Jody: [00:00:00] Do you ever need a hand with sales? Do you think you’re no good at sales or that you suck because you have commission breath? Well, you are going to love this episode of Online Confidential, where we go behind the scenes of Secret Ad Manager business, and today we have special guest Renee Hribar, who is the sales queen.

Welcome, Renee. It is great to have you on the show!

Renee: Oh, thank you. Thank you! I love it. Secret ad manager business, dun da da da.

Jody: It’s our own sort of little world. I always like to say this is not a place where we are bagging out clients, right. I am not that kind of person. There are some that do, but we love our clients, we want to work the best that we can, but you know, there is stuff that we just need to keep to ourselves as ad managers and, you know, ask these questions.

So this one is obviously going to be out there a bit more. But sales is such an important part of our business because without sales, without clients, we don’t have a business. [00:01:00] I’ve been working with Renee personally for a number of years, and have learned so much. She’s helped me to generate multiple six figures probably, by now.

I don’t have a track of it all, but she really does have heaps of ideas, which she draws on from her years, decades even, there we go, we’re aging you Renee, sorry about that, of sales expertise.

Renee: The secret’s out.

Jody: Our secret is out! We’re letting the cat out of the bag everywhere today. So she is in Detroit. She’s got a lot of New York experience as well, so, which I absolutely sort of love.

So her boldness and her sales experience really comes through but in a way that does not have any sleeze. So I’m excited to share Renee with you all today so you can learn a bit more about her, her strategies, and how effective they are at making sales and helping you to get leads. So with that Renee,

Renee: With that introduction!

Jody: I know. Is there anything more? Tell us a bit more about yourself.

Renee: Thank [00:02:00] you for coming today!  So let’s talk about leads, right? Let’s talk about leads. So I have shared this with you and a few other of the women who have gone through your Elite Ad Manager Certification that if I’m an ad manager, if I was an ad manager with your certain specific set of skills, I would want my best friends to be business coaches.

And I mean all those programs where they teach you how to grow a course, how to make money in your sleep, all that great stuff.

Hey, that’s great. I have courses. I think it’s fantastic. But they’re only as good as the amount of people you can get to see the sales page and to learn about you in the interim. And so the best and fastest and easiest way to do all that is with great ads.

So if I was an ads manager today, I would want to invite myself with the best of intentions to offer up potentially some free training, maybe a 20 minute training on what is a [00:03:00] pixel and why you need one.

I mean, the most basic, basic ads brain would go, ‘Oh, that’s so easy. Who would need that?’ Lots of people believe me. So even if they have a course and a beautiful brand and gorgeous sales pages and students, it doesn’t mean that they don’t need you and your beautiful ad brain.

And then what about those offers that they make that are, you know, $27, $37, $17. You go to the sales page, you buy that, and they say, ‘Whoa, hey, wait, don’t leave yet. You’ve still got this to get’ those beautiful funnels, need ads. Those are built for traffic and with the way you teach ads about really the strategy behind the offers. I’ve just seen such success.

So that’s the first place. If I were an ads manager today, I would be looking for business coaches to befriend . How do you feel about that? Do you think that’s a good idea?

Jody: Yes, absolutely. This is what I say [00:04:00] in one of my trainings. Pretty much all of us here know Amy Porterfield.

If you don’t know Amy Porterfield, check her out. She’s the queen of digital products, right? Helping people take their expertise online and she’ll have thousands of people sign up for her Digital Course Academy. So these are people who are wanting to learn how to get online. It is one thing to build an amazing program, to create that $27 offer. But it’s a completely other thing to get traffic to it, and that’s what they all need. Otherwise, it’s that needle in a haystack. Or one of your analogies for me over the years has been, it’s like a car sitting on the driveway with no petrol.  It’s not going anywhere.

So they need ads. Now with that, some things to consider, and again, this is where you are so great with all of this, who is it that you’re wanting to talk to with those leads? So for ad managers, I really recommend that they have their done for you services as well as [00:05:00] an extra scalable side of their business.

