Get ready to be F.I.R.E.D U.P! Today, we have Jason Cutter, an author, a podcast host, and an entrepreneur. He is the CEO Of Cutter Consulting Group which helps entrepreneurs to sell their products. We will deconstruct, dissect, and break down how you view sales and what are your success indicators. So Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!
Krista Mashore:
Are you ready to be fired up? Because I sure am. I have got Jason Cutter here and he teaches people how to run efficient sales teams. He's an author. He's written books. And I am super excited. Because as you know if you're listening to this most likely, you're in some form of sales. So sit back and let's get ready to be fired up. Hi, Jason. How are you? I'm super excited to have you here. Thanks for being on the show.
Jason Cutter :
I am awesome. And I'm super excited because I think this is going to be a lot of fun, and see where it goes.
Krista Mashore:
Well, I'm going to be asking you questions because I have a sales team. And so I'm personally super excited about this. So tell us a little bit about what you do and who you help and all that great stuff.
Jason Cutter :
Yeah. So I got into sales when I was 27 in the mortgage business. So something very related, which you can relate to.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah.
Jason Cutter :
It was 2002. It was the height of the real estate boom. I was in Washington State at the time. So, it was very easy. Basically learned nothing about sales and selling and persuasion, which went along well with my bachelor's degree in marine biology that I had. So unlike you, was something useful in psychology, let's say. I was really into sharks and really not into people. Didn't want to work with people. And then life took me a different path.
Jason Cutter :
And that kicked off a long career of working in sales organizations, running away from sales a couple of times, coming back to it, and realizing that what I really love to do is coach and lead and train teams, help teams build better systems. And plus, I really love sales as well. But I really enjoy the act of helping people have that light bulb moment where they don't think they can sell very well. They didn't think there was a way to do it that wasn't, let's say, dirty and gross. And then they see that there is a way that works well. So, that's always fun.
Krista Mashore:
I love it. So it's funny the whole shark mentality and you got to be a shark for sales and you like sharks. That's a whole other conversation because sharks scare the crud out of me, but I find them interesting as well. Okay. Let's just take me for example. So I have a sales team. If you were to come into my organization, what would be the first thing that you would … How would you help us?
Jason Cutter :
Well, so we're going to do this make believe thing because I have no doubt that your sales team is probably amazing and you have them going in the right direction. Generally, where I start is with a gap analysis and really look at where the goals are, where the organization wants to be, and then what's missing there. Because in my opinion, it's really … I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's easy to do some sales and do some transactions and close some deals no matter what it is that you're selling.
Jason Cutter :
But to do it in a scalable way, which means if I put in this much marketing and this much effort with a team, I'm going to get out this result like a factory, right? If I put in these inputs, I'm going to get these outputs predictably. That generally is where most organizations fall apart is they don't have a scalable system where if they added this much marketing and added 10 more people, is it going to go up exponentially? And usually what's missing is things like systems, like processes. Everyone's kind of selling in a way they think should be done, but there's not a cohesive plan for everybody.
Krista Mashore:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and then like KPIs and that kind of thing. Let's just say you've got a company and they have 45, 50,000 leads in their database from selling books, or from showing up to challenges, or going into a two-day event, or … Let's just say those leads alone. How many calls can somebody make a day? Obviously, if they're using a speed dialer, how many calls on average does somebody make a day? And I think this is a great for real estate agents to actually hear, any entrepreneur because they need to know. Like, what's an average amount of calls that you can expect let's just say your salesperson to call? How many contacts should they be making? And on a high ticket sale, how many conversions do you think the average sales person should be able to do? I'm just curious to hear about that. I'm going to make myself [inaudible 00:04:14] this.
Jason Cutter :
So, I look at things a little bit different. So the way I look at metrics and KPIs is you've got to have those, right? The classic. What isn't measured isn't managed. And you've got to know what the score is, right? It would be like playing a sport without a scoreboard, and just not knowing how you're doing and have no idea if you're winning or not. You have a feeling if somebody is keeping track in their head, but there's really no scoreboard.
