How to Sell Tickets to Seminars

TheReferral Shortcut

Marketing Podcast w/Frank Klesitz

Transcript

Episode 005

“How to Sell Tickets to Seminars – Part One(with Doug Johnson)”

www.getvyral.com

TRS Episode 004.doc 1

Frank: Hey, everyone, Frank Klesitz with Vyral Marketing this week. Welcome to this week’s edition of The Referral Shortcut where I try to bring some relevant, good, solid information that comes to marketing and sales here for you so you can grow your business.

This week on our call I have Doug Johnson with Top Production Train. Now Doug Johnson used to work back in the day with Tom Hopkins and some of those guys selling seats to seminars, where speakers such as myself would come in, speak, and sell product in the back and so on, and so forth. They have become specialists at going into markets, selling tickets (in cold markets), and bringing a bunch of people to an event where they usually invite me in, I come in and speak, and it works out quite well.

And today’s call, to break out how it is done, how they charge for tickets, the process of how they put butts in seats, so maybe you, too, could hold a seminar and sell your services that way. Speaking really positions you as a trusted, expert advisor. So Doug, welcome to the program today. Thanks for being on.

Doug: Hi, Frank! Thanks for having me.

Frank: Cool! So could we break down and jump right to the meat? Tell me the process you go through of choosing a market, going into markets, selling tickets in a market, and so on, and so forth. So where are we going next? We’re going to Pasadena, right?

Doug: We’ve got Pasadena, California. Yeah, Frank, to kind of set it up for you we have an outside trainer that we use that’s positioned in California. What I do is actually set up the meetings for this gentleman. His name is Nick Fletcher, who is the outside trainer. What I do is call different industries that would generally go to seminars and have a sales force of usually five or more in a team, typically.

We use a database in a CRM screen to be able to process this and I will call up sales managers, VP of sales, or in some cases the owners of these companies. It ranges from real estate business machines, home improvement companies, insurance companies, and a wide gamut of companies that we work with, auto groups as well. I will call and try and get a hold of the general manager, sales manager, or owner and ask them if they’re ever open to have a guest speaker at one of their sales meetings.

That’s how the process starts. And if they are open, of course, then I get into what we do as a sales training company. We have a trainer out there. His name is Nick Fletcher. He’s worked with some of the top people in the industry. He speaks concerning body language, overcoming and handling objections, as well as some social media ideas that might help your team gain a stronger foothold into the marketplace and sell more units if they’re in the auto industry, or more


homes if they’re in the housing industry, or more copy machines in the business machine industry, and so on and so forth.

At that point in time after we’ve gone through that process oftentimes if they’re interested in a course they’ll say well sure. So we get right to the date and time. I’ve got Yahoo! Calendar I usually work off of essentially. We’ll look and see what dates are available. I’ll ask John, as an example, what days does your group typically meet? And John might say well, we meet on Tuesdays at 9:00.

So I’ll go to the calendar and immediately have a couple of days picked out, and I’ll ask him does the seventh or the fourteenth be okay, John? And he’ll say the seventh looks good to me. So then I’ll send him a confirming email and we’ll set up the date and have Nick come out and speak to the group.

Frank: Now, let’s talk about Nick really quick. This is an individual that you fly out on your own dime and put him in an extended stay hotel about what, eight weeks before the planned event?

Doug: Usually about eight weeks, yes that’s our normal cycle. It varies depending on the size of the marketplace.

Frank: And he’s out there all by himself in a brand new city and is closed up in an extended stay hotel. And then you call – I’m assuming you go to InfoUSA and purchase a list of all your ideal prospects?

Doug: InfoUSA is what we use, yes.

Frank: And you’re just looking for general sales businesses across various industries. Then you call on them and basically set appointments for Nick to come out and do a sales training.

Doug: Correct.

Frank: And how long is that sales training? How long does that take?

Doug: Generally Frank it’s about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the industries. For example, certain industries like real estate, maybe the maximum time they’ll allot you is about 30 minutes. So he has about 30 minutes to get his message out. It’s a very directed message that’s going to help them create their sales volume. We try not to make it a commercial for the sales training event that we’re doing, but more of a solid training for the 30 minutes with an invitation at the end to come to our seminar.

