Creating Long Term Value with Jim Shulman

Creating Long Term value With Jim Shulman

[00:00:00] Jim Shulman: Often in the coaching field, you have coaches who are afraid to, as I put it, get their hands dirty to get involved in doing projects with clients or looking out for clients in other ways beyond the narrow scope of the defined service. But that's how you build long lasting relationships

[00:00:19] Are you looking to improve your sales skills without compromising your values? Welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast or Business and Personal Growth.

[00:00:30] Now, here's your host, Harry.

[00:00:32] ce49d2aa-491c-4fd7-92fd-7172163de97d (1): Today? We have an incredible guest with us, the world renowned Jim Shulman, who brings more than 40 years experience in marketing. He still looks like he's 38, so we'll figure that one out. From running the sales department for a multi million dollar direct marketing company, And building an international presence for a pharmaceutical startup to selling polyester pants.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] ce49d2aa-491c-4fd7-92fd-7172163de97d (1): Yes, I've worn a few pairs myself in a discount department store, but since 2000, he has exclusively coached successful entrepreneurs who have thriving businesses, value, personal development, and crave individual attention from someone who has metaphorically walked in their shoes. That is when he isn't driving around the country in his 1957 Dodge Custom Royal Sedan, and it is a beauty.

[00:01:31] ce49d2aa-491c-4fd7-92fd-7172163de97d (1): So please welcome me in joining the show. Jim,

[00:01:35] Jim Shulman: what is the good word today? The good word is thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, and it is a pleasure being with you today.

[00:01:45] Harry: Oh, this is going to be great. Can't wait to have the conversation. You and I were... Talking to green room about comedy. I tried to do a little stand up.

[00:01:54] Harry: I think I stepped all over myself a little bit too much back in the day. But you said you [00:02:00] were raised by a couple of parents that actually had comedy going on in their lives. Why don't you just tell us that story to

[00:02:07] Jim Shulman: kick us off? Well, my father was a comedy writer for many years, which was not his day job, but he had sketches that appeared on television.

[00:02:18] Jim Shulman: He wrote articles and magazines that were very funny. And my mother was equally funny, actually quite devastating sometimes. And they would trade lines at the dinner table.

[00:02:31] Harry: I cannot imagine how dangerous that house must've been as a kid. Just, you never knew what

[00:02:37] Jim Shulman: you were going to get. I'm sure. The greatest danger, Harry, was when I repeated some of the things I'd heard at the dinner table the next day in the third grade.

[00:02:47] Jim Shulman: Beautiful.

[00:02:49] Harry: Well, it's just a new vocabulary. The vocabulary is a little different than most third

[00:02:53] Jim Shulman: graders. I learned the value of selecting the audience.

[00:02:56] Harry: Yes, exactly. You know how to work a room that [00:03:00] way. So talk to me, Jim. You and I were discussing about the longevity you have with some of your clients.

[00:03:08] Harry: And in the coaching business, it seems like there's a lot of one and done type relationships. So what makes you different? How you've had clients for years and years and what do you do to keep them so long? So wherever you want to go with that long winded question, let's get. Let's get

[00:03:28] Jim Shulman: your thoughts. Well, Harry, many people have quotations from famous folks that they include in their presentations or in their websites or on their email.

[00:03:39] Jim Shulman: And I have a quotation as well. And the quotation is from Jim Shulman and reads, entrepreneurship is a chronic condition. It cannot be cured, but it can be treated successfully.

[00:03:53] Harry: Yeah, that's That says it all,

[00:03:56] Jim Shulman: doesn't it? And the issues are [00:04:00] that an entrepreneur constantly is looking at new ideas, new situations, new opportunities, and is constantly reevaluating what they should be doing or not doing what makes an entrepreneur different is the types of behavior, how they think, how they relate to the world.

[00:04:25] Jim Shulman: And if it is a relationship with those ongoing opportunities and challenges, sometimes it can run years. And I emphasize at the client's request. Certainly not anything contractual. It's all at the client's request.

