The 7 Key Topics To Cover With Every Client BEFORE The Sale | The Client Acquisition Series

[00:00:00] welcome back to another episode of the six figure creative podcast.

I'm your host Brian Hood. I am here. with my substitute cohost mark Eckert.

Good to have you here again, my.

I'm here. I'm perfect. I can pronounce things. This was Brian's second intro. Cause he couldn't say my name was good fam

If you heard last week's episode, like I just butchered the intro and left it in because you know what I'm trying to be. What do they call it more vulnerable or

authentic, vulnerable.

Yeah. Or just keeping in all my

We're doing these interests. So Brian can stop calling me at 3:00 AM crying about just everything. So just kidding. Brian keeps it all in. I can't get a damn feeling out of this guy. I gotta call him twice before it picks up.

Let's trim this cause, okay. This is just one of those wonderful life hacks for anyone listening or watching right now. And that is if you want to get a damn thing done in your life. Put your phone and your computer and do not disturb 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because if they're not on your favorites list and not getting through mark, you're actually not on my favorites list.

what the dude?

[00:01:00] I only have my family. I only have my family on there. That's why you're not family.

I'm genuinely upset. I'm genuinely upset. No, I'm kidding. It's

fine.

was going to, if it makes you feel any better, I just haven't even considered to add you yet. This is the first time I'm like, maybe I should add mark to

no, it's, it's actually fine because nobody's in my favorites. Uh, Even Shira, my wife has to call me twice. like, It's like, not even an opt-in thing. Oh, my neon sign just went out again.

Yeah, This is mark struggle. If you're watching the YouTube version right now, he has a cheaper version of my neon light behind him. And it just went out because it's cheap

and.

a neon sign that says, please don't do Coke in the bathroom. Anyways. people aren't even on my favorites actually just have to let them know that they can call me. So that way it's an, opt-in not an opt-out you see that?

Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. good. job for anyone. Who's not following along. If you call somebody twice in a row, when their phone is on, do not disturb it'll bypass the do not disturb and still go through. that's more than enough. Let's move on. We're not gonna talk about iPhones or do not disturb anymore. Let's let's bring up the topic for today, mark. Before we lose any more listeners right now, [00:02:00] last week we talked about client acquisition for freelance.

we talked a lot about the mindset behind it. I want to make a series of this mark. If you're cool with this, maybe we do a multi-part series here. I have some interviews lined up, So, you'll, it'll have to be between the interviews, but clinic acquisition is kind of like, there's a few ways to look at it and there's a few different parts, but at the core of it, there's like, there's two parts.

There's the part of. Lead-generation and then there's the part of actual sales? Like how do you get leads? Meaning someone who's like expressed interest in working with you and then how do you turn those leads into clients or customers, depending on what your context is. And today we want to talk about that second part.

We'll probably follow this in no sequential order. it'll be just a weird hodgepodge of like different client acquisition things or this next series, but today's focus is on sales and mark has some cool stuff to share with us today because you actually, you have a sales, a big sales call in like less than, 50 minutes from now that you have to go to. so. literally the stuff we're talking about now, you'll be implementing in this call.

Yeah. So basically uh, for those of you who just chiming in, or if you don't know what I do I started out only producing. That's what I did just producing tracks.

Music

production had a [00:03:00] studio, still have a studio. But I have a site that pitch.com where we get producers tracks into massive music licensing companies, and we pay out a bunch of money in royalties to everyone.

for anyone listening at two X speed, he said that pitch P I T C H not what you thought you might've heard there,

but continue

it's not, Lizzo. , Um, anyways, but, but, uh, yeah, in 50 minutes I have a call with a new licensing company What I, what I recently learned is there's not a massive difference in selling to someone if you're a freelancer, like when I was just producing, selling to an artist versus an enterprise sale, which is selling to a company.

So when I was just producing, you know, I would work with an artist we would do anywhere between a thousand dollars attract to you, maybe $3,000 a track. And now for this client, for instance I have two offers for. One could be north of half, a million dollars. Another one could be five to $10,000 a month.

And I recently [00:04:00] learned this from actually one of my mentors and this kind of goes back to what we were talking about dating last week.

