Sean Ginsburg - How to Attract Premium Clients and Transform Your Business

Welcome to the Maker Manager Money podcast! In this episode, host Kyle Ariel Knowles sits down with self-made millionaire Sean Ginsberg, who has built an impressive $75 million portfolio. Sean shares his revolutionary PCA Premium Client Attraction System, which focuses on personalized value, targeting high-quality prospects, and mastering the art of follow-up.

Discover how Sean transformed his life after being expelled from high school and learned the importance of believing in himself. He discusses the pivotal moments that led him to success, including his journey into real estate and the mentors who shaped his path.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The significance of clarity in your vision and goals
• How to effectively close sales and attract premium clients
• The importance of journaling and self-reflection in personal growth
• Strategies for businesses to improve their sales processes and systems
• Why capping commissions can hinder success in sales

Join us for an inspiring conversation that will elevate your sales game and motivate you to take action in your entrepreneurial journey.

Sean's Website

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Sean
• 1:13 Sean's Goals for 2025
• 2:31 Sean's Key Skill: Closing
• 3:35 Overcoming Adversity: Believing in Yourself
• 5:57 Influences: Mentors and Books
• 7:32 The Importance of Journaling
• 9:39 The Power of Writing and Clarity
• 11:09 Setting and Achieving Goals
• 15:09 Narrowing Focus: Mastering a Niche
• 19:01 First Major Accomplishment: Selling a House
• 22:53 Diverse Income Streams
• 25:41 Understanding the PCA Premium Client Attraction System
• 30:52 Deliverables for Clients
• 36:01 Aligning Company Mission with Employee Goals
• 37:54 The Case Against Capping Commissions
• 38:53 Misconceptions About Sales and Salespeople
• 40:06 Tools for Selling and Consulting
• 42:17 Steps for Selling a Service to Business Owners

Transcript

Kyle Knowles: Hello there, welcome to the Maker Manager Money podcast, a podcast to inspire entrepreneurs to keep going and wantrepreneurs to just start. My name is Kyle Knowles and my guest today is Sean Ginsberg. Sean is a self-made millionaire who's built a staggering $75 million portfolio, and he's here to share his revolutionary PCA Premium Client Attraction System. Forget those generic sales tactics, Sean's approach is all about personalized value, targeting high-quality prospects, and mastering the art of follow-up. He's a 10X certified coach mentored by the renowned Grant Cardone, but Sean has carved his own path to success, ditching those tired scripts for high impact personalized pitches that yield a whopping 50% conversion rate. Prepare to have your sales game elevated as Sean reveals his secrets to attracting and closing premium clients. Welcome to the show, Sean.

Sean Ginsburg: Man, thank you so much for having me on. That was a fantastic intro. Thank you. I appreciate that, man. I feel like president right now.

Kyle Knowles: Where are you dialing in from today?

Sean Ginsburg: I'm here in San Diego, California.

Kyle Knowles: Okay. And the weather's probably pretty nice today.

Sean Ginsburg: I'm guessing. I just came from Mont Shasta. So it was freezing up there. So to come back to 65 and sunny is a little better than, you know, 25 and freezing with 30 mile an hour winds.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. It was 20 degrees here in Utah this morning. So I hear you. I hear you on that. So the first question I want to ask you, Sean, is what's the number one thing you want to accomplish in 2025? Getting known, man.

Sean Ginsburg: Getting known. Getting more people to know who I am, what I do, what problems I solve for people, and really just getting out there and letting the world know exactly who I am, man. I think it's time to let my message out to the world, and I think it's you know, I think I have something to share. I've been through the ups and the downs. And I think that, you know, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on, you know, courses and seminars and all types of, you know, shiny objects out there, I finally realized that, Hey, listen, you know what, I have what it takes to share my story, to be able to give back to somebody else that wasn't the same spot that I was in.

Kyle Knowles: All right. That's a worthy goal. And I hope I can help you with that and having you on the podcast. And the next question I have for you, Sean, what's your number one skill that you bring to the table?

Sean Ginsburg: Closing, man. Closing. I'd say the number one skill is closing, you know, and it all started when I got expelled from high school. I, long story short, big athlete, big wrestler, big lacrosse player, and I got expelled and I was done. It was like, ah, I sold myself. I was done. My life was over. You know, nothing could come out of this. And from that experience, I had to learn the hardest sale of my life, which was to close myself on believing in myself again. Right. So I think the more we sell ourselves, you know, whatever we're putting in our mind, the more we're going to get, whatever it is we're giving ourselves, meaning, you know, I sold myself this sweatshirt, this, this cup, you sold yourself, those guitars, this, you know, this phone, et cetera. So really just getting really clear and having the clarity on, you know, sell or be sold and stay sold my friend on your purpose and what you do.

Kyle Knowles: Okay. That must've been tough to get expelled, especially as an athlete and having all that energy and excitement and having teammates and games to look forward to. What were the things that you did to start believing in yourself again?

Sean Ginsburg: you know, it's just like creating a high ticket offer, you know, it's like, what problems do you solve for people? So I basically, like, thought about all the problems I was having, you know, and it said that, you know, poor people don't want problems, rich people want problems. So I was in this very poor, depressed mindset, I was angry, frustrated, ashamed, you know, I blamed everyone else, my teachers, my parents, my circumstances. You know, but at some point I faced the truth and it was nobody was coming to save me. And that's when it hit me. I wanted to rebuild my life. So I had to start closing myself on why I was worth fighting for. So, you know, selling myself on myself, it was taking full responsibility for my life and what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. Like there was nobody coming to help me out. And then taking all those problems and being like, okay, wait, these are negative things, but you know, for every negative, there's a positive. So what's on the opposite side of this negative thing here? If I was angry, then I was probably super happy. So I started to realize, wait, this is the best opportunity of my life. This is the absolute best thing that could have ever happened to me. I'm not going to get in trouble. I can finish school online. I can save up all my money. I can move out of Philadelphia, my small town. I can move to California. So I started looking at it like, wait, this is an opportunity. you know, my life's not over. This is like the biggest chance for me to, you know, to, to, to get out of this in a, in a positive way and make a story out of this. So they wanted to make an example out of me. No, I'm going to make an example out of this for all the people that have a worse situation. You know, I can, you know, and that, that are going through it and they, maybe they're going to go on drugs and maybe they're going to, Maybe consider, you know, going suicidal. Like maybe I can be the person that says, wait, hold on. This is actually the best thing that could have ever happened to you, but you have to use your circumstance to change your future.

