It's Just Business

114. Sales is Broken with Anthony Iannarino

February 08, 2023 Dana Dowdell and Russ Harlow Episode 114
It's Just Business
114. Sales is Broken with Anthony Iannarino
Show Notes Transcript

How can I open more opportunities for my business? Why is sales so difficult? How can I improve my sales skills? We have an enlightening conversation with Anthony Iannarino. Anthony built a $50 million dollar staffing business and now serves as a sales and leadership trainer, coach, and consultant. He is a 5-time bestselling author, and writes every day at thesealesblog.com.

Connect with Anthony Iannarino:
Website: https://www.thesalesblog.com
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/iannarino
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iannarino
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesalesblog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iannarino
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/iannarino
Books: All 8 Books Listed on Amazon 

Follow the podcast at @itsjustbusinesspodcast on all the major podcasting platforms.

Connect with us:
To get in touch with us, email the podcast at itsjustbusinesspodcast@gmail.com.
Join us on
Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn - we appreciate your support!
www.itsjustbusinesspodcast.com

You can find Dana @adashofboss, @dana.dowdell and @hrfanatic
Dana DowdellBoss Consulting – HR Consulting
Google -  https://tinyurl.com/y4wxnavx

You can find Russ @reliable.remediation
Russ HarlowReliable Remediation – Disaster Restoration
Google: https://g.page/r/CXogeisZHEjMEB

Dana Dowdell  00:04

Hi Russ,

 

Russ Harlow  00:05

Dana, what's going on?

 

Dana Dowdell  00:06

How are you?

 

Russ Harlow  00:07

I'm doing very well looking to grow the business this year and need to increase revenue. So, we're taking a look at sales. So, I'm excited about today's guest.

 

Dana Dowdell  00:17

Yes, sales makes me sweat. So, I'm very excited to hear more about his philosophy. We are joined by a b2b Selling expert and author a speaker, Anthony, Anna rock, and a rhino.

 

Russ Harlow  00:33

Reno, Reno and Reno, 

 

Dana Dowdell  00:35

I did an eye instead of an E. I'm so sorry. Anthony Iannarino is joining us on It's Just Business.

 

Anthony Iannarino  00:42

And I made sure I confuse you with that last name right out of the gate. I'm sorry.

 

Dana Dowdell  00:47

No, I'm sorry. Like Rhino. Anthony, welcome to it's just business. Tell us a bit about your journey into being an entrepreneur.

 

