September 22, 2025 • 54 mins
What separates successful business owners from those who struggle despite their technical expertise? John Preston tackles this question head-on in this eye-opening conversation with Pete Chow on the RTO Show, introducing his unconventional business guide "40 Flushes to Grow Your Business."
Preston shares a fundamental truth that many entrepreneurs aren't ready to hear: your skill level has surprisingly little correlation with business success. "A bad plumber who knows how to run a business is going to be much more successful than a great plumber who doesn't," he explains, challenging listeners to shift their focus from technical expertise to business acumen.
The conversation explores five critical metrics that determine business profitability: lead generation, conversion rate, frequency of use, revenue per transaction, and profit margin. Preston emphasizes that pursuing volume (more customers) rather than profitability is a common mistake that can sink a business as quickly as having too few customers. He provides practical frameworks for understanding which of these metrics needs attention in your specific business situation.
Perhaps most valuable is Preston's insight on separating personal finances from business finances—creating what he visualizes as a brick wall between two piggy banks. This separation not only leads to better business decisions but also provides emotional stability at home. "Your personal expenses should not dictate your business decisions," he warns, explaining how "lifestyle creep" during good times creates vulnerability when inevitable business fluctuations occur.
The discussion takes a surprising turn when Preston reveals that internal struggles—self-doubt, fear, and decision paralysis—often prove more challenging than external business obstacles. His simple experiment with random alarms throughout the workday reveals how much time is spent thinking about work rather than doing productive work that moves the business forward.
Ready to transform your approach to business? Visit 40flushes.com to get Preston's book, or check out his free course on handling customer objections at ihateobjectionscom. Subscribe to the RTO Show for more insights that will help you keep collections low and sales high.
www.TheRTOshowPodcast.com For swag and information
Pete@thertoshowpodcast.com
Facebook - The RTO Show
Instagram - the_rto_show
Linkedin - The RTO Show
Youtube - The RTO Show Podcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the RTO show.
I'm your host, pete Chow, andtoday I have a special guest
that's going to talk to us alittle bit about business, but
in a very unique light.
Now I have John Preston here,who has actually released
printed media.
He's got a book.
He's got some great things totalk about, but the book that
we're going to talk about today,and how it's going to affect
(00:21):
you, is the 40 flushes to growyour business.
It's an actual.
It actually caught me bysurprise.
It was something that I heard.
I was like you know what?
That is very interesting.
So, mr Preston, john, how areyou doing today?
I'm glad that you're on theshow.
Why don't you tell me where didyou get this idea from and how
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, actually it's an idea that's been brewing for
a long time.
You know, I work with a lot ofbusiness owners over the years,
and one of the things that I'veseen across all industry types
is people are very good at whatthey do, but they're not so good
at running a business doing it.
You know, there's norequirement out there that says
I need to know how to run abusiness before I start a
(01:00):
business.
So so often somebody is verygood at what they do Maybe
they're a good plumber and theythink, well, I want to work for
myself.
So they start a plumbingbusiness, but they never learned
how to run a business, and thereality is, as much as we wish
it was otherwise, is that howgood you are has very little to
do with whether you're going tohave a successful business or
(01:22):
not.
A bad plumber who knows how torun a business is going to be
much more successful than agreat plumber who doesn't, and
so I've always wondered how canwe get an education to some of
these business owners about someof the basics in a way that's
(01:43):
not intimidating and doesn'ttake up a lot of time, because
you know when you're runningyour business let's say you're a
roofer.
You get up six o'clock in themorning, you get everything
ready, you go meet your crew ateight.
You get up on the roof.
You're working all day long.
You come in at six, youcollapse, eat supper, collapse
on the couch.
There's not really a windowthere for learning and in
(02:07):
addition to that, at some pointsome people may not even realize
they don't know you don't knowwhat you don't know.
And some people are intimidatedby some of these big books or
these courses or anything likethat.
And I've just spent a lot oftime trying to figure out what
tool could I create that wouldbreak that barrier, that would
(02:31):
get through to those businessowners in a way that was
unintimidating, and that's kindof how the bathroom reader came
along.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, that's actually what really caught my eye,
because I can't tell you howmany times that I've seen that
there's a lot of entrepreneursin the rent-to-own space that
are like I know how to do this,I know how to rent and I know
how to collect, and those arethe two main things.
What they don't understand isthere's payroll, there's leasing
, there's insurances, there'sall kinds of things that come
along with that, and then on topof that, you can't run your
(03:00):
business and be in your business.
You have to do one or the other, and so if you're the best
salesperson, you're not leadingthe show.
That really makes it difficultto kind of happen.
So as we stumble across this, Isee 40 flushes on how to grow
your business, and it really gotme thinking.
Where did that idea for 40flushes come from?
Is that like a bathroom readerthat'll put me in the driver's
(03:21):
seat on how to handle mybusiness?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It actually is, yeah, and in fact every day is broken
down into a flush.
So on the first day of readingthe book, you've got flush
number one.
And flush number one, I think,is directly, right out of the
box, relevant to what your guysdo.
When you look at it, the veryfirst thing that a business
(03:49):
owner has to recognize is howimportant it is for them, to be
a business owner, to wear thathat.
You know, when you're a smallbusiness, there's a lot of hats
to be worn.
There's the technician thatneeds to fix everything, there's
the person running the floor,there's inventory management.
If you're the person on thefloor handling the renting and
(04:28):
dealing with customers, you'vegot certain expectations and
certain needs and certain risklevels that are involved with
what you do.
If you're the person managingresources, if you're the one
keeping the books, you look atthings differently.
It's all about conserving, it'sall about keeping this small
area in control.
But if you're the businessowner, you have to look at it
(04:51):
and say what do I need to do toget my business from where it is
today to where I want it to be10, 20 years from now?
And that requires an entirelydifferent hat and a different
way of thinking, and whathappens too often is business
owners don't put that hat onoften enough and they get caught
(05:14):
with the other roles whichthey're not looking.
Those roles are designed to getyou through today and they're
not looking into the future.
So, right out of the bat, thevery first flush takes a look at
all of these different hatsyou're wearing and it does so in
a fun way.
That's the thing about the bookis I want it to be very
(05:35):
unintimidating.
I don't want it to be somethingthat challenges people's
worldview to the point wherethey're like, oh, I'm just not
going to learn that.
I want it to kind of slip in ina fun way and just makes them
think about their business.
So, like on that chapter, forexample, that flush at the end
of it, as with all the flushes,there's a series of questions
(05:58):
where you can take that day'slesson and reflect on how it
affects your business and how itcan relate to your business.
Now, odds are, all 40 flushesaren't going to be something you
can directly implement ordirectly do with your business,
but I'm hoping if you can get 20to 30 of them that do make you
(06:19):
look at your business in anentirely different way that
you've got a much better chanceof surviving.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So when you say 40 flushes, somebody is going to
sit down and the idea is, in 40flushes to have a better
business acumen than they didbefore.
The first flush, now flushes,we're saying chapters and
they're going through.
Now these flushes, how longdoes on average do they take?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, here's the thing we all know that all of
our bathroom visits are varyinglengths.
So if you're somebody that getsin and out quickly, you're
going to be able to handle thatflush in probably five minutes.
I mean, it's about a 300 wordnarrative that explains that
problem or that issue or thatconcept.
(07:01):
You've got a cartoon which kindof marries with the narrative.
That's fun.
You've got a joke relating tothat which makes it memorable.
You've got a little haiku that Iwrite just to kind of get
catchy in your brain, and then apoem, and so all of that can be
really looked at in three tofour minutes and really absorb
the concept.
The real time variable there isthe reflecting on your business
(07:27):
and taking that concept andputting it against what you're
currently doing and what you'vethought in the past and figuring
out is there some way I canmake changes in my business that
reflect this lesson, that willmake me more competitive in the
market or will increase my salesor will allow me to keep my
(07:49):
expenses down or will affect thebrand in the community and the
way people see my business, andthat, obviously, if you're a
real introspective person, youcould spend hours thinking about
most people.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, won't, but you could, yeah, so what could I
expect to see inside that?
I mean, obviously the firstthing you start off is you're
right, just because I'm good atsomething doesn't mean I'm good
at running it.
I think that's the first thingthat some people don't
understand is that just becauseyou do it well doesn't mean that
you can manage a business well.
So let's take that aspect andsay, okay, within 40 different
(08:23):
chapters or different timeframes, I'm going to get better.
What is something that somebodywould come across in these
series of flushes that you knowyou think is going to be
paramount to get them from pointA to point B?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I tell you there's going to I mean different
businesses are going to comeacross different things that
affect them.
I mean there's nothing in therethat gets really into the
technical aspects of yourspecific business.
So a lot of that is reflection,but there are some basic
fundamentals of business thatreally haven't changed.
(08:55):
You know, everybody thinks allthe time we're in this fast
changing world and we are butwhat's changing are the tools,
not the concepts, so the toolswe use to implement that.
So in this there is a lot ofmarketing, because marketing is
an area where logic doesn'talways apply.
(09:16):
A lot of people have beliefsabout marketing, beliefs about
how advertising works, andthey're just wrong.
Marketing beliefs about howadvertising works, and they're
just wrong.
That common sense would tellyou it does this, but that's not
the way it works, and sothere's a lot of that marketing
that comes into play, and one ofthe things I spend a lot of
time on is helping businessowners understand that their
(09:41):
goal in business is not to havea lot of customers, and that's
an area that a lot of peoplefall short on, because they
operate their business forvolume and ultimately, the goal
of the business should be forprofit, and not always are those
(10:05):
two the same?
