Show notes
The follow-up mistake that costs sales (and kills communication) is a lack of sequencing. If I’ve got a sequence in place that says, all right, when I get a lead from a networking function, I’m going to initially, either same day or next morning, send out this email message, which essentially says, “it was great meeting you at the networking function. Nice having a chance to talk.”
Then, you include something in that email to elicit a response. Some will initiate a dialogue, some of them won’t.
So from that point, if you don’t hear back, you could have another one that goes out a couple of days later saying, “Hey, never heard back you on this, but something else occurred to me that I didn’t mention…” and then you add something else to the conversation that could potentially be of interest to them. So you’re not just hitting them with “call me, call me, call me, call me.” You’re actually creating value in the communication, which is particularly key when you’re doing sequencing like that.
David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the topic of sequencing your communication. Welcome back, Jay.
Jay: Hey, David. Great to be with you again. I really love that we dive into these things that can have such an impact on your daily business.
Oftentimes people will focus on the large things, not understanding that sometimes the smallest tweaks can make all the difference.
David: Yeah, and things like this really are kind of diving deep. And many times I know other people in podcasts or in stuff that’s actually going out to the public, they’ll just keep it all high level and not really get into too much.
I think we’ve done a reasonably good job over the years of diving a little deeper and getting into things in a little bit more detail. Because it’s important for people who watch this or listen to this to recognize that there are a lot of aspects to all of this.
And we touched on this in the previous episode. We were talking about sort of the high level goals, we were talking about the high level concepts versus the nitty gritty of what do I have to do on a day-to-day basis. And this really gets more into the idea of the nitty gritty.
But sequencing is something that I don’t hear many people talk about in business. And I think it’s a real game changer for people in the sense that when you get this and you start implementing it, it changes the way that you interact with your prospects and clients to make what you are doing better and more appealing than what your competition is probably doing.
Jay: Yeah, such a great point. And back to the idea of focusing on the smaller stuff.
I’m weird. I call myself lazy because I want to avoid steps and reduce steps, but in the name of that laziness, I will spend weeks trying to create a system, whether it’s a software system or a planning system or something, just knowing that over the long run, it’s going to have such a dramatic impact.
And I can be lazy about that thing after that. And I focus. I mean, if I can reduce one little step, I’ll spend weeks trying to figure out how to do that.
David: Yeah. But that’s smart. I don’t think that’s lazy. I think it’s far lazier to just go into each situation, not knowing what’s going to happen, not knowing how to respond to the common objections you get, not knowing how to create a system that will allow you to bring clients through the door like clockwork.
And when you do that, you’re basically going into work every day with no idea of what’s going to happen. So I think that’s really lazy and really sloppy and I don’t think what you described is lazy at all.
Jay: Well, I don’t, you know, I think you’re probably right, but it is something that drives my wife crazy and it’s really bad.
Like when we go grocery shopping, I have a route, and that route has a very specific design. It’s based upon how the groceries are going to end up on the conveyor belt. And that’s important because that determines on how they will go into the bags, because I want the bread on top and all of those things on top.
So I have this all planned and thought out from years of experience. It brings me joy, David, it’s, it’s a little, probably obsessive compulsive, but that’s the way I am.
David: That’s funny and she still lets you come along. That’s amazing. But it’s a great example though, because when you think about that, and there are two schools of thought when it comes to outcomes, right?
You described a more outcome driven approach. And it reminds me of the expression, the road is better than the inn, if you’ve heard that one.
Jay: Mm-hmm.
David: And I remember hearing that years ago and thinking, no, I kind of like the inn, right? I like, where are we going? Let’s get there. Mission accomplished. Onto the next thing.
But there are people who just enjoy the experience. Shopping is a great example of that. I have never been a good shopper.
Jay: Mm-hmm.
At least before online shopping. I was a terrible shopper. As a kid. My mom would drag me around to different stores and she could just look at stuff for hours. I got bored three minutes in.
As a kid, I could go to the toy section and I could look around for a few minutes, maybe see something I liked or whatever. Then I’m done. Right? And people are just wired differently in that regard.
