136: You Are in the Money Getting Business: Selling Domination with Rodney Hughes

Robert Plank: We're talking about making money and building an online business. Our guest today is Rodney Hughes who is an author, international speaker and a high performance sales trainer who focuses on delivering results through collaborative and creative problem solving. Lots of cool stuff, welcome to the show Rodney.

Rodney Hughes: Hey, thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

Robert Plank: Cool, and I'm happy that you are here. Could you tell me about what it is that you do, and what makes you different and special?

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. For the last decade, what I've been focused on is I create sales and marketing solutions for various different organizations. I've worked with the Federal Government, non-profit organizations. I've worked with many different private sector organizations and what I do is I pretty much go in, figure out where the gaps are in the business and create strategies to solve that. Whether it be online sales and marketing solutions or whether it's in-person sales and marketing solutions.

Robert Plank: Could you give us an example of that?

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, yeah. As an example, I'll give you my most recent one. There's a gentleman that I'm working with, that I just got finished working with actually, who owns a ... He has a barbecue company. He does barbecue sauces and things of that nature. One of the things we did for him is we created a lead generation website for him, so that he can start collecting the contact information of the people that are interested in what he's offering, as far as sauces and things of that nature. We're helping him and we helped create a strategy that we're trying to get him to have at least 5,000 new subscribers over the course of the next 2 years, so that he can have a basis for driving online sales.

Robert Plank: Awesome so you're making the whole website for him, an opt-in for him, traffic and all that good stuff?

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, all that type of stuff. Then also helping him come up with online and offline strategies to actually drive that forward.

Robert Plank: Like what?

Rodney Hughes: Say it again?

Robert Plank: Like what? What strategies are you using to get those 5,000 subscribers coming in?

Rodney Hughes: This particular gentleman, he goes to various flea markets and various different retail locations. While he's out, what I mentioned to him was that it's one thing to get that immediate dollar, right? Which you definitely always want to drive sales but the reality is that sometimes situations come up, either people didn't feel like buying right there in that moment or maybe they might want to buy a little bit later or whatever, and so what we did was we said, "Listen. When you have people and you're giving out samples, hey offer this irresistible offer right here that's going to intrigue them and make them want to actually jump on your list.

Then, once a week, you want to actually give a recipe of the week or just ... " I tried to teach him how to also do a little bit of video blogging as well, so that he can have other ways of actually engaging with these people once they get on his list. He's building his list primarily through when he's giving samples to people, he has an irresistible offer that he shares with them. They decide whether or not they want to jump on his list at that time.

Robert Plank: Interesting. Are you seeing, with these businesses that you're helping out such as like this barbecue man and stuff like that, are you seeing the pieces that are missing for a lot of these businesses, is it the really simple stuff? Or is it more like advanced and complicated stuff?

Rodney Hughes: 9 times out of 10, it's really the simple stuff. I'll tell you like I told him. It surprises me, just think about this for a second, think about how many businesses that you've been to personally, okay, over the last year that you had a really, really great experience. Maybe it was a new restaurant like have you gone to a new restaurant lately, that you really, really liked?

Robert Plank: In the past few months, yeah.

Rodney Hughes: While you were at that restaurant, at any time throughout that ... From the moment that you walked in that restaurant, did they try to get to actually engage with you and get you to opt-in to some type of either coupon service or anything along those lines?

Robert Plank: Opting in no but, if they had, I for sure would have opted in.

Rodney Hughes: Got it. I want you to really think about this for a second, okay? The average American comes in contact with, it's estimated, comes in contact with somewhere between 5 to 7,000 ads every single day. That might be shooting it a little bit short if they're in a huge market like Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles or somewhere like that. If they're coming in contact ... If the average American is coming in contact with that many ads, what that means is that, simultaneously, they're coming in contact with 5,000 to 7,000 different promises every day.

Because they're coming in contact with all of that, all of these promises, all of these offers and all of ... Just all the stuff, what ends up happening is it creates an environment where the average person is trying to block out a whole bunch of different stuff, right? As a business owner, if you do a good enough job, think about all the things that you have to do, that restaurant had to do to actually even become a blip on your radar to where they were even able to get you to come in and try their actual food. Now, they did all this work. They probably invested thousands of dollars in advertising.

