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David KurkjianMarketingS.U.C.C.E.S.S.SalesTranscriptWGANTV Live at 5

Transcript: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling Matterport 3D Tours & RE Photography10941

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WGAN-TV S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling Matterport 3D Tours and Real Estate Photography with Master Messaging Founder David Kurkjian | 29 January 2020

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Transcript Below for Video Above
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WGAN-TV: [b]S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling Matterport 3D Tours and Real Estate Photography

Hi All,

Are you selling as many Mattterport 3D Tours as you would like?

If not, you need a S.U.C.C.E.S.S. formula and understand how to apply it to selling Matterport 3D Tours.

MasterMessaging Founder David Kurkjian, was my guest on WGAN-TV Live at 5 (5 pm EST | GMT -5) on Wednesday, 29 January 2020.

The topic:

How to Speak the Language of Decision: S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling 3D Tours and Real Estate Photography

I have attended two of David's seminars: one six years ago that has helped me succeed faster and his S.U.C.C.E.S.S. seminar that I am eager to have David share with you.

Among your take-aways will be learning what this mnemonic - S.U.C.C.E.S.S. - spells out and how to use it to help increase Matterport 3D Tour and real estate photography sales.

David Kurkjian Bio

David Kurkjian is a 35-year sales veteran with success both as a quota carrying rep and sales leader in companies like Bellsouth and CareerBuilder.

An engineer by education, David sought after and discovered the secrets to his success by exploring behavioral psychology and understanding the science of human decision making.

In 2012, he founded MasterMessaging to help clients increase their revenue by mastering the ability to elevate their value.

| MasterMessaging | dkurkjian@mastermessaging.com | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog |

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Transcript [See WGAN-TV show above]

- Hi all, I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. Today is Wednesday, January 29th, 2020 and you're watching WAGN-TV Live at 5.

Our topic today is S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling 3D Tours and Real Estate Photography. If you're asking yourself questions like, or I'll ask you the question, would you like to add new clients?

Would you like to get more business from existing clients?

And, would you like to grow your real estate photography and 3D tour business by 25% or more this year, then you're watching the right show.

Hey, David, good to see you.

- Good to be with you.

- Our guest today is Master Messaging Founder David Kurkjian.

I've met David ... I've attended two of his seminars in Atlanta. They've been super-helpful to me. One I attended about six years ago and it's really been terrific in helping me succeed faster. And in the most recent seminar that I attended, this topic of S.U.C.C.E.S.S. came up and I said, "Hey, David, our photographers could use your help." And he graciously agreed to be on the show. So thank you for being on the show with us today.

- You're welcome, I'm looking forward to it.

- Awesome. S.U.C.C.E.S.S. in Selling 3D & Real Estate Photos, help us.

- Yeah, yeah, happy to do that. Really starts with understanding the buyer's mind. I've had the opportunity to spend roughly about 35 years in the sales profession, had the opportunity to lead sales teams.

And when I made the decision to found Master Messaging, a consultancy to help companies and entrepreneurs and business owners better communicate the value of their product and service, one of the things that really intrigued me was understanding the buying mind.

And what I mean by that is really delving in to behavioral psychology to understand how people make decisions. And so that endeavor took me to about 15 to 20 different books ranging from authors like Daniel Kahneman and John Medina, Seth Godin, some people that really have done extensive research on how people make decisions.

And the reason that I wanted to do that is that any time I'm working with a business owner and helping them understand how to better communicate the value of what they do, I didn't want to just rely on my anecdotal experience.

I wanted to ground it in science. So that's really what led me to the creation and founding of Master Messaging is helping people understand how to better communicate the value of their product and service and do that by understanding how their prospect is actually perceiving value, how their prospect is actually making the buying decision.

So, when you look at that, there are obvious things that business professionals do incorrectly when they're trying to communicate the value of their product or service. And I put that under the category of business professionals or sales professionals behaving badly when they communicate. What that looks like ... because it really falls into three categories.

Number one, they end up sharing way too much information. So as business owners and as people that are looking to acquire new clients, we need to understand that in the volume of information, the most important things get lost.

And so you have to overcome this impulse, if you will, to want to share everything about the technology, everything about the cameras, everything about your processes, because until your prospect understands the benefit to them, they really don't care how it that you go about doing your business. So mistake number one is just sharing way too much information.

Mistake number two is not really communicating anything unique. As human beings we constantly look at our environment and are trying to find outliers because outliers typically represent danger.

So there's an opportunity for business owners and business professionals in the way that they communicate and what they communicate to identify something unique that would stand out in the conversation. And again a lot of business professionals miss this and miss the opportunity to do that.

The last mistake is common to all human beings. We like to talk about ourselves.

And unfortunately the most important person in a selling conversation is not you. It's the person that you're communicating with.

And so we have to resist this tendency to make the conversation about us, what we do, how we do it, the longevity of our business, how our business works. Again the person that we're communicating with, they have the same desire to talk about the things that they're passionate about and knowledgeable about. So we have to give them the opportunity to do that.

So that leads me to what's the right way and where do you focus your conversation.

And it really comes from an understanding of human behavior. And that understanding is that we make decisions. Dan, we make decisions based on meaning and emotion and we justify our decisions with logic and reason. Yet in my experience when I talk with business owners, they tend to make a logical argument as to why prospects should use their product or service.

And that's just not how we make decisions. We make decisions based on meaning and emotion, and then we justify our decisions with logic and reason.

And I'll share with you a quick story. I was doing a workshop for a group of Oracle consultants, probably some of the most successful sales professionals I've ever been in the room with. And I made that statement that human beings make decisions based on meaning and emotion. And I had a gentleman raise his hand.

And I said do you have a question? He's like no. Actually I'm going to disagree with what you just said. And I said, "Really? "You're gonna disagree with the fact that people "make decisions based on meaning and emotion? "Why?"

And he said, "Because I'm one of the most "logical people you'll ever meet. "I make every decision filtered through logic and reason. "As a matter of fact, if you were to compare me "with Mr. Spock, he would look like an emotional mess in comparison to the way that I behave." So I took a moment and I said, "Okay. "Let's look at that a little bit closer."

I said, "What was the last major purchase that you made "for either your family or for you personally or for your business? Big purchase."

And he goes, "Oh that's easy. Six months ago I bought a new car." I said, "Okay, don't say anything more." And he goes, "Why?" I said, "We're going to ask the rest of your team members "a really important question."

So I turned to the rest of the room and I said, "I want you to put your logic hat on "and I want you to answer this question for me. "If you were to go out and buy a car and it was a strictly a logical exercise, what makes and models of cars do you think they would buy?" Dan, what do you think they said? Again, just a logical exercise buying a car. What kind of makes and models?

- Lexus?

- Okay, the logical reason behind that would be longevity.