Anthony Iannarino  01:00

So long journey, I was sort of when I was 15, I started playing rock and roll. And when I was 17, I started booking gigs. And when I was 15, I made cold calls. I was the only person to get to bike a thon. I was 15 years old, and I was making just over minimum wage. And I quit to work at a skating rink. And I was pretty entrepreneurial. I had a lot of jobs in my life. And at some point, I decided that I would go into my family's business. My mom's an entrepreneur, she had four kids, she was raising by herself. Her partner had two children; she was raising by herself. And when they started their business, which I grew for them. They went to the bank, and they said, Can we get a loan, and they said, you'll need to bring one of your husbands. This was 1980. Yeah. And they said, we don't have any husbands. They bought 220 $5 desks, put them together and started to grow the business. It's a $50 million business right now. And they just everything that you know, as an entrepreneur, like you just have to grind it out. They got sued for a contract that they had where they weren't allowed to be within 10 miles of their, their prior employer. And they thought it was like 10 miles from the place where they work. But it was 10 miles from any of their places. So that was a quarter of a million dollars, embezzled Secretary embezzled another 250,000 At the start of this business. So, it's tough, tough start, I decided to join because I was playing rock and roll at night, and I needed to make some money in the daytime. And I thought it would be a good idea to be in the family business because you don't have to work very hard. And it turns out, it's not quite like that. It's a lot like you're going to do a lot of work. And you're not eligible for overtime or anything you stay until the work is done. And that's the way that we started that business. I will give you the rest of the story. And quick evening I somebody told me you should go to LA and be in front of heavy metal bands. So, I did that. I got a job at a big staffing firm for billion dollar company. And my manager forced me into outside sales. When he said, I want you to go into outside sales. What I heard is, I want you to become an Axe Murderer and go on a killing spree in the Los Angeles area. And I thought like I can't do this, like I'm not that kind of person. I'm not pushy. I like people. And I just like to help them. That's all I'm trying to do is help people. He said, That's right, you're perfect for this. I won the largest deal on the second half of the western half of the United States. There was a group in New York, they had a bigger deal than mine. But mine was a five year deal for $10 million. I had to have a lot of people helped me win that deal. And about two weeks after I won that deal, I had a grand mal seizure. And I had two brain surgeries. One to go to sort of glue this knot that I had of arteries and veins, and then the next one to remove it. And no one told me that they were going to cut off a piece of my brain. So that was interesting to find out after the fact. And I was also never told that I wasn't allowed to drive the car for two years. Now I'm 25 at the time, and I'm a grown adult that's been living out of my mom's house since I was 17 years old. So I'm like how do I get deodorant like I what am I going to do? I have to go places and my brother drove me around for a little while and then ultimately, I went back into the family business and I grew it from $3 million in 1993. to $7.8 million the first year, and then I became the sales leader and we grew it to $50 million. At that point, people started asking me like, hey, how do you do that? How are you doing $50 million with four sales reps. And I started to tell people what I did. And I started to give people help. And then people wanted more help. When I decided to do what I do now, which is writing, speaking, training, coaching, consulting, and all those things, it was December 28 2009, I'd already been doing coaching for a little while. Then I told my wife, I'm going to write a blog post every day, like Seth Godin, and Tom Peters. And in a year, I'm going to be speaking at sales conferences. And I'm going to start writing books instead of just write blog posts. So, I said, I'm going to do this. And that's what I did. So, I started out by just creating content. And all I did, I did a blog post today. So last December 28, was the 13th year that I've written every day, I write 1000 words, at four o'clock in the morning, minus 13 days when I went to Tibet, and when I went to Tibet, I thought, I'm not going to be able to connect to the internet, it turns out, like, the Chinese are pretty up to speed. Like, they're like, put a wall there, like know all the way across. And when you go to Mount Everest, there's, there's China Mobile, it's so clear, I caught my dad from Mount Everest, on 17,200 feet, it was better than being in Columbus, Ohio, where we both live, it was that good. And I thought I should have brought that I should have brought the laptop with me. But I didn't. So that was my decision. I just made a decision one day, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to change to do what I want to do. I think I have something to contribute. And so far, it's worked out really well for me.

 

Dana Dowdell  07:02

We are going to get to your sales philosophy and all of your books, because I know you have many of them. But I'm really curious what a $50 million business looks like from the inside.

 

Anthony Iannarino  07:15

You know, when you have a business that you have problems? Yeah, so you know that. So you know, as it gets bigger, so to the problems, and they become, let's say, there's more of them, there just continues to be more and new things to challenge you. And every, every day, there's something else that you have to figure out and learn. I've got two other businesses that I've started that are in staffing. So I have another company called in Reno full and group in, in Phoenix and in Dallas. So that's, that's my startup. And our first real year, we did 5 million. So, we're on we got a good start. But you do just continue to get new problems and new challenges. And you do have to continually work to make sure that you have the right team in the way that I would say this is you have to do the right thing in the right way, at the right time, all the time. And if you get that, right, if you can get the rest you I think you were meditating on that for just a second where you just basically cry. Yeah, like you just have to get processes training, you have to get people to do the right thing, the right way at the right time. Because any one of those variables that's missing, you have problems. And the better your team is, the faster you grow. And the more your team needs help, the longer it's going to take for you to grow.

 

Russ Harlow  08:51

I think people think I want a $50 million business. And that I think, am I capable of running a $50 million business. You know, I what I love what I captured so many different things when you're telling your story. And one of the things that stuck out was like you can just kind of spoke truth into existence you like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to be on stage in a year. And this is how I'm going to get there. So, tell me

 

Anthony Iannarino  09:15

that goal, by the way, for us there was two days later than I said it was gonna be but it was booked for four months earlier. So I'm like, by January 9, I am going to be speaking it was the 11th but not too far off.

