Grow Your Sales by 150% with Russ Johns

Are you searching for a better way to grow your sales and accomplish your sales goals? If you are a high-striving sales leader, you are undoubtedly trying to do so. This is true even if you are the top sales leader in your organization. Sales is a craft and there are always places where we can improve. 

Here, I want to speak about some tactics that you can use to substantially grow your sales. In fact, in some circumstances, you may be able to grow your sales by a whopping 150%. Yes, it will take some work, but by putting in that work and using a tool like Dubb, you can certainly make it happen. 

In this Dubb Partners weekly meeting, Dubb Director of Partnerships Rob Botts and I spoke with Russ Johns about how you can grow your sales by 150%. Russ is a speaker, coach, and trainer who focuses on how his clients can book new business and achieve their sales goals. He is also the host of the #PirateBroadcast, where he speaks with “interesting people doing interesting things.” Ultimately, Russ is a great person to discuss how you can use the power of video to grow your sales. He is an excellent example of someone who not only leveraged technology to achieve success for his personal brand, podcast, and company, but who also can teach others about how to use video to grow their own businesses. 

To view the entire discussion with Russ, I encourage you to click here. That said, if you don’t have time to watch all of the video, I want to leave you with some key takeaways from the conversation. With these takeaways alone, you will be in a much better position to grow your sales and reach many of your sales goals.

The Limits of Text-Based Communication

To get started, I want to spend a few moments talking about text-based communication. In all of our lives, we rely on text to communicate ideas and messages. Currently, you are reading a blog post. We text our friends, family, and colleagues every hour (or even every half hour). We send countless numbers of emails every day.

Considering all of this, it is clear that text-based communication is embedded throughout our lives. It isn’t going away anytime soon. Having said this, just because text-based communication is so prevalent in our lives doesn’t mean that it is the optimal way to communicate. 

We have found that there are three problems with text-based communications. Specifically, this type of communication lacks trust, humanity, and impact. 

Let’s say that you are looking at a text message that was just sent to your phone. If that text is from someone that you don’t already know, you probably aren’t going to open it. The same goes for an email from an unknown sender. Even if you do open that message, you’re probably just going to scan through that message and quickly discard it. 

As far as humanity, you can see why text-based communication isn’t ideal. A few (or many) lines of text do not convey the person who is trying to send a message to the recipient. You may have the most amazing product that can change a prospect’s life. However, if you can’t attach a face with your message, you are going to have a much more difficult time closing that sale.

Finally, let’s talk about impact. If there is no impact, doors will not be opening. If you really think about it, this idea of “closing” is a subpar phrase for when we get sales. Instead of thinking of it this way, it’s more helpful to think of it as the opening of a relationship. That relationship is ongoing, and the best way to open that relationship is through some sort of impact. 

Trust, humanity, and impact are huge characteristics that you get through video-based communication. No matter your sales goals, I encourage you to think about these limits of text-based communication. While text-based communication isn’t going to disappear, there are plenty of instances where video is a much better medium. 

Whether you are thinking about using video in your day-to-day business life or want to sell Dubb more effectively to your audience, just remember that video offers you three “Cs.” Those “Cs” are connections, conversations, and conversions. If you’re not able to get all three of these Cs in your day-to-day sales work, you’re going to find it much tougher to accomplish your goals. Video can get you there—especially if you consistently incorporate it throughout your sales process. 

Embrace the Podcast

Right now, we’re living in a world where there are so many different ways to create content. You can pull out your laptop, write a short blog post, and have millions of people view that post within a few minutes. You can also shoot a quick video using Dubb (or some other platform) and upload it to YouTube. There is a huge audience of podcasters, YouTubers, and content creators.  No matter what message you want to send to your audience, rest assured that there are plenty of ways that you can do so. 

As Russ says, however, one of the mediums that are really growing is podcasting. You may have your favorite podcast that you listen to on your way to work or when you are working out. There are your Joe Rogans of the world, who can record three hour episodes and reach millions of people at once. Because of this, it may seem like creating a podcast isn’t something that will supercharge your business. After all, you’re already stretched enough for time as it is. Starting a podcast may seem like too daunting of a task to take on.