- I'm not a car person, so I would struggle with this question.

- Well, they were saying things like Volvo for safety or Prius for gas mileage or Honda Accord for longevity and low maintenance. And so these were all the practical logical makes and models. And I turned to the gentleman that raised his hand originally, and I said, "Hey, would you mind telling "your teammates what kind of car did you buy?" And he tried to whisper it to me.

He said, "A BMW." And I was like, "The ultimate driving machine? German Engineering, Corinthian leather, this incredible experience that you have behind the wheel of a car?" And he looked at me, he goes, "All right, all right." He goes, "You're right.

It was an emotional decision but I got a great deal." And so, again, he was just not understanding that a lot of the decisions that we make are subconscious. And when was the last time anybody saw a car commercial where they just put up a fact sheet and said, "Here's all the components that go into our engine. And this is technically why our car is better."

Again, these billion dollar automobile companies, they understand they have to tap into the emotional reality of the audience that they're communicating with in order to get them to make a decision.

Well, it's not any different for our audience today. You have to be able to tap into the meaning and emotion of the prospect that you're communicating with in a way that gives them a compelling reason to want to buy. And then use the logical part to actually justify their decision. So let me do this. I'm going to bring up just a quick slide that shows a little bit of the human brain.

And we'll talk about actually what's happening when people make decisions. So when you look at the human brain, there's three major parts to the brain.

You got the neocortex which is the large wrinkly part on the outside, sometimes referred to as the cerebral cortex. You have the limbic system, that yellow part where all of our emotions reside, and then you have the reptilian complex which really is the brain stem or the amygdala.

And so when you look at these three sections, the neocortex is like the onboard computer for human beings. It's where all the complicated processes and task, things like language and memory, it all happens - there - inside of the neocortex. The limbic system, that's where all of our emotions reside.

So fear, love, passion, hate, anger, frustration, worry. All of that happens in the limbic system. And an interesting thing about the limbic system in relation to the cerebral cortex, the cerebral cortex is not completely formed in a human being until about age 25.

And it's one of the reasons why if there are any folks that are listening to this show and you're parenting teenagers, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is, again, the reason that a teenager does stupid things is because their cerebral cortex is not completely formed until they're 25-years-old. So they literally are brain damaged or not all the way fully formed human brains which is why teens do stupid things.

The good news is that once that cerebral cortex is completely formed and has governance over the emotions and over the limbic system, you'll start to see your teenagers behave like reasonable adults. All right, so the last part of the brain is the amygdala or the reptilian complex or the fight or flight portion of the brain.

And so when you're looking at that, the responsibility of the brain stem is to determine whether or not you're safe. And so it's this binary switch. Your reptilian complex is constantly surveying the environment that it's in and asking this question. "Am I safe or am I not? "Am I safe or am I not?"

And then once it decides it's safe, then that decision process is over.

But if decides that it's not safe, the next decision is do I run or do I fight? And so when you look at the way that the human brain is designed, we're literally, all of our five senses, all of the information that's been sent to the brain, the first part of the brain that gets that is the reptilian complex because it has to decide based on your five senses whether or not it's safe or not.

Then the next part of the brain that gets that information is the limbic system.

And it's literally our brains are trying to figure out once we're safe, now it's time to figure out what do we feel about the situation that we're in.

And then the last part of the brain to get all of that information from our five senses is the cerebral cortex. And the cerebral cortex says, "What do I think about this?" So we're literally making decisions from the inside out. Am I safe? How do I feel about this?

And then what do I think about this? Yet again in my experience, so few businesses approach the conversations that they're having with prospects and customers from the perspective of I need to address this reality. There needs to be some meaning and emotion associated with the conversation that I'm having to help the person that I'm having a conversation with make a decision.

So, let me get back out of the slide here and jump back in to camera. And the way I do that is clicking here. And then here. All right, so that's just again a basic understanding as to how the human brain operates. And understanding this, our audience, you now have an opportunity to change the way that you're communicating with prospects and customers.

And so there's an acronym that Dan's already made reference to. It's called the S.U.C.C.ES.S. Formula. And where the S.U.C.C.ES.S. Formula came from is a book written by Chip and Dan Heath called "Made to Stick". And it's a marketing gem that was released probably 15, 16 years ago.

And in there they introduced this S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula. So what I did is I took the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula and I changed it and made it a little bit better to really try to the elements that need to go into your conversation and the references that we make is it's learning how to speak the language of decision ... using the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula as a checkpoint for that.

So just real quickly back into the presentation and give you the elements of that S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula, and so it starts with S or Simple. So when you're speaking with a prospect or a customer, you want to keep your language and your conversation simple.

Keep the concepts and ideas very, very basic. There was a study one in one of Dan Pink's book, a book called "To Sell as Human".

And in that study, they canvased some business professionals who were tasked with the exercise of looking at theses from MBA students. So these MBA students obviously had spent all these years in school. And they're getting g ready to graduate and they're writing their final thesis. And they gave the theses to these business executives and they asked them to create two stacks.

One stack of MBA graduates that would go on to rule the world and the other stack of MBA graduates that were kind of average. One of the attributes that they found in the theses for the rockstars that were gonna go on to rule the world is that they had the ability to take complex things and make them simple. And so that holds true in the conversations that you're having with your prospects and customers.

It's actually more powerful if you take complex things and make them very, very simple to understand. Think of it this way. The next time you try to explain what it is that you do, or maybe the technology that you use, how would you explain that to a sixth grader?

Again, put your thought cap on, look at the person you're getting ready to communicate with and imagine that they're a sixth grader. How would that change your language and some of the terms and phrases that you would use?

It would drive you to, again, be more simple in the language and concepts that to use. So the next one, U, is for Unexpected. Here's another reality about human behavior. John Medina in his book "Brain Rules", he identified that the average human attention span when you're receiving information from another person is roughly about seven to 10 minutes.

Because here's what's happening. The amygdala or the reptilian complex that you heard about just a few minutes ago, again its role is to determine whether or not it's safe or not. And so imagine a prospect of yours stepping into a conversation with you.

And you're five to seven minutes in, or maybe a little bit longer, and the amygdala of the person that you're communicating with comes to the conclusion there's nothing really here that's dangerous. So I can stop paying attention, I can start thinking about what's for dinner tonight, who's going to pick up the kids from school, work related project.

After, again, the amygdala determines that it's safe, it tends to not pay attention. Up until the point that you do something unexpected in the conversation. So here's a quick example of that. Let's say you were to introduce a golf ball into the conversation.

So it's a 3D object. And you told a story around this golf ball that's relevant to the conversation that you're having. As soon as you pull out a golf ball and insert it into the conversation, the person you're communicating with is trying to figure out why did they just pick up a golf ball? What's going on with the golf ball? And so that's unexpected.

