Jordan discusses key insights from the book “Demand Side Sales 101” by Bob Moesta, which challenges three common sales myths and introduces a fresh perspective on selling financial advice.
The book emphasizes that sales aren’t random but rather caused by specific struggling moments in clients’ lives, and that people buy for their own reasons rather than being convinced by salespeople. Jordan illustrates how understanding these principles can transform how financial advisors approach and connect with potential clients.
Transcript
Jordan Haines:
Hello friends. And welcome to another episode of L mentality. My name is Jordan Haynes, financial vitals expert here at elements. Your host for today’s show. And I want to share a book that I just read now. If you listen to the show the last few weeks, you know that, uh, this has been on my mind a lot. I spend a lot of my time selling advice, and this is a show dedicated to helping advisors. [00:01:00] Um, solve the needs and the problems for their clients. To do that.
We need to find the right people. We need to sell. And I know many of you listen to this hate that word. It feels sketchy. It doesn’t feel right. It feels kind of like a scary word. We’ve all been sold. Something we don’t want to be sold. Um,
We’ve all been sold, something we don’t want to be sold. And we know of clients in our industry that have insulted something that they don’t want to be sold.
And so today I want to summarize this book that I read, that I really, really enjoyed. The name of the book is demand side sales, 1 0 1. Stop selling and help your customers make progress. It’s by Bob molesta. I don’t even know if I’m saying his last name, right? It’s spelled M O E S T a. This is one that I had to doubt.
I had to buy an actual book, which normally I listened to them. And I think that that helped me a lot now. Um, many of you don’t like that word sales, we’re going to use it. Interchangeably sales is what we all do. [00:02:00] We all sell advice in some form or fashion, whether it’s convincing a client. Uh, to do something that we believe is in their best interest today, or finding new clients to become part of our practice. There.
I just finished the book actually this morning. And at the end of the book, he talks about three myths. And three principles of sales that are created throughout the book. And I thought this would be a fantastic summary and one that we can discuss here on the show and I’ll let each of you go download it.
It’s a wonderful book, actually, probably one of the best sales books, I think for it’s not traditionally for financial advisors, but I think it was wonderful. And I’m implementing a lot of the things that went into that. Let’s start with the three myths about sales that he wants to dispel. Myth number one. And I’ll read this and then we’ll talk about it. Myth number one, supply creates demand, build it, and they will buy it. He says, no, the product does not.
Or the service in this case does not create demand. However, well-meaning your aspirations. They are not enough to sell [00:03:00] your service and cause people to make the necessary trade-offs. People want to be their definition of best, not yours. Let me say that again, people want to be their definition of best, not yours. It’s about fitting your product into their life and understanding the progress they are trying to make. We’ll talk about that in one of his principles. I really like that phrase, people want to be their definition of the best, not yours. You’ve you’ve all heard me talk about this.
I think sometimes we can be too comprehensive, right? In search of knowing the optimal path forward. Sometimes we forget that most people just want to be good enough. They want the best life for them. They don’t want our version of their best life. If I were to say this differently, I think Carl Richards does a really good job at talking about this. Don’t put your values. On your client’s financial plan. That’s myth.
Number one. Supply creates demand, build it, and they will buy it. Myth number two. Sales are random the needle in a haystack. Before I read what he says about this. I have heard this mentality so much talking advisors over the last few [00:04:00] years, almost like I can’t sell. Right. There’s no way that I can sell another human being this.
They will raise their hand when they are ready. I think that’s really, it just feels random. So this is what he says about that. This is the idea that you just need to find the people and they will buy. Sales is not about finding people. It’s about creating demand. Many salespeople operate under the profit probability framework. If I get my product or my service in front of enough people, eventually it will sell.
I’ve got to play with the numbers. Random is one of the worst concepts in the world. It causes people to wait and work harder in vain. Sales are caused. You must build a system. Now I’ll be honest. I have fallen under this myth many times in the past. Almost like it’s just completely random. Um, my marketing and all of this is just get in front of as many people as possible play in traffic.
Hope that someone raises their hand and I find the right person, but this book actually does a really good job at. At, um, telling the story that people go through. Right. [00:05:00] Sales are not random. People raising their hand is not random. They’re caused by something. What is that causation? We’ll talk about that here in a little bit. So that’s myth.
Number two, sales are random needle in a haystack mentality, myth number three. And the final myth that he says in this book, sales is about convincing people. And you can convince anyone to do anything, right? This is probably the part that turns off a lot of us, financial advisors off sales. This is what he says about that. Salespeople.
Don’t convince people to buy people, convince themselves. I want to say that again. Salespeople or advisors don’t convince people to buy. People convince themselves, they buy for their own reasons. The customer defines the value. You need to understand them first and then your product and how it fits into their life. Now many of us who have gone through, I call it CFP brain. Uh, we’ve gone through the CFP or really any of these educational programs know that we come at this with some preconceived motion of what people need.
They need a comprehensive financial plan. And [00:06:00] if only I go out there and I be as comprehensive as possible in my marketing and in my sales. And I show them all the different ways that I quote unquote, add value in their life. Well, then that’s going to get people to buy I’m casting the widest net possible. At the end of the day clients or regular human beings or prospects, they don’t care about that. They care about their problems.
