Sales for Nerds (Reuben Swartz)

Hourly billing is the industry standard, but it creates perverse incentives for consultant and client.

Jonathan Stark is a former software developer turned consultant, and host of the Ditching Hourly podcast. He shares his journey from realizing how hourly billing was hurting his firm to making more money with better clients and more success with value-based fees.

He covers how to get more money upfront, how to set the prospect's mind at ease, even at higher price points, and much more.

Catch this episode and more at https://www.salesfornerds.io.

To implement some of the ideas in this episode, including offering multiple choices for prospects in one proposal, check out Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants: https://www.mimiran.com. 

Justin Foster grew up on a ranch in Oregon, got married and had a kid at 18, and accidentally learned B2B sales. Then he started his own firm and focused on "spiritual branding".

In this episode, Justin tells his story, and provides practical tips for discovering and communicating your deeper mission, and inviting others to the journey.

Join guest Mark Firth as he shares his journey in digital marketing (and around the globe, from London to Bogota to Florida), and how he realized that posting on social media didn't give long last results. But YouTube's algorithm is different, and can help you connect with an audience.

Find out more at www.salesfornerds.io.

And check out Mimiran, the fun, anti-CRM for independent consultants at www.mimiran.com. 

Master Sommelier June Rodil discusses how to pick wine as a beginner, how she became as Master Sommelier, and how she opened her own restaurant.

Plus,

• Secrets for great customer service
• How to delegate as a control freak
• Why spreadsheets are still important
• How to set up your product offerings to maximize customer happiness and minimize your stress.

It's easy to make sales overly complicated. (I've been guilty of that many times.)

So here's the simple, 2-step sales process for consultants that doesn't require fancy sales skills or any of the hard selling at all.

You can implement it when you're busy with clients or don't have any client work.

And it's fun, sustainable, and effective

(Naturally, Mimiran, the fun CRM for solo consultants, makes this all easy.)

VP of Sales and Marketing for National Association of Sales Professionals, so he's like an uber meta-sales person, but that's not how he started. He got a summer internship knocking on doors for a painting company. Learn about his journey, and hear Rick's insights on sales psychology.

How he started sales in elementary school, started (and sold) his first business in high school, and much, much more.

To perform at our best, we need to fuel and nourish our bodies properly.

But most fitness advice has everything backwards.

In this episode, learn how personal fitness coach Rachel Nigro flips the conventional wisdom on its head, so you can feel better, look better, and perform better, without crash diets and/or self-loathing.

Aaron Ross, co-author of "Predictable Revenue", along with Mary Lou Tyler from episode 14, is back with a new book, "From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hypergrowth companies create predictable revenue". Learn what Aaron had to learn the hard way about sales, and how he manages to write books, consult, and raise 12 kids.

Scott Ingram, host of the Sales Success Podcast, discusses his journey from networking engineering to sales success, including:

• The importance of great mentors.
• A great short cut for nerdy sales success.
• His morning routine.
• Why women are overrepresented in top sales performers, and what you can learn from them.

While publishing a book is a great way for experts to gain (and broadcast) authority, you don't need to write a whole book to benefit from publishing. Erica Holthausen shares how you can get published in magazines and journals to boost your profile and attract ideal clients.

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants who love serving clients, but hate selling (with follow-up features that help you implement Erica's strategies, and lead magnets to help you turn them into conversations and clients).

Adam Boyd from MarketSense, a Sandler sales trainer, discusses the importance of process, why you probably talk too much in sales, how to uncover a solution rather than prescribing it, building good habits, and more.

MeetEdgar.com founder Laura Roeder talks about how she started her consulting, online training and software businesses, and how she decided to move on from earlier efforts.

Laura also discusses:

• How to connect with thought leaders online
• How she got her own panel at SXSW when she was just 29
• How she got clients for her consulting business

And much more.

Consultant and consultant to consultant David A. Fields shares wisdom from his latest book, The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients, including how to think "right side up", how to price deals, how he got started in sales, and more.

John Livesay discusses how to pitch, including:

• The 2 simple parts of a pitch
• Why most founders don't have a good pitch
• How to practice your pitch in low pressure situations, so you're ready in high pressure situations.