 

Russ Harlow  09:33

It tells me how that's made an impact on how you accomplish things. Because I find the more that that I listened to highly successful people. They use that same process,

 

Anthony Iannarino  09:45

you will it into existence. I mean that that is what you do. And when I said I'm gonna get up at five o'clock in the morning and start writing I told my wife like this is what I'm going to do. And she said I have no idea what you're talking about at all, but I love you and you know I support you and, and that was and then the next morning, I got up at five. And then I liked getting up at five in writing, it gave me enough time. And then over the past couple years, I've decided, for us better than five, I had somebody who was a real writer, before I was a writer, I was just writing blog posts. And he said, You got to get up really early. I said how early it was three o'clock in the morning. And I'm at three o'clock in the morning. That's not the morning. That's, that's the middle of the night. And he said, Yeah, but that's the time when you're going to do your best writing. So now I'm at four, and four o'clock is really good, because nobody has asked me for anything. Except for one, one entity. El Gato, the cat, who at four o'clock is ready to eat, so I have to take care of him. And then I go sit down, and I write 1000 words a day.

 

Dana Dowdell  10:53

So you asked about therapy before we hit record? And I'm going to ask you for your thoughts on like, doing enough? You know, like, have you ever found yourself in the space of? Well, this is only 850 words. And it's, you know, it's shit. And I but I'm going to check the box of writing, you know, 1000 words? And, you know, or, or that you're like, does the feeling of writing 1000 words come naturally to you? Or is it something that you have to work towards? But then is there any sense of disappointment that you're not actually accomplishing what you're setting out to do?

 

Anthony Iannarino  11:41

How dare you? How dare you suggest that I can't write 1000 words. Listen,

 

Dana Dowdell  11:46

I talked. So, to the third point of therapy, I've been trying to journal. And I say to my therapist, like, journaling causes me anxiety because I feel like I have to write these beautiful scriptures for when I die. And she literally will look at me and just say, Dana, you just need to write it can be a sentence. And so really, for me, it's wrapping my mind around, whatever I write is okay. And I'm very curious if you if you ever feel that

 

Anthony Iannarino  12:17

if I am not writing, I wish I was writing. And I write everything. So, I'm writing a book for you. And you will get it. Dana, at the end of this year, it'll be probably August, September, something like that. The book is called The Negativity Fast. And it is about how we talk to each other at the beginning. But then it's a bunch of strategies, because I had to have a negativity fast. I'm a man, I'm a Enneagram, eight, if you know what that means. It's one of the three anger types. It's not the worst, the worst is the perfectionist. And then comes the Challenger, or protector, which I am, or my wife happens to be a person who's a peacemaker, but their nines are also very angry. They just don't ever let you see it. But they are inside. They're adapting to people that they were around when they were younger. So this book will help you. And I'll just tell you this story, because you said we can go anywhere. And I'm taking the steering wheel and I'm just like, ripping it to the right here. I had, I have worked with two Zen masters Gimpo Roshi, who does his kind of voice thing, this exercise that really gets you to understand a lot about yourself. And then doshas Roshi. And ocean Roshi was the first person to tell me that what I thought I was doing was meditating is not meditating, and corrected that for me. And then he also told me, there was one great Zen master who never meditated. And all he did was write, that's what he did, he just wrote down what he was noticing. And if you just write down what you're noticing, you start to get an objective look out of it, instead of the subjective look that you have from the inside. So you have to get it out on paper. And now you've captured it in a place where it's safe. It can't hurt you, because it's now on this piece of paper. It's not in here anymore. So if you if you can take that idea and say, once I put it on the page, the anxiety is gone, because it's in the page with that thing. And I got it out of my body. And if you can get it out of your body, and if people are listening to this and you're anxious, just get a legal pad in before you go to bed. Write down all of the things that you're concerned about. And then write down the next thing that you need to do for each one of them. And then if there's nothing you can do about it like, well, I really wish the world was kinder Okay, can you do something about that? Yeah, in your neighborhood. But outside of that, you got to let that one go. I'm saying, I got I got to do the things that I can. But it does. And there's a great book called chatter by Ethan cross. He's a psychologist. And in that book, he describes how journaling actually helps you get rid of that inner narrative that you have. So you might want to pick that book up to.

 

Dana Dowdell  15:27

sold. I'm sold on that idea. So, thank you for that.

 

Anthony Iannarino  15:32

I read a lot.

 

Russ Harlow  15:35

Holy cow. Yeah, that's a pretty good bookshelf.

 

Anthony Iannarino  15:38

That's the that's the upstairs library downstairs libraries larger.

 

Russ Harlow  15:42

Alright, so Anthony took 12 minutes to get Dana pegged. I'm gonna leave now. So, we don't have to talk about me.

