This is John Jantsch, and my guest today is Jeanna Pool. She’s an Author and Speaker, and she’s created a course and a coaching program called Clients In Bulk that we’re going to talk a little bit about today. Jeanna, thanks for joining me.
Jeanna Pool: Thank you, John. It’s great to be here.
John Jantsch: For the last, I don’t know, decade, we marketers have been talking about, first it was internet marketing, and then now we call it digital marketing. Everybody who has figured out how to run Facebook ads is now a digital marketing expert, and teaching other people how to do that. One of the things that really intrigued me of course about your current work is that you are actually suggesting that people get all their clients offline. How is that possible?
Jeanna Pool: Yeah, crazy huh? Especially when I own an online marketing agency. Yeah. Yeah, John, I built my entire agency. I’ve been in business going on about 17 years, and I built my entire business completely offline, even though all my clients, we do online marketing. What I really preach, and teach, and practice myself is, man, let’s be honest. Online marketing is competitive. It’s uber, uber competitive. As we continue down this path of, just like you said, everybody does Facebook ads, everybody’s an internet marketer, everybody’s a digital marketer. The competition is getting bigger and bigger, and harder and harder. That’s why I really, really love offline, because there’s not many businesses doing it. You can really signup clients very fast, and much less work, and much cheaper offline than you can with a lot of this online stuff.
John Jantsch: Well, and there are a lot of industries, niches we might call them, that they really get a lot of their information still offline as well. I mean, there are definitely the people that live online, but there are maybe older school, more traditional brick and mortar businesses that they’re not really looking, or they’re not going to necessarily find somebody online are they?
Jeanna Pool: Well that’s true, certainly. Every single niche, and I’m from Texas so I niche instead of niche, but every single niche out there has an association, or a trade show, or a conference, or an industry type of publication, or group. Certainly, that’s a tribe. That’s where the niche, and the people in the niche gather, and look for information. Yeah, I mean let me be very clear. Online marketing works, it absolutely does. I’m not saying that. But what I’m saying is, if businesses today are not incorporating offline in addition to all the online things, they’re truly missing out, John. Again, the competition is so, so much smaller than online.
John Jantsch: Yeah, and I’m glad you made that point because that’s one of the things I’ve been saying, and have continued to say. I mean, I started my business before we had any online things. I had to help people learn the offline ways to build their business, and as the online things came along, I think a lot of people just accepted, or believed I should say, that, “Oh, we got … that’s marketing now.” As opposed to, “Hey, what if we thought about integrating these things? What if we thought about how having a Facebook presence could help you meet people in your community?” I think the people, the marketers that I think really get it, and that’s why it’s so easy for me to kind of take aim at the pure online marketers is that, I think the marketers that really get it understand that you get the most success by integrating offline and online. I’ve been saying that for a dozen years now.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah, absolutely. John, you know, if we look at what the highest converting sales method on the planet is, I mean you know the answer to that. It’s face to face selling, and it always has been, and it always will be. That’s why I love incorporating offline marketing, because you can sell, and build the know, like, and trust factor so much faster face … excuse me, face to face offline, having a conversation with a real person in the real world, than you can online.
Jeanna Pool: I mean, certainly it can happen online, and it does happen. But, it’s just so much richer, and faster, and more effective when you have real conversations in the real world with people.
John Jantsch: Yeah. I have a model for the customer journey I call The Marketing Hourglass. My stages are actually know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer. Kind of the whole idea behind those, is that you move people, your marketing is to sort of move or guide people through those stages. I built my entire practice years ago by speaking. I called it speaking for leads.
Jeanna Pool: Yep, mm-hmm (affirmative).
John Jantsch: The reason I found it so effective, and that obviously I want you to talk about because that’s what you’ve been preaching and teaching as well is that, somebody could come to know you there. They like what you’re talking about, after 40 minutes they trust that you have the answers, and maybe you give them some way to try what it might be like working with you, or buy from you. I mean, you move people very rapidly through all of those stages, which it’s very difficult to do in a series of emails, or landing pages.
Jeanna Pool: Correct, yeah, absolutely. There is such a form of authority about being onstage, whether it’s front of 100 people, or five people, it doesn’t matter. When you’re on stage, when you’re the one teaching, when you’re the one presenting, you are the expert, you are the authority. It really, John, it shortens the sales cycle because, you’re essentially selling without selling. You’re sharing your knowledge and expertise, people are falling in love with what you’re talking about. They’re getting, just like you said, to know, like, and trust you so much faster. If you happen to make a pitch onstage, it’s just a natural type of a sales process of, “Hey, you want some help? You want me to help you, and you want to work together on this?” It just makes selling so much easier because you’ve got that authority, and that know, like, and trust factor.