Author and productivity consultant Maura Thomas talks about how she got into the field (by accident), working with David Allen, where she agrees (and disagrees) with Getting Things Done (GTD), why time management is outdated, and how to manage your attention.

Taking good notes is essential for effective meetings, but most of us never learn how to do it well.

In this episode, Richard White, founder and CEO of Fathom.video, a Zoom note-taking tool, explains how challenges with note-taking at his previous company led him to create this solution.

Reuben wanted to do this episode because he uses Fathom every day (see the show notes for a view of Reuben's custom bookmarks).

Get your free Fathom account.

And of course, Fathom pairs nicely with Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants, letting you enjoy great notes with less effort, so your flawless follow up is easy. Start a free trial here.

Chris Wike has an amazing conference room that he uses to great effect, but you don't need this kind of conference room to use his great networking strategy. Plus, check out his rules for networking, why he doesn't like retainers, and more.

If you want to make more money with less stress as a consultant, it helps to move from implementor to advisor.

Philosophy major and accidental "consultant to consultants" Kevin Whelan steps through his journey from building inexpensive websites to advising firms on their digital marketing projects, to advising other marketing agencies on moving up the value chain.

Don't miss it.

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants, helping you create and nurture relationships with your ideal clients and partners, without being "sales-y'. Start a free trial here.

Julie Brown lauched never thought of herself as a master networker or professional speaker, but when someone asked her to give a talk on networking and the room was packed and people in the audience asked her to come talk to their firms, she knew she was on to something.

In addition to being a captivating speaker, Julie puts in the "work" to build the "network". Learn how you can do that the right way, the authentic way, without feeling slimy or overwhelmed, and having fun the whole time.

A lot of people hate public speaking. But whether you're officially a "speaker", or just someone who needs to talk to a "Zoom room" now and again, speaking effectively is critical to your business.

Speaking coach Meridith Grundei shares how she went from shy kid who didn't want to answer questions in class to helping others overcome their fears of speaking, and how you can communicate more effectively.

Serial entrepreneur, WPEngine founder, and Smart Bear blogger Jason Cohen talks about how to sell as a technical founder against professional sales teams and big companies. You have more advantages than you think, but most small companies squander them.

We also enjoy a nice rioja.

Wayne Mullins, founder of Ugly Mug Marketing and author of Full Circle Marketing: Tranform Your Marketing & Turn Customers Into Evangelists stops by Sales for Nerds to help you focus marketing on what gets results, not what's prettiest or shiniest.

Learn how he grew a landscaping business with donuts (and other marketing tricks), why sales and marketing have to work together, how to get more referrals, and more.

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants who love serving clients, but hate selling, which will help you implement a lot of Wayne's advice, but can't deliver donuts.

Sometimes the allure of working for yourself turns into just having a lot of bosses and you can end up getting burn out all over again. Lydia Lee walked down that path and learned how to put her life first, despite some interesting obstacles (there's a literal exploding toilet), and build her business around her life, instead of trying to squeeze her life into what's left over from work.

She set up shop in Bali and started the Screw the Cubicle blog while serving clients around the globe, and now travels around the world.

If you'd like more freedom in your business and your life, learn from Lydia's approach to creating a business that works for you, instead of you working for it.

And if this business is a relationship business, that means it's a conversation business, and you'll want to use Mimiran as an "anti-CRM" to hone in on your ideal clients-- the people you want to invest your limited time with-- and stay in touch with them.

Anil Dash has done it all, except graduate from college. He's started companies, helped launch the social media revolution, served on President Obama's Office of Digital Strategy, uses Twitter prolifically, and is the CEO of Fog Creek Software.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Anil talks about:

• how he first learned to sell (and overcome his distrust of sales reps)
• how he didn't learn to do marketing until much later (and what he did instead)
• how he tries to structure non-zero-sum incentives
• the critical concept of "bus-proofing" that's expected on the tech side, but not on the sales side of the house
• a simple way to encourage more diversity in hiring (and how this benefits the company)

And much more...

If you feel stuck at a job, or even in your own business, wondering why you don't have the passion for it anymore, Franklin Taggart, host of the "Your Own Best Company" podcast, can help you find the right path to create a business (and life) that's engaging and fulfilling (and profitable).

More info and full show notes at www.salesfornerds.io.

