We are joined by network marketer, author, podcaster and speaker, Scott Aaron. Scott is a specialist in converting traffic, establishing connections, creating residual income using Linked Leads Generation®, and building personal brands. Scott has developed and sold his own businesses in the fitness industry. Starting his network marketing business just 6 years ago, Scott saw massive opportunities that the internet had to offer. Fully immersing himself in learning Linked leads generation and social media strategies, Scott quickly gained traction as a leader in generating big results for other network marketers, online business owners, and internet marketers. His program has helped thousands of network marketers, entrepreneurs and individuals experience explosive growth following his program, Linkedin® accelerator, which is invaluable for business owners at all stages up to sale. #sellingyourbusinesswithdavidking
Selling a business is the American dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the reward for years of hard work. Successful entrepreneurs make countless sacrifices in hopes that they would someday reap the benefits of their labor and live a new life of vacations, recreation, and prosperity.
You only exit your business once, so you should feel confident passing this milestone. A successful business exit reflects the preparation done beforehand. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
The owner of a privately held company has several alternatives on how to exit their business. In the absence of an exit strategy, events will inexorably dictate the final exit plan. A costly involuntary exit may be caused by death, disability, divorce, disagreement, or distress.
Selling Your Business with David King will help you take control of the sale process and make it positive one.
We are joined by network marketer, author, podcaster and speaker, Scott Aaron. Scott is a specialist in converting traffic, establishing connections, creating residual income using Linked Leads Generation®, and building personal brands. Scott has developed and sold his own businesses in the fitness industry. Starting his network marketing business just 6 years ago, Scott saw massive opportunities that the internet had to offer. Fully immersing himself in learning Linked leads generation and social media strategies, Scott quickly gained traction as a leader in generating big results for other network marketers, online business owners, and internet marketers. His program has helped thousands of network marketers, entrepreneurs and individuals experience explosive growth following his program, Linkedin® accelerator, which is invaluable for business owners at all stages up to sale. #sellingyourbusinesswithdavidking
Selling a business is the American dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the reward for years of hard work. Successful entrepreneurs make countless sacrifices in hopes that they would someday reap the benefits of their labor and live a new life of vacations, recreation, and prosperity.
You only exit your business once, so you should feel confident passing this milestone. A successful business exit reflects the preparation done beforehand. Failing to plan is planning to fail.
The owner of a privately held company has several alternatives on how to exit their business. In the absence of an exit strategy, events will inexorably dictate the final exit plan. A costly involuntary exit may be caused by death, disability, divorce, disagreement, or distress.
Selling Your Business with David King will help you take control of the sale process and make it positive one.
| Speaker 1: [00:00:30] | Welcome back to Selling Your Business with David King. I'm David King, the author of Selling Your Business. Begin with the End in Mind, which is available on Amazon. Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by Scott Aaron Scott, welcome
| Speaker 2: | David. Thank you so much. It's an honor and a privilege to be here today.
| Speaker 1: | Scott is a network marketing coach who this ties in with building value, building the value of your enterprise at all stages up until and through the end of a sale transaction. So, Scott, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.
| [00:01:00] Speaker 2: [00:01:30] | Absolutely. So I have a almost a 23 year experience and background in sales coaching, but most importantly, uh, human connection and relationship building. That is what I teach. The number one business building tool and the business building block that we all have that's available to all of us to succeed in life and business is our ability to create connection with other people. And I learned this at a, a very young age, and you know, some of my backstory, David, I was kind of thrusted into, uh, an adult role as a teenager due to my father's incarceration when I was 19 years old. Uh, he went to federal prison for two and a half years for involvement in, in a prior company that he was a part of, and knowing that that was gonna end up being his demise. He prepared our family to leave something behind to have us going forward, whether he was there or not.
