kelly roach transcriptkrcmembers.s3.amazonaws.com/7figureswszsekmfsehimzsrh...3 philadelphia eagles....
TRANSCRIPT
1
Jim Palmer: Hello everyone. This is Jim Palmer your Dream Business Coach. I’d like
to welcome you here for this very special virtual training program. As somebody that
just loves to create and build profitable businesses I am so excited to be able to
interview my very special guest, Kelly Roach, just a true rock star entrepreneur who’s
extremely gifted and talented in the world of sales. Let me tell you something. No
matter what business you own, no matter how great your product or service is, if
you’re not selling anything, you do not have a business. I’ve known Kelly personally
for a couple of years and have really come to admire and respect how much she’s
accomplished in her life so far. Kelly credits a great deal of success in business to
what she calls “The Secrets to Closing More Seven Figure Clients,” proven strategies
known only to the world’s top sales producers until now.
Before I bring Kelly on let me tell you a little about her amazing journey so far. Kelly
Roach is the nation’s leading expert in helping companies create massive sales
success in minimal time. As a Senior Vice President for a Fortune 500 firm, Kelly
hired, trained, coached and developed hundreds of business professionals teaching
them step‐by‐step how to create explosive sales and profitability growth resulting in
them doubling and tripling their incomes. Kelly was promoted seven times in eight
years, becoming the youngest senior vice president in the company through
consistently breaking records and setting new standards for sales growth,
profitability, expansion and leadership development.
2
Now as the founder of Kelly Roach Coaching, Kelly helps businesses implement
strategies to skyrocket sales and multiply profits. Kelly is known to help companies,
teams and divisions create 100‐350% growth year after sustainable year in a very
replicatable way. As a wife, mother, business coach and athlete, Kelly prides herself
in helping business owners and executives learn how to gain absolute control over
their time and results so they can achieve their income goals without compromising
the quality of their personal life.
In addition to business consulting, Kelly utilizes her background as a former NFL
cheerleader and passion for health and exercise to help organizations and individuals
create wellness transformations spurring increased profitability, engagement and
growth. Kelly offers programs and consulting to businesses from start‐up through
world’s Fortune 500 firms on sales, leadership, productivity, profitability and wellness
in the workplace.
That’s just some of her amazing past. There’s more, but let me bring Kelly on so she
can share more of her amazing story. Kelly, how are you doing today? It’s such an
honor to have you here.
Kelly Roach: I am fantastic. I’m so excited to be able to share these six key secrets
with everybody today.
Jim Palmer: Awesome. Before we dive into the meaty stuff of the sales secrets, kind
of the real gold on how to sell more seven figure clients, I gave our listeners a little
bit about your background and how you’ve become really such a super star in the
corporate world and now as a coach, but I’ve also gotten to know you quite well and
there’s a little more background I’d love for you to fill in for us. I know that before
you went to college and then went on to become the youngest senior vice president
of a Fortunate 500 firm you were a cheerleader in the NFL for my home town
3
Philadelphia Eagles. I think that is outstanding. It’s probably the thing I’m most
excited about. Just share a little bit about that story, if you would.
Kelly Roach: Sure, absolutely. Well, I have to say that was one of the most fun, just
absolutely incredible experiences of my life. I had a blast and being the youngest on
the team it was just an incredible learning opportunity for me. I would really say
there are three big lessons that I learned from being an NFL cheerleader that I have
carried with me in my career. I think sharing these lessons might be a great way to
kickoff this program, because there are things that have helped me tremendously
and I think will help set the right mindset as we go into the content that we’re going
to cover today.
So the first one is you have to have guts if you want to have the glory. So one of the
big things about closing seven figure deals is that, first of all, you have to put yourself
in the game, you have to believe that you deserve and you have to be willing to put
yourself out there and, just like I did, I went out there. I was the youngest girl. There
were hundreds of people auditioning. I put myself out there and I said I want this
and I’m going for it. I wasn’t going to try. I was going to make it happen. I think
bringing that mentality with me into the workplace is what allowed me to move up
through the organization so quickly and create success in my business so rapidly. So
that’s the first one.
Jim Palmer: I just want to interject. You have to have the guts to get the glory. That
is so amazing. Like yourself, you interact with some really high rollers and so some of
the people I interact with I have never seen or met or interviewed someone who’s
highly successful and did not have the impression that they were very, very
confident. I mean confidence is something I think is pretty essential. That’s kind of
what you’re saying there with the guts to glory, right? You’ve got to have the
confidence to go for it.
4
Kelly Roach: Yes. It’s not only the confidence and, Jim; I know you will agree with
this, it’s the confidence and the willingness to take imperfect action no matter what.
I’m sure if you think of the most successful people you’ve ever met or interacted
with, and I know certainly this is true for me, we all make mistakes. They make
mistakes. But you own it, you learn from it and you keep moving forward. That was
a huge lesson for me here as well.
Jim Palmer: I love that: imperfect action. That’s awesome. Did you have something
else to add before I go to my next question?
Kelly Roach: Yeah, just really quickly. There are two other keys just as far as setting
the mindset for our content today that I want to talk about from that journey from
becoming the youngest NFL cheerleader. The second one is that every huge
overnight success is years in the making. So just because you aren’t getting
instantaneous feedback, I know this is an instant gratification world that we live in,
the sales process is a snowball that builds. In the beginning you’re not getting a lot of
reciprocal feedback and the person on the other side of the desk may be very quiet.
But it’s that persistence and that nourishing process that you’re going to execute that
we’re going to talk about today that’s what brings on that massive success. But if you
sell yourself short and you stop three feet from gold, you’re never going to have an
opportunity to be “that huge overnight success” that everyone sees and wants to
model and wants to be a part of, if that makes sense.
Jim Palmer: Oh, that’s awesome. Every overnight success is years in the making.
That’s awesome. I’m writing down stuff left and right here. So this program is all
about kind of mega sales success simplified, if you want to call it that. So during the
course of this program, Kelly, we’ll be breaking down what it takes to generate
clients that will literally transform your business and your bottom line. So, again,
5
folks if you’re sick and tired of running yourself into the ground, spinning your
wheels, closing client and after client only for it to be a drop in the bucket, this
program, I think, has the power to change your business and certainly change your
life.
Sales success is really more about the mechanics and the math and really about the
mastery. As Kelly said, it’s all about mindset. It’s going to position you above the
competition and allow you to dominate your niche or industry if you put into practice
what Kelly’s going to share with you us today. That’s the important thing, as she said
earlier, imperfect action.
So, Kelly, I have a lot of questions, probably too many for our time together today.
How would you like to begin? I think it might be a good idea if you share your sales
story, why you’re so passionate about teaching others sales and what you’re going to
be sharing here. How has it impacted your life?
Kelly Roach: Absolutely. Well, when I look back on the course of my career, not only
getting promoted seven times in my first eight years on the job, but then the rapid
growth that I was able to create in my own income and my own business when I
branched out and started Kelly Roach Coaching, I can really tie everything right back
to learning sales and developing the ability to teach others sales. Those two things I
think are critical for everyone that wants to be an entrepreneur or a business owner
or have a really high level of success in their career. So I think everything goes back
to that.
I look back on where I started, which was coming from a really large family, really
struggling financially. I chose the college that I went to based on the financial
concerns that I had. When I got into my career and I started sales, I had no idea what
I was doing, but all I could see was opportunity. When people see completion and
6
they see sales and look at what’s intimidating about going down the path of closing
six and seven figure clients, I really want to impress upon everybody the importance
of seeing the opportunity versus maybe the frustration or the competition piece of
that. We’ll talk a lot about that as we go through things today.
Sales have been the catalyst for all of the success that I’ve had, certainly. I’ve just
seen hundreds of other people that as soon as they learn these six steps that we’re
talking about today, it transforms their business. It transforms their career. It
absolutely changes their life, because when you learn sales, it doesn’t matter if
you’re starting a new business, if you’re starting a new line of business in an existing
business or if you sold your business and you’re starting something totally new. You
can have rapid, absolutely incredible success in record time because this is just a
rinse and repeat mathematic process that you follow over and over again. That’s
what we’re going to be talking about here today.
So there’s so many different ways to apply it, but I just have such a passion for it
because I’ve seen how people’s lives and businesses change once the light bulb goes
off and once they get these six steps that we’re going to be talking about.
Jim Palmer: That’s so exciting. Would you agree that if you’re going to be selling
anything, why don’t you sell a seven figure client instead of a five or a six, right? I
mean it doesn’t really take that much more effort I would think. I mean there are the
skills and the strategies. Do you think if someone is going to focus on anything, why
not focus on the big reward?
Kelly Roach: Well, absolutely. I think the thing that’s so incredible is I see so many
small business owners and entrepreneurs today that are all struggling to sell to the
same small business owners and entrepreneurs that are all struggling. So it’s a cycle
of struggle, struggle, struggle, versus breaking out of that mold and saying hmm,
7
maybe I should be selling to the people that have in their budget the ability to spend
those bigger dollars and that are setting aside money specifically for this thing that
I’m great at, that I do really, really well, that want to invest in solutions around what
I’m offering. I think that’s where we’ve gotten away from the common sense
approach to building business in the last few years. We’ll talk more about this as we
go through, but I think it’s really key to look at where are you trying to get to and
what’s going to be the fastest, most efficient path to get there. Who you choose to
sell to is critically important in how hard or how difficult that’s going to be.
