Blaze Your Own Trail - S2:E25- 5 Minute Selling with Alex Goldfayn

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Alex Goldfayn is the CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute, LLC., a revenue growth consultancy for clients who want to grow quickly. Alex’s average client grows by 15-20% in their first year of working with him. He is among the top-rated and most requested sales speakers in the world, motivating sales teams, managers, executives and owners to take simple action which will grow their business. Alex delivers more than 50 keynotes speeches and workshops on sales growth per year. Alex’s latest book is called 5-Minute Selling: The Proven, Simple System That Can Double Your Sales Even When You Don’t Have Time. ( published John C. Wiley & Sons). Alex lives in the Chicago area with his wife and eight-year-old twins, and it’s immediately obvious to everyone that Alex’s wife, Lisa, who raises the kids and feeds Alex, works much harder than he does! In this episode we discuss: Where Alex is from His early years Lessons he learned from his Father When he got into Entrepreneurship His latest book 5 Minute Selling And more! Connect with Alex: Website: https://goldfayn.com/about/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgoldfayn/ Get your copy of 5 Minute Selling: https://www.amazon.com/5-Minute-Selling-Proven-Simple-System/dp/1119687659/ Connect with Jordan: Follow on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blazeyourowntrailmastermind/ Need help with your Sales or Marketing Strategy? Book a call today! https://calendly.com/impulseconsulting/30-minute-discovery-call Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. I hope you are doing well. I'm looking forward to releasing this episode with Alex Goldfane. Alex is an author. He's a speaker. And really, if you need help, leveling up your sales, he's the right guy. So you're going to hear really about his backstory and his journey and all about his newest book that is dropping this week. So I hope you enjoy it. I'll talk to you after. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest to be today. His name is Alex Goldfane. And I'm going to give him just a second to tell you who he is and a little bit about what he does. Jordan, thanks for having me.

I really appreciate being on with you and having a chance to try and help your audience and add some value. So I run a revenue growth consulting company. It's called the Revenue Growth Consultancy. I grow the companies of my clients. And so everybody grows an average of 10. to 20% annually in new sales on top of whatever they were doing before from this work. And the book we're going to talk about today called Five Minutes Selling is essentially what I teach my clients. And so everything we talk about here on our podcast today, as well as everything

that's in the book, which is launching this week, the week that this is airing, it's what I do with my clients. And so I don't wonder if this will work for our listeners and viewers. I don't hope that this will work. We know that if you take some of these actions that we're going to talk about right now, that your sales will grow. This is a fact. And so that's what we're doing today. Awesome.

I appreciate that context. So on the show, one of the things I love to do is really rewind a little bit, rewind and find out, you know, how Alex was as a kid? So if you can give some context, you know, what part of the country did you grow up in? And, you know, how were you as a kid? Were you definitely more into academics or did you have a passion for any sports? Were you a sports fan growing up? So lots there. So I was born in the Soviet Union.

So I was born in Russia and we came here when I was two years old. So it was 1978. My parents dragged us out of there. My dad was 26 years old. So basically as a child himself, right, as a very, very young man, he pulled the whole family out. And nobody else really wanted to come but him. You know, because America was the enemy back then, right? It was the Cold War at the height of the Cold War.

And they didn't know English. They obviously had no job here. They didn't really know anybody here. And we came with $20. $20.00.US is what we came with. The last two years, my business has done $3 million a year. And I run a solo consulting practice. So, you know, from that to here, I'm just incredibly grateful every single day.

You know, I'm grateful to be here. I'm great. In America, we live in the Chicago area. I'm, you know, even when there is struggle, and God knows we've struggled, you know, as great as business is going now, my wife and I multiple times, we've been out of money, you know, and as adults, you know, well into our marriage, multiple times. But even when there's struggle, we get to struggle here, you know. We get to work on it here, where some hard work and some hard work.

Perseverance can dig us out, can make it better. And in most countries in the world, it's not like that, you know? You can't make an impact on your life in most countries in the world. Here in America, we can. And I think that's pretty awesome. To answer your question of what kind of kid I was, man, I was an immigrant-only child with a really big accent. So I was, you know, nervous all the time. I was uncomfortable.

I didn't have many friends because I couldn't, I couldn't communicate with him. I couldn't talk to him. And when I did, it wasn't how they talk. And so, I mean, I was an introvert. I love sports. Love Chicago sports. Love the Cubs. Love the Bulls.

Love the Bears. I still do. You know, my dad got me into that. He'd sit me down on the couch as a three-year-old as a four-year-old and we'd watch the games together. And even now, going back to the immigrant kid with an accent, even now, somebody hears an accent. in talking with me.

And I said, where are you from? And I said, I'm from Chicago. And they go, no, no, originally where are you from? I said, I'm from the Soviet Union. Why do you ask? From Russia. And they say, I was born in Ukraine. And they say, well, I could hear an accent.

