Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Stop Losing Deals and Win More High-Value Clients With Howard Fisher

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Stop Losing Deals and Win More High-Value Clients With Howard Fisher · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  Hey, sell me this pen. How would you approach that
• 0:02
  situation? Sit back and ask some open-ended
• 0:04
  questions. Why do you need the pen?
• 0:06
  What do you use the pen for? How often do you use it?
• 0:09
  What are the alternatives to using the pen?
• 0:11
  How do you think AI impacts sales?
• 0:13
  I think it's wonderful technology when looked at the
• 0:16
  right light, make humans a lot more efficient.
• 0:18
  And buyers are now 60 to 80% of the way sold by the time they
• 0:21
  reach out to a sales Rep if they're more educated than ever
• 0:24
  before. What does this mean from a sales
• 0:26
  standpoint? It gives you a little bit of an
• 0:27
  advantage because. My best sales conversations are
• 0:30
  the deep ones where I ask a lot of questions and don't do a ton
• 0:33
  of talking. Do you see that being a problem
• 0:35
  with salespeople and sales teams that they just want to talk and
• 0:37
  sell? Absolutely.
• 0:39
  Do you think cold calling is still effective?
• 0:40
  I never believed in cold callings.
• 0:43
  I go talk to business owners and I'll ask, tell me about a cold
• 0:46
  call you responded to that you're currently doing business
• 0:49
  with that company. And the answer 100% of time is I
• 0:52
  don't have time to answer the cold calls.
• 0:57
  So Howard Fisher, founder of Pantera, I was just looking at
• 1:02
  your LinkedIn. I had a question come in from we
• 1:04
  have a founder talk club, which I'll invite you to if you're not
• 1:08
  a part of afterwards, but guests have a certain VIP lounge in
• 1:10
  there where you guys can mingle as founders.
• 1:13
  And then everyone else has access to the, the public chat,
• 1:15
  the behind the scenes. And I always ask questions.
• 1:17
  I say, hey, I got this guest coming on.
• 1:19
  Here's their background, their area of expertise.
• 1:21
  Give me a question or two that you'd want me to ask the guest.
• 1:24
  So I'm going to start with this question because you help
• 1:25
  companies that are experiencing challenges related to sales
• 1:29
  would be a fairway to kind of sum up what you do obviously a
• 1:32
  lot to that. But in summary, and the first
• 1:35
  question I got when I said that in the group was, and this stems
• 1:38
  from you've seen The Wolf of Wall Street, right?
• 1:40
  And at the end of that movie, this is the question that came
• 1:43
  in. The guy Jordan Belfort, who
• 1:45
  plays is played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
• 1:48
  He's in the audience and he has a pen in his hand and he goes,
• 1:52
  sell me this pen. And the question was, what would
• 1:55
  Howard say if that were to be the scenario that he was in
• 1:59
  where someone was saying, hey, sell me this pen, How would you
• 2:02
  approach that situation? Yeah.
• 2:04
  So first of all, Alex, thanks for having me.
• 2:06
  It's a pleasure to be here. I think a lot of a lot of times
• 2:10
  when that question is asked, the answer usually is to that person
• 2:17
  to actually go into action and try and sell you that pen in a
• 2:21
  certain way and try and push it on you because I have a product
• 2:26
  and you might have a need. My philosophy in working with
• 2:29
  clients is we slow down the speed up.
• 2:31
  And what I mean by that in this specific scenario is I think
• 2:35
  it's a really great opportunity for the person who's trying to
• 2:40
  sell the pen to sit back and ask some open-ended questions.
• 2:43
  Why do you need the pen? What do you use the pen for?
• 2:46
  How often do you use it? What happens when you don't have
• 2:50
  the pen? What are the alternatives to
• 2:52
  using the pen? What have you tried in the past?
• 2:55
  What has worked, what hasn't worked?
• 2:57
  And try and really understand the value that a buyer would
• 3:00
  have for that particular product and service.
• 3:02
  I think another aspect is, is that people a lot of times can
• 3:07
  talk about value or a problem they have, but a lot of sales
• 3:11
  people don't actually ask how important is it that you solve
• 3:15
  that problem? Because there's a lot of people,
• 3:17
  Alex, that like to talk about problems that they have, like to
• 3:20
  kick the can down the road. They're looking for kind of like
• 3:23
  free advice and what maybe they can like reformulate into a new
• 3:26
  idea. But I always say that to really
• 3:30
  qualify a potential buyer, it's not only to identify that they
• 3:35
  have a problem and you have a product or solution that can
• 3:37
  solve it, but are they? Do they have the strategic
• 3:42
  importance and emphasis behind him and energy to want to solve
• 3:45
  that problem? And if that answer is yes, then
• 3:48
  that to me qualifies someone as really interested in spending
• 3:53
  more time with me and my company to understand if we truly are
• 3:57
  the right fit for them. I agree.
• 4:00
  I think that's a good one. I think we oftentimes we either
• 4:03
  get an answer, maybe it's a surface level answer and we want
• 4:06
  to attack on that. Like you need a pen.
• 4:08
  Oh great, 'cause I'm glad you need it because this is the
• 4:10
  exact pen you need and This is why it's going to do for you
• 4:12
  And, and it's like you haven't even figured out why they would
• 4:15
  want it. What happens if they don't get
• 4:16
  the pen? How urgent is it for them to
• 4:19
  actually have the pen or solve the problem?
• 4:22
  I find that you have to go. My best sales conversations are
• 4:24
  the deep ones where I ask a lot of questions and do uncovering
• 4:28
  and don't do a ton of talking. Do you see that being a problem
• 4:31
  with salespeople and sales teams that they just want to talk,
• 4:34
  talk, talk and sell instead of actually just sitting back and
• 4:36
  being calm and listening and asking questions and getting
• 4:39
  curious? Absolutely.
• 4:42
  And I think that's probably a number one problem that I see
• 4:46
  when I do work with salespeople in the field is, is that there's
• 4:49
  a lot of pressure that sales leadership and management puts
• 4:52
  about key performance metrics. KP is calls, meetings, how many
• 4:58
  opportunities do you open, all of which are important to build
• 5:00
  the front funnel to figure out what's going to drop out that
• 5:03
  underneath it in order to make your revenue and your profit
• 5:05
  number. But at the same time,
• 5:08
  salespeople will rush the sales process and once again, my
• 5:13
  philosophy, slow down the speed up and so kind of understand
• 5:16
  where we are. So if we're in an initial
• 5:18
  meeting and it's kind of a get to know you, I talked to my
• 5:21
  sales team and my sales leaders and the, and the business owners
• 5:24
  I work with is like, let's celebrate the mini win and let's
• 5:27
  just establish what is the mini win out of this conversation.
• 5:31
  So if I'm meeting you for the first time, unless it's a very
• 5:34
  commoditized product and I'm going to win on price and you
• 5:37
  have an immediate need. If it's something more that a
• 5:40
  professional service or some sort of software product, you
• 5:44
  have to basically do your due diligence and take your time and
• 5:48
  listen and ask questions. So the mini win in that first
• 5:50
  conversation, which is usually 5 or 10 minutes, is to get you to
• 5:54
  commit to 1/2 hour discovery conversation where we really can
• 6:00
  do a deeper dive into not just do you need a pen, but I want to
• 6:04
  understand, do you understand what that pen actually does?
• 6:08
  And how does it actually not just benefit one act, but does
• 6:10
  it, does it help you do multiple things?
• 6:13
  And if it does, then the value is much higher because if you
• 6:16
  don't have that one instrument, you can't do a litany of things,
• 6:19
  not just one thing. And so we do, we spend a lot of
• 6:23
  time in our coaching celebrating mini wins, which and I also
• 6:27
  share with my sales teams that I do coach, which is also stop
• 6:31
  when you get that. So if we're talking and I'm
• 6:34
  like, you know, Alex, this has been a really good conversation.
• 6:36
  That sounds like you might have a problem and we might have a
• 6:39
  solution. Do you have 30 minutes in the
• 6:42
  next week so that we can actually do a deeper dive?
• 6:45
  Yes, Howard, I do great. Wednesday at 1:00 work for you
• 6:48
  works perfect. Great.
• 6:49
  Stop, close the meeting. You've done your job.
• 6:53
  Don't try and then turn that into, well, if you have another
• 6:56
  30 minutes, we could do this all now and then I can get you the
• 6:58
  proposal and then you can sign tomorrow.
• 7:01
  Allow the person that you're working with to help you dictate
• 7:07
  the sense of urgency and how quickly this is going to move.
• 7:10
  And though I do believe salespeople need to control the
• 7:13
  sales cycle, you can't force a sale on someone in order to meet
• 7:18
  kind of your, your metrics. That may be important to you in
• 7:21
  a one-on-one meeting. But in that particular instance,
• 7:24
  my sole goal is to get you to commit to a discovery meeting.
• 7:28
  And in the discovery meeting, my sole goal is to really validate
• 7:32
  your need and my solution and cultural fit.
• 7:35
  Can we work together as business partners?
• 7:37
  And if that's yes, yes and yes, then my only goal after that is
• 7:40
  like Alex, with the next appropriate step for me to share
• 7:43
  with you what the investment looks like.
• 7:45
  And when a proposal, yes, it is. And then I'm asking questions
• 7:48
  about if I were to get you a proposal in the next two days,
• 7:51
  what are your next steps? I want to understand, are you
• 7:54
  the sole decision maker? Do you have to bring other
• 7:56
  people in? How quickly do you think you
• 7:58
  want to make a decision? All those things Then help me
• 8:01
  kind of not just prioritize my time with you, but also allow me
• 8:05
  to structure and then manage the information up through my
• 8:08
  pipeline to my leader about, you know, when and if this deal is
• 8:11
  going to come in. So I want to ask you more about
• 8:14
  the meeting, but I want to we're going to kind of systematically
• 8:16
  break it down with like maybe cold call meeting, closing, all
• 8:20
  that stuff here in a second. But I love where you're going
• 8:22
  with this. It almost seems like because you
• 8:25
  have the pressure to want to like get a deal, whether you're
• 8:28
  the owner, founder or sales Rep, you've got leadership, how many
• 8:31
  deals you have, how many are closing?
• 8:33
  What's your forecast? What's your revenue?
• 8:35
  It almost seems like because of that, it's sometimes
• 8:38
  unintentionally forces sales reps to be a little bit more.
• 8:42
  I got to sell, I got to sell, I got to sell.
• 8:44
  But what that does is actually hurts their sales game.
• 8:47
  And then they actually end up selling less.
• 8:49
  So it's almost like they think they're trying to sell more and
• 8:51
  be more aggressive and they need to talk more about the product
• 8:54
  and service and get right to the close in reality because they
• 8:57
  feel so much pressure sometimes and reality that's actually
• 9:00
  hurting them. Absolutely.
• 9:02
  So common thing, slow down the speed up.
• 9:05
  So in those situations where you feel like you're getting
• 9:08
  pressed, what happens when the stress level goes up most of the
• 9:13
  times, and there's a lot of studies out there that the brain
• 9:17
  doesn't work as efficiently and effectively because it's
• 9:19
  stressed. And when it's stressed, it's
• 9:21
  survival mode, right? And because it's survival mode,
• 9:24
  it's only doing those things that will make me survive more
• 9:30
  likely than something else. Which means in a sales
• 9:33
  situation, if I'm forcing all this conversation unnecessarily
• 9:37
  or moving the sale a quicker than it needs to be moved, I am
• 9:42
  going to miss things. If I miss things, to your point,
• 9:46
  I might get the win, but what if that win ends up being a
• 9:50
  complete and total nightwear mirror for operations to
• 9:54
  actually service? And if that operations team has
• 9:58
  to step back and spend more time than anticipated because we
• 10:01
  didn't ask the right questions, what does that do to
• 10:03
  profitability? Well, profitability goes down.
• 10:06
  So the end of the day for a business owner, yes, I want to
• 10:10
  grow my top line revenue, but I don't want to do it at the
• 10:13
  sacrifice of my profit. Because if I'm running
• 10:17
  $1,000,000 profitable business and I want to grow to $5,000,000
• 10:22
  in revenue and let's just say want to get to a, you know, a
• 10:25
  $2,000,000 in EBITDA. But when I get the growth, I'm
• 10:30
  too, you know, I'm now I'm at 500,000 because I don't know how
• 10:33
  to manage the growth. Then we're working really hard
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  for less. And so when I, when I meet
• 10:39
  business owners, well, now they burn out.
• 10:42
  But then you're hiring and firing, you're doing, you're
• 10:46
  pulling back on things. Maybe your service isn't where
• 10:48
  you need it to be. You're not innovating new
• 10:50
  products and services. The challenge I think with most
• 10:54
  business owners when I meet them is like, well, I'm a 5 million
• 10:57
  or a 10 million, I want to be double.
• 10:59
  And I say that's great. I go, let's talk about the stuff
• 11:03
  no one either really really understands or really wants to
• 11:06
  talk about. Let's talk about the PNL.
• 11:08
  Let's talk about what does that mean to your profit line?
• 11:11
  And if you were to grow Alex today from a $10 million
• 11:14
  business to a 20 million, what would, what would your
• 11:17
  organization look like? How many people would you have
• 11:19
  to have? If you're manufacturing, can you
• 11:21
  deliver $20 million under this brick and mortar or do you have
• 11:24
  to buy new property? And who would it fill all these
• 11:27
  roles? So there's this, there's these
• 11:30
  downstream impacts to growth that if business owners aren't
• 11:33
  anticipating and planning for, sometimes they get caught in
• 11:38
  this trap, which is hiring a bunch of salespeople, going out
• 11:41
  and closing deals, but then not being able to service them.
• 11:45
  And they don't, they don't, you know, that they're not able to
• 11:48
  achieve their objectives, which is the end of the day.
• 11:50
  We want to grow a profitable business because the more
• 11:52
  profitable it is, if you ever want to hand it off to your
• 11:55
  family or you want some sort of investment or strategic, they're
• 11:59
  going to be looking at that profitability to determine, you
• 12:02
  know, what is that factor that they're going to purchase that
• 12:05
  business for Multiplier. Where are companies struggling
• 12:08
  the most with sales? As you look at your, you know,
• 12:11
  portfolio of clients, you talk to prospects, where's the one or
• 12:14
  two areas that you feel like almost every company struggles
• 12:17
  when it comes to sales? I think there is a complete
• 12:21
  misunderstanding of what sales actually is and what it involves
• 12:26
  in the business community. Even at the leadership level.
