Sales Strategies to Attract Ideal Clients and Grow Your Business – ep 115

Mostafa Hosseini  00:03

In this episode, you will discover how to attract more ideal and ready clients, convert them and maximize lifetime value and how to leverage, monetize and monetize your IP or intellectual property. My friend Mitch Axelrod is a number one Wall Street Journal, Barnes and Noble and Amazon Best selling author of the new game of business and the new game of selling. He has written dozens of training programs, hundreds of articles and delivered 3500 talks, seminars, workshops and clinics on sales, service, entrepreneurship, values and peak performance.

Mitch has trained 1 million professionals helped generate three billions of dollars with a beat of new revenue and lectured at New York University, Notre Dame University, University of South Southern California. And as a faculty member at Harvard.

Brian Tracy says my good friend Mitch Axelrod is one of the foremost authorities on peak performance in the United States. His technique, method and process are responsible for boosting more people into the ranks of the top 10% than almost any other trainer alive. Welcome, Mitch.

Mitch Axelrod  01:28

Thank you, Mostafa. Sounds like my father used to say that. And $2.50 will get you on the New York subway.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:40

Nice. How’s your day so far?

Mitch Axelrod  01:42

Oh, great. I was looking forward to this. We haven’t had chance to actually sit down and chat and so I’m raring to go.

Mostafa Hosseini  01:49

I’m looking forward to this. We’re about are you?

Mitch Axelrod  01:52

I’m in sunny San Diego, America’s Finest City. Love it. And what’s it like right now? Like it is every day about 72 and sunny almost every day?

Mostafa Hosseini  02:03

No actually experience winter down there.

Mitch Axelrod  02:06

There is no winter really here we get 40s But nothing. So that’s why I’m here. So

Mostafa Hosseini  02:16

I pretty much goes from hot to warmer to warm right where it is. And he got back to hot again. Love it. So let’s dive into it that Mitch, what is your story?

Mitch Axelrod  02:29

Wow. I can summarize it in like 44 years. Next week, actually. I started being an entrepreneur from the day I walked out of college. And that was 44 years ago, October 31. I took my insurance exam while I was working part time at night. And I got into business on Halloween 1978. And I realized that that time coined the phrase psychologically unemployable, I could work with people. But I did not like working for people.

And so I started as a financial planner, I spent 10 years there, became a millionaire at 32 and was busted bankrupt and broke at 34 lost a lot of money in real estate investment and on the New Jersey shore. My wife was eight months pregnant, I squirreled away five grand and I said what do we do now? She says, Well, you can’t work for anybody.

So a context kind of brought a guy I had met a couple of years earlier, Brian Tracy, and I called them up. I said, Hey, here’s my situation. You got the last $5,000 I got I’ll pay you I won’t pay my mortgage. I’d like to be a distributor, can I do something with you? And he said that he didn’t say his associates said, alright, we never done this before. Bubble financial.

And so within 30 days after that, I had a client pay me 2500 A month covered my bills. Within six months, I was back up to 100 grand a year on retainer money. And I realized that I found the thing I was meant to do, to speak, to train to coach people and do it in large groups. I used to coach 50 105 already spoke to 5000 people once I was just doing an all day training. And so that’s how I kind of got launched 30 years ago into this business.

And then I made a major discovery, and I’m going to share a little more about this later on the conversation. Why everybody who is creating their own products, write their own training programs, they’re printing them recording them getting 1000 they have to spend a lot of money. And I said this seems kind have what I call bass ackwards. Right? You spent all this money. I said, what if I did it the other way? Because I’m an unconventional thinker.

I don’t think outside the box, I coined the phrase, throw the box away. No box, no borders, no boundaries. And so I created a table of contents 21 ways to double your sales. Why? Because I had doubled my sales three years in a row. And I said, What did I do? I called up five people in the insurance industry. I said, I’m gonna want to do a whole day event 21 ways I did not have the program. I had a table of contents. He said faxed me the Table of Contents.

I faxed it to me said done deal. I was paid $4,000 for that day. However, he he said to me, could we record it? I said, Absolutely. And that was the first major distinction, because none of my colleagues would allow people to record them. I said, when condition you give me the masters at the end of the day, which is what I was intending to do, but he asked me instead of me asking him, the end of the day, he says to me match, that was the best thing I’ve ever seen. There were 400 people in the room. He said, We want this.

 I said, What do you want to do it? Not how many people he says, We want to give it to everybody in our company, how many 4000 the cassettes were still in the recorder. He said how much on the spot, he says how much at the time, Nightingale Conant was selling their cassette albums. For like 2995 30. I said, I want $10 A person times 4000 $40,000. You record it, you duplicate it, you ship it, I just want the profit. And I’ll save you the rest. He said done deal.