You can probably guess that I don’t feel that way. Like Russ, I believe that starting a podcast can be an excellent way for any sales leader or business owner to reach their goals. Ultimately, podcasting offers a tremendous opportunity to express and extend your message. Whatever that message is, podcasting helps you add much more value to your community. Even if you distribute your podcast on a biweekly or monthly basis, having fascinating conversations and helping your audience will help you create and expand an audience of high-quality individuals. 

If you are a Dubb user, you can actually use our platform to create and distribute your podcast. Doing so, you get to actually create a video podcast, which lets you leverage the positive qualities of both video and audio content.  Not only that, but as I’ll describe below, you can use Dubb to better connect with podcast guests and members of your audience. Because podcasting is such a serendipitous activity, creating awesome podcast content brings so many interesting people into your life. In fact, you may find that one of your podcast episodes led you to a CEO or company founder that leads to millions of dollars of business.

You just never know. Because you never know, it’s almost always in your interest to create more content. A recurring podcast can be just the thing that your business needs to accelerate your sales growth. Put yourself out there and see what happens. 

As you are creating your podcast, you can also use Dubb to make your life that much easier. Russ said the most value that he receives from Dubb is using video to invite future podcast guests. He added that video can make all the difference in the experience that you envelop within your funnel. It accelerates the trust factor because you can actually see and hear the person speaking. Even if the video can’t be explicitly personalized, sending a brief video to prospective podcast guests sends a strong message. It shows that you took the time to make a video and that you are running an extremely professional show. In the end, it makes it much more likely that the prospective guest will appear on your show. 

  

Create the Perfect Listening Environment

Generally, in sales, it is critical to create the perfect listening environment. Many times in sales, when you are making cold calls or calling potential prospects out of the blue, there is little humanity present. This is true whether you are sending out mass SMS messages to unknown prospects or are sending a cold LinkedIn message to someone that you haven’t met before. 

If you really think about it, in these types of situations, there is no environment where the seller is offering a product or service that can really enhance the other person’s life. The potential buyer simply isn’t listening. That product or service could have really improved the buyer’s life, but because the listening environment was so out of whack, there is no value creation.

Here, you have two people trying to communicate through a huge and sturdy wall. That is what makes it so difficult. Even if there is substantial value to be created, that wall can be insurmountable. 

So how can you overcome this obstacle and create the perfect listening environment? I think much of it comes from simplifying your message with the correct system or vehicle to deliver that message. All else being equal, a simple message is more effective. While it may seem like you are being more complete or comprehensive by delivering a complex message, you may be doing yourself more harm in the long run. In these types of situations, it is helpful to follow the lead of Steve Jobs, who embraced the power of simplicity. There is not only beauty in simplicity, but it can make it much easier for your listener to understand the value of your product or service. 

Beyond simplicity, you must find the correct system or vehicle to deliver your message. As you can probably guess, all of us at Dubb believe that video is an outstanding way to broadcast your message. Whether you are delivering that message to a brand new prospect or to someone that you recently met at a conference, video helps you capitalize on those three “C’s” that I mentioned. Not only that, but by using a platform like Dubb, you can take advantage of several awesome features that essentially let you clone yourself. The biggest one is automation, which we will discuss in much more detail. 

The bottom line? Don’t just think about the message that you are delivering to potential buyers. Contemplate the listening environment that you are creating. Be emphatic and think about how your prospects and buyers are actually receiving your message. If you go through this exercise, you may find that you can drastically improve your listening environment and, consequently, generate more sales. 

Be Laser-Focused on Sharing Value

Whether you are a Dubb Partner or are simply looking for better ways to sell your product or service, I believe that a focus on value is still criminally underrated.

Let’s face it: whenever we are engaging with a warm or cold prospect, our ultimate objective is to make a sale. We are sales professionals, after all, and we all have sales targets that we are trying to meet. Sometimes, our careers may ride on making certain sales numbers at a certain period of time. This pressure is all too real and it can subtly force us to prioritize the sale over essentially everything else.

