With Chris Goegan, the Creator of Engineered Marketing, and Builder of Business Growth Systems. Chris has worked with hundreds of business owners in 100+ industries, including his friend Michael Gerber (of E-Myth fame), and many other industry leaders. He shows his clients how to engineer their marketing and build client acquisition SYSTEMS that work on any, and every traffic platform. They don’t require you to be the magic – you just need 3 Systems.

Chris is also a Dad, and a Canadian now living in California “eh!” He is a hopeless Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

Join us for this enjoyable conversation where Chris shares how he combines his experience from his engineering days and fixing bottlenecks at Ford Motor Company, to performing over 100,000 cold calls and learning sales, to now advising clients on the key systems required in their businesses to take care of leads and consistently create clients.

Chris shares how learning sales was the hardest, and best, thing to happen to him (following a dramatic job loss!), and how you get 1 second to create 3 seconds of time with a potential client, which translates into

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• (At Ford Motors) I learned to go into the worst area of the plant, find the biggest problems (bottlenecks), and fix them.
• “Life is always easier looking through the rear-view mirror.”
• “I learned I didn’t know anything about people.”
• Regarding his sales position: “I had to do 100,000 cold calls. And I hated it.” Listen to Chris share about having to get up every day hating what he had to do. (And how that turned into one of the biggest blessings in his life).
• Somewhere, year 1, year 2, you are looking for “the tipping point.”

Check out these highlights:

• 10:55  I built parts for the International Space Station …
• 14:24 “I thought sales would be easy.” Listen to Chris share about making 100 face-to-face sales calls per week.
• 17:02 “It was the most difficult transition that ever happened to me, and it was probably also the greatest thing that ever happened to me.” (Learning how to sell).
• 32:51 Listen to Chris share about the “attention amplifier” that he teaches his clients about.
• 38:38 Chris shares the timeline for building the key systems that will support your business.

How to get in touch with Chris:

On social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgoegan/
Facebook: https://business.facebook.com/chrisgoeganfan/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisgoegan

Find out more about Chris:

Get access to Chris’ Free guide: “Engineered Marketing: The 3 Essential Systems”
https://www.chrisgoegan.com/3-systems-guide/

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit & Great Business™…

Chris Goegan  00:05

You know how to do the work, which is great. But when you’re looking to sell and market that you can’t do it as a technician, you have to take your your technicians hat off. And I tell people just tell your technician just go sit in the corner. He’s not like he’s not allowed to talk unless you ask him a question. And you know, and then you have to go to work on the sale site. So that was a really difficult transition for me is learning you know about how to sell and it was also probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Like it’s the the biggest blessings in my life came from from the biggest setbacks and the biggest failures in my life.

GGGB Intro  00:46

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast where endurance is required. Now here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:19

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior® based in Seattle, Washington and helping entrepreneurs around the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit & Great Business™. Today I have my friend Chris, Goegan. Welcome, Chris. 

Chris Goegan  01:41

Thank you, Heather. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:42

Super excited to be chatting with Chris today. He’s a systems guy and we’ve got a lot to learn. He helps people grow their business systematically and he’s got an engineering brain so this will be super fun. So for folks that don’t know Chris, let’s let’s introduce Chris.  Chris Goegan is the creator of engineered marketing builder of business growth systems. He’s a dad, he’s a Canadian and California a I love that. He is a hopeless Toronto Maple Leafs fan. Chris has worked with hundreds of business owners in 100 plus industries including with his friend Michael Gerber of E-Myth fame, and many industry leaders. He shows how to engineer your marketing and build client acquisition systems that work on any and every traffic platform and does not require you to be the magic you just need three systems. Chris, that makes it sound way too easy. I I’m thinking uh huh yeah, people are gonna buy into this but I know there’s a lot more to it than that. Welcome! 

Chris Goegan  02:51

Well, thank thank you. Thank you for allowing me to to be here Heather. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:54

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I joke with every Canadian like I’m a fan of Canadians I practically live in Canada being in Seattle I’ve been accused many times of being Canadian and I accept so …

Chris Goegan  03:07

So yeah, if you want Canadian, you just have a good like “‘oly smokes, eh” like like like every now and then like good Yeah, good holy. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:15

Oh my gosh, it’s so funny. I actually have a lot of Canadian friends and a lot of clients there as well. And it’s you know, I have met many of them at live events and you know, the second they open their mouth, it’s like oh, yes, hello, you’re Canadian. Right? So so fun. Yeah, but you’re in California now how long? Tell us a little bit because I know we chatted beforehand but tell us about your transition to California. 

