In this episode of Love Your Sales, podcast host Leighann interviews Dave Molenda, a seasoned sales professional and business coach, about improving sales follow-up strategies. They discuss the common pitfalls salespeople face, the importance of consistent follow-up, and distinguishing between passive, aggressive, and assertive follow-up approaches. Dave emphasizes the need for intentional and value-added contacts rather than superficial check-ins. Additionally, they talk about Dave's approach to strengthening teams to improve...
In this episode of Love Your Sales, podcast host Leighann interviews Dave Molenda, a seasoned sales professional and business coach, about improving sales follow-up strategies. They discuss the common pitfalls salespeople face, the importance of consistent follow-up, and distinguishing between passive, aggressive, and assertive follow-up approaches. Dave emphasizes the need for intentional and value-added contacts rather than superficial check-ins. Additionally, they talk about Dave's approach to strengthening teams to improve customer experience, which he elaborates on in his Amazon bestseller, Growing on Purpose.
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined by Dave Melinda. Uh, Dave, uh, has had a quite a career, um, in sales, but after 30 years of starting his own company and growing it to a $10 million. Annual sales. Dave realized that his passion was helping companies thrive by overcoming their natural tendencies to retreat and spin their wheels on the wrong things.
Dave's [00:02:00] current company, positive Polarity, is a Midwest business coaching firm. His recent book Growing On Purpose. Was an instant number one Amazon bestseller and will help strengthen your team and improve your customer's experience. Dave's latest project, the Positive Polarity Podcast has over 270 episodes and is rated in the top 2% of all podcasts in the world.
Wow. According to listen notes.com. Dave Melinda is excited to be part of Love Your Sales podcast and is looking forward to the conversation today. I'm so excited to have you join me, um, today for a awesome conversation. Um, anD yeah, I'm, I'm just excited to pick your brain as you know, somebody who loves sales as much as I do,
Dave Molenda: absolutely great to be here.
Thanks for the invitation, Leanne. I'm excited. I can't believe you. You said retreat and spin their [00:03:00] wheels on the wrong thing. It's funny, we're gonna talk about that exact thing today because our topic is gonna be fun and it's gonna be challenging when it comes to the sales world. So hopefully everybody's strapped in and ready to go.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, and you know, it's, I, I, I use, I, I talk to people about that, that same thing. Um, and I had a boss who constantly would say, are you. Spending time on revenue generating tasks. Yep. And it took me a long time to finally like drill that into my head and then have a true understanding of what are revenue generating tasks, because we often mistake what those are for spinning our wheels just on things that really have.
No importance, but we, we get it in our head that they do right as salespeople,
Dave Molenda: right. No, absolutely. I [00:04:00] call it paid time versus no paid time. Right. So revenue generating is the technical way to say it. I just say pay time or no pay time. And if you're in front of a customer or a prospect or communicating with one to me, that's pay time.
Mm-hmm. And you know, I, you can argue all day long if. Sitting on LinkedIn is pay time or not, doesn't really make you money at the end of the day. So, like you said, it's not really income generating. So, um, I think the topic today will definitely be something in the pay time category that will definitely make us some money.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, a a absolutely. So. Let's dive in. You know, let's talk about, you know, the importance, you know, something that we kind of just discussed prior to hitting the record button. Yep. Um, let's, what, where do you think that salespeople in general have a tendency to drop the ball and. [00:05:00] When you're working with somebody, what is something that you really help them hone in on to become more successful salespeople?
Um, and, and here's something I just, I think that if you can get sales down in your career and you, you can implement these things in your life.
Dave Molenda: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And, and I'm a believer in that. So let's, let's dive into this. Let's, yeah. What is, what is one of the most important things.
Dave Molenda: Well, I think, yeah, the two big words are follow up, right?
I mean, people today, Leanne, are so used to doing a ton of product knowledge training, so they're very, um, skilled and well versed on their product. They might be good at, you know, making connections, but boy, it's the back end of this whole thing that really most people struggle with. You know, they do a presentation for however, they do their sales process.
And then [00:06:00] somehow, uh, a prospect will say, has your proposal, you've done your presentation. And most people at that point, you know, they get stuck because the, you know, the, the buyer, whatever, the prospect will say, Hey, that was awesome. Let me take a look at this and I'll get back to you. That kind of for so often, for so many people, hopefully nobody listening to love Your sales podcast.