Kyle Knowles: So you capitalized on that. And were there, were there any mentors or books you read, things you listened to those kinds of things?

Sean Ginsburg: Oh yeah. Yeah. So once I moved from Philadelphia to California, I always was when I was, I got, you know, 48 laws of power thinking, grow rich, you know, as a man thinketh, uh, richest man in Babylon and then journaling, journaling like crazy, you know, there's a lot of stuff when you're super young, it's like, you're like, uh, you're just clicking all these ideas and all these things are coming to you. Like if you don't write those things down, you don't really know the power of what you're actually thinking about. You know, so like I would go back to these notes that I wrote at like four in the morning and be like, Oh my God, wow, like I wrote that. And then I would act on those thoughts, on those ideas to a certain degree. Once I got out to California, though, it took me, you know, some time to find what I was going to do. And I ended up finding real estate and I was a realtor for a long time. I took seven months to do my first deal. And after seven months, I was like, okay, you know, I need somebody to, you know, kick me in my butt and figure out how I can, uh, you know, make, make some more money and help more people faster. So that's when I hired a mentor. I started reading more, anything I could get my hands on self-development or sales. You know, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, you know, OG Mandino, you know, all of the greats. And then I found, you know, Cardone. Cardone's like a modern day version of these guys. And I just, I just, you know, kept stacking on the portfolio of all of these different people. And I turned it all into my own stuff.

Kyle Knowles: That's fantastic. And did you continue journaling then when you got out to California?

Sean Ginsburg: Yeah, man, just always, always, I always have those random, everyone does, you know, they're like thinking, Rich says, you know, this, this infinite intelligence, you know, it's this, this, this ether, there's something out there that just, boom, you get this idea. And all of a sudden, it's like, huh, where did that come from? It's like, dude, don't not write that down. Do not rely on your mind. It's the biggest scam in the world. Like write it down. So you actually remember. So yeah, always, I always write like if I had, I just wrote something down. Yes, see, I forgot. I'll tell you right now. I wrote down. Let's see, I'll tell you right now. He who seeks finds nothing. He who allows finds everything. And that just came out of nowhere, you know? So always, I always am journaling, always finding something. And that was at 1254 AM. I like woke up and I was like, why am I thinking about this? I just started writing that down. So yeah, constantly journaling, constantly reading. Right now I'm reading a lot about the universe and, you know, kind of why we're here and how we became and all those types of things. I'm really deep into the universe. I like those types of things.

Kyle Knowles: Two things you said remind me of a couple things. Journaling, people just don't understand because I've done some massive journaling over the past year. And, you know, three pages every morning of stream of consciousness. And the idea came from a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And basically, it's the best therapy that that's out there. And, you know, I love therapists, I love life coaches and mentors, all those kinds of things. But you have so much going on in your head that you can't get any clarity, unless you put it down. You start putting it down. And like you said, start taking action, right? Because, you know, the Bible says something like faith without works is dead. Well, thoughts without work those thoughts are dead as well. And the thing I wrote down this morning is actually from a song, but I'll just tell you because I just wrote it right before we got on this call together, but it was just a great lyric. And it says, you can't become if you only say what you would have done.

Sean Ginsburg: Beautiful.

Kyle Knowles: So anyway, I just wanted to share those, those two thoughts, but yeah, the power of writing is so incredible. I think we take it for granted and the tools are so easy to come by.

Sean Ginsburg: That's beautiful. That's almost like, that's almost like Buddha. You know, uh, the thoughts that you think are the, is the life that you live. Right. Or, uh, what a man, uh, what is Ralph Waldo Emerson? You know, what a man thinks about all day long is who he becomes or who he is. You know, that's, that's, yeah, I love that. So basically what I just got from that is you need to think and speak and act as if it's already done in the present tense, like you've already completed it, which I can speak full experience with that. Any goal that you want to hit, anything you want to achieve, write it down like it's already accomplished. I want to make a million dollars. I am a multimillionaire. I make $10 million a year. I have 15,000 real estate units. Right? I get a lot of questions like that. Hey, how do you write the goals? How do you and then but the thing is, is like, Denzel Washington said it, I forget his exact quotes, but he basically says, you know, a dream that a dream that's just in your head that's not written down. It's just a dream. You know, but that quote that you said, that's beautiful. I love that. That's amazing. That's a good one.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, just from I'll send you the song later. We'll put it in the show notes, but it's a fun, fun little happy song. But yeah, I just that lyric just struck me this morning. And so you you go out to California, you get your real estate license, you do your first deal, those kinds of things you're taking in. you know, mentorships by reading books and listening to tapes or CDs or things you can find online. I know Jim Rohn was one of your guys. We mentioned in an intro call that Jim Rohn was another one. I've listened to a lot of Jim Rohn and Zig Ziglar as well, and they're fantastic. So you're taking all these inputs in, you're writing down, you have these vision. What were some of the first goals that you wrote down that you acted upon and made come true?