| Speaker 2: [00:02:00] [00:02:30] | And it was a, a health club, and I didn't know it at the time, but that health club was gonna be turned over to me and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with health, wellness, fitness people, coaching, training, everything that, that came with that. And this was in the, the late nineties. So this was before really the internet was what it was. There was no social media at all, and you had to do the old school thing, which people should still be doing today, which is really saying, Hi, how are you? Hello. Nice to meet you. Engaging in conversation. So to make a a 23 year story, very short and, and to the point. I I spent 18 years in the health and wellness industry. I owned three different gyms. Two of them I sold for a million dollars. Uh, the third one actually put me in 1.5 million of liability debt about five years after I operated and opened it, uh, because I was the only one left with credit at that point.
| Speaker 2: [00:03:00] | So I went from a million a millionaire at the age of 24 to almost at 30 years old being 1.5 million in the whole. And I learned a lot through these processes. Uh, I learned a lot through the art of just like how you said with your book, the, you know, thinking about the end in mind. I think too many people focus. They don't focus enough on the end in mind. And I always tell people, think about the end in mind and be able to work backwards. What do you want the end result to be? And then you build that ladder that leads to that so you understand the path that you need to go down. In 2013, my business career took a turn and I started doing network marketing with a company called Is Genix. Uh, a lot of your listeners may be familiar with them.
| [00:03:30] Speaker 2: [00:04:00] | They're a, a health and wellness company that provides solutions for just products or business opportunity. And I knew the power of having multiple streams of income. It would be stupid not to have multiple streams of income nowadays. And you know, the average millionaire has anywhere where between four to six streams of income. And I had one, I had my gym and a, a friend of mine asked me an interesting question that I want your listeners to ask themselves. And he asked me, he goes, If you got sick or injured or you got laid off, what would you then do for income? And I think that's a question, David, that not enough people ask themselves. You know, they get comfortable where they are. Oh, I'm making a good living. Oh, I'm comfortable with this job. Nothing is guaranteed unless it's your own. And at that point, I knew I had to go not all in, but I need to diversify what I was doing.
| Speaker 2: [00:04:30] [00:05:00] | And over a four and a half year period grew a, a very successful team and income in network marketing. But in 2015, I veered again and I started using LinkedIn as my main platform to connect and build relationships, which allowed me to put structure around what I did to grow my business, to then be able to teach others. You have to go first. I had to succeed with my program first before it even became a program to then teach it to others. So by 2016, I had two thriving businesses and I had one failing business, my last gym. And I remember I was sitting in my lawyer's office and he said, Listen, you have these two businesses that are very successful and they're funding your failing business. He goes, You need to make a decision. Either you continue to fund this business that is never going to be where it needs to be at this stage in the fitness game, or you file for bankruptcy.
| Speaker 2: [00:05:30] [00:06:00] | Now, I had to file for personal bankruptcy because I was actually the personal guarantor of the lease of this gym. And for those that don't know what that means, when you're the personal guarantee, you are monetary liable for every dollar that's owed, whether that business succeeds or fails. So he said, on a scale of one to 10, 10 being a slam dunk, he goes, You're in 9.5. So on July 1st, 2016, just nearly four years ago, I filed for personal bankruptcy. I closed the gym 30 days later and I haven't looked back. And I attribute everything that I've been able to achieve up to this point and what I'm going to achieve moving forward from that decision to allow myself to live life on my own terms. And you know, this gym was holding me back. The, just the overhead itself, David was $13,000 a month and my overhead is maybe a 10th of that right now. So I had to learn how to work smarter, not harder. And that's why I'm creating life by design and I'm teaching others how to do the same thing now.
| Speaker 1: | So were you able to sell the other gyms successfully before you got to the one that, uh, was a failure?
| Speaker 2: [00:06:30] | Yes. So we had the first gym from, uh, we opened and took over the first gym in 1998. I grew that gym from about 300 members to 1200 by the time my father came back home. We expanded and opened a second location in 2002, and then we sold both for a million dollars in 2003. Uh, pretty just chilled out in 2003 to oh four, but my dad wanted to get back into the gym ownership game. And then oh four is when we opened up the third and final gym, which I eventually, 12 years later had to file for bankruptcy to close it.