But for a lot of people that's where it stops. And then. What do we do next? You know, without having a clear next step, we're in, we're already in their system. I mean, there's two systems that are going on in sales. There's either the salesperson system or the buyer's system, and their system generally is, you know, um, I'll, don't call us.
We'll call you, I'll call you when I'm ready. That kind of stuff. Um. That's, I think where people get stuck is what do I do? How do I follow up? Um, and so I think, we'll, we'll cover some of those [00:07:00] today. But you know, the research shows that half of the sales, um, people that are out there right now, they never follow up with a prospect.
So, you know, that's good for us if our competition is not following up, but it's bad for us if we're not following up. So I, I just wanna encourage everybody to make sure that they're following up and, and we will, we will lay out a process for everybody today so they can help 'em.
Leighann Lovely: And why so it goes, you know, the squeaky wheel gets, gets the oil right.
Uh, it's so, yep. Why do you think. That people don't follow up the way they should, do you? I mean, is it related to, I don't know, how process, um, lack of like documentation.
Dave Molenda: I think it comes down to people, don't they? The most salespeople that I've met, [00:08:00] most people that I've trained over the years that I've worked with, coached, mentored.
They are these type of people that are very black and white in their thinking. So they think I'm either gonna be very passive, uh, and I'm going to let the customer lead the discussion, or I'm gonna be really aggressive. There's no middle ground for a lot of people. So when they think follow up, they think, I don't want to be too pushy.
That's the number one thing that I hear out of people in training is I don't want to be too pushy and I'm, I'm not. Um, follow up doesn't mean sit and camp in the buyer's driveway until they come home, you know, and kind. Stalk them. We're not stalking people, but there's, there's passive and aggressive Leanne.
And I think in the middle is what's called assertive. And I think we can be assertive and we're trying to sell something. We're trying to solve a need, we're trying to help this person out. And I just run into so many people [00:09:00] that just say, I don't wanna be pushy and therefore. They wait for the phone to ring and they wait, and they wait and they wait and it never happens.
And then when they finally find out six months later that this, you know, uh, prospect is already gone, then it's a whole different story. Then they're like, oh, I didn't like 'em anyway. They wouldn't have been a good customer. I mean, they come up with all these ideas and reasons, which six months ago you would've loved to do business with them.
So just be real, be honest with everybody and just say that either I'm scared of follow up or I'm not good at it. But those are generally the two camps that people find themselves in.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and it's funny that you say, well, we're not stalkers well here. I'll introduce. People are like, what do you do? And I'm like, well, I'm a salesperson.
Like through and through salesperson, basically I'm a professional stalker. Yeah. And people will giggle about that because that's how, I mean, people are, uh, you know, I, thanks for the call, Leanne, but I'm, I'm just [00:10:00] not interested right now. Okay? Yep, that's fine. You're not interested right now. Should I give you a call in a month or six months?
Right. What is your timeline? That's something that I've just got used to doing because. You're not interested. You didn't say no, you didn't tell me to f off.
Dave Molenda: Right.
Leighann Lovely: And that's, and that's I guess how I was trained.
Dave Molenda: Yeah. No, and like you, you just pointed it out right there when you said, I'm not ready yet.
Right? I'm not ready yet. Not today. Most people would take that as all. All right, I'm gonna close this file. I'm gonna cross 'em off my list. I'm gonna, whatever. Whatever you do, call it dead. And you just picked up on something that most people slide right by. You didn't say ever, you just said right now. So I think also a huge component of this, Leanne, is people don't listen.
They're not listening to the prospect. If most of us in sales would listen to the prospect, they're gonna tell you how to sell to them. [00:11:00] Mm-hmm. They're gonna tell you the process, they're gonna tell you how to do it. You just have to listen. And we have so much stuff in the back of our head, so much product knowledge, so much, you know, like anxiety.
There's just so much I've watched. We videotape, we secret shop, we do all these. Things. And we just are shocked at some of these people on how they panic when they're in some of these modes. They don't know what to do, so they shut down and they just can't wait to get out of there. So we just have to take this thing and take it over.
And if we can't at least control the follow up on the back end
Leighann Lovely: right then, and in to your point, um, we don't listen. Um. If we were to, and again, I'm not gonna put all salespeople in a box, but for a moment here I'm gonna pull out some of the characteristics of the atypical salesperson. They are shiny object syndrome.
