Hey, you savages. It's Dave Lorenzo.
I'm the godfather of growth,

and this is your Saturday side hustle.

Today we've got a live talk I did
just yesterday in front of an audience

at Icebox Cafe in Dale Beach, Florida.

This is a talk on selling to
CEOs of mid-market companies and

selling to entrepreneurs, and
it's all about the right mindset,

the mindset you need to be in and
the things you need to do in order

to approach CEOs where they
are, connect with them,

speak their language,

and eventually develop a relationship so
that you can wind up working with them.

It's a live talk in front of a live
audience in a working restaurant.

So there's some kitchen
noise in the background.

You'll hear me talking on the PA
system so it doesn't sound like

overproduced audio.

It sounds like an audio that you would
hear if you were in the audience with

us live,

so enjoy this talk. We'll see
you back at the end For the happy

recap, today's education
session for 15 minutes,

we're going to talk about
the seven questions you must

answer if you want to sell to CEOs.

I work with almost exclusively
these days, mid-market CEOs,

and I define mid-market
as $10 million in annual

revenue up to about $300 million in
annual revenue. That's my sweet spot.

That's who I work with.

I still teach a handful of professionals
how to sell to those people,

and here's what I found.
The people who sell to CEOs,

especially professional service providers,

you need some help because
the approach that you're

taking while educational and
informative is not an approach

that really resonates.

So I'm going to give you
today seven questions that

you can ask mostly yourself to
refine your approach to sell

to entrepreneurs in
that space. By the way,

just so that I make
sure I'm on target here,

I can drop into a different routine if
I'm not targeting the right folks here.

How many of you work with
people in this market segment?

Raise your hands just about
everybody. 10 million to 300 million.

Alright, question number one,

what problem can you solve and why

does the business owner, the C E
O, why do they need to solve it?

What problem can you solve and why does
the business owner need to solve it?

Now,

you need to have a good answer for this
because this is the whole reason why

they would want to talk to you.

I got approached this week by someone,

and I'm not going to share who
the person is. Maybe you know him,

maybe you don't. And they said to me,
Hey, I see you work with CEOs, and I said,

yeah, and they said to me,

do you ever talk to them about
cash balance retirement accounts?

And I don't know if you know what I do,
but I'm a business strategy consultant.

I help people grow their
businesses and that sort of thing.

On the list of the hundred
things we talk about,

if I were to look for a cash
balance retirement accounts,

it probably wouldn't be in the top
like thousand things that we talk

about.

I have recommended one time a cash
balance retirement account to a

client who had a fantastic year and
needed to save money on their taxes. Now,

why do I tell you this story?

If your pitch to A C E O is walking up
to them and handing them your business

card and going, do you know what a
cash balance retirement account is?

One of two things is going to
happen. Okay? If you're lucky,

the person will just turn and
walk away. If you're not lucky,

it could be really, really ugly.

So three things you should do
to answer this question, okay?

If you are targeting people in
the B two B space, number one,

do your research on the industry.

Know the industry issues
that are happening so that

you can walk up to them and say, Hey,
I hear there's a crankshaft shortage.

I understand you're in manufacturing
for the automotive industry. Yeah, I am.

Is that crankshaft shortage affecting
you? Oh my gosh, you have no idea.

What does that do?

That immediately gives you credibility
and it immediately shows that you

understand them and their business.
The second thing

is if it's a company that's
local and people who are doing

business with them, you can ask
about a specific company challenge.

If you're a member of Provisor,

there's somebody in this room who knows
a company that you want to work with,

you can sit down with that
person and say, Hey, Nicola,

what are the three issues that
Carlos Gutierrez is facing today?

I know you're friends with him. Oh,

Carlos is having trouble
connecting with probate attorneys.

He loves to work with them.

The second thing he's having trouble
with is people are afraid to list their

house because interest rates are high,

and the third thing he's having trouble
with is he's having trouble getting the

people whose listings he does have to
come down off of their top of the market

offers because the market has been so
difficult. Those are three things that,

three challenges that Carlos is facing.
I do it. Carlos nailed it. Yeah,

I nailed it.

So this is just a little
bit of due diligence.

