Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Lead Generation Specialist Ryan Gunness

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Meet Ryan Gunness, a dynamic author, speaker, consultant, and coach who has been transforming lives in the Networking & Team Building industry for more than 20 years. Ryan is a Master in Lead Generation and his mission is to empower people to achieve their financial dreams to live life to the fullest.Beyond his professional accomplishments, Ryan is a true lover of life and all it has to offer. You’ll often find him camping under the stars, grilling up a storm, or catching some waves at the beach. His infectious energy and love for adventure have taken him all over the world, where he’s had the pleasure of meeting with top leaders and making new friends.Ryan’s passion for growth and development is contagious. He has won numerous achievements and has been featured in various publications, radio shows, talk shows, podcasts, YouTube channels, and blogs. His infectious spirit and engaging personality make him a sought-after guest and speaker, leaving audiences feeling energized and ready to take on the world.What sets Ryan apart is his unwavering commitment to helping others discover and develop their God-given talents. He believes that every person has a unique purpose and calling, and his life’s work is centered on empowering them to live out their dreams.Whether you’re looking to transform your career, strengthen your team, or simply want to live a more fulfilling life, Ryan is the expert you want by your side. His enthusiasm, expertise, and passion for helping others will inspire you to achieve greatness, one step at a time. So, are you ready to take the first step? Join Ryan on this exciting journey and let’s make your dreams a reality!To learn more & connect with Ryan visit => https://ryangunness360.comInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-lead-generation-specialist-ryan-gunness

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us lead generation specialist, Ryan Gunniss. Ryan, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, thanks you. Thank you.

Glad to be here. You are welcome. I am happy to have you because I always look at when people are giving themselves a title like lead generation specialist. Boy, I want to know what that is and how you serve your clients. But before we jump into that, give us a little bit of your story. And what's your entrepreneurial journey to this point in your career? Yeah. So I was born in a small island called Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. And I migrated to New York when I was around 15.

and spent a short year in New York high school, so to speak. And then I branched off into a barbershop. So actually I started off as a barber. And a couple of years later, I opened my own barbershop. And that was the first stab at self-employed business, starting my own little thing kind of world for me. Neat. Why did you pick barber?

You know, it was just something that when I moved to New York, I needed a hair cut and didn't have a whole lot. And that first Christmas, I asked my mom for a pair of clippers. And I kind of got pretty good at cutting my own hair. And then some kids noticed. And I started cutting some friends and was making a little side money while I was finishing up high school. And got pretty good at it. So when I started working in a little shop after. a few years of doing that. It was just something that I was pretty good at doing.

And that kind of fell into that direction. Yeah. And you know, when I hear like barbershop or hairdresser for the ladies, it makes me think of community and relationship building. And boy, that just leads right into growing a business or marketing or lead generation. So at what point during that time did you start getting into what you're doing currently? Yeah. So I was cutting about 100. 25 haircuts a week. So I knew a lot of people.

Yeah. And one of my customers invited me to a business meeting to learn about what he was doing. And I saw a network marketing presentation for the first time, which was this concept of people, bringing people, bringing people, and referrals, and the leverage that you can build off of that. And it really, I was mesmerized. I literally couldn't sleep for it. a few days when I first saw it and fell in love with the concept and I said, let me give this a try.

And like a lot of people, I failed miserably in the beginning. Yeah. Until a few years later, I ended up moving to Florida and couldn't get the concept out of my head and rejoined actually the same company that I quit when I was in New York. And I got some good mentorship that really showed me how to do the fundamentals of inviting people, present. following up, getting people started. So I lived in that belly-to-belly, non-internet world of meeting people, presenting, follow-up, getting them started for many, many years until I discovered a way to do it through the internet later on. So I just wanted to give you that foundation. Yeah. And you know what? I think a lot of people have it backwards and they try to

only do behind the computer screen digital. And yes, there's some success stories, but boy, I think you have a much more solid foundation when you start off belly to belly pressing the flesh meeting people in person and then you amplify what you're doing with digital yeah yeah in fact in that business we had something called k t's which stood for kitchen table appointment and the goal was to go on a minimum of eight kitchen table appointments per week where you put your woman's house and you sit down you know in the kitchen table and share presentation with them so yeah that's that's follow those metrics. So now you come full circle and what are you doing now to serve your clients currently? Yeah. So after I, a few years later, after I started building up this type of networking

type of business, a friend of mine introduced me to a guy, a marketer online that was selling an e-book. And I, you know, opted in. I didn't even know what that word meant. I filled out my name and email to get his little promise that he had like a little e-book and the started getting all these emails and it was bringing me back to like buy his full e-book and I understood like wow this guy is putting me through a process where he generated me as a lead and he's following up and he's making me an offer and I was like wow I started to see how that dynamics can look online And I started to implement some of that into my business. And it's like, I'm going to figure out a way to take that type of process and put it into this networking model.

