What if authority wasn’t about being the best closer, but about creating the safest decision for your buyer? Grant sits down with Doug Brown—CEO of CEO Sales Strategies—to explore how shared context, credible associations, and personal ROI can transform ordinary sales conversations into trust-driven commitments. From New England roots to global brands, Doug shows why familiarity is a strategic lever, not a vanity metric.
We dig into the gap between “good” sales teams and those viewed as market authorities. The surprise: status and positioning can tilt the field before price is ever discussed. Using vivid examples—from first-class optics to iconic venues—Doug explains how perception amplifies pricing power. But he also grounds it in craft: speak to the business ROI and the personal ROI driving real human decisions, whether that’s safety, reputation, or career risk. Buyers sign when they feel both the numbers and the nerves are addressed.
The heart of the conversation is resilience. Doug recounts a costly client pivot that vaporized roughly $2M, then shares the mental and operational playbook that pulled him forward: stop treating symptoms, remove root causes, and take one meaningful step every day toward a clear North Star. We also get practical with a 90-day revenue plan that works without heroics—set a truthful target, do the math on KPIs, reengage dormant clients, increase touchpoints, and define your ideal right-fit buyer to align message and market. We close with a grounded take on AI: use it to accelerate research and outreach, but never outsource the human-to-human moments that make complex deals possible.
If you’re ready to sell with authority, protect your margins, and build pipeline you can trust, this conversation gives you the mindset and methods to start today. Subscribe, share with a teammate who needs a boost, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we read every one.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates, visit 5starbdm.com
.
And don’t miss Grant McGaugh’s new book, First Light — a powerful guide to igniting your purpose and building a BRAVE brand that stands out in a changing world. - https://5starbdm.com/brave-masterclass/
See you next time on Follow The Brand!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
Welcome everybody to the Fall Brand Podcast.
This is your host, GrantMcGaugh.
We're gonna take it all the wayback.
People don't know this, but Iused to live in New England.
I lived in Nashua, New Hampshirefrom 1991 to 1998.
Never forgot it.
Beautiful location, especiallyright now during the fall.
This is fall foliage time.
(00:22):
It is drop-dead gorgeous.
If you get a chance, you gottago through there.
So talking to my buddy here,Doug Brown.
He's telling me he lives inNashua, New Hampshire, which is
the exact town that I lived in.
Of course, we just had you knowgreat conversation just before
we jumped on.
Because this is so we're sellingthe New England experience right
(00:44):
now.
No, he's the CEO of SalesStrategy.
This guy knows what he's talkingabout.
I'm gonna let him introducehimself.
We're gonna have a candidconversation of what makes Doug
Doug.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
So, Doug, you like to introduce yourself?
Uh thanks, Grant.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm really grateful andappreciative.
And uh, it was fun talkingabout, you know, you you lived
literally like five miles fromwhere I live, so that was
awesome to know.
I'm I'm sad we didn't run intoeach other during the 90s
because I was definitely aroundhere.
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
So excellent, excellent.
Now, people don't know.
I I learned this about you.
You've worked with giants likeTony Robbins and Proctor and
Gamble.
And my question is about how didthose experiences shape your
authority in the sales world?
(01:34):
And how can entrepreneurs buildauthority in industries where
there are where they're I wouldsay relatively unknown?
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
So it's helped my authority in a great deal,
right?
Because it's um it's like youknow, if we say Clint Eastwood,
right?
Everybody knows who ClintEastwood is.
And if we say, Oh yeah, youknow, I went to I went to high
school with Clint Eastwood, andpeople go, Well, do you know
him?
Oh yeah, yeah, we still talkevery once in a while, right?
Immediately that person getshigher authority in in many
(02:07):
people's minds, assuming theyrespect Clint Eastwood, right?
Um, so it's that you know, itnever ceases to amaze me.
And Grant, you may laugh on thisbecause, like, you know, I have
degrees uh in business, biology,and nuclear medicine.
And then I went to BerkeleyCollege in Boston for one
(02:30):
semester.
Yeah, and when people look up onmy LinkedIn profile, the
majority of them say two things.
Oh my god, you you know TonyRobbins, or or oh my goodness,
you went to Berkeley College ofMusic, you must be the most
outstanding musician ever.
And it's like right, so I wantpeople to think about the
(02:55):
association because many peopleknow who you know, Berkeley
College of Music, not everyone,but many people know who Tony
Robbins is, and they noteverybody, right?
So it's it's one of those thingsthat when people can associate
us to having a relationship witha known quantity, a known
entity, um, you know, itautomatically elevates our
(03:18):
status and our positioning inpeople's minds.
And it doesn't matter what therelationship is at that point,
it just it's just what people'sperception is.
Um, you know, our media is builton this, or you know, I mean,
the guy worldwide media is builton this.
Um, you know, I I was fortunate,I'll give you an example.
I was fortunate enough.
(03:40):
Uh, this gentleman's name isThomas Dolly Jr.
Thomas Dorley Jr.
built this company calledBraxton Industries.
They built it to a half billiondollars, uh, and now they're
called Deloitte.
Right.
And I know the gentleman and Ihad lunch with him three weeks
ago.
I, you know, he's just a niceguy.
He's in his 80s, he lives downin the in the Cape of
(04:01):
Massachusetts.
We met in Boston in in the umthe Italian North End section
and had a cup of coffee.
He, my wife, and we decidedwe're gonna do a live event
together.
So, you know, but I can I cansay, hey, I'm doing a live event
with a guy who now is calledDeloitte, you know, the
company's called Deloitte,right?
And automatically that elevatesmy positioning with people.
(04:27):
And so people will talk to youthat may not have talked to you
before, uh, you know, that typeof thing.
And so, I mean, it doesn't haveto be on like the high names, it
it helps, but I mean, just thefact that you lived in Nashua
and I lived in Nashua, right?
It elevates your status in mymind because I know we have
(04:48):
familiarity.
Right.
And and that's what authoritydoes.
It gives people familiarity andcreates a a perception of uh
this is probably safe and and Ican move forward.
So that's what I know it's donefor me.
Um, and you know, I I know itdoes for other people.
This is where you can commandhigher fees because people do
(05:10):
pay for celebrity, and it iskind of a celebrity thing.
It would be like if I said, uh,I don't know, uh, well, I mean,
give you an example.
Thomas Dorley Jr.
said, you know, I'll probably beable to get Mr.
Um Schultz, you know, the thethe foul, the one of the co, I
don't know if he was aco-founder, but he was the CEO
of Google.
(05:31):
Yes, right, and he said, I thinkI can get him to come speak.
And I'm like, that guy?
And he's like, Yeah, he's a goodfriend of mine.
I think he'll come and do it,you know.
And I said, Okay, like now wecan say we have the you know
Google CEO, right?
I mean, who in business wouldn'twant to listen to him about a
(05:52):
technology, you know,conversation, right?
So that's that's what it does,that's what celebrity does.
And how do you get it?
You get out into the publicsquare, you know, and you start
wherever you can and you gowherever you can, and you just
you say yes to things thataren't against your um, you
(06:12):
know, your your standing inlife, and you just get out.
You'd be surprised if you havelike you have something to say.
A lot of people give you a stageif you just ask.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
I I believe that you gotta have beliefs in who you
are, yes.
What you also said is that thatbridge, well, especially when
you're talking to someone thatyou haven't spoken to before,
right?
Had not spoken before, but yetwe were able to find a bridge,
and most salespeople will dothat.
Like, all right, I have to finda bridge of um something that's
(06:47):
similar, something that we bothcan relate to, that's relatable,
right?
So, hey, when you told me firstwe got talking about myself in
the Nebraska, you have to askthat question, how cold does it
get?
I said, Well, it is pretty cold.
It used to get pretty cold.
I don't know if it gets as coldas before.
They wouldn't give you thetemperature, they would say it's
cold as it's colder than man orbeast.
So that's to tell you that youshould not go outside and give
(07:09):
me an understanding oftemperature-wise.
But we established rapportimmediately and a bridge to,
okay, I think I can have agenuine conversation with
someone before you can get intowhat I call more intimate
conversation to get you toanother level.
You you definitely define thatvery, very well of establishing
(07:32):
authority as a brand ofyourself, your personal brand,
forward and forward.
Just bring something up that'scommon ground, that's genuine in
your view and aligns with yourbelief.
I want to switch the subjectjust a little bit because, in
your view, I want to ask youthis what separates a good sales
(07:52):
team?
And I've been on a lot of salesteam as someone who has been a
career business developmentprofessional for over 30 some
odd years.
The question is, what separatesa sales team that's simply good
from one that positions itselfas an undeniable authority in
the market?
SPEAKER_00 (08:14):
Oh, that's a great question.
Um, so a sales team whopositions itself as an
undeniable authority doesn'tactually mean that they're
actually better at selling thanthe the team that's actually
good.
Right.
So and I know this because I'veworked with a lot of brand
names, and I get into thesebrand names and I'm like, wow,
(08:38):
you guys don't know really howto sell, let's say, to a C-level
organization, you know, C level,right?
Or or you know, I just uh workedwith um some of the trades
companies recently, and some ofthem who have brand authority,
uh their sales team really isn'tthat good.
(09:01):
So, you know, it's kind of likeback in the day when Maytag was
like the big brand name, right?
And the Maytag people would walkin and say, Hey, we're from
Maytag, we're not the leastexpensive.
Let me tell you why.
Right.
Well, that's you know, I don'tknow if that's the greatest
positioning for a salesconversation, but I mean it
certainly was a goodinterruption, you know, to to
head the objection off ahead oftime.
(09:23):
But, you know, people who inMaytag, you know, they may not
be as good as you know, Arnie'sappliance company, who who
nobody's ever really heard ofexcept Arnie in the local area,
right?
Yeah, and so you know, that'sthat's the the positioning
(09:44):
really does come down to italways helps the sale.
I mean, if we think about thisjust on human nature, you know,
why do we accept a blind date?
Because the trust and authorityis conveyed through the person
who's saying, I want to set youup with my friend.
I think you two would get alongreally, you know, famously.
(10:04):
And so we go, all right, this isa safe situation.
I trust this person.
It is a referral, really, whenit comes down into sales.
So this positioning andauthority always will give us an
edge to have a different levelof status.
(10:26):
No matter even if, like, I, youknow, let's say we were doing a
live event together, Grant, andwe said, well, we're gonna do it
uh at the Biltmore Hotel.
Yeah, you know, and people willbe like, Oh, the Biltmore,
right?
They already know the brandbrand.
But you know, we could also saywe were gonna do it at you know,
Dave's loft, you know.
Now, Dave's loft might be a waynicer service and way better
(10:50):
than the Biltmore hotel, eventhough the Biltmore has
established a brand in that.
