January 27, 2025 • 37 mins
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Unlock the secrets to sales success with Steve Wallace. In this episode, we break down why leads aren’t the key to winning in sales—and what you should focus on instead.
In this episode of the Business Growth Architect Show, Steve Wallace, Chief Sales Nerd at Maverick App, brings clarity to the often misunderstood world of sales automation. Many entrepreneurs and business owners are overwhelmed by the idea of automation, thinking it’s the magic key to unlocking sales success. However, Steve shows us that while automation can greatly enhance sales efforts, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it’s a tool to help scale your business—when implemented correctly. This episode is a must-watch for anyone trying to make sales automation work for them.
Steve dives deep into why so many people fail at using sales automation the right way. From relying too heavily on automation without first understanding their sales process, to missing the critical step of building relationships, many businesses make the mistake of thinking automation can replace human interaction. Steve explains that successful sales are built on trust and relationships, and while automation can assist in outreach, it is the personalized connection that closes deals.
Through this conversation, you’ll learn how to strike the right balance between using automation to scale your efforts and ensuring that your sales process still feels personal. Steve offers actionable insights into how automation can be leveraged to save you time, allowing you to focus on what matters: building real, lasting relationships with your prospects. He emphasizes that automation should work with, not replace, your sales strategy.
To learn more about how automation can work for your business, visit MaverickApp. If you found the episode insightful, don’t forget to leave us a comment or share your feedback. We’d love to hear how you are using automation in your own sales process!
Resources Mentioned:
Steve Wallace: Website | Linkedin | Facebook
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Wallace (00:00):
Hi. This is Steve Wallace, the Chief Revenue
(00:03):
Officer of Maverick App. It is asales automation and prospecting
platform. And on my episode forthe Business Growth Architect
Show, I will share the trick toyour sales process that you are
missing. Stay tuned to find outwhat I'm talking about and what
you're missing in your salesprocess that will open up doors,
(00:23):
avenues and sales that you neverknew existed. Head on over to
the podcast and listen to thefull episode,
BEATE CHELETTE (00:30):
And hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette,
here. I am the host of theBusiness Growth Architect Show
and I want to welcome you totoday's episode where we discuss
how to navigate strategy andspirituality to achieve time and
financial freedom, trulysuccessful people have learned
how to master both a clearintention and a strategy to
(00:51):
execute that in a spiritualpractice that will help them to
stay in alignment and onpurpose. Please enjoy the show
and listen to what our guesttoday has to say about this very
topic. Welcome back. BeateChelette here, The Growth
Architect, and today I amsitting down with Steve Wallace,
and we are talking aboutsomething that you love to hate
(01:13):
and hate to love, that isfiguring out how to get a proper
sales process in place, we aretalking about what prohibits
most of you to actually embracethe most important thing in
business, which is clientshelping other people, and what
(01:35):
possibly the disconnect would bebetween Your mindset and your
purpose and your actual process.
Steve, I'm excited to have youon the show. Thank you so much
for being here.
Steve Wallace (01:46):
Thank you. B, I'm really excited to be here too.
Thank you for having me. It
BEATE CHELETTE (01:49):
took us long enough, for sure,
Steve Wallace (01:51):
it really did. It really did. So Steve, for
BEATE CHELETTE (01:54):
somebody who's not familiar with what you do,
will you please tell us who youare and what problem do you
solve for your clients,
Steve Wallace (02:01):
absolutely. So I am as a person. I'm a father,
man of faith. Business is a lovelanguage of mine, so it does
tend to find its way into who Iam as a person. Professionally,
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor a Sales Automation Company
called "Maverick App." Theproblem that we solve is that
(02:21):
sales people, when they'reactually selling, they're
actually not selling, they spend70 to 80% of their day wasting
time doing tedious tasks thatneed to be done. I'm not making
excuses for it. They need toreport to their managers. They
need to make sales projections.
They need to put notes in theirCRM. They need to do account
research, build lists. They needto do a lot of things, but
(02:44):
unfortunately, those things comeat the expense of the actual
sales, the actual closing sowhat we do is we automate the
time consuming, tedious tasksfor sales people like building
lists, like making sure they'reresearched, like doing outreach
and following up with everybodywho says they need to be
followed up with which, let'sface facts, that's a huge
(03:05):
majority of people you meet.
Okay,
BEATE CHELETTE (03:09):
I got it, so let's dig in here. I mean, we
know that people struggle withsales in general, right? So we
already talked on the showextensively about the mindset
piece around sales, but you havea slightly different opinion
about this. You are looking atthis from the perspective, does
somebody actually believe inwhat they're selling? Tell me,
(03:33):
what does this mean, and why isthis even important?
Steve Wallace (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
I talk with a lot of salespeople. And by sales people, I
mean different industries,various roles, insurance agents,
financial advisors, businessowners, we're all selling
something. I think even peoplewho aren't responsible for
driving commissions are stillselling something. And when I
talk to these sales people,there's a couple things that I
(03:56):
find happen almost across theboard. One is, they're driven to
help people. Some of them aremoney driven, but it's actually
almost secondary. Usually, Iwant to make an impact. I want
to help people, especially inthe small business space. The
second is, is money. And thenwhat happens is, I find it so
interesting they they don't wantto help someone so much that
(04:19):
they're willing to interjectthemselves into someone else's
day, to put their product,solution or service in front of
them, to help them if theyactually believed in what they
did, if They had true,dedicated, heartfelt connection
(04:39):
and belief in what they do orwhat they sell. Why wouldn't you
want to put it in front of asmany people as possible, as fast
as possible, as often aspossible. And when you find
someone who is like that, it isa contagious, addictive energy
like I think back to Steve Jobs.
(05:00):
And his method of getting Applecomputer in front of as many
people as possible wasinfectious. It was He was rabid
at times, right? It was aninfectious energy. So why don't
sales people have
BEATE CHELETTE (05:11):
that? Well, why are they not like that? So what
is it? What is it about this? Isit because it's a job? Is it
because I'm driven by quotas? Weknow sales has a bad reputation,
but why? Why would I, you know,I mean, we're business owners,
right? We're talking to businessowners. They come here because
they know that they're purposedriven. They're impact driven.
(05:33):
They want to help more people.
What's the hurdle here? I mean,should it not be the easiest
thing in the world to say, Man,I can help you. Woman, I'm here
for you. Hello, everybody. Thisis the solution that will make
you feel better, perform better,be better at relationships, you
know, be more complete person.
(05:55):
What is it?
Steve Wallace (05:58):
I really don't believe there's enough
conviction there to map actionsto values. And if there is,
that's actually a good thing, ifthere's enough conviction to map
actions to value. Action being,value being, I believe in what I
sell, action being, let's go dothe work, execute if there is
great. But now you're on to thenext set of problems, which is a
(06:18):
lack of training. A lot of starshave to align in the sales world
to make a sales rep consistentand productive and effective on
behalf of themselves or theirorganization, that messaging
matters. The problems they solvematters if they're putting, for
example, if they're putting theproblems that they solve in
front of people who don't havethat problem, it's not going to
(06:40):
work. Nothing's going to work.
And you've spoken about this insome of your podcasts. So
there's a lot of stars that haveto align target market,
messaging, Cadence, frequency,the stars have to be really,
really aligned for a salespersonto be successful, day in, day
out. And then there's rejection.
(07:02):
And rejection, big part ofthings. Yikes. We could do an
entire episode on this alone.
BEATE CHELETTE (07:08):
We can do an entire we can do a year's worth
of stuff on rejection, right?
Absolutely. So, so here's,here's, what I think is, is at
the at the bottom of this. So Ilike that you said, conviction,
so I believe in my product. It'sa good product, but you said, I
don't believe in it enough tomake everybody stop what they're
doing and listen to me what howmany elements are in that, you
(07:34):
know, there's number one,rejection, right? Number two,
being well behaved, notbothering people, childhood,
stuff, society, what else goesinto
Steve Wallace (07:47):
traumas, right?
