What would you like the next step to be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alignment Creates Opportunity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop Selling on a Banker's Schedule

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Position Yourself Before They Position You Pt 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Position Yourself Before They Position You

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is It Really a Deal Yet? Pt 2

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

Are the ones that are going to close. Maybe they're doing this to educate themselves on the process.

It's all good. It's just they are going to drain our resources. And we want to be very, very careful not to spend too much time with client laters.

Client laters and deals later, they take a lot of resources. So what do we want to do? We want to focus most of our energy on the deal now people. The deal now is that we should be speaking to just about every week.

We should be sending them gifts. Have you guys read the book Giftology by John Rulon? If you haven't, check it out. It's a really good book.

It's how using gifting is a way to build. It's good for nurturing existing clients. And it's also good for winning new ones.

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

Is It Really a Deal Yet?

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results. Is categorize who it is in our pipeline that we're speaking with. or a deal now, meaning somebody is engaged, they're talking, they're going to all the steps, they're asking all the right questions, they are liquid, they are rolling over their 401k into an entity that can fund a deal, they are applying to the SBA, they're taking all the steps and they're making all the moves that are indicative of somebody that's serious and that is moving forward.

I call that person a client now, or in your case, a deal now. There's either a deal now or everybody else goes into the deal later bucket. Okay, here's the mistake we all make.

Mike doesn't make this mistake, but Scott does, I'm sure of it. I'm kidding. So here's a mistake that we make as salespeople.

We think if we're at least talking to them, we're in the game. Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO.