Learn more about our personal growth community here: www.coreyboutwell.com
Mastering sales calls is a guaranteed way to increase your revenue in your service based business.
I’ve done over 1000 calls in my career and in this video I am teaching you guys everything I have learnt.
How to takes the right notes, how to handle objections and a follow up game that’ll increase sales by up to 25%.
If you enjoy this style of content, please let me know in the comment and the best way to help us out is by subscribing.
Big Love
FREE Mindset Webinar: https://www.coreyboutwell.com/mindsetupgrade
Join The Community Here: https://www.coreyboutwell.com/communitymembership
Make sure you listen to the podcasts all the way through to get your discount code.
Learn more about our personal growth community here: www.coreyboutwell.com
Mastering sales calls is a guaranteed way to increase your revenue in your service based business.
I’ve done over 1000 calls in my career and in this video I am teaching you guys everything I have learnt.
How to takes the right notes, how to handle objections and a follow up game that’ll increase sales by up to 25%.
If you enjoy this style of content, please let me know in the comment and the best way to help us out is by subscribing.
Big Love
FREE Mindset Webinar: https://www.coreyboutwell.com/mindsetupgrade
Join The Community Here: https://www.coreyboutwell.com/communitymembership
Make sure you listen to the podcasts all the way through to get your discount code.
I'm going to teach you guys how to crush sales calls in this episode. If you've been watching Andy Elliott or you've been watching Alex Hormozy and you want to get better at sales calls, I have done like getting close to a thousand sales calls now and I run a men's personal development community called Set the Standard, which is amazing. You guys can go to coreyboutwellcom if you want to check that out. But in this actual video I'm going to run you through step-by-step process how to do it. You're going to leave this episode knowing exactly what to say and do to crush a sales call. Like I'm going to go like everything on this. Okay, so get ready, this is going to be short, fun, punchy, fiery and you're going to leave this just like yeah, let's go. So, essentially, like, what I want to go over is you're going to learn how to close a deal and if you want to be held accountable and you want to go deeper, go to CoreyBatwellcom, see what we've got to offer and if anything resonates with you, jump on here. There's some stuff in here that will be exclusive for the guys in the school community that I have and if you guys need a little bit more extra help and support head there. If not, you get enough out of this, go crush it. Leave a comment below, give us a like and, most importantly, we'd love it if you could subscribe and send this to a friend if they might need it. Right, if you know someone in there. So let's get straight into it, guys.
Speaker 1:First step, I want to call this out here Do not call your sales call a sales call. Don't call a sales call. I call mine mindset assessments, so you can come in. Obviously, I'm teaching mindset. I'm keeping cheap, helping people achieve their goals and gaining confidence and helping them become the best version of themselves. So it's difficult when you're trying to teach someone something very specific, right. So, in mind, because we can help people literally achieve anything through accountability, confidence and goal setting, it makes a little bit more difficult for people to be like, oh, what am I? What am I going to get out of this? So what I like to do is call it a mindset assessment. It makes it a lot clearer. People are always going to assess my mind, right? That's first step, number one. But what's that going to be for you, whether you're sending a product or a service, wherever you're at? I would adjust the name for your call to be aligned with some piece of value that you can give, right I also.
Speaker 1:Second step is choose Zoom call over a phone call. If you're on a phone call and I learned this the hard way I used to like walk into sales calls while I was walking on my phone and wondering why I wasn't getting any sales right Zoom call means that the other person has to be with you. They're with you, they're not on a sales call, they're not walking, they're not in their car, they're not distracted by something walking around on their headphones. They're there, present with you, looking at you, making eye contact. So it's going to be so much easier for them to build a relationship with you and they're going to feel more comfortable about jumping on rather than rushing around like, oh, can I jump on or not. So make sure you do a Zoom call. Then you can also share your screen to demonstrate your offer. You can show case studies, you can show your results and your notes that you've taken for them during the actual call itself, which is so critical.
Speaker 1:Zoom call over phone call, but if you have to do a phone call, you can. You just want to make sure that they're prepared beforehand If you haven't got the traction to have sales calls yet, then I would focus on DM strategies, I would focus on branding and marketing, but if you know that you just want to get a few sales calls and go hustle, this is it. Third step ensure you give value on the call. Make sure that your promise on the call actually gives value to people, because otherwise, what's the purpose? They're just going to be wasting their time If they're not coming to this call for some reason.