Chris Goegan  03:41

Yeah, well, I was uh Gosh, I know here for a little over 20 years now and I still keep my Canadian accent up because my wife will give me a hard time if I don’t but yeah, I chased after college as working for a few years as an engineer and I chased a five foot three blonde to California 

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:01

oh that’s dangerous … 

Chris Goegan  04:03

well I caught her and she turned into a five foot four brunette – different girl and and she said, Naomi my wife now, she said she was Chris marry me instead of her, and I’ll give you beautiful children and a green card you know. And they say marketing you know is the offer is really important. So she gave me an offer. I couldn’t refuse it. Like how could I turn down the green card? Right? So here we are. We’re married, it’s 20 – 22 years later, she’s kept her word. I got my green card. We’ve got four beautiful children, and a black lab scout and they’re on me to get another dog. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:39

Oh, yes, I know. We almost got the COVID puppy. Right? 

Chris Goegan  04:43

Right.  Yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:45

 We lost both of our family dogs a few years ago and just to old age but it was hard. My kids are little and you know we walk the neighborhood and we did that like a million more times during COVID and our our tour around the neighborhood is based on where all the dogs are that’s that’s the path we take so we can stop and basically pet every dog in the neighborhood. So they take a while – walks with two little kids take while. Well that’s so fun I you know, I I love California I’ve been there you know, quite a few times lots of events there and lots of friends there as well. So you’re just down the coast for me and it helps always to be in the same time zone. 

Chris Goegan  05:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, my, my kids are all avid surfers, and my boys, my boys play hockey, which makes the Canadian in me smile. Right? And because we’re talking about it, and they’re like, like, Dad, how can anybody live anywhere we from the ocean? Like what is it? Like? They’re like, what do they do? And I i’ve always grown up around water. I love outdoors, rocks, and sticks and trees and streams and lakes and stuff like that. And I love lakes. They’re like that. I don’t get it. How do you like lakes, it’s like something just about a calm lake or going kayaking on a calm lake. And you know, you hear the paddle, like going into water and you just, it’s just it’s just collapsed. There’s just something beautiful about that. But I guess this is whatever you grow up with you, you know you like but I gotta admit, though, it’s like we got some beautiful sunsets out here and the oceans like pretty, pretty spectacular. So yeah, it’s fabulous.

Heather Pearce Campbell  06:14

Well, I’m a fan of the West as well. I obviously didn’t live by the water until I moved to Seattle. And now that I’ve been here for quite some time it is I have that feeling of like wow, how does anybody not live near mountains or nature or the ocean? Because those things are I mean, they become so important once you once you have them and you’re familiar with them. Yeah, we also share big love of nature here in the Pacific Northwest. Mm hmm. So tell tell me a little bit about your roots in business. I’m always curious how people get started in their business.