Jim Palmer: That’s awesome. So let’s dive into the specifics. Again, folks, today
we’re going to be talking about the proven strategies known only to the world’s top
producers, which is exciting. I’m going to name them.
1. Database
2. Decision maker
3. Sales campaigns
4. How to let the competition do the selling for you.
5. The pyramid of impact
6. Closing once you get a seat at the table
That sounds pretty exciting. I want to ask one more question before we get into
specifics. Why exactly is someone who’s listening to this, why do they need to
master becoming a seven figure closer? I’m sure, Kelly, a lot of people that may be
listening to this think that might be a bridge too far. So why should they really, really
care about this?
Kelly Roach: Absolutely. I think everyone that’s in a small business world today can
agree that there’s a big problem. There’s a big problem. Small business, by the way,
just from a category standpoint those are businesses from $50 million and under.
That’s what we’re talking about when we’re saying small business. So there’s a big
problem that we all have on our hands, which is that if you were to survey nine out of
8
ten small business owners or entrepreneurs they’re working far too many hours for
far too little income. They’re burning themselves into the ground. And we all know
what the statistic is; the eight out of ten businesses fail. The thing that I want to
convey to everyone here today with this program is there is a reason why businesses
fail. There is something that is in each and every one of our control that we can do
about it to break out of that cycle and to control our own destiny and to build a
foundation in our business. And in our understanding of how we go about building
our business is that no matter what industry we’re in, no matter what type of
business we’re selling, no matter what type of product or service or the changes that
happen in the economic climate, you will always be able to survive and thrive
because you can turn on a dime and you can implement that strategy over and over
again in new and different ways.
Jim Palmer: So why now though? Why is that so important today compared to any
other time? It’s always important but why it this such a focus today, Kelly?
Kelly Roach: Well, there are a couple things. I’m sure everybody can think that over
the last five years there’s become almost an obsession with Internet marketing. The
why now, they why I decided to do this program, even though it goes against the
grain of maybe what’s hot that everybody’s looking for or talking about right now is
that Internet marketing takes skills and it takes investment to do it the right way and
to make money doing it. A of entrepreneurs are literally losing their only investment
or their only profit that they have in their business trying to implement strategies
that they’re not really educated on how to implement or how to get a return on
investment. The obsession is killing dreams faster than lightning strikes, because
without the right resources or the ability to invest significantly many are, basically,
missing their whole opportunity to build their dream business because they’re not
putting the right foundation in place.
9
Now, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I love Internet marketing. It is the primary
source of lead generation for my business. I do social media marketing. I use
Internet marketing. My email list is a huge part of client generation for me. But, the
reason why Internet marketing has been so successful for me in my business is
because of the understanding of the basic principles that we’re talking about today
and how to utilize Internet marketing to fuel the sales process. Does that make
sense?
Jim Palmer: Oh, it makes perfect sense.
Kelly Roach: There’s one other thing about timing that I think is important to
mention, because you were asking why now, Jim. That is that there is less
competition than ever in the business, the business sales market. Because everyone
is fleeing so aggressively to Internet marketing and the online world, less and less
people are out there selling to these high dollar clients and going through these steps
that we’re talking about today. So as where people in their minds think well, for me
to close a six or a seven figure client that’s unrealistic or that’s too big for me or I
can’t do that or I don’t know what I’m doing. Realistically, there’s far less
competition than ever right now. So right now is the moment of opportunity to
strike while the iron’s hot, because there are very few people that are employing this
strategy and the ones that are, many of them aren’t doing it well.
Jim Palmer: That is really brilliant. I mean that’s wisdom right there. I’m also,
obviously, in Internet marketing, but I also do a lot of direct mail and things like that.
You’re right, Kelly. There are so many people looking for the shortcut and the easy
way out. I almost want to compare a little bit and liken what you’re talking about to
print and mail versus just email. Somebody asked me about that earlier this morning.
I said well, a hundred percent of what you mail is likely going to land in the mailbox
10
unless Neuman from Seinfeld is your mailman. Not everybody by a long shot is going
to see your email. So that’s number one.
So what you’re saying is when you go out there and sell, there’s just far few people
doing it. So just by doing it you’ve already got a leg up on the competition.
Kelly Roach: Absolutely, absolutely. I know that it’s hard for people to wrap their
heads around it, but you have to experience it to understand it. It’s like one of those
things where it’s like lightning strikes. When you have that first success and that light
bulb goes off for you, it’s almost like oh, my god, you cannot believe how easy it was.
Then all you want to do is just go out and rinse and repeat and do it over and over
again. That’s the beautiful thing about sales. It’s very easy to do that once you put
those basic steps in place.
Jim Palmer: Okay. So let’s start unpacking the six strategies. So strategy number
one is find your million dollar targets and dominate your territory. So let’s go there.
Kelly Roach: Okay, great. So I’m so passionate about this because this is one of the
biggest mistakes that I see companies making, big and small. Actually, it’s really
interesting because my bigger clients actually struggle with this even more than the
startup or the newer entrepreneurs that I work with. That is really understanding
that the database is the cornerstone of all sales success. The database in the sales
context is very different from your list when it comes to Internet marketing. They are
two different things. Now, you may have people crossing over that are on both of
them, but when we’re talking about a database from a sales standpoint, we’re talking
about hand selected, dream clients that meet all of your criteria for ideal profitability,
for reoccurring revenue, for hours worked versus reward that you’re going to get out
of it.
11
So the first step in closing six and seven figure clients is putting yourself in the game,
and most never do, just like we talked about earlier. So it’s hand selecting the best of
the best, the perfect primed targets that are going to be your absolute ideal clients
and it’s really about less is more.
So what I always tell people when it comes to implementing a sales process like this:
you’re looking for a set number of companies that you can manageably target and hit
on multiple times in the course of a month every single month. For most people
that’s going to be no more than a hundred companies.
This is a hundred hand selected companies and you really have to remember that
history repeats itself. One problem that I see with this a lot with entrepreneurs, and
this is a big mistake to make, is that people are trying to go out and convince people
to have an interest in their product, or an interest in their service, or an interest in
what they do. That’s a very poor strategy.
The easiest and fastest way to close high dollar sales fast is to profile your top
competitors, the people that do what you do and do it well, and go out and find the
companies that are already spending with those competitors. It’s much easier to
take market share from the competition than it is to try and convince someone to
make a foundational, cultural change in the decision making process for their
company. Does that make sense?
Jim Palmer: It makes perfect sense. That is a classic mistake that a lot of
entrepreneurs make, a lot of it in Internet marketing but even direct mail where you
just mail the same thing to your whole list. Do you know what I mean? I don’t know
if you liken this to the 80/20 rule. You may even be talking about 90/10 or 95/5. If
you look at even your customer list and the 80/20 rule I think applies broadly just
about everywhere. The majority of your revenue is going to come from a small
12
percent. So why would you make an offer to come get engaged or just have some
kind of small discount to somebody who’s already given you a ton of money, versus
doing a different offer to them. So what you’re saying is when you know, by way of a
database, either who’s a good prospect who’s never done business with you before
but you know the profile, or if you’re selling some different things to current
customers, it’s really important to know exactly who they are. Did I get that right?
Kelly Roach: Exactly. No, perfectly said. Just a couple of things that I want to
mention here, because I’m in the trenches, I’m dealing with all different
entrepreneurs and business owners and coaching them through this process every
day. I really want to emphasize here sales is not about magic words. It’s not about a
pretty website. It’s not about the name that you call yourself. It’s not about your
elevator pitch.
What we’re talking about here is laser beam focus, ruthless persistence and an
understanding of the art of adding value and creating intrigue. We’re going to talk
about that as we move through the process today. What I absolutely love about
business‐to‐business sales is that it is so easy. It is so easy to identify the decision
makers, to get their address, email, gain access to them, because with the Internet
today, with Google, LinkedIn, with memberships to organizations. You can look up all
their members right on their website, trade journals. You can even go zip code by zip
code. It’s very easy to identify who is your target and then go find more people like
them because they associate together and they’re typically grouped together and
you can gain access to all of their information faster and easier than ever before,
which I think is something that’s very different from the amount of heaving lifting
that went into gaining that information in the past.
Jim Palmer: I think you said relentless pursuit. Is that the phrase you used?
13
Kelly Roach: Yeah, I mean ruthless persistence.
Jim Palmer: Oh, ruthless pursuit. There you go.
Kelly Roach: I like your phrase better, actually.
Jim Palmer: I’ve got a couple of years on you. When I was coming up as a young
pup, I remember this expression it takes like seven touches. I think today isn’t it like
15 or 20 or 30? I think people give up way too soon. Like, oh, I called him three
times. He’s not interested. Boom, you let him go, right? Do you have any hard stats
about how long it takes?