| Speaker 1: | And now you have your own networking enterprise, Scott Aaron networking. Well,
| Speaker 2: [00:07:00] | I mean, it's called Scott Aaron Coaching. It's a consulting firm. So I do consulting and speaking. Uh, I have two number one best selling books on Amazon. I get paid to speak to corporations, um, as small as a so entrepreneur, as large as as Fidelity Bank, which I did a training for. So you know, ibe, I coach, I write, I have a podcast. So everything that I do under the umbrella of my LLC is based around providing value added content and services to those that are looking to grow and scale their business.
| [00:07:30] Speaker 1: | How did you build a network? How did you build your sales when, uh, before there was the internet? What was the basic, uh, bricks and mortar business development that you used?
| Speaker 2: [00:08:00] | You know, it was interesting the first two locations of our gyms where we were dead smack in the middle of Philadelphia, so we were part of a city block. So back in the day, foot traffic, people that moved into apartment complexes or um, rental, uh, rentals, there was only one gym to join and was ours. So we, we kind of had a foothold on the, on the neighborhood. But I remember, you know, you gotta get creative. I remember one day I said, Dad, I wanna bolster some signups today. So I, I made up a flyer and I said, Join today, $99 for three months. And I, I took one of our bar stools and I opened the front door and it was a beautiful day. And I, I sat right outside and I hood out, handed out flyers to ev and hundreds of people would walk by every day.
| [00:08:30] Speaker 2: [00:09:00] | And I just handed out flyers and we had our best sign up for one day ever that day we had about 35 people join the gym. So out of an idea, I created close to $3,500 of revenue for the gym that day. Now this was again in the nineties, so we did direct mailing. So we did postcards, we had welcome packets. So when people moved into an apartment complex, they would get a free week or uh, a free month trial to the gym. That's how you built networks back in the day. And, you know, we had a website, but people would walk in, there was no online schedule to find out what classes the gym was having. People had to walk in, they, like, you have a class schedule. We would hand them a piece of paper that was built out on a Word document where we had to build out the squares and we had to type in all of the classes.
| Speaker 2: [00:09:30] | And, and that's how it was done. Then by the time we got to the third gym, which we opened in oh four, that's when we focused a lot on an email list. So every person that joined, we had them write down their email that would be imported into, uh, at the time we were using Microsoft Outlook and we would send, you know, daily or, or weekly emails to the membership base or to people that filled out, you know, a free workout. And, and then basically it evolved from there, you know, a Facebook business page, Facebook, social media and so on.
| Speaker 1: [00:10:00] | It l light years ago in terms of the technology, technology and the medium we used, but not really that long ago, shows you how rapidly things change and that business owners need to have someone keeping them up with the times because things change so quickly. Right. Right. Now, what are your typical clients and what, what services do you typically provide for them?
| Speaker 2: [00:10:30] | So I have clients that range from, so entrepreneurs. So they might have a network marketing business, they may be selling a good or a product that they've developed, speakers, authors, business coaches, someone that owns a smaller medium size company that has sales representatives that are out there, networking and trying to generate sales, financial advisors, real estate professionals, anyone that literally requires another human being for a monetary exchange for something that you provide is a good client for me. And I take them through a very, very simple system that I was blessed and grateful enough to be able to patent it, trade market license, and copyright it because it does produce dramatic results in a very short amount of time.
| Speaker 1: | And what's that called?