Yeah, societal, society tellingyou that you are being a
nuisance to them. Perhaps Ithink I'm a sales guy and I'm an
outreach guy, so I tend to thinkof this from a from a cold
outbound perspective, like if Iwas cold calling you. So I think
an element of an answer to yourquestion would also be, um,
making sure that you're beingrespectful self doubt. I think a
(08:13):
lot of it has to be self doubt,right? Be
BEATE CHELETTE (08:20):
certainly, well, as somebody who's just gone
through sort of this big notrebranding, but repositioning
exercise about recognizing thisinternet marketing language and
internet marketing nonsense thatwe've been told it's just not
working. I mean, it's just notworking anymore. So if you're
listening to the show and you'restill trying to do this fake
(08:42):
limiter, and we're looking fortwo people who just stop it.
Just stop it, it. It's just notworking anymore. Say, I'm having
a group of 10 people. I have sixpeople that are that have signed
up. I would like to fill thegroup with, you know, 10 really
great people. You look like agreat person. That's a much
better language, then there'sonly two spots left and doing
(09:03):
that. So I looked at this fromthe perspective of what really
annoys the heck out of me, andit is something that I consider
fake or a lie. And then you goback to that people say, Well,
just be who you are, becauseeverybody's already taken and
you go like, what the heck doesthat even mean? There's so
Steve Wallace (09:26):
much fortune cookie wis- wisdom out there.
The Fortune
BEATE CHELETTE (09:30):
Cookie, wisdom.
Thank you. How do I become thisauthentic, real person that
truly believes in what I do? Ithink that's the key here. What
have you found as you'retraining people and as you're
building these systems? Whathelps people to really step into
this and say, if this is mymission, you know, let's just
(09:51):
say my mission is to help withmy systems and processes other
people to make an impact. So weare shifting now as a company
begin. Next year, which was thebig, big birth of of this year,
to say I have created 1000s ofpages of processes and systems
and strategic outlines, and Ican break business steps down in
(10:13):
easy things. I mean, I can teachthis to anybody. And then
somebody asked me about twomonths ago and says, Hey, can
you give me your stuff so I canlearn to do what you do? My
first reaction is like,Absolutely not thief. My second
reaction is, oh, maybe this isthe legacy, right? And so
Steve Wallace (10:37):
mine is, yes, good luck.
BEATE CHELETTE (10:40):
There you go. As I shift right, how do I muster
up the courage to say, insteadof me teaching people how to run
their businesses, how about meteaching people how they can
help more people? Essentially,it's the same thing. But is it
(11:01):
or is it not right? So there's ashift in this. So now, somebody
who's listening this is like,so, well, how do I position
this? Help me? Steve,
Steve Wallace (11:09):
yes, so I don't believe in silver bullet
answers, but this, but this isshucks, but this is the one that
comes to mind for me. B, we'vealready established that people
are relational sellers. Theywant to make an impact. I want
to help people. Those all gohand in hand. In my mind, if you
want to make an impact, if youwant to help people, then you're
(11:32):
a relational seller. Face it,okay, if you want to do if
you're a one call closer andyou're and you're more
transactional, fine, there's aspace for you, but I'm talking
about the relational sellers whowant to make an impact. Okay, my
advice on how to sell, how tomake the transition to be so
convicted and so passionateabout what you do that you are
willing to go the extra mile andput yourself in front of people
(11:55):
more often, more frequently andbe uncomfortable is to become an
advocate for that person. AndI'll be more specific. I don't
want to give you buzz words,help that person. Help every
person you meet, find theirenemy and be an advocate with
that person against that enemy.
If you sell sales solutions, Isell sales solutions. If I'm
meeting with somebody, I Yes, ofcourse, I want to position my
(12:20):
sales solutions. But if I'mmeeting with somebody and their
enemy isn't exactly what it isthat I sell, I'm going to go
hard at that enemy anyway andcheck this out. I think this
takes a bigger picture than justmaking a sale mindset. But I'm
going to go hard at that enemy,a conceptual enemy, a variable
with that prospect, even if it'snot with something I sell and
(12:44):
check out what happens? I needto give a concrete example.
Let's just say that the enemyisn't actually more sales. Let's
just say it's operations. Youroperations are taking so much
time that you actually can't addmore sales. You can't hire
sales. You can't find sales. Youcan't find new customers. If you
were able to redeploy your timeinto sales, you would the enemy
(13:06):
isn't sales, actually ops. SoI'm gonna go hard at that
problem with the prospects andmake sure that I am attacking
that enemy to defeat that enemyat the end of our time together,
even if they don't work with me.
What do you believe would be theoutcome of my relationship with
that prospect?
BEATE CHELETTE (13:25):
Do you believe like a decision? Bingo? Any
decision,
Steve Wallace (13:29):
any decision, they will have decided they have
enjoyed their time with me, orhave found the time valuable.
They will have decided that Iwill be a resource to them, if
not now, then at some pointdefine what impact means. I bet
it sounds something like what Ijust explained.
BEATE CHELETTE (13:47):
Yeah, I think that what really helped me to
get my head around my challengesaround outreach, was to say,
what if I come at it with, like,very simple questions. Question
is, can you do this on your own?
Like, what's the problem? Andcan you do this on your own?
That's a yes or no question. Andif the question is, I can, then
the question is, do you want todo this on your own? That's a
(14:11):
yes or no question. And if thequestion is, I can not do this
by myself, or I can do this bymyself, but I want to, then they
already answered that they needhelp. Then the second question
is very simple, am I the rightperson for this? Yes or No,
right? If I have gotten them tothat particular intersection, my
job is done, right,
Steve Wallace (14:33):
right?
Absolutely, isn't it amazingquestions reveals so much.
BEATE CHELETTE (14:40):
Yes, yes, yes.
And if you then detach yourselffrom the outcome and say they
choose not to work with me, thenthe outcome just really is, my
intention was to make them havea decision, make a decision,
because that's what we do asbusiness owners. And sometimes
they say, not yet, that's adecision. Sometimes it's I don't
want to do. Anything that's adecision. Somebody, they say
(15:01):
yes, and sometimes they say no.
All of these are decisions,right? Our job is to tell them,
are you okay with living withthe concept? So Steve, we talked
a little bit about now, sort ofgetting our head around the
overall parameters of of thesales process and some of the
stuff that hinders us to go intoit, your part really is sales
(15:24):
efficiencies and processesaround that. Yes, now it's hard
enough to make myself get on thephone call, on the phone and
make these phone calls, but youeven want me to go take this
step further. So aside from mydedicated day of sales, you want
me to put a whole process behindit. Tell me what that entails
(15:46):
and why is my mind not wantingto do this.
Steve Wallace (15:51):
You have a negative presupposition. You
have a negative assumption aboutthe outcome before you do it,
I'll ask you a question inreturn. Let's say that you were
to to make the calls to line upyour actions and do all the
execution you're you figure outyour messaging and your target
market and and the stars align.
And let's say that 100% of yourefforts work out every time
(16:15):
every single person you speakwith says, yes, yes, yes, I'll
buy. I'll buy, I'll buy. How
BEATE CHELETTE (16:23):
quick would you I would do nothing else, right,
right?
Steve Wallace (16:27):
It's really not the the work that we're afraid
of. It's the outcome that we'reafraid
BEATE CHELETTE (16:33):
of. Ouch. That is, that is, that is reality,
hitting, hitting right betweenthe eyes, isn't it? Yeah, if I
say if all my sales effort, ifevery phone call would be
positive, would you be makingmore phone calls, right?
Steve Wallace (16:52):
And yes, of course, die right. We're on the
Yeah,
BEATE CHELETTE (16:57):
heck, everybody would. But then the sales calls
are not all positive, so thenI'm going to tell myself, I'm
bad at sales. Here we go, sales.
Sales is just not my thing. Sois that where the story comes
from? The excuse?
Steve Wallace (17:13):
I think part of it, I think, I think there's a
lot of factors. This is such aloaded episode. One of the
factors is bad training. I comefrom a background where and it's
been fixed. But I come from abackground where I was told,
Hey, Steve, go have, uh, 100conversations this week, but not
(17:35):
told how to who to what do I sayto them? I was not told how long
to spend doing it. I was nottaught how to manage it. I was
not taught how to check offboxes of completion to give
myself permission to move on.