The last one, we talked so much about dating and, and being sad and lonely in our twenties that we thought we probably will be acquainting. A lot of this conversation back to relationships, personal relationships, romantic relationships, but there's so many parallels between relationships with your clients and relationships with your spouse or your, or your lover or your girlfriend or whatever you want to call it, or boyfriend it's just easy to, to quit those things.

Cause a lot of people, if they struggle with, with sales specifically, They don't understand why, but when he put it in romantic terms, it's a lot easier to understand why you're struggling with

Right. So what's very typical is people, you know, if they're on a call doing a sales call bay, get a script you've heard, you've maybe heard of like sales scripts, kind of read through this thing. You ask questions, see and learn about the prospective client as much as you can. Well, one of my mentors recently this guy.

Is doing well over 6 million a year or so right now, he's doing very well. And he let me know, [00:05:00] here are the things that he covers on a sales call. And he basically said, this is how, you know, if they give you the wink, if you can go through all of this stuff and everything comes back positive. They are giving you permission to make an offer.

And that was huge for me and I wish, oh my gosh, I wish I had this when I was just freelancing at that point, because I think I would have landed so many more deals.

So what we have, what you texted me, this is basically our island for the show. This is essentially a sales outline or sales script. Now I wouldn't call it a script because you're not following word for word, but it is an outline. You are basically each one of these points. Here is an area of topic and

exploration.

I'm going to read these off and I want you to write it down. I think that would be best for anybody listening is write these down and then we can kind of cover all of.

And if you are in a place where you can't write things down, maybe you're driving you're on a walk or doing something. These bullet points will be in our show notes at six-figure creative.com/ 202 0 [00:06:00] 0 fun fact, this is our big 200th episode, and we haven't even made a big deal about it, which is another side lesson to talk about.

And that is just saying you don't have to celebrate every day on milestone in your life. Sometimes there's more to be gained by just chugging along. and just getting stuff done than to worry about doing a big hurrah, every every hundred episodes of a podcast. So we're not doing anything big, crazy for this episode.

But there could be an argument made that I don't celebrate my wins enough. So maybe we should have done something bigger for

this episode, mark.

Brian is completely lying to his whole audience. Cause I just sent him a fruit basket. I sent over a flowers. It's a big celebration at the hood house. Just kidding. I have not done

that.

You've done none of those

things. You've done none of those

but I've graced you with my presence and that is enough.

I am enough

so,

so read these out. These will be in our show notes again to six figure creative.com/ 2 0 0. If you can't write these down, go ahead and read them out and then why should cover these and what they mean and how you can implement them

So these are the seven things that you need to cover with a prospective client. And if everything [00:07:00] comes back positive, they are giving you the wink, you know, to give them a little smudge, make an offer anyways. So need timing, risk, budget, method, authority, delivering. Those are the seven things you need to cover on any call

And that sounds super underwhelming, but we're going to actually dive into each point here and we have about 40 minutes to knock all these out before you have to go and close your half million dollar deal. All right, let's talk about need first need is the first bullet point on this list?

How do you approach this?

I think the main thing is that a lot of times people are really just talking about what they do. Like if you are talking to someone for the first time you're saying I'm doing this and I can do this and I can do that, but you don't actually understand the need of the person. Why are they even a prospective client?

What is their. Are they kind of just flaunting with the idea of working with you or is this a genuine need that they have, that they need to get solved?

But

One of the things I like to do on calls with my prospective clients is just ask them what motivated [00:08:00] them to even book the call with me in the first place. Because the way I have my website set up is they can book calls with me. It's them asking me for a call.

I'm not like going out there like bugging people for a call. It would make sense if you were like bugging the hell out of somebody and then saying what motivated you to finally give me the chance? Like it doesn't work that way, but just asking you about their main mode of. asking some sub questions within that.

Do you have anything that you'd like your go-to line or kind of things that you ask around finding their need?

I say to kind of everyone, what was the tipping point where you realized you needed some help?

Yeah. And a lot of times they end up telling a story and it's very, very clear that there is a massive issue. With that, it kind of brings out a lot of empathy cause nobody wants to be sold to, they want someone that they can trust that connects with them and genuinely wants their best interests.

And I think that's part of sales. It's just trust.

I think that my favorite part about that question is it's worded so well to actually elicit a story because you have to go back to a specific point and recall that point. And I've heard this quote. I have no idea if [00:09:00] there's merit to this, but I feel like there is, but people buy with emotion and then justify with logic later on.