And there are a number of techniques that you can use from number plays to word plays to using a 3D prompt, to telling a personal story. There's a number of things that you can introduce into the conversation that are counterintuitive or unexpected that causes the person that you're communicating with to engage and listen and pay attention.

So find ways to do something unexpected in the conversations that you're having with your prospects. The next one would be Concrete. And so concrete not as in this thing that you walk on but concrete versus abstract. So simple and concrete go kind of hand in hand together.

You want to stay away from abstract concepts or ideas. When I say the word justice, everybody listening to this conversation just had a different image in their mind's eye. It could be justice road, or justice of the peace or justice versus mercy, or the justice scale. It could be a number of different things because justice is somewhat of an abstract concept.

If I say elephant then immediately everybody has the same big gray pack of derm in their mind's eye because the concept of an elephant is concrete. So here's how you know that you just said something abstract in the conversation with a prospect or a client.

They'll look at you and say, "What did you mean by that?" So any time somebody asks a clarifying question like that, you can make a mental note that what you just communicated was too abstract.

And what you'll find yourself doing is using an analogy, a metaphor or story in response to their question, "What did you mean by that?" And the reason that you go there is you use a concept or a construct that you know that they're familiar with like an analogy or metaphor. And you'll go, that's kind of like the Google of or kind of like the Airbnb of, or Uber of ...

Again, a concept that most everybody would know and immediately they're all, like, "Oh, okay, I know what you're trying to communicate." So make a mental note when you get those clarifying questions. Hey, what did you mean by that?

And whatever you use to clarify their understanding, use that going forward in the next conversation that you have. All right, this next one, super, super important in again speaking this language of decision. And it's Contrast.

So here's why contrast is important. Daniel Kahneman who's one of the foremost renowned behavioral psychologist in the world today, he won a Noble Prize back in 2002 in economics.

And the reason, the kind of the fundamental reason for him winning this prestigious award in economics as a behavioral psychologist is because he cracked the code on how human beings perceive value. Now value is king in any selling conversation.

Value will ensure that there's a sense of urgency for your prospect to use your product or service sooner than later. Value is also what enables you to get the price point or the financial agreement that you're entering into with your prospect or customer. So anytime you get pushed back on, hey, I think you're too expensive. You just need to understand that you didn't communicate enough value around your product or service to justify the price point.

And so what you're getting ready to experience here is an understanding of how human beings perceive value so you can do a better job of communicating value with the people that you're having conversations with. So it works like this.

You have a conversation with a prospective client. When you start the conversation, that client has a idea or an understanding of what their present state is. This is what's going on in my world. This is what I'm trying to accomplish.

These are the challenges that I'm facing. So they have a good feel for what their present state currently looks like. You start talking to them about the benefits of your studio, photography, technology, the things that you can do for them, and they start to imagine what their future state would look like.

And it's in the side by side contrast of their present state compared to their future state that they perceive value. So it's up to you to create this contrasting world view in the conversation that you're having with them. Literally communicating with them this is what your world looks like today without my product, service, or solution.

And this is what your world could look like with my product or solution. And it's in that side by side comparison or contrast that they perceive value. Now the interesting thing about that is that your prospects really don't understand all of the implications of their present state.

So you have an opportunity to ask them questions about their present state that really helps them understand that their present state really wasn't where they thought it was. It's really a lot further to the left. Now when you flip the conversation and start painting the picture of what their world could look like with your solution, now all of a sudden their perceived value is greater. But there's a really important point to make here.

And again this is a challenge in kind of a hurdle that I see a lot of business owners face when they're trying to apply this principle.

So communicating that their present state, it really is just talking about the challenges and the impact of those challenges that they're facing today. But when you flip the conversation and start to paint a picture of what their world could look like with your solution, you need to be able to do that without making any reference to your solution.

So it could be things like, what if you could, what if you could work with more high end properties or what if you could shorten the sales cycle of selling a particular property?

Again, that has nothing to do with your technology. It has nothing to do with your solution. You're just painting a picture of what if your world looked like this instead, and helping them understand what they can do differently as a result of using your solution.

- David, for our community, I would say with that future state probably looks like for a photographer talking to a real estate agent, the future state is imagine that you could get in front of more clients to do, to more home sellers to do more presentations, do enlisting presentation.

- Okay.

- Imagine sitting in front of more, more potential home sellers to do a listing presentation. Imagine winning more of those listing presentations.

- Right.

- And imagine listing presentations getting bigger over time, or listings that you're doing your photography for, forgive me. That you're selling houses for that the houses are bigger. I guess I would translate that into imagine winning more and bigger premium listings more often which begins by getting more leads to get in front of.

- Right, right. And see, yeah, and what you're demonstrating to me is that you've listened when you went through the first couple of workshops that you made reference to--

- When I started that, I should say, forgive me, but when I started out, you painted a picture of exactly, "Oh, let me tell you everything about this camera. "I brought my camera with me on presentations." I wanted to talk about the technology. Boy, was I wrong.

I thought everybody that wanted to learn about, well, it's millions of dots of light per second and thousands of dots of lights per second.

And then there is this reader that reads the lights and this is how it creates. No, nobody was really interested in that. They were interested in, well, how can you help me sell, how can you help me win more listing presentations. That's what--

- Right.

- Quickly, and I think that was from the first of your webinars that I ... seminars that I attended was talking about the future state of what the client could imagine.

- [David] Right.

- Imagine that we could help you double your income. Would that be helpful to you?

- Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so really in order for your audience to get to what those imaginative statements would be, it really is as simple as just sitting down, thinking about the prospect that you're going to have a conversation with and then answer this question. What can this prospect do differently in their world as a result of using the technology and the service that I provide? And you gave some great examples, some incredible examples.

So really it's just pulling out a piece of paper thinking about the prospect that is sitting across the table or is going to be sitting across the table from you and then write out, imagine if you could or what if you could, dot, dot, dot. And then fill in the blank of all the things that they could do differently.

- Early on, some of those things that I wrote down was imagine that we could help you sell the house faster. But what I learned was the real estate agent, the objection was the house is going to sell regardless. I'm going to make my commission meaning if I've already sold the listing, if I got the listing, then the photographer is just an expense, it's going to come out of my commission check.

- Right.

- We really need to be talking about the next potential listing rather than the existing listing. Even talking about, well, we could help sell the house faster. The agent's just thinking, "Oh, I'm going to get my commission anyway." I don't need that expense.

So as soon as we start to shift the conversation to imagine that we can help you double your income by helping you get more or asking the questions, if we could help you get in front of more potential home sellers, and we had a compelling reason to help you win a higher percentage of those sales win more listings and then trade up the bigger listing.

So that's kind of where we were heading and finding some success.

