One of the greatest desires for many entrepreneurs out there is to lead generate – to find clients. However, this can be hard to do for some because it takes a lot of planning and using the right techniques or strategies to be able to not only connect but find the right people as well. Dov Gordon is the alchemist entrepreneur and a consultant for lead generation, but overall he is a master connector. Dov teaches us the ways to consistently attract first-rate clients and get a yes from them to close the sale. Sharing the three important questions you need, Dov leads us to attract clients with a compelling message while forming that trust in each other. He also talks about the importance of asking help and finding the right people who will guide you.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Closing The Sale: The Three Questions You Need To Get A Yes To with Dov Gordon

I have a special guest, somebody that I have to admit I didn’t know. As I got to meet him and learn what he does, I was impressed. I thought he was a perfect fit for me to bring on as a guest for all of you. The reason I thought that is because most of you readers, I believe anyway and certainly most of the people that we work with that are podcasters are podcasting in some way to support their business. Either to give back to their community and support clients they work with or to market and grow their brand, to build an audience of people to not only serve but to lead generate from to try to mine for business.

Our guest is a perfect fit for what I hear is a question from many people that we work with. While we support them in the podcast, we also support them in their marketing and their business as much as we can. People often ask us, “How can I find more clients? How can I get more leads?” At the end of the day, everyone’s in business in some way that we work with, and that’s usually something they’re all trying to do. My guest is Dov Gordon, who is called the alchemist entrepreneur. That’s an interesting title. You don’t hear that often. He has quite a bit of experience over decades in terms of lead generation, marketing and selling what you do as an expert to get you more clients and more importantly a consistent flow of clients. He is over in Israel. That’s one of the things I’m impressed about Dov, regardless of his location in the world and what he’s doing with his own business, he’s one of those people that are a master connector. He networks very well with lots of people. It seems to me that it’s because he loves to do it. He loves to interact, learn about other people, what they do for business and see how he can support them.

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Dov, thank you so much for joining me on the show. It’s great to have you.

It’s great to be here, Tom.

I’m glad we could get the times coordinated. We are half a world away from each other. It makes it tricky sometimes, but it’s the wonderful thing about modern technology. I’m excited to have you on the show because I deal with a lot of entrepreneurs in my business. We have over 200 podcasts that we’re helping produce for people. It’s always associated with a business. I hear a lot of business issues that our clients have that are unrelated to their podcast, or it’s why they decided to podcast. It seems that everybody has the same need or desire and that is to lead generate, to find clients. It seems to be the number one universal thing, which makes perfect sense when you think about it. You’re in business to do business. You want to connect with other people. I have found you to be a master connector. Not only are you a consultant for lead generation in general or help people find clients, but you’re also well-connected and attract a lot of high-level people. I’m pleased to have you on the show. I’d like to know a little bit of how you found yourself in this position to consult. How did you end up here? I’d like to take a deep dive into what it is you do.

To thrive on your own requires a whole different set of skills and habits. Click To Tweet

The position is that we work with consultants, experts, professional service firms to create a consistent flow of their ideal clients. How I found myself here where the first several years of doing this from probably around 2001 or 2002 was a total push uphill. I knew that I was smart. I knew that I was capable. I knew that I cared. I knew that I could help and I thought that would be enough for me to get clients, but it wasn’t even close. I started off at the age of 22. I didn’t go to college. I was studying business, different aspects of it from age thirteen when I discovered the business and self-help sections in the library, reading all different related topics.

I never had a real job. I don’t have a degree. I knew I had a lot to offer, I just couldn’t seem quite to figure it out. I’m not coming at this as the charismatic guru type. I’m coming at this as somebody who’s good at what they do and knows it. I was struggling to figure out, “How do I get paid well for this, turn my expertise, turn what I love into a business that does well?” We run a small boutique coaching and consulting business. I’m not interested in building a multi-seven-figure-factory type thing. It’s not my thing. I’m not interested in having a large team. What I had described myself is true for probably 90% of consultants, coaches, experts and professional service firms.

I don’t think most of them are looking to grow and scale seven, eight, nine figures. Individuals are. There are tens of millions of people like me who love what we do. We love working with clients. The struggle is okay but how? Why is it difficult? You’d think that if I care and I can get a good result for a client that they would line up at the door. The old, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will,” it’s not true. It’s not only that, but it will often pay more for nonsense, for poor consulting and poor services because they’re better at the marketing and sales part. That’s where I’m coming from.