• 12:28
  Yes, I think for most small and mid sized businesses, and I kind
• 12:34
  of go back to you had movie reference to start.
• 12:37
  So Moneyball, right, and where there's that comes like I think
• 12:41
  there's a fundamental understanding of where like runs
• 12:43
  come from. You know, it's not about, you
• 12:45
  know, it's about getting on base.
• 12:47
  You know, it's not about necessarily your batting
• 12:49
  average, right, It's these other things.
• 12:50
  It's the metrics behind it. So when I talk to, you know,
• 12:53
  most business owners and I work with family driven or founder
• 12:57
  LED businesses and they'll come to me with the premise sales are
• 13:01
  not going in the right direction.
• 13:03
  So they're disappointed or they're exhausted, they're
• 13:06
  wearing lots of hats, They think they're doing everything or
• 13:08
  discouraged because the exit I'm going to get is moving further
• 13:11
  away. And when we start to talk about
• 13:13
  sales, I, I really try and pull back a little bit.
• 13:16
  And so, so tell me a little bit about, you know, how do you plan
• 13:19
  to go to market to sell your products and services?
• 13:22
  What does that look like throughout the year?
• 13:24
  Who's doing what and what is worked and what are some areas
• 13:28
  of growth? And usually I'll get a very
• 13:30
  saddled answer. I will get a well, I hired these
• 13:34
  salespeople and I have no idea what they're doing, but I know
• 13:36
  that they're not growing sales and there are a lot of energy.
• 13:40
  OK, so it's my salespeople that's the problem.
• 13:43
  OK, Tell me a little bit about how you are managing and what
• 13:48
  technologies do you use in order to drive your sales team?
• 13:52
  You know, what client relationship management tool are
• 13:54
  you using? Is it homegrown?
• 13:56
  Are using something for your industry, are using some of the,
• 13:58
  you know what would be commonly known, a pipe drive, a Clarity
• 14:02
  HubSpot, a sales force, any of those.
• 14:05
  And a lot of times you'll hear it.
• 14:07
  Well, we haven't really invested in that or we don't use that or
• 14:10
  we bought on to 1, but no one ever used it.
• 14:14
  And then I'll say, and then I'll ask a question around, well,
• 14:18
  share me a little bit about what you go to market strategy is how
• 14:20
  do you actually market to your buyers who you are, what you do,
• 14:27
  what your value prop is, your special sauce, you know, vision,
• 14:30
  mission, purpose, your core values, all the things that
• 14:34
  people really want to know before they sign on.
• 14:36
  And a lot of times they'll either not have a clear vision
• 14:40
  of what they do or they'll share like what we do some posts on
• 14:42
  LinkedIn and I've got a website and I, I think the sales team
• 14:46
  sends out cold emails. And So what I, what I mean is,
• 14:49
  is that the business owners look at sales in segments and I
• 14:54
  believe that truly organizations that want to grow and
• 14:59
  historically, you know, clients that I've worked with, whether
• 15:02
  they've been in my business or when I was in corporate, where
• 15:05
  we've really grown as what you think about your growth of your
• 15:08
  organization as the business development ecosystem.
• 15:11
  And what do I mean by that? That's the intersection of
• 15:14
  sales, marketing and technology combined with how operations
• 15:19
  then supports all the inputs to the organization.
• 15:22
  And I think it's a very, it's a highly collaborative approach.
• 15:26
  Marketing exists in order to ignite the sales plan.
• 15:31
  The sales plan exists to fuel the business plan.
• 15:35
  I think that's the other component.
• 15:37
  When you asked about like what, what you know, business owners
• 15:39
  do that understand or not know. You'd be amazed at how many
• 15:42
  times I'll speak to a business owner and I'll say great, more
• 15:46
  than happy to kind of figure out how I might be able to help you.
• 15:49
  Share with me your 135710 year business plan and you'll get
• 15:54
  blank stares. You'll get what are you talking
• 15:57
  about? We're not going to hit my number
• 15:59
  this year. So you really need to kind of
• 16:03
  understand what is the vision for their organization If they
• 16:06
  don't have a fully baked business plan, at least try and
• 16:08
  get the business owner articulate.
• 16:10
  This is where I want to be in one that three or five years, I
• 16:12
  want to be 30 million. OK.
• 16:14
  And then you start peeling back down.
• 16:15
  You're asking some questions, but for me, it's the business
• 16:19
  development ecosystem. And if you can understand how
• 16:22
  those 3 components, marketing, sales and technology work, you
• 16:27
  can really build a robust sales operating system that an
• 16:32
  organization long after working with me, can have.
• 16:35
  Confidence, can grow year over year.
• 16:37
  And I think that's the key that some business owners miss is
• 16:42
  that really you're looking for the business development
• 16:45
  operating system to be a part of your organization.
• 16:49
  It's not necessarily about going out and finding the right
• 16:53
  salesperson or investing a boatload of money in LinkedIn
• 16:57
  ads or buying the most expensive CRM.
• 17:00
  It's a little bit of everything and it really did.
• 17:03
  You really need to find the right kind of shaft to partner
• 17:06
  with to pick the right pieces based on industry and direction
• 17:10
  and where you are today and where you want to go to kind of
• 17:13
  bake that entire business development operating system and
• 17:16
  then allow it to, you know, grow over time with the company and
• 17:21
  the culture. Why do you think the
• 17:22
  misalignment exists in the first place?
• 17:25
  People aren't slowing down the speed up.
• 17:27
  I mean, right business. I was, I didn't want to answer
• 17:29
  that, but I was, I was like the same thing we just talked about,
• 17:32
  right I. Mean that could be my.
• 17:33
  Answer. That's what it is in my mind,
• 17:35
  right? Yeah.
• 17:35
  Business owners are moving so quickly at the founder level and
• 17:39
  family run businesses that they want to get to the endpoint and
• 17:43
  the endpoint's really important. But going back to your earlier
• 17:46
  point about like when salespeople rush just to get the
• 17:49
  deal done and all that stuff that's missed, I believe if you
• 17:52
  do slow down the speed up, what you'll see is your velocity in
• 17:57
  order to close the right deals at the right time will actually
• 18:00
  improve over time then simply going after the incremental
• 18:04
  winds. It takes discipline to slow down
• 18:07
  the speed up. It really does.
• 18:09
  You know, I've been talking about that in marketing
• 18:11
  recently. Just people are like getting a
• 18:13
  post out, getting a post out getting, it's like it's not
• 18:15
  doing anything. You're posting more content and
• 18:18
  you're getting less results than you ever have before because
• 18:20
  it's just checking the box. It's just we're in a rush to
• 18:22
  get, get something out, post something on LinkedIn, post
• 18:24
  something on Instagram, do a pot, you know, and there's no
• 18:26
  intention. There's no thought behind it.
• 18:28
  There's no strategy behind it. There's no interconnectivity
• 18:31
  behind it, as you mentioned with sales, marketing and the
• 18:33
  operating system. And I think that's a, it's an
• 18:36
  art, It's a skill to, to slow down because you feel almost
• 18:39
  feel like you're missing out on something when you slow down.
• 18:42
  You feel like if I press the brakes a little bit, we might
• 18:45
  miss a sale, we might miss this, we might lose out on an
• 18:48
  opportunity here, you know, and it's, it's hard to to, to have
• 18:51
  that mindset. So I think, I think it's
• 18:53
  diligence, I think it's patience.
• 18:56
  I also believe it's having a business culture of holding
• 19:01
  people watch out accountable and responsible for the roles and
• 19:06
  responsibilities and the activities in the metrics.
• 19:10
  And that's another piece of this that is, you know, lacking in a
• 19:14
  lot of organizations. It's really done more
• 19:18
  subjectively. And at the end of the day, for a
• 19:21
  business, you have to figure out what matters and you have to
• 19:23
  measure it and has to be objectively.
• 19:25
  So I think that plays a little bit into it.
• 19:28
  I think another part is unfortunately, I think where we
• 19:31
  are as a society from the standpoint of always looking to
• 19:35
  your left and your right and feeling like you've got to be
• 19:38
  better by some sort of measure to the person or the company on
• 19:41
  your right or left. And I think each company has its
• 19:43
  own, like we all have our own journeys.
• 19:46
  They go own different paces and it's OK to slow down because
• 19:51
  slowing down will allow you to speed up.
• 19:54
  The last part on diligence that I'll share is that I don't think
• 19:58
  enough companies are truly. Living their vision, mission,
• 20:03
  purpose. I think they put it out there
• 20:05
  and their core values because they think every company needs
• 20:08
  to have it and they read it somewhere.
• 20:10
  We have to have it on your website.
• 20:12
  But I think the companies that live truly live vision, mission
• 20:15
  and purpose and their core values will hire to those.
• 20:19
  You'll bring people into your business and then it's all about
• 20:23
  serving the business and your clients based upon that vision,
• 20:26
  mission, purpose. And yes, it's important that
• 20:29
  everyone get paid and get paid reasonably and fairly for what
• 20:31
  they do. But the mind shift is I'm no
• 20:34
  longer coming to work to get my paycheck or my bonus.
• 20:37
  I'm coming to work in order to further the vision, mission and
• 20:40
  purpose because we all have these chosen values and believe
• 20:45
  that our product and service can better our clients in the long
• 20:48
  run. Do you feel like in your
• 20:49
  business you sometimes get caught up even in wanting to go
• 20:51
  too fast? Or are you pretty good about
• 20:53
  slowing down? That's a great question.
• 20:57
  I think I am intentionally comfortable with slowing down.
• 21:03
  I will say that it's not as easy to slow down when you get the
• 21:09
  great opportunity to talk to these business owners.
• 21:11
  And the reason why I left corporate was to give back to
• 21:15
  the small and mid sized business owners.
• 21:17
  And so I leave with I want to help.
• 21:19
  So sometimes my eagerness to help will not allow me to slow
• 21:24
  down. I'm actually speeding up.
• 21:26
  However, I think with transparency and all the
• 21:30
  relationships, especially in, you know, the services that I
• 21:33
  provide, if you are transparent, you can share with a client.
• 21:37
  Hey, look, we have a great opportunity in order to fulfill
• 21:42
  your vision. And here's what we're going to
• 21:44
  do. Just know in the 1st 6090 days,
• 21:47
  I'm working with another client and we're kind of wrapping
• 21:49
  things up. So we're going to start a little
• 21:51
  slow here, but then we're going to, you know, put gas on the
• 21:53
  fire. And so I think if you're
• 21:55
  transparent, people understand. It's when I think people take on
• 21:58
  too much work and make make everyone feel like, which you
• 22:02
  should, they're a high priority. But if you mislead people, then
• 22:05
  you get yourself in a bind because now you really are
• 22:10
  having to speed up and you're probably going to do what start
• 22:13
  missing things. You're not going to deliver to
• 22:15
  the level that you want. And eventually what will happen
• 22:18
  is it'll slow down your growth down the road.
• 22:23
  Even though you I think of sales training, coaching, generating
• 22:25
  revenue, a lot of what you do seems to be very culture, team,
• 22:29
  leadership focused as well as you get into a company because
• 22:32
  you start to realize it's not just about teaching some
• 22:35
  salesperson how to open up a call better.
• 22:38
  It's the fact that leadership doesn't isn't involved or they
• 22:41
  don't have a division or mission that there's no accountability.
• 22:44
  Would that be accurate to say? Yeah.
• 22:45
  I think you know when I look at kind of the markets pace
• 22:50
  marketplace of I guess what we're terming today fractional
• 22:54
  support and kind of like the growth engine area, so
• 22:57
  technology, operation, sales and marketing.
• 23:00
  I feel like my like my experiences working with small
• 23:03
  and mid size and enterprise companies over 25 years.
• 23:07
  I started my career as a attorney, a litigator.
• 23:09
  So I've had a interesting journey and gives me maybe just
• 23:12
  a little bit different perspective.
• 23:15
  I think that what my clients would share is, is that, yes,
• 23:21
  I've been retained to solve a sales problem, but the value I
• 23:26
  drive is way beyond that in that there's a lot more business
• 23:31
  coaching and ability to dig into my network when I see problems.
• 23:36
  So for example, had one client, had extreme growth in 18 months,
• 23:41
  basically doubled their revenue. And you know, the operations
• 23:46
  leader was trying to catch up on everything that was going on to
• 23:49
  service a double in demand and probably getting a little behind
• 23:54
  the 8 ball in financials in the strategy of the money, right?
• 23:57
  It's different when money's at a certain level and you're just
• 24:00
  kind of moving it, but then it's coming in at different paces.
• 24:03
  There's the strategy of how you use it and what you invest in
• 24:06
  and what levers. So just being able to be
• 24:09
  involved in those conversations that I could introduce that
• 24:13
  company to some fractional leaders in the financial space
• 24:16
  happens all the time when I go into companies and marketing and
• 24:19
  technology. And the other part of it is I
• 24:23
  think to get your point is like a lot of times clients won't
• 24:26
  know exactly where their issue is.
• 24:29
  And that's when I dovetail back into the business development
• 24:34
  ecosystem. And I with me and my, my
• 24:37
  organization, we'll come in and look at those 3 pillars, sales,
• 24:41
  marketing and technology. And especially with the influx
• 24:45
  of artificial intelligence and not really everyone
• 24:47
  understanding how we actually use that to better sales or
• 24:51
  better the organization. And it gives me a foundation for
• 24:54
  a holistic approach. So where my mind is, and I think
• 25:00
  where this industry is probably going is, is that coming out of
• 25:03
  COVID, everyone fractional. So every single business unit
• 25:08
  now has a potential fractional leader.
• 25:09
  And I think on the front end of it, I think we're you're going
• 25:12
  to start to see consolidation where people are going to say,
• 25:14
  you know what, why do I have to go out, get a sales or marketing
• 25:17
  and a technologist? Isn't there one company or one
• 25:20
  organization that kind of bring that all in and then kind of
• 25:24
  understand how all these things work and then put a plan
• 25:27
  together that might be, we're doing a little bit of marketing,
• 25:30
  a little bit sales and technology at the same time,
• 25:32
  rather than, well, let's do marketing 1st and then we'll do
• 25:35
  the sales and then we'll bring the technology because that
• 25:38
  really slows you down because now you're, you're moving in
• 25:41
  year increments where I think the other way that I see it,
• 25:44
  more companies being willing to go down, you know, trunks that
• 25:48
  down in two months. I definitely see that you
• 25:52
  mentioned go to market strategy. There's probably some founders
• 25:55
  CE OS listening right now saying I don't know if we have a go to
• 25:58
  market strategy. How would you know if you have
• 26:00
  one? What is 1 at a high level?
