Dan Ostrowski is Director of Donovan Health Solutions where he produces content focused on the health benefits of sound, music, and rhythm. Dan is a creative executive with a demonstrated history of sales success in direct response marketing, telesales, copywriting, podcasting, large scale international and domestic event production, and big picture digital marketing ideas and processes that add millions to his client's bottom line.
Dan has generated over $100 million in personal direct response marketing sales in publishing, podcasting, and live events. He's an avid drummer, husband, and proud father of three sons. Dan is also Founder of ALIVEARTS Agency & RockHouse Arts Foundation.
Contact Dan:
- Website - Donovan Health
- Website - Alivearts Agency
- Website - Rockhouse Arts Foundation
Check out more podcasts at https://nolimitsselling.com/
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This podcast is sponsored by No Limits Selling. It is a fun, fast-paced podcast that delivers hard-fought business advice that you can implement today to improve your sales and performance]
Interested In Our Real Estate Coaching Services? Explore Our Website: Link
Feeling Not Well Today? You Can Use Our Mindset Boosters App To amp Up Your Mood: Link
Find us on Social Media:
LinkedIn | Facebook community | Instagram
Like what do you listen to? Subscribe to our podcast!
Ready to become fearless? We can help you become fearless in 60 days so you accomplish more in your career Schedule A 15 min Call with Umar[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:06
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone. This is Umar Hameed, your host and welcome to the No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how to make you better, stronger, faster. Get ready for another episode.
Umar Hameed 0:34
Hello everyone. Today I've got the privilege of sitting down with Dan Ostrowski. He's the director at Donovan Health Solutions at a Gora publishing. Dan, welcome to the program. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me, Mr. dent. The reason I'm so excited to have you here today is you do this amazing magic trick is that you use the written word to get people to buy stuff to open their wallet, which is a difficult trick to do.
Dan Ostrowski 0:59
Well, it is difficult, but you know, when you do get down to it, you'll see that there's some very specific things happening in that sales copy, to get people to not only engage with your sales copy, right from the get go, but then also to continue to move through it. So that's, that's a whole technique, you know, in its own.
Umar Hameed 1:16
And we'll get to that. And one of the things that's really critical, from my naive perspective is this is that if you and I are face to face in a sales situation, I can be, you know, mediocre, and still maybe close the deal. But when you're writing, you need to know your customer intimately, and what their real concerns are. Because if you don't have that spot on, they're gonna lose interest right away. So you have to be beholden to the rules of sales a lot more strictly than when you have your body and you've got coffee, or whiskey or whatever you're doing to close that deal, right?
Dan Ostrowski 1:54
That is true. And, you know, if I were to sum that up in one word, it would just be empathy for your customer, you know, the more empathetic you can be and put yourself into their place, you know, that it's gonna sell itself is what ends up happening.
Umar Hameed 2:10
So how do you do that? Because oftentimes, you know, when I talk to companies, they have an illusion of what their customer, who they are and what they want. But sometimes there's a different reality from the customer's point of view. So how do you "quote unquote," walk in their shoes?
Dan Ostrowski 2:27
That's a great question. And that is the number one secret to sales, being able to slow yourself down, and slow your sales process down just enough so that you are willing to spend the time and have the patience to place yourself in the mindset of the customer. And, you know, you can do that on a lot of ways. The way that I do that, is I wouldn't say I'm selling over the phone, for example, you know, I know we're talking about written word, but to say that I'm selling over the phone. And you know, you can you can hear it in people's voice, you need to really pay attention to how they're speaking to you, and pick up those little cues that allow you to show empathy, because they can't, they can't, you know, you have to give signals of empathy.
Umar Hameed 3:15
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 3:15
And so we'll switch real quick to writing how do you do that in writing? You know, it's what I call, you know, you use the you, you know, we're always...
Umar Hameed 3:23
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 3:24
...to you, and you know, that's a real quick, easy way to show empathy, because you're saying, look, you know, you, I'm speaking to you, I'm putting you in the situation.
Umar Hameed 3:33
And just to take a step back from them, because, you know, my whole world is neuroscience is that the most ancient part of our brain, the reptile brain, it's only concerned about me, so when you use the word you, it perks up for a moment and goes, "I need to pay attention on this." And so not only does it create empathy, it also gets that reptile brain to gonna open its eye and go, "Maybe I need to pay attention here."
