Phil Gerbyshak – Do you have a sales system?
Is your sales system a spreadsheet, a CRM or… you’re just winging it? I invited my friend Phil Gerbyshak to come on and talk about sales systems and processes, why they’re important and how you can get started, even with a small budget. Phil has been in sales and sales training for years and just launched the Modern Sales Success online course.
Listen to this new episode for ideas on why you need a sales system, what to look for and how to be successful with it.
Connect with Phil:
@PhilGerb just about everywhere (Instagram.com/philgerb, Threads.net/philgerb, Facebook.com/philgerb)
Phil’s Speaker and mindset site: HappyAF.Substack.com
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com
Do you have a sales process? Listen to this episode and find out why you should. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the wedding business solutions podcast. I am so excited to have my friend, Phil Gerber shack on with me today to talk about sales process. Phil, how you doing? Hey, I’m great.
Alan. How are you? It’s good to see you again. Always good to see you. And you and I always talk sales and stuff like that when we’re together. And I was like, you know what? You got to come on. Cause we have to let other people listen in on this conversation. Cause that’s what you’re going to be doing is just two friends, just talking about sales.
That and bourbon. If you, if you’re watching the video, I know most of you are listening, but if you’re watching the video behind Phil is a shelf full of nice bourbons, including one special, Oh, and then the top shelf over there, literally top shelf for those of you who are watching, he put his camera up and there is a top shelf on his bookshelf.
Full of bourbon. There you go. My wife doesn’t let me keep it in the office here. It’s, it’s out in the other, it would rival in terms of number. Cause there’s 70, 80 bottles out there, but that’s all another story. We’re not here to talk bourbon, which could, we should actually do that on another one. However, we do want to talk sales process and sales system.
And that’s something that a lot of people don’t have, or if they do have it, it’s just kind of haphazard. So just kind of define for people what, what, what kind of a sales system or what do you, what do you talk about? With that. Sure. So when we think about a system, it means that we’re going to do something on purpose with intention.
That’s what a system is. It’s not just random stuff. And when we think about process, we think about kind of what happens within that system. So the first process might be, how do we discover prospect? Right. That from there, it might be, how do we qualify a prospect? And from there, it could be, how do we close a prospect?
And there’s more in there, but that’s kind of an overview of that. So overall, right. It might be 15 or 20 times that we might try to touch someone. It used to be eight to get a date. And now I say it’s 12 to get love. Nice. So it’s same thing that I call the sales cycle, which is you get their attention, you get an inquiry, you have a conversation, you make a sale, but that’s not a system.
That’s just kind of. identifying the steps, the system would be the actual steps, the actual things within that, right? So getting their attention, that’s your discovery. Like how do people find out about you? Yeah, that’s right. And you discovering them as well. And let’s be really clear, right? Both ways. They need to discover me.
That’s nice. But then I need to discover them. Like, do they have a problem? Is there something that they need? You know, some people, frankly, they’re just out there kicking tires. And even in the wedding business, I mean, you know, people, I think people are going earlier and earlier because they know they need to save more and more money for this.
They want to know what things are going to cost. Well, if somebody doesn’t have a date. Well, you probably don’t have a date either. So you want to make sure that they do right, unless you’re a venue, in which case they’re going to get the date from you. But then if there’s a church involved, then you’re going to get the date from the church before anybody else.
And there are some people that will tell me that, let’s say you’re a DJ and they saw you at a wedding and they love you. They’ll come to you first and say, Hey, before we booked the venue. We want to make sure you’re available, which is great because that’s a huge buying signal over there. So yeah, it’s huge buying, which is a whole nother discussion about what are buying signals and all that.
But that’s a big one folks. If that happens, that is a very big one right there. So very few people in, in the wedding event industry are doing cold calling. If you’re doing corporate, if you’re doing fundraising, you know, stuff like that, you might be, but for the vast majority, it’s a reactive sale.
Something you did let them find you. Right. And then the discovery is they reach out to you. That’s the first buying signal we see, but that’s not the first buying signal though. Right? No. I mean, if they go to your website and they fill out a contact form, that’s a buying signal. If they go to your website and they send it for your newsletter, that’s a buying signal.