At some point, I started to understand what I was doing wrong. I tend to take things from an engineering, structural thinking approach, similar to you, a brain like yours, an inventor and all that. I like reverse engineered what’s happening. Everybody says, “You need a sales to funnel.” What’s happening when a sales funnel works? What’s happening when it doesn’t work? We’re asking the wrong questions. Those of us who were consultants, we mastered our craft. We paid the price over many years to get good at what we do. We’ve had clients who are strategy consultants, leadership development, life coaches and business coaches. I’ve got a client who is an expert at industrial baking of buns. That’s his expertise and he’s good. He’s probably one of the leading experts in the world at that. He was stuck in low six figures. Several years after leaving a long-term job at McDonald’s, he’s still wasn’t charging what he should be. He was bouncing around that low six-figures. We think of him as the corporate refugee.

A lot of our clients are corporate refugees. They at some point got tired of the corporate world and recognized that, “I could do much more if I could do it my way.” They go out and they figure, “I did well in the corporate world. I should be able to do well on my own.” Without fully appreciating that to thrive on your own requires a whole different set of skills, habits and all the things that used to happen in the background but others on your team or departments that you couldn’t even see or maybe didn’t know what they were there. Suddenly, it all falls on you. You’re overwhelmed and distracted and then suddenly you’re required to do this marketing and selling thing, which isn’t what you signed up for. All of that is the background.

Closing The Sale: You’ve got to have a good client, a good coach, and a good consultant. You’re not going to have success if you have one without the other.

 

Most of the advice out there is tactical and superficial, “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that. You’ve got to be doing Facebook ads. You need an evergreen webinar funnel. You’ve got to do joint ventures. You’ve got to do podcasts,” which all of these are great. All of these could work and sometimes they do, and all of these could fail and sometimes they do. The real question to ask is not, “What should I do? What works?” Which is never the question that we would have asked when we’re mastering our craft. We would start by trying to say, “What am I trying to accomplish? What’s the thinking behind it? Why does it work when it works? Why does it fail when it fails?” so we can understand it. We can realize as soon as we do that is, “I don’t have to copy somebody else’s style. I don’t have to do things or say things I’m not comfortable with, that are not real or genuine for me.” All I need to do is put in place a successful funnel. I’m not crazy about the term because everybody uses it. A successful marketing and selling system helps your ideal client answer yes to three basic questions.

If you can do the fewest number of things possible to lead ideal clients to answer yes, you’ll have a consistent flow of great clients. You don’t have to become an online tech wizard. I’m thinking about chatbots like, “I’ve been exposed to that.” I’ve seen the fate of the ManyChat and so on. That would be great if I could do that. I have to go back, “No, that’s not my next opportunity.” Tom has 50 employees. He can maybe handle that. We have to be able to discern for ourselves, “What’s the next point of highest leverage is for me in my business?” Just because it might be a great next step for you, for me it’s good to learn about it by reading your blog and wherever else I learn about different things, but it doesn’t mean that I should leave what I’m doing, taking my eye off the ball and go off and do that. That’s some background.

Thank you so much for that. There are a few things that caught my ear in what you said. I love the term corporate refugee. It’s an excellent way to describe a lot of people out there and a lot of people that I work with. I’m fascinated by this because I’m not a corporate refugee. I’ve always been independent-minded and the majority of my career had been independent. I’ve had a couple of brief stints at as an employee of another company but brief because I’ve come to find that I’m in some ways genetically unemployable or I used to say, “Not suited to be an employee.”

I’m a different perspective but I think that an awful lot of people get tired of what we hear, the cliché is like in the rat race. Being in corporate life, playing that game and they want to get out and have a second career. You’re right that they are talented at something. They have many years, sometimes decades of expertise in their niche. I love the case you shared about the person who is an expert in baking buns. There’s got to be a big need for that out there with a lot of companies that get into that business or in that business. Who’s going to know that this gentleman, your client, is an expert in baking buns? You have to put yourself out there. I don’t know if it’s networking. Are you willing to share with us what those three basic questions are that you have to get people to say yes to? The three basic questions would be incredibly valuable because you still have the issue of how do you find people? How do you put yourself out there? How do you network so that others will find you? That’s a different question that I do want to get to a little bit. I have to know what the three basic questions are because you teased us there.

