Jeff Ross (00:36.264)
Well, Hey Ray, thank you very much for jumping on and putting your hand up to say yes for this awesome space. as I mentioned, just here in our introduction. So, you know, put together this podcast to make sure that, you know, there's a
people have got value in this social selling and AI space. So let's just dive straight in, mate. I understand that your time's precious. So as it is for all of us, I suppose I just love to always unpack people's hero's journey, know, where they started with this whole process and where you are today. So just quickly, like, you know, in the quickest time possible, what is the hero's journey story for Raymond?
Yeah, I'll give a quick recap and I'll focus more since I've been in the digital space. But my background prior to that very quickly was 20 years in corporate America and a very obscure niche industrial laundry. I was a route sales and service rep, kind of a hybrid rep. did service and sales based. Did that for 20 years and really gotten that trap, right? Making 50K a year, comfortable owning a house, kids. And like everything was so tight and it was like, you're stuck in there. I can't leave because I got risked not missing my mortgage payment. So long story short, I started to have some...
generative back problems that a doctor told me if I kept doing that in the next few years, I'd be walking like a hunchback. And that's the time where like you can't put a price on your back. I can't go buy a new one. Right. So, and two of my three kids had grown up and moved out. So I had a little more freedom to take a chance. Took about a year and a half while I was still doing that gig to study digital marketing, reading books, taking courses. I was my first business coach before I ever monetized, just set the foundations. And then I took a gamble on myself. Still remember the date, November 15th, 2019. I got into digital marketing. I started working for
A big digital consultancy and brand that most people would know in this space. I'm probably not going to name them for a few reasons, but they were doing about 20 million a year in revenue. I joined on their high ticket sales team as a specialist. And then after a handful of months, I didn't have the same ethical and integral values with the company. So once you don't believe in a product or a company, you can't sell it. You just can't be in sales for something you don't believe in. And that's when I finally got the gusto to start my own thing. was like, well, I knew this good enough to get hired to this company. And I've been here with six months of experience and all I did was assess digital businesses. So got a lot of experience.
Jeff Ross (03:02.712)
Great foundation there for what I went on to do. And I just took a gamble on myself and said, I think I can get people the same results as these guys who were doing 20 million for a fraction of the price at a higher quality in terms of a person to person help. And that's kind of what launched into my digital consultancy, which I'll give a quick recap on the co-owner of three different brands. Our primary or our first brand to launch was called P-Docs. Stands for pains, desires, obstacles, common beliefs, steroids or attention grabbers in the market. First year in business, 21.
We did 1.6 million cash collected and 2.3 million invoice. So we way over expected our expectations for kind of our first real company. I knew we had something, but I didn't think it'd take off like that. And then what we did is we took our primary, let's say our first 15 super successful clients. That program was designed to take people from 5K to 50K, say 90 days. Like that's what we did with our best clients. The 15 of them that hit that in the shortest time, we pulled them and like, Hey, what do you need next? Cause once you get to 50K, you have a lot different challenges than what this program got to, right?
And what we realized is they were going to a lot more paid marketing. So we knew in 23, 24 and beyond that space is going to be big dependent on data, right? Data is big in paid marketing. And if you're not using data, your big competition is in their crushing. It's just the facts. And then they're building out sales teams. So me and one of my business partners, I'm a co-owner, there's three partners total. Me and one of my business partners have over 30 million in close tie to good deals.
We know how to sell our clients needed sales teams and they needed data. We built a company called audience lab, which is a data and tech staff platform that now is on track to hit 10 million in revenue this year. And we built out a company called the sales lab where we do coaching, training, placement done for you, sales agencies, build outs for, for companies. So that's the short synapses. And I don't know if it was short enough. Man, I'd probably do a whole hour on just on, your story there. That's amazing. Thank you very much for sharing. how'd you get it down there? It's pretty hard, especially for us who'd like to talk a bit.