If they like one of your posts on social media. That’s a potential buying signal. Maybe. Right. I mean, those are softer buying signals, but anything that results in them raising their hand a little bit or both hands, holy crap, it’s me. Like you said, if they come to me with a date. And say, you know what, are you free on January 27th of 2026?
Well, doggone it, that’s a pretty good buying signal. But often they’re not that obvious, so you really have to listen. You have to hear what they say, as important as, as also how they say it. How they say it. So you need to combine those two. And then you need to make sure as your discovery goes, you need to make sure that you actually like the person that you want to do business with them, because you’re not spending five minutes with them.
You’re going to spend a day, maybe a couple of days with them, talking through things, making sure that everything’s there, depending on where your process is and how much qualification you need to make sure that this is going to be a successful event. Right. And I only give an exception to if you’re less than a year in business, you’re going to take everything you can get.
And then you’re going to learn, and then you’re going to learn, you’re going to be like, Oh, wait a minute. I see the, I see the, the, the sink signals. Now, this is not somebody that I want to do business with. Right. And we’re not talking about discriminating. We’re just talking about, you know, the people that are going to be a pain in the neck and they’re just not worth the effort for, for what they’re looking for, or they don’t want to pay your price.
To get your results, they want to pay somebody else’s price and still get your results. And the answer is no. Right. My results cost my, my rate there. Don’t, don’t give them or they might ask you to do stuff that you only tangentially do that. You don’t enjoy the most. Right. I mean, you know, if you’re in the wedding business, you know, you need an officiant, you need DJ, you need a caterer, you probably need a photographer, maybe a videographer.
You need, you know, a planner, you need all sorts of stuff. Well, you might, Kind of sort of do that. And they might really like you and say, well, can you do this and that? And that’s a sure sign that that’s going to be a tough thing to sell. So be careful when you do that, because then they expect a bundle price of things that you’re not really all that gifted in.
Yeah, I’ve heard people saying that somebody inquires and doesn’t tell you it’s a wedding. You know, they just need whatever catering or they just need whatever and they don’t tell you it’s a wedding because they think you charge more because it’s a wedding. Not understanding you charge more because it’s a wedding, because there’s more work to do.
Right. It’s not, you’re just charging more. You don’t just bump up the price because of that. An example being, you know, a band or a DJ. Right. If, if they need, if they’re having a party and they want you to show up and play music, okay, that’s fine. But reality is the best ones out there are spending 20, 30 hours before the event.
Prepping. And the reason we charge you more is because of the 20, 30 hours, kind of like when you and I go to give a speech, you know, yes, we could walk on stage right now and give a speech. Both of us can do that. But if we have the client, we’re going to prepare for that client, for that event, for that result and all those things there.
So let’s go back to, let’s go back to the sales system. Somebody’s getting an inquiry, right? So let’s assume already they’re getting inquires through their website, through ads they’re doing on the not wedding wire, Google, Facebook, Instagram, whatever it is, right? The inquiry comes in. That should be like the first domino, right?
Just like you’re hitting that domino. Things are happening. What, what’s the next step there? Well, the next step is it shouldn’t hit some system that it actually captures their information. So it should capture in a CRM type device, or it should be in a spreadsheet if you’re really old school, and it should have their name and their email address, their phone number, and then the other information you need.
It could be a date, could be information, could be what service are you looking for? It could be, you know, any, any information that’s going to help you sound more intelligent on a call with them. So think of all the questions you might ask. Now. I have to say there’s a balance between asking 78 questions up front and asking one question up front.
So you want to get just enough that you sound smart enough. Maybe they’ve already got a website and they’re not fantastic. Let’s include that, but don’t make that required. Cause I’d like to see what I can write. You already have a theme picked out. So that I can say, you know what, I’ve got a crate just for you if I’m a DJ and this is the perfect crate.
I mean, I know that I’m going to include some of your favorite songs, but you know what, I’ve been working on this crate for years and I think this is a great crate for you. Or if I’m a planner, right. And I might say, you know what, I just learned about this, this venue that is just opening up in May of 2025.
So if you have that much time, I can make it even extra special and perhaps I’ve got a partnership with the, with the venue so that you can even get a little better deal. So whatever you can gather, but always be pressure testing that. Is this an, am I getting too many inquiries that are unqualified? In which case I need to ask maybe a couple more questions, or am I getting too many, not enough inquiries?