Chris Goegan  06:48

Yeah, so you know, I wish I could say that I was smart enough to and had this master plan about how I got to what I’m doing because I absolutely love what I’m doing. But But you know, it’s truth is I’m not that smart. You know, it’s it’s a lot of a lot of luck and Hannah Providence moving me around. You know, so I started off as a as an engineer, you know, talk about like, like, how, like, I think a big thing with people is they don’t think about things. And I am like, probably the guiltiest of anybody but that like a look at Okay, well how to get in engineering Well, a girl I was dating in high school had a crush on this guy that went to this one really good engineering school so so it’s like okay, well if he goes there then then I should go there that that’s how I made my decision to get an engineering like pretty brilliant. Well, I love math and sciences and as always really good at them. So so so that that helps. So that’s how I got an engineering It was a 45 second decision, you know, brilliant, right? And then you know, as I was thinking, you know, 510 20 years down the road, no, but so I got into engineering and I was working for a Ford Motor Company. So school I went to General Motors Institute, now Kettering University it’s top top five and in engineering and any house so I was working at Ford Motor Company was going to school and it was a pure Co Op program so you go to school for three months for three for three months. As soon as from an experience standpoint, it was great by the time I was a junior in college I was doing the work of a full time engineer and and it was the time when Ford was really changing their quality around the quality stunk and they want to do something about it and so they had tons of money to invest making things better which was wonderful as a young engineer and so I got there’s two types of jobs I got all the crappy jobs that nobody wanted and all the high tech jobs that scared scared the tar out of everybody and and so they would throw me into the worst area of that plant and say hey Chris go make it better for a fire you know, so it’s like okay, but I had just like every step by journey I had great mentors you know who either felt sorry for me or came along to help me you know and they you know that they helped me out so as an engineer you know, we had to make I was working an engine plan we had to make 1 million engines defect free every single year that was our marching order and and so everything was I grew up in a house that was like system sinking my mom was was very much in the systems you’d come in you know from the snow you take your shoes off in the door you line them up here and your coat goes here and everything was was was like systems except but it meshed with my personality. So it wasn’t that big of a deal. No, when I was working for Ford as an engineer in systems so so like, I learned to go into the worst theory of the plan, figure out where the biggest problems were. prioritize them. Okay, so we got these 5050 problems Well, what are the top two or three or four things? Let’s work let’s work on those focus on those put fixes in place and then and then put measurements in place and build that into a dashboard. This is you know, when like the internet was was starting to come them around you know, so it’s like we have dashboards built in work and so from our desk, we can see how things are going. And so so everything you would do before you made anything, you know, like, like, like like this coffee cup we’d like figure Okay, well how are we going to make it you know, how are you going to make a million of these things you know, and so we start off with you know, with developing the process every, you know, every step of it, and then we would measure, you know, everything we did, and we know something was working and wasn’t working. And so, you know, I didn’t know how important that would be you know, like, like, you know, 2030 years later you know, down the road for me, because I just thought I was gonna be an engineer you know, and then and then when I moved to California girl, I was dated in college she moved in, she was living in California, so it’s like, Okay, well, one of us has to move so it’s like alright, because mid 20s so go to California sounds great. went to California. And then this is where my wife gave me the better offer. So I left so I was working still as an engineer, but it was a smaller company I designed and built parts for the International Space Station Program. The real world Hunt for Red October submarine and some very latest bicycle bearings just a bunch of different things and I had this realization where I looked at how much money I was making as an engineer and I had a friend who I don’t even know if you Greg, if you might have gone to graduate high school he was making four or five times as much as I was as an engineer and he went home he had no stress so so so it’s like okay, um, I think I needed a different road so I want to get into sales. So I’ve been studying and learning and reading about sales and then as Providence would have it, I end up getting fired from my job

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:38

Thank you universe, right?

Chris Goegan  11:40

But it was really weird was like I got fired right after I won all these awards for productivity and improvements and all the stuff we did and people come down and say, Chris I can understand why they why they’re letting you go and it was like it was like I got whacked upside the head by to wait for this it’s like how get it you know, and it didn’t make any sense to me now it does, you know, right. Life is always easier Heather like looking through the rearview mirror. exactly when you’re like when you’re when you’re going through like like looking through the front windshield. Like you can’t see God’s hand at work. And in the rearview mirror, you can’t but out the front windshield you can’t. And so and so I got fired and it’s like the only I tried to get a job as an engineer. The only job I could get was in sales. And I was in sales selling what I would have been using for for almost a decade as an engineer so I knew the product in and out says Oh great, how easy could this be? You know, so I started selling or not selling. And I learned that that that that it’s more than just about a product that it’s about people you know and why people buy and how people buy now the internet it’s like how people buy online and so yeah, I learned that I didn’t know anything about people but I’m so stinking determined and you know to give up so I just okay, well, I I my engineering brain can figure this thing out. Again, I had a really good metric come along and help me with sales and help understand sales and taught me why people buy and stuff like and taught me about personalities and values and all the rest of us and selling and so it talks about Tommy NLP taught me persuasion influence negotiation taught me all these different things taught me how to use a phone. It’s not because I’m a visual person using a phone when your visual person can say is hard, yada, yada, yada, on and on and on. So I made over 100,000 cold calls. And yeah, 100,000 Yeah. And I hated all of them. But but about three, you think after a while you get used to it. I never again, I just hated it. But but I needed to do it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:48

So quick question for you. I want to go back to that transition and the job loss was that was that a real challenge for you at the time? I mean, I know you described it as a two by four. So obviously, it was a surprise

Chris Goegan  14:02

Let’s put it this way. I was it happened about six months before I supposed to get married. Hmm, you know, it’s not supposed to before we got married. So it’s like, all right, we have this wedding coming up, and I have no job. You know, and it’s like, okay, whoa, you know, and, and I want to provide, you know, I just and so how do you like, what do you do? Yeah, yeah. And then I started in sales. And I said, I thought sales would be easy, because I knew the products so well. So I would go in and I had to make 100 in person face to face appointments every month. That that was part of my activity quota.