So if you. Prompt this entire call to start off with them talking about the story where they realized the tipping point, where they needed help. That's an emotional conversation, and it's probably a good place to start with any kind of self.

When you're on a call with someone, you have no idea what they're going through that day. You know, they might have just picked up their kids. There's a bunch going on, you know, not, everybody's always going to be in the, you know, everybody would like there to be some, um, they've committed that hour to talk to you, but a lot of times people are just in a rush.

I had a sales call. where the guy was talking. on his phone in his car with two, five, and under kids in the back

seat, squirming around,

they were parked. They weren't driving. I wouldn't have talked to him if he was

driving, but they were parked and they were squirming

yeah. I mean, literally this was hilarious. I was on a sales call. There's a client we work with out of. they get a lot of music from us and they're an amazing

company.

a client that is.

yeah, what one of my partners, Joel for that pitch, he had his, his dog just [00:10:00] got a haircut and I guess.

up. So they had to like bring back the dog. So the dogs in the back of the car, he's got kids from soccer practice with him and we're on this huge call with the head of music academy and our, the executives. It was just awesome. But, you know, they thought it was hilarious. So it worked out great authenticity.

Right. So yeah, once you kind of figure out that need preferably you want to connect with them and be like, yeah, I totally get it. This is why we exist. Like that's I see what you're going through and yeah, you need to get that figured out. just prefacing here.

When I went through these seven things, I'm not really all about sales scripts or anything like that. Cause I'm just, you know, I shoot the I'm a pretty authentic guy. I don't need a script necessarily.

Only a non authentic guy would say that he's a pretty authentic guy. So I call bullshit on.

I'm very in-office this is

not me guy.

You're bad for me, by the way. I, I basically completely stop cussing on the podcast and until you came on and now I feel like my bleeps have like gone up 10

X.

What I was saying though, is you don't have to go in order for all of this. You just want [00:11:00] to cover all of these things on the call.

So basically you're giving them permission to skip around on one of these other seven bullet points. So like, if something naturally comes up in conversation, just have the conversation right then and there, like if the budget comes up or if there one of these other things like authority, which we'll talk about that is method.

We'll talk about. That is like, if one of these other things come up, talk about it, chat about it, but make sure, please guide that you're taking notes during this call, because the last thing you need to do is forget something. They said that was super important.

Yeah. If you've got good people skills, you can kind of just ride the call and go through everything. If you can't really talk to people well, then maybe you want to have like a general outline, but I I'm okay at this at this time. Anyway, so the next thing is you want to go through time.

it's pretty simple. Like where are they at in the process? How quickly do they need this solved? is it urgent? And that that's to be honest in my experience. Nobody's going to speed up their time. I've had a lot of sales calls at this point and I'm, I would love to learn, like, I would love to get a lot more knowledge on this and see if there's a thing.

But as an example, if somebody is paying [00:12:00] taxes next, And they're getting married. They're going to be low on cash. you know, Or for these enterprise sales this company I'm speaking to in 40 or 39 minutes, let's hurry up. Um, This company they're waiting on funding I can't speed that up,

there's another reason to ask about timing because sometimes, like especially when you're doing a bigger deal, like Mark's talking about in the next hour, you're not going to close that on the call and collect

money right there. Like that's just not how

those work. with that sort of stuff, like having the, having a deadline or having an understanding of timing helps you in the follow-up process so that you can always have that date in mind and understand how you need to pace your followups. So that you're top of mind when that day comes so that,

if they are considering multiple people to work with that you are top of mind again.

If, if everyone else has. According to the timeline they've laid out and you're not following up with them and you're not staying top of mind. You're not going to get the gig. You're not going to win the project ever. the timing is an important element to, to write down and put on your time calendar, if you're trying to close them.

and actually that what you just talked about is actually covered later on that's actually under the section method.

Oh, [00:13:00] cute. Well, we'll talk about that

again, but either way the advice is prudent.

Yep. So next is risk. what's going to be the issue if they don't take action on this. So for instance, if you're a graphic designer And you're doing a logo design for someone, well, if they have a new campaign dropping or maybe they just got, let's say you're doing uh, a design for.

podcast. All right. Well, let's say they're coming up on their 200th, 200th episode, this is maybe the time to rebrand or something,

Please God. No, I don't want to go through that again,

but one of the things is like, okay.

