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Feeling overwhelmed by your family's daily grind and looking for a way out? Welcome to "Dig the Well," the podcast that empowers you to build the life you deserve. Your hosts Vikki and John are top earners at Neora. Vikki is a # 1 best-selling author and John is a retired Los Angeles Police Officer. Together they’ve navigated family challenges, raised successful kids, and achieved financial freedom.
In each episode of "Dig the Well," they dive deep into the strategies and mindsets that can help you break free from the constraints of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle. They understand the unique challenges faced by stay-at-home moms and families who are juggling multiple responsibilities and struggling to find balance. Their mission is to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to create additional income, gain more family time, and ultimately, transform your life.
Throughout their journey, they’ve had the privilege of working with renowned figures like Jack Canfield and Jeff Olson, whose wisdom and insights have greatly influenced their path to success. They’ve also celebrated significant milestones, such as raising two valedictorian children and supporting their son, an Olympic weightlifter on Team USA. These experiences have equipped them with valuable knowledge and practical tips that they’re eager to share with you.
"Dig the Well" is more than just a podcast; it's a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to personal growth and financial independence. Whether you're worried about your family's financial security, longing for more quality time with your spouse, or simply seeking a way to reignite your passions, this podcast offers actionable insights and real-life stories that can help you achieve your goals.
Our mission is to inspire you with the belief that if we can do it, so can you. We want you to feel empowered, educated, and ready to take control of your future. By tuning in to "Dig the Well," you'll gain the confidence and knowledge needed to break free from the daily grind and create a life full of possibilities.
So, if you're ready to transform your family's future and discover the greatness within you, join us on this journey. Subscribe to "Dig the Well" and start building the life you deserve today!
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John:Ever wondered how you could turn your side hustle into a full time gig and spend more time together?
Vikki:Hi. I'm Vikki, a number one best selling author.
John:And I'm John, a retired Los Angeles police officer. Welcome to dig the well, where we help couples navigate the world of business.
Vikki:We've been married for thirty five years, and because we built a successful side business, John retired nine years earlier than he originally planned from the Los Angeles Police Department after twenty five years on the job. Now we spend more time together, and we want to help couples like you do the same.
John:Join us as we help you overcome common obstacles, and we show you how to make extra income without sacrificing family time.
Vikki:Ready to dig deep and build your well? Let's get started.
John:Hello, everyone. Welcome to dig the well. We're the host, John and Vicky Downey. Hello. I think that's who we are.
Vikki:That's who we are.
John:So today's episode is going to be on something that a lot of people tend to neglect in their business and in their lives in general, and it's follow-up. And it it plays such an important role. I mean, if you don't follow-up, then why bother, with the first contact. Right?
Vikki:Yeah. Kinda thing. 100%.
John:So Vicky has been known as, like, the queen of follow-up. She's really good at it, and I think that's a big part of I don't think. I know it's a big part of, our success and, how successful she's been in, her her direct sales business businesses. Yeah. More than one.
John:But you've always been successful. No matter what it is, it's you've turned it into a success, and it sure seems to me, looking at it from from my perspective, that so much of it has to do with follow-up. So, I've got a couple of questions for you if you don't mind.
Vikki:Yeah. John's interviewing me today. I'm the guest speaker or guest. I'm the guest.
John:Unpaid guest speaker. Just want you to know there's no
Vikki:Yeah. No payments. No.
John:I'll be favors later.
Vikki:Yeah. If you're watching on YouTube or Rumble, you're gonna see I'm wearing glasses because I if you haven't noticed already, I can tend to go off topic. Well, actually, I think I've been pretty good on the podcast, but in real life, I can yeah. Look at John's nodding his head. I can get off topic, so I actually wrote notes, you guys.
Vikki:So I've got my glasses on, my reading glasses. So that's why you're seeing our studio lights all in my glasses. But yeah. So yeah.
John:Yeah. Because I know I'm not gonna hit all the questions, and I know there's a lot that that Vic wants to share with you, and it's very important that she does. Right? So, and if I don't ask the the right question, you've got your notes.
Vikki:Yeah. I know. It's really good. Alright.
John:So I'm gonna start out with, basically, do you have philosophy behind follow-up?
Vikki:Yes. That is such a question. Can you tell I gave John a couple questions I would like him to ask me? Yes. So, you know, I just recently did a training for our entire company at Neora and what I trained on because you can train on the numbers, how to do follow-up, what to say, what's the ideal time to call people, you know, this window people think is the great calling time and when not to call and not this day and not that day and all the how to's, if you will.
Vikki:But in my mind, you can know all of that and still do nothing, still not follow-up. Just you know you've been educated, you know how to do it, but you don't know how to do the how's. And so to me, your philosophy, is the answer to all of that. It's what drives you. It's what motivates you.
Vikki:It is what gets you to make that phone call or send that text. It's a little bit of your why, you know, why you even have your business that is helping to fuel that as part of your philosophy, but you definitely have to have one. And and I I wanna go into, like, five key points of my philosophy. I don't know if we wanna do that, like, right off the bat. Do you want me to, like, hit the five points right away?