John Jantsch: The offline in person, and I’ll kind of short circuit persons learning here. Your clients in Bulk Program, you talk about trade shows, and small seminars, and networking events. They’re all, the thing you have in common is you’re going to be face to face with folks. Let’s talk about this idea of small seminars, because I’ve always loved that one. How do you go about, what are some of your kind of favorite ways to go about using that as a sales technique?
Jeanna Pool: Yeah, so that, just like you mentioned, that is one of the three keys in the Clients In Bulk Program. Here’s the thing, when somebody hears small seminar, a lot of times, John, they think, “Oh my gosh, I have to get 100 people in the room.” Not at all. “Or, 50 people in the room.” No, not at all. I’m talking about really small seminars, so I’m talking like three people, five people, eight people in the room, and I really am a proponent of niching your services, and niching what you’re going after.
Jeanna Pool: Maybe you get three real estate agents in the room, and you do a half day seminar, so maybe three or four hours. Again, you teach your knowledge and expertise. Let’s say, we mentioned Facebook ads, and everybody doing Facebook ads now. Let’s say that you have a Facebook ads agency, and your niche is real estate agents. Get three, five, six real estate agents in the room, teach really great info on Facebook ads that’s going to help them. Don’t hold back, don’t be one of those chuckle heads that’s like, “Hey, you want all my secrets? You gotta buy my stuff.” No, no, no. Teach them really great stuff, charge for the small seminar. I definitely say everybody needs to charge for the small seminar and not do it for free. Then, you simply make a very non salesy, simple pitch at the end, and you’re going to signup clients on the spot.
Jeanna Pool: Again, it’s that authority. They have learned great stuff from you. They’ve fallen in love with your knowledge and expertise, and it’s the next step for them to get help, from who? From you, because you’re the one that taught them what they need to know to move forward.
John Jantsch: A lot of people kind of do that, I get that question all the time. “I don’t want to give away all the secrets.” I think the fact of the matter is, there aren’t really that many secrets.
Jeanna Pool: Exactly.
John Jantsch: All they really want to know is that you know what you’re talking about-
Jeanna Pool: Yep.
John Jantsch: … So demonstrate that, I think, is a great way to look at that.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah.
John Jantsch: All right, and I agree with your point about charging a little money. I mean for anything, there’s so many free things today that people have devalued it-
Jeanna Pool: Yep, correct.
John Jantsch: … If nothing else, it just becomes sort of a qualifier, if you will, that somebody’s … if they’ll invest $47, $497, whatever the price is, then they probably are looking for a $5,000 solution.
Jeanna Pool: Correct, correct. If they can’t invest that, that is totally okay. They’re not a qualified person for you, so it’s totally fine. That’s why, yeah, free seminars, free talks, that kind of thing. Those are good, like you mentioned, John, for getting leads. But, that makes it much, much harder to upsell. It’s what I call a bridge too far. If you’re doing, let’s say, a small seminar that’s free, and you’re pitching a 3,000, $5,000 program, that is a very big leap for someone to go from free, to that big of a jump.
Jeanna Pool: When you charge, and you charge appropriately, and then you pitch a package that’s appropriate to the niche because that’s a huge secret, you gotta pitch a package that’s irresistible, that they can say yes on the spot, right then and there, that’s where you signup multiple clients at one time, and clients in bulk.
John Jantsch: Well I work with a lot of Marketing Consultants, and the reality is they are solopreneurs. They’re not looking for 100 clients, they’re looking for maybe six more, you know?
Jeanna Pool: Yep.
John Jantsch: I think a lot of times people lose sight of that fact, that spending time face to face, doing the three people in the room that two of them become clients, is a much better use of your time than trying to generate hundreds and hundreds of subscribers, or whatever method that you’re doing. I think that, that’s the number one thing, is you have to look at what you’re trying to do overall from a goal standpoint.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah, yeah. My big thing, John, is I work once, and signup enough clients to last me a year. I have signed up 26 clients in one single weekend, and I did no other marketing the rest of the year. I’ve signed up 10 clients in a day. I’ve signed up eight clients in a week, and so on and so on. That’s the way that I love to work, because when you go offline, you’re not having to dial 100 times, right? Smiling, and dialing, and cold calling. You’re not having to send out 5,000 cold emails to maybe get one client this month, and then another client two months later, and that kind of thing. To me, that’s really hard.
Jeanna Pool: I would rather do a small seminar, or do a trade show, or do a very specific type of networking event in my local area, signup eight, 10, 12, 15, 20 clients, and be done. Then, all I have to do is fulfill the work, make them gloriously happy with what I do, and then referrals come in.