 

Anthony Iannarino  15:51

Oh, I'm doing therapy? I didn't know. But I'm happy to.

 

Russ Harlow  15:54

So I mean, you said you studied with two Zen masters. Was that does that explain your trip to Tibet? Or did you summit Everest to I mean,

 

Anthony Iannarino  16:02

I did not summit Everest, I can tell you driving across China, the countryside of China was enough. Like if you when you get to 17,200 feet, we drove up and took pictures. And then I decided that, because I'm an Enneagram, eight, we're not taking three days to get back. We're doing it until I said we're doing it in two days. And everybody was crying about it until we got out of the Chinese country. Everybody got sick, except me, because I'm a planner. So I had a case of like crunch bars, whatever they are those things, power bars, I think they were I had that everybody got sick, because they were eating out of bowls that had been cleaned on a curb with cold water. And I had a hunch that we might not be ready for that. So at the end, everybody said, how many of those power bars do you have? And I said, just enough to get us back? And I did. But I just want to we just decided to go to Tibet. And then we were close enough to Mount Everest. We decided to go What I recommend it, I don't know. It's beautiful. But if you don't feel like you have to climb it.

 

Russ Harlow  17:22

I've been violently ill in another country. So, I get it. That was smart. Wow. swinging back a little bit more to business. You, you've got a really great insight. And I think the best part about when we talk about growing the business and talking about sales is it resonated with me when you said, you know, it sounded like somebody telling me to go out and be an Axe Murderer. And I think a lot of people think, yeah, that way when they're talking about sales, I know personally, I'm more of a soft sell guy, I like talking to my client, learning what they can do, how I might be able to solve it. I know I can improve that process. But it's never like a scare tactic, or you got to sell now or ABC always be closing. I mean, tell me a little bit about your philosophy and your take on that I

 

Anthony Iannarino  18:15

My first book was called the only sales guide you'll ever need, which is sort of in punch unfortunate, because I had a three-book deal. And I keep writing books. So, it's a lie cover. I said, people are going to remember this when we put out the next book 10 months from now and like no one's going to remember, everybody remember, and they bought that book. And they know, they're like, what's the new book called? The only other sales guide you'll ever need. Like, no, it's not going to be called that. But the in that book I wrote, selling isn't something that you do to somebody, it's something that you do for them in with them to benefit them. In, if you have that in your heart, and your other oriented, and you really like how you feel when you help somebody with a problem, and they get better results. That's what selling is, it doesn't mean you have to have any high pressure. It doesn't mean you have to be smarmy, or, or slick or any of those things like you don't have to have any of that like people want to buy from people that they trust and that they like. And if you are also incredibly smart and you have a set of insights, that if you were to transfer those insights to your client, they would be able to make a better decision and get better results. So that's my fourth book. It's called elite sales strategies, but the concept is one up. So when two people are talking to each other one person is one up and one person is one down. This is not your status as a human being. It's the status of what you know about the decision that you're making. So, if you want to talk about sales, then I'm one up I've been in sales since I was 15 years old, so I have a lot of experience, a lot of experience in staffing. So I've seen all kinds of businesses, and I know how a lot of things work. But if you want to talk about something else, because I have sales, sales, leadership, 80s, rock and roll bands, outside of that, you're gonna have to find somebody else to be one out, because I'm one down on just about everything else. And I'm happy that way. But what your responsibility is, is to create value for the client in the conversation that you're having. So the more that you're teaching them, what's going on in the world, why this is happening to them? What are the root causes? What are they going to need to put in place, and you start teaching them how to make the decision, then they find that to be incredibly valuable to them. And then they like, well, you know, I like Russ the best. Why? Because he spent all this time and he helped us understand all of these things that we didn't understand before. And now we can do something better, because we now have the education and we know what we need to do. That's what selling is today.

 

Russ Harlow  21:07

So with the one up one down kind of relationship, and that's not a derogatory, like you've already said,

 

Anthony Iannarino  21:14

You want me to make a derogatory?

 

Russ Harlow  21:15

No, no, not at all. I just want to explain that for our listeners, because it's not like you were, hey, I'm better than you or anything like that, or they're not as good as me. They're not at my level.  