It’s not so time for money exchange. But it is that group coaching program where these kind of leads, because some of them, they do have their business, they are able to invest into ad management services. But there’s always a point where there’s business owners that need to roll up their sleeves, learn how to run Facebook ads, and you are not doing the done for you services, but you can bring them into a group coaching thing.

So by getting out there, getting those leads, getting those connections, like you said, with all these business owners, it’s a perfect way to start the conversation and learn more about them and discover which offer you have best suits them. Tell us about your three Cs because as I just mentioned the conversation there.

Renee: Yes, Yes. If I’m a manager today and we’re talking about leads right now, and I said, hey, let’s make all of those business coaches out there, your best friends, even if you only find four best friends a year, you know, so [00:06:00] one a quarter you’re out doing a free training for and then based on that, they and their audience might say, ‘Hey, can you do a one-on-one session with me’ or ‘Can you do an ads audit?’ or ‘Can you help me…’ fill in the blank.

Many of those people that those business coaches are coaching are startup bootstrapping businesses. So the business coach, that’s your best friend, she’s got a community of 5,000 people that are bootstrapping their first $600,000. They might not have enough money to put behind ads that would make sense to have a dedicated ads manager creating, running and maintaining ads.

And that’s where I think that’s the brilliance of your ADvisory resellers, which I just love, love, love this whole program. So if I’m an ads manager today and I’m doing one-on-one, done for you services for some of those people, what about, let’s say a hundred people? Three of them can be my clients for one-on-one services, but what about the other 97?

Jody: Right?

Renee: What you brought up is what are the three [00:07:00] Cs? So whenever I meet somebody, let’s say I go into this, my best friend, my business best friend, business coach Jane Smith, and she has 5,000 people, 100 of them want to talk to me. They came onto my email list after my free talk. Three of them qualified to be my 1:1 clients, the other 97 don’t but they’re all valuable to me. Every single person that’s come onto my email list or connected with me based on my best friend, the business coaches, our Clients, which we already covered. That’s three of them. Connectors. So maybe they’re also business coaches that have group programs because that’s what the business coach is coaching them on, and maybe they could connect you to their community and that’s your next quarter’s worth.Community, connection or their connectors.

So 1) Clients, 2) Connectors or 3) Collaborators.

I think that no matter what you do in terms of sharing your brilliance, that there’s always a reason to do it. But like you were saying about the group coaching program, you have ADvisory resellers. So if I know you, I’m able to [00:08:00] get in on that.

Then offer anybody who doesn’t qualify for me to be in house then I could say something like, ‘Hey, listen. I’ve got a 12 week group coaching program. You get access to me every single week. I will come in and do eyes on your ads. I’ll look at what’s going on. Check out your ad account, check to see the metrics’.

You know, most people don’t know what industry standards are. What numbers do I look at Jody to know if I should change my ad creative or my audience, or my product? Is it the funnel? What is it? Well, you’ve trained your people to know what to look for, so they go in eyes on your ads every single week.

Plus access to this beautiful digital program that my coach, Jody Milward created and gives them everything they need to continue on. Beautiful. An amazing way to add 5, 10, 15, $20,000 extra to their income every single month.

Jody: Absolutely. And some of my ad managers and ADvisory resellers have done that exact same thing.

They’re working with a business coach who is like that Amy Porterfield. Not Amy [00:09:00] Porterfield, but that example where it’s like, this is how you get going online. This is how you create these products. This is what you need to do, oh yes and you’re going need to know facebook ads. Here is my said person who is working with us, and they start coaching their people or educating them and you know, offering those sort of services because like you said, not everyone qualifies for done for you and that’s okay.

You don’t have to take them on board if they don’t qualify because that’s just makes for a stressful time. So like you were saying, make these business coaches your best friend. Yep. Well, tell us how to do that. For those of us that aren’t good at making friends. You know, at lunch time when we were kids, we were sitting over in the corner by ourselves eating our lunch.

Right? How do we make friends with these people?