Should I Pay Attention?

That is the foundation of everything. I was thinking about all these many years ago. I’m reflecting back and asking myself, “If it works sometimes and it doesn’t work other times, why does it work when it works?” I realized that every marketing and selling system to be successful, what it has to do it has to lead the ideal client to answer yes to these three questions. It has to be in order. What are the questions? After I walk you through, it will be clear. The first question, when your ideal client comes across your message, it doesn’t matter what the tactic is. Their brain, your brain and my brain, we instantly think to ourselves the following. We think, “Should I pay attention? Is it interesting?”

You have to get help from somebody who you're going to respect. Click To Tweet

Can I Trust You

That’s an ad in your Facebook feed. That’s a sign up at the side of a conference where there are the exhibitor booths. It’s an ad on TV. It’s anything. The first question we always ask ourselves, it’s usually not a conscious question. We’re asking ourselves, “Should I pay attention? Is it interesting?” If their brain concludes yes because your marketing is compelling, that message is what we call a simple, compelling message. Whichever tactic is being used to communicate it, instantly their brain goes, “That is interesting.” Instantly has the second question, “You’ve got me interested but can I trust you? Are you for real? Do you know your stuff or are you trying to pull me along? Do you care about me or are you trying to make a sale?”

Is What You Recommend Right For Me?

Those are all under, “You’ve got me interested, but can I trust you?” The job of your marketing and selling system is to lead them to answer, “I can trust you.” As soon as you lead them to conclude, “I can trust you,” then instantly they have a third and final question which is, “I see I can trust you. Is what you recommend right for me?” Those are the three questions. We make all kinds of mistakes including that sometimes we don’t realize the order that we need to be in. Sometimes we are trying to convince people why what I have is right for you. They’re not even listening because you haven’t helped them answer yes to the first or second question.

You get someone’s attention and interest. You’re trying to convince them about why what you have is right for them. They’re not ready because they haven’t yet concluded they can trust you. These are the three basic questions. The interesting thing is that they’re fractal. It happens at a high level. It’s also constantly happening. You can get somebody’s attention, interest and they click on your Facebook ad. They’re wondering, “Who are you? Can I trust you? Is what you recommended right for me?” It’s happening broadly, the big picture. It’s also happening as they are constantly going on to the next line of reading your ad or watching your video. We understand this. Right away it frees you up because it’s common to become overwhelmed with all the different marketing and sales tactics that we can use.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with all the different advice out there. It’s often conflicting. It’s often confusing. The paradox is conflicting and it all sounds the same somehow. Do we need to figure out what do I do next? There’s too much out there. When you understand that it’s not about the tactic, every tactic can work and every tactic could fail. You understand that the job of any tactic when it’s working, it’s helping me lead my ideal client to answer yes. You realize all I need is one simple way of getting them to answer yes to the first question. I need one simple way of getting them to answer yes to the second question and the same for the third question. That’s what gives you the power to say no to walk away.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I remember hearing a talk from him many years ago where he said something like this. He’s like, “In order to be able to say no to things on the outside, to distractions on the outside, you’ve got to have a deeper yes burning on the inside.” It’s the same thing when it comes to marketing and to anything in business. In order to say no to all the wonderful, great ideas out there, everybody’s got another great idea to sell you, something else you’ve got to do. In order to say no to that, you’ve got to have a deeper yes on the inside and that deeper yes has to be you’ve got to have a simple marketing plan that brings you clients. If as soon as you have that, you no longer feel the need to run off and do all that.

You’ll be tempted just like I was with ManyChat. I have it but I don’t use it, and I know that it would take me a long time of diversion to master it. Even though it might be the best thing for me, it’s not the best thing for me because I have other opportunities to leverage that I could be doing that are better for me where I am. That’s true for everybody. There are people where, “I should be doing ManyChat, Facebook chat and all that stuff now. That’s the next best opportunity.” Those people should do it. A big part of this also understanding that my dream is not your dream. Your dream is not my dream. The people who are out there teaching and telling us what to do, their dream is not the same as mine.