John:Yeah. You already brought it up. Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. We're giving you the meat and potatoes like right away. So so if you are taking notes, yeah, there should be five. We'll see how my notes go. But number one is follow-up with reckless abandon.
Vikki:That's always been my after I learned how to follow-up properly and I was doing it and I was in the moment and when I would have a funk and not wanna follow-up, but then I got back into it, it was always, oh, I need to follow-up with reckless abandon. What do what do I mean by that? Reckless abandon is not that sound. Reckless sounds like all over the place. Sounds crazy, right, when we think of a reckless car, on the road.
Vikki:They have no care for other people's safety. No. That's not what reckless abandon means. I actually because I was a teacher, I looked it up, and reckless abandon is all about letting go of self doubt. It's all about not overthinking your message and what you're exactly going to say when you're talking to somebody.
Vikki:It's all about shutting down your own personal perfectionism, right, and just saying, I don't need to be perfect. Owning that. I'd rather be authentic than perfect any day. And finally, showing up with reckless abandon is like being fully in your belief of your product or your service and knowing that it's the solution to all the people you're reaching out to, all of their problem that you're helping them solve. Reckless abandon is just an attitude.
Vikki:It's really an attitude, but it is part of your philosophy. So that's number one. That's what my first initial thing when I'm sitting down is I'm just going to go to town. Is that making sense so far? Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. Number two is that you're going to get a ton of nos. You're going to get a ton. They they talk about you know, there's so many statistics, but they talk about for every 100 nos, you'll get one to 10 yeses. And honestly, I do think it's a lot of times one.
Vikki:One out of a 100 no's. So you're gonna get a lot. And there's a really great quote that I, found, and it's actually by an actress, a restaurateur, and her name is B. Smith. B.
Vikki:Smith. And she said basically, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, I stand on a mountain of no's for one yes. And so really that to me, because I'm a visual person and I like to visualize as I'm getting my philosophy in check and my mindset in check, and I'm picturing all these no's almost like the soil of the mountain. Right? And the more no's you get, the better because you're getting higher and higher and higher, like to the pinnacle of your success.
Vikki:And so I love that. And, I actually, on the training that I did that was live with our company, they found a great graphic that was this person standing at the top of the mountain with their hand raised, and that was their yes moment. And, you know, you do follow-up too, John. Right? It's doesn't it feel great when you get a yes, but you know you've had to go through a lot of no's?
John:Yeah. Oftentimes, I think when when I when I hear a no, right, I I'm thinking good. I just got past another one because I know I know k n o w. I know that there's gonna be like you were saying, you're gonna go have to go through so many noes to finally find a yes. That generally is how how it works.
John:And I I I'm happy when I get a no sometimes. I'm thinking great. That's just another one checked off the list. I'm getting closer to that yes to the person I'm going be able to work with and Yeah.
Vikki:Help. Yeah. And there's a philosophy I know years ago in the candle company that I was with, I had stumbled across not just the power of no, but this couple that trained on getting the no's basically. So that's exactly it. And they actually had a chart where you actually that's a 100 squares on this chart.
Vikki:And every time, like you were saying, you're just that much one step closer to that yes. And so find that chart. Sometimes those types of tangible things that you can have at your desk along with your follow-up list. Right? And definitely we need to get into that about tracking.
Vikki:But I love that. I love marking that off. So, yeah. I mean, nos are so have that philosophy. You're going to get a ton of nos.
Vikki:You're not going to worry about it. That's got to be in the back of your mind always and almost to celebrate. Almost celebrate the no. And lot of times too, it doesn't mean not right now. It just means not right now.
Vikki:And that's like many, many, many, many. And that goes along with how many exposures that you need to do before it leads to a yes. Right? They say eight to 12, now even to 20, times you're gonna ask them or send them, information or they're gonna see your post on social media. That's all on exposure, but that's all part of the getting a 100 nos, challenge.
Vikki:So
John:Yeah. You know, I like one of the things I used to I like to think about often when we're looking for those yeses is like a deck. You know, if you wanna think about it like a a deck of cards. Right? And you're looking for aces.
John:Those are the
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
John:Yeah. Right? They're the ones that you really wanna work with. They're they're the ones that are gonna be motivated, that are that are self motivated, that you don't have to always carry them.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:So you're looking at the so someone handed you a deck of cards, and let's say they took three of the aces out. So there's only one ace in that entire deck of cards. Yeah. So what are the odds of you finding that ace on that first drop, on that first card that you turn over? It's one in forty nine because we couldn't Yeah.
John:Exactly. Right? Yeah. But I'll say one in fifty because there's always a joker in there somewhere. Right?
John:So you have a one in fifty chance chance of finding that ace just by flipping over that first card, and it's it's probably not gonna be the ace. It's probably gonna be something else. Now, you sad because you turned up a seven or or even a two's or a three? No. You wouldn't.
