Dan Waldschmidt's Blog, page 38

How We Did 52 Weeks of Business in 3.

Let’s talk one-on-one for a few minutes. I don’t often write first person and I rarely share the inside secrets of the billion dollar companies that we support. After a conversation with a senior executive a few days ago I thought I would make an exception.

Here is the big news — my team and I have managed to do more business in 3 weeks than we did all last year. Seriously.

It took us 3 months of hard conversations and tough work to get to the “start line” and begin executing our process — but it was worth it. I’ll tell my exact numbers at the end of this article.

I know you might be struggling to increase your (or your team’s) performance. So I wanted to share a few secrets I’ve learned about a cool process I found called “Predictable Revenue” (which may or may not be so predictable, but, I didn’t name it…)

Here is how you can do the same:

1) Get laser focused on your lead generation.

Finding new customers is hard.

Really hard.

Which is why you need a system. A process. And it’s hard to sell to people you don’t know exist.

That’s where smart tools come in.

LinkedIn lead gen apps (try LeadFuze or AeroLeads) will allow you to piggyback off of LinkedIn data in order to build your lists.
We’re also heard great things about Clearbit Sheets, another killer product for doing lead gen at scale via your Google Sheets interface.

2) Double (or triple) your outbound sales email.

Frankly, you can’t increase your sales unless you increase the number of high quality outbound emails sent, phone calls logged, in-person visits made, smoke signals sent — you get the picture.

It can be a numbers game. Start acting like it.

By the way, our process is 14 conversations in 30 business days. It works because it’s “human” and accounts for the fact that most of our ideal targets are super busy and won’t take action right away.

3) KISSS your emails

Keep, It, Short, Sweet, and Simple.

No more than 5 sentences.

A full paragraph between each sentence.

Don’t teach them industry jargon or buzzwords or what you do — talk about what the prospect will receive.

4) Fall in love with sales technology.

Marc Andreessen is famous for saying, “software is eating the world.”

Especially sales.

It doesn’t matter what part of your sales process you’re on — there’s an app for that. Lead gen. Email automation. Contract management.

Want new super powers? There’s an app for that.

Like all of the goodies here. Yeah. I like those guys. You should too.

5) Systemize your next move

We both know it’s far easier to ask your existing customers to upgrade than to try to find new customers.

So do that. Develop a specific plan that includes an outreach cadence that makes it easy for them to want to upgrade.

Figure out:

How long do you wait until you reach out and try to upsell more products?
What specific products are you pitching as your upsell?
How do your email templates read?

6) Learn all you can

Frankly, we found Predictable Revenue to be extremely helpful (some smart people have even  called it the Silicon Valley sales bible).

We took what we learned and added our special sauce to it. The more we saw it working, the more creative we became.

We are still learning what works. We’re only a few weeks into the New Year and already we have more business booked than all the weeks of last year combined.

And we’re not going to stop learning. It’s making us millions of dollars.

6) Live by your numbers.

Develop a “sales dashboard” that you can look at and check your progress.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t even matter what program you use. Just make sure to include these things:

Number of sales emails sent per week
Number of leads generated per week
Number of inbound leads received per week
Number of wins per week
Average deal size
Average sales cycle

7) Specialization is your friend.

If we break down the process, you’ve probably got 3 specific sales tasks (like we do):

Lead generation – Finding new potential customers
Closing – Securing partnerships with these new customers
Account Management – Managing your customers

If you have the benefit of multiple sales team members, specialize their roles.

If you’re a one man band, specialize your time.

For example:

5 hours – lead generation
3 hours – closing
2 hours – account management

8) Templatize your awesomeness

Make what you do repeatable, repeatable, repeatable. As awesomely as repeatably possible.

But your templates had better not look like templates. 

They’ve got to be emotional. Personal. Write like you’re only talking to one person. After all, you are.

Turn your whole sales process into a series of “templates”. And keep making them better (that’s right, by learning).

It works. But you have to stop and dig into the ugly details of what you have been doing — and why.

9) Follow up on your follow up.

A “No response” is unacceptable.

You (or your sales rep) was just too lazy to follow-up. Don’t hate. But that is truth.

It might take something like this to get a reply:

Day 1 – Email
Day 3 – Email
Day 4 – Voicemail
Day 5 – Linkedin Connection request
Day 7 – Email
Day 9 – Cold Call
Day 11 – Email
Day 13 – Twitter mention
Day 15 Email

No more guesswork. Now you know when to reach out, how to reach out, and what specifically to say.

10) Stay hungry

Everything you do affects your sales process. Technology. Marketing. Psychology. Finance. All play a part in the sales hustle.