It's better for you if you're
targeting CEOs as your clients.

It's better for you to have
10 targets that intimately

than a hundred targets nothing about,

because these people are
human. They have real problems,

and the fact that you can solve their
problems or be a solution to their problem

is what you're looking to do. Alright?

The second question you need to
ask yourself is why do they need

to solve this problem now?

So they have a problem
and they have a problem?

Why do they need to solve this
problem? Now, why is it important?

Why is there urgency for
solving this problem?

If you have a solution and
they don't have a problem,

you're talking to the wrong person.

You need to find out what problem they
have and why they need to solve it now.

Now here's the beauty of
having a network like this.

If they have a problem
and you can't solve it,

grab one of the people in this
room, bring them with you.

If they're the solution
to the CEO's problem,

why is that valuable to you?

Because it shows an external orientation.

It shows that you are concerned
about the things that are going

on in their world and in their
business. Think about that for a minute.

Somebody's got a problem,
you don't have the solution,

but you want to work with them.
They have a problem you can solve,

but they haven't realized it yet.

Help them solve the problem they do have.

Does that make sense? If you want to
start a relationship with someone,

there's two ways to do it,

and this goes for any aspect of life.
The first way is put some money in their

pocket, introduce 'em to a client.

The second way is solve a problem
that's keeping 'em up at night.

So if you've uncovered
a bunch of problems,

I can't help Carlos solve any of
those problems that he has right now,

but I can probably introduce him to a
new probate attorney that would help him.

So that wouldn't get me
business from Carlos,

but it definitely would help Carlos out.

It would keep me top of mind with
Carlos. So what problem do they have?

Why do they need to solve it?
Now, question number three, why

are you the right person
to solve this problem?

You got to have a good
answer for this question,

and 30 years in business or 30 years
as an attorney, 30 years as a C P A,

that's not a good enough reason to do
business with anybody. This is called in

sales your unique selling proposition,
or if you're afraid of the word sales,

you're an attorney, your
unique value proposition.

So if you want to get people
to do business with you,

you got to share something
with them that's unique,

and if you can do it in a story
that's really helpful, right?

I tell stories all the time. It's
part of what I do for a living,

and that's what really brings people in.

My unique value proposition comes
from building two businesses over the

course of the last 33 years,

one of which I took from startup
to 50 million in three years.

The other one start up to
250 million in six years,

and then setting it all aside because
my life was miserable. I was unhappy,

and I got struck by a taxi cab and
was paralyzed from the armpits down.

That was my wake up call,

and my unique value proposition to the
CEOs is you don't want to have to get

hit by a taxi to realize the
value that you can extract from

your business. If you build systems
and processes that can help you run it

efficiently and effectively,
and that resonates with them,

you need to come up with a unique value
proposition for your business that does

the same thing. Question number four,

that you need to ask yourself
that, how can I get in?

How can I get the meeting with the C E O?

Most of us don't do enough work in this
area. Most of us are not very creative.

What do we do?

We send an email or we go
through our LinkedIn connections.

We don't really dig. If
you have a list of say,

10 or 15 prospective clients
that you want to connect with,

somebody knows people in that
company. But even more importantly,

there's a lot of due diligence you can
do to make sure that you're connected

to someone and that person
can share the problem that the

company and the c e o is experiencing.
If you look

hard enough,

you can find a way in publicly
traded companies. It's easy, right?

Publicly traded companies,
there are news articles.

There's a 10 K that's published.

The c o does a carefully scripted
conference call with analysts every

month, privately traded companies.

What that looks like is that looks like
them sitting down with their trusted

advisors and saying, these are the
three things that are bothering me,

and I don't have someone who
can solve those three things.

The best way for you to figure out how
you can get in is talk to people who are

in similar businesses and see
where they go and see what they do.

Industry trade shows. How many of you
go to your own industry trade show?

Raise your hands. Okay, the best
thing for you to do, I mean,

I'm not going to stop you from going to
your own industry trade show. Go to the

trade shows your clients. Go to find
out what your clients are talking about.

Speak the language, your clients speak,

your industry trade show is great for
your own personal knowledge and benefit,

but if you are looking to work
with a specific type of client,

you got to go to the
events that they go to.

