Nathan Siekierski - Webinars and live events that sell - Part 1

Speaker A: Hello. Um, bonjour, Nihau Comestas. Welcome to Champagne Strategy.

Speaker B: Listen to this episode if you dare,

Speaker A: but you've been warned. There's no going back.

Speaker B: Okay, so today's episode is a very interesting one. I don't know about you, but often I put on a couple of events. And I'm sure you've been to a couple of these yourself themselves, whether they're webinars, live events or live streams. And, you know, most these that we go to are attended mostly by the speakers themselves and employees of the company instead of sales prospects. Um, so today we're going to dive a bit deeper into putting on live virtual events, especially if our outcome is about getting sales off the end of

Speaker A: this, or sales prospects or actual sales qualified leads, as opposed to just what

Speaker B: generally happens, which is a bunch of people attend, some people talk, and then nothing really closes after that. So if you want to know how to turn events into real money, this

Speaker A: is the episode for you.

Speaker B: And today we're talking to Nathan. He's got a really interesting history which we'll go through at the beginning of the episode. And I think that really sort of lays the context for why he's so, uh, revenue orientated. And that's why I thought he'd be the best person to speak on this topic. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Nathan Sikiersky.

Speaker A: I saw that you were working at a marketing firm in a BDM capacity. Then you've sort of done some things on your own, done a kitchen job or something, some kitchen thing during COVID What's your story? It sounds interesting.

Speaker C: I mean, we can go back as far as you want, but before the pandemic, I didn't sell my business for £16 million, but I was offered £60 million for it. It was a hospitality business and, uh, I'd franchise that. And the pandemic came along and ended up wiping it out. I was holding out for like 25 mil, and it got wiped out in the pandemic. It's now back up to it, turning over 25 million, but now it's resurrecting itself at about three and a half million. So I've been for the whole. Should have sold it, didn't sell it, and all that kind of stuff. But my actual background, um, goes way back till I was about. I don't know, I was 23, I never liked working for anyone, got meningitis and then woke up in his hospital bed. Um, and I was like, that's it. I'm quitting my job and I remember saying to my mum that I'm done, I'm quitting, quit my job and start my own business. And she was like, you can't do that, you can't do that. Because nobody ever started a business in our family. So I started, my first business was 23. I ended up growing that and franchising it. I've sold 28 different businesses in one form or another. I've started multiple, crashed plenty, lost others. I don't even know where they are. Some of them are down the back of a sofa I think or something like that. My biggest really that and I was semi retired before the pandemic was my hospitality business. So anyway, we lost that. It was more like the mental health. So I've never been that kind of person that's like mental health orientated or anything like that. But I really experienced some dark and interesting times really, which change things. Then off the back of that I was approached by somebody who knows Stelios of EasyJet. And they were like, look, uh, we're thinking about setting up a marketing franchise. Um, business, you've got loads of franchising experience, you got loads of sales and marketing experience. And I was like, okay, cool, let's get involved in that. And what, when I got involved in that, uh, I spent a lot of time researching it as a marketplace for SMEs for the, for the majority of businesses and found out some things that I think we all know as business owners that most marketing companies can't deliver what we need them to deliver. And so we end up with this uh, horrific situations of marketing companies desperately scrambling around because it's highly competitive in the UK there's like one marketing company for every 86 businesses, which is insane. But now with like AI and arbitrage of software, so people, you know, building off the back of sales for somewhere else. You've got a place where just about everybody that comes out, university or anybody that's online is some kind of marketeer. And there's a big problem in the world of business that actually what business owners need is like experience. But technology tends to have a byproxy association with youth. And so people go to technology and end up in this market where people aren't experienced and you get probably the worst of all worlds. Um, so anyway, we started this marketing franchise with Stelios and then in doing that I found out that small businesses, well, all businesses hate marketing companies effectively. You know, um, they have lots of problems with them. Um, the lifetime value of a marketing company isn't Enough uh, of a client for marketing companies and enough for the marketing company to make any money.

