Issue 15 - April 2011

THE SILK REPORT

Warrior Marketing, Selling & Fee-Generation Strategies For Independent Consultants, Coaches & Info-Marketers...

What Is The Most Effective Selling System You Have Ever Found? Whatever It Is You Might Want To Dump It After You Read This
From: Michael Silk.

Dear Reader,

I havent yet figured out how to make a sale without a buyer.

But... I have figured out how to roll-up unannounced and make a sale without having any particular selling system (or script) to follow or thing to sell. And I now sincerely believe the greatest (and most lucrative) consulting opportunities are only available to you... When You Take Your Focus Off Selling Something And Instead Seek First To Understand What Decisions Led To A Persons Current Circumstances And If Necessary Help Them Formulate Their Own Unique Decision Making Process Around Improving Those Circumstances Confused? Good. Youre right where you need to be. Now Im going to soak you in a few seemingly unrelated stories before I bring all the loose ends together in such a way that will enable you to...

Published by: Michael Silk, Michael Silk Consulting, 2 The Compasses, Leigh, Nr, Tonbridge, Kent. TN11 8HT. ENGLAND. T. (UK) +44 (0)1892 871446 F. (UK) +44 (0)844 507 0076 E. MichaelSilk01@Gmail.com

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Open Up New Client & Fee-Generating Opportunities All Around You Heres the first story: Back in 1982 an ex-British soldier arrived in Los Angeles with no green card or greenbacks to his name. He made a living first as a nanny. And then selling T-shirts on Venice Beach. Fast-forward to 2002 and this man placed an out-of-the-blue phone call to Donald Trumps office to share an idea. He was taken aback when the outspoken real estate magnate answered the phone directly, told him to show up at his office in 10-minutes and then hung up the phone. The mans name? Mark Burnett. His idea? A reality TV show called The Apprentice. Last I heard Donald Trump is using the popularity and enhanced celebrity status he gained from The Apprentice... To Run For President Of The United States Of America The second story: Scott-Vincent Borba, CEO of Borba, sells a line of luxury skin care products. In his first full year in business, Borba did $5 million in sales, and every deal he made... Started With Him Initiating A Phone Call To A Potential Buyer Today his company is privately held and if my intelligence is correct, Borba has increased sales by 50 percent every year since its start-up year. Third story: On July 1st 2010, Inc. Magazine featured an intriguing article about a man called David Rosen. David is a wine broker who uses the telephone to sell half a million dollars worth of wine to private individuals throughout the United States. Fourth story: One fine day I was working out at the gym when I had an idea about calling up a particular company. After I was showered and dressed from the workout I called the company on my handydandy mobile phone. I said a few words to the receptionist... and then a few words to another employee. A couple of days later I was invited to speak with the chairman of the multi-national company (who was located in Greece) and -- a few days after that -- a cheque arrived in the post made out to my name in the amount of 1,500 (approx. $3,000). Fifth (and final) story:

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Ken Ellsworth started out as a prison guard. Then a hypnotherapist. And then a stockbroker. When Ken became a stockbroker, instead of doing the traditional hard-sell over the phone, he instead elicited prospects unconscious decision making processes... and get this Hed Go For Months Where There Literally Wasnt Anyone That Didnt Buy Stock From Him! In fact, the first time someone didnt buy Ken marked the anomalous occasion in his diary. It actually turned out that particular prospect who didnt buy was a compliance officer (shopper) who had no authority (wasnt allowed) to buy any stock. Now let me throw in a couple of quotes to the cauldron: Sales trainer Bob Etherington says: Fact: In any market 85 percent of the available new business goes to 5 percent of sales people who know the secret of successful cold calling. Sales professional Paul DiModica says: Cold calling is the fastest way to increase your sales pipeline, your companys revenue, and your personal income. It is the difference between a CFO of a Fortune 500 company and selling to supervisors. If you were to analyse the top income sales positions in the U.S. (stockbrokers, commercial insurance salespeople, mergers and acquisitions salespeople) you would find that they all cold call. The point so far? This: The Old-Fashioned Telephone Is THE Most Powerful And Effective Fee Generating Tool IF You Know How To Use It Properly When you know how to use the telephone properly -- instead of waiting around passively for somebody to respond to a promotion (which you could go old and grey doing) you can take matters into your own hands and make something happen out of thin air. Also, with the telephone your selling model is invisible to any of your competition. Does this mean Im going to suggest you start picking up the phone and... horror of horrors cold-call complete strangers pitching them on your services? Not exactly. What I am going to do is show you how to open up endless amounts of new business opportunities...