Speaker 1:Deliver value and if you have a strong product, you have a strong service. You have a strong mission. This is a chance for you to reach. Reach someone, connect with them and leave a good taste in their mouth so that they might tell someone else about you. They're going to remember this experience and go wow, this is really good. So if it doesn't work out from just now, later on down the track they might pick you or they're going to tell someone else about how good you are. So make sure you leave a good impression. None of this hardcore like my stuff. I've literally yelled at people on a sales call beforehand, not in an aggressive way like come on, let's go and have them been like okay, like. I've tried every single, every single strategy, from like soft call selling. I've tried every strategy, from like going really hard and you know this is the hack and you're gonna learn everything in this. So make sure you're giving value during that call. It's your mission to share something right, every chance to help someone. I'm not exaggerating.
Speaker 1:I have had a man who is in prison in America on the phone with me right During a sales call. I don't know how he got booked in. I just ran him through a powerful meditation because he had people that were relying on him. There was like deaths in his family. He had people that were relying on him. There was like deaths in his family. He was mourning and grieving someone. He had a bad car accident and I was like you know, I'm here to serve this guy. So I went through a meditation with him. He was just thanking me so much before we got off the call and I just spent 15 minutes. I was like, okay, well, he's here now I might as well help someone, for today made me feel awesome. I went out there. I crushed it, right.
Speaker 1:So fourth step is start your call by explaining the purpose of the call and the intention, right. That is what's the whole purpose of the call. So I'm here today to give you a mindset call. Where did you find me? How did we get to this product? How did you get to this service? Right? The purpose is today is you know, I'm going to run you through this, right? I'm going to give you this amount of value, okay? And then the attention around the call is let them know that you're there to sell them something, right? Don't beat around the bush and then get to the end of the call and say, oh, but I'd like you to buy this, and you'll be like what the hell? So at the very start, tell them what you're doing and the process of what it looks like to buy. So it's sort of like running through a webpage.
Speaker 1:So what it looks like when you're on the call to someone is you want to say to them just letting you you the value. I'm going to run you through our offer and which service, offer, product program will be a good fit for you, and I'll let you know which one that I think will be the best fit. Then, if not, at least we get a good chance to hang out. You get to receive this and I'm going to send it to you straight afterwards. But what it looks like to buy is I take a payment over the, over the zoom, I send you an email or a DM or a text message with whatever it is, and then in my community, you get an onboarding call straight away. So they know what's happening.
Speaker 1:If you're selling a product, it's like cool, so what it looks like is I'll send you the link. You'll put in your card detail, I'll send you the link. You buy the product. And do I do this? Because when they're on a sales call, they're like do I send you the money? Do you send me a link? Do I wait a few days? Do I got to go to a website? Do I invoice you? Do you invoice me? What's happening here? They're confused. So let them know what that's going to look like from the point of view. They'll say, okay, sure, that sounds good to me. And you go awesome, let's get into it. So tell them straight away, right? Otherwise you're just beating around the bush. Ugh, gross, ugh, ugh, ugh. Let them know, right? That's the fourth step. Fifth step is two.
Speaker 1:This is your note-taking on your call. So I'm going to share my screen. So you guys, if you have access to the set, the standing community. You get access to all this for you guys. You're gonna have to write down notes, sorry, sorry, but they, they get. They get a little bit extra. They get a little bit extra, right so? But then we'll leave some notes in the youtube comments below you can have a look at, like the actual steps. We'll summarize them for you. So this is the most important step. So if you're taking notes, you want to be listening for objections, at the same time getting clear on the value that you want to give them, at the same time really listening to their story and their problems and noting down extra content or objections for your next sales call, right? So that's the whole process. So it takes a little bit of time, right?
Speaker 1:The questions you want to ask during the process of the call are how long has this been a problem? What happens if you don't do this? What happens if you don't buy this product? Jump on this offer, join this service. The best question you can ever ask is the or question A-W-E, or what else, what else and what else? What else is there? What else would you like? What else do you need to tell me? Ask those questions, because that enables people to dig deeper.