If Nick does a good job in portraying value of the material he has an the material that’s going to be presented at the event, then he has a lot better chance of getting people to go to the seminar than just coming in and for 30 minutes


talking about what they’re going to do at the seminar and generally making it a commercial for the event itself.

Frank: Sure, sure.

Doug: It is a solid, solid training session.

Frank: Now, when he shows up he’s never met any of these people before?

Doug: That’s correct.

Frank: And he just starts speaking, right? Let me step back. Before he goes into the appointment, doesn’t the objection come up of like, what are you selling and why are you offering me this free training?

Doug: Oh, absolutely. One of the first things that they’ll ask is okay, so you’re offering this for free so what’s in it for you? There’s got to be a catch. What’s in it for you? Typically what I’ll say is John, the reason why we do this is, obviously nothing’s for free but what we do, essentially, is that we have Nick come in and he’ll invite people at the end to come to the seminar. You know, we often find that there might be one or two people in each group that will sign up for an event. We never ask anything from the company monetarily. If the people see value in what we do, oftentimes they’ll want to invest in themselves, John, and come to our event.

And usually you’ll get a really good buy-in at that point in time because you’re not asking, one of the concerns that managers usually often times guard themselves for is you asking them to make a commitment on behalf of the salespeople to pay for. There was a time in the day when the economy was much better when that happened more often, but with today’s marketplace and the economy being what it often times that’s a way to turn people off very quickly.

So if you get them on your side by saying that we’re not asking anything from the company, we’re looking at the people investing in themselves – if they see value. And then my last comment is hey if they don’t, John, they’ll walk away with some really good ideas that will help them sell more cars, or more houses, or whatever it may be.

Frank: And what do you find, out of all the sales managers you talk to with this offer, how many take you up on it?

Doug: Typically in every market you’re looking at 70 to 80 meetings that you set up. Now a lot of it depends on how many people, there’s just myself on the inside so that’s typically what I do.

Frank: Let me step back. So you basically get up every day, and you just make calls all the time, setting up appointments for Nick. You’re the only guy doing it. Is that right?


Doug: Sure, yes.

Frank: So how many dials do you make a day in contacts, and kind of give me your stats in how you measure your success?

Doug: I’m not really a dial-oriented person. I’ve been doing this long enough now that I don’t say, okay well I’ve set out to make 100 dials during a day. Most people who handle the phones for any length of time know that you can get burned out very quickly if you, maybe in the early days set aside some kind of numbers that you may adhere to. But I kind of get a feel just from the marketplace itself, how many I need to make, and I usually have a pretty high success rate in people that I’m able to talk to and get on the phone.

The most difficult part you’ll find in doing what I do is getting a hold of the decision maker. There have been some markets where it’s literally taken me two months to get that person live. I’ve found that as time has gone on over the years, voicemails aren’t a very effective way of getting people to call you back as they used to be. So I work very hard at making a lot of calls every day and to some of the same people to try to get that person live knowing fully well it may be 60 days down the road before I actually talk to that individual.

Frank: You’re calling to an entirely cold market and you’re setting up over 80 appointments for Nick for a free sales presentation?

Doug: In some marketplaces, in smaller markets the number may be around 60.

Frank: How much were you selling tickets for at the end?

Doug: Generally the ticket price that we sell is around $249 to $349 for VIP tickets. Nick is the one that sells the tickets at the meeting. One thing I want to make clear is that the person on the phone, like myself, doesn’t really sell tickets. As the person on the phone you can’t really sell tickets to a seminar. If you try to do that, if you try to get too much into when you set the meeting with the appointment for these people about the seminar itself you lose the effectiveness.

You really allow the sales trainer who meets with them in person who shows them value to really close the deal on the tickets. So you really try to avoid as much as possible. The seminar itself and questions centered around the seminar as being the inside person. Leave the heavy lifting there to the trainer out in the field.

Frank: Wonderful. Now can we maybe run through a script – let’s roleplay you actually trying to set an appointment. Let’s say, with a car sales manager?

Doug: Sure, sure. You be the car salesman.