 

Anthony Iannarino  21:23

It's not one upmanship. Right up. Midship is like this. For us. Do I remember meeting you at that Greek fraternity at Harvard in 89. And you're like, Well, I didn't go to Harvard and 89. And that's just me trying to put you down, right? That is not the same kind of one up one up means my responsibility, because I know more than you is to educate you. But guess what you know more about your business than I do. So I'm one down and you have to educate me about your business, so that we can do good work together. 

 

Russ Harlow  21:57

So what I wanted to ask is how we how that shapes how we communicate, and understanding the relationship because there's, whether it's in our marketing, or how we communicate in the sales process, there's one up one down, there's on an even level, and there's even with your communicating as to the next level up, meaning, you know, so can you talk a little bit about how we shape that and how that shapes our message in our marketing?

 

Anthony Iannarino  22:22

Well, there's a couple of ways you can do it, you could do something like this, Russ, since I've been talking to you, I realized that you have no idea what the hell you're doing. And I know that I'm going to have to tell you everything that you need to do because you botched it up so bad at this particular point, that might not be the right way to do it. That might be a little aggressive. If you if you want to do it. If I would start by saying, Russ, would it be okay, if I shared with you some of the things that we're seeing some of the data that supports some changes that people make. And then what I'd love is for you to give me your perspective on these things, because I'd love to learn how these things might be showing up in in your world. So I'm going to ask you to comment on some of these as we go through that. Is that okay? That sounds like really aggressive, didn't it? Like, can I share something with you sounds aggressive. You don't have to have any aggressive tactics. In fact, they don't help you in any way, shape or form. So, you just be a good human.

 

Dana Dowdell  23:24

People are still doing sales the other way. Right? So, like, why? I'm a soft sell. I'm like a no sell. But why? Why do we still train and coach people on this, like rapid fire, jump into someone's LinkedIn inbox and ask them if they can, you know, get on your calendar.

 

Anthony Iannarino  23:48

So I just wrote my title. For tomorrow, the rise of techno brutes and the regression of b2b sales. I have no idea why they use automation. And now that you've seen chat GPT you've seen him, right? You played with it? 

 

Russ Harlow  24:10

Yeah, it's fun. Actually. 

 

Anthony Iannarino  24:12

It's a toy. Yeah, it's a toy right now won't be in the future. But when you look at all this technology, and this automation of everything. The sustainable competitive advantage for business people now is to actually be personal, like be a human, and talk to other humans like humans. And don't automate your prospecting. don't automate LinkedIn. Don't ask me for connection. And then two seconds after I accept it. You sent me this long paragraph about how wonderful your company is and you're charismatic CEO that everybody loves. And guess what we just got funded and all of that and then the loneliest link on the internet, that Calendly link. Have you ever clicked on one of those? Yeah, if you do. Do it the next time you get one, and look, they will be available at nine 930 1010 3011 1130 1212 31 132 all the way till about 330. And then they give up. There's, there's all of the when you click it, it's embarrassing like, you have all of these availabilities. This is not working for you. And guess what nobody wants to buy from that person. And they're ruining they Well, they have now ruined LinkedIn, LinkedIn for those of us who used it. 

 

Russ Harlow  25:35

Yeah, I agree, I think. But the other the other side is pressure sales still works. Like it's, it just turns more into a numbers game. I know that out of 1000 phone calls, I need to get this many appointments and this many appointments. And then, and now, sales funnels are all the same, that's true. But using the tactics that they do, they can still, you know, make a decision right now, because sometimes people don't want to make a decision. So I understand the reasoning behind some of these, they don't have to be as aggressive,

 

Anthony Iannarino  26:09

except, I'll have to tell you how this really works. More activity doesn't improve your win rate. So when somebody has a low win rate, so let's say I had a guy who said I want my team to have an 800% of their pipeline. So I did the math in my head, and I'm like, that's 12%. So you're gonna lose 88% of the deals you create. That's not a good plan. Instead, get the effectiveness up to 45% 50%, where you win 50% of the deals that you get, and then you can scale up, like why are you going to get all these opportunities to lose them. It's not a great way to do this. But this is what you do when you don't know how to help people be more sales. You, I'm gonna say this fake, if it kills me, sales effectiveness, you need the effectiveness to go up. When sales effectiveness goes up, you don't have to have 100% Because you're good enough to win the clients that you want. And that is the whole game. The activity is for people who don't know how to help salespeople.

