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Here are the three things you need to know to start winning more corporate

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clients. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money

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mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast.

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I want to let you in on a little secret, and this is something that

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I train in all of my programs to my clients who are going after

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corporate contracts. So this is really like a

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$1000 tip that I'm giving you today, and hopefully it helps

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you land some business that's worth north of $20,000. So really it's

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a $20,000 tip. Do with it what you will. The

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golden goose of offering a service is landing corporate

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clients. But most of the time when new business

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owners start out, they go about it all wrong and they actually make it

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take way longer for them to land these clients. And to put it in

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perspective, if you're working with clients one on one, and your coach say you

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can charge anywhere from like $3,000 for a

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six month contract to $30,000 for a six month contract, depending on

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who your ideal client is. But if you're working in

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corporate, you're typically not getting paid less than 20 grand,

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especially if you're working with upper leadership. If you're running a

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workshop and you're just trying to enroll one off clients into it, you have

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to hope that enough people sign up to make it worth your while

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versus landing a corporate workshop. They're going to

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have a guaranteed audience and they're going to expect to pay a certain amount

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regardless of how many people show up. When I worked for Cisco

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Systems, I was talking to one of our HR people, and she shared with me

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that to bring in a communications coach to work

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with their engineering team, they typically spent between

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30 and $40,000 a day, which

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sounds absolutely insane, until you realize all the work that goes

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into landing those jobs, all the pre work that is

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required, and managing the account, because there are

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a lot of decision makers when you go after corporate clients, and you have to

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really work with all of them to make sure that you get the job. So

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there are three things that you need to do to make sure you are getting

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these clients and that you are moving this sales process

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along as fast as possible. So we're going to talk through

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who you want to get in front of to start these conversations,

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how to set your own expectations that you don't go absolutely insane

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waiting for an answer back from them, and also how

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you get them to say yes through your sales process. And

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I will say right now, if you have a friend or family member who's starting

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a business, who wants to land corporate contracts, I recommend you send them this

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episode because this is really valuable information and I do go deeper

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into it in my build your own business group program. So if you're interested in

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more information about that, then I urge you to go and book a generate income

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strategy call. You can do so by going to weeniecast.com

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strategycall and that link is in the show notes. But let's get into the meat

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and potatoes, shall we? Trying to get

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corporate contracts is rife with

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rejection, both perceived and non existent and real. And for

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folks with ADHD who are sensitive when they think they're being

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rejected, it can really take a toll on your self

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esteem. It can really make you lose faith in what you're doing. It can make

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you doubt that this business is even going to work. Knowing these things

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about the process to get corporate contracts is really going to help

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you stay sane and not absolutely lose your

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mind. These three tips will also help you move the

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process along faster. You know, one of the things I'm going to talk about

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is the expectations you need to have around when these deals are going to

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close. And it's usually like six to twelve months. I don't know about you,

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but six to twelve months is a really long time for my ADHD. Like out

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of sight, out of mind. You know, if it's taking someone six to twelve months

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to make this decision, like there's a really good chance I'm just going to forget

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that they exist. So it's so important that you

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implement these changes. You really accept what I'm telling you here because it's

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going to save your sanity. There's a chance it might

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not, but you know it. Like, you're in good company. If you are

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insane. Welcome. You're with really cool people. We're so happy to

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have you. The thing about sending your resume and your one

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pager to HR, if you have ADHD, you need

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consistent feedback. You need positive affirmation

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that this is good. We're happy. We're excited for what

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you offer. If HR is way too busy to even acknowledge your

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email and you're not going to get feedback that's going to give you the

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dopamine that will allow you to keep working on this, you're not going

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to be able to continue doing this. You know, there's a reason why

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people with ADHD get really easily addicted to social media.

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Because we get addicted to the dopamine we get when we get likes and comments

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and follows right. You want to be careful about that, but

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we also have to be realistic with it. Setting yourself up so you'd

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get positive feedback or at least helpful feedback that helps you get better is

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going to help you stick with your strategy a lot longer. Squirrel.