We each need to reconnect. I was listening to another podcast. He was talking about he has a beef with a lot of the self-development gurus. What’s your dream? Go after what you want. He says, “In my view, most people don’t know what they want.” They’re going after what their parents programmed into them that they should want, what society has programmed them that they should want. Before you can go after what you want, you take some time to reflect on that. For some reason, that landed on me and there’s truth to that. There’s also truth to the opposite. I’m quite comfortable. The Opposable Mind book, holding two competing ideas in mind at the same time. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The mark of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time and not meltdown,” or something.

You bring up some good points that resonated with me and certainly not only in terms of myself but also what I see in a lot of other people that I interact with. While everyone in business that we meet and I’m sure that you encounter in your consulting, they have real value and expertise to bring people, but that doesn’t mean they’re an expert in everything. It doesn’t mean they have good skills in sales or it’s selling themselves or in marketing. Those are essential skills. In order to be able to make a good living or maybe you could make a living consulting, but to make a more comfortable living, make some more wealth and be more successful. Even if you don’t want to be the seven, eight-plus figure business with a whole bunch of employees, you don’t have time to become an expert in marketing or in sales. You should seek the assistance of an expert that does know how to do it. It seems you’ve cracked the code at this. Have you ever found any specialty of a business that your system was not able to help people get more clients?

I haven’t worked with every specialty. I have to turn down certain areas. The underlying principles apply across the board because it’s the way our brains function. Having said that, the principles apply. My particular area of focus has been on professional service consultant, expert coach and so on. Over there, there’s an educational component. I’ve had clients that have products where their client, their customer needs to be educated and it applies in that way as well. Where I haven’t put any thought into how it might apply would be a restaurant or a vacation destination. Certain vacation destinations are the kind where people will show up in Sicily and like, “What should we do while we’re here or a new brand of ketchup or another MP3 player.” As I’m talking it through, I can certainly see where some of this would apply. For example, let’s say I did want to get out a new brand of the MP3 player. If it was a matter of educating a certain distributor, the same things apply. If all it has to do is being ranked properly in AliExpress or Amazon, that’s not my wheelhouse.

It seems more on the consultant level of the individual or firm who’s trying to sell services, consulting, coaching or something like that is more ideal.

It’s where they’re selling something with an expertise component.

If you find yourself struggling, you probably are missing some foundational elements. Click To Tweet

That’s an important distinction. If you’re selling a bunch of products in a Shopify shop in your business, that’s like the Amazon example.

In that case, you do need to make sure that you have expertise in getting people to your site, to your Shopify shop. That is an expertise that I do not have. Having said that, once they get to your shop, all the principles apply. If you’re working with a consultant who’s like, “These are things you need to do to get people to your shop.” I would bet that it fits underneath these principles because whatever you’re doing is going to have to lead people to answer, “Yes, yes and yes. It is interesting. I can trust you and what you recommend is right for me.” It’s just that in those situations, there absolutely is going to be a need for mastering other certain tactical technological stuff.

Every year I go to Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego and learn about the new tech, magic bullet, which is more effective than others were in the past supposedly. In February 2018, it was chatbots. ManyChat was being talked about, it was all the rage. In 2019, it was touted as an incredibly useful tool because messages that come through chat, Facebook Messenger in particular, are getting a lot more visibility. More people are opening them, engaging with them and converting from them. Therefore, that’s a good tool we should use. If you are not an expert in systems like that and it’s the same thing as a funnel. I know the funnel and it’s an overused word. ClickFunnels was all the rage a few years ago and it still is in a lot of people’s minds. ManyChat is a funnel within Facebook Messenger or can be. All the same principles of sales and marketing apply. It’s another tool.

When you’re making it work, you’re leading your ideal client to answer yes, yes and yes. That is absolutely what you’re doing. One of our most successful clients is an aquaculture engineer. I didn’t know what that was beforehand. He’s up in Eastern Canada. He helps companies that are growing lobsters. The water has to be the perfect temperature with the perfect amount of oxygen and who knows what else. It’s not an easy thing to achieve. What he does is he helps them reduce the number of deads as they call it. He helps build the ponds and then operate them. He’s a good guy. Before he started working with us, he was focused on AdWords. He’d learned to AdWords. He was doing whatever he was doing. We helped him with a few basic things. He was good at following through. That’s another thing.