As you can probably guess, I take issue with this approach. Sales is all about relationships. It’s about improving prospects’ lives through your product or service. In some circumstances, it may be the best thing for an individual to not purchase your product or service. The best sales leaders recognize this fact and are laser-focused on improving their prospects’ lives. In other words, they want to provide the maximum amount of value, even if they lose out on a sale this month or this quarter. They intuitively recognize that leading with value will result in more sales and profits down the road. Not only that, but that particular prospect may refer your business to some of their friends and colleagues. Even though she did not make a purchase right now, you may get thousands of dollars (or more) of business through her referrals. 

This idea sounds great in theory. That said, you may be wondering: how can I get a better sense of what people value? I think that much of it comes down to listening. Sure, you may have a general intuition about what a particular prospect wants to be improved in her life. However, a much better way to know is to engage in a genuine conversation with her. Ask her about problems or issues that she is facing in her life, whether they are seemingly benign problems or more serious ones. See how her work life can be improved. Importantly, take a genuine interest in her life. If you are genuinely curious about how you can solve some of her problems (even if they don’t involve your product or service), you’ll be in an excellent position to build a strong, long-lasting relationship with that prospect. 

Ultimately, a big piece of this is showing up. It is about stepping into your prospects’ shoes and really thinking about how you can add value to their lives. Thinking isn’t enough, however. You need to embrace action. The great news is that by embracing action and adding value to your prospects’ lives, you are shifting the odds in your favor. You’re consistently showing your prospects that you can make their lives better. You become more trusted—even as your prospects know that you’re likely interested in an eventual sale. 

If you can delay gratification, you get to leverage all of these benefits. One “lost” sale in the short term can lead to countless numbers of sales in the long term. It all comes down to consistently leading with value, being patient, and keeping your audience at the top of your mind. 

The Power is in Automation

Automation is one of the key things that can accelerate the course of your business. 

I believe that automation is the final frontier of business. While we can all picture thousands of robots working non-stop in Amazon fulfillment centers, automation goes beyond that. It isn’t always that robotic. Sometimes, it’s just another form of logic. It is a way to trigger certain behaviors in any type of sales or marketing campaign that you may have. 

In sales (and business generally), we need to spend every day connecting with others. Every day that goes by where we don’t connect with prospects and current customers is another day for those individuals to forget about the engagement. Actually, it’s easy for us to forget about those individuals as well. We all have busy schedules, so unless we’re going out there and engaging with members of our audiences, we aren’t going to do as good of a job. An easy way to remember this is that leads are like donuts: if you don’t eat them today, they will be stale tomorrow.

Automation can solve these problems. Like I alluded to above, one of the best things about automation is that we can clone ourselves. While we are working on some other important task, our automated workflows are providing value to our audiences. They are even providing value when we are sleeping, meaning that your business is at work for you 24/7/365. 

There are so many different things that you can do with automation. By becoming a Dubb user, you get to leverage automation in so many different ways. Three ideas come to mind:

The first involves top of funnel engagement sequences. These top of funnel engagement sequences are a key way to bring prospects into your ecosystem and educate them about your product or service. They can come in a drip email or SMS form (whatever you prefer)

To create a top of funnel engagement sequence, you could always record a quick video saying something like, “Hey, my name is Ruben. It is great to connect with you recently” (whether that was at a conference, over LinkedIn, or somewhere else. Then, you could say something like, “I’d love to educate you on some of the things that we’re doing at our company.” It’s just one idea, so go ahead and create a script that meets your goals and expectations. 

From there, you can invite the viewer to click on the button below your video to watch the next video in a sequence that you previously created. With Dubb, you can do this through the powerful playlist feature. That next video (or videos) can include everything from case studies to customer testimonials. Your creativity is your only limitation here. No matter what you choose, creating and setting up automations for your top of funnel engagement sequences help you provide some of that upfront value to your prospects. Because they are automated, you can constantly be providing this value at all hours of the day. 

The second idea involves providing more value lower in the funnel. It is the idea of following up, even though you may not have received a “no” or another type of objection at this time. Again, the world is your oyster here. You may lead with value by sharing a white paper or eBook that discusses the problem that your prospect is facing and how your company can solve that problem. It can even be a news article or helpful blog post that can solve some stark pain point that the viewer is feeling. Whatever it is, you can program automations that deliver even more personalized value as your prospect travels down your sales funnel. 