- Yeah, and you just demonstrated another important principle. So the selling of the house fast, not so important to the real estate agent. Maybe important to the homeowner, right?

That's a really important point. This perception of value that we're talking about, it really is on you to create this contrasting world view specific to your audience, specific to the person that you're communicating with because you're right to say, "Hey, what if you could sell the house faster?" For the agent, they look at that and go, "Yeah, I don't really care about that."

- Only if they can use that to say to the home seller, "Hey, we can help you get the most offers faster "for the most amount of money "with the least amount of stress "and sell your home faster." Now you've hit some of what I think are the fill in the blank answers.

- Right.

- The agent talking to the homeowner. But really the first part of the conversation is you don't really get to have that conversation unless the agent feels that they can achieve their objective of winning more and bigger premium listings more often.

- Right, right. No, excellent. That's excellent. All right, we're mostly through the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula, again where we just came from is understanding that contrast, creating this contrasting world view leads to the perception of value.

And that's one of the most important things that everybody is going to hear on this topic is that if you didn't do a good job of creating this contrasting world view, the perception of value is not going to be there and you're going to have a hard time creating a sense of urgency for them to work with you and you're going to have a hard time getting the price point that you're looking for. All right, E is for Emotion.

So you've already heard the role that emotion plays in making decisions. But there's also another element that's important to the topic of emotion. And that is that emotion leads to memory. And so in the live workshops that I do, I often ask this question. "Hey, can anybody tell me where they were "and what they were doing on 9/11?"

And unless you are very young, the answer to that question is going to be very detailed. Because, again it was just so dramatic and the emotion associated with that was so strong. But then I asked another question in the room.

I say, "Hey, can anybody tell me what you had "for lunch two weeks ago?" And there are very few people that can answer that question unless they eat the same thing every day.

I'm like, you understand the dichotomy here? You can give me detailed description of where you were on 9/11 but you can't tell me what you had for lunch two weeks ago.

And the whole reason behind that is because whatever you had for lunch two weeks ago, there was no strong emotion associated with it. So the reason that our brains worked this way is largely from a protective standpoint.

So any time we experience pain or a strong emotion, what the brain does is it floods our brain with hormones to create detailed memory of what happened right before the painful event and the consequence of the painful event so that our brains are able to say, "Hey, if you ever see this scenario again, "you need to move away from it. "You need to avoid it."

The experience that I had when I was 5-years-old, I can give you a detailed description of what our family even looked like and the house that we lived in in Richmond, Virginia. And the reason I can give you a detailed description to that room is that my mother left the room and I saw this shiny object up on the counter. And I thought it was a toy.

So I reached out to grab this shiny object and found out that it was actually an iron because I got second degree burns on my hand. And because of that painful experience, again, my brain created this detailed record of what everything looked like in my environment so that if I saw it again, I'd know to avoid it.

So obviously I learned that lesson a long time ago and to this day have a very squeamish approach to irons because of that experience. So why is that important in the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula? Because as you evoke emotion around the pain of the current situation that your prospects are in at the things they can't do, it helps them create memory of the conversation that you're having with them.

All right, S for Sight. This is also very important. Medina in his book "Brain Rules", the other thing that he discovered, if you have a verbal conversation with somebody, two days later they'll remember about 20% of what you said. I want to just let that sink in for a second because you're spending all this time to get an opportunity to speak with a prospect. And if it's just a verbal phone conversation, they're probably only going to remember about 20% of what you said. And that's not good.

And so what Medina discovered is that if you can anchor the conversation around a visual image, then the retention of what you've communicated will go up to 70%. And here's why. When somebody says, "Hey, you remember "that trip that we took to the beach?" The way that we remember things is we remember things visually.

So nobody conjures up an image of a ticker tape of words running across the screen. That's not how you remember. You remember an image. And then the second thing that happens is you remember how you felt in that experience or that image.

So if that's the way that we remember things, then it's on us as communicators and as business professionals to give our prospects and clients a visual anchor that they can use to remember the conversations that you're having with them. And one of the most impactful tools that you can use is white boarding. So white boarding can show up in the way that you just saw an explanation of how to communicate value.

Again, by anchoring that explanation around a very simple white board increases the likelihood that everybody that's on this webinar can remember how it is that people perceive value. And you have the same opportunity in the conversations that you're having with your prospects and customers to incorporate a very simple tool like white boarding to create more retention and understanding of what you're communicating.

And the last S in the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula is Stories. And so the reason that stories are so powerful is that because as human beings, we don't experience stories passively. We experience stories experientially.

There was a TED Talk that was released about a year and a half ago. And what they did is they had two individuals sitting with their backs to each other and they were carrying on conversations with somebody else in the room.

And so they had put monitors on their heads to detect the brain wavelengths of each of these individuals, these two individuals. And obviously you're carrying on two separate conversations. Their brain wavelengths are complete different.

What they found was as soon as the two turned to face each other and one of them started to tell the other one a story, their brain wavelengths became in sync or in tune with each other.

They were on the same wavelength. And the only time this happens in communication is in the context of either telling or receiving a story. So there are ways to incorporate stories into the conversations that you're having with prospects and customers that creates this experience.

And one of those would be just a customer story. So you can paint a picture of, hey, I've worked with other agencies or other agents. They were faced with this challenge or problem. And now what they're able to do are these things instead.

And the reason behind that is, and then you give them a little bit of context as to how you worked with them. There are all kinds of stories that you can incorporate into your conversations again that make it easier for the person to understand and experience the emotion, the meaning of what it is that you're communicating because you're using this concept called a story. All right, how do we bring this all together?

Well, it starts with understanding the value position for the product or service that you represent. And the way that you get there is you certainly have to understand what your product is and does. And the mistake that most businesses make is they just focus on that. Here's what my product is and this is what it does.

I'll let you connect the dots on the value that it would represent for you. And then once you figure that out, then we can do business together. And again unfortunately what you've just heard and understanding the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula is that's not the way that human beings make decisions. And it's not the right way to communicate.

So to determine the focal point of the conversation that you're gonna have with a prospect, you have to understand the unique value position for that prospect. And the way that you get there is very simply to identify challenges or problems that your prospect faces, and your unique ability to solve that challenge or problem.

And the unique ability comes out of what your product is or does. Now, those are the building blocks for the conversation that you're going to have.

And what you're going to see here in just a minute is a story arc that you can tap into to build a high value conversation.

So before you ever talk about what your product or service is and does, you have to frame the conversation so that the person you're communicating with understand what it means to them. Once they understand what it means to them then they're going to have a vested interest in understanding what the product is and does.

So the way that you do that is you introduce what you know are known challenges in their world. So you have to understand what they're trying to accomplish and what are the high level challenges or problems that they bump up against that are keeping them from their goals and objectives. Now in a conversation like this, nobody likes having a finger pointed at them.