[00:04:43] Harry: Yeah. I think you even mentioned that you kind of go month to month, right? Or was that a conversation we had?

[00:04:48] Harry: No,

[00:04:49] Jim Shulman: it's not month to month. There is a longer commitment, but it certainly isn't years and years. That's the election of the client. And one of [00:05:00] the things that I'd learned years ago, Harry, when I was in the direct marketing business was known as lifetime customer value. In other words, it's not necessarily what you make on an initial sale.

[00:05:11] Jim Shulman: It's what is the value of that client to you over a period of time? And that determines how much you can invest in inquiring on client. Can you afford to spend more time in multiple meetings? Can you afford to spend money on different types of promotion? If you understand the lifetime value of your customer, It gives you a greater information to make a more informed choice about marketing and promotion.

[00:05:41] Jim Shulman: Yeah,

[00:05:41] Harry: absolutely. You know, there is a mindset out there. That people have one conversation and if the person does not sign up, so to speak, then they move on the, the business owner moves on. [00:06:00] Is that smart in your

[00:06:01] Jim Shulman: opinion? It depends on what the business owner is selling. There are many, many things that can be sold that are a specific.

[00:06:13] Jim Shulman: educational program for a specific technique or set of techniques. It could be training for something. It could be a piece of equipment. That once the person has it, it's fine. But the real issue is what have you spent to get that client for that one time engagement. And for me and my background in my history, My thought is you spend all of that time acquiring somebody to be your customer and you give them one thing and leave.

[00:06:49] Jim Shulman: The ROI on that can seem a little strange. Whereas if there are other opportunities to sell additional services, to sell [00:07:00] additional products. For instance, you can barely find any software today that's purchased one and done. It's all purchased on a subscription basis, and there's a good reason for that.

[00:07:12] Jim Shulman: Why should Microsoft, why should, any, you know, you know TurboTax, why should any other place have a single sale and be done with you as opposed to having a monthly fee? Which is essentially an annuity.

[00:07:29] Harry: Exactly. Yeah. So much of business has switched over to these licenses, these annual subscriptions, I mean, even on a home office.

[00:07:39] Harry: It's been a few years now, but trying to buy Windows or the latest version of Microsoft Office, it was whatever, it was 99 and you owned it. Now it's 99 a year and it's like, Oh, I guess I see how that works where you're getting the residual income. [00:08:00] So yes, it does. It depends a lot on what the value of the client is.

[00:08:05] Harry: If you're selling polyester pants versus selling high end coaching. And that you have a program that's thousands of dollars and that people might buy and work with you for years than treating that person. It's going to be a little bit differently than the person that's walking into a store looking for the latest rayon and polyester

[00:08:26] Jim Shulman: pants when you talk about that.

[00:08:28] Jim Shulman: It's what is the need? It comes down to the client's need. And how are you fulfilling that need? That's the crucial question. If I go in to buy a pair of polyester pants, which was years ago when they were actually fashionable. If I go in to buy a cheap pair of polyester pants, I have mm hmm. Two desires.

[00:08:50] Jim Shulman: Number one is I have to cover my butt, and number two is I have to do it as inexpensively as possible without becoming [00:09:00] socially unacceptable. If it meets all of those things, it's a good deal. If it is something else that requires regular attention or regular maintenance, for instance, If I join a gymnasium, okay, if I join a gymnasium I am not going to come in there for one session.

[00:09:23] Jim Shulman: I'm going to come in for multiple sessions. I'm probably going to come in For the course of a year. And what's strange about that is that the gyms have figured this out. The most brilliant version of course, is planet fitness and planet fitness is model is that it is so inexpensive. They're selling you hope for 10 a month and who would give up hope?

[00:09:49] Harry: Exactly. That's brilliant. All right. So let's talk a little bit about what it is that you're doing. To keep your clients sticking around. So you obviously mentioned [00:10:00] something earlier about the way you understand an entrepreneur because you nailed it. Entrepreneurs are constantly looking at ways they could be better.

