NerdBrand Podcast
The NerdBrand Podcast is at the intersection of nerd culture, branding, and advertising. Nerd culture is no longer an isolated subculture; it’s THE culture of the day and makes its way into our daily lives through the entertainment we seek and the technology we rely upon. Listen as we discuss our views on visual design, branding, and advertising for movies, comics and novels, video games, technology, and other nerdy passions.
NerdBrand Podcast
Simplified Sales Success: Make it Simple, Stupid
Unlock the secrets to winning sales strategies with simplicity and clarity as your guiding principles. Join us on the NerdRamp Podcast where Jacob and I, Jason, unravel the art of simplifying your sales pitch to tap into the core benefits of your product or service. Hear entertaining personal stories and industry insights that stress the value of understanding customer needs without overwhelming them with jargon and unnecessary features. Discover how identifying the right marketing channels and crafting clear communication can lead to more fruitful sales interactions.
As we explore relationship-building techniques, we highlight the impact of enthusiasm and confidence in the sales process. Drawing from my retail experience, we discuss how a positive attitude and tailored sales approaches can significantly sway customer decisions. Learn how to navigate the balance between technology's rapid growth, with tools like Wix and Canva, and the enduring necessity of a robust brand presence. We also touch on the critical role that researching prospects plays in aligning your sales strategy with their personal interests and underlying needs, transforming sales conversations into meaningful consultations.
For those looking to expand their professional network, tune in as we share experiences and strategies for cultivating quality business relationships beyond LinkedIn. From the importance of genuine connections at networking events to the power of a well-curated LinkedIn network, we emphasize the value of patience and persistence in building strategic business connections. By spending time on meaningful interactions, you can achieve quicker sales results and stronger business leads. We also candidly discuss our preference for social media engagement over email marketing, reinforcing the importance of a solid personal brand. Join us for these insights and more, and don't forget to subscribe for future episodes.
ABOUT NERDBRAND
NerdBrand is a national branding and advertising agency based in Louisville, KY.
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Hey, I'm going to sell you this stick of butter. Tell you.
Speaker 2:But I want ice cream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but this butter is all the rage and I'm in it with all my team and if we just sell more butter, then we can make some more money.
Speaker 2:But I just want ice cream. I don't want butter, I don't need butter. Can I just have some ice cream please?
Speaker 1:What about nonfat butter? There, you see, on this episode of the NerdRamp Podcast, we talk about making it simple stupid. Welcome to this episode of the NerdRamp Podcast. I'm with Jacob, I'm Jason, you know who we are, and we're talking about make it simple, stupid with sales. Take my money and yet we get like all kinds of other, like we're continuously pitched after we basically wave money in front of what the hell's going on. It's weird. Like I want this.
Speaker 2:I want this, and then it's weird, like, uh, I want this, I want this. And then people are like, hey, uh, well, I could also do this, all right. Well, that's, that's a different story. Um, that's not what I'm asking.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like I want to get a haircut, but I I know you can do nails I just want the haircut. Yeah, it's just a simple process. For some reason it's a complex process, but we're going to talk about some tips to make it easier. So let's start with focus on the benefits. People don't buy products and services.
Speaker 2:They blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, you're saying I need to wake up.
Speaker 1:Man, I tell you what I am not. I need to probably drink a little bit more caffeine. They buy solutions to their problems, so you got any stories on how this has gone sideways in your opinion?
Speaker 2:Man, there's times where, like I've had people, either even in my earlier days of selling, when I was, you know, working with my last, last company, even the company before that um, it was like people would be like, all right, this is what I want. And then, you know, you get caught up on either extra stuff that you either just heard or you're just product dumping, like that's one thing actually I learned when I worked at menards. They actually put that in their sales strategy of hey, don't product dump, just hey, what do you need what? Why do you? Why are you using it? Get to the point like, uh, it's just all right, what's the benefits? Why? Why is this product need for them?