They are the [00:12:00] immediate gratification of, Ooh, ooh, I just got a sail. Ooh, I've got somebody who's interested. And when that person loses interest, they're like, eh, I am gonna move on. 'cause they want that. But typically those salespeople. Aren't the long term one percenters.
Dave Molenda: Correct.
Leighann Lovely: They are the, Hey, I'm good at this job right now.
I can bring in. But eventually after they've tapped the market on the surface, they're like, oh, there's nobody out there to buy from me. It's like,
Dave Molenda: you can only sell to your neighbors and friends and family for so long. Right, right. But if you're,
Leighann Lovely: if you're, if you're listening, that prospect list becomes really long and you've got all of these people that you've spoken with, and now they know you.
Right. And now it's just you're following up saying, Hey John, how you doing? You know, we spoke six months ago.
Dave Molenda: Yep. And I think there's a big difference. I I, I see, I look at this as two [00:13:00] buckets. I think there's a salesperson bucket and then there's a sales professional bucket. And I think the sales professionals are the ones that are getting all the sales.
They're the ones that are following up successfully. They're the ones that are making it in sales. I mean, you know. Six figures in sales is nothing anymore. Having a six figure income is, you know, used to be like the, the pinnacle of trying to, you know, that was the big number to hit when, when I was a kid and growing up and starting my business.
That was always like that big number to hit. And, and now that's like almost entry level, you know, obviously there's, you know, retail sales, but. Depending on what, what type of ticket item you're selling and what dollar amount, um, you know, we're talking some big numbers. And so this is your livelihood. So you have to practice, you have to be able to get trained and coached and, you know, I, I hate seeing people get thrown into sales, uh, with zero training.[00:14:00]
Like me, I remember my first, you know, I was 19 and my fir i, I got hired at eight o'clock and by eight 10 a call came in and by nine o'clock I'm sitting in front of a prospect's office in front of a prospect in their office. I'm like, I have no clue what I'm doing. Year, but I'm 19 and I'm just, you know, just kind of making it up as I go.
It's okay if that's an amp for the, for the sales person, that's okay. If you wanna jump into the sales professional world, you gotta start training. You gotta, it's, it's just like a professional baseball player. They, they have season, they have a preseason. They have, you know, all this practice that they do off season, they don't just walk up and start hitting day one.
And that's what we think we can do in sales and that nothing could be further from the truth.
Leighann Lovely: And that's funny that you, you bring up that example of when you started, because I hear a lot of us that have been in it for a long time, that's how we were just thrown to the, [00:15:00] the wolves we're like, yep, yep.
Here's the information. This is what you're gonna sell. Go sell it. And you're like, oh.
Dave Molenda: Yep. And you're
Leighann Lovely: floundering around going, um, what do I do?
Dave Molenda: Yeah. They're like,
Leighann Lovely: just go sell this. Well, most of us,
Dave Molenda: exactly, most of us had the product training week one. Think of week one. In your sales world, it was about product training.
Maybe you went to, you know, some kind of bootcamp. Maybe you went to the manufacturer, the vendor, whatever, or you were given back in the day, the. The flip chart and you just kind of walked through that thing, or the three ring binder and you were just sitting there learning and it was like, great. You have to have product knowledge.
Absolutely. But how do you deliver that message effectively? You know, everybody just kind of does it their own way and that just doesn't work in sales anymore,
Leighann Lovely: right? No. So if somebody engages you, where do you start with the sales knowledge? [00:16:00] How do you, I mean, do you have a standard playbook of this is where you start and Yeah, absolutely.
This is why the, this is why it's so important to follow up. Like where do you begin, Dave?
Dave Molenda: Yeah. I generally ask people to, um, explain to me what their process looks like. What's your current process look like? That's hard. That in itself Leanne, is really hard. Most people can't even articulate what that looks like.
Um, you know, how many days or weeks or hours do you prospect? How many appointments does that turn into from, you know, just kind of walk us through from the first moment that you uncover an opportunity at a networking event to, you know, the post-sale on the backside. What does that, what does that process look like?
Very few people can explain that. Um, if they are successful, then I always ask two things. Number one is, what does your follow up [00:17:00] process look like? And then I get to hear that. But the t to me, the most important piece of information that I want to do is I wanna look at their calendar. I want to see, do you have prospecting in there?
