Discover the strategies and insights that our hosts have implemented to effectively manage their business finances and maintain sales and marketing efforts, even during economic downturns. We explore the concept of committing to spending a minimum percentage of revenue on marketing, sacrificing your own salary, and reducing your margins and how these commitments impact on long-term success.
Join us as we explore the symbiotic relationship between financial commitments, marketing, and sacrifice in the business world.
Thanks for listening!
Discover the strategies and insights that our hosts have implemented to effectively manage their business finances and maintain sales and marketing efforts, even during economic downturns. We explore the concept of committing to spending a minimum percentage of revenue on marketing, sacrificing your own salary, and reducing your margins and how these commitments impact on long-term success.
Join us as we explore the symbiotic relationship between financial commitments, marketing, and sacrifice in the business world.
Thanks for listening!
All these years blood, sweat and tears
Scott Scully:nothing could stop me What's up grown nation. Welcome back to the growth show. My name is Scott sky. I'm here with Eric Watkins and Jeff winters. Good day,
Eric Watkins:gentlemen. Hello. Hello, everybody.
Scott Scully:We collectively, this morning agreed that this episode is going to be fire. Each and every one of us can't wait to bring the heat. Tune in. I think that this is going to be a good one. Before we get into it. I have three announcements. First, our partner Brian Condon had a birthday. We're going to celebrate him this afternoon. But I just thought it would be important to highlight Brian A lot of times he works behind the scenes. guy wears a ridiculous number of hats, runs our human resources works with our accounting teams, our facilities teams, he's our favorite CEO on the planet. It is his birthday. We appreciate him. I personally have been involved in three different companies with him. And the man kicks ass so Happy Birthday, belated by the time you all listen, but we want to do appreciate him. Happy birthday,
Eric Watkins:happy birthday, Brian, uncle Brian,
Jeff Winters:uncle for all too often, the folks running facilities and HR. And finally, don't get nearly enough appreciation. Brian does a job that's second to none. And we love you, man. Happy birthday.
Scott Scully:Second one, your favorite pod cast people us just won an award, Hey, yo, hey, oh, the communicator award the top award for the brochure, we just won an award. Gotta mean something.
Eric Watkins:It's big deal. And I would be remiss not to mention, Neil. I'm here. And Katie being behind the scenes, and Melanie Clark and Alex key,
Jeff Winters:very cool. And we'd be further remiss if we didn't mention the listeners and the subscribers. I mean, you don't win awards, if you just have your family, listen to your podcast, this is the fact that you all are out there, listening, liking, subscribing, telling your friends telling your colleagues that you're getting value out of this thing, and we appreciate it. And we appreciate you all.
Scott Scully:We don't do it for the awards, we literally wanted to bring value to the people that we work closest with, internally and externally, we just want to impact lives. But every once in a while getting a little recognition is nice. The way in which they told us yesterday was awesome. They turned up the music, all I do is when shot confetti guns, you know, it was it was fun. So
Eric Watkins:I remember and what was really cool is in that same room, the podcast was born. It was and it's guys crazy. It's a real thing. Now,
Scott Scully:it's been fun, though all three of us think it's, you know, one of the best things we do on a weekly basis. So thanks for tuning in. And one more thing I was thinking this morning about the show, and about some of the things that I'm going to actually talk about in my section, you know, that have to do with growth. And it just dawned on me, just keep in mind when we're going through these things. There are there are two ways to be in my opinion and business you are, you're going to create a lifestyle business, you're going to keep it small, you're going to be really actively involved in the front lines. And you know what you can do that have a small business make a lot of money. And that's good. And congratulations to you. And then on the other side of the coin, there are those that are interested in maybe impacting even more lives. Building an even larger organization, building value within that organization, something maybe where the business potentially can be sold down the road or maybe handed off to future generations. And the target for this show is I'm going to build a big business impact a lot of lives and create a company that has value that if I wanted to at some point, I would sell it. So just thought I would throw that out there again. We love doing this and people love Mr. Winters because he is the Sheriff of LinkedIn.
Eric Watkins:What do we got to comb in the past year?
Jeff Winters:The sheriff worked hard this week. Not that not that the sheriff takes any weeks off. No holidays, no sick days, but
Eric Watkins:and you can't see us right now. But he has 16 large pieces of paper with all of these LinkedIn posts. So a lot of there's a lot of research that went into This well, they're lucky to have you. If you have a research
Jeff Winters:team, you know what we talk about the people that make this podcast happen. Katie being behind the scenes, we got plenty of people. But not only do we have a team gang, we're getting submissions. Whoo, we are Feel free. Yeah, we're getting submissions, I got a submission this week. So today's first truth comes from Luke Schabel. We all have at least one, be honest, more than one item of clothing that looked so good either on the store floor or on a website and bought it three years, maybe four or five years later, that same item of clothing is still hanging in the closet, and probably has been only worn once or twice. The same could be true of buying software for your business.