And now I’m like, well, now I need to shrink the number of questions. So that’s the first step is you should have the questions. They should go into a CRM somewhere, and then you should schedule a next step. And always be thinking if you forget everything else, Alan, I talk about today, I want you to think about what is the logical next step that needs to happen.
So you could use a CRM, like one page CRM. And that’s the question that they ask. That’s the big question. What’s the next step. So always be thinking about what is the next step. And for those of you not watching on video, I’m holding up a sign that says, ambiguous next steps bring ambiguous results. And these are ones that I hand out in my training because if you’re not thinking about the next step, then it’s not clear.
And if it’s not clear, it’s not going to happen. Right? Sometimes it happens on its own. Sometimes it doesn’t. But if you’re making it clear what the next step is. So that balance on a contact form, we know that statistically every field you add Less people fill it out. Every field you take away, more people fill it out.
A lot of people listening make the mistake of, well, I need to know. Right. And as soon as you say, I, you know, already we’re, we’re talking about the wrong thing here, right? I need to know this information. The answer is you do, but you don’t need to know it today to get the inquiry. You don’t need to know realistically.
You don’t, all you need is their name and their email to get an inquiry because that’s what would happen if the phone rang, you would know nothing, and you’d be able to have a conversation and we know that most, we’re talking about Millennials and Gen Zs and Gen Alphas soon, and they probably don’t want to talk on the phone because it’s not their preferred method of communication, we know that that’s the case, but you can have that conversation, I was telling Phil right before I got on here that I got a text in Saturday night at 730, And three hours later of back and forths, I was booked, paid, done, and we never had a phone call.
Why? Because we were having a good conversation. There was no reason to move on to that. And the information that I had, which was zero, when the first text came in, I asked those questions. I got the information. I gave them information, asked more questions. And next thing you know, we had a sale and the same thing can happen to you.
So the, the CRM system, if you don’t have a CRM, a customer relation management software, there are so many inexpensive ones out there. They all do the basics. What, what is it? What was the one that was 10 bucks a month? It was really simple CRM or something like that. Really simple CRM. That’s right.
Right. 10 bucks a month. Zoho is the one that’s the basis for the one that, that I’m switching to. I had Salesforce. It was just a little too cumbersome and complicated or whatever. So this is much, much easier, but it’s some system. And again, if your system is a spreadsheet, That’s fine. As long as you use it and consistently use it to do that one.
Now that’s keeping track of, of the information and the steps here. And then it’s a question of what is your process, right? For following up, because we know that just because you respond right away and you kept your message short and you fit it on one screen of a phone, you asked one question, all these beautiful things, not everybody responds.
That response, right? So this is where process comes in, right? Yeah. This is where process and persistence come in. Absolutely. So if you think about this, I like to take a piece of paper, I take an 11 by 17 sheet of paper and I think about this. Okay. So I’ve got my discovery and we talked about that already, but now we’ve got them, we’ve got their information.
Now what happens sometimes, sometimes they say, great, let’s book now. Okay. Awesome. Congratulations. You send them a contract and it’s closed. That’s awesome. That doesn’t happen most of the time. Let’s be really clear. That does not happen most of the time, but sometimes it does. If it does not though, then what?
Okay. So first contact, you get their information. You have a date, you have this information, you respond. They didn’t respond. Well, you can try the same channel. They texted you, text, they text you, text. Okay, great. You can email. If you have theirs, or you could actually pick up the phone, and I would tell you that the very next step, if they ghost you, should be to pick up the phone, and I say that knowing that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but here’s the thing, you pick up the phone, and you just simply say, Hey, it’s Phil Griboshek, we’ve been speaking via text, and I just want to make sure that you got my last message, because technology being what technology is, sometimes it fails.
Real simple, right? Right. No pressure. And they’re like, and even if that’s a voice message, Hey, that’s right. You know, just in case my email went to spam, I just wanted to, you know, you know, that I am reaching out. Yeah. And, and that’s the detail can come in writing. The detail can come in your text or in your email, but the phone call is another little ping that says, Hey, I care enough about you that I’m going to do something that probably makes me uncomfortable and that’s okay.