There's a lot of mental gaming,like gamification and head trash
(17:55):
that goes into sales that nobodyever addresses. And I'll give
you, for instance, if I were totell you, go call 100 people
today, you would say, okay,simple enough task. And then
you'd sit at your front at yourcomputer, stare at the screen
and think, shoot, where do I getthe 100 people? Maybe LinkedIn,
or maybe my Chamber of Commercewebsite or whatever. And now
you'd have to get the emailaddresses or phone numbers.
(18:19):
Okay, great. Now you have yourlist, hours spent, and now you
have your list. Okay, and thenpick up the phone. Oh, I
actually haven't started thetask, hours spent and you
haven't made a single call. Youjust spent all that time
building the list. So now youactually pick up the phone and
you make the 100 calls in a day.
Hats off to you.
Congratulations. That's thehardest part, but now your day
(18:39):
is shot. B
BEATE CHELETTE (18:43):
Oh, it's already, it's already six
o'clock in the evening, and Icannot possibly be making any
phone calls of six o'clock inLos Angeles because it'll be
nine o'clock in New York, andeverybody will hate me.
Steve Wallace (18:53):
Bingo, right? And so here in this creates an even
bigger snowballing problem.
First, you have a business torun. You've done none of the
tasks that you need to do to runyour business, right? That's
number one. So you're going todo what, you're going to stay up
later, try to work moreefficiently. You're going to get
burned out,
BEATE CHELETTE (19:12):
like, like, I've been for the last four weeks.
Yes, bingo, right?
Steve Wallace (19:16):
And then it starts over the next day,
because you need to call morepeople? Yes, wow. So not only
have you not successfully,consistently prospected, you've
also not successfullyconsistently grown or run your
business. And your businessdevelopment tasks Weren't you
weren't trained to do thosecorrectly, and as a result,
(19:37):
everything else falls apart. Sohere's where I'm going with
this.
BEATE CHELETTE (19:41):
How are you feel? Feel really bad right now,
just listening to you.
Steve Wallace (19:44):
Well so B, and this isn't your fault, but this
goes back to my point about badtraining. Yes, no one ever said
to you, hey, B, I want you toschedule 15 minutes on your
calendar. That is a time youcannot break. You will commit.
To getting it done under allcircumstances as often as
possible, barring emergenciesand life happening right during
(20:08):
that time, you're going toidentify who you're going to
reach out to. For the next 30minutes after that, you're going
to reach out to them. And thenwhen that time block is done,
this is a simple time blockingexercise. When that time block
is done, you're going to say,okay, Steve, I'm done. I did my
job. I don't care how many, howmany you reached out to. I don't
(20:28):
care what the outcomes were. Idon't care if you got 12 yeses,
12 no's or splits or none. Idon't care if nobody answered
the phone. I don't care if yougot no replies. You did the job,
and you move on with your life.
And you get to take this exhale,and you get to say sweet. Now I
can move on to the things that Iget joy out of. I get to
(20:48):
experience the endorphin rushthe check box. My prospecting is
done for the morning, my listbuilding is done for the
morning, or whatever those timeblocks represent. And now what
happens that didn't happen inScenario number one is you
actually feel good aboutyourself. And this goes back to
your original question. This isa very, very like sales
(21:11):
philosophy. Philosophical, yes,but we talked about rejection.
We talked about not doing theoutreach because of fear of
rejection, because of notknowing what kind of answers
you'll get. This is a dynamicshift, because now it's not
about the outcome. Now it'sabout doing the activity and
(21:32):
putting your brain a positionthat says, Ah, I did it. I don't
care if I got zero yeses. B,what do you think would happen
if you time blocked every dayyour outreach and started on
time and ended on time, and itwas a time that you would not
violate under any circumstances.
(21:55):
If you did it for 30 daysstraight, how many people do you
think would say yes, oh,
BEATE CHELETTE (22:01):
it's a no brainer. I think it's the
inconsistency. And because theinconsistency brings an
inconsistency in follow up, andwithout the follow up, it gets a
spotty and then you just losepeople. There's a couple of
things I want to share that Ihave really learned this year as
I've gotten myself deeper intoit. I work with an outsourced
(22:22):
team all over the world, so Idon't have any employees here in
in Los Angeles or in my office,which is a choice. Having
employees in California isprobably generally a really bad
idea, because it's a veryunfriendly place, a very
expensive place to do business.
If I really want the freedom,then I need to find people
literally all over the world asa subject matter experts and I
need to create processes andsystems, which is why we are The
(22:45):
Growth Architect. And what youwill be very pleased to hear,
Steve, and what makes your caseis all about the systems that
you find and the tools. And so Ihave found a particular tool
that allows me to utilize alinked it's like a LinkedIn CRM
plug that connects with myLinkedIn. Because LinkedIn has
(23:08):
the shittiest DM thing in theworld. I think, you know, I
mean, if anybody's listening andyou are either at Facebook or
WhatsApp or or, you know whichis made up, or you are at
LinkedIn. Can you, for cryingout loud, fix your DMS and make
it searchable and give usfolders and things like that. I
(23:29):
mean, how hard can it possiblybe to take this tool as follow
up? I mean, help me, help youlike your stuff better. So it's
all in that the systems that areout there perform only a piece
of the action because it's anengineer trying to create
something that is not practicalin real life. But we, as we run
(23:52):
businesses, we know what wouldbe practical. So it's always
about finding a tool. And I ransome language about what works
on LinkedIn. You know, how longthese messages need to be?
Enough with a couple 100contacts to see that is a viable
strategy, but it is too timeconsuming for me alone, because
(24:15):
I cannot be this consistent,because I also have to perform
the work. I have to get theclients. I, you know, it's just
too much, and I have to run thecompany, so there's not a chance
in hell I can do thisconsistently, because I can't
work more than I am. I am, and Ireally, frankly, don't want to.
And then you go and you say,okay, so I can buy lists. We
have lists. We have lists of60,000 people. So the the
(24:39):
breakdown on how to make salesreally work is, then, what do I
need to do with the list that Ihave with a, you know, I'm
connected to 20,000 people onLinkedIn. That's just because
I've been one of the firstpeople on LinkedIn, you know,
since the early days. It justaccumulates. I have a group. Of
60,000 people. Have a newsletterwith 13,000 people. So I have
(25:01):
the numbers, but I don't havethe system. So So talk to us now
about if I come to thisrealization as a business owner,
which every business owner needsto come to the conclusion to you
cannot do this on your own.
What's my next step?
Steve Wallace (25:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Can't
do it on your own? I, and Ithink you're alluding to it is
find the system that works foryou. And this goes back to
selling the way you would wantto be sold, to selling in a way
that represents you. So think ofit this way, are you a marketing
person, or are you a salesperson. And this is, I say this
(25:43):
a lot, there's only two ways togrow a business. Everything, in
my opinion, in my experience,falls into these two categories.
You either attract prospects toyou, or you go to the prospects.
That's it. Marketing, generallyspeaking, especially in the
small business sphere, attractspeople to them. Sales goes to
the people, as far as the dailytactical activities they're
(26:04):
responsible for inside of eachone of those styles, I guess you
can call them, are differentsystems. So for example, B you
mentioned you have a group of60,000 people, you've got
something going, you've gotsomething that people enjoy. I
enjoy this conversation, right?
Like I want to join the group,right? Take that as an
(26:26):
opportunity to deliver more ofyou, more of what your
prospects, your group findsvaluable. Consider systems like
school, for example, which is anonline platform separate from
all the other ones, and they'respecifically focused on
(26:46):
community, and they're all aboutyou. You can bring on
partnerships and bring on otherpeople to lead the school
community within it, but youinvite your community into it,
and now they're just hearingyour ideas, and they're just
hearing growth ideas and makethem offers once a month, and
you're going to be slowly,consistently converting
percentages of them over to it.
(27:08):
Similarly, email marketing, oneto 3% conversion rate of a nice
big list is beautiful. You don'tneed to have a school community
when you have a nice big emaillist,
BEATE CHELETTE (27:18):
well, first you have first you have to clean it,
warm it up and and bring it in,you know. So you say, find a
find a place to do community. Ipersonally do not recommend
Facebook, because I've been deplatformed in the beginning of
the year overnight, nobody toldme why. I lost every community,
every contact, every ad,everything that I've ever built,
(27:40):
I was just shut down with noexplanation. So do not under any
circumstances, use a freeplatform where it says in the
end user agreement that theyhave the right to your content
and to do whatever they want.