Carl Richards often says people don’t wake up in the morning wanting a financial plan. They wake up, wake up with pain or a problem to solve. We need to understand what that problem is. So let me repeat that again. Myth number three, sales is about convincing people that you can’t convince anyone to do anything, or you can convince anyone to do anything. And then let me just repeat what he says. People. Uh, sales people. Let’s replace that with advisers advisers, don’t convince people to buy people, convince themselves. So those are the three myths he talks about throughout the book of, uh, I think things that we think about when it comes to sales.
And I think it’s really helpful for us to keep in mind. I want to read the three principles. These are so where the other one is kind of opt out. These are the things we don’t want to get confused with. These are kind of the things that he talks about throughout the book. So the [00:07:00] three principles for success in sales. Um, I’m gonna replace anytime he’s a sales person, I’m gonna replace it with adviser.
I think that’ll make more sense here. Principle number one, people buy for their own reasons. We’ve talked about this a little bit. This is what he says about that. It’s more about progress than it is about your product or your service. Your job as a salesperson is to help people make progress on their terms.
It’s about more than selling and making the almighty dollar. Approaching sales from this mindset will set you apart as a great salesperson. And the one theme throughout this book that, um, Bob mentioned is this idea of people wanting to make progress. That’s ultimately what people want out of their life.
They want to make progress. It’s not about our service. It’s not about the widget. It’s not about the features. It’s about their ability to solve their problem, their ability to make progress, their ability to capture an opportunity. And if we can arrive at that point and articulate it in their words, I think we have something there. So principle number one, people buy for [00:08:00] their own reasons. Principle number two, he says nothing is random.
Everything has caused this one. I’ll be honest. This one was a tough one for me to latch onto when I read this book, because honestly before, same as before we’re needles are in a haystack right before I always thought just. Cast the widest net, people are going to raise their hand with a ready. But he says here, nothing is random.
Everything is caused. This is what he says about that. Understanding the causal mechanisms of why people do what they do down to the action level is critical. It will help you see patterns and sell better while helping people make progress faster. I’m going to leave that there, because I’m going to tell a story here in a second of an experience I had just this week. Um, that kind of brings us all together.
And I think that that will make a lot more sense. [00:09:00]
K and final principle principle, number three. The struggle. Creates demand. And this is what he says. The struggling moment is the seed for all sales. Where do people struggle? Helping people make progress is embedded in finding the struggling moments. So find the struggling moment. We did a, uh, pre-conference presentation at X, Y P N live this year.
It was me, Reese Harper, and Carl Richards. It was a lot of fun. It was a four hour. Uh, conversation. I think I talked about this in this podcast and one of the things that we mentioned as we went in and we’re brainstorming with the people there, Reese went up and drew on the board, aligned with big jumps in it.
Right. This is like what you’d expect when you see, uh, like a heartbeat chart. You know, with the random spikes. And he said, people’s lives look like this, right. They kind of just going along to get along and then something happens some struggling event, some moment at which there’s some pain that they need solved and then it goes back to normal.
And then there’s another one. And then there’s another one. Our job as [00:10:00] advisors is what Reese talked about. There is to be there when people need us the most it’s to strike while the iron’s hot it’s to be there in that struggling moment. And I think that’s what he’s talking about here. The struggling moment is so important for us to understand. And this is something that, that I think is the biggest takeaway for me in this book.
And I’ll tell you a story in a second that will kinda help articulate this. I don’t think as advisors, we know what that struggling moment is. I think sometimes we assume we do, but have we ever talked to our best clients? The ones that we love the most that we wish we had more of an ask them and actually dove in to what their struggling moment was. I’m not sure many of us have.
And one of my favorite things that he does in this book, as he goes through lots of cases, and specifically, he goes through an exercise where he interviews. Uh, customers have. Uh, companies that bought a product and he really dives deep. He wants to understand on an intimate level. What time of day you had this thought, what was the weather like? Um, all for the purpose of trying to understand in the client’s words. What matters to them? What the struggling moment was. [00:11:00] So, let me close this book.
I want to tell you guys a story. Um, an experience I had just yesterday. So as many of you know, I do prospecting for dentist advisors. So I take a lot of our inbound consultations. I talked to them, I answered their questions. Um, and see if they’re a good fit for Dennis risers and, uh, see if I can get them to come over.
If I think they are. Um, And, uh, so every week I probably talk to. Eight to 10 new people. That are interested in our service. Yesterday afternoon, right before I was signing off for the day, I had a call with a young dentist. Let me tell you a little bit about this person. Uh, this dentist had graduated dental school probably two years ago. Uh, this dentist had bought a practice about a year ago, maybe a little less, 50 50 partnership with another dentist. And they’ve been really productive to good high producing business.
Plenty of revenue, really stable. Um, and over the last year he’s been learning the ropes of becoming a business owner. And when he [00:12:00] got on this call, I asked him, why did you decide to schedule this conversation today? Why do you want to talk to a financial advisor right now? And he mentioned how he bought this practice a year ago.
