Raise Your Hand Marketing - The Strategy That Builds Trust and Drives Sales

Most businesses are still selling like it's 1995. The businesses winning today are building trust long before a customer ever speaks to sales.

In this episode of The $100M Entrepreneur Podcast, Brad explains why modern marketing is no longer about convincing people to buy. It is about educating, nurturing, and helping prospects raise their hand when they are ready. He breaks down the shift from traditional sales to what he calls Raise Your Hand Marketing, where trust, not pressure, becomes your greatest competitive advantage.

You'll learn why today's buyers complete most of their research before contacting a business, the five stages of the modern buyer journey, how educational content accelerates trust, and why the fortune is in the follow up, not the lead. Brad also shares practical strategies for building marketing systems that attract qualified buyers and shorten your sales cycle.

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About Brad Sugars
Internationally known as one of the most influential entrepreneurs, Brad Sugars is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and the #1 business coach in the world. Over the course of his 30-year career as an entrepreneur, Brad has become the CEO of 9+ companies and is the owner of the multimillion-dollar franchise ActionCOACH®. As a husband and father of five, Brad is equally as passionate about his family as he is about business. That’s why, Brad is a strong advocate for building a business that works without you – so you can spend more time doing what really matters to you. Over the years of starting, scaling and selling many businesses, Brad has earned his fair share of scars. Being an entrepreneur is not an easy road. But if you can learn from those who have gone before you, it becomes a lot easier than going at it alone.

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Transcript

Customer Arrives Educated

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's customer arrives in form. Today's customer arrives well educated. In fact, today's customer arrives with opinions, thoughts of their own. Most marketing asks people to buy. Okay, so it's like we don't do a first date, we just go straight to marriage type thing. What I want to say to you is this stop chasing, start nurturing. The fortune isn't in the lead, the fortune is in the follow-up. What if I told you that most of your customers are already 80% sold before they ever speak to your sales team? In fact, what if I told you that your marketing now does more selling than your salespeople? And what if I told you that many customers don't even want to talk to a salesperson anymore? You know, when we look at the way marketing has evolved and the way that the world has changed, we've got to understand how we do it today is different to what we did before. You know, the world has changed, the buying process has changed. In fact, the customer has changed. Now it's different for different age groups. Obviously, the older the age group, the more traditional methodology of reaching out to a salesperson, and the younger the person, the more they do not want to talk to a salesperson. But the problem is most businesses are still selling like it's 1995. Today we're talking about one of the most important shifts in modern business. It's what I call raise your hand marketing. It's the difference between chasing buyers and attracting buyers. It's the difference between interrupting people and really helping people. The difference between, I would say, convincing someone and allowing someone to convince themselves. See, when we think about the way people buy today, a lot of the research is done on their own. A lot of the research is done using their phone, using their computer, using their tablet. And so the majority of time, the buyer is very well educated.

The Old Sales Model Breaks

SPEAKER_00 1:52

So think about it this way: the death of the old sales model. See, for decades, business was simple. Marketing got the attention, and sales did the selling. You know, marketing responsible for maybe 20% of the process, meaning get their name, get their email, get their phone number, get their address, something along those lines. Salespeople then did 80% of the heavy lifting. And the customer maybe saw an advertisement and then they called the company and spoke to a salesperson. Well, it was up to the salesperson to do the education. It was up to the salesperson to build trust, handle objections. The salesperson was the one who closed the sale. That world doesn't exist anymore. Well, it it seems to, in some businesses, for some reason they haven't moved forward and they're still trying to do it the old way. Today's customer arrives informed. Today's customer arrives well educated. In fact, today's customer arrives with opinions, thoughts of their own. Most often at the time, well, let's think about it this way: today's customer has already done most of the work, meaning that they've used your website, your YouTube channel, all of the different things. They've used AI to do the knowledge acquisition for you. They are well educated today. So the modern buyer is different from the old buyer. Think about this. In fact, just think about your own behavior. When was the last time you bought something important without researching it first? You probably haven't done that. You Googled it, you watched videos, you read reviews, testimonials, you compared options. Uh, you probably then went and looked at their social media. Uh, you know, it's and it's like it's social proof media at that point in time. You visited not only their website, you probably visited competitors' websites, you visited maybe review websites, you even asked AI and said, you know, what do you think? What's this, what's that? You got all the different opinions. You educated yourself, basically. So your customers are doing the exact same thing. Before they ever talk to you or one of your salespeople, your customers are educating themselves. Okay. In many industries today, buyers are 60 to 80 percent through the buying process before they ever contact a company. That is a massive shift. You know, you think about buying a car today. Used to be you went to the lot, you talked to the salespeople. Today you go online, you've chosen the two or three types of cars that you want to go test drive before you even go down to a dealership anymore. In fact, sometimes you just go online and you make the purchase online done. I remember when uh Tesla, Tesla said they have to cut their number of clicks down. It was like there was something like 300 clicks to buy a car. They said we got to get it down to less than 10. So let's think

