Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

The $2 Million Mistake That Revolutionized Modern Selling: Why 97% of Sales Teams Are Targeting the Wrong Buyers with Doug C. Brown

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 2 • Episode 44

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What if authority wasn’t about being the best closer, but about creating the safest decision for your buyer? Grant sits down with Doug Brown—CEO of CEO Sales Strategies—to explore how shared context, credible associations, and personal ROI can transform ordinary sales conversations into trust-driven commitments. From New England roots to global brands, Doug shows why familiarity is a strategic lever, not a vanity metric.

We dig into the gap between “good” sales teams and those viewed as market authorities. The surprise: status and positioning can tilt the field before price is ever discussed. Using vivid examples—from first-class optics to iconic venues—Doug explains how perception amplifies pricing power. But he also grounds it in craft: speak to the business ROI and the personal ROI driving real human decisions, whether that’s safety, reputation, or career risk. Buyers sign when they feel both the numbers and the nerves are addressed.

The heart of the conversation is resilience. Doug recounts a costly client pivot that vaporized roughly $2M, then shares the mental and operational playbook that pulled him forward: stop treating symptoms, remove root causes, and take one meaningful step every day toward a clear North Star. We also get practical with a 90-day revenue plan that works without heroics—set a truthful target, do the math on KPIs, reengage dormant clients, increase touchpoints, and define your ideal right-fit buyer to align message and market. We close with a grounded take on AI: use it to accelerate research and outreach, but never outsource the human-to-human moments that make complex deals possible.

If you’re ready to sell with authority, protect your margins, and build pipeline you can trust, this conversation gives you the mindset and methods to start today. Subscribe, share with a teammate who needs a boost, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we read every one.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates, visit 5starbdm.com
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And don’t miss Grant McGaugh’s new book, First Light — a powerful guide to igniting your purpose and building a BRAVE brand that stands out in a changing world. - https://5starbdm.com/brave-masterclass/

See you next time on Follow The Brand!

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome everybody to the Fall Brand Podcast. This is your host, Grant McGaugh. We're gonna take it all the way back. People don't know this, but I used to live in New England. I lived in Nashua, New Hampshire from 1991 to 1998. Never forgot it. Beautiful location, especially right now during the fall. This is fall foliage time. It is drop-dead gorgeous. If you get a chance, you gotta go through there. So talking to my buddy here, Doug Brown. He's telling me he lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is the exact town that I lived in. Of course, we just had you know great conversation just before we jumped on. Because this is so we're selling the New England experience right now. No, he's the CEO of Sales Strategy. This guy knows what he's talking about. I'm gonna let him introduce himself. We're gonna have a candid conversation of what makes Doug Doug.

SPEAKER_00:

So, Doug, you like to introduce yourself? Uh thanks, Grant. Thanks for having me on. I'm really grateful and appreciative. And uh, it was fun talking about, you know, you you lived literally like five miles from where I live, so that was awesome to know. I'm I'm sad we didn't run into each other during the 90s because I was definitely around here.

SPEAKER_01:

So excellent, excellent. Now, people don't know. I I learned this about you. You've worked with giants like Tony Robbins and Proctor and Gamble. And my question is about how did those experiences shape your authority in the sales world? And how can entrepreneurs build authority in industries where there are where they're I would say relatively unknown?

SPEAKER_00:

So it's helped my authority in a great deal, right? Because it's um it's like you know, if we say Clint Eastwood, right? Everybody knows who Clint Eastwood is. And if we say, Oh yeah, you know, I went to I went to high school with Clint Eastwood, and people go, Well, do you know him? Oh yeah, yeah, we still talk every once in a while, right? Immediately that person gets higher authority in in many people's minds, assuming they respect Clint Eastwood, right? Um, so it's that you know, it never ceases to amaze me. And Grant, you may laugh on this because, like, you know, I have degrees uh in business, biology, and nuclear medicine. And then I went to Berkeley College in Boston for one semester. Yeah, and when people look up on my LinkedIn profile, the majority of them say two things. Oh my god, you you know Tony Robbins, or or oh my goodness, you went to Berkeley College of Music, you must be the most outstanding musician ever. And it's like right, so I want people to think about the association because many people know who you know, Berkeley College of Music, not everyone, but many people know who Tony Robbins is, and they not everybody, right? So it's it's one of those things that when people can associate us to having a relationship with a known quantity, a known entity, um, you know, it automatically elevates our status and our positioning in people's minds. And it doesn't matter what the relationship is at that point, it just it's just what people's perception is. Um, you know, our media is built on this, or you know, I mean, the guy worldwide media is built on this. Um, you know, I I was fortunate, I'll give you an example. I was fortunate enough. Uh, this gentleman's name is Thomas Dolly Jr. Thomas Dorley Jr. built this company called Braxton Industries. They built it to a half billion dollars, uh, and now they're called Deloitte. Right. And I know the gentleman and I had lunch with him three weeks ago. I, you know, he's just a nice guy. He's in his 80s, he lives down in the in the Cape of Massachusetts. We met in Boston in in the um the Italian North End section and had a cup of coffee. He, my wife, and we decided we're gonna do a live event together. So, you know, but I can I can say, hey, I'm doing a live event with a guy who now is called Deloitte, you know, the company's called Deloitte, right? And automatically that elevates my positioning with people. And so people will talk to you that may not have talked to you before, uh, you know, that type of thing. And so, I mean, it doesn't have to be on like the high names, it it helps, but I mean, just the fact that you lived in Nashua and I lived in Nashua, right? It elevates your status in my mind because I know we have familiarity. Right. And and that's what authority does. It gives people familiarity and creates a a perception of uh this is probably safe and and I can move forward. So that's what I know it's done for me. Um, and you know, I I know it does for other people. This is where you can command higher fees because people do pay for celebrity, and it is kind of a celebrity thing. It would be like if I said, uh, I don't know, uh, well, I mean, give you an example. Thomas Dorley Jr. said, you know, I'll probably be able to get Mr. Um Schultz, you know, the the the foul, the one of the co, I don't know if he was a co-founder, but he was the CEO of Google. Yes, right, and he said, I think I can get him to come speak. And I'm like, that guy? And he's like, Yeah, he's a good friend of mine. I think he'll come and do it, you know. And I said, Okay, like now we can say we have the you know Google CEO, right? I mean, who in business wouldn't want to listen to him about a technology, you know, conversation, right? So that's that's what it does, that's what celebrity does. And how do you get it? You get out into the public square, you know, and you start wherever you can and you go wherever you can, and you just you say yes to things that aren't against your um, you know, your your standing in life, and you just get out. You'd be surprised if you have like you have something to say. A lot of people give you a stage if you just ask.

SPEAKER_01:

I I believe that you gotta have beliefs in who you are, yes. What you also said is that that bridge, well, especially when you're talking to someone that you haven't spoken to before, right? Had not spoken before, but yet we were able to find a bridge, and most salespeople will do that. Like, all right, I have to find a bridge of um something that's similar, something that we both can relate to, that's relatable, right? So, hey, when you told me first we got talking about myself in the Nebraska, you have to ask that question, how cold does it get? I said, Well, it is pretty cold. It used to get pretty cold. I don't know if it gets as cold as before. They wouldn't give you the temperature, they would say it's cold as it's colder than man or beast. So that's to tell you that you should not go outside and give me an understanding of temperature-wise. But we established rapport immediately and a bridge to, okay, I think I can have a genuine conversation with someone before you can get into what I call more intimate conversation to get you to another level. You you definitely define that very, very well of establishing authority as a brand of yourself, your personal brand, forward and forward. Just bring something up that's common ground, that's genuine in your view and aligns with your belief. I want to switch the subject just a little bit because, in your view, I want to ask you this what separates a good sales team? And I've been on a lot of sales team as someone who has been a career business development professional for over 30 some odd years. The question is, what separates a sales team that's simply good from one that positions itself as an undeniable authority in the market?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's a great question. Um, so a sales team who positions itself as an undeniable authority doesn't actually mean that they're actually better at selling than the the team that's actually good. Right. So and I know this because I've worked with a lot of brand names, and I get into these brand names and I'm like, wow, you guys don't know really how to sell, let's say, to a C-level organization, you know, C level, right? Or or you know, I just uh worked with um some of the trades companies recently, and some of them who have brand authority, uh their sales team really isn't that good. So, you know, it's kind of like back in the day when Maytag was like the big brand name, right? And the Maytag people would walk in and say, Hey, we're from Maytag, we're not the least expensive. Let me tell you why. Right. Well, that's you know, I don't know if that's the greatest positioning for a sales conversation, but I mean it certainly was a good interruption, you know, to to head the objection off ahead of time. But, you know, people who in Maytag, you know, they may not be as good as you know, Arnie's appliance company, who who nobody's ever really heard of except Arnie in the local area, right? Yeah, and so you know, that's that's the the positioning really does come down to it always helps the sale. I mean, if we think about this just on human nature, you know, why do we accept a blind date? Because the trust and authority is conveyed through the person who's saying, I want to set you up with my friend. I think you two would get along really, you know, famously. And so we go, all right, this is a safe situation. I trust this person. It is a referral, really, when it comes down into sales. So this positioning and authority always will give us an edge to have a different level of status. No matter even if, like, I, you know, let's say we were doing a live event together, Grant, and we said, well, we're gonna do it uh at the Biltmore Hotel. Yeah, you know, and people will be like, Oh, the Biltmore, right? They already know the brand brand. But you know, we could also say we were gonna do it at you know, Dave's loft, you know. Now, Dave's loft might be a way nicer service and way better than the Biltmore hotel, even though the Biltmore has established a brand in that. You know, I mean, at Dave's, they might like you know, drive your car and park it for you and carry your bags in and lay out everything and iron your clothing in the morning and you know, bring you, you know, hot breakfast to your room and not charge you for it. I mean, they they might be like better service even at Dave's, but Dave will not be positioned as the Biltmore unless that brand is built somehow. And so when you think of the Biltmore, you think, oh geez, I'm gonna pay a lot more money for that. And and and that's why people do. I mean, why do people fly first class? It's it's it's a status, it's an authority type thing. I only fly first class. Chet Holmes, when I when I was Chet's president of training uh sales and training, Chet told me, he goes, I only fly first class. I'm like, Chet, we're flying an hour and a half, right? He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna fly in first class. I'm like, I'm not charging the company that we work together in, you know, three thousand dollars to fly an hour and a half. I'll, you know, I'll sit in business class for 500 bucks or whatever, right? And and so it's like, but you know, he used to tell everybody I only fly first class. So when he was hired by people, they'd be like, I only get first class tickets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It just raised his authority.