You better pay for it and havecontrol over it. That
Steve Wallace (27:55):
is a great point this. You've heard this phrase
before, but I'm a big advocatefor people putting skin in the
game? Yes, there's a reason whycolleges charge tuition,
BEATE CHELETTE (28:06):
some something like that. Exactly. Talk to me
about what your system does,because I think it's we wouldn't
do you any any good or ouraudience any good you have the
system, you're gonna have totell us what it does.
Steve Wallace (28:18):
Sure. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So the answer to
this is, I like to put it incontext of a business owner in
day one or sales person in dayone of growing their book of
business. And I say day onebecause it means everything is a
zero, no revenue, no referralpartners, no prospects, nobody,
(28:41):
no meetings on the calendar, andyou think to yourself, shoot,
well, what do I actually have todo to grow my company or to grow
my book of business? If you're asales rep, well, it you have no
budget. Remember, this is zerosacross the board. So the work
that you would have to do isactually what our software does.
So, for example, day one in mybusiness with zeros across the
(29:05):
board, I thought to myself,shoot, I need to go get in
contact with 50 business owners.
And that was, that was my callquota. Every single day like
that, I gave myself. I need tocall 50 business owners. Shoot,
here we go, and it's right backto that situation I walked us
through earlier. I now have togo find those contacts. It's not
as simple as saying I need tocall 50 people. I now need to go
(29:27):
find them. Who am I calling,right? Who am I calling? And
then once I have them, once Ihave their information, is the
number good, and I spent thetime calling the numbers that
were bad and experiencing thepain in the butt, frustration
with with calling a number thatwas deactivated and saying,
(29:48):
Okay, well, the number doesn'twork. I'll send them an email
instead, the email bounces backundeliverable. Like, okay, so I
spent five minutes five. Sendingthe phone number and the email
address and the companyinformation the person
BEATE CHELETTE (30:03):
and they were just laid off over Christmas,
and
Steve Wallace (30:05):
they were all that for nothing, right? And I
have to do that every day.
Maverick App, does that build afresh research list of people
who was with good, usableinformation every single day.
Now you can do that anywhere youcan go find a list generation
service that is pretty good, notgreat, but pretty good, fine,
(30:26):
but they don't actually do theoutreach for you as well. Here's
the big key. We spoke aboutconsistency, if you were to do
the list building and then dothe outreach, now you don't have
time to run your business. Soyou either have to sacrifice
running the business or you haveto spend more time, stay up
late, put yourself underpressure, get sick, right? Lack
(30:46):
of consistency is really thesymptom here. Maverca is running
right now, while I have whileI'm on this great podcast with
you, so I don't have tosacrifice me running my business
in order to keep on prospecting.
But it's not a replacement. WhenI'm done with the day, I look at
(31:08):
my reports, let's just say 4pm Ican look at who was emailed. I
can look at whether or not theyopened my email. I can look at
how many times. I can look atthe subject line. I can say,
Okay, I've got some salesinsights here and now, what I
would do is I'd make my end ofthe day calls and say, B, I'm
(31:29):
using you as an example, but I'mgoing to call B, she opened my
email four times. Something's upthere, and I'm going to assume
that you actually don't know myname. I'm going to assume that
you don't know Maverick app.
That's okay, but I'm still goingto use that as as insightful
data for me to make educatedcold calls in unison with the
prospecting emails that wentout. I still saved myself 567,
(31:49):
hours today. I still did myadmin work, I still did my
prospecting. I still get tocheck off all the boxes, but now
I've got higher intent, higherrevenue, generating time on the
calendar based on theprospecting that mat recap did.
So it's list building, doing theoutreach and giving me insights
into who I should follow upwith.
BEATE CHELETTE (32:13):
And I really want to add something here to
that is I see that a lot oftimes when people don't have
sales, they rather go and learnhow to speak, or they learn how
to do an online course, or howto do a funnel and all of that
kind of stuff. Just stop it.
Just stop it. Right? Figure outnone of this is going to help
(32:34):
unless you figured out yoursales process, because if you
don't know what your product is,what your customer actually
wants, and what they're willingto buy and give you money for,
and how much money they'rewilling to give you for a
solution that you're offering,you can you can spend another
$250,000 in courses, and it'snot going to change the outcome.
(32:55):
And that is the big lie of theinternet marketers, and that's
worked really, really well forthem, not for you.
Steve Wallace (33:05):
Yes, the this is huge. You raise a great point.
I'm really glad you're putting aspotlight on it. I actually
don't believe in leads. I don'tthink they're real. I think
we're all clamoring over thethree percenter, which means out
of 100 people, three areactively buying, are aware of a
problem they have, and are readyto pay for a solution at some
(33:28):
point, maybe not now, but atsome point, 97% will either
never buy from you or need to befollowed up with for days,
weeks, months, sometimes
BEATE CHELETTE (33:37):
years, years, sometimes yeah, sometimes years,
sometimes yes, yeah, right. Ithink the rule of eight that
became the rule of 12 is now therule of 200
Steve Wallace (33:45):
it is, yep, I call that the private buyers
journey. It's the journeythey're doing behind the scenes,
looking at your website,watching your content. They're
in your pipeline, but you don'tknow it. They're watching from
the side.
BEATE CHELETTE (33:55):
Yeah. And it's interesting to me, because ever
so often somebody you know says,oh my god, the podcast. You
don't know who listened to whichepisode, or somebody took an
online course five years ago,and they and they still
remember, I had this case wheresomebody throws themselves in my
arms at a conference in Chicagoand says, Oh my God, you changed
my life. Never met this person.
Have no idea. She says, we spentthree days together and did not
(34:18):
know that. She says, Withoutyou, I wouldn't have had a
business so or somebody whosays, five years later, I've
always wanted to work with you.
You just don't know thesethings. So don't make these
really. Don't make theseassumptions. I think this is in
this episode is particularlycritical, and I want to make
sure we point this out. This isa time where you have a choice.
(34:40):
Step up and lead, because youeither are going to sit off the
fringes of the pendulum on thewild swing to the left or the
right, and you're going to beyakking and being upset at
what's happening on the externalworld. But the more the focus is
on the external, the more wefocus on the internal and what
we can do and. And that's whatthis episode is about. Get your
(35:04):
butt off the couch. Build thesystem, test the system. Help
more people.
Steve Wallace (35:13):
Absolutely, wow, maybe that's the title right
there.
BEATE CHELETTE (35:18):
Get your butt off the couch and help more
people. I like
Steve Wallace (35:20):
it. I really, really do my MO so to speak, is
do the work.
BEATE CHELETTE (35:27):
Yeah, that one of my coaches said, do the work.
Get the results right,
Steve Wallace (35:31):
right? I think there's so much going on in the
business development world.
You've alluded to a few funnels,automations, and I work for
automation company, so Iunderstand. I'm here for it. I
like it, but don't let itreplace the work. It's not a
replacement. It's an efficiencysystem. So if you're already
doing the work and you'veidentified the stop gaps, the
(35:54):
problems, where the bottlenecksare. That's the word I'm looking
for. If you've identified wherethe bottlenecks are and you
can't scale, that's a buzzword,but scale is, I believe, the
actual appropriate word if youcannot scale as a result of
bottlenecks, as a result ofproblems, as a result of not
(36:14):
being able to duplicate yourselfor fire yourself from your own
business. Now it's time to talkabout automation, not to
suddenly create a sales processthat you yourself don't even
understand.
BEATE CHELETTE (36:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. I mean hard, hard,
hard, hard, learned lessons.
They are and I certainly didevery mistake on the planet.
Steve, where are we going tosend our audience and anything,
anything else you want to tellthem as we wrap this up,
Steve Wallace (36:44):
I'd love to I'm on LinkedIn all the time. Steve
Wallace Chief Sales NerdMaverick App. maverickapp.io is
the website you can email me atsteve@maverickapp.io and my
parting words are this. Thisthis is for the relational
sellers, the people who justwant to help. Is two things, is
(37:05):
be an advocate for the prospect.