And basically you're looking at them and going, "Hey, you've got this problem "or you've got this challenge." but you talk with real estate agents every day. I mean, this is an area of expertise for you. So you don't have to say, "Hey, you've got this challenge," or "You've got this problem."

What you can do is make reference to the other agents that you work with and just say something like, "Hey, in talking with other agents, "here's some of the challenges "that I'm hearing them share with me."

And by doing that, you're still allowing the person that you're communicating with to live in the understanding of their challenge because more than likely everything that you're sharing what you've heard from other agents is exactly what their experience in way of challenges. Not enough just to give voice to the challenges.

You also want to give voice to the impact of those challenges on the individual that you're communicating with and on their business.

So I work with sales professionals all the time, specifically sales leaders. And one of the challenges that they faced is this 80-20 dynamic of the behavior of the sales team where 80% of the revenues is being created by 20% of the team. Well that's a challenge and I could introduce that into the conversation I'm having.

But I if just left it at that and then moved on in the conversation, I'm missing out on an opportunity for them to understand the impact of that challenge on their business. So the impact would be, "Hey, you've got this 80-20 dynamic "where 80% of your revenue is being created "by 20% of your reps." So the impact of that is that you're probably losing some of your reps because they're not making the money that they expected.

And the impact of that is that you're having to spend money to go out and fill those empty seats. But even more importantly, you're missing out on productive team members creating revenue to help you realize your revenue goal. So that 80-20 split, it doesn't live in isolation.

It actually creates this ripple effect, this challenging ripple effect of their organization and inside of their team. And again for you it's on you to communicate the impact that these challenges are having on the prospect that you're having a conversation with. Now once you've done this, once you've communicated, "Hey, I'm talking with other agents. "We hear that they're challenged with, and the impact of those challenges is.

At that point you can ask a very important open-ended question you just look at the person that you're having a conversation with and you say something like, "Hey, that's what I'm hearing "and seeing and talking with other agents. "I'm curious, Dan, what does that look like "in your world?

And they'll do one of two things. They'll affirm that they've got the same challenges and they may add some other challenges to the conversation. So yeah, I'm challenged with not getting as many high end properties as I would like or challenge in not doing more work with the type of agencies that I'd like to do work with.

But in addition to that, I've also got these challenges. So by asking a very open-ended question, you'll get them to affirm what it is that you've communicated and you'll also learn new things that are going on inside their world that you may not have identified as challenges. And when they give you the answer, just ask some impact questions.

And you can ask questions like, "What have you tried to solve that problem? "What happens if you can't solve that problem?" What's the impact on your business? What's the impact on your team? What's the impact on your clients? And these are great follow up questions deep in their understanding of their present state. Going back to that white board that you saw a few minutes ago where you're moving the green arrow further and further to the left.

So now that when you flip the conversation, the contrast is gonna be that much more dramatic. So now that you've had the opportunity to do this, you can now flip the conversation and say, "Hey, thanks for sharing. "If it's any consolation,

I'm hearing "a lot of the same things for other agents "that I'm having conversations with." and at that point now this is when you're introduced. So what if you could have access to more high end properties?

What if you could have higher margin deals? What if you could create more clients? Again, you're painting this picture of what their world could look like by partnering with you.

And at that point you basically say, "Well, you can, and here's how." Or, "You can and here's where we've done it before." We've worked with other agencies, we've created this kind of future state, and now they're benefiting from that.

And then once you offer a proof, now they're actually gonna be interested to know a little bit of how you do that, what it is that you do and how your product or service works. And so when you do this well and you build the conversation using this kind of story arc, you literally on the left hand side of the white board have created an understanding of what their present state looks like.

And on the right hand side of the white board, you create an understanding of what their future state would look like. So I'll just give you a quick example. Let me stop sharing here. So, Dan, you've actually heard me use this example before. If I walked into a Verizon store and I told the customer service or sales rep there, "Hey, I've never seen a smart phone before in my life." And I just explained to them, "Look, for whatever reason, "I just never really had much interest. "I tried to stay away from all those future technology, "but now I'm kinda curious.

So I'm walking in as never seen a smartphone before in my life. Here's how most sales professionals would behave. They'd go and grab the latest smartphone, maybe an iPhone 12 or whatever, and they'd shove it in my face and go, "Oh my goodness, you've never seen a smartphone before? "Well, it's made up of Gorilla Glass "and it's got aluminum backing "and it's got 120 gigabit hard drive "and it only weighs less than a pound. "Don't you want one?"

They'd give me everything that it is and does and expect that that would be enough to create enough excitement for me to say, "Yes, I want one." And I would just look at them and go, "I'm completely confused.

I have no idea what you just said." So contrast that with walking into an AT&T Store where they understand that story arc, how to build a high value conversation. And instead of shoving a smartphone to my face, they take a minute to understand a little bit about the challenges in my world. And they say, "Well, okay, David.

You think you're kinda interested in smart phones. Tell me a little bit about your world." Well, married 35 years, four adult kids. As a matter of fact, our oldest daughter recently got married, moved out to Portland, Oregon. We live in Atlanta, Georgia. And gave birth to our first granddaughter. "Oh really? "So you've got a granddaughter and family out in Oregon. "You live here in Atlanta, yeah. "How's that working for you?"

Not so good. My wife wants to get on a plane every two weeks, fly out to Portland to be with our granddaughter and and our daughter and son-in-law. It's emotionally frustrating for her to not be able to be out there to help. It's expensive to fly out there every two weeks. And it's frustrating for me as well not to be able to experience this new stage of our lives as far as being a grandparent. And so the sales person takes the time to understand all of that.

And all of a sudden flips the conversation and says, "David, what if you could see your granddaughter every day "just like she was standing right next to you?

"What if you could see when she takes her first steps? "Or maybe, more importantly for you, "what if you could see the expression on her face "the first time she says granddaddy? "You can. "It's called a smartphone. "Do you want one?" That's the dramatic difference between just depending on explaining the technology and service that you provide and hoping somebody will understand the value to them as opposed to framing the conversation in a way that they understand what it means to them because at that point in the conversation with the AT&T rep, I'm going to be like, "Yeah, show me how that works. I want to see how I can experience being with my granddaughter every day just like she was standing right next to me."

And then I'm going to be like, "That's amazing. How much does that cost?"

And when they say $5,000, I'm going to pull out my credit card and I'm going to pay for it because I want the benefit, I want the outcome that they just painted this amazing picture. So for your audience, again hopefully this has been helpful where they understand they've got to go through that story arc.

- Yeah, that story is spot on, David. I think in our world as a 3D photographer, in fact, that may be even the wrong way to even describe ourselves based on this present state and future state conversation.