| [00:11:00] Speaker 2: [00:11:30] | I mean, it's, it's called my, it's Linked Leads Generation. It's a, it's an accelerator program. So it's a, it's a way to use LinkedIn through a four step process to build your business, your brand, and your bank account. So optimizing your profile because Microsoft, when they bought them out, they want you to do keyword seo. So basically I go in and I keyword your entire profile, make sure you're appearing in more searches and you're more visible because now LinkedIn has a direct correlation to Google, Yahoo and Bing. So you can actually get more analytics and you can get more visitors to not only your website, but your LinkedIn page if you're using the right keywords on your profile. So I show people how to really target the type of person that they want, looking at their profile. The second part is building out their network.
| Speaker 2: [00:12:00] [00:12:30] | LinkedIn allows you 30,000 organic connections. So I've built my network from about 500 to close to 28,000 in the last three and a half years. So I take people through a very strategic process of how to get new connections and new qualified leads every single day. The third part is properly messaging people. So I've created something called the Magic formula, which is a three step process to coming up with your own crafted and organic way of messaging. Someone that gets a very high response rate where you're filling up your calendar and you truly have more leads than time. And the fourth and most important aspect is providing value added content every single day. So educating and informing your audience the right way through educational and informative posts, videos, articles and discussions in groups. So by the end, you're only spending 15 to 20 minutes a day on the platform, and you have this well oiled machine of being an industry leader, an authoritative figure, and a lead generation machine.
| Speaker 1: | I hear you say LinkedIn is linked in the central to the services you're providing currently.
| Speaker 2: [00:13:00] | 100%. That, that is where it all happens. You know, Facebook is the barbecue of social media, that's where people go to hang out. Instagram is the reality TV show of social media, but LinkedIn is a global networking event every single time you log on. The average age is 35 to 55 with a yearly income of a hundred thousand dollars a year or more. If you're looking to network with other high performing business professionals, that is where your time needs to be spent.
| Speaker 1: [00:13:30] | And Scott, I also hear you say sales obviously, and a lot of people who are in various professions and don't see themselves as, uh, being salesman. Well, you, you have to sell everyone who has a service that they're providing needs in some way, shape or form to be able to sell it. You work with a ver variety of professionals as well. They work with accountants. Dentists, yeah,
| Speaker 2: [00:14:00] | Engineers. Oh, I mean, I've worked with lawyers, dentist, I mean, anyone that is looking to expand their book of business, it can be done through targeting specific people on LinkedIn. It's just people don't know how to use it. So that's where I come in and I show you a strategic way of how you specifically should be using it. So it's not a general platform like how Facebook and Instagram is, where everyone uses it the same way. LinkedIn needs to be specifically used a very specific way with your specific business background. So it's very specified to you and you only I,
| Speaker 1: [00:14:30] | And meet with people early on and work with them and, and help them conceive of how they're gonna be able to sell their business. And I hear a lot of times, well, there's, there's nothing to sell. It's just me and, and a website. And I, eCommerce businesses are very, uh, good businesses for selling. Uh, if you build businesses up well enough and build a brand, then you certainly have something to sell, then it's something independent from you. Do you help people take a business that they may not conceive of, of being able to sell, build up a brand and then help them to have something that is more sellable?
| Speaker 2: [00:15:00] [00:15:30] | 100%. And this is the funny thing, I'm glad you brought this up. If you have revenue, if you're generating profit, you have a business that is able to be sold. Now, again, how much it could be sold for that really depends on what the market is asking right now. And there's obviously a formula for that as well. But conceptually, if you have something that you want to grow into a business, you just need to put structure around it. And that's why a lot of people actually don't succeed with some of the ideas that they have. They kind of just, I call it throwing darts at a dart board with your eyes closed, like your, your, you're less likely to hit the bullseye, uh, if your eyes are closed. But if you open your eyes and see exactly what's in front of you, you're gonna have a greater opportunity to do that.