But I think if we really get down to the core of it, and we start thinking in terms of creating the systems and processes that will allow you to get results in your business, and tying it again back to our main topic, sequencing your communication, what this will allow you to do is to leapfrog your competition. Because you won’t have to think about each step of it.
And it really ties to what you were saying about, you know your process in a store. Well, imagine that in business.
Imagine a situation where you create a sequence of communications to send out to the prospects that you want to convert, in a specific order, in a specific sequence, at a specific timeframe. You can automate that as well. And design it to accomplish a result
Too often in business because we’re sort of focused all over the place, we’re here, we’re there, we’re everywhere. We think in terms of sending a message out to a prospect and waiting for them to reply. And when they don’t reply. We become confused and annoyed.
It’s like, why didn’t they reply? I sent you an email. Why didn’t you reply? And it’s cause that’s not the way the world works anymore. Right? I sent you an email. Yeah, it’d be nice if it were like tennis, where you bat it across the other person bats it across, and you bat it across and you have a nice volley going.
That happens sometimes, but more often than not, it’s not happening. And if you’re depending on getting that volley hit back to you right away, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Where instead, if you recognize, you may have to send it across the net 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 times before it gets lobbed back, you’ll be prepared. And if you prep that in advance, you are so far ahead of what your competition is doing. It’s just not even funny.
Jay: Yeah, I, have this situation going on right now where somebody has sent me an email inviting me to do something. I don’t know who this person is. I’ve never heard from them, and then I don’t respond.
And then like four days later, I get an email that says, Hey, you didn’t respond. And I’m like, Well, that should tell you all you need to know. And then I got another one. I’ve sent you two emails and you haven’t responded. This person is sequencing, but they’re doing it in a horrific way. I mean, by the third email, I’m like, who do you think you are?
That you can sit here and demand a response from me? And I don’t even know who you are. The whole thing has soured me. I am never going to call them back based upon that type of sequencing.
David: Right. And if that’s the type of sequencing we’re talking about, then yeah, don’t do that. That is not what I’m talking about.
It’s interesting you should mention that because over the past several months I have received so many messages from people, pitching guests for this very podcast where they’re saying, Hey, I think you should interview this person who’s talking about this thing, and let me know if that’s of interest to you.
You know, I’ve listened to your podcast. I think he’d be a great fit. And most of the time I get, you know, pretty much the same pitch for different speakers. So I’m on some kind of list and I normally ignore them.
But they’ve got sequences set up where it’s the second one. Hey, just bumping this up to the top of your inbox again, you know, do you want to consider so-and-so for the podcast?
And so finally, I just put together the response that I’m sending to people, which is to say, if you listen to this podcast, you would recognize that we are not an “interview of the week kind of thing.” You know, there are two of us who do this.
Jay: Yeah.
David: If we were a podcast that had a lot of people on and we were interviewing what you said would make sense, and I don’t get into all that much detail. But they’re basically not pitching the right thing to the right person.
And so in those situations, yeah, sequencing is not a great idea. But when you’ve got somebody who is engaged or would like to be engaged and you want to find out whether or not they’re on board with you, when it’s done right…
And that ties into the MVPs, the messaging, you know, is the messaging going to be good? Which combination of marketing vehicles you’re using to reach them, and who are the people you’re reaching? If you’ve got those three things in sync, then sequencing is going to work extremely well for you.
Jay: So let’s talk a little bit more about. Sequencing. I can guess at a, couple of these things. I’m guessing like so many of the things we’re talking about, you want to start with pen and paper and maybe start identifying who your potential customers are. What are potential, the stages that they might be in, and then start focusing on the messaging for each of those stages.
David: Yes. And when we think in terms of the overall stages, or the initial stages, where is this person in the journey? If this is somebody that I just met, let’s say I meet somebody at a networking function. We exchange business cards or whatever, I go back to my office, this person goes back to their office and nothing happens until one of us moves, right?
So, If I’ve got a sequence in place that says, all right, when I get a lead from a networking function, what I’m going to do is I’m going to initially, either same day or next morning, send out this email message, which essentially says, it was great meeting you at the networking function.
Nice having a chance to talk. And then. you have something that you say and obviously it’s going to be different for each person who’s doing that, but you’ve got something that is said in that email that is designed to elicit a response.