He’s finally feeling like he’s getting the hang of things and feeling like maybe he needs to do more to capture the opportunities, feeling like he’s finally making good money. He saving good. He just wants to make sure he has a good plan for the future. As far as like debt management, taxes and investments and retirement planning, all the things that go into finances. Uh, he rattled off kind of a laundry list of things, but the overall theme was I’m at a point where there are some big decisions for me to make and I want to be ready for those decisions. So I pressed them on that and I asked him a few questions, very similar to the ones that are in this book. And, um, I wanted to understand what was that event that caused them to do that.
So I said, I, the first question I asked was. Is there a specific event that you can look to? That was like a turning point for you. Where before you weren’t really considering having a financial advisor, but now you are. And he told me a story about, uh, [00:13:00] you know, once a week at the beginning of the week on Tuesdays, their team does a team huddle in the morning.
And as preparation for that team huddle, he reviews their practice analytics software. So he has a. Uh, business analytics software that he, uh, had as part of the practice acquisition, and he’s become really familiar with it. And he’s starting to look at these metrics, these KPIs about the business. And in the morning as he’s preparing for this huddle has this realization. And the realization was something like this. I’m a business owner now. I’m no longer, just a clinician, just a dentist. I’ve grown up. And as part of being a business owner. I think I need to be more responsible. The second thought that he had was I just accomplished all the goals that I had. Right.
Like I had gone through dental school. My goal then was to graduate. Then my goal was to get my production up as an associate and to feel comfortable with like clinical work. And then my goal was to buy a practice. And then my goal as a practice owner was to just get the hang of things. And [00:14:00] his thought to me was I’m there.
I’ve done it. I’ve done all the short-term goals that I’ve had in my life. And now I don’t really know what to do, but I know that there’s more. I know that there’s a retirement. I know that there’s like buying a house, building the life that I want. Or like I’m finally at the point where I can make those decisions. And it’s time to double down and be valuable.
And I spent a lot of time asking him questions about this. Where was this? Right? It was when he was in his practice management software, looking at a specific thing. What I learned from there. And this is why I want to tell you the story, the principles that I talk about that we’re talking about in this book, right?
The principle number two, nothing is random. Everything is causal. That triggering moment for him. The struggling moment was when he realized that he was a business owner, when he realized that he had grown up, when he realized that he was in that next phase of life and he needed someone to help him with that. Now, if I were to come to him before that and have that conversation, and I’ve had plenty of conversations with people before this. Struggling moment, this, this event.
And it’s been really difficult for them to see the value [00:15:00] of financial advice, but in that moment, he could recognize the value of a financial advisor. I need to do more. I need someone that can help me figure out what my goals actually are, what I want out of life. So I think that’s a really good example of the three principles he has there.
People buy for their own reasons. Right. He had bought a business. He was doing great. And it wasn’t until he had that realization that morning before his team huddle, that he was open to and ready. And the journey that uh, is discussed in this book is basically a buyer’s journey, which starts from. Uh, not interested, unaware.
We don’t know what the problem is, too. Passive licit, passive looking, which is just like, I think maybe it’s like a question is inserted. Maybe I need to grow up. Maybe there’s more to this and then active listening. And there’s a switch there, an active listening. And that’s the switch I just described there.
Principle, number two, nothing is random. Everything is caused. What was the causal event? The causation here. It was the practice analytics software. It was the sitting there and realizing I’m responsible business [00:16:00] owner. Am I responsible in my personal life? And then finally the struggle creates demand.
He was not interested at all until he had that struggling moment. So, what would I encourage you all to do? Um, He actually gives a few tips here at the end. And, uh, this, I think is. Really helpful. And so I’m just going to read them real quick. He put, he gives three things at the very end of this book for each of us to do.
And I’ll leave this, this here today. I know this is getting long. Number one articulate the buyer’s timeline and the four forces of progress. Do you understand? I like this question. Do you understand the dominoes that had to fall? Before a sale happened. Do you understand the dominoes that had to fall before the sale happen?
What causes people to hire you? That was number one, number two, summarize it into a meaningful story, including the functional, the emotional and the social motivations, right? What are the things that are motivating people to, to work with you? And then finally design a sales process or a system to help others make progress that [00:17:00] turns you away from being a salesperson to a servicer.
You are there to help people solve their problems. You are there to help people make progress and the first step to make progress in their life. Is to hire you the advisor. Now it’s not going to be for everyone. But I think that that’s really valuable. So I know this doesn’t necessarily have to do directly with elements.
You guys know that I like to plug in elements here or there, but I thought it would be really valuable for those listening. Um, great book. Let me read it again. Demand side sales, 1 0 1. Bye Bob Moesta with Greg angle. Uh, Subutex stops selling and help your customers or clients make progress. I hope that’s valuable for those of you listening, go out and buy the book.
Please tell me what you think is wrong with what I said today. Um, but I’m going to be exploring a lot of principles that I read there. I thought it would be valuable to you all. And with that. We’ll talk next week.