. So, 26 problems, 30 problems on the left hand side.
[00:24:40] How many solutions do you think we’ve got? 26 or 30, haven’t we? Of course we have, because that’s what we can solution for them. And now what we’re doing is we’re going inch wide. Mile deep. So we’re not going out to you and you and you and you and you were going out to this is what we solve. This is who we are.
[00:24:57] And this is what we’re essentially going to be able to sell to you based on based on that solution. And that’s basically demo. What we’re also trying to do at this point. Is to create a what we call champion. So have you ever heard of of that term before internally as a champion? It’s just basically somebody that I’m sorry.
[00:25:18] What’s your name? Anna. So I’m I’m having a discovery call with Anna. I’ve done the first demo with Anna and now I’ve got Anna. She’s like, Oh, I absolutely love. This is exactly what we need. Oh, I could see Adam using this in the business. I could see Juliet using this song. I was gonna love this. She’s now my champion.
[00:25:35] Does that make sense? So Anna is now going back into her business, and she’s going, Right, oh my God, you’ve got to see this. This is amazing. This is great. This is superb. So I’ve now got somebody on the inside, championing Phoenix 51, right? Which is my software company. So thanks, Anna. You can do that later.
[00:25:51] You know, it’s hard work, yeah. But that’s the point, is that how many internal meetings, or internal conversations, on a day to day basis, does Anna have? with her company inside her business. How many? A lot. How many do I have as an external? I don’t have any. So doesn’t it make sense to get Anna onside, get her as a champion?
[00:26:14] Yeah, absolutely makes sense to me. So now I’ve got Anna chomping and championing me internally. The next phase of the demo is a solution demo. So we’ve got a way we’ve put together exactly what the solution is going to look like. for the new prospect for Anna’s business. And I’ve tasked, you heard me right, I’ve tasked my potential client with doing some homework.
[00:26:40] I’ve tasked with that. Anna, what I need from you is I need you to get me Adam, yeah, the big boss. I also need you to get me Chris, the marketing guy. I also need you to get me Sonal, the CFO, to another meeting. Can you do that for me? Yes, I can. Of course. Why, why would Anna do that? For me? It’s all decision makers are there because, yeah, but, but she’s, she’s, she’s, she’s a raving fan.
[00:27:04] If you all read that book, you must have read the raving fan’s book, right? If you haven’t, it’s really small. You can probably do it in an evening, go read it. It’s amazing. But yeah, she’s a raving fan. She’s a champion. So now all of a sudden my, my, my fourth track. Everyone still with me? My fourth track is Solution Demo.
[00:27:20] So now my team are going to provide Anna’s team and all the decision makers exactly the solution that they’re going to buy. And it’s perfect. It’s branded. It’s, it’s, it’s their specific solution with the idea that after that meeting, the final track, the fifth track is the go sales negotiation close. So where have I sold through that piece?
[00:27:44] I’m really sold. Have I really? I’ve, I’ve, I’ve discovered, I’ve understood where the pain points are in the prospects business. And this is why it’s so important to have conversations. So on an email, what’s your name, sorry? Claire. On an email, I send Claire an email and I say, Oh, hi Claire, um, I understand that these are your business’s pain points, can you confirm?
[00:28:04] Yes. Where’s the relationship here? Could Claire be my champion? She couldn’t be my champion, could she? Not really. Not really. I need to make a phone call. Not yet, exactly, not yet. I get on the phone to Anna, and I’m like, Ah, yeah, I got some energy, this is what we’re gonna do, do it. Can I, can I get Anna to start to be energized enough to be my champion?
[00:28:25] And that’s the key difference on the phone, making conversations on Zoom. You know, whether or not it’s on Zoom or on the phone or whatever, face to face would be amazing, right? Especially if you’re e commerce, you’re retail, and you’re walking people through. It’s having that, that concept. And what I haven’t really done is sold anything other than…
[00:28:42] These are your problems. You’ve told me these are your pain points. This is the solution we’ll put together. We all agree in the room that that’s the right solution for us. Let’s sign a contract. Let’s do some business. Yeah? Would that be fair? And that’s basically our, our, our, our methodology, or our systematic approach to new business and higher ticket sales.
[00:29:02] Adam Stott: Which really that is high ticket, you might not have as many stages in your process if you’re selling a low ticket item. But what you would do is rather than you having three meetings, for example, you would go through that same process. But you do perhaps in one meeting if it’s a lower ticket sale just for context.