When is the next time you guys are doing, you know, a big launch or something, let's make sure that it arrives within that. So is there a risk for you not doing this at all, or I'm just, I'm connecting over what I'm doing right now, but like, this company would be getting a lot of music from us.

What's the risk of them not taking action. Well, they get all of this money. They want to launch this big company and have a big catalog of music. And if they don't take action with a suit, they're not going to have a [00:14:00] product. So it's like, do we, do we get this together now?

how do you approach this conversation without kind of feeling slimy? Cause

it could go slimy very quickly. An example would be like,

so let's talk about what happens if we

don't. get this done in guys.

here's the thing like regarding this question, I think it's all about tone because on sales calls or anything. Uh, What I've realized is actually being upfront about stuff. If you genuinely have their best interest, which should be every sales call do not work with someone, unless you can help them.

They feel that a lot of your tone is going to set the precedent on the call.

Can you give us an example?

yeah, if you're like, what's going to happen. If you don't work with me, that's

that sounds awful.

Exactly. But if you say something along the lines of, okay, so if this doesn't happen, do you guys have any other thing that you're looking for?

Like, is there going to be an issue? Is this an urgent need or I just want to make sure that if we [00:15:00] do work together, we can be prepared for that. Because if this is something that's really important to you guys, we want to make sure that it can happen. So what is there a problem? If it is.

So another way of looking at this, and this is something I do on my calls is consequences. like what are the consequences of them not fixing this? That's kind of what you're saying.

Like, what are the consequences of them leaving it exactly how it is right

yeah, because if you come at it from a point of, I'm trying to get leverage on you, they know that people are smart, but if you come at it from a point of, Hey, I care about you. I want to make sure whether or not we work together. You're not at risk. So let's say I'm not ready for this. Maybe I can get you in contact with somebody else.

How important is this to you? And if it doesn't happen, is it going to, you know, bankrupt, you all, I think people understand the tone of. Honestly, like, I don't know how to teach people skills, but like, if you genuinely give a about people, people know,

just to sum this whole, this whole point up it's either risk or I would say it or consider consequence. You're literally just trying to figure out what [00:16:00] happens if they don't hire you or what happens if the thing they're trying to accomplish falls

apart or never gets done?

never actually say what happens if you don't hire us. I'm just saying what happens if this problem is not fixed? If you lead it back to yourself, Then it means leverage, but if you lead it back to their problem, that makes the focus on them.

That is the differentiator. In my opinion, they don't give a about you. but they're on a call with you because they're trying to solve an issue. Talk about the issue. Don't talk about yourself.

Kinda like how, when you call me the other day to talk about something that you and I have been discussing, you just talked about yourself the whole time.

Well, yeah, because I mean, you love me and I'm perfect. And you should talk about me more often. Um,

That's joking.

I'm not.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go to the next bullet point here. We got a next is budget.

That's the big B word people are scared to talk

about, which is unfortunate.

is my thing. I think everyone should state the fun, not don't say budget, the funds that they have allotted to solve this problem prior [00:17:00] to you getting on a call because everyone's going to reach out.

But if you have an ability and you can do this through easy funnels in the form when they are reaching out to you, easy funnels.io, bam, bam, bam. And it's actually great. I'm switching over to it. If someone states what funds they have to solve this problem or complete this project. That is a, that is a genuine question of seeing, Hey, the funds that you have is this in line with the issue you're trying to solve.

I call it a F like a filtering question. So like, if someone's going to get on a call with you, you have to know just at least the balance, the boundaries of their budget. Like you don't have to have an exact number. So I actually changed my form to give a budget ranges no, one's going to put an exact number in there.

Even when I'd make it a required field, people will just say not sure.

When I put budget ranges, now people are selecting the budget ranges cause the whole point is depending on your budget. And obviously for me, it depends on what business I'm talking about here.

But depending on your budget is going to determine how I can build out your package [00:18:00] because the higher your budget, the more we can do the lower your budget, the more we have to sacrifice. So I have to know this number. So that's a really good way to approach that conversation because you're making a again about them depending on your budget.

That determined what we are able to do together and the cool things that I can build out as a proposal for you, or as

part of this project,

I'm actually really surprised you never had ranges. I've only had ranges. That's really funny.

since day one, I've always had budget line items and I used to make it required. And then I took it off required. I just

tested a bunch of stuff, but this is the first one I've done ranges.