You know, I mean, at Dave's,they might like you know, drive
your car and park it for you andcarry your bags in and lay out
everything and iron yourclothing in the morning and you
know, bring you, you know, hotbreakfast to your room and not
charge you for it.
I mean, they they might be likebetter service even at Dave's,
(11:14):
but Dave will not be positionedas the Biltmore unless that
brand is built somehow.
And so when you think of theBiltmore, you think, oh geez,
I'm gonna pay a lot more moneyfor that.
And and and that's why peopledo.
I mean, why do people fly firstclass?
It's it's it's a status, it's anauthority type thing.
(11:36):
I only fly first class.
Chet Holmes, when I when I wasChet's president of training uh
sales and training, Chet toldme, he goes, I only fly first
class.
I'm like, Chet, we're flying anhour and a half, right?
He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna flyin first class.
I'm like, I'm not charging thecompany that we work together
in, you know, three thousanddollars to fly an hour and a
(11:57):
half.
I'll, you know, I'll sit inbusiness class for 500 bucks or
whatever, right?
And and so it's like, but youknow, he used to tell everybody
I only fly first class.
So when he was hired by people,they'd be like, I only get first
class tickets.
SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
It just raised his authority.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Premium, right, right, right.
Uh, but I said, All right, youyou're a premium guy.
We're gonna, you know, we'regonna pay.
That's why one I go to my sportsanalogy.
Why one quarterback gets uh youknow a million dollars a year,
another quarterback's 20 milliondollars a year.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh there's there's some somestatus that goes with that, some
past performance that goes withthat.
(12:36):
There's a probability thatthey're gonna do it for me.
Uh no, no guarantee.
No, I'm a Steelers fan.
I'm hoping I get you know theHall of Fame Aaron Rodgers, but
there's no guarantee.
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
No, no, see, now we're now we're gonna get it
because they just played thePatriots the other day.
And I'm I'm I'm still not happyabout the way the Patriots
played that game, let's put itthat way.
But um, but you're right.
I mean, you know, here's here'sthe thing I've learned too.
No matter where somebody is inthat authority status, it
(13:10):
doesn't mean they're going toperform better than the people
who are not.
I mean, I you know, listen, Ilove Chet Holmes.
Uh, you know, I've closed dealshe couldn't, right?
And he's helped me a great dealtoo.
So, you know, teamwork is is awonderful thing, but it does it
also doesn't mean that justsomebody who has had like he had
(13:31):
the best-selling sales book forseven years straight.
Yeah, you know, it doesn't meanthey don't make mistakes.
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
No, they're human, exactly.
You know, so it's change a lotof times sales, it's timing,
it's situation, uh, whatever theyou know, tactical flaws,
strategic flow, there's a lot ofthings going on.
I want to talk to you about thisbecause I think this is
important, especially for a lotof people that are tuning in.
There are salespeople,salespeople I've worked with for
(13:58):
maybe 20 plus years, and theywant to hear this from a
professional like yourself.
Now, you face setbacks fromsending out, I think you said
like 300 plus resumes withoutsuccess, and then you pivoted
into entrepreneurship.
My question is, how isresilience played into your
(14:18):
success?
And how do you coach leaders tobuild that same type of muscle?
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
Uh, you if you don't have resilience, you're you
know, that's that Chumpa Wambadid a song, I get knocked down
by get back up again, I thinkit's called right something.
I don't know what the name ofthe song is, but it, you know,
that is entrepreneurship.
You know, you know, was itthat's life was another song
(14:45):
that was done, you know, you'reyou're you're riding high in
April, shot down in May, right?
And you know, I'll give I'llgive an example.
I had a uh client uh up untiltwo years ago.
We were generating$1.4 million ayear with this client.
Um, I had been with this clientnow for seven years, and you
(15:09):
know, they grew in part becauseof our efforts.
You know, we are I built acommission sales team for these
people and managed it.
And you know, our commissionsoverall were like 1.4 million.
SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
Nice, right?
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
And so that tells you what they, you know, we sold
a lot.
We were we were actually onethird of their revenue, and um
and so they came to me and theysaid, Listen, we're doing great.
We want to double our sales.
Okay, and I'm a math-based,metrics-based guy when it comes
to these things.
So I built out the plan and Ishowed it to them.
(15:44):
They go, Yep, let's do it.
And I said, Well, listen, thisis a big commitment on my side.
I've got to let a couple otherclients, you know, give them
notice.
I can't keep them because youknow, I don't have the like it's
not fair to the other clients,right?
So I said, So you sure we're in?
And they said, Yeah, no problem.
So I let the other clients go.
Okay, so this is a two milliondollar mistake.
(16:07):
I want people to understand thiscoming up front.
Okay.
So I let them go.
And then about two and a halfmonths into us growing their
company to double it, theydecided to hard hard pivot to a
completely new market.
Wow.
And they asked me, What do youthink?
(16:27):
And I said, Absolutely, don't dothis, it won't work.
Well, anyways, the company uh itdidn't work, and they tried it
and they kept staying with it.
I kept saying, Please get out ofthis, please get out of this,
please get out of this, let'spivot back and let's go, you
know.
And they didn't.
It eventually put them out ofbusiness.
And um, you know, they werelosing millions and millions and
(16:49):
millions of dollars.
We were still selling, but itwasn't at the levels we could
sell to sustain the amount ofemployees that were at the
company at the time.
And, you know, when we grew uhover the seven years, we
actually grew 7x.
So we were literally almostdoubling every single year.
And so so they went out ofbusiness.
(17:10):
So uh, well, they actually soldthe business.
They didn't they and they didn'ttell me they were selling the
business, they sold thebusiness.
So I woke up one day and theygo, Hey, we sold the business.
The the new company doesn't wantwhat we had before, you know,
we're we're done.
So within a year, I let go theother clients plus this client,
(17:30):
and it was a two million dollarloss.
unknown (17:33):
Wow, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:35):
Okay, so I don't tell this story to say, look how
smart I am.
I tell this story to let peopleknow, you know, this is the time
when you get knocked down.
So what do you do?
And you've got to get back upand realize that, okay, just
like when a storm cloud comesthrough, you know, a tornado
(17:57):
came through, it wreaked habiton the town, but the tornado's
gone now.
So now I can just keep talkingabout the tornado, or I can say,
okay, where do we rebuild fromhere?
And that's what we did.
And within a year, we actuallypivoted back, and another
opportunity opened up, whichactually turned out to be larger
(18:19):
than the opportunity we lost.
So if I lived in the past andI'm going, oh geez, look at this
happen, and that's gonna be, youknow, or I lived too far out in
the future and said, My gosh, wejust don't have two million
coming in, you know.
How am I gonna make payroll?
How am I gonna?
I mean, I ask these questions,don't get me wrong, but I didn't
(18:41):
live there.
You got to bring yourself intothe present moment and say,
okay, I'm here.
What do I do?
Whether you're on an island andyou're, you know, out in the
South Pacific, like uh TomHanks, I think was in the movie
Castaway, uh, or you know,whether you're just like sitting
at your house and you're like,okay, this you know, terrible
(19:01):
thing happened, understandthere's a I'm not a Buddhist,
but there's a la in Buddhismthat's like impermanence, I
believe I believe they call it.
It'll happen and then it moveson.
Right.
We've all had bad breakups inour lives of some sort, right?
It it hurt at the moment, youknow.
If we keep going back, and youknow, I think Al Bundy and the
(19:25):
uh Married with Children used tokeep saying, you know, I threw
three touchdowns at the highschool game, and you know, and
then I met Peggy and she ruinedmy life, right?
And right, that type of thing.
If we if we keep going back tothat, that's what I think Grant
gets people caught.
They keep holding on to thememories of what, if, or not
(19:47):
looking at just what could be,but focusing on now.
Definitely understand pain.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
And if you keep reliving that pain over and over
again, you've never really.
Allow yourself to heal, right?
And move forward.
Now, you what you just describedthere is major.
You know, you've got to putsomething, you've got to have
major belief in yourself to getyourself moving forward so
(20:14):
you're not stuck in that rut.
And I know a lot of salesleaders, they burn out when
they're under this kind ofpressure.
They just can't do this.
You know, I want to know, andI'm sure that people want to
know because you're as you'rebuilding back, you've got to
build this back up, and you'vegot to to to do this on a daily
basis.
What practices do you use or didyou use or recommend for
(20:39):
bouncing back when the numbersjust aren't hitting?
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
Yeah.
So I credit Ted Turner to this,just so everybody knows.
Like Ted Turner, I rememberduring certain times in my life,
I read Ted Turner at one pointwas losing 20 million dollars a
day.
Wow.
At TNT, I believe it was.
Um, you know, and I think he wasstill married to um Jane Fonda.
(21:06):
Jane Fonda, right?
So I mean, his days couldn't beall that bad, right?
I mean, right.
So I think it's uh, you know, Ijust saw Jane Fonda, she's like
86 in a movie, and I mean shelooks amazing, like it's good
for you, Jane.
Um, and um, and the movie waswonderful, and uh it's I think
(21:29):
it was called Move, if Iremember correctly.
The here's the thing (21:31):
no matter how bad we have it, someone's
always got it worst.
You know, and so the first thingI look at is I I tried not to
get into that little pity partyof myself because we all can do
it, right?
So, you know, there are times Iliterally have closed the door,
walked into a closet, closed thedoor, and just screamed and got
(21:53):
it out, and then just opened thedoor and said, Okay, back to
work.
Okay, we and and Ted Turner,like he didn't seem rocked that
he was losing$20 million a day.
Where most of us, if we werelosing$20 million a day, I mean,
it'd be like life is complete,you know, like I can't go on,
right?
(22:13):
Um, but I've known a lot ofsuccessful people, and I didn't
know Ted Turner, I would love tomeet him.
Um but I know that they wentthrough ups and downs and ups
and downs, you know.
I mean, I remember seeing TonyRobbins extremely upset one day
(22:34):
um in Las Vegas, and I went,wow, Tony Robbins actually has
emotions beyond what he, youknow, he's a he's a normal
regular guy, right?
And and you know, and I respecthim a great deal, and he's done
phenomenally well and you knowhelped millions literally of
(22:55):
people.
You know, I've seen Chet Holmescome and say, Listen, you know
what?
Uh you can't, you know, we'vewe're twenty thousand dollars
over on this um invoice that wewere supposed to be for tech
support in a time where we hadcommitted a hundred thousand
dollars a month to spend out onradio ads, which was our twenty
(23:20):
thousand dollars more, right?
So we all get ourselves inplaces the one thing I can tell
people that absolutely works isyou focus not on the problem but
on the solution.
Now, what's the solution?
The solution is removing thecause to the problem.
(23:43):
And this, Grant, is where Ithink people get in trouble all
the time because they're tryingto solve the symptom of the
problem, versing at what is thecause of the problem?