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By Using The Telephone To Show Genuine Interest In A Person Possibly Help Them Make Better Business Decisions And In Some Cases Show Them They Dont Necessarily Need You Or Your Service I know, I know, it sounds a bit silly to show people why they dont (wont) need to buy anything from you or hire you in some way. But heres the thing: If you go in to a call with something to sell and the agenda of making a sale and the person declines, you have lost an ongoing opportunity. That person will now see you as a salesperson who sells something they dont want -- and you will therefore have no further value in their life. Put bluntly You Will Have Shot Your Load And Be Viewed As A Toad! So heres what Im suggesting: You place a call only to those people you feel drawn to call and, you call them out of a genuine interest (not a veiled interest) in what they are doing. I suggest you speak s-l-o-w-e-r than you ordinarily would in a deliberate (not weak) manner. And, I strongly suggest you are polite, respectful and, above all, human. Be yourself. Dont put on a selling show. When you are totally yourself (foibles and all) people respond to you in kind and you create an environment for a natural, friendly conversation. And once youve created that friendly environment you are able to: (a) Help a person better understand the prior decisions that led up to their existing circumstances / processes / situations etc., and (b) Help that person assess if their current circumstances (based on their prior decisions) are giving them the results they ideally want and (c) If necessary, help that person formulate and systemise their own unique decision making processes around achieving better results going forward -- so they will always make the best decisions (and by extension get the best outcomes and results) for themselves and, irrespective if they hire you or not You Will Forever Be Seen As A Guiding Light And Creator Of Clarity In A Cluttered World And, ironically, those people who you get clear on their decision making processes will be far more likely to buy from you or hire you for a particular area of your services than if you tried to sell them a particular solution. Why? Because people will not make a buying / hiring decision because you want to sell them something however, people will want to buy something if it enhances their past decisions (not negates them) and the solution fits their specific decision making criteria for achieving an even better result going forward. Ground work laid. Now lets get practical

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How To Use The Telephone To Help A Person Formulate & Systemise Their Unique Decision Making Process So They Never Make A Regretful Buying / Hiring Decision Okay, so how do we go from being a salesperson to a valuable decision making process facilitator? Actually, its a lot simpler (and more fun) than your mind is probably telling you right now. Let me explain how easy it can be. Lets say you (like me) are almost always able to increase the sales conversion of marketing / selling campaigns, and youre on some other marketers email list. Lets say that marketer sends you an email promoting one of their products or training programmes and youre fairly confident that if you were involved you would be able to increase the sales conversion of the campaign. Heres an example of how to place a telephone call to that product promoter (potential buyer) that would (a) not make you feel like you were a cold-caller placing a sales-call, and (b) would be warmly received by the person you are calling: RING! RING! POTENTIAL BUYER: Hi, this is Gary speaking. YOU (Ill use the name John Harris for illustration purposes): Oh, hello there. My name is John Harris. I received your email and link to your website promotion today. Have I caught you at an okay time? (COMMENTARY NOTE: Contrary to popular telephone sales training advice -- dont say what company youre with or tell them what you do; i.e., dont say: Im a copywriter, or an SEO expert, or an online video expert etc. You dont want it to sound like a conventional sales call and you dont want to pigeon hole your role this early in the conversation. Also, always ask if you have caught them at an okay time. It shows respect. And you are inviting permission to proceed with the call). POTENTIAL BUYER: Sure, what can I do for you? YOU: Well, I like the look of what youre doing and wondered if youd be kind enough to take a couple of minutes to help me understand something? (COMMENTARY NOTE: Start with something you like about what theyre doing nothing too over the top though. Then, by using the words be kind enough and help you are making it very difficult for the prospect to turn down your request. Because by turning down your request they will be taking on the identity of someone who is not kind and not helpful. And that goes 180-degrees against social etiquette and how everyone wants to be perceived). POTENTIAL BUYER: Okay, sure, that would be okay.