Speaker A: I mean it is, I could have told you that.

Speaker C: Yeah, of course, right. It is cash and resource. But it's not that if like you can bootstrap some, you can do some smart stuff and you can bootstrap and you can re educate business owners to make money without any budget for marketing. Right. If you know what you're doing.

Speaker A: I always say like marketing is like the sort of catch all compensation for that inability to actually concentrate into sales properly.

Speaker C: You bang on, right. And that, that is, that's one of the default positions. People become obsessed with wanting new leads, new business and actually the answer is in retaining clients and increasing their value. I reckon you can get into the top 5% in the world now if you just do what you say you're

Speaker A: going to do like pretty simple stuff. I mean that's what um, Bezos says about building a brand. He's like, it's, it's, there's no shortcuts. You just, you know, make a promise and you deliver on the promise and you do it over and over again and you build your brand. It's, it's that simple. M. But you know, we're sold all these other lies. Like hey, um, I think what's alluring and what you're sort of touching on there is um, especially in the SME market is that uh, they're sold the, you know, it's inherently uncertain the outcomes, uh, from a lot of these investments. So what's really attractive to these people, these owners of businesses is that hey, um, there's this person, this guru, this system, this um, brand, software, agency, whatever, it doesn't really matter, it takes different forms. But there's this shortcut to this outcome that you really want and they sort of get allured by it and they buy into it and it fails and they do it over and over again. They get stuck in this sort of like sales, you know, pitch loop basically, um, because it's quite attractive and um, like I said, like it's sort of proportional to their lack of um, dedication investment into proper sales or BDM work.

Speaker C: So I think, I think you're right. I think people are looking for unicorns. But I always say like you want to buy mules, you really want to invest your money in mules. They're like stubborn, they stink a bit, but they will actually get your stuff up the mountain. Whereas unicorns, they don't exist. Like there's a big difference.

Speaker A: It's like the Eldorado Quest. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker C: Right, yeah. And I think also, and this is a truth of business, you've just hit it on the nail on there. People are sold a myth, right? They sold this deception that somehow they just come up with a good idea, uh, they go to market, everybody loves it and they start making loads of money. And that statistically almost never happens.

Speaker A: Like almost. But, but you can't say that because it's kind of a bit negative. So you know, as a vendor, you're going to sell the positive side of things, right? Not the reality. Yeah, but you say to yourself as

Speaker C: well, you say to everyone and then it's a problem in the business community because I don't, I don't think it is negative. So one of the things that, ah. And when we talk, um, in a little while about funnels and about creating um, systems that can uh, generate leads and business while you sleep, it's important to know that like everything is only, it's, it's part of a system, right. In your business and that system. And as much as people go, uh, oh, um, you know, you can get out your business and you can create passive income and all this kind of nonsense, let me just say it's like nonsense, uh, that's not a reality. You can definitely like be the strategic lead and work on and orientate yourself around the fun stuff and automate the um, low skill, high volume stuff. You can definitely do that and that's what you should be doing. But somehow all of us need to take a reality pill and say like, um, yeah, it's not going to happen overnight. Right. Bezos is a good example where even Amazon, you know, that was crashing and burning for, for years. It was a bookstore that by normal conventional measures you just close that business down.

Speaker A: I mean, this is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about because I had a recent experience. Um, backtrack a bit. AI is coming out, right? Um, macro context, it's lowering the barriers to entry for content creation and publication on that content. Right. Which is not really the valuable thing anyway. It's more the human eyeballs and effect you have on humans. That is the most skillful thing and hard to get. I have this theory that is sort of eventuating especially in B2B where a lot of that sort of search and social bread and butter sales CRM mixed with, you know, inbound content, you know, website sort of content, white papery kind of written content especially is basically the value is going to zero and therefore it's having less and less effect on customers during the sales process. Therefore, um, it's probably better to pivot towards things that are harder to fake. Things like this even. This is getting sort of AGI'd right with Notebook LLM from Google and stuff like that. But I think what the flight is is that there's a sort of lack of trust in a lot of that content that can be produced en masse for free almost. And therefore there's a pivot back to, if you're a smart B2B marketer, back to things that can't be faked, like personal interactions, physical events, um, webinar kind of events that are live, things like that, where you can't fake them. And therefore the value creation, the barriers to entry a bit higher. Therefore it's a bit of a richer, uh, branding experience and you know, can affect the sales process a lot more than some of these other things. Would you agree to that or not?