• 26:03
  So go to market strategy is critical for a business.
• 26:08
  It's critical because it defines a few things.
• 26:11
  First of all, it's who is your ideal client profile?
• 26:15
  What is that traditional buyer look like?
• 26:19
  And what I try and work with my clients on when I'm starting to
• 26:24
  on board them and have conversation is it's not the
• 26:27
  complete universe of ideal client profiles.
• 26:30
  I want to know of those ideal client profiles who's more
• 26:33
  probable to buy our products or service.
• 26:38
  Anything is possible. I want to work in probabilities
• 26:40
  because the problem if the probability is high, then I can
• 26:44
  leverage volume and I can leverage focus in order to turn
• 26:48
  convert those more into win. If you tell me I got to go this
• 26:51
  far and every if everyone's possible, well, the
• 26:54
  possibilities might be endless, but your ability to convert
• 26:57
  isn't. The other part is buyer persona,
• 27:00
  which is really just the title, like who's the buyer, the normal
• 27:03
  buyer? Who are the influences?
• 27:04
  Do you know who they are? And I was just having this
• 27:08
  conversation with a logistics company that I just started
• 27:10
  working with. And we were talking about the go
• 27:15
  to market strategy, which they have pretty well defined.
• 27:19
  But when we were bringing on the new sales people, it was like a
• 27:23
  lot of two people will focus on here's my ICP, ideal client
• 27:26
  profile, my buyer persona, BP, OK, and now I'm just going to go
• 27:30
  sell. And I'm like, no, we have to dig
• 27:31
  deeper. And the question is, is that for
• 27:34
  that particular influencer buyer, what is the actual
• 27:38
  day-to-day business problem that they are facing that has to be
• 27:43
  solved with an external resource product, service?
• 27:47
  And more importantly, what happens if that is not solved?
• 27:52
  Like what's the impact? And if you, Alex, when you start
• 27:56
  to dig deeper and deeper, what we came out with is like,
• 27:59
  there's probably something about that failure in product or
• 28:03
  service that will eventually make me feel uncomfortable in a
• 28:08
  meeting with my boss because I'm not hitting my key performance
• 28:11
  metrics, whatever those might be for that product or service.
• 28:15
  So really get to the heart of the matter is the impact on the
• 28:19
  actual performance of your decision maker and really
• 28:23
  understanding how strategic is this problem because if it's
• 28:26
  critical, because if whatever the buyer's own, it's like if I
• 28:29
  don't have the right product and services and it's not driving up
• 28:33
  profitability, but it's driving profitably down and I'm
• 28:35
  responsible for that because I'm ACFO or in this case director of
• 28:40
  logistics, you know, things along those lines.
• 28:42
  Those are all things that will keep someone up at night, and
• 28:46
  that's the reason why you're talking to me, because you want
• 28:49
  to solve that critical problem. It does have to be a critical
• 28:53
  problem in most cases too. Otherwise there's just too many
• 28:56
  other things to do. You know, if it's not a critical
• 28:59
  thing, that's, you know, we need to solve this pretty urgently,
• 29:02
  it probably just won't get done. Or it'll get done on your own
• 29:07
  timeline, which, if I don't ask the questions, doesn't allow me
• 29:10
  as a salesperson to manage my day if my sales cycles are 45
• 29:14
  days and it's not a critical problem for you.
• 29:16
  And like, yeah, you know, Howard, I really do want to
• 29:18
  solve this problem. Great.
• 29:20
  On the list of problems you have, where does it rank?
• 29:24
  Well, it's 10th. OK.
• 29:26
  Does that mean that you're not going to get to it For how long?
• 29:30
  Probably not another year perfect.
• 29:32
  So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to touch base in about
• 29:35
  6 months to see if that escalates a little bit.
• 29:37
  And until then, we're going to, we're going to, if you don't
• 29:40
  mind, continue to share with you, you know, best practices
• 29:43
  and and kind of educate you a little bit more on our project.
• 29:45
  But when it becomes a significant problem, you know,
• 29:47
  we can re engage, allows me to manage my day, also allows me to
• 29:51
  be more credible with my boss and managing my pipeline because
• 29:53
  now that opportunity in my pipeline, I can put this is a
• 29:56
  2026 close and this is when I'm going to start to reengage.
• 30:00
  However, I talked to these other five buyers and by the way, it
• 30:03
  is problem number one and two, given our 45 day window, I have
• 30:07
  high confidence if work properly, these five will close
• 30:10
  in 45 days. Here's the revenue OPS can take
• 30:13
  that and put that into their model along with finance and
• 30:17
  figure out how that's going to drive the PNL for the year.
• 30:20
  That sounds like an actual real pipeline that you have there,
• 30:23
  Howard, versus some of them are skeletons.
• 30:26
  You know, I think it's where content can play a role too,
• 30:29
  right? Having good content hit their
• 30:31
  feet or get in front of them, whether it's e-mail or social
• 30:33
  media, LinkedIn, podcasting, having good content that
• 30:36
  continually nurtures them, but sometimes speeds up that process
• 30:40
  to where, you know, you check back in six months, but maybe
• 30:42
  they've seen content from you the past three months.
• 30:44
  It's getting them to say, man, this kind of is more of a
• 30:47
  critical problem than we thought.
• 30:49
  And maybe you're showing them some client success stories or
• 30:51
  so. Hey, this is what happens if you
• 30:52
  don't solve the problem. And so I think there's
• 30:54
  opportunity there. Speaking of content, how have
• 30:57
  you seen sales change over the last 1020 years?
• 31:01
  Well, I think the most obvious 1 Alex is educate.
• 31:03
  Buyers are now educated and instead of sales people engaging
• 31:06
  with buyers, the old knocking on doors or cold calling and kind
• 31:11
  of like generating that energy there, most buyers today will
• 31:15
  put a hand up to that because they can control how they're
• 31:19
  accessing the information and they will go educate themselves
• 31:22
  and they will raise their hand. And you know what, a lot of
• 31:25
  marketers call some sort of call to action.
• 31:27
  I'm going to get on the website and say call me, I'm going to
• 31:29
  put a phone call in. I'm going to respond to an
• 31:32
  e-mail. There's some sort of call to
• 31:34
  action. So I think that's the one
• 31:35
  significant change. On that really quickly say that
• 31:38
  buyers are 60 to 80% of the way through the buying cycle by time
• 31:42
  they reach out to sales. You think that's true?
• 31:45
  I, I, I, yes, I don't have any hard statistics on it across all
• 31:49
  my clients, but that sounds right because what you'll always
• 31:52
  hear from a salesperson is if someone raises their hand and
• 31:55
  gets in the funnel, that deal will traditionally close quicker
• 31:59
  than me putting someone in the funnel because I met you at a
• 32:02
  business, you know, a business dinner or something like I'd be
• 32:05
  interested in learning more. It sits in the funnel and then
• 32:08
  you have the three to four months of education to kind of
• 32:10
  pull them along. I also think, you know, I've
• 32:14
  heard things out there that whatever that we talked a little
• 32:17
  bit about, you know, go to market strategy, which is I try
• 32:21
  and analogize it to when we were kids.
• 32:25
  So I always say when you were a kid or if you're a parent and
• 32:27
  you have kids or you're a grandparent now and you look at
• 32:30
  your grandkids or somehow went to a playground, I think what
• 32:33
  you would see if you went every day and that kids that came
• 32:38
  every day. The kids traditionally will play
• 32:41
  in the same part of the sandbox with the same toys and the same
• 32:45
  kids. And if I'm a business, the sand
• 32:48
  lot is really, really big. I want to know what part of that
• 32:51
  sandbox can I dominate? And I'm not going to move from
• 32:55
  that area until either I have to because I'm so dominant, I can
• 32:58
  now move elsewhere or unfortunately, I get kicked out
• 33:02
  for some reason, right? So I always talk about like,
• 33:05
  what part of the sandbox do we want to play in?
• 33:07
  This goes back to ICP, who traditionally are we playing
• 33:10
  with? What do they look like?
• 33:11
  Whether they're demographics, whether they're psychographic
• 33:14
  graphics, I like to be communicated to how do they
• 33:17
  actually buy? And then what products or
• 33:20
  services do we have in order to solve whatever problem it is?
• 33:25
  And I think that's a useful way to get business owners to really
• 33:28
  focus in that. Yeah.
• 33:29
  And they're like, well, what about these white whales?
• 33:32
  And I say a white whales every now and then.
• 33:34
  These really big catches are really good and can really
• 33:37
  bolster an organization. But what I find for most
• 33:40
  companies, if they're segmented in two or three clients, if one
• 33:43
  of those clients, those whales leaves, then they're in a really
• 33:47
  crunch. The other part of it is I've
• 33:49
  seen a lot of companies go and win one of those deals, but then
• 33:53
  they can't service it operationally.
• 33:55
  It's it goes against their go to market strategy like that.
• 33:58
  We only play with companies that are 200 employees or less and,
• 34:02
  and middle market. Oh, but this enterprise company
• 34:04
  want really wants us tempting, tempting, right?
• 34:07
  So then we what we stop what we're doing, we go chase the big
• 34:10
  thing and then it doesn't work out the way we wanted to or
• 34:14
  we're not successful winning it. And we've kind of ignored kind
• 34:17
  of all the all the all the folks we were playing with in the
• 34:20
  sandbox. So I think all of that's
• 34:21
  important. The other part of it is content.
• 34:24
  I think content is really, really important.
• 34:27
  But the content, I think those businesses that are
• 34:31
  understanding this interchange of marketing and technology and
• 34:35
  getting in front of your buyers are starting to rethink it.
• 34:39
  And I think the way they should rethink it is, once again, what
• 34:42
  we talked about earlier, what is the problem that is most keeping
• 34:46
  you up at night that you need to solve to be successful in your
• 34:49
  role? And if I'm getting a cold e-mail
• 34:52
  or educational e-mail, I'm going to be talking in the headline
• 34:55
  about that problem. Are you having this type of
• 34:59
  problem? If so, here how a company's
• 35:02
  solving it. If you want to learn more or
• 35:04
  have a conversation, call me. As opposed to the way I see a
• 35:08
  lot of it is if you're in this business, this is Howard's
• 35:12
  company and Howard's company. It's all about me.
• 35:14
  Not going to work? Yeah.
• 35:15
  Right. I've got to speak to the pain
• 35:17
  that you're feeling that you need to solve urgently.
• 35:20
  And if it's a match there, you're going to immediately
• 35:22
  raise your hand and we're going to be engaged in substantive
• 35:25
  conversations about whether it's a fit to move forward.
• 35:28
  So buyers are now 60 to 80% of the way sold by time they reach
• 35:32
  out to a sales Rep. If they're more educated than
• 35:34
  ever before. What does this mean from a sales
• 35:36
  standpoint? What do we do with that
• 35:37
  information? Well, I think from a sales
• 35:40
  standpoint it, it gives you a little bit of an advantage
• 35:42
  because traditionally those people who are educating
• 35:46
  themselves have a really good understanding of what the
• 35:48
  problem is and what the impact of the business.
• 35:51
  So when you ask questions about, well, if this problem isn't
• 35:55
  solved, what does it mean to the business?
• 35:57
  And you actually have the patience and direct nips to ask
• 36:02
  the right questions about, well, tell me more, what is the actual
• 36:05
  revenue impact or what is the profitability impact?
• 36:09
  They'll have the answers to that because they've done their
• 36:12
  research in their homework. A lot of times, you know, prior
• 36:16
  in the, in the sales kind of my journey and talking to folks who
• 36:20
  are out there today, you'll ask that question like, well, I
• 36:23
  don't know, I have no idea. You know, my boss just told me
• 36:25
  we need, we need new, new accounting software, right?
• 36:29
  So they, they, they. They're not as far along down
• 36:32
  the journey, right? They're not far along down the
• 36:34
  journey and because of that, they don't have the right
• 36:36
  answers. And now you're selling, you
• 36:38
  might be doing a selling mismatch.
• 36:39
  Yes, I've got accounting software, but maybe their
• 36:42
  problem isn't what our problem solves.
• 36:45
  So or maybe it doesn't integrate in an open environment with
• 36:49
  other software tools. So that's the whole other thing
• 36:52
  is it's like, have they done their internal research in order
• 36:56
  to figure out what this all means by solving that problem?
• 36:59
  And I think salespeople should be in a more advantageous
• 37:03
  position because when they ask questions, they're going to get
• 37:05
  more readily answers. And if they're not, in their
• 37:08
  mind, they should say, well, maybe with this is someone who
• 37:12
  who goes more in the nurturing or education lane, whether it's
• 37:15
  electronically or in person or you know what, they have all the
• 37:19
  right answers. We can now speed up because
• 37:22
  we've slowed down and move them very quickly through the sales
• 37:26
  process because they have the answers to our questions.
• 37:29
  There's a meeting in the minds and it's like, OK, we're 68%
• 37:32
  down the road anyway. So how do we close this loop?
• 37:35
  Because I want to what solve this problem and get on to #2
• 37:39
  whatever that might be. So I was in sales for 10 years,
• 37:43
  corporate for six years, a large staff company called Aerotech.
• 37:47
  And it was very hunter mentality, right?
• 37:50
  Like typical sales. You had the cold call.
• 37:52
  I didn't get any leads. You had to go cold call, knock
• 37:54
  on doors, drop off doughnuts, you know, all that stuff right
• 37:56
  now, working events. And so I was very used to that
• 38:00
  type of mentality, like you had to go out and kill the thing
• 38:02
  that, you know, hunt the thing, kill the thing, bring it back
• 38:04
  home for dinner, right? And those conversations, like
• 38:08
  what you're talking about here felt very different because most
• 38:11
  people weren't through the buyer journey yet.
• 38:14
  They weren't as educated. They maybe didn't even know they
• 38:16
  needed to make a change or what that change could have made an
• 38:18
  impact to their business unit, whatever it was.
• 38:21
  So I found myself on these meetings trying to like,
• 38:23
  introduce myself, build rapport, dig into the pain figure if
• 38:26
  there even was a problem, Is that a critical problem?
• 38:29
  How have they gone about, you know, other solutions to this?