We really ought to be talking about what the value is maybe even in what we identify ourselves as. But I think there's a lot of us as photographers who want to talk about, "Well, it's got this doll house view and then there's these MatterTags and you can label stuff. Let me tell you about how we can play a video within it." So all we're starting to do is describe the technology.

And that's why I think your analogy is spot on because we're probably more like that first store caught up in the bells and whistles of what our technology does rather than trying to understand the problem or challenge of a real estate agent.

And it probably doesn't take too many questions to ask, "Are you winning all your listing presentations?" "If you were making more money, what would you do with it?" "Oh, I'd love to have a boat." "I'd love to travel." Now you got some things to start painting some pictures with.

- Right.

- "If I could help you make more money in order to take that cruise you wan to go on or go travel on that trip, would that be helpful?"

- "Yeah." Now, I wan to make a quick distinction because there's a little nuance in painting this picture of what their world could look like. If you'll notice when I was sharing the story of the AT&T rep, so he says, "Hey, imagine if you could see your granddaughter like she was standing right next to you. Imagine if you could see her first steps?

And imagine if you could see the expression on her face when she says granddaddy. Well you can and it's called a smart phone." So the distinction is ... I didn't pose it as a question that I expected the person to answer. Because when you say, "Hey, what if you could "close more listings?" Or, "What if you could make more money? Would that be a good thing?"

I put that under the category of leading the witness. So they feel like they're being led when you ask a question that there's no way that they can answer it other than yes. That would be a good thing. So this painting a picture of what their world could look like, it's meant to be a rhetorical question. What if you could, what if you could, what if you could? You can, here's how. And give them an explanation.

- "Imagine that you could get in front of more potential home sellers." "Imagine that more of those home sellers said yes to you listing the house for sale."

- Right. "And in that world, you can have that and here's how. It's called 3D." And again you give them a brief explanation of how it works. Same thing that I did with the smartphone. Again, he painted this picture and he goes, "You can have this. It's called a smartphone. Do you want one?"

- And maybe to translate that for the agent, maybe to help the agent understand how they can help tell the story. So if you're in front of someone who is about to sell their house, imagine getting more leads. Let's see, how would we say this? "Imagine more offers for more money with the least amount of stress." "Imagine not having to have to clean up the house very time someone wants to come see your house."

- Right.

- "Not having to take the kids out of the house every time someone wants to come. That's because here's the solution to make a 24/7 open house possible."

- Right.

- [Dan] So is that in kind of the right direction?

- It is, it is. And again you're demonstrating the importance of understanding the audience that you're speaking with. Because you just shifted the imagine if statements that you were making.

You shifted it so that they would be more impactful and relevant to the homeowner, right? So you're demonstrating this ability to paint a picture of what the world could look like with this 3D technology for different audiences.

It's different for the agent than it is for the home buyer or home seller. And you're absolutely right, your audience has the ability to coach the agents on how to build this conversation so that it's of high value to the home owner.

- Let me try and add just a little more to that and see if I'm in the right direction.

- Sure.

- The agent is talking to the potential, to the person who wants to sell their house, why should you list your house for sale with me? "Imagine how we are going to enable out-of-town buyers to be able to visit your house as if they were there." "Imagine people who are across town." "Imagine people who are relocating from out of town and imagine how having more potential buyers look at your home that that's going to." "Imagine that leading to more offers for the most money with the least amount of stress." "And we can help achieve that when we list your house for sale."

- "And here's how."

- "And here's how."

- Yeah.

- Is that in the right direction?

- It is, it is. When you do that well, and the thing that you'd have to work on is those imaginative statements really need to be pretty short and concise. And again if you can do it in threes. Imagine if this, imagine if this, imagine if this.

When you do it in threes, it makes it easy for the person you're communicating with to remember and to really in their mind's eye start to imagine that scenario. And then you just look at them, you go, "Look, you can and here's how." And again avoid the knee jerk reaction to give them a dissertation on the how. You just need to give them enough in the how that they can believe what you've just said is true.

- I would say now that we've had the We Get Around Network Forum Community for five plus years, 65,000 posts among 10,000 topics, a lot of what photographers have been communicating in my opinion have been all the things about the technology rather than about the imagine that.

And so I think this is really kind of a transformational message for our Community is to start focusing on what that future state looks like for the potential buyer rather than, "Let me explain the technology," and, "This is how it works," and the camera rotates and then it creates this dollhouse view and they like get this floor plans and we have these tags, the MatterTags, the MatterVids, and MatterThis and all of sudden we are lost in the technology which again is about us, it's not about the future state of what the client wants to imagine.

- [David] Right.

- Are we on kind of on the right page trying to shift that thinking?

- Absolutely, absolutely. And I know this isn't going to make your audience feel any better. But in eight years of doing this, it's not just your audience that has this challenge. It's business owners and sales professionals across the board. Because as human beings, we're most comfortable when we're talking about the things that we're passionate and knowledgeable about.

So it only makes sense that when we get in front of somebody that we think has an interest in what we do, we just want to tell them everything about it because we're so convinced it's the most amazing thing ever.

And again the takeaway is that people really don't care about what you do; they are care about the outcomes, the future states that you'll create for them. Once they understand that, then they'll actually listen to how you do that because they'll understand the meaning and the importance to them. So, yes, you're absolutely on the right track.

- We asked of our Community, We Get Around Network Forum Community, what kind of objections do you hear constantly? And I think a typical comment is, "I got a quote from another photographer who can do it for much cheaper than that." Can you help me understand, with that typical objection by a member of the We Get Around Network Community, how do you apply the S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula?

- Yeah. So, unfortunately, and again there's no silver bullet to the answer to that question. But there is an understanding of the principle that your audience heard earlier in our conversation, and that is the communication of value.

So anytime you get pushback on price, "Well, I can get it cheaper. "I can get it somewhere else," or, "I don't necessarily need it today," what they're literally saying to you is, "Dan, you did not do a good enough job "in communicating the value of your product or service "to justify the price that you just asked for."

So unfortunately, if it's at the end of the conversation, again you just need to chalk it up to, "I did not do a good enough job "of creating this contrasting worldview." When you do an excellent job of creating the contrasting worldview, it mitigates the likelihood that they're going to compare you to somebody else because they understand the value that was represented in the conversation that you had. So that's the reality or truth that you can get away.

And again I've been asked this question hundreds of time, "How do I overcome the price objection?" And my answer is do a better job of communicating value next time.

- So let's say that we can communicate the value and we're absolutely, they're spot on, imagine that three times, "Here's how."

- Right.

- But there's a photographer that does exactly what you do, who's, "We'll do it for less." So how do I, how does our Community, that is typically using the same solution that's now offered by more than one photographer, differentiate themselves so that that's part of that value proposition?