You got to learn what problems
they're facing in their industry.

You got to talk to the people who are
there because you have to learn the

language. Question number five,

are you willing to play
the long game? Now, again,

this is one of the things I find that is
a huge competitive advantage for those

of us who do it. What percentage
would you guess of people,

of my clients,

what percentage of the people they
go after work with them immediately

upon first or second solicitation?
What percentage do you think people up?

10.

10%? 1%. 1%. Who said 1%? Zero. Great.

1%. 1%. Okay,

so that means you call on a hundred
people. How many sign up? Re Angelica,

how many is that? One? One.
Thank you very much, right?

I had to find somebody who's in the
accounting space in some way. Okay?

So for every a hundred people you call on,

that means one person signs up.

But how many people do you think sign up?

And this is in my entire
client database since 2008,

the clients that tell me the truth.

How many people do you think
sign up after three months,

after six months, after five years,

what percentage sign up after
three months? So 1% immediately,

three months. What percentage
of my database do you think?

5%. Three.

Four. 4%, right? That's three
months, six months. And by the way,

this is with weekly follow
up. Generic, not generic,

but educational email
content, not solicitation,

educational email content. Six
months, 1%, 4% after three months,

six months, what percentage
do you think sign up?

15, 10, 10, 15.

Seven. 7%. 7%. Five years.

What percentage after five years?

30%.

Are you in my database?
Yeah. It's about 28%.

It's about 28% after
five years. 28%. Okay,

so if you round it up to
30, if you say it's a third,

so you go your Dave Lorenzo,
you go and do a speech,

there's a hundred people in the room.

One person in that room
is going to be a client.

They're going to come running from the
back of the room and tackle me and hand

me money, okay? I love that person. Okay?

But then three months later, I'll
get a few more. Six months later,

I'll get a few more. And I
know over the next five years,

a third of that room is going
to slowly become big fans of

Dave Lorenzo and they're going to invest.

If you want to build a
sustainable business over time,

you got to play the long game. The
model that I use for this in my mind,

in my warped mind is Apollo
Creed from the first Rocky

movie, right? Those of you, a
lot of you are really young.

I don't know if you ever saw Rocky the
first movie, but Apollo Creed wants to.

Why are you looking at me like that?
Some people might not have seen it.

Apollo Creed wants to fight Rocky,

and Rocky doesn't want to fight him
a second time. He's done. I did it.

He's happy, right? That's
good, right? He's happy.

The fight is over. It's done.
But the crowd, the fans,

the people of Philadelphia
want to see a second fight,

and Apollo Creed turns to his trainer
and he says his manager, and he says,

we got to get the people
around him talking.

If the people around him are talking
and asking him why he won't fight me,

then he'll want to fight me.

And that's what persuades Rocky
to do it everywhere. Rocky goes,

he goes to the pet store, he
goes to the supermarket. Rocky,

why won't you fight Apollo? Why
won't you fight Apollo? Right?

Everybody's talking. That's what happens
when you follow up over the long term.

That's what you're looking to do.
That's what you're looking to build.

Play the long game. Question number six,

can you handle rejection? It sucks.

It sucks, but you know what?
You know how you make it better?

You desensitize yourself to the rejection.

Go out and try and get rejected
for goofy stuff. Ask for,

let me tell you something.
We could play a game,

and I do this with my clients sometimes.

What's the most outrageous thing you
could ask someone for that you know?

You'll be rejected. Ask for
it, and then Well, no, no,

I ask for money all the time. I love
asking for money. No, no, no, no.

Money's not outrageous.
No, no. Try this one time.

Go to a parking lot while somebody's
pulling into a parking spot and stop them

and go, Hey,

can I have that parking spot? Can you
go park over there and see what happens?

No. No, seriously, seriously, no.

Go and ask people for
stupid crazy things and

get used to being rejected. This
is, I wish we had a psychologist.

Is there a psychologist here? We
don't have a psychologist here.

This is the best thing to ever come
out of cognitive behavioral therapy.

It's like exposure therapy. The more
you expose yourself to being rejected,

the less it bothers you. It's true.
That's how I got through college time.