I got an email from a new subscriber. I responded and as it turns out, he was testing me. He sends an email to see if you get a response because that’s how he determines what service you would get if you were to buy anything. He tells me what he’s looking for. He’s got this long list of criteria for how he decides if he’s going to work with anybody. I asked him a clarifying question and instead of clarifying it, he pasted a segment of what he wrote before. His question was, “Could you help in this way?” I responded, “Mark, I don’t think we’re a fit.”

Closing The Sale: An awakening is when you stop learning and start doing.

 

It’s because he doesn’t know how to buy. You’ve got to have a good client, a good coach and a good consultant. You’re not going to have success if you have one without the other. The other thing is also that you have to work with somebody. You have to get help from somebody who you’re going to respect. If you think that you’re going to treat an expert, someone who’s mastered their craft, the craft that you haven’t yet mastered, you’re going to treat them like a vendor who you’re going to negotiate on whatever. You’re not going to get good results. If they’re good, they won’t accept you because why would somebody good want to work with someone who’s going to come in and tell them how to do their job? I won’t.

When you talk about the consulting you do for consultants among others, you’re not helping them get people to say yes to leads they’re already receiving, although I’m sure that’s part of it. You talk about attracting your ideal clients. Are you’re helping them mine and lead generate as well?

Yes. I had something that I was selling for a few years. I want to give it away for free. I call it the manual, How to Systematically and Consistently Attract First-Rate Clients. If anybody would like a free copy, we sold it for $97 for a few years. We put up a page where they can get it DovGordon.net/TomHazzard.

Thank you. You sold it for five years at $97 a copy. Isn’t that good revenue for you? Why would you give it away for free now?

That’s are fair questions and the answer is simple. Most people think that the value is in more information. This was my problem for many years. I call this the, “I am not Abe Lincoln problem.” He grew up in the backwoods of Kentucky. There were no neighbors for a mile this way, a mile that way and he didn’t have books. They were dirt poor. He’d have to walk a mile to borrow a book and return it eventually. There weren’t that many options. He read the Bible many times. He read The Pilgrim’s Progress many times. He read classics. It affected his ability to think. It affected how he told stories. It affected who he was because he read the same thing multiple times. He internalized it as opposed to us. I have probably more books on my iPad, in my Kindle library than Abraham Lincoln read in his entire life because of the availability of information. We’re trying to get clients. I’m going to do this and do that. We hit a wall. We get stuck. What’s the first thought that comes to mind? For many people, it’s, “I must not know enough.” We’d go off looking in a new direction for more information. Information is important. What I came to understand is that what’s more important is mastery. You’ve got to master your craft. You’ve got to master marketing and sales.

You've got to commit to something and keep at it until you make it work. Click To Tweet

Even if you’re going to end up hiring somebody to do some of the marketing or sales for you, you’ll never be able to hire the right person if you haven’t mastered the fundamentals yourself. That’s key. Why did we start giving it away? My goal isn’t to build a large information business and so on. I love working with quality people who are good at what they do and they want a consistent flow of great clients so they have the opportunity of continuously being good and being challenged. Somebody good at what they do, they only grow in their skill when they’re being challenged with a great client. I love that. We were selling it. I realized that some of those people would come and want to work with us afterwards and that was worth a lot more than a $97 manual.

At some point, I realized if I give this away, I’ll get people reaching out, subscribing to my email list to get it and some of them will want to work with me. Most won’t and that’s totally fine. I love getting emails and notes on LinkedIn and wherever about, “I read your manual. It’s good. I printed it out. It’s right here.” I do it for that. It’s a win-win. I can’t claim that it’s a pure, surely noble cause. It definitely brings us some clients. We have many people who go through that. They’re working through. It’s been transformational for them. The information is not enough and that’s what we need. We need that transformation. You know enough. I know enough. What we’re missing is a deeper understanding of things we already know. That does not come from chasing more and more information. That comes from having an experience. What we do when we’re working with a client and helping them create a consistent flow of clients is we’re giving them an experience that helps them finally deeply understand the things they already know.

I liked that because I do think a lot of people have this tunnel vision. They’re focused on what they are incredibly talented at that they can’t see these other things in the periphery. They have blinders to a certain extent. I know I do. I have some of my own. That makes a lot of sense to me what you said. As entrepreneurs and business people, whether it’s been your career your whole life like it has been for you or it’s a second career, somebody getting out of corporate and having that second career. The people that realize they don’t know everything, the people who are able to self-reflect or have others hold up a mirror to them to help show them where they’re strong, where they may need some improvement. Where they need to hire out to augment what they can do, do better than people that try to do it all the trend. They try to be the chief everything officer. That’s as important as a skill to understand yourself and your organization to whatever extent you have an organization to where you’re strong or where you’re weak.