Speaker 1:And then they might say something along the lines of you know, if I'm doing one of my sales calls, they might say, yeah, well, I've really needed help with my confidence because I've been doubting in myself. I haven't been sticking to my routine as much recently and I've been stuck on this 15K a month cap and I improve my relationships and be more confident. And then I'll say to them okay, well, how long has this been a problem for you? They go, oh, it's been like this long, so okay. So what happens if you don't work on your confidence? And they say, oh, this will go, okay, well, what else is going wrong as well? And start asking them right. So that's how you play with the conversation.
Speaker 1:And then and that's how you dig other question you can ask is on a scale of one to ten, where are you? So, for example, it could be for us we extract people's potential. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, we're at your maximum potential. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your services here? On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your efforts with this? And they say yes, no, how happy are you with the solutions that you've been getting currently, and they might say 7. And you go okay, this is what example of what I use.
Speaker 1:So as I go through, I write down and make sure I have everyone's name, age, how they found me, their income and any notes that they've left personally. So if you have a calendar form or you have with high level or any sort of software that you use and you have like a form that you fill or Google form, whatever it is, before someone comes into you and finds you, make sure that you have some of these like questions and that's what you want to fill out and have on your page before you start asking these questions so that you know where this person is at. Then, when you start note-taking note-taking, note-turkey there's a bit of start note-taking. You want to have your own process that you have, which is unique to you, that actually solves someone's problem, and if you haven't got this, I strongly suggest finding it. If you need some help, come join us and set the standard community, I'll teach you, but if not, figure it out yourself.
Speaker 1:Look at your product, look at your, your offer, look at your service and be like okay, what is the main three phases or areas that this thing fixes. And then I want to list all of these people's problems into these areas and then we give them back to them so when they walk away, at least they go wow, this is like my exact problems, that I need to fix them. Like, thank you so much for putting them in here for me. Like this is great, you can send that to them. That's a high quality piece of value that they have. Otherwise, um, you're just leaving a lot of cash up for grabs, right, and it's just. They're going to go, you know, go see someone else.
Speaker 1:But you want to get clear on that process for you. I'm going to give you I'm not going to give you my one, because secret sauce, but I'm just going to give you one that's sort of similar, right. So you could say, for section, I'd write this down on a page, so it sort of looks like this so they have notes to take, right, you got learn, take action, achieve your goal, fears, motivations, content, right. So you want to be asking them questions and if there's anything that they need to learn that they don't know yet, I'd list it under here. Say, okay, this is what this person needs to learn If there's anything this person needs to take action on, like.
Speaker 1:This is meant for a service-based company. Let's say, for example, you're selling human resources, right? You're selling not human resources. You're selling what is it called, not human resources. You're selling what is it called with recruitment, right, you're selling recruitment. So you help people, like they come to you and then you give them employees, right, and you help them find other people. They come to you, you go, I'll post it on secret, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So what do they need to learn, like? What do they not? Okay, actually, let's just swap that to pt, so sorry, we'll change it to personal trainer, right? What does someone need to learn? They might need to learn training, nutrition, whatever. It is okay. But what don't they know? Right? It could be like counting calories, counting their macros, right, taking action could be okay. What do they need to take action on? Downloading the apps? They haven't downloaded the apps. Accountability they need to make sure that they are training five days a week, four days a week. They're walking like, what are they taking? What do they want to take action on? Right and then achieve their goals? What does that look like? What does that look like? Losing 10 kilos, losing five kilos, gaining two kilos of muscle, like whatever it is. Get more flexible, okay. What are their goals? You want to put them in here as you're writing.
Speaker 1:You also want to get clear on their fears. What are they afraid of? These are the questions. You know what happens if you don't do this. What happens if you go 10 years and this doesn't happen and you don't take action on any of this? So you want to get clear on their fears and then relate them back to that, like just letting you know. You know this is what you're afraid of and if you don't face them, you'll never achieve xyz.
Speaker 1:Same thing with the product. Someone might be buying a digital product that can help them solve something that's in their business. Right, it's like what are their fears if they don't have the product and they don't get the software from you and you're selling a software their business is going to go. So you want to get clear. What is that going to feel like? What is that going to look like? Okay, so that they can understand like wow, this is actually truly important for me and you're the one who's taking the time, the energy, the effort and the care right. You're taking the care to actually hear this person's fears and making sure that it aligns with your product, service or offer Motivations.
