Accelerating Yes

Create an effortless, on-demand buying experience using video to improve clarity and eliminate confusion (and leverage your sales team to help!) using these strategies from Todd Hartley, CEO of WireBuzz and a Business Mastery event speaker.

— Tony Robbins, #1 NY Times Best-Selling Author,

Entrepreneur, & Philanthropist

Todd’s video sales training quickly helped our sales organization generate even more revenue specifically through executing his video prospecting strategies, which significantly increased our show rate.

— Neal Tricarico, Executive Sales Leader,

Robbins Research International

Todd’s coaching has impacted my company dramatically. The biggest takeaway I had from working with Todd was how to sell remotely. In addition, he was brilliant at helping our team learn how to use videos to help our customers and stay relevant. Not only have I learned a ton, but I enjoy working with him and his team.

— Faith Zaslavsky, President of Oncology at Myriad Genetics

My career has taken off since I engaged Todd and started the Breast Cancer School for Patients. It ultimately led to me being appointed by the President of the United States to chair the president’s cancer panel. I had the idea, but Todd had the vision to implement. I would not have been able to achieve it if I had not met Todd.

— Dr. John Williams, Chairperson of the President’s Cancer Panel

I recognize that I’m not a pro in marketing or in sales. I’m a geeky accountant, in fact. Todd is a pro. I figured I shouldn’t reinvent the wheel, so I trusted his advice. Here’s a recipe—really, here’s the whole cookbook for sales and marketing. All you have to do is implement. Using these strategies, I closed a deal 24 hours after executing his advice.

— Kim Le, Financial Entrepreneur

Thank you for all of the great knowledge you’ve given to our team. It has impacted my business, my life, and my clients’ lives by helping me serve them at a higher level.

— Karissa Kouchis, Sales Entrepreneur

"Accelerating Yes is an amazing guide to increase sales. Todd is an excellent teacher in showing you how to leverage video and empower your sales team to close more deals."

— John Hall, Author of Top of Mind and Chief Strategist at Relevance

FINALLY a truly new (and effective) framework for maximizing sales the way buyers behave now.

— Jay Baer, Author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype

Copyright © 2022 by Todd Hartley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief questions embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

Epicenter Publishing

[email protected]

Print ISBN: 979-8-9854721-0-3

Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9854721-1-0

Audiobook ISBN: 979-8-9854721-2-7

Cover Design by Eled Cernik

Layout and Graphics by Laura Howard

Names: Hartley, Todd, author.

Title: Accelerating YES! : create effortless buying experiences / Todd Hartley.

Description: [Scottsdale, Arizona] : Epicenter Publishing, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: ISBN: 979-8-9854721-0-3 (print) | 979-8-9854721-1-0 (ebook) | 979-8-9854721-2-7 (audiobook)

Subjects: LCSH: Selling. | Marketing. | Customer relations. | Electronic commerce. | Success in business. | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Marketing / General. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Sales & Selling / General. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Media & Communications.

Classification: LCC: HF5438.25 .H37 2022 | DDC: 658.8/1--dc23

To my parents and grandparents, your uncommon, selfless lives paved a path of charmed karma that I see in front of me everywhere I go.

To my Wendy, thank you for reminding me, don’t quit before the miracle!

Contents

Future Sales Rock Star

Part One The New Remote Buyer

Why Video?

Megatrends And Buyer Psychology

DIY Video

The 5 Zones Of Influence

Part Two Creating Binge-Worthy Buying Experiences

Zone 1 Discovery

Zone 2 Website

Zone 3 Sales

Zone 4 Support

Zone 5 Training

#1 Make-Or-Break Skill For Sales And Marketing Teams

You’re Invited

Clarity: The Salesperson’s Video Tool

References

Acknowledgements

Who The Heck Is Todd Hartley?

Throughout this book there will be exercises for you to complete while you read. Click HERE to download the workbook and let’s get started!

Future Sales

Rock Star

In 2015, I was a young entrepreneur of a burgeoning digital sales and marketing agency. I found myself married to the love of my life, working in Scottsdale, Arizona, creating the business I always wanted.

At that time, I’d been in business for 5 years, and my company, WireBuzz, had 15 incredible employees. We had rented a nice building in a cool location. My team and I had built one of the very first video marketing agencies, before there was even a word for it. We were young, ambitious, definitely a little crazy, and perfectly positioned at the cusp of the Content Marketing Revolution.

I knew we were doing something big. Something important.

And yet, I was totally…completely…utterly screwed.

I’m not going to make payroll this month, I thought. I didn’t have enough cash in the bank for all the butts in the seats. With the clock ticking, I had to come up with a lot of money really fast.

Investors? Didn’t want them.

A loan? No thanks.

We had tons of big-dollar projects on hold and close to converting into revenue, but clients kept punting yes into the future. It felt like my sales funnel was plugged up. Deals were stuck and I was in trouble.

I was confident that I had a valuable product. Early data was already showing that buyers preferred video. The ability to identify developing trends has been a major blessing in my life, but also a curse. I was early to realize that video was a key component for business strategies, but was then challenged to help my clients seize the moment before competitors did.

Business leaders only thought of video as TV commercials. I understood that if I could get them to realize video was the future of sales, they would sign with me. I also knew that optimizing my own sales process was the only way I could get out of this mess.

So I obsessed over my sales process.

Where are the leads leaking out?

Night after night, I stayed up late, studying our sales cycle. Finally, I decided to take a new angle. I asked myself, Which group is most likely to say the magic word: yes?