Sean Ginsburg: Yeah, thanks for mentioning that. Jim Rohn was actually a huge influence in my life. God rest his soul, I never got to meet him. Man, there's like a four and a half hour seminar on YouTube and I could probably recite half of it. But I think the first goal was to really, like Jim Rohn says, who do I need to become? Who is it? Who am I? What am I? Where am I going? And when I could clearly articulate those questions and have an answer for them, that's when I was like, hmm, OK, well, if I want to become him or this or that, well, I have to be that. So that's where that present tense thing comes into play, where you have to walk the walk. You actually have to do the work. You have to be that person. You have to make your phone calls. You have to follow up. You have to create relationships. you know, put out content. You have to do all of these things. The first goal is who do you need to become? Who do you need to become? And then the second goal would be you don't stop until you become that person. Once you become that person, you set new targets. You set higher standards. You had, you know, you start doing it all over again. One of my mentors now is like, dude, this is a constant, you know, battle of you recreating yourself millions of times in your lifetime. So like, last week, I wasn't the same person, you know, two months ago, like you, I probably wouldn't be the same, I'd be thinking you're talking about something different. So I'm constantly doing something different. Because I'm trying to, you know, become the best version of me. And I haven't found that person yet. So as much as people are like, oh, you're successful. I'm like, dude, I haven't done anything yet. I've not even scratched the surface. And then I sit there and people are like, oh, do you know this? I'm like, dude, I don't know anything. The more that I know nothing, the more it just seems to come to me. The more I get to understand, the more I have the willingness to understand, I kind of understand that there's too much to know to even grasp, you know, so that's why I really, a goal of mine also is highly specific, get highly specific on what's the one thing that you want to do and what you want to focus on and what you want to master, which will ultimately bring you the results you're looking for. I was all over the place, you know, and I still feel like that today. It's like, I'm here, I'm here, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm in this company, I'm in that, it's like, well, wait, What am I going to do here to be the best at? Where somebody's going to call me and say, dude, you're the best at it. I want you to do this for me. I want you to solve the problem for me. So everybody out there that may be starting a business or that has a business, but you're kind of jumping all around and you're kind of being a jack of all trades. Focus on one highly specific niche and master that niche and everybody will pay you whatever price that you want because you are the best at it and you're the only one that can do it.

Kyle Knowles: And when did you have that realization that you needed to kind of narrow your focus and pick one thing?

Sean Ginsburg: Well, once I got certified with GC, It was either I was going to go the consulting route, stay in real estate. I was kind of like, I had multiple options and it was like, well, why don't I just do all of them? And I went back to a time when I was in real estate and I was producing like 15 to 20 million a year in personal production. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to get my loan license, my NMLS. And one of my mentors at the time, one of my brokers, he was like, dude, he's like, do you want to be the best at what you do? Or do you want to be like kind of good and make a little bit of money? And I was like, dude, I want to be the best at what I do. He's like, well, then stick to one thing and one thing only period. And I said, okay, you're right. Because if I'm doing real estate here and I'm trying to get them to loan too, it's like, dude, you're not going to get good. You're not going to get great at both of them. You're not going to have to be able to put in the both of it so much time into both. Right. So at the time when I was just got, you know, licensed with Cardone and I was helping coach his clients, I was like, Hmm, like, do I want to keep producing? Do I want to consult? Do I want to coach? And for me, it was more fun to teach somebody how to go make 20, 30, 40, 50 grand. I got more purpose and fulfillment out of teaching people how to do that. Then I did, you know, I still produce, I still do deals. I do wholesale deals, creative finance deals. I'm actually learning right now how to acquire companies. That's like my ultimate goal in 2025, I'd say, is really learning how to invest into businesses that are going out of business or that are closing their doors because they're retiring. I want to take those companies over, fix them up, you know, actually give them the value they need and then sell them at some point, whether that's 5, 10, 15 years. But I think there's trillions of dollars in that business. And private equity is just completely destroying those companies. So I'd rather be me where I actually care about the people and help them out.

Kyle Knowles: That's awesome. I've had, I think, three different entrepreneurs, maybe four, that have gone entrepreneurship through acquisition. route and LaShawn Smith, Kevin Biebelhausen, and David Doty. David Doty left Wall Street and he bought a bakery, a 50-year-old bakery here in Utah, Lehigh, Utah. Lehigh Bakery is what it's called. And it's taken that next level, you know, left Wall Street and a corporate job. and bought a business that already had tons of customers and a lot of love and branding. And he came in there and did what like you're seeking to do is operationalize it and bring his skills and his energy to that company. And he's just taking it next level. So it's really fun to see entrepreneurs branch out or get into entrepreneurship through acquisition. And Brian T. Franco is a guy that brings people that want to buy business together, people that want to sell their business, gets the business ready to sell, does the deal. So yeah, it's out there. It's relatively new, the concept of regular, you know, Joe Schmoes off the street, buying other businesses and becoming entrepreneurs that way. And I think it's, it's growing. It's growing. So you're, you're headed in the right direction. So Sean, you, you're in California, you're taking this stuff in your, what was your first goal that you accomplished? And you went, Oh my gosh, this works.

