I was recently asked at an event why I am called “The Original Back End Specialist”. If you’re in business or in sales, it’s an important story. It shows the immediate power of differentiating yourself from everybody else.

Listen to my story!

Transcription:

Many of you know that I earned the title of “The Original Back End Specialist”. Let me tell you the story of how that came about!

It’s a cool story. First, because it teaches you how to create opportunity for yourself. It also teaches you how to differentiate yourself from everybody else. Finally, and most importantly, it illustrates what business owners desire most from you.

This is a picture that’s actually hanging on my wall right next to me as I’m speaking to you. An artist sketched this a few years ago while I had lunch with Jeff Lipton, the owner of Bobalu Cigar Company.

That’s Jeff on the left. That’s me in the center, and that’s my wife Sherri on the right. This is early on in my relationship with Jeff and Bobalu.

It was a steaming hot day and I was downtown Austin, Texas looking for new clients. I was just getting started as a marketing consultant. This was right after I got fired from my job and I decided to go into business for myself.

My back was up against the wall. We were having trouble paying the bills, having trouble making the mortgage.

Believe me, I’ve been there more than once and we were going through one of those times. I was out drumming up business, going door to door. I was cold calling.

I’m a trained salesmen with 30 plus years experience and I have to tell you I hate cold calling.

Cold calling is a complete waste of time.

But, back then I resorted to it because I was a still unclear about how to differentiate myself.

Even with all my knowledge, I was still feeling a little desperate. I needed to make things happen and start bringing in some revenue.

It was the end of a full day and I was getting ready to come home. I knew that if I jumped on the highway now, it was going to take me over an hour to get home because of rush hour traffic.

So I decided to stay downtown and kill an hour before heading home.

I found my way to this cigar shop called Bobalu Cigar Company. It’s this funky little place and they actually rolled their own cigars.

That was kind of cool.

I sat down to boot up my laptop and light up a cigar I just bought. The owner came to my table and introduced himself as, Jeff.

“Hey, is this your first time to Bobalu’s?” He asked. “What brings you in?”

“I was just downtown looking for business, ” I replied.

“Really, what do you do?”

So, I answered him, “I’m a marketing consultant.”

Jeff turned around in anger and literally walked away from me. I could tell I pissed him off, but had no idea why!

“Whoa, Whoa, whoa buddy,” I called out. “What did I say? How did I upset you so much?”

He turned back around, pointed his finger and charged back at me.

His voice rising in anger. “I bet you came in here just to try to sell me something or get me to hire you.”

That was just the beginning! He continued blasting me.

“I get people like you coming in my business several times a week. You guys call yourselves marketing consultants. You guys promise me you’re going to get me number one on Google and more Facebook likes and all this other stuff”

He’s shaking in anger, but he continues, “Last month I spent $2,000 and these guys promised me all kinds of shit.”

(Yes, he actually called it “Shit”).

“I don’t even know what I got out of that, All I know is that I don’t have the $2,000 I flushed down the toilet with them. He’s showing me all sorts of crap that doesn’t mean anything to me. He thinks he did a good job, and all I know is that I haven’t sold any more cigars.”

I quickly got my footing and responded.

“I see the problem. All those other guys, they’re talking about the front end. They’re talking about getting you more traffic. They’re talking about getting you more likes on Facebook…”

I continued.

“None of that is going to help if you don’t have a back end. The back end is what keeps your customers coming back to buy more cigars. Because if they buy one cigar and smoke it, you want them to come back and buy 100 cigars, right?

He cocked his head. I could tell he liked what I was saying, so I continued.

“I focus on the back end of the marketing funnel. I make sure those customers come back. You could call me a Back End Specialist!”

His face lit up in excitement, “THAT’s what I need! I need a Back End Specialist!”

It’s funny, I had never used that term before. It just came up as I was defending my territory.

I was trying to break down those barriers and explain how I was different from all the other people..

Before that, I had always called myself a marketing consultant like everybody else.

But it all changed right then and there!

I was now the “Original Back End Specialist”!

Nobody else could ever claim that. I was first. And I have a great story to go with it that people always want to hear.

And with that he said, “OK, what can you do for me?”

Then he pulls up a chair and sits down. We spent the next hour while I’m smoked my cigar, talking about what I could do for him.

Then, he hires me!

And he’s been my client ever since.

Jeff’s been a darn good client! We’ve done some amazing things for him, more than doubled his business. He’s been able to expand and even opened up new locations because of the marketing that we’ve done.

Being “The Original Back End Specialist” is part of my Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. It’s what makes me different from every other business in the world.

What makes you different than every other business in the world?

Learn more about “Flawless Follow Up” and becoming a “Back End Specialist” at OfflineFunnelMastery.com

The post Story Time: “The Day I Became “The Original Back End Specialist” appeared first on Steve Rosenbaum.

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This is an audio reading of my chapter from NY Times Best Selling Author Joel Comm’s book “So What Do You Do, vol. 2”

Listen to my story!

I’ve Helped Thousands Of Businesses Explode Their Sales & Profits.
Chances Are I Can Help You, Too

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Transcription:

July 19, 1989, I will never forget the date.

That day is permanently etched into my mind as the beginning of my quest to help businesses and people close more sales and make more money.  To learn what I learned, and to experience what I experienced.  It was the beginning of my metamorphosis into “The Original Back End Specialist”.

I was a newly hired, eager to succeed, ball of fire.  This was the first time I was given a territory of my own and I was out to prove myself come hell or high water.  So, I attacked the account list with great vigor and made a six hour trek to call on an 18 location department store in Quincy, IL.

Peggy, the buyer was very nice when I called to set the appointment.