I've always said, ranges and I've always, , I've never had not sure actually I've had a minimum. So I think it, it just depends what your offer is, but like for producing there was nothing you could click below a thousand dollars.

So people got the message. This is my only ability to work is if these funds are there.

there's another thing here though, because I I've seen some people asking a, like, what happens if you get all over this point and you're just way out of alignment with what their budget is. Do you feel like you've just wasted both of your times getting to this point where it's like this far

in Tell me your thoughts, but I'm going to tell you my thoughts is that if you get to that point [00:19:00] regularly, then you need to put another filter in place that says our project start at blank and it needs to be a number that is going to scare off the, like the cheap tire kicker, people who are just looking for a cheap project.

You don't have to give specifics, but just, just like our projects begin at five grand,

four grand,

think that's a great starting point. And if you're first starting out, I think that's fantastic. If you have some experience on your belt and you understand the audience that's coming to you and they, you understand their issues. Then I think that's, when you start crafting a down, sell or an upsell or cross sell, or you have a kickback program with, you know, one of your friends who has a different.

And just to clarify what he's talking about there, he talked about a bunch of different.

stuff, which we've talked about in the podcast before our editor will try to find those episodes if he can. But cause I don't know the specific numbers, but one thing that you said the down sell, there are three types of services you can offer that.

I think people really haven't thought about there's the done for you, which is what most freelancers. Just default to, I will do this thing for you. I will be your copywriter, or I will [00:20:00] record your music, or I will take your photos or I will make a video for you, but there's also done with you, meaning like I will help you, but you're going to do the work.

I will guide you through writing the copy for your website, or I will guide you through taking your own photos and maybe I'll process them for you, or I'll guide you through recording your own music, but I might mix it for you. So there's kind of blended services and it's usually much cheaper. less time intensive for you.

And then there's the do it yourself where you can actually, this is what a lot of people have moved to, which is you're teaching somebody in their own time to do the thing themselves. But we'll maybe have another, a whole other episode on that because that's a fun topic to talk about when it comes to down-sells.

Yeah, think the, one of the biggest lessons I always I had forgot who said this? Maybe it was, maybe it was like Frank Kern, like one of the more old OGs, like in marketing.

The old G internet marketing guys let's go.

but he said something and it was so simple.

He was just like, always have an offer, always have an offer.

I, heard that, but there's another way I heard someone say it's never run out of things to sell to somebody.

Yeah. That's [00:21:00] another way

to look at it.

Yeah. Not to get too off subject, but like, look at car companies, you know, like Toyota Scion Lexus. I think there's a more expensive one. If you think about it, they're like down-sells for like, or upsells for different points of the market, but it's all owned by Toyota or something, you know?

I'm not a car expert, but like the thing is they'll have different lines for different people for different.

budget ranges, experiences, whatever, whatever they're into. And you'd be surprised, you know, maybe you're a fantastic photographer and somebody reaches out to you they actually don't really want their photo taken.

Maybe they just want to learn from me. So maybe they can pay to shadow You

or

something like that. You have never.

that's, what I did my first, my first online course was my first foray into do it yourself. I made a mixing course. I had a ton of people coming to me that. they love. My next is as a mixing engineer, they love the sound that I created and the niche that I was a part of which was heavy metal. And they wanted to learn from me and I, the last thing I want to do is sit one-to-one and teach somebody to do it. So I wasn't going to do it with them. I wasn't gonna offer a done with You [00:22:00] solution. So I just went straight to the do it yourself, and that course has done hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.

And I still do multiple five figures a year of that course. I don't promote it. I don't advertise it. I don't, I don't even know how people find it and I still sell it to this day. And I haven't taught mixing related things in like seven or eight years.

So it's, it's great.

for, that page, we have lifetime memberships for my own production side. I had NDPR bundle and this course called getting your together. And it's basically like how

to register all your whatever.

Okay. So let's move on. We've we've, we've talked about the need. So discovering the need that the person came to you with. We talked about the timing. What's the timing around the project. We talked about the risk or another way of saying risk would be the consequences of not following through or not getting the problem solved.

We talked about the budget, so we're now on to number five and that's something called the method. Talk about the.