I was like, no, you can't. You can't hear an accent. They go, no, I could hear just a little bit of an accent. And it still makes me mad, right? Even though now I like being an immigrant. I like the fact that I have that to Paul Backman, that story of my parents making it here, that experience I went through.

I worked so hard for so long at fitting in and getting rid of that accent that I hate it still, right? I'm about to be 44 years old. I still hate it when people can hear an accent when they talk to me. Yeah, so I can relate to that. So my dad's from the Philippines. He's been in the country since the early 80s. And he still sounds like he's living in the Philippines. He still has that whole accent, you know, and he tries to tell me he's like, hey, is my accent?

gotten better. I'm like, it hasn't changed. It hadn't changed at all, you know, has not, has not shifted, but, you know, I could definitely see how for you, you've been working out, you know, it's something that you've put, put energy in and then people can still recognize it in you. So tell me a little bit about your, your dad. So what type of, what type of work did he do? And what are some things that maybe he instilled in you to get you and your wife through some of these moments of despair where, you know, your business isn't performing? Yeah. There are some lessons that you learn from him?

Yeah, you know, for sure. Massive lessons. And I tell these stories in most of my speeches that I do, in my presentations and workshops. So he was an electrical engineer in, you know, back in Ukraine. And when we came here without the language, right, without really, you know, anything, but mostly the language, he couldn't do that here.

He couldn't get a job. So what happened was I went and kind of spent Monday through Friday with my grandparents, who also came at the same time as we did. While my parents tried to work and at night went to school, went to like a community college to learn the language, you know. And so my dad, he drove, he hates it when I tell this, but I'll tell it anyway. He's still embarrassed by it. He washed dishes at a restaurant and delivered pizzas and drove a taxi. That's what he did.

Wow. And he's still embarrassed by. and a couple years ago, he retired, about a year and a half ago now, he retired from Baxter Pharmaceutical as the head of their engineering in their IV unit, the department that makes the IV bags, you know, and fills them. So he was the head of all electrical engineering there. Wow. So that's what he did in his life, you know?

So imagine the courage it takes. Well, I mean, you don't have to imagine hard. Your dad probably did it. imagine the courage it takes to go to a different place, not just a different country, but like an enemy country, right? A country that's your sworn enemy. Without the language and with no money and with no connections and making it, you know, that drive, that immigrant drive and perseverance.

And, you know, now they're surrounded there. They got into this group of, you know, immigrants and they got very tight together because everybody was going through the same, you know, sort of experience and panic and everything. And they're still close friends altogether, but they all made it, man. Every single family, right, that my parents were tight with as 20-somethings, they all made it. They all succeeded. How did his journey go? Hey, the next time I see you on videos, it will be film all behind you, buddy. I agree.

Yeah, no, his journey was, he came to the U.S. and he got a job with a landscaping company. He worked there a couple years. And then he just said, you know what? Like, I don't feel like I need to work for somebody doing this. I can build this for myself. And now he's had a business for 40 years. He's never, never put an ad to paper.

It's all been black and white business cards handing it to the neighbors who have handed them to their friends. And literally, you know he's a couple hundred clients that he does year round so that's how his business is uh really grown but yeah i think you know when you come from another place and in your father's case you're literally uh you know coming over to the enemy side of things yeah yeah you know it's it's gonna be it's going to be tough, you know, it's going to be hard. But I think, you know, from from hearing the way that he did in that work ethic, I mean, it's like he was, it was gigs, right? Essentially,

gigs is what he was doing, three part-time gigs. And, you know, I think a lot of people listening will probably be able to relate to that because there's people doing that, doing that now, of course, not in that, not in that same context, but you got people that are driving for Uber eats and then they're going and working at a restaurant part-time. And then they're, you know, doing another thing online because people are trying to make ends meet, you know. But I think putting it from the context of what he had to deal with, it's language barrier, you know, like you're dealing with the language barrier. You got 20 bucks that you arrive to this new land.

And you got to support your family somehow. Yeah. So I think, you know, finding that group of people was probably foundational for them. It's interesting when you tell the story from this side of it, and it's probably like this with any challenge, right? including the sales work we're going to talk about eventually. When you tell the story from the side of success, right, you know everything worked out well already,

and you know the story ended well. When you're going through it, in the middle of it, you don't know that. And you think you're doing the right thing and you hope you're doing the right thing and you're panicky as hell, right? But you don't know if you're going to make it. And that's the key is to push through

it in that time and when you've got those thoughts in your head and those are the people who succeed you know when you do the things that you know are the right things to do even when it's not working even when it's not going well and even when it's scary and I would say it's exactly that way in sales and sales growth 100% yeah because you know without without the action you're never going to create any type of momentum, right? And sometimes even, even though momentum is going, the results may not happen right away, right? Like you're still moving forward, but it's something hasn't clicked yet. Yeah. And then that one day it clicks and then it's like, wow, you know, our work is, is, you know, basically nearly all rejection. You know, it's in baseball, and I know

