In this lucrative episode, Jon Weberg, CEO of Profitalize, shares how he helps founders by restoring the soul of advertising, marketing, and sales.
You will discover:
– The trick to selling by “not selling”
– The three “Es” that make for effective content marketing
– How you’ve been lied to about how marketing actually drives sales
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I am here with a an unbelievably high demand coach and consultant. It is the one and only Jon Weberg who is an American entrepreneur, a top 1% growth consultant and a business master after becoming a two time self published author, running three separate businesses and speaking in front of global audiences, his wealth of actionable knowledge impacts the masses. Jon has collaborated with over 4000 entrepreneurs, companies and small businesses throughout his career, contributing to a collective sales figure exceeding $300 million John’s journey in the business world has allowed him to build connections with marketing legends like Frank Kern, Sam ovens, John Kristani and investment joy. Well, Jon, so excited to have you here, and I want to dive into a little bit, but I’d love to just kind of set the stage with a little bit of your story, because from what I understand researching the episode, this is something that’s really meaningful to you. How did you get into this world of business, and was it always easy for you?
Jon Weberg
It never is easy, I don’t think for most people, and I think that was definitely the case for me. So I got set around 12 years old. My dad introduced me to the digital marketing space as he was getting our family out of some, some immense poverty, I would say I was in the OA crisis when, especially in my local, small town of Minnesota, which is one of the iron ore capitals of the world, drastically, once that hit, all real estate shut down, all iron ore activity shut down, everything went blank. So along with that, he decided, no, I’m going to try to make money online from home, because the situation we were in, and I dabbled watch around 12 years old, and then didn’t make money, but I was actually convincing my entire classrooms at the time to build blocks and to generate leads with their blocks and miniscale start a business. Around 1516, I decided to start a business on my own, and it was not easy, because while my dad preceded me, I decided, You know what? People, by the way, don’t do this. I wasn’t going to take any advice or strategy. You know, I’m going to do this on my own. I can do this on my own. I need help. You know what? Actually, please just stay away as I try to do this without any guidance. It’s 100,000% the worst take you can take doing anything, because the shortcut to all successes is following a master before you so failed miserably. Then after failing miserably, asked my dad, hey, can you give me a little guidance? Give me a little one to, like, help me out. And then from their kind of gradual, sustained success, and then, especially the past year, things are things are kicking up. So I’m pretty happy.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s exciting. So if you’ve done a lot of time in the marketing and sales space, and I was reading through an article of yours, and in it, you said that, you know, I mean, the thing we’ve all like, I need more leads. My leads are converting. It’s like all these things. But you make a statement that I thought was really interesting, you say most have forgotten the very soul of what makes advertising, marketing and sales work so incredibly together. My question for you here on the show is, what is that soul?
Jon Weberg
That soul is the genuine creation of emotion within your audience and the process that that follows to be able to do that. Because most businesses, from their ads, like like in the article and like you’re saying, from their ads to their follow up, to their sales process, everything they have in place is just meant to meet an immediate buyer and customer right now. But number one, the vast majority of people in any audience, whether it’s an email list, whether it’s people who are viewing your ads, you name it, the vast majority aren’t ready to buy right now, as all follow up research study, you name it, has done, the vast majority of all contacts take seven to 15 contacts in order to convert into a customer, which at this point, it’s probably a lot more because of all the incredible amounts of competition hitting every online marketplace in the world, because of all the global stuff happening right now, which I’m sure people have kind of noticed, there’s a lot of stuff going on. And with that being said, number one, people focus wrongly just getting all of their immediate customers now and not focusing on the other humongous bulk of long term people who need to be nurtured in order to turn them into a customer or longer term customer. With that, people also forget that the purpose of an ad isn’t too immediately technically generated to buyer. Purpose of an ad is to generate as much attention as possible. That’s what advertising actually is. It’s just to generate attention directed towards your marketing or your sales process, which a portion you buy from, but the vast majority. Already those people who go through your sales process and who are generated as a lead, your follow up and further of your marketing and sales is supposed to close the audience. People go with their ad. All of them just buy now, work with me now. Check out cart. Now all that, and you do want a dedicated sales process and to direct people to purchase, but what most people miss out on is all the follow up, all of the nurturing, all the relationship building. They’re just focused on what I call there’s three E’s. I just spoke about this, as I told you before our call in Budapest, there’s three E’s, or three things you must do to convert anyone into a customer, regardless of who they are. You must entertain them, draw on their attention, educate them, nurture that attention and entice them get that attention. Albert’s nurtured to go to purchase a product and service. The third E is all everyone does, and they miss out on all this other stuff, which is what, especially for long term growth, it’s where all of your customers are by far.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I want to dive in on that first, either entertain, because I think that particularly for folks who are a little more cut and dry, or have maybe built a business offline, right referral, kind of local reputation based right can can try and jump In and just like be business, but missed that first. E, what are some great strategies you found for really building in the right amount of entertainment into your process?