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Squirrel. The number one mistake I see coaches and consultants

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making when they're going after corporate contracts is

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they think that the best way to get in front of their

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ideal client and start that sales process is to reach out to

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HR. And while yes, this can work,

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HR usually is the one who has to sign off on

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anything that's learning and development related, especially if you're in the coaching

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sphere. I want you to imagine how many emails and

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letters you get with people's one pager of their work and how

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they can help the company. HR doesn't just field these

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outside people that want to land a project with this company. They

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also have to deal with some internal stuff and usually stuff that's not very fun.

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So if you're sending them an email saying, hey, so and so, I'm a

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leadership coach, or I do leadership development, or this or that or

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the other thing, and here's my one pager, chances are

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they're seeing that and they're either archiving it or deleting it

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because they have bigger fish to fry. You're also just one of many who's

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emailing them. So HR often isn't the

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best way for you to get in with these clients. Often the best

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way for you to get in with these clients is to go to the department

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heads, the actual leaders, the people who are in the business, working on the

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business and running into some serious problems. Let me set the stage

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for you. Say you are a sales trainer. You've worked in sales for

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a really long time. You've developed this incredible methodology and you want to

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get out there and you want to help corporations really develop a more

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successful sales process. And that incorporates you doing

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some consulting on how they set up their sales funnel. You also

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do sales training with their teams. You give them some scripts that are

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custom to their business and their type of customer, and

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you might go and also coach the sales leaders so that they know how to

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best support their teams to hit their quotas each month. What an amazing

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program. If anyone out there wants help building that, I would love to help you

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with that. You can absolutely go to HR. But HR isn't

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facing those problems every single day. HR isn't having to

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have really difficult conversations with the chief revenue

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officer about why so and so on. Their team didn't hit their

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numbers. They're not having to talk through

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all the hurdles that they're having to face every single quarter.

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Who is usually the director of sales or the

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president of sales, that is the person that you want to get in front of.

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That is the person who is going to be hungry enough

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for help that they are going to start the conversation with

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you. And when they realize that you hold the

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key to their life being easier, to their work being easier, and to

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them hitting and exceeding their goals as a team,

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they're the ones that are going to go and make the case to HR. Why

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HR needs to create budget for you. And in this scenario, you're

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extra lucky because this person is in sales and they can sell pretty

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much anything, including working with you. So you have a really

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good chance of getting the business. But this works across departments. So

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if you have an engineering director who is really facing

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creativity problems on his team, or maybe his team isn't collecting, collaborating really

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well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. They would want to bring in

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someone who could train them to do that better because it makes their life and

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work so much easier, and it helps them stand up from the crowd because

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they were the leader that took this team from not so great

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to amazing. You were a piece of that puzzle. If systems are

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breaking, if the IT department has all these antiquated

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systems and they're just too busy fixing bugs that they can't update to something

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better, it makes so much sense for them to bring in a

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consultant who can do all that for them and help them

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transition over gradually without loading

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up everyone who's already in the business, already overwhelmed

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with more work to do. So you want to get in front of those

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people who are in charge of these kinds of things because they have the

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most painful problems that they face every single day that you just

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so happen to solve.

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Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. So there are a few ways you can get in front

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of these people. You really have to pick what works best for

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you, for your business model, and for your personality. You can

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absolutely start a social media campaign. I recommend doing this on LinkedIn because

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that's where these people are hanging out and looking for talent

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to bring in. If they're already going to LinkedIn,

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scanning for potential talent, when they see you talking

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about their problems in particular, you're going to get their attention. They're going to start

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following you. They're going to start taking advice from you. They may not

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comment on your content, but like I say to all my

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clients, the money is in the lurkers. Often the people who become our

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clients are not our most avid, engaged followers.