[00:29:19] But I think it’s really important to understand that what Lee did along that journey. And what’s even more important is that Lee is measuring the journey, yeah? Measuring these constantly, measuring this pipeline constantly, to make sure that he’s bringing people on the journey. So picking up the phone, Lee, which are just from a psychological mindset perspective, you know, you, you, you do this all the time, right?
[00:29:46] Yeah, I do, yeah. Yeah. Any, any advice or guidance you’d give to the people that wrote down zero on the pad?
[00:29:55] Lee McQueen: We’ve got to find the numbers first, and I think, I think the biggest piece of advice is that, and again, there might be some people in the room, you can show your hands if you want to, it’s up to you, but the, if you haven’t got a specific avatar or specific target market you’re going for, making phone calls is a lot harder.
[00:30:15] Well, why would that be?
[00:30:20] Say again?
[00:30:24] Yep. What else? Spot on, but what else? Who said that? You’re not related, you can’t relate to them. So I have a phone call with Adam that’s completely different to a phone call to Anna, that’s completely different to a phone call to Sona, it’s completely different to a phone call to Chris. Does that make sense?
[00:30:42] Well, it’s actually, if you’re inch, inch wide, mile deep, there’s loads of people in that small verti you talk about verticals, right? In that small vertical. Then what? Every phone call, this might sound really boring, but every phone call I make is the same, yeah? I now can speak with confidence to Anna, with confidence to Adam.
[00:31:05] I’m telling you now, just through my experience, and you can at me as I use, as I sell my podcast, you can at me if you want. Most people don’t make phone calls for one reason only. And that is confidence. That is it. And then I might come up here and you might think I’m really confident and, you know, arrogant and whatever.
[00:31:21] I’m not, at all, actually. I get nervous the same as everybody else. But if you know your subject matter, and you know what you’re going to be talking about, and you know, before getting on the phone, that most of the people you’re going to be talking to have these problems, how would you know that, by the way?
[00:31:38] Just, just recapping, how would you know that they’ve got problems? Because you know their pains because we’ve solutionized all of them, right? So we know that our target market has these problems. So you’re then going into that phone call with confidence and you can confidently talk about that. I know.
[00:31:55] Nick I know that you probably looking at these pain points, but tell me about them. Oh, yeah. God. Yeah, that’s right I’ve got this this this this brilliant. I know because I’m already working with Juliet and Juliet’s exactly the same business This is what we did with Juliet. All right, that sounds good credibility.
[00:32:09] I’ve got that Okay, would you be interested in talking to me further if I could solve this this this this this for you? Yeah, probably would. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Does that make sense? So the first piece of advice is confidence, but how do you get that? Know your subject, knowledge is power.
[00:32:25] This is, again, this is nothing. You’re entrepreneurs, you’re business owners. You know this stuff already, but we’re not doing it. And, and we should be, and we need to be doing it. And it’s really, you’ll never get rocket science from me, I have to say that. Probably say that a few more times while you’ve still got me here.
[00:32:41] But it’s that basic element of, right, okay, why am I not doing this, man? This is, this seems. Really simple to do getting some confidence making the phone calls, but also honing in on that one You you cannot be confident talking about how many people got in a room here 60 90 90. Sorry, my math’s bad. I can’t do the math really quickly.
[00:33:03] There’s say a hundred just go around numbers Got a hundred people in this room if I was to speak to a hundred people and try and show you something different every single time That’s That’s hard, isn’t it? Isn’t that harder? Think of a job, maybe you put your hand up when you was working for somebody else, or before you become an entrepreneur, or when you was in corporate.
[00:33:22] How many of you did multiple jobs? How many of you did that? So a couple of you did multiple jobs. So you know how hard it is. But the reason why people, most people didn’t put their hand up for multiple jobs, why? Because typically you just do one. And that’s the reality, because you focus on… On a niche, on a vertical, on a inch wide, mile deep, and that is the key.
[00:33:44] For me, that’s been the biggest game changer. Um, one other piece of advice from a, from a, uh, prospecting perspective, is don’t kid yourself, right? I’ve got, my chief growth officer says to me, Lee, his name’s Dave, he said, Lee, since January, we put 3. 5 million pounds… In the sales funnel. I’m like, that sounds good, right?
[00:34:10] Who would want 3. 5 million revenue in their business? Well, come on, of course you would. But it’s, it’s not real, is it? Because, you know, actually it’s just, it’s just pipeline. So how do we convert that? That’s my next question. Brilliant, Dave. That’s at the top front. How are we getting that down all this funnel?
[00:34:24] What can we expect to get from that? Is it one deal? At 50 grand? Is it 100 grand? Is it 20, 000? Like, what does it look like? And then you start to work back from there. So, have we, any of us done an exercise on what our business, and it might sound stupid, might sound stupid, sorry, but have we ever done an exercise to say, what do we actually need in our business, in terms of revenue?