Yeah. So this is something that I recently got a word for. And again, my mentor Taught me this, and it was, it was profound because I never really actually talked about this on sales calls. Again. I wish I had this earlier on. It's [00:23:00] basically, how are they choosing? Do they have other options? Have they considered other things to solve their problem?

And that's been really interesting because it there's multiple things you can gain from that. If you're saying, how are they choosing. You can kind of dive into their motivation for the type of person or the type of service they want to work with. Some people want a lot more handholding, so you can kind of set expectations with this.

Some people just want to off and you do everything for them. And then considering options. This gives you a general understanding of their. Understanding of how to solve this.

Can you give some examples? Cause you're being very, very theoretical. I need some practical examples of what you're talking about here with method. Like what does this mean? Give me an example as like a freelancer and not your big that pitch.

How are they choosing what kind of person do they want to work with? You know, is it someone that they're going to work with in [00:24:00] person? Are they wanting to do something more remote?

what are their preferences for how everything is done?

Is this going to be online, like a remote? Is this going to be asynchronous? Meaning like I send you something and then you work on in your own time and then you send it back to me. And I work on my own time or is it going to be in person live like

Facebook?

are the most important attributes to them? Like what's extremely important that maybe you haven't covered. And that goes into their decision making. maybe people really love fancy gear. Maybe they want the full studio. Like if you're producing, they want the full studio experience and they want to have like a bunch of photographers there so they can make a music video, that's their dream outcome and realizing that you're just a step in that dream outcome, And then for considering options already, what have they done so far? Like have they talked to people who are also doing the same thing as you have, they talked to other freelancers, have they tried doing this themselves before and realized they couldn't do it?

Do they not have the time? It's just getting a more nuanced understanding of like, What is going into their [00:25:00] calculation of choosing you versus someone else or not doing it at all or doing it themselves?

My past is an audio and somebody artists would just do it themselves? instead of hiring. That's what you're up against a lot of times in other niches, it's the same thing. Like photographers can tend to struggle with this because cameras are so affordable now.

Videography, maybe a little less so, but the camera gear is kind of getting there as well. we're talking about method, we're talking about deciding how they are choosing who they hire here, or if they hire it all. Is there anything else you're trying to figure out during this kind

of portion of the.

what's their history so far by solving this, that that's essentially what this comes down to is what has led up to this decision-making and how you got on the call. And it's, it's different than the need, because the need says, this is what our problem is. The method is, this is what we've already tried to do and what we've researched.

And this is also how we got here. And you can learn a lot more about it. for instance, producing, everybody wants to be friends in the studio. And a lot of times you know, clients of mine would feel like because they would hire someone. And it was [00:26:00] just a hourly thing. And they got out a lot of times they wanted to feel connected to that person.

And like, you know, maybe they wanted to get hooked up with a manager and that's their end goal.

And I get this. So this is going to be one of those, those line items is going to vary depending on the niche in the service and what you offer. But I'm just thinking through like what I know and what I've done myself. And a lot of this is like, all right, I'm going to talk about music production, sorry for anyone who's not in music production, which is a bigger portion of our audience now than it used to be.

But when someone's coming to me just, Hey for recording services. I want to know what are their expectations for the project? Do they want the big studio experience? Do they want something that's like small and cozy of? They're trying to save the most money, like, well, I guess what are the things that are going to weigh their options?

Because they may want the big studio experience, but the thing we just talked about, their budget is just not there. So we've got to say. This is part of your decision-making, but the budget's not really there. So we've got to even this out and make the scales, even like in podcast production, talking to clients who, trying to launch a podcast, what are the things that they are looking for?

Do they need help with gear? Are they looking to [00:27:00] choose that they need a studio to go into? So you're just at this point, we're just trying to find the specifics of the project. Is that kind of where you're at with.

yeah. And just their history leading up to it.

Oh, what have they tried so far? Did you try to launch a podcast six months ago? And then

you did three episodes and then faded out and failed because it was too much work for you.

Yeah. Like what I'm going to be covering on this call in 21 minutes now is with this section, have they hired a team before? Have they worked with the team to source a bunch of music and go through legal and stuff like that? That's what we do. So it's like, do they know the issues that they're going to face or have they already faced them?

And they know that this is the decision. And again, that is kind of what we were talking about with like, they give you the wink, Yes, we've already dealt with. I already had terrible boyfriends in the past. was like, Hey, you're

so

great. You me out to dinner.