Jason Cutter :
So, I'm going to preface this by saying KPIs metrics super important. And to me, what is really important is the end result, did you win or lose? So you've got to know what a win is or a loss is for that day? Let's say if you have a sales person on your team, or it's you because you're a solopreneur is, what's a win? Is that an appointment? Is that revenue generated today? Is that a closed deal? Whatever that looks like.
Jason Cutter :
And if you won, great. You want to figure out what you did and look at the numbers and reverse engineer what works for you or that person. If you lost, that's when the numbers come in, right? Because if you win, how many calls do you have to make? Well, that's the part where it's really tough. Because especially if you're selling something high ticket, depending on what you're going for in those calls, you might have 10 calls in a day that were long phone calls, and they were valuable. I think of real estate agents.
Jason Cutter :
If a real estate agent's making 200 calls a day, they're doing something wrong, in my opinion. Maybe they're just shotgun or they're going after too much, or their list isn't focused enough unless they're maybe just setting appointments. Otherwise, you want quality conversations. And so how many does that take? It depends, right? Every industry is different. But I've had call centers I've run where I have that make four calls in a day. And their goal is to close two deals in a day and they close all four, and each one of those calls took an hour. And that was four hours out of an eight-hour shift minus some admin time in between. And that's a fantastic day. That's a record breaking day. But it was four calls. So the call people will say, “Well, you have to make 150 calls a day to win.” It's like, “Well, yes.”
Krista Mashore:
So what about the extra time? Okay. You're right. So four calls on the phone for four hours, a little admin work. Let's just say it's an extra half now, right? There's an extra three and a half hours. So what do I do with that three and a half hours?
Jason Cutter :
Well, it depends. So that transaction, the admin time after each sale was 30 minutes after each sale with a verification process, like some admin from another third party. So that's another two hours on there. So that's six out of eight hours. And as much as I love to drive people to do more and more, if you're having really quality conversations and really closing deals as you know, that's draining at a certain point, right?
Krista Mashore:
[inaudible 00:07:01].
Jason Cutter :
It's tough to do. I've seen people do eight out of eight hours on the phone, but then they're mush and the next day it's pretty much zero results because they left it all on the field. They have nothing left.
Krista Mashore:
Yes.
Jason Cutter :
So, there's a balance there, right? If you're doing well, that's where, again, the metrics might say, “Well, what are you doing with all that extra time?” You're probably recovering, right? Like a really good workout. You've got to recover. You can't just keep going all the time. So, that's where I'm kind of back and forth.
Krista Mashore:
No, that makes sense. Okay, great. Okay, so let's just say they aren't … Let's just say you're not converting maybe, or how many … If you're just dialing, how many connections do you … How many speed dial should you be able to make and how many connections should you truthfully be able to make on average?
Jason Cutter :
So that, and again, this is where it depends because every industry everything's going to be different. But really that comes down to the quality of the list. So depending on what you're doing and where your data or where your information's coming from, will dictate and direct what that contact rate is. I mean, does it take a hundred people to call to talk to five? And then out of those five people, you're going to have some conversations? Or does it take 10 calls to connect with five people? Right? Like the timing.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah, you're right. It's true. So for example, let's just say it's a really warm quality list, right? Like it's something just got done. It's the hundred people that just finished attending a two-day live event and you're calling to check in and see how they are and hopefully maybe sell them. I mean, you would think that they're wanting to talk to people, right? Or they're wanting to answer.
Jason Cutter :
Yeah. And if that scenario was the case, for me, if I was that or leading that, I would expect that list to be gotten through in the matter of like two or three days. And the reason why I say that it's not a very big list. But again, if the contact rate is high, then the conversations are going to be there. And if you have five or 10 or 15-minute conversations with 20 people, that's a lot. That's six hours of conversations right there. Right?