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They're the people lurking in the shadows who never out themselves until they book a

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sales call with you. You can become a spouse speaker and speak at

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industry conferences. Now, this one takes a lot of

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footwork to do, but once you do it, you become

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the ipso facto expert in front of whatever

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crowd you're speaking to. And what's even better is if you're at an

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event in person and you're speaking to a crowd, you get

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immediate networking after the fact because folks who really need your

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help are going to come seek you out. They're going to try to stalk you

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at the bar and ask if they, they can pick your brain about something and

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you're going to set a call with them. And of course, there's always networking and

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asking for referrals. If you've been a professional for 15

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years, you know, people who work at companies, and those people who work at companies

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probably need know someone on the sales team, and that person on the sales team

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probably knows their manager, right? It'd be very weird if they didn't.

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And so asking your own network to help you get introductions

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to these folks is going to be incredibly helpful. If you have no idea how

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to do any of this. Like I said, these are all things that I cover

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in my BYOB. Build your own business program. So again, if you're curious and want

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some guidance, go and book that strategy call. And really, when you're marketing to

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them, you want to remember two things. Follow the money and follow the ego.

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Businesses care about the bottom line. So if this person is

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either going over budget or not hitting quota, they're not getting

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the accolades they would if they were doing those things. You coming in

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and saying, hey, I can help you do these things better for, you

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know, less money in less time, with less effort,

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they're going to connect the dots that, okay, cool. This is going to help the

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business immeasurably, which means I will get attention

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for this. I'm probably going to get more attention for that next promotion

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that I want. The thing that we forget about when we're going after corporate clients

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is, honestly that we think this is a business and it's going to be

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really formal and professional and

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they're going to want you to be the blandest version of yourself. Right? We

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forget that every purchase that we make is an

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emotional purchase. There's a person behind that

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decision who wants things for themselves. If you

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don't acknowledge how working with you is going to make their life better, make their

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work better. You're probably not going to get the sale. They're probably going to go

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with someone who understands the greater impact that

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that doing this work will have because it connects with them. It makes this

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a much more urgent decision because they see it as something that'll make their life

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better. Okay, so that's, number one, find your decision makers and get in front

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of them any way you know how. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Number

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two, you're probably gonna wanna punch me. No one likes hearing this.

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And thankfully, like, you can't punch me through the podcast.

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Damn. Damn. When you're going after corporate clients,

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it's really important to have patience.

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I know that's the most annoying advice ever. I know you don't want to hear

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it, but the reality about corporate contracts is

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that they can take anywhere from six to twelve months to close,

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and sometimes longer. There are a few factors that go into this,

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you know, number one, you have a lot of decision makers. You know, the one

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person who is the head of the department, who really wants to bring you in,

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they have to make the case to their C suite, to HR,

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to other people who are going to be impacted by bringing you in. They have

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to get all these people on board. I don't know if you've ever worked in

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corporate, but do you know how hard that is? Sometimes

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people like having opinions and they like

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sharing their opinions, and if something confronts those opinions,

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they're going to slow it down, even if it makes perfect sense. So you have

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a lot of decision makers that you have to bring on board. Now, of course,

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this is something I train all my clients on. How do you get them to

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be part of the conversation so they feel like a collaborator and not

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like someone who's threatened by you coming in? That takes time.

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For my clients with ADHD, six to twelve months is a long time to try

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to like, follow up with someone. So to help you manage it, what

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I recommend you do is set up calls with this individual.

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If you know that the decision making process is going to take several months.

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Set up calls just to touch base on where they're at and

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if they need more information, and if they need to make any changes based on

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new developments within their company. It feels really pushy to do that,

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but what it actually is, is amazing. Account management.

