On a recent 710 WOR “Mind Your Business” broadcast, Yitzchok Saftlas (YS) spoke with guest, Ted Miller III (TM), CEO Of Training Mastery 3.
YS: You’ve interacted with some of the world’s greatest marketing minds. Could you share one of the best lessons you learned from those experiences?
TM: Tony Robbins taught me an incredibly valuable lesson about managing work with the other important factors of my life. At that point in my life, I was focused solely on my business, and I had lost focus on the other things that were important to me, like God and family, without fully realizing it. But one day, I was at one of Tony’s premium events and he said to the audience, “raise your hand if you ever think of an exit strategy out of your marriage, because you’re that frustrated.” And two rows in front of me, my wife raised her hand. That was the wake-up call I really needed. I realized that I had to start acting in alignment with my virtues. Ironically, focusing on what’s already important to you is what helps you grow. If you’re stuck and stagnant, the chances are that you’re ignoring one of your core values. Everyone’s always talking about achieving “work-life balance,” but I think that “balance” is not quite the right word. Balance is about doing all things in equal measure. But if you want to master something, you don’t just balance it. At best, you would only achieve mediocrity with each thing that requires your attention. When it comes to managing time between your family and business, balance is not enough. Instead, I respond appropriately to what ultimately requires my attention the most in each moment. And that allows me to act on a mastery level. That’s the best thing I ever learned from Tony.
YS: What is the advantage of education-based marketing, as opposed to more traditional marketing techniques?
TM: The world is sick and tired of being sold to. But if you can use information, you’re not going to the same place millions of others are by using weird marketing techniques with neurolinguistic patterning to convince someone to do something they shouldn’t do. Instead, you’re going to someone’s high-level thinking, at the frontal cortex. You’re making them say, “wow, I didn’t know that.” And then the brain logically goes, “well, if I’ve got new information, I need to make a new decision.” And that will change your world, because people will feel like they’re self-enrolling into your product or service, rather than being sold to. And so, they’re walking into your world versus being tricked in through some kind of marketing technique. It’s the one thing that has always consistently worked for me. Anytime anyone has a problem getting more new clients, I can pretty much always rely on education-based marketing. Whether it’s for B2B (Business To Business), B2C (Business To Consumer), or B2G (Business To Government), some of the biggest moves I’ve made have all been achieved through utilizing this strategy.
YS: What should a company do if they have great content available, but it’s not producing any revenue?
TM: You need to take a look at the type of content you’re putting out. Content-based marketing is not the same as education-based marketing. If all you do is educate your prospective client, you probably won’t generate new business. That prospect likely has a relationship with another vendor that they’re already doing business with. If you don’t set the buying criteria in your favor, your prospective client is just going to go to your competitor and ask if they are capable of what you just taught them. And even if you know they can’t, the competitor will say they can, and their relationship with the prospect will just continue. You need to set a buying criteria. Growing up, my dad had a rule that “if I buy, you fly, kid.” Meaning that if he was paying for a pizza, I had to go out and pick it up from Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria. That was our criteria. But along came Domino’s, and they used this to their benefit. They learned how to set a new buying criteria in an instant. In a short-stated pitch, they said, “we will deliver your pizza in 30 minutes or less guaranteed, or it’s free.” And this pizza wasn’t the same quality as Lou Malnati’s, but it wasn’t about high-quality ingredients or the taste. We bought it just because I didn’t have to leave the house. That’s all it takes. If you can wedge yourself into someone’s mind, to show them that there’s a new way to make a decision and that it’s only logical to do business with you, you’re going to have a direct response effect. That’s what education-based marketing does, as opposed to content-based marketing. In content-based marketing, you’re wasting your cycles on pushing materials that are all about you. Be of service to those you’re marketing to. Be an expert, not in your product or your service, but in the industry from which you serve. That will logically help you set a buying criteria in your favor.
YS: You created something called the “TM3 Ascension Sales Process.” Could you break that down for us?