Renee: Great question. So if I am looking for business coaches to befriend, I want to look in my newsfeed for people that are running ads or that are launching programs or that have free communities and go in and be the star student. Go in and say, ‘Hey, I noticed you have this beautiful community. How can I add [00:10:00] value? I’m an ads manager. I do talks on pixels, on getting set up, on running ad campaigns that aren’t the traditional ad campaigns that get unique results. I’m doing three free talks this quarter. Did you want to be one? It could be as easy as that, like identifying who they are, by looking in your newsfeed.

Number two, do some recon. Look them up. Don’t say ‘So what do you do?’ Because you know they have an online presence. Google it. Look them up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, get on their email list whenever somebody says hit reply on their email. Be one of the eight that actually do it.

Jody: Yep. A hundred percent. I’ve done that in the past, like years ago, there was a coach and he had a group of a hundred thousand people or so. I replied to his emails a few times. And he replied back and when he came on board it was like, ‘Oh yeah, we have chatted before in [00:11:00] our emails’.

That is super effective. And a hundred percent, like you said, don’t just ask ‘Oh, what do you do?’  Do the reco,n go over and see what their Facebook profile says or what their LinkedIn says. Oh, I see you’ve been doing this. How long have you been doing that for? How did you get into this?

That’s another great thing that I have learnt from you over the years is asking questions. So when you do start that connection leave a question there to keep the conversation going. So with that one, it’d be ‘Oh, how long have you been doing this for?’

Or like some of the other ones from you. If you look at their personal profile, maybe they’ve just holidayed somewhere where you’d like to go or you’re going to go, ‘Hey, I just saw you are in Maine. How’s the lobster rolls there?’

Renee: Right, exactly. So put on your journalistic hat, take a page from Journalism 101.

And if you’re not, not sure, Google Journalism 101. [00:12:00] You know, thank you information age, putting everything at my fingertips. I don’t have to go to the library and look up microfiche. And if you know what I’m talking about, you’re my people. So what I want to know is what questions could you ask that are not Googleable?

And that’s what you were saying is, ‘How are the lobster rolls?’ I’m sure maybe they posted about it, maybe they didn’t. Right. Or ‘What inspired you to go to Maine?’ Or ‘I see that you went to Cal Tech. My cousin went there’, you know? ‘What did your major in?’ Maybe that’s not a part of it, right?

So don’t be afraid to just ask business questions. Also, you can ask personal questions too. And so the other angle that I take or strategy that I encourage is by putting on that journalistic hat is saying, ‘I want to spotlight you’ or  ‘I want to feature you to my audience.’ When I’ve said that to people in the past, if they’re like, ‘Well, my audience isn’t big enough’, you know what?

I’ve never, not once had anybody say, ‘You wanna spotlight me? Well, how big is your audience?’ because that’s not what they’re thinking. They’re immediately thinking, ‘Am I big enough? Oh my goodness, I’m going to be featured. Oh, [00:13:00] wow.’ Like you’re lighting up their love receptors. There’s no worry there.

Even if your audience is 10 people. That’s 10 more people that they get exposed to for free. And if they’re worth their salt in business, they know they’d rather go to the opening of a shoebox than nothing at all. And so even if you go to a shoebox, take my words, write this down ‘I want to spotlight you to my audience.’

Don’t be ashamed of how big or little you think your audience is. There’s always someone who’s bigger and always someone who’s not. And so it could be as easy as a post. You could just spotlight their business program. If they’re launching something or have something for sale, you’re an ad manager, they’re a business coach, you have complimentary services.

So the analogy that I give all the time is if you’re a house cleaner and a dry cleaner, you want to be best friends because you both clean busy people’s stuff who have more money than time. Right. What if you both collaborated? So if I’m an ads manager and I want to get the attention of, befriend, if you will, this [00:14:00] next business manager, get on their email list, look them up, ask them, you know, put on your journalistic hat and then invite them.

Say, ‘Listen, I want to feature you, I was looking at these three posts, which posts should I share first?’ That could be the easiest way, just sharing a post, something that they’re marketing. If you want to go deeper and you feel comfortable, write an interview. I’m sure we’ve all read interviews in magazines or newspapers or online.