| Speaker 2: [00:16:00] | So no matter what your business is, whether it's consulting, whether it's coaching, whether it's a brick and mortar, whether it's, uh, anything can be created into a business, if it's providing something of value or it's filling a void, or it's satisfying a need that someone is having a problem with, and that that's what I, some of the greatest businesses and that, that's why my businesses have succeeded. Everything that I've done has, has been a success. Whether it, it had to close or it fa whatever, there was always a point where it was successful because I recognized that when a lot of people have a similar problem and I can provide a need for that problem, I can create a business from it. And that's exactly why LinkedIn and everything that I do on the platform turned into a business because there were three problems that were coming about.
| [00:16:30] Speaker 2: [00:17:00] | I don't know how to use LinkedIn. I'm not making enough money, I'm not generating enough leads. Well, good thing is my business can actually solve all three of those problems if you're having any one, two, or three of those. So my honest feeling, in all honesty, David, there is not a single person, whether you think you're in sales or not, if you're in a relationship building, again, you may not consider yourself in sales, but if it, if it's your job in your business to develop a relationship with someone that at the end of the day they're going to be having some sort of monetary exchange with you, LinkedIn is the number one platform where you can achieve that.
| Speaker 1: | Today, uh, in July of, of 2020, we were hoping to start to turn the corner and get out from this covid 19 impact upon the economy. But everyone is, is impacted one way or another right now, what types of services are you typically providing two businesses to help them cope with what's going on?
| [00:17:30] Speaker 2: [00:18:00] | So I have a, a done for use system. It's a, it's an eight video program, it's a DIY course. So I basically wanted to make it very accessible and very easy for people to go through. So it's step by step over eight videos. It only takes an hour and 45 minutes to go through. And once you start applying the system, it only takes 20 minutes a day to see it work. People do have virtual reach out to me with any questions that they have as they go through the course. And then I do have high level one on one coaching. Uh, it's a six week program where I actually build out everything for you and with the client. So anyone that wants to just not have to figure it out on their own, they wanna just directly work with me. They have that option as well.
| Speaker 2: [00:18:30] | They get free access to the digital course, but then over six weeks we build it out together, your profile searching, connecting messaging, um, you know, creating content, uh, how to reengage conversations, all of those things. And, and honestly, I tell people I am not responsible for those success. They are, I'm responsible for teaching them how to leverage the platform to create the success that they deserve. And the only way that my program does not work is if you do not apply what I teach you, there's no automation. It is by hand because that's how you can create the most organic, genuine and authentic human connection. You
| Speaker 1: | Mentioned the, you've authored two books. What are the titles of your books and what do you cover within those books?
| Speaker 2: [00:19:00] [00:19:30] [00:20:00] | So the, the first bestseller is called the LinkedIn book for network marketing. Um, it is not network marketing based. It's, it's from that perspective, but it can be used for any sales professional, any business owner. And it goes over five simple strategies of how to succeed using LinkedIn from a very, very basic structure. It's available on Audible, Kindle, uh, and paper back on Amazon. And then the second book is the Network Marketing Academy, which is basically an academy for anyone that's looking to market themselves. So it's not just for network marketing, it's basically how to leverage your network, how to market yourself, uh, in a very structured way. And it goes over skills and basic things that revolve around mindset, organization skills in your business, social media, branding and generating organic and genuine leads. And again, that's available on Kindle and paperback as well. And then I have, I actually wrote, uh, a first book, but that was more of a personal development book called Good Guys Always Win, But my two best sellers of the second and third one. And then I have a fourth book coming out, uh, the end of q3 early q4, which is, it's called the LinkedIn Workbook for Marketing. So it's an evergreen workbook for people that are learning, that wanna learn how to market themselves on LinkedIn for any profession. And that should be available in the next couple months
| Speaker 1: | Since the news these days is, to me, it's, it's quite demoralizing to sit down and watch the news. I have spent so much more time listening to podcasts. I'll, I'll find a good podcast and take my dog on a two hour walk listening to podcasts. Tell me some of your favorite podcast that you listen to.