Speaker 1:cool, that's it, yeah, yeah I mean, and that is it. I mean it's a, there's a. When you have a problem, it's in your face and it's like right at the end of your nose and until it goes away you really can't see the other needs that you actually have, because when one thing is solved in a business, there's always a thousand more right behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably any coder could probably say that. Yeah, if there's a glitch or something like that, or any video gamer if there's a glitch or whatever in a game, they fix that. Well, something else is popping up on the other side.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a whack-a-mole scenario. Yeah, and you know, I was told a long time ago that coding is like writing a 700 page book, and if you miss one comma, the whole thing don't make sense. Yes, so you know anyway. Uh, yeah, keep it simple. Don't try to sell your prospects everything at once. Instead, focus on one or two key benefits that will mostly likely benefit them. And that kind of goes to what you were saying, that product dumping, yeah, feature dumping.
Speaker 2:Like, hey, yeah, so we actually had a video. Actually it was really good. The guy, this lady, is asking for a drill and the guy just goes well, it does this, just drill. Drill, drill is great. It does all these amazing things, has all this power and force. She's like, no, I just need a simple drill so I can hang up some shelves. All right, well, this one is going to give you all the torque that you need. And like, all right, no, you don't need a lot of torque drilling in the drywall. So, like it's, and it's small things. People get caught up like that because either in their mind they're thinking of either about themselves or what they would like, what they think is good for themselves and what they want, almost you know, and they're almost projecting it to the other people to be like, oh yeah, this is something cool. Yeah, so just being like, hey, no, they're, you're here to help them. And I feel like that's really caught up in yeah, yeah, they do.
Speaker 1:Um using clear and concise language, jargon, technical terms, um I was wording the crap out of stuff.
Speaker 2:It's been detrimental to our industry um, yeah, it's just anything with websites and seo yeah, jpi.
Speaker 1:So marketing, marketing is made up of specialties, and so when somebody says marketing, they don't mean just marketing. I mean it's, you know it's. It's made up of specialties and it's not branding. They're, they're, they're different.
Speaker 2:One doesn't trump the other one. Yeah, it's a whole other thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you need both. But it's like the marketing is there's SEO, there's social media, there's um, you know, ad writing, there's paid advertising, there's blogging, there's SWPs, there's just all kinds of different specialties, and so within that, it's confusing to navigate what you need. And the answer is you need probably three to four channels of three to four specialties, and so we can try to put it that way, I guess. And so if you're doing social media, I mean you're posting to Facebook five times a week and you're like what am I getting in return for that? Well, I mean you should be able to measure monetary value in your bank account.
Speaker 1:Just look at your bank statements. Um, that's a really good way to measure that. If you've done something and you're spending on something, how much are you getting back? Look at the bill that you just paid versus how much you just made in sales at the end of the month or in a quarter, and then you can kind of make that judgment. But that shouldn't be the only thing you're doing?
Speaker 2:No, no, it definitely makes sense to have one or two other channels, but obviously they need to be the right channels, that's hitting the right people, that you can use the clear and concise language that is targeted towards them, like that's what makes the most sense. I mean, why, why say ten dollar words when a two dollar words does a trick?
Speaker 1:you know yeah, I mean you're not selling to. I mean we're all not hemming ways you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so yeah, I mean, and plus it's. You know, especially, like in our field, there's a lot of people who don't know. The owner of a company that does plumbing, for example, he's not going to know the difference between the SEO and website and blogging and how they all converge. He doesn't need to know that's not his job. That's why he hires someone to do that. So you don't need to talk like hey, you need to know all these terms. No, hey, ballpark. This is the general gist of what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you can get a lot done for a few thousand dollars to get you going and actually start to see a return. Um, a lot of people that in in our field don't. So there's very basic tenets to make, uh, a brand, go and sell. I think I sent you an email about this. Actually, I should have saved it because it had like four very important bullet points. One of them is a good brand, and what I mean by that is it needs to look professional, it needs to be, you know, not like it was done in Canva by a second-year graphic designer.