John Jantsch: Yeah, and then it allows you to focus on them as opposed to having to look up and think, “Hey, I haven’t been doing any marketing for a while.
Jeanna Pool: Exactly.
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John Jantsch: So, I got 10 people in the room and I gave them a great education, and they love it. What’s the secret to getting them to go, “Oh, I want to pay you money now.”
Jeanna Pool: Heck yeah.
John Jantsch: Because, I think a lot of people get the idea of educational content. But, then there’s that, there’s how do you fill that gap between the really kind of schlocky approaches that you see from the stage-
Jeanna Pool: Right.
John Jantsch: … To like maintaining your integrity, but still making sure that somebody understands how they can get more value.
Jeanna Pool: Exactly, yeah. Perfect, perfect question. There’s a couple of secrets here. Number one is, go in with the mindset of you’re going to give big value. What I mean by that is, guys, teach your knowledge and expertise so truly if the person leaves and they don’t buy what you’re selling, they can still get success from what you have taught them. That keeps you from being a chuckle head, and I promise you when they get stuck, and they will because this is not their expertise, they are going to come back to you at some point when and if they need help. That’s number one.
Jeanna Pool: Number two is, you have to make an irresistible offer. John, in Clients In Bulk and in my course, I spend a ton of time on what I call irresistible offers, because a lot of people think, “Okay, I’m going to pitch my services. Yeah, it’s irresistible. Oh but wait, I didn’t sign up anybody.” Well, truly your offer has to be so irresistible that it is absolutely a no brainer for somebody to sign up. They have to think, “I would be crazy to pass this up.” It has to be deadline driven so they leave, they miss out. Maybe it’s a special price, maybe it’s some special things that you don’t offer at any other time. Have some bonuses in there that again, make it irresistible. It also has to be a special fee that’s nowhere else available right now.
Jeanna Pool: A lot of people are like, “Oh, Jeanna. I don’t want to discount my services,” and all that kind of stuff. I get that, but the thing to move the needle, and the thing to make people say yes right then and there is, everybody loves a deal, okay? If you can make an irresistible offer with bonuses, and special things thrown in, and a special fee, or special payments, or things like this. John, that makes people say, “You know what? I want this, I want this right now. It’s a no brainer, I get it, yes. Sign me up.” I’m telling you, 26 clients at one time, 16 clients at one time. This is how I sign all these clients in bulk, is these irresistible offers.
John Jantsch: Now, does this approach require you to have a $3,000 package or something? I mean, I’m thinking about-
Jeanna Pool: Absolutely not.
John Jantsch: … Because I’m thinking about the Marketing Consultant whose kind of like, “Well, we have to see what you need, and then we’ll figure out what it’s going to cost.” I mean, how do you deal with that kind of … Because again, there are a lot of people out there selling courses, and packages, and things-
Jeanna Pool: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
John Jantsch: … But, there are certainly a lot of people that aren’t.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah, yeah. That’s a great question, and John, I’m glad you brought this up because I see a huge mistake that a lot of Marketing Consultants, and a lot of agencies make. That is, they only want to sign and sell these big packages, so these 6,000, 10,000, $20,000 packages. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the time that it will take to close someone into that is longer. You have to do a proposal, you have to do a evaluation, and an audit of what they need, you have to go back and forth with contracts, and, “Oop, add this, remove that.” Right?
Jeanna Pool: I recommend, and I teach my students start with a package to where one client, patient or customer in the niche that you’re talking to, pays for the entire thing. If you’re talking to a room of massage therapists let’s say, and let’s pretend that a massage therapist is going to make $1,000 from a client in a year, sell $1,000 package because one new client will pay for it for a year. That’s irresistible. Then guys, you can always upsell them, right? You can always throw jet fuel on it, and make it a bigger package. But, the big mistake I see, John, is people try to sell these ginormous packages. That doesn’t work as well. Start a little smaller, you know?
Jeanna Pool: I have students that sell $500 packages, $1,000 packages, and they’re selling like 18 people in the room, just like clockwork. Be careful about just saying, “Okay, my package is 3,000 bucks.” Again, the key is that if one client, patient or customer can pay for the package that you’re pitching, that’s a no brainer. Why wouldn’t I do that? I get one, and I’ve paid for it. I’m ROI positive.
John Jantsch: You mentioned trade shows [inaudible 00:18:25].
Jeanna Pool: Yes.
John Jantsch: Now, I’m immediately thinking, “That sounds expensive. I’ve gotta have a booth, and there’s a fee to get in.” I mean, so how do you make those pay in the same ways? I mean, the seminar’s great. You can sometimes do those for nothing.