So I walked in there with the Table of Contents did an all day program got the masters of a program. So the back to him for 40 grand, which I then called the duplicator said he’s going to get you a payment, you just duplicate. And I realized I was not in the product, package program business. I was in the intellectual property business. It went from my mouth, to that machine to his ears. And he said, Let’s make a deal.

And so that sent me on a 30 year journey where I didn’t produce that rezone program I actually ever produced. All of what I’ve done is selling renting and licensing to companies. So I don’t have to carry inventory. I didn’t have to have a warehouse, I didn’t have any overhead. I had 85% profit, while all my colleagues had overhead inventory 1000s of units.

And I had none of that. And I became the only Burger King in a world of McDonald’s. Meaning I told companies, you can have it your way. I’m not going to prepackaged it, you tell me what you want. And I’ll give to your way and you can produce it and print it and duplicate it. I just want the profit. So that was when I discovered that we’re in the intellectual property business more than courses or trainings or packages or programs or products.

And then for the next 30 years, I’ve been on the journey to train people. In the mid 90s, I came up with a brand called the new game business. I wrote the book in 2003 Coming up on 20 years, then the new game is selling then the new game of IP until I realized that I’ve caught my brand.

And so today we’re going to talk about some of the pieces that come out of the new game is selling the new game of business, the new game is service that you can use to attract more of your ideal customers, create more revenue on the back end, find out what you actually do. And so for the last 30 something years, I’ve been mostly involved in training, advising and licensing my intellectual property. So that’s a quick thumbnail. Love

Mostafa Hosseini  09:35

1. Love it. You’ve got quite a history there. And very interesting and I look forward to the rest of our conversation to tap into your wisdom. So, Mitch, what do you do these days and who do you serve?

Mitch Axelrod  09:50

I do quite a bit of work with small businesses and entrepreneurs. But my sweet spot is working with larger companies. have seven, eight, even nine figure companies. And the reason is because what we’re going to talk about an entrepreneur solo practitioner can take and use to really multiply their ROI return on investment, all right. But when you think about a company with 2010 2050 100 500, people who could all deploy the same skill, or the same model, the same framework, and you get the, you know, the geometric ability to say, Oh, if only 10% of them, improve 10%, the effect on our company is massive. All right, so it’s really a matter of skill. So what the entre, what we’re going to talk about the entrepreneur or the solo practitioner, or the coach or consultant can use because I’ve used it as an almost solo practitioner, pretty much I don’t have a big organization. But where we really want to make the difference and have the bigger impact geometric is when we can make one little shift. In fact, 30 years ago, ironically, Brian started as my mentor.

And then 30 years ago, five years later, I got to be the keynote speaker at his international conference. And I had six, six words on the flip chart. In the front, and I popular I didn’t invent a phrase, but it popularized it. Big doors swing on little hinges. Your original quote was little hinges swing big doors, I didn’t like the way that was phrased. So I rephrase it. And when you think about it, small distinctions lead to big possibilities, if you can find the little hinge.

So the first five words in my book, The New Game of selling, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci. Everything I do, I do simply and the simpler it is, if you can do it in one word, that’s great. One step one formula one framework, one model. So I’m going to share some of those with you actual models that we use small distinctions, big possibilities, big payoff.

Mostafa Hosseini  12:21

Love it, love it. I love your simple approach. My entire brand is about being simple. Like I got my book coming up simple retention formula, then we got simple, you know, conversion formula, simple target market formula, everything is about being simple. And I’m a huge 8020 fan, like, keep it simple if you can, if you if you could get rid of 80% of it and still deliver the message. Yeah, that’s why we should do love it. Love it.

So, Mitch, let’s dive into some some some processes and methods. What’s the best way to attract more more ideal and paying clients? Okay,

Mitch Axelrod  12:58

so I’m a, I’m an actual fanatic, you could say, for language for words, words make a big difference, right? So the first thing I would say is the question, what is the best? You really never know what’s the best, you really never know if there’s a best. So when people say to me, you know, what’s the best way? Well, I don’t know what the best way is, the best way for me may be different for you. What’s a good way that we know will work?

I can give you that. So let’s talk about let me give you a good way. And it’s first to identify what is ideal. All right. So ideal I don’t think of in terms of an avatar psychographics demographics. Here’s how you find your ideal customer, unless you’re an absolute startup and you have no customers. All right, so let’s assume you have some clients, whether you’re a small, big doesn’t matter.

The the real question you ask yourself, one of what kind of which clients do we want more of, in fact, if we had to pick one client, which client represents our highest and best client, that if we had more of them, just them? We’d be happy as could be. Now we can have a lot of different clients. When I have a middling clients, I use an analogy, I’m facto kind of sneak peek into here. It’s that if you would use analogies outside of your business, sometimes it make more sense. So many of us have different kinds of offerings for different kinds of buyers.