[00:10:10] Harry: You know, some will say it's a shiny object, but they're really looking for. You know, if they're investing their time in something, investing their business, their day, what is the best way of doing that? A lot of times it's not necessarily, it's just that they're drawn to a shiny object. They want to be the best they can be.

[00:10:28] Harry: I think. What's your thought on this?

[00:10:31] Jim Shulman: I think it goes back to entrepreneurship as a condition. It's the way people think and breathe and act. And the basis of who an entrepreneur is does not change. Nor, quite frankly, could you change a person. I've heard of people saying I train entrepreneurs and I look at that as saying I train people to have brown eyes.

[00:10:54] Jim Shulman: The person has it, they can take their innate talent and do other things with [00:11:00] it. But it's a way of thinking and it's frankly a way of life the issues that may change, in other words, an entrepreneur may come with a specific set of problems in a project and then that project is finished, but it begets other projects related to it.

[00:11:18] Jim Shulman: Or in some cases, entrepreneurs will come back to me after a hiatus with what I call new or better problems. As an example, I had a conversation this morning with a longtime client who's come in and gone out, depending upon need. And there is a mammoth opportunity that client has of which I could be a significant part.

[00:11:39] Jim Shulman: But it varies. It's the way people think and act. And the issue too is, are you bringing continuous value to that relationship? And the term that I heard years ago was perceived value. Does the client perceive that you are bringing them significant value to [00:12:00] justify their purchase of your services? And from my perspective, it is, how am I doing this that the client would perceive it?

[00:12:10] Jim Shulman: How am I sharpening my skillset? But most important, how is that going to be meaningful to somebody else? You know, you could take professional development courses until your earlobes fall off, but it isn't necessarily going to be something that will be perceived as valuable to the customer. As a

[00:12:30] Jim Shulman: significant problem hiring the right person for a very important position. Had been through HR agencies and so forth. I got involved as a favor, led the person to a terrific candidate, And that candidate turned out to be sensational. I'm not in the head hunting business, but I am in the business of making sure that my client is taken care of.

[00:12:55] Jim Shulman: Very often in, in the coaching field, you have [00:13:00] coaches who are afraid to, as I put it, get their hands dirty to get involved in doing projects with clients or looking out for clients in other ways beyond the narrow scope of the defined service. But that's how you build long lasting relationships. In other words, it goes back to lifetime customer value.

[00:13:19] Jim Shulman: Is the client seeing that I am providing consistent and ever changing value to their needs?

[00:13:27] Harry: Yeah. So you mentioned about getting your hands dirty. It's really, you know, some might just fear that if they make a mistake. That they're going to get fired as a, you know, as a coach, so to speak, or as a partner, but really it's what's needed.

[00:13:46] Harry: It's like, if who else does the entrepreneur have to talk to? Where else are they going to get the guidance?

[00:13:52] Jim Shulman: What you're discussing is a relationship and the relationship. Comes first and [00:14:00] the business is going to naturally follow. And in coaching, does the person have a visceral feeling that you are someone that they want to share information with?

[00:14:11] Jim Shulman: They want to share their emotions. They want to share their opportunities. In many cases, it may be topics that they do not share with anybody else because they have not felt comfortable doing it. So many people will lead with product. We're lead with specific service and that's fine, but behind it, there is this breathing, highly emotional person who's making that purchase decision.

[00:14:39] Jim Shulman: Yeah,

[00:14:40] Harry: exactly. And you're really talking about the person understanding who is the person, who is the buyer, who is. Right. Who is the person is really the key. I think of some business owners, they don't really have anyone that they can confide in, and then they go out with [00:15:00] their staff and they grab a beer, so to speak, with a staff member and they start pouring out really stuff that probably shouldn't be poured out because the person is, you know, they're not there to give them guidance.

[00:15:16] Harry: And they can take that information and do whatever they want with it, but they're not necessarily looking to help the business owner because employees may not necessarily think along those lines. So what's

[00:15:31] Jim Shulman: your thought on that? Employees absolutely do not think along those lines. I believe there are two groups of people in business.