I find this is the biggest problem. It is resonating with me that the number one issue is people have, “I need more clients. They’ve got to be out there. How am I going to get them?” You’re providing an incredibly valuable service. I also agree on the Law of Reciprocity so that you’re giving away your manual at this point. You used to charge for it. If people read it, get all they need out of it and do it all themselves, more power to him, good for you, do that. They would have probably never been your client anyway. The people that are a good fit are going to respect you more for putting out there. You’re building that trust. Wasn’t that one of the first or second questions you have is, “Can you trust me?”

The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking

You’re creating that trust by giving and serving to the community of people that download your manual for free. You’re building rapport and you haven’t even met them yet. That works well for you. I have a similar approach in my business by both Tracy, my business partner and I do. We talk openly about what we do. It’s not that we’re trying to keep the secret formula hidden like for Coca-Cola. We’re not trying to keep the secret formula. It’s a trade secret. We’re not letting anybody know. No, it’s quite the opposite. We talk openly at events, on our podcast, in network meetings about what we do and what works. The people that want it done for them are going to come to talk to us and work with us for it. The people that are bootstrapping it and need to do it themselves, they could benefit from that too. I respect what you’re doing with the manual. Everybody reading this blog could benefit from reading that manual. Please go and download that. Dov, you said you were selling that manual for about five years and then you started giving it away for free. How long has the manual been around?

I’ve been giving it away for the last four years.

Has anything about technology fundamentally changed the principles of the manual?

When you take the approach that I had to take is I’m dealing with timeless truths. I’m dealing with ways of thinking, dealing with fundamentals and foundationals. You bring up a good point because if you find yourself struggling, hitting yourself, hitting your head against the same wall, same ceiling week after week, month after month, year after year, you probably are missing some foundational elements, some of the basics. If you’re fighting black belts and you’re getting your teeth kicked in, you should look down and realize you could get a white belt or yellow belt and you should be in a different ring. That’s what’s happening all the time. We get into a business we don’t even understand what we don’t understand. When it comes to marketing and sales, is there any other area of excellence or human performance where we have many gurus and experts lining up around the block telling us, “Do this. It’s easy.” It’s not true. It’s not easy. That’s important for people to understand is that there is nobody who’s got everything working smoothly. There are two paths to thrive as a consultant expert and so on. There’s the path of the charismatic guru in the path of mastery. They are both legitimate.

I have nothing wrong with the charismatic guru path. The only fact is that it’s not the right path for probably 90% of the people. The problem is that they’re the ones that are most visible telling everyone to come along my path. I take the path of mastery. My clients are those who recognize, “I’m not interested in becoming a technology whiz. I’m not interested in having to master ManyChat and this and that.” Most of my clients are paying me $150,000 for each client over the course of the year or more.

I’m not looking for 1,000 clients or 100 people to buy my $2,000 info product or course. They’re looking to build long-term relationships with clients and most of their clients are coming from some introduction, some personal relationship and so on. What they lack are the words to talk about what they do in a way that instantly their ideal client gets what they do. What they lack is a simple process, a simple system. This is what we work with them initially. We have something we would call the force to be reckoned with. That’s what it’s all about, we build that with them. I can give you a couple of examples because you have to know that nobody has everything all worked out. A lot of people who are not looking to be that celebrity type, they’re looking for opportunities to do great work to get some great projects with great clients and be well-paid for it. That’s all they want.

For some reason people like me, we tend to beat ourselves up. We tend to think, “I can’t do this because I don’t yet know that. Maybe I should be doing that too.” Especially if you were intellectually curious, it’s easy to spend all day learning, all week learning, your whole life learning. I woke up one day, I said, “Dov, you could spend the next 80, 90 years of your life studying what’s out there and you still wouldn’t know a fingernail’s worth of what there is to know. You’d have wasted your life.” It’s time to stop learning and start doing. That was an awakening.

I would call that an epiphany if that were me. It’s awakening. That does separate a lot of entrepreneurs. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything, but it means you’ve got to take action. You’ve got to do something. I’m one of those action takers. I have to move like that. I respect what you said and I think that’s so true.