Sometimes they are, but most ofthe time they're not.
In fact, there are almost asmany businesses in the country
every year that fail becausethey have too many customers
than fail because they don'thave enough.
Because if you've got a lot ofcustomers but they're not profit
generators for you, they end upcreating more work and expense
(10:30):
in smaller margins.
So you want to make sure, asyou plan out your business, that
you're recognizing that not allcustomers are created equal,
that there are customers thatproduce profit, and then there
are customers that produceprofit, and then there are
customers that produce overheadand work and so.
So that's a real key theme inthere is to be able to honestly
(10:51):
take a look at your business andsay here are the changes that I
need to make to drive my profitand here is the marketing
strategy I'm going to use tomake those changes.
Here is the marketing strategyI'm going to use to make those
changes.
(11:13):
You know there are five metricsthat come into play with every
business that determines itsprofit.
I don't care if you're Walmartor Lisa's Lemonade Stand.
It's first of all, how manyleads does your business have?
How many people know what youdo, know about you and know they
need or want that service.
That's the first thing.
How many people are in thatgroup?
And that's your number of leads.
(11:35):
And obviously some campaignswill increase your leads and
that's a great use ofadvertising.
But that's not the only use ofadvertising and sometimes you
may have all the leads you wantbut you don't have.
The second of those componentsis conversion.
What's your closing rate?
How many of those leads do youconvert to customers?
(11:57):
And so you know, maybe you'vegot a bunch of leads but they're
all going to your competitor orsomething else.
So what's your conversion ratethere?
The third thing is how oftenthey use you.
Does somebody use me?
If you're a rent to own, let'ssay it's a big screen TV or
whatever, whatever the productis, does somebody use you once
(12:22):
and then next time go to Walmart?
Or do they love the service youoffered and they come back to
you for all their needs?
How often do they use you?
Now, when you look at thosethree and you combine them, that
gets your total number oftransactions as a business.
The fourth element is what'syour revenue per transaction
when somebody decides to dobusiness with you, how much
(12:44):
money do they give you what'syour total revenue?
And then, once you figure outthe total revenue, the fifth one
is what's your profit margin?
How much of that money that Icollected from customers do I
get to keep?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Now do you break that down per transaction?
You're saying that not only toknow on a monthly basis or
whatever the case is, but youthink you're saying that not
only to know on a monthly basisor whatever the case is, but you
think you're saying thatknowing the profit on a
transactional period or-.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Not on an individual transaction, but on the
aggregate, on your total.
I mean, if you look atmathematically now, I don't know
, I tried to stay away from mathbecause a lot of people go
glassy-eyed when you starttalking math but when you look
at it, if you take your totalnumber of leads and multiply by
(13:31):
your conversion rate, that tellsyou how many customers you have
.
If you take your customers andmultiply that by how often they
use you, that gives you yourtotal transactions.
If you take your totaltransactions and multiply that
by how much the averagetransaction generates in revenue
(13:52):
, you've got your total revenue.
And then you take your profitmargin against that and that
tells you how much money you getto take home at the end of the
day.
And what most people don'trealize is you can use marketing
to drive any of those fivemetrics.
So what you can do is if youtake a look at your business and
(14:12):
you kind of now, you're not,it's not an exact science You're
not going to be able to say Ihave exactly four thousand two
hundred and twelve leads rightnow, but you can have a ballpark
in terms of how familiar youare with your, how familiar the
community is with your businessand then you look at that and
you do all that, you can say,hey, everybody knows who I am.
(14:34):
I've been around here for 20years.
Everybody knows who I am, theyknow what I do, they know what
services I offer, but for somereason they're going to somebody
else for these needs.
Well then, your campaign needsto focus on giving people a
reason to use you instead ofsomebody else.
So your strategy targets that.
(14:57):
Or maybe you're a businessyou've got plenty of customers,
but they only think of coming toyou for certain items.
So your campaign in that regardcould actually target your
current customers and help themrealize that, hey, I'm glad you
come here for this, but guesswhat else we offer that you
(15:17):
could come here and use?
And often that's the fastestroute to growth because you've
got customers who already trustyou.
So you've got that.
Or maybe you realize my gosh,people keep coming in here and
getting these low-end, cheapitems and my margin's not very
high on there.
What if I focus on marketingjust my big ticket items?
(15:38):
So now I start to manipulate myrevenue per transaction and
then on profit margin, there'sthings you can do there those
require a little bit morecreativity.
I don't know that it wouldnecessarily apply to the
rent-to-own world.
But say, for example, I'm aheating and air company and my
(16:00):
marketing consists onadvertising on the nearest big
city's TV station.
Well, I'm suddenly reachingcustomers who are three and four
hours away from me.
Well, look at the added overheadthat comes with that travel and
wear and tear on vehicles andhousing and per diem with your
(16:22):
crew and all of those thingswhere I may want to shift and
market closer.
So I don't have those overheadsand that will affect my profit
margin.
So I could actually develop astrategy that brought my
expenses down.
And you know, those are thekind of things that most
business owners never thinkabout and my goal with 40
(16:45):
Flushes is just to introducethem to those ideas.
So if they are applicable totheir business, then they've got
a better way of looking at itand a better chance of
succeeding.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Is there a set of any part of this 40 flushes,
Because it does all those thingsare definitely important, but
those sound like they're forpeople who are just really kind
of getting into it, maybe don'tunderstand their business as
much.
Is there any set in the 40flushes that might pertain to
people who understand a littlebit more?
Or do you have, is thispreliminary, like the 40 flushes
(17:18):
, and then they can move on toanother set of of uh business
strategy that you have that says, okay, you've kind of got
through this.
Now you're on level two.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Um, there's not.
Currently I am working on 40more flushes which will be
coming out.
Coming out, uh, probably in thespring.
So that is on the works.
But but really and truly, um,my hope is with this now some of
the flushes do get into alittle bit more advanced stuff,
but my real hope with this is toget people introduced to the
(17:49):
concept that there are thingsthat they can learn to make
their business better.
I think people get into ruts,they get into habits, they get
into routines.
They can often fall into that.
I know everything I need toknow and I think even the most
seasoned of veterans will learnsomething about that.
(18:11):
I can tell you when I startgoing over you know some of
these elements of profits orsome of these how to, how to
market yourself or how to decidewhen it's time to hire new
people, I mean, and those sortof things in terms of using your
assets.
I think even your most advancedI know this stuff person is
(18:32):
going to have some aha momentsthroughout the book and my hope
is to give them enough ahamoments so that they do look to
see beyond that.
I know what can happen in yourindustry.
You know, as a business owner.
You know, I would say I'm abusiness owner myself, of a
different kind.
I know how easy it is to wakeup in the morning thinking about
(18:56):
your business.
You're eating your breakfastthinking about your business.
You're at the office thinkingabout your business.
You're sitting on the couch atnight watching TV thinking about
your business.
You're at the office thinkingabout your business.
You're sitting on the couch atnight watching TV thinking about
your business.
And the last thing before youclose your eyes to go to bed,
you're thinking about yourbusiness.
And it can be easy to thinkthat the rest of the world is
(19:17):
thinking about your business aswell, because it's consuming you
, thinking about your businessas well because it's consuming
you, and so it's very importantto remember that most of the
rest of the world doesn't evenknow you exist.
They're not giving four momentsof thought a year to your
(19:38):
business, and recognizing thatand helping put things in
perspective is, I think, verypowerful.
One of the things that I talkabout in one of the flushes is
market research.
Now here's the weird thing.
When you hear that phrasemarket research, my guess is
(19:59):
that you immediately startedseeing flow charts and
spreadsheets and all thesenumbers and demographics and all
this stuff.
That probably made some of yourlisteners pee down their leg.
Well, the truth of the matteris there are some things that
can give you great marketresearch in your own community
(20:25):
that costs nothing and are verysimple.
For example and I have myclients do this all the time
Next time you're in Walmart,standing in line at Walmart,
turn around to the person behindyou and say, hey, I was just
wanting, I'm considering buyingthis, but I was thinking about
(20:48):
going to a rent-to-own store.
Who would you recommend and seewhat happens.
See what they say.
Hey, I'm thinking about goingover here to Joe's Rent-to-Own.
Do you know anything about them?
And see what they say.
I'm thinking about going overhere to Joe's Rent to Own.
Do you know anything about them?
And see what they say.
You know you encounter peopleevery day who are your potential
(21:10):
customers, when you're standingin line at the grocery store,
when you're at the bank or whenyou're walking in the park and
just take that moment.
But most business owners willnever do that because they're
afraid of what they'll hear, andthe reality of it is you need
to hear what people are sayingabout you.
You know we talk all the timeabout branding and so many times
(21:35):
people think branding takespart, takes place in the eyes of
the person transmitting thesignal.
Well, you know, I know what mybrand is, I know what my message
is, I put it out on this.
I did this commercial blah,blah, blah.
But branding takes part on thereceiving end and if the people
(21:56):
you're trying to put yourmessage to aren't seeing your
business in the same way thatyou see your business, you've
got a disconnect there that isstopping you from being as
effective as you can be.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
That's actually so true, John.
I couldn't argue with that atall.
I think your brand is theperceived value of all the
interactions that you're havingevery day with your brand.
So out of the 40 flushes, let'ssay that we wanted somebody to
really kick off.
What do you think is one flushfrom your book that listeners
can implement very quickly afterreading it?
(22:32):
And saying this will make adecent difference in what I do
today.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Today, I can tell you .