We haven't brought up relationships stuff yet. So thanks throwing back to that.

This is basically talking about their exes.

That that's what this is. You're talking about their exes.

You've talked about their axes and what those axes didn't

have that you're looking for your

he just hated Chinese [00:28:00] food and Seinfeld, as you're overlooking the TV, which Seinfeld is playing and you are eating general says, you're putting the clues together.

And so the next thing is authority. Who's the decision maker here. So for instance, if you're a wedding photographer, It's probably going to be the couple, they're both going to decide who they want. It's not just going to be one or the other.

Oh, you're trying to find the, decision maker in this

portion. So like, if.

who's saying yes. And has the authority to say yes, because if there's, let's say going back to production, if it's a band,

There's five different band members. They

all have to sign off on it.

the singer is the one making the decision. So it's like, so it's like if you're talking to the basis and the basis, like, yo, I love Brian.

He's great. Yeah, dude, let's work with you,

I can guarantee

you no basis. in any band is making decisions for That

band. They are the lowest on the totem pole.

but that that's, that's the thing it's like, who's the, who is not saying yes, but who can give the authority of yes. And if you're talking to a somebody who wants to get a new LinkedIn profile, you know, for a corporate photo or [00:29:00] something like

that

And not man, another one you said you're talking about wedding photographers, but sometimes you might only be talking to one of the two spouses. So it's like, they both need to sign off for it. And maybe even it's the wedding planner as well. Like you maybe You have to figure out who, who is part of the decision making

process here.

This is what I learned lately, which was crazy is I thought this was kind of rude to ask before. is straight up. Just ask. Hey, so who's kind of making the decision here. I just want to know, like, is this kind of a communal thing or is it one of you guys like, or is it just you and people actually really respect you asking that in my experience, I thought it was a rude thing.

And then I learned it's extremely clarifying and respectful to just be like, what's going on here? Like yeah.

Find the, this the authority or the decision maker who is actually going. I have the authority to say, yes, this is the person we're going to hire for the project. Because the last thing you want to do is like, spend all this time And get all of these like wonderful yeses.

I love it. I'm into it. Let me go talk to my business partner

who is going to be in China [00:30:00] until

next

if that's the thing and it's like, oh, I'm not the decision maker. It's you know, it's Ted, then be like, okay, well let's, we should get on a call with Ted Uh, we can talk about whatever you want, but I respect your time.

And like, I don't want to waste it and we should just get on a call together. So let's all get on call together. Can we schedule next week? Is that. Yeah. and then delivery is the last one. this really comes down to, you know, done for you done with you, do it yourself. It's what are they expecting of the fulfillment process,

When I see the word delivery, my mind goes back to my, my studio days where I'm thinking about like file formats and like how am I gonna deliver the masters? But this is not the delivery of the actual, It's not deliverables. Is it? This is more about how you're, how you're transferring value. Is that what you're talking about here? Like what

does delivery mean in

this.

delivery means the way in which the value is delivered, not the end goal, but how you get there.

Okay. So this is the, the vehicle basically that you're taking to deliver the value that they're, that they're paying you for. So as the delivery, you're going to [00:31:00] be the consultant on the project and you're going to make sure everything is done correctly. Are you the one actually doing the work or are you outsourcing the work?

And you're basically a project manager or a producer in, in other words here. So how do you bring this up in the conversation?

this is exactly how I say it because in my, experience this isn't everybody's. But in my experience, if you have a different delivery, different way in which it's done, then the client expects. They a lot of times think that you betrayed them. So this is actually to protect yourself in the future and to in best case scenario, get another sale.

This is, setting expectations.

Basically, you're trying to set expectations to make sure you're on the same, playing field. You're playing the

same sport, essentially.

Let's say that I'm a big photographer. Okay. This couple wants to hire me to do their wedding. They talked to me, we had all of our meetings, you know, I was there, they loved, my vision and we shared the same vision for how the photos are going to come out.

And then the wedding happens and my team is [00:32:00] there. Not me.

Ah, I see what you're saying. Yeah.

they thought they, they were gonna experience the relationship with you. And I understand that because we connected really well with our wedding photographer. And she was the one at the wedding taking the

photos and it would have been really weird if she just had some assistant there that we'd

never met her, talked to him before.

so what I, what I typically say is. What is your dream scenario for this?