Do you have networking? Do you have follow up? Do you have the components of that process on your calendar? Because if you don't have it, it's safe to say you're probably not doing it effectively as you could, because if, if it's not on there every Wednesday at three o'clock or whatever it looks like for you, if you don't schedule it.
We know in time management, most of the times if it's not scheduled, it's not something that's gonna get done.
Leighann Lovely: Right? Yeah, absolutely. And salespeople are notorious for when it comes to sitting down and picking up the phone to make phone calls, that is the number one thing that they go, I'll get to that later.
Dave Molenda: Yeah, exactly. I'll do that one
Leighann Lovely: later.
Dave Molenda: Oh wait, I wanna go on LinkedIn. It's like your shiny object thing, right? Oh, look at LinkedIn. I [00:18:00] just got a notification from LinkedIn. Somebody's, you know, wants to connect with me so I jump on LinkedIn and before you know it, my hour that I was supposed to do my follow ups, I was on LinkedIn and therefore that was a wasted hour in pertaining to trying to talk and sell something to somebody.
So,
Leighann Lovely: right. And you know, you go from LinkedIn to all of a sudden you're watching CAT videos. Right.
Dave Molenda: Yeah, exactly. And I had a guy on my podcast, uh, Drewby, and he's, his company name is called The Damn Leads because he is like, this is crazy. Right now, people are doing everything they possibly can do to get, you know, justify why I don't have to call them.
You know, like follow up if 50% of people are not following up in sales. And then, you know, 20, about 25, we'll just call it 25% are stopping after one attempt, and then 12% stop after, you know, two or [00:19:00] three. We have this small amount of people like that are calling more than three times. Well, the research shows that 80% of sales are made between the fifth and the 12th call.
So in my mind, 10% of the sales are being are, are 10% of the sales professionals are making like 80% of the sales. Right, because from a pure numbers perspective, and I'm open to it being different in your market, so don't shut us down because of that. But generally speaking, we need to go chase that sale some way, shape or form, um, before they're gonna be successful.
Unless you made a mistake or you're the only one in the world selling what you're selling. And if you are, then hey. Paul, Leanne and I and Wolf definitely, uh, partake in that because Right. There's so many people out there selling what everybody has now. It's crazy.
Leighann Lovely: Right. You know, and as a company, you know, love your sales is a company who does, you know, al the, [00:20:00] we, we get hired to make cold calls for other companies and, and it's so funny when the company will ask, so when can I expect the first results?
Yeah.
Dave Molenda: And I'm
Leighann Lovely: always like, okay, let me explain how cold calls work.
Dave Molenda: Right.
Leighann Lovely: You know, like, and, and, and it's always funny too because they're coming to us and they're like, so when are you gonna, I'm like, well, how many calls are you making right now?
Dave Molenda: Right. Yeah. Well,
Leighann Lovely: well, none, that's not coming to, right,
Dave Molenda: right.
That's why you're here. Come on. And, and then I,
Leighann Lovely: and then you go through that, those statistics that you just went through, and those typically, those have shifted because in today's worlds. Uh, those numbers are real when you have connects.
Dave Molenda: Yep.
Leighann Lovely: We're talking about less and less people answering their phone,
Dave Molenda: right?
Leighann Lovely: So you actually have to have connects and the amount of people who actually return phone calls these days,
Dave Molenda: right?
Leighann Lovely: Uh, right. Yep. So [00:21:00] now we're talking about, you know, name recognition. We're talking about making phone calls to create name recognition. We're also talking about creating credibility online so that if they see you that, oh, okay, look it now.
Now we're building up credibility. So it's becoming harder and harder in a saturated world where the bleeps and blooms are boom. You know what I mean? Are constantly going off in order to Yep. Differentiate yourself from another marketing company, another right. Printing company. And so that number from five to 12 is starting to go from, you know, 12 to 20 because people are being inundated.
And so you have to make, so when I get that question of, well, so when will I get my first appointment scheduled? It's like, well. Here's how many phone calls we make in X amount of time. [00:22:00] This is how many connects you can expect to potentially have.
Dave Molenda: Right?
Leighann Lovely: We don't, we don't say, yeah, we're gonna, and it's always funny when I get marketing, you know, and everybody gets this.
You get somebody who's marketing to you and they're like, we will schedule 12 to 15 appointments for you in the first month. And it's like. Okay, great. Sure. Are these gonna be quality or are you calling your friends and telling them to meet with me?