Jason Cutter :
And then, obviously, the followup and the emails and whatever, if they're signing up or if they're booking appointments, there's that follow-up moment even if it's just a minute after each one. And so if it's really good, it's going to take a few days to get through that kind of list if it's going right. If somebody chews through that list in a day, then there's something that's missing. Right? So that's where the volume of calls can either mean you're working really hard or you're doing something wrong.
Krista Mashore:
This totally makes sense. I love it. So what's the best system that you've seen people to use? Like we use a system called Close, but we actually have our own system that we're developing. So we're wondering if we should go over to our own system because it get kind of expensive these systems, obviously. It's got the call to speed up. What do you think are your best systems to really keep track of salespeople? And what kind of things exactly should you be keeping track of? I mean, I know it's important to be able to see how many hours people are on … How long were they on the phone? So if somebody is like, “Well, you're on the phone for 10 minutes today,” and you only got through 20 calls there's a problem there, right?
Jason Cutter :
Yes, 100%. So as far as the metrics go, we'll work backwards. The big things for me is the activity. Because even though, like I said earlier, was talking about the results. Like if you're winning, the KPIs matter less because we won other than you want to reverse engineer and figure out how you want. So let's say like sports, for example, basketball team. They win. Okay, that's great. The metrics how we got there who shot what doesn't matter as much because we won.
Jason Cutter :
And if we can figure out that formula, then we can do that again next game, then we can win, hopefully, next game. Right? Let's figure out who had to do what in order for us to win. Same thing with sales. If you're winning, just reverse engineer what it took to win and then make that the blueprint. If you're losing, then the numbers matter. Here's the other part that's totally counter to that is that you can't control results.
Jason Cutter :
Nobody can control results. Nobody can control. Who's going to buy and how much you're going to sell today. All you can control is the activity. For the same reason you can't control like, let's say, how much weight you're going to lose by going to the gym or eating healthy. All you can do is really control how you eat and how much effort you put into it. But what happens with your body? You can't control that. I can't say, “I will lose five pounds by tomorrow.” You can't.
Jason Cutter :
So the thing is with sales and selling is all you can control is the activity. And so what you want to do is also measure all those activities, especially if you're not winning. And the ones that I recommend that we all know would be the number of calls. It's that talk time, which is what you're referring to. So the talk time is super important. And then depending on what you're selling and how it breaks down, you've got the rest of the sales process.
Jason Cutter :
So maybe the number of appointments scheduled, the number of if you're doing demos, the number of demos that people show up for, their show rate for that appointment. And then whatever happens next, applications submitted, applications received, whatever those milestones in your process is. And then what's also really important or can be for phone calls is the length of time, right? Do you have somebody who's making really short phone calls or do they have long phone calls? Like, what percentage of their calls are going longer?
Jason Cutter :
If you have a higher ticket sale, you're doing follow-up calls from that event and you have that a hundred person one list, you would expect those calls to be longer 10, 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes. That person's excited. You're going through the program. You're getting them signed up. They have to fill out an application or you have to collect credit card info, whatever that looks like. And so, you might have somebody who has a bunch of calls and some talk time. But if they're all under five minutes, then that means that person's not doing … They're missing something in the conversations to get it to go further. Right? They're losing people at a certain point.
Jason Cutter :
So that one's a super important metric for you to look at the teams is how far are the calls going? What percentage? What number? Because, again, you can't just look at talk time. “Okay, you're on the phone four hours. That's great. Good job.” But if they were four hours of really short calls, then they're burning through your leads and they're probably blowing a lot of opportunities for you.
Krista Mashore:
Yes, absolutely. Okay. So give us some pointers on things you could do to get more people to show up to the call, or get more people to show up to the event. So what kind of strategies would you recommend? Number one, getting someone to show up to a two-day event. What would you to have the sales team do to help ensure that, number one, the event gets full, right? Because we're working on that. And number two, how to get that, how to get people to actually show up, more likely to show up. What would you coach?