you're into sports. We talked about it a little bit. In baseball, if you fail 70% of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame, right? In sales, we fail more than that. You know, we don't succeed three out of ten attempts. So in sales, we're getting rejected 80 to 90% of the time. And that's the most successful salespeople are getting rejected 80 to 90% of the time. You know? So you kind of have to change your mindset to where the nose get us to the yes. You know, we need the nose to get to the yeses. It's impossible to get the yeses without the nose, right? You can't do it. You're not trying. If you're not getting no all the time, you're not trying. In certain. Exactly it. Yeah. So, so you have to plow through as our fathers did, right? When they came here,

you have to plow through the failures, you know, and the rejection and continue doing the right things even when it may be difficult, it may not be working, and when it's scary as home. That's exactly it, yeah. And, you know, I think with some people, they, they really get scared of the rejection so they don't make the attempt, right? And the attempts are actually what get you better at handling it. You know, like, I remember my very first, I did sales at 14 years old was my first job. I don't know what, what age you got your first sales job in. I'm going to, I'm going to make the assumption. It was probably early on, right? But, you know, I remember my first job, it was to go knock on doors and try to get people to sign up for the newspaper. There's

going to be some listeners that never even read a newspaper probably, right? But you're literally trying to get people to sign up for the daily or the daily in Sunday. And I remember that first day, it's tough because everybody told me no. And I went back and I said, nobody, I guess nobody buys the newspaper. I don't know why they didn't want it. But when I look back in hindsight, it was my attitude. Because by the time the 10th person told me no, you could see it all over my face. Yeah. On in the dumps, my body language had shifted. I'm kind of hunched over when I'm knocking on the door and when they answer it. I'm already basically telling them to tell me no. Does that mean, you know, and I learned a lesson that day with the distributor. He said,

listen, you're not going to understand this Jordan today, but I want you and hopefully down the road you will, but the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. That's right. And I didn't really understand. I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And I did eventually go back for day two and I did get better. And later down the road, I learned it when I was a sales trainer and I had somebody go out in the field and they had a crappy day and they had that look on their face that I had at 14.

And I said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. And it's completely true, right? Like, I think we have to really get into figuring out. what we can do prior to them opening their mouth we got to figure out ways to break the ice yeah it's a great line and you said a lot of really good stuff there and uh i'd like to address two of the points one about the sale doesn't start until we hear now and the first thing that you said in that story was fear um fear is the reason that we don't do the things that we know we should do you know so everybody knows that phone calls are better for sales than emails are right and yet we email a lot more than we call

everybody knows that asking for referrals is a really good thing to do for business and we'll probably grow if we ask for referrals well we don't ask for very many referrals we think about it a lot and we know we should do it but we avoid it because of fear and so we don't do it and so fear is the driving force uh is the driving mindset for sales people all sales people myself included um and so it in regards to the sale doesn't start until we say no until we hear no look I've had entire years in my business I sell about I do about one new project a month and my projects run six to 12 months so they're large projects and I've had entire years in my business where every single client that I worked with that year had told me no previously every single one and so if I had stopped when they said no we would have made no money that year you know I think my face favorite quote of all quotes, and I don't do many quotes, but I've got a couple that I really like. And my favorite one is Thomas Edison, who said, many of life's failures are people who did not

realize how close they were to success when they gave up. So you never know if the next effort is going to be the one that gets you your yes. And look, we're in sales, right? So if you've already been rejected eight times by a customer, right, over the course of years, or months. You've been rejected eight times. A ninth rejection is literally no worse. It's the same. There's no difference. You've lost nothing between the eighth and the ninth, you know? So you never know if the next one's going to get to there. So try it differently. Try it again. Try it with somebody else. Try it from a different perspective. But try. You know, for God's sake, you put in so much work. Try. Don't not

try because then you'll always wonder, what if that's, next one would have been the one. 100%. So I'd love to share with the audience. What was your first sales job? And what are some lessons that you learned then that you're still preaching and talking about with your clients that you're helping perform in sales today? So I don't know.

You might be surprised to hear this. I've never had a job. I've never had a boss. I've never gotten a paycheck from anybody else. Unfortunately or unfortunately, I don't know. I've never had a job. job that I got paid every two weeks. I feel like sometimes that would be nice. Like now in the middle of a pandemic, it would be nice to know there's a check coming every two weeks, right? So I've

always been in a position where, you know, if I don't sell it, I'm not making any money. And always for myself. So I started my first business when I was 20 years old. I started a computer training company. And I was in, I was in college and then I was in grad school. I went to grad school for one year. I was a psychology major. I was pre-met psych. And then I went to a graduate doctoral program in clinical psychology. So I was going to be a clinical psychologist listening to people's problems in a room. I do the same thing now, except it's all about sales, right? And helping sales people. And so there's a lot of psychology in my work, I think, because of that background. Selling boldly, which is my previous book, the orange one behind me there, it's all about the principles of positive

psychology and how they apply to sales. and sales improvement, right? So it's about confidence and optimism and gratitude in those things. So my first sales job was a computer training company. And we would ultimately, and that was, by the way, the last, so that is the company that built up. That was the only business I ever had with staff. And I built up to 13 people.