 

Russ Harlow  27:23

How much of that process is understanding the client that you want to? Because you just don't want the one? That's just any one that can pay you. You want specific clients because your business does business a certain way. So how important is that?

 

Anthony Iannarino  27:37

It's critical. Like if you've ever had a nightmare client, I've had a number of nightmare clients, I've had to fire a nightmare client. And in fact, they were doing $3 million with my family's business, when I asked them to pay us because they hadn't paid us in 90 days. And we're running a payroll. So I need that money so we can pay this. And the CEO called me when I was in my car. And he said, Have you ever come in and talk about money to the CFO, I'm gonna fire you. And I said, you're not gonna have a chance, because I'm sending you a 30 day letter. As soon as I get back to my office. And he said you wouldn't dare. I said, Stand by the facts. It's coming. And then I went to the CEO and said, I just fired our largest client. And she said, good, I hate them. But that's what you have to do. Like you can't let them abuse your people. You can't let me they were abusing our people treating them bad. And we're not going to do that find somebody else. You have to make sure that you like the person that you're going to be working with.

 

Dana Dowdell  28:42

There's enough business to go around. I think sometimes we get in that that scarcity mindset, like that mindset of lack. And so, but there's enough business to go around.

 

Anthony Iannarino  28:54

You know how much the earth is worth right now, in economic numbers? Tell us like $220 trillion. Yeah, to be able to find a buck or two, right? Yeah, I think sounds covered with money. I don't know why, but it is. There's a lot of trillions. And you can have some of it. There's plenty of people that need something from you. Yeah, always gonna be true.

 

Dana Dowdell  29:21

So for people who get the ick factor from saying that they do sales like me. Is it  safe to say like, if you approach sales from a place of curiosity, that's a really good place to start. Curiosity about who's who you're in front of and that they're also curious about you as a business owner and what your what you offer

 

Anthony Iannarino  29:47

the superpowers caring. That's the superpower for sales like if you actually care, and you actually take time to make sure that people can feel that care, and that you spend time with Some, and you're not trying to rush out of there and you're not trying to send them, you know, these automated sales messages where that's like, I'm bubbling this up, you're not bubbling it up, your CMO is bubbling it up, because he wrote that sequence. And now you're just brutalizing everybody with it. And it doesn't make any sense. I'm telling you, the future belongs to humans, when chat GPT turns into power steering or something like that, you know, like, it's just, it's just always there in the background. Everybody's going to want to talk to a real person. And I think we're going to do more things with our hands. And I think we're going to have deeper relationships because of this. Well, that would swell anyway,

 

Russ Harlow  30:46

that'd be certainly a rebound because we live our lives through devices these days. So I can see how that's a reasonable expectation, looking into the future, that because people crave those relationships? I think that's probably an excellent insight. How, you know, how do we continue to in a, in an era where we are living in devices? How do we create that connection with clients? I mean, I would think it starts with being genuine and transparent. But there's got to be other ways that we can grow that and build relationships and make them the priority,

 

Anthony Iannarino  31:23

what I teach is generally the oldest possible way you could sell. So if you want to open the Bible, or a history book of any kind, what you will find is that people who are making decisions, because they have a role that makes them a leader, they always look for people who knows more about the decision that they're making them they know. And that is a person that turns into their trusted adviser, the person who's telling them, don't do that, because we've already tried that, that isn't going to work for you. And here's why. And if you're proactive about that, and you care enough to have those conversations, you're practicing the very best possible way to sell which is consultative, which means I know more than you know about this decision. So I will educate you, you know more about your outcomes. I'll you'll educate me. And we'll figure out how to get these things done together. But I do think it's about humans. It's a very human thing. And a Dana, I do have to tell you something, you're still very young. But when you were really, really young, you were a great salesperson, I'm positive of that.

 

Dana Dowdell  32:35

Well, you know, it's the messaging that I'm telling myself, right? Like, I'm actually quite good at sales, because I don't sell, I show up as an authentic human being and have genuine interest in getting to know somebody's business.

 

Anthony Iannarino  32:48

But I think it's baby Dana. Yes. Which was like six or seven years ago, like, Yes, like that. Thank you, and you wanted to ice cream, and you didn't want to go to bed, you were probably an incredible negotiator, you probably figured out how to get both the ice cream and stay up late, because that's what we do as children. And then at some point, we stop, and we think it's rude to ask for something, or to negotiate something, but that that's how this works, and you're not hurting anyone in I hope nobody's trying to hurt you. Um, that that's generally business is pretty friendly.