TM: This process allows you to shorten the sales cycle and achieve success quickly. It’s all about collapsing time by looking at how fast you can offer the best thing that you have to your ideal prospective clients. I’ve seen a trend of people saying, “let’s lead with our biggest offers, high-ticket closers.” Let’s say, that offer costs $25,000. But the way they execute this idea feels almost like they’re having their salespeople calling up prospects and leading with, “hi, nice to meet you. Do you have $25,000?” That’s what it sounds like to your prospects. They might not know you, like you, or trust you enough yet to want to spend that much money. That one sales call might not be enough. So, you first have to find a way to engage with your prospective clients and use AI. By AI, I’m not talking about Artificial Intelligence, but Authentic Interactions. That allows you to connect with people in short order. You come into their world, maybe by doing a small, 2-hour workshop for $250. But in that short period of time, you are able to get some heavy-lifting work done and create an AI with the client. Invert your approach. Don’t go from a $10 offer, to the hundreds, and then thousands. That’s an ascension model. What I’m suggesting is to find a way to where you can have an AI. And once they’ve seen what you’re made of, and the essence of what your organization stands for, then you can share the best way you can serve them. Now, you can offer your high-ticket solution, and from there you can share the smaller solutions. What you’ve done is allow the client to get started where they’re most comfortable. Because you can’t dictate or control where people are at. You meet them where they’re at and help them get closer to where they want to be. But you must start with the best thing you have to offer. If you’re wasting your cycles on trying to convince people to just buy the next thing, you’re going to lose out, because there’s too much noise in the market. The second you have a nice AI, offer the best thing you have. It collapses time and allows people to make decisions. Don’t limit your perspective on what they can do. Offer the best and they’ll make the choice that’s in their best interest. Otherwise, you’re getting in the way.
YS: How can a company distinguish great sales talent from those that would not perform as well in a sales position?
TM: Sometimes it’s just as simple as recognizing if they don’t have it in their nature to be powerful in a sales role. Even if they’re very knowledgeable and know a lot about the industry, that doesn’t mean they have what it takes to close a sale. And putting them in a sales position would not be fair to you, but it also would not be fair to them. Care enough about your team to find the right people and to put them in seats where they are expressing their zones of brilliance. So, the characteristics that you’re looking for in great salespeople are a deep-rooted compassion and sincere interest in helping your clients succeed. Those that care more, sell more. Because at the end of the day, people will smell what I call “commission breath.” If the salesperson doesn’t care, and they’re in it just for the money, the client is going to smell that a mile away, and that relationship will fall apart. They need to be a person of virtue, not a person of convenience. But, you don’t want to just recruit people with compassion. That’s what I did originally. Everyone told me, “Ted, you’re so nice,” and I was the top producer. So, I figured that niceness must be what’s making me the top producer, and I hired all of these other nice people. And so, I was continuing to ring that sales bell, but these other hires never rang anything. It wasn’t just the compassion, there was another “C” at play. Confidence. Sales is often nothing but a transmission of confidence from one individual to the next. And so, if they don’t have enough confidence in themselves, they’re never going to have the ability to express certainty around your product or service. In sales, the one with the most certainty is going to win every negotiation. So, you have to find a salesperson that has both a high degree of confidence and high compassion. That’s the kind of person that is set up for success in sales. You want to have a pre-screening methodology to filter out those two C’s fast. Otherwise, you’re set up for failure in that arena.
YS: What is the difference between scale and growth?
TM: People typically use those words interchangeably. And that’s fine. Words change meaning all the time. But I want to be very specific about this. Growth is more about short-term success. For example, let’s say, you want more new sales to increase your top-of-line revenue and cash flow. So, there you may want to go and recruit an army of top-producing sales superstars on pure commission. That’s a great strategy to achieve short-term growth. But scalability is different. Scalability is focused more on long-term success and sustainability. If you build an infrastructure and culture around only hiring world-class achievers, that will give you a quick boost, but what happens when you run out of those one-in-a-million salespeople? After a while, you won’t be able to grow anymore because they’re one-in-a-million to find. So, if you wanted to scale your company, you could build a model that focuses on creating good standard operating procedures around the sales process. That model is scalable, because now, instead of hiring those few one-in-a-million producers, you could hire hundreds of good salespeople, allow them to grow and succeed with those operating procedures, and continue to scale your company over time. Otherwise, you’re going to get stuck and stagnant.