• 38:31
  What's their current solution? What would need to happen to
• 38:34
  make a change? And then when I started doing
• 38:37
  LinkedIn content and podcasting and things like this, it was
• 38:41
  like people came to you and there I saw it.
• 38:43
  I was like, they're 80 percent, 90% of the way sold.
• 38:45
  And they jump on a call and say, yeah, I've seen your videos for
• 38:47
  the last, you know, four or five months.
• 38:49
  I've seen your website, I've seen all your e-mail.
• 38:50
  You know, it's like we're we want to do this.
• 38:52
  You know, I had a couple questions about our industry
• 38:54
  specific if you work with someone like this before, but
• 38:57
  the conversation was just like completely different.
• 39:00
  Now, on the flip side, I want a little control because I can put
• 39:03
  all the content I want doesn't guarantee I'm going to get the
• 39:06
  exact amount of leads I need. So I want to do some outreach
• 39:09
  and some proactive stuff there too.
• 39:11
  But man, was it refreshing and it was a different conversation.
• 39:14
  When people are educated in your, and I always say if
• 39:17
  they're 60 to 80% of the way sold by time they talk to sales,
• 39:20
  don't you want to be part of that 60 to 80%?
• 39:23
  I think the answer is yes, right?
• 39:26
  So other than being more educated, is there anything else
• 39:29
  that you're seeing that's different than maybe it was pre
• 39:32
  COVID social selling? I think about LinkedIn.
• 39:34
  Is there anything different from a sales side of things that you
• 39:37
  think has changed that was not really the case as much 10 years
• 39:40
  ago? Well, I think the emphasis of
• 39:43
  building relationships in person has very much decreased.
• 39:47
  I think if there's only one good thing that came out of COVID as
• 39:49
  people are more comfortable building relationships and
• 39:52
  solving problems via video on whether that's Zoom or Google,
• 39:56
  Mead or Teams, whatever it might be.
• 40:00
  But at the end of the day, where you see success in salespeople
• 40:03
  is no different when it was in person or video or phone or
• 40:08
  e-mail. It's do you have the maturity
• 40:13
  and to understand how to build a relationship do.
• 40:15
  You think there's an advantage though, of being in person
• 40:17
  versus video? There can be, I think I'll give
• 40:21
  you my best lawyer answer. It depends, depends on the
• 40:23
  industry, depends on the geographical location.
• 40:27
  I know coming out of COVID when I was in corporate, there was a
• 40:30
  big push to get back out there, right.
• 40:32
  And then you like, I'm going to Portland.
• 40:34
  So I'm trying to get 5 or 10 meetings to make the trip, you
• 40:37
  know, valuable. And then you're setting up calls
• 40:39
  and now everyone's working hybrid and remote like, well, I
• 40:42
  can meet you a coffee down the street, but I work at home on
• 40:45
  Tuesdays and Thursdays. So it wasn't like getting to the
• 40:48
  corporate address. Nor do I think people believe
• 40:52
  that you necessarily need to do that to win the day.
• 40:56
  Now with that said, there are very much advantages to meeting
• 41:02
  in person and doing things to get to know people a little
• 41:05
  deeper that might be outside of a meeting setting.
• 41:08
  Hey, let's go grab lunch. Want to go to happy hour,
• 41:11
  dinner, golf event. That all is all in play.
• 41:15
  But I think it's now just one piece of the puzzle.
• 41:17
  We're in the past businesses would line up their year and
• 41:20
  all, well, you have $50,000 in your entertainment budget.
• 41:26
  And now businesses or I think those businesses that are
• 41:30
  financially prudent are saying, you know what, why don't you
• 41:33
  come to us as the salesperson and saying what your
• 41:37
  relationship strategy is for your territory.
• 41:40
  What do you need in travel? What do you need in
• 41:42
  entertainment? And let us approve that rather
• 41:45
  than just giving you a blanket budget because like, you know,
• 41:49
  like most governmental agencies or anyone's got a budget kind of
• 41:52
  mentality. Use it or lose it.
• 41:54
  Yeah, well, I want to use it in a way that's going to drive the
• 41:57
  objectives which is build relationship, confirm need to to
• 42:02
  solution and figure out the most efficient way to move move
• 42:06
  forward possible. Do you think cold calling is
• 42:08
  still effective? All right, I have never believed
• 42:11
  in cold callings, never surprised, never believe in cold
• 42:15
  calling. What's?
• 42:16
  Your version of that then. So, well, let me just go back to
• 42:18
  one part of that. So there is a version of that
• 42:20
  and I'll get to that. But when I go talk to business
• 42:23
  owners and they'll say, well, my, my team's not cold calling
• 42:27
  enough. I will slow down to that kind of
• 42:31
  premise. And I'll ask one question in the
• 42:34
  last year, tell me about a cold call.
• 42:38
  You responded to that you're currently doing business with
• 42:41
  that company. And the answer 100% of time is,
• 42:44
  Howard, I don't have time to answer the cold calls.
• 42:46
  Why would I do that? Well, if it's not something
• 42:49
  appropriate for you as a business owner, why would you
• 42:51
  expect great success from your sales team going out and
• 42:56
  flooding the market with phone calls and cold emails?
• 42:59
  Do you think that's changed last five years or would you have
• 43:01
  said the same thing 1015? 20 years ago, never believed in.
• 43:04
  Cold really, because I did a lot of cold calling.
• 43:06
  I did too in my career, never believed in it because I always
• 43:09
  not that you couldn't be successful, but the time, energy
• 43:12
  and resources to cold call against the return of investment
• 43:16
  never mapped out. So what would you do instead?
• 43:19
  So I think it's once again, I think it's it's business
• 43:21
  development ecosystem and it is a combination of your go to
• 43:25
  market strategy, your marketing initiatives, how your sales team
• 43:29
  is interacting and how you're using technology.
• 43:32
  So in a best case scenario, a business has a very defined
• 43:36
  ideal client profile, business persona.
• 43:38
  You know what the problems are. You have created kind of that
• 43:42
  messaging for that particular audience.
• 43:45
  You have then decided where do these decision makers actually
• 43:50
  play? In other words, are they at
• 43:52
  events? Are they on podcasts?
• 43:55
  Are they in LinkedIn kind of groups?
• 43:57
  You know, do they react to Google Ads or some sort of paid
• 44:01
  advertiser? So you have to know all that.
• 44:03
  And then I think you have to allow technology to help your
• 44:07
  sales team be more effective and efficient.
• 44:10
  So I want my sales team interacting a majority of their
• 44:14
  time with that 60 to 80% that are educated and, you know, and
• 44:19
  there's other statistics out there to save the entire
• 44:21
  universe of the people that most likely will buy your product,
• 44:26
  only 2% are ready to buy. So how, how, how often can I get
• 44:30
  in front of those 2% while we're using other means to stay in
• 44:34
  front of these other people? So that's where I think you
• 44:36
  know, the right messaging that is personalized, but that can be
• 44:41
  automated, which a lot of the marketing automation tools allow
• 44:45
  you to do. So you can identify someone like
• 44:47
  Alex, he's eventually going to buy, but he's education, so he
• 44:51
  has to go into the education or nurturing campaigns.
• 44:54
  And so, you know, at the appropriate and professional
• 44:57
  way, the emails are going to be like little overview of the
• 45:00
  problem. Here's a case study.
• 45:02
  Here's a link to a podcast that we just did.
• 45:05
  Here's an invitation to an event.
• 45:07
  So you're going to continually, as you said before, what if
• 45:09
  they're getting educational emails and all of a sudden that
• 45:12
  six months moves to three months, Always an opportunity.
• 45:14
  But the salespeople, in my mind, the best way in which to use
• 45:19
  their time is to figure out how to get them more involved in the
• 45:23
  1680%. Simultaneous to that, I'm a big
• 45:27
  believer that at the end of the day, we're all people, and
• 45:30
  people like to work with people they like.
• 45:33
  And if you like someone, you're more likely to refer them to
• 45:35
  someone else. And you as a business owner mean
• 45:38
  a business. We play with other like business
• 45:41
  owners because we're learning best practices.
• 45:43
  So I want to get into those networks.
• 45:44
  So I'm a big believer in networking.
• 45:47
  I'm a big believer of going to events.
• 45:50
  What do you say to some people that say networking events are a
• 45:53
  waste of time? Tried it, didn't work.
• 45:55
  I would slow down the speed up. What did you do?
• 45:58
  What did you give to the event, not what did you want to?
• 46:00
  Take Yeah, exactly. Like do you have an abundance
• 46:03
  mindset? Are you a giver or are you a
• 46:04
  taker? Are there some networking groups
• 46:06
  that you think are just a waste of time?
• 46:08
  Like if I'm going to the Chamber of Commerce, is that a waste of
• 46:10
  time? I know you're part of a really
• 46:11
  good one tack here in Saint Charles.
• 46:14
  Is that different than some of the other ones?
• 46:16
  Do you find value from that one versus other ones that you've
• 46:18
  done? Like how do you evaluate that
• 46:20
  opportunity? Yeah, I'm going to, you know,
• 46:22
  I'm part of a number of networking groups.
• 46:24
  I think it, it goes back to my learning.
• 46:26
  It depends on who you are and where you are.
• 46:27
  Like we said, like a Chamber of Commerce, traditionally those
• 46:30
  are businesses that are going to be B to C their restaurants and
• 46:33
  stuff like, so if I play in that, you know, if I'm selling
• 46:35
  like restaurant software, I want to be heavily involved in
• 46:38
  Chamber of Commerce because there's all the new restaurants
• 46:40
  popping up, right, and some other things.
• 46:42
  But if I'm a, you know, B to B company that is selling a
• 46:46
  certain software to a very like let you know, to a certain type
• 46:50
  of industry, well, they might not be playing in that network.
• 46:53
  I think the first thing that you want to do in any kind of
• 46:55
  Business Network is you want to do your due diligence.
• 46:58
  You know, who are the people there?
• 47:00
  How, how are they interacting? Are they simply trying to get
• 47:04
  into your network and introductions or are they trying
• 47:06
  to get to know you, trust you, validate you and over the course
• 47:09
  of time provide you introductions?
• 47:11
  Those are usually the best. I also feel like the best are
• 47:14
  those that are a mix of in person and virtual.
• 47:17
  I think you get to really know people, but at the end of the
• 47:20
  day, I think it goes back to abundance mindset and there's a
• 47:23
  number of groups out and I always say, hey, you know, it's
• 47:26
  a little bit of trial and error. All these groups allow you to
• 47:29
  kind of guest get a feel for them.
• 47:31
  So you can do a lot of quote UN quote free networking before you
• 47:35
  might have to invest in one. But I like getting back to your
• 47:38
  question, like what trade shows? I would ask, well, what you do?
• 47:41
  How did you interact? What did you do ahead of time to
• 47:45
  let people know you were going there?
• 47:47
  Did you identify a subset of your customers or prospects and
• 47:50
  invite them to coffee or a lunch or did you host a dinner?
• 47:55
  A lot of times the response will get asked oh we but we bought a
• 47:58
  booth, a table Topper and we stood there and no one came.
• 48:02
  It's not a strategy. It's not a strategy, you know,
• 48:03
  that's. Something comes your way and
• 48:05
  magically lands on your doorstep.
• 48:06
  Exactly. It's not strategy.
• 48:08
  The strategy is, I know at this group, these are these types of
• 48:12
  decision makers, Icps and buyer personas that I want to work
• 48:15
  with or I think I want to work with.
• 48:17
  Where are they most likely going to engage Usually, you know, get
• 48:22
  yourself, you know, if you're going to do a sponsorship, maybe
• 48:24
  you sponsor something that you get a logo at the happy hour,
• 48:28
  someplace where people can convene.
• 48:30
  The other part of it is making sure you use tools like
• 48:34
  LinkedIn, right? Is how hard is it to put a post
• 48:37
  up there and say, hey, I'm going to the Howard Fisher show.
• 48:40
  You know, we'll be, if I'm in the booth, booth a, or, you
• 48:44
  know, look, here's my schedule. There's so many different ways
• 48:48
  in which to publicize it over LinkedIn.
• 48:50
  Once again, it it goes back to the total strategy.
• 48:52
  Every time you go to an event, you should have an event
• 48:54
  strategy. I'll give you one example.
• 48:56
  I work with managed service provider and working with the
• 49:00
  the sales team member and it's been an iterative process.
• 49:03
  We hired A salesperson, we build a sales infrastructure, we hired
• 49:07
  a new marketing team. And so we're kind of moving into
• 49:09
  year 2. And I said, OK, this is the
• 49:11
  time. And they're also investing in
• 49:13
  what I call a lot of like trade associations where they can get
• 49:16
  visibility with decision makers, all great stuff.
• 49:18
  But working with the salesperson, I said, hey, let's
• 49:21
  put together a complete full 12 month calendar which will
• 49:26
  emphasize where we want to play, how we want to play, what events
• 49:29
  we're going to and couple that with the marketing and making
• 49:33
  sure that not only we using the promotion that the event allows
• 49:37
  us to use, but also our networks.
• 49:40
  And then the most important thing, then we measure it, how
• 49:44
  many meetings did we have? How many opportunities developed
• 49:48
  out of that? How many wins did we get?
• 49:49
  So that next year when we're doing our budgeting and you say,
• 49:52
  oh, the Howard Fisher event came calling again, you're like,
• 49:54
  well, really wasn't the right fit for us.
• 49:56
  We're going to pass so we can invest in something else.
• 49:58
  Or you know what? It was dynamite.
• 50:00
  We're going to we're going to go do it.
• 50:01
  I. Find a lot of companies from a
• 50:03
  marketing standpoint, the world we play in this content
• 50:05
  marketing, a lot of them just don't even measure where their
• 50:08
  leads come from. They have no clue.
• 50:10
  Like where do you, how do you track it?
• 50:12
  How do you know what's working, what's not working?
• 50:13
  How do you know whether to invest more in LinkedIn ads or a
• 50:16
  podcast or this versus the YouTube channel or versus the
• 50:19
  network event or whatever it is. And I think that's kind of step
• 50:22
  one is it's taking a step back and saying, well, let's just
• 50:25
  assess where do we get our customers from, where are they
• 50:28
  likely to come into us and meet us and where are they at in that
• 50:30
  journey? And that's just a little bit
• 50:32
  broken. Very much so.
• 50:34
  We talked about earlier about you got to measure what matters.