 

Dana Dowdell  33:29

It is it is. And when you can show up authentically, it, the sale actually becomes much easier.

 

Anthony Iannarino  33:36

Yes. 100%.

 

Russ Harlow  33:39

So would you say another step in this process would be coming, I don't know trying to be the subject matter expert in your area so that people will be looking for you. Because I mean, if you spent like a half hour a day, 30 minutes a day. Now I'm not getting up at four o'clock that to write 1000 words. But if I spent 30 minutes a day learning about my service or product or what my clients need, you know, you've in a year spent 180 hours plus, and you're going to be an expert in your field. I mean, how much of that kind of it's a foundational aspect is almost

 

Anthony Iannarino  34:15

impossible for you not to be a subject matter expert, if you've done something for a long time. So I am I'm on the Business Advisory Council for the Cleveland Federal Reserve. And it's because I'm an expert on labor. I know all the data in I know the demographics. The future for the United States is bleak when it comes to labor. We have 76 point 4 million baby boomers. 29 million of them are already out of the workforce. And there's 10,000 People turn 65 Every day in the United States. So that's about three I'd six, 5 million, that will be reaching retirement age, every single year. And then the Generation X mine, there's nowhere near enough of us. And the birth rate has been low in the United States since 2007. We don't even have a replacement rate, like we're 21% off of just replacing, let alone all of the people that we need for all the open jobs that are available right now. So you do have to be a subject matter expert, the more you are a subject matter expert, the better you do. So if you study and if you build an executive briefing where you can teach people what's going on in their world, you automatically show up as an expert in an authority. And they feel like you create value for them. And then you win deals. If I can make it that simple, it's pretty that it's that really how simple it is.

 

Russ Harlow  35:56

I'm taking notes, literally as we're talking because this is just great.

 

Anthony Iannarino  36:01

Dana asked me to go slow for you.

 

Russ Harlow  36:03

Yeah, she knows how I write. I love this conversation. I knew from the beginning with the dry sense of humor that we were there was going to be a lot of fun. It tell me about the lost art of closing is that your most recent book,

 

Anthony Iannarino  36:25

the most recent is called leading growth. That's the one I wrote for managers. Okay, I started closing is the second book. And basically, we used to in sales have this linear sales process. So, this is super boring. It's targeting, qualifying discovery call solution design, presentation, Pricing Proposal and negotiation when lose that that. And that was like a straight line, everybody follow that straight line. And then buyers decided, like, we're not going to do that anymore. We've done it, we're bored, we need to have these other conversations. And I wrote that book to give people a guide to how to have 10 Key conversations that you have to have with your clients. So you have to ask them for time, you have to ask them to explore change, you have to ask them if they can change, you have to ask them to collaborate with you on a solution, you have to ask them for the consensus from the rest of their team. If they have those. You have to talk about money, you have to review your solution with them, you have to resolve their concerns. And then you can ask them for their business. And then after you ask them for the business, you sometimes have to ask them to do what they said they were going to do, which is execute. And so that that is the 10th commitment. But they don't always go in that order. So I wrote something that if they go out of order, so what I still know which ones I still need to talk about. And then I can just adjust. There's of the books that I've written the first book, people say I'm a better salesperson, but I'm also a better father, a better mother, a better husband. I mean, it's a success book. And it's a lot about character traits. The third book I wrote eat their lunch, people would say, I thought I was consultative. And now I know I'm not consultative, and I need to do something about it. The second book, though, the lost art of closing, I only ever get one note, I make a lot more money than I used to make. And that's the only thing I ever get, like this book turns into money. And I don't know why that's true for people because maybe they see it in, they understand how to talk people through all those conversations. And once they have those conversations, it's easier for them and one person increased his commission by $300,000, in one year after reading that book. And he sent me a coffee cake. And he bought his wife, a beach house with that money. And now I'm going to see him next Thursday. And I want to key to that beach house, because I think that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And he's still killing it. And it was sort of he studied, and then he took action.

 

Dana Dowdell  39:17

That's incredible. Yeah. So we have any we do a lightning round with all of our guests. And I know you don't know the question. So you're really shooting from the hip, which I'm excited to hear answers. So what's one thing you wish you had known before starting a business?