Want a system to help you create and nurture business relationships and have fun doing it? Check out www.mimiran.com, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants.

Craig Elias goes from computer science degree to Canadian sales rock star and learns some things along the way, such as:

• How people end up in the Window of Dissatisfaction
• What they do when they get there
• How do be the first to know someone is in the window
• Why you need to analyze your wins more than your losses
• What kinds of words you need to use to sell

Brennan Dunn wasn't always a whiz internet marketer. He started off pursuing a degree in electrical engineering, but switched gear to study Classical Languages (which did come in very handy later). 

Along the way, he learned how to do internet marketing, how to get sales without selling, and much more.

How do you show appreciation for your best clients and partners?

In this episode, Steve Buzogany from The Appreciation Advocate discusses how to turned around his real estate sales career and turned his gift for gifting into a whole new business, and how you can apply those same techniques to build deeper relationships, get more referrals, and better clients.

Find Steve at AppreciationAdvocate.com.

For a system to track referrals, and the business you get from them, plus lead magnets, proposal automation, e-signature, and more, without the complexity of enterprise CRMs, check out Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants.

Doubling your revenue seems like a big task, but in this episode, Michael Buzinksi, author of The Rule of 26, shows you how you can improve 3 key metrics by 26%, to double your business.

He also discusses the order to address the different metrics, and how to handle common problems.

Of course, this advice pairs well with Mimiran CRM for independent consultants.

Get the show notes and other links at SalesForNerds.io.

In this week’s show:

• Building awareness of a growing medium
• Systematization
• The intake process is all about the business owner
• Planning isn’t sexy
• Interrogating a problem
• Keeping it simple
• Ben’s top 3 quick tests for your website

Joe Williamson on how to price new offerings and more.

We communicate not just with words but with tone and body language. Voice coach Cynthia Zhai discusses how we can communicate confidently by being intentional about voice. We can't all sound like Morgan Freeman, but we can improve how we talk to be more effective.

You don't want "word-of-mouth", you want to put words in people's mouths, so they say the right things about you when you're not around.

Michael Roderick shares how he went from high school english teacher to Broadway producer in 2 years, by getting people to say (good) things about him when he wasn't in the room.

Michael shares his A.I.M. principles for referrability and how the L.E.S.S. pneumonic helps you be more memorable.

Tim Hyde from Win More Clients shares his entrepreneurial journey and the importance of using a CRM to get and stay organized.

Tim also delves into how to find your ideal customers, and why you have to go where they are, because the number one problem solopreneurs face is that their best clients don't even know they exist...

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants who love serving clients, but hate selling.

Jason Cohen returns for part 2, including what kind of company do you want and want to keep, why you should be honest, and more. 

Would you take marketing and customer service advice from someone who spent a decade at a cable company? In this case, you should, as Michael Katz, Chief Penguin and Blue Penguin Development, talks about the series of happy accidents that led him to a career in marketing, helping small services companies position themselves more effectively.

Attorney (and mechanical engineer) Brian Spross on when you need a lawyer and how to protect yourself and your company.

Learn how Tom Jackobs went from almost going broke because he didn't know how to sell to hitting a 90% close rate by selling through stories.

Tom's storytelling approach is authentic and doesn't require fancy sales techniques, just being attuned to the prospect and caring about their success.

Alistair McDermott sits down with some whiskey to talk about becoming the Recognized Authority in your consulting niche.

This leads to easier marketing and sales and less wasted time and effort.

Alistair shares his 5 step process for niching down and becoming that Recognized Authority.

(An approach that dovetails nicely with the Mission & Positioning screen in Mimiran CRM.

Marylou Tyler of Predictable Revenue and Predictable Prospecting fame discusses how she moved from writing code to sales success by using her engineering background instead of running away from it.

Wow-- episode 100!

Podcasting expert John Tyreman provides tips on using your podcast to get clients, including:

1. Figuring out the right format for your podcast.
2. How to get guests without stress.
3. How to promote your podcast.
4. What equipment you do (and don't) need

And so much more.

And if you're a solo professional, looking to convert podcast energy into clients, you'll want to use Mimiran as an "anti-CRM" to hone in on your ideal clients and guests, nurture relationships with them, and use lead magnets as a way to convert listeners to conversations and clients.