And it was such a difficult, frustrating experience for me because I was, you know, 21, 22, 23 years old. and the people that were working for me were 50, you know, 45, 50, they were managing me, right? I wasn't managing them. They were managing me. And spending what little money I had that I was paying them with, right? And we were, you know, just whatever was sold went immediately to payroll, right? Just to keep the company alive.

So, you know, what I learned, I think back then was if you want to succeed in sales, I think the mindset absolutely needs to be, I'm helping people. I'm not trying to convince them to do something. So you have to believe. And again, we're back to mindset. We're back to psychology. If you don't believe in your incredible value, then it's really hard to behave accordingly. Right.

We were talking before this started. Our behavior follows our mindset. You can't outsell your thinking, right? If you think you're selling and pitching and you're trying to sell the customer and you're, you know, trying to sell the customer and you're, you're stepping on their toes and you're bothering them and you're trying to make them do something they don't want to do. How are you going to sell? You're going to sell fearfully, you know, timidly, trepidiously.

You're going to be meek. You're not going to pick up the phone. You're going to shy away from the phone. You're going to send LinkedIn messages, you know, to sell it. Because the rejection there is not intimate. You know, you sent your message and you've done it. You know, there, I've succeeded. I've sent my message, right?

Sure, you've succeeded. So I think back then I learned, right? I've got to believe in the value. I had an old business coach back then that said, the first sale is to yourself. The first sale is always to yourself. Yeah, no, I love that. You've got to buy it, you know?

You've got to believe it. Because if you don't, as you said earlier, when you were knocking on door selling newspapers, they're going to feel your discomfort. You know, you know when a sales guy doesn't believe it, somebody calls you on the phone and says, hey Jordan I'm calling you about this or that and you say I'm sorry I'm not interested I'm having dinner down they go I'm sorry to bother you by click that's it they're going to give up that fast

that guy's not going to sell you anything and that's a lot of people a lot of people are still doing that in 2020 today right they're they're still making those those really small mistakes but I I think it's very easy I can remember you know when I was we had just opened a brand new lease up This is in the property management realm. And we have this brand new building. It was building in 2009. And it had this one floor plan that was shaped kind of like a triangle. And I remember, and this is, you know, four or five years into property management.

And I'm the property manager. And I walk in this place. I'm like, who's going to want to rent this place? Well, guess how many tours I took and how many they rented? I took about six. And all of them said, no. Why? Because I didn't believe in it.

Right to your point. So what I had to do is I had to literally. look at that layout and say, all right, how can I position this in a way that would actually make the uniqueness shine versus stick out like a sore thumb? Yes, I had to get creative. And guess what happened the next time I went in there? They leased it right away, right? Because, again, it is about that self-belief.

If you don't believe in you, the reason why people buy 90% of it's because of you. Yeah. It's because they believe in you. Yeah, exactly. That you're going to take care of them. It's got to be a relationship, not a transaction. Yeah. It's basically impossible to convince customers to believe in you if you don't believe in you, right?

They can't believe in you more than you believe in you. 100%. 100%. So what was the next thing after that? So you have the startup, right? You got your own business. You're not even a W-2 employee. You just jump right, head deep into entrepreneurship, which has a lot of difficulties then.

But yeah, I'd love to hear what happened. I mean, I'll give you the short version because I don't think. think you want to hear the whole winding journey, but the short version is it grew with the internet bubble, right? And when the internet, so we were, we were teaching software for the customers of our clients. So, so we had clients who made custom software. We would learn it. They would teach us and we would teach all their customers. So it was cool. It was a cool gig. We would travel. We'd go to the customer's locations, you know, we'd teach them. did okay, right?

It ended up right around $3 million, right where I am now, except I have 13 people. And now I have no people. But it was like a fleeting moment that lasted because when the internet bubble burst, all those companies literally went away because all their customers were internet companies, right, that were growing. And literally like in the span of a month, almost all the clients went away. And I'm, again, I'm what, 21.

22, 23. I got married at 24. So I remember, like, in the month of our wedding, in the weeks leading into the wedding, my dad and I were moving out furniture from our office spaces. You know, we were like trying to sound, and that was like in the weeks before my wedding. And we were, we were emptying. We had just moved into the damn things, too. And, you know, I was there for, I don't know, a year maybe. And we were moving all the stuff out. And it's, it was the first and most

damaging failure of my life because up until that point you know I haven't failed in anything most people

right when you get your first big failure it's it's shocking to the system and it took some time

it took it took years to get over it was very damaging to me and so from there at the time do you want to

if you want the next step which was your question from there in that company I was writing and speaking a lot to build business to market with. I remember I'd go to all the Rotary clubs. I'd go to all the Kwanos of the rubber chicken circuit, right? They called it.

