028. How To Use Pull Selling To Grow Your Business – with Dan Dobos

How To Use Pull Selling To Grow Your Business – with Dan Dobos

Short answer

Dan Dobos describes pull selling as starting with the person, not the product: what they want, what their problems are and what keeps them awake at night. You then link what you offer to that need.

His tool is three levels of specificity. "I need more sales" is vague, "I'm not converting enough quotes" is a general problem, and the specific reasons behind it are where the client sees that you understand them.

Key takeaways

1. Go three levels into the problem. Keep asking clarifying questions until you reach specific reasons, such as quotes that never get a follow-up call.
2. Clarity makes you the solution. Dan quotes Wyatt Woodsmall: if you give the prospect more clarity about their problem than they've ever had, you automatically become the solution.
3. Talk to people one-on-one. Ask "what is your single biggest challenge at the moment?", keep a list of the answers, and remember that nothing replaces an actual conversation.
4. Be open about when it won't work. For higher-priced services he uses a commitment form that sets out what the client must do, and his locksmith story shows clients resent a fee when they can't see the years behind it.
5. Don't make your service an obstacle. A seminar asks people to travel, take notes and make a plan, so a service that gets them the result directly is a stronger offer.

See it in practice

Read how a Sydney strata lawyer used a podcast to become the obvious choice in her field: How independent professionals use a podcast to win better clients.

Then put a number on what one good client is worth to you: What is one client worth to you?

Dan Dobos founded LeadMachine, and he has got a strong sales and marketing background. Dan started off his career with the Boston Consulting Group, and today Dan’s an authority in email marketing presentation techniques, sales techniques, productivity and lots more. Dan gave us a compelling presentation on sales technique at the Super Fast Business Live Conference back in April 2015.

 

Resources mentioned:

• The Prophet – by Khalil Gibran
• The Essential Tao : An Initiation into the Heart of Taoism Through the Authentic Tao Te Ching and the Inner Teachings of Chuang-Tzu

Transcript

Machine transcript, lightly edited for reading. Speakers aren't marked. The intros, plugs and closing voiceover are left out.

Today, I'd like to introduce Dan Dobos, who is the founder of www.leadmachine.com, and he's got a strong sales and marketing background. Dan started off his career with the Boston Consulting Group, and today, Dan's an authority in email marketing, presentation techniques, sales techniques, productivity, and lots more.

Dan gave us a very powerful presentation on sales technique at the Super Fast Business Live 10 conference back in April 2015, and it's my real pleasure to invite Dan to the podcast today. So welcome, Dan.

Thanks, mate, great to be here. Great to have you.

So Dan, let's start off by talking a little bit about your view on sales, in particular, your idea of pull selling as opposed to the push selling that we are all so familiar with. Sure thing.

So a lot of the time you see people who, when they think about selling, they think about, okay, my product has certain features, those features have certain benefits, so really what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna explain to my prospect all the features and all the benefits. And the problem with that type of approach is that people usually don't really spend that much time really understanding the problem that they're solving.

And as a result, sales often has a really bad attitude, bad connotation with it is what I mean to say, because a lot of the time people feel being pressured into things, being pushed into things, they never really needed, they never really wanted, and as a result, a lot of people feel uncomfortable about selling, and it just doesn't work very well for anyone, not for the prospect. And when you're feeling pressured, you're not particularly likely to actually end up doing something.

Yeah, so that type of push selling is I think something that needs to be avoided. And the way to move forward and to be successful with your sales is as you refer to pull selling.

So pull selling's really about focusing on the need and using that as the basis of the sale, as opposed to focusing on the product and the benefits of the product, you start with the person. So it's really about understanding what they want, what their problems are, what their fears are, what keeps them awake at night.

And then based on that, that's how you link to what you have to offer. So that's the basic idea behind it.

So it's about meeting the customer where they are, rather than trying to sell your product to them. It's about meeting the customer at their pain point, understanding their pain point, empathizing with them, and then delivering your product as a solution rather than just saying, Here, buy my stuff.