Then, the third idea is an extension of the second idea. You are providing even more value as the prospect learns more about your company, product, or service. Quite clearly, the bottom of your funnel is absolutely critical. At this point, the prospect is on the cusp of making a purchase. Because of this, you can rely on automations to help you make the sale. Like I mentioned above, the value you provide is up to you. The automation can be something as simple as inserting a very brief “closing” video and including a call to action which lets your viewer schedule a call on your calendar. Once again, the main goal is to provide value. Even if your prospect takes her time before making a purchase, prioritizing value will lead to great long-term results. 

These are three simple ways to engage with members of your audience. The amazing thing? You can set up these automations for 100 people, 1,000 people, or even more people. On Dubb, all you need to do is add a tag to a specific contact. Once you set up a particular workflow, you will find that Dubb automatically triggers those workflows based on the tag that you add for a particular contact. You can also make your workflows more advanced by using if/then statements. For instance, if a specific prospect clicks on a particular link after reading one of your emails, you could show her a specific video that directly responds to the content in that email. 

In the end, when it comes to automation, the sky is the limit. You can do so many cool things with automations and they can help you substantially increase your sales. It’s as if you could send high-quality messages to every individual in your stack of business cards. That’s an extremely exciting thing. 

Leverage Video Replies

Video replies are another great way to build trust and long-term relationships with members of your audience. By engaging with this feature, you’ll be able to get extremely valuable video testimonials and generate more sales. 

At Dubb, the video reply feature was brought to us years ago. We took the idea and incorporated it within the Dubb ecosystem. Admittedly, it was just okay at the beginning. As we started to receive feedback and iterate on the idea, we became even more convinced of how powerful of a feature it is. 

Think about it this way: sending a video to someone is one thing. It can create a substantial amount of trust and goodwill. However, receiving a video back is on a whole new level of communication. Now, the trust that you build and the empathy that exists are synchronous. It isn’t one way; it is back and forth. We are both metaphorically on stage and engaging with each other. 

The video reply feature presents so many fantastic opportunities for both you and the viewer. Starting with the viewer, he or she can get a better sense of your message or pitch. Sure, when your audience member is reading an email or text message, she will get the gist of your message. She will see that you are, for instance, adding value, or you are being more direct and asking for a sale. However, if you choose to use video, your viewer gets a bigger picture of what you are trying to say. She can see how you are communicating and can hear the intonation of your voice. These subtle cues can’t come across in text and can help you build much closer relationships with your viewers.

Along with these additional signals, video replies are more convenient for your viewer. All the viewer needs to do is click on the “reply with video” button, speak into the camera, and then upload the video. It’s a much quicker and more complete process than sitting down, typing out a lengthy email, and clicking send. Not only that, but you also get to see the subtle cues that your viewer is sending to you. It’s truly a win-win outcome. 

All of these benefits are important. With that said, I think that there is one more benefit that arguably trumps the rest. That is the fact that video replies can help you get testimonial videos. As you probably know, testimonials are powerful for so many reasons. At their core, however, testimonials help build social proof with your company and members of your audience. Individuals who haven’t yet heard about your company, product, or service can see your testimonials and understand that you have a real business. Your business is creating real value in your customers’ lives. Just look at all of these happy customers, right? 

Using video replies to get video testimonials is an outstanding way to reach your sales goals. It can change the course of your business. Because video testimonials are that powerful, you’re going to want to incorporate video replies into your sales process. If you are using Dubb to make and distribute your video content, you can easily incorporate the video reply feature by adding a call to action button at the bottom of your video. And if you’re not using Dubb? Make sure that you aren’t missing out on this awesome feature. You won’t regret it. 

Presets Are Your Friends

When speaking with sales professionals and Dubb users, I have discovered that it’s critical to make our lives easier. All of us are extremely busy and have high goals. Our schedules are packed, so we need to be efficient with our time.

This is why I think it’s so important for sales professionals like you to take advantage of presets. I’m sure that you take advantage of presets in all different areas of your life. Whether you use presets in your internet browser, on your smart TV, or something else, it’s self-evident that presets can help you avoid unnecessary work. By putting in the upfront effort to set up presets, you can spend more time on the more important things in your life. 