So with that, that doesn’t work. I could also then send a video message. I could use vidyard or loom or insert product here and I could make that happen. The last one would be if you got their mailing address, you could send them something in the mail. I mean, Alan’s got books upon books, upon books that could help people get closer to making a decision.
So any of those things are okay to do. Cause your goal again is to get to, I want you to buy, or I want you to die. Meaning I want you to pay the money or I want you to say, Hey, screw you, Phil. I don’t ever want to talk to you again. And either one of those is fine. But in the middle of that. Is where the work comes in.
That’s the hard work. That’s what you get paid for the rest of it. I mean, you know, for Alan and I, when we go on stage, that’s a gift. I love to do that. That’s the easy part. The hard part is the process, but you have to deliver on your process and keep your promises because people know that how you do your sales process is how you deliver your work.
And how do you get paid and how you get paid? That’s right. We were, so Phil and I are both in the NSA national speakers association, not the other NSA, the ones that speak, not the ones that listen. Right. And I remember being at the lounge one time with a bunch of speakers and Waldo, you know, or Waldo, former fighter pilot all of a sudden he said, I hate my job.
And there was like a record scratch and quiet, like what, what? I mean, the former fighter pilot up right. And he goes, no, no, don’t get me wrong. I love speaking. I hate my job. My job is everything else here. And what you heard Phil just say is the work is between when they make an inquiry and when you get to the sale, that’s your job.
That’s the work that you have to do. And it’s your job to follow up. But we’re lucky. I mean, Phil, you’ve done cold calling. I’ve done cold calling. Yeah. And cold calling is not fun because you don’t know if there’s a need. Now you’re smarter about who you call, and you pick your prospects, and you do your research and all.
But still, they’re not waiting for your call. They didn’t, they didn’t initiate this. Or in my words, in the wedding event industry, they started this. They went to your contact form. They filled it out. That’s why my latest book is called Stop Selling and Help Them Buy. Because you’re not trying to sell them, they’re already a buyer, right?
People that raised their hand and said, I need what you do, where the process comes in is understanding life and life is, all right, I filled out your contact form and then I got sick or I filled out your contact form and the cat got sick or mom got sick or my boss gave me a new assignment and, or I had to go out of town or the power went out.
I had a, I had a call before I was supposed to have the zoom call and one. Party wasn’t on because their power went out. It was like, whoops, there you go. Right. So just because they don’t respond doesn’t mean they’re not interested because they started this. Right. So people listening probably know my cadence of follow up, but what would be yours?
You get an inquiry today, you respond right away. Of course. All right. But you don’t hear back. You don’t hear back. When would you follow up next? 48 hours. I’d give him two days at the most follow up. Now I say that because I go look at their social, are they active? Are they alive? Right. I, I joked that you know, dead people don’t buy and it’s true.
So I want to look online, right? I want to see, are they active on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on TOK, on, you know, insert product here, right. I want to, I want to see, are they alive? 48 hours. If I don’t see anything with that, I’m not going to slide into their DMs. I want to be really clear. The channel that they picked is the channel that I want to stay in.
I won’t stay there. I will happily go somewhere else, but that’s the one I want to stand because I know that’s what they picked. So I’m going to try that and I’m going to do everything I can to keep that conversation right there. Whether that’s in text, whether that’s an email, whether that’s in phone, and I’m going to try.
Every way possible if they don’t get back to me in 48 hours. So I’m going to move from text or email. That’s probably the likely one. An email could be the contact form. Now keep this in mind, read the email address there. If you see that it’s G A M I L. com, it’s probably supposed to be G M A I L. com. Use your head, right?
I mean, like, don’t just assume that that’s correct. George, just assume that that’s correct. You know, don’t assume that’s incorrect either, but don’t assume that it’s correct. Right. And again. It’s a good reason for using a different method. If you don’t hear back, that’s why the texting or the phone call, because what if they don’t get it?
And then spam filters, gosh, I have to check mine three, four times a day. And legit stuff is there sometimes from people I’ve been emailing with for weeks. And then this one shows up in the, in the spam folder for whatever reason, I don’t know. I don’t know why that is. So I totally agree. We have to start with the method they chose.