That's exactly right. So it's about really, when we talk about their pain points, it's about getting really specific about their pain points.

And one of the things there that's really important is what I call the three levels of specificity. What that's about is it's based on the idea that when a lot of people are talking to prospects, they have a very superficial and a very artificial understanding of their prospect's situation.

So by using these three levels of specificity, what you can do is you can have a much deeper understanding of their problems. So the three levels of specificity starts off by the fact that when most people tell you their problem, they'll say something like, Well, I need to get more sales.

And that's the first level. That's what I call a vague idea.

You know, I need to get more sales. It's like, That doesn't really mean anything.

If someone needs more sales, there's probably a million different products which could help them with that. So once you dig a bit deeper than that and you ask a few more questions, you might find that the reason they're saying they need more sales is because, for example, they're not converting enough quotes into sales.

And that would be the second level. And that's what I call a general problem because even at that level, I'm not converting enough quotes into sales.

There could still be a lot of reasons for that. So it's usually only after ask three questions.

So the third question then takes you to, Okay, so I'm not converting enough quotes into sales. So what are the reasons behind that?

And that's usually when you get into specific scenarios. For example, you might look at things like, are they actually following up their quotes?

Are they just relying on the quotes? What are they putting in the quotes?

Is there good copy in the quotes? How can they get people interested in making a sale, maybe even without a quote?

At this level, we're getting very tactical. We're getting very granular, and we're really understanding exactly what the person's frustrated about.

And it's at that level that people go, Okay, you know what? This person really understands my scenario, my issues.

They know me. And often what you'll do is you'll actually raise issues that they haven't even thought of.

So they may think, Oh, I just need to get more sales. Or they think, My quotes are not working.

But it turns out that maybe the quotes are great, but they're just not doing any follow-up calls. Or maybe quotes aren't the best way.

So usually by getting deep into this, just by asking clarifying questions, you often uncover issues that they've never really thought of, and you show them that you understand their problems usually better than they actually understood them before you met with them. And yeah, there's this great line by Wyatt Woodsmall, which is something to the effect that if you are able to give the prospect more clarity about their problems than they've ever had before, you automatically become the solution.

And the reason why you automatically become the solution is because the prospect thinks, Well, this person understands the situation a lot better than I did. That means that they must have the solution.

Which is automatically implied. I have to say, Dan, whenever I have really been moved by a salesperson, they have always left me with some deeper level of knowledge than I started with.

And that builds trust like nothing else. So I completely agree with you.

I think understanding the prospect's problem, developing clarity, going down a couple of levels deeper than they may have initially gone before, or bringing some new insights into the situation, using that quote example that you used where maybe the quote isn't the problem, or maybe, and maybe following up as the issue. These are really, really fantastic insights for selling.

So thank you very much for that. That really, really helps.

Yeah, I think also the other point, just related to what you said about how it breeds more trust, I think the reason it breeds more trust is just this concept of reciprocity in the sense that if you're helping me understand my problem, I'm really grateful for that because I've learned something new. So the natural reaction I'm going to have is to reciprocate by saying, well, you know, thanks so much for that clarity.

I really appreciate it. You know, and so that concept of reciprocity kicks in.

I'm gonna want to reciprocate in some way, usually by buying the product. So yeah, that's the other reason why I think that it works so well.

Okay, so that's a great tip. So it's about the pull selling technique looks at understanding the customer situation deeper.

We're looking at getting more specific about the problem, what you call the three levels of specificity and go down a couple of levels deeper than what initially appears to be the issue. You know, something that comes to mind, I remember when the iPods first came out, I remember them advertising them as a thousand songs in your pocket or something like that.

And I see that in my mind as one level of specificity deeper than previously where I think a lot of companies were advertising music in your pocket or, you know, music on your device. Here they were saying a thousand songs in your pocket, which really addresses the need a lot more specifically and a lot more deeply as a music listener, right?