• 50:38
  I'll give you an example. I was working with another
• 50:40
  client and sort of came into it had an existing marketing
• 50:44
  relationship, have all these initiatives, get the monthly
• 50:46
  reports, web report and all this, that lead report.
• 50:50
  And we someone was providing like a quarterly update and the
• 50:57
  website traffic was increasing. It was probably six months
• 51:01
  overtime and time on the website was improving.
• 51:06
  And that was like the end of it was like, we're going to move on
• 51:08
  and like, that's what we're trying to do in the future.
• 51:11
  And I, I, I said, I said, So what?
• 51:17
  Like what's the, So what out of it?
• 51:19
  And we had a good conversation. I said that in my mind, all this
• 51:23
  activity we have to do and has to do one thing.
• 51:25
  We got to get that 60 to 80% to be educated to raise their hand
• 51:28
  and say I'd like to interact with this company.
• 51:31
  And if you're telling me that yes, we're increasing all those
• 51:34
  web time and effort, maybe how do we know the how are we now
• 51:39
  putting a line in the sand that all this activity should deliver
• 51:42
  this many call to actions? I go, we might be wrong and you
• 51:46
  might be shy in the number I suggest, but let's just put a
• 51:49
  line in the sand. And then over the course of
• 51:52
  time, we will be able to make those corrections.
• 51:55
  And I think most people in roles like that and even the business
• 52:00
  owners are afraid to put something in the sand because
• 52:02
  what if they're wrong? They feel like if they don't hit
• 52:04
  that metric, I'm going to get fired or something bad's going
• 52:08
  to happen. And what I don't see a lot of
• 52:10
  businesses doing, Alex, they should do everything is about
• 52:13
  course correction. So if you have a strategy for 90
• 52:16
  days and you say in 90 days I need 10 leads, I need 5 to
• 52:19
  convert to proposals, I need one win, and in 90 days it doesn't
• 52:23
  happen. If you're not having that moment
• 52:25
  where you're looking back in that 90 day Sprint, you can go
• 52:29
  through the entire year and have nothing Where if you look at
• 52:32
  that and you start looking at the dad and say, oh, you know
• 52:34
  what? This messaging is getting us to
• 52:37
  the wrong ICP. We need to tweak or course
• 52:39
  correct. You can course correct to still
• 52:41
  make your numbers in the year, but you have to do it in a kind
• 52:44
  of a systematic and diligent way.
• 52:46
  And most business owners once again are moving so quickly.
• 52:50
  They're like, oh, that's a really good idea.
• 52:51
  Go do it. And a year later there's aren't
• 52:53
  the results. What were we trying to achieve?
• 52:55
  A website traffic? No website traffic is an
• 52:59
  indicator potentially. At the end of the day all
• 53:02
  marketing has to do. The sole reason to be is to get
• 53:06
  qualified leads over to the sales to them run with.
• 53:09
  Yeah, yeah. Often times we come into
• 53:11
  companies, it's like, well, we're, you know, 5 post a week
• 53:13
  or three post a week, or we do a blog once a week.
• 53:15
  But why 4? What is the purpose behind it?
• 53:19
  And if you're just measuring post, I mean, not as we can have
• 53:23
  AI do a post, we can have somebody else right in the field
• 53:25
  like we, we can just get post out just like I can make a bunch
• 53:28
  of calls. But what are we trying to get
• 53:30
  from that activity? That's the bigger picture.
• 53:32
  And I think you're, I think you're hitting on something
• 53:36
  that's a common theme that for me sales and marketing is really
• 53:39
  a math game. What do I mean by that?
• 53:42
  So if as a business owner you understand for example, what my
• 53:47
  win rate is. So if I'm a 50% win rate and I
• 53:51
  have know what my average deal is and how long it takes, if I
• 53:55
  understand that I think 90. 9% of people don't know those
• 53:58
  numbers but. But even if you can even suspect
• 54:00
  what you think they should be or want them to be as a as a
• 54:03
  starting point, you can work your way back.
• 54:05
  So if I need X amount of revenue and I know that 50% is my win
• 54:09
  rate, why I need 2 times that in proposals?
• 54:12
  And if I know that it takes me three times my proposal moments
• 54:16
  in meetings. So that's the meaningful
• 54:19
  activity. What I don't like to see is in
• 54:22
  management meetings or sales meetings, I'll go into and
• 54:25
  someone will be out. How many phone calls do you make
• 54:26
  this week? How many emails did you send?
• 54:30
  I personally share. I think that is a coaching
• 54:34
  issue. For example, if I've got 2 reps
• 54:37
  and one's making 100 calls a week to get 5 meetings and
• 54:40
  another's making 10 to make 5 meetings, as a coach, I got to
• 54:43
  figure out what this person is doing with that volume because
• 54:46
  they're missing something in their messaging, right?
• 54:48
  That's a coaching issue for me. The really where it starts is
• 54:53
  how many discovery meetings are we having that really validate
• 54:59
  need to want and solution and then how many of those are we
• 55:03
  converting the proposals at what level to get to your number in
• 55:07
  the background now, Yeah, do you want to look at activity over
• 55:10
  course time? Sure, absolutely.
• 55:12
  It's an indicator. It's not something that should
• 55:14
  be a check off or someone, Oh, you're doing your job, Alex, You
• 55:19
  made 100 calls. No, it's the conversion of the
• 55:22
  calls and the emails to a get to know you moment to a discovery
• 55:26
  meeting, to a proposal, if that's appropriate to a win.
• 55:29
  Those are the important mile markers like measure what
• 55:32
  matters and you know, kind of hover over those other
• 55:36
  indicators. Those other indicators are
• 55:38
  really once again, coaching, but it also could be like, as I'm
• 55:42
  sure you see with a lot of comes you were then in your team is
• 55:45
  that it's right fit, right person, right seat.
• 55:46
  That's another big issue and that's where I think a lot of
• 55:49
  business leaders missed. They got the right wrong person
• 55:52
  in the wrong seat. And you know, it's my nephew,
• 55:55
  it's my niece, it's my buddies down the street, son, or it's my
• 55:59
  buddy. You know, it's just a good
• 56:01
  person that they don't want to let go or discipline or hold
• 56:03
  accountable because they're nice and it's hard to do that and.
• 56:07
  Sometimes I share with them then, hey, you know, what, what
• 56:12
  do they like to do and do well? What do they don't like to do
• 56:15
  and don't do well? And is there a role that better
• 56:17
  fits that? And they will be more productive
• 56:20
  that in a row than having them in a row.
• 56:22
  And I think that's the, you know, one other thing I'll share
• 56:25
  is I think we're and I realized small to mid sized businesses
• 56:28
  are trying to do more with less, but I find a lot of people
• 56:31
  wearing a lot of hats and the hat they least like to wear is
• 56:36
  the hat they're least likely going to do.
• 56:38
  But that could be the most important part of what I'm
• 56:40
  asking to do to help me drive my business development ecosystem.
• 56:44
  So if you don't have a detailed person and they're ahead of your
• 56:46
  technology and they got to know the back office and you're like,
• 56:50
  why can't I get dashboards and reports to work for me?
• 56:52
  Or why the data flawed. Now I'm just causing more stress
• 56:56
  into my environment. You really need to slow down and
• 56:59
  really understand what people like to do and what the job or
• 57:02
  role actually is and really do your best to mirror that up and
• 57:06
  then, you know, obviously foster it with training, education and
• 57:09
  development opportunities. How do you think AI impacts
• 57:13
  sales? I think it's wonderful.
• 57:15
  I really do. I think I think there's three
• 57:18
  three things that I think when I've looked out of the course of
• 57:22
  my career where there's been advanced technology, I know that
• 57:26
  there's negativity around it and people are fearful for their
• 57:30
  jobs, but I found respond technology, when looked at the
• 57:32
  right light, make humans a lot more efficient, effecting and
• 57:35
  brighter. It allowed I.
• 57:37
  Think this one I agree, but I think this one is, it seems
• 57:40
  different. It seems like it's going to have
• 57:43
  a bigger impact than it's like. There definitely will be jobs
• 57:47
  that will be lost. I don't know that job.
• 57:50
  I I think jobs not necessarily will be lost, but I think
• 57:53
  certain functions of roles will be shifted to technology which
• 57:57
  will allow the humans to do what we do best, which is the
• 58:00
  thinking and the execution in the strategy.
• 58:03
  Yes. But if you got a a call center
• 58:05
  or an operation with 150 analysts that are analyzing
• 58:09
  numbers, spreadsheet check and stuff, now an AI software can do
• 58:12
  that. You've now got 150 people.
• 58:14
  Maybe you need 5 people or 10 people to manage that system or
• 58:17
  whatever it is, but you've got 140 people now that I think will
• 58:21
  have some of that I do. I do believe, but I, I do think
• 58:24
  it, you know, I don't have the steps, but I think if you look
• 58:26
  at like kind of the roles that people have had and the types of
• 58:29
  evolution within businesses, I think that, yes, there will be
• 58:33
  displacement, but I, that displacement is replaced by
• 58:36
  something else. And I think I, we might not know
• 58:38
  what that something else is, but I think it, I think it's out
• 58:40
  there because as like humans, that's how we evolve and we kind
• 58:44
  of figure out the, that kind of next generation of things.
• 58:47
  You know, I would say that, yes, it feels different, but it's
• 58:51
  also, I would say it's new. So anything that new is going to
• 58:55
  feel a bit different. I will.
• 58:57
  I remember when I was practicing law and they're like, well, the
• 59:01
  only way you could serve notice is via fax machine, right?
• 59:04
  Or you had to mail it or you, you had to do it in person,
• 59:08
  right? And, and all of a sudden this
• 59:09
  thing called the Internet came out.
• 59:10
  And I remember people saying about emails, like, what's going
• 59:13
  to be so expensive? How much are stamps going to
• 59:14
  cost? I remember there, there was
• 59:16
  conversations about that. And it was like, well, no one's
• 59:19
  going to ever accept, you know, service by e-mail.
• 59:22
  Well, how do you think it's done today?
• 59:24
  Everything is done with e-mail, right?
• 59:26
  Which means what? Like, yeah.
• 59:27
  Are there some roles that may be in a law firm that were needed
• 59:32
  because you didn't have the text and you aren't?
• 59:33
  But yet I think the businesses and the people evolve into that
• 59:38
  next area that technology can't sell.
• 59:40
  But getting back to my SO, where does it make it more efficient,
• 59:43
  in fact? Well, I think it speeds up your
• 59:46
  ability to get to your ideal client profiles and your
• 59:48
  business personas. I think there's technologies
• 59:51
  that allow you to quickly identify.
• 59:53
  Once you know the right people and the right companies, you can
• 59:56
  get more quickly to e-mail addresses and other types of
• 1:00:00
  contact information. I think that those can easily be
• 1:00:03
  put into marketing technology, your CRM and otherwise.
• 1:00:08
  I think you can make a quick. You know, determination based on
• 1:00:12
  your research, this person most likely to be kind of in that
• 1:00:15
  nurturing phase. I also think that AI can be used
• 1:00:21
  in ways to fire start the brain. What I mean by that is, is like
• 1:00:25
  just the general basic thing that I hear people using is
• 1:00:28
  like, I wrote this e-mail and I asked AI to customize it and
• 1:00:31
  make it more compelling, right? The wrong way to use AI is to
• 1:00:35
  take it and cut and paste it. Yeah, exactly right.
• 1:00:37
  That's the wrong way. A lot of people are doing that,
• 1:00:39
  unfortunately. It's unfortunate.
• 1:00:40
  It's kind of the young method to go away.
• 1:00:42
  I get it, it's easy, it's cheap, go do it.
• 1:00:44
  But for me, sometimes I'll craft an e-mail and let's say it's to
• 1:00:49
  a prospect and I'm like, OK, I feel like we might be a little
• 1:00:52
  stalled here. Like I have not done enough job
• 1:00:54
  on the value proposition. So if I have a way in which for
• 1:01:00
  my own personal and a secure server, kind of like chat, GTP
• 1:01:03
  or perplexity or something along those lines, that I can upload
• 1:01:08
  like my sales playbook that has my vision, mission, purpose, my
• 1:01:11
  messaging, and can also maybe share a little bit about my
• 1:01:14
  products and services. And I can maybe upload a little
• 1:01:18
  bit about my prospect. And I can take this e-mail and
• 1:01:21
  say, based upon that information and general review of the World
• 1:01:26
  Wide Web for your industry, what are some thoughts to change this
• 1:01:31
  e-mail to make it more compelling to have Alex call me
• 1:01:35
  back or set up a time for me. I can look at that e-mail and
• 1:01:38
  I'll be like, oh, that's a different, oh, I didn't think
• 1:01:41
  about rephrasing. That's cut and paste it.
• 1:01:43
  But then take that idea and say, you know what?
• 1:01:45
  My brain will fire in a different way.
• 1:01:48
  And I'm not a psychologist. I have no data behind this.
• 1:01:51
  This is just my own personal. Experience.
• 1:01:52
  I agree that's the same thing. I think as we get older, our
• 1:01:56
  brains go to what is things we've done most often and is
• 1:02:00
  more most convenient in our brain and the easiest way for us
• 1:02:05
  to complete a task, which is for me to write that e-mail in the
• 1:02:08
  way I've written it 1000 times. But now I've slowed down using
• 1:02:13
  technology to give me ideas for my brain to say, oh, that's a
• 1:02:17
  different Ave. that excites me, maybe I should try it.
• 1:02:21
  I start try, I try it once or twice or 10 times and all of a
• 1:02:24
  sudden my response rate back and getting meetings booked goes up
• 1:02:28
  by 2530%. Now my brain is what?
• 1:02:32
  Now I'm going this other way because it's more successful.
• 1:02:35
  So I think the technology can help retrain our brains and not
• 1:02:39
  that we're lazy, but I think at the end of the day, going back
• 1:02:42
  to our initial about survival mode, like our bodies are
• 1:02:45
  conditioned to do one thing, it's for us to survive, to live
• 1:02:49
  another minute, to breathe another minute.
• 1:02:51
  And that's the same thing in the task we have in for work.
• 1:02:55
  I agree. I think it has an amplifier in
• 1:02:58
  most cases. I think it is.