Speaker C: 100%. I think AI is okay. So everything's a pyramid, right? Everything's a pyramid. And AI is the same. So the top level, cutting edge of AI. So let's say like if you went on 11 labs and optimized everything they can do with like voice cloning or whatever else, you can get some pretty sophisticated gate stuff, there's no doubt about it. But if you're just using chat GPT and whacking in a prompt because you want somebody to bang out a LinkedIn article, it's going to look and feel already, even in these early stages of AI, like a commoditized piece of content that's not really adding any massive value. You've got the zig, which is where all the AI low level stuff's going. Then you've got the zag. And the zag is that bit where like you've just said the bit that makes you feel uncomfortable. So what might that be? Standing on a stage talking to people. You can't replace that at the moment. It's not doable. It's not doable. Picking up the phone and having uh, formulated. Yes, but, but real life direct conversations with people. These kind of skills that actually like old tele call centers and all that

Speaker A: BDM kind of work, right? It's like, have we come full circle? I feel like we have.

Speaker C: Well, if you're good at it, if you're good at it, you're almost priceless in the modern world because it's so powerful to be. And I know, um, some of our mutual friends, you know, teach about how to do sales and and how had to shortcut really to the real position. I think we've, we've had that many, this is my opinion on it. There's that many gurus that have read a book and watched or learned somebody else but haven't had seat time and gone through it. Whereas I've, I was selling ice creams at 16 years of age in an arena. And all that experience right up till now, knocking doors, making cold calling, cleansing data, all that, that gives you in an insight that you can only get receipt time. But the young gurus on Instagram, don't get me wrong, I know some of them are making hundred hundreds of millions of dollars but it's short lived and m, it's not effective for the client because they don't understand the nuances and the pain. And also a lot of marketers have never had another business. So I've had businesses in multiple sectors and different areas of the economy. And I don't also know the psychology of a business. Business owners are people, right. You know, they're not, they're not this magical entity that's just brilliant, that's solving problem. They're having crises at home, their dogs died, the bills haven't been paid, the boilers broke, you know, they've life. They didn't sleep last night.

Speaker A: Sometimes, sometimes the most attractive thing I found is like not talking about a business opportunity is just to like be a friend or just like do something fun, you know, that breaks them. Outside of that seriousness, you know, you've

Speaker C: got it completely right. And I think a lot of the time and some of the skill, like, you know, I've done NLP training, I've done clinical hypnotherapy training, I've done uh, you know, I'm an existentialist philosopher by trade. That's the only qualification. Yeah. So I actually have a degree, green philosophy. But the, the thing to understand is that everybody's in pain, everyone's on a path, everyone's on a journey. Nobody really nobody's got it nailed. No one. I've got eight billionaires in my phone. None of them have got it nailed. Right. I've never met one single person that's got it nailed. But the best people and the people you want to work with are the ones that can tell you that quickly. You know, the ones that go everything's amazing, everything's great. I'm like, I'm not sure about this.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But when you get to meet someone and this is where sales and you're hitting the uh, you've Got this right, with sales, if you can sell for the negative, it's okay. Tell a business owner that there's a downside to what you're doing and what the product is. Tell them that there's like a risk if they don't get it right. Or tell them that yeah, it'll work, but you've got to do the things I'm telling you to do, otherwise you're not going to get the results. And that carries a lot of weight. Whereas if AI this whole polish to get it perfect, get it right, it's inhumane and it's not effective. So yeah, I think you're right. The AI stuff is commoditized in its current form. And the best thing is to go back to the old BDM roles and count them. And so even in the automation, that should be your outstanding point. That should be your outstanding element for sure.