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:42

That’s a rough transition if you haven’t been in sales.

Chris Goegan  14:46

So I had to do five – So if you look at you know, like, I do, like one day was an office day so I do five face to face meetings a day. Four days a week or no 100 a week No, so is five days a week, for four weeks, four weeks a month 20 100. Everyday, I do five face to face meetings. Now most I was thinking hard in my meetings, I sit down with somebody and they would be, it’d be like, theirs did want me to quote some parts for them in quarter system for them, and I would look at their system, look at the parts, I’m like, you know what you’re using the wrong parts, your system is not going to work, it’s going to blow up, it’s going to fail, here’s what you really need to do. And they thank me very much, and I never get an order.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:30

You know, this information, you’re just fixing it for him right there.

Chris Goegan  15:35

Yeah. And, you know, years later is, you know, 2020 years later, you know, I was talking with my good friend, Michael Gerber. You know, we’re talking about how hard it is, when people start a business, they’re not business owners, they’re people who have an entrepreneurial seizure, meaning it’s like, I should just do this for myself. You know, I’m, I’m working, and you know, I’m doing computer repair. And, you know, I get paid 20 bucks an hour and the company bills 150 an hour, I know where it’s going and ain’t coming to me. Right? I should just do this on my own. You know, and then so they figure, well, I know how to do the work. So I know, I know, the business. So you know, and Michael says, you know, that’s the the, you know, the biggest reason why, you know, like, businesses fail is because they have this entrepreneurial seizure. And the big Yeah, and the big problem is that they don’t realize that, that when you’re going to do the work, you’re the technician,

Heather Pearce Campbell  16:30

right? You’re not you don’t have the knowledge or the skill yet to actually build a business. For most people. That’s not a natural talent or body of knowledge,

Chris Goegan  16:39

you know, how you know how to do the work. And so So, which is great. But when you’re looking to sell and market that you can’t do it as a technician, you have to take your, your technicians hat off. And I tell people just tell your technician, just go sit in the corner. He’s not like he’s not allowed to talk unless you ask him a question. And you know, and then you have to go to work on the sales side. So that was a really difficult transition for me, is is learning, you know, about how to sell. Yeah, and it was also probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Like, it’s the biggest blessings in my life came from the biggest setbacks and the biggest failures in my life.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:21

So the topic of sales, Chris, in your experience, and learning sales, I think one so many people can relate to the initial pain of that experience. But like in business, we all end up having to learn a thing or two about sales, especially if you Yeah, we have to, especially if we are a smaller entrepreneur, meaning that you know, we don’t build a huge team where other people handle sales for us. And, you know, even if we’re building teams, we still have to understand sales. But the the body of clients that I work with are usually smaller businesses, solo entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs that end up developing small teams, building small teams right there, there are folks who really care about their work, they are not necessarily building a company to spin it off and make you know, 10s or hundreds of millions of dollars, they want to do really meaningful work. But they end up having to learn just like you’re talking about the Michael Gerber approach, you know, all of these other things in order to build a business. Mm hmm.

Chris Goegan  18:24

Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it is a struggle and a challenge to, to learn that. And it can be really frustrating to know, because it’s like, you know, I’d mentioned the 100,000 cold calls, like, I hated them again, hate it, I couldn’t stand it. And so every day I would, I would have to get up out of bed knowing that I had to go do day’s work that I hated.

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:47

That’s 100,000 call. I mean, that’s

Chris Goegan  18:51

a lot. It’s a lot. So waking up in the morning, imagine wake up in the morning and say, Okay, I gotta make 50 to 100 cold calls. People I don’t know. And you’re not and you don’t want to do it. You know, I tried. After, after a while, in sales, I tried to go back to engineering, had this impressive resume resume. It was like, impressive. The, the plant manager, the guy that ran this, this entire plant that employs 1000s of people, he said, Chris, he goes, if you ever want to come back, there’s always a job here for you. You know, and I had this amazing resume, but I couldn’t get a job back in engineering. No matter what he did, he couldn’t I couldn’t get a job. And it was like, why not? It was so so I had to get up every day, doing what I hated to do, you know, and that’s what that’s brutal. Yeah. And there was no easy button easy button was do the work. And I had and so looking back and said it was it was it was a blessing, you know, you know, and just learning just to be comfortable in my own skin talking to people. And

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:51

that’s the that’s the fascinating thing about sales is I feel like sales has the opportunity to teach us I mean, so much communication All right, the chance to determine how we value ourselves, our time our businesses, our services or products, right? We have to get so clear on that stuff in order to be competent and effective at selling. Right there. Like there’s so much bundled into sales. It’s a massive topic.