So how do you define social selling in today's AI integrated digital landscape? Well, I think with the AI integration into this aspect, think there's still what stands out as that personal touch. It's still about people and relationships. No matter how much AI gets involved, social selling includes social because there's interaction, there's likeability. To get somebody's, let's do anything, a cold DM, an email, to get an open, you got to have attention, offer value, there's got to be an incentive.
Jeff Ross (05:23.832)
Cause I know me personally, I probably open five to 10 % of my emails. Honestly, I probably open maybe 10%. Now if you get in my DMs, I probably open about 60%. If you get in my SMS and you get, I probably open about 80%. So that just lets you know where you should focus as a business owner. When do you open more of yourself? That's the first thing, getting eyeballs on your stuff. But it all comes down to that initial message, how you're connecting. Is it warm? Is it cold? Different approaches. But I still think it comes down to people and relationships.
Hmm. Yeah. I would be believing teaching people how to really leverage the customer value journey, right? And, know, the seven stages here, we've got the awareness, the engagement, the, community building stage, you know, and then putting the right offer in front of the right people with your trip, trip, trip, why and so on. Right. So it just AI is just a tool, not a replacement to help people in that customer journey. Hey, great point. Great point. And one thing I'd like to add to that, that I think not a lot of people notice, and I didn't really notice till I got more into building sales teams. I got this feedback when I was a rep, cause I'm a very
relational rep, I'm not the hard close take you down. like, yeah, I build up their relationship and if I offer value, I'll make an offer. If not, no big deal. We part ways friends. I send you a free resource, whatever. Right. but I started realizing customer journey. You should always focus on 100%. But people don't focus as much on the prospect journey when you can really stand out in the sales process. What I've noticed is people start thinking, damn, what would the service be if I actually paid them? Like I've done so many sales calls and built teams where the feedback from the prospect is this didn't even feel like a sales call, man. This was great. You didn't even pitch me anything or.
I had to ask you for the price. Like, you know what I mean? They're like, this is so much different than what I get on strategy sessions, quote unquote, you know? So I think the prospect journey is also a great way to stand out. Not everyone's focusing on customer journey if they're smart. I don't think a lot of people are focusing on that prospect journey. Yeah, that's interesting. Like, and I naturally do that myself, but you know, us who sort of just wired with, you know, focusing on the relationship and find those heart to heart connections, you know, that's, it's, it's a skill that we've acquired, right? You know, every master was once a disaster. So.
What would be your top sort of strategies to help people hone that prospecting journey? Like for me, I love to use the acronym Lord, know, location, occupation, recreation and dreams, and then move into an acronym called grow. You know, what is your goals, your reality, your obstacles, your opportunity and your way forward. So, so what do you use to help people in that, in that conversation to really build that rapport, get people to know like, and trust you and find that heart to heart connection early on.
Jeff Ross (07:46.382)
Sure, let me answer that two ways. First, I'll go with the acronym and the framework, and then I'll go with the implementation and the strategy behind it. But the acronym I like for outreach and anything like that in particular always boils down to ACEs. Number one, we're getting their attention. It doesn't matter if it's a post, an email, an ad, right? Something to get someone to raise their hand. And then you got to have that conversation where you're doing two things. You're pre-qualifying, but you're also financially pre-qualified. So number one, do you have the problem or do you have the desire that I can deliver? And number two, I always in the conversation, I do what's called a soft yes.
you know, somebody says they have the problem and you know that the last thing I'm doing before I go on to the E, the educating part is, hey, man, if we have a discussion, I can solve this problem for you. Is there anything that might stop you from investing when we meet Friday? And that gets them. I ask it that way very specific because most people say, would you be willing to invest? And people just say, yes, they don't think. But when you say it, would there be anything that would stop you from there? Like they'll start to tell you now before you even get to the sales call my wife, my partner. Fine. It's right. Cool. So can we get her on the call, too? And that saves a lot of problems. Right. So if you think that happened when you're doing that.
