Consistency Closes Deals

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

In business, if you tell me you wanna work with me, here are my rules to the game.

Once you say I wanna work with you, I have my team, we'll follow up with you every single week, every week. And we will offer you three times to talk and then I'll always have my calendly link. If you miss those three times, you will get an email the next week.

Sorry you couldn't make it last week, here are my times for this coming week, also my calendly link, can't wait to connect. You miss it three times, then we make a phone call. Hey, is everything all right? And every time we send an email, we back it up with a text.

I also wanna find out, are you a call person, are you a text person, or are you an email person? What is your preferred? And so if I email you and then I send you a text and you reply to the text, it's gonna be a text. But I'm doing every, I'm doing it each week, right? What I've learned over the years is people don't say, stop it, you're bothering me. They tend to say, wow, you're doing a great job, I really appreciate all the work you're doing, we're just not ready.

And what I'll say is, what would you like the next steps to be? Can we talk next year, can we talk in the fall, can we talk in the summer? Absolutely, and when they find out that I really care and I will respect those boundaries, they'll tell me what's going on.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

Maintain the Conversation

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

I don't mind when somebody says, here's my timeframe, let's meet the timeframe.

I have clients today, I have franchisees today, I have deals today, that took two years to just date. Year one, they weren't ready. In a past life, guys, I used to build log homes as a custom home builder.

Yeah, you heard me. All of you get rich in your niche, people. I built log homes in New Jersey for a decade. So, you want a specialized niche, I got one for you.

But people used to come to me. I used to do this one trade show in New Jersey that was very popular. It was called the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show. Used to generate about 250,000 people to it over 10 days.

I had a log home construction company. I used to exhibit every year. And I'd have people come in year one, and they're like, I'm looking at the land.

Year two would be like, I think I got my model. Year three, it's like all the finishing and soft goods. Carl, I think I'm ready.

And I'd be like, really? I didn't think I was gonna live long enough, but okay. You've got, you know, it took you three years, but we got here, right? I used to do half million to a million dollars a year out of that show. And there were some people who would walk in with their file, like I'm good to go, I got the land ready to rock and roll, cool.

And then every year it would be, I'm ready, finally. You know, I had this one family that used to come in every year. The guy used to bring his family like, hey, this is the guy that's gonna build our house.

And I'm like, Jeff, you know, if we live long enough, like, when are we gonna get there? But I just maintained the conversation. And my big thing was, what would you like the next steps to be?

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

What would you like the next step to be?

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results. Hi Bob, hi Jane, hi Janie, hi Joey, hi Jimmy.

All right, hope you had a great holiday season. As we're entering the new year, many of my clients are revisiting their goals that they paused in December. Okay, I'm sure your prospects can relate.

I have found the last sentence is a very, very good one that will help understand where your client is at any given time. And here it is. What would you like the next steps to be? Now they know what that means.

In our working together, you know, Kirk, are you still looking at that same concept? And are you still looking at multi-unit? And are you still looking to have this as part of your 2026 goals? If somebody comes back to me and says, you know, Carl, I'd like to talk about this in September of next year. Q1, Q2, I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to start thinking about it in Q3.

Let's talk in September. I'll be ready to go then. I'll put that right in my CRM and say, okay, that's totally cool.

Kirk, let's talk in September. I don't mind people doing that. Now, could they just be pushing me off? They could be.

But if they're a client or a deal later, they're already draining my resources.Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

Alignment Creates Opportunity

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

24 conversations with concepts, where you're saying, how can we work together better? What can we do more to align? I wanna hear about what's going on with you guys and how we can work together.

We have found that if you have 24 meaningful and some sort of cadence of conversation, once a month, once a quarter, twice a year, I see you at these four events. However it goes, that you tend to get one referral per month, per brand. What does that mean? Somebody says, you'll get a call from somebody that says, hey, we found somebody that I think is good, but they're not a good match for us.

What else you got? Yeah. Have you called a franchisor and said, what do you do with all your dead leads?

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould, and this has been your #70secondCEO.

High-Level Prospects Don't Keep Banker's Hours

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

My business consulting services, I text my prospects before 7 a.m. Why? Because they're up and they're on their phone.

And I had to reschedule somebody that I'm supposed to meet with tomorrow, and he said, and they always say the same thing, I don't normally like to do this, Carl, but I'm available Saturday if you want. So I have a couple of calls on Saturday. My point is, use personalized check-in, right? And if you've got somebody right now on your list that's a business owner, they think about this sort of thing in non-traditional hours.

Right now, they're busy. And I'm not saying don't call them during the day. Of course you do that.

If I could, I would try to get them before the day started. And I would call on Saturday, and I have long stopped pretending that Sunday's off limits. So I will call and text because I know that they're on their phones.

I know what they're thinking about. I know they're thinking about their year. Now's the time, okay? I love the holidays.

People always say to me, I can never get to these decision makers. I know where they are, off hours.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

Stop Selling on a Banker's Schedule

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

Until they tell you to stop, contact them every week. we were kind of planning out our calendar.

And I said, block off Wednesday night through Sunday night, Thanksgiving weekend. And she said, okay, that's fine. And so as we're getting close, I have a nine hour day on Friday.

So even though I blocked out the day, my assistant said, hey, can you talk to so and so about this? Can you talk to so and so about that? This one's interested in this. And I kept saying like, well, you know, that's supposed to be a day off for me. Well, you know, that's supposed to be a day off for me.

You know, I'm not supposed to be doing that on that day. My day starts at 7 am and it ends about 530, right? And I've got an hour break here and a little bit of break there. But I started out with a day that was supposed to be open to a day that's full.

Why? Because business owners work non-traditional hours. If you have a multi-unit person that you're talking to, if you've got somebody who's a business owner, I guarantee you, you can get them on a week like this.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.

Position Yourself Before They Position You Pt 2

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

But I would be telling them, here are my goals, right? So for example, one of the techniques that I'll do is I will take essentially personal responsibility either for a brand or a territory, and I would say, listen, there are a few brands that I work with very, very closely, ABC, DEF, and GHI.

And I want to really help them with their launch, or with their Northeast expansion or with their non-traditionals that they just introduced. And I'm going out to the people that I think would be a good match. You're among the first that I'm contacting.

So that could be a nice reset message. I'm looking to work with this kind of person. I've got these kinds of goals.

I'm working with these sorts of brands and here are their goals. So I'm looking at people who want to partner in that. You are among my first calls, okay? Now, based on our categories, if we believe they are a client or deal now, we want to be talking to them every week.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould, and this has been your #70secondCEO.

Position Yourself Before They Position You

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results.

That you position yourself with your prospects, What I would be doing is I would be going out to our prospects as you're engaging with them and letting them know what your goals are for the coming year. Let them know what you'll be doing differently in the coming year and how they can be part of it.

So, for example, I'm committed to hitting a goal of one deal per quarter. I believe in the franchising world the average sales cycle is 105 days. So that means theoretically you would have, on the last week of a quarter, if you were to bring in a lead, that would close by the end of the following quarter on average.

I know some go quick. I know some take a while. I just sold two units of a franchise company within 60 days.

The buyer was very ready and the deal went through very quickly. So that was very nice.

Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.