And I did that. And I started to catch one really, really well. And using the technology and the systems and everything, I started to catch on really, really well. Where a lot of my friends in the industry started to hire me to build marketing systems for their teams to generate leads and support the field with recruiting. And that's how it birthed me into the digital marketing space, which we're in right now. And fast-powered a few years, we built a lot of different systems and platforms and we have our own products and now that we can serve the entire networking industry with these tools around

generating leads, you know, recruiting, building a team, all that good stuff. You know, that's when you know you've got, you've got your hands on something strong. When you start doing it, people start noticing saying, do it for me too. And that came from your barbershop days and now to your current lead generation specialist. So I think that's such a great confirmation. You know, I've often heard it said, you know, don't sell the features, sell the benefits. But I also have heard, and I kind of subscribe to this philosophy, sell the benefit of the benefit. You know, don't just talk about the benefit.

What's it in, what's in it for that person? So let's talk a little bit about that. What is the actual problem that you solve for your clients? Yeah. So the very top, top, top of the funnel, my client is waking up, brushing their teeth in the morning saying, man, I wish I had some people that I can talk to, invite them to look at my business. And that's the problem that they're waking up with. That's the underlying problem that they're saying throughout their life.

And I discovered this. And we used the very, very top of the phone. So one of our first lead magnets says free video reveals a simple way to have three to five new people looking at your business every day. And someone would opt in with their name and email to watch this little video that is a sales video that I put together. explaining this concept and then we make them an offer to join our unlimited Leads for Life program. And it's a front-end offer. So it's really low ticket and easy for someone to jump in and put their baby to in. And then we put them down this path where they can upgrade and do it at a faster speed and get access to more services and all that good stuff. So that's pretty much where we start

with. We start with, you know, yeah, because no matter what you're selling in what industry, It could be insurance. You got to talk to people. And it's all, as we know in the business, it's all a numbers game. So the more people you talk to, the more chance you're going to produce results for them, make sales for you, help change their life, all of that. And yes, you need to have the right, you know, conversation style, all that. But it begins with what you just said, people wake up going, I need to talk to people today.

Well, if you can get several people per day to talk to, now you've just ups your chances. So what a huge problem that you're solving for them. Yeah. And interestingly enough, the problem that people think they have is a lot of times not really the big problem that they don't even realize that they don't have. And we, you know, and there's a thing that says sell people what they think they need and then sneak in what they really need. So it's kind of the model that we chose to go, which was really the. the path of less education, it was easy for them to take us up on our first offer because it's the thing that they're ready say is their problem.

And we let them come into our world from that. And then we start educating them on here's some of the other things that you really need to look at. And they start realizing, wow, I got to fix this thing. I didn't even know this was a problem. Yeah. And if you try to correct someone right on the front end, then you're creating resistance. So you say, oh, yes, that is a valid problem.

that for you and then now you're developing that report. And then when they realize that you're a great resource, you introduce this next nuance of that problem or this new aspect to consider. So it develops that trust. So I would suspect that helping people get in front of more people and creating leads, that's a widely vast competitive market. So my question would be if someone is hearing this or reading this and going, you know, I have that need. Well, what sets Ryan apart from other people that provide the same type of thing? Yeah. So, you know, personality driven in that sense.

I believe that people, you know, I think last wrong talks about the tribal tongue. You know, people can relate to different people even if they teach similar things. So when you put yourself out there, you put your content out, you put your offer out there. It gives your prospects time to see a little bit about who you are and your style. And there's a certain percentage of people that they are your tribe and they are attracted to you. And even though there's other places that they can learn similar things, they feel like you're my guy. And that's really what sets me apart is that I wasn't afraid to put my message out there so that my tribe could be attracted to me. Yeah.

And they don't feel like you're a pushy salesperson. They feel like I got your back because I've been there and I've done that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you also mentioned that you didn't really have the hockey stick trajectory to success like most people don't. So talk a little bit about a failure or a breakdown that you experienced as you were growing this business and some of the lessons that you learned. Yeah. So I was near to Florida.