Then E, the educating, right? So you should have a whatever. I like to call it a program overview. Some people call it a VSL, but I think this is already in the sales product. I think the VSL is more in your ad or right from the ad when someone is a warm opt-in rather than a more messenger spot. Like I want to send them a program overview, which does two things as well. Educates and delivers to that value, but also does a lot of the heavy lifting for the sales rep. So they go to the call educated about the offer. The sales rep doesn't have to spend all the time on the pitch and the deliverables.
And imagine if you could start a sales call with, Hey, Jeff, you go through that resource I sent over in between our last conversation. Yeah, Ray, I did. Cool. Let me ask you any questions on that or what was your biggest takeaway? Well, I love the way you build out the, and they start talking about what they like about the product to start the sales call. Right. And then you go to S the actual sale. But I think with a lot of business owners, I try to go from A to S and they don't really do that C and E very well. I got their attention. Let me pitch them. Send them my like offer. Like that is spammy and scammy from a lot of people's perspective.
And then I would say in terms of implementation, and I'd be happy to send you over a training I gave to some of my paid clients. If you want to give it to your community, I just posted it so you could like see everything I did. Obviously I don't have the time to run through the 10 minute tutorial, but the quick overview is how I just ran a small little outreach campaign, very targeted. I just used a certain competitors add or two targeted 30 people shot from request 25 of them, 22, 25 accepted wait two to three days. And then my cold outreach, everything is documented. And you see a screenshot of me sending a voicemail, one coming back another one.
Jeff Ross (10:07.01)
book appointment, like literally from cold, three messages looked into my calendar. And I've been able to kind of do that with my framework, my skillset and teach others how to do it. So I just documented that for some of my private students in my PDOX program, maybe 10 days ago when I was running a campaign for my sales lab, we had a masterclass. I told you about it about a week ago, we ran a masterclass that we do once a year. So I didn't spend any money on it. I do any email, nothing. just did cold outreach on Facebook, very targeted.
and got tons of attendees and book calls and et cetera. Wow. Love that. And so, so focused on the whole relationship, That they're building that connection and just figuring out people's pain and, then offering a solution to that pain. Right? I love that. That's awesome. So I think that's what you get into after. Well, one thing I want to make really clear with cold outreach, my first message, and this is what people always get hung up with or mess up because they're trained on, we've all seen this one, right? Hey, can I get you 10 to 15 extra high ticket appointments this month?
Exactly. So that's number one. What I do is, A, I keep it personal by a voice note on my first one. And what I've noticed after over a thousand DMs in my companies is over a 16 % more response rate. And more importantly, it's the morale of the response. I got a couple last week, I can even play it 20 or 30 second one for your audience right now. Their first message back. that was so sweet. I've never gotten a message like that. Everyone's just trying to pitch you. This is so unique. Like when your first message. So what I say there, and again, I'll send you over the tutorial, but all my first message is just like, Jeff,
Hey, we connected here on Facebook in the last say two to three business days. And unlike most people who send friend requests and remain strangers, actually want to connect with everybody. So, hey man, looking over your profile, it looks like you're in the muscle calls and you work on the muscle cars. I love that 71 Nova in your cover photo. It looks like you're also a sales director. I've been in sales for a while and I always love to network with other outgoing people and people in the same profession. So I think Facebook might have recommended you in the algorithm. When I know I targeted this person, but it comes off very organic, right? Hey man.
anyway, I just wanted to get introduced. I always like to catch up with everybody by week send. If you didn't catch my content or me catch yours, I saw a couple of things looking forward to seeing your content. Would love to hear more about what you do. That's it. Nothing about me, what I do. And then people ask, how do you transition to talk about your stuff? You'd be surprised to have their first message back because you kept it all about them is, Hey, right. We'd love to know more about what you do. And now you have permission and know like, you know, antsy walking on eggshell. How do I make that? It's just smooth. So that's a good overall starting strategy. Yeah.