Why Trust Beats Pressure

SPEAKER_00 4:50

about this. Why people don't want salespeople isn't because they hate sales. You know, people hate bad sales, they hate pressure, um, they they hate being manipulated, they hate being told something that they don't understand. So what they want is confidence, they want certainty, and they want trust. And they get that by doing the research themselves. See, if your marketing creates confidence, if it creates certainty and creates trust, the salesperson's job becomes dramatically easier and faster in most cases. This is possibly the biggest marketing shift in our lifetime. The biggest marketing shift in the history of what we do is happening right now. Okay, so think about um marketing used to create awareness, right? Today's marketing creates belief. It's a completely different job. Marketing is no longer, hey, look at us. It's not the woo, let's attract attention. Marketing today is let me help you solve a problem. Marketing is let me educate you and give you the knowledge so you can make a wise decision on your own. It's it's far more respectful of the buyer. Okay, marketing is let me prove we understand your situation, not hey, look how great we are type thing. Marketing today is let me build trust with you, the buyer, before we ever speak. The businesses that understand this are the ones that are winning today. The businesses that don't are the ones that are struggling. You've got to understand today's buyer, and that way you get into the process. Now, the crazy thing is they could be 20% of the way through the process, they could be 80%. You've got to find that out. So let's think about

Raise Your Hand Marketing Defined

SPEAKER_00 6:42

what. When I wrote the book, Raise Your Hand Marketing, it was saying something different. So let me explain what raise your hand marketing is. Most marketing asks people to buy. Okay, so it's like straight away, we don't do a first date, we just go straight to marriage type thing. Raise your hand marketing asks people to identify themselves. There's a huge distinction. Instead of saying buy now, we ask, are you interested? Instead of saying schedule a sales call, we ask, would you like more information? How would you like more information? What way? What information would you like? You know, it's getting them to identify themselves, self-identify by raising their hand. In instead of saying purchase today, we would ask, would you like help solving this problem? And so it removes, well, I guess if you put it back to the dating methodology, it's how can we have a cup of coffee rather than go straight for a big dinner and go out for a date and have a do you know what I mean? It's a change in the way we look at the customers. We're not asking for as much commitment. We're asking people to raise their hand, to identify themselves, to tell us they are interested. They're like putting themselves into a place. And it's like, how many times have you ever clicked on an ad, just so you know you'll get the follow-up ads? Because you're not ready to do anything today, but you want to be in the process. How many times have you registered for a webinar, even though you weren't ready to go to the webinar, you just wanted maybe the recording of it type thing.

Interested Versus Ready Signals

SPEAKER_00 8:11

So when we think about raise your hand marketing, we have to understand that there are two hand raises, okay? And this is possibly one of the most important concepts we'll discuss today. Hand raise number one says I'm interested, okay? That puts me into the funnel, into the pipe, into the newsletter, into the information gathering. Hand raise number two says I'm ready. Okay, so we've and I guess if I put it bluntly, most businesses confuse the two. Someone downloads a guide, they're interested. Someone watches a webinar, they're interested. Someone follows your podcast, interested. They're not ready to buy yet. They're not jumping up and down saying, hey, let me talk to a salesperson today. If they subscribe to your email list, to your newsletter, they're saying, I'm interested. It doesn't mean they're ready. So the mistake I see businesses make is trying to close people who are simply interested instead of nurturing them until they're ready. I know for me, there's been many times where it's like, okay, let me see a few things. I remember going way back when uh the late great Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of guerrilla marketing, he said to me, gotta be over 20 years ago now. And he said, Brad, people need 17 interactions before they're gonna buy. Now, Google's research have told us that number's come down to about 11, but it's still a number of interactions that people want before they make the purchase. So, what I want to say to you is this stop chasing, start nurturing. It's it's like imagine you're planting a seed. You don't dig it up every day to see if it's growing. You water it, you nurture it, you give it sunlight, you allow time, fertilizer, you keep giving it more. Marketing today works the same way. So many prospects that aren't ready today, but they might be ready in 30 days, 90 days, six months, 12 months. And so we as business people have to understand that we need to give them that knowledge base. Okay. Now, whether we give it to them through newsletters, through podcasts, through videos, it's like you watching this podcast today, listening to the pod today. You might not be ready for business coaching yet, but you might listen to another 10 pods. You might go right back to the start of this and do every single pod of the hundred million dollar journey so that you're learning everything that I'm teaching here. And then you might say, finally, okay, now I'm ready to talk with someone. It might take that long. See, a business that stays visible wins, a business that stays helpful wins, a business that stays trusted, that keeps building trust, that resonates with the potential buyer, that company wins.