Speaker 1:You want to get clear on what their motivations are. So what is their? What do they want to feel? What do they want to experience Like? What is their? How does your service solve a bigger problem, right? So it could be like oh man, like, my motivation is I really want to have time for my family. My motivation is I want to set the standard for my family. I want to have, like, I want to set the standard for my family. I want to have, like. I want to not just make more money when I have more freedom, I want to feel like I can provide. Right, I might feel like I just have all these emotions. I just want to feel relief, right? What are these emotions and motivations that people have that they want to feel?
Speaker 1:And then you want to make sure that you write down content, right, because anything that someone's mentioning in this sales call can be an awesome piece of content for you to put on a website. Make. Make a reel out of, make some stories out of, make some posts out of, make a YouTube video out of which is really going to help them and help other people, you to reach other people, and it's specific, dialed in content. So make sure you want to have that, and I sort of put that down the bottom. And then you want to list down your objections, so to make sure when someone says no or they're on a sales call, what you want to do is talk about those objections before you get to the objections Extremely important. So that's how I note take, right, I put all of them in there. Put all of them so I can see, right, and I can revisit them later on.
Speaker 1:The sixth step to take is closing the call. Right, this is the sales part. This is where you ask for the money. This is where you get the dollars, baby. So what I would say, as I always mention, I'm just going straight into like reading off of here so that you guys can hear and listen and absorb this is, this is what you want to say. Cool, so I have everything I need from you and I'm certain that this particular office service product will be the best fit for you. So what I want to do is share my screen and go over my notes and then we can get you signed up notes and then we can get you signed up. Does that sound good to you? They say, yep, nope, yep, cool. So then you go over your notes, you share your screen, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. You just share them everything. This is what I learned about you. This is your takeaway. This is a piece of value. This is how you can use this. This is how you can use that, and they'll be like this is awesome. Right, simplified. For me, this is great. This is why I need this so much. It makes me feel calm, right.
Speaker 1:Then you transition to the sale. So if you'd like to jump on or invest into offer, I can run you through the structure. Or if you have any questions, we can start there. What I like to do before this one is go, say, say to them regularly so I understand where you're at and there's some gaps and what you're currently doing here, here and there, and what we don't know is how to fill those gaps up yet. But what I can do is teach you how to fill those up, or show you how to fill those up, and they go yes, that's fantastic and I'm like well, what's that done is through my program, so I can run you through the structure of that and if you're happy with it, we can we jump on and start there. Or if you have any questions, let me know, and they say, okay, most of the time people are like no, no questions, they might have one or two, but usually not. And then they come in and they go cool, run me through the structure.
Speaker 1:Then you run them through the structure, run them through your offer. Right, if it's my offer, it's like, hey, cool, we got one-on-one coaching every single month. Hell, yeah, we've got 70 modules of education in the platform where creating new modules and new education, with guest speakers coming in every single month, and we also have a private community and forum that you can come and join and come to anytime. Come and absolutely kick some ass with us, right? So that's like an offer that I run through in terms of the structure for someone and then when someone says okay, when? So that's like an offer that I run through in terms of the structure for someone and then when someone says okay, when you run them through the structure, then you convert to the pricing, depending on what pricing options you have. So we have two. We got like a six months of the 12 months. Depending on when you're listening to, this may not be there, but currently we have a six months of the 12 month. So we run through and we say this is the price of the six month and this is the monthly price. This is the price of the 12 month, which is a little bit cheaper, which for staying longer, and this is what it costs per month. So people can go on a monthly or they can pay it in upfront. Does that sound? Which one do you want to go for? Right, that's what we got to go through. You just run them through your offer the price and then you always finish at the end which one would you like to go for?
Speaker 1:And then you remain silent, like you know any watch, anyone good at sales. In this particular form, you remain completely signed. Let them ask a couple of questions themselves and just nod, even when they're like oh okay, so what do you think about this option? And you just go like make a movement, right. So they go okay, and they take that as an answer and they go. So just let them really think and ponder that over for a while, if they need to. Most of the time, if you've done a really good job. They'll say sign me up, let's hit it right.