Kelly Roach: Yes. I’m so glad you brought that up. This is something we’re going to
cover in a little bit more detail later on, but I do want to answer your question. They
had said up in the past that it was 12 touches on average to close a process but now
it’s up to 16. I honestly think it’s much higher than that with all the noise that’s out
there today. You’re absolutely right. The vast majority of people never follow up
between two or three times. So that’s why I said with business‐to‐business sales,
there comes a point where if you have the right strategy in place, and we’re going to
talk about this in the step where we talk about your sales campaigns, if you put that
strategy in place that we talk about today, there comes a point where you literally
have almost zero competition, zero, because most people they just don’t have the
discipline to follow the campaign through and to make it to the point in the process
where it’s actually the prime decision making period in the decision making process
for that prospect. So we’ll talk a little bit more about that, but I’m really glad that
you brought that up there, Jim.
Jim Palmer: Okay. We’re going to move on to number two. I just want to
reemphasize, one thing you said got me really excited, taking market share from the
competition instead of trying to convince somebody that they should come do
14
business with you. That’s brilliant because if you want to sell to a buyer, you want to
have the buyer already identified, not go create a buyer. I mean that’s the easiest
way so I love that.
Step two in this process, Kelly, you have listed as decision maker and will the true
decision maker please stand up. So talk about that if you would.
Kelly Roach: Absolutely. I always like to go head on right into the biggest mistakes
that I see people making that really prevent them from having the success that
they’re looking for in their businesses. Too many times I see people get caught up in
selling to absolutely the wrong person. Looks can be deceiving. I think a classic
example is maybe in a family dynamic. For example, maybe an insurance agent
might sit down with a husband and wife and may be really trying to convince them to
sign up for a policy. He might be selling really hard to the gentleman there. In
essence he might not really understand the family dynamic there and lose the sale
because at the end of the day it may have been the wife that was the one that was
actually going to make the final call on which agency they were going to go with. I
see that happen over and over and over again. Of course, when you’re selling to
someone and you’re dropping off gifts and you’re mailing them things and you’re
sending them phone calls and you’re feeding into their ego, everyone that you are
going to be selling to is going to let you continue to sell to them and they’re going to
act like they’re the key decision maker and they’re probably not going to raise their
hand and say, hey, you know what, it’s actually my boss that you should be selling to.
It’s very, very important to develop a set list of questions that you’re going to go
through. I always tell people, and I actually do training in my programs in teaching
people how to come up with what their five questions are. Five questions to help
you determine that you’re actually selling to the right person. That’s the person that
feels the pain but also has the power. So the two P’s: they feel the pain and they
15
have the power. Sometimes those are two different people. Sometimes you need to
sell to both a champion and their leadership to actually move things forward through
this process. So I’ll just pause there for a quick second and see if you have any
questions on that or if you want me to keep rolling.
Jim Palmer: No, I love that. I do so many events I can feel my audience just
clamoring for me to ask this question. I think people get that they need to get with
the decision maker. In this day and age, even I think it got a lot worse after 9‐11 so
many years ago. It’s getting really hard to get through the gatekeeper. I mean
actually social media, Twitter and things, makes it even a little easier. What do you
say to that where people kind of throw up their hands and go I can’t ever get to the
decision maker or past the gate keeper?
Kelly Roach: That’s so funny that you brought that up. I did training with this last
night with one of my clients. It’s so funny that you bring that up. I actually do a
series of trainings, as a part of my Bridge to Freedom program, where I teach people
literally how to turn the gatekeeper into your champion in the organization where
they’re literally going to your contact and working on getting the meeting for you. So
that’s what I’ll tell you there. That was of the biggest keys to my success because
when I’m talking about the companies that I was closing and I was 22 years old. I was
a kid and I was closing Verizon, QVC, Marrs, Johnson and Johnson. I mean we’re
talking big name companies. These people all had gatekeepers. There was no way
that this 22‐year‐old was going to walk back and get a meeting with these people. I
learned how to turn the gatekeeper into my advocate and my champion and many
times they were the people that advocated for me in the organization and got me
that meeting.
Jim Palmer: Oh, that’s awesome. That’s so cool. So you mentioned your program:
the Bridge to Freedom. I want to ask you about this later on, but on these long
16
interviews I sometimes forget. Tell us briefly how that works and how people can
learn about that.
Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. So the Bridge to Freedom, I like to call it a virtual
incubator for your business. It literally combines live coaching, mastermind, a
membership site where every single week we load new trainings, new downloadable
resources. We’ve got templates, checklists, swipe files, everything you can think of
to help you grow your business. You’re in a private Facebook forum. Depending on
the level that you sign up for, you have private coaching with me, you have calls with
my team. Some levels include the IP day. So it’s basically what I would like to say is
it’s like a world class training program but it’s an incubator for your business where
you’re literally surrounded from all angles and brought through this process of
learning how to put in place, obviously, the sales aspect of things is just one small
element. We cover the things to really building your team in Internet marketing and
building your list and getting speaking engagements and a lot of other aspects that
are critically important to building your business. That’s just a little bit about that.
It’s really for people that are very serious about doubling or tripling their income. It’s
for people that are ready to make an investment both financially and with their time
to take their business to the next level.
Jim Palmer: I appreciate you’ve got videos and things like that. If somebody actually
needed some help specifically, like I’ll just use the last example, how to turn a
gatekeeper into your champion. Is there help or resources to do some of the specific
things you’re talking about here?
Kelly Roach: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean everything that we’re covering here I
actually teach in the program in great detail. So you would first do the training. You
would get the audio training on it. Then you would get on the live coaching call. I do
laser sessions on the live coaching call. Then, of course, if you’re in the pro or
17
platinum level, then you would have private sessions with me where we can actually
work through case‐by‐case and scenario‐by‐scenario how to move clients forward to
the next step. Remember, when we’re talking about six and seven figure clients, it
doesn’t take a whole lot of them to transform your business. On average, most small
businesses that bring on their first corporate client grow their business by in excess
of 200% over the course of the next 12 months. Obviously, what you’re going to
make business to consumer, versus what you’re to make business to corporation is
going to be substantially higher.
Jim Palmer: Wow, that’s awesome. That sounds good. I appreciate programs that
offer some virtual stuff but I think I see a lot of folks that don’t offer the one‐on‐one
and the specific help. It sounds like you do that. I would assume you would have
done that because that’s why you’re doing so well, but I just wanted to clarify that.
Being mindful of the clock we have step one is the database. Step two is the decision
maker. Step three, Kelly, is sales campaigns and basically how to automate your sales
cycle. So talk about that if you would.
Kelly Roach: Sure, absolutely. The first key thing I want to touch on here is that it’s
very important to not confuse lack of response with whether or not they’re the right
target. Often the people at the level you’re going to be selling at that are going to be
making five, six, seven figure decisions for a corporation are not going to get in
contact with you for the first time until they’re basically ready to buy from you. So
that is a very critically important thing to understand from a mindset perspective.
Lack of feedback does not mean you’re targeting the wrong person and it doesn’t
mean you’re wasting your time.
That is why I started the training with step one and step two on identifying first the
right company and then second the right contact, because you’re making an
18
investment in every single person you’re selling to. This is very different than
Internet marketing, which means that all one hundred of those targets have to be
thoroughly vetted and you have to be a hundred percent sure that they’re the right
person and that they’re going to be spending the kind of dollars that you think that
they are, because you’re going to be investing in moving them through the process
with the understanding that if one out of that hundred, two out of that hundred,
even five out of that hundred closes, your business is going to absolutely be
transformed. You’re going to be hiring people. You’re going to be expanding. You’re
going to be doing major, major things that maybe you’re not doing right now. So
that’s the first thing I want to start off with in terms of the campaigns.
Just starting there, I mentioned this earlier, but I tell my clients this all the time.
Closing at this level is so simple it’s silly. The reason why is that at a certain point
there is almost no competition, because 99% of people never follow up beyond the
second touch. We all know, those of us that are in business and have done any kind
of selling, Jim, you mentioned it earlier, you were asking me. We know it takes on
average 16 follow ups to close a client. It typically takes eight or more attempts
before you ever even get in touch with them for the first time. People, typically, say
no four, or five or six times before they say yes.
So before you think about these campaigns and how they’re going to catapult your
business you have to understand the stats. You have to understand the facts.
Because if you don’t, you’re not going to have the persistence and the diligence to
follow through and to be the person that makes it to the finish line and closes the
client ultimately.
So the fastest, easiest way to close these high dollar deals is going to be by utilizing
these ongoing sales campaigns. This is a pretty intricate process and it’s something
that I do very detailed training on and I actually help people design the 16 steps of
19
their campaign. We do at least 16 touches because we know, on average; it takes
that many to close a client.
I will do a quick and dirty overview here for the sake of time and cover as much as we
can. Then, obviously, people can get in touch with me if they want to learn more.
The first thing is that you have your top 100. You have your criteria that they all
match. We talked about that earlier.