So I use something called the automobile car dealership model, the showroom model, are you a Mercedes kind of Jaguar dealer? Are you up mid mid range like Honda or Lexus? Or are you a more modest kind of transportation? Let’s say a Kia. Alright. And when somebody comes to your, your complex because many car dealerships have more than one dealership? Do they put you in the top of the funnel and try to slide you down sell you the high price?

And no, they say, What are you looking for? Are you economy buyer? Are you a mid range buyer? Or are you a luxury buyer? Here we go to the showroom go. So the first thing is to say, where are we in the marketplace? Do we service, a Mercedes audience? And this analogy? Do we serve as a Honda or let’s say, Lexus audience?

Or do we serve more of a modest audience? Then, who do we want more of? Alright, so I said, I’m going to give you in our conversation two questions, literally, that can turn a business around. And that can give you so much new business, and so many ancillary benefits. So I’m going to drop one on your right now. Once you identify in your clients, your customers who you want more of, and you can want more Mercedes, and you can’t or evolve them.

The next step is to go back to those best people. And ask them at least one of the five questions of service that have produced a quarter of a billion dollars for my clients from AT and T IBM, John Hancock, Prudential all the way down to home business owners. Why did you buy from me? I worked for about 10 years, almost exclusively in the insurance industry. Do you know that not one company actually had it as part of their service protocol to go in and ask?

 There’s dozens, hundreds of insurance agents financed? Why did you pick me? So I’m telling you story. Back in the early 90s, I was doing corporate exclusively corporate work, I asked the client, why did you bring me in here, you got consultants walking in and here all day long. You got trainers on staff, you got a big organization? Why me? He said Mitch, you’re the first guy who told us to break down the walls between marketing sales and service, and to look at it as one holistic process. And that marketing should support sales should support service.

And it should be like a continuum. And so as a result of that, we are now better able to attract, convert and keep customers. I said oh my god, can I can I see that? Can I see that? You said that? You said of course. In fact, I’ll write on a piece of paper. And you can put it out to what. And what dawned on me at that moment was the difference between a USP and what I call a USA USP is your unique selling proposition. It’s what you perceive, believe, come up with as far as what makes you unique and different, then you put it out to the world and you hope it attracts the kind of people that you want to attract.

But all that stuff comes from inside you, the company, the business, it doesn’t come from the customers. On the other hand, he said to me, this is what you do for us. And I realized that then I could use the four words that I couldn’t use before. My clients tell me when somebody says what do you do? I don’t say I do this or I come. I say very humbly. My clients tell me I’m really good at helping them attract, convert, keep now multiply and reactivate customers. What? Which one of those do you want to do better? And you see how getting that from my client totally shifts? Because now I’m saying what Mike and you find out by asking,

Why did you hire me? Why do you buy from me? You insulate yourself against somebody else coming in and taking your place? You leverage that conversation into new business. You can then go out and ask a series that question to a series of clients and you will find out your three to five unique, different and better capacities. And now you wrap your entire marketing message in what your clients Oh, you because you want more of them? Mm hmm.

So working backwards from service to marketing. And that’s the whole idea of turning service into profit. It’s the ultimate profit model.

Mostafa Hosseini  20:15

Love it. So the first question was, why did you buy from me which people give you and tell you exactly why they bought from you. And you could use their language to introduce yourself to other people. And when they ask you, what do you do, you could say, my clients tell me that I’m really good at XYZ. Now, which one of these apply to?

Mitch Axelrod  20:37

My clients? Tell me, I’m the guy who does simple retention formulas, right? My clients tell me what you see the thing bad it is, you can’t say what your clients tell you. If you don’t ask your clients, they will tell you, if you ask the best ones, the ones you want lots more of, they’re going to give you what you can’t get from inside out. And that is they’re going to tell you, what makes you different, why they’re attracted to you.

What’s the emotional, they’re going to give you all kinds of great intelligence that you can sculpt into a powerful and it could be more than one, it could be three, you could have, you know, three different car dealerships. So our Mercedes clients saw us, we write in luxury, we take care of all the things that they want, that they don’t, it’s all done for you.

The mid price car, well, we give them kind of an advanced ride. But it’s not the basic transportation, there’s some, et cetera, you want cost effectiveness, guess what? Here’s the brilliance of this model. All three cars, get you to the destination. The question is, how do you want to ride? Absolutely. If you have more than one choice, that’s a beautiful way to frame it.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:03

And what I love about that question is, when you ask the question, you will understand exactly why they bought from me or you at any could be different, different than what I thought, why they bought from me, right? I thought maybe they want customers.

But when they tell me why they bought from me, maybe they haven’t been had a non problem when they were trying to fix another problem, the way they saw it. And I could reflect that to other people and say, My People told me that they wanted to fix x. And that just, I love that question. So so the first one what what is your why? For me? What is the you said there was five questions?