Sean Ginsburg: Selling my first house. getting my first sold. Well, I can't even go before that. You know, when I first get to California, you know, moved to just get out of, get out of my small hometown, like get out of that place, man. There ain't nothing there for you. Like everybody here. is not doing nothing here. It ain't going to help me grow. I'm in a small, people are like, why'd you move to California? I'm like, well, you see the universe picks me up from a fishbowl and dropped me into the universe, dropped me into a giant ocean and said, swim, don't drown. So that was the first step. And that was so challenging for me. You know, it was, it was not easy. I left everything that I know, my, my family, my friends, my, you know, just my life, everything. You know, I just completely started over. And I would say to anybody out there, like, you don't know what to do. You're still living in your hometown. Get up and go, go wherever you're called to, wherever. If it's a hundred miles that way, go. If it's 5,000 miles that way, go. That was probably the most challenging. But once I did that, I was like, I can move across the country. And I was 18. I had like 12 grand to my name. I was hustling motorcycles and cars and doing new construction. My dad's a plumber and all types of jobs. If I could do that, I could do anything. And then once I got out to California, I was like, okay, where do I live? Moved to LA, I couldn't stand it. I was there for seven days, took an Uber down to San Diego from San Fernando Valley, and I never left. And from there, I was like, okay, what do I do? Well, go get a job. So the next goal is like, go get money, go find a job, go meet people. So I would, you know, I ended up buying motorcycles and I would, you know, race them down to downtown San Diego and I started finding jobs. And then I realized that, okay, I don't want to work a job. So I met these guys and these guys all had smoke shops and liquor stores and gas stations. And I was running multiple shops for them, managing all of them for them. So they'd buy it. I'd go in there, fix the shop up, hire people, bring them all in and set it up, make the numbers perfect. And I'm like, dude, I'm working 18 hours a day. I have a lot of money in my pocket, but I have no life. I'm like in prison. So I was like, wait a second, what are these guys doing? They're buying the strip malls. They're buying the shopping centers and then having somebody like me go in there and do all the work. So I'm like, why don't I get my license and sell these properties to them? Right? So that was like the first aha moment. Like, oh, wait, the name of the game out here is real estate. Look at all these guys selling and buying real estate. And I knew the guys that were buying it. So I took my real estate license. And I, I failed six times. I, I, on the seventh time I passed my real estate license. So you can start to see, it was just, you know, first get out to California, you know, find a place to live, find a job, make money and get your real estate license. So like those goals, it was always, if I don't hit it, like you're going to find a way to do it. If you don't find a way to do it, you're just making excuses why it didn't happen or what that, what that song lyric said, what you could have been. Right. Most people would have given up. And that's why I'm here to share this story. Like, dude, you got to keep pushing along. Like I was smiling. I didn't care. You think failing a test could stop me? I got expelled. I had all this stuff. I moved across. I didn't care. I went in every day until I passed that test. Once I passed the test, I used probably 0.0001% of all the information that was on the test ever in a real estate transaction. That's where the sales career began.

Kyle Knowles: How do you make money? I know you sell real estate, and you've been doing that. How else do you make money?

Sean Ginsburg: So Many ways. The top way that we make money is we consult businesses that are brand new. We help businesses that are already established, but want to make more money and get to the next level. And we help advanced entrepreneurs slash businesses, you know, take them to the next level. So I don't care if you're at $0, if you're at $10 million, if you're at $100 million. If you have something, service, product, whatever it is, you need a sales process, right? Depending on where you're at on the spectrum, if you're just starting out, you need to learn sales and marketing. Any business under a million dollars struggles with sales and marketing. Any business over a million dollars is processes and systems and who will help you get to the next level. So let's just say a business over a million bucks. I'll go in there. I already know you guys have a sales team. I already know that you have a process in place, and most of your salespeople are probably not following up. You're spending money on leads you're paying to get, and you're wasting them because the salespeople are just letting them spoil. So I come in. I put in my process, my scripts, my dialogues. I do an audit on the entire business. I basically walk through and reverse engineer a business plan for you to go from, say, $1 million to $10 million. Right. And, you know, sometimes we may have to delete some of the salespeople and then I'll put a recruiting process in place where, you know, we'll bring on the right salespeople to get you guys to the next level because what got you here will not get you there. Meaning, you know, some of those people in the organization may not be that motivated to grow. Right. So I've seen it countless times where I walk into a company and it's, 50% of the staff leave because we're starting to implement standing operating procedures and it's a whole different process and system where they just can't seem to grasp the growth inside of the company. So they leave, which is good because now you're opening up space for the new to come in. Um, as far as, um, like a, like a brand new entrepreneur, it's basically really getting clarity around the problem you sell for people and putting behind like what you do as a business, like who you are as a company, like who's got your money, meaning who would benefit the most from what it is that you do and how we can put together a product or a service that would ultimately help that person want to work with you.

Kyle Knowles: Okay. So consulting then, firms hire you to come in, establish the sales process, and tell me a little bit about the PCA, Premium Client Acquisition. How does that fit into the sales process?

Sean Ginsburg: Yep. So basically, there's a sales process. You got to greet, fact find, demo, close, follow up. So the PCA is basically how to attract your ideal client avatar. Who would benefit the most from your service or your product? And it really comes down to going out there and finding them or having them come to you and you're attracting them. What content are you putting out, right? How are you delivering your message across all channels in order for somebody to do business with you? So the client attraction system is basically meant for a company to, so I can come in, I can audit the business and we can understand and identify your mission statement, your core values, everything why somebody would want to work with you and maybe for you, right? Because if you don't know these questions to, or the answers to these questions, it's going to be a lot harder for you to get more business because if once you get to a certain level, you're going to have to start bringing in clients from other places, whether it's paid advertising, podcasts, maybe it's some type of Google advertising. It really comes down to why you do what you do and who you do it for and putting a process around that. So basically breaking down as a company, who are we? Who are we as people? You know, I can't stress enough, like what problems do you solve for people? And most of the time that I ask that, I get a result. What problem do I solve? Oh, I help people lose weight. That's the, that's the solution. That's, that's the result. The problem that I solve for people is like, what are they laying awake in bed at night thinking about? And I learned this from one of my mentors. And most of my clients are like, how do I get more business? Like, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent. I don't know how I'm going to keep my lights on. I don't know how I'm going to pay my salespeople this month. I can change that. I can fix that because I already know that if you are over a million bucks in revenue, I know guaranteed that you have a database probably of 5, 10, 15,000 people. And if you're doing business with 5% of them, I guarantee we can squeeze out an additional 30% by just implementing a follow-up process, right? Touching those same clients that came in six months ago, two years ago, and turning them into paid clients. So I am the king of resurrecting dead leads and making them into revenue.