Then when you come in there, you have an amazing experience but then, when you leave, they didn't even ask to connect with you. Now what ends up happening is, as a business owner, that forces that business owner to have to borrow on other people's lines of communication. That's really all you're doing when you're advertising. When you advertise it on the Superbowl, you paid millions of dollars because you're trying to borrow the Superbowl's actual line of communication with their end users, right? When you advertise on the radio, when you advertise anywhere, you're paying to borrow on the line of communication. Now you've done all this work to get a person to come into your establishment, and you're not even attempting to connect with them so that you can own your own line of communication.

Robert Plank: Interesting.

Rodney Hughes: That is what we call, and I'm not trying to be rude here, but it will, in business, that is penny wise and dollar foolish. What you're doing is you're doing a lot of work upfront to get them to come through the door so that you can make that immediate sale, but what about all the other sales, right? Is it possible that restaurant that you went to, that you would want to go back sometime, right?

Robert Plank: If I liked it, for sure.

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, if you liked it, yeah, you would want to go back. Guess what? Is it also possible that you're distracted with all kinds of stuff, stuff going on at the job, stuff going on in your family, stuff, just regular day-to-day habitual things that you do every day. Is it possible that you might not ... It might not cross your mind to go back there? If they would have been connected with you and would have found creative ways to stay in communication with you, you might have would have thought to yourself, oh man. It's been a minute since I went there, maybe I should go back.

Robert Plank: Would you say that with these businesses that you're helping out, is this one of the first things you look for? Some way for them to capture some leads and follow up.

Rodney Hughes: From my ... No, well yes and no. When I look at a business or when my company, as a whole, looks at a business, me and my team, what ends up happening is I train my entire team ... I guess you could say our unique selling proposition is that we help companies explode their sales performance in 90 days or less, okay? The way that we do that is we really focus on identifying 4 key things. Number one is how well do they handle obscurity, right? Here's the reality. If you're in a place of obscurity as a business, then you can have the greatest product in the world but I can't do business with you if I don't know you exist. Very first thing I look at, with any organization, is how well are they at overcoming obscurity?

The second thing is I look for missed opportunities. Where are you missing opportunities? This particular scenario that I just explained to you, that was a missed opportunity. Those are missed opportunities where he's not trying to connect, where he wasn't previously connecting with people who showed interest in what it is he had to offer. That's why we created strategies to take advantage of that, and to actually effectively address that situation, okay?

The third thing that I look for is, I look for what's already working in the business. I try to ... We try to enhance that. If you're knocking it out the park, selling a whole bunch of different sauces, how can we enhance that? How can we get people to buy more sauces or how can we get people to buy other complementary products or whatever?

Then the fourth thing that we look for is we look at where is the business wasting time and wasting effort? At the end of the day, there's no difference between your business and Microsoft. There's no difference between Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway. At the end of the day, every single business has 24 hours to get things done. If you're investing a lot of time, energy and resources into things that are not working, that are not getting you the results that you really need to get done, you're better off just eliminating those things. When we couple all 4 of those things together and take a look at an organization, it allows us to create a sales and marketing solution that can really drive things forward and do it in a very fast manner.

Robert Plank: Cool so it's customized to them, then?

Rodney Hughes: Yes.

Robert Plank: Just to make sure that I got your 4 points right. You look at these 4 things. Number one, how they handle obscurity. Number 2, the missed opportunities. Number 3, what's already working that you can enhance and then number 4, where they're wasting the time and effort.

Rodney Hughes: Correct.

Robert Plank: I mean something that you mentioned a few minutes ago, a little bit off-handedly, is with this particular case study that you're mentioning, you get .. In this case, what he was doing was he was going to these events, he was getting people on a list and sending them offers. You mentioned really quick that you had some creative ways to get people back to the business. Do you have any cool, just creative things you've been doing lately, that are maybe not the usual stuff, in order to help someone's business?

Rodney Hughes: Got it. I mean it really varies because something that is not usual in one industry might be completely usual in another industry, right? It's not usual to have an opt-in type of situation for a company that sells barbecue sauce. I think that sometimes business owners, they are trying to be super-unique with things and I think you can be unique sometimes just by looking at what's working in other industries. As an example, let's say the drive-through window, right? The drive-through window actually, at restaurants, actually came from the banking industry.

They got that from the banking industry and it allowed them to be very effective. The drive-through concept was not a new concept but it was new to an industry. They were able to implement it. Now, it's just almost a common way of doing business now for fast food industries. What I usually do is I look at other industries, see what's working very well and see is there any way that we can make that work for a particular business in a particular situation?