Mitch Axelrod  22:40

Well, that’s our secret sauce. You know, that’s our formula that we sell for a whole lot. But I did say that I was going to give you one more question, beauty. And you’re going to really be shocked at how simple it is. Okay. And it’s only one word different than the one I just gave you. What is it? Why did you not buy it from me?

Mostafa Hosseini  23:05

Why did you not buy from me? So this is from people that didn’t buy from you. You

Mitch Axelrod  23:12

have three types of people. You have present clients, you have past clients, and you have prospective clients. Okay. By the way, you could ask this question, why did you buy from your competition? So I get a lot of business from my competition. I don’t really see competition, because I don’t have any, we if you ever an abundance mindset, you give people view of the business, I give my competition business. So because then that competition, right?

 I have what I do they I rather cooperate and joint venture. And actually that’s how we met right through a common group. So it’s not competition. But really, when you think about it, the idea of understanding why people are not buying instead of going back and trying to dazzle them more information and more reminders and scarcity. And it’s going to end tomorrow. It’s like, Hey, I’m just curious. Mostafa, you said not to go forward, just for for my own sake.

Because honestly, very often when my clients decide to not to go forward, my knee jerk reaction is what did I do to screw it up? Right? Whereas I don’t want to assume I don’t want to think see, if you make assumptions, you get into trouble. And that’s why it’s a bad thing to think that we know why people buy from us. And it’s actually just as difficult and bad to not know why people don’t buy. Oh, no, Mitch, it had nothing to do with you. It’s timing.

Oh, great. Can we talk about that? or Mitch, I’m sorry, as much as I’d love to give you my business. My brother in law is an insurance agent, and my wife who’s going to kill me, if I buy from someone else, okay? I don’t feel like I screwed up, I shouldn’t use the right angle close, or they twist your arm behind your back clothes are no other words. It’s a great way for you to reengage the conversation. Rewind the movie.

So you say, oh, let’s go back. Let’s talk about that. Or Guess what? Mitt, you did a great job. I just, you know, it’s not right for me now, every time whatever. Great. I wondered, who do you know, where should I go? Who didn’t know who might enjoy a conversation like we had? Because he didn’t, he didn’t tell me he didn’t buy and get out of my life.

He might have said, I didn’t buy for a number of reasons. Some of which you can reengage the conversation, maybe rewind the movie, and then come see, what I’ve observed from training a million people is that most successful people talk the least, they ask powerful questions in the right order at the right time, in the right way. And they shut up. And they allow the conversation to be talked about 8020 80% Listen, 20% talk and of the 20% Talk 80% of that should be questions, specific questions that advance the relationship. So all the things that we teach on how do we create $3 billion of revenue, because we show you how to work backwards from the outcome. So now you know your ideal client, you know who you want more of?

You’ve talked to them about why they’re favoring you with your business. There are other people out there, the very clients you have, who should be able to refer you. Now you can introduce yourself based on that track where you have the clients, and we’re gonna give you the most powerful networking formula that has ever been developed in the history of mankind. Okay, that’s a little bit over the top.

That’s what people who have told me, I’ve shared this with writing. I developed this 35 years ago, I evolved it into something I call rejection proof networking. Had an eliminate rejection for your life forever. All right. So we used to sell this $195. And boom, it was worth every penny. I decided I’m gonna give it away from now on. Because if you can do this, you can open up doors that are ridiculous. So three parts, part number one, here’s what I do. Part number two, here’s why I do it. Part number three, here’s who I’m looking for.

You start to see a very common thread through weaving through all of what I do. Everything’s connected. Okay, so how is everything connected? What do I do? My clients tell me, I do this? Well, you don’t know what you do. You could say what you think you do. I’m not talking about what you sell. What you sell is transportation. What you do is the destination. And very often we confuse our transportation with the destination.

So you have many ways to get people where they want to go. The question is, where do they want to go? And then you like a travel agent, you provide the transportation that will get them there. So go back to your clients, why do you hire me? Why do you buy from me? What do I do for you? Okay, here’s what I do. Part two, here’s why I do it. Now. This is not your long drawn out story about you doing your dishes in the bathtub, nobody cares anymore.

Your story is only good as it relates to the people who are listening to it. Who can see your journey relates to their journey. Okay. The real nectar, the juice in the why I do it is how it creates how it fills a void in the marketplace. So I first created this in 1982 Here’s what I do. I help people get into the top 5% of financially independent people.

Wow. How do you why do you do that? You know why I do it? Because only 5% one 20 And that was 30 years ago, only 40 years ago, only one in 20 people in the United States at that time was financial independence. Now the number is 1%. That means you have a 99 to one chances against you, of being able to stop working and live at least 70% of your lifestyle. And I want to be in that 5%. And I want to help as many people to be. So do you see in my why I made a shocking statistic that relates to how, why I want to do what I’m doing.