And you go to, and everybody needs a 20-minute speaker every week. Right? So that's where I learned how to speak. And then we had a local suburban newspaper, and I would write about, you know, Microsoft office and say, hey, if you want to learn, you know, software, then just reach out to us at the bottom of the article. So when the business that I was writing and speaking,

for went away, I turned to the writing and the speaking, actually. So I ended up writing a column. I kind of stepped up from one newspaper to another. I ended up writing a column for the Chicago Tribune. And it became syndicated. And I ran in 300 publication. And so I wrote. And then I did a lot of speaking. And it was all around technology at the time because that was a hot time to be in technology. So when I was writing my syndicated column on technology, I was also doing a radio show on WGN, did that for three. years that each thing for, I think, maybe radio show for two and a half, column for three, three and a half, something like that. And I was covering technology when the first iPhone

came out. I was covering technology when the Palm Pilot was on, when the TVs went from two TVs to the first plasma came out during my radio show. I mean, it was really cool time to cover technology, you know, at the height of the tech boom. And all of these tech companies were marketing to me, right? They were pitching me because they wanted to be covered, you know. And there weren't a lot of people with the number, with the audience that I had at the time. There were some, but there weren't a lot. But they were these companies, you know, Microsoft and IBM and Dell, they were awful at it. They were awful at market. Do you remember the back pages of magazines? And you'd open them and they would fold out. There were like three, right, fold out pages. And it was

like this and the whole thing was little box, it's little squares of computers, pictures of computers, remember, over and over again. It was a desktop tower and a monitor and a keyboard. Another tower, a monitor is just awful. It was all about the specs, you know, and that's how they pitched it. So I helped them. I said, you don't talk about the specs. Talk about how it helps people. Tell people what you can do with this. And they started following my advice. And then my wife says, you know, you could get paid for this. Because the media money, I was a contractor for these, you know, for the trip and for the WJN and I was doing a weekly column and a weekly radio show.

And so I started charging them. I started doing little consulting things. I didn't even know that's what I was doing. And then I wrote a book. The first book there called Evangelist Marketing. Evangelist Marketing is about how to market consumer electronics because that was my audience at the time. Marketing for consumer electronics. As soon as that book came out, non-tech companies started calling me. And so, you know, mom and pops, bigger companies. And so

that was, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 years ago that these non-tech companies, I realize I like working with them a lot more because I get the owners, you know, and I get the, it's almost always a multi-generational business. You know, grandpa started it, now dad's in it. The kids are in it now, dad's running it. So that's more my my sort of feel. You know, I like that. And you work at these big tech companies and I'd work with the CMO, let's say, the chief marketing officer. The way they get ahead in their career at public companies is to change up. You know, so you're at a job for two years and you go to the next one. And that's how you climb the ladder a little bit. And so the client's never around very long. Or I get the family that's been here for generations, right? And they ain't

going anywhere. They've been around for 80 years. Same people. And I like helping family. So anyway, so from evangelist marketing down here in the glare is the revenue growth habit, then selling boldly two years ago. And now coming out this week, five minutes selling. All about sales growth systematically. Systematic sales growth through proactive communications with customers and prospect. There's the long story. Love it, love it. No, I appreciate you sharing that.

And so, you know, thinking about the journey from, you know, book one to now, getting ready to release book for you know it's really shifted it seems like from the tech space to now i think you're it seems like you're working with any type of organization that just needs to add more revenue add more sales anybody who sells that wants to grow yeah i have so i'd say the majority of my clients are are in mature manufacturing and distribution spaces uh but maybe as as much as a quarter of my clients or service companies too you know property management like yours or investment companies or insurance companies. I have several engineering firms that are clients. And so look, what we know is if you communicate in system with customers and prospects, they will

buy more. Not once in a while when you happen to think of it, because that's a snowflake that falls to the ground and melts. When I happen to think about calling once or twice this week, if I pick up the phone, that's fleeting. You know, that's not going to make systemic change. for you. If I make five calls a day, that's 25 a week, 100 a month, and 1,200 a year. And the key with that is, call them when nothing is wrong, right? When do customers call us when there's a problem or they need something urgently? When do customers hear from salespeople? When there's a problem? Salespeople never call customers when nothing's wrong. It's, I can't be there on time. I have to reschedule, the price is going up, or I got you, I sent you the wrong thing. Right. So salespeople

are bringing customers problems. I'm suggesting you call your customers and you say to them, Jordan, it's Alex. How are you? How's your family? I was thinking about you. What are the kids doing? I'm wondering, right? How was summer? Was it normal? What are they doing for school? Are they going to go to school? Is it going to be remote? What are people at your company doing? Are they going into the office? Are they Are they working at home? I'm curious about these things. And then I would say, great catching up with you. Listen, man, what are you working on these days that I might be able to help you with?

