Ep. 235 INTERVIEW – Joe Ponds

Are You Expecting a “NO” – Shop talk INTERVIEW with lead generation expert, Joe Ponds who will help you improve your lead generation process and help you get more “YESSES”

Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

I promise you that a couple times a month, we will be doing straight shoptalk in sales and so Today, this is our second installment. This is a, it’s a Saturday morning. We got our cups of coffee out, Joe Ponds, and I, and so welcome to the sales edged podcast. And again, this is Joe Pici. This is podcast. Believe It or Not 235 and sponsored by Pici and Pici which is a speaking coaching training consulting company. Right now, all of our focus is not only for ourselves but our clients. Let’s recapture momentum lost clients. Revenue, attract and retain new clients and are still more virtually.com. Membership platform out there live every Thursday night. Doing coaching training, ready courses a monstery course coming and we want you to take a look at that. Possibly become a member. But today what a I look forward to these shop talk this is going to be unplugged. This is going to be no rehearsed, no scripts, Joe ponds and Joe Pici. Having a cup of joe talking sales. Hey Joe, how you doing?

Joe Ponds (**JO**)

I’m doing wonderfully well, thank you for having me on.

(JP):

Well, Joe it, if the people want to get to know you really well, they can go back aways and because you are first revisit guest, but if you could very briefly tell them what you’re doing right now and now as it applies to business ownership and sales.

(JO):

Thank you, Joe right now. I am your lead generation expert. What I do is I help business owners and sales Professionals in front of the right target market generate better quality leads and that means closing more business. Functionally fishing in the right Pond.

(JP):

Good, well, that, that’s good. And I know you doing that through Consulting and training, but but your, let’s get down to it. You know, you and I are kind of war horses within the sales game for a while. Really ask you from your perspective. Now we just had John Kennedy on. I asked him some questions. I’m going to ask you a couple of the same questions. Why do sell a sales people? People who are required to sell, why do they self sabotage and what is self-sabotage to you?

(JO):

First thing is fear of success, fear success, Everybody Talks well, failure, fear of failure, and that’s understandable. Rejection is just part of life. And in part of sales, it is a major component, but you have to change their point of view. And I think part of that self-sabotage, the fact that people are not ready for the success that they claim that they want. It starts out with having a reading goal, how many people have written goals Joe? That right there is the first misstep of most deals sales people, you know, so everything that follows after that tends, not to work very well.

(JP):

Well, that’s interesting. You know, and I agree with you. I seen people self-sabotage and I can say or and because you and I have experienced together in our boot camp where people are ready for the no, on the other end of the phone, but they’re not ready for the yes, you know? And they almost stumbled or shocked when he get the yes. And they’re not prepared to know. What do I do with it? Yes. So tell me this Joe, How long did it take you, Personally to get over that fear of success when it came to sales.

(JO):

Years. what time is it now? Yeah, it’s a daily practice, you know? And that’s one of the things that I had to learn. Is, you know, what am I doing? What is the purpose of the phone call? And when that sunk in things start to change? Well, if I’m not trying to be chatty, Kathy making friends, which is fine. You know, relationships are important. But what is the purpose of this specific phone call? And that, that expectation of no read and listen to a lot of folks in the fact is that One person that stuck out a surprise. You say, you know what, I’m shocked? When people say, no, I expect people to say yes and I’m going. Hmm. What a my expectations. I get on the phone and I’m expecting a no. Yeah, that’s that self-sabotage, all day every day.

(JP):

Yeah. Do you have another do you have any more self Stop sabotaging actions that you’ve seen? I mean, cause you’re look not only do you sell, which I have a great respect for you about, but we’re surrounded by people that own businesses are selling. What some are. Some of the other things that you would say are self-sabotaging?

(JO):

Alright, well let’s start, let’s start what myself is over preparation.

(JP):

Over, preparation, be more specific.

(JO):

Doing endless, research have to know every detail about everything including sales, but not doing anything with it. Those of you who are personalities, like myself, who tend to be more, professional aesthetic. We will research and research and let me find out more about my perspective client, you know, how long have they been in business? You know what are they doing now? How many kids did it goes on and on, and on building a list, used to take me all day. Now an hour two I’m done, all I need is a name and a phone number, that’s all is required. But, you know, making sure that my index cards, my business cards are properly shuffled, you know, all those things at nine o’clock, you know, not o’clock. Sharp that people begin to do like preparing a list, which should have been done the night before or the weekend before. It hinders success, it’s self sabotage. Because by the time a person gets on the phone, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and they’re going. Well, I really don’t want to bother, they’re close up shop. Maybe I’ll call him tomorrow over preparation. That I’m trying to remember how you put it getting ready to get ready.