And when you remove the cause ofa problem, you no longer have
the problem.
It's true.
Yeah, and so every day we've gotto wake up and we got to say,
okay, once we have identifiedthe cause, we remove that.
(24:06):
And from that point on,everything is what's under my
control that I can do today toget to where I want to go.
And we just put our nose in thatdirection and we take one step
forward each and every day.
I learned this from a man namedRichard Minovino.
Can I tell the story?
Because it was funny.
Yeah, go ahead.
(24:27):
So I'm in my 30s, I believe.
I'm uh I'm having challenges inbusiness with employees, with
government stuff, everythinggoing on.
And I'm sitting in his office.
Now, this is a man who was worthat the time$350 million.
(24:48):
And whatever forever reason, hejust mentored me.
Uh, I never asked him why, but Ithink I reminded him of a young
him.
He was like 30 something yearsolder than I was, and we would
just go down and talk.
And one day I'm like, you know,Dick, you know, this is going on
in my business, and this isgoing on in my business.
As I was telling him this wasgoing on, he was laughing.
(25:10):
And, you know, and I'm like, heat first it was just a chuckle.
It was like, ha ha ha ha.
Right.
And then as I'm going on there,I'm like, no, you know, I had
employees, they have 1099contracts, independent
agreements, and they went outand they claimed unemployment
benefits, and now the states areafter me.
And he's like, he's laughing andhe's getting louder and louder.
(25:31):
And and I got a littlefrustrated at one point, and I
said, Dick, I don't think you'rehearing me.
I got all these problems.
I mean, you got 315 employeesout on the field, out on that
field, you know, right on thatfloor out there.
And you've got all this, you gota 1,500 square foot office, oh,
1800 square foot office.
And I said, I said, I have allthese problems.
(25:51):
Are you hearing me?
Do you ever go through this?
And he he stopped laughing,Grant.
Like, whoop, like just quicklystopped laughing.
His eyes narrowed, kind of likeClint Eastwood in the movies,
yeah.
And he looked at me and he goes,son, every effing day of my
life.
And it like snapped me back.
So, like, I was like, What?
(26:12):
Like, you're a you know, 350million dollar guy.
Yeah, he's like, son, this iswhat you signed up for.
This is entrepreneurship.
Yeah, he's like, You're gonnahave ups and down days.
And then I asked him thisquestion why do people not get
what they want then?
(26:32):
And he said these words to me.
He said, Son, all you can do isknow what you want, and then
point your nose in thatdirection, and you keep your
nose pointed in that direction,and you keep taking a step every
day.
And I promise you, you're stillgonna go through the things
you're going through right now.
You're gonna get beat up,knocked down.
(26:53):
People are not gonna believe inyou.
Some people will.
You just keep walking.
He said, I promise you twothings, and then, well,
actually, three things.
I promise you, it's gonna takeyou two to three times longer
than you figure it's gonnahappen.
Yeah, it will cost you two tothree times more than you
thought it was going to costyou.
And if you keep walking,eventually you will get there.
SPEAKER_01 (27:16):
Man, golden wisdom right there when it comes to
resilience, but understandingwhat it is that you truly want
in my world, I call it the NorthStar.
If you truly want to reach thatNorth Star, you truly want to
get there, you're gonna have togo through a lot more than you
(27:36):
probably realize that you'regoing to do, but is it worth the
stretch, right?
Is it worth all the pain andanguish you're gonna go through
to get there?
Is the payoff going to be whatyou expect it, you know, to be?
This this is very, veryimportant to understand this.
Now, you you've created andworked with a lot of uh uh
(27:59):
important projects, important inpeople.
Um you know, and and I want tocome up talk about your vision
because right there is that yougotta have a very powerful
vision and you've got to makethat vision come to light
authentically, right?
Yeah.
So, what's your long-term visionfor reshaping out companies like
(28:21):
today?
I think maybe we're losing somelike human-to-human connection
because of AI.
I think people don't realize howimportant that is.
But how do you see this approachto sales in the enterprise space
changing?
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
Or maybe I'm well, you know, I always tell people
they go, What do you think ofAI?
And I go, AI can't producebabies, right?
So I've had some technologypeople say, not yet, right?
I'm like, all right, well, um,so you know, here's the thing.
(28:59):
Um, I'm just gonna take a drink.
Sinus infection, not fun.
So here's the thing.
Uh we're still selling to humanbeings, not titles.
(29:20):
The challenge for most people isthey think they're selling to a
CEO or they're selling to achief whatever or whatever
level.
And they forget that there's twothings in every sale.
A uh a business return oninvestment and a personal return
(29:46):
on investment.
Human-to-human selling is aboutthe personal return on
investment.
But most people forget it.
So let me give an example.
We might be going in to sell acompany a certain protocol that
(30:07):
will, you know, reduce overheadwithout reducing headcount, and
which will increase theprofitability by X.
There's the business return oninvestment.
SPEAKER_01 (30:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (30:24):
But if that personal return on investment is they
want safety and security, andwe're not addressing that, we
will get things like you knowwhat, might not be in the budget
right now.
You know what, we might have tolook at this again next year.
You know what?
I I need to confer with acouncil on this, you know.
(30:46):
Um, you know, give me a proposaland let me see what it looks
like, right?
You'll hear things like that.
And the personal return oninvestment could be whatever
they deem it to be, grant,right?
So it's it's one of those thingsthat it's personal to them.
Maybe, maybe they want higherrepute.
(31:08):
Maybe they want to have a betterstanding in the community of
which they serve.
So, how does our sale actuallyhelp that?
You know, if, for example, ifthey wanted higher authority,
higher repute, and we were like,listen, we can increase your
profitability, and we can takepart of that profitability, and
(31:30):
we can put you on Grants podcastand 15 other podcasts, we can
get Authority Magazine to do anarticle on you, and we can use
that, you know, these things todo that, that might be enough
for the personal ROI to actuallykick it over the top.
But I see, you know, but ifthey're like worried about the
(31:51):
board and losing their job, ifthis goes wrong, because they
promised their kids they weregonna send them to Harvard or
Stanford and they were gonna payfor all of this, or you know,
whatever it is for them.
If we don't find that out as aseller, we're missing it.
(32:13):
And I think that's where peoplemiss it all the time.
And you know, that's never gonnago away.
So AI can replace routine,repetitive workflow tasks and do
it amazingly well.
I love AI, I mean, I use it allthe time.
Um, you know, I mean, it cutsdown a research project that I'm
(32:34):
doing from you know hours tominutes.
Right, right.
Um AI will replace certainthings that are routine in the
future of you know, evenappointment setters and things
like that.
Will it replace all appointmentsetters?
I don't believe so, um, to beseen, but it's just the
(32:56):
technology, right?
And we've had technology all thetime that has been rapidly
changing the landscape.
Moving pictures changedvaudeville, right?
Um the television replaced a bigpart of radio, right?
(33:17):
Now streaming is replacing whatwe knew as traditional
television.
You know, you can just go up onan app, right?
So it's not something to fear,and the vision around that is
not something to fear, but thevision of communicating with
human beings forever and everand ever, I it will not go away.
Like, you know, again, AI can'tmake babies, right?
(33:39):
I mean, human emotion is whatcreates babies, and that's never
ever going to, I don't believe,ever change.
I think you know, we're gonnaremove you know humans from
human beings.
Uh, I I don't, I just don't seethat working out, and so it's
when it's a complex conversationor or an involved conversation,
(34:01):
I think.
I mean, if the pandemic taughtme anything, yes, it's people
want to get back together.
SPEAKER_01 (34:08):
True, right?
Well, because I've been intechnology for 25, 30 years, I
understand exactly what you'resaying.
It's kind of technology changescertain things, it'll change the
landscape, but it's changing thehuman story.
You know, this human story stillcontinues.
AI is very good for me, it'sabout amplification and
(34:28):
refinement.
Uh, it can do very, very good inthose areas, but for what
purpose?
And that is to enhance thehuman-to-human interaction, to
get human beings to be morecritical thinkers, to dig or dig
deep into their humanity andbring things out that weren't
always so obvious.
I think that's so, so importantand to understand.
(34:50):
Now, here's my last question foryou, because this is very
important, and I want myaudience to truly understand
this.
You have built over 36 companiesand helped generate more than a
billion dollars in sales.
This is the Doug Brown story,right?
And for leaders listening rightnow who want to grow revenue in
(35:10):
the next 90 days, what's themost actionable step that they
can execute immediately withoutovercomplicating the process?
SPEAKER_00 (35:24):
Okay, that's a big question.
So I'm gonna answer, I'm gonnaanswer it to the to what I know
of it in the context of whatwe're talking about.
So the first thing is let's geta truthful goal.
What is the actual thing we wantto grow by?
I see so many peoplehyperinflate the actual truthful
(35:48):
goal that they never get it offthe ground enough to get to that
particular goal, right?
So we we're talking 90 days.
Like I I had a I had a gentlemancome he was talking to me the
other day, well, actually threeweeks ago now, and he's like
seven million dollars.
And I said, Well, where do youwant to be uh by the end of the
(36:10):
year?
And he goes, I want to be at 12.
And I'm like, We're in August,so that's August to September,
September to October, November,December to January.
We're talking a four and a half,five months.
You want to go from seven totwelve million, and he said,
Yes.
And I said, Well, what happensif you don't hit 12?
(36:33):
What's what what number wouldyou be happy with?
He goes, eight and a half.
Okay.
It's like, I'm like, hello.
Like, you know, and then hegoes, Well, I'd really like
nine.
And I'm like, okay, so we reallydon't know the number yet,
(36:54):
right?
So that's I know this soundslike basic, and but it is one of
those things, Grant, that justpeople don't they don't do it.
They're like, yo, I wanna I wantto date a Dallas Cowboys
cheerleader.
It's like, do you really?
I mean, you don't know anythingabout the Dallas Cowboys.
I'm sure they're nice ladies,you know.
(37:15):
Um, so you know, in in thereality is what they're looking
for is a close connectedrelationship with another human
being, right?
And so I think it's one of thosethings that if we don't define
that, then how do we build aplan off for something that's
fictitious?
We do, like my$2 million fauxpas, right?
(37:35):
I've so it's and I'm not sayingthis because I have made the
mistake, don't make the mistake.
I'm saying because I've workedwith so many companies and all
of our own businesses, this isthe first place to start.
Okay.
Once you get there, it's like,okay, so how do we get there?
It's easy.
Math, right?
We want to go from here to here.
(37:56):
What are the math, what are theKPIs or the metrics we want to
hit?
And then what is the math thatneeds to go behind that?
How many, like, is our salesteam, for example, if we had a
sales team uh and they'reoutreaching today um 20 people a
day?