Jon Weberg
I think it’s taking a look at what you remember from Super Bowls, what you remember from ads, from Super Bowls that have outperformed everything else. What you remember from movies, from influencers, from people, anyone you’ve ever followed or seen online or offline that stuck out. So great examples of this are the Harman brothers. If you want to study ads of any kind, take a look at the Harmon brothers. Take a look at Ryan Reynolds, very common, globally known figure, who literally can dive into any business. He takes over their creative process, the entertaining, the drawing into the attention, and then exits for eight or nine figures on repeat with zero problem, doing this in a very small, short period of time. Another example of this, you know, you have Ryan Reynolds, you have liquid death. Liquid death became a multi billion dollar water brand. There’s kind of a offline brand who a, went online with their marketing strategy, but also B decided to be entertaining creative with their offline strategy of just the design of their entire product. And that’s where you have to where entertainment is crucial is standing out in your marketplace. Now that’s been told forever. You need a unique selling proposition. You need a you name it. And USP does exist in a way. But honestly, you know, there’s 10s of 1000s or 1000s, or depending on the size of your market, hundreds of businesses all competing for the same customers that all kind of sell the same thing. I believe what USP really should be is more of a unique experience, unique customer experience you see E because that’s what differentiates, for example, liquid death from Asani, or any other water brand or any company that Ryan Reynolds can go into. It instantly change some of their advertising, change, you know, their offline, online ads, and just revolutionize the product and increase their sales drastically, so through driving a incredible customer obsessive experience, from when your audience sees you, from the entertainment all the way to the other 2e as well. So I think it’s being unique, which is kind of generic, but being unique in how your customer is emotionally triggered in any communication they’re seeing from you as a brand, whether that means that you are extremely customer, early, obsessive, meaning, Hey, say you’re an agency. You’re an alpha agency. When you call a prospect, they say, No, you follow up with, Hey, here’s say it was a prospect who was looking to generate ads through Facebook. They’re not really closing that not seem like they’re very interested. Hey, here’s your free complete blueprint customized for your sauna business. We just made for you. Have it free of charge. It’s a few things you can do, generate leads, generate affiliate partners for your sauna business. Just take this and enjoy obsessive, really, actually value packed, actual value pack stuff like that also kind of changes customer experience drastically.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. Now tell us a little bit then about how follow up plays into that customer experience, because we’ve all been taught to follow up, but we’ve all been experienced the follow up of reps who call and just, Hey, you want to buy something, you got to buy something. You got to buy something. What, what really is the key to following up and doing it well?