Robert Plank: I like that and that's pretty powerful. That makes me think of ... I mean I wish more businesses had drive-throughs, right? Or even I remember a few years ago, I was playing around with Domino's Pizza's website. I think I might have bought a Domino's Pizza one time and then, at some point, I ended up on their text blast list. I know for sure that I didn't unsubscribe from it but I might have just stopped getting the messages. I stopped buying from them, but I thought it was cool that they would not only be building this list of all these SMS subscribers but they would go and send a message right before lunch.

Rodney Hughes: Yeah.

Robert Plank: That's a cool thing. In any other industry that's not doing that, that seems like a pretty easy way to find the low hanging fruit there.

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that ... See, here's the deal. One of the ways that I like ... In my book, the very first principle that I mention in my book is the 10 principles of selling domination. It says, "You're only in one business. You're in the money getting business and never forget that." The reason why I say that, the reason why that's the leading principle, is because the problem that a lot of people have is, number one, they have no earthly idea what business they're in, okay? Every single business, there's only one business on God's green earth.

Hey, guess what? Wells Fargo is in the exact same business as Walmart. Walmart is in the exact same business I'm in. I'm in the exact same business you're in and so on and so on and so on. We're in the money getting business and that's not about being greedy. It's about focus, right? What people ... If you don't understand that you're in the money getting business, then your focus isn't going to be right. If you understand that you're in the money getting business, now you maybe in a different industry, there are many different industries, many different products, many different services.

If you understand that you're in the money getting business, the reason why that will help you tremendously is because then you'll get to understand like, "Okay. If we're all in the same business, then I might easily be able to see what's going on in an industry that I know nothing about but that is working ... I see is working very well. I might be able to get something from that and make it work in my industry." At the end of the day, the goal is always the same which is to find people that you can serve, help and collect money in exchange for serving and helping them. Does that make sense?

Robert Plank: Yeah, it does. I think that's some pretty dang good advice because I think that, when I was younger, I would not really pay a lot of attention to other businesses. I think that once I started looking at these other businesses that seemed to be doing well and saying, "Okay. Here's what they're doing to get people in." I can guesstimate, "Okay they get this number of people in per day and they're probably making this amount of money." It helps to, instead of in the past I would write these other businesses off, to look at it from an outsider's perspective, almost like a reverse engineering perspective and just look at what it is that they're doing. It seems like if they keep doing it, it must be working for them.

Rodney Hughes: Yes, exactly.

Robert Plank: Would you say that, with all these businesses you helped, would you say that their big mistake is that they're not looking ... They're not comparing themselves to other businesses? Or would you say that there's an even bigger thing they're all missing out on?

Rodney Hughes: It's not so much about comparing yourself to other businesses. I think the biggest thing, some of the biggest things that people miss out on is that they ... I think sometimes people want this to be very difficult, okay? What I mean by that is there's a lot of things that are very, very simple but it doesn't mean that it's easy but it is simple, right? If, at the end of the day, if you understand that if you have a great product, service or solution, which I urge everyone to represent great products, services and solutions, but if you're not doing everything you possibly can every single day to get out and let people know about what it is that you're doing, you're not setting yourself up for success.

See, here's the thing. A lot of people, in business, a lot of people that I encounter in business, let's put it that way, a lot of people that I encounter in business, they fall in love with the business so much that they don't focus on the things that actually make the business work. What I mean by that is let's say you're a baker, right? First off, like I said, there's only one business in God's green earth. If you think you're in the baking business, then you're not going to perform nearly as high as another baker down the street that understands that they're in the money getting business.

This is, listen, this is 100% proven. Let's use McDonald's as an example. McDonald's is in the money getting business. If you look at just how they operate, it doesn't take long for you to understand that they understand they're in the money getting business. If I was in a room full of a million people and I asked a million people to raise your hand and say, "How many of you know who McDonald's is?" Almost everybody, if not everybody, would put their hands up. Would you agree?

Robert Plank: Yes, I would.

Rodney Hughes: If I was in that same room, right after I asked that question, and I say, "Hey. How many of you have had a better hamburger than McDonald's?" I'm almost sure that 100% of everybody would raise their hand and say, "Hey. I've had a better hamburger somewhere else." Would you agree with that?

Robert Plank: Yes, I would.

Rodney Hughes: Then I say, right after that I say, "Now let me ask you something. How many of those places that you had the better hamburger at can say 90 billion served?"