Speaker 1:So if they say yes, then you take them through the the process of purchasing and remember the sale is not over until the money leaves their bank account. Sale doesn't count until the money leaves their bank account and it's in your bank account doesn't count unless it's in your bank account, right, otherwise the sale does not count. There are so many times and so many promises that I have had from people that have never come to fruition. Right, all the time they say they say something and they're like yep, yep, yep, for sure, for sure, for sure, and it doesn't happen. That's where I follow a good follow-up strategy. You can get them. I'll teach you that as well in a second.
Speaker 1:So if they say no, now it comes to objection handling. Right so, but before objection handling, you want to make sure you're asking these type of questions in the sales calls. You want to be asking questions about their objections. So that way, when they get to the objection part, they're like well, you've answered every single doubt in my brain. Hell, yeah, I'm jumping on. You want to ask questions like this. This is finding their objections and this is a few. That is included in this. What do they think of this? Do they like this? Do they support you? Do they think this is going to be good for you? X, y, z Are you prepared to put in the time? They say, hell, yeah, I'm prepared to put in the time.
Speaker 1:Then an objection comes. You say, well, okay, you just told me have you invested in whatever your offer service product is before? Have you ever invested in this before? Have you invested in yourself before? Have you ever done this before? And that's to engage a financial conversation. And you go, oh, okay, and so you've saved up the finances to get X, y, z. You put yourself all and they can have a conversation like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, even though or yes, I'm struggling a little bit. I say, okay, but you've got access because you want to get into this ASAP, right, and you want to get this thing so that it can really help you in the future. I'll let you know this for sure If you're not confident on your skills, what you can deliver product, service or sales and you're having the financial conversation for people you best believe, you've got some money mindset work to do. Like that is legit, straight up money mindset work you have to do in terms of self-worth, product worth, whatever it is. Where you can get over the fact that are you the best person, is your product, the best product, is your offer, the best offer for someone to come and help, whatever their problem is.
Speaker 1:I do a lot of this myself and I remember I was on a sales call with someone who was like literally broken. They had like injuries and problems and mental stuff in their head and I was was like where else is this guy going to go? And he's cause he jumped on and he was like you know, I was like I'm not a hundred percent sure if this is going to be a good fit. And he's like where else am I going to go? And I was like what is your schedule? Like You're getting clearer to see if this person has the time to do it right, they can actually fit it in their schedule. Or do you have the motivation to do tasks?
Speaker 1:I'll directly people. I'll directly ask people like can you shop once a week for an hour on a group call? Can you spend an hour or two worth of study? And can you check in on our platform for roughly 10 minutes every single day to communicate to the guys? They go yep, yep, yep, yep. Cool, now they know what's required, right? Very important to get those objections out the way earlier on.
Speaker 1:So if they say no, the first thing you say is you're right, of course, that makes sense. Yes, I agree with you, any of those things go. Yes, that's really really good. They say. They say they say no, they're like oh, I'm not too sure about xyz. And be like yeah, well, of course, right, I haven't explained this as deeply as I can to you. So the question so what happens again if you don't go along with this? That's the question you want to ask them. They go well, this, this is it reminds them. They go okay. Then you say and how much do you think that's going to cost you in the long run? Right, if they're not buying the product, service or offer. They say oh, you know like way more, we just went over that. Yeah, cool, so wouldn't it make sense for you then to jump on this now, like sooner rather than later? And they go oh, yeah, yes, absolutely, let's jump on. That happens. If not, they say no again.
Speaker 1:You say well, okay, would you like me to push you, or are you just a little unclear and uncertain at the moment, because sometimes people are like, oh yeah, I want to push man, like, push me, let's go, like I need that push to make this purchase right. Or you say, or are you a little uncertain, a little unclear? And they go, yes, I'm actually a little bit uncertain and I'm a little bit unclear, cool. And you say, all right, let's zoom out for a second, regardless of money, from what I've heard from you, is this offer right for you? It sounds like it is, but if it's not, I don't want to waste your time. We don't have to waste each other's time. You can let me know, does this sound good to you? Because that's a little bit of a pull away. Like, ooh, pull away. Let's say, yes, right, yes, this was.
Speaker 1:I really want to do it, regardless of money. If it does come down, be a lot more difficult. That's a question that you're going to ask around. Okay, well for you. How are you going to fit it to your schedule? What can you remove from your schedule? Can you not remove anything from your schedule? Where's your position at? Okay, so if you remove this from your schedule and you mentioned it to me beforehand now you're going to have time to to grab this product.
