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#253 · your niche isn't saturated, your competitors are just bad

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My partner runs the sales calls while I do ops and handle appointment setting. How would you develop a skill in my situation? I'm open to solutions outside business too.

Yeah, I mean on the articulation bit, you should just be doing the sales calls. Obviously, your partner should run the sales calls if they are the person initially contacting the lead and getting in touch with them, just for congruence's sake. There's nothing stopping you from doing sales calls or being on sales calls. Probably one of the biggest unlocks I had is when I just stopped deferring and delegating all of the sales work to my partner because I thought my partner just had some magic sales sauce that I didn't. The reality is they really didn't. And I was reminded of this just a couple of weeks ago when I jumped on a call with one of my business partners. Now I have a few, right? Because I run different businesses and stuff like that. And I just remember like, 'Wow, you know, this person really knows a lot about their product and how to sell them.' But then I jumped on a call and I was just like, 'Whoa, wait a second.' Like, 'Why did they say that? That seems kind of weird. Hold on. They're talking about this. That seems suboptimal. Why are they not asking the customer more questions about themselves?' And then I was reminded, oh, wait a second. Like, first principles, I'm actually really good at this stuff. I don't even need to know a lot about the product to know how to sell it. And it made me be like, 'Right, right. Why the hell am I deferring and delegating these sales calls to this person?' I'm like, if I really wanted to learn how the product worked and how best to sell that, I should be doing the sales calls myself. So, guess what? I started jumping on a bunch of sales calls. Now, I deeply understand the product and how to articulate the benefits of said product. Yeah, you just got to do it, Roby. Hopefully, that makes sense. Okay, I'm going to drink this coffee because it's pretty early and I got to jump over to breakfast soon.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Sales

How do you actually approach a discovery call for a speed-to-lead offer?

The simplest and easiest way to run a discovery call: somebody comes on, do your building rapport, make them happy, make them smile for a second. Then say, 'Hey, I know we've got a lot to cover, so I'd love to get into things. Here's how these calls typically go — I start off asking you some questions about your business. After that, we'll make sure there's a fit mutually on both sides. I'll walk you through the solution we have for you and how I think it could apply to your particular case. And then if it makes sense, we can chat about next steps. Does that sound good?' Then the first question is: why the hell did you take the call? You probably get brushed by 50 of these emails or Upwork applications or LinkedIn DMs per day — what made you want to jump on this one? That's literally all you need to kick off probably 80% of the call. The reason is: one, you're building rapport so they hopefully like you a little bit. Two, you're setting an agenda for the call, which is important because now the customer knows you're in control and understands where things are going and what's coming next. Three, you literally just ask them straight up, 'Dude, why are you here?' and they'll tell you, 'I'm here because my business is really struggling with XYZ and I was considering this solution and thought I'd give it a try.' Fantastic — they've given you the ammo you need to shoot them later. It's a shitty analogy, but they've given you everything you need to close it and make it a win for both sides. Just ask that question first and your sales calls will immediately go three times as good. Then later, after they tell you what they want to accomplish, ask, 'Have you done anything to try and get to the solution before?' If they say, 'Yeah, we hired somebody 3 weeks ago and they weren't really good,' ask 'Why weren't they good?' — 'Because of X, Y, and Z.' Now they've given you everything you need to close the call and everything you need to avoid too — just don't do what those guys did and you're good. People overcomplicate the sales process and end up talking about themselves for hours. You don't need to make it anywhere near that complex to achieve what both parties want: someone has a problem, and you come in and solve it.

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youtube ↗Sales

I just had my first sales meeting and struggled. Do you have any videos or advice on how to run a sales call, close clients, and improve my chances—like using a Loom video or document to prepare?

I do this kind of thing in Maker School, where we run through what a sales call looks like, show how to do a high‑quality call, give bullet points, and talk about kickoff calls. I don’t gatekeep automation knowledge—I do the builds live. If you want sales help, check out Maker School. Briefly, here’s how I structure a call: first, I set expectations and frame the conversation (e.g., confirm we’re on the same page about time). I start by asking why you responded to my outreach, then a few more questions about your business, and finally I explain how I might solve your problem. I want you to walk away with something tangible, so I’ll prepare a free document, asset, or template to give you by the end of the call. After that, we follow the frame we set: I ask ‘why me?’ and ‘why now?’, then I run a customer audit—covering your acquisition, fulfillment, onboarding, client management, HR processes, etc. After you walk me through those, I discuss my solution and send a proposal with the scope. I prefer not to handle objections or do hard selling on the call; I’d rather let the value speak for itself, which comes from my background in heart‑based sales. That’s my approach.

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youtube ↗Sales

I'd like to talk more about business and sales—specifically, how you close those deals.

To answer that question, I close deals primarily by not trying to close the deals. Prospects are extraordinarily attuned to sleazy salespeople; we're pretty sophisticated as a market. If someone pushes sales tactics, I think most qualified B2B leads—people who aren't broke, have money to spend, and have had some success—know the game. So I tend to close deals by being very straight-up with the person I'm talking to and treating it more as a consultation than a sale. I ask them questions about their business and see if I could be of value on the call by giving answers, not just when they pay me. I find that this congruence comes across better than lines like 'But wait, Pete, one last question.' or 'Jack, if I could make you this much.' That stuff is all nonsense nowadays. So I'd be a lot more congruent, not putting on a face. Simple things: don't negotiate against yourself; when you give the price, be quiet. Those little things aren't something you can't just read in a sales book by Chris Voss and then not get the 80/20. Hopefully I've answered why I don't live stream—I think it's restrictive in the schedule right now, I've tried it before, and I really need to stick to a weekly thing, which I don't want to do.

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youtube ↗Client Acquisition

Nick, I'm looking for the main constraint to landing my first paid client. I'm an appointment setter for a high ticket online coach and I built him a free chatbot for DMs and SMS. It books appointments but still makes some basic errors and I'm building it in exchange for a testimonial. The owner is open to commission-only ideas but doesn't have anything in mind himself. He's happy for me to work with other businesses and already employs an agency to run his ads. What should I prioritize? Should I perfect the chatbot to earn the testimonial, start outreach to other high ticket coaches, and propose a commission-based marketing service to an owner or something else?

A common issue I always see is people tend to think it's X or Y. They have to do option one or they have to do option two. That there's a fork in the road where every downstream option is mutually exclusive. All options are not mutually exclusive. You can do all of the things that you want to do simultaneously. The main core bottleneck is actually just the amount of effective focused time you are spending working. And so it is almost not always like sacrificing X in order to do Y thing. It's not like doing outreach or working on your current clientele. It is doing both simultaneously. And the benefit to that as well is when you do more and you're constantly pushing your zone of competence and what you are comfortable with, you will usually find better and more effective ways of working as well. So in the case of you know a hypothetical fella that was asking me what should I prioritize? Should I, you know, try and fulfill this current client? Should I start outreach to other prospective clients? Should I like try upselling the client on some sort of, you know, thing that I have going on? You should actually and legitimately just do all three simultaneously. You know, we come from a line of people that had to hunt, they had to cook, they had to secure water, they had to tend to their families, they had to, you know, constantly defend themselves night after night. You can't you don't just do one thing. We're obviously highly specialized today, but there's 16 hours available in the day. Everything there would might only take you an hour or so. You still have a lot of time available, right? To go hunting your saber-tooth tiger or to go get some water. So hopefully that makes sense.

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