I rejoined this business after, I actually had took on a normal job, regular job through my uncle. And after a few years of that, I was like, man, I really miss this, you know, networking model that I can recruit and build a team and leverage that. And I rejoined. There was a company, the same company, they literally had an office right down the street from my day job. I rejoined that company and I started showing up to all the meetings and, you know, you know, trying to show up to all the trainings and everything. And after about three months, Michael, they used to work at Michael Hughes. He's like, Ryan, like, what are you doing?

You're here, you know, your young guy, you're good-looking guy. And like, do you have anything else to do with your life? It's like you're here. You have no gas. Like, what are you doing? And I said, I really want to do this, but I just, I don't know anybody. I'm near to Florida. And it was a big breakdown for me in that sense.

Like, you know, I don't know how to solve this. And he did something that really shifted the direction of my life. He said, okay, Ryan, now he was the top guy in the office, didn't have a lot of time to spend with me. Well, you know, and he says, listen, I'm willing to work with you for 30 days under two conditions. He says, number one, you're not allowed to have an opinion. and number two, you can't miss a day for 30 days. If you're going to die, put it off. If you're going to get sick, put it off.

That's as you said. And he says, I don't want to answer right now. So I want you to sleep on it. And if it's a yes, show up tomorrow morning at the office here by 9. If it's a no, don't show up and I won't even bring it up again. You know, we'll still be friends. And I was about to answer. I'm like, I have to do this.

He's like, I don't want to answer. And I went home that night. I really couldn't sleep. So I was like Mike, Mike wants to work with me. And I showed up at like early in the morning. I was there. And he got in and he's like, hey, I'm like, hey, Mike, I'm ready. And he put me down an exercise that if you want to hear a little bit about it, I'll talk about it.

But he put me down an exercise for the next 30 days that really, really shaped my direction of how to handle prospecting. You know, I think that's so neat because he told you without saying the words, trust the process. Absolutely. That's awesome. So neat. So let's talk a little bit about when you were going through that and you showed up that day. You didn't know really what the steps in front of you were. So talk a little bit about how faith played a role in moving through that process because one foot in front of the other sounds fine.

but you probably had some second thoughts through the process until you started seeing some breakthroughs. Big time. Yeah, Faye played a big role because he said, so Ryan, you got it. What is going to be the next 30 days? I said, I'm not allowed to have an opinion. I'm not allowed to take a day off. If I have to die, I got to put it out a little bit further. He said, yeah, you got it.

And he says, okay, cool. So run to the kitchen and grab the white pages. Back then we had the white pages. It's a big, big book. And I went and I got this book and I'm coming back to his office and I'm starting to like sweat. And I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm trusting this whole process. I just agreed that I'm not going to have an opinion.

And the very first thing he asked me to do, I'm like really nervous about it. I'm like, what is he going to have me do with this book? And I get to his office and he saw me. And he like, he like saw that I was like like a ghost. And he's like, hey, hey, chill out. He's like, you know, you're not ready to talk to people because I was like, he's going to have me call people from the white pages. He's like, you're not allowed to talk to people yet. I'm like, okay.

And he's like, but you're going to make phone calls and you're going to deliver this script that I have here to 50 answer machine messages. And if anybody answers live, your script is, I'm sorry I have the wrong phone number and hang it. That was my script. If somebody answered live, you're always ready for that. And he gave me a little script. that I still remember this day. And I had to deliver it out on 50 answer machine messages, do the little stick man, one, two, three, four, five.

And then I had to bring that paper to him and he will sign it off. And then I can do whatever I want rest of the day. And I got to do that again the next day. I got to do this for 30 days. So that was the first step of faith as taking this weird exercise. And I think about the karate kid, right? Wax on, wax off and just see that a weird exercise that he cut me. I committed to it.

So I think that if I'm envisioning in my mind like a stair step, so that was the first thing that sounds a little, you know, odd in the sense that you can't figure it out on the front side. You understand it now. But then once you did that and he signed off on those, it led you to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So talk a little bit about how exercising that faith, putting one foot in front of the other, doing it and then being shown the next step, how did that lead to more

success through that process and then just even in business in general, how does persevering and conquering and succeeding each level lead to the next step in your success growth? Yeah, you know, an object in motion tends to stay in motion. So he got me from a place of saying I have nothing to do. I have no one to reach out to, you know, I'm doom, doom and gloom to, okay, here's a process. It's not, you know, it's not pretty calling out of the white pages. And it was a little script. And I was leaving this message, hey, this is Ryan Gunness.