Speaker A: I mean I call these higher friction or like unscalable high cost initiatives or channels or mediums or whatever you want to call it, right? So we've gone through that digital era where it's the opposite. It's like need to scale at the lowest sort of marginal cost that you can. Therefore that is like the growth, Silicon Valley sort of growth method. I've been there, I've worked in Silicon Valley tech companies. That was the whole mantra, right? And the issue that we come up against is that hey, if I'm selling something that's scalable and that's somewhat predictable, has some sort of digital analytics that give some sort of veil of unit economics that CFOs can kind of get their head around, that's way more attractive even if it's kind of flawed then selling some, hey, let's do a series of webinars and some events and have a really good BDM following up on these kind of things. And then if we do that over a period of time, we'll do it really well, which you and I both know works if you execute it properly. But selling that sort of uncertainty at high cost, uh, and maybe nonlinear effect is like a lot less attractive to decision makers than maybe the former description that I just made around these other mediums.

Speaker C: I kind of disagree with that a little bit.

Speaker A: Okay, good.

Speaker C: The reason I disagree with that is that if you, if you know how to communicate. So like let's say for example, now just this is a simple tip for anyone if they're going to shoot a VSL or something like that, right? When you're shooting a VSL and people go, I need A script or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: You might need a vsl.

Speaker A: Just, just so people know.

Speaker C: A video sales letter. So if you're doing a video sales letter. So one of the things that, ah, like I'll, I'll go to a client, okay, here's the content that we're going to ask you to shoot. And they'll be like, I've never been on camera before. I don't know.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker C: And I go, you, uh, do know you live in the world and everyone sees you all the time. Right. So you have to show them they're experienced in this already. They're just not recognizing the patterns. Right. You go to a coffee shop, right? Yeah. You talk to someone. Yeah. That's it. That's all I need you to do. Just, just be able to talk to someone. Right. And in fact, it's better for me if you talk how you talk to your mate than if you try and put on this shouting, an Instagram reel type thing. Because that's never, that's just not going to work. So I give you some content and I say, okay, this is what we believe best. Explains your offer. Um, and we've taken your voice and tone and tried to align it. Now what I want you to do is to record this to audio and this is just a tip for anyone. Record it to order and then listen to it yourself for a week, three or four times a day and listen to yourself with that script and get that embedded in your head. Because what I don't want. And people go teleprompters.

Speaker A: No, no, scripts are the worst.

Speaker C: Yeah, but get it like, don't get me wrong, great act. So great actors are a good example. Right? Great actors, you watch them, you don't think they're working a script or using a script because they've learned it and they've assimilated what's going on in that.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So your job as a communicator, uh, in business is to assimilate deeply so much knowledge and understanding that actually you can communicate and distill it in one sentence with effect.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Uh, and then the other thing about doing that is once you've assimilated that your energy can be directed where it should be directed to the person, instead of some of it being drained by you trying to recollect or consider or think whatever it is you're meant to be communicating. So you do have to do some work. You, you can think. I've met so many clients where they like turn up. They'll book a studio, they'll pay all this money, they'll get all the tech,

Speaker A: tens of thousands sometimes.

Speaker C: They'll get a new suit, they're all

Speaker A: on camera, makeup people, everything. You know, it's like, what are you doing?