And at the time, who I was looking for, was people who had $25,000 or more to invest. That was very specific. All right. So if you’re a coach, consultant, trainer, self employed software, service provider, here’s what I do. Your clients tell you that, here’s why I do it, your personal why, and the mission behind what you do, in terms of how you’re improving, not changing the world, but how you’re improving a niche, I set out to be really to change, not change the industry.

But in early 90s. I was teaching how to be trusted advisors, financial planners, and it just happened to be at the right time. And somebody snapped my picture giving a seminar. And the next thing I know, I’m on the front page of the biggest industry magazine, a million people get it. And the thing said, Mitch Axelrod trainer is teaching this companies insurance agents had a transition or change from product salespeople to trusted advisor that put me above every other trainer in the industry, because the industry was changing.

My point being that when you figure out your why connect it to something that you can be an advocate for the people you serve. And then the most important part of this, which is what we’re talking about, is who are you looking for? And we started this with, Who’s your ideal client? Find out who you want more of? You say, I’m looking for such and such and such and such?

And you finish it up with? Who do you know, where should I go? You cannot get rejected? I don’t know anybody now, that’s fine. Okay, come back to it at some point. And the better I get describing who I’m looking for, the better. So hey, by the way, I’m looking for somebody else. This or them.

Mostafa Hosseini  32:56

Fantastic. Fantastic. So once you once you bring in leads, and I like to comment about re asking this question in Chicago, comment about you listen, 80% of time and you talk 20% anyone when you talk 20% You ask better questions to even dig more out of your prospect and people that you’re talking to. So once you bring these people in front of you, and you’re talking to leads and prospects, what’s a quick way to qualify and sort sort to kick tire kickers and browsers from actual buyers?

Mitch Axelrod  33:30

Okay, so there’s a lot of talk today about the buyers journey journey, like taking a journey. Okay. And I can relate to that. Because what he talked about, you’re in the travel business, you’re in the transportation. When I started back when people said, what do you do, right? I didn’t want to say I’m an insurance agent. That used to be a joke. Like if you say you sell insurance, everybody runs out of the room, they figure.

So I said, I’m in the transportation business. And back then I had a full height of curly hair. They said, Oh, do you drive a cab ride a budge run driver, but I help people get from point A to point B financially. Where are you going? See that? That became a total game changer. All right. In fact, the whole getting from where you are to where you want to be originally originated 40 years ago with that formula. So the the key here is understanding the three types of buyers satisfied, dissatisfied and ready.

Why I work backwards rather than forwards is because once I know the ideal client, why they want why they’re buying from me. Now I say, Okay, where do I find those people? I want to drop my fishing line. Not in any stream. But in a stream of hungry fish. I coined that phrase 40 years ago. Because when you think about marketing, a lot of it is scattershot all over, you hope it hits, and then you funnel them down and they come at the bottom. But that’s inefficient, there’s much more efficient, cost effective way, if you get really clear on who your, quote, ideal buyer is, then you start looking for where the fishing holes are, where they congregate, where they aggregate.

And that’s where you drop your line. Now, the next thing is to distinguish satisfied, dissatisfied, ready, I call it phase one, phase two, phase three, you should never be talking to satisfied talking metaphorically. Because satisfied buyers, there’s nothing to talk about. So you want to meet people, at least at the dissatisfied stage. However, again, simple, very simple things, big doors, smooth little hinges, here’s a little hinge that will save you probably 100 hours in the next year. One question, are you ready? Or are you getting ready?

What’s the difference? Well, if I’m ready to do something, buy something, make a change, have something go somewhere become something, then I’m actively looking for that which will help me accomplish it. However, if I’m only 211 degrees, not quite boiling yet. I’m still getting ready. And because the new game is selling and service teaches you how to prevent objections. I never, ever, ever get objections, and we teach people exactly how to never get objections. All right, we create that all the selling systems that I was taught early on, had a module or a program or pet or a section on overcoming objections.

The new game of selling is the only training I know that has no reference to how to overcome objections, you know why? Because we don’t get them. And if you know how to have conversations, ask the right questions. qualified people carefully. You know why you you get any objections? It’s very simple. You’re out of alignment with people. And their only way to stop you from proceeding is to question object resist. It’s a sign that you’re off course. And you know why we don’t get I don’t say we don’t get questions or concerns. Those are not objections. Because we don’t try to sell people what they don’t want.

And the reason you get objections is because you’re talking about things maybe or by buying something people don’t want. You may think they need it. But if they don’t want it, they have it’s a it’s a human thing. If you’re talking about something I don’t like, I’m gonna resist, I’m gonna back up. So how do I do that in a conversation? I bring up things that will sound like objections. So how do you eliminate that? Well, very simple. r a n n, r A A Mmm. Results, action measure modify? Where are you going? Give me a destination, where to travel? Is it?