I'm just making up the number.
Is it possible to get them toreach out to 26 a day?
(38:19):
Yes, it is.
Aha.
All right, great.
So if we can get them to go out26 a day, how many people can
they connect with?
How many people can they getpositive responses from?
How can we increase ourappointment ratio at that point?
Because if we have a staticclose rate, let's say it's 21 in
four, we have a static closerate of one in four, but I can
(38:40):
now push volume through thefront end of that for every four
people that we have anappointment with, we know we're
gonna get one more sale.
Right?
So it's predictable once westart looking at the metrics.
This is super critical.
If somebody doesn't want to gothrough that portion and they're
(39:01):
just like, hey, I just want toraise my sales in the next 90
days.
Look at the things that you'resitting on right now.
I'll tell you one of them willprobably be your dormant clients
that you haven't paid attentionto for a long time.
Go back to every single one ofthose clients and just call them
and say, Hey, we haven't talkedin a while.
(39:22):
I'd just like to catch up.
Sure.
And you will spawn new business.
Uh, your follow-up ratios, howare you following up?
If I ask the question out of 12months, how many times do you
follow up with your currentclients, your current buyers?
I know the average on mostpeople is between one and four,
with the average average beingabout two.
(39:44):
And guess what?
There's money sitting there.
Yeah.
You know, so there's some simplethings to do.
After that kind of clears thenight first 90 days, and we
built the plan, the next step inthat process is we To really
take a look at who's our idealright fit buyer, because I can
tell you most companies, uh, inpart or in full, don't know it.
(40:09):
And I thought it was like a bigdeal, and then I did some
research grant, and to give theaudience the research data,
Harvard Business School, WhartonBusiness School, you name the
big companies, marketingcompanies out there, or
whatever, they've done thesestudies, and they all conclude
the same thing.
And I was shocked by thenumbers.
(40:29):
97% of people selling don't knowin part or in full their ideal
right fit buyer.
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (40:37):
That's that's huge.
SPEAKER_00 (40:39):
So if we if we're talking the wrong message to the
wrong buyer or the wrong messageto the right buyer, or we're
talking to the the wrong buyerwith the right message, then
we're going to be off.
And so now we're spending a lotmore money than we need to, and
a lot more energy and time.
Once we dial that thing in, itit's crazy, like crazy good.
(41:02):
And I'm and I will tell people,you know, I've worked with you
know solo entrepreneurconsultants who have not had
this right, and big companieslike um Intuit didn't have it
right.
Intuit, please don't sell me,uh, sue me, um, on that.
But you know, but when we dialedit in, it it literally went from
(41:25):
a multi-million dollar loss to a$10 million gain, right?
In in one year.
So it is one of those thingsthat you know that's kind of the
process in the beginning ofgetting it going.
And then obviously you got to beable to hold accountability to
making sure it goes through.
That's kind of the short answer,but that was a big question.
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
That a lot of people have the metric you just get 97%
people don't know who they'reselling to.
And the misalignment ofmessaging, I see that a lot.
I always used to I used to fightwith my marketing team, you
know, in sales.
You're like, that that thatyou're like, I need something to
be able to put in front of aclient that's willing to buy our
stuff, but your messaging andwhat you just said right here
(42:12):
doesn't is that's not it.
You know, it's off.
And what you just said earlierabout knowing who you're selling
to, especially because theC-suite has a whole different
sort of circumstances than whatyou call your your suite of SVPs
or vice presidents and directorsand managers.
They're all you have to knowyour audience in order to uh
(42:33):
position what you're uh selling,whether it's a product or
service, to the right audience.
It makes such a big difference.
I kind of lied, I said that'sgonna be my last question.
I have one more question.
I have to ask you this becauseit's so important to me.
You said earlier, you've been on500 different podcasts, you've
given all kinds of interviews.
(42:54):
This is your first opportunityto be on the Follow Brand
Podcast.
What did you think of thisinterview?
SPEAKER_00 (43:00):
Oh, all right.
This is where you slip me thehundred dollars.
Go ahead.
Okay, it's in the mail.
Um you know, I've enjoyed this,and and I'm being sincere.
I've enjoyed this interviewimmensely.
And you've asked uh reallythought-provoking questions that
(43:22):
I haven't been asked on manyother podcasts where it's like I
really had to like, oh wow, letme think deeply about this
because this question is is uhgoing to be not only important
for the people listening that Igive, you know, what I know to
be accurate information, right?
(43:43):
Um, but it actually made mereally think about okay, is this
accurate information about whatI'm supposed to say?
Right.
So I really think a great dealabout uh what our interview has
been.
Uh, and um I will continue tothink about it after after our
conversation because here's thething when I do these podcasts,
(44:04):
uh, people ask questions, andsometimes I go, where the heck
did that answer come from?
Like that was brilliant.
Oh wow, geez, I didn't know thatwas there, right?
That type of thing.
Or sometimes I listen back and Igo, you know, that was close,
but it really wasn't, you know,there.
On our answers here, I I keeptelling myself this was you know
(44:25):
spot on, right?
So I uh I appreciate your notonly your style and your and the
ability to ask questions, butjust the the conversation I
think that we're having is soimportant to anybody, whether
they're a you know, asalesperson selling, a solo
entrepreneur, uh, you know, oruh running a uh you know a large
(44:46):
corporation, they're allimportant jobs and we're all
human beings and everybody haswants, needs, desires, and
fears.
And uh, you know, those of youwho might be in a sales position
and you're thinking your CEO ofa company doesn't wake up and
go, oh my gosh, you know, uh, orI've got a board meeting today,
or I've got, you know, I've gotto, you know, raise funds on
(45:09):
this.
Or, and if you're a CEO and youdon't realize that your
salespeople are waking up everyday thinking similar things,
like, man, I gotta, how am Igonna hit quota?
How am I gonna boost past quota?
How am I gonna get this, youknow, this bonus structure that
you put in?
Kindly thank you, uh, you know,so that I can, you know, send my
kid to you know Europe orwhatever, right?
(45:31):
We we all have these things.
And, you know, I I don't want tosay that you know, I'm a
humanitarian type guy, Grant,but it's you know, I am in a lot
of a lot of ways.
But I just believe, and maybeit's I'm getting older, but this
podcast is uh deep in thethought of what I believe life
(45:52):
really is about, which is youhave a limited number of days on
this earth to not fear where youreally want to go, take action
on what you want to do, and tomeasure the days of ratio of
happiness to BS that you live ona daily basis, and to put
(46:14):
yourself in a place where thethose days of happiness are are
are higher uh than the days ofthe BS, because to me that's
kind of the purpose of life atthis point, you know.
And I look back at all thebusinesses we built and all the
stuff we went through, and youknow, I listen to a lot of um,
you know, people who have beensuccessful getting there, and
(46:37):
many of them say the same thing,you know.
I'm glad I'm here, but I wish Ihad done this differently.
You know, I wish I had takenmore time to enjoy life because
it goes woof bye, you know.
So to me, this podcast has justkind of like reinforced that
whole process.
So I thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (46:52):
I want to thank you for being on the Father Brand
Podcast.
Now, you've got to tell theaudience how to contact you, and
and and and I'm definitelyletting my audience know uh that
as well.
So, what is the best way to geta hold of Doug Brown?
SPEAKER_00 (47:09):
Uh you can reach out to me directly by email at Doug
at CEO SalesStrategiesplural.com, you know,
so salesstrategies.com.
Um, I'm Doug Brown123 onLinkedIn.
If you type in Doug C.
Brown online, uh I'll I'll beeverywhere.
Um, you know, honestly, notbraggandocious, but consciously
(47:32):
have been putting myself there.
Uh, if you type Doug Brown,you're gonna come up with a
professional hockey player, andI can't skate to save my soul.
Um, so uh Doug used to play forthe Red Wings.
I think his son plays for theBoston Bruins, if I remember
correctly.
And um, I've got a book calledWin Win Selling Unlocking the
Power of Profitability byResolving Objections.
I wrote a whole book onphilosophy and psychology of
(47:54):
objections.
Um, that's been very wellreceived.
Um, and if you want to join ournewsletter, go to CEO Sales
Strategies.com forward slashnewsletter.
Uh we put out you know reallygood, thoughtful content on a
weekly basis.
SPEAKER_01 (48:09):
I love that.
I love it.
We're gonna take you up on that.
We're going to invite yourentire audience to tune in all
episodes of Follow the Brand.
You can do so at five star BDM.
That is the number five that'sStar S T R B for Brand, B for
Development, Informasters.com.
Thank you so much, Doug, forgracing us with your particular
(48:29):
philosophies, how you've been sosuccessful in a very tough
business.
Sales is not easy.
And I'm sure when you startedout, you had a full head of hair
just like I did.
SPEAKER_00 (48:43):
I joke about that all the time, you know.
Um, I can I leave the audiencewith one other piece here.
SPEAKER_01 (48:48):
Sure, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (48:50):
So, you know, it's interesting now because in my
life, my uh I have two daughtersuh who I love daily, and they
both decided they want to reallylearn about selling.
They're in their early 20s.
Um, and I've had the pleasurenow of starting to train them,
you know.
And okay, so they, you know,when they were little, I mean,
they hung around with, you know,Tony Robbins and they hung
(49:12):
around with people, you knowwhat I mean, like really
successful people.
So they were putting a ton ofpressure on themselves.
And I said to them, I said,you've got to make room for
mistakes in sales.
And that's kind of a message Iwant people to understand.
They said, Well, what do youmean?
I said, you know, I learned thisfrom Russ Whitney, very another
successful man.
Uh, he said, Doug, there'salways a large averages, you
(49:34):
know, you're gonna you're gonnawin some, you're gonna lose
some, you're gonna be brillianton some, you're gonna be kind of
duh on some, you know.
Uh, you got to just make roomfor it.
And I've I I do that.
And so I was teaching them thatas we were going through uh some
trainings together.
And uh, you know, I I I want topass that message along that no
(49:57):
matter what happens during theday, you're not gonna get it a
hundred percent.
So make room for it.
And it understand, you know,like people used to say this
when I was a kid, like, babeRuth used to strike out more
than he hit a home run, right?
And I'd be like, who is astrikeout?
Let's, you know, but I realizewhat they were saying now, which
(50:17):
is like the strikeouts are partof the actual process of being
able to hit the home run.
It's not like a directcomparison to strikeouts and you
know, home runs, right?
Which is what I used to think.
Now, what it is is you've got tomake room for some of the
strikeouts, some of the walks,some of the singles, the
doubles, the triples, you know,the I got hit by a pitch, you
(50:40):
know, that type of thing, aswell as a few grand slams,
right?
It's all in the law of theaverages.
And if you want to improve yourlaw of averages, you get better
at your skill, your mindset, andsome of the other, you know,
some of the things we weretalking about today.