Jeff Ross (12:31.852)
Nah, I love that. Cause people really don't care about what you know and they know how much you care. Right. And that's a great one. love that. Leading, leading with that, you know, straight away and standing out from the crowd and just saying, Hey, look, I'm here to be able to support you. But you know, yeah, it's because people are always looking for that filter of what's in it for them. Right. Yeah. And then it's also how to stand out. Like when I'm getting messages saying nobody is doing this, obviously that's when you kind of know you're on it. Something.
It's always about market feedback too, whether it's sales process prospecting, I am huge on that. want to see, I dig it in psychology. Why did that person not respond? Why did they respond that way? And I start to notice a little intricacies on it. Okay. So I just mix that in a little more and it gets my open rates 10 % higher, right? And little things, you know. That's actually the next question I was going to ask you because I can gather that you're big on data and as every marketer should be because our numbers tell our story, right? So what metrics do you prioritize for measuring success in the AI social selling arena?
You know, that's a tricky one. You're mentioning different metrics and everything like in selling and everything kind of wraps back into social selling, but in selling, we all know the main metrics are close percentage, show up rates, qualified leads and qualified actual appointments. So obviously those are basic just sales ones, but when it comes more specific to like the AI social selling space in terms of metrics, it's just a, like you said, it's a constant.
Yes, data, mean, it's the same thing I'm talking about. I always call it feedback and optimization. Like whatever I'm hearing, are you making the tweaks necessary? And are you recognizing the feedback coming back? And that doesn't change again, whether you're social selling, whether you're person to person selling, whether you have AI integrated. Like you said, AI is a tool. If you just rely on that, you're gonna be running the mill and people are starting to realize AI content when they see it. So I just didn't say that from all the way when she's saying enough of it. Yep.
If you'd like real quick, let me play a 28 second like this. I can show you on my screen. So there's one voice note from me, outreach campaign, and then one coming back 28 seconds. So this is the first message I've ever heard from this lady. Thank you for reaching out. So nice to hear that someone actually wants to connect and have a chat. Normally my inbox is just full of loving people.
Jeff Ross (14:42.062)
sending me sales pictures. And so this is actually the first time that someone's actually messaged me and said, you know what, let's connect. Let's get to know a little bit about each other. So yeah, I'm a copywriter. I've been a copyright for about two years now. I'm in the sales field also. How about you look to get to know you? And obviously a very targeted copywriting and sales. that's, you know what I mean? I send my friend requests very specific, but I don't even have to do anything. just go, I use competitors ads and content almost all the time.
Like if I could find anything that's targeting the same audience or solving the same problem. and I think I can do it better or my stuff compliments, whatever that same audience, I'm going to hit up everybody that commented interested and just transition the conversation. You know what I mean? there's that people don't see. Yeah. And that's because you're really clear on who you're serving, right? You understand their pain already. And, you can almost predict the way that the conversation goes because of that experience. And, I'm holding that. Yeah. So.
Basically we hear the laptop loss top dads. We teach everybody how to get the people out of sucksville and get them to awesome town. And, to understand how to do that, we need to understand their pain, their desires and, their, their journey really intimately to, because, know, questions are the answers and, by asking powerful questions, you can get the right answers that you need to be able to, you know, take people on that journey. Right. So cool, man.
So thank you very much for the, jumping on. love to just quickly just wrap up this, this podcast interview with you. so what are the top sort of three tips or strategies that you wish that you knew right now, you know, like before you started, like, say if you're like, had to start all over again, what would be the top three things that you would implement right away? So one thing that I know is really overlooked and luckily I kind of grasp this kind of early, but people still aren't talking about it. If I grasped it even earlier, it was the biggest change in everything.
is understanding prospect sophistication level and how to speak to them. If I'm speaking to somebody looking to go to 100K month as opposed to hit their first 10K month, I can't use the same messaging. It's totally, it's night and day. So really knowing the prospect sophistication level really impacts your targeting, your messaging, every aspect. So that's the first thing I identify when I'm going into new market, new offer, even a new product that's a $50 a month product. What's the sophistication level of this person, right? That's gonna craft my copy, my VSL, everything from there. So number one is really think about that.