Figure out what their enemy isand attack it with them. And
number two, you don't needleads. You need conversations.
Because it's throughconversations that relationships
are built. Throughrelationships, you can build
trust. Trust allows you accessto their world. So put first
things first.
BEATE CHELETTE (37:23):
I love it well.
Thank you so much for being onthe show. It was an absolute
pleasure to take this wholesales process and automation
thing and put put some humanityto it.
Steve Wallace (37:34):
Thank you B. This is great.
BEATE CHELETTE (37:36):
And that's it for us, for today, until next
time and GOODBYE. So appreciateyou being here. Thank you so
much for listening to the entireepisode. Please subscribe to the
podcast, give us a five star,review, a comment and share this
episode with one more person sothat you can help us help more
people. Thank you again, untilnext time. Bye.
Hi. This is Steve Wallace, the Chief Revenue
(00:03):
Officer of Maverick App. It is asales automation and prospecting
platform. And on my episode forthe Business Growth Architect
Show, I will share the trick toyour sales process that you are
missing. Stay tuned to find outwhat I'm talking about and what
you're missing in your salesprocess that will open up doors,
(00:23):
avenues and sales that you neverknew existed. Head on over to
the podcast and listen to thefull episode,
BEATE CHELETTE (00:30):
And hello, fabulous person! Beate Chelette,
here. I am the host of theBusiness Growth Architect Show
and I want to welcome you totoday's episode where we discuss
how to navigate strategy andspirituality to achieve time and
financial freedom, trulysuccessful people have learned
how to master both a clearintention and a strategy to
(00:51):
execute that in a spiritualpractice that will help them to
stay in alignment and onpurpose. Please enjoy the show
and listen to what our guesttoday has to say about this very
topic. Welcome back. BeateChelette here, The Growth
Architect, and today I amsitting down with Steve Wallace,
and we are talking aboutsomething that you love to hate
(01:13):
and hate to love, that isfiguring out how to get a proper
sales process in place, we aretalking about what prohibits
most of you to actually embracethe most important thing in
business, which is clientshelping other people, and what
(01:35):
possibly the disconnect would bebetween Your mindset and your
purpose and your actual process.
Steve, I'm excited to have youon the show. Thank you so much
for being here.
Steve Wallace (01:46):
Thank you. B, I'm really excited to be here too.
Thank you for having me. It
BEATE CHELETTE (01:49):
took us long enough, for sure,
Steve Wallace (01:51):
it really did. It really did. So Steve, for
BEATE CHELETTE (01:54):
somebody who's not familiar with what you do,
will you please tell us who youare and what problem do you
solve for your clients,
Steve Wallace (02:01):
absolutely. So I am as a person. I'm a father,
man of faith. Business is a lovelanguage of mine, so it does
tend to find its way into who Iam as a person. Professionally,
I'm the Chief Revenue Officerfor a Sales Automation Company
called "Maverick App." Theproblem that we solve is that
(02:21):
sales people, when they'reactually selling, they're
actually not selling, they spend70 to 80% of their day wasting
time doing tedious tasks thatneed to be done. I'm not making
excuses for it. They need toreport to their managers. They
need to make sales projections.
They need to put notes in theirCRM. They need to do account
research, build lists. They needto do a lot of things, but
(02:44):
unfortunately, those things comeat the expense of the actual
sales, the actual closing sowhat we do is we automate the
time consuming, tedious tasksfor sales people like building
lists, like making sure they'reresearched, like doing outreach
and following up with everybodywho says they need to be
followed up with which, let'sface facts, that's a huge
(03:05):
majority of people you meet.
Okay,
BEATE CHELETTE (03:09):
I got it, so let's dig in here. I mean, we
know that people struggle withsales in general, right? So we
already talked on the showextensively about the mindset
piece around sales, but you havea slightly different opinion
about this. You are looking atthis from the perspective, does
somebody actually believe inwhat they're selling? Tell me,
(03:33):
what does this mean, and why isthis even important?
Steve Wallace (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely.
I talk with a lot of salespeople. And by sales people, I
mean different industries,various roles, insurance agents,
financial advisors, businessowners, we're all selling
something. I think even peoplewho aren't responsible for
driving commissions are stillselling something. And when I
talk to these sales people,there's a couple things that I
(03:56):
find happen almost across theboard. One is, they're driven to
help people. Some of them aremoney driven, but it's actually
almost secondary. Usually, Iwant to make an impact. I want
to help people, especially inthe small business space. The
second is, is money. And thenwhat happens is, I find it so
interesting they they don't wantto help someone so much that
(04:19):
they're willing to interjectthemselves into someone else's
day, to put their product,solution or service in front of
them, to help them if theyactually believed in what they
did, if They had true,dedicated, heartfelt connection
(04:39):
and belief in what they do orwhat they sell. Why wouldn't you
want to put it in front of asmany people as possible, as fast
as possible, as often aspossible. And when you find
someone who is like that, it isa contagious, addictive energy
like I think back to Steve Jobs.
(05:00):
And his method of getting Applecomputer in front of as many
people as possible wasinfectious. It was He was rabid
at times, right? It was aninfectious energy. So why don't
sales people have
BEATE CHELETTE (05:11):
that? Well, why are they not like that? So what
is it? What is it about this? Isit because it's a job? Is it
because I'm driven by quotas? Weknow sales has a bad reputation,
but why? Why would I, you know,I mean, we're business owners,
right? We're talking to businessowners. They come here because
they know that they're purposedriven. They're impact driven.
(05:33):
They want to help more people.
What's the hurdle here? I mean,should it not be the easiest
thing in the world to say, Man,I can help you. Woman, I'm here
for you. Hello, everybody. Thisis the solution that will make
you feel better, perform better,be better at relationships, you
know, be more complete person.
(05:55):
What is it?
Steve Wallace (05:58):
I really don't believe there's enough
conviction there to map actionsto values. And if there is,
that's actually a good thing, ifthere's enough conviction to map
actions to value. Action being,value being, I believe in what I
sell, action being, let's go dothe work, execute if there is
great. But now you're on to thenext set of problems, which is a
(06:18):
lack of training. A lot of starshave to align in the sales world
to make a sales rep consistentand productive and effective on
behalf of themselves or theirorganization, that messaging
matters. The problems they solvematters if they're putting, for
example, if they're putting theproblems that they solve in
front of people who don't havethat problem, it's not going to
(06:40):
work. Nothing's going to work.
And you've spoken about this insome of your podcasts. So
there's a lot of stars that haveto align target market,
messaging, Cadence, frequency,the stars have to be really,
really aligned for a salespersonto be successful, day in, day
out. And then there's rejection.
(07:02):
And rejection, big part ofthings. Yikes. We could do an
entire episode on this alone.
BEATE CHELETTE (07:08):
We can do an entire we can do a year's worth
of stuff on rejection, right?
Absolutely. So, so here's,here's, what I think is, is at
the at the bottom of this. So Ilike that you said, conviction,
so I believe in my product. It'sa good product, but you said, I
don't believe in it enough tomake everybody stop what they're
doing and listen to me what howmany elements are in that, you
(07:34):
know, there's number one,rejection, right? Number two,
being well behaved, notbothering people, childhood,
stuff, society, what else goesinto
Steve Wallace (07:47):
traumas, right?
Yeah, societal, society tellingyou that you are being a
nuisance to them. Perhaps Ithink I'm a sales guy and I'm an
outreach guy, so I tend to thinkof this from a from a cold
outbound perspective, like if Iwas cold calling you. So I think
an element of an answer to yourquestion would also be, um,
making sure that you're beingrespectful self doubt. I think a
(08:13):
lot of it has to be self doubt,right? Be
BEATE CHELETTE (08:20):
certainly, well, as somebody who's just gone
through sort of this big notrebranding, but repositioning
exercise about recognizing thisinternet marketing language and
internet marketing nonsense thatwe've been told it's just not
working. I mean, it's just notworking anymore. So if you're
listening to the show and you'restill trying to do this fake
(08:42):
limiter, and we're looking fortwo people who just stop it.