SPEAKER_01:

Premium, right, right, right. Uh, but I said, All right, you you're a premium guy. We're gonna, you know, we're gonna pay. That's why one I go to my sports analogy. Why one quarterback gets uh you know a million dollars a year, another quarterback's 20 million dollars a year. Yeah, yeah. Uh there's there's some some status that goes with that, some past performance that goes with that. There's a probability that they're gonna do it for me. Uh no, no guarantee. No, I'm a Steelers fan. I'm hoping I get you know the Hall of Fame Aaron Rodgers, but there's no guarantee.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, see, now we're now we're gonna get it because they just played the Patriots the other day. And I'm I'm I'm still not happy about the way the Patriots played that game, let's put it that way. But um, but you're right. I mean, you know, here's here's the thing I've learned too. No matter where somebody is in that authority status, it doesn't mean they're going to perform better than the people who are not. I mean, I you know, listen, I love Chet Holmes. Uh, you know, I've closed deals he couldn't, right? And he's helped me a great deal too. So, you know, teamwork is is a wonderful thing, but it does it also doesn't mean that just somebody who has had like he had the best-selling sales book for seven years straight. Yeah, you know, it doesn't mean they don't make mistakes.

SPEAKER_01:

No, they're human, exactly. You know, so it's change a lot of times sales, it's timing, it's situation, uh, whatever the you know, tactical flaws, strategic flow, there's a lot of things going on. I want to talk to you about this because I think this is important, especially for a lot of people that are tuning in. There are salespeople, salespeople I've worked with for maybe 20 plus years, and they want to hear this from a professional like yourself. Now, you face setbacks from sending out, I think you said like 300 plus resumes without success, and then you pivoted into entrepreneurship. My question is, how is resilience played into your success? And how do you coach leaders to build that same type of muscle?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, you if you don't have resilience, you're you know, that's that Chumpa Wamba did a song, I get knocked down by get back up again, I think it's called right something. I don't know what the name of the song is, but it, you know, that is entrepreneurship. You know, you know, was it that's life was another song that was done, you know, you're you're you're riding high in April, shot down in May, right? And you know, I'll give I'll give an example. I had a uh client uh up until two years ago. We were generating$1.4 million a year with this client. Um, I had been with this client now for seven years, and you know, they grew in part because of our efforts. You know, we are I built a commission sales team for these people and managed it. And you know, our commissions overall were like 1.4 million.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice, right?

SPEAKER_00:

And so that tells you what they, you know, we sold a lot. We were we were actually one third of their revenue, and um and so they came to me and they said, Listen, we're doing great. We want to double our sales. Okay, and I'm a math-based, metrics-based guy when it comes to these things. So I built out the plan and I showed it to them. They go, Yep, let's do it. And I said, Well, listen, this is a big commitment on my side. I've got to let a couple other clients, you know, give them notice. I can't keep them because you know, I don't have the like it's not fair to the other clients, right? So I said, So you sure we're in? And they said, Yeah, no problem. So I let the other clients go. Okay, so this is a two million dollar mistake. I want people to understand this coming up front. Okay. So I let them go. And then about two and a half months into us growing their company to double it, they decided to hard hard pivot to a completely new market. Wow. And they asked me, What do you think? And I said, Absolutely, don't do this, it won't work. Well, anyways, the company uh it didn't work, and they tried it and they kept staying with it. I kept saying, Please get out of this, please get out of this, please get out of this, let's pivot back and let's go, you know. And they didn't. It eventually put them out of business. And um, you know, they were losing millions and millions and millions of dollars. We were still selling, but it wasn't at the levels we could sell to sustain the amount of employees that were at the company at the time. And, you know, when we grew uh over the seven years, we actually grew 7x. So we were literally almost doubling every single year. And so so they went out of business. So uh, well, they actually sold the business. They didn't they and they didn't tell me they were selling the business, they sold the business. So I woke up one day and they go, Hey, we sold the business. The the new company doesn't want what we had before, you know, we're we're done. So within a year, I let go the other clients plus this client, and it was a two million dollar loss.