Dave Molenda: Yeah. Yep. No, that's, that's, that's so funny. I mean, I think one of the best kept secrets.
You know, everyone's always looking for secret sauce, magic bullet, whatever. I think when it comes to, um, you know, uh, follow up, I, i, I, I cringe when people call me and their whole goal is, Hey, I'm just calling to follow up, to check in on the status of X. That adds no value at all to the, to the person that, that, to that prospect.
So I always [00:23:00] tell people if you don't add value every single time that you call, don't call.
Leighann Lovely: Right?
Dave Molenda: Because you know, maybe it's a relevant article, maybe it's a new white paper. Maybe you got a connection for somebody, you know, if you can't find a reason to call, other than just following up on my proposal, that's so selfish.
That's so about you, which I get, but you want someone to call you back. You gotta give them reason to call you back because we always, I ask my, like I ask people like. Who would you wanna meet if you could? Dead or alive, right? So we'll just pick, I don't know, pick Tiger Woods. You know golfer. So if you said, Hey, I'd love to talk to Tiger Woods, if you were sitting at your desk and you looked down at your phone and it said, tiger Woods calling you, oh my gosh, you would take that call.
You'd stop whatever you were doing and you would take that call regardless. That's the kind of thought process that we need for these, for us to have. So when my prospect sees [00:24:00] Dave Melinda falling, he's like, oh my gosh, I think I better pick this up. He might have something for me. Mm-hmm. Other than following up on this quote, because that's to me is just like the kiss of death.
So. That's probably the hardest part. I think Leanne, a follow up is getting intentional, finding something on LinkedIn, finding something on their website, finding something that's valuable for them to further their um, life. And then they'll come back in spades for you.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And not only it's following up, circling back tho, tho.
And it's using that language too. Hey, I'm just circling back with you to see what Yeah. You know, I have 10 of those emails in my inbox right now. I don't even have to go and check. I know I do. Just circling back on this email I sent you.
Dave Molenda: Yeah. Or putting it at the top. I get that. The other one is, I just want to get, make sure this is on the top of the pile, and it's like, what [00:25:00] does that tell you?
Why is it at the bottom of the pile? It tells you that because you didn't add value, you didn't do something. Somewhere along the line there was a miss. A disconnect and that's what ends up happening is your stuff goes to the bottom. Let's just call it what it is. The funny thing is too, Leanne, is we're all consumers so we all know the tricks and tips and you know, like, I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time.
My phone said spam call. I can't remember the last time. I'm like, oh yes, a spam call. I'm gonna like, oh, I can't wait to talk to this person. Right. You know, we just, we're so aligned with being, you know, hiding from people that that's what they do. They're gonna hide from you, so we gotta give them reasons not to hide.
You gotta get in your mind. You're Tiger Woods and I got something that you definitely want. To hear. And that's again, one of the most powerful positions that you can be in, in the follow up side.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that [00:26:00] goes back to, you know, I, I've been, um, I, I was working with somebody a while back and he's like, well, I've got, you know, this many contacts and I'm just gonna send out every, uh, to, you know, 20,000 people.
I'm just going to email them all. And I'm like, okay, wait. Do you know that that 20,000 people have an interest in you? Like have you walked through who your ideal client is? Yeah. Have you gone through the steps to even figure out if spending the money to. Do an email campaign to 20,000 people that you, uh, you know, do you have any demographics?
Oh no, I haven't had a chance to do that. Then you're wasting your time and yours Exactly. And potentially burning a relationship that you could have if you spent just a little extra time to figure [00:27:00] out who they are by, you know, actually looking at. That information because
Dave Molenda: yeah, I don't know where this, yeah, I don't know where the, where the, where the spray and prey mentality came from.
Where qua quantity beats quality, 20,000 people. I'd rather you have even, even a hundred is too much. I mean, I have like a top 10 list, a top 10 target list for myself, because outside of 10 is unmanageable for me. Now again, everybody's different, so I'm open to whatever works in your world. Just think of 20,000 people.
Let's just say for the sake of the conversation, 20,000 people you email. Even if one, and I am terrible with math, hopefully you're better than me. What's 1% of 20,200?
Leighann Lovely: Mm-hmm. Is that right? Yeah. So let's just
Dave Molenda: say 1% respond back you. If you had 200 names in front of you of people that wanted to talk to you, you couldn't even handle it.