Jason Cutter :
So you want all the good stuff? You want all the good secrets here. Okay.
Krista Mashore:
Oh, yeah. Jason, I'm going after this. This is like right up my alley.
Jason Cutter :
So the biggest issue, and then I'll talk about what to do instead. The big issue that I see that people do when they're selling and not getting the results they want and they're struggling. Maybe they're not good at sales. They don't like sales, or they think sales is gross, or they just get too excited is a lot of times they're selling the idea of this next thing and then that's it, right? So, “Hey, come to this event. It'll be great.” And then they're just pushing that, or an appointment. “Hey, come to this appointment. Show up for your appointment or this demo.”
Jason Cutter :
And they're basically selling that thing but not doing it very well and it's falling short. And even if people do show up, because this is the other challenge, is people might actually show for your two-day event or your appointment, or your demo, but they're not interested in buying or they don't move forward because the person selling them sold them on the events but not the end result. And that's really what's missing. It's not about, “Hey, come to this appointment because I want to set this appointment for you.” It's, “This appointment will lead to me helping you with buying a house or your two-day event,” or whatever that is. So that's the big shift. That's a thing that will help a lot of-
Krista Mashore:
And reasonable because you want to do this because you're going to learn systems and strategies and learn how to attract sellers. You really want to even want to show up to this because it's going to really transform your … Also, they're selling that more. So instead of pushing, “Go to the event. Go to the event,” why they want to show up to the event.
Jason Cutter :
Yes. And where this goes back to the metrics, the KPIs, the stuff we were talking about so far is that a lot of people in sales their metrics, their KPIs is, let's say, appointments set, or confirmations for two-day events. And they're like, “Okay.” In their mind, if you have your sales team built out in such a way where you have different people doing different roles, if you have an appointment setter or that person who's selling the two-day, then that's all they care about. They don't care about what happens afterwards.
Jason Cutter :
You as a business owner care. You want people to show up at the two-day, get value, sign up, or stay in your network and become long-term relationship somehow. That person who set that perspective attendee up, all they care about is the metric, which is cool. I set my 10 appointments. I set my 10 people to come today. I don't really care what happens to them after that. And that's usually the management challenge that comes in because that appointment setter cares about the appointment, nothing else.
Jason Cutter :
And so the shift is, like you said, is to look at the long-term results. And whenever possible, this is the biggest key, is to understand and focus the event. Right? Not just the event from an actual two-day event, but the event being like buying a house, or getting a mortgage, or signing up for the service. Whatever it is, that person's end goals and what they want and why that helps them. Because what happens a lot in sales is if you've been doing it for a while, or you're just poorly trained is you get desensitized or you don't even think about the other person and what their goals are because you just think everyone should want it.
Jason Cutter :
Right? I can already picture somebody on a team trying to sell a two-day event. Of course, they think everyone should sign up, right? Either they drunk the Kool-Aid of enrolling people and they think this is going to solve everyone's problems. Or, they just don't know what they're doing. And instead know it's a great event for this person. When you talk to that person, figure out their goals what they want, and then the value they're going to get. And then, that's why they want to show up. And that's why they will want to get value from it. Because that's the thing. You got to always make it about the other person, which is tough because we all make it about ourselves but we got to remember it's about them.
Krista Mashore:
Yes. Oh, that makes total sense. Okay. So now you've got them to the event, what would you say the strategy would be afterwards? Let's just say your call to action is sign up for a call with one of our sales team. Just sign up for a call. What are some key factors that you would want to make sure that you did with people that did sign up? And then how would you go after people that didn't sign up?
Jason Cutter :
Okay. That did or did not sign up for the event or the call?
Krista Mashore:
That did. The ones that did sign up for a call to schedule the call, what are a few things that you … How would you manage that call? And then second question is the ones that didn't sign up for a call, what would your process be?