Dan Ostrowski 3:57
I think you're right about that, you know, so in the written word in the copy, that we use, and like in our business, for example, you know, we, you know, copious amounts of the word you in there, and a lot of times in fact, you know, we'll send it back to the copywriter and tell them to, hey, we need you to you this up a little bit.
Umar Hameed 4:14
You this up, I love it.
Dan Ostrowski 4:14
We need you, you this up a little bit. And, you know, I got that from great copywriter Patrick Beauvais, who now works for legacy research. So shout out to Patrick, you know, getting people to pay attention to that piece of copy, you have to have some sort of, you know, real big benefit right off the right? to hook them, you know, right in that subject line, you need something that is a benefit driven, you know, maybe it's...
Umar Hameed 4:38
Women will finally find you attractive.
Dan Ostrowski 4:40
Yes.
Umar Hameed 4:40
I agree that copy.
Dan Ostrowski 4:41
Exactly.
Umar Hameed 4:42
Finally Wow.
Dan Ostrowski 4:43
Finally, well, that's true, because, you know, you just plugged into an emotion there, you know, we're the person who's reading that is like, you know, you're you're trying to meet them where they are. And you know, and that's another thing that empathy, you're just trying to meet the person where they are, rather than trying to drag them all the way over. To where you are, and you know, you want...
Umar Hameed 5:02
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 5:02
...to sell them this thing, whatever it is, instead of dragging them all the way over there, just meet them exactly where they are, you're usually speaking or writing to that prospect for a reason, you know, they've showed some interest in your product, potentially, already.
Umar Hameed 5:17
They saw an ad on Facebook that got them intrigued, and they come into your system.
Dan Ostrowski 5:20
That's right, exactly. And, you know, we use Facebook every day, you know, to find customers. And it's, of course, you know, one of the best platforms to do that. It's, it's like magic.
Umar Hameed 5:30
I would back up a little bit, it is not magic, my friend, it is frickin Voodoo. Because if you don't know what you're doing, you could spend a fortune and not get so there is expertise there. And the illusion that Facebook does, [garbled] is that they make it look so easy that you could do this. And the reality is you need someone that's got some skills in that area to get people to actually the right people to engage with you.
Dan Ostrowski 5:54
That's absolutely right. And so you know, we don't depend on ourselves in our business to come up with that strategy. And so we work with an agency that are experts in Facebook advertising, and we work with them. Why because they know exactly how to program those ad sequences to,
Umar Hameed 6:11
Much cheaper in the long run.
Dan Ostrowski 6:13
Find the audiences and you know, you're able to scale. So....
Umar Hameed 6:17
So I'm going to take a step back a little bit, because I think the most important thing that we've talked about so far is that you I was talking to the salesperson, he said, what they started to do is they have this phrase, we want to smell the customer's breath. And so their traditional sales, and he says, rather than just meeting with our customer, because you know, who knows how much information gets transmitted, that we shadow them for two days. And when we shadow them for two days, it takes a lot of trust to be able to do that is that we realize, sometimes they're not using our product correctly, or there's a ton more opportunities for us to help that customer out, that we never knew about just in, just having the normal kind of sales meeting. So knowing your customer is critical.
Dan Ostrowski 6:58
Absolutely. So many times, we'll try to guess what that customer is doing. And you know, the wonderful thing about our direct marketing business,
Umar Hameed 7:07
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 7:07
direct response marketing, as we know, very, very quickly, will get that feedback very, very quickly from our advertising. So we can know like, "Hey, is this something that's resonating or not," you know, often within 24 hours of testing, a subject line or a little piece of copy.
Umar Hameed 7:22
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 7:23
The audience will tell you, and the data will tell you, you know if they're interested or not. And we and we follow that data. You know, what we'll take all of our preconceived notions and just trim aside, put them aside, because in speak directly to what the customers want, you know, I'll watch our sales on just say, for example, on a monthly basis, when I'm deciding maybe what ads to put into my podcast emails,
Umar Hameed 7:47
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 7:47
I'll look back over the last month and see, well, what have been people buying. And, you know, I might have an idea in my mind of like, "Hey, I'd really like to sell X this week.
Umar Hameed 7:57
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 7:57
Because I want to see sales of X go up, I need sales of X to go up. And that's just me speaking in my you know, whatever my subjectiveness. In a lot of times, we'll follow that because we feel like I know what's going on, I know what's right. But if you look at the data, and just let your customer look over the last month, see what they've been buying. And even if it's something that you're not super hip on maybe like advertising that week, because you want to provide other products in front of people, man, you just got to listen to that data, and just put it right in front of them. And time and time again, we're proven right? that that is the case, just give them more of what they want.
Umar Hameed 8:31
So I want you to know that many of the people listening to this conversation are going to say absolutely, then data is king. And data means everything. And the reality is they're not going to follow the data because it takes discipline to do that. And to even though you know, I really think this is what's needs to sell or this is what's selling. It's and I'm guilty of that is that,
Dan Ostrowski 8:56
Oh me too, 100%.
Umar Hameed 8:57
it's just like, yeah, I [garbled] but I don't practice it.
Dan Ostrowski 9:03
Yes, that's why I was bringing it up that it's because it is hard for us to do. We have you know, as salespeople, and as business people, we have a certain thing in mind that we want to sell and certain objective we want to meet with our revenue or whatever it might be. And then but sometimes the things that the audience is actually telling us we we sort of willfully willfully ignore because it doesn't fit our narrative in our head. So the discipline thing is to how do I ignore that narrative.
Umar Hameed 9:29
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 9:30
And you know, follow the data. And be creative with that with that data, because I might have a whole bunch of creative ideas how to sell my product X, I was up all night, thinking of these super new creative ideas.
Umar Hameed 9:42
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 9:42
I just want to get out there and, you know, blast the world with them because I'm so excited about. In the reality, you know, they really just want why from you, you know, and so, we've been doing that lately with our podcast emails for Jim Donovan, sound health, every week. Just very disciplined at looking at the data of the last month or so and, and basing all of our marketing decisions off of that, and it's paid off. And you know, we started doing that more disciplined in in May. And it definitely, definitely is paid off. So we're gonna keep on trying.
Umar Hameed 10:15
Nice. One of the things that salespeople hate this process of free spirit, come on, man, just let me go out there and for organizations process is everything. Because to make gains as a group, if you don't have a process, you don't know where it's broken. And what you're describing is, you need a process and follow that process. And sometimes the process isn't perfect, but you can diagnose what the problem is, with some data, a month later, two months later, whereas if you don't have a processing, you're just gonna willy nilly, it's just a guessing game.
Dan Ostrowski 10:48
That's, that's very true. And you know, so I would, in fact, after that, kind of number one sales saying have empathy,
Umar Hameed 10:54
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 10:55
I would put right behind that process. But you need to have that process.
Umar Hameed 11:00
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 11:00
And empathy for your customer will lead you to that process. Why? Because when you're empathetic, and you're practicing empathy, actively, you're listening way, way more than you're talking. And you'll hear that I'm sure to a lot of other guests.
Umar Hameed 11:14
What was that? That was a joke.
Dan Ostrowski 11:15
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 11:15
So sorry.
Dan Ostrowski 11:17
I love it. You know, the folks will maybe come on your show here or, you know, other...
Umar Hameed 11:23
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 11:23
...in your training, and you probably hear that a lot. Well, hey, you know, sales is 80%, listening, 20% talking. But as salespeople, and you can even tell right now, I'm, you know, I'm going to talk all day long, sometimes unless you stopped me.
Umar Hameed 11:35
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 11:35
So I have to actively in my mind, stop myself talking. actively listen. And when I when I'm empathetic, and I actively listen to my customer, then that's going to lead me to my process. You know, and so that, that's what I found. Because then, and then, you know, once you can fine tune that process, that's where you have freedom.
Umar Hameed 11:59
Absolutely. And that's we have accelerated growth. So I have this philosophy in life, it's embracing sucking. So get the process done. And is it going to be totally crap, probably not, is going to be totally brilliant, probably not. But just getting it done, and then tweaking it. And after the seventh iteration is going to be rock solid. If you wait for something perfect, then a lot of times stuff doesn't get done.
Dan Ostrowski 12:27
I agree.
Umar Hameed 12:28
So dear listener, please suck.
Dan Ostrowski 12:30
Please suck. In fact, you know, I do tell that to, you know, sometimes when I'm starting out with maybe a new editor for a product,
Umar Hameed 12:37
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 12:38
And we're trying to, we're getting that first product out. And they're all very, very concerned about making it beautiful and perfect and everything. And I tell them like, "Look, if you are not completely embarrassed by this first version, you know, a year from now, you were not going quick enough?"
Umar Hameed 12:53
Isn't that brilliant?
Dan Ostrowski 12:54
You just were not going, you weren't going quick enough, you're holding yourself back. So, you must be embarrassed by this first effort.
Umar Hameed 13:00
I love that. This one of the stories I tell him, I do a lot of coaching. So one of the stories I tell clients is I wrote this beautiful piece of marketing. And it changed my life. It was like I honed it, it was perfect. It was magical. Then a year and a half later, I saw it. And I went, "Oh my God, this is dreadful," and it gave me the permission to the suckiness. Because it's like I spent all this time and it wasn't that great. And why not just get something done and test it and just make it better. So I want to know where you sucked in. And this is a question that you can, can you tell me about some copy that you wrote that went out there in you know, wherever in your career, and then somebody that one of your mentors, tweaked it a little bit, and it started getting dramatically better results. So something you did was working, but a little tweak here or there got it to perform really well? Do you have one of those in the memory banks?
Dan Ostrowski 13:51
Well, what the one that comes to mind right away is when I was working at Stansbury research, we we were selling this lifetime package called the Alliance, and you know, myself and some of the other sales guys, you know, we would come up with this copy on our own, to reach out to prospective customers who we know we would do the research and we find out who the customers were that were most suited for this particular...
Umar Hameed 14:18
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 14:19
...product. And you know, and then we would kind of go after it that way. So I would write my copy. And then I would have to say, you know, and I thought it was pretty awesome, right? You know, I'm like, Hey, I'm really proud of this. And it's going out and it's you know, it's effective. But then my friend again, Patrick boeve, a copywriter, true copywriter, you know, he came along and improve that process, you know, tenfold by just interjecting all of his copy knowledge and making it much more benefit driven for the reader, much more intriguing, you know, just the selections of words in making it more even like every day conversational language,
Umar Hameed 15:01
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 15:01
as opposed to some of the language I was using, which was a little more, you know, it wasn't as conversational, as you and I are talking right now, you know, Patrick got a hold of it, you know, he really was able to dial it up and down, it was off to the races.
Umar Hameed 15:16
Brilliant. So when you have, we're sitting in your music studio right now. And what's intriguing is the number of one hit wonders that have come and gone. Absolutely. With head talent, and certainly the thing they created was totally brilliant. And then they kind of lose their way or something happens. So what do you think happens there? And how do we bring it down to copywriting and products where sometimes companies lose their way?
Dan Ostrowski 15:42
I think sometimes we get a little too comfortable with our success. And that's one of the sort of dangers of success, you know, you have, you know, you have great success. And then, and this is also true in the music industry. And that's, you know, you have the great success you have the the number one selling album in the country, or whatever it is, and how do you follow that up? And you know, in following that up, you know, can be the most challenging thing to do. You know, so some of that success that you have does breed a certain amount of comfort.
Umar Hameed 16:14
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 16:14
And so it's so it's recognizing that, that, okay, I have this comfortable position, and, you know, you know, what can I do to maintain my position. But then I think sometimes it ends up being that they take maybe too long to do the follow up to that success, you know, there's too much thinking, no, because you have the big...
Umar Hameed 16:25
It gets in the way, right?
Dan Ostrowski 16:34
Thinking gets in the way, you know, like, you have the big success and, and then you're thinking yourself like, Okay, well, how do I duplicate this exactly, you know, I want more of this exact same thing. And you might spend, then just like, you know, too much time just like coming up with that new idea whereas, you know, you should really just, you know, you have that success, and you have to very, very quickly figure out okay, "How do I get another product out ASAP to this audience that's buying my product right now."
Umar Hameed 17:02
What comes to mind is Michael Jackson and thriller. And the next one, I think, was bad. And I suspect bad had he released that first would have been a really big hit the album. But because it followed it up thriller, it probably didn't get the amount of love that it needed or deserved. So one of the things you said is, you know, we get to this level of comfort. And sometimes I think what it does is we get to this place of anks, that we do something really brilliant. And then it's like that pressure of, "Don't screw this up. It's got to be good. They'll think," and all that headspace comes in. And then when you get that emotional headspace, then you get into thinking overthinking, and that gets in the way of you doing.
Dan Ostrowski 17:46
Absolutely. And that would be you know, you asked me Hey, what, you know, what did you suck at. And sometimes that is what I suck at is I will overthink. Whereas if I just let the process go more and just open my ears and my eyes and keep listening to what the readers to what the audience is saying to me that that's the feedback loop that we want, you know, we don't want to close ourselves into a studio and have to come up with the ideas in a vacuum. Because you know, but it's very safe to do that. And that's why we feel good doing it, we feel good like, in the little vacuum, I can come up with my ideas, and I can write them down and I can feel good about it. And maybe I'm even afraid to share those ideas with people because I'm afraid of the judgment that's gonna come on me, "Oh, man, if this if this idea is as good as that first one, oh, gee, you know, like," you know, how's that gonna make me feel these are all like subconscious things going on in your brain.
Umar Hameed 18:37
So Dan, you and I have just met,
Dan Ostrowski 18:39
Mm hmm.
Umar Hameed 18:41
How comfortable are you right now with me sitting in your studio having this conversation.
Dan Ostrowski 18:46
I'm very comfortable. And we're sitting here yet my space, got my bare feet, you know,
Umar Hameed 18:51
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 18:51
carpet, so pretty comfortable.
Umar Hameed 18:53
And I think one of the things we lose sight of is that we need to engage our customers in a conversation. And the only way we can engage them in that conversation is if this trust between us and them. So they open up and tell us the truth, their truth. Because oftentimes, you know, we have this idea of who we are and how we need to behave in this world. So when a company says, you know, hey, we'd want to do a survey and figure out what you think of us. If there isn't trust there, they'll give the polite answer or might be harsher than they should be. But when you have that level of trust in this almost thoughtfulness on their part, and they give you feedback that is really useful. So how do you, how do you suggest we get into a conversation with our customers, in your case you haven't met them is through the written word, so how do we create that conversation in that trust that allows that feedback loop to happen?
Dan Ostrowski 19:48
That's a great question. And my thoughts on that in this day and age is it's very, it's much easier to deliver value to folks, you know, through your content,
Umar Hameed 19:57
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 19:57
Through you know, social media through podcasting, through all these things. So that is really what you got to do is you have to deliver the value, you got to deliver the goods, you got to give them your best stuff to get them to, to,
Umar Hameed 20:12
Hallelujah.
Dan Ostrowski 20:13
Yeah, to get them to to say like, yes, thank you for that wonderful thing that just, you know, maybe improve my life or I learned something. Please give me more.
Umar Hameed 20:21
So let me pause you there and come back to that is like, you know, when crazy crackpots like you suggested that, to me, the initial reaction was, "No, they should pay for that, how could you?" And then when I started actually showing more of my expertise, stronger relationships with customers, more business came in, but it was such a hard thing to do. Because we're trained that you know, I am magical in some way, and my knowledge is worth something. So how do you make sure you do that and the people that you're working with, feel comfortable with sharing their best stuff?
Dan Ostrowski 20:55
Well, because we show them by example, that you know, show showing your customer your best stuff, delivering them great value over and over and over again. Then you never ever, ever have to ask them for a sale.
Umar Hameed 21:09
They want to buy.
Dan Ostrowski 21:10
Yeah, they want to buy theirs isn't gonna come right to you. Because they're gonna say, like, "Man, I've been listening to this guy's podcast, I've been reading his e-letter, you know, I've watched some of his videos. And I've really benefited from this stuff." So that when I, you know, when I finally send you an email, and you see my advertisement for a $39 product, or a $90 product or something, you're way, way more apt to say yes, I want to take the next step, even if the content is some of the same stuff that you've been giving them for free.
Umar Hameed 21:38
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 21:38
I mean, you know, you just, you know, you maybe in your in your paid presentation, you you just take it up a little more notch, you know, there's a little bit more back end information there something but you're still speaking, speaking to them in the same way that seen love.
Umar Hameed 21:53
When you deliver value, people want to help you, I'll give you a perfect example,
Dan Ostrowski 21:56
Yeah, absolutely.
Umar Hameed 21:57
came to a gas station, I'm ready to pump gas in my car, and there's a guy there selling stuff to clean your tires. And to make your headlights, you know, not so fuzzy so they look like clear. Guy comes up and say, "Hey, can I show you something?" I said, "Sure. I'm putting my gas." And he cleans one of the headlamps and cleans one of the tires. And each time he goes to clean a sprays it then it gives me the can to hold some holding his product
Dan Ostrowski 22:23
Nice.