The one that comes to mind andonce again I will admit I'm not
terribly intimately familiarwith the rent-to-own world, so
it's a little bit different, butI do know the one that I see
over and over and over againacross all industries is this
(23:00):
connection that people havebetween their personal finances
and their business finances.
I mean, when you're running abusiness, you have to make 100%
sure that there is a clear wallbetween those two.
Because what happens and I seethis over and over and over
(23:24):
again where people makeimportant business decisions
based on personal financialstruggles, and if you find
yourself doing that, you'regoing to really struggle Because
, let's say, you need a newpiece of equipment, or you're
thinking about carrying a newline and let's say let's say you
need a new piece of equipment,or you're thinking about
carrying a new line and there'sgoing to be a little bit of
(23:47):
investment in doing that, oryou're thinking about a new
marketing campaign.
It's going to cost X amount ofdollars.
Whether or not you need a newdishwasher at home should have
no influence whatsoever on thatbusiness decision.
And I think about that flush inthe book and the cartoon is
(24:09):
literally this brick layer,building a brick wall between
these two piggy banks toseparate them, and so one of the
things I encourage all businessowners to do and I have to
believe that this applies toyour world as well is to
establish a very clear salaryfor yourself.
(24:34):
This is what you are going tomake, whether you're having a
good month, a bad month orwhatever's happening in your
business business, so that youhave consistency at home, just
like if you were working forsomeone else.
You would have a set amountthat you made that created your
budget at home and allows you tolive within your means.
(24:56):
So many business owners don'tcreate that barrier and they
start to see a little bit ofgrowth, or they have a good
month, or maybe three or fourgood months in a row, and you
have.
What happens is it's calledlifestyle creep.
The next thing you do, yourlifestyle starts to get more
expensive.
So you buy a new car, you moveinto a bigger house, you send
(25:21):
your kid to a private school,and then your business has a
hiccup, or COVID happens orsomething like that takes place,
and you're not financiallyequipped for it because you
based your personal lifestyleoff the good times.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That is exactly what I've seen happen a few times to
a few people.
It is hard to kind of sometimesnavigate that when you haven't
done it before, you see the goodtimes, you want to know that
the fruits of your labor you getto show, you get to enjoy, and
then sometimes you kind offorget it's got to go back into
the business or you do a littlebit too late.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And once again, your personal expenses should not
dictate your business decisions.
Your business decisions need tobe made on what is best for the
business and sometimes, ifyou've married that all together
and you haven't separated that,you'll find yourself allowing
your stresses financial stressesat home come in.
I will tell you the other thingthat separating those two does
(26:21):
is it makes for a much, muchhappier home life, because when
you shut up office at the end ofthe day you can go home and
your spouse or your familydoesn't have to be freaking out
about the client that didn't payor something of that nature,
(26:42):
and you really can isolate thestresses of home or the stresses
of the office from your homelife because you've kept those
barriers.
Now, obviously, when you'refirst starting out, every dime
of profit you go you make has togo home to pay the expenses you
gotta live.
But as the business grows, beaware of maintaining that fixed
(27:06):
salary for yourself and do itjust like you would in any other
big company.
If you were working for a bigcompany and you were a valuable
employee, even if you were theCEO, the income of the CEO of
that company would be dictatedby the best interest of the
(27:27):
corporation in the company, notjust on how much money that
company was making.
So really marrying that andseparating it, I would say that
is probably one of the biggestuniversal flushes I have in
terms of that applies to everyindustry In creating this book.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
What would you say is probably your biggest lesson.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
My biggest lesson in creating this book and this is
probably not what you're goingto expect to hear to expect to
hear my biggest lesson was youneed to be embracing AI, if you
haven't already.
As I started working on thisbook, I used AI resources a lot
(28:15):
for, for both organization andreviewing and everything
no-transcript.
A truth in today's world isbusinesses who are taking
advantage and using AI are goingto win against businesses who
(28:36):
aren't.
The speed with which you cancomplete stuff and tasks and the
second set of eyes you can haveon things that think through
and anticipate problems you'regoing to have, or anticipate
challenges.
If you're not embracing AI,you're going to get left behind
(29:01):
as a business.
Right now, and in fact, one ofthe books that I'm working on is
40 Flushes to Incorporate AIinto your Workplace, Because
that's you know like I used tobe very resistant to it.
You know, because I was likeyou know what's it going to do
with all the jobs, all this kindof stuff?
(29:22):
And I came to the realizationthat I may not like a hurricane
hitting the coast if I live inSouth Florida, but I can stand
on the beach and yell at thestorm all day long and it's
coming, and it's really the sameway right now, at this point in
(29:43):
history, at this point in time,businesses who use AI have a
tremendous advantage over thosethat don't, regardless of the
industry.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, well, it's coming.
It's coming in all facets.
It's already on our phones.
We can access it on thecomputers.
Honestly, if you're not usingit, it's going to be easy to get
left behind, not only becausethe workflow is going to be
easier, but not understanding italso is going to set you behind
.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I would just ask anybody right now to go visit
one of those businesses thatkept arguing the internet wasn't
going to change things.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Back in the day, I think it was Henry Ford who said
if I would have asked them whatthey wanted, they would have
said a faster horse.
Now that it's here.
They didn't really ask for it,but it's here.
But if you don't use it, you'regoing to be using the horse and
everybody else is going to beusing the carrier.
It's just a big difference inhow things are going, and now
that we're seeing this takeevent and these people trying to
be more of an entrepreneurspirit, if you don't take
(30:44):
advantage of the ability to beable to and I hate to say this,
because sometimes it's necessary, but you got to reduce the
labor or reduce the workload sothat you can do more, exactly,
if you're a brand new business,it's the easiest way to get it
done.
So let me ask you a question,then, because it sounds like you
understand this from both sidesof the business what was, what
did you learn from probably oneof your business failures that
(31:07):
kind of led you to go down thisroad and say hey, you know what
I need to create 40.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Fleshes for the next guy?
Well, that's a good questionand it's.
I guess I'm probably in alittle bit of a unique situation
there.
I guess the the what I learnedironically, the things I learned
that I failed at were reallymore of the mindset stuff that
(31:38):
business owners deal with.
When I first started my, mybusiness and, you know, started
building magazines and creatingthat world, I was ill-prepared
for how loud my inner voicecould be.
You know, we all have an innervoice and part of the language
(31:59):
but it's a jackass.
We all have it that tells us wesuck, that tells us we can't do
this, that we're never going tobe that guy, you're never going
to be successful, you're notgood at blah, blah, blah, and
and I wasn't ready for it.
Uh, and in fact there's a lotof chapters in the 40 flushes
that deal with mindset andlearning to control that voice.
(32:22):
Um, and I think that'ssomething you know, and I think
part of that voice is also thevoice that tells you that you're
too old to learn.
And so 40 Flushes was really myway of sidestepping that voice,
because you may be too old tolearn, to sit down and read a
(32:43):
college textbook and you're nottoo old to do that, but you may
just be out of practice, it maybe a skill set that you haven't
developed, but to read somecomics and a few short
narratives and learn from that,nobody's too old for that,
nobody's too hardened againstthat kind of stream of
information.
So I hope that I'm able tosidestep some of that inner
(33:06):
voice that tells people they'veworked, they've done it this way
for years, it's worked for them, I don't need to learn any new
things.
And so that comes into playbecause I really, as I mentioned
, I was not ready for theinternal struggles that come
with being a business owner.
I think I was full.
I was probably ready for theexternal ones dealing with with
(33:28):
a lot of that aspect of dealingwith customers, dealing with
everything else.
But the internal struggles iswhere the challenges were, and
there's a lot of that in 40Flushes.
Because I tell you it'sinteresting we have a tendency
to judge what's going on insideour heads against what we see
(33:51):
externally from other people,and it's easy to think that I'm
the only person sitting herestruggling with this voice
telling me I suck.
And it's very eye-opening torealize that everyone around you
has their own version of thatvoice that's telling them that.
You know, I come from a sciencebackground.
(34:12):
My degree was in physics.
Almost I was one class short ofhaving a physics degree, then
decided I didn't want to be aphysicist, but it was science.
I've always been science-mindedand I used to hear people talk
about, you know, affirmationsand manifestation and meditation
, and all of that stuff seemedlike hocus pocus mysticism to me
(34:35):
.
It just didn't make sense thatyou could say a few nice things
in the mirror and, lo and behold, the world kind of changes its
path to make you successful.
What I have grown to learn isthat all of us are right on the
razor's edge of being paralyzedby fear and self-doubt and
(34:58):
indecision, and we spend farmore hours of our day trying to
decide what we're going to donext.
Then we actually spend doingsomething and as a result of
that, we're very inefficient.
We just don't get nearly asmuch done as we should get done
(35:21):
with the hours in our day.
An interesting experiment that Ido with a lot of people I work
with is I'll have them handtheir phone to a spouse or a
co-worker or somebody and thisco-worker or spouse will just
set 10 random alarms over thenext week during working hours
(35:46):
so you don't know when they'recoming.
But you're sitting there workingand then, boom, alarm goes off
on your phone, and I encouragepeople to stop and write down
what they're doing when thatalarm clock goes off or that
alarm goes off on their phone,and then what we find is is
(36:06):
usually, out of the 10 alarmsthat go off during working hours
, usually they will onlyactually be doing something for
like three of them.
The rest of them they'll besitting there thinking about
work or worrying about work, ortrying to decide what they're
going to do next, or playing ontheir computer to avoid work and
(36:28):
being aware of all of thatextra time that you're you're
wasting.