Jason Cutter :
Okay. So if they signed up for a call after going to the event, right, that's the scenario we're talking about, is, A, you need to have a system where the person who got them to the event, or whatever the process is that got them to the event, that follow-up sales call they have the notes of what that person wanted. Why were they going to the event? Why was that important to them? What were they looking for value wise? How does this help them solve a problem or achieve a goal? Right? Because it's not always about pain or loss. Sometimes it's about achieving more.
Jason Cutter :
And so having that and going into the conversation, and then having that conversation. Hey, you had said these were your goals. This is what you were looking for, tell me about the event. What did you get from it? How was that for you? What aligned for you? What resonate? What was the big aha? What didn't you get from it? What just didn't make sense for you? And then now what? What do you see as the next step?
Jason Cutter :
And again, if you've set it up properly and the value's there, it's not that you don't have to do any sales or persuasion. Right? Because like my book, the subtitle is Transform from Order Taker to Quota Breaker. There's a lot of people-
Krista Mashore:
Say it again.
Jason Cutter :
… in sales [inaudible 00:19:54]-
Krista Mashore:
Say it again.
Jason Cutter :
So the full title is, Selling with Authentic Persuasion: Transform from Order Taker to Quota Breaker. So there's a lot of people in sales who actually act more like order takers, not because that's a bad thing. It's just that they don't know what else to do, or they don't want to be pushy and gross like the bad salespeople we all think about. So, they just sit back. And they're nice. They build a lot of rapport in relationships, but then they sit back and hope that the other person's going to buy. And I think there's a professional duty if you're in sales to help somebody buy if it's a good fit.
Krista Mashore:
Yeah, totally agree.
Jason Cutter :
And so it's not that that conversation. Post event isn't about sitting back and hoping they move forward. But it's about making it about them, helping them see the value. Because if they see the value that attendee and they go, “Yeah, my goal was to do this. Right? My goal was to make an extra $3,000 a month in income. Okay. And the event. Oh yeah, I saw these ways. Okay. Sounds good. That totally matches. And then to see what they think and/or prescribe that next step. Say, “Okay. Based on that, here's what the best thing for us to do is.” And then lead them down that path.
Jason Cutter :
So, that's the category of people who do schedule the call. The people who don't schedule the call, I would have that same approach but in your outbound calls or the follow-up emails, especially if you have the information. It's not always scalable. But be like, “Hey, you had said, this was the value we're looking for. I saw that you did schedule a call.” And for me, my sales process-
Krista Mashore:
[inaudible 00:21:25].
Jason Cutter :
Go ahead.
Krista Mashore:
You're saying it's important even when they sign up for the event to have some type of questions so you know where they're at, what they're hoping for. Before they even go, that's assigned and attached to that person. So then when you call the email should then be speaking to that pain point, right? Specifically to whatever they said. And then the call should be, oh, that makes great sense. You should be tagging people from the very beginning tagging them as whatever it is they're wanting. And then the emails that follow up should match that. It shouldn't just be bulleted to everyone.
Jason Cutter :
Correct. And where most organizations, most sales people miss the mark, in my opinion, and affect their conversion is that they're just taking a shotgun approach or a single message either just because it's easier or just they aren't thinking about it. And they aren't making it a custom to that person. So another example I'm thinking that will help, especially from your world of real estate, is most people listening to this, maybe either bought a house, or sold a house, or have seen other people buy home.
Jason Cutter :
Imagine you're a real estate agent and you meet somebody, you have an appointment, you fill out the app, you get all the information, you figure out what they want and you're showing them houses. And you literally have no idea why they want to buy a house and why that's important to them. Okay. So here's a three-bedroom house, two baths and a kitchen. Cool. All right. Here's another house with three-bedroom. Yeah, this one has a den. I don't know if that matters to you or not. Whatever. Just let me know which one you pick.