The second step in designing your campaign is determining what you’re going to
include in the campaign. Typically, what you want to do is you want to focus your
top 100 locally so that you can actually either hire a part time person or go out
yourself or utilize one of your employees to actually do drop bys for you on a weekly
basis where you’re actually getting things top of desk with these people. Now, that
might sound like a lot of energy or effort, but you have to remember we’re talking
about selling a client that’s going to buy a $497 product. We’re talking about
someone that may be signing a $100, 000, or more, contract with you. So going to do
some drop bys for a few weeks is absolutely an incredible return on investment that
you’re going to be getting.
So what you want o include there is a marketing item, some type of branded top of
desk item, an informational piece. It’s very important how you design your
informational pieces and what you put in them that’s going to create that curiosity,
that intrigue, that value add. That’s what a lot of sales people are missing. They’re
so focused on closing a sale and what’s in it for them that they’re missing out on the
reason why no one is interesting in meeting with them or listening to what they have
to say because they’re not focusing on the client and what’s important to them.
20
Then I always tell people this, and it sounds kind of funny but it’s absolutely true:
food is the accelerator. So if you want to cut your time, how long it takes to close
one of these clients down to a matter of weeks versus months, you include some
kind of food, whether it’s a box of Dunkin’ Donuts, or a bag of candy or a candy jar
with your branding on it. People love nothing more than food and you will be
amazed that people will pick up the phone that you’ve been calling for years, all of a
sudden after a few weeks of you dropping off some food for them. Crazy, right?
Jim Palmer: I’ve actually used that Kelly in one of my businesses. We called it a
gratitude cookie. I mean it was like six or ten basic, flat sugar cookies but it had a
custom note and thanked them for being a client. I mean you’d think I’d sent them a
flat screen TV and it’s so simple. I think people over think sometimes. Well, what do
I have to do, buy them a house or a car or a flat screen TV, send them to a vacation?
No. Sometimes you just send a good food item and that kicks in the power of
reciprocity. It’s very effective. I’m totally on board with that.
Kelly Roach: Oh, it’s so true. I know that we have a mix of different levels of
individuals that are listening to this today. So I just want to give a quick example at
different levels. First of all, I love your gratitude cookie idea. Do you mind if I steal
that for a few of my clients?
Jim Palmer: Sure, help yourself.
Kelly Roach: I love that. That’s awesome. So say you’re just getting started and you
don’t have a big budget. I totally understand that before you close the first one of
these clients, if you’re just getting started in your business or you’re working towards
that $100 k mark. Maybe you don’t have a $100,000 to invest in campaigns. You go
to the dollar store. They have beautiful little bags that have a little ribbon as the two
handles on them. You fill with them with candy. You put your business card in there.
21
You put that along with something printed on nice, high end paper that is either an
insight paper or a key study or a success story or a fact sheet that has information on
the topic that’s relevant to them. So, literally, Jim, this could be done for a couple
hundred dollars over the course of weeks and weeks. So I don’t want anyone to use
the excuse of where they’re at in their business. Don’t let that stand in the way of
doing this, because this can go all the way from just a few dollars a week from the
dollar store up through, obviously, if there’s a client that you’re trying to close that’s
going to be a million dollar account for you, you might be willing to spend a couple of
thousand dollars in the items that you’re going to be sending to them. That’s why;
once again, it’s critical to make sure that step one and step two are absolutely done
with precision and accuracy so that you ensure you’re getting that return on
investment.
Jim Palmer: Return on investment is the right way to look at it. In one of my
business, which does not deal with seven figure clients, it’s a membership business, I
know for a fact, Kelly, when people come on board I’ve spent $42.80 over the course
of about four or five months with different gifts. By me implementing that strategy,
which to me that is still selling, right? You’re cementing the relationship, building it,
even though the initial transaction took place. When I started doing that, my clients
stay now three times as long by me doing that and sometimes when I tell people I
spend $42.80 per client they go, oh, my gosh, I can’t do that. I said if you were to
give me $42 and I gave you $1800, which is about the increase for me, they’re like
well, heck yeah. That’s what it is right? There’s an expression I’ve used when I do a
video. It’s dating after marriage. After you get a client that’s like getting married,
but you still have to date that client. You date them in the prospecting mode and you
date them afterwards as well. Do you agree with that?
Kelly Roach: Oh, my gosh, I couldn’t agree more and that’s a brilliant strategy. I’m
really glad that you brought that up and I know you teach a lot on retention and
22
that’s huge. We’re not really focused on that today, but certainly once you get the
client that becomes your number one priority because as hard as you worked to get
it, now someone else is working to steal it. Definitely you have to incorporate that.
So that’s a great point, Jim.
There are just a couple quick little things on this one and then I know we need to
keep moving to the next. I just want to touch on two other quick items. In terms of
your campaign, people always ask how often do you deliver. I always say weekly or
bi‐weekly. At least twice a month get in front of them. Then the key to making the
campaign actually translate into a new client is your activity metrics. It’s all the other
activity that you build around the front and around the back of what you’re
delivering to the client each week. I always call this the metrics space growth system.
That’s another thing that I really work very in depth with my clients on and it’s
coming up with literally a mathematic system that you will follow every single week
that you know will yield you a specific client result. So if your goal is for your team to
close five new clients a month, or five new clients a week, whatever it looks like for
your business, you can know exactly what you have to do on the front end to net that
goal and those dollars on the back end. So I would say it’s not just about the
campaign, but it’s also about building the right metric space growth system around
that campaign to ensure that it’s not just activity, but then it’s the follow up and the
follow through that’s going to bring it full circle to net the results.
Jim Palmer: So, Kelly, you said something earlier about when you’re dealing with
seven figure or high value clients that there’s less competition. So I believe that first
of all. The other thing I’ve learned about dealing with some of the folks, and I
certainly don’t have the experience you have, but they are more focused on the
result that you can deliver than the whole song and dance. Maybe when you started
out, you were dealing with some five figure or less sales. Boy, they just want to run
you through the ringer. They want you to song and dance, wine and dine them.
23
Then when you get with these really high powered, seven figure people that say
okay, what’s the deal, how does that work, what’s the investment. Okay, I’m good.
Do you find it’s like that in sales too?
Kelly Roach: Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I always tell people, you said it earlier, Jim,
and I think you said it really well, it’s literally no harder to close a client at this level,
than it is to close the rinky dink clients that are sending you a couple hundred bucks.
And sometimes it’s easier because these people, just like exactly what you said, Jim,
all they care about is the result you can get them. They want the bottom line. They
want the impact. They want the solution. So to them it’s not about nickeling and
diming you on the price. It’s about what result can you get. That’s how they’re going
to make their decision. They’re going to make their decision based on who they’re
confident is going to help them look good in their role and get their organization the
end result that they’re striving for. So I think that’s a critical point and I think for
some people listening to this sales can be a bit scary, especially if you don’t consider
yourself to be a sales person or if it’s never really been a strength of yours.
I want to share that, literally, I have a client that brought me on to start coaching one
of their new sales reps. She had been on a couple of months. She had never done
sales before. She was really struggling. She had zero dollars on the books, no sales,
like literally nothing. Within four weeks of implementing this process, and we
combined the sales campaigns with the metrics space growth system, that I teach in
my program. It took over four weeks to start averaging $26,000 a week in sales, four
weeks. That is possible for anyone if you are strategic and systematic and you’re
willing to take imperfect action and just put yourself out there and do it. I think so
many entrepreneurs get stuck in the planning and the perfection that they kind of
miss the point. Do you know what I mean?
24
Jim Palmer: Yep, imperfect action as you said earlier. Kelly, before we move on, I
want to stay on this because this is a fascinating section for me. So, talking about
automating the sales cycle, when people hear about that, autopilot to a lot of people
means well, I’m just going to send autoresponder emails and stuff. You’re talking
about something in addition to that, right? I mean there’s physical touches, when
you visit somebody or there’s phone calls, there’s mailing them things. I mean it’s a
multi step, multi faceted sequence. Can you just expand on that a little bit more if
you would?
Kelly Roach: Perfect, absolutely. Yep, thanks for asking that. So, yeah, what we’re
including here is going to be a combination of phone calls, customized emails, the
direct mail. So that’s going to include mailers. It’s going to include postcards. It’s
going to include handwritten notes. It’s going to include your drop by materials. It’s
going to include scheduling actual sit down meetings. I just built one of these out last
week for another one of my clients and I think we ended up with 10 to 12 things that
they’re doing on a weekly basis for this top 100. The whole thing about it is there’s a
time compression aspect to it. Everybody can play the clock forward and see that the
more touches that you do, the closer together and the more frequently that you do
them, the faster the client’s going to close.
I hear people all the time saying I’ve been selling this person for years and I just
finally got this or I just finally got that. Well, they could have, actually, probably
gotten that meeting in a matter of weeks or months if they had built out an
automated process like this where every week they know they’re going through a
series of certain touches that are going to have this impact and bring the client
through that psychological comfort level with them, because that’s a big piece of it is
the comfort level. Frequency is the biggest pull. It’s the biggest metric that pulls in
sales.