Speaker C: Not bothered. They've not bothered to rehearse or practice their communication and their, uh, delivery. So learning your, learning your craft and learn your skills and learning your content is really important. But listening back to yourself is super important as well. And even filming yourself, don't worry about it. That's how you look, right? That is literally how you look. So I sound terrible? I look like that. Yeah, well, that's how you sound and that's how you look. You actually sound different to other people than you do to yourself. But I think you people need to get business owners, your biggest advantage, especially as a small business owner, is that you can do things that tech can't. If you rehearse and practice, you can tell your story like nobody else can tell. You can explain your product like nobody else can explain it. But you need to understand that there's a big part in this. And this is a big part of, um, funnels, video sales letters, webinars, anything like that. It's called energy. Right. Everything in the world universe is energy. This isn't some like, um, ethereal, like positive thinking type position I'm taking here. It's just a scientific fact. It's all energy. And energy wants energy. So if you're the kind of person that's communicating to your audience, but you're like, hey, everyone, I'm just like here to do. You're taking energy from them, right? But if you're able to give energy, guess what, they want it. So as part of the salesperson, you can, you can consider less about trying to like, be technically explaining or delivering what it is, but in order to get that connection. And, uh, people buy off people that they know like and trust. And in order to get that connection quickly, forget about rapport, forget about mirroring, forget about all those kind of techniques, but have a really good, strong, intentional energy to your audience and that will pay dividends. So when you talk about scaling, and if you do that right as well, people will share that content, they will utilize it for them. So it will start marketing itself because it contains energy. And that's really.

Speaker A: I've made that mistake before, you know, uh, especially when you do speeches like you early, before you know this fact to be more true than literally the stuff you're talking about. Yeah, you worry so much about getting things right around what you're trying to communicate. It's all about. Needs to be technical. Correct. I need to have some really good quotes. It's all about quality of the actual prose. Whereas, like, they're gonna maybe come away with three basic points maximum from, like, any speech you're gonna do, and then the rest should just be sort of like reinforcement and the vibe, you know what I mean? Which sounds like super, um, super dumb, but it's kind of true. They bind to you before they bind to what you're saying, and doesn't matter if you know what you're saying and how good it is. Um, if they don't like you, they're not gonna remember anything. So, I mean, I was just reading this quote by Daniel Kahneman that in this presentation that's coming up, and he's like, facts don't form beliefs. All your belief systems are not based on facts. Therefore, like, don't get worried about facts and try to convince people with facts, it doesn't matter. You know, they have to like you first and then they believe you. So, yeah, I think the same kind of goes with sales. Like, uh, I think people get caught up in the technicalities of the product offering. And I think the longer you work inside the company, the more you talk about that instead of just, like, being a nice person that they want to trust, go out for lunch with. So if they're not going to go out to lunch or get a drink with you, like, they're not going to buy from you. Or maybe they will, but it's not going to be a great relationship.

Speaker C: A friend of mine, um, who's in, uh, forgive me if he knows what I'm talking about, but data and AI and he's wrote, um, some pieces and I read it and I think I know what you're saying, but it's so dull and disconnected. I've told him that, by the way, but I'm like, you know, just tell it like a human. Tell it as a. As a real person. And by the way, just say it rough into your phone straight away and just bang it out there. That's better content than trying to get this polished AI crafted. No errors, no mistakes, no humanity in it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because it's not believable anymore. It's not believable.

Speaker A: It reminds me of this. Yeah. Everyone's watching and they want to sort of do some speaking thing or speech or webinar or whatever. There's this really good clip, I think the south park creators, you know, um, Troy. And what's it.

Speaker C: This could be Anything South Park?

Speaker A: Uh, ah, yeah, whoever. The two creators of South Park. I forget it's very early in the morning. Um, yeah, um, there's this clip on YouTube. I think they're visiting NYC, like New York University. Sorry. Uh, they were invited back to the university or something like that, uh, for a speech around how to create storytelling or something like that. Um, it's kind of an old clip and it's a bit rough, but they talk about these beats and they go, but therefore instead of we talk about this and that and that, uh, and that, uh, and that, uh, which is what, how most people talk. And they're like, all you have to do is have your beats or your key speaking points, you want to communicate and then you put a bit of controversy in there. But did you know that, you know, this is a bit uncertain or this is something unusual, therefore, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just the best clip for going, okay, that's how I construct a speech. And I've done that and I've tested it, um, just even in writing. And it's like so much better storytelling than anything else. So yeah, look that one up. But I love it. So like you're saying come across natural. Um, I think people try to over script verbatim what they want to say instead of just having some key talking points and then hitting on those and delivering on those, similar to what we're doing right now. Like, I've got some talking points of stuff that I want to talk to you about, but I'm not going off a script like asking verbatim because the natural conversation kind of goes in circles and flows and it's very, very messy.