You know, I work with a division of city group. We're spanning in your area. We're looking for people part-time, full-time. You know, so I had a little pitch. And I would leave that. And I said it so many times, it became very flowing. Yes. But the other piece was he never gave me any.

part two script. So when someone called me back and they're like, hey, Ryan, I got your message. I heard you guys are expanding. What is this about? I didn't have a script. And what I found is actually using your script that you have and speeding it up or slowing down can actually change the meaning. So I would deliver back the same exact thing that I said to the answer machine because that's the only thing I knew. And I would just say it a little bit slower. So I'll say, hey, like I said, you know, We're expanding in your area and we're looking for people part-time or full-time. And I would just slow down my words. And I say, and if you're open, we have a presentation this Thursday night or Saturday morning, which one is better for you. And I was starting to book appointments for people to come into our office presentation. And that's all I was doing. I was just gone so good.

And I would have three, four, five, six, seven guests show up sometimes every week. and which led to people joining the team. And I was using Mike in the rest of the office and the systems that we had to support those people. So I just started to get this momentum going because I just kept having more and more people show up because of my prospecting. You know, I think a huge, I agree. I think just a big huge lesson there is those baby steps and doing simple things really, really well is so. before you move on to something more advanced or more technological. So don't think I've got to do all the whizbang, you know, glitzy, flashy things.

Do the basics, the foundations. I think that is just so, so huge. I want to get into a little bit more of what you do and how you do it for clients. But if you look back at some of the trials and failures and breakdowns that you went through, how would you do things any differently if you could go back there? or is what you were put through and learned from, is that the blueprint that you now are building from? So I would not personally do anything different

than the way that we did it. That I'm so grateful now, you know, and the more years go by, I look back at that time and I see more juice from it. But I'm so grateful for that exercise, and I'm so grateful for the timing in my life to be able to do that. because, you know, everything aligned for me to be in that position, to be so hungry and humble to actually go through that process.

So I'm very, very thankful for that. In our world with our business, we do teach those elements exactly the way that I went through it. We don't use the white pages anymore, but we teach similar elements that has helped. a lot of people break through the mental blockage that they typically have around leads. Yeah. Because lead generation specialist is more of a mindset than it is an actual fulfillment of a service. And most people don't get that until they go through a little bit of exercise. And, you know, we don't unpack that for them until a little bit later.

So yeah. Well, talk a little bit about that because I think that if you were to kind of bring someone through your process and you would be that person, Mike, saying to someone else, Tom, Dick or Harry, saying, hey, here's what I need you to do. Trust the process. Show up, you know, every day on Zoom, you know, kind of like the vernacular of today. But talk a little bit about some of those key attributes that people need to move through their blockages and challenges, starting with that mindset. because I agree with you, it's that principle law of abundance. When you can see that there's so much around us, then it's easy for you to see how you can easily get those three to four to five people per day. So talk a little bit about some of those key attributes. Yeah. So the first level,

really, you know, lead and it can have multiple meanings as different versions of leads. You know, so lead at the most simplest form is as a data record of someone that I can contact in some way, shape of phone, through email, through phone call, through text, or any other channels, through a post, through a direct message, whatever. So a lead is just a point of contact that you can potentially reach out to. There's other levels of leads. You know, somebody actually responds to something and they opt in and they, you know, they clicked on something.

There's different levels of leads. So the first place that we deal with is letting people know that, hey, when it comes to people, finding people, which is what they would label, let's say, as a lead, there is an unlimited supply of those people, the easiest thing to find in the world. And in our membership site, because we actually do this where someone buys a program from us and they get access to our membership site that actually gives them unlimited leads and actually also shows them other places to find these leads. And they start seeing that, wow, this is this is this is data everywhere people are everywhere okay as like in today's world it's

it's the easiest thing in the world is to actually find people that there's it's more easier to find people today in today's world than anything else the real challenge is not finding people the real challenge is approaching someone yeah how they approach somebody you know so we identify that for people they get to see that and then we show them the approaches that they can use and we have a process that they can do that and it keeps them accountable and tracking it and everything. It's all membership driven. So it can work with anybody's time zone.