Jason Cutter :
It sounds silly. You would never do that. That's not why you created this success I'm sure you did in real estate, right, with all of your transactions. But that's what most salespeople do. They just throw stuff out there and hope the other person knows why they want to buy. And if people knew why they want to buy, they would just buy. Right? Like I have bought real estate sight unseen before because I knew what I wanted to buy and I didn't care. It's investment property. Here's what it is. But for most everyone else, they need your help.
Krista Mashore:
Yes. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. I love those points right there about identifying the problem and what their wants are early on. And then using that languaging to speak to them later. And then also the sales team has that. So then when somebody books a call too, you want to do the same thing, right, after the event, let's just say. What did you like? What kind of questions would you ask them after they've gone to the event and booked a call? What questions would you make sure you asked?
Jason Cutter :
I mean, again, it's really about them, right? So it's not so much the specific questions. It's more about what did they get from the event? What were they looking to get? What did they get from it? What was the biggest value? And for me, my sales process and philosophy has always been that nothing is perfect. This is kind of shocking for most entrepreneurs, especially most founders and business owners. They think what they've created is perfect in every way and has no flaws. Everything has a flaw or a trade off, right?
Krista Mashore:
Oh yeah.
Jason Cutter :
There is no perfect product or service out there that I know of that has no single trade off. It may be the perfect thing, but it's going to be expensive, which is a trade off. Right? So there's always a trade-off. And so for me, I always call it like it is because salespeople who are either insecure or trying to push something on somebody won't call out the other stuff. If I was doing an event follow-up, I'd be like, “What did you like? What didn't you like? What just didn't work for you? Wasn't good?”
Jason Cutter :
Because if we're willing to admit and talk about the stuff that didn't work, then there's more trust. Right? And it's more authentic. And we, “Okay, what did you like? Oh, that's awesome. Okay. Let's do more of that.” Right? Instead of like, this event is perfect in all ways and it's for everybody at all times. It's like no. It's not the case. There's always trade offs.
Krista Mashore:
Yes. Great, great. Okay. Gosh, this is awesome. So how can people hear and learn more about you? Do you have a special giveaway you want to give away? Or, how can people find out more about you and maybe mention your book? Whatever you'd like to offer.
Jason Cutter :
So, best thing would be to go to jasoncutter.com. So that's the hub for everything I have going on. I have a podcast. I have the book, which you can buy on Amazon. You can also buy directly from authenticpersuasion.com for less than it is on Amazon if you want to buy it directly. And then what I would offer too is for anybody who is listening to this, definitely reach out because like I said early on, one of the biggest things that I do is gap analysis to really help analyze where somebody might be able to make improvements in their systems, their processes, their sales things. There might be some easy things, or it might take a lot of work. So definitely if you have a sales team or you're growing a sales team, or you want to have a sales team in the future, definitely reach out to me. And let's chat about gap analysis and seeing examining where you're at and where you want to be.
Krista Mashore:
Where do you charge for the gap analysis? Do you [inaudible 00:26:29] or not?
Jason Cutter :
That's not online and it depends. So it just ranges. It depends on how detailed we're going and how big the team is, how much we're going through because sometimes I work with large call centers and we're going through hours and hours of recordings and interviews, meeting with managers, meeting with teams. So it just really depends. And it's based on how much we need. How much of a doctor's exam are we doing? Are we doing the full body exam with MRIs and brain scans? Or are we just checking some blood and seeing if we can figure out what the issue is?
Krista Mashore:
Yeah. Well, this has been great, Jason. So you go to jasoncutter, with two Ts, .com. You can get his book as well as get an analysis, gap analysis to your business. I enjoyed this so, so much selfishly. It was so great for me so I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for your time and being here. Everyone reach out because he is obviously wealth of information and wealth of knowledge. Jason, thank you.
Jason Cutter :
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It was super fun.
Krista Mashore:
Oh, you're welcome. So everyone remember, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And as always, it's great to listen and learn. But if you don't implement, nothing happens in your business. So if you want to get fired up, you've got to take action. Make it a great day.