Right? Where can I help? I'd like to help you. Where can I help? And you pivot the conversation to business. Human calls when nothing is wrong in system. There's no way to do a lot of those and have business not grow. Business will grow.

It always does. 100%. Yeah. And I also think, especially if you're looking at from the comments, context that this is a current customer, right? Everything's been going okay. Nothing's bad. Nothing's good. It's just kind of right in the middle. Like this could turn somebody into, you know, maybe they've shifted a little bit to passive, right? Because if you think of it from a customer experience standpoint, you've got your detractors, your passives, and your promoters. Well, all this is going to do is for one, it's going to increase sales, but also it's going to increase them as a promoter for your business. Who doesn't want? people that are actually promoting and saying, man, they didn't have to reach out. Alex called out of the blue and literally just asked how Sparky was doing. You know what I'm saying?

Like that adds so much value from a personal level that like you said, organically turns into business because who doesn't want to hear how can I add value to you? How can I help you out today? You couldn't be more right, Jordan. It's, you know, nobody will ever say to you, no, I'd rather you not make my life easy. today. Nobody says that, right? Everybody says, oh my God, he wants to help me, right? It's a miracle. Look, we're all doing the same thing. I wrote the book in January. You know, most of this was written in January. Pre-pendom it, normal times, you know, I think I had like 18 audience

sessions in January out of 20 days. So I was, and I was all different audiences. And so I was waking up at 4 in the morning, writing the book and then doing my workshop. After the workshop, I was doing two a days, right? In sports parlance. And then the pandemic hit, and we were well into our editing. And so in May, at the end of editing, I wrote a note in the book. So it's the first thing in the book. And it says, everything in this book is about selling from a distance. None of it says, go meet with more people.

Meet people, great. But you're already doing that. Most people know how to meet people. I'm saying, let's talk to them while we sit at our desk. And they sit at theirs. And so the point of the note is everything in here is more effective now in pandemic. times than it was in normal times. And it was really effective in normal times, right? And so, look, we're all doing the same thing. We're all sitting at our desk. I'm at mine. You're at

yours. Our customers also sitting at their desk. Nobody's traveling. Nobody's running around to meetings. All of us have something next to us as we sit at our desk, our phones. All of us have our phones as we sit here, including all of your customers and all of your prospects. And so when you call that phone, you're going to be the only one. We think our customers' phones are ringing off the hook. No, nobody's calling them. Everybody's afraid. Nobody wants to bother them. Nobody wants to annoy them. Nobody wants to lose the customer. And if they are calling them, they're bringing them a problem, right? They're taking a problem, taking a fire. They're saying, here you go, Jordan. Here's a fire for you, right? Don't burn your hair off. If you call

them and say, look, I actually have clients call customers in my program doing this work. And this is an actual story. Client called a customer. And he says, Jennifer, it's Mike. How are you? And Jennifer says, what's wrong? Because people only call her when something's wrong. And he says, nothing's wrong.

I'm just checking in. And she goes, what do you need? Because people only need something when they call. And he says, I don't need anything. I just wanted to check in with you. I was thinking about you. How you do it? And he said there was a long pause.

And there was like a 20 second silence. he thought she was gone, like the line cut off. But after 20 seconds, she goes, really? Nobody calls me like this. And I'm telling you, if you do this, you're going to be the only one in your customers' lives. And they're going to reward you with business. People want to be helped. And so if we help them systematic, I don't even call it selling, Jordan. I call it helping. Help more people, more. That's the work. And if you do it, they will thank you with their money. because they're going to grab onto you, and they're not going to let go because they don't have anybody else like that. The competition isn't like that. It's a really easy crowd to stand out from.

100%. Yeah, and I think you made up a great point earlier in this episode when you said, the other thing is, you know, if for some reason they don't want to do anything with you now, they probably know somebody that does, right? And so going from the referral angle as well, like, hey, although I can't help you today, is there one or two names you can think of? I'd love for you to share those with me, right? Because I think, you know, one thing I learned early on in sales is it's all about the ask, right? If you don't ask, you'll never get. So if you don't bring it up contextually in conversation, you're never going to get the business that might be there.

That's right. And many times you'll find that just because you're talking to the person and you're in front of it, let's say you go in and you think you're going to talk about something specific and you say, hey, you know, how are you doing on that? Or did you need that? Did you need more of that? What happens is they say, no, I'm good there. But what about this other thing?

And just because you're the one in front of them and nobody else is, they're going to give you an opportunity to help them. You know, they don't even think about it that way. They actually need the help. And because you're there, you're saving them from having to think about it later and take more time later. You're there now. I would even use that language.