Ash Maurya talks about how to turn great ideas into great products and avoid building things that don't matter. Because, "life’s too short to build products nobody wants."

Erik Luhrs, "The Bruce Lee of Lead Generation", talks about how effective positioning creates a foundation for successful sales, and how poor positioning leads to frustration, not matter how well you execute on the tactics.

Selling the way your customers want to buy makes sales (and marketing) so much easier, but most businesses refuse to do it.

In this episode, veteran market Kristin Zhivago (and author of Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy) discusses how you can uncover your best customers' buying behaviors so you can align your marketing to attract your best customers, and then make it easy for them to buy from you.

This episode brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for independent consultants, coaches, and fractionals who love serving clients but hate selling. (Note that Mimiran has tools to help implement Kristen's methodology.)

Michael Zipursky didn't mean to start consulting with giant Japanese corporations in his early 20s. It just happened. Hear how he pulled it off, and how he started multiple businesses, including his most recent venture helping consultants learn from his mistakes (this should sound familiar to long time listeners). Plus, learn to improve your results by improving your mindset, from the author The Elite Consulting Mind. In this episode, learn how:

• Michael set himself up for success in his early 20s before he got on a plane for  Japan. (He found a niche for helping Japanese companies market to the North American market.)
• Why he's fascinated with languages and cultures.
• Why people try to rush sales before relationships, and what to do instead (and a time Michael made a bad mistake in this area).
• How many consultants make the opposite mistake, and never try to actually sell anything. (“No one buys consulting, unless someone makes an offer.”)
• What's holding people back? Usually fear. Fear of making a mistake, the unknown, and being rejected.
  • The Catch-22 is that confidence and competence come from taking action, while people don't take action because they're afraid.
  • Taking action gives you the only feedback that really matters-- from the market.
• When we do "take action", a lot of the things that make you feel productive, because you’re spending time on them, are not actually moving your business forward. Drop those things, and spend more time on the smaller fraction of things that actually create lots of value. We often do things that are easy or comfortable, rather than the things that are hard and actually productive. For example, spend time to meet with people, or, at a minimum pick up the phone and have a two way conversation. Don’t fall into the trap of sending the quick email.
  • Think you don't have time? Follow the 80/20 rule. Document your process and pinpoint where you are really required. Offload repeated tasks (and your ego).
  • What you can’t outsource— marketing! You have to define your audience and your message.
• Bonus tip: If you really want to build a thriving practice, stay in touch and make introductions when you *don’t* have the solution they need right now. This is a great way to build trust.

In this episode, former management consultant turned referrability expert Jay Kingley explains why he doesn't like referrals (seriously), and how to get the right kind of referrals.

Jay shares how he became the partner with the best sales results, despite hating sales and the usual client entertainment song and dance.

Plus, learn why 98% of people have the wrong format for their elevator pitch, and what to do instead.

Sales for Nerds-- see show notes for all episodes.

Track referrals, including how much business you get from them with Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM".

Few things cause as much stress as pricing. But it doesn't have to be that way. This episode looks at how to think about pricing, how to align better to customers' needs so you can price better, how to move from cost to value-based pricing (and why most people get this wrong), how to negotiate discounts, how to present price in your proposal, and more.

• How he taught himself to sell, including the steps of the sale, how to turn features into benefits, and how to close.
• How he taught his team to sell.
• "People hate to be sold to, but people love to buy."
• Why if you're doing too much "hard core selling", your message isn't right.
• Why introverts have a long term advantage in sales versus most extraverts. (And how to take that advantage.)
• Why he puts the message first, even before the audience.
• Why you need to turn features into benefits, and benefits into stories.
• Why stories are so important.
• What can I do above and beyond the core functional skills/services/products to give my customer an amazing experience.
• Why you don't want to spend tons of time writing "educational" proposals-- it not only wastes your time, it decreases your chances of winning. 
• If you confuse the customer, you lose the sale.
• Practical steps on niching, including a real world example (and a meta-example of Matthew's storytelling).
• Why our brains are overwhelmed by input and we have to focus.
• Focus on the people who love what you do-- not the people you can never make happy.
• Most people have been motivated by fear of not having enough money for most of their lives. They have a set of goals that are driven from here.
• Why if you do what you love, there's always more energy (as shown by Matthew in this interview after getting 4.5 hours of sleep).
• The mistake people make in underestimating themselves.