- Yeah, the only other way to come back to that would be to ask some, "Compared to what," okay? So you're saying that there's somebody else that can do exactly what I do for a price point that's much less. So what is it that they, what's this future state that they created for you? What outcomes did they talk about that they're going to be able to create for you? If it comes down to, again if it's exactly the same, unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that.

Other than I would find it hard to believe that if somebody in your audience use the technique and the principle that we've just discussed, unless the other company that the prospect spoke to did the exact same thing in creating this future state, I don't think they're going to compare you to that other company. Because that other company would've just spent all this time talking about the technology, not the outcome.

- Yes. And I would say, if we really pressed really hard and to say, "Well, what differentiates you "from the next photographer and the next photographer?" Well, it may be that the one photographer offers not just still photography and this 3D tour solution but also offers aerial photography and videography. And we can do that all with one order rather than having to source it to two photographers or three photographers.

- Yeah.

- We carry $2 million in liability insurance. Did the other photographer do that? "So imagine that they come in and they break something or they fall down or something happens on the job," would that be an example of differentiating?

- Yeah, and so, and I'm glad you said that, because it just jogs something in my thought process. When you paint this picture of, "Hey, what if you could do this, "what if you could this, what if you could do this," you can and here's how. To your point, when you give the explanation of how, that's when you'd want to incorporate the things that are unique to your solution, some of the things that you just suggested.

Because now when they hear that, and they hear the how of how you do it, they're going to compare that how with the other company that they're making reference to that they can get it from cheaper and they're going to realize, "If I want this future state that Dan just communicated, his how has some unique things in it that are going to allow that to happen. Therefore, I need to pick Dan." So that would be a way to do it.

- And I would say those that are watching WGAN-TV Live at 5 today with you, I would say are also the photographers who've probably been at it the longest, thinking about, "Hey, I'm just not getting as many new clients as I would like. I'm not winning, getting as much business from my existing clients since I want, I don't understand, I've been doing this for five years."

Well, bingo, that person who is selling at a cheaper price point may very well be just got the camera, is looking to get some new clients is coming in at a lower price point. So it maybe ... if you're going to fly a plane, do you want your pilot someone who's been flying for 10 years or someone who just started?"

- [David] Right.

- Because it's not when things go, when things go right, we all can fly the plane.

- [David] Right.

- Don't go right, you want the seasoned, experienced photographer that can make the judgment call. And the example I guess I think of, and I certainly have not gotten it down to a few words, but when the photographer goes to a home and is often the homeowner's still in the house that you're representing that real estate agent.

- Yeah.

- "Who do you want in the house? Someone who's a seasoned, experienced person whose going to say and do the right things, that speak well about that agent versus somebody who is a person with a camera that just got it, who's doing it for less but may not represent the client in the best, the agent in the best possible way to their client?"

- Yeah.

- I haven't said that right. But I think what I'm trying to struggle for is to say, there really are ways for photographers to differentiate themselves from other photographers even though it might seem like we all shoot the same solution.

- I would agree with that. And again, but you have to always tie it back to the outcome in the future state that you've painted the picture of. Whatever it is that you believe is unique to your business has to support what you said in, "Hey, what if you can have this?" Well, you can by working with one of the most experienced 3D photographers in Atlanta.

"We've been doing this for over 20," again whatever the spiel is, "We've been doing this for over 15 years, which means when we interact with your customers, the home buyer or the home seller, they're going to have a very professional impression of your agency because of our knowledge of how to do ..." again there's ways to say that but it has to always be tied back to the outcome.

Because they're looking for any supporting information on how you're going to create this future state. And then the other thing that I'll say is in a commoditized market like you're describing, the uniqueness can actually show up in the way that you're communicating with your prospect.

So I firmly believe that your audience, if there are individuals in the audience that'll take what they've heard today and apply it to the conversations, they're going to stand out as being unique and different just in the way that they're communicating with the prospect.

- A big difference than somebody that says, "How much?"

- Right.

- And all you do is answer the email with, "I charge X per square foot."

- Right, right. Perfect point, yeah.

- And so does your messaging, if I'm going to master the messaging, is that also, and my only opportunity may be email, so do I communicate in a similar fashion with email? So I'm bouncing some emails back and forth about what would be the best possible outcome in order to probe for what that future state might look like or am I simply answering the question, "Here's the price"?

- Yeah, that's a great question. So that story arc that you saw for building a high value conversation should absolutely be used in any customer or prospect-facing communication. So when you're building an email, you should start to email it out with, "Hey, in working with agencies, we hear they're challenged with this." "This is the impact.

Now they're able to realize this future state and here's how." "We'd love to have a 15-minute conversation with you as to how you can have the same results." So you're going to follow the same story arc in that written communication in an email. Websites. If you go to the Master Messaging website, you're going to see this story arc play out in our website.

- Excuse me, MasterMessaging.com

- [David] Correct.

- MasterMessaging.com

- Yeah. Again we talk about the challenges of business professionals and sales professionals, we talk about the impact of it, and then we paint a picture of what their world could look like if they were to partner with us. And then we give them a little bit of information as to how we do that. So that story arc should be used in any communication: website, emails, brochures.

Because every time you communicate that way you're creating a high perceived value in the mind of the audience that you're communicating with.

- And should we be trying to shift that conversation from email to phone or from email to in-person if--

- In-person is always the ideal. Again the eye contact, the body language, the things that you can pick up in an in-person meeting are far superior. So, yeah, as quickly as you can move the conversation from email interest. It may take an initial phone call to communicate a little bit more, but, yes, yes, absolutely, you want to get to in-person meeting as quickly as you can.


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- And I don't have a lot of time to do an in-person meeting, so just tell me what your price is.

- I can't tell you the price until you understand the value. So again at that point I would be looking to, "Can you give me 15 minutes to have just a brief conversation so that you understand the value that you'd be paying for?"

- So part, so it's a business risk. You might not get the business Because you didn't answer the question on price. On the other hand, I imagine if someone's listening at this point that they probably are struggling with, "Well, I haven't been," I guess even for a photographer, I would ask the question, when you quote a job, do you get 100% of the business? And if the answer is no, then maybe you have to shift and try something different.

And then maybe this is what's different is that you really need to get either an in-person conversation, best, or a video chat or a phone conversation rather than simply quoting the project directly and then knowing that perhaps that agent is asking three other photographers for a quote and going with the least cost project without knowing what the value proposition of how the photographer can help that future state. So let's say, how might that translate?

So for an agent that's asking about 3D tours, maybe they don't realize that you also offer floor plans and video and so they're in the midst of calling around to get quotes on three different kinds of services from different providers where you're the only provider. Or they may not realize that you ... ... have insurance and here's how that translates. Or, excuse me, your level of experience translates to, if, I think you said it far better than I, excuse me, David, I possibly could.