You couldn't [00:28:00] even handle, I don't care who you are, you couldn't handle it because you'd start at one. You, you just wouldn't be able to do it. So what's the purpose of 20,000?
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Dave Molenda: I don't know. I don't get it.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And that's, that's, but that's also too where a CRM can come in. Sure. And you also have to define your purpose.
What is your purpose? Are you right. Are you trying to sell to them or are you trying to get followers who will eventually, you know, help get your name out there for a
Dave Molenda: Right.
Leighann Lovely: But if you're trying to sell them something, then you better be targeting in a market in which has Yep. That has interest in what you're offering.
Otherwise there's no point.
Dave Molenda: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And that's why, you know, again, I have, you know, yep. I have a CRM that that is capable of putting each one of those into groups. And then when I make those phone calls, I know what I'm talking about [00:29:00] to that particular person. Sure. And it makes it easier for that follow up too, because
Dave Molenda: Yep.
Leighann Lovely: Now we know why we're following up. We know what they could potentially be interested in. We know the word track and that's another thing that sales. I don't know about you, Dave, but you know, I, my sales career, my career, you know, I'm 20 years in, you know, you've, you've 30
years in, back in the day, taking notes on all of that was not nearly as easy as is as it is today.
You know, a lot of notes, paper. I remember the days when I would drive around and all my notes were on paper. Um, but I got really hyper specific. Oh, talk to sure. Yep. Talked to Dave today. He mentioned, you know, that he's got a kid, he mentioned this or whatever. And I remember I was in a meeting and they introduced me to a gentleman, a salesperson actually that walked into the [00:30:00] room and he was going off about this and I was doing my pitch given my, this is the day when proposals were like 15 pages, 20 pages long, and people would actually sit and go through 'em and yeah, those days.
Um, and salesperson walked in and he had mentioned a couple of things. And as he was leaving, I said back to him and he looked at me, he goes, how did you know that I had a daughter? And I said, well, you had just mentioned it. And he's like, I didn't even realize I mentioned it, but
Dave Molenda: listen. Yep.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. That was, that was one of those things that as an HR person, 'cause I have an HR background, I was able to tie those listening skills.
And I, I would write down every tiny detail about everybody because people like to have you reference personal things about them.
Dave Molenda: Right?
Leighann Lovely: They feel important when you turn [00:31:00] around and reference something that you, that they've just said,
Dave Molenda: yep,
Leighann Lovely: comes human. No, absolutely.
Dave Molenda: I'm, I'm so old that I used to remember going and sitting at the, sitting in line at the gas station waiting to use the payphone because there were two, three salespeople before you.
So you know, and people, most of your listeners right now are like, what? What are you talking about? You know, so it's getting easier and easier with email, LinkedIn. You know, cell phones, all this stuff to connect. So again, and find information. So I wanna go back to that again. If you are not coming up with information on why this person needs to call you back, um, they're not gonna call you back.
Because most of these buyers have all these people calling them constantly. Now, again, depending on your industry and things like that, but you know, if you are, if you are calling on a buyer where his [00:32:00] job or her job is to be a buyer, you gotta be even more on your toes because that's all they do every day.
Is just, you know, take calls from people like us and, you know, they listen walls up. They're trying to find a reason to get you off the phone so they can get back to work and get some stuff done. Um, so it's, it's hard if you are just taking the easy route. Your paycheck is probably gonna be proportionate to how much grit and how much, you know, um, pain you've been through in your career.
So.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm gonna shift here for a little bit because I don't wanna miss the opportunity to, um, just talk about this for a little bit. Um, yeah, so you have a, um, recently, actually don't let me back up. Growing on purpose. Yes. Number one, um, Amazon bestseller. Tell me a little bit about this.
Dave Molenda: So [00:33:00] we back I, so I created this formula, which was really interesting because there's a lot of research done on ways and reasons to strengthen your team, and there's a lot of information out there and research on how to improve your customer's experience, but they've never really been connected to each other.
And I found out that a weak team provides a weak. Customer experience and a strong team creates a strong customer experience. So I created this, um, strengthen the team, plus improving your customer's experience equals profit. So if you are not profitable, um, you are struggling either with a weak team or a weak experience or both.
It's possible to have both, but generally you have one of those that are challenged, and that's again, when you think about your sales, why does your sales team. Why is, why is your sales team weak? You're not [00:34:00] investing time in 'em like we talked about before. Your onboarding consists of nine minutes of, you know, dis discussion at the beginning, and then you're done and they, you feel like the team is ready and the team's nowhere close to being ready.