Robert Plank: None.

Rodney Hughes: Nobody's hands would go up.

Robert Plank: Interesting. What you're saying is you're seeing a lot of people who, they fall in love with the business or they ... You used the baker example. You could have a baker who they love baking but they ignore the business side of it. Or they don't focus on making it a machine or a system that just works really smoothly, keeps bringing people in and keeps making money. That's a huge problem you're saying.

Rodney Hughes: Exactly, exactly. There are too many people that have really, really great products and they invest a considerable amount of time into making sure the product, the service or solution is great. I'm not against that. I'm totally for that. I want you to have ... Represent great stuff because it really does help. I want you to focus on understanding business, you understand? You're good at what you do which is either if you're a chiropractor, you're good at doing chiropractic stuff, right? If you're an accountant, maybe you're great at crunching numbers and that's great.

I want you to be great at that but don't neglect being the business. The business is what's going to differentiate you. The business is what's going to ultimately lead to your great success. Doesn't it suck to have a great product, service or solution, you look down the street and you're getting your head beat in by somebody who has a far less superior product, service or solution in the exact same market that you're in?

Robert Plank: I mean that's a blow to the ego there.

Rodney Hughes: You see what I'm saying?

Robert Plank: Yeah.

Rodney Hughes: Guess what? If the person down the street understands hey, I'm in the money getting business. Then they're probably going to have way better sales results than you have, if you think that you're in whatever other business you think you're in.

Robert Plank: Cool so it sounds like that people, if they want, they can have the best of everything, right? They can have a good business that everyone knows about and they can be good at whatever skill it is that they're in.

Rodney Hughes: Absolutely, absolutely. I totally believe that you can be great at both things. I just feel that it's just a matter of focus and intention, you know what I mean?

Robert Plank: Oh yeah.

Rodney Hughes: If you neglect ... See, that's the thing. A lot of people neglect the business side of things. They neglect the marketing, they don't want to do that. They're just like, "Man I just want to bake." In that baker scenario, they're just like, "Man I just like cooking, period." If that's the case, then maybe that should just be ... If you're not willing to do the things to make the business grow big enough to where it would be happy for you, everybody doesn't want to be a millionaire, billionaire, whatever, right? If you're not willing to learn what it takes to get to the level of success that you desire from a business standpoint, then maybe that should just be a hobby and you should just get a job.

Robert Plank: I mean kind of harsh advice but I mean I think that a lot of people need to hear that.

Rodney Hughes: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm just trying to call it how I see it.

Robert Plank: Be real, yeah.

Rodney Hughes: If you're not willing ... That's just like if you want to lose weight, you're not willing to work out and change up how you eat, well then you can't out work a bad diet. I mean I don't know what else to say to you. You can buy as many gym memberships as you want.

Robert Plank: I mean I agree with you there. I think that this is really important. I think that this is something that every business owner needs to hear, especially if they're maybe making things a little too hard on themselves. It doesn't have to be that way. Can you tell us about your website, your coaching, your book and all that cool stuff?

Rodney Hughes: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you ... My website is MarketingSS.com. I have a book called Selling Domination: Your Blueprint for Selling More and Generating an Extraordinary Income. It's a fantastic book. It's a short read. I wrote this book because I wrote the book that I wish I would have been able to have when I first got started in business. I want it to be a quick read that is really packed with value. Anybody that's in business, doesn't matter whether you're entrepreneur, business owner, sales professional, no matter what, this is a great book for somebody to have. Even if you're not even in business, because selling is such an integral part of success, period.

I don't care what field that you decide to go into, this would be a great book to have. If you wanted to pick up a copy of that, you can get it at www.sellingdominationbook.com. If you want more free just information from me directly, you like the way that I look at business and like to learn more, if you go to my regular website, marketingss and that's Sam Sam. It's short for Marketing Synergy Solutions. If you go to marketingss.com, you go to my video blog session section, you'll see I have tons of content that you can have access to. There you go.

Robert Plank: Awesome so lots of cool stuff, SellingDominationBook.com and MarketingSS.com. Rodney, thanks for being on the show and thanks for sharing what you had to share with us. I appreciate everything you have to say.

Rodney Hughes: Thanks for having me on the show. I hope that I was able to give some great value and I look forward to connecting with you in the future.

Robert Plank: Looking forward to that too, thanks a bunch.