Frank: I’ll be the receptionist first, and then I’ll pass you off to the sales manager. How’s that sound?

Doug: Absolutely.

Frank: All right, so ring-ring-ring, hello?

Doug: Ring-ring. Hello! A quick question for you – who is your general sales manager there at ABC Ford?

Frank: That would be Bob, but what’s this call about?

Doug: I just have a quick question for Bob about one of his sales meetings.

Frank: Oh. What’s this call regarding?

Doug: Is he in today at all? It was concerning one of his sales meetings, just had a quick question for him.

Frank: He’s in a meeting or on the phone right now. Can I take a message?

Doug: You know what, is Bob there until close today?

Frank: I think so. I think he usually leaves around 5:00.

Doug: Okay, great. I’ve got some appointments coming up here and I’ve got some meetings to attend to so I’ll just give him a call back later in the day.

Frank: You know what? He just became available. I’m going to go ahead and transfer you over. How does that sound?

Doug: Excellent.

Frank: Okay, hang on.

Doug: Thank you.

Frank: This is Bob.

Doug: Hey Bob, Doug Johnson. I had a quick question for you. The gal up front said you’re in charge of the sales team there.

Frank: Yes, that’s right. That’s what I do here.

Doug: The question I had for you, Bob, are you ever open from time to time to have a guest speaker out for one of your sales meetings there?

Frank: Yes, but who’s calling me? Who is this?


Doug: My name is Doug Johnson. The reason I ask is that I’ve got a gentleman who is in your area. He’s been invited to speak at a number of different auto stores there. His name is Nick Fletcher.

To give you a little background on Nick, he was the number one sales guy in the country a number of years back at Legacy Grand Pontiac. He’s sharing some ideas on body language with some of the teams - how to read and react more effectively with the customer. And he also talks about handling objections, how they can handle objections more effectively, and how they can use social media in their spare time at home to get more leads and referrals from some of their past customers.

Frank: Okay, well that sounds like something we’d be really interested in, but we really can’t afford anything like this. This is not something we really want to do.

Doug: Bob, no worries on that. It’s free of charge. There’s no charge for having Nick come out.

Frank: Well, why are you doing this? What’s the catch?

Doug: Really no catch at all, Bob. The reason why we’re doing this is because we’re doing an event in the area, in Pasadena, California on December 4th. So when Nick concludes the session he does, it’s a 30-minute session, he’s going to announce the event we’re doing.

We don’t ask anything from the store. If your guys see value after Nick’s concluded with it then they can invest in themselves, but we don’t ask anything from the store itself. So if any of your folks want to go, they can sign up on their own. And if not, they’ll walk away with some great ideas of how to move an extra unit or two per month.

Frank: I don’t know.

Doug: It’s a win-win for everybody.

Frank: I really don’t know anything about you or your company or who this guy is. Can you just send me some more information and call me back.

Doug: I’d be more than happy to send you an email, Bob. What days do you typically do your meetings on?

Frank: It’s usually Tuesdays around 9:30 in the morning.

Doug: Around 9:30? Okay. How many sales people are in your team, Bob?

Frank: We have 8 sales people.


Doug: 8 sales people? Do you have any that are green peas, like a year or less?

Frank: Virtually all of them, as with any sales we get turnover.

Doug: Wow, okay so you see some heavy turnover and could definitely use some training. How many units are you moving each month?

Frank: You know, here at our cars, we move about 30 to 40 cars per month.

Doug: Oh, okay. All right, so you would like to see some improvement probably to get it up to 70 or 80 if you could.

Frank: Yes, I would love to get 70 or 80. That’s what I’m pushing for with my guys.

Doug: Absolutely. Well I’d be more than happy to send you an email. In fact, I’ll give you Nick’s bio on that. Nick has a pretty limited schedule because we’re booking a lot of the auto groups right now. What I could do, Bob is I could reserve this date and send you an email with a bio on Nick so you could have a chance to read about Nick.

But also what Nick does is usually the week before he comes out he’ll give you a call first of all to introduce himself, and then customize this session so it fits your particular needs for your team. He always wants to make sure he’s on the same page with the sales managers or the GSMs or GMs when he comes in.