Jon Weberg
I think number one, a change from selling to a change of providing and nurturing and giving, because customers who like who actually go. Through the process of like, knowing trust and hitting that trust point are the only ones who will ever, most likely ever buy from you. Of course, there are immediate gratification customers who are going through any sales process who, hey, I need someone to run my ads. I need someone to do XYZ immediately. Can you do that for me? Those are the easy ones to work with. But where fall comes to play again is as we’ve kind of walked through, is after someone has usually seen your brand in person or online for the first time, unless they come back to your store, or unless they come back to your website, which probably is not going to happen unless you have really good retargeting. Retargeting is key. Is follow up is your only avenue, if you generated them as a lead, first follow up is the only avenue you have to build a relationship. So like you’re asking, What does that have to look like in order to actually convert? I think it’s, it’s after you’ve brought someone in as a lead. I think it’s solely the nurturing, nurturing, nurturing, providing. So I think giving away some of your secret sauce, quote, unquote, is a lot of things that businesses are afraid of. You know, businesses are afraid of their follow up to actually know what. Here’s how we can actually help you right now, without you paying a dime to work with us and doing that excessively, and doing that in combination with the usual sales stuff, of providing social proof, of being truly careful in your language and how you talk with a customer. Again, it’s, it’s shouldn’t be sales space at all. Your job, I say in business, is not to sell. Your job is to nurture and provide so much immense value. Someone wants to work with you without you ever having to make a proposition to them. And that works extremely well across every industry, whether it’s B to C, B to B, it does not matter, because you’re right, especially about, you know, how many sales people called Hey, would you like this? Can How can I get you to know Lee with, Hey, I saw you’re interested in XYZ. But let’s put that aside entirely. I just want to help you get the result you’re looking for. Can I send you over some free stuff? Can I send you over this? There’s nothing attached to it. I’m not trying to sell you here. I literally just want to help you do this, because I know this is so important to you that’s a much more likely response to get a yes than to sell, sell, sell. So it’s providing truly massive amounts of intense, intangible value and also just, I think, being genuine and authentic. Because what most businesses don’t realize is that the vast majority of your audience sees through the bowl that you present. They can tell when you’re inauthentic. They can tell when, whether it’s through video or through a podcast or through your ads or something, especially with follow up salesperson, they can tell when it’s inauthentic, especially someone who’s trained, for example, B to B, if I hop on a call with someone within usually five to 10 seconds of a few different things in them, saying the tone they’re using, how they’re phrasing things. I can tell if you’re a salesperson just looking to sell me, versus someone who’s actually trying to help me.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right. That’s so powerful. Now, one of the challenges that can come with that is particularly in my profession, with coaching, and we work with this on for a lot of our certified skill architects, is they, they are so into coaching, they’re so committed to the very best that they can lose sight of the fact that they should be intentionally moving them through a funnel, right? It’s a little bit of like, if you build it, they will come right. If you coach, they will close, yeah, and, and, and, so I can see them hearing what you’re saying and kind of double down on that strategy. But there’s a little more to it than that. How do you how do you make sure that you’re not only just coaching them because you’re afraid of closing, but you’re really moving them intentionally through your process?
Jon Weberg
So basically, what you need to do is move towards mini commitments. I think, getting your audience to take mini commitments that gradually increase them, taking more actions that would resemble them, becoming a customer. So you know, initially, when you’re following up with a prospect or someone, it may just be, here’s a free guide or resource, a step by step blueprint, enjoy. And maybe after that, they don’t come back to you. They just use it. Hey, thanks. I appreciate it. Next thing you could send them is, hey, we’d actually like to do a free consulting session with you. No charge at all. We just really like you, but I really, actually, really deeply want to help you. Would you hop on a call with us? No strings attached. And then, for example, in that process, of course, on the call you go after you give them tons of immense free value, zero charge. Would you have any interest, you know, after we’ve gone through all these different things that we could help, we could help you with that ourselves, directly, one on one, or, you know, one to group coaching, etc. What can we do? Or what could I say to you? What do you need from me for that to be a great decision for you to make? So a just in that second interaction there alone, of providing immense value, right? There is another opportunity to actually present it, to offer, and move them actually to become a customer. And then just basically variations of that, ways of being so creative with the follow up. To gain them to engage and again, yes, you you do want to make the offer, like I’m saying, with the sales pitch, not sales pitch, but the sales value, quote, unquote, at the end of that call there. But genuinely, I’ve seen a lot of the times just being so giving and entertaining and fun and exciting and unique that’ll alone can bring people to want to work with you. Now, what I usually do is I do a lot of the entertaining and educating, and then a lot of times, if you built enough rapport, especially with a client who, like, you’ve given so much to I’ve had maybe many people after like, one call like, I’ll be like, hey, I want to help you grow a business. Let’s just hop on a call