Where are you going? Result? What do you want to accomplish? Great. A action. What are you doing now? What are you doing tomorrow? What do you plan to do? Thank you. Good. What actions have taken in the past? I’m not taking any action. I’m stuck in inertia. Okay, good. Let’s let’s talk about that. Next step and measure measure. Are you on or off course for where you want to go to destination? I’m a little bit off course. You know, if you get one degree off course, and you track it out your infinite trajectory.

You wind up someplace totally different than you anticipated. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Second, modify. What changes or adjustments do you have to make? Are you ready? Are you committed? Are you willing? Are you able? If you meet those criteria, then you have a real buyer. And then the final piece of this is if they’re not ready. The question is, what will take you from getting ready to being ready. And if you can fulfill that, chances good you might actually accelerate the pace of which They get ready.

And now you have a ready buyer. So that’s one of the most powerful ways to really sort your people quickly. And if you had to break it down to one question it would be, are you ready to do not buy my product not using my service, but to accomplish the outcome, the destination? The whatever it is you’re getting or going toward?

Mostafa Hosseini  40:25

Love it. Of it’s the first question was, are you ready? Are you getting ready? And then if they say no, I’m not, then the response would be what will it take to go from getting ready to being ready? Right? And then, huh? Are you ready to fix this problem? Are you ready to tackle this issue? Are you ready to find a solution and apply it? Yeah, I love that qualifying question.

Mitch Axelrod  40:55

When just one thing, they might say, I’m not ready. But it will be ready in 30 days, because I have to organize the things Oh, okay. So we don’t have to use a trial clothes or another hard sell tactic. It could be just a time delay.

Mostafa Hosseini  41:15

One one, I love that question. And one of the things we do with our with our follow up service, and that we do we actually qualify people for our customers. And one of the questions that we ask similar somewhat questions, and a financial question we ask is, are you in a position to invest in yourself or your business to fix this problem? Right? And then, to me, like, I would follow those beautiful questions that you laid out with the financial question, so that we don’t have a person that is broke, like they may be ready, but they don’t have the money. Well,

Mitch Axelrod  41:50

that and that’s why the other three criteria, you see there are four criteria to have a real buyer. Come ready is the first thing committed, you can be ready but not committed, you got to be committed, then you got to be willing. In fact, I this is what we teach in conversions school, if you will, and how to how to get these. And then you’ve got the biggie, Abel. And Abel used to be just money. It’s not just money. It’s time. It’s bandwidth, its resources, its tension.

As you shift your attention, you’re the things you look at change as you change the way you look at them. Do you have the bandwidth? You have the tension? You could have plenty of money, but you have no bandwidth. You have no time. Somebody said that to me. I just I’m up to here. I’d love to work with you. I’d love to infinite. Okay, great. We know what the impediment is. It’s an objection. It’s a condition. I just don’t wait. When will you have the bandwidth? I think in three months, do you fit the of the criteria? Yes. You have the money? Yes. Do you have the time?

Yes. Do you have the resources? Yes, you have the people? Not sure. Okay, great. That’s another piece we have to fulfill. So instead of trying to hard, close them more fat, forcing them to make a decision before they’re ready, put yourself in the position that when they are ready, they’re coming back to you.

Mostafa Hosseini  43:18

100% I actually literally had a conversation about bandwidth. Like, I did a follow up with one of my prospects today literally, before we went live, I was talking to them and she’s like, I literally don’t have the bandwidth for you guys, because I and she’s like, I know you guys are gonna book a bunch of appointments for us, but I just don’t have time and bandwidth to handle the business. So we need to wait until I hire someone new and deal with a bunch of things.

So we’re like yeah, no problem with it. And when when would be a good time and she’s like two three weeks from now. Let’s touch base again. And and yeah, love it just getting to the bottom of what’s happening and understanding them better. So we’re not just pushing and working on closing and you know, if they actually

Mitch Axelrod  44:03

yeah, you know, the old game is selling was trial clothes, trial clothes, trial clothes. I was taught that never felt natural, never felt real. Felt contrived, felt I was pushing. So it’s like, you know, I have a philosophy. Fish eat when they’re hungry. Not when we drop the light. Your job is hungry. Your job is to find the hungry fish. Where are they?

And that’s easier than ever with LinkedIn and Facebook and all the social media and referrals and your network. Oh my god, there’s the fish are hungry right inside your circle of influence. You just have to know how to drop your line where they are. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:50

And then we can always wait until they’re hungry which is what what we’re we’re in business a follow up. Like people think they show up. They’re like, are you hungry now? out there like, No, I’m not gonna go okay, no problem. And then we’ll just go look for someone else. But we’re like, Look, you just spend a bunch of time and money to find this prospect. Why don’t you wait until they’re hungry? Because I’m sure they’re gonna be hungry one day.