 

Anthony Iannarino  39:33

That there was such a thing as a hedge fund? Because I would have started a very different business if I would have known about hedge funds.

 

Russ Harlow  39:44

I liked money. What's your favorite way to market your business?

 

Anthony Iannarino  39:51

Content? I just think when you prove what you are, I mean, a lot of the stuff that comes inbound to me is because I'm giving 1000-word blog post away and Google happens to bring the right people to those things on its own. So it's a nice way to do it. I think content is the best. Because when you prove what you're doing, and you show it to people, and they understand it's an easier way for them to connect.

 

Dana Dowdell  40:22

What is one business platform that's changed your life?

 

Anthony Iannarino  40:29

A business platform that's changed my life. I'm going to I'm going to say, if I had to call it something, it would be WordPress originally, like just having a place where I could make my own website and start writing blog posts. That was the one that did it for me. And now we're HubSpot. But that was, that's what we did in the original. The sales blog. That's got a Publish button. You've published? Easy. It is easy.

 

Russ Harlow  41:08

When? When did you feel like you made it? Anthony?

 

Anthony Iannarino  41:12

I'll let you know.

 

Russ Harlow  41:15

That is a common response.

 

Anthony Iannarino  41:17

Yeah, I mean, I'm still just getting started. I have a lot of work in front of me.

 

Dana Dowdell  41:23

It's impressive. Alright, last question. What is your favorite business book? Aside from your own?

 

Anthony Iannarino  41:32

Well, I would never use one of my own. Like I wrote those. So, I know everything that's in those already. The there's a number of books, can I have more than one? Okay, so I, when I read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I recognize that almost no one is proactive. That changed my life. There's a tiny book by another Aikido practitioner named George Leonard. He's not with us anymore. He was a seventh-degree black belt in Aikido. And he wrote a book called Mastery. And it's a little book, it's a very little book, you can read it in maybe one setting. And all it is about not dabbling, and going deep and whatever you're going to do. And then really master your craft. I mean, master it. Don't, don't play. Don't dabble. Don't go out and get the shoes and the tennis racket and, and get a coach and then don't do the work, like just do the work. And then eventually, you'll need those tennis shoes and a better tennis racket. But that book changed my life tremendously. I have a whole list over here. I mean, there's so many things here. Andy groves biography on only the Paranoid Survive. Great book, Jim Collins, Good to Great, all his books are amazing. If you are in a corporate situation, then you want to look at Peter Drucker's stuff, effective executive, those things are all good. I have so many. But I do keep a lot of lists. And that when people ask, I can give you a list of a whole bunch of things. Because I'm a I'm a reader. 

 

Russ Harlow  43:24

Where can people learn more about you connect with you find out more about your services, your vote, I want to bring you in as a speaker or you know, consult with you.

 

Anthony Iannarino  43:36

My platform is called the sales blog.com. And probably if you go there, we're going to cost you with some sort of a an offer where we'll give you a book of some kind, like a real book, too. And if you give us your email, we'll you'll go on our newsletter list. But it's a great search engine. Like if you have a sales problem, and you go in and you hit blog, and then you hit the little search thing. Whatever you put in there, we'll probably have something for you. So just pay anything, you can just go find what you're looking for.

 

Russ Harlow  44:10

Do those newsletters, those blogs that you do every day go out not newsletter?

 

Anthony Iannarino  44:15

Sometimes, yeah, sometimes I send them so. But there's people that get the blog every day because they want it. So you can get that too if you want to get it every day. I don't know why you would want another email. But if you do, we'll send you one.

 

Russ Harlow  44:30

Well, I was gonna say I'm gonna sign up for it because I've liked I've liked this conversation and I respect that you have put those that time and effort in and I'm gonna sign up. So yeah, I want people to do the same thing. I'm literally going to be I'm going to jump into your sales funnel. And I want to start reading and learning some of these things because I've enjoyed this conversation greatly. And I want to thank you for sharing some time with us and your expertise with our listeners. I want to thank our listeners for being In here, you know if you want to connect with Anthony Anna Reno, you can find him we'll have all the links on in our show notes. And you can find him at the sales blog. You can find us at it's just business podcasts on all the things and all the places. You know, leave us a great review, please leave some constructive criticism. Like Share, Subscribe now is a new thing. And remember, it's just business