Umar Hameed 22:23
And then he's doing what he's doing. Then after he finished. I particularly didn't want to buy the stuff. Didn't need the stuff. But because he did such a brilliant job. And such a great salesperson, it was like, "How much dude, I just buy it?
Dan Ostrowski 22:35
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 22:35
And it's actually sitting at home for the last four years, I've not used it. But I'm happy I purchased it because somebody did something so brilliant.
Dan Ostrowski 22:42
I agree. I've made purchases like that as well. Where you know, someone's helped me out.
Umar Hameed 22:46
That's why got married, right?
Dan Ostrowski 22:47
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. You know, and yeah, shout out to my wife, Lisa, beautiful wife.
Umar Hameed 22:52
Hi Lisa,we've not met yet but hello.
Dan Ostrowski 22:55
So yeah, but I agree with that. And that is a nice, that's an interesting little sales strategy, you know, little technique, you know, he clearly he showed you the product, he actually gave it to you to hold and, you know, you saw the result. And, you know, you felt like yeah, and that was just in a moment that you had no plan to go out and buy that that day.
Umar Hameed 23:12
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 23:12
You know, nothing like that. So, you know, I think delivering that kind of value over and over again, for your customers is absolutely going to lead you to sales. And just don't be afraid to give away your ideas. And even, even as a copywriter or a marketer, share your best ideas with with everyone. Because it's it's only going to come back to you. And you know, and I definitely did not always think that way. I was thinking you know, much like you were saying earlier where Gee, I have this, this this music or this content or whatever it is. And you know, people need to pay me for that, because that's my my craft, and I've traded.
Umar Hameed 23:50
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 23:50
And there it is, there's my product. But as you know, time went on and as I witnessed, you know, working for a Gora for the last 15 years and I witnessed the you know, the giving of the value, you know, for free and giving the information and just watching people come back for more. It's just, it's, it's been brilliant, you know, and it's a it is a sales technique and methodology that is, you know, that can be applied to so many different industries, the model of you know, free premium content.
Umar Hameed 24:26
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 24:27
Premium content, and, you know, giving that away building an audience building the trust, you know, Bill, you know, getting the engagement from people and and yes, that it's a little bit of a longer process, you know, you have to be it's a patient process.
Umar Hameed 24:40
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 24:42
You know, because we all we both know, there's no salespeople where, you know, they just want to get right to that sale, they just want to cut through all the chitchat and they just like Look, do you know, are you gonna buy extra why, you know, you know, they want to give you that, put that right in front of you and just kind of move on to the next customer. But I've seen I see those guys burnout, I see them get frustrated. And you know, so my advice is just, you know, pull it back more empathy, you know, giving away your best stuff, you know, getting that engagement building a loyal tribe of an audience. And then you know, you will ask them to buy stuff from you. And when you do, it's, it's just automatic.
Umar Hameed 25:20
And in the traditional sales world, the coolest thing ever is referral with somebody lending their trust in you to somebody else. So they buy. And for salespeople out there, when you build those longer term relationships, that's where you get a lot of those referrals coming back.
Dan Ostrowski 25:38
Absolutely. My brother was in real estate for a number of years around here. And you know, that he was always harping on the referral business. And that's what drove his business was where those referrals, because he would treat people so well. And, you know, he was one of those realtors, who he lives in Salt Lake City, Utah now, but when he was living here in Maryland, I know that he was one of those realtors, where you could call him and say, "Hey, David, I need a plumber," "Hey, David, I need an HVAC guy," "Hey...
Umar Hameed 26:06
They had this guy.
Dan Ostrowski 26:07
And he would have his guy, and he would, you know, and he was that person, like, he had all that information for all of his clients. So he was always giving, giving, giving, giving value. So that when I, you know, when someone will go to sell their house, or whatever they would, they would, they would think about him, you know.
Umar Hameed 26:22
Absolutely.
Dan Ostrowski 26:23
So you know, he did that through referral by you know, delivering value, even though he knew that it's gonna take time to, you know, dig up the referral, and, you know, kind of connect it to people and stuff like that. But you have to be willing to do that kind of stuff, you know, to show that you're willing, you're a giver, I mean, and we know that,
Umar Hameed 26:41
Absolutely.