John:You're thinking, okay, now my odds of finding that ace just got better on the next draw. Right. And eventually, you're gonna find the ace, but it just it's only the people who stick around long enough and keep drawing cards from that deck are gonna find the aces. Yeah. Because the ones that quit too early won't.
Vikki:Yeah. Right?
John:It's so true. I know we're we're getting off a little bit.
Vikki:No. No. That was right on topic. No. That's right on And I hope that's cementing starting to help you cement your philosophy because you have to have your own personal philosophy.
Vikki:These are just some ideas that have really served me over the years of, you know, from prestige, our traditional business, all the way through till now. So gosh, that's thirty six, seven, eight years ago. You know, all these years, it's been a learning process, and I hope this call, this podcast is going to help you speed up the process for you. And honestly too, what you just shared about the nose, the aces in the deck, me standing on top of my nose, honestly, bottom line, it's persistence, equals power. You have the power when you're continuing to persist and continuing to ask.
Vikki:Keep, when you knuckle under to the nose and you just quit. Right? You give up. You are now not powerful any longer. You've given your power away when you're quitting.
Vikki:And so persistence and continuing to talk oh, I like that window, though. Okay. There's power.
John:I was gonna stop it.
Vikki:John was gonna see our window going up right here in the middle of the podcast. That's cool. I like it. Yeah. And I don't think it messes up the lighting.
Vikki:Sometimes we lower that because it can mess up the lighting. Those of you that are into that or might be watching us and thinking, I wanna do my own podcast someday for giving you background tips. So okay. Number three.
John:See what she gets off the topic? That's what we were talking about
Vikki:earlier. Yeah. Exactly. But look at. I'm right back on.
Vikki:I know. It's my got a little Yeah. And my EHT is working too. Okay. Bathtub.
Vikki:Here's the third thing if you're taking notes is write bathtub for number three, and that's going to, like, pique your interest on rereading your notes again. What does she mean by bathtub? You know, what John kind of said at the beginning, before we even started the interview was, you know, follow-up is key because you might if you're not gonna follow-up, you might as well not have done the first the offer. You might as well not have shared anything about your business with with the person. You you wasted your time if you're not planning to follow-up.
Vikki:And that's what you have to think of when it comes to the bathtub situation. Because I think of a bathtub, and what do we do when we get in a shower that is the bath tub is the drain or we're just getting the bathtub itself? We have to put a plug in the drain. Right? Otherwise, the water's gonna go out.
Vikki:It's pointless. You're not gonna be able to raise the bath. You're basically taking a shower because the water's going right down on the drain. So follow-up is that key part of being the stopper, if you will, in the drain. Yeah.
Vikki:In the drain. Because if you're not following up, it's going right out the drain and you might as well not have shared in the first place and follow-up is key in that way. And also what I found too with that just visual in mind is that if you're not going to follow-up and say you have the same product, something similar, whether you're maybe you're a branding, expert and you're all about helping people brand their product. What if you shared what you do but then never follow it up again? And then they meet someone else who does branding and that person is on it.
Vikki:They're sending an email to follow-up. They're showing sending websites that you can look at to see, their work. You know, they're following up with a phone call. They're setting up a Zoom to chat with you about branding. They're showing they care.
Vikki:Right? And guaranteed, even if that person is not ready to purchase in the moment, a package from the person that's offering, they will. They're going to remember, man, that person knew their stuff. Where when we're not following up, that shows no belief in our product or service. They've forgotten about you, to be quite honest.
Vikki:You were just a drop in that bathtub that went down the drain where you didn't put the stopper in by following up. So that's a great visual too on just remembering that when you're sharing, have follow-up as part of the process. But think of follow-up as the, I never thought of this before, but as the drain plug so you don't lose your potential prospect. Alright. Number four, people want to be asked.
Vikki:Definitely, that needs to be in your notes as well. It's it's something I've definitely learned that I did not know when I first got into technically my own business, but technically sales. Because everything is sales. We've talked about that before. You I sold myself to John.
Vikki:He sold himself to me. You know, We both put our best foot forward when we were dating, and we picked each other. Right? And then he asked, I just thought about that, but then after some time, Hey, will you be my girlfriend? Or you know, I might have been the one.
Vikki:Hey. Are we I think I was. I was like, wait. Are we dating other people? Are we what's the word that, you know, when you are only with not monogamous, but there's another word in dating.
Vikki:Are we not seeing anybody else? But there's a word. Exclusively. Exclusive. Thank you.
Vikki:Are we exclusive? So people want to be asked. They're in limbo if you think, especially the dating situation, and I know women especially, maybe guys are wanting to play in the field. The girl wants to secure her person. But actually, you wanted to be exclusive, just to talk about that for a second.
Vikki:I remember you're like, I don't share. I love that.
John:I said that. Yeah.
Vikki:I actually that was so flattering to me, just so you know. I never told you It's very flattering. But people do. It's human nature. They want to be asked.