| [00:20:30] Speaker 2: [00:21:00] [00:21:30] | Honestly, I love listening to mine, not because it's mine, but I love going back and listening to my guests because they're just so amazing. I, I do two interviews a week and it's called Network Marketing Made Simple. So I have people from all walks of life authors, TEDx Talkers, like, I mean, mean New York Times bestsellers, big big time people on there. But one of my good friends and one of my coaches and mentors, Chris Harder, has a phenomenal podcast and it's called For The Love of Money. And he teaches people, you know, his tagline is when, when good people make good money, they can do great things. And and that's what it's all about, about how all these people have gained success by being a good person and giving back. And my wife and I, we listen to it all the time, it's just, it's really helped us shift our mindsets about constantly moving forward, because that's the way that you can end up succeeding in what you're doing is not standing, still taking those baby steps, whether they're a millimeter or a mile. And that's, that's one of my Go-to podcast also, uh, Robin Sharma has a great podcast called the, the Mastery Sessions, so he's not as, he doesn't update them as often, but you can find them on YouTube. I love, love his podcast as well. And you know, those are just a couple that really helped me,
| Speaker 1: [00:22:00] | Scott, before I got started podcasting, I, I got a bit of conventional common sense wisdom about how to learn how to be a good podcaster. And he was based on how Stephen King learned to write, I learned how to write novels by reading novels. So I, I've gone out and listened to a number of, of podcasts. I really enjoy Tim Ferris and I, I like Jenna Kucher as as well. Do, do you ever listen to either of those?
| Speaker 2: | I've, I've listened to Tim Ferris's, uh, Entree Leadership is a, is another one that I listened to that was Dave Ramsey's podcast. Really, really good. I haven't heard of the second one, but I, I've listened to a bit of Tim Ferris, but also Gary Vaynerchuk and, you know, his interviews are, are really good as well. What
| [00:22:30] Speaker 1: | Books on sales would you recommend that people pick up these days?
| Speaker 2: [00:23:00] | Two books. They're my Bibles and I, I still stick to them to this day. Number one is The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace d Wattles. That book was written in 1910. It was the first money mindset book ever written. So anything that you've read money mindset wise or money principles wise is based off of this book. So I always tell people, you wanna read one Money Mindset book and the only book you're gonna ever have to read, it's that book it. And it teaches the, the core principle it he teaches is instead of living in a world of competition and comparison, living a world of creation and collaboration, that is the science of Getting Rich. The second book is a book by Andrea Wal, Richard Fenton. And Andrea has since become a good friend of mine. It's called Go For No Yes is the Destination, but No is how you're going to get there. So she talks about, and Richard talks about your failure quotient. The more nos you get, the more yeses show up, fail faster to succeed faster. And I always tell people, your failures always open the doors to your successes. Those are two of my favorites.
| [00:23:30] Speaker 1: | Someone's starting a business today and and they're gonna have to sell whatever industry they're in. What's the first bit of advice that you would give them about how to build their sales channel?
| Speaker 2: [00:24:00] [00:24:30] | Figure out exactly who is most likely going to buy something from you. What the, the problem I see David, is people are sending too much of a wide net. They're selling to too many people. I know my target market, now I know exactly who my buyers are, so I create more sales because I'm speaking to the people that genuinely could benefit from my service. So the one thing that I teach all my clients is, and I ask them this, who is most likely going to benefit from you? Who is most likely going to pull the trigger and invest in you? And that person that's starting your, their business that's listening to this? When you can answer that question, you can clearly write down that person, what they look like, how old they are, how much money they make, what profession are they in, what industry are they a part of. When you can write down that information, you can go on LinkedIn, you can search for that person, that industry, that profession, you can start connecting with them and you can start creating more sales.
| Speaker 1: | When you're providing services for business, how long does it typically take for them to see measurable results, increasing their revenue, driving up sales?