So, so I wrote the book because I found some great research out there about how to. Connect the two together. So if you have a strong team and a strong customer experience, you will have strong profits. It's guaranteed.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. So that is available on Amazon?
Dave Molenda: Yes. So
Leighann Lovely: I, I definitely gotta check that out. Um, I have not had the privilege of reading that yet, but I'm definitely going to do that.
Um, I'm a geek and I love anything. Anything sales, anything, you know. Yep. So, um, definitely. And then, um, before we, before we end, you have your 32nd, second shame. Um, so please.
Dave Molenda: 32nd change. What am I gonna do in 30 seconds? What do you [00:35:00] want me to do? You
Leighann Lovely: have, you have pitch anything that you would like. Love to.
Okay. I would love to hear about, um, your events. You have monthly events. Yeah. I know you have an amazing podcast, so I'd love to hear. Okay. Love to hear about it. Gotcha.
Dave Molenda: So, yeah, I think the podcast is probably, um, gonna be the most helpful for your listeners, Leanne, because. We have people each week, um, like you do, uh, from around the world that come on, and we talk about the intersection of personal growth and business growth.
And a lot of times, uh, what ends up happening is, like what we just did is you just un a topic comes up and you just unpack that topic. And so, you know, whether it's how to be, how to start a business, how to grow a business, how to sell a business. I just had, um, uh, somebody on, we talked about A DHD in the workplace.
I mean, there's just so much going on on the team that we just need help. And so, you know, it's [00:36:00] 30, 40 minutes a week to just listen to other people's ideas from around the planet on how they're doing, uh, to and strengthen that team because, um, again, strengthening your team. We need an engaged team in order to be successfully.
Creating that, uh, great customer experience. So that's, uh, that's the spot if you want. In addition, don't stop listening to love your sales, but just, uh, create, uh, some more opportunity to find, uh, the Positive Polarity podcast. We'd be honored to hang out with you.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And you also have a monthly event, um, here in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, um, market that, um, is, is absolutely amazing and I wanna point that out.
Um. So, yeah,
Dave Molenda: no, absolutely. We meet every month at the Better Business Bureau of Milwaukee, and it's on positive polarity.com if you wanna learn more. But like last week, we just had four local business owners, [00:37:00] uh, as a panel, and they were talking about ways to improve the customer's experience because again, the research is crazy right now.
Almost. Nine out of 10 of our existing customers, Leanne will pay more for a better experience. I think it's 86% is the number. So that basically means if we have 10 customers right now, eight and a half of them will pay more for a better experience. So rather than invest all this time and energy to go ahead and get new customers, which we all have to do, but it's eight times easier to sell more to an existing customer.
They'll buy more when they're treated better. So rather than always, I, I get concerned about these companies that are always growing their sales. I love growth. I don't like it at the expense of our existing customers. If we have a high churn rate, we gotta really watch that because it's, like you said, early in the show, we can only [00:38:00] sell to so many of our friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Eventually we run out of people to sell, and so why not just sell more? To the existing customers 'cause they're gonna pay more on top of it. So it's definitely a win-win, going that route.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And customer service is, we've all seen a dip in customer service. Um, and I think, I think that we're, we're attempting to get that back up.
Um, but. It's wildly important, um, in, in retaining well in growing your business so well Anyways, this has been an awesome conversation. Um, I know that you had mentioned that people can reach out to you on your website, positive polarity.com. Um, but you're, that information will also be in the show notes.
So if you are interested in, in, um, reaching out to Dave, getting his book, um. His, his contact information will be available, um, on the show notes. But, um, again, Dave, thank you so much for [00:39:00] joining me today.
Dave Molenda: Yes, thanks for all you're doing. I'm excited to be on your podcast and, uh, keep pushing forward because sales world needs what you're sharing, that's for sure.
Leighann Lovely: Well, thank you so much.
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Robb Conlon: Thanks for joining us for Love Your Sales. For More, connect with Leanne on LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating in review. We'd love to hear what you think, looking for a way to take your sales process to the next level. [00:40:00] Visit us@loveyoursales.com to find out more about how Leanne can take your organization to new Revenue Heights.
And be sure to join us next time for more great ways to love your customers so they love your [00:41:00] sales.