Jeff Ross (17:00.344)
think it's vastly overlooked in that I know in some high ticket programs that charge 10K, they are huge on this internally and they don't teach it. And there's a lot of programs that there's one thing they hold back and that's kind of their secret thing, which really bothers me. Cause I document everything and I show my clients, Hey, this is working for us right now. This used to work a year ago. It's not right now because of this. So we switched to this, like what's working today. And a lot of those companies, I'm not knocking on anybody cause they teach good stuff. But a lot of it is two years ago and like,
sure, some of it still works, but 50 % is dated or the markets are sophisticated so much that that's not gonna work. So, that's the biggest one. And what you just said about the questions are the answers. That's kind of our lead motto in Sales Lab. The number one thing I tell all the reps I work with and train is telling isn't selling. Meaning I listen to so many call audits, cause running sales seems like that's part of what you do to get the feedback and optimize. I gotta hear the call. A rep can tell me what happened, but it's never the same as when I go back and listen to it, right? And I always hear,
Hey, Jeff, you need this program to get to 10K, right? Like, great. Like what if you could ask him the right questions and say, damn right, if I had this program, I could definitely get to 10K. Cool, Jeff, I totally agree. That being said, what's stopping us from moving forward, right? Like how much different is that coming out of their mouth? Cause the prospects are gonna believe what they say. What you say has some skepticism. You have an end result bias, right? You want to close a deal. So that's another big one. And one thing I've learned, whether it is in outreach or the sales process,
is ethical, just be ethical. Ethical sales is so much better. There's so much perception. And that's what a lot of sales is. People perceive sales reps, some, know, buy me used car salesman, gonna sell me a lemon that's gonna die 60 days down the road or whatever. You know what I mean? But salesmen can also change lives every day by holding people accountable to making a decision that's gonna come back and change their lives. And they're gonna come back and thank that rep 30, 60, 90 days. Hey, Jeff.
Thanks for holding me accountable and really pushing me to invest in this. changed my life, right? And that's the power you have. Our posture here with us is like, if you actually don't give people the opportunity to at least say yes or no, you're robbing them of that decision. And it's an injustice, you know, like, cause all we're doing is helping people solve their problems, getting them out of Sucksville and getting them to Dulleson down. If we don't give them the, the pathways to the less resistance to be able to do that, we've just stolen that from them. So like that's an injustice, right?
Jeff Ross (19:16.846)
You know, when people say to that like sales is normally saying, I don't like manipulating people and maybe do I, hate manipulating people. I'd rather inspire them and power and equip them. So yeah, there's a difference between manipulation and, prescribing solutions that are going to help them. And just to add to that, and then you finish up. like, I fully agree with you got to give them the opportunity. But one thing we do a lot differently than some sales teams and some companies is if they're not the, if we're not the best fit for their, to get them to their, their need, if I know somebody else, if a free resource, I won't even make them an offer.
And that's the other thing. If they, they're not the ideal person to get results in your program, don't make a pitch. Be honest. People respect you. And then when they are usually, when that's the case, they're just not quite ready yet. Right. It finances it's maybe they need to get a little more caught, whatever it is, but because you treated so well them so well, when you are ready, they're going to reach out to you first. They're not going to go somewhere else and people remember that stuff. that's another thing. Yeah. Lead with value, lead with being ethical and, just give, give, give, give. Cause when you do ask for the take you're asking for out of abundance rather than lack. Love that.
