Show notes
Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the AI Approach to Multiply Your Sales. This is the first in a multiple part series, and we'll start off with targeting, communication, and reach.
David: Welcome back, Jay.
Jay: Hey, David, it's great to be with you.
I'm really excited about this series because I think a lot of people shy away from AI. Or they're getting into it and they're hearing a lot of the things that it can do, but they're not sure how to approach it or even if it's the right thing to do for their business.
David: Yes. Agreed. The way this actually came about is that we've been talking for a while over the course of the past several weeks in particular about multiplying your sales.
And some people really struggle with this concept. And I thought, well, what does AI have to say on the topic, and how does what AI says about it relate to what we do, and how we help our clients, and do these things line up? So I thought what I'd do is I'd take the answer to the question when we asked AI, "What are your best recommendations in terms of multiplying sales," to see what AI says and then compare that with what we're doing.
And so the first three recommendations that it had were based on targeting, communication, and reach. Those are my words, not AI words in particular. But that's pretty much what it broke down to, so I figured that's what we'd start with.
Jay: I love it. We're going to do a podcast on AI, and we've asked AI what it thinks first, and now we're going to psychoanalyze AI to see if it's in line.
David: Well, to see how it lines up. Because one of the things that I found interesting was that when I asked it about multiplying sales, it was coming back with responses that talked about increasing sales.
And so I asked it specifically to come up with recommendations based on multiplying sales. And at first it seemed resistant to that.
So it talked about growing sales and multiplying sales. But this is where it landed. So I figured we'd start with this.
Now, I had asked it to prioritize these things. I'm not quite sure if it did. But this is what it came back with. So the very first recommendation that it had in terms of multiplying sales.
I'll tell you specifically what it said first and then we can discuss it.
So the first thing that it recommended is it said:
1. Define Your Target Audience. Clearly identify your ideal customers and understand their needs, preferences, and pain points.
So, that's how it started. What do you think of that take?
Jay: It sounds very, very traditional, very typical, common knowledge. The first thing that I learned in a sales class years ago, identifying your target audience.
But I feel like that's so basic, and when you talk about multiplying sales, I tend to think that's more about taking the existing clientele and getting them to spend more. That's what I think about.
David: I tend to think that way as well, but I thought it's a pretty good jumping off point because whether your target audience means your existing clients and the new clients that you want to go after, I think it makes a whole lot of sense to lead with, determining who it is that you're going to be going after.
I relate a lot of this to what we do in our Total Market Domination course. One of the very first things we do in our course is we have a three level system of targeting.
So what AI is recommending here in sort of a general sense, in terms of defining your target market, is something that we really dive into pretty heavily with our clients.
Because without that targeting up front, if you don't know exactly who it is that you're going after, who your ideal client is, the likelihood of bringing an ideal client through the door is Is generally slim to none.
Jay: Yeah. And you know, we've talked a lot about this in the past that knowing who your target audience is, is so important because you may spend a lot of time spinning your wheels, going after a really large base of customers and getting leads for people who are not going to turn into customers.
So you're going to save time and money and effort if you can really hone that in.
David: Yes, I completely agree. So I thought the first thing that it came back with is pretty good. A little general. It seemed to me to be the kind of thing that one might get at a Chamber of Commerce session on growing your sales, to find your target audience.
Yes. Makes perfect sense. For me, with a lot of these, the devil is in the details, right? It's going to be, well, how do we do these things? This is essentially the what to do, but it's really the how to do it where the money comes from.
So, the second thing that it recommended is to:
2. Develop a Compelling Value Proposition: Create a unique selling proposition that clearly communicates the value your products or services offer to customers.
So, that's what it said. What's your take?
Jay: Once again, I think that you need to understand your customer's pain points, right? And what their needs are.
You need to understand why you are of value to them. It can't be, I just have this shiny thing that you want. They need to understand how it's going to make their life better. I've heard it described as You need to make them the hero, right, of the story.
David: That's right. And you're the guide, right?
Jay: That's right.
David: You're not Luke Skywalker, you are Yoda, ideally.
Jay: That's right. That's right.
David: So, when I hear this, "develop a compelling value proposition," makes perfect sense. "Create a unique selling proposition that clearly communicates the value your products or services offer to customers."
It's, again, great advice, but I can't tell you how many business owners that I've worked with that knew that they should create a unique selling proposition and they either never got around to doing it, or they didn't have a process for doing it, and they never managed to get it together.
So once again, it seems to me like a rather boilerplate approach to this. Good stuff, necessary, but not always as easy to implement.
Once again, sort of the difference between the recommendation here and the way that we do it with our clients is that we focus on a couple of different things when it comes to communication.
And the first aspect of it is what they hear from you initially. Because the communication we have with clients is very different when you're trying to introduce yourself to them than it is when you've known them for a long time and you've been working with them for a long time.
So I find that difference, the difference between early stage communication and then ongoing communication and late stage communication are different.
And without establishing what needs to happen in each of those areas, I think it becomes a little too generic.
Jay: Well, one of the things I love about what you do, David, is, I was having this conversation with my son the other day and I said, "you know, doctors, they learn how to heal people. They don't learn how to run a medical practice. Attorneys learn how to deal with legal things.
They don't learn how to bill and those kind of things. Or, you know, a chef, he has a great recipe. They don't learn how to do all this marketing and targeting of audiences and those kind of things. And so, like you said, I don't know that they ever get around to it at all.
David: Very true. And some of them don't, and that can definitely be an issue.
So the third thing that it came up with is:
3. Optimize Your Marketing Channels: Utilize a mix of online and offline marketing channels that align with your target audience's preferences, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, and targeted advertising.
So that's, one sentence, Jay.
Jay: It makes it sound so easy. Just do that. Just do that thing. That's all you have to do. It's a miracle.
David: Right. What did you do today? Well, I optimized my marketing channel. Really? What did that consist of? Well, it consisted of utilizing a mix of online and offline marketing channels that align with my target audience's preferences, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, and targeted advertising.
Jay: Done!
David: And then I took the rest of the afternoon off.
Jay: That's right! Done!
David: Yeah. So what do you make of that?
Jay: Well, so simple. Oh my goodness. I mean, if we could all have the magic formula for that. In today's business, that is the absolute key. How do you find balance in those things? How do you know which one's going to be more effective?
I've told you in the current business that I'm in, we spent nine months just on Google AdWords to get it to a place where we thought it was effective.
And now we spend money every single month honing that and tweaking it and assessing if we're getting the right kind of leads. And that's, before SEO, that's before any other type of marketing.
David: Yeah. I find that comments like this, an approach like this just totally overwhelms people.
Jay: Oh, I agree. Yeah.
David: And so then where do they go from here? They look at that and they're like, "there's no way I can do all that, let alone service customers, let alone do all the other things that I have to do in my business."
And one of the ways that we simplify this for our clients is something that we've talked about in previous podcasts. We boil it down to what I refer to as the MVPs of Marketing and Sales.
What's the marketing message you want to communicate? Which combination of marketing vehicles will you use to communicate the message?
And then who are the people and prospects that you're reaching?
If you take an MVP approach to what they're saying here, optimize your marketing channels. Right, and I'll read it again.