Just stop it, it. It's just notworking anymore. Say, I'm having
a group of 10 people. I have sixpeople that are that have signed
up. I would like to fill thegroup with, you know, 10 really
great people. You look like agreat person. That's a much
better language, then there'sonly two spots left and doing
(09:03):
that. So I looked at this fromthe perspective of what really
annoys the heck out of me, andit is something that I consider
fake or a lie. And then you goback to that people say, Well,
just be who you are, becauseeverybody's already taken and
you go like, what the heck doesthat even mean? There's so
Steve Wallace (09:26):
much fortune cookie wis- wisdom out there.
The Fortune
BEATE CHELETTE (09:30):
Cookie, wisdom.
Thank you. How do I become thisauthentic, real person that
truly believes in what I do? Ithink that's the key here. What
have you found as you'retraining people and as you're
building these systems? Whathelps people to really step into
this and say, if this is mymission, you know, let's just
(09:51):
say my mission is to help withmy systems and processes other
people to make an impact. So weare shifting now as a company
begin. Next year, which was thebig, big birth of of this year,
to say I have created 1000s ofpages of processes and systems
and strategic outlines, and Ican break business steps down in
(10:13):
easy things. I mean, I can teachthis to anybody. And then
somebody asked me about twomonths ago and says, Hey, can
you give me your stuff so I canlearn to do what you do? My
first reaction is like,Absolutely not thief. My second
reaction is, oh, maybe this isthe legacy, right? And so
Steve Wallace (10:37):
mine is, yes, good luck.
BEATE CHELETTE (10:40):
There you go. As I shift right, how do I muster
up the courage to say, insteadof me teaching people how to run
their businesses, how about meteaching people how they can
help more people? Essentially,it's the same thing. But is it
(11:01):
or is it not right? So there's ashift in this. So now, somebody
who's listening this is like,so, well, how do I position
this? Help me? Steve,
Steve Wallace (11:09):
yes, so I don't believe in silver bullet
answers, but this, but this isshucks, but this is the one that
comes to mind for me. B, we'vealready established that people
are relational sellers. Theywant to make an impact. I want
to help people. Those all gohand in hand. In my mind, if you
want to make an impact, if youwant to help people, then you're
(11:32):
a relational seller. Face it,okay, if you want to do if
you're a one call closer andyou're and you're more
transactional, fine, there's aspace for you, but I'm talking
about the relational sellers whowant to make an impact. Okay, my
advice on how to sell, how tomake the transition to be so
convicted and so passionateabout what you do that you are
willing to go the extra mile andput yourself in front of people
(11:55):
more often, more frequently andbe uncomfortable is to become an
advocate for that person. AndI'll be more specific. I don't
want to give you buzz words,help that person. Help every
person you meet, find theirenemy and be an advocate with
that person against that enemy.
If you sell sales solutions, Isell sales solutions. If I'm
meeting with somebody, I Yes, ofcourse, I want to position my
(12:20):
sales solutions. But if I'mmeeting with somebody and their
enemy isn't exactly what it isthat I sell, I'm going to go
hard at that enemy anyway andcheck this out. I think this
takes a bigger picture than justmaking a sale mindset. But I'm
going to go hard at that enemy,a conceptual enemy, a variable
with that prospect, even if it'snot with something I sell and
(12:44):
check out what happens? I needto give a concrete example.
Let's just say that the enemyisn't actually more sales. Let's
just say it's operations. Youroperations are taking so much
time that you actually can't addmore sales. You can't hire
sales. You can't find sales. Youcan't find new customers. If you
were able to redeploy your timeinto sales, you would the enemy
(13:06):
isn't sales, actually ops. SoI'm gonna go hard at that
problem with the prospects andmake sure that I am attacking
that enemy to defeat that enemyat the end of our time together,
even if they don't work with me.
What do you believe would be theoutcome of my relationship with
that prospect?
BEATE CHELETTE (13:25):
Do you believe like a decision? Bingo? Any
decision,
Steve Wallace (13:29):
any decision, they will have decided they have
enjoyed their time with me, orhave found the time valuable.
They will have decided that Iwill be a resource to them, if
not now, then at some pointdefine what impact means. I bet
it sounds something like what Ijust explained.
BEATE CHELETTE (13:47):
Yeah, I think that what really helped me to
get my head around my challengesaround outreach, was to say,
what if I come at it with, like,very simple questions. Question
is, can you do this on your own?
Like, what's the problem? Andcan you do this on your own?
That's a yes or no question. Andif the question is, I can, then
the question is, do you want todo this on your own? That's a
(14:11):
yes or no question. And if thequestion is, I can not do this
by myself, or I can do this bymyself, but I want to, then they
already answered that they needhelp. Then the second question
is very simple, am I the rightperson for this? Yes or No,
right? If I have gotten them tothat particular intersection, my
job is done, right,
Steve Wallace (14:33):
right?
Absolutely, isn't it amazingquestions reveals so much.
BEATE CHELETTE (14:40):
Yes, yes, yes.
And if you then detach yourselffrom the outcome and say they
choose not to work with me, thenthe outcome just really is, my
intention was to make them havea decision, make a decision,
because that's what we do asbusiness owners. And sometimes
they say, not yet, that's adecision. Sometimes it's I don't
want to do. Anything that's adecision. Somebody, they say
(15:01):
yes, and sometimes they say no.
All of these are decisions,right? Our job is to tell them,
are you okay with living withthe concept? So Steve, we talked
a little bit about now, sort ofgetting our head around the
overall parameters of of thesales process and some of the
stuff that hinders us to go intoit, your part really is sales
(15:24):
efficiencies and processesaround that. Yes, now it's hard
enough to make myself get on thephone call, on the phone and
make these phone calls, but youeven want me to go take this
step further. So aside from mydedicated day of sales, you want
me to put a whole process behindit. Tell me what that entails
(15:46):
and why is my mind not wantingto do this.
Steve Wallace (15:51):
You have a negative presupposition. You
have a negative assumption aboutthe outcome before you do it,
I'll ask you a question inreturn. Let's say that you were
to to make the calls to line upyour actions and do all the
execution you're you figure outyour messaging and your target
market and and the stars align.
And let's say that 100% of yourefforts work out every time
(16:15):
every single person you speakwith says, yes, yes, yes, I'll
buy. I'll buy, I'll buy. How
BEATE CHELETTE (16:23):
quick would you I would do nothing else, right,
right?
Steve Wallace (16:27):
It's really not the the work that we're afraid
of. It's the outcome that we'reafraid
BEATE CHELETTE (16:33):
of. Ouch. That is, that is, that is reality,
hitting, hitting right betweenthe eyes, isn't it? Yeah, if I
say if all my sales effort, ifevery phone call would be
positive, would you be makingmore phone calls, right?
Steve Wallace (16:52):
And yes, of course, die right. We're on the
Yeah,
BEATE CHELETTE (16:57):
heck, everybody would. But then the sales calls
are not all positive, so thenI'm going to tell myself, I'm
bad at sales. Here we go, sales.
Sales is just not my thing. Sois that where the story comes
from? The excuse?
Steve Wallace (17:13):
I think part of it, I think, I think there's a
lot of factors. This is such aloaded episode. One of the
factors is bad training. I comefrom a background where and it's
been fixed. But I come from abackground where I was told,
Hey, Steve, go have, uh, 100conversations this week, but not
(17:35):
told how to who to what do I sayto them? I was not told how long
to spend doing it. I was nottaught how to manage it. I was
not taught how to check offboxes of completion to give
myself permission to move on.
There's a lot of mental gaming,like gamification and head trash
(17:55):
that goes into sales that nobodyever addresses. And I'll give
you, for instance, if I were totell you, go call 100 people
today, you would say, okay,simple enough task. And then
you'd sit at your front at yourcomputer, stare at the screen
and think, shoot, where do I getthe 100 people? Maybe LinkedIn,
or maybe my Chamber of Commercewebsite or whatever. And now
you'd have to get the emailaddresses or phone numbers.
(18:19):
Okay, great. Now you have yourlist, hours spent, and now you
have your list. Okay, and thenpick up the phone. Oh, I
actually haven't started thetask, hours spent and you
haven't made a single call. Youjust spent all that time
building the list. So now youactually pick up the phone and
you make the 100 calls in a day.
Hats off to you.