Dan Ostrowski 26:41
When you give, when you give fully when you give with no expectation in return, and you truly give of your talents, and you know, all of your knowledge, man, it just comes back to you, you can't plan it. But it just, it does come back to you, you know, the more that you give out to the universe, the universe wants, everything that's inside of you, it wants all this cool stuff that makes you you. And when you give in to that, and you start and you start giving and giving, you're giving the awesome content, you're giving the cool referrals for you know, that you're not going to benefit from.
Umar Hameed 27:16
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 27:16
The plumber is gonna go do his job, but you know, you're not you're not getting a commission on that, the more you do that type of stuff. And the less you are, you know,
Umar Hameed 27:25
Just me focus.
Dan Ostrowski 27:26
yeah, me focus, right? that's when you know that, that leads to the flow. So that's almost like the, so that sales process, you have empathy at the top, where you're just, you're listening, and you're learning, and then you know, that leads you to your process.
Umar Hameed 27:41
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 27:41
And then once you have that process, then you have flow, if true flow where, you know, things are happening, and you know, in your processes set up, and, you know, you got all these referrals going and you got your content that you're given away and giving lots of value to people, and then you have your sales process, you know, kind of in, you know, that starts to come into that flow, so that you can, as a salesperson, you know, you can, you know, get up every morning and, and you know how to get into that flow,
Umar Hameed 28:08
Yes.
Dan Ostrowski 28:09
you've established the flow. So then you can tap into it in you, and you can, and you can use that flow. Nobody taught me that, I guess it was just, you know, it was just, you know, learn, you know, trial by fire, you know, going selling and learning how to listen and finding that process and realizing, oh, wow, I've got this process, it's really kicking man in the flow kicks in, and then you're able to just optimize, you know,
Umar Hameed 28:33
Yeah, and iterations get better and better.
Dan Ostrowski 28:35
Absolutely. Get better and better. And, you know, that's what we did at Stansbury with our sales process, you know, when I was working on the phones with them is, you know, we were able to get to that point where it was just so well oiled, and we were able to pre-qualify all of these people so that I just, when I would walk in, in the morning, I just had a big lined up list of people that I could just start dialing.
Umar Hameed 28:59
Right.
Dan Ostrowski 28:59
And, and I knew every single one of them because they've been through my like, pre qualification process that I was calling, I was spending my time on calling the best customers. And when it was really kickin, it was it was almost like just shooting fish in a barrel from a sales perspective. Because you're, you're, you're always just spending your time on the most qualified leads. And, and then so you were willing to be patient with them, you're willing to listen, you're willing to keep giving them more value, because you knew now, you know this, this is a customer of course, that is the you know, like I said they've been pre qualified, they've been warmed up and that kind of thing. So in a cold call situation, you know, a lot different, you know, you're kind of starting a whole funnel in that in that way, and then trying to get to your pre qualification.
Umar Hameed 29:47
So the empathy and the process piece is where you get trust. So it's not just the empathy at the top is that consistent process looking after the customer that builds that trust that creates long term relationships. Dan, before we part company today, what's the one piece of advice you'd give people on their writing, writing that's designed to sell?
Dan Ostrowski 30:10
Well, we do say you got to you it up. That is one of the, you know, best pieces of advice, I think because a lot of folks, they don't even realize that power is there, you know, to that you can use the power of view, so you want to use it up. And you also
Umar Hameed 30:24
Step into the universe?
Dan Ostrowski 30:25
Step into the universe, I love it. And another thing with writing is, you know, don't be afraid of one sentence paragraphs, you know, you know...
Umar Hameed 30:36
It's all readability.
Dan Ostrowski 30:37
Exactly! Readability. That is that is it, man, you know, formatting using whitespace. You know, realize how the eyes are, you know, immediately when they see a piece of copy, I'm making a, you know, nanosecond decision in my brain whether or not I'm going to continue reading based, really long times, not even the subject line, but...
Umar Hameed 30:57
How it looks.
Dan Ostrowski 30:58
How it looks.
Umar Hameed 30:58
What's amazing, too, is we spent so much time spelling words correctly, it turns out, it doesn't make a difference, because most of the time we're not. We're just looking at the look at the word. And we don't actually read the word when we're actually doing that task. Dan, thanks so much for sitting down with me. We're gonna put all your social media links and so people can get a hold of you. Thanks so much for inviting me to your studio today.
Dan Ostrowski 31:20
It's my pleasure Umar. Thank you.
Umar Hameed 31:26
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.