If they don't bring up something else, I would say, look, we're talking. We're together now. What do you need? Let me save you some time. right? I don't want you to have to think about this again. What do you need four people like me for? Just let me help you help you. Help you don't need four. Nobody wants four. You need one. Give it to me. And people are going to be like, oh my God. Yeah, sure. Here. 100%. 100%. So in your book, you know, I appreciate you sending me a copy of it. I got to,

haven't finished it all yet, like I said. But there were some really cool things. You've got a planner in there and you've got some worksheets. I would love for you to give the audience some context into how those can add value into their sales process. So because, and this came in on Friday, so you're one of the first people. So we're talking on Wednesday. So, you know, four or five days ago, I got to see the book for the first time. And that moment that your book goes from the screen, you know, and from your head into an actual book you can hold in your hands. It's a really cool moment. So now I can actually do this.

The book is a system. and the system is based on two planners and two trackers. That's it. And you can go to my website and download these. Even if you don't buy the book, you can download the planners and the trackers. I want you to buy the book. Please buy the book. But even if you don't, those are available for free.

And so the first planner is a proactive call planner. And it doesn't matter that you read the lines. But all it is is a one page PDF for you to print and write down who to call. I think the reason. we don't call people proactively is we don't know who to call. We don't take intentional time to plan who to call this week. And so, you know, some of the categories are customers I haven't talked to in three months or more. Great group to call.

Customers who used to buy, but stopped. Hang on, I'm going to call. There we go. It's not COVID. It's just I'm talking a lot. Beginning of the week, write down some people to call. The next planner is the weekly follow-up planner. And this has three categories of names to write down.

One is, who can you follow up with pre-quote or proposal? Meaning who's not at a quote yet, but you have a sales conversation going and you want to reach out to them. The next category is a quote or proposal follow-up. They've already got it. You're going to check in. Jordan, how are you doing in that quote? I was thinking about you. Where are you at?

what a great follow-up. And the third one is customers who can buy more, right? So who's buying for me regularly? Who can buy more? And what else can I offer them? If you have names written down, you can call it. I think you should write down names for like five minutes on Monday. That's it.

Not five hours, not an hour, not 50 minutes, five minutes. Six or seven, if you must, you know? Go to your emails. go to your text, go to your quotes, system. It's open book, you know. You don't have to remember it from your head. Nobody's testing you. But write down plan quickly and then do quickly.

And then as you do, I want you to track. And so the key tracker is this simple action tracker. The action tracker simply has some lines for you to log what you did. Who did you call? what did you say? What did they say? One of the techniques is a did you know question. Did you know we can also help you with this or that? So you're a property manager or you work, you do training for a property management firm, right? So give me, you know, the main thing might be overall property management. But ask me a did you know question, Jordan, about something that I can buy from you that isn't in the core package. Did you know that we have storage units available for rent? Storage units. Fantastic. I did not know. Tell me another one. Did you know. Did you know. that you can have more than one garage space. Excellent. Give me one more. Did you know that we are pet friendly if you ever wanted to add a pet to your lease? Beautiful. Now two more, please, and then I won't ask you anymore. Did you know that we offer concierge services for your packages?

Excellent. And last one? Did you know that we can, that we offer resident referrals? Okay, great. So you would log each of those as a line item here. And then you would write down what did you you say and then what was my reaction to that, right? So am I interested? Do I not need that? Do I want that? And then the last field here is a dollar amount field right there. And in the dollar amount field,

I want you to connect the dollar value to your three second did you know question. So I want you to think through how much this can be worth for you, how much money it can do. And the reason I asked you to say five, did you know question is because, We know statistically that about 20% of all did you know questions close.

So one out of five will turn into a new piece of business over time. If not at the moment, over time. We know this statistically because you're talking to a customer. I'm already buying from you and this is just a new line item, right? That's it. Ask five, get one. It took you how many seconds to ask those five? It took you less than 30 seconds, I think.

30 seconds, you know? Each one took you three seconds. So that's 15 seconds. One will turn into a line item. If you ask 50, you'd close 10. If you ask 500, you'd close 100. If there's 100 people in your organization that face customers and each one asks five, did you know questions, right?

That's 500 a day and 2,500 a week and 10,000 a month. and 120,000 did you know questions a year, 20% close. That's 24,000 new pieces of business sold, three seconds at a time. If you don't like 24,000, you can double it to 48,000 by asking 10, did you know questions. This is what I mean by system.

Instead of a snowflake once in a while that falls to the ground and melts, you have a freaking blizzard here. Of activity, of action, of communication, of sales. That's why the system is important. Plan quickly who you will call and reach out to, who you want to talk to.

Do the work quickly. These are three-second efforts. A phone call is a 30-second thing because you're probably going to leave a message, right? You're probably not going to have a 10 or 20-minute conversation. You're going to leave a message, and they're going to hear your voice.