• 1:03:00
  I think that if you're doing a job that requires critical
• 1:03:02
  thinking, relationship building, human connection solving,
• 1:03:06
  problems being created, you know, I think you're probably
• 1:03:09
  going to be, you're going to use the software like we're doing
• 1:03:11
  now, embedded into your regular day-to-day and you're going to
• 1:03:14
  evolve with the times. I think if you're doing a job
• 1:03:17
  right now that's very surface level or kind of there's one
• 1:03:22
  layer to it and it's a repeatable task that can be done
• 1:03:25
  over and over and it doesn't really require a lot of thinking
• 1:03:28
  or human connection, relationship building or
• 1:03:29
  creativity. Those are the jobs I think are
• 1:03:31
  going to be gone not overnight, but I think faster than what we
• 1:03:36
  saw probably from the Internet ages.
• 1:03:38
  I think, you know, I think the pace of play with this is
• 1:03:42
  faster. It looks like that way.
• 1:03:44
  I feel that as well. I can agree with that.
• 1:03:46
  I've always looked at technology being an accelerator.
• 1:03:50
  For sure. Right.
• 1:03:51
  It's not something that is going to be the magic wand that's
• 1:03:55
  going to solve all your problems, but technology if used
• 1:03:57
  in the right way and if you understand it, and this is where
• 1:04:00
  most business owners, they don't step back to understand all
• 1:04:03
  these different technologies, right, because.
• 1:04:05
  You got to play with them. You got to try.
• 1:04:06
  You got to get in the sandbox and test it out and see what
• 1:04:08
  works and what doesn't. All walk, run.
• 1:04:10
  So for the podcast, a cool thing that we do, we use AI all the
• 1:04:13
  time and some of it's what you just talked about, rewrite this
• 1:04:16
  e-mail a little more compelling way based on this and this,
• 1:04:18
  right? Or I need to say this first line
• 1:04:20
  from this post, a little bit shorter and punchy.
• 1:04:23
  Give me an idea for this, right? We use it for the podcast too.
• 1:04:26
  Behind the scenes where it'll take.
• 1:04:27
  We've got three cameras in here, right?
• 1:04:29
  So one's for both of US1's on me, one's on you, the guest.
• 1:04:32
  It'll in less than a minute, it'll take all the camera
• 1:04:35
  angles. We line up the audio and the
• 1:04:37
  video and AI just goes through and edits the entire thing.
• 1:04:41
  So if you're watching this now, you're seeing it go from
• 1:04:44
  different camera angles. But what you don't probably know
• 1:04:47
  is that no one did that. That was AI.
• 1:04:49
  There's just to say it's called autopod if you're interested,
• 1:04:51
  and you have multiple different camera angles.
• 1:04:53
  But that would have taken, I think that took us maybe an hour
• 1:04:56
  and a half, two hours to go through.
• 1:04:58
  And now it's just a software and it's 52 seconds and it's like.
• 1:05:02
  Great. Or you had to outsource that
• 1:05:04
  role or hide it internally, right?
• 1:05:06
  So we're talking about like what are the roles so where
• 1:05:09
  technology can do something like that?
• 1:05:11
  That makes a lot of sense, right?
• 1:05:13
  But you are 100% correct, the critical thinking, the bigger
• 1:05:18
  strategy, the interpersonal relationships, right?
• 1:05:21
  At the end of the day, AI can't sell anything to a computer.
• 1:05:26
  Like, you know, it got to sell it to a human being.
• 1:05:28
  And most human beings, they want to get to know who they're
• 1:05:31
  buying from. And you know, there's all the
• 1:05:34
  studies out there that people buy from people they like.
• 1:05:37
  And the more they like you, the more that they are open to
• 1:05:42
  glitches in the service or whatever you sold them.
• 1:05:46
  They don't like people want to say, like, why'd that big
• 1:05:48
  company leave you? Oh, it's price, this other
• 1:05:50
  company in price. Price was maybe the ultimate
• 1:05:54
  factor, but I will. I would submit that if you look
• 1:05:57
  back during the course of time, you didn't have the right
• 1:05:59
  relationship with the right people.
• 1:06:02
  Speaking of price, some common objections that we've all gotten
• 1:06:06
  and sometimes get hung up on, and I know definitely people
• 1:06:08
  listening right now are going to interact with what their teams
• 1:06:11
  are going to have. I want to walk and get your
• 1:06:13
  thoughts on these. First one is I need to talk to
• 1:06:17
  my team and I'll get back to you.
• 1:06:19
  How do you handle that if you're on a sales call?
• 1:06:23
  That's a great question. So the first thing I were to ask
• 1:06:28
  is I'm like, I think that's great that you're collaborating
• 1:06:31
  with your team. Can you share with me who's part
• 1:06:33
  of that team and what their roles are?
• 1:06:35
  And they say Bob, Susie, Janet. What their roles are?
• 1:06:38
  Yeah, and their. CRO share with me like in a
• 1:06:41
  similar buying situation, what information did you need to
• 1:06:44
  bring to that meeting or what feedback were you looking for?
• 1:06:47
  They're going to say XY and Z. What information can I help you
• 1:06:53
  either gather or put together to make that meeting more effective
• 1:06:57
  and efficient? When's that meeting going to
• 1:06:59
  take place? How long does it usually last?
• 1:07:01
  What's usually the outcome in that?
• 1:07:03
  Meeting now we're getting an uncomfortable.
• 1:07:04
  Land, right, People don't like to ask open-ended questions and
• 1:07:07
  I always say what's the worst thing that they say?
• 1:07:09
  I don't want to share that with you.
• 1:07:11
  No, I'm not telling you. I would say that if they get
• 1:07:13
  really defensive about that and they're kind of like price
• 1:07:16
  shopping, then I as a salesperson, because I am a
• 1:07:20
  human and not artificial intelligence, I get the
• 1:07:24
  opportunity to decide, do I want to play?
• 1:07:27
  Is this the right type of partner for me?
• 1:07:28
  It's kind of like dating. If they're not giving you
• 1:07:30
  signals back, it's like, OK, maybe there's not, you know, I
• 1:07:32
  move on. There's not that connection,
• 1:07:34
  right? Most sales people will be like,
• 1:07:36
  well, Alex and I might not do business, but I've got a monthly
• 1:07:40
  proposal writing requirement that I got to fill and I need 5
• 1:07:44
  and I only got 4. And it's the end of the month.
• 1:07:47
  And if I was that salesperson, I would be reluctant to do what
• 1:07:53
  I'm going to have to go back and even spend my own time or go
• 1:07:58
  with operations and pricing, spend a lot of wheels where I
• 1:08:01
  know it's got just to click a button.
• 1:08:03
  I rather go into that one and one with my boss that yeah, you
• 1:08:06
  know what I did miss my proposal requirement by one this month.
• 1:08:10
  But let me share with you interaction and Alex and the
• 1:08:13
  choice I made. Share with share with me if you
• 1:08:16
  would wanted me to make a different decision.
• 1:08:18
  And if so, I will the next time, right.
• 1:08:22
  It's where I think businesses get too hung up on the metric
• 1:08:25
  and figuring that checking of the box is success.
• 1:08:28
  No, I would say if that sales person, I'd say I'm like, yeah,
• 1:08:32
  I want you here long term because you're thinking about
• 1:08:34
  other people. You think about the resources
• 1:08:36
  you're slowing down to speed up. Because now you might say, well,
• 1:08:40
  yeah, I could have spent three days on Alex's proposal, but
• 1:08:43
  instead I went to two business networkings I read.
• 1:08:47
  And by the way, I was able to build my pipeline with what I
• 1:08:50
  think is more confident to drive proposals next month.
• 1:08:52
  So I'm thinking next month I'll have 7, not 5.
• 1:08:55
  I'd be impressed if someone brought that, yeah.
• 1:08:57
  And that gets back to your point, I mean.
• 1:08:58
  Thinkers, you need people to. Think and willing that do and
• 1:09:01
  willing to ask questions. What's the worst part?
• 1:09:04
  Of and be vulnerable that they missed it and yeah.
• 1:09:06
  You know, if you're not asking open-ended questions, you're
• 1:09:08
  making assumptions. You're making assumptions.
• 1:09:10
  It's going to lead to something you're going to miss, which
• 1:09:12
  means that maybe you left money on the table, maybe it's a wrong
• 1:09:16
  fit. Maybe they have opportunity to
• 1:09:19
  go deeper and wider than you thought.
• 1:09:21
  I mean, there's just there's so much opportunity out there with
• 1:09:24
  open-ended questions. Trust me, the buyer will point
• 1:09:26
  you in the right direction if they're really interested in
• 1:09:30
  learning more about your product and potentially bringing on
• 1:09:33
  board or service. Yeah, you find out if they're a
• 1:09:35
  true champion or not, if they're willing to take the next steps,
• 1:09:38
  get you introduced to other people.
• 1:09:39
  That means they want to solve that problem and they think
• 1:09:41
  you're the right fit. If they're holding back, there's
• 1:09:43
  there's a disconnect, or they're not really interested in solving
• 1:09:45
  that problem, or maybe it's not critical, or maybe they don't
• 1:09:47
  think your solution is the right fit.
• 1:09:49
  What do you say to a prospect that says I need to think about
• 1:09:52
  it? Once again, I think you always
• 1:09:56
  acknowledge the objection. I think that, you know, this is
• 1:09:58
  a big decision. Of course you should think about
• 1:10:01
  it. Obviously, this is a strategic
• 1:10:03
  problem. We've already identified through
• 1:10:04
  that you need to solve it. So you want to make sure that
• 1:10:07
  you have the right partner. Can you share with me what are
• 1:10:11
  the top things that are important to you when you say
• 1:10:14
  you need to think about it? And what does that actually
• 1:10:17
  mean? Like, do you need more
• 1:10:18
  information? What is your deliberation
• 1:10:22
  process? Will you be consulting with the
• 1:10:24
  team? Right.
• 1:10:25
  So now that first objection, I'm, I'm bringing in my team to
• 1:10:29
  slow down the process potentially, whatever that might
• 1:10:31
  be. Now I'm trying to figure out
• 1:10:33
  what that is and really trying to figure out what I might be
• 1:10:38
  able to do in order to move this along.
• 1:10:42
  Now, you might be someone who is a very deliberate decision
• 1:10:46
  maker. And I'll ask all those questions
• 1:10:48
  and I'll get the right answers and I'll be like, you know what?
• 1:10:50
  What I'm sensing is you just need a little bit time to digest
• 1:10:54
  that. We're the right partner.
• 1:10:56
  I'm thinking about a week. What do you think about Alex?
• 1:10:59
  I think that's about the right time.
• 1:11:00
  So why don't we do this? What if we stop talking today?
• 1:11:04
  You go back and deliberate. If you have questions, I'm
• 1:11:07
  available. Here's my cell number, but let's
• 1:11:09
  just agree that next Friday at 3:00, I'm going to come back and
• 1:11:13
  then we'll answer all your questions and or get a get a get
• 1:11:17
  a sense of where that deliberation is leading us.
• 1:11:19
  What about that approach work so well?
• 1:11:21
  Why does it work? One I think is compassionate 1,
• 1:11:24
  I think it recognizes that you understand the decision maker.
• 1:11:27
  So a lot of sales is psychology. Do you know who you're actually
• 1:11:30
  working with? I think it also shows a sense of
• 1:11:33
  maturity. I'm not here just for the
• 1:11:34
  clothes. Yeah, I'm here to make sure it's
• 1:11:36
  the right fit. And a little bit of like, I
• 1:11:39
  don't need your Business Today, right?
• 1:11:41
  I'd love to work with you, but I don't need you.
• 1:11:43
  I'm not desperate, right? Yeah.
• 1:11:44
  Absolutely like that. And I think that also goes back
• 1:11:47
  to the salesperson controlling the sales cycle, but allowing
• 1:11:51
  the buyer to think that they're in control.
• 1:11:53
  Totally, because what you said is key.
• 1:11:56
  You seem like the person that really wants to think things
• 1:11:58
  over like this. And I think that's amazing.
• 1:12:00
  How does a weak sound? You know, And they're like, wow,
• 1:12:02
  OK, yeah, they understand me. They get it.
• 1:12:04
  And they now I'm yeah, we does sound good.
• 1:12:06
  I feel good about this and they're in control.
• 1:12:08
  But really, you've dictated the pace in the next steps.
• 1:12:11
  Yeah. Here's another example that may
• 1:12:14
  come up in the questions or something that's that I confront
• 1:12:18
  with the sales team. Sure.
• 1:12:19
  Alex called me and says he needs a proposal by Friday, right?
• 1:12:24
  Always, you know, are you, you know, whatever that might be,
• 1:12:27
  you need a proposal Friday, it's Tuesday.
• 1:12:29
  So I got three days. So in that scenario, you go
• 1:12:32
  through the same over there. What happened that caused the
• 1:12:36
  sense of urgency? What will happen once I get you
• 1:12:40
  the proposal? I'm also as a salesperson going
• 1:12:43
  to say, hey, Alex, I would love to get your proposal or I really
• 1:12:47
  would like to get your proposal And I can do that, but know that
• 1:12:51
  it's at such short notice. I'm going to actually have to
• 1:12:54
  move a couple of the things that had priorities this week.
• 1:12:57
  And I'm happy to do that. But if if I do that, it's called
• 1:13:00
  the if then stated if I do that, then will you agree to meet with
• 1:13:04
  me in person on Tuesday next week to review the review the
• 1:13:08
  proposal, answer questions and talk about definitive next
• 1:13:11
  steps? If you're not going to commit to
• 1:13:13
  the proposal review, I'm not to commit to move my other
• 1:13:16
  priorities to get something on paper so you can just shop me
• 1:13:19
  against. Someone else?
• 1:13:21
  So I I also tell my when I coach the sales people in
• 1:13:26
  negotiations, how many times have you heard of this scenario?
• 1:13:31
  Alex, you're the sales manager. I'm the sales person.
• 1:13:34
  Hey Alex, I just had this great call with Howard and he said
• 1:13:38
  that our price was too high. What do you want to do now?
• 1:13:42
  If I'm a sales manager, there's only one answer I have, which is
• 1:13:46
  a question, well, what do we need to do in order to win the
• 1:13:50
  business? I don't know.
• 1:13:51
  He just said we have our price is too high.
• 1:13:53
  If I'm a salesperson in that situation, here's the what I'm
• 1:13:57
  going to say or I'm going to share as I'm going to say, well,
• 1:14:01
  I'm sorry that you know, I thank you for the feedback on the
• 1:14:04
  price. Can you share with me what about
• 1:14:05
  the price feels a little higher than maybe what you were
• 1:14:09
  expecting to pay? I looked at other competitors.