You want to make sure that they are comfortable throughout the process and there's communication in the ideal scenario that they anticipate communication. Is it from you? Is it from someone else? Is it from someone you're hiring? Is it you every day? Is it you once a month? How is the process going to go down for you delivering that value?

give you another example just in my, in my mixing days when I was mixing a master. Full-time, that was my main gig. And I would have bands that wanted to come in the studio while I mixed and mastered. I didn't want that. So if I closed a client and charged what I charged and that wasn't discussed ahead of time, that expectation wasn't set, then [00:33:00] they would've felt like that.

I. Took something from them. Like I was not allowing them in the studio line, mixing master. And the reason I didn't allow that is because it took three times longer when they're there, So if they were looking for somebody to sit in on the session while we mixed, I'm not your guy.

So I've either got to nip that in the bud right there before I take payment or they just got to find somebody else.

Yeah. And that was actually a big thing for me early on is back in 2016, 17 or something. When I started producing remote a lot a lot of people would reach out and they're like, Hey man, I want to work with you in person and a few gigs I did take on. Cause it was kind of fun. Like they would pay for my flights and I, you know, it was awesome.

Then you go to Australia for

a

project

Once Australia, Italy, Ireland, a lot of international flights of, you know, they would Fiji. It was awesome.

plenty of different states, but if that made sense for me then I would do it, but most of the time it's like, no, I just want to produce this.

And so again, this is when we got to a point uh, when we were out to [00:34:00] dinner, we're talking about our future goals, you know, do you want a family? Do you want to be at my parents? And then you realize that, all of this is like delivery.

Okay. So like delivery. My next door neighbor. Awesome guy. But he, you know, it's April. Wait, no, it's may it's may, he's already, he's already had 120 flights this year.

That's his job.

Shoo. No.

And yeah, exactly. A lot of girls say that too. So he was, he was hanging out with Shira and I, and we're just talking and he was talking about how it's really hard today.

He's a great guy. Awesome dude. So genuine, you know, he like, brought us over some liquor the other day and we were just hanging out. genuine guy. And um, it's hard to date because that's a non-negotiable you gotta be home for the girls that he wanted the date. So in delivery, When we're in this relationship together, what can I expect day to day from you?

I think this is a good place to wrap this up cause I see what time it is and Mark's got to get to a sales call here. Yeah. If anyone has any questions we also have in the show notes, a link to a dedicated. [00:35:00] Community post in our Facebook community where you can ask questions, mark you're on our Facebook community.

You kind of interact in there occasionally. So if you?

have anything, any questions for mark go to that, that thread in our show notes page again, there's link to that show notes pages six, figure creative.com/ 2 0, 0 for this episode. sales is such an important part of this entire client acquisition process.

This is a very solid outline. I've seen a few more and I follow a slightly different outline for most of my sales calls, but I feel like most people have zero outline whatsoever. So make sure you wrote those bullet points down again. They're need timing risk by.

Method authority and delivery. Those are the seven bullet points. Make sure you cover each of those in your calls with your clients. obviously you have to change a few things around, depend on who you're talking to and on what your niche is. But this is a great resource it's this entire episode is a great resource almost.

It's almost like a, honestly, this is more like a webinar because we're literally teaching like tactical step-by-step things to talk about in a sales. I am currently right this second word. might regret this. I'm currently working on a client acquisition guide for freelancers. I am almost done with it right now.

And this [00:36:00] episode airs in like four days. So if you want this guide what should I call it? Mark. The client acquisition cookbook. I don't know. I like that name. That's a good name. We'll come up with a name for

it.

liked that

I liked that anything with a cookbook, bro. You know, I'm in, that was my first e-book.

That's great. Yeah. So if you want that, just go to, I'm gonna make up URL right now and they'll be there. By the time this episode airs six-figure creative.com/c a C that's client acquisition, cookbook CAC. For those of you who know that acronym and if it's not ready by the time this episode airs, they'll at least be a landing page.

You can sign up and I'll send it to you as soon as it's done. So that's all I have for you today. Any last little thoughts here on sales mark, before you run off and try to close your big.

Wish me luck people. I want to land this. So that's it. Let's let's bring this back to me. What really matters here, right? All right. We'll talk to you later. Bye labio.

love you to bet.