25
So many people think it’s about the magic words or being salesy or having the right
presentation or the best pitch. It has nothing to do with that. That is such a small
part of sales success. The majority of it is right in this meat of what we’re talking
about in step three right here. Did I answer your question? That was a long answer
to your question.
Jim Palmer: It was perfect and it reminds me of something you said earlier,
relentless pursuit. Actually, I think you said a different word, but we’ll call it
relentless pursuit. It makes me think not only in sales, but also in so many other
parts of your business. My wife Stephanie runs a large childcare facility and
whenever she’s advertising for help, she’ll get some resumes and do interviews.
She’s busy from the time she gets there to the time she comes home, but she’ll say I
often hire the person who’s just relentlessly following up with me. Did you make a
decision yet? Did you make a decision yet? I’d love to work there. Eventually, she
goes, yes, come on in. I’m ready to go. Meanwhile, the other people are sitting back
going oh, I don’t want to bother them. It’s the same way in sales. It’s a perfect
example, I think.
Kelly Roach: Oh, it’s absolutely true. That’s a perfect example. It really does work
that way. Then I think the kicker on top of it is getting the mindset right. If you can
get yourself out of the mindset of worrying, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs are
kind of in that worry and that struggle of I need to close that next client. I have to
close that next client. Where is that next growth coming from or how am I paying my
bills next month. If you can try and step away from that and really focus on getting in
the client’s mindset and understanding their wants and needs and selling to them as
if you were on the other side of the desk. What would you want to hear? What
would you need to see? What are the things that would make you feel comfortable
and confident? What are the insights that you would need to put in front of this
person that would compel them to take action? What are the testimonials? What
26
are the case studies? What are the success stories? I think so many times people are
so focused on the sale that they’re missing what gets someone psychologically ready
to buy. Does that make sense?
Jim Palmer: It makes great sense. I want to remind people, who are listening, that
Kelly started this whole journey on the way to up to becoming an executive vice
president. At 22 you were already closing seven figure deals. So there’s no excuse
why some of the people on this call can’t follow this formula.
So let me move on to number four, Kelly. I’m really excited to ask about this one:
How to let the competition sell for you. So talk about that.
Kelly Roach: Yes, absolutely. This is probably one of my favorite things to teach
people and I was so excited I taught this to a group of my clients about a week ago.
It’s a sales team for a $20 million company that I’m coaching. I taught them this
about a week ago and they’re already seeing huge results from it. So I think the
biggest myth buster of the whole conversation that we’re having today is that
competition lowers your chance of closing. When in reality, competition equals
opportunity. When this light bulb goes off and you understand how to utilize the
competition, they can practically do the closing for you. Let me tell you what I mean
by that.
It’s the power of comparison. That allows you to quickly and easily design a
customized solution for a client that fulfills the exact pain point of what they want
and need and what you have to say to them for them to move forward and work with
you.
So, for example, you’re sitting across the table from a client. They’re working with
one of our competitors and you’re asking them hey, Jim, tell me about your
27
experience working with so and so. You’re telling me all about it and I’m listening.
Okay, I say great. What do you love about working with them? What made you
decide to work with them and why have you continued to work with them? You tell
me and I listen, taking some notes, great. I say, Jim, obviously, you made the
decision to meet with me today. So if it were a perfect world, an absolute perfect
world and there were two or three things that you would love to be better or
different about your relationship with them, that you would be just over the moon
excited, you’d even be willing to pay a premium for that result. What would that
look like? They’re going to give you the whole answer key. They’re going to give you
the whole answer key and your competition just set the whole thing up for you. This
is why I love what you brought up earlier about the retention, because I think you
can get very comfortable with your clients and you can get very comfortable with the
deals that you’ve already closed. You have to realize that it’s easier for your
competition to come and take it from you than it is someone that’s going out and
trying to convince someone to do something for the first time. Just like the lesson
we were teaching you listening is the same lesson that you need to know about your
current customers.
So ask them these questions and they’re going to be able to paint a picture for you
for exactly the solution that they’re looking for. They’re going to articulate for you if I
had A, B and C, I would be able to make a move and I would be willing to make a
change in my service provider or in the products that we’re using currently.
Decision makers are surveyed for informational statistics and stuff like that. They’re
asked what do you feel about your service providers. Basically, the feedback that
they give is they feel like their clients don’t understand what they want. Most sales
meetings are a total waste of their time. That people that are coming out to be their
“service providers” don’t really take the time to truly understand their business and
their needs.
28
So just by knowing those couple things, understanding their wants and needs, taking
the time to truly listen and then creating solutions that are going to fill those gaps,
you absolutely differentiate yourself from the competition in your market and you
can stand out immediately as the obvious choice for those clients. Does that make
sense?
Jim Palmer: It makes perfect sense. And, you know, I am such a fan, like you are, of
asking questions because that leads to information. So many sales people go in there
and they basically have diarrhea of the mouth and they just talk and talk and talk.
This is why we’re good. This is why we’re good. This is why my competition sucks,
which is a horrible thing to do. I love the questions you asked: what would it be like
or what would have to happen, what would make you over the top happy. They have
to answer the question and how they answer it is exactly what you then start going
about. That is your foot in the door.
I always monitor these interviews and I’m thinking, man, people are really starting to
get excited about the information. There are some really good strategies. The small
business owner that I’m thinking about whose listening is going I just don’t know if I
can pull that off. I want to ask a question about your Bridge to Freedom coaching
program. I know you do a good job teaching the strategy and all this and that. There
is some good one‐on‐one time with you. So I hope I don’t put you on the spot here,
but can you coach confidence Kelly? I think a lot of people are sponges for
information. They learn the strategies, but suppose somebody’s just out and out
worried about going in there and taking the shot. How do you help people with that?
Kelly Roach: We all struggle with that sometimes. What I try to do with my clients is
really build that trust with them where I say when you’re struggling; I want you to
bring those specifics to me. What I will do is I will, literally, lay out the conversation
29
for them. I will say I know you’re feeling very uncomfortable with this. I know you’re
trying this for the first time, but you just have to trust me. Like this is what I do for a
living and I promise you this will work. The thing I think is the catalyst for the
confidence, and I really see this in people and it’s like a complete change, is we have
the conversation, we talk through the specifics. I lay out the roadmap for them. I
explain word for word how to approach this, how to have the conversation, what to
say and how to say it. They do it once and the next time I talk to them, it is like I’m
talking to a different person, because you can’t coach confidence but you can give
people a roadmap for success. Once they see that success I find that the confidence
is a natural by‐product for that as they go into the future.
Jim Palmer: That’s awesome. What a great answer. The other thing I think you
mentioned in this whole process is it’s not about you. Don’t you think so many
salespeople, again, it’s all about them and what they offer and why their product is
good. In fact, I was working with somebody yesterday who’s talking about putting on
this program and all they talked about was the result they want. I said, man, you are
completely 180 degrees backwards. If you don’t mind my saying, you’re not focused
on why in the world anybody would want to come to this in the first place. You have
to be focused on delivering value. I always say, look, if you don’t offer something of
value, and therefore, you’ve got to be able to stand in front of somebody and just
know that this is going to change their world and make life better. It becomes easier.
You said earlier, Kelly, so many people are focused on the sale. I have to make the
sale. I call that that’s making a cash flow decision. And to the best of your ability,
even when you’re in cash flow mode, you have to make decisions and handle
yourself and communicate as if it’s a good long‐term decision for your business,
which is taking care of your clients. I mean that’s a big mindset shift, I would
imagine, in closing seven figure deals.
30
Kelly Roach: It’s a complete mindset shift and it really comes back to that trusting in
yourself and believing in yourself and really thinking big picture, instead of making
short‐term decisions. That’s why I said when you make the shift and to focus in on
six and seven figure deals and your clients, in terms of the clients you’re going after,
first of all, it’s a shift in the market that you’re targeting. So you’re targeting people
that have the pain and the power to say yes and to spend these kinds of dollars. But
the other thing is you’re making a shift in your business and you’re looking at the big
picture and you’re taking big strategic leaps forward but you have to have the
patience and the follow through and the persistence to value yourself and what you
offer and how you can help people enough to be demanding of that. Because in the
meantime you keep taking on more and more and more and more of those low dollar
clients that are taking your time, running you into the ground and exhausting you,
you aren’t changing your financial situation and you’ve just created another job for
yourself. Why be in business if it’s going to run you into the ground, exhaust you and
make you no more money than you did a corporate employee?
Jim Palmer: Okay, so we covered database, knowing who exactly is your perfect
prospect, getting to the decision maker, sales campaigns, which I totally love that and
how to let the competition do the selling for you. So let’s get to number five, which
is the pyramid of impact.
Kelly Roach: Okay. So this one is just killer and I love this and I think it’s so timely
and so important. You were asking me at the beginning why now. The pyramid of
impact is, again, one of those things where if you go against the grain right now,
you’re going to come up on top, because so many people have lost the common
sense approach to doing business and are, literally, going from A to Z just to get from
A to B in their business. They’re just burning themselves out, exhausting themselves,
running themselves into the ground and really have no results to show for it.