• 1:14:12
  It's not within my budget, stuff like that.
• 1:14:16
  I would ask a question about. If I would first ask a question,
• 1:14:21
  I'd try and put pricing in the parking lot.
• 1:14:22
  I said assume pricing was not a factor.
• 1:14:27
  I met your budget. I said that.
• 1:14:29
  Is there anything else that would keep you from doing
• 1:14:32
  business with us? No, there's not.
• 1:14:34
  It's simply about price. OK, if what is it about that
• 1:14:38
  price and where we would need to be?
• 1:14:40
  OK. And let's just say I need to eat
• 1:14:42
  10% reduction, whatever it might be in that situation.
• 1:14:46
  Once I'm going to if then as the salesperson, I'm saying, OK, if
• 1:14:50
  I'm able to reduce the price by 10%, would you then be in a
• 1:14:56
  position to sign the statement of working contract by Friday?
• 1:15:00
  Whatever, pick a day. Yeah, I would be great.
• 1:15:05
  I'll be back in touch with you by the end of the day or a few
• 1:15:07
  minutes. Then I go back to.
• 1:15:08
  Hey Alex, I did a great call with Howard.
• 1:15:10
  He goes, there is nothing standing in the way of us
• 1:15:13
  getting this deal other than price.
• 1:15:14
  He feels we're about 10% too high.
• 1:15:17
  I I shared with him that if we were able to reduce it by 10%,
• 1:15:21
  he would sign on Friday. It's within our authority, but I
• 1:15:24
  just want to run it by you. Is that something you'd like to
• 1:15:26
  do? Yes.
• 1:15:27
  So now the managers like great, I'm already in checking this off
• 1:15:32
  as a win. Yes, you're authorized to go
• 1:15:33
  through. I then go back and call Howard
• 1:15:35
  and like, hey, we're absolutely able to meet that pricing.
• 1:15:40
  No, you know we're really looking to for business.
• 1:15:44
  I've got the contract all ready for you to sign and review and
• 1:15:47
  then you move on. Now what do you say to the sales
• 1:15:49
  coach that says never lower your pricing?
• 1:15:51
  Well, first of all, I believe that sales people should always
• 1:15:54
  have some sort of authority. So when you're when you're
• 1:15:57
  creating kind of those rules for engagement and negotiation, it's
• 1:16:00
  always about profit margin. And I think as a salesperson, I
• 1:16:04
  probably should have the ability to negotiate to a certain extent
• 1:16:07
  without having the conversation with my boss.
• 1:16:09
  So I should. So if you want me to have a 20%
• 1:16:12
  profit margin, well, I'm going to go in it.
• 1:16:15
  And knowing that I can't go below 20 without approval, I'm
• 1:16:18
  going to go in at 2526. And if I know negotiate at 23,
• 1:16:21
  everyone should be happy. For the most part, I don't
• 1:16:25
  believe the question. You should never lower your
• 1:16:28
  price. I mean, yes, if you lower your
• 1:16:30
  price and you're at the Mendoza line for profit margin and
• 1:16:33
  you're going to lose money, then you have to politely in a way to
• 1:16:37
  convey and say like, you know, Alex, thank you so much for the
• 1:16:40
  opportunity. We're really looking forward.
• 1:16:42
  We thought you'd be a great business partner.
• 1:16:44
  We definitely know we have the right solution.
• 1:16:46
  By the way, here are the things we talked about your problems
• 1:16:48
  and how we can meet them. Unfortunately, you know, this is
• 1:16:52
  the lowest price that we can go and it's really a shame that
• 1:16:56
  that is the sole reason why, because what you'll probably
• 1:17:00
  find if you go elsewhere is you might have problems in these
• 1:17:02
  things that we do well, but we understand sometimes our price
• 1:17:06
  decision. We wish you well.
• 1:17:08
  I'm here for when and if it doesn't work out, right.
• 1:17:11
  So now you've kind of like ethically and like pretty much
• 1:17:14
  once again, what you should do it.
• 1:17:15
  I don't need you, I want you, I don't need you.
• 1:17:19
  I want you to certain level and that's how I would do it.
• 1:17:23
  I think when a business manager says you can't, you never lower
• 1:17:27
  your price. I will say that I to me, that
• 1:17:30
  goes back to culture and like, what are we really trying to do
• 1:17:33
  here and what type of relationship are you trying and
• 1:17:36
  how are you trying to empower your salesperson?
• 1:17:38
  If you have strict rules like that, they're always going to
• 1:17:41
  burden the sales manager, a leader with everything that
• 1:17:44
  doesn't fall within the line. I want to give my sales people a
• 1:17:47
  little bit of room to be creative and negotiate while
• 1:17:50
  still hitting their profit margins that they need to in
• 1:17:53
  order for the business to be successful.
• 1:17:54
  I think you got to be flexible in business, you know, you have
• 1:17:57
  to be a little bit flexible. I think what you don't want to
• 1:17:59
  do is obviously, and I'm sure you would agree, is use price as
• 1:18:01
  the crutch every time to close a deal.
• 1:18:04
  It's like, what if I give you 20%?
• 1:18:05
  You know, it's like, OK, we didn't need to go that route,
• 1:18:08
  but as a last resort, if that's the one sticking point and it's
• 1:18:11
  5 percent, 10%, you have the margins to do it, why not make
• 1:18:14
  the damn deal, you know? I agree with that.
• 1:18:17
  That's why we talk about isolate I I'm Victor.
• 1:18:19
  I'm putting pricing in the parking lot because a lot of
• 1:18:23
  times people will use pricing, but that's not the reason why,
• 1:18:25
  right. So then I try and say, OK,
• 1:18:27
  pricing is aside. Does everything else line up?
• 1:18:30
  If pricing were right, would we be your partner of choice?
• 1:18:33
  Yeah, yes, you would. Right.
• 1:18:35
  OK. So now I know pricing is the one
• 1:18:38
  thing we have to address. You can maybe think about ways
• 1:18:43
  in which to ask open-ended questions to really determine on
• 1:18:46
  where you truly need that price, not so much percentage.
• 1:18:48
  I would like, well, what if you don't go for with us and you go
• 1:18:51
  with a lower price provider, but they don't have these features
• 1:18:53
  and benefits. What would that cost to the
• 1:18:55
  company be to see if you can eat into whatever cost savings they
• 1:18:59
  would have on the the buy that is going to end up eating
• 1:19:03
  expenses on the use, right. And but once again, goes back to
• 1:19:07
  your point, it takes patience and diligence and salespeople
• 1:19:11
  really need to have to have that mindset and say it's not
• 1:19:15
  America, you know, it's not a Sprint, it's a marathon, it's a
• 1:19:18
  journey. Every sales interaction, there's
• 1:19:20
  a journey. And that whether your sales
• 1:19:21
  cycles a week, a month, 1/4, a year, 1824 months, whatever it
• 1:19:26
  is, try not and rush it and solely go to price.
• 1:19:32
  Because if you solely go to price, you're going to get in
• 1:19:33
  those situations all the time. And no one, no one wants to be
• 1:19:37
  the commodity. You don't want to buy business.
• 1:19:39
  You want to be, you know, value. You.
• 1:19:43
  Know positioning your company and your services.
• 1:19:46
  What made you want to start your own business and how's it going?
• 1:19:48
  Was it what you expected? Is it different?
• 1:19:51
  Was it harder or was it easier? It's been your journey so far.
• 1:19:54
  Yeah. So that's another great
• 1:19:56
  question, Alex. So as I mentioned earlier, start
• 1:19:58
  my career as an attorney, 30 and board and I decided that I want
• 1:20:03
  to leverage my law career, but I didn't want to be in court every
• 1:20:06
  day. So I stumbled upon it.
• 1:20:08
  Really was stumbled upon. A large enterprise company that
• 1:20:11
  was selling front office and back office solutions to law
• 1:20:14
  firms. So it was really my first sales
• 1:20:17
  experience, though I worked in a restaurant as a lawyer.
• 1:20:21
  I think there's a lot of things that would do selling, right.
• 1:20:23
  But I guess formal kind of sales role that is kind of like your
• 1:20:26
  title. Was it was that hard for you to
• 1:20:28
  make that change? Because I feel like, you know,
• 1:20:30
  you went to law school, you at the bar, you're a lawyer.
• 1:20:32
  There's a certain status with that.
• 1:20:34
  And then you're like, all right, I'm going to be a salesperson.
• 1:20:36
  It was not a tough decision for me.
• 1:20:38
  I think there were probably certain family members who had a
• 1:20:40
  tougher time with it than I did, given the fact there were
• 1:20:43
  student loans and the stature of being a lawyer, you know?
• 1:20:47
  Why wasn't that tough for you? I was 30 and bored and I was
• 1:20:51
  miserable. There you go.
• 1:20:52
  And to the best of my knowledge, I'm only going to do this once.
• 1:20:56
  And I wanted to do something that was meaningful.
• 1:20:58
  I want to do something that would fulfill my days.
• 1:21:02
  And it just didn't feel like what I was doing was making a
• 1:21:05
  difference. And I was like, well, what else
• 1:21:08
  would make a difference? And when I got into that role, I
• 1:21:11
  was working with small, mid size and large law firms in the city
• 1:21:14
  of Chicago. And I got to learn a lot of
• 1:21:17
  things really quickly when one was which most professional
• 1:21:20
  service organizations like lawyers or accountants, like
• 1:21:24
  they really have a passion for what they do.
• 1:21:26
  They might not be the most, you know, brilliant kind of business
• 1:21:31
  people, right? And so they were looking for
• 1:21:33
  counsel, which I was, was I leveraged and was part of my
• 1:21:36
  role as an attorney into better ways.
• 1:21:39
  And I happen to work for a technology company to use it.
• 1:21:42
  And it was back in the day when we're migrating from the dial up
• 1:21:44
  to the Internet. That's how old I am.
• 1:21:47
  So, you know, whatever those days.
• 1:21:49
  So I got to talk, talked to a lot of business owners or people
• 1:21:53
  in business owners roles while they were practicing law.
• 1:21:56
  And I really kind of figured out like, God, I really had a
• 1:22:00
  capability for understanding what the problem was or asking
• 1:22:02
  the right questions. Once again, being a litigator,
• 1:22:04
  you ask questions, but then also being able to see the value that
• 1:22:09
  I was driving to them with the right solution.
• 1:22:11
  And we had a litany of solutions.
• 1:22:13
  And that was fortunate, you know, during a 2530 year career
• 1:22:16
  to kind of work in four or five different companies in different
• 1:22:19
  industries. And my journey to kind of owning
• 1:22:23
  my business really started in 2014.
• 1:22:25
  So I was exiting one business, had about 90 days to kind of
• 1:22:28
  figure out what I wanted to do next.
• 1:22:30
  And at the time I wrote down a business plan and I just wrote
• 1:22:34
  down all these different games that I could play and
• 1:22:38
  assessments. I was calling it like outsourced
• 1:22:41
  vice president of sales because back then there was no word
• 1:22:43
  fractional. And then I decided, well, I
• 1:22:47
  couldn't be the smartest guy in the world.
• 1:22:48
  So Google was around and I sort of Googled it and I found this,
• 1:22:52
  you know, group that I'm affiliated with right now called
• 1:22:55
  Sales acceleration down in Indianapolis.
• 1:22:57
  And they were founder led and they were senior VP's of sales
• 1:23:01
  coming to start to consult with small and mid size business.
• 1:23:06
  But I was young, dad, my daughter was two or three, got
• 1:23:10
  an opportunity to work at a company called Hillard Heinz,
• 1:23:13
  which was professional services, security risk consulting, and
• 1:23:16
  they needed someone to come in and kind of help them with this
• 1:23:19
  business development ecosystem. So I was fortunate to work with
• 1:23:22
  a lot of passionate, not just founders, but like subject
• 1:23:28
  matter experts. Going back to a point I made
• 1:23:30
  earlier, really one of the first organizations, I wouldn't say
• 1:23:33
  the first, but a consistent theme throughout was working
• 1:23:37
  with organizations that really had a vision, mission, purpose
• 1:23:40
  and chosen values. And that was really the point of
• 1:23:43
  entry to the company. It wasn't simply just words on
• 1:23:45
  paper. And we grew relatively quickly,
• 1:23:48
  was part of the leadership team that helped us figure out the
• 1:23:52
  right partner for a strategic sell.
• 1:23:56
  We sold a very large strategic buyer and then I stayed with
• 1:24:00
  that buyer for about another three years in different roles,
• 1:24:04
  senior roles. And then I always say that being
• 1:24:08
  the acquired, at a certain point people started to leave.
• 1:24:12
  The systems we used were deemed redundant.
• 1:24:15
  The way we went to market was watered down for what we did
• 1:24:19
  because we're now we're a part of large organization,
• 1:24:21
  rightfully, wrongfully. And my voice became a little bit
• 1:24:24
  like Charlie Brown's teacher. And I just decided at that
• 1:24:26
  moment and for other reasons that it was just time to kind of
• 1:24:29
  launch my practice. So for me, what was the most
• 1:24:34
  surprising really was that my professional network I was able
• 1:24:38
  to leverage relatively quickly. And so I was able to kind of
• 1:24:42
  find my first kind of full time manufacturing client within the
• 1:24:45
  1st 90 days of kind of putting my shingle out.
• 1:24:48
  The second thing I learned really quickly was there were
• 1:24:52
  nuances to what people were telling me about how to build
• 1:24:56
  the business that I think I quickly latched onto and was
• 1:25:00
  able to make a pivot. So the first one was, well, you
• 1:25:04
  should do enjoying all these networking groups, should do all
• 1:25:08
  these one on ones and a lot of activity.
• 1:25:11
  And I did that, Alex, for about 30 days and I had, I had to have
• 1:25:16
  101 on ones, right? And maybe part of that process
• 1:25:20
  for me was to really then take a step back.
• 1:25:22
  I did decide what I share with my client.
• 1:25:24
  I did on my own slow down. I said, well, wait a minute.
• 1:25:27
  If I'm trying to work with founder LED or family run
• 1:25:29
  businesses that are discouraged, exhausted or disappointed around
• 1:25:34
  the growth of the organization, who are those business or family
• 1:25:40
  members complaining to about sales?
• 1:25:43
  And then I really in the business networking world, I
• 1:25:46
  really said, well, there's probably two people.