unknown:

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so I don't tell this story to say, look how smart I am. I tell this story to let people know, you know, this is the time when you get knocked down. So what do you do? And you've got to get back up and realize that, okay, just like when a storm cloud comes through, you know, a tornado came through, it wreaked habit on the town, but the tornado's gone now. So now I can just keep talking about the tornado, or I can say, okay, where do we rebuild from here? And that's what we did. And within a year, we actually pivoted back, and another opportunity opened up, which actually turned out to be larger than the opportunity we lost. So if I lived in the past and I'm going, oh geez, look at this happen, and that's gonna be, you know, or I lived too far out in the future and said, My gosh, we just don't have two million coming in, you know. How am I gonna make payroll? How am I gonna? I mean, I ask these questions, don't get me wrong, but I didn't live there. You got to bring yourself into the present moment and say, okay, I'm here. What do I do? Whether you're on an island and you're, you know, out in the South Pacific, like uh Tom Hanks, I think was in the movie Castaway, uh, or you know, whether you're just like sitting at your house and you're like, okay, this you know, terrible thing happened, understand there's a I'm not a Buddhist, but there's a la in Buddhism that's like impermanence, I believe I believe they call it. It'll happen and then it moves on. Right. We've all had bad breakups in our lives of some sort, right? It it hurt at the moment, you know. If we keep going back, and you know, I think Al Bundy and the uh Married with Children used to keep saying, you know, I threw three touchdowns at the high school game, and you know, and then I met Peggy and she ruined my life, right? And right, that type of thing. If we if we keep going back to that, that's what I think Grant gets people caught. They keep holding on to the memories of what, if, or not looking at just what could be, but focusing on now. Definitely understand pain.

SPEAKER_01:

And if you keep reliving that pain over and over again, you've never really. Allow yourself to heal, right? And move forward. Now, you what you just described there is major. You know, you've got to put something, you've got to have major belief in yourself to get yourself moving forward so you're not stuck in that rut. And I know a lot of sales leaders, they burn out when they're under this kind of pressure. They just can't do this. You know, I want to know, and I'm sure that people want to know because you're as you're building back, you've got to build this back up, and you've got to to to do this on a daily basis. What practices do you use or did you use or recommend for bouncing back when the numbers just aren't hitting?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I credit Ted Turner to this, just so everybody knows. Like Ted Turner, I remember during certain times in my life, I read Ted Turner at one point was losing 20 million dollars a day. Wow. At TNT, I believe it was. Um, you know, and I think he was still married to um Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda, right? So I mean, his days couldn't be all that bad, right? I mean, right. So I think it's uh, you know, I just saw Jane Fonda, she's like 86 in a movie, and I mean she looks amazing, like it's good for you, Jane. Um, and um, and the movie was wonderful, and uh it's I think it was called Move, if I remember correctly. The here's the thing: no matter how bad we have it, someone's always got it worst. You know, and so the first thing I look at is I I tried not to get into that little pity party of myself because we all can do it, right? So, you know, there are times I literally have closed the door, walked into a closet, closed the door, and just screamed and got it out, and then just opened the door and said, Okay, back to work. Okay, we and and Ted Turner, like he didn't seem rocked that he was losing$20 million a day. Where most of us, if we were losing$20 million a day, I mean, it'd be like life is complete, you know, like I can't go on, right? Um, but I've known a lot of successful people, and I didn't know Ted Turner, I would love to meet him. Um but I know that they went through ups and downs and ups and downs, you know. I mean, I remember seeing Tony Robbins extremely upset one day um in Las Vegas, and I went, wow, Tony Robbins actually has emotions beyond what he, you know, he's a he's a normal regular guy, right? And and you know, and I respect him a great deal, and he's done phenomenally well and you know helped millions literally of people. You know, I've seen Chet Holmes come and say, Listen, you know what? Uh you can't, you know, we've we're twenty thousand dollars over on this um invoice that we were supposed to be for tech support in a time where we had committed a hundred thousand dollars a month to spend out on radio ads, which was our twenty thousand dollars more, right? So we all get ourselves in places the one thing I can tell people that absolutely works is you focus not on the problem but on the solution. Now, what's the solution? The solution is removing the cause to the problem. And this, Grant, is where I think people get in trouble all the time because they're trying to solve the symptom of the problem, versing at what is the cause of the problem? And when you remove the cause of a problem, you no longer have the problem. It's true. Yeah, and so every day we've got to wake up and we got to say, okay, once we have identified the cause, we remove that. And from that point on, everything is what's under my control that I can do today to get to where I want to go. And we just put our nose in that direction and we take one step forward each and every day. I learned this from a man named Richard Minovino. Can I tell the story? Because it was funny. Yeah, go ahead. So I'm in my 30s, I believe. I'm uh I'm having challenges in business with employees, with government stuff, everything going on. And I'm sitting in his office. Now, this is a man who was worth at the time$350 million. And whatever forever reason, he just mentored me. Uh, I never asked him why, but I think I reminded him of a young him. He was like 30 something years older than I was, and we would just go down and talk. And one day I'm like, you know, Dick, you know, this is going on in my business, and this is going on in my business. As I was telling him this was going on, he was laughing. And, you know, and I'm like, he at first it was just a chuckle. It was like, ha ha ha ha. Right. And then as I'm going on there, I'm like, no, you know, I had employees, they have 1099 contracts, independent agreements, and they went out and they claimed unemployment benefits, and now the states are after me. And he's like, he's laughing and he's getting louder and louder. And and I got a little frustrated at one point, and I said, Dick, I don't think you're hearing me. I got all these problems. I mean, you got 315 employees out on the field, out on that field, you know, right on that floor out there. And you've got all this, you got a 1,500 square foot office, oh, 1800 square foot office. And I said, I said, I have all these problems. Are you hearing me? Do you ever go through this? And he he stopped laughing, Grant. Like, whoop, like just quickly stopped laughing. His eyes narrowed, kind of like Clint Eastwood in the movies, yeah. And he looked at me and he goes, son, every effing day of my life. And it like snapped me back. So, like, I was like, What? Like, you're a you know, 350 million dollar guy. Yeah, he's like, son, this is what you signed up for. This is entrepreneurship. Yeah, he's like, You're gonna have ups and down days. And then I asked him this question why do people not get what they want then? And he said these words to me. He said, Son, all you can do is know what you want, and then point your nose in that direction, and you keep your nose pointed in that direction, and you keep taking a step every day. And I promise you, you're still gonna go through the things you're going through right now. You're gonna get beat up, knocked down. People are not gonna believe in you. Some people will. You just keep walking. He said, I promise you two things, and then, well, actually, three things. I promise you, it's gonna take you two to three times longer than you figure it's gonna happen. Yeah, it will cost you two to three times more than you thought it was going to cost you. And if you keep walking, eventually you will get there.

SPEAKER_01:

Man, golden wisdom right there when it comes to resilience, but understanding what it is that you truly want in my world, I call it the North Star. If you truly want to reach that North Star, you truly want to get there, you're gonna have to go through a lot more than you probably realize that you're going to do, but is it worth the stretch, right? Is it worth all the pain and anguish you're gonna go through to get there? Is the payoff going to be what you expect it, you know, to be? This this is very, very important to understand this. Now, you you've created and worked with a lot of uh uh important projects, important in people. Um you know, and and I want to come up talk about your vision because right there is that you gotta have a very powerful vision and you've got to make that vision come to light authentically, right? Yeah. So, what's your long-term vision for reshaping out companies like today? I think maybe we're losing some like human-to-human connection because of AI. I think people don't realize how important that is. But how do you see this approach to sales in the enterprise space changing?

SPEAKER_00:

Or maybe I'm well, you know, I always tell people they go, What do you think of AI? And I go, AI can't produce babies, right? So I've had some technology people say, not yet, right? I'm like, all right, well, um, so you know, here's the thing. Um, I'm just gonna take a drink. Sinus infection, not fun. So here's the thing. Uh we're still selling to human beings, not titles. The challenge for most people is they think they're selling to a CEO or they're selling to a chief whatever or whatever level. And they forget that there's two things in every sale. A uh a business return on investment and a personal return on investment. Human-to-human selling is about the personal return on investment. But most people forget it. So let me give an example. We might be going in to sell a company a certain protocol that will, you know, reduce overhead without reducing headcount, and which will increase the profitability by X. There's the business return on investment.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