I had to learn. I enjoy learning. I had to learn to stop fooling myself and to say, “I need to learn this because I need it for the business.” No, that’s not true. You want to learn that. It’s not what you need to do. There are all these things right in front of you that you could and should be doing first. I have to separate when I’m learning something because that’s helping me fill in the next bottleneck, the next leverage point for my business versus something that I find interesting. That’s recreational. That’s not for the business. You have to recognize that. When you realize that everything you’re doing is to lead your ideal client to answer yes, yes and yes, then it also helps you focus on what is this priority. When you’re overwhelmed with all the different things that you need to do and something isn’t working, how do you diagnose what’s not working? How do you diagnose what the problem is?

When do you realize that essentially I’m looking to lead these people to answer yes, where is it breaking down? Is nobody paying any attention or interest? You probably need to look at who’s your ideal client and have you crafted a simple, compelling, head-turning message. I can give you some examples of some we’ve come up with. If you are getting people’s attention and interest, but as they start to look closer, you’re losing it rapidly. You’re probably losing them on that trust piece. You’re not drawing them in deeper. If you’re making your offer, whether it’s on a sales page, webinar or one-to-one and everybody is going away or too many people are going away, there’s something wrong in how you’re packaging and presenting your offer, your expertise. That’s the third question, “Is what you recommend right for me?”

While obviously sometimes they’ll have to peel off and go several layers deep in is knowing where to look and understanding the goal is huge. This framework provides that for people who otherwise are, “I’m good at buns. I’m good at aquaculture. I’m good at whatever.” Why are they good at that? It’s because they’ve mastered a way of thinking about their craft, about their area of expertise. They’ve mastered a way of thinking to the point where they can see things that others in their industry cannot see. They’ve achieved a level of mastery. They come to the idea where, “Now, I have to get clients.” They’re approaching it without that underlying framework.

That’s why smart people are susceptible to all sorts of nonsense, “Do this and you too can have three homes, boats, cars and all that and work from the beach an hour a day.” Why are smart people susceptible to that? It’s because it’s not necessarily their first love. They don’t have that deeper yes. They don’t have the framework, the way of thinking about it that they’re used to having where they mastered their craft and to some degree, we often don’t even realize that that’s what we’re missing. My hope is that people are reading this, if that’s you, you’ll at least now come to understand why you’ve been running in many different directions. Why you’ve been susceptible to shiny objects, to second-guessing yourself, to doubting, to thinking, “Maybe this isn’t going to work,” or hedging your bets and trying to do all this and that because in case this doesn’t work, I’ve got that. That doesn’t work either. You’ve got to commit to something and keep at it until you make it work.

That’s a fantastic place to end this interview. I appreciate your coming on the show. I’ve found it tremendously interesting. It’s valuable. Our readers, in general, are going to resonate with many of the things that you said, the philosophy that you subscribe to. Hopefully, they’re all going to go to DovGordon.net/tomhazzard and get that the manual or go to the blog post at FeedYourBrand.co. Thank you, Dov. I do appreciate it. In the future, we may want to talk again and maybe take a deeper dive into some other aspects of it. Thank you so much for coming out.

Thank you, Tom. It’s great to be here.

Closing The Sale: The Three Questions You Need To Get A Yes To – Final Thoughts

I enjoyed that interview with Dov. It was a lot of fun for me. Not only because I got to learn more and I didn’t know all of this about him, even though I have known him for a few weeks now and have been involved in business networking with him. I didn’t know the ins and outs of his business and what his corporate mission is. I love some of the terms that he shared with us like the corporate refugee. I thought that was an interesting way to talk about what a lot of entrepreneurs are out there. They spend so much time in corporate. They’ve become an expert in their field, their niche and in something significant, but they’ve left that corporate world. They’re tired of the 9 to 5 grind and want a higher quality of life usually or some different quality of life at least.

He fits an important gap that an awful lot of entrepreneurs and small business people have and that is how to get more clients. It’s one of the most difficult things that I’ve faced throughout my consulting career. I’m not doing as much consulting these days outside of the podcast arena, but I used to. That can be a tough thing to figure out where your next client is coming from and to have enough steady stream with them. That’s critical. I was happy that he was willing to share with all of you the link to his manual. He refers to it as The Manual, which undersells what it is. It’s certainly that manual of how to systematically and consistently attract first-rate clients. Who doesn’t want to do that? All of us need to. It probably isn’t what most of should be concentrating on in our businesses.