Congratulations. That's thehardest part, but now your day
(18:39):
is shot. B
BEATE CHELETTE (18:43):
Oh, it's already, it's already six
o'clock in the evening, and Icannot possibly be making any
phone calls of six o'clock inLos Angeles because it'll be
nine o'clock in New York, andeverybody will hate me.
Steve Wallace (18:53):
Bingo, right? And so here in this creates an even
bigger snowballing problem.
First, you have a business torun. You've done none of the
tasks that you need to do to runyour business, right? That's
number one. So you're going todo what, you're going to stay up
later, try to work moreefficiently. You're going to get
burned out,
BEATE CHELETTE (19:12):
like, like, I've been for the last four weeks.
Yes, bingo, right?
Steve Wallace (19:16):
And then it starts over the next day,
because you need to call morepeople? Yes, wow. So not only
have you not successfully,consistently prospected, you've
also not successfullyconsistently grown or run your
business. And your businessdevelopment tasks Weren't you
weren't trained to do thosecorrectly, and as a result,
(19:37):
everything else falls apart. Sohere's where I'm going with
this.
BEATE CHELETTE (19:41):
How are you feel? Feel really bad right now,
just listening to you.
Steve Wallace (19:44):
Well so B, and this isn't your fault, but this
goes back to my point about badtraining. Yes, no one ever said
to you, hey, B, I want you toschedule 15 minutes on your
calendar. That is a time youcannot break. You will commit.
To getting it done under allcircumstances as often as
possible, barring emergenciesand life happening right during
(20:08):
that time, you're going toidentify who you're going to
reach out to. For the next 30minutes after that, you're going
to reach out to them. And thenwhen that time block is done,
this is a simple time blockingexercise. When that time block
is done, you're going to say,okay, Steve, I'm done. I did my
job. I don't care how many, howmany you reached out to. I don't
(20:28):
care what the outcomes were. Idon't care if you got 12 yeses,
12 no's or splits or none. Idon't care if nobody answered
the phone. I don't care if yougot no replies. You did the job,
and you move on with your life.
And you get to take this exhale,and you get to say sweet. Now I
can move on to the things that Iget joy out of. I get to
(20:48):
experience the endorphin rushthe check box. My prospecting is
done for the morning, my listbuilding is done for the
morning, or whatever those timeblocks represent. And now what
happens that didn't happen inScenario number one is you
actually feel good aboutyourself. And this goes back to
your original question. This isa very, very like sales
(21:11):
philosophy. Philosophical, yes,but we talked about rejection.
We talked about not doing theoutreach because of fear of
rejection, because of notknowing what kind of answers
you'll get. This is a dynamicshift, because now it's not
about the outcome. Now it'sabout doing the activity and
(21:32):
putting your brain a positionthat says, Ah, I did it. I don't
care if I got zero yeses. B,what do you think would happen
if you time blocked every dayyour outreach and started on
time and ended on time, and itwas a time that you would not
violate under any circumstances.
(21:55):
If you did it for 30 daysstraight, how many people do you
think would say yes, oh,
BEATE CHELETTE (22:01):
it's a no brainer. I think it's the
inconsistency. And because theinconsistency brings an
inconsistency in follow up, andwithout the follow up, it gets a
spotty and then you just losepeople. There's a couple of
things I want to share that Ihave really learned this year as
I've gotten myself deeper intoit. I work with an outsourced
(22:22):
team all over the world, so Idon't have any employees here in
in Los Angeles or in my office,which is a choice. Having
employees in California isprobably generally a really bad
idea, because it's a veryunfriendly place, a very
expensive place to do business.
If I really want the freedom,then I need to find people
literally all over the world asa subject matter experts and I
need to create processes andsystems, which is why we are The
(22:45):
Growth Architect. And what youwill be very pleased to hear,
Steve, and what makes your caseis all about the systems that
you find and the tools. And so Ihave found a particular tool
that allows me to utilize alinked it's like a LinkedIn CRM
plug that connects with myLinkedIn. Because LinkedIn has
(23:08):
the shittiest DM thing in theworld. I think, you know, I
mean, if anybody's listening andyou are either at Facebook or
WhatsApp or or, you know whichis made up, or you are at
LinkedIn. Can you, for cryingout loud, fix your DMS and make
it searchable and give usfolders and things like that. I
(23:29):
mean, how hard can it possiblybe to take this tool as follow
up? I mean, help me, help youlike your stuff better. So it's
all in that the systems that areout there perform only a piece
of the action because it's anengineer trying to create
something that is not practicalin real life. But we, as we run
(23:52):
businesses, we know what wouldbe practical. So it's always
about finding a tool. And I ransome language about what works
on LinkedIn. You know, how longthese messages need to be?
Enough with a couple 100contacts to see that is a viable
strategy, but it is too timeconsuming for me alone, because
(24:15):
I cannot be this consistent,because I also have to perform
the work. I have to get theclients. I, you know, it's just
too much, and I have to run thecompany, so there's not a chance
in hell I can do thisconsistently, because I can't
work more than I am. I am, and Ireally, frankly, don't want to.
And then you go and you say,okay, so I can buy lists. We
have lists. We have lists of60,000 people. So the the
(24:39):
breakdown on how to make salesreally work is, then, what do I
need to do with the list that Ihave with a, you know, I'm
connected to 20,000 people onLinkedIn. That's just because
I've been one of the firstpeople on LinkedIn, you know,
since the early days. It justaccumulates. I have a group. Of
60,000 people. Have a newsletterwith 13,000 people. So I have
(25:01):
the numbers, but I don't havethe system. So So talk to us now
about if I come to thisrealization as a business owner,
which every business owner needsto come to the conclusion to you
cannot do this on your own.
What's my next step?
Steve Wallace (25:21):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Can't
do it on your own? I, and Ithink you're alluding to it is
find the system that works foryou. And this goes back to
selling the way you would wantto be sold, to selling in a way
that represents you. So think ofit this way, are you a marketing
person, or are you a salesperson. And this is, I say this
(25:43):
a lot, there's only two ways togrow a business. Everything, in
my opinion, in my experience,falls into these two categories.
You either attract prospects toyou, or you go to the prospects.
That's it. Marketing, generallyspeaking, especially in the
small business sphere, attractspeople to them. Sales goes to
the people, as far as the dailytactical activities they're
(26:04):
responsible for inside of eachone of those styles, I guess you
can call them, are differentsystems. So for example, B you
mentioned you have a group of60,000 people, you've got
something going, you've gotsomething that people enjoy. I
enjoy this conversation, right?
Like I want to join the group,right? Take that as an
(26:26):
opportunity to deliver more ofyou, more of what your
prospects, your group findsvaluable. Consider systems like
school, for example, which is anonline platform separate from
all the other ones, and they'respecifically focused on
(26:46):
community, and they're all aboutyou. You can bring on
partnerships and bring on otherpeople to lead the school
community within it, but youinvite your community into it,
and now they're just hearingyour ideas, and they're just
hearing growth ideas and makethem offers once a month, and
you're going to be slowly,consistently converting
percentages of them over to it.
(27:08):
Similarly, email marketing, oneto 3% conversion rate of a nice
big list is beautiful. You don'tneed to have a school community
when you have a nice big emaillist,
BEATE CHELETTE (27:18):
well, first you have first you have to clean it,
warm it up and and bring it in,you know. So you say, find a
find a place to do community. Ipersonally do not recommend
Facebook, because I've been deplatformed in the beginning of
the year overnight, nobody toldme why. I lost every community,
every contact, every ad,everything that I've ever built,
(27:40):
I was just shut down with noexplanation. So do not under any
circumstances, use a freeplatform where it says in the
end user agreement that theyhave the right to your content
and to do whatever they want.
You better pay for it and havecontrol over it. That
Steve Wallace (27:55):
is a great point this. You've heard this phrase
before, but I'm a big advocatefor people putting skin in the
game? Yes, there's a reason whycolleges charge tuition,
BEATE CHELETTE (28:06):
some something like that. Exactly. Talk to me
about what your system does,because I think it's we wouldn't
do you any any good or ouraudience any good you have the
system, you're gonna have totell us what it does.