31
So the question I want to ask to everyone that’s listening to this call today is when
was the last time that you made an investment of $10,000 or more not having
spoken with or met with either a person or the organization that you were buying
from. I really want people to think about that. Again, I love Internet marketing. I do
email marketing and I use social media as a huge aspect of my business and a lot of
my clients come from there. But, once again, I’m directly interacting. I’m closing
over the phone. People want to talk to a real person when they’re making a
significant investment in the multi thousand dollars. So I feel like people have
completely lost all common sense. If you wouldn’t make a decision by someone
sending you an email to spend $10,000, $5,000, $15,000, why would you expect your
target market to? What needs to change about your behavior if you want to yield
those types of sales?
So there’s huge power in proximity and I want to remind everyone that there’s a
hierarchy of impact. So at the top of the pyramid, in terms of the most impactful
thing that you can ever do, it’s always in interacting in person. Then you go down the
hierarchy and you have the phone call and then you have video and then you have
audio and then you have email. I constantly find people trying to negotiate over
email or trying to close a deal over email. It’s like yes, email is a tool. It’s a tool, but
it’s a tool to be utilized in conjunction with common sense in the way you approach
your business.
So, I think, just the big thing that I want to remind everybody of here is when you’re
looking at your growth strategy for your business, really remembering the pyramid of
impact and really deciding on how you use your time and how you design your
strategy in alignment with how you’re going to net the level of sales that you’re
looking to achieve and what you’re going to put in place to achieve them. Now, that
doesn’t mean you’re not using Internet marketing and using social media to drive
that. For me, what I tend to do is I generate all the leads through online facets, but
32
then I drive all of the leads offline to interact with me. That’s where the magic
happens.
So, I think, in my Bridge to Freedom program one of the things that I help people to
do is I teach them a process to turn $100k in leads into $100k in sales in their
business in six months or less. You can do that either virtually or in person with a
combination of direct interaction, face‐to‐face or even virtually over the phone. But
you have to take into consideration the impact of a phone call or an in person touch,
versus just sending an email or doing a post on social media. Does that make sense?
Jim Palmer: That makes great sense. I want to give you some kudos. You do some
amazing videos, which would certainly be an online thing. So people watch your
videos on YouTube and on Facebook and things like that. But you’re always driving
people to an offline thing. First you probably drive them to a website but then they
opt‐in and then you drive them to, hopefully, engage in a conversation.
I attended a seminar many, many years ago. I was probably like you when you were
22. I was a young pup but there were a lot of high achievers there. I don’t even
remember the gentleman’s name but he said, listen, how many of you have made
sales call in the last year. No hands went up because they were like CEO types. He
said what would happen if you contacted your ten best customers? How much more
business could you close? A lot of people were like oh, tons and tons. He goes then
why aren’t you doing it? It wasn’t so much a cut on the fact that they’re not busy
doing other things. It’s that whole connection when you, as the principle, and I don’t
mean you have to be the business owner. You’re the seven figure closer, you’re the
rainmaker. It all speaks to the personal contact and the person who’s most skilled
going in there and closing the sale. That was probably a horribly long question or
statement, but isn’t that true. I mean I know for a fact you close, Kelly, most of the
33
business, or all the business, that you close because of the personal contact. Correct
me if I’m wrong. Have you ever closed a seven figure deal by sending an email?
Kelly Roach: No, never. I wish I could say that I have, but it just doesn’t go that
way. When people are buying and the stakes are high and it’s going to have a
substantial impact on the future of their organization, they want to interact with a
real person. I think that so many entrepreneurs struggle with pricing and struggle
with charging what they’re worth and getting it. I think one of the reasons is because
they’re ineffective at using online strategies to drive people offline to interact with
them and that’s where the whole thing is kind of breaking down, because the value
and the magic is in that connection. I don’t do any cold calling in my business. I have
a team that does that for me, but you can have a part time person working a few
hours a week calling the warm leads in your business and setting up appointments
for you. So it’s not that I’m even saying that every business owner or every business
leader needs to be out there pounding the phones. I’m not saying that, but you have
a team and that team can be doing that for you and then you can be having those
high level conversations where the actual close happens.
Jim Palmer: So you said something about five minutes ago and I want to make sure I
circle back to it. You teach how to turn warm leads into $100,000 in six months or
less. Is that what you said?
Kelly Roach: Absolutely, yes.
Jim Palmer: Well, I have to ask a question, and once again, I hope you don’t mind if I
put you on the spot. Have you personally done that or have you taught somebody
how to do that? I mean that just seems amazing. I’m not doubting you but I think
it’s phenomenal. Tell me about that.
34
Kelly Roach: Well, definitely, a cardinal rule in my business, Jim, is that I do not teach
anything that I do not live, breathe, eat, sleep and own. So I do not teach anything in
any of my programs that I have not implemented a hundred percent. I think if
anyone were to speak with one of my clients, they know if they come to me with a
question and it’s outside of my area of expertise, I will own that and I will say, listen,
I’m not doing that, so I cannot train you on that. So, yes, the reason I started
teaching this in my business, and I just started teaching it this year in my business,
was because we developed a new system that accelerated the growth that we were
experiencing and when we achieved this in my business so quickly and easily, I was
like, oh, my god, this is crazy. Why am I not teaching this to my clients? I have to put
this method in place and I have to create systems to help my clients do this with this
speed and this amount of leverage. So it was actually once we had done that in my
business that we began teaching that to others.
Jim Palmer: Warm leads into $100,000 in six months. I think that’s probably the big
ah‐ha for the call so far. That’s pretty outstanding. We’ve got a little bit of time
here. We covered the pyramid of effects. So, Kelly, step number six is closing once
you get a seat at the table. Let’s talk about that.
Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the number one myth buster here is if I can
just get in front of the right people. If I was just in front of more prospects, I would
be able to close them. Everything that we’ve spoken to up until this point in the
program has been very much about the math and the scientific approach, it’s more
about the execution and really the discipline around putting the right activities in
place and having the right kind of conversation, and all of that, to move them
through the cycle. Now is where things get very delicate. So here’s where there’s
definitely some art to what’s happening. There are a lot of variables. There are a lot
of things that can go wrong. Here’s where some skill and some practice and some
experience come in.
35
So you get yourself to the table. The stakes are high. The conversation matters.
How do you capitalize on the opportunities in front of you? So I think the biggest
piece of advice that I can do here is to let people know that here is not where you go
in and go in with a set sales spiel. It’s not where you go in with a set presentation.
This is not where you go in and vomit all over your potential client with how great
your company is or what you can do. This is all about effective questioning. It’s
about listening, really listening, not asking questions and then as you’re listening
preparing for what you’re going to say in response. They’re two very different things.
It’s about asking questions and really listening and really learning and really
understanding and discovering what matters to your client and what the bottom line
end result that they want and need is and what the triggers for them making a
decision are going to be. We kind of talked about his a little bit earlier.
The best way to go in and approach these meetings is to go in with the intention of
partnering with the client in creating the solution together.
So, whereas, in the business to consumer market many times you’re selling packages
and you’re selling programs and you’re selling very specific products. When you go
into these types of meetings, it’s much more of a discovery where you might pull
different pieces of the programs that you have to create a customized solution, or
you might pull different products that you sell to different customers in different
areas to create a customized solution. So you’re going to still stay in your genius
zone, as far as what you’re going to offer, but you’re not going to give a cookie cutter
sales pitch. You’re not going to dump information on them. You’re really going to be
going through a discovery process where you and the potential client are co‐creating
a solution and designing a package or a program or a set of products that go together
that is exactly the right things for them, which is probably going to be a little bit
different from a variety of other clients that you service. It’s important to know that
36
when you’re talking about five, six, seven figure deals, you probably are going to have
multiple meetings.
So if it came to close and you’re itching to present and you’re itching to come in with
this big spiel about everything that you can do. Save it. Go in and listen and learn
first. Then go back and you can present the solution and design something that’s
very detailed and very specific to exactly their needs and really demonstrate that you
were listening and that you care about them and their goals and the result that
they’re trying to achieve and you really make it all about them. That’s how you’re
going to get into that final step of the closing conversation. I’ll just pause there for
one quick second.
Jim Palmer: Kelly, when you’re in that zone and I like that fact that you said partner
with the client, create solutions together. That’s very cool. I like when you said
customize solutions. The other thing I picked up on is that there could be multiple
meetings before you actually close. So just because you’re in there doesn’t mean I’d
better close now or I’m going to walk out a loser. There could be multiple meetings,
right? At what point do you recognize when the potential client, or call him a
prospect at this point, is asking about customized solutions or can I get it this way or
can I get it that way? I, obviously, think that’s getting closer to the buying signal or
when it’s time to close. When do you recognize there’s questions going back and
forth and when they’re saying um, if I can get it this way, I think we’ve got a deal?
Does that make sense?
Kelly Roach: Yeah, great. No, absolutely. I teach this to my coaching clients.