Mitch Axelrod  45:13

Find out what’s gonna make them hungry. Yeah. It’s like, you can wait forever. I don’t want to wait forever. Because some people will, you know, they’re waiting 30 years. It’s like, what’s going to really change? And again, it’s not about me, it’s about you. You want to go somewhere, you want to get something you want to do something, have something or be something. I am a navigator, an agent transportation, I want to help you get there.

What’s going to remove the rock that’s in the way? Is it something I can help you with? Or do you have to work it out yourself? It’s human, to human communication, talking to people as you would advise your best friend or family, whatever. And looking at that person, as a potential goldmine of opportunity, whether they become a customer or not. Because you know what, in today’s game, the new game of business, the way you do business is as or more important than the product or service you sell.

Mostafa Hosseini  46:17

Love it. So either wait or figure out what’s going to make him hungry. So that would, I would call them creating an irresistible offer that will make them hungry that they’re like, yeah, actually, I want that. Right, or

Mitch Axelrod  46:31

letting them tell you, and then you coming back with whatever would say shit them, see what to quit to try to think if we make a better offer, maybe. So we tweak our offer, and then we put it out? And then we provide and then we tweak our offer? Why don’t we stop and think like, let me ask you individually and collectively.

And now I understand what’s going to make you hungry? What’s going to turn you off? What’s your what’s the kind of bait that you will swim away from an eye, if I understand more about my customer, my ideal best customer than anybody else, I’m always going to be either first in line or second in line to get their business. In fact, we used to train people become a master of understanding your customer more than your product more than your service. Absolutely.

Mostafa Hosseini  47:29

So, Mitch, we promised people that we’re going to talk about using a monetizing their existing intellectual property. But we don’t have a ton of time. Could you give us a brief description of what is your view on that?

Mitch Axelrod  47:47

Very simply, is that this up here is essence. Everything that we create, in form a book, of course, a program, a product, a package, a challenge, whatever you do, that you’re putting into a form that ultimately becomes the form of the IP. The challenge is that you have to make two sales. When you do that first sale is does it solve the problem that people want? Let’s break it down to that. But the second sale is, do they like the form it’s in.

So we have a low end book, a mid priced, high price, high price coaching. So those are all good things. But what’s beautiful about IPE is that the pieces and the parts within your form within your course within your program could be worth as much or more quick story. Remember I told you about. I was able to get that insurance company to pay me for 21 ways. Well, they then paid me a half a million dollars to create my magnum opus, two years later, a big workbook, and I had 37 modules. Can you imagine 30 Was this thick, but that was the style. That was the packaging of the day.

So I walk into a client and he looks at me like what do you got there? I’m not buying that. You know, so like, where do you go from there? Now I knew the guy. I know. I’m a jersey guy. So we were like right down to I said, why not? You know, he said to me, open up the table of contents. I want these five. Now I was selling the whole 37 module with the cassettes for 295 to 50 George and $50 discount for clients.

So he picked five out of the Table of Contents five modules. He said how much so I’m thinking I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t accept you’ll have to buy my whole thing. I said $100 a month. Module and then shut up thinking what am I thinking he’s gonna take the the workbook could get so over yet he said sold. When do we start? I said, what happened here? He said, you’re trying to sell to me your way I don’t want to your way and pipe, he said, What am I going to do with that big workbook, my guys won’t open it.

Right? If you give it to me my way, you teach us one of these skills every month I paid to come in and do it, I’ll pay you the 500 bucks plus a pay to come and teach why I need one sale from each guy. And I got my money back and then I’m in profit forever. I have zero chance of that happening with your workbook. I have a very high probability. I said you just changed my life.

Mostafa Hosseini  50:53

That’s beautiful. So so you don’t resist that you’re like, What do you want, and you just offered what they wanted. And then and

Mitch Axelrod  51:01

then it was basically the way they wanted it. So exactly, embrace it earlier, on the only Burger King in the world McDonald’s, or 20 years, everybody had their McDonald’s, here’s the burger cook cooks, the way we want to deliver it, what Burger King say, you can have it your way.

So if you look at your training your course your book, I don’t look at as, as one thing. I look at it as if you have 10 modules, 10 chapters, 10 pieces, 10 segments, I look at it as the whole thing is one piece of IP. And then you’ve got 10 individual pieces of you’ve got 11 Any one of which could be worth the price the whole thing actually more than it because I don’t have to buy all this stuff, I want us to get the thing I want to use.