But if that personal return on investment is they want safety and security, and we're not addressing that, we will get things like you know what, might not be in the budget right now. You know what, we might have to look at this again next year. You know what? I I need to confer with a council on this, you know. Um, you know, give me a proposal and let me see what it looks like, right? You'll hear things like that. And the personal return on investment could be whatever they deem it to be, grant, right? So it's it's one of those things that it's personal to them. Maybe, maybe they want higher repute. Maybe they want to have a better standing in the community of which they serve. So, how does our sale actually help that? You know, if, for example, if they wanted higher authority, higher repute, and we were like, listen, we can increase your profitability, and we can take part of that profitability, and we can put you on Grants podcast and 15 other podcasts, we can get Authority Magazine to do an article on you, and we can use that, you know, these things to do that, that might be enough for the personal ROI to actually kick it over the top. But I see, you know, but if they're like worried about the board and losing their job, if this goes wrong, because they promised their kids they were gonna send them to Harvard or Stanford and they were gonna pay for all of this, or you know, whatever it is for them. If we don't find that out as a seller, we're missing it. And I think that's where people miss it all the time. And you know, that's never gonna go away. So AI can replace routine, repetitive workflow tasks and do it amazingly well. I love AI, I mean, I use it all the time. Um, you know, I mean, it cuts down a research project that I'm doing from you know hours to minutes. Right, right. Um AI will replace certain things that are routine in the future of you know, even appointment setters and things like that. Will it replace all appointment setters? I don't believe so, um, to be seen, but it's just the technology, right? And we've had technology all the time that has been rapidly changing the landscape. Moving pictures changed vaudeville, right? Um the television replaced a big part of radio, right? Now streaming is replacing what we knew as traditional television. You know, you can just go up on an app, right? So it's not something to fear, and the vision around that is not something to fear, but the vision of communicating with human beings forever and ever and ever, I it will not go away. Like, you know, again, AI can't make babies, right? I mean, human emotion is what creates babies, and that's never ever going to, I don't believe, ever change. I think you know, we're gonna remove you know humans from human beings. Uh, I I don't, I just don't see that working out, and so it's when it's a complex conversation or or an involved conversation, I think. I mean, if the pandemic taught me anything, yes, it's people want to get back together.

SPEAKER_01:

True, right? Well, because I've been in technology for 25, 30 years, I understand exactly what you're saying. It's kind of technology changes certain things, it'll change the landscape, but it's changing the human story. You know, this human story still continues. AI is very good for me, it's about amplification and refinement. Uh, it can do very, very good in those areas, but for what purpose? And that is to enhance the human-to-human interaction, to get human beings to be more critical thinkers, to dig or dig deep into their humanity and bring things out that weren't always so obvious. I think that's so, so important and to understand. Now, here's my last question for you, because this is very important, and I want my audience to truly understand this. You have built over 36 companies and helped generate more than a billion dollars in sales. This is the Doug Brown story, right? And for leaders listening right now who want to grow revenue in the next 90 days, what's the most actionable step that they can execute immediately without overcomplicating the process?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, that's a big question. So I'm gonna answer, I'm gonna answer it to the to what I know of it in the context of what we're talking about. So the first thing is let's get a truthful goal. What is the actual thing we want to grow by? I see so many people hyperinflate the actual truthful goal that they never get it off the ground enough to get to that particular goal, right? So we we're talking 90 days. Like I I had a I had a gentleman come he was talking to me the other day, well, actually three weeks ago now, and he's like seven million dollars. And I said, Well, where do you want to be uh by the end of the year? And he goes, I want to be at 12. And I'm like, We're in August, so that's August to September, September to October, November, December to January. We're talking a four and a half, five months. You want to go from seven to twelve million, and he said, Yes. And I said, Well, what happens if you don't hit 12? What's what what number would you be happy with? He goes, eight and a half. Okay. It's like, I'm like, hello. Like, you know, and then he goes, Well, I'd really like nine. And I'm like, okay, so we really don't know the number yet, right? So that's I know this sounds like basic, and but it is one of those things, Grant, that just people don't they don't do it. They're like, yo, I wanna I want to date a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. It's like, do you really? I mean, you don't know anything about the Dallas Cowboys. I'm sure they're nice ladies, you know. Um, so you know, in in the reality is what they're looking for is a close connected relationship with another human being, right? And so I think it's one of those things that if we don't define that, then how do we build a plan off for something that's fictitious? We do, like my$2 million faux pas, right? I've so it's and I'm not saying this because I have made the mistake, don't make the mistake. I'm saying because I've worked with so many companies and all of our own businesses, this is the first place to start. Okay. Once you get there, it's like, okay, so how do we get there? It's easy. Math, right? We want to go from here to here. What are the math, what are the KPIs or the metrics we want to hit? And then what is the math that needs to go behind that? How many, like, is our sales team, for example, if we had a sales team uh and they're outreaching today um 20 people a day? I'm just making up the number. Is it possible to get them to reach out to 26 a day? Yes, it is. Aha. All right, great. So if we can get them to go out 26 a day, how many people can they connect with? How many people can they get positive responses from? How can we increase our appointment ratio at that point? Because if we have a static close rate, let's say it's 21 in four, we have a static close rate of one in four, but I can now push volume through the front end of that for every four people that we have an appointment with, we know we're gonna get one more sale. Right? So it's predictable once we start looking at the metrics. This is super critical. If somebody doesn't want to go through that portion and they're just like, hey, I just want to raise my sales in the next 90 days. Look at the things that you're sitting on right now. I'll tell you one of them will probably be your dormant clients that you haven't paid attention to for a long time. Go back to every single one of those clients and just call them and say, Hey, we haven't talked in a while. I'd just like to catch up. Sure. And you will spawn new business. Uh, your follow-up ratios, how are you following up? If I ask the question out of 12 months, how many times do you follow up with your current clients, your current buyers? I know the average on most people is between one and four, with the average average being about two. And guess what? There's money sitting there. Yeah. You know, so there's some simple things to do. After that kind of clears the night first 90 days, and we built the plan, the next step in that process is we To really take a look at who's our ideal right fit buyer, because I can tell you most companies, uh, in part or in full, don't know it. And I thought it was like a big deal, and then I did some research grant, and to give the audience the research data, Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School, you name the big companies, marketing companies out there, or whatever, they've done these studies, and they all conclude the same thing. And I was shocked by the numbers. 97% of people selling don't know in part or in full their ideal right fit buyer. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's huge.