And your lar of averages willactually improve.
SPEAKER_01 (51:00):
That's a hundred percent uh correct.
You've got to get the ad bat,right?
You got to get the ad batts nomatter what happens, as long as
you get at the at bat, you know,and sometimes you do hit the
ball that you didn't expect andit goes for a grand slam.
Like, wow, see that company.
But if you don't get up to up tobat and take that swing, you'll
never know.
(51:20):
So I want to thank you again forbeing on the show.
You take care of yourself.
And I'll see you again, myfriend, when I come up there to
visit New Hampshire.
SPEAKER_00 (51:28):
Oh, I'm I'm I'm bringing you out to lunch,
brother.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Take care.
You too.
Welcome everybody to the Fall Brand Podcast.
This is your host, GrantMcGaugh.
We're gonna take it all the wayback.
People don't know this, but Iused to live in New England.
I lived in Nashua, New Hampshirefrom 1991 to 1998.
Never forgot it.
Beautiful location, especiallyright now during the fall.
This is fall foliage time.
(00:22):
It is drop-dead gorgeous.
If you get a chance, you gottago through there.
So talking to my buddy here,Doug Brown.
He's telling me he lives inNashua, New Hampshire, which is
the exact town that I lived in.
Of course, we just had you knowgreat conversation just before
we jumped on.
Because this is so we're sellingthe New England experience right
(00:44):
now.
No, he's the CEO of SalesStrategy.
This guy knows what he's talkingabout.
I'm gonna let him introducehimself.
We're gonna have a candidconversation of what makes Doug
Doug.
SPEAKER_00 (00:55):
So, Doug, you like to introduce yourself?
Uh thanks, Grant.
Thanks for having me on.
I'm really grateful andappreciative.
And uh, it was fun talkingabout, you know, you you lived
literally like five miles fromwhere I live, so that was
awesome to know.
I'm I'm sad we didn't run intoeach other during the 90s
because I was definitely aroundhere.
SPEAKER_01 (01:14):
So excellent, excellent.
Now, people don't know.
I I learned this about you.
You've worked with giants likeTony Robbins and Proctor and
Gamble.
And my question is about how didthose experiences shape your
authority in the sales world?
(01:34):
And how can entrepreneurs buildauthority in industries where
there are where they're I wouldsay relatively unknown?
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
So it's helped my authority in a great deal,
right?
Because it's um it's like youknow, if we say Clint Eastwood,
right?
Everybody knows who ClintEastwood is.
And if we say, Oh yeah, youknow, I went to I went to high
school with Clint Eastwood, andpeople go, Well, do you know
him?
Oh yeah, yeah, we still talkevery once in a while, right?
Immediately that person getshigher authority in in many
(02:07):
people's minds, assuming theyrespect Clint Eastwood, right?
Um, so it's that you know, itnever ceases to amaze me.
And Grant, you may laugh on thisbecause, like, you know, I have
degrees uh in business, biology,and nuclear medicine.
And then I went to BerkeleyCollege in Boston for one
(02:30):
semester.
Yeah, and when people look up onmy LinkedIn profile, the
majority of them say two things.
Oh my god, you you know TonyRobbins, or or oh my goodness,
you went to Berkeley College ofMusic, you must be the most
outstanding musician ever.
And it's like right, so I wantpeople to think about the
(02:55):
association because many peopleknow who you know, Berkeley
College of Music, not everyone,but many people know who Tony
Robbins is, and they noteverybody, right?
So it's it's one of those thingsthat when people can associate
us to having a relationship witha known quantity, a known
entity, um, you know, itautomatically elevates our
(03:18):
status and our positioning inpeople's minds.
And it doesn't matter what therelationship is at that point,
it just it's just what people'sperception is.
Um, you know, our media is builton this, or you know, I mean,
the guy worldwide media is builton this.
Um, you know, I I was fortunate,I'll give you an example.
I was fortunate enough.
(03:40):
Uh, this gentleman's name isThomas Dolly Jr.
Thomas Dorley Jr.
built this company calledBraxton Industries.
They built it to a half billiondollars, uh, and now they're
called Deloitte.
Right.
And I know the gentleman and Ihad lunch with him three weeks
ago.
I, you know, he's just a niceguy.
He's in his 80s, he lives downin the in the Cape of
(04:01):
Massachusetts.
We met in Boston in in the umthe Italian North End section
and had a cup of coffee.
He, my wife, and we decidedwe're gonna do a live event
together.
So, you know, but I can I cansay, hey, I'm doing a live event
with a guy who now is calledDeloitte, you know, the
company's called Deloitte,right?
And automatically that elevatesmy positioning with people.
(04:27):
And so people will talk to youthat may not have talked to you
before, uh, you know, that typeof thing.
And so, I mean, it doesn't haveto be on like the high names, it
it helps, but I mean, just thefact that you lived in Nashua
and I lived in Nashua, right?
It elevates your status in mymind because I know we have
(04:48):
familiarity.
Right.
And and that's what authoritydoes.
It gives people familiarity andcreates a a perception of uh
this is probably safe and and Ican move forward.
So that's what I know it's donefor me.
Um, and you know, I I know itdoes for other people.
This is where you can commandhigher fees because people do
(05:10):
pay for celebrity, and it iskind of a celebrity thing.
It would be like if I said, uh,I don't know, uh, well, I mean,
give you an example.
Thomas Dorley Jr.
said, you know, I'll probably beable to get Mr.
Um Schultz, you know, the thethe foul, the one of the co, I
don't know if he was aco-founder, but he was the CEO
of Google.
(05:31):
Yes, right, and he said, I thinkI can get him to come speak.
And I'm like, that guy?
And he's like, Yeah, he's a goodfriend of mine.
I think he'll come and do it,you know.
And I said, Okay, like now wecan say we have the you know
Google CEO, right?
I mean, who in business wouldn'twant to listen to him about a
(05:52):
technology, you know,conversation, right?
So that's that's what it does,that's what celebrity does.
And how do you get it?
You get out into the publicsquare, you know, and you start
wherever you can and you gowherever you can, and you just
you say yes to things thataren't against your um, you
(06:12):
know, your your standing inlife, and you just get out.
You'd be surprised if you havelike you have something to say.
A lot of people give you a stageif you just ask.
SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
I I believe that you gotta have beliefs in who you
are, yes.
What you also said is that thatbridge, well, especially when
you're talking to someone thatyou haven't spoken to before,
right?
Had not spoken before, but yetwe were able to find a bridge,
and most salespeople will dothat.
Like, all right, I have to finda bridge of um something that's
(06:47):
similar, something that we bothcan relate to, that's relatable,
right?
So, hey, when you told me firstwe got talking about myself in
the Nebraska, you have to askthat question, how cold does it
get?
I said, Well, it is pretty cold.
It used to get pretty cold.
I don't know if it gets as coldas before.
They wouldn't give you thetemperature, they would say it's
cold as it's colder than man orbeast.
So that's to tell you that youshould not go outside and give
(07:09):
me an understanding oftemperature-wise.
But we established rapportimmediately and a bridge to,
okay, I think I can have agenuine conversation with
someone before you can get intowhat I call more intimate
conversation to get you toanother level.
You you definitely define thatvery, very well of establishing
(07:32):
authority as a brand ofyourself, your personal brand,
forward and forward.
Just bring something up that'scommon ground, that's genuine in
your view and aligns with yourbelief.
I want to switch the subjectjust a little bit because, in
your view, I want to ask youthis what separates a good sales
(07:52):
team?
And I've been on a lot of salesteam as someone who has been a
career business developmentprofessional for over 30 some
odd years.
The question is, what separatesa sales team that's simply good
from one that positions itselfas an undeniable authority in
the market?
SPEAKER_00 (08:14):
Oh, that's a great question.
Um, so a sales team whopositions itself as an
undeniable authority doesn'tactually mean that they're
actually better at selling thanthe the team that's actually
good.
Right.
So and I know this because I'veworked with a lot of brand
names, and I get into thesebrand names and I'm like, wow,
(08:38):
you guys don't know really howto sell, let's say, to a C-level
organization, you know, C level,right?
Or or you know, I just uh workedwith um some of the trades
companies recently, and some ofthem who have brand authority,
uh their sales team really isn'tthat good.
(09:01):
So, you know, it's kind of likeback in the day when Maytag was
like the big brand name, right?
And the Maytag people would walkin and say, Hey, we're from
Maytag, we're not the leastexpensive.
Let me tell you why.
Right.
Well, that's you know, I don'tknow if that's the greatest
positioning for a salesconversation, but I mean it
certainly was a goodinterruption, you know, to to
head the objection off ahead oftime.
(09:23):
But, you know, people who inMaytag, you know, they may not
be as good as you know, Arnie'sappliance company, who who
nobody's ever really heard ofexcept Arnie in the local area,
right?
Yeah, and so you know, that'sthat's the the positioning
(09:44):
really does come down to italways helps the sale.
I mean, if we think about thisjust on human nature, you know,
why do we accept a blind date?
Because the trust and authorityis conveyed through the person
who's saying, I want to set youup with my friend.
I think you two would get alongreally, you know, famously.
(10:04):
And so we go, all right, this isa safe situation.
I trust this person.
It is a referral, really, whenit comes down into sales.
So this positioning andauthority always will give us an
edge to have a different levelof status.
(10:26):
No matter even if, like, I, youknow, let's say we were doing a
live event together, Grant, andwe said, well, we're gonna do it
uh at the Biltmore Hotel.
Yeah, you know, and people willbe like, Oh, the Biltmore,
right?
They already know the brandbrand.
But you know, we could also saywe were gonna do it at you know,
Dave's loft, you know.
Now, Dave's loft might be a waynicer service and way better
(10:50):
than the Biltmore hotel, eventhough the Biltmore has
established a brand in that.
You know, I mean, at Dave's,they might like you know, drive
your car and park it for you andcarry your bags in and lay out
everything and iron yourclothing in the morning and you
know, bring you, you know, hotbreakfast to your room and not
charge you for it.
I mean, they they might be likebetter service even at Dave's,
(11:14):
but Dave will not be positionedas the Biltmore unless that
brand is built somehow.
And so when you think of theBiltmore, you think, oh geez,
I'm gonna pay a lot more moneyfor that.
And and and that's why peopledo.
I mean, why do people fly firstclass?
It's it's it's a status, it's anauthority type thing.
(11:36):
I only fly first class.
Chet Holmes, when I when I wasChet's president of training uh
sales and training, Chet toldme, he goes, I only fly first
class.
I'm like, Chet, we're flying anhour and a half, right?
He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna flyin first class.
I'm like, I'm not charging thecompany that we work together
in, you know, three thousanddollars to fly an hour and a
(11:57):
half.
