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Your Second Act isn't just about starting over; it's about starting smarter. You’ve left the safety of a structured career to follow your passion, and while the opportunity is exciting, the uncertainty is real. You have the vision and the drive, but without a roadmap, that leap of faith can quickly feel like a freefall.
Welcome to Second Act Business Owner, the podcast dedicated to ensuring your new venture lands on solid ground.
Hosted by Lee Gray—an award-winning ActionCOACH, certified executive trainer, and serial entrepreneur—this show is for the courageous professionals who are trading corporate stability for entrepreneurial freedom. Lee understands that being an expert in your field doesn’t automatically make you an expert in running a business.
Each week, we strip away the fluff to provide the real-world MBA training you need to turn chaos into clarity. From navigating the emotional rollercoaster of ownership to mastering the mechanics of profit, Lee brings the structure and strategy required to build a legacy.
Hit follow and let’s get to work.
Ep09
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Welcome and Big Question
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[00:00:00]
Lee Gray: Hey everyone, welcome to the second ACT podcast, and guess what? It's episode nine. I'm so excited. We've made it to nine and I'm looking forward to 99, and I hope you're here to celebrate with me on that day. So I'm going to ask you a question, and no matter where you are in your second act, this is a question you're gonna have to have the answer to at some point.
So [00:01:00] stay with me, even if you're just starting your second act, or even if you're. Good long way through your second act. It is this, if you don't have a sales process, you don't have control. Oh, doesn't that hurt? It does. But if I walked into your business today and ask you to explain your sales process step by step, could you even do it?
Could you give me your sales process step by step? Because if you can't, you're leaving money on the table. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. We're going going to be talking about why every business needs a sales process that has been flow charted and is tested, tracked and measured. Yep.
That's what we're gonna talk about.
Why Sales Needs Process
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Lee Gray: Business is ultimately about selling. And if you can have a process for it, a proven process, a checklist, and be able to go back and make little adjustments, then you're gonna have [00:02:00] way more success than someone who tries to quote wing it. There is no winging it in sales.
There is for a short time, but not long term. It is not sustainable. So a lot of business owners think they have a sales problem, oh, I can't get sales. I can't get sales. But what they really have, if you think about it. Is a process problem. They're working hard, they're talking to people, they're posting on social media, but there's no clear path from first contact to the closed sale.
And there is a Kuhn, there is a process all the way through. And I challenge you if you're not doing it now, to just start writing down everything you do when you're communicating with someone who you have identified as someone in your target market who is a lead. It doesn't matter if you are a solopreneur or that you have a a team.
The sales process is still extremely important. If you want consistent results in your business, you have to have a consistent [00:03:00] process.
Track Every Step
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Lee Gray: Three things. Three things I want you to think about. Number one, you have to be able to track your sales and not just total sales. You need to be able to track each step.
Where are people coming from? How many people are you talking to? How many are moving forward? How many are saying yes? Because if you don't know where things are breaking down, you can't fix it. In sales, if you don't know where things are breaking down, you can't fix it. And if that goes on for long, then oh my gosh, sales are bad.
Business is bad. Things aren't going very well, and I promise you it's. Diving into that sales process will uncover a lot of opportunity.
Evolve and Follow System
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Lee Gray: Number two, your process will evolve. It's going to change over time, and that's okay. In the business that I'm in, I actually have a 13 step sales process. 13 steps. [00:04:00] It's been 13 steps for years, and recently we added two steps and it was a bit of a challenge, but we did, we now have a 15 step sales process.
Now, don't get me wrong, Not every step is a gigantic step. Some steps are simply put a note in their folder to send them a copy of an article that you read about their business industry.
That's what it could be, and. How to make that generic would be every client that's in our sales process, we go to the trouble to find an article that relates to their business and send it to them. That's a step in the sales process. If you think about what that does, it's giving them multiple points to see, to know, like, and to trust you
oh my gosh, did I say we have to test and measure and follow a system? Isn't that awful? But you know what? You're going to thank me for it later. It's about like making a cake and following the recipe, having the [00:05:00] right ingredients all the way through, all the way down to letting it sit on the counter for 90 minutes before you put the icing on it.
And that's where most people fall off. They kind of have a process and they kind of do the steps and they sort of follow it. But a real, a real sales process is tested. It's measured and it's adjusted, and you don't guess you improve it over time.
You may think in your sales process you found a shortcut and you're going to avoid something because maybe someone bought from you before you were all the way through your sales process, which sometimes happens, and that's a good thing. However, the next time a sales opportunity comes, the process should be the same.
because if you continue to have a shortcut in the sales process, the sales process then does not work. It begins to fail, and people think again, oh, oh, oh, business is bad, sales are bad. But remember, the process works for you, not against you. And if you have a [00:06:00] sales process and follow it, that's the shortcut.
The shortcut is not to leave out step two or step three or three A or four. The shortcut is to complete. And follow the sales process. That's the shortcut.
Real Estate 33 Steps
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Lee Gray: I wanna give you an example of a company. It's a real estate company that has a 33 step sales process. Probably sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But when you have a system going, you have a machine running, you can do it.
But I'll give you a little bit of an example. I'll give you an example of what some of their 33 steps are. It starts with them. First of all, being intentional about getting in front of a lot of people and getting a lot of business cards. Think about a real estate agent. They've gotta talk to a lot of people because we buy on average a house every seven years.