I'm gonna respond a lot more if someone says a thousand songs in my pocket as compared to music in my pocket. That's exactly right.

Like I think one of the other big problems with sales and why sales often don't work is 'cause people just talk in general terms. And if you're not solving a specific problem, well, I'm not really interested in what you have to offer.

It might be a nice general solution, but if it's not specifically for me, well, you know, maybe it's not, maybe I shouldn't buy it. Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily translate into a benefit for you as a buyer, does it?

Because you're not clear on exactly what benefit you're going to get. So they might say, yeah, it's really good.

You're telling me how to increase my sales, but you're not telling me exactly what I need to do to increase my sales. And that is less likely to convert into a sale.

Yeah, definitely. Let's talk a little bit about the biggest challenges that you've seen people face getting started with selling, particularly in terms of the pull selling model as opposed to the push selling.

So in terms of getting started, you know, I think one of the things that you need to do is you want to create an inventory of challenges. So you may do that by, say, for example, if you run seminars, you might just have a challenger sheet and you might just say to people, what are your top three challenges?

And just keep a list of all of those challenges. If you have an online business that doesn't have an offline component, maybe it's just a survey.

And, you know, you might have a list of challenges and you might say, which of these apply to you the best? Or, you know, you probably wouldn't be able to do that initially.

You'd probably have to start off. If you didn't know anything, you might just have one simple question saying, you know, what is your single biggest challenge at the moment?

And then after you've got enough responses, you could then do, you know, something more of a checklist. So you have some sort of numerical, you know, weighting.

And you can sort of say, okay, well, there's, you know, 30 of these one, 35 of challenge two. And you can sort of see which of the big challenges.

So in that sort of situation, it's a two-step process. So, yeah, those are some ways to really understand those challenges.

But the truth is nothing really replaces actually speaking to people. Nothing really replaces, you know, actually one-on-one, having a conversation and understanding the person and really just wanting to help them.

You know, you may even just say, look, I'm offering, you know, a free consultation as part of a product or, you know, you may even just do it as a, you know, you might even just say to look, I'm offering 10 free, I'm going to be available from, you know, two to five, you know, I'm offering however many, so does what, say 15-minute sessions. So you might have like 12, 15-minute sessions, you know.

This is just to say, thank you for being a subscriber. And, you know, in those 15-minute sessions, you might just generally try and help people.

And as part of helping them, the first thing you need to do is understand their problems. And the benefit you get from that is a deeper understanding of the problems.

You may even find that by helping people, they end up asking you to do things you've never even asked for, never even planned for. You may get ideas for new products and services.

So that's another idea. If we're looking more at the higher end type of, sort of coaching type services where, you know, people are paying more, you know, investing more for that type of thing, certainly something that's worked very well in the past is to have something like a student commitment form.

And the student commitment form is, the basis of that idea is that in every transaction, it needs to be a two-way street. So most of the time, it's the salesperson pressuring the prospect into buying.

Whereas a much better way of doing things, and certainly one of the ideas related to this whole idea of pull selling, is to just make sure there's a fit, you know. And so, you know, having a student commitment form, the way that can work is to say look, you know, you're gonna have certain expectations of me.

You're gonna, you know, want certain results from using this product or service. Equally, I'm gonna have certain expectations of you.

So, you know, you're sort of straightaway saying, this is a two-way street. And you're qualifying the customer.

You're giving them a clear signal that I'm not here to mess around. I'm not just trying to sell your stuff.

I'm here to get your results. But to do that, you need to be able to commit to get to those results as much as I do.

Yeah, exactly right. I think really what you're doing that makes actually a product more or service more attractive is you're letting them know the constraints.

So, a lot of the time people just sell the benefits. They never even mention the constraints.

Great point. So, what you're saying is you're saying, this works, but only under these conditions, you know.

So, it's like when someone has a car which they're selling and they say, look, I just wanna let you know that there's a scratch here. You know, so like the person's being totally transparent.