And here's the thing worryingabout work is not actually work,
but it's more exhausting thanwork, isn't that the truth?
It feels like you're doingsomething at the end of the day.
(36:49):
It's why so many people gethome at the end of the day and
think what did I do today thatmoved my business forward?
And they'll realize that theyworked their butt off and didn't
actually accomplish anythingthat moved their business
forward.
And it's because of those kindsof things and so that was my
big learning experience is thateveryone is dealing with that
(37:14):
and if you can find ways andtools, affirmations, meditation,
whatever it is that moves you alittle bit away from that edge,
so you're not spending as muchtime doing nothing and instead
you're doing something, you'llsee your business grow and move
so much faster.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So with all this application, all this knowledge,
you've kind of accumulatedsomething a little bit different
and you kind of put it outthere a little bit different.
Talk to me about, you know,some of the trials and
tribulations that got us hereand what you think are some of
the good things that havehappened.
What's probably the mostsurprising success story that
you've witnessed or you've heardof from somebody utilizing the
40 Flushes book?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Well, first of all, 40 Flushes has only been out for
a short period of time andactually just FYI on the back
cover.
I actually promoted one of theother sources that I'm creating
an online coaching platform, andso I had to get that live
before I really started lettingpeople know that 40 Flushes was
(38:19):
out there, so we're really onthe early edge of that.
From a success storyperspective, I can't say 40
Flushes yet has produced a greatsuccess story.
It's just too new.
But what I can say is, over andover and over again, I've
(38:40):
worked with people using thetechniques that I talk about in
40 Flushes to help them feelmore confident in what they're
doing as a business owner andallowing them to base decisions
in their business on knowledgeinstead of gut and learning.
(39:02):
And one of the things that Italk about in one of the early
flushes in the book is make surethat you're always evaluating
yourself and your success basedon data and not emotion.
And I've seen over and overagain, once I've been able to
(39:24):
work with people to get them inthe habit of evaluating
themselves on data instead ofjust how they feel they can
really move their businessforward, because our feelings
lie to us a lot and, for example, I know I talk a lot about
(39:45):
marketing, but I really dobelieve this is an area where a
lot of business owners fallshort.
I've seen people that will getheavily invested in social media
as their marketing tool, whichsocial media is incredibly
powerful incredibly powerful,but it can also be fool's gold,
(40:08):
because a business owner can getvery caught up in looking to
see how many likes they have.
For example and I know everyperson listening to this if they
were to go to their ownpersonal Facebook page and look
at all of the businesses thatthey have liked over the years,
(40:29):
they're not going to rememberliking 98% of them.
They're going to say I don'tremember them, I don't remember
them, I don't remember them.
Everybody's list of placesthey've liked includes hundreds
of businesses that they have noidea existed, don't ever
remember why they liked them,they just happened to stumble
across.
So a business owner will lookat that and say, man, I've got a
(40:50):
thousand likes and emotionallythey'll get pumped about that
and feel like that's actuallygrowing their business.
But it's not actuallyconnecting to a thousand people,
because 980 of those are folksthat saw you once and haven't
seen you since.
And when somebody.
I've seen people that will geta, you know interact with a
(41:11):
customer on social media and andthat customer will become a.
I mean that person will becomea customer, they'll buy
something from them and and theywill get an emotional high
because they can actually trackthat customer from.
Here's our first interaction,here's the exchange we had.
(41:32):
Here's their credit cardinformation where they bought.
They can get so high and thinkthat that campaign is growing
their business, but theyactually needed 100 customers a
month to sustain their businessand that's just one of them.
So you have to remember and youhave to put those things in
(41:56):
perspective, because emotionally, that customer felt awesome,
but the reality was itrepresented 1% of what you need
to sustain your business, ofwhat you need to sustain your
business, and so you have to beable to look at your business
objectively from a dataperspective and not allow the
emotions to drive yourdecision-making.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
So if you could say wrapped up and like, let's say,
three solid pieces of businessadvice coming into it for the
listeners.
What would you say those threewould be?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Okay.
Number one is get your headright every day, whatever you
have to do, so your head is in agood place when you walk in at
the beginning of the day and youstart your day, so you're able
to make decisions rationally andnot get overwhelmed by fear and
(42:55):
self-doubt.
That's number one.
I don't care what your businessis, you have to get your head
right in order to be effectiveat running it, and so many
people struggle with that, andso find what it takes for you
personally to get your headright.
The second thing is build yourbusiness based on profit and not
(43:19):
volume, because that's a bigthing.
Almost every business in theworld falls victim to the Pareto
principle.
Every business in the worldfalls victim to the Pareto
principle, where 80% of theirprofit comes from 20% of their
customers.
And identifying who those 20%are and putting extra effort
into growing that 20% to 25%,30%, 40%, instead of trying to
(43:45):
get volume Because when you flipthat equation around, that
means 80% of the work you'redoing and the resources you are
exhausting is only resulting in20% of your profit Spend less
time on that and more on the 20%that's producing 80%.
And then the third thing isknow what the community thinks
(44:11):
about your business.
Whatever you have to do to geta real assessment of what people
think about your business ismake sure you do that, because
what you think they think aboutyour business is never going to
match what they think about yourbusiness unless you have
(44:31):
accomplished that through a verystrategic marketing plan to
make that happen.
So those would be the threethings I would say.
To really, really grow yourbusiness is make sure of that.
And you know a great simplequestion on that one.
I love asking business ownersthis question and it always
(44:54):
astounds them.
It always astounds me theanswers I get Is I love asking a
business owner why would Ichoose you over your competition
?
Why would I, out of all of theplumbers out there, why would I
choose you?
And what you're going to get istwo different responses.
(45:16):
You're either going to get along list of awards they've won,
skills they have,qualifications they've done.
You know all of this is goingto be this long litany of
reasons why they should bechosen, and in which case I
always just remind them.
Well, as a customer, how do Iknow that if you don't tell me?
(45:37):
Because no one else is going totell me all that stuff if you
don't Right.
So having those reasons does nogood whatsoever if the
customers don't know them.
The second thing is and this isthe more common reaction is,
it'll be deer in the headlights.
They actually do not have alegitimate, valid reason why you
(46:03):
would pick them instead oftheir competition, and that
happens all very often becauseit's just something people don't
think about and, in fact,because of imposter syndrome,
secretly they're thinking well,I would probably use Ted myself
over here because of that, andso in that case you really need
to think what can you create asa business?
(46:25):
That is that point ofdifference why people would
choose you instead of yourcompetitors.
Now, one of the things thatcomes to mind in specifically in
your industry and rent to ownis the concept of rent to own in
and of itself, that is aconcept that you need to market,
(46:48):
because I can tell you, withthe disposability of goods
nowadays and with sites likeTimu and things like that, where
you can get dirt cheap versionsof something, people need to be
sold on the idea of rent to ownon things as opposed to just
(47:13):
buying some very, very cheapversion of it, and so that's one
of the things that I thinkneeds to be a centerpiece in the
marketing there is sellingpeople on the values of the rent
to own concept, as, in and ofitself, it goes back to what I
talked about about leads beingone of the components of that
(47:35):
generates profit leads.
The first thing of leads is dopeople know what I do and why
they should use my service?
Do people know what I do andwhy they should use my service?
And I think that should be acenterpiece for your industry to
remind people that there arehuge advantages in the
rent-to-own world as opposed tobuying some cheap piece of
(47:56):
something on T-MU.
Well, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I believe that we're working on that.
We're trying to make thathappen.
Yeah, I love the book.
I love the idea.
I love some of the conceptsthat you're talking about In
closing.
Where would I go?
This is something that you saidyou started.
You've got this book.
Now it's out, it's new, butyou've got some other things
going on.
How would somebody find you Ifthey say you know what?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
John.
I really liked this.
I want to keep on going.
How are they going to find you?
What information can you sharewith us so they can keep on
following you?
Well, I can tell you.
The first is I'm doing anaggressive social campaign
across five platforms LinkedIn,facebook, youtube, tiktok and
Instagram.
So look up the JP BusinessAcademy on any of those five
platforms and you'll find a lotof my stuff.
(48:47):
The book is 40flushescom.
One other thing right now thatI'm really focusing on that
people fall short on is salestraining.
A lot of people don't have goodsales training and there's
really not sales trainingavailable for a lot of folks in
terms of you know, you canobviously pay thousands and
(49:08):
thousands of dollars for toplevel teachers and stuff like
that, but even those tend tofocus more on gimmicks rather
than making you an actual,better salesperson.
So I have a new site out calledthe Sales Success Society,
which, for a hundred bucks amonth, you get access to a bunch
of courses, support groups,everything else.
(49:29):
I would encourage you to checkthat out, the
SalesSuccessSocietycom.
But I'm also offering, if youjust want, something that will
have an immediate impact on theway you interact with customers
and understanding customers theway you interact with customers
and understanding customers.
I have a free course availableon handling the objection I need
to think about it.
(49:49):
This is what really throws alot of us for a loop.
We've really talked to thecustomer, we're convinced
they're ready to buy and thenthe last thing they do is they
throw us a curveball by saying,hey, I need to think about it.
And that really almost neverresults in a sale.
So I have a free courseavailable to anybody on handling
(50:10):
that objection, how to preventthem from getting to that point
in the first place, how torecognize what they really mean
by that objection and how to getpast it and close more deals
while the subject is still freshon their mind.
To take that course, go toIHateObjectionscom.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
I like it.
I think you got the right name.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah, ihateobjectionscom, because
that's the objection that leavesmost sales stomping the ground
and scratching their headbecause you thought you had a
sale and then suddenly they needto think about it.