Chris Goegan  20:21

It really is. It is massive and after, you know, doing a lot of sales, and so as a lot of marketing as an engineer, engineers like to overcomplicate things. I’m sure there’s other people listening, you know that, you know, you’re not an engineer, but you’re probably nodding your head, but engineers love to overcomplicate things. Love the details, love getting there, like how’s this work, I’ll take things apart and look at it and put it back together again, and hopefully they’ll pieces leftover and figure out how to make it better. And so when I start off in sales and marketing, it’s like, I overcomplicated stuff. The way overcomplicated stuff. And I’m in the trenches doing all the work like like, I wasn’t, I wasn’t advising or teaching as I’m the one in the trenches, doing the work. And then and then I hit a point where it’s like, on the other side of the curve, yeah, where it’s like, you know, what, out of all this stuff, there’s only a few things like really important, you know, it’s really talking to marketing, it’s like, you know, there’s only three systems you need in sales, it’s like, sales, it’s, it’s, if you really, if you truly want want want to grow your business, it’s like, you just like, have create a great differentiation. Get really clear on on your values and who you want to work with. And then and then talk to somebody like like you’re, you know, having a Starbucks with them, or, you know, it’s like, like, are in the locker room after hockey having a, you know, having a pint, it’s just like, you just talked to them not like, Okay, I gotta put my sales mode on and I got It’s like my son, my wife, homeschools, our four kids and she puts on a conference and she’s having me speak at a conference this year on husband’s perspective on homeschooling in. But she didn’t want me to talk to her to her group for a while because she was afraid of come in with. She said, for you to come in with your hair slicked back in a briefcase.

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:20

You got a PowerPoint, and you’re gonna fill out this

Chris Goegan  22:22

PowerPoint, you know what it’s like, you know, blinking ca you know, calls to action offers and things are gonna disappear and Ginsu knives are gonna give you this and that and oh my gosh, and it’s like, it’s like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Honey, I’m not gonna do that, you know, me, I’m not gonna do that. But But sales, it’s like, No, just talk to people. You know, just we talked to a friend. In fact, so I was I was working with this company. I was looking at buying a direct mail franchise before and so I said, y’all before, for, you know, look at vesting half a million dollars in this franchise, I’m gonna go check it out. So I went in there, and I actually was was working like, I was working in sales, just building a new territory, territory, I was going to by hand, I was training a sales team there as well, too, at the time. And this guy was a top performer in the mortgage industry. He came, he goes, I want to know, it’s like, I want to sit beside you. I heard your I hear I heard you’re good. I want to listen to you. It’s like, well, first of all, think I’m good at it. But it’s like, thank you for the kind words. So you sat there and and for the morning, lets me make calls. And then, you know, lunchtime. It’s like, yeah, you want to go grab a bite? And he’s like, sure. As you’re driving, he was Yeah, I’m actually really disappointed. Like, why is that he goes, I want to listen to you, and how you talk to people. But instead of sitting there listening to you, and you just you just calling your buddies and talking to your buddies all day long. I looked on my laptop. I didn’t know any of those people would pick up the phone. They’re all complete strangers. He’s like, really? Like, that’s not how we do sales in the mortgage industry. It’s like, it’s like, well, no, it’s it’s it’s, it’s it’s different. You know, it’s like when you’re, you know, work with people and helping them to, you know, like, to want to grow and approve things. You can’t come in, like, like, you know, like a hammer, you know, and so it’s a different conversation. And it’s, and especially these days, it’s like, trust is so lacking.