Yeah. But if you know, you can help them. You're also not doing them a service. If you're not trying to not manipulate, but convinced that, this can get them there. And when you get them to say it and they buy in, mean, when you're selling anything, last thing on this, you're selling certainty. Always people like, what are you selling? And people like, sell digital marketing. I sell solar. I sell apples. What you're selling certainty. Like I can deliver this result. It's certainty and efficacy. If they buy into that, the rest of the objections just fall like dominoes. Yeah. And look, I get confused. Mine would never take any action. So I believe we're selling clarity as well.
you know, helping people. Yeah. So final words of wisdom, if you, you know, you could share with any of our laptop, lifestyle dads community, what would be some final words of wisdom that you could wrap up this call with? It might be harsh to some people, but really think about if this is for you, honestly, if it is, you can make it happen. If you're not going to go all in and put in as much or more work than you would in say your day job and that's your goal, then don't do it because you and I probably both know Jeff from your experience, what you talked about. You know, it's not for everybody.
Right, there's gonna be some trial and error. There's gonna be months with no revenue at the beginning. There's gonna be things to overcome. So if you really want it, I mean, I could not believe in the last four years going from no businesses to the co-owner of three, like I cannot believe in it. And it simply came from doing the right thing and delivering value with no expectation. All of our businesses are still super under the radar. Everyone knows the big gurus and then they find us and they're like, my God, why didn't I find you guys first? And I kind of like being the underdog, you know?
Jeff Ross (21:38.158)
I love that, you know, just to give value, not expecting anything in return. That's always been our philosophy as well. that's what we have. Don't beat your own chest. Let your clients and your market tell about you. know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So guys, thank you very much for tuning in. Appreciate you, Raymond, for jumping on this call, mate.
Is there any sort of like gifts or anything that you want to give people? Like you mentioned there a PDF. I'll send you over. I'm going to send you over a training about organic outreach. there was one simple, simple point that I'd like to make, and it's in the training, but for anyone that just listens to this and doesn't go through it or doesn't get it or what have you is the one mindset thing from a beginner or somebody that's not super confident yet. Maybe not even a beginner, just not super confident in their product, their messaging, whatever is the big misconception in my opinion. And it's because it's done wrong. Is everybody thinks cold outreach.
is grimy, spammy, underappreciated or not appreciated, right? And when I show you the results and you see in here, when you do it the right way, it's actually like, it comes back with thanks and gratitude. I had one say amazing. I had one say sweet message. I'm gonna get back to you very soon. Like, you know, just so when you're doing it the right way and you're right, it does feel that way if it's not, if it doesn't drive with you. So if you're taught something just because a business coach shows it to you, but it doesn't feel right, tweak it so it does. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it'll be a spammy Tammy or spammy Lorandison, what I like to call them.
You know, be a little bit different. never even heard that one. You know, cold reach, it works. It works very, very effectively. If you just slow it down, like you always, your first goal should be building that connection and building that relationship first. Right. And, know, I found that if you could just slow it down and focus on that heart to heart connection, people respond a lot more positively in the, know, cause you've separated yourself out from all the other spammy tammies. And now you're actually now being a genuine person and you're here to help. So love that.
I love that way. was a blast. Nice jamming with you. And I love what you're doing over there. And again, anytime somebody is like doing something new and, know, looking to just deliver value to the market, I'm like, yeah, I'm all about it. Like no hesitations here. can carve out a half hour, what have you. and when you finish and you have this, ready to upload or whatever the video, send it over to me. I'll also upload it to my YouTube channel and I'll, I'll spread your link and get people over to you if it's a, if they like what you're doing as well.
Jeff Ross (23:48.762)
It's early days, like we're planning to launch sort of around end of the month, beginning of May. At the moment, I'm just getting a few handful of podcast interviews to build up that base, build up that buffer. So you can get some scheduled out. Hey, thank you very much for jumping on. Appreciate you. And we'll definitely let you know when this goes live. Yeah, man, let's stay in touch. Thanks for having me and we'll talk soon. All right, Leave you to your next call. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.