Ask them a couple questions. Two, three questions. ‘What inspired you to start your business?’ ‘What made you choose to live in Bermuda? I heard about the Bermuda Triangle. Is that true? Tell me more. You seem to be fine.’ Or you know ‘What’s your favorite food? Fun fact.’ Okay. Tacos.

Okay. Awesome. ‘What your favorite taco? Hard shell? Soft shell?’ I mean, you could go deeper. You could have fun, you could make a business. And what does it do? It creates proximity. It creates a friendship. Worst case scenario, you make a new friend with somebody else in the world who knows your name and what you do for a living.

Leads are everywhere. The internet brings them right to our hand. All we have to do is put on that journalistic [00:15:00] cap. Not be afraid to ask some questions. Do a little recon and offer up your best self.

Jody: Absolutely. It’s getting visible and making the connection, like you said a lot of people aren’t as hard to reach as you may think.

If you reply to their email, just like you said, that’s going to stand out. Right? Huge. It’s so good to see like the content that you’re putting out there is being engaged with and rewarded.

If you do reply, if you are commenting on their posts, if you do share their posts. You will catch their attention and they’ll go, ‘Who is this person?’, oh, they run ads. We’ve been looking for someone to run our ads for some time and you know, ‘Hey, let’s have a meeting. Tell me about what you do.’ Right? Who knows where things can go to from there.

I think a good thing for me for over the years from a sales perspective, because as Renee knows, sales isn’t my favorite thing.

I kind of freak out. I’m much better now, but then I was, I digress there because I lost my train of thought. It’s coming from a place of serving and so that’s what [00:16:00] I now remind ad managers. It’s not coming from a place of, ‘Oh, I’m going to pitch this and make this sale.’

It’s coming from a place of serving. So even if they’ve sent out an email and you notice that, oh, okay, I’ve clicked on the link and there’s actually no pixel on there, then you can reply and say, ‘Hey, this is great. Love this email. I checked out sales page, it’s awesome, but just letting you know there’s no pixel installed. So you might want to let your team know about that.’

So then they’ll say, ‘Oh, okay. Thank you so much!’ You’re on the radar.

Renee: Absolutely. So don’t think, oh, they have a hundred thousand people on their email list and they said hit reply that they must get lots of replies. They don’t. Right. A lot might be like 20 and you’re one of 20.

That’s really good odds.

Jody: Good odds.

Renee: Exactly. And you don’t have to give up. So if you have a hot list, I call it a love list of five or 10 best friends that you want to have the next quarter. Doesn’t mean you have to always be hustling. This could be, you know, [00:17:00] like I say, 10 minutes a day where you’ve got your phone out and you’re waiting on the pickup line at school or you’re waiting for the pot to boil for pasta that night, or waiting for, I don’t know, whatever. There’s a thousand things. We wait for the last dryer cycle to get the clothes out to fold them before they look like they came out of underneath the bed. You know?

Jody: That’s right. That’s right. So this is where you go and find the leads, start those connections and start some conversations. Get on their radar.

So how would you typically then go, okay, let’s take this to second base? How do you have a call or whatever it is.

Renee: So one of my first invitations is ‘I want to spotlight you, which post you want me to use’ or, ‘Thank you for being spotlighted to my community. I want to be of service back to you. I’d love to give a free talk. I only give three of these a quarter, or three of these a year’, or whatever your timeframe [00:18:00] is. It’s important to have a time frame. ‘Here are the three topics that I’ve given talks on or that I love giving talks on’, or ‘Here are the five questions I love answering.’

‘Would any of these work for your community in the next few months?’ Yes. Great. Let’s set up a date. Okay, fantastic.

Then I usually say, ‘Listen, I’ve loved being a part of your community. I’d like to give you a free gift. I don’t typically, but I’d love to give you a free consult where I could actually go through some of the key areas that I see great businesses like yours, missing the mark either on tracking, conversion and the key facets of improving and optimizing their ads to their funnel so that they make the most for every dollar they spend. I love it when Facebook pays us back, you know, or when the internet pays us back. You don’t have to just say Facebook, you know, when the internet pays us back for our hard earned work.