| [00:25:00] Speaker 2: [00:25:30] | So from clients, from my perspective, Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, I, I've had people generate income within weeks. Uh, there was a gentleman that I worked with, my buddy, Jeremiah Campbell, he owns a company called Brickworks llc. He's a, he owns a bricklayer company. He does restoration and remodeling for commercial and residential real estate projects. And he hired me so I could teach him how to bid on more jobs in the greater Detroit area where his company is located. So he wanted to connect with more real estate developers, more real estate professionals so he can find out where a lot of these jobs are that he can bid on. I would say eight or nine weeks after we worked together, he closed a $300,000 sale. Again, it's a numbers game. The more people that you talk to, uh, the, the more income you can make. I had a client that an 18 months, she, for Xed her business' income, she went from about 90,000 a year to 360,000 a year and 18 months. And again, it's about the law of conversation. The person that speaks to the most people is the one that's going to win because you're gonna get the most answers.
| [00:26:00] Speaker 1: [00:26:30] | This is probably difficult to estimate here, but let's say we've got an average business, let's say they make, uh, $5 million a year in revenue. And you know, that say it's a profitable business, say it, say it's a retail business, both some brick and mortar sales, some online sales. Um, what percentage of of their, of their sales would you recommend that they allocate what they spend on this type of sales development, on their network development, on social media, on online revenue generation?
| Speaker 2: [00:27:00] [00:27:30] | Well, don't forget, word of mouth is everything when you're providing a good or a service. And so just perfect example, a company just hired me to work with their sales team and there's about seven of seven sales representatives and I'm basically working with each individual. One, they have a specific niche, uh, the company sells, uh, a patented and specific l e d lighting to Home Depot, Lowe's, lighting stores, but also direct to consumer. So libraries, big buildings, educational institutions, colleges, high schools. So what they're working on with me is how I can take those individual sales reps and have, have them create more connections, more conversations, and more sales. So it's a simple equation. Whatever your business is doing now with whatever strategy you have in place, it's what it's gonna do now. So, so let me give you an example, and this is probably the best way to clarify it.
| Speaker 2: [00:28:00] | And the book go for, No, they talk about a, a story about a insurance firm from Chicago. So this is the example, and then basically any business can apply this strategy and create more sales, not just with my technique, but just in general. So this, this insurance company was in the early two thousands and they were getting hammered by the competitors. They were a smaller operation and they hired this, this guy to come in and a consultant to help their sales team close more deals. They needed to sell more insurance. So the consultant came in and he said, Well, get me the paperwork on your, your best, uh, your medium and your worst sales forces. And basically he took the paperwork and he figured out the average, uh, the average person, they were closing about one sale a month. That's it. So the sales forces were closing per person, one sale a month.
| [00:28:30] Speaker 2: [00:29:00] | And so he, he did the paperwork, he drew up a, a plan of action, he called a board meeting with, uh, the executive team and he said, I figured it out. And they said, Okay, what, what do we need to do? And he said, Easy. They need to talk to more people. And the executive board looked at him and he said, That's what we just paid you thousands of dollars to tell us they need to talk to more people. And he said, Yes. He goes, But you're missing the point. These people are just calling friends and family and trying to close these deals. That's why it's not happening. He goes, and this was on a Friday. He goes, Monday I'm having a meeting with the entire sales force and I'm gonna be launching a new initiative. So that Monday morning at 9:00 AM it was a meeting and he was sitting with the sales teams and he said, Okay.
| Speaker 2: [00:29:30] [00:30:00] | And he just slid pieces of paper. He goes, What you guys are gonna do over the next 30 days is you are going to go door to door. You're all given a specific location around Chicago and you're, here's your script. You're gonna walk to every door, you're gonna knock on the door and if someone answers you say, Hi, would you happen to need some insurance today? And then you go from door to door to door, and they all looked at him like they were crazy. So everybody went out and they started failing forward and after a couple days they started to get into the rhythm and then by the end of the week some sales started to come through. And then by the end of the month, the company had its best month and best month in five years. And what they figured is that by foot, and obviously driving around each one of those sales reps could collect 66 answers in a day.