Vikki:And I wanna give you guys an example, that changed everything for me, and it's a story. I had a friend, and it was when I was doing the candle business, and I was afraid of follow-up. I thought, well, let me backtrack. I was raised by a mom that slammed the phone on solicitors and just would say, hey, hello, What? Are you trying to sell me something?
Vikki:Are you a solicitor? Click. She wouldn't even wait for them to respond.
John:Actually, it wasn't that nice. I heard a couple of them.
Vikki:I know. She was mean. And so, this was back in the day where if you didn't grow up in the eighties, maybe seventies, I don't know if it happened before, but definitely the eighties, a lot of people had no solicitor sign on their door. And we talked about that because there was a lot more door to door salespeople back then. But, so that was kind of a thing.
Vikki:It was a mindset that people didn't want to be bugged. And so I came to selling to my own business, with petrified with that PTSD of people slamming the phone on me, slamming the door in my face, figuratively, right? Literally, sorry, literally slamming the door in their face. So figuratively, when I was making phone calls, I figured they were slamming the door in my face, and I didn't want to do it. But what I found was this story as I would share about them joining me on my team in my candle business, and we'd get to work together and be so much fun.
Vikki:I would have parties, and when somebody was interested, Hey, I'd like to earn some money doing this, I would share about it. Right? But that's as far as it went. I was as bad as the bathtub water going out the drain. And I had a friend who eventually started her own candle business, and I found out.
Vikki:And she started with somebody that I didn't even know. It was another candle lady in the same company. But, and I reached out and I said, because that's the type of person I am, I wanna know why did you join with so and so? You and I have been friends for years. I did parties at your house.
Vikki:I thought you liked me. I actually said something like that. And she goes, well, Vicky, you never asked me. And you guys, I was floored. I was absolutely floored because I thought to myself, Well, what do you mean?
Vikki:I showed you all about it. I gave you the options of getting started, but I never wanted to be pushy. And she's like, Well, I didn't think you wanted me. And this other friend actually asked me to join her team, so I joined. So that line was in the sand, my day of disgust.
Vikki:If you've ever listened or read the book, The Slight Edge, that was my day of disgust on follow-up because I thought, oh my gosh. I am never gonna have that happen again. Has that ever happened to you, John? No. Don't recall that.
Vikki:I don't think so either. You've been really good probably at it. I just I was petrified. So if I'm speaking to any of you, I just want you to shake that off, that it's human nature, just like a plate of cookies. Right?
Vikki:If you have a plate of cookies on your table and friends come over, most likely they're not just going to grab one. They want to be offered. They want to be asked. So people want to be asked. It is what it is.
Vikki:And number five, I'm onto my fifth point on the mindset behind follow-up. I hope you're filing all these away, Is real follow-up is rooted in service. So what I mean by that is, again, it's your philosophy on how you're following up. Are you following up just to make a buck with no, intent on helping someone, with no intent that knowing, in your heart of hearts that your product or your service can help them? You just actually, maybe you don't even think your products are very good and you just want to make money and you know they'll buy it and then be in the wind and that's okay because you don't care.
Vikki:No. You need to care because follow-up is rooted in service. And the more that you realize that and the more you get that message across in how you're delivering your message to people, that's when the magic happens. Right? They say people don't care how much you would know.
Vikki:You could spout off all the example of how great whatever you do is or how great your product is, but if they don't truly think you care about them, they're not going to buy from you. They're going to buy from someone who does care, who they get that feeling from. So I had a couple key thoughts on that. One thing is when I follow-up, I like to say, and this breaks the ice, Hey, so and so. Just wanted to follow-up doing some good old fashioned customer service.
Vikki:I lead with that a lot of times when I don't know what to say or I don't know them well because who wouldn't resonate with that? Isn't that great? It reminds me of Andy Griffith or something. I don't know why. Andy Griffith comes to mind, that show.
Vikki:I just think of good old Mayberry way back in the day and people just caring and wanting to always provide great customer service because I think that's gone by the wayside. In food industry, who's great at that is Chick fil A. Chick fil A is so great. But I just think that's such a great lead in. So write that down in your notes on something to do on your next phone call or text.
Vikki:Just say, hey. Just doing some good old fashioned customer service. So in other words, you're not bugging them. You're actually just caring. Right?
Vikki:Good old fashioned customer service. What did you think about that of your product? What did you like best? I like to lead with best because the world is so negative, and they can tend to go down the negative trail if you just say, What did you think? Right?
Vikki:If you ask any person what they think, they usually go towards the negative. Have you noticed Yeah. Absolutely. Right? Instead of, What did you like best?
Vikki:They have to search in their memory bank after trying the product or serve and think of something that was good. And they don't usually come out with something negative if you lead with that. And, another thing that I like, if you followed up several times with somebody, I also like to use the phrase, I didn't want you mad at me. So hopefully you jotted that down as well because I use that in all parts of the conversation, usually near the end where I've asked what they like best or I'm just in the follow-up only stage. So I'm not asking questions about what they like, but maybe it's been a little while since you've been in touch with them.