So what I can do is, I can send you an email and just reserve that date. There’s really no obligation there other than I’ll have that date reserved for you. If you see value in the content that I just gave you, Nick will give you a call a week before he comes out and we’ll have him come in.

Frank: That sounds good. Let’s go ahead and do that. I’m excited for some sales training here.

Doug: Okay, great. Look for the email and then look for Nick to give you a call the week before.

Frank: Doug, that was amazing. I threw every objection I could possibly think of your way and you worked through them wonderfully.

Doug: Well, the reserve part I use is when somebody is still a little bit reluctant. In other words, if there’s some reason why they aren’t saying yeah, great, let’s set this up for the fourteenth for example. So what I do is if I can still see they’re still a little bit reserved but that they’re interested because they would like to have somebody come in, I sense that and I’ll use the reserve part. There really isn’t much of a difference between sending an email that’s scheduled or reserved, is there?


Frank: No, and I also found with the gatekeeper of how vague you were.

Doug: Yes. You have to be extremely vague. I find in working with gatekeepers, first of all you have to be really friendly with them. You can’t try to make it sound like you’re a sales guy at all or on a sales call. You have to be jovial with them and friendly with them, and complimentary with them as well.

As long as you’re that way and make it as vague as you can – often times they’ll say I can get your number. And I’ll say no, I’ve got to go in a meeting here shortly, I don’t know where I’m going to be at. I hate to have them play telephone tag. And so I’ll give a little bit of put off with them there, and usually they’ll accept that. But if you just say no, and leave it that way they’ll get a little suspicious of you the next time he calls. So I try to make it more of a lighthearted call and I very well could just be a customer of theirs.

Frank: Do you get the gatekeeper’s name and reference your previous calls to the gatekeeper? Or every time you call up are you pretty much a new guy as far as they’re concerned?

Doug: No, oftentimes I know they recognize me because there may be some cases where I actually contacted them once a day. If I’ve been chasing somebody for a long time and trying to get ahold of them I may talk to them once a day so they recognize my voice. I know they do.

So that’s why I’m just friendly with them. I say I know that John’s been pretty busy and I get busy during the day, too. I’m a hard guy to catch so I’ll just keep trying back if you don’t mind until I get him live. And they’re okay with that. If you develop that rapport with the receptionist, then they’re okay with it. They’re not as guarded. You do run into some secretaries who are, that are held at the gate. I mean, they’re tough.

Frank: Now, do you follow up with email with these decision makers, or is it all phone?

Doug: Some I’ll send out with email but quite frankly, it’s funny Frank. Email used to be the big thing years ago, and people would read your email. Now it seems like it gets caught in the spam box. So your chances of sending an email and having them respond are slim to none. Occasionally that will happen but it’s very, very rare. That’s why like to get the person live. I find voicemail messages, even when I have referrals from fathers, sons, daughters, wives, often times they won’t even return your calls.

Frank: Sometimes I’ve heard with the voicemail, the best voicemails are hey, this is Doug. Please give me a call back at this number. Bye.

Doug: Yes, exactly.


Frank: That’s the best voicemail.

Doug: Yes, be really, really, really vague. Sometimes I’ll leave hey, this is Doug I had a real quick question for you, and give them my number.

Frank: Sure.

Doug: The quick question part of it sometimes piques their curiosity. The reason why I use quick question when I open up with you or any other manager, when I use a quick question for you it takes them off guard because if you don’t, they’re going to say what’s this call about? Do you understand?

Frank: Yes.

Doug: So if you use hey John I just have a quick question for you, then you almost find sure, shoot, whatever. That’s kind of what you get and it takes them off guard. So they aren’t as guarded and then you can kind of go into it. And then you can go into the guest speaker part and that’s non-threatening.

Other people in the past have gone right into hey John I’ve got this speaker coming out and blah, blah, blah. Well, I first ask for permission. Do you ever have a guest speaker coming out? Because if they don’t, if they never have guest speakers coming in then I’m wasting my time anyway. You understand?

Frank: Yes.

Doug: They’re not likely. There’s too many other people I can go to that will have people and so that’s why I always open with are you ever open to having a guest speaker in?