Heather Pearce Campbell  24:18

Okay, let’s pause briefly to hear from today’s sponsor. Today’s sponsor is Turnkey Podcast. Now I have a quick story about the guys behind the Turnkey Podcast because last year, I launched this podcast, I had not considered having a podcast before intersecting with Doug Sandler and Strickland Bonner. We met at an event in San Diego right before COVID hit. And of course these guys are podcast experts. They are both podcasters and hosts of multiple podcasts including the wildly popular Nice Guys on Business podcast. They have created and produced over 1000 episodes of their own podcast, interviewing hundreds of guests from well known celebrities to everyday working heroes. Their show has been downloaded nearly 4 million times and shared millions of times in over 175 countries. Turnkey Podcast production’s leadership team are thought leaders in the podcast space, and they want to help you launch your podcast, build community, grow your influence and monetize your show too. Doug and Strick are the perfect pair to bring you professional award winning service to help you put your best foot forward. So again, back to that time in San Diego when I crossed paths with these guys, of course, they said to me, “You need a podcast.” At the time I thought “I do?” And then I thought about it. And I thought “you’re right, I do!” So with their guidance, I joined their program, the Ultimate Podcast Launch Formula. I went from not even thinking about having a podcast, to not only thinking about it, but literally having one launched in about four weeks. If you think that’s not possible for you, let me tell you it is I am mom to two busy wild children at home. This was in the middle of COVID. So my kids were out of school, I had no childcare, no nannies, nothing in place. And I’m also behind the scenes running two separate businesses. So if I can do it, you can do it. And with these guys help it you will find that it is so streamlined, it is so easy, they cut out all of the unnecessary stuff that you can skip, they help you go from A to Z and do it very quickly. So be sure to check them out at TurnkeyPodcast.com. If you are an expert, an online educator, a coach, a consultant, a speaker and author and you know that you need your own podcast, be sure to jump over check them out again at turnkeypodcast.com. The Ultimate Podcast Launch formula is right there on their homepage and it will show you that you are the expert in your podcast. We’ll prove it.  Okay, and now back to today’s fabulous guest. I feel like sales people, especially the ones who often will go through certain corporate environments and get certain kinds of training, they come out thinking that they have to, like be a shark or you know, do the certain tactics or strategies in order to get the sale. And, you know, my sister who’s been in sales for a long time she worked for Well, I would say in recent years quite a stretch. But she worked for Siemens medical device company for a while and company. Yeah, big company. But she, she really blew things up like she but she refused to do essentially what they said and what everybody else was doing. She had her own way of approaching sales and and it really was flabbergasting to people around her. But her results spoke for themselves.

Chris Goegan  28:29

And how was it flabbergasting to the people around her?

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:32

Meaning that she had the guts to do things her own way, like they were so surprised that she would come in and just basically not follow the rules. And the company ended up just allowing her because her results were so much better than everybody else. You know, and they didn’t have some of the systems that they really needed to support their clients and do certain things that she could spot. She could say this isn’t working. And here’s why I have to do it this other way. And I think sales is really disenfranchising to certain people that are trained a certain way told to do it a certain way. And, you know, there was one other gentleman I was talking with about sales one day, and he said, because of that you have a marketplace that believes it’s okay to lie to salespeople. And it gets back to this trust element that you talked about. I think especially if you come in with a certain approach, how many people are just trying to get off the phone? Oh, yeah, sure, sure. I’m interested in your thing, like, send me some follow up or whatever, and they have no interest. They are just trying to get out of that conversation. 

Chris Goegan  29:35

Right. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:36

Right? And so when you don’t come in, I think with the right values, the right approach, like you’re automatically adding to that distrust, and it just builds a barrier where somebody will do what it takes, even including lie to you, in order to get off the phone.

Chris Goegan  29:54

Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:58

How do you – so I’m curious because you know, this guy that observed you and said, well, gosh, it just sounds like you’re talking to your buddies all day. How? How did you find a way to so quickly establish trust?