Then I saw it, right at the bottom of the sales cycle. These were the people who were just a question away from the magic word. And I knew that if I prioritized them now by answering any of their questions, alleviating any objections, and injecting clarity into the process, they would convert.

But how can I reconnect?

There was no time to schedule a face-to-face appointment. And honestly, our relationship wasn’t that close yet. You don’t want to come on that strong that early, right?

Do I send another email?

Because frankly, I didn’t think they were reading them. I wasn’t even certain that their assistants were either. Even back then, people were already getting tired of their inboxes.

Maybe a PDF proposal? Do those even get opened?

Should I cross my fingers and hope that my internal champion, the person who had been selling me to their boss, would come through? Could they talk about what I do with the same level of energy, confidence, and clarity that I could? Did they even understand my product?

***

Before I go further, I have a few questions for you.

What percentage of your sales emails are opened? Do you know?

How many of your proposals fail to close? Why do you think that is?

Do you rely on an internal champion, a person pitching you to their organization, to sell your product or service on your behalf? Can they sell like you can?

I’ve discovered that emails, PDF proposals, and relying on internal champions are low-success tactics.

Nobody reads a wall of text in an email.

Nobody wants to read through a boring proposal.

And nobody can talk about your business like you can.

This new, remote-first sales world means most businesses no longer have physical access to prospects. Salespeople can’t speak face-to-face with customers. Marketers can’t use the strategies that worked only a few years ago. Business owners watch helplessly as their companies take a beating, not understanding why they can’t sell their products anymore.

It’s painful, isn’t it?

And what does that mean for you?

Has revenue taken a nosedive?

Have you lost a big commission or let down your team?

Have you had excruciating conversations about layoffs?

Have you had to let go of an employee who just purchased a home or had a baby? The one you’ve been rooting for?

And what about the people who are closest to you? Are they losing faith in you?

Lately, have you done more apologizing than celebrating?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not alone. But the good news is that you are in the perfect place to pivot.

HOW TO SELL IN A REMOTE-FIRST WORLD

If I could show you how to close 75% of your late-stage prospects by the end of the quarter—and do so 100% remotely—would you pay attention?

I want you to do a little bit of math. (It’ll be painless, I promise!)

Count your late-stage prospects, or the ones who are very close to the magic word, yes. You’ve sent emails back and forth, they know who you are, but for whatever reason, you haven’t closed the deal.

How many do you have? Do you have a number in your head? Great!

Now how much are each of those contracts worth? An estimate is fine.

Finally, insert those numbers into the following equation:

(late-stage prospects) x (average contract price) x 75% = $$$

_____ x $_____ x 75% = $_____

Go ahead, calculate the number. Like what you see?

That’s the result of implementing just one of my 5 Zones of Influence. When you implement all of them, transformation is possible.

The training you’re about to receive taught a self-described geeky accountant how to close six-figure deals just 24 hours after implementation.

And it empowered a multimillion-dollar AI company to increase their revenue by 31% while bringing in $119M in sales in a single quarter.

If that isn’t enough, it also helped a national sales director for a $2B company celebrate their highest revenue in 14 years!

By the way, these strategies work whether you’re selling in person or remotely. And it doesn’t matter what industry you are in, because it’s not about your business; it’s about your buyer.

After all…

How do I know? I’ve spent the last two decades learning how to leverage video to sell remotely.

***

Zoom back into the early days of WireBuzz, when I was willing to try anything to make ends meet. As the owner of a video marketing agency, I figured I should play to my strengths. So I decided I would earn the money to pay my awesome team by using video to create personalized Follow-Up videos for all of my late-stage prospects.

So for every prospect in the Decision Stage, I put my mug on camera and created a customized Show & Tell video for each of them. I identified areas of confusion, reintroduced myself, and presented a dynamite proposal. Back then, I didn’t have the 5 Zones of Influence to guide me, but these tactics have since been incorporated into my blueprint.

Now picture this: My internal champions each sat in a room full of stakeholders with dozens of other proposals on the table. But it could have been hundreds, and it still wouldn’t have mattered. When they hit Play on my video, I was the only salesperson in the room. Where were my competitors now? In a pile of PDFs left on a desk. Or locked up in someone’s email.

Meanwhile, I had the ultimate advantage. I was inside our prospect’s conference room, educating their buying committee and getting them fired up. How sweet is that?

By the 29th, I had hit payroll.

By the next month, I was ready to hire another awesome team member. The month after that, I upgraded each step of my sales cycle with the 5 Zones of Influence.

And guess what? Today, WireBuzz does a hell of a lot more than just make payroll. I’m so proud to say we’re on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing, privately-held businesses in America.

I want that for you. And the numbers show I can be your guide to get you there.

In 2020, a study by Proposify found that clients who submitted their proposals using my video strategies generated between 41% and 103% higher close rates.¹

WireBuzz used to have a nine-week sales cycle. That feels so long. And if you have an even longer cycle, you know how much work goes into every lead. Nine weeks is like seven meetings and 1,000 emails!

But when we started educating clients with video, we removed 66% of wasted time. Our salespeople were closing three deals in the time it used to take to close one. And the salespeople who have been with me since the early days have now tripled their commissions.

Imagine what it would feel like for you and your team to earn those big wins!

We achieved all of this by using the 5 Zones of Influence. Each zone’s tactics are straightforward to implement, no-nonsense, and incredibly effective.

When I talk about sales, I mean the entire process of selling—not just from the salesperson’s perspective. Yes, they play a major role (and I have content in this book designed specifically for salespeople), but so does the marketing team. And of course, don’t forget about the CEOs, CMOs, and business owners large and small who can pivot to a remote-business plan.

So