Speaker 2:The second grade.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you need that. And then, off of that, you've got to think, because if you're doing product packaging and any kind of ads, you want to look trustworthy and you want to stand out, but from there you have to have a few other things going for you as well, and those they're very simple. A paid advertising campaign is important, you know. It's not like there's an order of what you need in order, but typically we like to have the brand worked out in the message and what you're around for before we start any other spend.
Speaker 2:Right, because then that's you know. Once again, it just simplifies it, so in that way you're not having three different messages across different boards. It's consumable. Yeah, and people can understand it. Oh yeah, that's the worst. I mean to be honest. That's the reason why I hate any perfume commercial. At the end you're like what the hell just happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't like, like, like, uh, what's her name? She gets out of the, the, the. They always get out of a pool. It's a half naked woman and you're just like. What did you just say? Did you just have a stroke?
Speaker 2:Sound like a dog with pea butter in your mouth. Yeah, Shaggy.
Speaker 1:So yeah, don't do that. Well, it was like me and Mitch the other day. You were listening. We were talking about making fun of a certain technical company with their commercials. It looked more like an episode of a show on netflix.
Speaker 1:Um, stranger things, yeah, yeah it looked like they were advertising stranger things and not internets and I was like what's going on? And then we saw a coca-cola ad and it was like whoa, that's how you do it, because products right up front, like the messaging and everything, there's no jargon and speaking directly to the people that just like to drink coke yep, actually one company that does it I still think is the best is a subaru commercial.
Speaker 2:Just that, that car commercial like that was the best commercial I've ever seen. The mom pulling up is like I drive a subaru because my family can walk away, and it's like and that is yeah, they did a really good job making that that is so on point, with the product and what it, what they want, their brand and imaging Basically what Volvo was.
Speaker 2:Uh, 20 years ago, back in the nineties and eighties, when they came up with the seatbelt, they're like, hey, you have the safest vehicles, that's what they want to hang their head on. And Subaru, they're like, yeah, I'd rather be the safest vehicle out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know to be enthusiastic. I mean confident. You need to be confident and enthusiastic. So when you're doing sales, if you sound like you're unsure about what you're selling and what you're doing, what you're saying, if you have any ums and ahs we're both guilty of this.
Speaker 1:But it's like you cannot do that because people will start to doubt whether or not. If you actually know what you're talking about and you're just not going to make the sale, I mean, it's just not going to happen because they now don't feel like you're confident. Therefore, they're not confident in you. Yeah, so it's reciprocal. So you have to be confident, you have to be enthusiastic and you kind of have to avoid word salading as well with that.
Speaker 1:So you need to, if you don't know what you're selling, and really try to grab what you can grab out of it, to understand it and try to figure out a way to associate it with something that you can relate it to, to communicate it. But I feel like that's a big one.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's the part where I feel like people misunderstand, where they're saying, yeah, they're not buying the product, they're buying you. That's the part where they're buying you. Your enthusiasm, the fact that's what people are buying off of. They can read whatever they want about any type of product, any type of thing, but the way you sell it to them, that energy and confidence behind it, that's what's going to get people to say that, yes, that's going to want them to be like oh yeah, this is simple. This guy already knows he's doing, knows he's talking about positive, about the product. Why wouldn't we get? We go with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can only tell you that there's been times where I've not been enthusiastic because I've pretty much disqualified them. I noticed, yeah, a lot of that happens when, for whatever reason, they start projecting and vomiting on us and I'm just like, hold on a minute. It's weird. There's been some weird interactions where I'm just like what did I do to you? Um, anyways, make it for your prospect Easy to say, as clear call to action, such as a discount, free trial or guarantee.
Speaker 2:That's sort of hard to do when you're doing a service like ours, but, um, I mean, that's somewhere you just it's the idea of yeah, if you're going to go close a sale, make sure you have a pen handy. Yeah, yeah, Carry a pen with you Like that's that simple.
Speaker 2:Like it's that thought process of don't make it hard for someone to buy your product. I mean, that was another sales thing I had to learn in Menards actually was hey, yeah, whatever you do, you make it as easy as possible for someone to find the product, grab it off the shelves, Like that's what we want. We want them to grab as quick as possible. Don't make me think.