Now, along with that is understand. You’re giving them these options, right? If you give them the option of calling, texting, emailing, filling out a contact form, messaging you through the not, messaging you through WeddingWire, messaging you through Instagram, messaging you through LinkedIn, messaging you through TikTok, you have to pay attention to all those channels, right?
And I have somebody just the other day said, well, you know, if they messaged me through Facebook on the weekend, you know, is it okay to have an auto reply that says they should call or email me? I said, well, do you pay attention to your email on the weekend? They said, yeah. I said, then why aren’t you paying attention to that?
Right. It’s still, it’s still a channel. They, the expectation is that now my out of office on my texting says I’m likely on a plane or on a stage because it’s true. Right. So I, it might be delayed getting back to you. That’s the ideas. It might be, it might not. I still try to get back to them as quickly as possible.
So What, what other things should people think about in terms of their system? Right. Understanding a lot of solopreneurs listening in here, people don’t have huge budgets for systems, you know, things like that. What should they be looking for? Well, we mentioned the CRM. That’s one system. You should have a video system where you can send a video message and you can follow up with that video message.
Loom is a great system that you can use for that. Loom is L O O M. Yep, loom. com and it’s a it’s a chrome plugin if you’re using google chrome So loom is a great system for that. You mentioned your text messaging. Do you have a text system? That’s one that you can have you you should have a system for your email marketing, you should have a system for your telephone, right?
What do you do when someone calls and it’s an, Oh, geez, it’s an unknown number. What do I do now? Some people are like, yay. I just sent him a voicemail. Well, that’s a lead friends. That’s a potential lead. Just answer the phone. If it’s bogus, hang up. Who cares? It’s three seconds of your life. It’s not a big deal.
So you should have a system there. And then something should tie those all together so that you can keep track of that. So that you can keep track of them. There’s social media systems. There’s other systems, right? But ultimately your goal is to move them through the buying process to move them from knock, knock, knock.
Are you there to close, close, close. We’re shutting the door and I’m delivering this stuff. And. Hopefully at the end of that, you should have a system for earning referrals and asking for repeat business. Now at a wedding, don’t ask for their second life. That’s not how this works here, right? I mean, you can, but I just, I’m telling you from experience, it’s probably not your best move.
Probably not. Now, some of this stuff if you listened to a previous episode that I did with Ryan Angid from SAS. So it’s a strategic assistance, right? You can, outsource some of this stuff, right? Like if you’re not, if you’re not good at keeping track of this stuff, I have a virtual assistant. A lot of people have virtual assistants.
If you don’t want to have a payroll person, obviously, if you have one, that’s great. And those people that have gotten to that point, I’ll always tell you that the biggest mistake was waiting too long to bringing somebody to do that. If you think about the money you’re missing out on, The opportunity cost of the money you’re missing out on versus what it would cost you to have somebody helping you with this, keeping track, following up in some cases, actually doing the followup.
They could actually be doing that. You know, are you missing out on more business? Now? No, I always say to people, if you want to sell more and profit more, if you can do more events, Then hiring somebody is a great investment. If you’re already maxed out on the number of events you can do, it doesn’t make sense unless you’re not profiting enough.
In that case, you have a problem with pricing, you have a problem with marketing, you have a problem with other, other stuff like that. So so let’s, let’s talk about the referrals and reviews. I’m going to, I’m going to add the other R in there for you, because it’s a huge thing for people to be getting that.
So asking for us that thinking about the wedding industry, it’s not like a lot of other, like in corporate where, you know, referrals, You know, I can get more business from you, right? Like if you’re doing a holiday party, you want to ask them, what other events do you have coming up during the year? Or at least try to get next year’s holiday party.
But like you said, you know, we got this wedding. We’re not asking for your next wedding. Let’s, let’s not do that. But there is other business to get. Yeah, absolutely. So if we think about that, if they’re the oldest sibling, they probably have brothers and sisters. So you can find out, just get an introduction, just get to meet them, spend a little time with them, right?
The rest of the wedding party, great people, right? Chances are the maid of honor and the best man, if they’re not already married, are probably the next in line to get married. So you should introduce yourself to them. You should talk to the parents of the bride and the groom because they might have a re wedding.