The Five Stage Buyer Journey

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So let's think about it this way: the buyer journey today, it well, every buyer moves through predictable stages, okay? Even though that it's different timing, it's predictable stages. Stage one, they're unaware. They don't even know they have a problem that needs solving, okay? And it might be because something happened, it might be because they saw something, it might be they saw a friend do it, maybe they found a problem that didn't exist. But whatever it is, they move to stage two. They become aware of the problem. They know that something isn't giving them the results they wanted, something isn't working, something hasn't got the results that they need. So they start stage three. Now they become solution aware. So they're doing their research. They know a solution exists. So not aware of the problem, aware of the problem. Now we're doing our research, we become solution aware. Okay. Now, solution aware is only stage three. Stage four is where they become provider aware. They know companies like yours exist. Okay, so they're getting to the point of narrowing down the field, if that makes sense. Well, then stage five is where they now become decision ready. Now they're ready to buy. Okay, most businesses only market to people at stage five. Elite businesses create content for all five stages, helping people recognize the problem. What is the problem? How do you solve the problem? What are the potentials? What are the solutions available? We give them all of that knowledge so that each of the five stages they get there. And in my books, this is why education style marketing wins. You know, marketing is education and communication. Education has become one of the most powerful marketing tools in the world today. Why? Because education creates trust. Okay. And trust is a major factor of what marketing is today. Trust, create belief, create trust. See, when you teach, people assume you have knowledge. When you explain, people assume you're credible. Okay. When you solve problems for them, people assume you are valuable. This is why marketing has changed and why marketing with education and communication is different. And it's why podcasts work, it's why webinars work, ebooks and books work, white papers work. It's why YouTube works. See, think about it. People go on looking for things, they're learning, they grow trust, they build belief. Social media works the same way. Education accelerates trust. Okay, so the the trust, and let's be blunt, trust accelerates buying decisions. I look at it from my own perspective, the number of times where I've gone to buy something, where by knowing a brand, knowing a company, it accelerates my level of trust because I'm educated by that company. Why think about why webinars actually work. A webinar isn't really a sales tool, it's a trust-building tool. A webinar allows people to spend 30, 60, 90 minutes with you. They hear your ideas, they hear your philosophies, and they get to know you type things. They they hear your expertise levels, and all of a sudden, when you start at the, I mean, by the time the webinar ends, they know more, they trust more, they they have a they they're closer to a buying decision and they believe in you, they trust you more. The webinar simply helps people move from interested to almost ready to buy, if that makes sense. So the webinar itself, whilst it's a sales tool, maybe it's definitely a trust-building tool, and it gives people the ability to do a lot of research in a short period of time, a lot of learning, a lot of education in a short period of time. Again, it moves them from interested to ready. So attending the webinar, registering for the webinar just says, hey, I'm interested. It's a raise hand. By the end of the webinar, you've moved them from interested in many cases to ready to buy.

Content As Your Sales Team

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Now, let's think of it this way: your content is your new sales team. And this is one of the biggest lessons of the modern era. Your content works while you sleep. Your content works on weekends, your content works globally, your content never gets tired, it never calls in sick. So if you think of your every piece of content you create as another step in the sales process, helping people make their buying decisions. Every article, every podcast, every video, every email, every webinar, every social post is now a member of your sales team. The businesses that understand this build libraries, okay? You think about the library of trust that you're building by creating a better website, a better series of books, ebooks, et cetera. And obviously, creation of content today is very easy relative to what it used to be. So, what's the cost of ignoring this in business? And I bring this up because I see too many businesses think that it just takes too much work to do all of this. So let's be blunt. If your marketing doesn't educate, then your sales team must do it. It slows down the process, it reduces trust. See, if your marketing doesn't build trust, then your sales team's got to build the trust. And that takes longer. More phone calls, more meetings, more Zoom calls, more, more, more. If your marketing doesn't answer their questions, then your sales team has to. So you've got to ask your sales team what questions are you getting all the time? And therefore, you build a video, you build an ebook, you build an article that solves those questions for people. See, think of it really if your marketing doesn't qualify prospects, then your sales team's got to do it. And all of that means higher costs. And by the way, all of that also means lower conversion, it means longer sales cycles, more frustration for your salespeople and potential customers. The modern customer expects marketing to do what works first. Okay. So they want to do it themselves in most cases. It's not just a, well, I need to do it myself. They actually want to do it themselves. They want to be educated. They don't want to ask, like I just think of my own self. I like to know that I'm asking right questions. I like to have done my research. So when I do talk to them, uh, to a salesperson, to a consultant, to someone, I've got good questions to ask, if that makes sense. I like to do that myself. And I know most customers today do.