So they've gotta have a gigantic database of people. So they get in front of a lot of people. They meet someone at event, they get their card, they get their information, they enter it into, into the computer system, CRM, number one. Number two, they send them a handwritten note. Step two, a handwritten note.
Step [00:07:00] three is a phone call. Hey, I, I, I sent you a note. Did you get it? Whether they got the note or not? Now they're talking to them and the person doesn't mind talking to them 'cause they sent them a note. Then they follow up after that with what's the next step. Find out a little bit about where they are.
It just keeps going until the person becomes a client or ops out completely. Maybe they move or go to another state and some realtors that that continually, that can continuously be in their database. But the follow up system is forever and. You know it, you may have an eight step, 10 step, 25 step sales cycle from where your clients buy from you.
Once the customer becomes a pros, or once the prospect becomes a customer, then your onboarding system starts, and we have a system for that too.
Scale With Coaching Systems
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Lee Gray: Here's another little piece of information about why we wanna have a proven. Sales process that we track. Let's say you're really doing great, which you are, and you will be, [00:08:00] and you bring on your first person. You've got a salesperson who's gonna go out and sell your product and services. If they have a sales process that you can follow and measure and see, oh, it looks like you're having trouble in step three or step seven or step eight, you can pull back, coach them until that step improves and then sales come in the door almost magically.
Systems are really magic. Hmm. I should write a chapter in my book called Systems equals Magic because it does, and a sales process is exactly the same way, the the same thing.
Define Your Process
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Lee Gray: So here's the question. What's your sales process from the first time someone hears about you until they become your client? Can you explain it clearly?
Can you flow chart it? If I've completely scared you to death, because you may not even know what your sales process, have no fear.
Here's what you're going to do. First thing you're gonna do is figure out what are the five things I've identified that I pretty much do on a regular basis? That's your existing sales process. Then you're going to [00:09:00] write the sales process down 1, 2, 3, 4, and when you meet with people and you. Use your sales process.
Just add the notes and things that work well, don't work well. The questions that you ask, 'cause actually part of a sales process can be a list of the five questions that you need to know in order to move them. To the next step in the sales process. So you already have a sales process right now, it just hasn't been defined.
So write down the top four or at four or five steps that you have and then add those little things as you go along. It really isn't as hard as it sounds, and I would challenge you to ask someone and I'd be happy to do this, or you could ask someone else can I? Describe my sales process to you and see if it makes sense and they'll know.
And you wanna do this with someone maybe who doesn't know a whole lot about your business, so it might go like this. Well, the first thing I do is I meet someone at a networking event, and then I, I link with them on LinkedIn. If they're on LinkedIn, I check to see if they're on LinkedIn. That might be step [00:10:00] two in your sales process.
If you're B2B, that's a great second step. From there, you might be able to. Call them on the phone or send them a note or make a comment on their social feed. It depends on how long your process needs to be. So kind of think about what I just described there. You can figure out what your process is and then you can record it and then it becomes a sales process defined that you have.
Hopefully that helps. I'm happy to, to dive into that more with you. Reach out to me on my website anywhere, Kansas biz coach.com.
Sales Versus Marketing
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Lee Gray: Now that we've talked about sales, I want to talk to you about sales versus marketing. And I wanna clear up something that confuses a lot of people and, and that is sales is not marketing, and marketing is not sales.
Marketing and sales are not the same thing. A lot of people in sales are doing marketing activities, feeling really, really busy and not getting sales. [00:11:00] Marketing is how people find you. Marketing is how people find you. People are finding me through this podcast and I'm doing this in part so that I can meet people I would've never, ever met before.
This is marketing. This is not sales in any way, shape, or form. Your social media is not sales, it's advertising. It's really just promoting. brings people to the door. Sales takes them through the steps to become your customer. I hope that makes sense. Sales happens.
After marketing. Try not to get 'em combined because spending a lot of time on marketing when you should be spending time on sales is one of the problems, especially early on that a second act business owner will find themselves in sales is a conversation. It's a follow up, it's a relationship, it's a process for turning them into a paying repeat customer.
You can have great marketing and still struggle with sales if you don't have sales process. There you go. [00:12:00] So the sales process is important. And being able to define and discover where it is your sales process is needing work. All the marketing in the world is not going to take care of a poor sales process, but do keep in mind the differences.
Marketing is bringing people to the door. Sales is taking them from the door to becoming a customer and a repeat customer.
Final Challenge and Wrap
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Lee Gray: If you feel like your sales aren't where they need to be, consider seriously looking at your sales process. Ask yourself, do I have a clear defined sales process? If not, it's just one thing that you can do. Honestly, it doesn't take very long to do, and I challenge you to do it, and I know you can because when you have a process, you have control.
And when you have control, then you can grow. And that's what we're all after. After all. Thank you for being with me today. I had such a good time again talking about a topic that sometimes scares people, but you hung in there and listened. [00:13:00] That says a lot about you and your character. If you liked what you heard today, would you do me a favor and like us, share us on Spotify, apple, and if you're watching us on YouTube, go ahead and give us a thumbs up and give us a quick note.
Review really helps us get lifted up in the ranking so that more people can become second actors just like you. What I feel like expressing is every day. as second actors we're trying to learn something new, implement our learnings, do the right thing, and I am so grateful that you are here today all the way to the end, growing and building your second act.
What do you feel like expressing.