Speaker 1:Don't make them think. Also, here's some tips about some things in sales that I've noticed that aren't really happening very well. Do your research. You're trying to sell to a prospect, but you need to take some time to learn about their needs and challenges. That's a very blanket thing. Also, just stalk them online. I just stalk them online. You know, I know it sounds creepy, but find out if they like to play pickleball. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like, do they have a dog and that's a little bit of understanding. Just, yeah, just understanding them and kind of you know, knowing all right, is this the type of person that? Are they someone that you want to joke around with, or is this someone that? Hey, not always the case, but a lot of military people are like very cut dry and one of our clients they're in more of a military background and yeah, it's where hey, upfront, simple, easy, call it a day. That's what they want. They don't need all that, all the extra stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if they want to be that way with the transaction which is what it is anyways, if that's what they want to be it's like in out done then that's fine. But you know there are a few that we have that you can have a casual conversation with. Those are actually the best ones because, um, the ones that are very transactional not to knock on them or anything, but it's just it's hard to figure out and discover what else there is that you can help them with. That could be a problem that just kind of sits in the back of their mind and sometimes people think that it's you that is. You know, well, maybe they're not addressing my need.
Speaker 1:Well, you didn't communicate your need because you won't talk to me, right? I mean, that's the thing Mitch says all the time. We're doctors, we diagnose, and so you're. We need to know, like, what'd you have for dinner? Like it seems like a very mundane denial question, but it's not. It's actually going to tell us maybe what that's what's causing some problems with your indigestion or heartburn or whatever you got going on. You know there's, there's something you're doing, and he's changed, yeah, we can't tell.
Speaker 2:Or we don't know. If your side is hurting, like we can't tell that, yeah, we can see. If there's a pick in your arm, yeah, we could tell that's a pain, but that's the obvious one. But there's always that minor one inside that you can't tell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know, just because you do ads, it doesn't mean that they're being done effectively. It doesn't mean that people are seeing them or the right people are seeing them. I mean anybody can. I was told a long time ago by a guy that was a business owner. He had five web designers on staff and he basically said any idiot can make a website, and he said that in front of his entire staff. Not very well delivered, but the, the, the message was the message was pretty solid.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, we're now in the age where um page builders, like wix and so you know, square and all these, have eliminated jobs for web designers. And then you have graphic designers are now out with the advent of Canva and all that.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:AI is basically taking care of the marketing people and copywriters and all that. It is a like. You can fight against it, but web designers when they fought against it, they lost. And when graphic designers fought against Canva, they lost. You're not going to beat the DIY mentality mentality because yeah, kind of what america is based on.
Speaker 1:To be honest, yeah, but at the same time you start to realize when I go back to having a brand that stands out, you know, I may know how to paint, but it won't turn out very well, right? You know, unless it's just, unless I'm lucky sorry.
Speaker 2:That just reminds me of the office quote of where Michael has to make his own ad for Dunder Mifflin because Ryan's like, no, the ad team, they're making the ad, all right. Because you know. And he's like, hey, so what, you're creative, but that's not your job, right? And he's just like, hey, well, I'm a creative, I'm really creative, I'm going gonna make my own cereal restaurant. And, uh, you know, everyone can buy any type of cereal they can in the store and then just eat it here at the restaurant and be like, well, most we want to eat cereal home.
Speaker 1:So yeah, exactly, there's a there. There the ad. People don't just sit around and do creative work and just write words and it's not at mad. It's not an episode of mad men.
Speaker 1:Um yes, so you know, it is actually more of like an office, the office. Um. So yeah, it's just one of those things where, by not doing that, you don't do the second tip, which is build a rapport. You don't take time, you can't really get to know the relationship. Everybody says this like build a relationship, okay, well, yeah, if you're not talking now, I'll say this because I have hacked on one-to-ones and you're laughing, I know, I know exactly where you're going with this I mean I, there's a difference between activity and actually production, productive use of time in sales.