Sales may feel "icky", but serving others feels good, and leads to great results. In this episode, Steve Ramona, host of the Doing Business with a Servant's Heart podcast and the Together We Serve TV show discusses how he learned that his network was his net worth, and how you can do the same, even (especially?) if you're an introvert who doesn't like selling.

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" for solo consultants who love serving clients but hate selling, with networking features to make Steve's advice easier to implement.

Rochelle Moulton has made a career within a career of helping introverted consultants become effective sales people. She has done this with Arthur Anderson (back in the day) and now helps other solo consultants grow their practices without working more. This comes from growing authority, so more people seek you out.

Unfortunately, some people try to build their authority to avoid talking to people, but having conversations is the best way to get clientsa and build your authority.

In this episode, Rochelle helps us understand how we can build our authority and have conversations, even if we're introverted.

(And of course, nothing like having Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM", specifically made for independent consultants, to help you both build your authority and have lots of great conversations with the right people.)

Will Russell never set out to start a marketing agency, and as an introvert he wasn't excited about sales and marketing. But he knew his strengths and weaknesses, and created a spreadsheet to track his activities and their results. Almost everything he tried failed. But one tactic worked very well. Learn what he did and whether it will work for you.

Former middle school teacher and TEDx speaker Laura Briggs just released her first book, Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business, and she joins Sales for Nerds to demystify SEO for the busy small business owner. Learn:

• Why you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on SEO to get some traction.
• How to find out the right keywords.
• How to write for both humans and Google.
• How to fit all this into an already overloaded schedule.

"Author" is the root of "authority". In this episode, young media mastermind Rusty Shelton shares tips for gaining authority and control over your own marketing channels, moving beyond other people's social media platforms, plus mistakes people make with their marketing. Plus, he gets me to commit to write a book.

AI is all the rage these days (I get lots of pitches, some of them seemingly AI-generated, to come on Sales for Nerds and talk about AI). 

I decided to go to the source and have a conversation with ChatGPT from OpenAI.

It was mindblowing, scary, and uncanny, all at the same time.

Take a listen and decide for yourself, plus get tips on using AI for your business.

Brought to you by Mimiran, the fun, "anti-CRM" built for solo consultants who love serving clients but hate selling, not a VP of sales who wants to keep track of a sales team. Find out more, get proposal templates and other resources, and start a free trial at www.mimiran.com.

Corrie Loguidice was set to inherit the family business, but a series of traumatic events led her to change course and strike out on her own.

Applying the lessons she had learned as an art major (you read that right) and a marketer, she built her own consulting practice and now helps other professionals leave the corporate world to start their own consulting businesses. Learn how to do this the right way, straight from Corrie.

"As entrepreneurs we're typically in relationship with our thoughts about people, versus people themselves", says Bridget Hom, mindset coach and author of Stuck on Ready. In this episode, Bridget discusses how to hire (and fire) the right mental team inside our own head, so we can have real relationships with people outside our heads, and move our business (and life) forward.

Find Bridget at https://www.bridgetofreedomcoaching.com/ or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Listen to more episodes at www.salesfornerds.io.

And check out Mimiran, the fun, anti-CRM for independent consultants who love serving clients, but hate selling. 

Caleb Sidel discusses how he got into consulting, why his company partners sell and stay deep in tech, the advantages of partnering with someone like salesforce.com, the simple way they train consultants to be effective sales people, and more.

Rohan Kale left the typical grind of software engineering for a giant company in India. He headed to Germany, learned German, and started a video marketing company.

Find out how, including the coincidence that led to his company idea, how he got his first customers, and how you can use video to help grow your business.

Best selling author and sales guru Jill Konrath details her own struggles with digital distractions and how to sell more in less time.

Terry Hansen was once on the verge of running away to join the circus. Literally. He's now an established sales trainer. It didn't happen overnight. In this interview, Terry shares his story, and how to prevent objections instead of trying to overcome them.

Plus, learn Terry's PIMAT shorthand to make sure you've got a strong deal that won't get sabotaged by last minute objections.