Vikki:Maybe you have something new to share with them. For us, a lot of times, it's a new before and after photo. So I send that and or maybe I know that, there's a sale on whatever it is they wanted originally, and they've kind of said no for a while. I go back to them to offer the sale. I say I let them know, hey.
Vikki:Just doing some good old extra customer service. Wanted you to know the product you had your eye on the most is on sale. No worries if not. That's another great phrase to throw in. No worries if not.
Vikki:I just didn't want you mad at me if you found out tomorrow and it's no longer on sale and I didn't tell you. That's my words. You can tell. It just easily flows out of my mouth because I practiced it over and over and over again. And then last but not least, of all of this, of the whole five of my philosophy is that you don't have to be perfect.
Vikki:You don't have to be perfect. And I think we might talk about that later on, but drop that perfectionism because there is no perfection needed. If you mess up on a follow-up, you can fix it by using some great customer service language, or even apologizing that you were a little too excited and your last message didn't come across right. So those are my five key points.
John:Yeah. So it sounds a lot of it like you just at the end there, you can't really screw it up. Right?
Vikki:Yeah.
John:Screw up a follow-up. Right?
Vikki:Yeah.
John:The only bad follow-up is a no follow-up, maybe?
Vikki:Exactly. That's so woah. Say that again. That is a sound bite.
John:The only bad follow-up is no follow-up. Boom.
Vikki:Boom. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is so true. Yeah.
Vikki:It's no follow-up. Yeah.
John:So it and now is it putting in just putting in the numbers?
Vikki:Yeah. Honestly, I wish it wasn't. I wish you know, if if some follow-up guru gave you the exact words to say every time and they were the exact same thing to each person, I mean, wouldn't that be a dream? But it's not true. It is a numbers game, and so it really is about the numbers.
Vikki:There's so many quotes out there. Jim Rohn's a great person to Google and listen to some of his recordings, because he talks about how he can outwork somebody with way more talent, way more skills by just putting more numbers in than that person does on a daily basis. And he has a whole talk. His stuff is so good. I would look up some Jim Rohn quotes on that, but he even, you know, uses a lot of baseball statistics because of batting averages and whatnot.
Vikki:And I like that too. You know, that helps people get rid of their perfectionism. Because what is it in baseball? A good hitter is in the three hundreds out of a thousand bat bats.
John:Three out of 10.
Vikki:Yeah. Or yeah. Three out of 10.
John:Three out of 10. And that's only a base hit. I'm not talking home runs.
Vikki:Right. But most of the time, they strike out. Right? Or you know? So But they're massively successful when they're three out of 10.
Vikki:You guys, that's huge. So that's just more proof about the it is all about the numbers that I can outproduce any of you that have the best verbiage, the best attitude, even the best attitude. It's just putting in the numbers, and, and I can I can beat your numbers by doing that? Yeah.
John:Right. And and you can help you can help your numbers, though, because I I know you don't like you're saying, if you had, like, a canned response and said the same thing to everybody, wouldn't be a very effective follow-up. It's still it's still follow-up. Right? Still gonna work.
John:It's gonna work maybe one out of 200 times.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:But to to make it better, though, I know you you're more personal. Right? You Right. Get to know people, build relationships. You know, I'm not saying be their best friend and and, you know, have them over for for dinner, But a lot of the people that you've talked to Right.
John:You spend the time, and and we've done it through a a an acronym we've talked about before briefly on form. Right? Form gives you all this information, and that's that's what you use a lot, don't you? Right.
Vikki:I do. Follow-up? About their family, their occupation, what they like to do for fun, their recreation. Yeah. Absolutely.
John:Mean Those those are a lot of hot buttons with people. It's what drives them. It's what it's what truly motivates them to do anything. Right? Right.
John:Because, again, we're looking for people, and when we specifically put it in our business, right, we're looking for people who want to and are willing to do something in their lives to improve it, right, to make more money, to have other options, but it requires a little bit of work. And sometimes it requires a lot of work. Right. Exactly. Depending on where they're at and where they wanna go.
John:Right. It could be that. And so we need to find people, and we need to find what is their hot buttons. Right? What are their hot hot buttons?
John:What motivates them? And form is a great way of doing it, and then we incorporate that in the follow-up. And it makes it makes for a much more successful follow-up.
Vikki:Yeah. And if you're looking for that, form episode, it's one of our, like, first 15 or so. I probably should have looked that up, but we have an episode on form where I interview John. So definitely go back to one of some of our earlier episodes and listen. Actually, I encourage you to go back to the first five and listen to those because it really sets you up to understand our background, where we've come, how we know all this stuff.
John:Yeah. And so learning to do that, it's a it's a process. Right? If you watch the the podcast, if you read about it, you're only gonna learn so much. Right?