Right? They might do their vows again. So ask for that, right? And then with that, anything that’s kind of like that, It could be that they’re got married and they just got promoted because maybe that’s why they got married because they finally had the money. Well, that’s your invitation to the holiday party.
If you’re a musician or a DJ, right? So what your goal is to make friendly, not friends. Your goal hopefully is to get their business card and their contact information of other people as much as it is to give yours. So don’t be pushy instead. Let, because right then is you’re not going to close people at somebody else’s event.
That’s just not how this works. So instead, ask for their contact information and follow up and let them know how, who you are once again, and start your process and your system over. Right. There’s three times you should be asking for referrals. So before you make the sale, but you’re meeting with somebody, ask them a question.
Who do you know that’s getting married? Who else do you know that’s getting married? Who do you know that’s having a bar mitzvah? Who do you know that’s having a quinceanera, right? Who do you know? And then, because if their friend books you, they’re more likely to book you because he just validated the choice.
When you make the sale, ask the question again. So who do you know? That’s whatever, because they want a confirmation that they made the right choice. Again, the friend over there, and then after the event, then it can be at the event. It could be after the event. It could be when they come back and say, Oh, thank you so much.
It was absolutely wonderful. And you say, great. Who else do you know that we can help the same way we’ve helped you. Right. Not. Do you know anyone? Who do you know? That’s right. Be specific when you can. Right. Go after that. Right. And, and I would, I would tell you, if you can ask again, are your parents doing, you know, are doing this?
Val Renewal. Yeah. Right. Val Renewal. If your friends are doing this, this is an opportunity to be a little bit specific. And yes, it’s nice to get anybody. But you might find out, hey, is there another wedding you’re attending this year that maybe doesn’t have everything ironed out or in the next 18 months that happens.
And then you mentioned the review thing, which I think is, is so important, right? So important. A recommendation of a review is so important. Yes, it’s great to get five stars. But it’s even better to get some detail around what you actually did and how you made them feel. So when you think about this, the question is not will you write me a review?
The question is ask some questions around how you made them feel. Ask some questions around, you know, how big was this wedding? 571 people. While that gives some indication as to how many people you can handle as opposed to five people, very different here. So you want to have that if there’s anything else that’s special about the wedding, perhaps it’s also live streamed.
Perhaps it’s also. Whatever it is, right? Maybe it had to be bilingual, whatever it is, this is an opportunity for you to stand out as someone who can do this, because what you’re thinking about with the review is what questions does that review answer that a potential buyer might have that you can answer ahead of time?
It’s almost, I don’t want to say it’s a prequalification because it’s not that way, but it absolutely can be right. Cause it’s not that strong, but definitely if I see that someone can do a bilingual wedding. Well, if I’ve got a bilingual wedding coming up. I would absolutely say, wow, that that’s pretty impressive because typically Gurbashack is not doing Spanish weddings.
Let’s be clear. Well, but see, you never know because I’ve presented in five countries in Spanish and people wouldn’t expect that. So, you know, but you don’t. Yeah. You’re right. And that, and that’s the whole thing is reviews. I always say there’s four things that matter, right? The number of reviews matters.
You want to be at least in double digits on any platform you’re on. You need to have a good score, right? It does not have to be perfect 5. 0, but you need a good score. Recency matters because you could have great reviews from three years ago, but they don’t care. They care what you did three weeks ago, three months ago, and then responding to the reviews, which puts you into the room when that other person is reading it.
And when I ask for reviews, I usually let people go wherever they want. But sometimes, like you said, there was something specific I did for this customer, and I want them to put it in the review. And instead of just saying, hey, could you put this in the review, I’ll say, you know thank you for allowing me to do this, this was really special, I was able to do X, Y, and Z for you.
And then you ask for the review, and then of course when they write the review, they’re like, well, Alan did this for us, or, you know, whatever, they put that into there. I call it leading the witness, right? You just, you ask the question just a certain way there. So, all right, but let’s go back to systems so we can wrap this up.
So in terms of systems, what are the, some of the biggest mistakes that you see people do when it comes to trying to get a system going if they don’t have one? Yeah. Well, they try to get too big, too fast. They go spend 10, 000 on a system and they need a 10 solution when you’re getting started, get started.