There’s kind of an art to the pullback, right? So you’re goal is to be so kind of like in
the moment with them and get the conversation so fluid and so back and forth
where it naturally leads to them saying, you know what, I would love to work with
you on this, can you do this for me, can you do that for me. I’d like to see this. So
37
the goal is you’re in it. You are so in it you’re in the moment with them. It’s flowing
back and forth. You’re playing catch. Finally, they have the ball in their hands and
the last pitch is to you and that pitch is them saying I’d like to work with you on this,
what can you do for me, basically. They’re saying I want this result. I want what you
have. How do I get it? If this meeting is run well, and you’re following the steps that
we just talked about, that’s exactly where the meeting is going to come to.
So now you should have a couple of pages of notes. You should very detailed outline
of exactly what they’re looking for, what’s important to them, all the keys that are
going to be the triggers for their buying decision, what they’re basing their decision
on, all of that. Now they’re asking for that next step. So that’s, again, where you
need to sometimes pull back a little bit and say I want to go back and I want to put
together a customized solution for you that hits on each and every one of the things
that we talked about today.
That’s where you have to go back and really make sure that not only are you
designing something that is going to be the solution that they want, but also you
have to really be careful. You have to be really careful. I’ve seen this mistake many
times where people over commit and they sign up for something that in order for
them to deliver, it’s going to completely throw their business into a cycle that they’re
not going to be able to sustain. So you want to be thinking about really pricing based
on the result that you’re going to create for them, not based on an hourly rate or
anything like that, because there’s going to be hours beyond the hours where you’re
directly interacting with them. Then you also want to be really thinking about the
reoccurring revenue piece.
So how are you setting things up in such a way that you can build this into a
reoccurring revenue stream versus just maybe like a onetime hit? Sometimes in the
beginning they’re only going to agree to that first order or that first engagement, but
38
then you know you’re on warning. This is your probation basically. This is your
opportunity to prove yourself to earn that reoccurring revenue and to earn that next
opportunity.
Jim Palmer: That makes sense. You know, when I was preparing for this interview a
couple days ago it was in some of the information that you sent me. I was reading
about the different types of communication that you especially use when you’re
closing. Help me out. There was a certain percent that was verbal but I think the
majority was nonverbal and body language and I think tonality was the other one.
Talk about that real briefly.
Kelly Roach: Yeah, let’s talk about that. That’s great. Thanks for bringing that up. I
was a communication major and I think this is part of what helped me so much with
selling. Only 7% of your impact is in the verbal communication that you have. The
rest, 93% of everything that’s being conveyed to your prospect, is in nonverbal
communication. So 55% of that is body language, 38% of it is tonality and then, as
we already said, only 7% is what you actually say. That’s why it is so important. You
have to go in there with your game face.
You have to go in there leaning in, engage in the conversation in real time. That’s why
I said you cannot be asking questions and only listening to prepare your next answer
because that will be evident. People will spot that from a mile away. If you’re not
truly invested and really wholeheartedly listening and engaged in the conversation,
they’re going to feel that.
That’s why the pace of the meeting, the tone that you have when you’re
communicating and your body language is so important. If that’s something that
you’re not strong in or it’s something that you’re aware of or have never had training
in, it’s probably something that’s worth wrapping your head and hands around a little
39
bit. But also the key point there that I want to make is you can probably see why it’s
so difficult to close these high, multi thousand dollar deals over email and it’s why I
tell people never negotiate over email because how are you going to make that
happen, right?
Jim Palmer: It’s impossible. By the way, I even talked to my staff about this. If
there’s ever an issue, problem, question, don’t go to email. Go to phone because
back and forth email just leaves you so open to miscommunication or how you
meant the word and how it was read. I really believe there is an art. I think you
mentioned if you don’t know it, that you should wrap your arms around it. I think this
is something that could definitely be trained. I also think it’s something that comes
with confidence. I mean let’s face it. If somebody is in there and they’ve got sweat
on their forehead, that is not the sign of a successful, confident person who’s going
to be able to service their account right?
Kelly Roach: Exactly, exactly. So there are two other big areas that I just want to
cover quickly as it relates to the closing before we wrap up this piece of the segment.
Once you get to that table, there are things that can go wrong. I will tell you that and
I’m going to share a couple things of closing and that’s how we’ll wrap this step
number six.
The first thing is that many times other decision makers want to get involved in the
last moment. So you think you have the deal sealed. Now, they’re passing it along
and getting sign offs on it and someone else jumps in and wants to get involved. Or,
the person that you met with now needs approval from their manager, which goes
back to, again, step one and step two of making sure that you’re selling to the person
that has the pain and the power. That’s critically important because otherwise you
just wasted months and months and months engaging with absolutely the wrong
person who can’t get the job done on their side.
40
So step one and step two is very important here: making sure that the goal and the
ambition that the person you’re meeting with has the same ambitions of the
organization and that’s where that pullback comes in. They may want to bite off
more than what their organization is ready to do. So a good rule of thumb is on your
first engagement just try and get in the door. Don’t try to oversell. Don’t try to get a
commitment beyond a commitment, because you can do that once you get in there
and get that initial result. Don’t lose the deal because you try to go in too big from
the gate, and then just making sure that you don’t lose control of the sale and drop
the ball in the end zone.
I just want to go over a couple quick cardinal rules of closing and then we’ll wrap with
that. So, number one, I already mentioned it: never, ever negotiate over email or
send a proposal over email. They will ask you to do that. That’s exactly what they’ll
ask you for. After your meeting they will ask you to mail them a proposal. That is
absolutely a big no‐no and that will set you up for failure. So you want to push back
on that and you want to schedule a time to come back and present that either over
the phone or in person.
The second thing is always ensure that every time you wrap a meeting or a
conversation, you have an agreed upon next step and you have a date as to when
that’s going to happen. So those two things are critical.
The third things is that from time‐to‐time you will have done all of your homework,
you did all of your vetting and still someone insists on getting involved in the decision
making process at the very last moment. You have to fight to try and be in that
meeting or on that phone call, because the person that is going to carry that
conversation forward they’re not a salesperson. They’re not invested the way that
you are. They don’t have the ability to convey the impact and what’s going to
41
happen with these results that you do. So you have to fight to be in that meeting.
The worst that can happen is you can lose it, but if you’re not in that meeting, you’re
probably going to lose it anyway. So that’s the third one.
The fourth one is making sure that you’re conversing and negotiating and making
decisions in conjunction with those who have the authority to say yes. We talked
about that a lot throughout the course of the program, so no need to go through that
again.
Then just two things as far as protecting yourself: again, putting together a service
agreement that protects you, is going to deliver for the client, that’s going to
maintain your profitability goals, dependent on the time investment needed to
deliver. Really being super careful to not over commit your time or over commit
how much of your business that you want to allocate to any one client, because part
of building a sustainable business is having multiple streams of income and multiple
clients at different ranges and different price points that are going to maintain and
keep your business sustainable. So you don’t want to swing the pendulum too far to
the left or too far to the right and allocate 80% of your time to one client, because,
obviously, you’re setting yourself up for a calamity down the road. So just having
that long‐term vision and long‐range decision making in mind as you’re designing
what you’re going to commit to and what price point you’re putting it at.
Then, finally, just make sure that you’re doing your pricing based on impact, and not
based on an hourly rate. So just a quick example on that is going in and going to help
them with their employee retention program. You were thinking of charging $500 an
hour and it was a project that was going to take 20 hours to deliver. Well, instead of
charging hourly for those 20 hours, you want to say to them recent statistics show
that on average for every executive that’s lost in an organization it costs $260,000 at
the low range. Would you agree with that? They probably would agree with that.
42
Yes, that’s on the low side of things. Then you want to proceed to design your pricing
from there. So do you see how different what you’re going to make from this deal if
you’re basing it on the impact and on the cost to them not solving the problem,
versus on an hourly rate?
Jim Palmer: Absolutely. I abhor just hourly because it makes it so easy just to
compare, even if it’s unfair, even if it’s apples and oranges. If you have something
tied to hourly and they just look over here to this other company. Oh, that’s hourly.
This is less expensive. Let’s go there. So hourly is not the way to go.
Kelly, it’s just been a phenomenal sharing the secret to closing more seven figure
clients. I want you to put a bow on everything. So you’ve walked us through the six
steps. It’s an amazing process and strategy. Clearly, you’ve had amazing success.
Just close us up a little bit and put a bow on everything, if you would.
Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the key thing here is that you can become a
million dollar closer and train your team to do the same by investing and mastering
the six steps that we talked about today. The best gift that you can possibly give
yourself as a business owner, entrepreneur or executive leader in the economic
climate that we’re in today and the rapid pace of the changes that are happening is
to learn this and then proceed to teach it to others, because no matter what
industries are built or go away, no matter what business is built or goes away, you
will be able to create and replicate a magnificent sales success and business success
once you learn these skills. So I would say if you’re willing to dedicate one year to
becoming and expert and the six steps that we talked about here, you will, without a
doubt, if you’re not already having a team support you, be able to afford to hire a
team to do this for you. If you want to be in business for the long haul, if you want to
impact generations, if you want to enjoy the retirement that you’re probably working
so hard and dreaming about, invest in learning sales, because it’s timeless. It always
43
has been and it always will be the simplest, most profitable and best return on
investment strategy to create radical growth in minimal time.