So I’ve got two times available next week, one at 5:15, the other one at 6:45. Do either of those times work for you for a quick one on one Zoom audit?’

Jody: Love it!

Renee: That’s how I move a second base. [00:19:00]

Jody: Yes. That’s always been such a key thing, right? Because a lot of us, you know, we might learn set up your freelancing business, set up this, and you know, you have a funnel, it’s the application funnel.

Whereas this is saying go here and click the time. One of the things that we do there is say, ‘Great, let’s catch up. Here’s the link to my calendar, and then you’re in limboland. You’re waiting for that calendar appointment to come through. Where is it? And that’s something that I’ve really loved of yours is going back to them and saying ‘Here’s a couple of times, what works for you?’

Generally out of those two times you can find something that works, you lock it in, and you send that calendar. So you’ve retained control. It’s also a higher touch kind of thing. It’s keeping it personal. It’s not just dropping that calendar link and then running and hoping for the best.

So I really love that white glove approach. So, awesome. We’ve found our lead, we’ve done the connecting, we’ve given value, we’ve encouraged them and all that kind of stuff to get offered the two calls, and we’re on the call. [00:20:00] So tell us about that process then. So when you’re on, without giving away too much of your secret source, what would you normally do on that call?

Renee: Yeah, so just like if you’ve ever been trained on how to speak in front of a crew, a group, or if you’ve ever been trained on running a webinar or even on teaching or coaching, like you’ve taken those certifications, the key is to ask more questions, to have their voice more than your voice.

So overarchingly, how do I run these calls? I want to hear their voice 80% of the time and only hear my voice 20%, which as an extrovert talker can’t stop. It’s hard for me, some of my best, best sales people. And I mean, I’ve been coaching people on sales for decades, like you said. My best students, my best people were always card holding, flag waving introverts that are great with information and numbers, but [00:21:00] aren’t that great at asking questions.

And so you’re like, Renee, how is that going to help? Because you listen well, because you’re active listeners. Actively listening allows you to, you don’t even have to have eye contact. I mean, you’re looking at their ad account, you’re asking a question, and then you’re saying, I’m just going to take notes, and then you don’t even have to look at them.

That actually is really good psychologically, because it helps them reveal more versus feeling like they’re squared off. I take notes and then I take a page out of my therapist’s book. So let me repeat back to you what I’m hearing you say. Anybody else in therapy?

Okay. I know it’s not just me, folks. So, let me repeat back to you what I’m hearing you say, you’re trying to accomplish this, you’ve tried this, you’ve done this, and I see the results you’re getting. There’s a couple things that I see here that I also still have questions around. But it feels like you’re at the point where you’re looking to optimize this. Is that right?

Am [00:22:00] I on the right track? Or who’s in charge of this within your organization? What are you trying to accomplish? So I want to find a pain point. I mean, I got them into this call based on a gift, right? So it wasn’t like they were actively calling me. I brought them here. They may not actively have a problem that they’re ready to admit.

That doesn’t mean I give up. So if at this point of the conversation they’re not actively saying, ‘Yeah, that is a problem I want to solve’ and ‘Wow. Renee, I’ve never heard anybody explain my ads to me like that’. If they’re not saying that kind of thing, then I’m not going to go for the close.

Did you guys get that? I’m not going to go for the close. What I am going to go for is another call. 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Just a 15 minute check in call. So let’s say for example, they’re like, ‘Yeah, everything’s pretty good’ and you’re like, ‘Well, there’s a couple things that I see there’ and they’re saying, ‘Yeah, we’re working on that, I got somebody in house’.

Okay, so that’s cool. I just don’t want to lose touch. [00:23:00] I’m invested in your business now. I love everything I’m seeing and I want to be a part of your future. I don’t know what that looks like. It doesn’t even have to be me, but I don’t want to lose touch. So let’s do this. Let’s set up another call and I open up my phone.