Speaker 1:Right, I see a lot of activity, like we got caught up in activity about three years ago. We're seeing another wave of it right now with one-to-ones everywhere and networking and everybody's getting burnt out. We can see it and it's on everybody's face for those that listen to this podcast. I'm talking to you. Uh, you know it's like, okay, we've got to figure out a pivot here because, um, if we don't, we're just going to abandon something that is a mechanism that does work. We just need to examine, like, the frequency, maybe, of it, or what's being talked about, or how it's handled or what's. What is it that we need to change instead of just dumping the baby at the?
Speaker 2:bathwater, you know, yeah, getting everyone on the same agenda, like all right, this isn't working, all right, and if it's not working, why is it not working? Yeah, like literally finding the pain and networking and that side of things, like that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:When people ask me, what do you do for a living, they think I'm pitching them them and I'm like I'm not. I'm actually telling you what happens. Yeah, you, I don't care if you you asked that's the answer.
Speaker 1:Right, that's me Now. They don't know that a lot about me because I'm very blunt and I'm very literal when I respond. I go to networking events. I get a little annoyed because, you know, I know when they, when I say branding and advertising, they don't know what I'm talking about. I can see it in their eyes and I'm just like, well, you're disqualified. And I'm not being rude. It's just I already know I'll spend 90% of my time educating you and 10% trying to make a sale. That probably isn't there, right?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, at that point you're just spinning your tires Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's like, okay, well, I will then try to. I've said what I said I'm waiting for questions, is what I'm doing, and then that'll tell me whether or not, if there's depth or if there's anything there that is to explore or just discover. Most of the time, unfortunately, not. And I think a lot of the people that you know network group managers, if you want to call them I don't know what to call them, but you know what I mean they run networking groups. They want to try to Networking leaders. Yeah, they want to bring people into the group that will facilitate transactions with the other group members, and a lot of that has to do with, if you think about it and I'll tell a LinkedIn story, because this requires the next point and that's to be patient and not get discouraged.
Speaker 1:It takes about two years for a network to go active on linkedin, but if you just connect with everybody under the sun, you know you're not going to see it. Yeah, so you have to. It's not facebook and it's not rude to disconnect. If you can't help them, if you can't do any business with them, disconnect. If you cannot get a referral from them, disconnect. You can't send a referral to them Disconnect. It's very simple. It's like I have about 1,000 connections and I've always floated around that and everybody else wants this ungodly amount of number 10 billion, yeah, and I want quality, not quantity. And that is because the algorithm is looking at who I'm connected with and it starts to say and you can see this in your feed other people you also may want to know, right, and it's basing that on who you're currently connected with. So you don't want to connect with family members, yeah, um, you can get a referral from them by calling them up or texting them. I hope, yeah, or hopefully, they would just send you one anyways.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So there's not really a need for that Anyone else. It's a matter of cultivating your online community. Now, if you think about that, how that's done and who you're connected with and the circle you have first, second, third degree connections. Now apply that to real world in a networking group, who is in there? Who's the majority in there? Who are the people that they know? Not who they are, but who do they know and can, and of those people that they know, can they benefit?
Speaker 1:The other people in attendance, like at the table that I was at at a networking event, there was three ladies, all of you probably. Well, I don't know if either any of them are listened to the show, but you can call me out on it later. Um, but one of them. I hadn't seen her, you know, in over a year. So we caught up another one to see all the time text all the time. Another one was a new lady and she's in commercial vehicle sales and she says I got a problem with people think I do car sales and I'm like, well, I kind of do, but it's commercial vehicle, right, well, we have clients that use commercial vehicle, but it's a little late in the season. There's, there's.
Speaker 2:They have already got their stuff, yeah.
Speaker 1:Nobody's going to do that in November, so it's something that you know. I thought, well, who in the room could she do business with? And I'm like there's really no one in there that I could think of, at least not from where I was sitting yeah, I actually think about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was there too and, yeah, most of the people in there maybe one, and that's because they're another connection I made that they recently just kind of started going to that group, but they're the only other one that really jumps out at me.