And you're going, oh wow, well he's, you know, he's not trying to push something on me. He's actually telling me this is what, and usually admitting a defect, like I think maybe admitting is the wrong word, but being transparent about what the defects are and what the benefits are, makes it a lot more appealing for someone to want to begin because they know, look, this is where it will work 'cause this is where it won't work.

You know, it's not gonna work for everyone. Anyone who says this is gonna work for everyone and just emphasizes the positive is obviously being a little bit misleading.

So, yeah, the sort of things a commitment form would be saying is things like, you know, your commitment is that, you know, whenever you learn something, you're gonna implement it straight away. And whenever you have a question, you're gonna ask for help.

You know, those types of things. And you're gonna get assignments assigned to you, then you're gonna commit to completing those assignments.

Yeah, exactly right, exactly right. And you're just sort of saying, look, if we're gonna do this, let's be serious about it.

And what I like about this approach is it moves away from the traditional selling approach where everything seems to be sugar coated and everything is perfect. Here, we're being a little bit more transparent.

We're being upfront. We're saying this is not a perfect solution and it's not going to be until you participate in it and contribute to the results.

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that it does, it makes it more exclusive as well.

And so it's like you're sort of taking it away from someone and you're saying, look, you know, unless you're prepared to do these things, I'm not actually interested. And so as a result, people, you know, tend to be drawn to things that are harder to get.

Yes. So there's definitely that factor.

The other thing is just the point you mentioned about transparency. There's two things that come to mind there.

The first is if you think of all the Apple videos, you know, you mentioned the iPhone, but whenever they launch an iPhone or an iPad or whatever it is they show, you know, we use the most, like they show the manufacturing process and how we did this and we use the best metal and, you know, they go through the whole thing. And there's obviously a reason why they're doing this and they're arguably the most successful company today.

Obviously it works, you know? So being transparent about this is the exact process we go through, people like to see that story.

They like to see sort of the, you know, the backstory. So, you know, in this case, it's, you know, the story of how the product will work.

The other story that also comes to mind as well is there were these psychologists that interviewed this locksmith. And basically this locksmith was someone who, when he started off, he wasn't, you know, just a new locksmith, he wasn't that good as, you know, anyone when they start off, they're just a beginner.

And it used to take him, you know, two, three hours to open a door and he'd be sweating and he'd have to break the lock and he'd get a new lock. And, you know, at the end he charged them $300 and they'd say, Look, thanks so much.

You know, you've worked hard, really appreciate it. They pay the money.

Then what happened is he became a better locksmith. He went to seminars and practiced and got really good as a locksmith.

And so now he became so good. He just basically, you know, got there, literally took him 15 minutes.

He didn't break the lock. People got in quicker.

So actually had, you know, two more hours of time to be in their house, like less inconvenience. But he goes, Okay, so that'll be $300.

They're going, What do you mean? You've been here 15 minutes.

How are you charging me $300? People are furious with this guy.

It's kind of a bit funny, but at the same time, it's interesting that, you know, the problem is there. The reason why people don't appreciate what he's done is 'cause that issue of transparency, there isn't transparency.

Those people don't understand what he's had to go through to actually get there. And so maybe if you sort of said to people, he said, Look, you know, you can get beginner locksmiths.

They're going to take two hours. They're going to break your lock.

They're going to have to wait two hours. And then you'll get inside and then they'll charge you $300.

Instead, what I'm going to do is, because I've been doing this for 10 years, is I'm going to do it in 15 minutes. Now I'm still going to charge the same price as they.

Maybe I should be charging more 'cause you're actually going to get in quicker. But just so you know, most people, when I do this, they get upset.

I just want to let you know, before I do this, you're actually getting a benefit of being able to get into your house sooner. So maybe if you sort of provided that transparency initially, maybe it'd be a bit different.

Yes, absolutely. I totally agree.

That's a great story. Thank you for sharing that actually.