I embarked on a different path for me and my business a few years ago. I definitely set myself up in the role. Even though I’m an owner and a Founder of my business, I set myself up in the role of the salesperson because in reality, I knew the product the best. Most of the potential customers that we’re getting were coming through personal referrals anyway, but I needed to learn how to be a better salesperson. I went on a different path rather than hiring a company to go and produce leads for me to figure out how to set up a system and attract people for me. I wanted to learn how to become a better salesperson.

It crosses over with a lot of the things Dov talked about in terms of communicating with people properly. He talked about getting people in that condition to say yes, putting them in that place where they are ready to say yes. That resonated to me and crossed over a lot with some of my training in terms of sales. My training was more how to communicate with people, how to read people and be able to understand whether there’s somebody that is more of a creative, big picture, visionary-minded person. If they’re more bottom line personnel about the numbers or if they’re more of somebody who needs to build that relationship first. They need to feel that they have trust as Dov has talked about. “Can I trust you?” is his second of those three questions that are very important.

I’ve found that definitely answering some of those questions and in my sales process I do some similar things that also put people in the right frame of mind to say yes. That’s not to say that they’re being manipulated but more making sure that you’re communicating properly with them. It’s more important that you don’t say something that is going to derail the sale or un-sell the customer, depending on what’s important to them and how they’re thinking. It’s more so you don’t shoot yourself in the foot than it is manipulating them because it’s manipulation. I don’t like that term, but it is putting people in that right frame of mind, so they do believe you are the solution they need. Hopefully, you are the actual solution they need.

He has some great advice. Clearly, he’s got some tremendous experience. I’ve downloaded his manual and I’m going to read it. It’s about 80 some odd pages. There’s no fluff to it is what he told me. I trust that because I know he’s a person of integrity. It is practical things you can apply in your business. If you’re on a budget, bootstrapping it or otherwise, you can certainly implement all the stuff on your own. Perhaps if you are someone that values your time more than some money, meaning that you’re willing to spend some money to save yourself time, I would recommend you consider talking to Dov about having him consult and help you with that.

I’m not getting anything out of this. I’m not selling for him. I feel that now I could relate to what he’s doing. I understand who he is as a person, that he is a person of integrity. He cares. It would seem to make sense to me that’s a good fit for you. You might talk to him about that. Regardless, as we do on this show and when we speak from the stage, myself and Tracy, we share what we do. Our sharing our value, our expertise and what we’ve learned openly with all of you and it’s the same situation when it’s a good fit for you or something that you want to implement in your own business. If you want to do it yourself, by all means, more power to you. I hope it’s incredibly successful. I want to hear about it either way. I certainly expect that you’d be successful and I want to hear about it.

If you’re someone that you’re an expert in your field, maybe not an expert in everything about the business, you should be focusing more on your core business, your core expertise, your core consulting to others. That spending a little money to save time and leave some of those tactics to someone else, in his case to help you build a system for getting a consistent flow of clients, that you probably should consider that. I will too as I read through it. He was very articulate and spoke well about what he does, his experience and why he came to do what he does. There are a couple of interesting niche deep dives we could take in the future talking about some subjects around what he does with lead generation. Hopefully, we can schedule that at a time where Tracy and I could maybe talk with him together. I’m sure Tracy would have some other interesting questions to ask him. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Dov. I sure did. Thank you so much for reading. We’ll talk to you next time.

Important Links:

About Dov Gordon

Dov Gordon helps consultant and experts get ideal clients. Consistently.

There are millions and millions of consultant/coaches who are really good at what they do. But they’re not charismatic guru types. And they never want to be.

They LOVE their work. And all they want is a consistent flow of great clients. Clients who value their expertise, AND who value who they are as people. And pay them well for it.

Dov and his small team take a tactic-agnostic approach. They help you build a strong strategic foundation and to apply to it to build a simple, client-getting system that is best for YOU.

Dov has been a guest on The Art of Charm, John Jantch’s Duct Tape Marketing podcast, Jeff Goins’s podcast and dozens of others.

You can learn more about Dov’s work at https://dovgordon.net

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