Chris Goegan  30:10

Questions. Mm hmm. Questions. You know, like, like, like, if you’re, and I always tell people, it’s like, if, if a friend is having problems with their marriage, and they want to talk to you about it, you’re sitting at Starbucks having a cup of coffee? Like, are you going to tell them all the things you need to fix? Are you just gonna, like, start asking him questions like, you know, like, Well, okay, what’s, you know, what’s going on? You know, and then and then, you know, a lot of them talk and just just ask, just ask some questions. You know, okay, well, well, now, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that, you know, like, just gonna ask questions. Yeah. And, and so, when you take an interest in people, like, they, they trust you more, you know, like, and, and but you got to come in with a mindset of like, I truly want to help this person, right? And if I can’t help this person, then we shouldn’t work together. You know? Exactly, exactly. And so and so like, if you’re talking to somebody, or my business, I talked to somebody, you know, they want to, they want to grow and scale their business. Everyone says they want to grow and scale their business. Everyone that sells sub says, The I can help you grow and scale your businesses like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s just to me, it’s just like, Well, you know, what are your goals? You know, what do you like, what do you want to accomplish? You know, and so we just, we’ve got a series of questions. And it’s, um, people always just tell me, it’s like, like, I love Michael Gerber is like, something he said to me, and I popped up on the website, it says, like, if trust is important, you know, like, you know, talk to Chris, you know, and so to me, it’s like, you know, I only want to sell? Well, actually, it’s like, I think that we should work together. If you think I can help you, and I think I can help you. Yeah. If it is, then we should work together. If it’s not, we should, you know, so. So let’s talk about your talk about, you know, like, where you are talking about your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, what you want. Talk about your constraints, talk about the problems, you’re having talked about different things, you try and talk about what’s not working, talk about what you think the solutions are? And then, you know, we’re having a great conversation.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:15

Yeah. I’m curious, because I feel like there’s a point even before you get to some of these important questions, where people in sales and let’s be clear that if we’re, you know, an entrepreneur of any kind, we’re in sales, and you have an opportunity to, like help break down the the hurdle or the little block because as soon as somebody feels like, Oh, this person has an interest in, you know, whatever, some some business exchange, how do you get because I feel like people can be really prickly or bristly right up front, when they realize like, Oh, this is a sales call, right? How do you approach it even before the questions so that people are willing to participate with you in a genuine way through the process of that conversation? And those questions?

Chris Goegan  33:02

Yeah, so So I have this thing called, it’s called the attention amplifier. And so so I’ve observed that people, this is certainly 100,000, quote, no cold calls, 1000s of meetings with business owners, I’ve, I’ve observed that, that there’s a thing, it’s just natural to call the attention amplifier where people, people will give you one second. And this is true, whether it’s like face to face or with with any marketing, online marketing, any offline marketing type of marketing, it’s people will give you one second, that one second, we’ll buy a three seconds, three seconds, oh, by 30 seconds, that 30 seconds will buy, you know, three to five minutes, that five minutes that will buy you 15 minutes, 15 minutes will buy you an hour, the hour will buy you an engagement or client, you know, depends on you know, on what you’re selling. But say if you’re selling a service, that that our will buy your client, you know, that that will buy you an engagement, that engagement will buy a bigger engagement, a bigger engagement will buy a bigger engagement, which will buy you like, like a whole bunch of referrals. You know, and so, it all starts with that one second. Or three seconds, some people might be generous and give you three seconds, you know, and so you have to have a really, really good like, for your business. It all comes with differentiation, like growing a business, it all becomes it’s all about differentiation. It’s not Well, hey, once they know about me, they’re gonna love me, they’re gonna want to work with me, it’s like, well, that works for referrals. But when you’re starting to cold outreach, that that doesn’t work, you gotta have very clear differentiation. And you got to understand that not everyone’s gonna want to work with you. Right? You know, and so so you want to qualify people and disqualify people. But everything starts with that clear differentiation. And then and then and then you take that differentiation and then you break it down the content. So picture you’re having an hour conversation with somebody, you take that and you just chunk it down into smaller pieces guys sitting on the bench feeding the pigeons, he doesn’t throw a loaf of bread out, you know if a loaf of bread is an hour conversation doesn’t throw a loaf of bread at he was he do he sits there and he pulls out, you know, couple slices and we’ll see what those slices in a little tiny pieces. Yeah, and he and he tosses them out. And then the bird, you know, the pitches they pick and they kind of go away that packing then they start coming closer and pretty soon. They’re like all around them. So you know, so you got to have like an initial, you know, like, like an initial you sell sales, you know, sales talk initial hook to grab their attention. Yeah. And you got to have like a, an engagement strategy. Yeah. And, and it’s not that difficult to put together once once you know what, you know what to do. Um, and, but it’s not, it can’t be salesy. Right, this is good. If you come in education, you know, like, I believe in education based marketing, meaning trust is so low. How, like, how many how many marketing messages? Do you get a day?

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:08

Oh, thousands.