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You're making sure that the proposal you sent to them in February is still going

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to be relevant to them in December. So that way when they get to the

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budget conversation, that they need to do in November, December, they're

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going to be able to accurately gauge how much money they

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need to put aside to work with you, and they'll do so knowing that what

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they're going to be doing with you is absolutely relevant to what the company is

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going through. Right then how much easier is it going to be for them to

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sell it to their boss when they can say, yeah, we got this initial proposal

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back in February, touch base with them in September. After this thing happened within the

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company, they updated the proposal. Here's the new pricing. It hits

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everything that we need. It also makes sure that you don't forget about

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them, which is key because we know it's

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really easy to forget about things that are out of sight, out of mind. Now

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that you know who you need to get in front of to get these contracts,

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you understand the timeline and what it's going to take, patients wise and

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faith wise, to get to actually bring these to a yes.

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Let's talk about the number one most impactful thing that

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I teach my clients that I'm giving to you for free. In this

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episode,

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let's talk about the number one most impactful thing that

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I teach my clients that I'm giving to you for free. So number

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three, people share proposals all wrong. The

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typical way to do a sales process that most people do, because this is

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what they learned, is to have a meeting with someone, get the information of what

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they're looking for, and say, okay, great, love to work with. You can absolutely cover

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all this. Let me do this. I'm going to go and create a proposal, and

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I'll send it over to you, and you just let me know what you think.

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And so then they go away, they write up the proposal. They probably spend, you

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know, a good couple hours writing it, if not more, because they really

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want it to sell this person on saying yes, then they send it

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over, and then they wait. It's the worst because you're just refreshing

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your email, like, hoping that they're gonna get back to you, and then you get

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weird because you're like, well, I haven't heard back from them in a while. Should

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I follow up? And then you follow up and you don't hear back immediately,

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like, oh, my God, was that weird? Was I too pushy? Did I not make

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sense? Was there something I did in the sales call that made them hate

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me? Maybe they hate me. Maybe they don't want to ever work with me.

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And then before you know it, it's six months later. You've never heard back from

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them. You're probably not going to hear back from them, and

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you feel like garbage because you think you did something wrong,

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when in reality, if we were to go over to their side, they have

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the sales call with you. They're really excited about what working with

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you could look like and what it could do for them and for their company.

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You say you're going to send the proposal. They're like, amazing. I can't wait to

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look at this. You send the proposal over, they get

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it in between a few meetings. They have, like, ten minutes in between meetings, and

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they're like, oh, my God, this is the proposal. They open it. They kind of

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scan it. Cool. Looks great. I'm gonna come back to this. They go to their

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meeting. In the meeting, they're given a few to dos

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and a few more deadlines, and then they have another meeting, and more stuff is

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piled on their plate. One of their team members comes to them to complain about

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something or say that they need help with something, and their week just

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gets completed out of control. Oh, sh. I still have to review that

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proposal. Great. Okay, I'm gonna do that. Mental note. And then the next

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week comes, and more stuff gets piled on in the back of their mind. They're

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like, I have to get to that proposal after a while. It's

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been so long that they haven't gotten back to you about the proposal.

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They're gonna start getting weird. They're gonna start wondering, oh, my

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God, I'm so irresponsible and rude. I didn't get back to this person

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in time. They probably think I'm an, they probably don't want to work

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with me. If I get back to them now, they're probably so

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annoyed with me that they spent all this time with me and I didn't give

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them an answer. God, I can't go back to them. Or I should, what should

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I say? Oh, God. Like, this is gonna be weird. And then they're gonna get

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a follow up message from you, and then they're gonna feel even worse, because

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here you are following up with them, and they're the, and

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people don't like being the. There's a reason why. There's a whole bunch of Reddit

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threads. Am I the asshole? Because people want to be reassured that they're not

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the asshole, but our brains are not very kind to us.

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You know, in a lot of scenarios, we make ourselves the

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ass. We assume a whole bunch of stuff about

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what the other person's thinking, and so they get really weird. And then

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six months later, they're like, I can't work with this person because they probably hate

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me because I completely dropped the ball in this. And then they start the process

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with someone else all over again. So here's the critical mistake

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that the business owner made. They

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didn't make sure the ball stayed in their court. And yes, that was a

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sports metaphor. If you're playing our bingo game, you can

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cross that one off. And if you don't know about the bingo game, there is

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actually a bingo card for the Weenie cast. One of our listeners made it up.