And I think the same thing applies to doctors and applies to a lot of professionals. People think they make that money very easily, but no one seems to see the backstory about how hard it has been for them to get to the point where they're making that sort of money.

And no one also seems to realize how much liability they carry when it comes to, you know, if something goes wrong, there's a lot at stake. Yeah, no, no, that's a good point.

And maybe like, I've always thought it's a bit silly how doctors put their sort of degree in their office, but having sort of thinking about it now in this context, it kind of makes some sense, you know, that people sort of start to realize, you know, they've had to spend 12 years and, you know, so maybe, yeah. That's right.

You know, if you want to become a surgeon, you've got to jump through all sorts of hoops. You've got to spend 12 years.

You've got to train anything between 60 to 90 hours a week for about those 12 years, plus study for exam. There's a whole lot of stuff that goes into it, so.

Maybe they should put a timeline in their office saying, you know, I started here, I then did this, even better than just the degree, yeah. Hey, Dan, I want to bring out something really interesting that you touched on earlier on when you talked about surveys and you talked about, you know, getting to, trying to find a numerical way of measuring people's responses.

I had a very interesting conversation with Ryan Levesque just three or four days ago, and I just published the podcast where he uses this thing called a force multiplier, which he uses to come up with a depth of engagement in response to surveys. And I thought that was a really good tool to be able to gauge the level of engagement and then follow up the customers that do provide their phone number and do provide more characters and their responses.

Yeah, definitely. So I think the basic idea behind that is that the people that provide more information, you essentially give them, like essentially, it's the concept of lead scoring or contact rating where you essentially increase the rating of the contact.

You say, look, this is like an A contact 'cause they're giving me more information as opposed to a B or C contact who's giving me less information. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, definitely. And certainly, you know, this should be then different ways of following up with A people as opposed to B or C people.

The other point I really liked that you made was about meeting people. And I believe it's probably even better if you can do it in person rather than on Skype or something, but meeting people to get a better understanding of their problems.

In fact, John Morrow never releases a product unless he's had a few calls just leading up to that product because he believes it's very important to really understand where the market is at and feel the pulse of the market before releasing a product. Yeah, I certainly think like with products, a lot of people spend a lot of time, you know, spending, you know, weeks and weeks or months and months sort of in isolation with a product, building a product.

Whereas really a much better approach, I think, is to try and do it manually first. So actually make it a service to begin with, spend time with a person, actually get them a result.

So essentially you're doing your product manually 'cause you're actually there. And in doing that, you achieve several things.

Number one, you understand the person. So the service that you're going to provide has to respond to a need.

So what you're doing is you're making sure that you're not just providing some service that may or may not be useful to some theoretical person, but this is actually a service that has worked and got results. So certainly that I think is one thing.

The other thing that it does is it will get you a testimonial, you know, at the end of it, you should get a fantastic testimonial. And you know that this is gonna be something that works, something that's gonna get a testimonial.

And then off you go, you should have 80% of it done. And you know, you can now turn that into an information product.

Excellent, I completely agree with that. That makes so much more sense than just going off and creating products in isolation.

And there's so many horror stories out there where entrepreneurs sit there and they create this product that they've fallen in love with. But when it actually comes to implementing it in the market, it just doesn't have legs because it hasn't been tested enough.

And what better way to test a product than actually build it as a service and then productize it to the extent that you can through online automation and so on and so forth. Yeah, and the other thing also is maybe it doesn't work.

Or maybe it doesn't work as well as you think, or maybe you make a tweak to it in the process while you're helping that person, which actually turns it into a slightly different product. And that slightly different product turns out to be five times more effective than the original idea you had.

Absolutely. Yeah.

This is fantastic. This conversation has actually moved a little bit into product creation as well, which is a very important part of good selling, in my opinion, so that's great.

Okay, let's talk about actions or quick wins a listener can take when they wanna get started with pull selling. Now, something that already has come through to me from our conversation so far is understand your audience a little bit better, look to get to a couple of levels below the superficial level of understanding of their problem in terms of your three levels of specificity.