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YOU: Ah, thank you. What I was wondering was how did you decide to write the promotion the way it is? POTENTIAL BUYER: Huh, well I based it around some copy I saw for another promotion I liked I added in some of my own ideas and hmm well I guess it just came together the way it has. (COMMENTARY NOTE: The above questioning and answer it elicited -- was designed not to find a problem or the prospects pain your thing can solve it was simply to determine what the decision making process was behind their current situation i.e., in this example case, their existing promotion). YOU: Interesting. Is there anything different youd like to get out of the promotion that youre not getting now? POTENTIAL BUYER: Err let me see. Its worked pretty good but not quite as well as Id hoped so far. Its not the best time of year for promoting X though so that may have something to do with it. Why do you ask? YOU: Well, what Im hearing you saying is your promotion hasnt quite resulted in as many sales as you would have hoped so far and so was wondering under what conditions youd consider looking at using some outside help to get you more sales than youre currently getting? (COMMENTARY NOTE: The above questioning is first designed to assess how happy or satisfied the person is with their current situation. And then once the person has related back to you their answer its first best to summarise what theyve told you before asking under what conditions they would consider using outside help to get a better result. Please also note that even at this stage the caller i.e., you - has not put a label on themself, they havent referred to themselves as a copywriter or whatever. Nobody wants to hire a copywriter but they may be open to the idea of considering how somebody could generate more sales the ideal result for them. Also, the more time you spend out of the box or pigeon hole in somebodys mind the better. If a prospect is led to create a new box for you which will happen with the strategy Im sharing with you you automatically take a unique, and more valuable, place in their mind). Moving on If the potential buyer says: No, I always do my own promotions. I never use outside help, why? You would say, Oh, thats great. Im was just curious though, would there ever be any conditions where you would look to use outside help? If the potential buyer is adamant theyd never even consider the idea of using outside help then you have quickly determined they would not be receptive to hearing about your solution (no matter how great you think it is or how valuable you just know it would be to them) and you can end the call by saying how it has been good to chat with them and how you'd like to stay in touch.

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Lets quickly review what were doing here. What we are ultimately aiming for from the initial conversational dialogue is NOT to sell any particular product or service. No! Instead, the objective is simply to put the person you call in a decision making state around your area of expertise and -- only if the person is open to the idea of bringing in outside help (not necessarily you) -- to create an environment that is conducive to them sharing with you... Their Unique Unconscious Decision Making Process On Hiring In An Outside Consultant Who Could Potentially Increase Their Sales Conversion Or whatever result they would like to see improved. By the way, notice I said unconscious decision making process above. This is important because hardly anyone really knows (consciously) their decision making process when it comes to buying things or hiring in service providers. And so get this: When you help facilitate somebody through the gentle process of consciously piecingtogether their (hereinto unconscious) decision making process that person will automatically view you as the ONE person who understands an aspect of them better than anyone else they know. In other words, the cold call strategy Im teaching you in this strategy report (and will expand upon in further detail in a moment)... Enables You To Quickly Go From Complete Stranger To Somebody They Feel Understands An Important Aspect Of Them Better Than Anyone Else They Know Even better than they know themselves! Let me explain the process further to give you a much better idea of what Im talking about. Lets say the person you have called says: POTENTIAL BUYER: I did hire in a copywriter a year or so back to write a promotion for one of my other products. YOU: Oh great. Would you be comfortable enough sharing with me how you decided to hire that particular copywriter? If they refuse to answer that kind of question (unlikely) first immediately apologise for your question, and then thank them for their time on the phone speaking with you. Say you just felt drawn to call them because youve liked what youve seen of their work and they seemed approachable. That kind of backtrack on your behalf will more often than not re-open the conversation and create pressure-free-room for them to answer your question.