[00:15:40] Jim Shulman: There are people who get a check every two weeks. They get a performance review. They get the company's official raise policy. They have to keep one boss happy. And then there's you and I. We live on what we sell. We live on satisfying our [00:16:00] many customers, not just a single boss. And one group of people looks at the other group and thinks they're insane I'm sure you've spoken to people who have nine to five jobs And they say what the heck do you mean harry?

[00:16:16] Jim Shulman: You don't know what you're going to make next month. Oh my goodness and What you have to buy your own health insurance my god And we might look at them and say you are limited to whatever that company decides to give you that year You're based upon whatever the whim or the insanity or the incompetence of your immediate boss happens to be.

[00:16:39] Jim Shulman: The company could be sold tomorrow and trashed. And you have zero input on any of that. Right, you're not getting the check.

[00:16:47] Harry: Yeah, the company sells, they don't care about, I mean they do in a way, but in general. They're not sharing that those

[00:16:55] Jim Shulman: checks with their employees, not in the least.

[00:16:59] Harry: [00:17:00] Yeah, you know, I get a kick out of having been around sales organizations for years.

[00:17:05] Harry: Salespeople will say what the owner should do this. And it's, you know, I remind them that the owner is not in business to take care of salespeople. Salespeople think they are, that that's why the owners are. It's like, they should take care of us. They should pay us more. And it's like, look, they have a business to run.

[00:17:29] Harry: And I asked one recently, I said, How many times do you run to the owner and ask for help on a deal? Oh, I do it pretty regularly. Oh, the owner is great. He's always helping me out. I said, who does the owner talk to and for guidance? Cause you're, you're obviously getting guidance. Where does the owner get the guidance?

[00:17:49] Harry: And he looked at me like I had two heads. It's like I don't know. I just expect that they're always going to give guidance. Like exactly. They're constantly giving. I said, you're [00:18:00] one of many. And now you're just constantly going to the owner for guidance. And it's like, that's, you know, that cup is going to run dry eventually.

[00:18:08] Harry: That's why people like you are

[00:18:10] Jim Shulman: needed. Right. Well, one of the best signs I'd ever seen in any office. Was on the door of the senior vice president and a fortune 100 company. And the sign said, if you come here with a problem, also bring a solution. Oh,

[00:18:27] Harry: that's great.

[00:18:29] Jim Shulman: Yeah. And that cut out, as he put it, all of the and Landers.

[00:18:35] Jim Shulman: breast bearing, chest beating, whining that he used to put up with. He said, cause almost always the the proposed solution turned out to be an excellent

[00:18:47] Harry: idea. Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah. It's like and some cultures have a way of that. If you're going to complain. You can complain, but definitely bring the solution with you.

[00:18:59] Harry: And it makes [00:19:00] people's, I mean, you can't complain if you got nothing. Eventually they'll figure it out that if you got nothing, I don't want to hear the complaint. Right. So what are some things that getting back to clients for more than one and done, I want to say clients for life, what are some of the things?

[00:19:17] Harry: That you can do or you suggest for people so that they can provide more value or the perceived value Over the course of time. What are some things they might be able

[00:19:27] Jim Shulman: to do? Well, I would look at it in two ways What does the client perceive as valuable and what do you know as? Somebody outside of the client's head that would be valuable for that person That would be worthwhile bringing up that would be worthwhile introducing.

[00:19:49] Jim Shulman: And I'll go back to the example of subscriptions. Okay. After a while if the subscription is not providing value, I'm sure you sit down with your monthly [00:20:00] bills, Harry, and say, why the heck do I still have a subscription to X? Okay. But X should be giving you new ideas that are considered worthwhile to you and how you could implement them.

[00:20:14] Jim Shulman: If it is a streaming service, they better have new programs that you think are interesting or worthwhile. If it is somebody who needs to find out what's going on in their industry in a larger sense. Are you able to bring that information to the fore? So it is a constant, I'm going to say, push to find what's new, what's important, and how does my client perceive that?