I met my wife. No, really, the more
you expose yourself to rejection,

the less it bothers you.
So I have to tell you,

if you only ask for business
one or two times a month,

you're going to feel really,

really bad because you're going to
get rejected If you ask for business a

hundred times a month, or even better yet,

if you have a gateway
product or a service,

very low barrier to entry product or
service that you feel comfortable talking

to people about and they sign up for it,

most of the time you're not going to care
about the rejection because every time

somebody says no,

there's a yes right around the corner.
People ask me all the time,

and I know they ask you,
Nicola, this all the time,

how did you get 56 people to
sign up for your Provisor group?

You know how we did
it? Here's the formula.

Ask 300 people to join a Provisor group.

That's how you get 56
people in a provisor group.

How many times did I get
rejected for Angelica?

Rejected, not.

Provisor. I'm not talking about
your own personal baggage.

I wanted you to do the math for me.
I got rejected 250 some odd times.

Thank you, Maria. Angelica, we'll
meet later. We'll, commiserate.

That's the thing, folks.

You got to ask for business
a lot so that the rejection

doesn't bother you. Final point.

Do you know when to shut up? I was
working with somebody yesterday.

I'm sitting in an in-person
sales meeting with this person,

and she sold past the close.
Okay? She sold past the close,

she had the client convinced,

and then she went on to talk
about this feature of her service,

and the client was like, oh,

I can't do that because I have these
three people in my company that would

absolutely not agree with that principle.

And we ended the meeting,
we finished our breakfast,

and I looked at her and I'm
like, the money was right there.

It was on the table. You
just couldn't shut up.

So those seven questions again, okay,
just so that we make sure we got 'em,

and if you want the notes from this,

they'll accompany the Saturday
side hustle tomorrow. Number one,

what problem do you solve and
why should the c e o solve it?

Why does this need to be addressed Now?

How can you get in? Are you willing to
play the long game? That's number five.

Can you take rejection? And then number
seven, do you know when to shut up?

So these seven questions are things
that we go over all the time.

I go over all the time with my
clients. If you are interested

in really getting good at
connecting with CEOs and

selling to CEOs, we've
got something for you.

Many of you have already
signed up for this.

Nicole Gel Armino and I have
created a community called the Exit

Success Lab. Three words
altogether, exit Success Lab.

And we are working with CEOs
to help them improve their

business strategy so that they have more
options when they want to sell their

business. Okay?

I meet with probably between
50 and 250 CEOs every month.

I do half day seminars for them,

and we are helping these CEOs with their
business strategy so they have more

options when they exit.
There are 10 key value drivers,

and we help them with each of
the value drivers along the way.

We don't do it ourselves.

We put them in front of professionals
who help them with these value drivers.

We are sourcing the professionals
from our community, from provisors,

from my high net Worth Client Attraction
group, and from this breakfast group,

if you are interested in being one of
the subject matter experts in one of the

10 areas, go to exit success lab.com.

There are two big red boxes. The one on
the left says Professionals click here.

That's for you. You click that
box, read through the website,

and then apply. If you've already applied,

we're contacting people next
week to discuss this with them.

So if you haven't heard
from us, we still love you.

We haven't contacted people yet.
We're contacting them next week.

Why do you think we give away
such great information? Go ahead.

Pretty much the analogy is when
you go to Lowe's or Home Depot,

you see the guy do it yourself, guy on
the floor, and he makes it look really,

really easy. And then
you think to yourself,

the first minute you think to yourself,
he did that. So I can do that.

And then you put five more
minutes to fall into it,

and you realize he does that same
floor demonstration every single night.

So no matter what information
he gave you five minutes.

So dawn on you that that guy
can do it better than you,

and you hire that guy to come to
your house and take care of it.

That's as simple as.

And tell us who you are
and what you do, please.

I'm Eric Johns, and I'm an officer,
consultant. Come up with semi,

my company is Superior Corporation.

Thank you very much. Perfectly
said. Thank you so much.

I'm taking him on the
road with me. Hey folks,

thanks for listening to this
edition of the Saturday Side Hustle.

I'm Dave Lorenzo.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for the
Sunday special with my partner Nikki G.

We're here every day with a brand
new episode of the Inside BSS Show.

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