How about you know, in three months time? Just to check in for 15 minutes. You know how the internet is, right? I’ll see you, you’ll see me. We’ll wave to each other, but it’s like we’re waving each other around the highway going in opposite directions. We’re not actually going to get the chance to sit down unless we bump into each other by accident, but then we’re both probably going to be busy.

I’m speaking, you’re doing your thing. We’re all busy, so I don’t want too much time to go past and I don’t want to lose touch. What I know about business is that it’s hard to find good people, and when you do, keep in touch, and that’s what I hope to do. So does that seem fair? They’re like, ‘Yeah’. I’ve never had anybody, when I framed it like that, be like, ‘I think I’m going to pass’ because how could they say no at that point?

Right. What am I asking for? 15 minutes so that we don’t lose touch so that we can both benefit. Great. Okay. [00:24:00] So what’s the email again? I’m going to send you that Google calendar invite right here while I’m on. I don’t leave this call until that’s booked. ‘Okay, great. All right. Awesome. Okay, I just sent it. Did you get it? All right, good. I didn’t mess it up with my sausage thumbs here. Okay, good.’

A little laughter never hurt anybody. ‘Okay, great. I’ll see you then.’ Now, between now and three months time, I may not send them anything. I may see them on the highway and wave, or I might have a reason to continue to reach out.

‘Hey, I just heard this podcast. It reminded me of that trip you took to Maine. It’s all about lobster rolls, , they’re all comparing it. I thought you’d giggle.’ You know, because again, I remember, because I took notes. And what I’ve already talked about with them, nothing to do with business. And then when they get it, they’re like, ‘ha ha, Renee’s funny. She’s a good person.’

That’s never going to hurt my business, being a good person, right? In the interim, they might have a thousand conversations and can mention my name to a thousand other people that all of a sudden I’m getting referrals from this person who’s never bought from [00:25:00] me. All they know is I answered, I hit reply in an email.

I got into their community to give them a free training. I spotlighted them on my business page, which has 14 likes. And I got ’em on a free audit and then I set up a call three months later just to check in because we’re buddies now. But they sent me three clients. What? I mean, this is very much the case in so many scenarios, so you don’t have to have thousands of people who know you like you, trust you and bow at your feet to have a fully amazing, juicy, incredible business for.

So does that help?

Jody: Yeah, that absolutely does help. Another thing is always have that next call booked so it’s a matter of catching up. What I want to add into there though, if you have your own Client Attraction Code running, so you’ve got your own ad sequence that is retargeting anyone that’s engaged with your page or Instagram or whatever.

They’re going to continue to see you in their newsfeed. So you’re not just leaving it up to the algorithm gods to just pop [00:26:00] up in their newsfeed. Oh no. They’re going to continue to see you in that three month time and they’re really going, ‘Oh, wow. They really do know what they’re talking about.’ And so, like you said, when they have their friends that go,’ Oh man, we need to do something with our Facebook ads.’

Well actually, there’s blah, blah, blah. And you get that introduction. It’s always so important to keep our pipelines full. I know a lot of ad managers, they can get caught up, right? And they’re working with a handful of clients and they are flat strapped and they’re not doing either Facebook ads or any sort of ads, and they’re not doing any networking or outreach or things like that.

But it’s so important to, because you could lose three clients and then you’re scrambling. So doing these few things, identifying these potential connectors or possible clients, starting that outreach, how much time would you recommend a day to just look for some potentials?

Is it even a day? Is it once a week? What would you say?

Renee: Not even a day. I’m saying if you can connect with 10 solid people a month and get to [00:27:00] the point I just got to with three of them, a quarter, you’re in good sense.

Now, of all the ad managers that I’ve gotten the chance to get to know, and most of them through you whenever I said, create a video, write a post, they about turn white in the face, fall down and die.

And so yes, if you can create content, yes, go for it. I love creating content and you’re great at it. Your reels, Jody are like the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. I look for you. I’m like, hold on. Where’s Jody’s reels? So if you listening to this and you didn’t see her reels yet, you got to, she’s like class like Nicole Kidman’s got nothing on you lady. You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. Actress wise, I love it. So good. So good. So not everybody has that in them. So yes, you created Client Attraction Code and when I first met you, you were mapping it out. I was like, my eyes twinkled in the sunlight. I was like, this is what I’ve been looking for!