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If they really dont want to answer the question no problem, just move on feeling good about yourself because the very worst thing that will happen on the call Is That You Will Get To Tell The Person That You Admired Their Work Leaving Them With A Good Feeling About You And you wont feel bad (or out of integrity) about yourself either. How could you? You wont have gone in trying to sell or push something onto somebody. And you wont have made the person youve called feel like you were trying to sell them all that will have happened is youll have discovered (early on in the conversation) the person youve called is perfectly happy with the decisions theyve made and the results theyre getting and are not willing to look at how they can make better decisions going forward. You have to respect and accept that even if you can see a how you could immediately improve their results a hundred-fold. To start telling them what you could do would move you in to selling mode and out of helping them to buy mode. In most cases, however, theyll tell you why and how they chose to hire the copywriter (or whatever type of consultant / coach they hired). Maybe theyd tell you it was because theyd heard good things about them. In which case you need to write down the exact words they use: HEARD GOOD THINGS ABOUT THEM. Now you need to use a facilitating question that enables both of you to discover whats important about the decision making criteria they have just shared with you so youd say: YOU: Hmm. Interesting. Whats important to you about hearing good things about a copywriter? They may say: POTENTIAL BUYER: It makes me feel confident that theyll deliver good work that will produce results for me. Write down the exact key words and drill down one level deeper by saying: YOU: Ultimately, whats important to you about that? POTENTIAL BUYER: Well, I want to be as certain as can be that whatever money I invest in a copywriter is going to be returned to me in sales by at least 2 to 1. Again, you need to get those key words (return investment 2:1) written down on paper. Then you move onto the next (SECOND) decision making criteria like so: YOU: Interesting. What else made you decide to hire them? Perhaps theyd say they had seen promotions theyd produced for other clients and liked what they saw, and when you asked Whats important to you about that? they may say

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their writing style resonates with the way they want to portray their material - and then when you follow up with And whats ultimately important to you about that? and they say, for example, their market is very turned off by hype and for the copy to work it has to be written in a much softer, caring, way. In which case you would need to write down: SEEN PROMOTIONS FOR OTHER CLIENTS AND LIKED WHAT THEY SAW WRITING STYLE RESONATES WITH THE WAY THEY WANT TO PORTRAY THEIR MATERIAL THEIR MARKET IS VERY TURNED OFF BY HYPE AND FOR THE COPY TO WORK IT HAS TO BE WRITTEN IN A MUCH SOFTER, CARING, WAY. And then you ask about their next (THIRD) decision making criteria so youd say: YOU: That makes a lot of sense. Was there anything else? Lets say the person you called said it was because the copywriter they hired charged a reasonable fee at the time. So you would need to write down: CHARGED A REASONABLE FEE AT THE TIME and continue drilling down with two to three follow up questions that enables you both to understand EXACTLY WHAT THEY MEAN by a reasonable fee. Remember, your mental picture of what constitutes a reasonable fee could (and probably will be) completely different to the prospects mental picture of what constitutes a reasonable fee. So you need to ask one or two additional questions to find out exactly what a reasonable fee (or whatever) looks like to the prospect. Lets say in this case it meant the copywriter charged 10,000 and he broke up his fee into two payments, i.e., 5,000 upfront and 5,000 after 30-days. So again, their exact key words need to be written down on paper namely: CHARGED A REASONABLE FEE AT THE TIME CHARGED 10,000 5,000 UPFRONT, $5,000 AFTER 30-DAYS. YOU: Anything else? POTENTIAL BUYER: Er... no I think that was about it. YOU: Okay, good. Is there anything else that would be important to you if you were to consider hiring a copywriter or somebody who could increase your sales conversion in the future? POTENTIAL BUYER: Hmm. Lets see. Probably Id want to get a couple of references from their other clients. You would write down: WANT TO GET A COUPLE OF REFERENCES FROM OTHER CLIENTS. YOU: Oh sure, that would be a good idea. What do you mean specifically when you say references? How would you like to receive those references and how would you know they were good enough for you?