Jeanna Pool: Yep.
John Jantsch: But, the trade show, you might have to put some skin in the game. How do you make that pay?
Jeanna Pool: You really want to look for niche specific trade shows. A big mistake that people mistake is they go to kind of general trade shows, okay? There’s many of them in our industry, John, marketing. I won’t mention them, but you guys know of these big ones, right? Those are expensive, and what you want to do is you want to look at more niche specific.
Jeanna Pool: Another thing is, don’t be afraid to go in your searching, to page five, or 10, or 15 on Google because you’re going to find really wonderful trade shows that are very affordable, that they don’t know how to market themselves, right? If you just do a Google search and you come up with page one or page two and you’re like, “Holy cow, these are $5,000” or whatever. Keep digging, because I’ll tell you, I have some found very affordable trade shows looking five, six, eight, 10 pages deep because marketing’s not their thing. They’re just a niche specific industry, they’re having a trade show, there’s going to be two or 300 people there. The intent is great, because it’s all about business building, and you can find some really, really good bargains.
Jeanna Pool: Another thing too that a lot of people don’t realize is, everything … let me say it this way, almost everything in a trade show, is negotiable. Don’t be afraid to ask for some negotiation room of, “Hey, can we tweak this if we remove this? What does that do to the fee if I add this?” And so on, don’t be afraid to negotiate. Now, they may say no, but I have definitely been able to negotiate some things, different fees, different packages, different bonuses, with the trade show host, if you will. You just have to be aware of it, and you just have to be not afraid to ask.
John Jantsch: When I first started speaking, and again I was willing to speak for free because I was just trying to get in front of audiences, and build some credibility, and frankly nobody was doing it then, you know? That was 25, 30 years ago.
Jeanna Pool: Sure.
John Jantsch: I would, even though I wasn’t charging a fee, I would tell people my fee was $2,500 because then I had something to negotiate with.
Jeanna Pool: Yes.
John Jantsch: Even if it was, “I want the list of attendees at the end of this,” or something, that’s … I was willing to trade my fee even though I really wasn’t charging a fee. I’d tell people that all the time. I’ll tell you the other thing I tell people is, put it on your website. You don’t have to be somebody who wants to be a professional speaker for your career, but act like one. Build out, get a video of yourself, put it on … You know, “Here are my topics, here’s what so and so said about my speaking,” because even if you’re doing your own kind of private seminars, it gives you a lot more credibility. Because today, we go check that person out, you know? If I’m going to go sit in the room with this person whose going to talk to me for half a day, let me go find a little bit about them. Have that on your website.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah. Let me just say too, John. When you find the right trade show, let me give you an example. One of my students, they wanted to break into a brand new niche. They own a marketing agency, they were kind of burned out a little bit on the niche they were working with, and they wanted to try a new niche. They went to a trade show in Tupelo Mississippi and you’re thinking, “Oh my goodness, really? That’s kind of a strange place to have a trade show.” But, they broke into a new niche, they got seven clients and in one single week, made over $43,000 just by looking at kind of some different angles. Not a Las Vegas trade show, right? But a smaller event, in a smaller town, and they just blew it up, right? That completely changed their business, built the credibility. Now, they’re known in that particular niche overnight.
John Jantsch: Jeanna, tell us where people can find out about your course, so if somebody’s listening thinking, “Okay, I want to go deeper here.” Because I know you have not only the training, but you have templates, and PowerPoints, and all kinds of stuff that people can start using right away. Tell us about where people can find out about that.
Jeanna Pool: Yeah. The easiest thing is to visit ClientsInBulk.com. Just like it sounds, Clients In, I-N, Bulk, B-U-L-K, dot com. Yeah, there’s a free webinar, and on that webinar I tell everybody and teach everybody how I signed those 26 clients in 48 hours, and then yes, the course covers the three keys that we talked about. So, niche specific trade shows, doing your own small seminars, and a very specific type of local, low cost networking. Yeah, there’s over $10,000 worth of done for you templates, so booth templates, and fliers, and marketing materials, and all the things that you’ll need for your both. Slides for your pitch and your offer, and your … I even have presentations. If you’re like, “Hey, I want to do a small seminar, but what do I talk about?” There you go.
John Jantsch: Awesome. Well Jeanna, thanks for stopping by the show. I know you’re out there in Colorado where I end up quite a bit, so maybe I’ll run into you out there on the road sometime soon.
Jeanna Pool: Fantastic, John. Thank you so much, and I wish all of your listeners outrageous success. Thank you so much.