Offers Follow Up And Common Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 17:26

So let's think of examples of some really good raise-your-hand offers that work out is someone top of funnel, mid-funnel, or bottom of funnel type thing. So a free assessment. Assessments today are massively powerful. People love doing an assessment and working out where they're at. A free guide, you know, some sort of a 17 steps to buy this. This is the information you want. That free guide is massively powerful. Webinars, as we've discussed, quizzes. I love quizzes today and marketing tools. A diagnostic tool, you know, an evaluation, that sort of thing. Very similar to a quiz, but just gives them more. A white paper, especially for technology type things, especially to those highly detailed buyers. Podcasts like this one here you're on today. Newsletters. Newsletters work great. And you know, I hear people bashing newsletters, they still work, they still show up. Case studies, love case studies where people can get it. Some bad examples of raise your hand is buy now, book call, schedule now, purchase today. The the book a call thing from your ad, people don't necessarily want to book a call straight from the ad. Okay. It's too early, it's too aggressive, it's too much commitment. The first goal is not the sale. The first goal is to get them to raise their hand, to self-identify, and say, I'm interested. Okay, that's step one. Many businesses, well, let's think about what happens then the nurturing, the power of the follow-up. Okay. So many businesses generate leads. Very few businesses are good at nurturing those leads. So you've got to get better at the nurturing. That's where the opportunity lives. The fortune isn't in the lead, the fortune is in the follow-up. And I'll say that time and time again. The fortune is in the follow-up. Every hand raise should trigger different things. So whether you're on HubSpot or GHL or any form of CRM that's out there, you're the raised hand should trigger emails, content, education, invitations, stories, testimonials. So your job at this point, once they've raised their hand, is to help them move closer to readiness, not pushing them into readiness, help them move closer. You've got to think of it: am I helping them or am I pushing them? Because so often we get to see what happens when you help someone, you build trust, you build relationship. They want to do business with you because of the fact that you've become a valuable source for them. So, some questions to ask yourself in what you're doing here with your marketing for raising hands. Okay. How many people are interested in what I do? And how many people are ready today? So when you look at your pipeline, how many people are there that you've got them to raise their hand that said, hey, I'm interested in this? How many people are ready today is moving them through that pipeline so they're ready to raise their hand a second time? Now, what content do you have for interested people? Ebooks, podcasts, videos, etc. On the other hand, what nurturing system do you have? How do you communicate? How many emails are already written? What is the thing that happens week in, week out? How do you move people from interested to ready? So, how much trust does your marketing build before a sales conversation is ready? Okay. So think of it. First job, get them to raise their hand to say, I'm interested. Now, some of the common mistakes I see made in this asking for the sale too early. Okay, treating treating every lead as if they're ready and not having a nurturing sequence is a problem. If you no educational content is a massive uh mistake I see out there in the marketplace. No real follow-up system, and that needs to include the phone, it needs to include text messages, DMs, etc. Okay. There's no building if you don't have trust building assets, um and and what ends up happening is you confuse attention with readiness. The goal is not more leads, the goal is more ready buyers. Okay, so yeah, we need the leads, but then we need to nurture them to get them to be ready buyers. So um ask yourself, well, in fact, let's look at your marketing, let's take a challenge for this week. Where am I asking people to buy when I should be asking them to raise their hand? Go look at your website, go look at how many ways people can raise their hand versus purchase, okay? So create one new offer this week that allows prospects to identify themselves without requiring a buying decision, just to raise their hand. Now, eventually you want to have quizzes and forms and fill outs, things that move them further down the funnel. So at the end of the webinar, can they do a quiz that identifies them as ready to buy? Can they move through to something that takes more commitment, more time, more energy? Remember this the modern buyer doesn't want to be sold. They want to be educated, they want to be informed, they want to be confident. The modern buyer, well, modern businesses that are winning, they're not the best closers, they're the best trust builders. So if you stop asking people to buy and ask them to raise their hand, they will move through to purchase on their own. Thanks for joining me on the Hundred Million Dollar Podcast. If you've got value from today's episode, make sure you've subscribed and share this with all of your friends. Never miss a strategy that could change your business and your life. And remember, the fastest way to scale is to learn from those who've done it. That's what this show is all about. See you on the next episode.