Kyle Knowles: That's awesome. And I think it speaks again to kind of your background and eventually coming out to California and ended up in San Diego and becoming a real estate agent initially, that clarifying your vision And it seems like all good consultancies and agencies, when they work with companies, they come in and clarify basically the vision of the company. I saw a clip the other day from OpenAI's Sam Altman. And he basically said any startup that can't clearly articulate what their vision is in 25 words will never be successful. Do you agree with that?

Sean Ginsburg: Yeah, they don't know what they're doing. My vision is to transform individual agents, whether that's a agency, whatever company you are, companies and advanced entrepreneurs into great sales organizations. It's that simple. It doesn't need to be this lengthy, giant, huge, you know, 10 paragraph thing that you do. If you can't, like Einstein said, if you can't explain to a third grader, you don't know what it is. You don't know what you're doing. So it's simple. I take salespeople and I turn them into great closers. It's really simple. It's, it's, it's super simple too. Cause once you understand the clarity behind the vision and like why you do what you do, it's a lot easier. And you're a lot confident, a lot more confident and capable of delivering your message to somebody that would want to work with you. Sales is not selling and I'm not selling anything. I'm more of, you know, I'm like a doctor. I tell like when I'm training like an organization, it's like, look, I'm going to put my lab coat on my white coat, put my stethoscope on. I'm going to, I'm going to check your heart rate. You know, I'm going to check your pulse. Where's the pain hurt? How does it hurt? How does it feel? What type of pain is it? Is it sharp? Does it burn? Like I'm really trying to understand how I can help that person because it ultimately they're going to sell themselves on my product because I know what I'm doing. I know how to help that person and I know how to clearly articulate what I do and how I can help them. You don't go into a doctor and the doctor's like, Oh yeah, here's the prescription. Like, For what? What do I need this for doc? Like, Oh no, just take it. It's just, just take the medicine. Like they're not going to take the medicine and they, you'd think the doctor's a quack. So the doctor does this whole entire ship, you know, spiel does all his vitals and checks everything and then prescribes you or diagnosis the problem. It's the same thing in sales or any product or service you have. You really want to understand what that means for you as a business.

Kyle Knowles: All right, Sean, so what are some of the deliverables that you deliver to clients?

Sean Ginsburg: Well, first things first, I have to really understand the business as a whole. So it's really a deep dive on the business. So I do a whole entire audit on the business, sales, marketing, operations, you know, everything. And I kind of get a feel for the business where it's lacking. Maybe it's lacking sales. Maybe it's lacking operations. Maybe it's lacking marketing. You know, it just really depends on what those answers, what I see from those answers. If I understand that, let's just, for instance, say it's sales, because I love sales. If it's sales, and by the way, everything is sales. If you're bringing on people, you're selling them the vision. You're selling them everything that your company is. Like, let's say, for instance, the sales process is broken and I know that. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to say, what are your KPIs? They're going to say, I don't know. Or, oh, they're 12% on close rate. And it's like, how long have you been seeing that? Well, we don't know. We've just been tracking it for six months. It's like, if I don't have these standing operating procedures in place, basically, I'll go in there. I'll implement my KPIs. I'll understand and track everything. I'll understand how many calls the salespeople are making, where they're going wrong on the sales calls. Every call will be recorded. Basically, I'll implement a system. We use Go High Level, for instance. You know, we work with some of the companies where they already have a system that's tailored to their product or service. So we can do that. But most of the time we actually switch over to ours because then I can track it a little bit more lenient. Then I put a training in place. You know, some organizations, you know, their salespeople kind of show up and they're just kind of winging it. You know, so we have all the salespeople come for training every single day. They have to train for at least 10 to 15 minutes on our platform every single day. And we can track and monitor that. Now, with that being said, we also do role play, live role play. So I practice a lot of jujitsu. If you're not practicing your arm bars and triangles and rear naked chokes and sweeps every single day, you're getting choked out and you're gonna lose the match. It's the same thing in sales. You're going to get your teeth kicked in if you don't train and practice and rehearse and role play and record yourself and really help somebody out. The reason you do all this is because if you have to think about what to say next, you really don't know what you're doing. You should be able to say these things right off the roof of your mouth should be so fluid and so smooth. And if it's not, you got to go practice more because the more you practice, the more you can actually identify the problems they're having in the company or whatever, whatever, you know, you're selling or whatever product you're offering, you can actually help the person versus helping or trying to figure out what to say next. So we have a role play and then I put all my scripts in there, all my dialogues, and then I basically consult as is. Sometimes I come in as a fractionalized sales officer and I'll hire a sales manager. So if you have a sales team of 40 people, usually you want to keep it that you have, say you have 40 salespeople, you should have eight times five, you should have eight managers. For every five salespeople, you should have one sales manager and then a director of sales, right? So I would start as a director. I'd have the managers and I have the reps. And then I'd replace me. Once I'm done consulting, I would actually hire a director of sales for that specific role to manage the entire thing. That's high level. You know, if you guys don't have an organization of that, you know, altitude or that size. It's more of setting up the process and the procedure and the foundation for you to actually bring on the people. So I learned this from one of my mentors. It's the four P's. You have to promote, you have to profit, you have to have a process, and then you add people. So when you promote, you're getting attention. You know, when you profit, you just converted the traffic that you promoted from, and then you have a process for converting those leads. Once you have a process that you basically understand and you just prove that it works, now you can add salespeople and employees to the company. That's where most of the time I go into companies and I get on the phones. I make calls and I'm like, let me figure out this process. Let me actually figure out how to sell somebody on this product. Let me see if I believe in this product. If I don't believe in the product, I won't even join the company because I can't sell something I don't believe in. So I really have to understand and deep dive into the business for all of this to work. Does that all make sense?