[00:34:47] Have we done that? Like, what revenue do we actually need in our company? That cost base, we know our P& L, no?
[00:34:57] The room’s gone quiet. They’re either thinking I’m some sort of undeluded, or like, none of you know. So I’m a bit worried there. But we’ve done, we’ve got a P& L, haven’t we? In our business. And we know what our numbers need to be and what they look like. But do we still wake up in the morning at 4 o’clock?
[00:35:12] In the morning thinking, well, for some of us in the room, certainly me, it’s like, because I need a week, but is it, is it because we’re stressed? Is it because we got a, we’re stressed out on how we’re going to pay payroll or how we’re going to fight, pay the bills again? I’ve got the scars for this. I know how you are feeling in that, in that moment, but that can be eradicated by doing simple things in our business to go, okay, are we concentrating on the right things?
[00:35:38] When I wake up in the morning, I’m going to design a new PowerPoint presentation, and it’s going to be amazing, and it’s going to have all these brilliant slides, but we’re never really going to get to use it, because none of us want to execute getting on the phone and making them presentations happen.
[00:35:52] So what’s the point? And then you wake up in the morning at four o’clock thinking, I was gonna swear, sorry, Holy moly, how Ha ha Crazy, innit? Told you I was full of energy. Holy, holy moly, How am I going to pay payroll this month? What am I gonna do? I, I, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do. And then you’ve got this constant stress.
[00:36:17] This shouldn’t be like this. Entrepreneur. This should be like I’m living my dream. And when I tell people in the street, Oh, what’s your name? Sorry, Rupee. Hi, Rupee. How are you? Oh, I’m good. How’s your business going? It’s going amazing. It’s of course, you’re not going to sit there and go, it’s horrendous.
[00:36:35] Like I haven’t done a sale for three months. You don’t put it on your Instagram. I’m not saying your business is horrendous, by the way, but you don’t put it on your Instagram story, do you? Oh, I’m struggling now. I’m having a proper nightmare, like clients ain’t bought from me. Cause, cause Instagram’s fake.
[00:36:50] Do you see where I’m coming from? It’s not authentic. We’ll do it, but what’s real to you is when you wake up in the morning and go, Man alive, I’ve got to go and do this again. How am I going to get new clients on? Has anyone felt like that before? I’ll put your hand up if you’ve felt like that. There’s a few of us, man.
[00:37:09] And this is a simple way, a simple way of getting out of that. It’s giving some energy. The other key thing, who goes to the gym? Put your hand up. Right, but you know when you go to the gym, or like you actually do tank in the gym? Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, like Adam goes to the gym, but I actually do tank in it.
[00:37:30] I don’t even go. Do you know what I mean? Still coming for me, you know what I’m saying? But my point being is, right, Everybody can understand the gym concept, I hope, whereby you go to the gym and you think, Do you know what? I’ve had a massive Christmas or holiday season and I’ve overeaten. I need to go and burn some stuff off, right?
[00:37:50] Do you really want to get a six pack, right? Or do you really want to get muscles or do you really want to get your legs big or whatever? Do you want to get, do you want to get healthy? Do you really want to internally get healthy? Get rid of the visceral fat. that is around your organs right now that none of you, a lot of you don’t know unless you know, you, unless you know, you know, unless you know, you don’t, whatever.
[00:38:11] But there’s a lot of bad stuff that goes on. The point I’m making, this is very, very relevant, right? The point I’m making is a lot of us, what we do is we go, right, okay, let’s go down the gym. We’ll smash out a couple of weights, might even get a personal train for three months, right? And they’re going to help us out and whatever, we might see some results.
[00:38:27] Once we start seeing some results, we’re happy with it. Because you don’t really want a six pack. Are you, are you following where I’m coming from? Don’t really want to get muscly. We just wanted to see a, ooh, I changed. Now put that into your business today, and this is what I’m saying to you. For the sales methodology, for the sales track, if you really want to sell, if you really want to get new revenue into your business, you’ll go down to the gym, won’t you?
[00:38:54] You’ll stop eating to get your six pack, right? If you really want it. Because you can’t, you can’t eat pizza every day and have a six pack. Right? And you cannot just do emails every day and not get on the phone. Because you will not generate the revenue that you need. And again, I’ve got a scars for this.
[00:39:10] I’ll tell you this as well. You can outsource this, right? You can give it to, I’m not good at sales. I’m not good at it. I will give it to somebody else. And I’ve seen how many people have done that for my business, the recruitment company, because that’s what we do. There is nothing more authentic. than Anna selling her own product or service or business at the front end.