So if you can learn to handlethat, you can improve your sales
overnight.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
That's it.
Well, listen, john Preston.
I do appreciate you being onthe show.
I really have taken a lot ofpointers actually out of what
you said because I really thinkit is important.
Listen.
If you guys want to hear more,he's giving you the information.
Go see it.
If not, you can always come tosee me.
You can email me at Pete at theRTO show podcastcom, or you can
go to the website atwwwthertoshowpodcastcom.
(51:10):
Listen to this.
You can also listen to it onYouTube, on Spotify, on Apple
podcasts or anywhere that youget your listening things.
Remember that you go onto thesite to get some of your swag.
We definitely want to sell youa shirt so you can look as good
as me day to day and show theshow.
Show, john, your love.
Make sure that you click andsubscribe and I will tell you
guys, as always, keep yourcollections low to get your
(51:32):
sales high.
Have a great one.
Thanks, pete.
Hello and welcome to the RTO show.
I'm your host, pete Chow, andtoday I have a special guest
that's going to talk to us alittle bit about business, but
in a very unique light.
Now I have John Preston here,who has actually released
printed media.
He's got a book.
He's got some great things totalk about, but the book that
we're going to talk about today,and how it's going to affect
(00:21):
you, is the 40 flushes to growyour business.
It's an actual.
It actually caught me bysurprise.
It was something that I heard.
I was like you know what?
That is very interesting.
So, mr Preston, john, how areyou doing today?
I'm glad that you're on theshow.
Why don't you tell me where didyou get this idea from and how
are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, actually it's an idea that's been brewing for
a long time.
You know, I work with a lot ofbusiness owners over the years,
and one of the things that I'veseen across all industry types
is people are very good at whatthey do, but they're not so good
at running a business doing it.
You know, there's norequirement out there that says
I need to know how to run abusiness before I start a
(01:00):
business.
So so often somebody is verygood at what they do Maybe
they're a good plumber and theythink, well, I want to work for
myself.
So they start a plumbingbusiness, but they never learned
how to run a business, and thereality is, as much as we wish
it was otherwise, is that howgood you are has very little to
do with whether you're going tohave a successful business or
(01:22):
not.
A bad plumber who knows how torun a business is going to be
much more successful than agreat plumber who doesn't, and
so I've always wondered how canwe get an education to some of
these business owners about someof the basics in a way that's
(01:43):
not intimidating and doesn'ttake up a lot of time, because
you know when you're runningyour business let's say you're a
roofer.
You get up six o'clock in themorning, you get everything
ready, you go meet your crew ateight.
You get up on the roof.
You're working all day long.
You come in at six, youcollapse, eat supper, collapse
on the couch.
There's not really a windowthere for learning and in
(02:07):
addition to that, at some pointsome people may not even realize
they don't know you don't knowwhat you don't know.
And some people are intimidatedby some of these big books or
these courses or anything likethat.
And I've just spent a lot oftime trying to figure out what
tool could I create that wouldbreak that barrier, that would
(02:31):
get through to those businessowners in a way that was
unintimidating, and that's kindof how the bathroom reader came
along.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, that's actually what really caught my eye,
because I can't tell you howmany times that I've seen that
there's a lot of entrepreneursin the rent-to-own space that
are like I know how to do this,I know how to rent and I know
how to collect, and those arethe two main things.
What they don't understand isthere's payroll, there's leasing
, there's insurances, there'sall kinds of things that come
along with that, and then on topof that, you can't run your
(03:00):
business and be in your business.
You have to do one or the other, and so if you're the best
salesperson, you're not leadingthe show.
That really makes it difficultto kind of happen.
So as we stumble across this, Isee 40 flushes on how to grow
your business, and it really gotme thinking.
Where did that idea for 40flushes come from?
Is that like a bathroom readerthat'll put me in the driver's
(03:21):
seat on how to handle mybusiness?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It actually is, yeah, and in fact every day is broken
down into a flush.
So on the first day of readingthe book, you've got flush
number one.
And flush number one, I think,is directly, right out of the
box, relevant to what your guysdo.
When you look at it, the veryfirst thing that a business
(03:49):
owner has to recognize is howimportant it is for them, to be
a business owner, to wear thathat.
You know, when you're a smallbusiness, there's a lot of hats
to be worn.
There's the technician thatneeds to fix everything, there's
the person running the floor,there's inventory management.
If you're the person on thefloor handling the renting and
(04:28):
dealing with customers, you'vegot certain expectations and
certain needs and certain risklevels that are involved with
what you do.
If you're the person managingresources, if you're the one
keeping the books, you look atthings differently.
It's all about conserving, it'sall about keeping this small
area in control.
But if you're the businessowner, you have to look at it
(04:51):
and say what do I need to do toget my business from where it is
today to where I want it to be10, 20 years from now?
And that requires an entirelydifferent hat and a different
way of thinking, and whathappens too often is business
owners don't put that hat onoften enough and they get caught
(05:14):
with the other roles whichthey're not looking.
Those roles are designed to getyou through today and they're
not looking into the future.
So, right out of the bat, thevery first flush takes a look at
all of these different hatsyou're wearing and it does so in
a fun way.
That's the thing about the bookis I want it to be very
(05:35):
unintimidating.
I don't want it to be somethingthat challenges people's
worldview to the point wherethey're like, oh, I'm just not
going to learn that.
I want it to kind of slip in ina fun way and just makes them
think about their business.
So, like on that chapter, forexample, that flush at the end
of it, as with all the flushes,there's a series of questions
(05:58):
where you can take that day'slesson and reflect on how it
affects your business and how itcan relate to your business.
Now, odds are, all 40 flushesaren't going to be something you
can directly implement ordirectly do with your business,
but I'm hoping if you can get 20to 30 of them that do make you
(06:19):
look at your business in anentirely different way that
you've got a much better chanceof surviving.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So when you say 40 flushes, somebody is going to
sit down and the idea is, in 40flushes to have a better
business acumen than they didbefore.
The first flush, now flushes,we're saying chapters and
they're going through.
Now these flushes, how longdoes on average do they take?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, here's the thing we all know that all of
our bathroom visits are varyinglengths.
So if you're somebody that getsin and out quickly, you're
going to be able to handle thatflush in probably five minutes.
I mean, it's about a 300 wordnarrative that explains that
problem or that issue or thatconcept.
(07:01):
You've got a cartoon which kindof marries with the narrative.
That's fun.
You've got a joke relating tothat which makes it memorable.
You've got a little haiku that Iwrite just to kind of get
catchy in your brain, and then apoem, and so all of that can be
really looked at in three tofour minutes and really absorb
the concept.
The real time variable there isthe reflecting on your business
(07:27):
and taking that concept andputting it against what you're
currently doing and what you'vethought in the past and figuring
out is there some way I canmake changes in my business that
reflect this lesson, that willmake me more competitive in the
market or will increase my salesor will allow me to keep my
(07:49):
expenses down or will affect thebrand in the community and the
way people see my business, andthat, obviously, if you're a
real introspective person, youcould spend hours thinking about
most people.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, won't, but you could, yeah, so what could I
expect to see inside that?
I mean, obviously the firstthing you start off is you're
right, just because I'm good atsomething doesn't mean I'm good
at running it.
I think that's the first thingthat some people don't
understand is that just becauseyou do it well doesn't mean that
you can manage a business well.
So let's take that aspect andsay, okay, within 40 different
(08:23):
chapters or different timeframes, I'm going to get better.
What is something that somebodywould come across in these
series of flushes that you knowyou think is going to be
paramount to get them from pointA to point B?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I tell you there's going to I mean different
businesses are going to comeacross different things that
affect them.
I mean there's nothing in therethat gets really into the
technical aspects of yourspecific business.
So a lot of that is reflection,but there are some basic
fundamentals of business thatreally haven't changed.
(08:55):
You know, everybody thinks allthe time we're in this fast
changing world and we are butwhat's changing are the tools,
not the concepts, so the toolswe use to implement that.
So in this there is a lot ofmarketing, because marketing is
an area where logic doesn'talways apply.
(09:16):
A lot of people have beliefsabout marketing, beliefs about
how advertising works, andthey're just wrong.
Marketing beliefs about howadvertising works, and they're
just wrong.
That common sense would tellyou it does this, but that's not
the way it works, and sothere's a lot of that marketing
that comes into play, and one ofthe things I spend a lot of
time on is helping businessowners understand that their
(09:41):
goal in business is not to havea lot of customers, and that's
an area that a lot of peoplefall short on, because they
operate their business forvolume and ultimately, the goal
of the business should be forprofit, and not always are those
(10:05):
two the same?
Sometimes they are, but most ofthe time they're not.
In fact, there are almost asmany businesses in the country
every year that fail becausethey have too many customers
than fail because they don'thave enough.
Because if you've got a lot ofcustomers but they're not profit
generators for you, they end upcreating more work and expense
(10:30):
in smaller margins.
So you want to make sure, asyou plan out your business, that
you're recognizing that not allcustomers are created equal,
that there are customers thatproduce profit, and then there
are customers that produceprofit, and then there are
customers that produce overheadand work and so.
So that's a real key theme inthere is to be able to honestly
(10:51):
take a look at your business andsay here are the changes that I
need to make to drive my profitand here is the marketing
strategy I'm going to use tomake those changes.
Here is the marketing strategyI'm going to use to make those
changes.
(11:13):
You know there are five metricsthat come into play with every
business that determines itsprofit.
I don't care if you're Walmartor Lisa's Lemonade Stand.