Get an understanding of the main challenges that your customers are having and try and create this inventory of challenges. Meet your customers in person so you can understand their problems, develop it as a service, and then maybe think about developing a product.

But the biggest thing here is about understanding your clients at a deep level and getting to some specific level of problem definition or problem diagnosis followed by a solution. Yeah, definitely.

And yeah, I think the other thing we also discussed was just on some form of, like for a high price product, some form of commitment form to make sure that they're committed and related to that was the idea that you always want to be very transparent about the constraints of the product, not just the benefits, but also when it doesn't work, people then see you being transparent. We talked about the locksmith and so forth about how important that is, yeah.

And I really like how that sort of moves a little bit away from the traditional stereotypical selling as well, which is just about selling benefits and sugarcoating stuff. Here you're trying to say, Okay, look, this is not all perfect, but I'm giving you the absolute honest, transparent perspective of the situation.

I'm being completely open about the situation. Yeah, exactly right.

And then you also mentioned reciprocity where the person appreciates you're being transparent and you're being helpful and they're more likely to buy from you as a result. Yeah, exactly right.

Because I don't think people often appreciate the value of isolating a problem. A lot of people go, Oh, I just want an answer.

Well, we're not gonna get an answer unless we deeply understand the problem. So in actual fact, understanding the problem very deeply and very clearly and very specifically is probably more valuable than the answer.

You know, Dan, you just hit on an absolute nugget there. I totally agree with you.

I think understanding the problem deeply is such a big thing. And until you just said it then, it hadn't occurred to me how important it was to really understand the problem.

So I'm actually gonna take that away and really think about that when I have my next client-facing interaction. This is fantastic, thank you.

Yeah, my pleasure. Awesome.

Yeah, so with high-priced products, we talked about commitment forms, we talked about getting clarity around not just what you're gonna deliver to the customer, but what the customer has to deliver in order to be able to achieve the results. This particularly applies to service-based products because typically service-based products do involve some element of customer involvement.

But even with information products, for example, you can't just buy an information product and have it work for you. You have to actually apply the product.

You have to watch the video. You have to read the content, so, Yeah, and you have to implement it.

You have to implement it, exactly. That is also a really good tip.

When you're selling an information product, I think it's a good thing to flag to the customer that buying this product is not gonna solve your problem. Buying the product, understanding it, consuming it, and implementing it is gonna solve your problem.

And that might be quite a good way of increasing your conversions. Yeah, and the other thing also that you make me think of, which is actually very helpful for me as well, is that I think a lot of people don't always realize this concept of that the product is actually an obstacle.

So for example, if you sell a seminar, a seminar doesn't do anything. So actually, and worse, a seminar is actually wasting my time.

Yes. So what I mean by that is like, if I need to get more leads from my business, if you're gonna make me drive somewhere, stay at a hotel overnight, go to a seminar, take notes, figure out a plan, and then at some point I'll get leads, well, that's a very convoluted process.

It would have just been so much better if you just gave me the leads. Yes.

So if you sell a service that, for example, it may be a done for you, I don't know, Facebook ads type service, where you do the Facebook ads, you do the landing pages. I think it's a very strong offer to make to someone to sort of say, well, this service is not an obstacle to your situation.

What a great point. And this service just gives you exactly what you want straight away without having, and sort of then trying to sort of contrast that to a lot of other services which seem good, like it sounds good going to a seminar, you meet people, like there's lots of sort of ancillary benefits, which are sort of not really related though to your problem.

So like, I'll meet people, I'll have fun, I'll leave my house for a couple of days, like there's lots of extra things, but they're total distractions. Yes.

So definitely worth thinking about. They don't get you the result directly.

They require you to do something significant to get to the result, which is not necessarily what the customer always wants. Yeah, so definitely if possible, it's always good to try and think of ways to position your service as being superior to others if there's minimal obstacles to actually getting what the prospect wants.