Speaker 1:Okay, are you willing to do that? Because, if not, I don't want to waste your time, but if you are, then you get to get this. You get to solve all your problems that we've just listed out. Okay, that's excellent, right? So you say let's zoom out for a second. Regardless of this money, is this offer right for you? Because, regardless of money, we don't want to waste your time. And they say, yes, yes, it, yes, it is right, you go, okay. So I don't want you to make any decision you don't want to make. It's your decision. It's not my decision, right?
Speaker 1:But it seems to me that hesitation, procrastination, whatever they're doing, whatever that's happening right now, might come up for you quite regularly, right, and this is your chance to break it, or not? So what's the fear? Right? I was asking what's the fear there? What are you fearful of right now? And they'll say oh, you know, I'm just really scared of this and I'm really scared of that, and you go, okay, like, I understand your fear, but this is your moment, right? If you want to jump on this now, this is the time. You've got this perfect opportunity. I can whack it in for you right now.
Speaker 1:What do you think, if they say no, one more time, give them three pushes. It's a soft sell, right, follow them up. You want to play the follow-up game. If they say, yes, bang, all right, all I need from you is your details. Let's punch it in now, let's get you started. But I don't think, bang, sale, let's go. Everyone's making money. Oh yeah, right, if they don't, you're going to jump to the eighth step and this is the follow-up game. The follow-up game is a longer game. You go cool. So, all right, you're not making the decision now.
Speaker 1:When do you think is going to be the best time for you? And what do you need in the meantime? Before getting service, getting product, getting offer? Right, ask them when's that going to be Okay? And are you certain that you 100% need this? Because I don't want to follow you up. If no, we don't have to, but I'm happy to send you something. Happen to talk to you further, happen to go through whatever it is that you need. And they go oh my God, thank you so much for letting me know this. X Y Z.
Speaker 1:You say cool, I have some time and you choose the time. Next week at this time, I can follow you up then, right and they say, yes, that would be absolutely fantastic. You schedule in, you book it in to talk to them. Then, right, for the whole week you talk to them. Don't wait until that time to chat to them as soon as you jump off the call. Be like man, thank you so much. Like that was an awesome call. I just sent you through the notes that you can look at them. That was like awesome. Is there anything else that I can help you with? In the meantime? I? I've got this video. I've got this podcast. You can send it to someone else's podcast, someone else's video. You can send them a case study. I've got this case study. I've got someone else having this product. You can have a look at it here if you like and they go yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Then you follow them up the day after hey, did you get a chance to look at that product? Because they want to know man, this guy cares about, know that I'm safe, I know they're going to take care of me, I know they're going to look after me. And you do that until the next sales call. By then they've probably already jumped on. When you jump on, you have the follow-up call. You say so, ready to jump on or what, and they go yep, let's go. Happens so often.
Speaker 1:So now instead're getting to like a 30, 40, 50% but you're not doing this aggressive buy my stuff, buy my stuff. And the people aren't leaving like, oh my God, I hated that call. It was so pushy. Three pushes, two to three pushes.
Speaker 1:Right, those questions are really good and you'll get good at them, like the ones that you know wouldn't make sense to get off of now. Do you need me to push you or do you need a little unclear and a little uncertain, right? Those questions are fantastic for getting clear and then being like, okay, well, would you want to jump on now? Then Then they say no, you go, all right. Well, of course, I can see why you'd be feeling like that, so let's dive into that a little bit further, right? So you're actually taking the time because purchasing for people is a big thing, right?
Speaker 1:If you've ever purchased anything over five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand, whatever it is, it's like whoa, this is a bit of a moment, even if it's $200 a week, depending on the service. Like, whatever you're offering, people are like whoa, this is going to be challenging for me, so you want to support them along that journey and if you take care of them, you're the winner. So if you like this and if you need a little bit more help, come and join Set the Standard community. Jump in our calls. I'll help you figure everything out. I'll help you figure everything out. Craft this so that you can absolutely crush it. If not, then please give us a follow. If you like this, give us a share, give us a follow. We'll see you guys in the next one. Big love, thank you for sticking around watching this whole thing.