SPEAKER_00:

So if we if we're talking the wrong message to the wrong buyer or the wrong message to the right buyer, or we're talking to the the wrong buyer with the right message, then we're going to be off. And so now we're spending a lot more money than we need to, and a lot more energy and time. Once we dial that thing in, it it's crazy, like crazy good. And I'm and I will tell people, you know, I've worked with you know solo entrepreneur consultants who have not had this right, and big companies like um Intuit didn't have it right. Intuit, please don't sell me, uh, sue me, um, on that. But you know, but when we dialed it in, it it literally went from a multi-million dollar loss to a$10 million gain, right? In in one year. So it is one of those things that you know that's kind of the process in the beginning of getting it going. And then obviously you got to be able to hold accountability to making sure it goes through. That's kind of the short answer, but that was a big question.

SPEAKER_01:

That a lot of people have the metric you just get 97% people don't know who they're selling to. And the misalignment of messaging, I see that a lot. I always used to I used to fight with my marketing team, you know, in sales. You're like, that that that you're like, I need something to be able to put in front of a client that's willing to buy our stuff, but your messaging and what you just said right here doesn't is that's not it. You know, it's off. And what you just said earlier about knowing who you're selling to, especially because the C-suite has a whole different sort of circumstances than what you call your your suite of SVPs or vice presidents and directors and managers. They're all you have to know your audience in order to uh position what you're uh selling, whether it's a product or service, to the right audience. It makes such a big difference. I kind of lied, I said that's gonna be my last question. I have one more question. I have to ask you this because it's so important to me. You said earlier, you've been on 500 different podcasts, you've given all kinds of interviews. This is your first opportunity to be on the Follow Brand Podcast. What did you think of this interview?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, all right. This is where you slip me the hundred dollars. Go ahead. Okay, it's in the mail. Um you know, I've enjoyed this, and and I'm being sincere. I've enjoyed this interview immensely. And you've asked uh really thought-provoking questions that I haven't been asked on many other podcasts where it's like I really had to like, oh wow, let me think deeply about this because this question is is uh going to be not only important for the people listening that I give, you know, what I know to be accurate information, right? Um, but it actually made me really think about okay, is this accurate information about what I'm supposed to say? Right. So I really think a great deal about uh what our interview has been. Uh, and um I will continue to think about it after after our conversation because here's the thing when I do these podcasts, uh, people ask questions, and sometimes I go, where the heck did that answer come from? Like that was brilliant. Oh wow, geez, I didn't know that was there, right? That type of thing. Or sometimes I listen back and I go, you know, that was close, but it really wasn't, you know, there. On our answers here, I I keep telling myself this was you know spot on, right? So I uh I appreciate your not only your style and your and the ability to ask questions, but just the the conversation I think that we're having is so important to anybody, whether they're a you know, a salesperson selling, a solo entrepreneur, uh, you know, or uh running a uh you know a large corporation, they're all important jobs and we're all human beings and everybody has wants, needs, desires, and fears. And uh, you know, those of you who might be in a sales position and you're thinking your CEO of a company doesn't wake up and go, oh my gosh, you know, uh, or I've got a board meeting today, or I've got, you know, I've got to, you know, raise funds on this. Or, and if you're a CEO and you don't realize that your salespeople are waking up every day thinking similar things, like, man, I gotta, how am I gonna hit quota? How am I gonna boost past quota? How am I gonna get this, you know, this bonus structure that you put in? Kindly thank you, uh, you know, so that I can, you know, send my kid to you know Europe or whatever, right? We we all have these things. And, you know, I I don't want to say that you know, I'm a humanitarian type guy, Grant, but it's you know, I am in a lot of a lot of ways. But I just believe, and maybe it's I'm getting older, but this podcast is uh deep in the thought of what I believe life really is about, which is you have a limited number of days on this earth to not fear where you really want to go, take action on what you want to do, and to measure the days of ratio of happiness to BS that you live on a daily basis, and to put yourself in a place where the those days of happiness are are are higher uh than the days of the BS, because to me that's kind of the purpose of life at this point, you know. And I look back at all the businesses we built and all the stuff we went through, and you know, I listen to a lot of um, you know, people who have been successful getting there, and many of them say the same thing, you know. I'm glad I'm here, but I wish I had done this differently. You know, I wish I had taken more time to enjoy life because it goes woof bye, you know. So to me, this podcast has just kind of like reinforced that whole process. So I thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to thank you for being on the Father Brand Podcast. Now, you've got to tell the audience how to contact you, and and and and I'm definitely letting my audience know uh that as well. So, what is the best way to get a hold of Doug Brown?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh you can reach out to me directly by email at Doug at CEO Sales Strategiesplural.com, you know, so salesstrategies.com. Um, I'm Doug Brown123 on LinkedIn. If you type in Doug C. Brown online, uh I'll I'll be everywhere. Um, you know, honestly, not braggandocious, but consciously have been putting myself there. Uh, if you type Doug Brown, you're gonna come up with a professional hockey player, and I can't skate to save my soul. Um, so uh Doug used to play for the Red Wings. I think his son plays for the Boston Bruins, if I remember correctly. And um, I've got a book called Win Win Selling Unlocking the Power of Profitability by Resolving Objections. I wrote a whole book on philosophy and psychology of objections. Um, that's been very well received. Um, and if you want to join our newsletter, go to CEO Sales Strategies.com forward slash newsletter. Uh we put out you know really good, thoughtful content on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. I love it. We're gonna take you up on that. We're going to invite your entire audience to tune in all episodes of Follow the Brand. You can do so at five star BDM. That is the number five that's Star S T R B for Brand, B for Development, Informasters.com. Thank you so much, Doug, for gracing us with your particular philosophies, how you've been so successful in a very tough business. Sales is not easy. And I'm sure when you started out, you had a full head of hair just like I did.