Study the new sales apps. Take a writing class (or imitate great authors). Read a good book. Practice your spreadsheet wizardry.

Whatever you do, keep fighting.

Here’s the crazy math

We started off the year with a target list of 400 potential customers. I wanted to do business with 10 of them.  That would yield epic results for us. We ran into a problem (a good one…) after 17 selling days.

We had reached out to 81 of those potential customers, talked with 53 of them, and signed a deal of 27 of them. More deals are following.

We achieved 1300% better results than expected.

I think you can do the same. It’s not easy. And certainly this article won’t change everything all at one time.

But it might be the best start you’ve had in a long, long time.

The post How We Did 52 Weeks of Business in 3. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

It Never Feels Right.

Progress requires pain.

It hurts to move from where you are right now to where you want to be.

The bigger the distance you need to go, the longer it’s going to take you.

The more effort you will need to exert. The more emotional baggage you will have to bear.

Sleepless nights. Missed opportunities. Lack of friends.

Pain comes in a lot of different forms. In ways that you can’t even imagine right now.

Your natural reaction is to assume that if something hurts, you’re doing something wrong.

You’ve been taught that if you do it the right way — whatever it is that you’re doing — that it will feel natural and smooth and pain free.

So when you’re faced with the challenge of suffering it can feel like maybe you have the wrong goal.

Maybe your dream is ridiculously impossible.

But maybe what is broken is you.

That’s just your brain’s way protecting you from the pain.

The pain that’s producing progress. The progress that’s moving you from where you are now to where you want to be.

Without pain there can be no progress. Without progress you’re going to stay stuck.

Unchanged. Unimproved. And absolutely miserable.

In truth, that’s what hurts more.

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Creating The Story You Never Hear About.

I didn’t want to do it.

I didn’t want to do the last one. So I didn’t.

This time felt a lot like last time.

Until it didn’t.

I crossed the finish line of the 50k a few seconds after the 4 hour mark. A personal record for my own running and about 20 minutes ahead of second place.

The trail was a 5.2 mile loop through a marsh in Wilmington, North Carolina.

I won. Frankly, it wasn’t even close. A dominating performance.

But it wasn’t going to happen.

Earlier in the week, I was in a funk. Ask Sara. She’ll tell you. I can be a handful.

Like the previous race I dropped out of, I was pretty set on dropping out of this one as well.

I didn’t feel like driving 5 hours to the event, running the event, and then driving those five hours back home. After a busy week of international business dealings and stressful negotiations, I just wanted to chill out and do “less”.

Actually, that’s not completely true.

I wanted to run. But I got freaked out when I thought about how much it was going to hurt.

In fact, when Sara asked me why I didn’t want to go, I told her: “If I go, I have to win.”

Which was the craziest thing she had ever heard: “Why can’t you just go and have fun? You’re doing all of this training, go enjoy yourself.”

But I wasn’t listening.

I decided that I didn’t want to accept the “hurt” it would take to run fast enough to win.

Sara wasn’t having any of it. “We’re going,” she said. “We’re going. Pack up your shit. Put it in the car. I’ll take care of everything else.”

And she did.

Snacks for the kids. A tent. Sleeping bags.

Mattress pads to go under the sleeping bags.

Water bottles. And extra battery packs so the kids could watch their Netflix.

“Get in.” She said. “Let’s go.”

So we went. 5 hour ride there. A few hours in a hotel room. Up at 5 a.m. to get ready and head to the event. 4 hours of crewing for me. Another 5 hour drive home.

It was the most fun I have ever had running a race.

By far.

And it almost didn’t happen. It wasn’t going to happen.

Until someone close to me pushed me beyond the limits of my comfort to do what they believed was possible for me.

That’s the story you never hear about.

The person behind the person.

The motivation behind achievement. That person willing to fight you to make sure you do something awesome.

Game on. Who are you going to fight to make sure they reach their full potential?

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

You Don’t Have Time To Walk The Walk.

There are those who tell you that they are legit because they walk the walk.

They don’t just talk the talk, they do what they promise. They practice what they preach.

Make no mistake, doing is always better than talking.

It’s just not enough.

There’s not enough time for you to walk the walk.

You’ll run out of money and creativity, friends, opportunity, and experience along the way.

If you’re going to make it, you have to run the walk.

Knees high. Elbows bent. Sweat dripping from the edges of your eyebrows. You have to run.

Not walk. Not shuffle. Run.

Your dream demands urgency.

Your opportunity might not be there tomorrow.

You might be headed in the right direction but get there long after your chance for greatness.