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, it does. It does. So it sounds like, you know, doing that audit, you've got some reports that you're generating, you're establishing KPIs, you're seeing what's really going on under the hood of a business, and then implementing sales processes, hiring people, hopefully, you know, the ones that that aren't into this role playing and training and all that kind of stuff, they leave the company. And that way you can bring in some some new sales salespeople. And then you're actually boots on the ground, making calls, trying to figure out how to sell their product or service.

Sean Ginsburg: Correct. And it's really, I forgot one thing, you know, also what I've learned from one of my mentors, it's really aligning the mission of the companies with the personal, professional and financial goals of the employee or salesperson. Because if you don't have a motivated, a money motivated, you know, salesperson ready, willing, and able to make calls and that wanna be the best version of themselves, you're going to get bad apple that spoils the whole bunch, which will then spread throughout the entire organization. And, you know, I've seen it multiple times where just sales start to go down. People start to just, it's just, you get this negative cancer in your organization and you gotta get them out. You gotta cut that thing off. for the new to come in to lighten up the spirit and bring sales back up.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. What are your thoughts about capping commissions then?

Sean Ginsburg: No. Never cap commissions. Why would you cap commissions if you want the best to come work for you? The best? They don't want no cap. They're not going to get capped. You're going to get lazy people that really don't care how much they're making. They just want a job. You know, one of my mentors, one of his guys makes a million dollars a year working for him. Like, hey, you want to make a million dollars this year? Come work for us. Like that's that's the one of the greatest sales tactics in the world. You know, there's no reason you should cap any salesperson because as me, if I'm a salesperson right now, like I know my value, I know my skills, I know I can come in and close anybody on any product or anything so long as the leads are great. Like, even if the leads weren't great, I could still close as long as the person has money, as long as I believe in the product. But I'm definitely not going to that company unless I understand metrics, KPIs, I understand close rates, I understand what their top guy's doing. If their top guy's making $50,000 a year, I'm gonna be like, hey, this probably was not the best opportunity for me. The guys, some of these guys are making $650,000 a year, making five, 600 calls a day. Like, I'd wanna be there. You see what I'm saying? So I don't think capping commissions makes sense at all. I would say to leave it open, let people make as much money as possible. It's only going to help the company.

Kyle Knowles: I agree. I've seen it in corporate so many times, though, where they're like, oh, all this money is going out the door. But yeah, morale goes down, salespeople leave, just like you said, because they want to go somewhere where if they are the best version of themselves. work hard, they can make a lot of money. That's why they're in sales, or that's why most people are in sales. So I have a question for you, Sean. What is the most significant misconception people have about sales and salespeople?

Sean Ginsburg: I love that question because most people think of sales like a washed up car salesman. You know, sales, he's trying to sell me something. So here's the difference between a great salesperson and a con man. You know the difference? Intention. And I learned this from one of my real estate mentors. The salesperson wants what's best for who? The client. The con man wants what's best for who? The con man. So the misconception is every salesperson is just out to get a buck. Well, you're right. That's why you got to do your due diligence. That's why you have to really understand who you're dealing with. If it's not the right company, not the right product, and they're kind of just trying to sell you, well, they're probably just trying to sell you.

Kyle Knowles: So, Sean, I have another question for you. So what particular tools do you use in your day-to-day job when you're trying to sell real estate and what kind of tools do you use as you're going into businesses and consulting? Those could be software tools, those could be, okay, your phone.

Sean Ginsburg: This is my sport. This is the thing that'll make you millions, billions of dollars. Pick up the phone and start dialing. I always use a CRM. I always use a triple auto dialer. It depends what I'm doing.

Kyle Knowles: What's a triple auto dialer? I'm not familiar with that.

Sean Ginsburg: Sure, so it's a software system where you can call three or four people at a time. So you don't have to call one by one by one, you can call three people at once. So if I'm prospecting, I'm definitely getting on, sometimes I'll call off six lines. And people always say, well, what if two people answer? Usually there's a process for that, whether it's you're leaving you know, leaving a message, or you get to call them back on a different list. But usually I keep it at three, three people or a triple dialer. And it's just you can get through more contacts faster. So if you're making 600 dials, you can probably speak with 60 people a day a lot faster than if you're making, you know, solo dials, solo dials, you should be making anywhere from like eight to 12 contacts an hour. So depending on targets and goals, I can help people reverse engineer how many leads and how many contacts they actually need to make per day based on how much money they want to make per year based on stats, closing rates, and KPIs.

Kyle Knowles: So do you do consulting for just individual salespeople who want to get better at sales?

Sean Ginsburg: Absolutely, of course. It's a little bit more of a lengthy process because I have to understand their product, their business. I have to believe in their product. Some salespeople come to me and it's like, you know, I don't see the value in helping that specific person because they're more likely trying to steal the leads from their company or something like that. So it's, so long as it's an ethical, moral, responsible way, of course, I help individual salespeople, individual businesses. And then I help the people that are like, this is for anybody that's just starting out. Whether it's in sales or, you know, being an entrepreneur, starting a business. This is for the people that already started, but are like, I'm stuck. Like, I don't know what to do. And this is also for the people that are super advanced doing five, 10, 20, $50 million a year.

Kyle Knowles: Okay. So I'm just going to give you a quick example. I know we're almost running out of time here and then we'll get to some personal questions. I'm an entrepreneur who wants to sell a service to business owners. What are the steps I have to do to make that happen?

Sean Ginsburg: What problem do you solve for people?

Kyle Knowles: The problem of not having time to produce a podcast.

Sean Ginsburg: Okay, great. Now, do you have a list of people who would benefit the most from your service?

Kyle Knowles: I believe business owners who want to increase their personal brand and promote their product or services or businesses.

Sean Ginsburg: Okay, beautiful. Do you know where to find those people?

Kyle Knowles: LinkedIn, I can use sales navigator, I can look for job titles that say business owner, founder, partner, managing partner, things like that.