Jim Palmer: That’s awesome. There was a question I wanted to ask you and it’s
probably a question I should have asked at the beginning but I’m going to ask it now.
I want you to think about Kelly Roach at 22 going in there and really figuring out how
to close six and seven figure deals and then just growing from there to becoming an
executive vice president of sales, Fortune 500, and now you’re training all of these
different people. As you think about the last 8 to 10 years or so, was there one big
ah‐ha? I know you talked about once you closed your first deal you go oh, my gosh,
this is great. It’s almost like addictive. You can’t wait to close another one. Maybe
that’s the answer so I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Is there one like bit
ah‐ha moment as you’re putting all this together, because you teach it now to so
many people. In your own journey was there a big thing that said wow, I’m not going
after those tiny deals ever again?
Kelly Roach: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is just with sales in general that it’s so
much more about he process and the execution. I think people get so hung up in
saying the right thing or putting together a presentation or having all the perfect
things lined up for their business. I think the biggest thing is understanding that 80‐
90% of your sales success and your ability to close consistent, high dollar deals in
your business is just going to come down to the execution. So get out there and do it
and get a team doing it for you. I would say the other big ah‐ha just in my own
business that I spot over and over again that kind of is upsetting for me that I really
worked to help correct in organizations is the bigger the business, the less control
and the less accuracy they have around what their sales reps are doing and who
they’re selling to and they’re just leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the
table.
44
So I would say the two things are it’s about the process and the execution and it’s
about managing and understanding how important it is, what’s being done, how it’s
being done and who it’s being done to. It’s the easiest way to clean up the growth
rate in your business and get things on track for where you really want to be.
Jim Palmer: That’s awesome. I can’t thank you enough for coming here, Kelly, and
doing this. It’s quite an extended interview on the secret to closing more seven
figure clients, proven strategies known only to the world’s top sales producers until
now. Kelly, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you? Before I let you
answer I want to say this: I do a lot of these interviews and people usually claim a
website. You have shared so much information I want to give you a very wide berth
here. So I want you to talk about your program and just let everybody know how you
can help them.
Kelly Roach: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, I do private consulting with
organizations, start‐up to multi‐million dollar enterprises. The Bridge to Freedom is a
huge part of my business and that’s helping people build a business that actually
represents the freedom that’s supposed to go with being an entrepreneur. So
freedom of time, freedom of location, freedom of choice in terms of financial things
and everything that goes along with it. I think the biggest thing is that growing your
business not only impacts you, but your family and generations to come. My goal is
to impact as many people and their families and their lives and their futures as I
possibly can by helping them learn to build sustainable businesses that don’t
compromise their quality of life. I’ve definitely been there in the past where I’ve
struggled with quality of life and it led me to a lot of the changes that I made and
now the things that I teach. I think just helping people to rediscover the joy in their
business and the simplicity that success really can be when you go back to the basics.
The Bridge to Freedom program is just a phenomenal way for people to get support
in six or seven different ways to ensure that they don’t get lost in the crowd or fall off
45
the wagon or make a mistake that they can’t come back from. I would just invite
anyone that’s listening if you’ve been stuck for a little while or you know you’re
capable of more or you’re not meeting your potential as a business leader or a
business owner, to just reach out to me. You can reach out to me directly by phone.
My business number is right on the website there: 610‐910‐3600, or you can email
me: [email protected] and I love to interact with business
owners and leaders and I would love to hear more about your business and what I
can do for you.
Jim Palmer: So Kelly Roach Coaching is the main website?
Kelly Roach: Yes, Kelly Roach Coaching.
Jim Palmer: Kelly, thank you so much. I have enormous respect for what you’ve
done. I can’t believe all you’ve accomplished in just your short journey so far as an
entrepreneur. What I really respect about you is how some salespeople they just
want more, more, more and you’ve already at this juncture in your career you’ve
kind of turned where you’re still a high producer for yourself, but now you’re
teaching this in a big way, in a very open and transparent way as I think you’ve
demonstrated today. You’re teaching others how to do it. So to me that proves you
have an abundant mindset. The world has endless possibilities and you’re not one to
just kind of cower and keep your own stuff. So I really respect that. I want
everybody to know that’s listening to this Kelly gets my highest recommendation. I
want you to go to www.kellyroachcoaching.com and check it out. I know there are
some great reports there. That’s how I prepared for this interview is I got a bunch of
her information. So, Kelly thanks again for doing this. I greatly appreciate your time.
Kelly Roach: You got it. It was a ton of fun. Thanks so much, Jim.
46
Jim Palmer: Okay, folks. That wraps up this very special virtual training program,
The Secret to Closing More Seven Figure Clients: Proven Strategies Known Only to the
World’s Top Producers until now with rock star entrepreneur Kelly Roach. Again, my
name is Jim Palmer, the Dream Business Coach. As always, I’m committed to helping
you build a more profitable business faster. Until our next time together, you take
good care.
47
48
About Kelly Roach
Kelly Roach is with out a doubt the Nation’s leading expert in
helping companies create Massive Sales Success in minimal
time. As a Senior Vice President for a Fortune 500 Firm Kelly
hired, trained, coached and developed hundreds of Business
Professionals teaching them step by step how to create
explosive business growth resulting in them doubling and
tripling their incomes.
Now as the Founder of Kelly Roach Coaching, Kelly helps
businesses implement strategies to Skyrocket Sales and
Multiple Profits. As a wife, mother, business owner and athlete
Kelly prides herself in helping Business owners and Executive
leaders learn how to gain absolute control over their time and
results so they can achieve their income goals without
compromising their quality of life. Kelly offers programs and
consulting to businesses from start‐up through the World’s
Fortune 500 firms on leadership, productivity, profitability and
how to achieve rapid, sustainable growth at lightening speed.
49
Some of the areas Kelly specializes in helping Entrepreneurs,
Business Owners and Executive Leaders with include:
Sales improvement‐training, coaching, management and
leadership
Increasing profitability, retention and account penetration
Organizational structure and development
How to engage and retain top performing employees
Leadership development
Wellness and exercise integration in the workplace
Growth strategy and implementation for accelerated
growth
Some of the ways you can work with Kelly include:
Private Coaching
In one of her group Programs or Masterminds
VIP days
Workshops, seminars, corporate retreats and company
trainings
Kelly is also a speaker, podcast and radio guest Nationally and
Internationally .
50
To book Kelly as a guest you can visit:
http://kellyroachcoaching.com/kelly‐roach‐media‐kit
Some of the Results Kelly’s Clients get Include:
Double or triple the number of new clients acquired in
their business each month
Pricing increased and successfully implemented at 20%‐
100%+ starting point
Hiring, Building, Attracting and Retaining Top Performing
Teams creating long term bottom line impact
Business Growth ranging from 20% to 350% year over year
51
How to Get In Touch with Kelly
Email Kelly at [email protected]
Call Kelly Roach Coaching at 610‐910‐3600 or 1‐800‐230‐9115
Connect with Kelly online at:
Facebook www.facebook.com/kellyroachinternational.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyovertonroach
Twitter: @kellyroachint
If you have not already gotten a copy of Kelly’s Ebook with her top 7
Business Automation Strategies so you can practically grow your
business on autopilot go to www.automationsecrets.com now and claim
your copy today!
52
Business Training, Coaching and Mastermind with Kelly Roach
Kelly has created a movement called the Bridge to Freedom empowering
entrepreneurs and Business owners to create financial abundance,
freedom and fulfillment in their Business and personal lives.
This World‐class training program creates an incubator like setting for
Businesses providing the critical structure, direction, focus and
accountability needed to create rapid, profitable growth in minimal time.
Some elements of the program include:
‐Private Coaching with Kelly
‐Email support
‐“On the fly” coaching calls with Kelly‐direct access to Kelly
‐One Private VIP Day with Kelly virtual or in‐person
‐One onsite team training with Kelly‐ability to add additional
trainings as needed at Preferred client rates
‐Customized metrics based growth plan with intro training for
team and follow‐up plan
‐Impact calls with Kelly’s team once a month to discuss special
requests and accommodate your specific needs
‐One hour a week of virtual support from Kelly’s team on areas
of your choosing to accelerate speed of implementation
53
‐Access to the Membership site with thousands of dollars of
business trainings, personal development tools and resources,
templates, action sheet and examples of high impact sales
materials
‐Private facebook forum for members only
‐Two LIVE Coaching and Mastermind Calls per month where you
can get laser coaching and customized feedback and direction
for your business
‐One interview per month from the Million Dollar Round table
series where Kelly interviews high 6 and 7 figure entrepreneurs
leading the way in profit, growth, innovation and success
‐Four business trainings per month on everything you could
possibly need to grow our business and achieve your income
goals
To maintain the quality and integrity of the group this is by application
only. You can begin the application process by contacting Kelly’s team
54