It bears remembering and reminding your self each day that what you do matters.

You are either using the moments you have to propel yourself mightily towards where you want to be or you are just wasting your time.

It’s that simple.

That should stir within you the resolve and urgency you need to move a little bit faster.

You don’t have time to walk the walk. Start running it.

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

The Secret To Being Exceptionally Productive.

Being productive isn’t necessarily about doing more work in the day.

If you’re not doing the hard work that success demands, you’re fooling yourself if you think you’re ever going to be successful.

You’ve got to do the hard things if you want to enjoy the great things. It’s as simple as that.

If you’re not working hard, you’re not working smart.

But what if you’re already working as hard as you think you can? How do you do more if there isn’t any more time to work?

Being exceptionally productive has a lot to do with your priorities.

In fact, that’s the secret to getting more done each day. Managing your priorities.

First, you have to know what those priorities are.

You have to know what matters the most to you.

Where you want to be in the long term and what you’re doing right now to get there.

Once you know that, you have to work hard to maintain that focus. It’s called momentum.

That’s the secret to productivity. Managing your priorities to make sure you maintain momentum.

That means you’re ever vigilant.

Deliberately introspective about what matters most to you.

Refusing to buy into other people’s plans and processes.

Thinking for yourself and then doing what it takes to make sure that what matters most is what you’re focused on. Maniacally. Unapologetically.

If you’re not as productive as you need to be, your priorities are messed up.

You say something is important but aren’t working towards that goal.

You don’t have a productivity problem.

You have a priorities problem.

The same is true for everyone who works for you. If they aren’t working hard enough, it’s because you haven’t worked hard enough to be their number one priority.

Think about that the next time you’re upset that you can get to where you want to be.

You obviously aren’t making it a priority. That’s something you should change today.

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Question Everything.

One of the overwhelmingly apparent habits of high achievers is their insatiable curiosity.

They question everything. They don’t just want an answer. They want the explanation behind the answer. They want the research behind the explanation behind the answer.

They aren’t satisfied to believe what other people tell them. They own their facts. They know what they believe. And why they believe it.

It’s important. And often overlooked.

In the busyness of your daily schedule, it is easy to just accept the answers that someone else gives you.

It’s easy to mimic the formulas that seem to be making someone else successful. The danger there is that you never truly understand what works for you.

You never figure out the secret power you bring to the battle that no one else can exactly replicate. You’re too busy copying someone else’s battle plan that is built around their secret power.

You’re trying to be like them and will likely fail.

Because you don’t have all the pieces. Your skills are different. Your desires are different. Your life circumstances are different. What you know, when we’re going, who you know, and what you aspire to attain — they aren’t the same.

A fast and easy answer is usually a recipe for long term frustration.

It’s uncomfortable to grind away looking for answers that work for you. It seems unnecessary to keep thinking about things that seem to have already been settled.

And if you haven’t figured that out for yourself, there is sure to be someone in your circle of friends who is willing to remind you of it the next time you start asking questions.

Don’t wait too long to start demanding better answers.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to start asking the hard hitting questions that determine your future results.

Don’t let your dream die. Question everything:

Start with yourself. Dig deep.
Be tough. Demand honesty.
Be relentless about figuring it out your way.
Refuse to accept the easy answer.
Fight for progress. And momentum.

Inch by inch by inch. Every day.

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

The How Is The What.

It’s not what you do that matters so much.

It’s how you do what you’re doing that matters.

What you do is just a ticket to the game. How you do it is what makes you a superstar.

It’s easy to imagine that there is some missing thing out there you could start doing right now that would instantly catapult you past the tough obstacles in your path towards greatness.

That’s not just silly — it’s dangerously wrong.

To accept that is to admit that you’re basically in the business of looking for short cuts.

If there were one big thing you could be doing, don’t you think you would have already figured it out by now?

Stop asking yourself what you’re missing and start asking yourself how you can improve what you’re already doing?

You could be more delightful, unexpected, and thorough.
You could deliver much better customer service.
You could give more value than people pay for.
You could invest in being more personal and relatable.

It’s how you execute your strategy that ultimately determines if what you’re doing is worthy of success.

You’re going to failure because of the how.

It’s the smallest details that end up mattering the most — like your tone of voice or the shade of colors you use on your website.

Stop chasing fairy tales and get to work mastering the hard things you’re just excusing away right now.

There is no what without the how.

The how is the what.

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Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Why Leaders Read.

Do a little research on the richest people in the world. You will notice that they all share one thing in common.