John:You've gotta actually go out and do it. Yeah. You know, it's just like golf. Like, I could read a thousand books and magazines on how to golf, but I'm not gonna grab a golf club for the first time in my life or anyone, I should say, is not gonna just grab a golf club and hit that thing, just strike the fairway 350 yards on their first drive. Not gonna happen.
John:You've got to get out there. You've to swing that club. You've to make your mistakes, and you just got to keep moving on. Right? So that brings that kind of leads into the next question, which was, do you have to master follow-up before you even get started in it?
Vikki:Yeah. That is such a good question. I think a brand new person in business or somebody who knows they're struggling in follow-up thinks that they do. Right? That was probably a leading question if I were on the witness stand, but it's true.
Vikki:You do not need to master any special skills at follow-up. And it kind of goes back to the numbers. I mean, honestly, it's just you caring about people and using some of the form, things that you've learned about them, and just not being perfect and just doing it, not being perfect. I think that's way more authentic than anyone any great salesperson. We here, let me put it this way.
Vikki:I feel like we can smell and definitely hear a slick willy salesperson, and we're all turned off by that all day long. Right? You know, if you're on YouTube or Rumble, put in the chat, yeah, slick willy salesperson. I can't stand. Right?
Vikki:None of us like it. So it's actually better when you're not perfect. And if you're texting, don't make your texts also so perfect, like everything is spelled perfectly and indented in paragraphs in your text. That's an email. Text is not meant to be totally perfect like that, and people think, even if you're not even if you're not, copying pasting, you know, from a script to a text to everybody, they think you are.
Vikki:So stop that. Just text naturally, and if there's a miss pelling in it and you don't you're you haven't upgraded your phone where you can edit the text, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. It does not need to be perfect. Yeah.
John:Yeah. For sure. So I guess then how is this follow-up journey? How has it served you? Yeah.
Vikki:Gosh. It took my business from very fledgling, and I'll go back to the candle business. And actually, maybe I should even share a little bit about Prestige Motoring accessories when we had that. But, the candle business, I went from because at that business, I had to book shows. I was dead in the water if I wasn't getting in front of people to show my candles, actually sample them, burn them for them so they could see there was no black soot.
Vikki:They could, learn more about how they're made and, all the things that it was a clean, process and all of that. But I was dead in the water. Who was I going to talk to? My friends were tired of hearing from me. So it has served me.
Vikki:So I went from zero bookings. Yes, when I first started, I think I had four or five friends that agreed, I'll have a party for you. But then I was terrible at follow-up. I would do those parties. I would offer other people to have a party.
Vikki:They didn't jump at it because for one, I wasn't really good at it yet. They didn't jump on it right off the bat. So that required that I needed to follow-up with the people, the guests at the show, and offer again. And maybe a second month where there were new specials and share that again. Right?
Vikki:I needed to keep touching them till something triggered the excitement in them that they would book with me. Or I offered a deal for them booking. And don't know if you remember that. I struggled. And so it has served me learning this process, learning this whole and it was more the philosophy than anything else.
Vikki:My company taught me all the how to's. I'm sure a lot of you know, if you're part of a direct sales company, maybe you've got great training, maybe you don't. So you could be either way on that. You might need help with both, but to me, the philosophy was everything. And our current company teaches you everything.
Vikki:And but it is still fine tuning your philosophy. So now I went from, John, seriously, no shows and going to the monthly trainings and learning and trying to do it, and it still wasn't working until I changed my philosophy and started just sharing with reckless abandon and to having five to six shows a week, which is crazy. I didn't even want that many shows. And we had the opportunity to because we had our kids. Our kids were John was at football practice.
Vikki:By the way, hi, moms. Maybe you're listening, driving to football practice, all my football moms out there, because it's August. Right? It's double days. And so you're going a lot.
Vikki:And if you're like us, we went to every practice. I miss those days. Can't wait for the grandkids to grow up and have practices again. But I went from booking those six shows a week that I didn't even want that then I could what we call dovetail. So I was able to give my shows that I didn't want to do, or it was on a Friday night I couldn't do, to someone on my team.
Vikki:So I was helping my team grow. So it went from zero, John, to growing my team by helping them with shows, and I had an abundance of shows. So I carried that into my current company. And, you know, sales are not a problem for me. I'm consistently 5,000 or higher in personal sales.
Vikki:We sponsor all the time because we're sharing from the heart. We're learning people's you know, we're forming and learning about their family, their occupation, their they like to do for fun, and and their why. So it's basically all that's their why. We're learning about that, and that's all part of my follow-up for sure. So it served me so well.
Vikki:And so until you fine tune that, until and you know what else? I know this is something that you and I, we've talked about this. A lot of people say your greatest strength is always going to be your greatest strength. You might as well forget about the weaknesses, not even work on those, and just focus on your greatest strength, your zone of genius, they're kind of saying now. And that's true to an extent.
Vikki:But if you have a business that's driven by the need for follow-up, you've got to get better at it. So that was my greatest weakness. It truly was. I had other strengths. I am a people person.