They don't have to get on a Zoom at a certain time. They're just following our process based on what's convenient to them. I love that. And that sounds very simple. Talk a little bit more of the, because I'm thinking in terms of that mindset. Mindset is so important for any personal development, business development. But I think there's probably a temptation that if someone,

someone knows, all they know about their thing, whatever it is, with the program, the business opportunity. They want to tell everything about everything and here's what you can do and what you can make and what this. Talk a little bit about how you need to have that mindset of just a little bit, spoon feeding and then guide them through the process, draw them through, help them to learn a bit more because the temptation is just, I want to tell everything to everybody. Yeah. So the very first piece that we identify is how to invite some, to learn about what you're doing. Okay, and that could be inviting them to have a conversation with you.

That could be inviting them to a Zoom. That could be inviting them to watch a video, to click on a link and read a page. How you get the content over to them could be in multiple different modalities. But the invitation is pretty formatted. So being able to reach out to someone. So like one of the scripts that we teach is reaching out to, people that have, you know, that have some type of online business in the past. It could be another networking business.

It could be that they have some kind of presence out there because they were promoting some type of product or business in the past. So we typically teach reaching out to that person, leaving a voicemail or a text message saying, hi, this is Ryan. I came across one of your sites, have a quick question. When you get a chance, give me a call. And if you were doing that enough, and let's say, you reached out to 10, 20, 30 people in one session, and you left a message saying, hey,

I came across one of your sites, I got a quick question. Well, you will have a percentage of people responding back to you to find out what the question is. Okay, so that's the first piece is being able to have a reach out that can get the highest possible response rate without lying. So that's why we knew that. And it's the truth. We came across one insight, so we got a quick question. And then when people respond back to that, then we go to part two, which is just for the context, I'll share it here, that if somebody, you know, reach back out to me and say, hey, Ryan, you know, what's your question? I would say, you know, Bob, the reason why I'm reaching out to you, I'm down in Florida, I'm expanding one of my businesses. I'm in network marketing. I believe that you might have been involved in the industry in the past. And I just wanted a touch base to see if you might be open to taking a look at any good opportunities.

and that invitation right there, are you open to taking a look at any good opportunities? That invitation there, the delivered in that fashion, you know, typically get us a 30, 40, 50 percent sometimes. Yes, rate where Bob says, well, you know, it depends what you have.

You know, send me some info. Okay. And then if Bob, you know, said no, because he was doing something else, we have another little path that we go through, that we go in more detail in the membership site. But that now creates a formula. Now I know how to reach out to people.

I can leave them a message. I have a high percentage of people responding back, and then I have a decent invitation for someone to be able to say yes, I can take a look. And now we've just covered a lot of steps there, and then now you can get them to whatever is your next step, or Zoom or video, whatever presentation process you have. and now they're in that stage, and then you have your follow-up, you know, which can be, you know, a combination of you or a system or an automation.

And you just have all those pieces. So I'm a big fan, even though we use a lot of automation, I'm a fan of automating a process that's already working versus just automating for automating sake. Yes. That makes a lot of sense because you need to inject personality and relationship into that process. love process and systems, but people want to know that there's a human behind it. Yep, absolutely. So think about this. We've kind of talked through a lot of your story and journey and overcoming and

persevering through struggles and the lessons you've learned. You've got to probably have now a crystal clear purpose, which I feel like there's a difference between someone's purpose and then their why. We hear a lot about their why. So what is the why behind your purpose now in serving? your clients. So the why for me is that I personally have a level of joy in fulfillment when I see people are having breakthroughs and they're actually getting results. Okay. And because those results are tied to us financially gaining as well because they're buying more products and

services they're staying on to in our world, it creates a win-win scenario where I'm truly excited for them to have these breakthroughs and get results. And as a byproduct, our business is growing and we're monetizing that and financially benefiting. So it's just a fun game to play. And then you see the change you're making in people's lives. And then now that warms your heart to see, okay, that was my process. I love that feeling. And now I'm delivering that. And it's kind of like the ripple effect expanding and expanding in their lives too. Absolutely. Plus the other side of it is in the type of business that we're in, part of their success on growth is that they are building and attracting and recruiting more people into their team.

And naturally, they end up exposing those people to what we're doing. So the result that they came to get from us, the more they get that result is actually the more their business grows, but our business grows because they're bringing those people to use our service. So it's like this selfish model where we selfishly want to give them the most results because it actually drives our bottom line as well. Love it. Well, Ryan, it's just been a real pleasure hearing your story and your journey and how you're serving your clients. If someone is listening to this wanting to learn more, what's the best way that they can reach out and connect with you? Yeah. So very simple.

They can go to Ryan G. G.g.g.360.com. So Ryan G360.com, and they can connect with me on social media or wherever they want to check around on that personal site. Excellent. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Like what I's Mike. This has been fun.

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