So you might want to end that email with a question so that they’re likely to initiate a dialogue. Some will initiate a dialogue, some of them won’t.
So from that point, if you don’t hear back, you could have another one that goes out a couple of days later like, with a reply to your own message saying, Hey never heard back you on this, but something else occurred to me that I didn’t mention…
and then you add something else to the conversation that could potentially be of interest to them. So you’re not just hitting them with call me, call me, call me, call me. You’re actually creating value in the communication, which is also key to good marketing, but it’s also particularly key when you’re doing sequencing like that.
And then the third step in your sequence could be calling to follow up. If they gave you a business card, it could be a phone call that comes whatever, a week later or a certain period of time later, and you decide what that is.
In our Total Market Domination course, I mean, we walk through all of this so people can decide, can determine for themselves what is a good timeframe to do this in.
Because a lot of times if you get a business card from somebody at a networking function and you forget about it? Or you go to a trade show, that’s the worst! You’re paying to have all these people go out to the trade show. You’re paying to put ’em up, you’re paying to feed them. They bring cards back and they stay in the bottom of their briefcase or their suitcase. And those people never get phone calls. It’s just such an incredible waste.
But if you’ve got these processes in place to be able to sequence your communication, to be able to get those people back into the zone that they were in, that first initiated the conversation, then they will be far more likely to respond to you and reply to the conversation and keep it going.
Jay: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m in the heat of this process right now, because as you know, I’m setting up a new business.
David: Mm-hmm.
Jay: building the CRM behind the scenes and I have to ask myself, what are each of the stages and what do I want to happen? What type of communication? And one of the other parts about that, that is so important is, oftentimes, I know when I’ve been put in somebody’s CRM drip system. Because the messages stop being personal and I’m like, you’re sending this out to everybody.
So there’s a fine line between having a sequence and making people feel like, oh, they’ve just been put in the hopper. I think we have a high awareness. And so I think that your sequences need to be a combination of personal contact. And these systems that will save you a lot of time and effort.
David: Yes, I agree completely. I also think that the way that those sequences are written is going to determine a lot of that as well.
Jay: Yes!
David: There are people in business, many of us in business have initially been trained on “corporate speak.” And we write in brochure language, instead of in human language.
Jay: Yes.
David: A lot of what you just described can be overcome simply by engaging in conversational English, even in the messages that are going out automatically. Even in the automated messages where much of the content will be the same. But the way that you’re conveying it still seems more personal and still feels like it’s coming from another human being as opposed to an auto-generated sequence.
Jay: Yeah. David, I love this point. And you know, I’ve discovered a way for me to do this. And that is I’ve started using dictation on the computer a lot.
Because I don’t know if people notice if they’re watching the video. I have something called Essential Tremors, which causes me to shake. And it’s getting harder and harder for me to type. So I’ve gone to dictation, but I found if I close my eyes and I act like I’m on the phone with the person when I’m doing the dictation, that brochure speak goes away.
And so it’s something I don’t have to give a lot of thought to. It’s just a change in how I’m recording that information.
David: Yeah, I do a very similar thing on the treadmill in the morning. I’ve got a, a little digital recorder and I’m on the treadmill and I’m moving and I’m recording. It could be a letter, it could be notes for some sort of presentation I’m going to do.
But I will record that and I’ll just stop it every few seconds. If you heard those recordings, it’s a lot of heavy breathing and little bits and pieces. And I’ll say three words and I’ll stop and I’ll try to figure out what the rest of the sentence is, and I’ll say that, and then I’ll just take that whole thing and I’ll get it transcribed.
And then at that point I can clean up the words and it’s a hundred times easier than trying to sit down in front of a blinking cursor and figure out what I’m going to say next.
Jay: Yeah. And that blinking cursor, it does something to us. It changes how, how we record that information. So I love that piece of feedback when it comes to sequencing.
Cool.
How do people find out more, David?
David: You can go to top secrets.com/call, schedule a call with myself or my team if you are interested in getting better response from people by thinking things out in advance and sequencing your communication so that people are actually looking forward to hearing what you have to say next instead of dreading it, schedule a call.
Jay: Yeah, absolutely. David, once again, it’s a pleasure talking to you.
David: Thank you so much, Jay.
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