I'll, you know, I'll sit inbusiness class for 500 bucks or
whatever, right?
And and so it's like, but youknow, he used to tell everybody
I only fly first class.
So when he was hired by people,they'd be like, I only get first
class tickets.
SPEAKER_01 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
It just raised his authority.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
Premium, right, right, right.
Uh, but I said, All right, youyou're a premium guy.
We're gonna, you know, we'regonna pay.
That's why one I go to my sportsanalogy.
Why one quarterback gets uh youknow a million dollars a year,
another quarterback's 20 milliondollars a year.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh there's there's some somestatus that goes with that, some
past performance that goes withthat.
(12:36):
There's a probability thatthey're gonna do it for me.
Uh no, no guarantee.
No, I'm a Steelers fan.
I'm hoping I get you know theHall of Fame Aaron Rodgers, but
there's no guarantee.
SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
No, no, see, now we're now we're gonna get it
because they just played thePatriots the other day.
And I'm I'm I'm still not happyabout the way the Patriots
played that game, let's put itthat way.
But um, but you're right.
I mean, you know, here's here'sthe thing I've learned too.
No matter where somebody is inthat authority status, it
(13:10):
doesn't mean they're going toperform better than the people
who are not.
I mean, I you know, listen, Ilove Chet Holmes.
Uh, you know, I've closed dealshe couldn't, right?
And he's helped me a great dealtoo.
So, you know, teamwork is is awonderful thing, but it does it
also doesn't mean that justsomebody who has had like he had
(13:31):
the best-selling sales book forseven years straight.
Yeah, you know, it doesn't meanthey don't make mistakes.
SPEAKER_01 (13:37):
No, they're human, exactly.
You know, so it's change a lotof times sales, it's timing,
it's situation, uh, whatever theyou know, tactical flaws,
strategic flow, there's a lot ofthings going on.
I want to talk to you about thisbecause I think this is
important, especially for a lotof people that are tuning in.
There are salespeople,salespeople I've worked with for
(13:58):
maybe 20 plus years, and theywant to hear this from a
professional like yourself.
Now, you face setbacks fromsending out, I think you said
like 300 plus resumes withoutsuccess, and then you pivoted
into entrepreneurship.
My question is, how isresilience played into your
(14:18):
success?
And how do you coach leaders tobuild that same type of muscle?
SPEAKER_00 (14:24):
Uh, you if you don't have resilience, you're you
know, that's that Chumpa Wambadid a song, I get knocked down
by get back up again, I thinkit's called right something.
I don't know what the name ofthe song is, but it, you know,
that is entrepreneurship.
You know, you know, was itthat's life was another song
(14:45):
that was done, you know, you'reyou're you're riding high in
April, shot down in May, right?
And you know, I'll give I'llgive an example.
I had a uh client uh up untiltwo years ago.
We were generating$1.4 million ayear with this client.
Um, I had been with this clientnow for seven years, and you
(15:09):
know, they grew in part becauseof our efforts.
You know, we are I built acommission sales team for these
people and managed it.
And you know, our commissionsoverall were like 1.4 million.
SPEAKER_01 (15:23):
Nice, right?
SPEAKER_00 (15:24):
And so that tells you what they, you know, we sold
a lot.
We were we were actually onethird of their revenue, and um
and so they came to me and theysaid, Listen, we're doing great.
We want to double our sales.
Okay, and I'm a math-based,metrics-based guy when it comes
to these things.
So I built out the plan and Ishowed it to them.
(15:44):
They go, Yep, let's do it.
And I said, Well, listen, thisis a big commitment on my side.
I've got to let a couple otherclients, you know, give them
notice.
I can't keep them because youknow, I don't have the like it's
not fair to the other clients,right?
So I said, So you sure we're in?
And they said, Yeah, no problem.
So I let the other clients go.
Okay, so this is a two milliondollar mistake.
(16:07):
I want people to understand thiscoming up front.
Okay.
So I let them go.
And then about two and a halfmonths into us growing their
company to double it, theydecided to hard hard pivot to a
completely new market.
Wow.
And they asked me, What do youthink?
(16:27):
And I said, Absolutely, don't dothis, it won't work.
Well, anyways, the company uh itdidn't work, and they tried it
and they kept staying with it.
I kept saying, Please get out ofthis, please get out of this,
please get out of this, let'spivot back and let's go, you
know.
And they didn't.
It eventually put them out ofbusiness.
And um, you know, they werelosing millions and millions and
(16:49):
millions of dollars.
We were still selling, but itwasn't at the levels we could
sell to sustain the amount ofemployees that were at the
company at the time.
And, you know, when we grew uhover the seven years, we
actually grew 7x.
So we were literally almostdoubling every single year.
And so so they went out ofbusiness.
(17:10):
So uh, well, they actually soldthe business.
They didn't they and they didn'ttell me they were selling the
business, they sold thebusiness.
So I woke up one day and theygo, Hey, we sold the business.
The the new company doesn't wantwhat we had before, you know,
we're we're done.
So within a year, I let go theother clients plus this client,
(17:30):
and it was a two million dollarloss.
unknown (17:33):
Wow, wow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:35):
Okay, so I don't tell this story to say, look how
smart I am.
I tell this story to let peopleknow, you know, this is the time
when you get knocked down.
So what do you do?
And you've got to get back upand realize that, okay, just
like when a storm cloud comesthrough, you know, a tornado
(17:57):
came through, it wreaked habiton the town, but the tornado's
gone now.
So now I can just keep talkingabout the tornado, or I can say,
okay, where do we rebuild fromhere?
And that's what we did.
And within a year, we actuallypivoted back, and another
opportunity opened up, whichactually turned out to be larger
(18:19):
than the opportunity we lost.
So if I lived in the past andI'm going, oh geez, look at this
happen, and that's gonna be, youknow, or I lived too far out in
the future and said, My gosh, wejust don't have two million
coming in, you know.
How am I gonna make payroll?
How am I gonna?
I mean, I ask these questions,don't get me wrong, but I didn't
(18:41):
live there.
You got to bring yourself intothe present moment and say,
okay, I'm here.
What do I do?
Whether you're on an island andyou're, you know, out in the
South Pacific, like uh TomHanks, I think was in the movie
Castaway, uh, or you know,whether you're just like sitting
at your house and you're like,okay, this you know, terrible
(19:01):
thing happened, understandthere's a I'm not a Buddhist,
but there's a la in Buddhismthat's like impermanence, I
believe I believe they call it.
It'll happen and then it moveson.
Right.
We've all had bad breakups inour lives of some sort, right?
It it hurt at the moment, youknow.
If we keep going back, and youknow, I think Al Bundy and the
(19:25):
uh Married with Children used tokeep saying, you know, I threw
three touchdowns at the highschool game, and you know, and
then I met Peggy and she ruinedmy life, right?
And right, that type of thing.
If we if we keep going back tothat, that's what I think Grant
gets people caught.
They keep holding on to thememories of what, if, or not
(19:47):
looking at just what could be,but focusing on now.
Definitely understand pain.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
And if you keep reliving that pain over and over
again, you've never really.
Allow yourself to heal, right?
And move forward.
Now, you what you just describedthere is major.
You know, you've got to putsomething, you've got to have
major belief in yourself to getyourself moving forward so
(20:14):
you're not stuck in that rut.
And I know a lot of salesleaders, they burn out when
they're under this kind ofpressure.
They just can't do this.
You know, I want to know, andI'm sure that people want to
know because you're as you'rebuilding back, you've got to
build this back up, and you'vegot to to to do this on a daily
basis.
What practices do you use or didyou use or recommend for
(20:39):
bouncing back when the numbersjust aren't hitting?
SPEAKER_00 (20:42):
Yeah.
So I credit Ted Turner to this,just so everybody knows.
Like Ted Turner, I rememberduring certain times in my life,
I read Ted Turner at one pointwas losing 20 million dollars a
day.
Wow.
At TNT, I believe it was.
Um, you know, and I think he wasstill married to um Jane Fonda.
(21:06):
Jane Fonda, right?
So I mean, his days couldn't beall that bad, right?
I mean, right.
So I think it's uh, you know, Ijust saw Jane Fonda, she's like
86 in a movie, and I mean shelooks amazing, like it's good
for you, Jane.
Um, and um, and the movie waswonderful, and uh it's I think
(21:29):
it was called Move, if Iremember correctly.
The here's the thing (21:31):
no matter how bad we have it, someone's
always got it worst.
You know, and so the first thingI look at is I I tried not to
get into that little pity partyof myself because we all can do
it, right?
So, you know, there are times Iliterally have closed the door,
walked into a closet, closed thedoor, and just screamed and got
(21:53):
it out, and then just opened thedoor and said, Okay, back to
work.
Okay, we and and Ted Turner,like he didn't seem rocked that
he was losing$20 million a day.
Where most of us, if we werelosing$20 million a day, I mean,
it'd be like life is complete,you know, like I can't go on,
right?
(22:13):
Um, but I've known a lot ofsuccessful people, and I didn't
know Ted Turner, I would love tomeet him.
Um but I know that they wentthrough ups and downs and ups
and downs, you know.
I mean, I remember seeing TonyRobbins extremely upset one day
(22:34):
um in Las Vegas, and I went,wow, Tony Robbins actually has
emotions beyond what he, youknow, he's a he's a normal
regular guy, right?
And and you know, and I respecthim a great deal, and he's done
phenomenally well and you knowhelped millions literally of
(22:55):
people.
You know, I've seen Chet Holmescome and say, Listen, you know
what?
Uh you can't, you know, we'vewe're twenty thousand dollars
over on this um invoice that wewere supposed to be for tech
support in a time where we hadcommitted a hundred thousand
dollars a month to spend out onradio ads, which was our twenty
(23:20):
thousand dollars more, right?
So we all get ourselves inplaces the one thing I can tell
people that absolutely works isyou focus not on the problem but
on the solution.
Now, what's the solution?
The solution is removing thecause to the problem.
(23:43):
And this, Grant, is where Ithink people get in trouble all
the time because they're tryingto solve the symptom of the
problem, versing at what is thecause of the problem?
And when you remove the cause ofa problem, you no longer have
the problem.
It's true.
Yeah, and so every day we've gotto wake up and we got to say,
okay, once we have identifiedthe cause, we remove that.
(24:06):
And from that point on,everything is what's under my
control that I can do today toget to where I want to go.
And we just put our nose in thatdirection and we take one step
forward each and every day.
I learned this from a man namedRichard Minovino.
Can I tell the story?
Because it was funny.
Yeah, go ahead.
(24:27):
So I'm in my 30s, I believe.
I'm uh I'm having challenges inbusiness with employees, with
government stuff, everythinggoing on.
And I'm sitting in his office.
Now, this is a man who was worthat the time$350 million.