(JP):

Yeah. Yeah. It will tell you this. When was that point in time Your sales career and business ownership where you became aware of this and what were some of the steps you took to overcome this procrastination?

(JO):

It’s been a little while now I would say within the last couple of years, where I recognize the fact that more often than not, if I don’t make my list, I’m not going to make phone calls. It’s not going to happen. Being live time LinkedIn. There’s Millions millions, hundreds of millions of prospects out there. Now, granted we have to choose the right ones but you don’t have to be all that choosy to pick up the phone dial 10 numbers. And for me transitioning from the one business, or the two businesses into the third that made all the difference in the world. Because you have to be more time-sensitive. Well, we can’t really manage time, but we can manage ourselves with our time. You can sit there all day and check emails and call marketing experts and branding experts because you’re trying it. If you don’t know what your target market is you’re just wasting time for money. but what you can tell the spouse girlfriend friend? Well, you know what I worked really hard today. I was working with a branding expert and we’re really starting to get down to the brass tacks. Well okay well let me phone call. To make to make money?

(JP):

Alright, I’m going to stop you, I’m going to ask you a real direct question here. I because again, you know, a lot of salespeople as we both do you are in sales because you own two businesses in you’re the seller. Give me the top three Skills for strategies. You seen people struggle with that. They have to master to be successful in sales, but you’ve observed that you’ve seen it, maybe you’ve experienced it.

(JO):

Top 3 1 know how to sell and knowing how to sell is less about selling or Beyond being salesy, but finding buyers. That’s number one, number two, having great leads. All of God’s children is not a target market and you you told me that and it’s so true. Is that we begin with a shotgun approach but then we never refine it. We never get down to where we’re using that laser focus. So finding that right target market to dig into.

Hey, you gotta have it and that’s mainly. The third thing is having the right target market. Is that when we start out, we think we know what we’re doing those who do from the day one. Fantastic. They’re great. But you know what? I didn’t. I didn’t even know what I did. I couldn’t even communicate to other people. What I did. So having the right target market, It takes time, it takes effort but once you get it, you’re great, you’re golden.

(JP):

I remember that moment in time. We were in a boot camp and you were standing up doing a presentation and it almost simultaneously. We Came Upon the idea that Joe Ponds specialty area was lead generation. It was like a light came on your eyes, got extremely focused and you began building an entire brand and business model and target market. In an arena without giving away Secrets sauce. Give us some idea on some of the best ways, you personally generate leads.

(JO):

Well, let me start out by saying I try not to waste any time. So before we go forward into what we should do is start with what we should not do. okay, the best way to get going is to get into that right, target market It Is invaluable to sit down across the on the table, for the person who is ready to buy the person, who is ready to buy your service or your product. It’s like I talked about before as far as podcasting is concerned, it would not do well for me to speak into a vegan market. Now the lead generation for a vegan business owner. Oh yes sir, I’m a carnivore and I have I have great respect for the vegan philosophy. I do however for me personally it would be hypocritical for me to go and say Hey you know, let’s go and now I’m barbecue, I’m great filet, is that stenting and so on. Target market is absolutely. I said for me if it’s the business owner. Yes, fine. But you know, people will sit down across the table from anyone. Anyone if they got a pulse and they’re breathing and fog a mirror, guess what? They’ll sit down and how many wasted meetings have We had sitting down with a person the wrong target market? I’ve done lots. And I’m as you say, you know, I’m too old to be practice anymore. Hey, I’ll start time for time for the real game. Yep. And lead generation. How do you generate leads? Well me, I use LinkedIn. That’s where it’s positive. It’s very time. Efficient. But it doesn’t matter what you do as a person for your networking, you use traditional ads if it works for your target market. That’s fine because you know what your target market is and you know where they are, then you can use whatever means that you find time-efficient to get to them. Quality leads though because not everybody’s ready to buy, right? You know, not everybody’s got that time to sit down with you today, but you know what? That’s fine. We’ll follow up and we’ll revisit

And that leads to last thing which is the follow-up. You know, if you’ve got a million leads but you only call them. Once you’re doing yourself a disservice, most sales don’t occur to the 6 to the 12th contact and you call them once, and you’re done. That was me. I’ll burn through a list Now, I will, I will get through all those and it’s like, well, one person said, yes, we’re going to have an appointment and everybody else. Just Three years later, calling the same personal a wild, man. I wish you would call me sooner.