SPEAKER_00:

I joke about that all the time, you know. Um, I can I leave the audience with one other piece here.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00:

So, you know, it's interesting now because in my life, my uh I have two daughters uh who I love daily, and they both decided they want to really learn about selling. They're in their early 20s. Um, and I've had the pleasure now of starting to train them, you know. And okay, so they, you know, when they were little, I mean, they hung around with, you know, Tony Robbins and they hung around with people, you know what I mean, like really successful people. So they were putting a ton of pressure on themselves. And I said to them, I said, you've got to make room for mistakes in sales. And that's kind of a message I want people to understand. They said, Well, what do you mean? I said, you know, I learned this from Russ Whitney, very another successful man. Uh, he said, Doug, there's always a large averages, you know, you're gonna you're gonna win some, you're gonna lose some, you're gonna be brilliant on some, you're gonna be kind of duh on some, you know. Uh, you got to just make room for it. And I've I I do that. And so I was teaching them that as we were going through uh some trainings together. And uh, you know, I I I want to pass that message along that no matter what happens during the day, you're not gonna get it a hundred percent. So make room for it. And it understand, you know, like people used to say this when I was a kid, like, babe Ruth used to strike out more than he hit a home run, right? And I'd be like, who is a strikeout? Let's, you know, but I realize what they were saying now, which is like the strikeouts are part of the actual process of being able to hit the home run. It's not like a direct comparison to strikeouts and you know, home runs, right? Which is what I used to think. Now, what it is is you've got to make room for some of the strikeouts, some of the walks, some of the singles, the doubles, the triples, you know, the I got hit by a pitch, you know, that type of thing, as well as a few grand slams, right? It's all in the law of the averages. And if you want to improve your law of averages, you get better at your skill, your mindset, and some of the other, you know, some of the things we were talking about today. And your lar of averages will actually improve.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a hundred percent uh correct. You've got to get the ad bat, right? You got to get the ad batts no matter what happens, as long as you get at the at bat, you know, and sometimes you do hit the ball that you didn't expect and it goes for a grand slam. Like, wow, see that company. But if you don't get up to up to bat and take that swing, you'll never know. So I want to thank you again for being on the show. You take care of yourself. And I'll see you again, my friend, when I come up there to visit New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I'm I'm I'm bringing you out to lunch, brother.

SPEAKER_01:

Take care. You too.