So the system makes magic, right? The system grows companies basically guaranteed. And you know what I love most about the system is, you know, all you need is the book. You need you need the book and then you need to actually take action and institute these things. But I think it's ROI positive because there's no, it doesn't cost you anything extra, right, except for you to actually use the strategy, put the system in place, have it become consistent. And then repeat.

Right? Because again, like you the, the salesperson, all they're doing is making extra calls. Like they're not, you know, it's not costing the business any money. So I think that's that's one powerful thing about it, in my opinion. Yeah. And you could, you know, you could ask those, did you know questions on incoming phone calls too, because your phone's ringing all day. Somebody calls you. Talk about what they want to talk about.

And by the way, did you know that we offer a pet, pet concierge? Is that what you called it? Or is that my combining two things? Yeah, that's two of them. Yeah. You're a frontier service and then, you know, we're pet friendly. So good. So you can ask, did you know questions as people call in.

The other thing you can ask is reverse, did you know questions, which I've demonstrated several times, but I didn't identify them yet on our call. A reverse, did you know question is, what else do you need that I can help you with? So we ask the customer to name the product to us that they need. What are you doing with my competition that I can help you with it, right? I want to help you with that. That's a reverse. Did you know question?

I had one client salesperson ask their customer, what's on your wish list? Great reverse, did you know? What's on your wish list? He said he got a list of 24 things. She said, she started rattling it off. And he's like, God, I can't keep up? So he goes, can you please email me just the complete list? He's like, take a minute to think about it and send me the whole thing.

And she sent him 24 things. And he's telling the story in our workshop. And I said, how many of you sold? And he goes, only 18. And I said, get to work. We've got six more to go. Let's go. Pick up the phone, right? Only 18. Wow. What a testimonial. And that's definitely awesome. And, you know, I definitely think that from everything that I've read about it and then, you know, being able to see it kind of live in action and hear how the process works.

I know that the listeners here. If you are in sales, this is a book that can fundamentally shift and grow your sales. So let's tell everyone where they're going to be able to find this when it drops next week. And then also, you know, there's going to be people that listen to this and they've got a ton of value out of your story and your journey and your expertise. So I'd love for you to share the best places to get in touch with Alex. Sure. And thank you for that opportunity to share this. So the book is everywhere books are sold. And you said next week, but it's from when we're talking now. I think this will air the week that this is out. So this launches the week of August 24th.

So any day starting August 24th, which I think this will probably air either on or after. right okay then then you can just go to amazon or barns and noble or probably even your local neighborhood bookstore and buy the book it's published by wiley so it's going to be everywhere books are um as far as what i do in my work go to my website goldfane dot com it's my last name goldfane dot com g-o-l-d-f-a-y-n you'll probably have a link somewhere right jordan under this and uh there you can read about my work, you can read about my speaking. And I think most importantly to this conversation, you can download these planners and trackers that we've talked about. And again, even if you don't buy the book, you can get those and use them like starting today, starting now. So don't wait

until the perfect time to start. Just start communicating. You'll never feel like it's a perfect time. So just start. The only way to not feel awkward is to do it a bunch of times. You know, That's, you get it done through repetition. So listen, it's been my pleasure having you on the show. I appreciate sharing your story and your journey. And I know people are going to get a lot of value out of this chat. So thanks for coming on. I'd like to say that I'm doing a lot of these podcasts,

more than 50 of them to promote the book. And you're the only one that has dug into that backstory, the way that you have. So to me, that's separate. you from everybody else. I appreciate that. That's a memorable conversation for me, right? Because as you could tell, I like talking about that stuff, right?

And again, nobody will ever tell you, no, I'd rather not share with you what's on my mind, right? You asked me, and I'm happy to discuss it. And so I appreciate that, and I'm grateful for it. Zooming out, I very much appreciate talking with you and being able to try to add some value to your listeners. And I'm grateful for you having me on and how to be on. helping me, and I hope I was able to do a little bit of that for you and your listeners as well. So thank you. Absolutely.

No, I appreciate it. And same goes out to you. And much success with the launch of this book. Again, I know anyone that reads it is going to get value out of it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. What are they saying, Hamilton, immigrants, we get the job done.

There you go. Good way to end the show. And folks, thank you so much for listening to the episode. And we will chat with you soon. Hey everybody, I hope you enjoyed that episode with Alex Goldfane. What an awesome story and journey that he's been on. Make sure to go down to the show notes, pick up a copy of his book, Five Minutes Selling.

It's the proven simple system that you can use to double your sales, even when you don't have a ton of time. So check that out. If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to the podcast and tell all your friends about it. Also, if you can do us a favor, or if you're enjoying the show, give us a five-star review and rating and review on iTunes. That would help us out so much to make sure that we can reach as many people as possible. Thank you so much for listening, and I can't wait to chat with you on the next episode.