[00:20:44] Jim Shulman: Yeah, very good.

[00:20:46] Harry: Jim. Have you always been when when did you start the entrepreneurial journey in your career? I mean you looked like you worked for companies for a while. Is that right? And then you became an entrepreneur?

[00:20:59] Jim Shulman: [00:21:00] Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna backtrack I had an engagement with a company that went over a decade in one case but essentially the owner of the company said You figure out how to make money and don't get arrested.

[00:21:15] Jim Shulman: And beyond that point, if you want to make a case for doing anything, go ahead. And as with most entrepreneurial ventures, it was a wild, wild ride. And as so often the case with entrepreneurial ventures, eventually it comes to a screeching halt. And in this case, it was a fashion business where the main product that was being sold suddenly went out of fashion.

[00:21:41] Jim Shulman: Okay. Which is what happens. So I started my own business in 1996. Okay.

[00:21:48] Harry: Yeah. So you've been doing this for a while and the coaching entrepreneurs, was this right? It wasn't the first thing you did, right? You, cause you did the marketing

[00:21:57] Jim Shulman: first. I was selling marketing [00:22:00] services for quite a few years and what I found was that many companies were buying marketing services and they were wallpapering over underlying problems.

[00:22:10] Jim Shulman: Ah. For instance, as you know, if a company has a terrible salesman or a terrible sales director, the first thing they do is blame marketing. So I created incredibly good marketing programs so that they could sell poorly, but with incredibly good marketing. Nice.

[00:22:29] Harry: And... Okay. I was just going to say, but then you saw that these underlying problems where there was an opportunity for their...

[00:22:37] Harry: For you for added services.

[00:22:39] Jim Shulman: It sounds like, well, what drove it home to me was when I was standing in the hallway of a major company and I saw an admin pushing a dumpster down the hallway, yelling, bring out your marketing materials. Because that company's compliance department, and as I put it, changed [00:23:00] six semicolons so they could keep their job for another year.

[00:23:03] Jim Shulman: And I saw people walking out of their offices, flinging these shrink wrapped, untouched packages of marketing materials into this dumpster. And I took a look and I recognized a couple of things. That someone who couldn't sell water ice in July is creating materials for sales people whose livelihood depends upon them making a sale.

[00:23:28] Jim Shulman: Right, yeah. And I said, boy is this dysfunctional. And at that point I closed that business and I decided I would never make dumpster food again. And starting the following year, I began as a business advisor. They weren't called coaches in those days. I was a business advisor and I worked with very successful financial advisors.

[00:23:51] Jim Shulman: Then very successful established attorneys, CPA firms, and it grew all over the place from there. Yeah.

[00:23:59] Harry: Wonderful. [00:24:00] What was your first thought as you were leaving that business and starting this? What was your thought about selling, to grow your business?

[00:24:10] Jim Shulman: Well, my thought was I was always selling to grow my own business.

[00:24:16] Jim Shulman: You know, when I made the switch from marketing services to individual attention of running the business as an entrepreneur thinks, quite frankly, it was a relief to me because I got away with trying to figure out how do I put on paper that which cannot be put on paper? How can I put up a description that does not even begin to express what's going on between somebody's ears?

[00:24:44] Jim Shulman: And a perfect example is, how many times, Harry, have we been in Zoom rooms, and somebody describes what they do, and it sounds like 40 other people have used virtually the same language to describe [00:25:00] vaguely what they were doing. Absolutely.

[00:25:03] Harry: Yep. So, yeah. Great. So, you're... It was really just a transition of one product, so to speak, into another.

[00:25:14] Harry: And you felt like there was more, you could do it better knowing what you were selling or selling yourself. I think more than what a lot of people do is that they, we could sell products. Very easier than selling yourself. Selling yourself is a whole different animal, isn't it?