Frank: Now you get all these leads and you purchase them totally cold off InfoUSA, are there any specific selects when you run that list that you’d like to share with the audience if they were going to go out and try to do the same thing for their business, in the same market?

Doug: Selects in terms of?

Frank: Criteria that you use to run the list.

Doug: Criteria, well yes the criteria I use may be different than what they use depending on what they’re doing. I try to find groups and because of the consolidation of the economy, what’s happened is sales groups have had a lot of consolidation within groups.

So I try to find groups that are typically 20 or more when you look at your info list, 20 or more people in a particular team. I’ve been doing this long enough that I know there is certain amount of revenue that drives so many sales people, even


though they’ll list 20 employees on the amount of people that are employed by the company, it may or may not be a good indicator of how many salespeople they have altogether.

So I look at revenue. In the auto industry if they have $35 to 40 million in revenue, then they probably have a minimum of 6 to 7 salespeople. And that number could change in certain industries. Like in real estate they could have 20 or 30 and still have $4 or 5 million in revenue as far as sales people. But I try to find groups of 20 or more. And Nick really only works with teams of 5 or more when he goes out and does the training because we’ve got expenses, gas out there and back. So really from a profitability standpoint 5 or more makes the most sense to meet with.

Frank: Sure. Now you put all these in sales force and put him in sales force. Now how many calls would you say for your key accounts would you make trying to reach that decision? How many attempts would you make before you give up on somebody?

Doug: If their account is somebody that we’ve worked with in the past, and that particular company or industry or group has been very successful with us then I never give up over that 8 week period of time. I might make as many as 30 or 40 calls to that one individual over that period of time.

Frank: Wow.

Doug: Sometimes it takes that long to be able to actually get that person. That would be for one of the larger sales groups that maybe I’m keying in on.

Frank: I think it’s also important to share, Doug, is that you really go after – and I may pronounce this wrong – but tertiary markets? Like markets that aren’t the major markets, you’re going out to Oklahoma City, and Omaha, Nebraska, and maybe New Orleans. Do you find that it’s easier to set these appointments in smaller markets than in major markets like L.A., New York, Miami, and so forth? Is that right?

Doug: Well, I think a lot of it has to do, Frank, with so many different sales companies and people soliciting these people. They’ve become extremely guarded in the larger markets because they’re just inundated by everyone. So I think that you’re more mid-sized markets don’t get hit quite as hard from people as do the larger markets. I think that’s one of the major reasons for the sheer amount of telemarketing calls that they get for these managers in the big marketplaces.

Frank: Sure. Well, in my next podcast I’m looking to interview Nick and get some of his strategies of how he approaches and makes a sale on sales tickets. I know we have a really good video of him actually doing it where we recorded one of his


entire presentations before, of him showing up and selling tickets at the end, and maybe share that with some of the listeners.

Is there anything else you can share with someone who may be looking to go on and set appointments for their own company? Maybe not necessarily to sell tickets, but to get consultation with the owner or build trust with an organization that they’re trying to sell their products or services to?

Doug: I think the main thing is that you can’t sound like a telemarketer. You just can’t sound like a telemarketer. You just can’t. People see through that very quickly so you have to develop whatever it may be.

I’ve illustrated some of the things that I do. You have to implement some of your own style, but it has to be you. It can’t be something that’s manufactured. You could work off a script to start with but make it part of you as quickly as possible because that’s the only way that you’re going to develop any kind of rapport with that person once you get them on the phone. The length of time that you have somebody on the phone is very, very short before you’ve got to get to the message that you’re trying to deliver. And if you don’t get to that fluidly and also in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re some telemarketer, then you’re going to fail.

So you have to get to that very, very quickly but you have to do it in a way that you develop some kind of comfort with that person immediately over the phone. Oftentimes that just takes experience and practice, but the main thing is to be yourself.

Frank: Sure.

Doug: Don’t sound like a telemarketer.

Frank: Well I appreciate it. Thanks a lot for your time this week.

Doug: Okay! Thank you, Frank.

[end of transcript]


How to Sell Tickets to Seminars

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Transcript of How to Sell Tickets to Seminars