Speaker C: So human, you got to look at humans, right? So technology has advanced a lot obviously, and it's advancing faster and faster than ever. But ah, our evolution, if you believe in evolution, but the actual, um, the way humans conduct themselves has not evolved that much. You know, we still look for storytellers, we still seek those kind of emotional hooks in order to guide us in our lives. We're not as rational as we might like to think. We're not as logical and as reasonable as we might actually. I mean, look around, right? You know, if I look around here now, I've bought, I don't know, there's thousands of pounds worth of stuff sitting around me now. That's just junk. But I went out and exchanged my time and life and money for that and now it's junk, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah. Is that the um, Chuck Norris exercise machine I see in the background? That you bought.

Speaker C: Yeah, the bull worker. Ah, the bull worker. You know, the shopping channels, they still work. They still make loads of money, right? And you think to yourself, wow, that's incredible. But those people that are present, that's another thing, by the way. Those people that are presenting, they're using vast amounts of energy, right? Enthusiasm about what is essentially like, in some cases, junk. But. But that. That ability to communicate, that's the bit that hooks you in. It's not even the product. It's their ability to tell the story and give you that enthusiasm about it. You think? Yeah, they seem like they're having a good time with it. They seem like they're getting a good. Yeah, a good deal out of it.

Speaker A: I mean, everyone looks like I'm high on something, you know, like in the video, it's like, probably. Yeah, it's like, dude, it's a blender with a heating element. That makes sense. Like, get over it, you know? So, um, it's a long intro, but what I want to cover is webinars. Okay, story. Uh, I know you're recommended by Benjamin Dennehy, so if, if you haven't, don't know who he is or want to look it up. Literally my most popular episode on what is sales, which is funny because a lot of marketers follow this. But, um, I think what he says is really key. So. And it complements what you're saying as well, obviously, but in that I had a recent experience, like, setting up events. Before I talk about something, I like to do it myself. I know it's quite unusual, but it's a really good learning experience. And then I go, oh, this event thing can't be too hard. And I'm like, yeah, it's actually pretty hard if you don't have the infrastructure, if you don't have the people, it's kind of messy and unscalable. And I was like, wow, this is a long. Harder than I thought. Even trying to get an organization not doing an event for the first time. And I'm like, okay, what's the easiest stepping stone into this high quality kind of interactions with current customers and potential customers. So I thought, okay, webinar, that's an easy thing because we can do that virtually. There's lots of logistics around venue, time and place. People can kind of just come in and then go out and work it that way. So what I found is that, um, that was more involved for the first time than I thought. Uh, um. And it's not just the software side logistics, digital logistics side of things. It was just the infrastructure that goes into it. And then, you know, like you said, you had to find someone who wanted to speak on camera. No one wanted to speak on camera. So I ended up having to chaperones the internal person and work with them and sort of coach them around how to talk because they were kind of an engineer, right? Which as you know, they're quite technically, yeah, technical people but very, very knowledgeable. But like, again, you got to present this information entertaining way. So there's a bit of like content creation and coaching around there and practice, et cetera. Before we did it, it was successful, you know, um, had 50 people, lawyers stick around for over 45 minutes, which you know, for them is high billable time and hours. Um, so, you know, the time is precious and. Yeah, and then we're sort of using that to then do another 1m sort of then branch out into physical events. So long story short, what I want to get your case on was, um, I know a lot of people do webinars or online events, whatever you want to call them, but um, selling off the back of them is like maybe the next thing, like anyone can talk about something online and do a LinkedIn live and get some people. But like how are you going to convert those people? I think there's a different skill set.