It's first of all, how manyleads does your business have?
How many people know what youdo, know about you and know they
need or want that service.
That's the first thing.
How many people are in thatgroup?
And that's your number of leads.
(11:35):
And obviously some campaignswill increase your leads and
that's a great use ofadvertising.
But that's not the only use ofadvertising and sometimes you
may have all the leads you wantbut you don't have.
The second of those componentsis conversion.
What's your closing rate?
How many of those leads do youconvert to customers?
(11:57):
And so you know, maybe you'vegot a bunch of leads but they're
all going to your competitor orsomething else.
So what's your conversion ratethere?
The third thing is how oftenthey use you.
Does somebody use me?
If you're a rent to own, let'ssay it's a big screen TV or
whatever, whatever the productis, does somebody use you once
(12:22):
and then next time go to Walmart?
Or do they love the service youoffered and they come back to
you for all their needs?
How often do they use you?
Now, when you look at thosethree and you combine them, that
gets your total number oftransactions as a business.
The fourth element is what'syour revenue per transaction
when somebody decides to dobusiness with you, how much
(12:44):
money do they give you what'syour total revenue?
And then, once you figure outthe total revenue, the fifth one
is what's your profit margin?
How much of that money that Icollected from customers do I
get to keep?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Now do you break that down per transaction?
You're saying that not only toknow on a monthly basis or
whatever the case is, but youthink you're saying that not
only to know on a monthly basisor whatever the case is, but you
think you're saying thatknowing the profit on a
transactional period or-.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Not on an individual transaction, but on the
aggregate, on your total.
I mean, if you look atmathematically now, I don't know
, I tried to stay away from mathbecause a lot of people go
glassy-eyed when you starttalking math but when you look
at it, if you take your totalnumber of leads and multiply by
(13:31):
your conversion rate, that tellsyou how many customers you have
.
If you take your customers andmultiply that by how often they
use you, that gives you yourtotal transactions.
If you take your totaltransactions and multiply that
by how much the averagetransaction generates in revenue
(13:52):
, you've got your total revenue.
And then you take your profitmargin against that and that
tells you how much money you getto take home at the end of the
day.
And what most people don'trealize is you can use marketing
to drive any of those fivemetrics.
So what you can do is if youtake a look at your business and
(14:12):
you kind of now, you're not,it's not an exact science You're
not going to be able to say Ihave exactly four thousand two
hundred and twelve leads rightnow, but you can have a ballpark
in terms of how familiar youare with your, how familiar the
community is with your businessand then you look at that and
you do all that, you can say,hey, everybody knows who I am.
(14:34):
I've been around here for 20years.
Everybody knows who I am, theyknow what I do, they know what
services I offer, but for somereason they're going to somebody
else for these needs.
Well then, your campaign needsto focus on giving people a
reason to use you instead ofsomebody else.
So your strategy targets that.
(14:57):
Or maybe you're a businessyou've got plenty of customers,
but they only think of coming toyou for certain items.
So your campaign in that regardcould actually target your
current customers and help themrealize that, hey, I'm glad you
come here for this, but guesswhat else we offer that you
(15:17):
could come here and use?
And often that's the fastestroute to growth because you've
got customers who already trustyou.
So you've got that.
Or maybe you realize my gosh,people keep coming in here and
getting these low-end, cheapitems and my margin's not very
high on there.
What if I focus on marketingjust my big ticket items?
(15:38):
So now I start to manipulate myrevenue per transaction and
then on profit margin, there'sthings you can do there those
require a little bit morecreativity.
I don't know that it wouldnecessarily apply to the
rent-to-own world.
But say, for example, I'm aheating and air company and my
(16:00):
marketing consists onadvertising on the nearest big
city's TV station.
Well, I'm suddenly reachingcustomers who are three and four
hours away from me.
Well, look at the added overheadthat comes with that travel and
wear and tear on vehicles andhousing and per diem with your
(16:22):
crew and all of those thingswhere I may want to shift and
market closer.
So I don't have those overheadsand that will affect my profit
margin.
So I could actually develop astrategy that brought my
expenses down.
And you know, those are thekind of things that most
business owners never thinkabout and my goal with 40
(16:45):
Flushes is just to introducethem to those ideas.
So if they are applicable totheir business, then they've got
a better way of looking at itand a better chance of
succeeding.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Is there a set of any part of this 40 flushes,
Because it does all those thingsare definitely important, but
those sound like they're forpeople who are just really kind
of getting into it, maybe don'tunderstand their business as
much.
Is there any set in the 40flushes that might pertain to
people who understand a littlebit more?
Or do you have, is thispreliminary, like the 40 flushes
(17:18):
, and then they can move on toanother set of of uh business
strategy that you have that says, okay, you've kind of got
through this.
Now you're on level two.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Um, there's not.
Currently I am working on 40more flushes which will be
coming out.
Coming out, uh, probably in thespring.
So that is on the works.
But but really and truly, um,my hope is with this now some of
the flushes do get into alittle bit more advanced stuff,
but my real hope with this is toget people introduced to the
(17:49):
concept that there are thingsthat they can learn to make
their business better.
I think people get into ruts,they get into habits, they get
into routines.
They can often fall into that.
I know everything I need toknow and I think even the most
seasoned of veterans will learnsomething about that.
(18:11):
I can tell you when I startgoing over you know some of
these elements of profits orsome of these how to, how to
market yourself or how to decidewhen it's time to hire new
people, I mean, and those sortof things in terms of using your
assets.
I think even your most advancedI know this stuff person is
(18:32):
going to have some aha momentsthroughout the book and my hope
is to give them enough ahamoments so that they do look to
see beyond that.
I know what can happen in yourindustry.
You know, as a business owner.
You know, I would say I'm abusiness owner myself, of a
different kind.
I know how easy it is to wakeup in the morning thinking about
(18:56):
your business.
You're eating your breakfastthinking about your business.
You're at the office thinkingabout your business.
You're sitting on the couch atnight watching TV thinking about
your business.
You're at the office thinkingabout your business.
You're sitting on the couch atnight watching TV thinking about
your business.
And the last thing before youclose your eyes to go to bed,
you're thinking about yourbusiness.
And it can be easy to thinkthat the rest of the world is
(19:17):
thinking about your business aswell, because it's consuming you
, thinking about your businessas well because it's consuming
you, and so it's very importantto remember that most of the
rest of the world doesn't evenknow you exist.
They're not giving four momentsof thought a year to your
(19:38):
business, and recognizing thatand helping put things in
perspective is, I think, verypowerful.
One of the things that I talkabout in one of the flushes is
market research.
Now here's the weird thing.
When you hear that phrasemarket research, my guess is
(19:59):
that you immediately startedseeing flow charts and
spreadsheets and all thesenumbers and demographics and all
this stuff.
That probably made some of yourlisteners pee down their leg.
Well, the truth of the matteris there are some things that
can give you great marketresearch in your own community
(20:25):
that costs nothing and are verysimple.
For example and I have myclients do this all the time
Next time you're in Walmart,standing in line at Walmart,
turn around to the person behindyou and say, hey, I was just
wanting, I'm considering buyingthis, but I was thinking about
(20:48):
going to a rent-to-own store.
Who would you recommend and seewhat happens.
See what they say.
Hey, I'm thinking about goingover here to Joe's Rent-to-Own.
Do you know anything about them?
And see what they say.
I'm thinking about going overhere to Joe's Rent to Own.
Do you know anything about them?
And see what they say.
You know you encounter peopleevery day who are your potential
(21:10):
customers, when you're standingin line at the grocery store,
when you're at the bank or whenyou're walking in the park and
just take that moment.
But most business owners willnever do that because they're
afraid of what they'll hear, andthe reality of it is you need
to hear what people are sayingabout you.
You know we talk all the timeabout branding and so many times
(21:35):
people think branding takespart, takes place in the eyes of
the person transmitting thesignal.
Well, you know, I know what mybrand is, I know what my message
is, I put it out on this.
I did this commercial blah,blah, blah.
But branding takes part on thereceiving end and if the people
(21:56):
you're trying to put yourmessage to aren't seeing your
business in the same way thatyou see your business, you've
got a disconnect there that isstopping you from being as
effective as you can be.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
That's actually so true, John.
I couldn't argue with that atall.
I think your brand is theperceived value of all the
interactions that you're havingevery day with your brand.
So out of the 40 flushes, let'ssay that we wanted somebody to
really kick off.
What do you think is one flushfrom your book that listeners
can implement very quickly afterreading it?
(22:32):
And saying this will make adecent difference in what I do
today.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Today, I can tell you .
The one that comes to mind andonce again I will admit I'm not
terribly intimately familiarwith the rent-to-own world, so
it's a little bit different, butI do know the one that I see
over and over and over againacross all industries is this
(23:00):
connection that people havebetween their personal finances
and their business finances.
I mean, when you're running abusiness, you have to make 100%
sure that there is a clear wallbetween those two.
Because what happens and I seethis over and over and over
(23:24):
again where people makeimportant business decisions
based on personal financialstruggles, and if you find
yourself doing that, you'regoing to really struggle Because
, let's say, you need a newpiece of equipment, or you're
thinking about carrying a newline and let's say let's say you
need a new piece of equipment,or you're thinking about
carrying a new line and there'sgoing to be a little bit of
(23:47):
investment in doing that, oryou're thinking about a new
marketing campaign.
It's going to cost X amount ofdollars.
Whether or not you need a newdishwasher at home should have
no influence whatsoever on thatbusiness decision.