Sean Ginsburg: So one of my mentors said, if nobody knows you, nobody flows you. So what you're doing is you're getting attention. So how do you get attention, you got to get out there and start making noise, right? So you're exactly right, go to LinkedIn, you know, and you have to, you know, articulate that message. You know, I know we're running out of time, but you know, take that message, the problem you solve for people, put that into a message that clearly articulates how you can help them, what problems they have, like, they're gonna like, if you reach out to them, they're like, wow, this guy knows my problems. And I have not even spoken with this guy, like, what is he in my head? That's the depth of what you need to do in order to get somebody to really come in. So then I would say it's a contact game. So how much money do you want to make in the next 12 months from now?

Kyle Knowles: $60,000. Okay.

null: $60,000.

Sean Ginsburg: What's the price of your product?

Kyle Knowles: $1,000 an episode.

Sean Ginsburg: So that's, uh, 60 clients, 60 clients. If let's just say we'll use an average rate of 6% close. So if you take out your calculator and you do, you know, uh, 60 clients, how I got 60 is 60,000 divided by a thousand is 60 clients, right?

Kyle Knowles: We're 60 episodes. If someone wanted to do a weekly episode, that would be one client 52 times in a year, right?

Sean Ginsburg: You want to make 60 grand though, right?

Kyle Knowles: Yeah.

Sean Ginsburg: So yeah, it doesn't matter. See, this is where the great point, most people will get caught up on that. So it doesn't matter how it happens. It's just $60,000 you want to make the price of the products, a thousand bucks. You just need 60 clients, whether that's one client, 52 times one client, just what a thousand bucks for 60 clients. If you divide that by a 6% close rate, you need a thousand contacts. You need a thousand people that are in your database and you'll get a thousand people. Let's say you work 300 days a year. It's really only about 3.3 people. That's rounded up to four. If you take four times 10, that's 40 contacts a day, I'd say. I'm sorry, 40 calls, 40 calls a day.

Kyle Knowles: We'll do 40 calls or 40 emails a day going out.

Sean Ginsburg: Oh man. So if you want to do emails, I would times it by 10 again, which is 400. I'd send out about 400 emails a day to get 40 people to respond, to get four contacts, like four series. for a new business, you really have to write down and track and monitor your KPIs because I'm going off of, you know, I'm just going off of like a really low close, you know, 6% close rate and, you know, 10%. It could be higher than that, it could be lower than that. But until you know those numbers, that's kind of how you want to do it. You know, and it's, there's 10 reasons why closers fail. Number five is the incorrect estimation of effort. Nobody understands, you know, the depths of what you need to do in order to bring a deal.

Kyle Knowles: Do they underestimate it most of the time?

Sean Ginsburg: Always. And then they give up because they make 30 calls a day and they thought that it was going to get them the deal. It's like, dude, you got to make, you know, 30 contacts a day, which will come from 300 calls a day. Hmm. You know, so it just, it just, and it depends on what list you're calling off of. Is it a cold list? Is it a hot list? A hot list, your numbers will go up. If it's a cold list, you're probably, based on my experience, if you're cold calling, like you're going to get a one to 5%, you know, close rate period, you know, until you get really good on the phone, you'll probably get like 10 to 15%. You'll get 25% to pick up, but out of that 25%, how many set appointments with you? If nobody's set an appointment with you, then your script's not good. You're not speaking the right language to that person. If you're setting appointments, but then not closing, well, your demo's not good. So these are all things to track, and these are why I go into businesses and I can track and monitor and then adjust. If I know the sales team set 60 appointments last week, but have two closings, it's like, all right, let me hear your demos. Let me hear what you guys are saying. Right? And they're just, Oh yeah, well, it's 60 grand. And you know, it's a, this is what we're going to do for you. Like, okay, we need a structured, tailored demo. Let me create one for you guys. Let me jump on a call and let me show you how it's done. Right? So then I create the path for them to be successful. You see what I mean?

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, I love it. I love the real world example. Thank you for that. I just wanted to kind of role play that to see kind of some of the questions you ask and, and the advice you give. So let's move on to a few personal questions. And I've got a lightning round of questions. You talked about the first time you bet on yourself. And that was after getting expelled, saying, I'm going to start a new life, I'm going to move to California. What was the last thing or when was the last time you bet on yourself?

Sean Ginsburg: Oh, dude, like yesterday, man, when I was doing jiu-jitsu, man, going up against the Blackwell. I'm gonna get this guy, man. Every day. I bet on myself every day, man. You know, this ain't like, oh, I'm gonna bet on myself. It's every day. I wake up and start from zero. Like, dude, I'm getting up and I'm like, shit, it's all me. It's all on me. I'm betting on myself today, man. Like, if anybody can do it, anybody can sell themselves out of anything, it's me. Like, I'm gonna do it. I've done it. I've done, I've been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. You know, I cleared all my credit. Like I've done all that stuff and it's not easy. It's very challenging. And if you're not motivated and have the energy and you're not betting on yourself, you're betting against yourself and you're actually stealing from yourself. You're like robbing yourself. So always betting on me every day.

Kyle Knowles: I love that answer. So what TV movie or book character do you most relate to? Jim Carrey. What movie?

Sean Ginsburg: Uh, damn. I don't know. I would say, uh, shit. Ace Ventura, man. He's just, he's just nuts. He's just nuts. And like, I'm just like this big, giant little kid in this fricking fairy world. And I just, like, I'm just out of the box, dude. Like I'll be in the grocery store, just like doing something random and making people super uncomfortable. And then they start laughing. It's like, dude, just be yourself. You know, and Jim Carrey is a great example of that.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. Just authenticity. What's one thing you'd like to change about yourself?

Sean Ginsburg: Overanalyzing and thinking way too much.

Kyle Knowles: Yeah, I like that answer. I think overanalyzing and sometimes anxiety, things like that. Every entrepreneur I talk to, man, they're going a thousand miles an hour and sometimes overanalyzing. So outside of work, you mentioned jujitsu, so maybe that's the answer, but what are you most passionate about outside of work?