And so yes, if you’re listening to this and you can create 2, 3, 4, 5 pieces of content on a regular basis, you could be [00:28:00] famous to anybody who’s ever clicked on anything you’ve put out there.

Jody: Yep. People are always saying, Oh, I keep seeing you in my newsfeed. Yeah. Sorry about that. Sorry, not sorry.

But yes, even with that, you know, while videos are so important and it helps to take the connection up a notch when people hear you and see you. It can just have a photo of yourself and what your thoughts are, what your aspect is of it, as long as it’s getting out there and getting seen.

So you’re not forgotten. They keep seeing you and they keep connecting with you. Love that. So you’ve gone through and you’ve booked that call for three months time. Other leads may come in the meantime, let’s just quickly talk about, because you’ve got such valuable advice when it comes to proposal time.

When it’s like it’s all going well, they say, Yep, great. Send us a proposal. It’s a couple of key things that I always remember from that, but I’ll hand it over to you to share your wisdom, about when you send a [00:29:00] proposal, what do you do to avoid being ghosted?

Renee: So first of all, I think I just broke out in hives when you’re like, just send the proposal. I was like, not doing it!

Jody: I never used to as well. It was like, yes, you just get on the call, you close on the call. But a lot of people do send proposals.

Renee: It’s fine. So at the end of the day, I definitely, I want to safeguard my work, safeguard my efforts. From everybody that I’ve worked with when they create a proposal and I’ve gotten RFPs, thousands of them. So I know that it takes effort to create a proposal.

Jody: RFP, explain that for the people.

Renee: Request for proposal. So big companies, they ask for a proposal. There’s a protocol regardless. If you’re listening to this and you’re just working with businesses that are doing $10 million or less a year, you probably won’t have a request for proposal. That’s a formality. But ultimately is this, if someone says, send me something, that doesn’t always mean ‘yes’.

It just means, I’m [00:30:00] done talking now and I don’t know how to get off the phone. Now, that also doesn’t mean that they don’t need what you have. It could mean a thousand things, but it’s definitely not a yes. And so, if nothing else, here’s what I want you to do. Send whatever you want to send, but always book the next call before this one’s over.

So, ‘Listen, I’ll send over something’, if you want to. You don’t always have to, just as a permission slip, but let’s say you want to, ‘Great. Let’s book a call to review that and other options.’ Why would I say that, Renee? There are no other options! Because there’s always other options that could be, ‘No’ is an option.

It could be ‘Later’ is an option, but if you just send it out and hope for the best, you’re not going to know. That’s when you’ll be ghosted and you could have been ‘later’, anyways. So the first thing is always set up that call.

The second thing is, always give it a deadline. Lettuce, milk, proposals, same shelf in the grocery store. Make sure it has a deadline. This is not good [00:31:00] forever. I don’t want this guy, gal, whomever, coming back to me 17 months from now, being like, ‘I’m ready to start working with you at your rates from 17 months ago.’ You’re like, ‘What? We went outta business’, click.

So at the end of the day, if I do two things right now with you, it’s always set the next call before this one’s over even if you plan on sending a proposal in the interim, and the next call is not to see if they want to, it’s to evaluate this and other options, even if there’s really only yes, no, or maybe. However, I do like putting a watermark on my proposal saying DRAFT with a deadline. This Draft Offer is valid through whatever date and the time I set our next call at.

I also don’t always give them a way to pay on the proposal. Sometimes I give them a proposal and the button or the, whatever the button would be if I’m using like Dubsado or 17 hats or something, I might say. [00:32:00] ‘Don’t click here until we review it together’ so that I retain the most important job in their life, which is trusted advisor.

Jody: A hundred percent.

Renee: I don’t expect them to understand what I’ve sent them.

Jody: That is such an important thing as an ad manager, to be that trusted advisor because they’re trusting you without their money, right? Their ad spend. I’m trusting you to help get a return on that ad spend.