(24:48):
And whatever forever reason, hejust mentored me.
Uh, I never asked him why, but Ithink I reminded him of a young
him.
He was like 30 something yearsolder than I was, and we would
just go down and talk.
And one day I'm like, you know,Dick, you know, this is going on
in my business, and this isgoing on in my business.
As I was telling him this wasgoing on, he was laughing.
(25:10):
And, you know, and I'm like, heat first it was just a chuckle.
It was like, ha ha ha ha.
Right.
And then as I'm going on there,I'm like, no, you know, I had
employees, they have 1099contracts, independent
agreements, and they went outand they claimed unemployment
benefits, and now the states areafter me.
And he's like, he's laughing andhe's getting louder and louder.
(25:31):
And and I got a littlefrustrated at one point, and I
said, Dick, I don't think you'rehearing me.
I got all these problems.
I mean, you got 315 employeesout on the field, out on that
field, you know, right on thatfloor out there.
And you've got all this, you gota 1,500 square foot office, oh,
1800 square foot office.
And I said, I said, I have allthese problems.
(25:51):
Are you hearing me?
Do you ever go through this?
And he he stopped laughing,Grant.
Like, whoop, like just quicklystopped laughing.
His eyes narrowed, kind of likeClint Eastwood in the movies,
yeah.
And he looked at me and he goes,son, every effing day of my
life.
And it like snapped me back.
So, like, I was like, What?
(26:12):
Like, you're a you know, 350million dollar guy.
Yeah, he's like, son, this iswhat you signed up for.
This is entrepreneurship.
Yeah, he's like, You're gonnahave ups and down days.
And then I asked him thisquestion why do people not get
what they want then?
(26:32):
And he said these words to me.
He said, Son, all you can do isknow what you want, and then
point your nose in thatdirection, and you keep your
nose pointed in that direction,and you keep taking a step every
day.
And I promise you, you're stillgonna go through the things
you're going through right now.
You're gonna get beat up,knocked down.
(26:53):
People are not gonna believe inyou.
Some people will.
You just keep walking.
He said, I promise you twothings, and then, well,
actually, three things.
I promise you, it's gonna takeyou two to three times longer
than you figure it's gonnahappen.
Yeah, it will cost you two tothree times more than you
thought it was going to costyou.
And if you keep walking,eventually you will get there.
SPEAKER_01 (27:16):
Man, golden wisdom right there when it comes to
resilience, but understandingwhat it is that you truly want
in my world, I call it the NorthStar.
If you truly want to reach thatNorth Star, you truly want to
get there, you're gonna have togo through a lot more than you
(27:36):
probably realize that you'regoing to do, but is it worth the
stretch, right?
Is it worth all the pain andanguish you're gonna go through
to get there?
Is the payoff going to be whatyou expect it, you know, to be?
This this is very, veryimportant to understand this.
Now, you you've created andworked with a lot of uh uh
(27:59):
important projects, important inpeople.
Um you know, and and I want tocome up talk about your vision
because right there is that yougotta have a very powerful
vision and you've got to makethat vision come to light
authentically, right?
Yeah.
So, what's your long-term visionfor reshaping out companies like
(28:21):
today?
I think maybe we're losing somelike human-to-human connection
because of AI.
I think people don't realize howimportant that is.
But how do you see this approachto sales in the enterprise space
changing?
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
Or maybe I'm well, you know, I always tell people
they go, What do you think ofAI?
And I go, AI can't producebabies, right?
So I've had some technologypeople say, not yet, right?
I'm like, all right, well, um,so you know, here's the thing.
(28:59):
Um, I'm just gonna take a drink.
Sinus infection, not fun.
So here's the thing.
Uh we're still selling to humanbeings, not titles.
(29:20):
The challenge for most people isthey think they're selling to a
CEO or they're selling to achief whatever or whatever
level.
And they forget that there's twothings in every sale.
A uh a business return oninvestment and a personal return
(29:46):
on investment.
Human-to-human selling is aboutthe personal return on
investment.
But most people forget it.
So let me give an example.
We might be going in to sell acompany a certain protocol that
(30:07):
will, you know, reduce overheadwithout reducing headcount, and
which will increase theprofitability by X.
There's the business return oninvestment.
SPEAKER_01 (30:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (30:24):
But if that personal return on investment is they
want safety and security, andwe're not addressing that, we
will get things like you knowwhat, might not be in the budget
right now.
You know what, we might have tolook at this again next year.
You know what?
I I need to confer with acouncil on this, you know.
(30:46):
Um, you know, give me a proposaland let me see what it looks
like, right?
You'll hear things like that.
And the personal return oninvestment could be whatever
they deem it to be, grant,right?
So it's it's one of those thingsthat it's personal to them.
Maybe, maybe they want higherrepute.
(31:08):
Maybe they want to have a betterstanding in the community of
which they serve.
So, how does our sale actuallyhelp that?
You know, if, for example, ifthey wanted higher authority,
higher repute, and we were like,listen, we can increase your
profitability, and we can takepart of that profitability, and
(31:30):
we can put you on Grants podcastand 15 other podcasts, we can
get Authority Magazine to do anarticle on you, and we can use
that, you know, these things todo that, that might be enough
for the personal ROI to actuallykick it over the top.
But I see, you know, but ifthey're like worried about the
(31:51):
board and losing their job, ifthis goes wrong, because they
promised their kids they weregonna send them to Harvard or
Stanford and they were gonna payfor all of this, or you know,
whatever it is for them.
If we don't find that out as aseller, we're missing it.
(32:13):
And I think that's where peoplemiss it all the time.
And you know, that's never gonnago away.
So AI can replace routine,repetitive workflow tasks and do
it amazingly well.
I love AI, I mean, I use it allthe time.
Um, you know, I mean, it cutsdown a research project that I'm
(32:34):
doing from you know hours tominutes.
Right, right.
Um AI will replace certainthings that are routine in the
future of you know, evenappointment setters and things
like that.
Will it replace all appointmentsetters?
I don't believe so, um, to beseen, but it's just the
(32:56):
technology, right?
And we've had technology all thetime that has been rapidly
changing the landscape.
Moving pictures changedvaudeville, right?
Um the television replaced a bigpart of radio, right?
(33:17):
Now streaming is replacing whatwe knew as traditional
television.
You know, you can just go up onan app, right?
So it's not something to fear,and the vision around that is
not something to fear, but thevision of communicating with
human beings forever and everand ever, I it will not go away.
Like, you know, again, AI can'tmake babies, right?
(33:39):
I mean, human emotion is whatcreates babies, and that's never
ever going to, I don't believe,ever change.
I think you know, we're gonnaremove you know humans from
human beings.
Uh, I I don't, I just don't seethat working out, and so it's
when it's a complex conversationor or an involved conversation,
(34:01):
I think.
I mean, if the pandemic taughtme anything, yes, it's people
want to get back together.
SPEAKER_01 (34:08):
True, right?
Well, because I've been intechnology for 25, 30 years, I
understand exactly what you'resaying.
It's kind of technology changescertain things, it'll change the
landscape, but it's changing thehuman story.
You know, this human story stillcontinues.
AI is very good for me, it'sabout amplification and
(34:28):
refinement.
Uh, it can do very, very good inthose areas, but for what
purpose?
And that is to enhance thehuman-to-human interaction, to
get human beings to be morecritical thinkers, to dig or dig
deep into their humanity andbring things out that weren't
always so obvious.
I think that's so, so importantand to understand.
(34:50):
Now, here's my last question foryou, because this is very
important, and I want myaudience to truly understand
this.
You have built over 36 companiesand helped generate more than a
billion dollars in sales.
This is the Doug Brown story,right?
And for leaders listening rightnow who want to grow revenue in
(35:10):
the next 90 days, what's themost actionable step that they
can execute immediately withoutovercomplicating the process?
SPEAKER_00 (35:24):
Okay, that's a big question.
So I'm gonna answer, I'm gonnaanswer it to the to what I know
of it in the context of whatwe're talking about.
So the first thing is let's geta truthful goal.
What is the actual thing we wantto grow by?
I see so many peoplehyperinflate the actual truthful
(35:48):
goal that they never get it offthe ground enough to get to that
particular goal, right?
So we we're talking 90 days.
Like I I had a I had a gentlemancome he was talking to me the
other day, well, actually threeweeks ago now, and he's like
seven million dollars.
And I said, Well, where do youwant to be uh by the end of the
(36:10):
year?
And he goes, I want to be at 12.
And I'm like, We're in August,so that's August to September,
September to October, November,December to January.
We're talking a four and a half,five months.
You want to go from seven totwelve million, and he said,
Yes.
And I said, Well, what happensif you don't hit 12?
(36:33):
What's what what number wouldyou be happy with?
He goes, eight and a half.
Okay.
It's like, I'm like, hello.
Like, you know, and then hegoes, Well, I'd really like
nine.
And I'm like, okay, so we reallydon't know the number yet,
(36:54):
right?
So that's I know this soundslike basic, and but it is one of
those things, Grant, that justpeople don't they don't do it.
They're like, yo, I wanna I wantto date a Dallas Cowboys
cheerleader.
It's like, do you really?
I mean, you don't know anythingabout the Dallas Cowboys.
I'm sure they're nice ladies,you know.
(37:15):
Um, so you know, in in thereality is what they're looking
for is a close connectedrelationship with another human
being, right?
And so I think it's one of thosethings that if we don't define
that, then how do we build aplan off for something that's
fictitious?
We do, like my$2 million fauxpas, right?
(37:35):
I've so it's and I'm not sayingthis because I have made the
mistake, don't make the mistake.
I'm saying because I've workedwith so many companies and all
of our own businesses, this isthe first place to start.
Okay.
Once you get there, it's like,okay, so how do we get there?
It's easy.
Math, right?
We want to go from here to here.
(37:56):
What are the math, what are theKPIs or the metrics we want to
hit?
And then what is the math thatneeds to go behind that?
How many, like, is our salesteam, for example, if we had a
sales team uh and they'reoutreaching today um 20 people a
day?
I'm just making up the number.
Is it possible to get them toreach out to 26 a day?
(38:19):
Yes, it is.
Aha.
All right, great.
So if we can get them to go out26 a day, how many people can
they connect with?
How many people can they getpositive responses from?
How can we increase ourappointment ratio at that point?
Because if we have a staticclose rate, let's say it's 21 in
four, we have a static closerate of one in four, but I can
(38:40):
now push volume through thefront end of that for every four
people that we have anappointment with, we know we're
gonna get one more sale.
Right?
So it's predictable once westart looking at the metrics.
This is super critical.
If somebody doesn't want to gothrough that portion and they're
(39:01):
just like, hey, I just want toraise my sales in the next 90
days.
Look at the things that you'resitting on right now.