Despite differences in the language they speak or the industry in which they made their wealth, where they live, how they live, or their core strategies for success — they all enjoy reading.

They don’t just enjoy it.

They set aside time each day to do it.

To learn. And grow. Evolve.

They aren’t doing research or cramming for a test. They understand the power of learning something new.

They aren’t just curious by accident.

They are constantly filling their minds with new ideas, strategies, and thinking that allows them to expand beyond their own preconceived notions of what is possible.

You would benefit from doing the same.

Be deliberate about reading something new. Spend a few minutes each day filling your mind with new ideas and inspiration for the challenges ahead.

Readers become leaders.

If that’s what you want to be, that’s what you’d better start doing.

The post Why Leaders Read. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Are You Sure?

It’s never as easy as you think it should be.

All those beliefs and opinions you have that you hold as unchangeable — those are just a few life circumstances away from being changed.

By you. On purpose.

What you thought was clearly black and white is now shades of gray.

I remember one such story vividly:

Before I was the businessman that I am now, I spent 3 years in seminary studying New Testament Greek theology. It was an extremely conservative Baptist study of the Bible.

One of the hot button topics that was frequently discussed was homosexuality. I was taught, along with hundreds of other students studying theology there, that the LGBT lifestyle was a choice — a deliberate way of living based on perverted sexual preferences.

That’s what I was taught. Quite simply, those people were going straight to hell. No chance of redemption whatsoever.

At the end of my third year, I was asked not to return to that seminary due to my views — that differed from the positions of the faculty.

I often wondered while in seminary and then in the years afterwards whether my extremely conservative Baptist seminary peers actually believed the things that came out of their mouth.

So much hate and anger. It was hard to reconcile with the love and compassion that originally attracted me to seminary.

A few years after I left seminary I learned through alumni that one of my fellow students, 5 or 6 years ahead of me in school, was stepping down from his pulpit in a very large church he had built.  The reason for him stepping down was a lesson that I’ve never forgotten.

His daughter came out to him as being gay.

His daughter whom he had raised with Godly values, and professed to be a believer just like him, finally developed the courage to admit what she had been struggling with her entire life. She was gay. 

After more than a decade of raining down fire-and-brimstone from the pulpit, ranting about “lesbos and queers going straight to hell”, my seminary friend found his unchangeable views quite changed.

By someone that he loved deeply. By someone that he knew shared similar beliefs about God, the universe, and the reason for living. He could no longer reconcile his views and so he was stepping down. 

When I spoke to him some time later, I asked how something that was so clearly black-and-white in years past could have been gray so suddenly.

His answer to me was simple. “I thought I knew the answer, but love ultimately forced me to reconsider.” He would go on to tell me that he “doesn’t expect others to understand and isn’t trying to convince anyone else to change their beliefs.”

“This is personal.”

He thought he was sure.  He thought he knew what he knew. There was nothing left to question. Nothing to doubt.

Until there was.

Maybe what you think is right, isn’t so right after all.

Maybe you won’t change because you’re afraid you’ll have been wrong this whole time.

Whether it’s a business strategy that needs to be updated or a character flaw that needs to be patched — be willing to change.

Don’t be so sure you’re right that you waste your whole life doing the wrong thing.

Be sure that you’re willing to learn and grow and adapt — no matter how wrong it feels at the time.

The post Are You Sure? appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...

Be The First.

Be the first to get back up when you get knocked down.

Be the first to apologize when you’ve hurt other people.

Be the first to learn from your critics and the skeptics.

Be the first.

Be the first to show gratitude and give to those who need help.

Be the first to question what other people tell you is obvious.

Be the first to push the limits of your past possibilities.

Be the first.

Be the first to stop and enjoy the moments you get to win.

Be the first to do that that one thing you’re afraid to do.

Be the first to believe in second chances and even thirds.

Be the first.

Be the first to do the things that others make excuses to avoid doing. The annoying things. The frustrating things. The things that you don’t want to do.

Those are the things that everyone is struggling to do. Because they hurt.

And so instead of doing those things  — and being wildly successful — most people just make excuses. And never get unstuck.

Which is why you need to be the first.

The first to do the things that matter.

You know what those things are. You’ve been thinking about them for some time now.

Go do them. Make today the first.

 

The post Be The First. appeared first on Dan Waldschmidt: Author of EDGY Conversations.

Copyright by Waldschmidt Partners Intl... Not sure that all that legal stuff really matters. If you want to share this material, do so. Just don't charge for it and don't tell people you wrote it. Both of those are uncool.

Other than that, all rights are reserved to you to change your life. If you are ready to be amazing, now is the time to get started. Onward...