A great way to see the power of presets in sales and video marketing is through Russ Johns’ Dubb workflows. Russ leverages presets when onboarding people onto his podcast. He has client bookings for his business, where he invites prospective clients to contact him and learn more about how he can provide value. Essentially, for every part of his business, Russ is leveraging presets. If you look at nurturing, prospecting, client communications, deal closings, referral requests, and testimonial gathering, Russ is using some sort of preset. 

Presets are so powerful because you are putting all of the work upfront. It’s like an investment. You are investing a certain amount of time and effort upfront with the understanding that the investment will pay off later. With Dubb, you can set your presets and forget them. This means that when you are creating a new video landing page, for example, you can simply click on one button to include one of your presets. Those presets can include everything from some of the video testimonials that you’ve collected to a calendar booking engine. While you can create general presets, you can also create specific presets (for example, for a podcast) that will make your Dubb pages more customized and more relevant. Once you’ve made them, you can just click one button and get all of the benefits from your hard work.

On the surface, it may seem like presets aren’t the most important thing in the world. They aren’t required to get value from video and sales marketing tools like Dubb. However, if you choose to use presets, you won’t be disappointed. You’ll be more productive and efficient in your work. Better yet, Dubb’s presets are global and retroactive, meaning that you can seamlessly incorporate your presets on videos that you’ve already created and uploaded. 

Take Advantage of Showcase Pages

Finally, I want to mention another helpful feature that can be a great hub for things like testimonial videos. I’m specifically talking about showcase pages.

But let’s back up for one second. There are three different types of pages that you can create using Dubb. The first is a standard video page that is automatically created when you upload a video to Dubb. With that standard video page, you can customize so many things (including the justifications of your videos, branding, background images, colors, and more). 

The second is a portfolio page. We use portfolio pages only when there is a video playlist. Portfolio pages are great ways to consistently serve up high quality video content in a controlled setting.

As you can guess, the third type of Dubb page is the showcase page. On your Dubb dashboard, you will find it in the “Assets” and then “Showcases” link. We got the idea from a Dubb user and are extremely excited with the way that it has turned out. Basically, a showcase page shows a title, featured video, a selection of videos, and a specific call to action. As you’ll see, this is not a WYSIWYG or drag-and-drop system. Showcase pages are extremely configurable. You can customize everything from your call to action button to your featured video. 

Importantly, if you have a tag for a certain subset of videos, those videos will automatically populate on your showcase page. This is a much easier way of including certain types of videos on a particular showcase page, whether they are testimonial videos or something else. You can even include multiple tags on your showcase page. The decision comes down to you. 

Get Started Today

At Dubb, we like to view our company as a sales operating system for our customers. Whether you are looking to grow your sales by 150% or simply want to see more traction in your sales plans, you can rely on the tips and tricks that we discussed above. 

We’re living in an extremely exciting time. Every sales professional has an immense number of powerful tools at their fingertips. Whether you choose to use Dubb or another tool, I encourage you to use these tools to your advantage. 

The future is there for the taking. All you need to do is take one step forward. 

Consider Joining Dubb Partners

As I mentioned above, this discussion with Russ on how to grow your sales by 150% was part of our weekly Dubb Partners meeting. Every Thursday at 10:00 am PT, we get together to talk about things like video and sales strategy, topics of the week, and other topics that can help you get much closer to your business goals. 

Not only do you get access to these weekly meetings, but as a Dubb Partner, you can access a whole host of other practical benefits. On your Dubb page, for example, you can click on the “Resources” tab to find things like Dubb Academy videos, replays of prior Dubb Partners meetings, referral forms, and more. Simply put, there are a ton of assets here that you can access whenever you want. They can both help you improve your business and help you better sell Dubb.

Best of all, as a Dubb Partner, you get to take advantage of extremely healthy commissions. For every paying subscriber that you bring into the Dubb community, you get 30% recurring commissions. This means that when anyone uses your referral link to subscribe to Dubb, you get a 30% commission for as long as that individual remains a Dubb subscriber. It’s a deal that we hope you leverage if you are thinking about becoming a Dubb Partner.

We would love to have you join the Dubb Partners program. If you have any questions or concerns about the program, don’t hesitate to contact us.