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(COMMENTARY NOTE: Remember, the word references will mean different things to different people. So you need to ask and clarify EXACTLY what the person you are speaking with means when they use words like references. You want to see in your minds eye exactly what they see when they say words like references do they see a phone call, do they see a printed personal letter to them and what kind of information do they see being included in the reference?). Lets say for illustration purposes that their idea of references means they have permission to call at least two other clients and those other clients will be notified in advance (by you) so they will therefore be expecting the prospects call. And lets say the prospect would want to hear how the copywriter dealt with deadlines and ongoing edits / alterations etc., to copy after first draft submission. Then check again for anything else that would be important in the decision making criteria. How? Easy just say: YOU: Anything else? POTENTIAL BUYER: You know, I dont think there is. (COMMENTARY NOTE: In any given situation where you are eliciting a prospects decision making criteria (as demonstrated above) a prospect will nearly always have about 3 to 5 decision making criteria for buying or hiring something that they unconsciously process before making a buying / hiring decision. Okay, so far youve got to the stage of eliciting a persons decision making criteria around hiring in outside help to increase their sales. Again, in most cases there will be 3-5 decision making criteria a person will have. Now that youve elicited the persons unique decision making (buying / hiring) criteria you have in essence the correct numbers to the safe. HOWEVER having the correct numbers to the safe will not open the safe (get a buying decision) UNLESS You Have Those Numbers To The Safe (Decision Making Criteria) In The Correct Sequence! So thats what you need to do next. And its a lot easier (and quicker) to do than write about. All you have to do is check and verify which particular decision making criteria is more important than the next. And the way you do that is by asking. As in: Between `having a 2:1 return on your investment and having `soft, caring copy what is most important to you? The prospect (potential buyer) will tell you. And then you check and verify with each of the 3-5 decision making criteria pieces. Once you have them in the correct sequence you will know because there will be no hesitation or second guessing on the prospects behalf. Theyll just instantly (automatically) say something

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to the effect of: Yes, thats it, thats right. whenever you play-back their correct sequence back to them using the key words theyve told you. Okay, by now you have worked in partnership with the prospect and you have elicited their hereinto unconscious decision making process (in this example case for hiring in somebody to help them increase the sales of their promotion). Now You Are Now Able To Fire Off Their Unconscious Decision Making Process If You Decide Some Aspect Of What You Have To Offer Would Satisfy Their Criteria And if you have their decision making criteria elicited in the correct buying / hiring pattern order the prospect will automatically want to buy / hire in what you have to offer. They have to. Its their unconscious buying / hiring pattern that youll be triggering. They will just FEEL like buying / hiring you if you correctly fire-off their unconscious decision making (buying / hiring) pattern. Again, to fire-off (play-back) their unconscious decision making pattern -- all you have to do is feedback what they have said to you. So lets say for illustration purposes the prospect had verified with you that the correct order of sequence of their decision making process around hiring in somebody to help them increase the sales of their promotion(s) was: 1. They can produce at least a 2:1 return on their fee investment. 2. The prospect would be able to phone at least two other clients of the outside consultant / copywriter and get favourable references over the phone. 3. They can write in a soft, caring way which the market responds to much better than hyped-up, salesy copy. 4. They charge a reasonable fee in the region of $10,000 and ideally the fee is paid half upfront and half 30-days or so later. Heres how you would feed that back to the prospect (potential buyer): YOU: Okay, let me see if Ive heard you correctly youve told me the most important things youd need to know to be comfortable bringing in outside help to increase the sales of your promotion would be... they could produce at least a 2:1 return on their fee investment youd be able to phone at least two other of their clients and get favourable references over the phone they could write in a soft, caring way which youve found the market responds to much better than hyped-up, salesy copy and they would ideally charge a reasonable fee in the region of 10,000 and preferably the fee is paid half upfront and half 30-days or so later. Is that a fair summation of what youve told me? POTENTIAL BUYER: (Instantly) -Yes, thats correct. Now you can, if you feel confident you can match up and satisfy what you do with the potential buyers decision making criteria, ask them if they would want to hear how you could meet their criteria.