So that is a position that you really do want to be stepping into early in the game, and like you’ve laid it out here. This is how you go about.

Renee: Here’s the other permission slip. There are thousands of ways to do this, and a thousand variables and a thousand caveats. And this is why I have a job, because people get to this point and they’re ‘What do I do now?’

And so I’m able to work with them side by side and actually help them make something that’s going to get passed, that’s going to get accepted. So just this week, I had somebody send this.

She was not able to [00:33:00] make a second call because the person she was sending this to was not the actual decision maker, but the decision influencer, like talking to their OBM but not the CEO.

And so they had to get their approval there. So I had her send a little loom video over the proposal. They could still hear her voice, see her face move, even though she was never going to be in the room with them. And the date, the deadline. So the deadline comes and goes. Right? So let’s say it’s 5:00 PM on Thursday and it’s Thursday at 12 noon.

You haven’t heard Boo back. You can send that contact, whoever that is, ‘Hey, listen, I’m reaching out because I wanted to know if you had any questions before the offer expires.’

‘Oh, wait, it expires?! Holy smokes. Okay!’ So if you send the proposal by email, which is typically what you do, or initially contacted them via DM on Instagram, go back to Instagram and say, I just sent you a quick email, quick go check it.

I can’t tell you how many lives that saves . How many heartaches that prevents.

Jody: Absolutely. [00:34:00] That’s another great thing, having that deadline. You’ve got that excuse to then follow up and say, ‘Hey, just touching base, xyz’, ‘Oh yeah, well, okay. Yep, onto it!’ So, absolutely love it.

Renee, you are just such a wealth of information and then like you say, there’s a hundred ways to slice it or something like that. So while we may have, I know you say there’s typically a framework that you will go through, but how we go through it, we can make those adjustments to suit each one along the way.

Yeah, and I think what it ultimately comes back to for me and what I say to ad managers is, okay, yes, this is great. Do you want to make this kind of offer? Is this kind of offer, like you could do anything, for any sort of client. I know ad managers or marketers who offer everything under the sun, right?

And it’s like, is that the kind of business that you want or is it this component? So if it is just this component, then well actually they’re not a good fit. But you could offer them, for example, the done [00:35:00] for you, they want X, Y, Z. They only have a thousand dollars a month for their ad spend, and they only can afford to pay you a thousand dollars a month and your retainer is $2000.

So instead of going, ‘Oh yes, we can do it and we’ll only do lead gen ads’, you can say, ‘Okay, that’s great. What we can do for you then instead is the coaching.’ And then you provide them with the training and the eyes on support and all that kind of stuff. So as long as it aligns with you and your business.

As Renee said, there’s lots of different options, and that’s where she’s absolutely the queen of that, of all these ideas of like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And drawing from her years of experience and this framework that she has to help you make sales.

So Renee, where can people learn more about you?

Renee: The best place is my website, and that’s just reneehribar.com. There’s lots of resources on there. I have tons of free resources, two podcasts, blog posts, you know, all kinds of community questions. When you talked about the client attraction code, which I love, people if you don’t have it [00:36:00] buy it.

I love creating content. Not everybody does. It flows from me like a fountain.

Jody: There’s lot there. Oh my gosh. It certainly does. Whenever you talk to Renee, it’s like bang, bang, bang, bang. All these gems come out and she’s like the energizer bunny. Like seriously .

Renee: I’ve been accused of that many times. I’ve never been accused of being chill.

Jody: Not surprised. Not surprised. So we’ll drop a link here, but reneehribar.com/training is a great place where you can go sign up and start accessing Renee’s brain and all the amazing sales strategies. Because even if you don’t think you’re a salesperson, we all are sales people, We are all selling ourselves in some way, whether it’s just making a new friend.  Or, signing up a new client.

So, Renee, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Renee: Thank you same. Thank you for having me.

Jody: Anytime, [00:37:00] anytime. The door is always open for you. Thanks guys for being with us, and head over, check out Renee’s stuff and get ready to build your business by making more sales.

That’s it today. Bye for now.