And I think about that flush inthe book and the cartoon is
(24:09):
literally this brick layer,building a brick wall between
these two piggy banks toseparate them, and so one of the
things I encourage all businessowners to do and I have to
believe that this applies toyour world as well is to
establish a very clear salaryfor yourself.
(24:34):
This is what you are going tomake, whether you're having a
good month, a bad month orwhatever's happening in your
business business, so that youhave consistency at home, just
like if you were working forsomeone else.
You would have a set amountthat you made that created your
budget at home and allows you tolive within your means.
(24:56):
So many business owners don'tcreate that barrier and they
start to see a little bit ofgrowth, or they have a good
month, or maybe three or fourgood months in a row, and you
have.
What happens is it's calledlifestyle creep.
The next thing you do, yourlifestyle starts to get more
expensive.
So you buy a new car, you moveinto a bigger house, you send
(25:21):
your kid to a private school,and then your business has a
hiccup, or COVID happens orsomething like that takes place,
and you're not financiallyequipped for it because you
based your personal lifestyleoff the good times.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
That is exactly what I've seen happen a few times to
a few people.
It is hard to kind of sometimesnavigate that when you haven't
done it before, you see the goodtimes, you want to know that
the fruits of your labor you getto show, you get to enjoy, and
then sometimes you kind offorget it's got to go back into
the business or you do a littlebit too late.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And once again, your personal expenses should not
dictate your business decisions.
Your business decisions need tobe made on what is best for the
business and sometimes, ifyou've married that all together
and you haven't separated that,you'll find yourself allowing
your stresses financial stressesat home come in.
I will tell you the other thingthat separating those two does
(26:21):
is it makes for a much, muchhappier home life, because when
you shut up office at the end ofthe day you can go home and
your spouse or your familydoesn't have to be freaking out
about the client that didn't payor something of that nature,
(26:42):
and you really can isolate thestresses of home or the stresses
of the office from your homelife because you've kept those
barriers.
Now, obviously, when you'refirst starting out, every dime
of profit you go you make has togo home to pay the expenses you
gotta live.
But as the business grows, beaware of maintaining that fixed
(27:06):
salary for yourself and do itjust like you would in any other
big company.
If you were working for a bigcompany and you were a valuable
employee, even if you were theCEO, the income of the CEO of
that company would be dictatedby the best interest of the
(27:27):
corporation in the company, notjust on how much money that
company was making.
So really marrying that andseparating it, I would say that
is probably one of the biggestuniversal flushes I have in
terms of that applies to everyindustry In creating this book.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
What would you say is probably your biggest lesson.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
My biggest lesson in creating this book and this is
probably not what you're goingto expect to hear to expect to
hear my biggest lesson was youneed to be embracing AI, if you
haven't already.
As I started working on thisbook, I used AI resources a lot
(28:15):
for, for both organization andreviewing and everything
no-transcript.
A truth in today's world isbusinesses who are taking
advantage and using AI are goingto win against businesses who
(28:36):
aren't.
The speed with which you cancomplete stuff and tasks and the
second set of eyes you can haveon things that think through
and anticipate problems you'regoing to have, or anticipate
challenges.
If you're not embracing AI,you're going to get left behind
(29:01):
as a business.
Right now, and in fact, one ofthe books that I'm working on is
40 Flushes to Incorporate AIinto your Workplace, Because
that's you know like I used tobe very resistant to it.
You know, because I was likeyou know what's it going to do
with all the jobs, all this kindof stuff?
(29:22):
And I came to the realizationthat I may not like a hurricane
hitting the coast if I live inSouth Florida, but I can stand
on the beach and yell at thestorm all day long and it's
coming, and it's really the sameway right now, at this point in
(29:43):
history, at this point in time,businesses who use AI have a
tremendous advantage over thosethat don't, regardless of the
industry.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, well, it's coming.
It's coming in all facets.
It's already on our phones.
We can access it on thecomputers.
Honestly, if you're not usingit, it's going to be easy to get
left behind, not only becausethe workflow is going to be
easier, but not understanding italso is going to set you behind
.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
I would just ask anybody right now to go visit
one of those businesses thatkept arguing the internet wasn't
going to change things.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Back in the day, I think it was Henry Ford who said
if I would have asked them whatthey wanted, they would have
said a faster horse.
Now that it's here.
They didn't really ask for it,but it's here.
But if you don't use it, you'regoing to be using the horse and
everybody else is going to beusing the carrier.
It's just a big difference inhow things are going, and now
that we're seeing this takeevent and these people trying to
be more of an entrepreneurspirit, if you don't take
(30:44):
advantage of the ability to beable to and I hate to say this,
because sometimes it's necessary, but you got to reduce the
labor or reduce the workload sothat you can do more, exactly,
if you're a brand new business,it's the easiest way to get it
done.
So let me ask you a question,then, because it sounds like you
understand this from both sidesof the business what was, what
did you learn from probably oneof your business failures that
(31:07):
kind of led you to go down thisroad and say hey, you know what
I need to create 40.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Fleshes for the next guy?
Well, that's a good questionand it's.
I guess I'm probably in alittle bit of a unique situation
there.
I guess the the what I learnedironically, the things I learned
that I failed at were reallymore of the mindset stuff that
(31:38):
business owners deal with.
When I first started my, mybusiness and, you know, started
building magazines and creatingthat world, I was ill-prepared
for how loud my inner voicecould be.
You know, we all have an innervoice and part of the language
(31:59):
but it's a jackass.
We all have it that tells us wesuck, that tells us we can't do
this, that we're never going tobe that guy, you're never going
to be successful, you're notgood at blah, blah, blah, and
and I wasn't ready for it.
Uh, and in fact there's a lotof chapters in the 40 flushes
that deal with mindset andlearning to control that voice.
(32:22):
Um, and I think that'ssomething you know, and I think
part of that voice is also thevoice that tells you that you're
too old to learn.
And so 40 Flushes was really myway of sidestepping that voice,
because you may be too old tolearn, to sit down and read a
(32:43):
college textbook and you're nottoo old to do that, but you may
just be out of practice, it maybe a skill set that you haven't
developed, but to read somecomics and a few short
narratives and learn from that,nobody's too old for that,
nobody's too hardened againstthat kind of stream of
information.
So I hope that I'm able tosidestep some of that inner
(33:06):
voice that tells people they'veworked, they've done it this way
for years, it's worked for them, I don't need to learn any new
things.
And so that comes into playbecause I really, as I mentioned
, I was not ready for theinternal struggles that come
with being a business owner.
I think I was full.
I was probably ready for theexternal ones dealing with with
(33:28):
a lot of that aspect of dealingwith customers, dealing with
everything else.
But the internal struggles iswhere the challenges were, and
there's a lot of that in 40Flushes.
Because I tell you it'sinteresting we have a tendency
to judge what's going on insideour heads against what we see
(33:51):
externally from other people,and it's easy to think that I'm
the only person sitting herestruggling with this voice
telling me I suck.
And it's very eye-opening torealize that everyone around you
has their own version of thatvoice that's telling them that.
You know, I come from a sciencebackground.
(34:12):
My degree was in physics.
Almost I was one class short ofhaving a physics degree, then
decided I didn't want to be aphysicist, but it was science.
I've always been science-mindedand I used to hear people talk
about, you know, affirmationsand manifestation and meditation
, and all of that stuff seemedlike hocus pocus mysticism to me
(34:35):
.
It just didn't make sense thatyou could say a few nice things
in the mirror and, lo and behold, the world kind of changes its
path to make you successful.
What I have grown to learn isthat all of us are right on the
razor's edge of being paralyzedby fear and self-doubt and
(34:58):
indecision, and we spend farmore hours of our day trying to
decide what we're going to donext.
Then we actually spend doingsomething and as a result of
that, we're very inefficient.
We just don't get nearly asmuch done as we should get done
(35:21):
with the hours in our day.
An interesting experiment that Ido with a lot of people I work
with is I'll have them handtheir phone to a spouse or a
co-worker or somebody and thisco-worker or spouse will just
set 10 random alarms over thenext week during working hours
(35:46):
so you don't know when they'recoming.
But you're sitting there workingand then, boom, alarm goes off
on your phone, and I encouragepeople to stop and write down
what they're doing when thatalarm clock goes off or that
alarm goes off on their phone,and then what we find is is
(36:06):
usually, out of the 10 alarmsthat go off during working hours
, usually they will onlyactually be doing something for
like three of them.
The rest of them they'll besitting there thinking about
work or worrying about work, ortrying to decide what they're
going to do next, or playing ontheir computer to avoid work and
(36:28):
being aware of all of thatextra time that you're you're
wasting.
And here's the thing worryingabout work is not actually work,
but it's more exhausting thanwork, isn't that the truth?
It feels like you're doingsomething at the end of the day.
(36:49):
It's why so many people gethome at the end of the day and
think what did I do today thatmoved my business forward?
And they'll realize that theyworked their butt off and didn't
actually accomplish anythingthat moved their business
forward.
And it's because of those kindsof things and so that was my
big learning experience is thateveryone is dealing with that
(37:14):
and if you can find ways andtools, affirmations, meditation,
whatever it is that moves you alittle bit away from that edge,
so you're not spending as muchtime doing nothing and instead
you're doing something, you'llsee your business grow and move
so much faster.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
So with all this application, all this knowledge,
you've kind of accumulatedsomething a little bit different
and you kind of put it outthere a little bit different.
Talk to me about, you know,some of the trials and
tribulations that got us hereand what you think are some of
the good things that havehappened.