Vikki:That was a strength. You know, I could name off my other strengths, and I could have just honed in on that. But imagine where my business would be, if I didn't work on the follow-up, I'd still be dead in the water. So I worked on that weakness and really honed in. I identified it first.
Vikki:So that's key. Identify your weak, whatever the weakness is, and seek out a coach. Seek out somebody that can help train you, help coach you. And I got better and better and better, and bam, I know this was a long answer, but now I used to believe one way, and now I truly believe that you can take your greatest weakness and make it one of your greatest strengths.
John:Yeah. I think so. I think and I think that personally, I think that philosophy is better anyhow. You know, they they use there's a lot of people talk about the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Yeah.
John:Things of that nature. Right? So I I do I do personally believe that I would rather spend more time looking, you know, doing some reflection and figuring out where I'm weak and spend most of my time working on that, getting better at the weakest part of my game. Right? Yeah.
John:What whatever it is, whether it's follow-up, whether it's forming, whether it's explaining opportunity to people so that they understand it. Right? Because you understand it. I mean, we understand it. Everybody in our well, most people in our business understand it.
John:But do you understand how to explain it to others so that they understand it? A big part of that, and it's something that I've had to work on, is understand you know, realizing that and then trying to put myself in their place and trying to use the words that and and phrasing things where I think that they would benefit the most. Mhmm. It's different for different people. Yeah.
John:Right? Like, if you talk if I speak with an engineer, very fact driven. Right? Very
Vikki:Yes. Oh, the personality types
John:you're talking about basically. Yeah. How I've sharing personal
Vikki:there's so much. Oh my gosh.
John:But here's the deal with follow-up. Right? We we we talked about follow we've talked so much about follow-up. Gosh. This is going for a long time.
John:It's got a lot of great information. But I what something I'm catching from you is there's only one way to really learn how to do it, and there's only one way to take that if if that's a weakness for you, and it may very well be because if we're talking about it, it's probably a weakness with a lot of people, and that's that's okay. Everybody's got weaknesses, for goodness sakes. Right? That's nothing to be ashamed of.
John:It's a it I think you would be ashamed of not recognizing your weaknesses
Vikki:Right.
John:Or ignoring your weaknesses or not admitting to them. That's a shame. So if follow-up is one of them, there's only one way you're really gonna get better at it. Right? And that's do it.
Vikki:Exactly. Put in the numbers. Like, just do it over and over and and be horrible at it. Like, you think you're probably not. You're just being too critical of yourself.
Vikki:You're probably not being horrible, but put just do it. Yeah. There's no way around it. You can't yeah. You can't go around the mountain.
Vikki:You gotta go through it.
John:If you think about it, what what what is there what is there to be afraid of in doing a follow-up? What's the worst thing that can happen is it just doesn't go well?
Vikki:They don't they say no or stop.
John:But They were gonna tell you
Vikki:if you
John:don't follow-up, it's already a no.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah.
John:Yeah. So and and no one's judging you. I mean, good grief. It's not like your friends and family are are sneak you know, they're they're hiding around the corner spying on you, and they're laughing at you because you didn't do something right or you didn't say something right. No one's gonna know but you.
Vikki:Exactly. This is all done behind closed doors. And Yeah.
John:Whenever I do anything, I would met I would much rather try and miserably fail at something than to not even try.
Vikki:100%. Yes.
John:Yeah. Alright. So we're getting close to the end here. I've got do you have anything? Any parting
Vikki:words of wisdom? Yeah. You know, I just wanted to leave with this. John knew I was gonna have something.
John:Of course.
Vikki:I did wanna leave with this that lead leave you with this, and it's like a trick, a hack that I like to do, that I've done kind of my whole life, and I didn't know how valuable it was until I found out there was a Harvard study. And that is the power pose. So what I mean by being a hack, sometimes we don't feel confident when we're about to pick up the phone or make that call, follow-up call. And or you're in a funk, and so you just you're just out of it. You just you feel like kinda quitting because you've been in a funk for a while, and the but the only way out is through.
Vikki:You know? It's it's just doing it. And so this hack is going to help empower you. So basically, this Harvard study talked about the power pose. And those of you that are visual, think of Superman with his arms on his hips and the cape blowing and his chest up high, or for us ladies, Wonder Woman, you know, with her gold bracelets where she's swooshing away the bullets.
Vikki:So whatever pose you want to strike, but it's called the power pose with your hands on your hips and doing that for two minutes a day. So before you do your next follow-up, before you start, you know, just doing quite a few follow ups that day, maybe you've earmarked a half an hour, do your power pose. Or make it part of your daily routine where you do your power pose at some point during the day, and maybe that's when you do your affirmations. But I want to tell you what that will do for you. So the Harvard study showed that by doing that for two minutes a day, not one minute, not thirty seconds, two minutes a day, it increases your testosterone by 20%.