You make such a good point. One of my friends actually works for McKinsey and I said to her, hey, look, I can create a fantastic video for you, which in one hour will show you how to save time on your computer and save you an hour a week for the rest of your life.

And she said to me, but I don't want to have to spend that hour, I want that hour a week saved without me having to do anything. So that was another great example of it being an obstacle.

They don't have the hour to save themselves the hour necessarily, or they couldn't be bothered spending the hour, they just want it done. Yeah, and it's not always possible either.

Like sometimes people expect too much, but if you can create something which is closer to that ideal scenario of not having to make the person work hard, then that's preferable. But I think also what we're saying though, is if they do need to do things, it's in your interest to be transparent about that because they're gonna appreciate what it is you have to sell and that you're being transparent.

And the other benefit also is a long-term benefit, which is that if you're not transparent down the road, that's gonna come back and bite you. Absolutely, and that was the other thing that was in the back of my mind.

This is about playing the long game and by developing these honest open relationships, by using things like commitment forms where you're being very clear with your customer about their level of involvement to be able to get the result, you're developing a long-term and honest relationship. If you just try and force the product on them and it requires them to do a lot of work to get to the product, they're gonna feel disillusioned, they're gonna feel frustrated, and your brand is gonna suffer.

Fantastic. Well, a couple of awesome nuggets have come out of this conversation, so thank you so much for that.

I'd just love to ask you now about a book that you've found that has had a really big impact on you and helped you take your business or your thinking to the next level. Sure, there's several books I think I'll mention.

Look, if you're someone that's fairly new to sales and marketing, I think that you absolutely have to read Influence by Cialdini, C-I-A-L-D-I-N-I. Find a lot of business owners I meet, have never even heard of it.

It's just sort of a foundational marketing book, which if you're in business and you're doing any sales or marketing, you just have to know all that stuff. Blind, in the middle of the night, someone should be able to wake you up and should know that stuff.

But other than that, moving forward, the two books which had a really big impact on my thinking is number one, there's a book by Khalil Gibran, G-I-B-R-A-N, yeah, The Prophet. Yes.

Yeah. It's one of my favorite books.

I love it, yeah. And the other book I really, really love is The Tao Te Ching, so it's spelled T-A-O-T-E-C-H-I-N-G, the Stephen Cleary translation.

I think both, the reason I, I think there's just sort of certain fundamental ideas, which, you know, those have just brought a lot of clarity to me. And I think, you know, once you have clarity, it's a lot easier to move forward.

So those are two books I strongly recommend to anyone that's, you know, not just in business, but, you know, anyone that's interested in sort of progressing and developing as a person. Yeah, I don't know if you've heard of a guy called Alan Watts, but he's a fantastic speaker and he speaks along those philosophical lines.

So you might find that very entertaining as well, very enjoyable as well. Yeah, I've actually got one of his books on my bookshelf, which I haven't read, but it looked really interesting.

His speaking is just phenomenal. He's one of the best speakers I've ever heard.

If you just go to YouTube and check out Alan Watts. Oh, okay, nice to check it out.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you'll find him to be very, very incisive in his speech and his thinking.

He used to call himself spiritual entertainer. He did a lot of, you know, he showed the breeze from a spiritual perspective, but very, very interesting person to listen to.

Yeah, excellent, thank you. No worries.

So that actually brings us to the end of the podcast. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

It's been fantastic having you, Dan. Yeah, no, my pleasure.

I really enjoyed speaking to you. How do people get in touch with you if they want to find out more about you or, you know, find out about your business?

Yeah, so I run a CRM and marketing automation platform called Lead Machine. So they can go to leadmachine.com, L-E-A-D, machine.com.

Fantastic, okay, I'll put that in the show notes. Okay, fantastic.

Well, thank you very much for being on the show and I'll hope to have you back soon to talk about some of the other topics that you're an absolute expert in. Okay, excellent.

Thanks a lot. All right, thanks, Dan.

Bye.