[00:39:35] Now I’m not saying you have to be on the tools every day, because that’s not what we’re in entrepreneurship for or business for, but it has to come from you. Are you an MD today? Put your hand up for your MDs. Are you CEOs? Put your CEO, so I’m a CEO. Founders? Yeah, put your hands up. Founders? Yeah, we like to be a founder.
[00:39:54] Whatever. Whatever we are. But the actual essence is, if your business doesn’t sell, what happens? Nice. You don’t have a company. You don’t have a business. You just have a lifestyle idea. And that’s why it’s really important. Because that’s not for me to answer your question. That’s a rhetorical question. Is that alright, Ed?
[00:40:16] For the team to go away team and think about. What is it you… Actually want with your idea or your company because if it is you want to grow it when big revenues coming through it Then you need to be doing this stuff. And if it isn’t that’s totally cool. Yeah, it’s totally fine
[00:40:32] Adam Stott: I think where that leads which is a really good question for all of you is to really consider what your daily role is You some of you are saying I’m a founder something you’re saying I’m a CEO something you’re saying you’re a director the bottom line is You are the person that’s driving the sales into the business, um, as the owner of the business, and you have to take responsibility for that.
[00:40:55] So how do you build that into your role every single day? You know, what language and visibility have you got on that? Like I said to you, I have the visibility every single day, where I ask myself the question every single day, How am I going to generate more revenue for this business today? What is it I am going to do?
[00:41:12] I don’t give that responsibility to Ross. I don’t give that responsibility to David. I don’t give that responsibility to Chris. I take that responsibility on personally, and then I’ll work through those people with the idea about how we’re going to generate more revenue, but it comes from me. And if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.
[00:41:29] And you have to have that mentality. So what, how are you going to build that into your role about driving revenue growth?
[00:41:36] Lee McQueen: Can I just come in on that, Adam, as well? Because I totally agree with you, and I think that one of the exercises that I’d like you, team, to go away and do, just in your own time, and you can reach out to me or Adam or the team with the results if you want to, is define your role.
[00:41:54] Which is what I, what, what, what are you, what is your role? Are you Chief PowerPoint Builder? Are you Chief Excel Spreadsheet Looker? Because, because you, because here’s the thing, right? I know it sounds stupid, but you can be whatever you want. And there’s some people in this room that are creatively brilliant, right?
[00:42:16] And there’s some people in this room that are just amazing with numbers. And there’s some people in this room that are amazing with… People or with words or whatever it is, you gotta find out like whatever your businesses are, and hopefully, and I’ve generally mean this, hopefully I’ll get a chance to understand all of you and all of your businesses at some stage.
[00:42:37] But, but I just want yourself, ’cause what is your role? ’cause your role isn’t to where. And we have to wear five, six different hats, don’t we? As business owners, well, we do. Of course we do, right? But that’s not your role. That, that shouldn’t define you. Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve got to go and do this. Oh, man, I’ve got to go and do that.
[00:42:55] No, your role is actually, do you know what? If I steer the ship and lead with that creativity, and come up with this is where we’re going, this is what we’re doing, for however big your teams are, however, um, uh, strong your, your mission is, Is that your role? And actually part of that is to drive the bits that aren’t working very well.
[00:43:15] We spin a lot of plates, do we? Do we put, uh, do we spin a lot of plates? So when there’s a plate that’s about to fall off, our job is to go and spin it. It’s not, it’s not your, your staff’s job. Oh, you ain’t done that. Oh, she ain’t done this. What? That’s not the job. The job is, well, okay, I’ll spin that plate again.
[00:43:30] I’ve realized I’ve got to get that going. So once we’ve got an approach for marketing, we’ve got to get an approach for… Once you’ve got approach for sales, we’ve got to get approach for delivery, right? Or, or, or upselling or cross selling or renewals, all of these things. Retail come back to Juliet, for example, footfall was a brilliant point you made earlier, but actually footfall coming through, we sell brilliant.
[00:43:55] How are we going to get more customers from themselves? So are we doing referral schemes as an example, coming up with them, create a fat is our job. Does that make sense? If we don’t want to do that job, we can’t give that job to somebody else. That’s, because that’s our job. That’s the essence of our company.
[00:44:11] Does, does that make sense? Totally. Do we agree? Put your hand up if you agree. Fabulous. Okay, there’s a few people here that don’t. I’ll see you after, it’s not my joking.
[00:44:19] Adam Stott: Look, did we enjoy Lee today, everybody? Yeah? Let’s give him a massive, massive round of applause.