• 1:25:48
  They probably have a business coach who their stitching and
• 1:25:52
  moaning to about sales or someone who wears the financial
• 1:25:55
  hat they're talking to and saying this is not an expense
• 1:25:58
  problem. It's not about cutting heads.
• 1:26:00
  It's about we have to grow top line.
• 1:26:02
  And then I laser focused on really trying to network with
• 1:26:05
  those folks and trying to understand what the needs of
• 1:26:09
  their clients were and really get to work with those trusted
• 1:26:13
  partners and have them be my centers of influence.
• 1:26:16
  And once I started to do that, then things gave me
• 1:26:20
  opportunities doing lunch and learns in front of 1525 business
• 1:26:25
  owners. Allow me to do podcast where I
• 1:26:28
  was sharing the value of what I did, but made it meaningful to a
• 1:26:32
  business coach. You mean like, hey, This is why
• 1:26:34
  you want to work in my network? The third part of it is.
• 1:26:38
  Power Partners. Power partners, right?
• 1:26:40
  The third part was no matter whether it's your first client
• 1:26:43
  or you're fortunate enough to get a lot of clients early on,
• 1:26:47
  do good work for those clients, they will refer you business and
• 1:26:52
  that's really where my business has really taken off.
• 1:26:55
  So those two focuses, knowing who your centers or influence
• 1:26:59
  are and making sure that you're building abundant mindsets and
• 1:27:04
  the most important thing and all those that would just give 1st.
• 1:27:06
  And I was fortunate through my legal career in 2530 years.
• 1:27:10
  I don't know what it was, but I bought into LinkedIn very, very
• 1:27:14
  early and I created my own way in which kind of building my
• 1:27:18
  network. And I have a very expansive and,
• 1:27:21
  and meaningful network and I'm able to provide introductions.
• 1:27:25
  I'll give you 1 quick example. I was working with a client and
• 1:27:30
  they were growing very quickly and they kind of outgrew their
• 1:27:35
  commercial banking relationship, just not the right fit anymore.
• 1:27:38
  They were doing more complex things.
• 1:27:40
  And so just by listening and being involved in conversations,
• 1:27:46
  within probably 20 minutes I was able to make 3 strategic
• 1:27:50
  introductions to three different commercial bankers to allow this
• 1:27:54
  business owner to start evaluating their relationships
• 1:27:57
  and figure out what they need to do in four to six weeks.
• 1:27:59
  Because, you know, there were other other things that were
• 1:28:02
  going on that they needed to solve.
• 1:28:04
  And for me, having a network I can really reach into goes to a
• 1:28:11
  point you're making earlier is like, how do you always increase
• 1:28:14
  your value to your clients? Well, that's how I increase my
• 1:28:17
  value is, is that I make it a requirement for all the clients
• 1:28:22
  I work with. I have to be in your leadership
• 1:28:24
  meetings. Now, do I have to be in the
• 1:28:28
  leadership to help and grow sales?
• 1:28:30
  No, but it's really helpful. It also allows me to really
• 1:28:34
  understand what is really impactful in that business and
• 1:28:37
  that if there's another problem, HR, you know, hiring something
• 1:28:44
  along the lines of financial that I can say, hey, would you
• 1:28:47
  like to talk to? I had one client that they were,
• 1:28:50
  they were, they were a remote environment and they're like,
• 1:28:52
  I'm not so sure we have the right tax guidance for people
• 1:28:55
  working in a state. And what does that really mean?
• 1:28:58
  Like, well, you know, I know ACPA, I know two or three who
• 1:29:02
  actually work with businesses all across the country that have
• 1:29:04
  remote workers. Do you want to just want to have
• 1:29:06
  a conversation? What I don't do is say, this is
• 1:29:09
  the one partner. I like to say, Hey, here's 3
• 1:29:11
  people. And the next step that I always
• 1:29:13
  do, Alex, I'm like, if you want, I'll facilitate those
• 1:29:16
  conversations. I'll set up the calls for you.
• 1:29:18
  I will make sure I sit in for the 1st 5 minutes and make sure.
• 1:29:22
  And if they want to do that, have me do that, great.
• 1:29:24
  If not, sometimes they just run out with their own.
• 1:29:25
  But I think those are, are I think the biggest learnings for
• 1:29:29
  me. And I think the last thing I'll
• 1:29:32
  leave you with, Alex, is, is that I think that you have to
• 1:29:36
  have confidence in what you do. And you have to be able to know
• 1:29:42
  that it's a big world out there. And every person you talk to,
• 1:29:47
  they might have a problem you can solve.
• 1:29:49
  But you have to be mature enough to know they might not be the
• 1:29:51
  right fit. And you might have to be like,
• 1:29:53
  you know, this is not the right fit for me.
• 1:29:55
  Because if you are in kind of the consulting lane or this
• 1:29:57
  fractional lane, a lot of why we chose to do it was like we get
• 1:30:02
  to choose who we get to work with.
• 1:30:05
  And the other part about that confidence is that there's a
• 1:30:08
  little bit of unpredictability. Some clients are project based
• 1:30:11
  and they're going to, you're going to finish your project
• 1:30:13
  successfully, but they're going to exit.
• 1:30:15
  Some others, we do what we're supposed to do, we help them
• 1:30:18
  grow. At some point they're like, we'd
• 1:30:21
  like to have a full time Howard here.
• 1:30:22
  Can you help me find that person where I'm kind of working to
• 1:30:25
  replace myself? So there might be ebbs and flows
• 1:30:29
  in your business. It might not be a linear up or a
• 1:30:32
  flat liner cross, but you have to have a confidence in yourself
• 1:30:36
  and the networks and the relationships you're building
• 1:30:38
  that the next opportunity will will happen.
• 1:30:41
  And an example of that is recently for a trade
• 1:30:49
  association, the Valley Industrial Association out here
• 1:30:51
  and Batavia was putting together for some of their members this
• 1:30:55
  whole concept of what is the business development ecosystem
• 1:30:58
  and what are some DYIS things I can do myself to help implement
• 1:31:02
  it. And so I was, you know, invited
• 1:31:05
  and honored to be part of a group that kind of put on panel
• 1:31:08
  discussion and things along those lines.
• 1:31:09
  And obviously, like, like you and all good content managers
• 1:31:12
  and like, I'm putting it on LinkedIn, I'm sharing it with my
• 1:31:15
  my network. I'm saying, hey, you know, any
• 1:31:17
  business owners or what? And it just so happened that one
• 1:31:20
  of my network partners went to there and I'd known him, but we
• 1:31:24
  had coffee and stuff. He's part of a group, but we
• 1:31:25
  like never really engaged more than that.
• 1:31:28
  He sat through the presentation and like immediately after, it's
• 1:31:31
  like, it's like, I think I have four or five clients that you
• 1:31:33
  should now talk to because I now better understand your process
• 1:31:37
  and how you think, right? So now they have the confidence
• 1:31:41
  to introduce you, right? And so, and it comes at a really
• 1:31:45
  good time and I'm like, hey, you know, and he's like, he's like,
• 1:31:49
  So what do you think about working with his client?
• 1:31:51
  I'm like, it depends. I'm like, let's just set up, get
• 1:31:53
  to know you calls. Let's make sure there's a fit,
• 1:31:55
  like let's make sure that it really makes sense for ways in
• 1:31:59
  which I can help them. And I will guarantee you this
• 1:32:01
  out of that conversation. If it's not me, I know someone
• 1:32:04
  who may be able to help. And so they're going to get that
• 1:32:06
  problem solved. This is a question of by who and
• 1:32:09
  and then what timing. I think that's a good
• 1:32:11
  perspective to have is not just, hey, I do this one solution or
• 1:32:14
  product. That's all I can.
• 1:32:15
  That's the only way I can serve or provide value to my customer.
• 1:32:18
  No, I've got these other opportunities and and
• 1:32:21
  connections and ways to bring people in.
• 1:32:23
  I think that just makes you stickier to a company, add more
• 1:32:26
  value, more long lasting relationships and you get to
• 1:32:29
  help bring other people in, which help services grow too.
• 1:32:32
  You mentioned give first. I saw that when I was on the
• 1:32:34
  call with you. You don't know this, but if you
• 1:32:36
  remember on the call we had before this just to get to know
• 1:32:39
  each other, see if you'd be a good fit for the podcast.
• 1:32:41
  One of the things you mentioned is you go, do you have an
• 1:32:43
  assessment that you do? It's kind of an entryway into
• 1:32:45
  your services because we do month of retainers and you know,
• 1:32:48
  typically longer term engagements.
• 1:32:50
  And I said, no, I don't, but that's a good idea, Howard.
• 1:32:53
  And I got to think in and I put some thought into it and some
• 1:32:55
  action behind it. And probably two days later I
• 1:32:58
  had an assessment. We've already sold a few of
• 1:32:59
  them. So I want to thank you for that.
• 1:33:01
  No, it's my pleasure. You know, and I I think the best
• 1:33:03
  part about something along those lines is, you know, on the
• 1:33:07
  assessment front is that you have the power depending on the
• 1:33:10
  client, like once the assessment, probably the power
• 1:33:15
  in the assessment for you is the information you're getting back
• 1:33:19
  from it, right? So sure, there's you want to
• 1:33:21
  know if they have skin in the game and want to pale it, but
• 1:33:24
  you also now have the power to be like, Hey, this clients big
• 1:33:27
  enough that you know what, I'm going to give the assessment for
• 1:33:29
  free and then I'm going to come back with a tailored plan
• 1:33:33
  because I know that's what they appreciate as opposed to maybe
• 1:33:35
  another client like, you know what, I got to really see if you
• 1:33:38
  really, really want to play with me.
• 1:33:39
  So it's going to be a nominal amount 500,000 whatever you
• 1:33:42
  charge. But the end of the day, it's a
• 1:33:44
  great, it's all. Here's the other thing about
• 1:33:47
  assessments. At times, depending on your
• 1:33:49
  business, it also could buy you time.
• 1:33:52
  So if you know the clients in front of you and the workload
• 1:33:55
  and you're a solo entrepreneur or you're working with yourself
• 1:33:57
  in 10 and 9, sometimes if an assessment's appropriate, it's
• 1:34:02
  like, OK, we're going to take next 30 or 45 days.
• 1:34:05
  So a lot of times you're evaluating that assessment and
• 1:34:08
  you kind of have understanding of where that's going to go, but
• 1:34:10
  you can respectfully delay the moment of full engagement while
• 1:34:17
  you're working through some other deliverables.
• 1:34:19
  It's like you have to really understand your about otherwise
• 1:34:22
  mistake I made was like, well, I'm just going to elongate my
• 1:34:25
  day. Sure, I'll take that 7:30 call.
• 1:34:27
  Sure, I'll take the 5:30 call. Well, now it's like wait a
• 1:34:30
  minute. Now those are recurring calls
• 1:34:32
  like the day has got. So it builds up.
• 1:34:35
  So there are techniques and ways in which you can, you know, help
• 1:34:40
  yourself in a solo entrepreneurial way with you're
• 1:34:43
  not feeling like you've got the draconian corporate world or
• 1:34:47
  life that you had, which is one of the reasons why a lot of us.
• 1:34:51
  Have not gone back right? Exactly.
• 1:34:53
  We just don't want that. Yes, and so well and one of the
• 1:34:56
  things it did on the back end too.
• 1:34:57
  So it's good for the front end to get people in, assess them,
• 1:35:00
  turn into other paid programs. But even on the back end now
• 1:35:04
  we've got a similar system where let's say you do a six month or
• 1:35:07
  12 month engagement with us. At the end of that you may want
• 1:35:09
  to do a quarterly touch point with us.
• 1:35:11
  So becoming every quarter or twice a year.
• 1:35:14
  And that's opportunity to add more value to a customer,
• 1:35:16
  increase revenue, be a little bit stickier because things
• 1:35:19
  change so fast. Like if you looked at six months
• 1:35:22
  ago LinkedIn, it's different than today.
• 1:35:24
  Podcasting is in a different place now, video change, you
• 1:35:27
  know a lot of the things change. And so it's an opportunity to
• 1:35:30
  say, hey, we're done with the initial engagement.
• 1:35:32
  We did a great job. We created the wins and success
• 1:35:34
  we wanted, but what does the next year look like with us?
• 1:35:37
  And here are some options to continue working with us.
• 1:35:39
  So thanks again for that. I appreciate that.
• 1:35:41
  The other thing you could think about assessment is
• 1:35:44
  foundational. When you do your checkpoint now
• 1:35:47
  you can show the value you brought.
• 1:35:49
  We've moved from that point to now at this point, right?
• 1:35:51
  So now you're you're you're suddenly giving the value back
• 1:35:55
  and say, remember what we started here?
• 1:35:56
  And. Now we're here and by the way,
• 1:35:59
  we got that in six months. And by the way, let's have a
• 1:36:01
  conversation of how that what that's meant to the business.
• 1:36:03
  Save time, energy, resources, increase revenue, whatever it
• 1:36:07
  might be. Now you're monetizing it, right?
• 1:36:09
  And now they're like, oh great. Well, Alex and his team, we want
• 1:36:13
  to now see what the next iteration is because we can't
• 1:36:15
  believe we came this far in six months.
• 1:36:17
  Imagine what we do in the next 12 months.
• 1:36:19
  That's right. Right.
• 1:36:19
  So it it it basically drives value for you.
• 1:36:23
  Howard, I appreciate you coming on the show, man.
• 1:36:24
  It's been. Fun.
• 1:36:25
  So we appreciate you and your time and please stay in touch
• 1:36:30
  and anything that I can do to help you or anyone.
• 1:36:32
  If they just have a questions, they they know where to find me.
• 1:36:35
  Where can they find you, connect with you?
• 1:36:36
  Learn more about what you do. Yeah, So great question.
• 1:36:39
  So Howard Fisher's the name. I'm on LinkedIn, so you can find
• 1:36:43
  me on LinkedIn. You can also find me through
• 1:36:49
  sales acceleration, which is a group I belong with.
• 1:36:51
  I got a website, my company name is Hantera, so you can find it
• 1:36:55
  that way. And I'm not shy about letting
• 1:36:58
  people reach me. Everyone has it anyway.
• 1:37:00
  So you can just contact me on my cell number 312, 560-0336.
• 1:37:05
  That's how you get, that's how you get in touch with me.
• 1:37:07
  So it's out there if you looked at my website, it's out there if
• 1:37:11
  you looked at LinkedIn. So anyone who can get me can
• 1:37:13
  just get me that way.