Speaker 1:A lot of them it's b2b to c or a lot of b2b well, the b2b, I would use that loosely, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was very, very use I mean that's it's small, small to medium business size, b2b, not not anything large that a commercial.
Speaker 2:They're not employers yeah, yeah, they're not the. They're the sales people, the business developers yeah, you know they're out there so and or there's a lot of one-to-one type people that you know they're the only one in their company or they're only solo entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the only person I can think of is a friend of ours who's a banker. He was in the room and he would be a connection for her.
Speaker 2:Yeah for her. Yeah, just as someone, if they're needing that loan or that connection, or at least that a referral she could send their way actually to be like hey, I have someone that they need a loan for buying commercial vehicles well, it's not even that.
Speaker 1:I mean, uh, yeah, it's a loan. I mean that the her ideal client would be somebody that has obviously the ability to ask for a purchase order from her vehicle. It's 45, let's, let's say, $45,000 for this service truck and then she takes it to said banker, banker, facilitates writing her a check for 45,000 to take to the dealer or to take to, you know, the customer to give to her for you know, that's kind of how it was done. It's how I bought my car. I mean I know that sounds elitist but honestly it was only because the dealership I was working with was crazy. Um, but that's how you do it. You ask for a purchase order for the vehicle from the dealer so she would give the purchase order to her client. Client would then go to her preferred. She would recommend that person. That would be how that would see that working and I don't know if that's understood.
Speaker 2:That's how that works yeah, I don't think people understand that side of it. They just like, oh well, I could just get alone. No, you just do. You got to do two things and then. Then you're good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they hope they both have a strategic opportunity for partnership for that.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's where just they need to make it more simpler for people to understand that. That's keeping it simple there's just not in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and keeping things simple, there's just not a lot of understanding about how connections work. Yep, um, I think if that gets fixed, I don't do a lot better for everybody. I can't facilitate that, I can't, you know, do that. I just know what. I know what the problem is, but you have to literally work very hard in the room with everybody to get them thinking right and understanding.
Speaker 2:hey, oh yeah, this is. It's like when people have have that glass shattering moment where they're like oh, shoot, like you know. Oh, that's how it could work. I know I've done that networking. I'm like hey, have you ever talked to this person before? When, especially when I first started, they're like oh, I never talked to them, I never thought about that and I was like what took me 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and and. But that's sort of like what we do is like we're on the outside, like everybody's so close to their own issues they can't see it. That's what we do. We're consultants, so it's like looking at the opportunity there with this lady here and, you know, with the banker, and then with a couple of the person you're thinking about. That would have been it. So is it worth her time to go to that networking group? Yeah, because those people are in there. But they, they have to work at bringing more people like them to the meetings, right? Not people that just randomly started yesterday selling soap, yeah, so that just can't be. Otherwise you're just going to have, like you said, a bunch of salespeople networking, don't really make sales, because they're all there trying to make a sale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you get that selling. And that's where it goes into the next tip of listening more than you can talk yeah, then you can talk yeah, Because the more you can listen you can actually hear and understand and open up that opportunity to make that connection of oh all right, this is where they could actually help me or this is actually where I can refer to them or they can refer to me or where we can actually do business.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So be patient. Take the next two years, develop your network outside of LinkedIn, applying that tactic or that ability, and I think you'll find that the better quality contacts you have and that they have, the better quality leads and sales you'll start to see conversions quicker because you've done that work. It's not how many case studies you write or how many papers or emails or any of that stuff. It's the people that you're talking to, because it's people that make decisions on whether or not to hire you for said project or job. And with that, you know where to find us at nerdbrandagencycom slash podcast to like, subscribe, do all the things.
Speaker 1:Sign up for our newsletter If you want to get something in your inbox once a quarter. Uh, we do have that. I think we got like five people on there, so we've not emailed. But you know, I don't know, I'm just saying something. John Price, magna, like we have more than that. We don't like emailing about a podcast because we feel weird about it. That's really what it is. But we do post regularly on social media so you can follow along on there, on my LinkedIn or on Facebook, and we will see you next week. And remember, keep your nerd brand strong.