Steve Wallace (28:18):
Sure. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So the answer to
this is, I like to put it incontext of a business owner in
day one or sales person in dayone of growing their book of
business. And I say day onebecause it means everything is a
zero, no revenue, no referralpartners, no prospects, nobody,
(28:41):
no meetings on the calendar, andyou think to yourself, shoot,
well, what do I actually have todo to grow my company or to grow
my book of business? If you're asales rep, well, it you have no
budget. Remember, this is zerosacross the board. So the work
that you would have to do isactually what our software does.
So, for example, day one in mybusiness with zeros across the
(29:05):
board, I thought to myself,shoot, I need to go get in
contact with 50 business owners.
And that was, that was my callquota. Every single day like
that, I gave myself. I need tocall 50 business owners. Shoot,
here we go, and it's right backto that situation I walked us
through earlier. I now have togo find those contacts. It's not
as simple as saying I need tocall 50 people. I now need to go
(29:27):
find them. Who am I calling,right? Who am I calling? And
then once I have them, once Ihave their information, is the
number good, and I spent thetime calling the numbers that
were bad and experiencing thepain in the butt, frustration
with with calling a number thatwas deactivated and saying,
(29:48):
Okay, well, the number doesn'twork. I'll send them an email
instead, the email bounces backundeliverable. Like, okay, so I
spent five minutes five. Sendingthe phone number and the email
address and the companyinformation the person
BEATE CHELETTE (30:03):
and they were just laid off over Christmas,
and
Steve Wallace (30:05):
they were all that for nothing, right? And I
have to do that every day.
Maverick App, does that build afresh research list of people
who was with good, usableinformation every single day.
Now you can do that anywhere youcan go find a list generation
service that is pretty good, notgreat, but pretty good, fine,
(30:26):
but they don't actually do theoutreach for you as well. Here's
the big key. We spoke aboutconsistency, if you were to do
the list building and then dothe outreach, now you don't have
time to run your business. Soyou either have to sacrifice
running the business or you haveto spend more time, stay up
late, put yourself underpressure, get sick, right? Lack
(30:46):
of consistency is really thesymptom here. Maverca is running
right now, while I have whileI'm on this great podcast with
you, so I don't have tosacrifice me running my business
in order to keep on prospecting.
But it's not a replacement. WhenI'm done with the day, I look at
(31:08):
my reports, let's just say 4pm Ican look at who was emailed. I
can look at whether or not theyopened my email. I can look at
how many times. I can look atthe subject line. I can say,
Okay, I've got some salesinsights here and now, what I
would do is I'd make my end ofthe day calls and say, B, I'm
(31:29):
using you as an example, but I'mgoing to call B, she opened my
email four times. Something's upthere, and I'm going to assume
that you actually don't know myname. I'm going to assume that
you don't know Maverick app.
That's okay, but I'm still goingto use that as as insightful
data for me to make educatedcold calls in unison with the
prospecting emails that wentout. I still saved myself 567,
(31:49):
hours today. I still did myadmin work, I still did my
prospecting. I still get tocheck off all the boxes, but now
I've got higher intent, higherrevenue, generating time on the
calendar based on theprospecting that mat recap did.
So it's list building, doing theoutreach and giving me insights
into who I should follow upwith.
BEATE CHELETTE (32:13):
And I really want to add something here to
that is I see that a lot oftimes when people don't have
sales, they rather go and learnhow to speak, or they learn how
to do an online course, or howto do a funnel and all of that
kind of stuff. Just stop it.
Just stop it. Right? Figure outnone of this is going to help
(32:34):
unless you figured out yoursales process, because if you
don't know what your product is,what your customer actually
wants, and what they're willingto buy and give you money for,
and how much money they'rewilling to give you for a
solution that you're offering,you can you can spend another
$250,000 in courses, and it'snot going to change the outcome.
(32:55):
And that is the big lie of theinternet marketers, and that's
worked really, really well forthem, not for you.
Steve Wallace (33:05):
Yes, the this is huge. You raise a great point.
I'm really glad you're putting aspotlight on it. I actually
don't believe in leads. I don'tthink they're real. I think
we're all clamoring over thethree percenter, which means out
of 100 people, three areactively buying, are aware of a
problem they have, and are readyto pay for a solution at some
(33:28):
point, maybe not now, but atsome point, 97% will either
never buy from you or need to befollowed up with for days,
weeks, months, sometimes
BEATE CHELETTE (33:37):
years, years, sometimes yeah, sometimes years,
sometimes yes, yeah, right. Ithink the rule of eight that
became the rule of 12 is now therule of 200
Steve Wallace (33:45):
it is, yep, I call that the private buyers
journey. It's the journeythey're doing behind the scenes,
looking at your website,watching your content. They're
in your pipeline, but you don'tknow it. They're watching from
the side.
BEATE CHELETTE (33:55):
Yeah. And it's interesting to me, because ever
so often somebody you know says,oh my god, the podcast. You
don't know who listened to whichepisode, or somebody took an
online course five years ago,and they and they still
remember, I had this case wheresomebody throws themselves in my
arms at a conference in Chicagoand says, Oh my God, you changed
my life. Never met this person.
Have no idea. She says, we spentthree days together and did not
(34:18):
know that. She says, Withoutyou, I wouldn't have had a
business so or somebody whosays, five years later, I've
always wanted to work with you.
You just don't know thesethings. So don't make these
really. Don't make theseassumptions. I think this is in
this episode is particularlycritical, and I want to make
sure we point this out. This isa time where you have a choice.
(34:40):
Step up and lead, because youeither are going to sit off the
fringes of the pendulum on thewild swing to the left or the
right, and you're going to beyakking and being upset at
what's happening on the externalworld. But the more the focus is
on the external, the more wefocus on the internal and what
we can do and. And that's whatthis episode is about. Get your
(35:04):
butt off the couch. Build thesystem, test the system. Help
more people.
Steve Wallace (35:13):
Absolutely, wow, maybe that's the title right
there.
BEATE CHELETTE (35:18):
Get your butt off the couch and help more
people. I like
Steve Wallace (35:20):
it. I really, really do my MO so to speak, is
do the work.
BEATE CHELETTE (35:27):
Yeah, that one of my coaches said, do the work.
Get the results right,
Steve Wallace (35:31):
right? I think there's so much going on in the
business development world.
You've alluded to a few funnels,automations, and I work for
automation company, so Iunderstand. I'm here for it. I
like it, but don't let itreplace the work. It's not a
replacement. It's an efficiencysystem. So if you're already
doing the work and you'veidentified the stop gaps, the
(35:54):
problems, where the bottlenecksare. That's the word I'm looking
for. If you've identified wherethe bottlenecks are and you
can't scale, that's a buzzword,but scale is, I believe, the
actual appropriate word if youcannot scale as a result of
bottlenecks, as a result ofproblems, as a result of not
(36:14):
being able to duplicate yourselfor fire yourself from your own
business. Now it's time to talkabout automation, not to
suddenly create a sales processthat you yourself don't even
understand.
BEATE CHELETTE (36:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. I mean hard, hard,
hard, hard, learned lessons.
They are and I certainly didevery mistake on the planet.
Steve, where are we going tosend our audience and anything,
anything else you want to tellthem as we wrap this up,
Steve Wallace (36:44):
I'd love to I'm on LinkedIn all the time. Steve
Wallace Chief Sales NerdMaverick App. maverickapp.io is
the website you can email me atsteve@maverickapp.io and my
parting words are this. Thisthis is for the relational
sellers, the people who justwant to help. Is two things, is
(37:05):
be an advocate for the prospect.
Figure out what their enemy isand attack it with them. And
number two, you don't needleads. You need conversations.
Because it's throughconversations that relationships
are built. Throughrelationships, you can build
trust. Trust allows you accessto their world. So put first
things first.
BEATE CHELETTE (37:23):
I love it well.
Thank you so much for being onthe show. It was an absolute
pleasure to take this wholesales process and automation
thing and put put some humanityto it.
Steve Wallace (37:34):
Thank you B. This is great.
BEATE CHELETTE (37:36):
And that's it for us, for today, until next
time and GOODBYE. So appreciateyou being here. Thank you so
much for listening to the entireepisode. Please subscribe to the
podcast, give us a five star,review, a comment and share this
episode with one more person sothat you can help us help more
people. Thank you again, untilnext time. Bye.
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