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If they give you permission -- (most likely, because theyve now told you exactly what they want) -- you can explain how you can meet their criteria by fleshing out examples of what you have done / the way you could work with them etc., around their unique hiring criteria. And if you follow the decision making facilitation process that Ive outlined in this strategy report, and then match up your solutions to their unique criteria Its Now Almost Certain The Person You Cold Called Is Going To Buy Into The Concept Of Hiring You Then, the road is clear for you both to become collaborative partners in working out the specific details of what specific projects you could work on etc., and where you would have the most positive impact (results) for them right away. But, you say: What if they really want to hire me but cannot afford my fee? Heres my take on that: Money (Your Fee) Is Never An Obstacle; The Lack Of Options You Can Provide Is The Obstacle For example, if all you offered were, say, copywriting services at 15,000 a pop and, the only thing holding a person back from hiring you is your fee, Id advise you come up with a number of different options for your services (with different / lower) price points that would enable the person you are conversing (collaborating) with to buy in and become a client at the appropriate level for them. Anyway, heres the bottom line: not only will the above strategy lead to more immediate fee paying work for you you will be the only person in your market to have formulated and systemised a potential buyers decision making criteria for hiring in your type of expertise what is more you will have made a friend and ally who you can get back to and fire-off their decision making process at any time in the future. And, whenever you do fire off their unique decision making criteria around what you can do They Are Automatically Going To Want To Hire You (Or Buy From You) There Will Be No Objections I think thats quite a good position for a consultant / coach to be in. Warmly,

Michael Silk. PS. Eliciting the correct sequence of a persons unconscious buying / hiring criteria and playing-it-back to them wrapped around your kind of services / products is very powerful. It

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will literally always lead to the prospect conceptually buying into what you are offering. As long as you can provide an appropriate solution to match their budget you will have a client. However, and this is important, if you make out your solutions / services meet their criteria (and you know they really dont) you should not use the powerful strategy described above to deceive people into buying from you. Thats not cool. PPS. I fear writing about how to elicit and playback a persons unconscious decision making criteria and formulating and systemising it for them looks somewhat complicated on printed page. Its really not. Its a lot easier and quicker (and will almost become second nature to you) once youve practiced it a few times. So heres what I would encourage you to do. First, Id recommend reading this strategy report through at least 2-3 times so the whole philosophy / mindset and overall sequence (and reasoning behind) the approach sinks in properly. Then, before trying it for real in a real prospect conversation, why not try it out on a couple friends or family members. Just pick something like, say, their shirt or their car. Ask them whats important to them when buying X. Get their 3-5 decision making criteria (understand exactly what they mean by each criteria and whats important to them about each criteria) and then check and verify the correct sequence. Then say something like: If I could provide you with X that would meet criteria 1 (flesh out how it would meet criteria 1) and meet criteria 2 (flesh out example of how it would meet criteria 2) and meet criteria 3 (flesh out example of how it would meet criteria 3) etc., etc., would you want it? They will automatically say yes. And by the way, this process works just as well whether you sell Hats Or Houses! So its an excellent process you can integrate into your fee-based services for your own clients it will make you much, much, more valuable to them! PPPS. If the person youve called ever says: Is this a sales call? -- flip it back on them by saying: I hope you dont try and sell me anything on this call. I promise not to try and sell you anything if you promise not to sell me anything fair? After all, you wont be trying to sell anything, right? If they buy it will be because you havent tried to sell them anything. They will be deciding to buy based on their own buying criteria. PPPPS. Ever get one of those annoying telemarketers call you up? Next time it happens immediately jump in by saying this: Is this a sales call or are you calling to hire me? When they try to dodge the fact that its a sales call cut in with It definitely sounds like youre trying to hire me. What made you decide to say what you said when I first answered the phone? Who knows, maybe you can turn a telemarketer into a client with the help the buyer to buy decision making criteria strategy laid out above. What will you coach them on as a client? The above info of course

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