Now, that being said, if you have the money to invest and you can take the time to actually learn the system. Okay, then fine. Spend, spend a little bit more money. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is they think that every system is its own piece and forgets about their interconnectedness. Again, on social media, a like seldom goes into the system unless you put it there.
So you should be making sure that you’re taking the time. If you post. You should make sure that you’re going back and checking those putting that in there. Hey alan liked the post about you know shut up and sell more. Oh, okay. Good. That’s important, right? So I would want to know that alan like this or he commented on this and i’d want to know that So understand the interconnectedness and then the third big mistake.
I think that people make because they don’t use them They get started with them and then they never use them. You know, I mean, I don’t care if you spend 10 a month. I don’t care if you use Excel. I don’t care if you use pen and paper. I mean, I’ve always got my notebook handy with me, right? I’ve always got my notebook with me.
Yep. Alan, I know you do too. Right. So with that, with that, don’t let your system break because you didn’t put it in your master system, right? Instead, take the time at the end of the day, at the end of the week. And put it into the master system and then work it and work it and work it and work it because again That’s the work, friends.
That’s the work. The rest of the stuff that you get to do, that’s the fun. So do your work. Yeah. And that’s the, it goes back to garbage in garbage out, right? If you don’t put the information into the system, you can’t retrieve it. It’s like what I wish people happy birthday every day on Facebook. People think I’m a genius, but it’s Facebook telling me it’s your birthday.
So not, not a genius, but I do have, when I have a contact, I’ll have, okay. Phil’s wife is Stephanie, right? And Phil’s son is, and Phil’s daughter is, and I put that in there. So I can go and say, Hey, how’s Steph doing? Right. And instead of like, what’s Phil’s wife’s name, Phil’s wife’s name. I met her. What’s her name.
Right. And. It’s in there if I forget the information’s there, and that’s the whole garbage in, garbage out. But I totally agree with, with what you said in terms of you don’t need to spend a lot in the beginning, but you need something, because something’s better than nothing. But also that if you don’t use it, because that was me with Salesforce.
I just, it was basically a big contact thing for me. But the new system that actually you got me started with the new system. It’s going to pull all these things together for me. So I have one view of the world instead of this bifurcated view where I think I counted, what is it? So it’s, it’s Salesforce, MailChimp, Outlook, Eventbrite, Time Trade social texting, QuickBooks, Dropbox.
This is my world. Is all those systems, which now most, if not all of them, I can bring into one place so that I don’t have to go to all these places when I want to do this, I go over there and do that. And that’s where systems come in. And, and yes, I, I’m at a point where I’m paying, you know, more money than I would have in the past for somebody to help me get this going because they know my world, they know what they understand it.
So fantastic. Now you have an online course, don’t you? Yeah. Yeah, I sure do. Yeah. What is that? What is that? Cause that’s something new. I hadn’t heard about that. What is modern sales success. You can go to modern sales success. com and sign up right now. It’s in private beta. By the time folks listen to this in the next month or two, it’ll be out.
And that is how to run your systems and how to run your processes and how to actually get some leads. Now it is a little bit more outbound for sure it is, but I really believe that if you work the outbound, the inbound will take care of itself. Focus on the outbound, at least make some calls. Even if you’re just calling some venues to find out what events are happening there.
Make some friends, make some referrals and make it happen. So that’s what the course is. That’ll be out really soon, probably by the time folks listen. And we will put that into the show notes. So if you didn’t get that, you go right into the show notes on all the video and audio platforms, and you will see more about that.
And again, education. Educating yourself there with, with a system about systems is a great, is a great way to do it. And, you know, you, you’ll feel so much better. When you know where all your information is and you know that you’re following up and things haven’t fallen through the cracks. I mean, I think we all had that, you know, Oh crap moment where you’re like, Oh, I forgot to follow up with that person.
And, you know, and then sometimes they come out of the woodwork on their own, but a lot of times they just go to somebody else. And that’s, that’s the opportunity cost. That’s what you’re missing on that. Phil, thank you so much for joining me here. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Next time we’ll talk about bourbon and we’ll do that.
Can’t wait. All right. Thanks, sir. Thank you, Alan. See you soon.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com