“You know, it would be nice to meet you, but Quincy is a long way for you”, she told me on the phone.  “I hate for you to make the trip because your chances of succeeding are almost nil.  We’re exclusive with the number one brand and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

“Now what kind of a Territory Manager would I be if let a 700 mile round trip journey keep me away from checking an account off of my list,” I thought to myself.  Of course I would make the trip.

When I arrived, Peggy greeted me and escorted me to her office.  She was nice as could be.

After the normal greetings and formalities, I began doing my pitch, and demonstrating the luggage.  I showed her all the bells and whistles, opened and closed the zippers, spun the wheels, extended and collapsed the handles…

In my mind, I did all this with flawless expertise and perfection.  Obviously I possessed skills and talent that surpassed anything she had ever seen before.  In reality, of course, I simply did the exact same things that every other luggage “schlepper” in the history of the universe did.

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In teaching my clients and students a better way to market and sell, I’ve developed a technical term to describe what happens when a salesman engages in this kind of one-sided exhibition:

It’s called a “Show Up and Throw Up”.

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And then, the phone rang.

This is before the days of call screening.  It was one of those old-fashioned phones.  A real bell.  No Caller ID.

Ring- Ring, Ring-Ring… 

“Excuse me.  Let me see who it is”, Peggy apologized.

“Of course”, I replied sweetly, masking my deep irritation and annoyance.

She picked up the phone and I heard her side of the conversation:

“Oh, I see. Well, that’s not good…”

“Ouch, that’s really, really going to be a problem for me…”

“There’s nothing you can do?

“Oh, my goodness…”

“I’m really in big trouble…”

“OK, well I really have to go”, she said as she returned the handset to the cradle.

With that she turned to me and said, “Well, that was your number one competitor, the one that I said you would never unseat.  They called to inform me that my shipping container of luggage for an ad in two weeks is held up in customs and is not going to get here in time.  I’m not going to have the luggage I need for the ad.  So, I need to know right now what you have at this price point that we could run in its place”.

I excused myself and used a phone in the next office to call my boss, the Vice President of Sales.  He was ecstatic to say the least.  This had been a target account that they had been trying to crack for years.

We had suitable inventory and I closed the deal!  She wrote me a tremendous order, probably somewhere near $50,000.  That was a very big order for us.

My company thought I was a rock star.  Like me, they were convinced that I was absolutely the most brilliant salesman in the history of selling luggage.

That sale started my trajectory into sales management.  Two months later the company moved my family to California and made me the Western Regional Sales Manager.  A year and a half later, another company recruited me away and gave me a VP of Sales position in Savannah, GA.  I was like 28 years old and all it started because of that one sale.

Sales success came easy, at first.  Later, I discovered that sales didn’t always come that easy.

Reality set in and I learned that just showing up didn’t always make it happen. I found out that even if I made a perfectly, flawless pitch, I didn’t always get the sale.

I returned in my mind to Quincy and dissected the situation over and over again.

What really happened?

The phone call is what happened.

Peggy was in need.  She turned to the easiest and best solution she could find, that happened to be sitting 18 inches away from her, and asked, “Can you cure my pain?”

And she gave me the opportunity.

A lot of things came to together all at the same time and created the “Perfect Storm” for me. I was at the right place, at the right time.  I had the right message, (i.e. I had luggage that she needed) and I was in the right market (she was the luggage buyer).

1. Right place
2. Right time
3. Right message
4. Right market

All four of those things have to be present to create a buyer who is “Ready, Willing and Able” to buy from you right now.

That was the lesson that I learned.

You might say, “Look you did a great job because you showed up.”

That is true.  I still made the trip.  I was there.  I made the presentation.  I was able to take care of her needs.  So, yes I did execute the mechanics.

The point is, even if you can do all the right things, but if you’re not at the right place, at the right time, in the right market, with the right message, you aren’t going to get the sale.

How many times have you tried to make a sale and someone said, “Call me back in six months.  I’ll be ready then”?

You diligently put it on your calendar and you call back in six months and that same person says, “Darn, I wish you called last week because the other guy called me and I gave the business to him.”

As a salesman and a business owner, I’ve been there.  I’m sure you’ve been there too.

The Quincy experience was not lost on me.  I set out to perfect a system where I could put the odds of bringing all 4 elements together in my favour.

It was the impetus for what I’ve honed and developed over the course of nearly 25 years.  It’s the “Back End” of the marketing funnel.  The “follow up” process that happens after a person meets the business for the first time.  It’s also the part that most businesses fail to properly execute and results in a great deal of missed opportunity.

I’ve detailed my system in my book “Back End Blueprint”.  I’ve broken it down into scores of products, systems and trainings that I have performed for thousands of businesses and marketing agencies around the world.

With today’s technology, business have more power, more speed, more information and more clout than ever before.

Sadly, most don’t realize it.  I am changing that.

My primary goal is to help businesses recover $100 million dollars in lost sales.  My secondary goal is to train people in need of work, such as corporate-castoffs (like me), military veterans, Moms returning to the workplace,  the skills to help the businesses in their community snatch the low hanging fruit that so many of them miss every day.

I’m pleased to say that we are off to an exceptional start!

We convert more prospects into paying customers; more customers into repeat customers; and repeat customers into champions of businesses that refer their family and friends back to those businesses.

It’s a great system leads to higher sales, higher profits, and much happier sales staff and business owners.

My name is Steve Rosenbaum.  I put businesses in front of prospects at the right time, at the right place with the right message and in the right market so that they make more sales.

And, by the way, I have a ton of fun doing it!

I’ve Helped Thousands Of Businesses Explode Their Sales & Profits.
Chances Are I Can Help You, Too

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