 So start selling pieces, parts, combinations, break it apart, deconstruct it, decompose it, reconfigure it, and start you’re looking at solving problems, not selling products. And if you can solve a problem with one thing, pull that one thing out. Today, you can deliver anything singularly from within something bigger by extracting it and just delivering that piece or combination. And it could be worth more than then what they paid for the whole thing. Because you don’t have to buy all the excess.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:37

Speaking of set, taking it apart, I actually have a course called simple marketing formula. It has six modules. And I’m turning each module into a book. And I’m selling each module separately. Because all together probably cannot digest the whole thing. But it could probably use some help in finding their target market or finding some some some help in fixing the follow up problem customer retention.

 So instead of exactly what you said, instead of trying to sell in selling them the whale, I’m like, What’s the one problem that you have? Well, let’s work on that. Love it.

Mitch Axelrod  53:11

So what happens they come back to you to solve another one. Absolutely. And so instead of selling one package one time, you sell them what’s in the package six times, and you make potentially six times the amount of money and do six times the amount of good.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:30

Love it. Mitch, please tell us about your gift ultimate profit model.

Mitch Axelrod  53:36

Yes, I have a 90 minute video, which I describe the six steps in the new game of selling three, how to attract qualified and convert buyers. And then in the new game of service, which is the back end at a key multiply and reactivate customers. And on that page, you watch video, I talked about the three phases of the buying cycle.

 And then we invite people to actually fill out an intake form, which answers a certain amount of questions that we now will give you if you qualify a second opinion on what you put as those things that you’re most concerned about. And in addition to that, we’ll also give you access to the Special Report, which is the ultimate profit model how to turn customer service into a profit center.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:32

Love it. So again, the link is in the descriptions of the show and on the comments on social media. If you’re watching or listening, you could go to the new game of selling.com forward slash bonus. As you can see in a video there’s a 10 minute video here and then you have an opportunity to fill out an application for a second opinion with Mitch himself and gang.

If I were you I would definitely take Mitch on this offer as you would have to pay a lot of money to get a second opinion, or actually to get Mitchell’s opinion period. So, the URL is the new game of selling.com. Forward slash bonus. Mitch. That’s a that’s a generous offer and it’s valued at $995. I really appreciate you for putting that gift forward. Can I ask you some some rapid fire quick questions before we wrap up? Sure. What’s a new thing you have tried recently?

A new wet sand you think you have tried recently? Trying or swamp? Yes, some of you you’ve done or tried recently?

Mitch Axelrod  55:38

Actually, a whole new project that we’re launching around how to be influential, what we call influence mastery by being a detective of influence. So we’re taking what has been used in less than ethical terms, the levers of influence, first discovered by Dr. Chow Dini, were saying, hey, how to apply them ethically, professionally, consistently to produce effective results. So love loves watching

Mostafa Hosseini  56:10

beauty, give me two of your favorite books.

Mitch Axelrod  56:16

My favorite book by Richard Bach was one of book one away money. He’s the man who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull way back in the early 70s. Just a fantastic book, and on a whole different plane. Freedom to live the life story of Dr. Robert Hartman, who is one who was my mentor I never met, but really guided me in a whole brand of mine a line of work I call the soul roll goal of life. So the

Mostafa Hosseini  56:53

story of Dr. What was the name of Dr. Ian?

Mitch Axelrod  56:56

Dr. Robert Hartman.

Mostafa Hosseini  56:58

Hartman?

Mitch Axelrod  56:59

Yeah, this is a whole different line of of my work. Loving values, by the way. Love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  57:08

Love it. Last question. Real quick, what’s one piece of advice that made a massive impact in your life or business?

Mitch Axelrod  57:17

Well, two years, two and a half years ago, I had a stroke. And I found out I had a brain aneurysm. I was paralyzed is on the entire right side of my body. I couldn’t talk couldn’t walk, and I could not move my arm. And in order to get back to the state I’m in now or I can talk and walk and not quite ready with the arm. But getting better is hard to focus on what was today not look too far ahead, not worry about the past, but stay totally focused on today’s work.

And I realized that life is too difficult to try to take on tomorrow’s problems today. Today’s difficult enough. So it really got me to learn how to focus on what’s good today. And why I’m grateful for being able to get up every day and speak and move and never take for granted the little things in life. So that was a profound lesson and it’s helped me really zeroing in on, I’m being present in every interaction, every conversation and not worrying about being out too far in the future. Love it, love it.

Mostafa Hosseini  58:29

I know you have to run. It seems like we could probably take this conversation for another couple of hours easily. So I really thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom gang if you’re watching or listening. Mitch is an absolute master at what he does when it comes to IP growing business and processes and procedures.

And he’s a process guy and he he has done it. I know a lot of people that have worked with him. So you could not go wrong by having a conversation. Take him on his on his offer. Go to the link in the descriptions of the show or the comments, social social media. Apply for a second opinion. Have a conversation with him. And we’ll get take it from there. You’ve been listening to daily confidence for entrepreneurs.

Thank you, Mitch Ganga we’ll see you next week and enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your week. Bye now.