Chris Goegan  36:09

Yeah, yeah. And how many, how many things like have you heard, you know, in the business world of business growth world? You know, one weird trick I did that, that resulted in $30,000 cash, you know, in 30 days, how I built a seven figure agency, in 90 days, I’ll give you my exact plan, like how much stuff like that to hear. Now for free, if you’ve never, if you’re brand new to business, never built it in force, like, Oh, that’s exciting. You know, it’s like, let’s go work for me. 30 days, 10 searches. Yeah. You know, but but I think we’ve all drank that Kool Aid before, you know. And so it’s like, it’s all it’s so cheesy, like, like, all this stuff. So so so there’s more marketers, more people pitching these, these, these things like that. Yeah. So so if we bring the message down, and they’ll have, you know, wanting to build trust, so we educate to build trust, more trust, we have more attention, they’ll give us the attention amplifier, the more attention they give us, the more they’ll want to learn from us, the more we will educate them, the more they will consume, the more they’ll consume, the more trust they have, potentially amplifier, more time will give us the more they want to consume, and the more our message will, will penetrate and sink in with them. And so, so there come a point in time where they’re, you know, if their hearts, you know, three, the three systems, there’s no three types of prospects no more, no less cold, warm and hot. coals don’t want to buy, they got no problem, they got no need. And, you know, worms, worms have an interest. They know they have a problem. But they’re not ready to buy yet. Yes, they’re there. They’re looking at possible solutions, trying to decide if they want to invest time, money and energy to solve the problem. Some people will want to solve a problem other people won’t. And then there’s Hots, that’s got a problem, they want to get rid of it right now, and are actively looking for the best solution to buy. So if you meet people where they’re at eat cold, or they’re at meat warms, or that meat hops, where they’re at, educate them accordingly to where they are. they’ll sell selected and move on trail. And and when they move on. So when you’re talking about the hots, those are the only people you sell. And you’re just having a good conversation with them. So what’s going on? Tell them? Well, we’ve done a lot about, you know what your life looks like, what’s your business? Why are we talking? Why do you want to, you know, so So, when you have these systems engineered? It makes so much simpler. It’s like, oh, game over, but it takes work to build the system. Absolutely, yeah. 30 days again, you’re like, you’re gonna be done. I always joke with clients. It’s like, you know, like, I always tell people have a two year perspective. It’s a total buzzkill ale it’s like, but I’m like, Look, waters, wet rocks are hard. This is how it works. It’s my work in the trenches with hundreds of clients, it takes about three to four months to build your base marketing Foundation, you spend the rest of your fine tuning it. And in that, in that year, our metric show company should have 25 to 200% growth in that year. And then and then, but what we’re doing is we’re building our systems, keyword systems, because we’re building it so we don’t have to do all the work. Like Like, like, you know, people listening this, if you like, if you couldn’t work for three weeks, or a month or two months, or decide to take the time off, what would your business

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:16

look like? Right? Most people would really be in a hard place. Yeah.

Chris Goegan  39:20

And can you can you limit your workday to just five hours a day, four or five hours a day? And that’s it, you know, if you can’t, then you obviously don’t have systems, you know, and so but with systems, you have a business that will work for you, rather than you slugging away in a business, or wake up in the morning, man, everything depends upon me. A soccer somebody like Christmas, like our business is doing really well. But I’m exhausted. If I don’t if I if I don’t do things, nothing, nobody eats nothing happens. And it’s getting tiring. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, and so so with with a systems approach, you build a system so I say three three months building core foundation rustier to fine tune it, but you should see 25 to two 100% growth in that year and then you’re looking for some more year one, year two, what Malcolm Gladwell would call the tipping point where all our systems are firing, we’ve got a good return on things. Now we can speak it and make it goes as you know, as big as we want, that the market will support to match your vision.

Heather Pearce Campbell  40:18

Okay, well, Chris, you have shared so much valuable information with us already. I think I’m going to be splitting this episode into two parts. So today, we are going to wrap up where we’re at in the conversation. Be sure to join us for the next episode where I get to finish the conversation with Chris digging a bit more into his approach on how he walks people through setting up the right systems in their business, making sure that they have foundational pieces of their business in place around their core values around their messaging around their differentiation. You will love part two of this conversation. So thank you for joining us today. Be sure to pop over and leave a review leave us some stars let let us know how much you appreciate guests like Chris who have so much value to bring and then be sure to pop back on and join us for part two of this conversation.

GGGB Outro  41:21

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit & Great Business™ podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.