What's probably the mostsurprising success story that
you've witnessed or you've heardof from somebody utilizing the
40 Flushes book?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Well, first of all, 40 Flushes has only been out for
a short period of time andactually just FYI on the back
cover.
I actually promoted one of theother sources that I'm creating
an online coaching platform, andso I had to get that live
before I really started lettingpeople know that 40 Flushes was
(38:19):
out there, so we're really onthe early edge of that.
From a success storyperspective, I can't say 40
Flushes yet has produced a greatsuccess story.
It's just too new.
But what I can say is, over andover and over again, I've
(38:40):
worked with people using thetechniques that I talk about in
40 Flushes to help them feelmore confident in what they're
doing as a business owner andallowing them to base decisions
in their business on knowledgeinstead of gut and learning.
(39:02):
And one of the things that Italk about in one of the early
flushes in the book is make surethat you're always evaluating
yourself and your success basedon data and not emotion.
And I've seen over and overagain, once I've been able to
(39:24):
work with people to get them inthe habit of evaluating
themselves on data instead ofjust how they feel they can
really move their businessforward, because our feelings
lie to us a lot and, for example, I know I talk a lot about
(39:45):
marketing, but I really dobelieve this is an area where a
lot of business owners fallshort.
I've seen people that will getheavily invested in social media
as their marketing tool, whichsocial media is incredibly
powerful incredibly powerful,but it can also be fool's gold,
(40:08):
because a business owner can getvery caught up in looking to
see how many likes they have.
For example and I know everyperson listening to this if they
were to go to their ownpersonal Facebook page and look
at all of the businesses thatthey have liked over the years,
(40:29):
they're not going to rememberliking 98% of them.
They're going to say I don'tremember them, I don't remember
them, I don't remember them.
Everybody's list of placesthey've liked includes hundreds
of businesses that they have noidea existed, don't ever
remember why they liked them,they just happened to stumble
across.
So a business owner will lookat that and say, man, I've got a
(40:50):
thousand likes and emotionallythey'll get pumped about that
and feel like that's actuallygrowing their business.
But it's not actuallyconnecting to a thousand people,
because 980 of those are folksthat saw you once and haven't
seen you since.
And when somebody.
I've seen people that will geta, you know interact with a
(41:11):
customer on social media and andthat customer will become a.
I mean that person will becomea customer, they'll buy
something from them and and theywill get an emotional high
because they can actually trackthat customer from.
Here's our first interaction,here's the exchange we had.
(41:32):
Here's their credit cardinformation where they bought.
They can get so high and thinkthat that campaign is growing
their business, but theyactually needed 100 customers a
month to sustain their businessand that's just one of them.
So you have to remember and youhave to put those things in
(41:56):
perspective, because emotionally, that customer felt awesome,
but the reality was itrepresented 1% of what you need
to sustain your business, ofwhat you need to sustain your
business, and so you have to beable to look at your business
objectively from a dataperspective and not allow the
emotions to drive yourdecision-making.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
So if you could say wrapped up and like, let's say,
three solid pieces of businessadvice coming into it for the
listeners.
What would you say those threewould be?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Okay.
Number one is get your headright every day, whatever you
have to do, so your head is in agood place when you walk in at
the beginning of the day and youstart your day, so you're able
to make decisions rationally andnot get overwhelmed by fear and
(42:55):
self-doubt.
That's number one.
I don't care what your businessis, you have to get your head
right in order to be effectiveat running it, and so many
people struggle with that, andso find what it takes for you
personally to get your headright.
The second thing is build yourbusiness based on profit and not
(43:19):
volume, because that's a bigthing.
Almost every business in theworld falls victim to the Pareto
principle.
Every business in the worldfalls victim to the Pareto
principle, where 80% of theirprofit comes from 20% of their
customers.
And identifying who those 20%are and putting extra effort
into growing that 20% to 25%,30%, 40%, instead of trying to
(43:45):
get volume Because when you flipthat equation around, that
means 80% of the work you'redoing and the resources you are
exhausting is only resulting in20% of your profit Spend less
time on that and more on the 20%that's producing 80%.
And then the third thing isknow what the community thinks
(44:11):
about your business.
Whatever you have to do to geta real assessment of what people
think about your business ismake sure you do that, because
what you think they think aboutyour business is never going to
match what they think about yourbusiness unless you have
(44:31):
accomplished that through a verystrategic marketing plan to
make that happen.
So those would be the threethings I would say.
To really, really grow yourbusiness is make sure of that.
And you know a great simplequestion on that one.
I love asking business ownersthis question and it always
(44:54):
astounds them.
It always astounds me theanswers I get Is I love asking a
business owner why would Ichoose you over your competition
?
Why would I, out of all of theplumbers out there, why would I
choose you?
And what you're going to get istwo different responses.
(45:16):
You're either going to get along list of awards they've won,
skills they have,qualifications they've done.
You know all of this is goingto be this long litany of
reasons why they should bechosen, and in which case I
always just remind them.
Well, as a customer, how do Iknow that if you don't tell me?
(45:37):
Because no one else is going totell me all that stuff if you
don't Right.
So having those reasons does nogood whatsoever if the
customers don't know them.
The second thing is and this isthe more common reaction is,
it'll be deer in the headlights.
They actually do not have alegitimate, valid reason why you
(46:03):
would pick them instead oftheir competition, and that
happens all very often becauseit's just something people don't
think about and, in fact,because of imposter syndrome,
secretly they're thinking well,I would probably use Ted myself
over here because of that, andso in that case you really need
to think what can you create asa business?
(46:25):
That is that point ofdifference why people would
choose you instead of yourcompetitors.
Now, one of the things thatcomes to mind in specifically in
your industry and rent to ownis the concept of rent to own in
and of itself, that is aconcept that you need to market,
(46:48):
because I can tell you, withthe disposability of goods
nowadays and with sites likeTimu and things like that, where
you can get dirt cheap versionsof something, people need to be
sold on the idea of rent to ownon things as opposed to just
(47:13):
buying some very, very cheapversion of it, and so that's one
of the things that I thinkneeds to be a centerpiece in the
marketing there is sellingpeople on the values of the rent
to own concept, as, in and ofitself, it goes back to what I
talked about about leads beingone of the components of that
(47:35):
generates profit leads.
The first thing of leads is dopeople know what I do and why
they should use my service?
Do people know what I do andwhy they should use my service?
And I think that should be acenterpiece for your industry to
remind people that there arehuge advantages in the
rent-to-own world as opposed tobuying some cheap piece of
(47:56):
something on T-MU.
Well, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I believe that we're working on that.
We're trying to make thathappen.
Yeah, I love the book.
I love the idea.
I love some of the conceptsthat you're talking about In
closing.
Where would I go?
This is something that you saidyou started.
You've got this book.
Now it's out, it's new, butyou've got some other things
going on.
How would somebody find you Ifthey say you know what?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
John.
I really liked this.
I want to keep on going.
How are they going to find you?
What information can you sharewith us so they can keep on
following you?
Well, I can tell you.
The first is I'm doing anaggressive social campaign
across five platforms LinkedIn,facebook, youtube, tiktok and
Instagram.
So look up the JP BusinessAcademy on any of those five
platforms and you'll find a lotof my stuff.
(48:47):
The book is 40flushescom.
One other thing right now thatI'm really focusing on that
people fall short on is salestraining.
A lot of people don't have goodsales training and there's
really not sales trainingavailable for a lot of folks in
terms of you know, you canobviously pay thousands and
(49:08):
thousands of dollars for toplevel teachers and stuff like
that, but even those tend tofocus more on gimmicks rather
than making you an actual,better salesperson.
So I have a new site out calledthe Sales Success Society,
which, for a hundred bucks amonth, you get access to a bunch
of courses, support groups,everything else.
(49:29):
I would encourage you to checkthat out, the
SalesSuccessSocietycom.
But I'm also offering, if youjust want, something that will
have an immediate impact on theway you interact with customers
and understanding customers theway you interact with customers
and understanding customers.
I have a free course availableon handling the objection I need
to think about it.
(49:49):
This is what really throws alot of us for a loop.
We've really talked to thecustomer, we're convinced
they're ready to buy and thenthe last thing they do is they
throw us a curveball by saying,hey, I need to think about it.
And that really almost neverresults in a sale.
So I have a free courseavailable to anybody on handling
(50:10):
that objection, how to preventthem from getting to that point
in the first place, how torecognize what they really mean
by that objection and how to getpast it and close more deals
while the subject is still freshon their mind.
To take that course, go toIHateObjectionscom.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
I like it.
I think you got the right name.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah, ihateobjectionscom, because
that's the objection that leavesmost sales stomping the ground
and scratching their headbecause you thought you had a
sale and then suddenly they needto think about it.
So if you can learn to handlethat, you can improve your sales
overnight.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
That's it.
Well, listen, john Preston.
I do appreciate you being onthe show.
I really have taken a lot ofpointers actually out of what
you said because I really thinkit is important.
Listen.
If you guys want to hear more,he's giving you the information.
Go see it.
If not, you can always come tosee me.
You can email me at Pete at theRTO show podcastcom, or you can
go to the website atwwwthertoshowpodcastcom.
(51:10):
Listen to this.
You can also listen to it onYouTube, on Spotify, on Apple
podcasts or anywhere that youget your listening things.
Remember that you go onto thesite to get some of your swag.
We definitely want to sell youa shirt so you can look as good
as me day to day and show theshow.
Show, john, your love.
Make sure that you click andsubscribe and I will tell you
guys, as always, keep yourcollections low to get your
(51:32):
sales high.
Have a great one.
Thanks, pete.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.