Speaker C: So I've ended up presenting clients, five day challenges, three day challenges, one day, whatever it might be. And it's not my sector. Uh, so everything from real estate through to forex trading, I've worked with clients and then either assisted as an MC or just taken the event on itself. And the thing is, because of the skills that I've learned over the years, I know that it's less about my technical knowledge and also know that people aren't people can't take that in. You said before they take on three points, um, you'll be lucky if they take that. What they really want. What they really want, they want what they believe is the solution to their problem, right? So they only need to feel like they've got someone that can do that for them.

Speaker A: Kind of like the confirmation bias, right?

Speaker C: That's all it is. Uh, that is what you need to do, right? So you need to know who they are and what they want, forget about what they need for now. That's something else. Right? But you have to think about what they want. Um, and they, they normally want some kind of silver bullet to solve their major problem. Right? We've already talked about that. It doesn't exist. But let's for the purposes of like presentations and webinars. Let's, let's go with that. So you need to know exactly what the problem is and try and articulate that in one line and then articulate that you have a solution. But it has to be disruptive. It can't be just simple saying, um, I've got a hole in my bucket. Oh, I've got a cork that doesn't work. It's like, I've got a hole in my bucket. But I have the number one implement in the world that's going to game change your leakage.

Speaker A: And it's not a cork.

Speaker C: And it's not a cork. Yeah, it's not a good. Because you've seen them before, right?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: So if it's the same thing, you end up commoditizing like, I've seen this, I don't care about this.

Speaker A: It's not.

Speaker C: And then you go for the whole story where you've got to like empathize with them and you've, and you've got to, um, show them that you understand and demonstrate and understand that you understand. But I think this is the bit that people get wrong. They try and show this, this polished version of what it is and it has to be made clear. The downsides, the negatives, the risk. And people are like, I don't want to. No, tell them, I say to people, sell through the negative all the time, make it clear to them, look, you're probably not going to do what I'm telling you, you're not going to do it. And if that is the case, don't buy anything from me because that is a waste. But there's nothing wrong with that because you're not only you covering yourself as well and making it clear that there is work to be done and things, but it will help fine tune them and then move towards a decision of saying, okay, there's work to be done, I've got a commit, I've got to implement. I've got to do X, Y and Z. And you're more likely to get that conversion. I also personally am a big price up front, this is what I'm selling kind of guy. So if I was doing it, if I could have my, my own, um, way of doing it and in fact I'll invite, and you can send a link out, um, to everyone that's watching when I do one myself. But I will say, look, I'm, I've got this solution, it's 25 grand. And people like, you know, 25 grand what is it like? It's 25 grand. But obviously in order for me to get that 25 grand off you, and by the way, I want more of you, I've got to demonstrate to you that I'm not only going to solve your problem, but I'm going to go above and beyond that and give you a massive return on it. So it's a no brainer. So if you think that price ticket is high, wait until um. This is not what, exactly what I'd say, but wait until I show you over the next six hours how that's going to become insignificant when you take what I'm offering for that 25 grand, put it into your business. It really is that simple. And I think, don't be afraid. You know the old, this is what I was saying before as well. People that have never done this and read a book or watch somebody else do it, they'll go, oh, they talk loads. And then at the last minute they picked you hard for like 20 minutes. Buy now. Buy now. Limited, limited limit. You don't have to do that. You can, you can like passive pitch throughout the whole thing from the off. You can casually go about your business and actually back to the energy thing. If it aligns with the way you feel, you're able to deliver energy and communication. Do that because that will surpass any gimmick or technique or, or trying to learn. Well, I have to do this, this, this and this. There are things that work better than others, but the best thing is to say, what's the problem? I've got a solution. Niche up so it's not commoditized. Explain to them the benefit. This is real old school marketing, isn't it? But it works. Explain to them the benefits. Explain to the consequences and the downsides. Tell them the price. If you've got a guarantee, give them a guarantee. Give them the pathway of how it's going to work. So what would happen next is you'd pay your $25,000, you'd go for this Q A process and map it out for them and we will deliver it to you within 60 days. And in 60 days you'll have an asset that you own that you can then utilize to bring in leads forever into your business. And by the way, we'll also show you and train you how to edit it and make a copy of it. So if you do want to use it for another product or service in your business, you've now got not only the asset we've built for you and we've Trained you and put that in place for you. But you can do that as many times as you want. And I think that. Does that sound too simple?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: I mean, it's just the basic direct response, isn't it? Yeah, but it works every time.

Speaker C: It works every time.

Speaker A: Okay, so I think what people get wrong then is that they cradle this content, they want to communicate, and it's just like a blur of, hey, I know what I'm talking about. Here's the topic. Listen to me, because I'm an expert at this. That's what I see. I would say amateurs do who. Then don't sell off the back of it because the listeners are there just going, well, okay, this person knows what they're talking about. There's a lot of information. And I'm. I don't know anything now. I don't want to admit that I don't know as much as I probably should. Um. Okay, I'm gonna go somewhere else now. That's kind of what happens.

Speaker C: I find people say to me, like, oh, what books would you recommend? I mean, obviously, how to Win Friends and Influence People. Dal Carney. But it's probably the best, best sales book you can ever read.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And. But again, it's that same thing. You can read how to Influence and Influence People. That was good. And then throw it behind you. Or you can read how to Influence and Influence People and then go to the coffee shop and test it out and have fun with it. There's no risk there. You're not losing a sale. Right. You need to have an understanding of how you can empathize, sympathize, relate to them and talk honestly and open about it. You know, like I just said to you at the start, I didn't sell my business for 16 million, 000 pounds. That was on the table for me. 11 million cash, 5 million retained. And I didn't do that and I lost that business. Now that's a true story, and there's lots more to it than that. But when I say that to people who are in business, it opens doors

Speaker A: for me because they're like, they empathize with the, uh, them being in a loss sort of situation because it's.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's kind of imprinted in their memory

Speaker C: exactly what it's a. You're a business owner, right? If you're a business owner, you've got

Speaker A: like every second day.

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, some disaster.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. 100. So you get desensitized to it.

Speaker C: Uh, well, you'd hope you do. But you don't do. You're still lying there at night thinking, I can't believe that happened. I can't believe people are like this. But you can, you can as a business owner sell en masse using uh, vehicles like this. And the way to do it, okay, you hear terms like be authentic and all that kind of. It's not necessarily about that. It's about understanding your audience and being able to communicate to them with, with good energy that will naturally bring them to a position of trust. They're going to end up liking you because you're interested in them, because you're showing empathy and you're going to have a higher potential of selling whatever it is at the end then. And this is the bit people get wrong blows my mind. They put together a webinar five day challenge. All this and then they can't onboard people, they hit bottleneck. They haven't worked that. I mean that is. We'll come to that in a minute, right? But that, but that whole follow up understanding that it's like 16 points fact on average to get a conversion in any sector like and yet people will do one or two and get rejected and then just leave it. That's why you're not making sales.

Speaker A: If I can backtrack a bit, the first principles of putting on any sort of sales event, right. Whether it's a webinar or physical. Uh, so you said, if I have to summarize here, you said, um, get the topic right, understand the customer first and their pain points, right. And then don't talk too much detail about the solution but empathize with them. Um, give them the pros and the cons, give them an offer, uh, you know, offer the solution over a period of time and then, and then sort of try to close them and follow up.

Speaker B: So I hope you enjoyed part one of this two part series on virtual events and getting the most from webinars and live events. Part two will go deeper into more of that technical execution side of things. We get really down to the nitty gritty. So if you, you're more of an execution focused person. That is the perfect follow on from this more top level discussion and I encourage you to listen to that one next. But uh, otherwise thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.