I'll tell you one of them willprobably be your dormant clients
that you haven't paid attentionto for a long time.
Go back to every single one ofthose clients and just call them
and say, Hey, we haven't talkedin a while.
(39:22):
I'd just like to catch up.
Sure.
And you will spawn new business.
Uh, your follow-up ratios, howare you following up?
If I ask the question out of 12months, how many times do you
follow up with your currentclients, your current buyers?
I know the average on mostpeople is between one and four,
with the average average beingabout two.
(39:44):
And guess what?
There's money sitting there.
Yeah.
You know, so there's some simplethings to do.
After that kind of clears thenight first 90 days, and we
built the plan, the next step inthat process is we To really
take a look at who's our idealright fit buyer, because I can
tell you most companies, uh, inpart or in full, don't know it.
(40:09):
And I thought it was like a bigdeal, and then I did some
research grant, and to give theaudience the research data,
Harvard Business School, WhartonBusiness School, you name the
big companies, marketingcompanies out there, or
whatever, they've done thesestudies, and they all conclude
the same thing.
And I was shocked by thenumbers.
(40:29):
97% of people selling don't knowin part or in full their ideal
right fit buyer.
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (40:37):
That's that's huge.
SPEAKER_00 (40:39):
So if we if we're talking the wrong message to the
wrong buyer or the wrong messageto the right buyer, or we're
talking to the the wrong buyerwith the right message, then
we're going to be off.
And so now we're spending a lotmore money than we need to, and
a lot more energy and time.
Once we dial that thing in, itit's crazy, like crazy good.
(41:02):
And I'm and I will tell people,you know, I've worked with you
know solo entrepreneurconsultants who have not had
this right, and big companieslike um Intuit didn't have it
right.
Intuit, please don't sell me,uh, sue me, um, on that.
But you know, but when we dialedit in, it it literally went from
(41:25):
a multi-million dollar loss to a$10 million gain, right?
In in one year.
So it is one of those thingsthat you know that's kind of the
process in the beginning ofgetting it going.
And then obviously you got to beable to hold accountability to
making sure it goes through.
That's kind of the short answer,but that was a big question.
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
That a lot of people have the metric you just get 97%
people don't know who they'reselling to.
And the misalignment ofmessaging, I see that a lot.
I always used to I used to fightwith my marketing team, you
know, in sales.
You're like, that that thatyou're like, I need something to
be able to put in front of aclient that's willing to buy our
stuff, but your messaging andwhat you just said right here
(42:12):
doesn't is that's not it.
You know, it's off.
And what you just said earlierabout knowing who you're selling
to, especially because theC-suite has a whole different
sort of circumstances than whatyou call your your suite of SVPs
or vice presidents and directorsand managers.
They're all you have to knowyour audience in order to uh
(42:33):
position what you're uh selling,whether it's a product or
service, to the right audience.
It makes such a big difference.
I kind of lied, I said that'sgonna be my last question.
I have one more question.
I have to ask you this becauseit's so important to me.
You said earlier, you've been on500 different podcasts, you've
given all kinds of interviews.
(42:54):
This is your first opportunityto be on the Follow Brand
Podcast.
What did you think of thisinterview?
SPEAKER_00 (43:00):
Oh, all right.
This is where you slip me thehundred dollars.
Go ahead.
Okay, it's in the mail.
Um you know, I've enjoyed this,and and I'm being sincere.
I've enjoyed this interviewimmensely.
And you've asked uh reallythought-provoking questions that
(43:22):
I haven't been asked on manyother podcasts where it's like I
really had to like, oh wow, letme think deeply about this
because this question is is uhgoing to be not only important
for the people listening that Igive, you know, what I know to
be accurate information, right?
(43:43):
Um, but it actually made mereally think about okay, is this
accurate information about whatI'm supposed to say?
Right.
So I really think a great dealabout uh what our interview has
been.
Uh, and um I will continue tothink about it after after our
conversation because here's thething when I do these podcasts,
(44:04):
uh, people ask questions, andsometimes I go, where the heck
did that answer come from?
Like that was brilliant.
Oh wow, geez, I didn't know thatwas there, right?
That type of thing.
Or sometimes I listen back and Igo, you know, that was close,
but it really wasn't, you know,there.
On our answers here, I I keeptelling myself this was you know
(44:25):
spot on, right?
So I uh I appreciate your notonly your style and your and the
ability to ask questions, butjust the the conversation I
think that we're having is soimportant to anybody, whether
they're a you know, asalesperson selling, a solo
entrepreneur, uh, you know, oruh running a uh you know a large
(44:46):
corporation, they're allimportant jobs and we're all
human beings and everybody haswants, needs, desires, and
fears.
And uh, you know, those of youwho might be in a sales position
and you're thinking your CEO ofa company doesn't wake up and
go, oh my gosh, you know, uh, orI've got a board meeting today,
or I've got, you know, I've gotto, you know, raise funds on
(45:09):
this.
Or, and if you're a CEO and youdon't realize that your
salespeople are waking up everyday thinking similar things,
like, man, I gotta, how am Igonna hit quota?
How am I gonna boost past quota?
How am I gonna get this, youknow, this bonus structure that
you put in?
Kindly thank you, uh, you know,so that I can, you know, send my
kid to you know Europe orwhatever, right?
(45:31):
We we all have these things.
And, you know, I I don't want tosay that you know, I'm a
humanitarian type guy, Grant,but it's you know, I am in a lot
of a lot of ways.
But I just believe, and maybeit's I'm getting older, but this
podcast is uh deep in thethought of what I believe life
(45:52):
really is about, which is youhave a limited number of days on
this earth to not fear where youreally want to go, take action
on what you want to do, and tomeasure the days of ratio of
happiness to BS that you live ona daily basis, and to put
(46:14):
yourself in a place where thethose days of happiness are are
are higher uh than the days ofthe BS, because to me that's
kind of the purpose of life atthis point, you know.
And I look back at all thebusinesses we built and all the
stuff we went through, and youknow, I listen to a lot of um,
you know, people who have beensuccessful getting there, and
(46:37):
many of them say the same thing,you know.
I'm glad I'm here, but I wish Ihad done this differently.
You know, I wish I had takenmore time to enjoy life because
it goes woof bye, you know.
So to me, this podcast has justkind of like reinforced that
whole process.
So I thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (46:52):
I want to thank you for being on the Father Brand
Podcast.
Now, you've got to tell theaudience how to contact you, and
and and and I'm definitelyletting my audience know uh that
as well.
So, what is the best way to geta hold of Doug Brown?
SPEAKER_00 (47:09):
Uh you can reach out to me directly by email at Doug
at CEO SalesStrategiesplural.com, you know,
so salesstrategies.com.
Um, I'm Doug Brown123 onLinkedIn.
If you type in Doug C.
Brown online, uh I'll I'll beeverywhere.
Um, you know, honestly, notbraggandocious, but consciously
(47:32):
have been putting myself there.
Uh, if you type Doug Brown,you're gonna come up with a
professional hockey player, andI can't skate to save my soul.
Um, so uh Doug used to play forthe Red Wings.
I think his son plays for theBoston Bruins, if I remember
correctly.
And um, I've got a book calledWin Win Selling Unlocking the
Power of Profitability byResolving Objections.
I wrote a whole book onphilosophy and psychology of
(47:54):
objections.
Um, that's been very wellreceived.
Um, and if you want to join ournewsletter, go to CEO Sales
Strategies.com forward slashnewsletter.
Uh we put out you know reallygood, thoughtful content on a
weekly basis.
SPEAKER_01 (48:09):
I love that.
I love it.
We're gonna take you up on that.
We're going to invite yourentire audience to tune in all
episodes of Follow the Brand.
You can do so at five star BDM.
That is the number five that'sStar S T R B for Brand, B for
Development, Informasters.com.
Thank you so much, Doug, forgracing us with your particular
(48:29):
philosophies, how you've been sosuccessful in a very tough
business.
Sales is not easy.
And I'm sure when you startedout, you had a full head of hair
just like I did.
SPEAKER_00 (48:43):
I joke about that all the time, you know.
Um, I can I leave the audiencewith one other piece here.
SPEAKER_01 (48:48):
Sure, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00 (48:50):
So, you know, it's interesting now because in my
life, my uh I have two daughtersuh who I love daily, and they
both decided they want to reallylearn about selling.
They're in their early 20s.
Um, and I've had the pleasurenow of starting to train them,
you know.
And okay, so they, you know,when they were little, I mean,
they hung around with, you know,Tony Robbins and they hung
(49:12):
around with people, you knowwhat I mean, like really
successful people.
So they were putting a ton ofpressure on themselves.
And I said to them, I said,you've got to make room for
mistakes in sales.
And that's kind of a message Iwant people to understand.
They said, Well, what do youmean?
I said, you know, I learned thisfrom Russ Whitney, very another
successful man.
Uh, he said, Doug, there'salways a large averages, you
(49:34):
know, you're gonna you're gonnawin some, you're gonna lose
some, you're gonna be brillianton some, you're gonna be kind of
duh on some, you know.
Uh, you got to just make roomfor it.
And I've I I do that.
And so I was teaching them thatas we were going through uh some
trainings together.
And uh, you know, I I I want topass that message along that no
(49:57):
matter what happens during theday, you're not gonna get it a
hundred percent.
So make room for it.
And it understand, you know,like people used to say this
when I was a kid, like, babeRuth used to strike out more
than he hit a home run, right?
And I'd be like, who is astrikeout?
Let's, you know, but I realizewhat they were saying now, which
(50:17):
is like the strikeouts are partof the actual process of being
able to hit the home run.
It's not like a directcomparison to strikeouts and you
know, home runs, right?
Which is what I used to think.
Now, what it is is you've got tomake room for some of the
strikeouts, some of the walks,some of the singles, the
doubles, the triples, you know,the I got hit by a pitch, you
(50:40):
know, that type of thing, aswell as a few grand slams,
right?
It's all in the law of theaverages.
And if you want to improve yourlaw of averages, you get better
at your skill, your mindset, andsome of the other, you know,
some of the things we weretalking about today.
And your lar of averages willactually improve.
SPEAKER_01 (51:00):
That's a hundred percent uh correct.
You've got to get the ad bat,right?
You got to get the ad batts nomatter what happens, as long as
you get at the at bat, you know,and sometimes you do hit the
ball that you didn't expect andit goes for a grand slam.
Like, wow, see that company.
But if you don't get up to up tobat and take that swing, you'll
never know.
(51:20):
So I want to thank you again forbeing on the show.
You take care of yourself.
And I'll see you again, myfriend, when I come up there to
visit New Hampshire.
SPEAKER_00 (51:28):
Oh, I'm I'm I'm bringing you out to lunch,
brother.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Take care.
You too.
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