Vikki:Boom. It decreases. This might even be better. And by the way, women, we have some testosterone too. Right?
Vikki:So it's increasing ours as well. It decreases your cortisol levels by up to 25%. And we all know that's the stress hormone. That's what's got you stressed out and probably not wanting to make these calls. So that's gonna help you.
Vikki:And overall, it significantly changes your attitude and makes you more confident. And think about that. If you're standing like Wonder Woman or Superman, how can you not feel confident? You might feel a little stupid at first, and maybe, just maybe for all the introverts out there, you might not want to do it in front of people, maybe you've got the bathroom door shut. So your husband, your kids, nobody is seeing you.
Vikki:But whatever it is, I tend to do it because I was a dance major. It's just comfortable for me, the wider stance, the hands on the hips. And I do tend to do that when I'm doing my affirmations in the mornings. Anyway, after hearing this just the other day, actually a friend of mine shared the Instagram Reel. I was really drawn into it, and I shared it on the Zoom.
Vikki:And now I've challenged our team on that training that I did. So, John, it's funny because you know who I think are some of the most confident people on the planet? It's the police. You know, think about it. When we get pulled over, we're just average citizens.
Vikki:Don't they seem very confident to you? If they don't, then they know the bad guys are going to take them or think they can take them and then they're in an all out fight. So, of course, they're confident. But also, if you notice that I brought this up to John, I'm like, oh my god. This makes so much so much sense.
Vikki:A lot of police officers stand like that. Now maybe not with both hands on their hips. That's might be a little goofy in uniform, but your one hand might be on the gun. You know? But that's a that's powerful.
Vikki:The shoulders are back. They're confident. And and I know that when I said that to you and then sometimes even at parties, I've seen some coppers, you know, have that or the arms are crossed. A lot of times, arms crossed wide stance. That's definitely closing people off for sure, but I don't think they care about that.
Vikki:But you know? Right? And so don't we wanna be confident like a police officer is? That's what I'm thinking. But yeah.
Vikki:What were your thoughts on that?
John:Did That's true. Too many policemen that are not very confident. Yeah. That's for sure.
Vikki:And if they are, they're not gonna do too well in the field. Because what you've shared with me is criminals are sizing you up all day long. Right? Whether they're and and total side topic, but I think this kind of stuff is fun. Didn't you say you could tell when they're in a fight?
Vikki:They're the Clint
John:There's a number of Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. We won't give out all the secrets, but anyway, really interesting. So what I want you to do, I wanna challenge you all, and I would love for you to share this podcast with a friend. Hopefully, it empowers you, but come back. Come back after a month of doing that power pose and tell me put in the chat or put it in your review on on Apple Podcast if you're listening there.
Vikki:Put it in the review that how whether it worked for you, whether it didn't. You know? I really wanna know.
John:It's funny you brought that up. I was gonna I was gonna say that at the very end just that we would appreciate if you guys like, like, and subscribe and left a comment, and then I was gonna say, yeah. Okay. But I was it was on the power post. It was gonna be on the follow-up.
John:So action do it. Okay. Here. Right? So Vicky wants you to come back after you've been doing the power post for for a while, you know, and share your experience.
John:But also, what I was gonna challenge y'all to do is go out and do a lot more follow ups. If you're already doing them, you know, if you're not doing them, then make sure you go out and do them. Right? And, it's gonna start out with one or two. And then pretty soon as you're gonna feel pretty you're gonna you're gonna build confidence in doing it.
John:Right? It's almost like public speaking. The first time you do it, sweating bullets, but they make you do that when you're in school. Right? Because then the next time you do it, it's a little easier, then it gets a little easier.
John:Same with follow ups. Yeah. And as you get more comfortable, you're gonna be, you're gonna want to do them more often, and you're gonna see positive results come from them. Right? And that's really gonna help you because when you get a positive when you get that positive feedback that what you're doing is actually having an impact on your business, you're going to do more of that.
John:So I was going say, and then if you're already doing follow ups, then just do twice as many as you already than what you're doing currently. Right? And then come back and leave put in the comments how has that helped you. What has it done? How is it how is it how has it improved your business?
John:Has it moved the needle for you, and how much has it moved the needle?
Vikki:We would love that. Yeah. We'd love that.
John:Love to hear back from from y'all. Yeah. So, anyways, I think that does it for us, for this episode. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you have a wonderful day. And I'm I was gonna say good luck on the follow ups.
John:You don't need luck. Right? Yep. So just have some fun. Do those follow ups.
John:Have some success, and we'll see you again soon.
Vikki:Bye for now.
Vikki:Thanks for joining us on Dig the Well.
John:We hope you feel empowered and ready to take on new challenges. Remember,
Vikki:if we can do it, so can you. Keep learning, keep believing, and going after your dreams.
John:And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs a little inspiration or maybe a nudge in the right direction.
Vikki:Help us grow this community of go getters. Together, we can achieve greatness and get back to family.
John:Thanks for listening, and let's keep digging the way.