| Speaker 2: [00:30:30] | And out of those 66, 1 would say yes. So every day they were collecting one new yes. So instead of each person getting one yes a month, they were now getting one yes a day, 30 xing the company's revenue for that month. So if you think about this for any business, whatever is going on with your business right now, imagine if your people were talking to more people. Imagine if you were utilizing a platform like LinkedIn where you can take it from online to offline where you're getting more answers or more introductions. That's the EAs. And the great thing about this, David, is LinkedIn is free. Everything that I teach, everything that I do is on the free basic version of LinkedIn because I do not believe in paying for human connection. It's available to all of us every single day.
| [00:31:00] Speaker 1: [00:31:30] | Absolutely. And investments in marketing, which can drive up, uh, ebitda, uh, by $1 can boost the value of a business by $4 to $6. And if, when people are planning to exit their business to build value so that the sale price at the end is as much as it can be, implementing one of these programs early can make an enormous difference in the amount that they realize on the sale of their business. Have you worked with business owners who at the beginning of your services say, Look, I I'm intending to sell this, I'm looking to sell this soon and I wanna boost up revenue, I wanna get more for this business when I go to sell it.
| Speaker 2: [00:32:00] | N not specifically, but that's, that's not a problem for me. It's the same technique. It's just making sure that a strategy is in place and there's a daily order of operation or a standard order procedure that is outlined and very specific to the end result. So if someone tells me, Listen, my end result is to make as much money as I can over the next two to three quarters so I can turn around and then sell it because of the revenue that's coming in, I can build a strategy around that. Most people that I do work with, the exit strategy is not to grow, scale and sell. Most people are in, in growth and scale, but the last part that sell, that's not in, that's not a hard thing for me to do. I just add that onto the back end.
| Speaker 1: [00:32:30] [00:33:00] | Okay, that makes sense because it's one of the things that if I'm brought in early enough and I can, you know, work with clients to get all their ducks in a row to make their business sellable and achieve the maximum value, get your accounting and order. This is one of the, the obvious things that will boost the value that they realize and it, the failure to do so re reflects an absence of investment in the future of the business, an absence of confidence in the future of the business. This reflects the fact that you're not leaving an empty covered. So it it's something that everyone who's looking to sell, Sure there's a million things on your to-do list, but this is one of the things with a very efficient in investment that business owners can do to enhance the value of their enterprise.
| Speaker 2: [00:33:30] | 100%. It's a LinkedIn and obvi and I, in my opinion, in my humbled opinion, the technique and the strategy that I have created and now implement and help other people with is one of the most cost effective ways. My services for what I, you know, may to some people may sound like a lot of money, but for that company where the acquisition of a new client or the roi, I've had people that have 200 x their investment from what I taught them because it's all relative. Once I know what someone's desired and result is and and what the cost of the client acquisition is, then I can tell them exactly how long it's gonna take them to get that roi.
| Speaker 1: [00:34:00] | Scott, this has all been tremendous information, very useful for business owners at all stages. Why don't you tell us again that the titles of your, your two most recent books and the, the name of your podcast.
| Speaker 2: [00:34:30] | Yeah, so everything can be found on my website www.scottaaron.net. The two books are the LinkedIn book for network marketing and the Network Marketing Academy. And my podcast is called Network Marketing Made Simple, that's found on all major platforms. Google Podcast, Podcast, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify. And I'm also very omnipresent on social media. So if you just type in Scott Aaron on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, I'll come up and I would love to connect with you.
| Speaker 1: | Great, great Scott. I've really enjoyed speaking with you. Keep doing what you're doing and I know with people like you out there, we will just pull through this tough economic era and things will return to normal and, and the economy will be thriving again. So with that, uh, I'm David King, author of Selling Your Business. Begin with the end in mind and we will be back with you next time on Selling Your Business with David King. You.