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It's hysterical. You can go and play bingo. If you want to check out the

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bingo card, you can go to weeniecast.com bingo.

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We have yet to have anyone message us that they got bingo. But I cannot

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wait for that day. What do you do if that whole process that you've been

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taught or that you've figured out and you've been doing for a while, if

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that's not actually the best way to get clients, what do you change?

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And it's really simple. Instead of saying,

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I'm going to send you a proposal and you just get back to me, you

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set a follow up call. The

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beautiful thing about setting this proposal presentation

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call and making sure that you're both blocking off time

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to sit down and look through it is you're not just saving yourself

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from that perceived rejection, that that rejection sensitivity

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dysphoria getting activated, you're actually protecting them

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too, because they're going to start perceiving or making up the story

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that you hate them. They're going to start thinking that you're going to reject them.

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If they come back to you, you're actually being so

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kind in helping them go through this,

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be accountable to it, and have more structure around when they need

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to give you an answer. There's also that element that there may actually be

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something in your proposal that they do not understand. And I want you to think

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about any corporate situation. Are people in corporate

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situations likely to feel comfortable admitting they don't know something?

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No. So even if they do set aside time to go through your

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proposal. If there's stuff in there that they're like, oh, I don't know what that

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word means, or I'm not sure what they're talking about here, there's a

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big chance they're actually not going to ask about it. They're just going to like,

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say, okay, cool, I'll get to this later. But then the idea of

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admitting that they don't know the thing can be like, too shame

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inducing. So you get to protect them from that. You get to hold their

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hand and say, is there anything in here that doesn't make sense? You want more

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clarity on? And they have full permission in that moment to admit

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they need more clarity. The number one thing I want you to know is that

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this is possible for you. If you're consistent, if you have

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an actual sales process that works, then you

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can absolutely get consistent corporate clients. And you say,

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cool, you know, I'm going to go. I'm going to go and set up this

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proposal. Why don't we do this? I want to make sure this proposal

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covers absolutely everything that you need and that there's no questions you

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have when you get it. So let's book a time for a proposal

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presentation call. On this call, we'll go through

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line by line all the parts of the proposal. If there's anything missing, I can

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add them in. If you have any questions, I can answer them then. And also

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if there's anyone else who's involved in this project who needs to be on that

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call, bring them in so they can see what we're talking about. You're holding them

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accountable. You're making them actually block off time in their

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calendar where they're going to sit down, look

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over the proposal with you holding their hand and explaining every

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bit. They're going to be able to ask questions. They're going to be able to

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process the information, and if any changes need to be made, they're

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going to feel like you are super responsive. Because, you know, if they're like, oh,

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well, we actually wanted there to be a workshop included in the company retreat that

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we have in February. Can you add that you're going to be like, oh,

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yeah, absolutely. I'll add in here. Do you have dates? Because I can go and

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block those off right now. Because also that's another thing. If you're blocking

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off time in the future, they're going to feel extra responsible to get back

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to you and it gives you a reason to follow up with them because

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you have the time blocked off and you can create some urgency around that. I've

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had people make this one change and double their yes

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rate. Just scheduling a proposal presentation

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call now. Of course, you have to have a proposal that's worth

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presenting if you don't know how to do that. That's one of the things I

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train in my programs. Happy to talk to you about what those look

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like to help you really create proposals that convert.

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I love that saying meat and potatoes, because it completely jumps over

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vegetables. It's like whoever made that

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saying was like, yes, meat. And I love potatoes.

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And that is what we should be focusing on. They didn't bring up

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dessert, so that's kind of disappointing. I appreciate their appreciation

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of potatoes, and maybe they're considering potatoes vegetables, which technically,

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they are. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel,

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squirrel.