of this spitting value to them. They’re like, I kind of feel bad. You know, they kind of feel bad because you just gave them so much later on down the line. If you build that much rapport, you could literally just go, Hey, man, I want to work with you. I think you like me. I like you too. I think we both see that you have so much potential for your business, for your life, for however you help people. Let’s just make this happen. I’m going to give you a deal, a discount, a bonus or something, three extra months. If you want a very value stack it. That’s also where you can really improve the chances of some closing is I want to give you 20% off. We’re going to give you three extra months of coaching, of mentorship, of being in our program. And along with this, here’s an actual personal guarantee that I’m going to stack on top of what we already provide, because I want to work with you so much. Let’s just make this happen. Here’s where you can pay. You know, I’ve done it before. I’ve had to do kind of almost just buy from us closes, because you’ve built so much rapport, and they just haven’t been asked in the way that triggers them. So you just have to actually just go, Hey, I’ve helped you a lot. Let’s, let’s bring this to its fruition and make it happen.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, I love that. It’s such a great way to pivot. So John, you’ve given us so many nuggets so far. But there’s a question that I haven’t asked yet, and I asked all my guests, I want to ask it of you, and that is, what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jon Weberg
I think I’ll do I’ll do two, see if I can remember both. One is that in entrepreneurship and being a business owner, you have much more support and people supporting you secretly than you would ever imagine, because often the role of entrepreneurship is a lot of downs, a lot of ops, a lot of I know my own journey has been insanely, ever changing and crazy, and sometimes people don’t feel supported, either by their spouse, on their friends, by their family, you name it. So just know that you always kind of have some people watching you that you don’t know about, that are rooting for you, that do have your back, that you just won’t know about. And I’ve had instance this, instances of this when I was younger, when I first published my book in 19 one of my books, and I would get pictures sent to me from people I never really talked to, like in high school, who go, oh my god, your book so good. I’m like, why would you even consider or have any interest in anything I’m doing? It’s like, Oh, I’ve been watching your content. I just don’t engage, which is a lot of people I just don’t engage. But I decided to take a look, and I actually love what you do. And number two, making big deals should be a priority, and it’s much easier than you think. So as a solopreneur or someone else, a small team, as a business owner, whether it’s coaching, membership agency, you name it, I believe in trying to make the biggest deals possible. And I found, for example, speaking in Budapest affiliate world, we’re speaking at traffic and conversions upcoming in March in Vegas, making those happen didn’t cost me $1 all it took was two conversations each, and I was able to land speaking opportunities. World With 70 100 attendees. I believe trafficking conversions is about three or 4000 this year. Making these deals, these partnerships, if you want to speak, if you want to do all these different things, you know, reach out to an influencer. There’s some really cool influencers I’ve made contact, like, like Frank Kern, like investment show, et cetera, that are just a DM away, are just an email away, are just a you name it, away. So I applaud people and give you, I hope, to give you motivation to actually reach out to some kind of influence or a person or event or something that you want to make a connection with that would be a huge deal for your business to work with or partner with. Just do it one because if they don’t answer, or if they say, No, great move on. Number two, if they do, you’ve just led an impeccable deal that cost you nothing but a message that you are maybe afraid to send because you really like the person. You respect them. You think they’re, you know, this huge person in this space, everyone’s just humans. We’re all as humans. And the more you treat your audience. The potential business partners and people like humans, you actually connect with them. All. Interaction and things like this become a lot, lot easier.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s so true. It’s so true. John, there’s some folks listening, and they’ve been hanging out everywhere. Do you say they they they want to know more. How can they find more out about the work that you do? How can I connect with you?
Jon Weberg
Number one, if you want free stuff and to learn and get the the entertaining and educating part of the two E’s, go to youtube.com forward slash at John weberg, or just look up John weberg on YouTube. And if you want to work for me, you want to grow your business, generate more leads, generate my growth, or any more customers, and just hyper optimize your business for maximum profitability, which is a lot of what I do, go to profitalize.com and there’ll be some options for you to go ahead and get started and work with us.
Scott Ritzheimer
Brilliant John, thanks so much for being on the show. Just a privilege having you here today. Really enjoyed this conversation, and for those of you watching and listening today, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Jon Weberg
Jon Weberg is an American entrepreneur, top 1% growth consultant, & business master. After becoming a 2X self-published author, running three separate businesses, and speaking in front of global audiences – his wealth of actionable knowledge impacts the masses. Jon has collaborated with over 4,000 entrepreneurs, companies, and small businesses throughout his career, contributing to a collective sales figure exceeding $300 million. Jon’s journey in the business world has allowed him to build connections with marketing legends like Frank Kern, Sam Ovens, John Crestani, and Investment Joy.
Want to learn more about Jon Weberg’s work at Profitalize? Check out his website at https://www.profitalize.com/
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