(JP):

Well hey, I’m going to ask you a question and, and now you’re not this way anymore, you’ve conquered all this, you’re on the other side of that, you’re now a master of it. But when you lived in that position, this is one of those shop talks. This is a kind of, let’s get to the next level here. What was your reason or what were your reasons for not? Calling more than once, for not following up more than once what was going on here because this is going to help our audience. Because a lot of the people you’re talking to are probably struggling with the same thing. Why didn’t you call a second or third time?

(JO):

Lack of understanding of the value proposition. Having a strong value proposition works and the reason for the call is to qualify people. Now, the reason I didn’t call back it’s because I thought it was about me, they said no to me. And getting myself out of the way, it’s been one of those struggles and I think that’s a lesson for a lot of people is that when I pick up the phone, it’s about the value proposition and has nothing to do with me. It’s not a personal thing either they want it or they don’t, they want to move forward. They want to get better. They want to get to the next level or they don’t even have anything to do with Joe Ponds. That’s not, that’s not what it’s about. But here here is where I was going while they’re really rejecting me and rejecting me and rejecting me that wasn’t the case. It’s still not the case. However, I know that I’ve got to keep my perspective in check. Yeah. Is it really about helping other person solve a problem? Or is it about me and my ego? And I have to answer every day. And I really think that that’s the reason why a lot of people don’t is they say well it’s no. So they’re rejecting me and it doesn’t feel good. So I’m going to make three more calls and I’m gonna call it a day At 9:05 in the morning. And then I’m going through, I’m going to the beach and hang out and get myself in a right mind and maybe I’ll make some calls tomorrow. It’s not about you, it’s not about me. It’s about our prospective client And even when they say no, that’s fine. It’s like Delmar Johnson said. “I’d rather have a good no than a bad yes”. I want them to answer the question. Listen to the question. I’m giving you. What can I do for you? If I can’t do it for you, guess what? That’s fine. I’ll follow up with you in three months, six months, whatever you prefer.

(JP):

And let folks, let me tell you what Joe is just unrolled here. If you don’t get anything out of Anything. And if you just understand what he just said that when you pick up the phone when you’re making an approach, it’s about qualifying, any qualification is does what you do help them. It’s not about rejection and I remember the day, I remember the moment in time that hit you and we were sitting in a boot camp and all of a sudden You start picking up that phone like a machine because it was no longer a rejection based tool. It was a qualifying tool that would bring to you a better perspective Prospect, which would increase your closing ratio. Well Joe, we’re going to do two a couple more of these but I know you have an event coming up and I know it’s going to be 90 percent on fishing in the right Pond and Lead generation, can you share with our audience, number one, how to get in touch with you. And number two, when your event is and even how to buy a ticket?

(JO):

Thank you, Joe the easiest way to get a hold of me is just to pick up the phone area. Code (813)541-3994. You can also reach me on LinkedIn. Joe Ponds just the way it sounds. You can also reach me through the website “www.pondsconsulting.com” and for those of you who like email just be patient with me, it’s “Joe@pondsconsulting.com” I don’t check my email every five seconds so it may take an hour or two for me to get back to you. However I will get back to you.

(JP):

Very good. Folks, This is shoptalk. We’re going to be moving Joe over to sell more virtually.com platform. This is Straight Talk from people in the field, okay? People that are in the hunt people that are looking to attract clients. So if you can take out your phone and if you will go into the text box and put sales edge, send it to 5 5 6, 7, 8, it will take you to a Pici and Pici link take you to a splash page on this splash page, There’s recapture lost Revenue trhough Virtual selling. It’s a virtual course. There’s downloads on ebooks, there’s links to this podcast, but also sell more virtually.com, which is something we’re promoting right now. Because in this virtual world, so many people would like to access me. I’m out there like every Thursday night for pennies on the dollar, Master training, coaching e-courses, folks. This is been the sales edge podcast. Can you like it? Share it, give us a great comment and Joe Ponds. Let’s move you over to the next interview.

(JO):

Great, let’s do it.

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