But we're often left with the home owner. And those are, do you wan to leave that with a seasoned person who's going to say and do the right thing, as opposed to somebody who's just bought a camera and doesn't know too much about interacting with the client and all of a sudden said the wrong thing?

- Yeah, if you get an email from a prospective client and the email is just simply, "Hey, I need this, this and this. How much would you charge?" I mean, you have to understand what's happening there. They've already had a more detailed conversation with another photographer.

They've already gotten an understanding of how all this works. They're just looking to make sure that the person that they had the conversation with isn't charging too much. And so the likelihood of you replying back even with a marginally less quote, you winning the business is almost, it's like almost zero. Because all they're doing is using you as kind of a data source of, "Hey, is this other company in the ballpark of "the right price that I should be paying for this?"

So by you pushing back and saying, "So you're looking for a price quote for this, "and in order for me to respond to that request, "I really need to have a better understanding "of what it is that you're trying to accomplish "and some of the challenges that you're bumping up against." If they're not gonna take the time to have that conversation with you, you're not going to win the deal anyway.

- Yeah, so for photographers that have not been winning by quoting and responding to a request for quote by email and perhaps they need to keep track of the wins and losses, to categorize the losses and say, "Oh, well, all I did was quote price, "all I did was quote price. "Oh, there's a trend here.

"When I respond to a quote with price, "then somebody else is already established with the value, "somebody else has already established the relationship. "I'm just the data point to validate "that that photographer is not charging way too much. "And so I've helped the other photographer get the business "by providing a price to get to the three quotes "that the person felt comfortable with "in order to make the decision "with the first person that they were happy with."

- Yeah, and then one other quick thought. Another way to kinda disrupt and get the person that just asked you for the quote, thinking differently, ask a hard question. So you could say, "Hey, in order to provide a quote, I need to have an understanding of some of the challenges that you're facing, what you're trying to accomplish. And, oh, by the way, have you considered the liability associated with having an inexperienced photographer on the set," or, "Have you considered," so ask a question that you know would be a potential landmine for the company that you're doing business with and would provoke the potential client to want to have a conversation with you to explore the answer to that question.

So again I don't know enough about the world of your audience to think of what a good question would be. What I, as sales leaders from time to time, is, "Can you tell me what the conversion rate is of the demonstrations that you're doing of your software?" And it's such an insightful and important question.

I immediately get high credibility for asking that question and it provokes them to want to have a conversation with me, because I'm coming across as being very educated and highly knowledgeable about their world. So there may be similar questions that your audience could ask when they get just a simple request for a quote. "Hey, I would love to provide you the information that you've asked for. We need to have a conversation so I can understand the challenges and the goals of what you're trying to accomplish. And, oh, by the way, have you considered," and then ask the question.

- Yeah, and for our Community, there are many photographers that offer other solutions. Oh, by the way, when you have a house for sale and it doesn't have any furniture, part of the solutions that our members would provide is virtual staging, that would be an example. So a real estate agent may be planning to spend $1,000 on virtual staging or $2,000 on virtual staging, excuse me, on actual staging real furniture where it can be done at a fraction of the cost by doing it virtually within a tour.

So there's services that the Community offers that should differentiate them from one photographer to another. It may be spaces that haven't been built yet and it's providing the 3D tour for that kind of space, I mentioned the floor plans. So I'm struggling in terms of tactical solutions, but they are things that still differentiate that a lot of agents really they would switch in a heartbeat to a service provider that is one-stop shopping that covers all the things that the agent wants to buy. because the agent really doesn't want to deal with three people, they want to deal with one person whenever possible.

- So, in using the example that we're touching on, the question that you could pose in response to the email is, "Oh, and by the way, how are you mitigating the cost of staging?"

All of a sudden the person that sent the email is like, "I never thought about that." Now they have a valid reason to engage you in a conversation because you're coming across as knowledgeable and insightful and different than the conversation they had before.

- Yes. And it may be that the listing they're thinking about that they've reached out in terms of a 3D tour has furniture so that it shows nicely. But also possible that the next house, one of the houses won't be furnished when it needs to be shot. And, therefore, "Oh, well, now do you go to another photographer that specializes in that?

Well, you might as well start with us, because we can do both." Whether furnished or unfurnished, built or un-built, whether you need visual storytelling inside the house or outside the house that we're really --" maybe I'm too focused on one-stop shopping but that would be an example.

- Yeah, yeah. So again in our back and forth, I think the audience has gotten a couple of ideas or thoughts on how to differentiate and so I'm glad we went down that path because I wasn't happy with my original answer to how do you respond to somebody that says, "Hey, I can get it for the same price somewhere else."

- Well, I think that my, probably one of my key takeaways is from your S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula, taking us through your S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Formula, is value, value, value, future state, future state, future state, and you gotta shift the conversation from talking about either price or tactics or how it's done to this whole visualization of, "Imagine that, "keep it at three things," and, "Here's how." And the how incorporates not just what we were thinking about in terms of the 3D tour photography which we all would probably think that's what we would answer. But unless we added a piece that, a piece or three that differentiates ourselves--

- [David] That's key.

- Then all we've done is help sell the space of it's important to do photography, it's important to do 3D tours, but you haven't established why it's important to engage you as the photographer to offer that service.

- Very well said.

- Good. What haven't we covered today that we should be talking about?

- Um, I think we've pretty much hit it. I mean we've, again I think your recap was spot on. And that is, nobody really cares about how you go about doing your business, take care about the outcomes that you create. And if you do a good job of communicating those outcomes and the future state, then they'll want to understand how you do it. And in your explanation of how, you need to pick a few key things that you know are important to creating that future state that may be unique to your business.

- Awesome. David, thanks for being on the show today.

- Oh, you're welcome, you're welcome. This is a blast. I'm glad you extended the invitation.

- Thank you. We've been visiting with David Kurkjian. David is the Founder of Master Messaging.

You can find him at MasterMessaging.com ... And, I thank you for tuning in. If you missed a portion of the show, we have been recording it and we will post it in the We Get Around Network Forum, that's WGANForum.com by tomorrow, Thursday, January 30th 2020. David, thanks again. And I'm Dan Smigrod, Founder of the We Get Around Network Forum. You've been watching WGAN-TV Live at 5.


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Wingman private msg quote post Address this user
It would be nice to have some practical part in this video using this model. I waited till the end hopping David would play a photographer and Dan would be representing an agency, just to see in practise how it would go.

So how would David reach Dan and how would David start his sales pitch?

I am happy to play an agency representative if Dan doesn't want to.
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bryanhscott private msg quote post Address this user
If I were going to scale up and hire customer service reps who I would expect to be able to convert leads to customer orders, I would create scripts for phone, email, text, etc. To take @Wingman's comment just a bit further, it would be great to create a working group of some sort to create the "ideal" generic scripts, which could then be made more custom depending on the situation.
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