Sean Ginsburg: My family, my family and jujitsu, man, like I can't stress enough, like you never know how much time you have left. Time's the most important thing to me. If you start to add up your time and see how many hours you have left, turn those into minutes, like it's not that much time. We're here, you know, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, we are here in less than a blink of an eye. Like take the time to call your mother, tell her you love her, You know, tell your dad, you love them, you know, tell your kids, just, just hug them. Just do whatever you can to have the absolute best experience with your family, you know, and really guard and protect your time and your energy. So I'm really about the universe, energy, family, and I love jujitsu, man. Love jujitsu. I wrestled for 13 years and I turned wrestling into jujitsu and you know, you can catch me on a mat probably four or five days a week.

Kyle Knowles: Fantastic. I love it. So when did you last cry the hardest?

Sean Ginsburg: Oh, that's a good question. That's a great question. Hmm. You know what, I would say when Barbara's dog had passed, man, that was so sad because it wasn't my dog and we made the decision to, you know, let him go and to put him down. It was either we kept bringing him home and having to get him drained for what he had going on, or it was, you know, we put him down and she made that decision. It was just like the most beautiful, sad, you know, dark, but light experience ever. And it was like, You know, we buried, I dug a hole on the side of a mountain and just like buried him. But it was very just, it was just to see her so shook. That was what was so like, wow, like, geez, I haven't seen her like this. This is this is tough.

Kyle Knowles: People really underestimate the grief surrounding pet death. I think it's a lot bigger deal than than people realize.

Sean Ginsburg: They're all, uh, look, man, those pets, those animals, they're all just beautiful little souls in a furry body. They're just little people in fursuits.

Kyle Knowles: For sure. For sure. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. How long ago was that?

Sean Ginsburg: Uh, probably about 12 months now.

Kyle Knowles: What was the dog's name?

Sean Ginsburg: Buddha.

Kyle Knowles: Oh, that's beautiful. I love that name for a dog actually.

Sean Ginsburg: super highly trained, just, you know, he's our little buddy, man, you know, we got a kit, we got a cat now. And a cat's basically my best friend, he sleeps on my head every night. And, you know, like I said, you never know how much time they have left, you know, so even though the cat drives, it wakes me up all night. And once water all night, he only drinks out of the shower. I give him as much love as I possibly can, because I don't know, that time, you know, you never do.

Kyle Knowles: Right? I agree. What kind of dog was Buddha then?

Sean Ginsburg: Oh, he was a little Chihuahua mixed with a miniature pincher.

Kyle Knowles: Oh, that's cool. Okay, here's the lightning round of questions and we can wrap up. Favorite candy bar?

Sean Ginsburg: I'd say Mr. Goodbar, but honestly, I don't eat nothing anymore at this point.

Kyle Knowles: You're eating clean. You're eating clean.

Sean Ginsburg: Yeah, super clean. But I'd say Mr. Goodbar or maybe like, oh, maybe a Baby Ruth.

Kyle Knowles: Favorite musical artist?

Sean Ginsburg: Right now, well, I listen to a lot of music with no words. So right now would probably be, I don't even know the dude's name. I'll tell you right now. I just go to Pandora and just play. Oh, BG Adair is probably one of my favorite. But POTUS, POTSU, sorry, POTSU, not POTUS, POTSU Radio.

Kyle Knowles: P-O-T-S-U, is that how you spell it?

Sean Ginsburg: Yep. Just simple, no words. I can think and I can kind of make my own music in my own head and start singing along.

Kyle Knowles: Nice. Favorite cereal?

Sean Ginsburg: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Kyle Knowles: Mac or PC? Mac. Google or Microsoft? Google. Dogs or cats?

Sean Ginsburg: That's a hard one. Man, I like cats, man. The reason being is because I grew up with cats. And it's just, they're just like perfect in their way that they move the way they act, you know, that, man, that's a hard one. I think I love them equally both because the dog gives us nothing but love. But I don't know that's I'd say a cat. I say I'll go with the cat. Yeah, I got a giant tiger. Yeah, I'd say a cat.

Kyle Knowles: Nice. So last question for you, Sean, before we wrap this up, what's the worst thing about being an entrepreneur? And then the opposite of that, what's the best thing?

Sean Ginsburg: Worst thing is you're in business 365 days a year, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Pick up the phone. You always have to pick up the phone. You know, most entrepreneurs don't. The best thing about that is that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whoever you want, when you say you want to do it. So you have the freedom to do whatever you please. If you want to close up shop that day and not work, go ahead. You know, but at the end of the day, it's a huge sacrifice and most people are not willing to do the work it takes in order to get to a spot where you're free, that you can have that freedom. So it takes all of that time to put in to be able to deposit or withdraw the time back that you want to use for whatever you want to do.

Kyle Knowles: Thank you. I really like those answers. So, Sean, I just want to thank you for taking some time to be on Maker Manager Money today. Your conversation really reminded me about this quote, and I'll probably butcher it a little bit, but it's about extreme ownership. And the quote is something to the effect of, Take ownership of your life and a terrible thing happens. No one to blame. And it just, the things we've talked about just remind me of that quote. And I love all the books you mentioned at the start of the conversation. I'm right there with you. I was a big Jim Rohn fan growing up, listened to a lot of Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill, all these other giants, you know, Man's Search for Meaning. These kinds of books are very, very helpful. We'll list them in the show notes. But thanks again, Sean, for taking some time, being generous with your time. And I can't wait to publish this episode.

Sean Ginsburg: Thanks for having me on, man. This was an absolute opportunity. I appreciate it. Listen, this was amazing. Glad that I had the opportunity to use your platform to be able to share my story with people. So God bless you. Thank you. And man, this was great. Blessings to everybody.