[00:25:33] Jim Shulman: No, it's another product, but the point is when you sell yourself, Harry, you have created this character for one of a better way of describing it.

[00:25:44] Jim Shulman: You know, you have created this character called Harry and Harry has certain characteristics and Harry has certain characteristics that would relate well to somebody who would be a potential customer. And there are people who would be great as [00:26:00] potential customers for Harry and the vast majority of the world, not great.

[00:26:04] Jim Shulman: The same goes for me. So we are our own product. The question is, can we step out of ourselves and see this? And that's really where a coach makes the greatest difference. We cannot be objective about ourselves. Ain't gonna happen. We can try. We can do exercises. We can do some parts of self discovery, but I go back to a wonderful, wonderful quote from the French philosopher Voltaire.

[00:26:34] Jim Shulman: Even the Pope has a

[00:26:36] Harry: confessor. Yeah, it's, it's so true. It's just, I love what you just said. It's like, we're not going to be objective. It's just, let's just deal with it. We're going to judge ourselves too much. We don't like ourselves too much in other ways.

[00:26:51] Jim Shulman: I once described what I did with a client as they give me a very large amount of money so I can [00:27:00] tell them to go to hell.

[00:27:01] Harry: It's like the the prosperous coach. I think I was reading in there once about someone, or maybe it was a podcast with one of the writers, authors of that person was saying, I pay you a lot of money not to say anything.

[00:27:18] Jim Shulman: Well, and in some cases, let's go back to what we were talking about earlier with the with the business owner, with the employees at the bar, every other person in that business owner's life has a vested interest in the financial success of that person.

[00:27:36] Jim Shulman: And everything that they are going to say is going to be colored in some way, shape or form by a possible threat to that relationship. Somebody engages a coach to get honest answers. And the honest answers may not be something that they want to hear. That's my previous statement, right? But they are paying for that [00:28:00] because they recognize that it's essential for them to prosper, if not survive.

[00:28:05] Harry: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so many good points there. You know, you think about what the person is tied, you know, if you're, and I understand why, right. They need the camaraderie. They want to bounce an idea off. A person, but if the person is, as you mentioned, tied to the success of the company, maybe that person doesn't like change, maybe there's new technology, new products, new services to pursue.

[00:28:35] Harry: And you're bouncing it off of an idea of a person who's likes their steady paycheck, doesn't like change. They're not going to give you honest answers, honest for them. But not honest for what your business needs to do to succeed. So great stuff. Any other thoughts that you might want to share with the audience that I might've missed here, Jim?

[00:28:55] Jim Shulman: The number one thought that I would leave everyone [00:29:00] with is what are you bringing to the job? What are new ideas that you are bringing to the job? What are new training that you're taking? Are you constantly refreshing yourself? Because not only is that a way to keep young, but that's really a way to remain valuable to clients.

[00:29:23] Jim Shulman: If you are going to have a longer term relationship with your client, you absolutely must bring continuous new value. And that's really up to you.

[00:29:34] Harry: Oh, that's great. Where can people find more of the legend, Jim Schulman, the 57 Dodge

[00:29:41] Jim Shulman: driver? Well, the first place I would recommend is come visit me on the web@www.elsinorba.com.

[00:29:53] Jim Shulman: That's ELSINOREBA.com [00:30:00] or you can email me at Jims jims@elsinorba.com. Excellent.

[00:30:08] Harry: Well, hopefully you'll get some people a little bit curious to have a more in depth conversation with you. Thank you for making an appearance on the podcast. It's been great. And I look forward to having continued conversations with you in the future,

[00:30:24] Jim Shulman: my friend.

[00:30:24] Jim Shulman: As do I. This was a great pleasure and thank you so much for the invitation.

[00:30:29] Thank you for listening to Sales Made Easy. If you found value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal is to provide practical strategies for growing your business while staying true to your values. Remember, six. Success in sales is about serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will follow.

[00:30:55] We'll be back soon with more insights and inspiration. Until then, keep [00:31:00] serving and providing value