Unknown:You said it was going to be a layup six months
Jeff Winters:later, I'm paraphrasing, but the company buys software, six months later, leadership finds out this expensive software is only being used by a small percentage of the company and demands an explanation. And I'm paraphrasing again. But if you're going to be buying software to solve a problem in your business leadership needs to be thoughtful about technology and ensure they have a culture that will support it, and that it will be used gang, there's no shortage of software out there to solve all your problems in one fell swoop, one tiny click, if you're going to be buying software to solve problems, don't turn around in six months, and it's not being used, this is a great truth from our friend, Luke,
Eric Watkins:I'm gonna let I'll go first because I know Scott got a whole soliloquy on this, the easiest thing to do for your business, when you're going to buy a software is put milestones on results in place, bring results to software, if you're gonna buy this software, and we're gonna continue to use it, these are the results that we need to hit, don't fall in love with the product, don't fall in love with how sexy it is, what is the impact to your business that it's going to bring, we've made this mistake many times what is going to be the significant impact from acquiring this. And then if not, we're not going to renew the software. And just knowing ahead of time. And being upfront of we need this exactly to happen with your team. And with the vendor that you're working with, I think is extremely important.
Scott Scully:Luke, I love you to throw on top of his story, it'd be like, he went into the store, bought the shirt, signed an agreement to have them send the same shirt monthly for 36 months. He's got several closets of the same shirt that he's worn once or not worn at all. Look, there are some software's that certainly help we have some of those, we spend $300,000 a month on different partners that help us in different areas of our business. But when it gets to that level, you've got some that you've implemented some that you haven't some you use to use some that you're not using anymore. Like, the larger you get, the more important it is to have somebody really looking at this and taking new vendors through a process. And and figuring it out. In fact, we have a new position and Nick in our organization that's responsible for vetting out anything that we're looking at, and looking at our existing relationships and finding out if those relationships are being utilized. One thing that that people don't consider is, they're sitting there like, Oh, my God, we could save 10%, you know, we could have 10% more margin if we implement this. But a lot of times they maybe say they're going to replace something else. And then they don't, because they make the decision, they sign the contract. And then all of a sudden after that, you know, there's arguments about keeping that thing that you are going to get rid of and now both are in place, and you've literally eaten up your margin, or, oh my god, this can make us so much more effective and didn't consider that the implementation process and how long it would take to roll across your organization, the fact that it might not even have impact till next year, so you're totally screw in this years. But there's just a million things that go into this. And software does not save the day software still takes a person and if the person's not bought into it, that know how to use it and just doesn't roll. This could be like an entire episode. So I will shut up. Watch what you buy.
Eric Watkins:I think there's going to be a shift over time software is held to an unfair standard compared to services. People buy services they want out tomorrow if they don't like the services, but they'll buy software for 36 months, sign it not even thinking about I think there's going to be a shift in this dynamic overtime, because software is becoming more and more competitive. And you're going to have providers
Jeff Winters:a shift to what you've made the big claim what's the shift this shift is it's not
Eric Watkins:going to be 36 month terms anymore. It's going to be You get out of the software when you want to get out of the software because it's gonna get so competitive that people are going to come in and allow you to get out whenever you want. And they're going to have to drive results to keep customers,
Jeff Winters:Eric Watkins month to month software contracts. You heard it here first common.
Scott Scully:I'd like to give a future promise in the sales enablement space.
Jeff Winters:Wait a minute, we have a prediction and a promise in my section because I
Scott Scully:think Eric's right, the landscape is going to change. And you know how it's going to change abstracts on a mission to make sure that you don't have to buy seven pieces of software to grow your business. Behind the scenes. We're spending the dollars we're doing the development. And we're going to make sure that production one vendor one partner, is all you need to grow your business. Oh,
Eric Watkins:prediction. You hit a promise you hear you heard it here first. You heard it here. First, you're gonna be
Jeff Winters:bummed that gave that communications award already because they give it again. Next truth. You know, gang. We don't have that many celebrities here in St. Louis. Do we like we're not It's not LA? It's not New York like we're a little light on celebrities. But I have one for us here. Sam Altman, creator of chat, GBT, local prodigy from St. Louis has a truth for us today. He says the remote work experiment was a mistake. And it's over. Period. I don't know Sam. I know Sam is a like I said, a local hero.
Eric Watkins:Interesting coming from him interesting coming
Jeff Winters:from him like you wouldn't think a person in that sphere would make a statement. Such as that I'm going to intuit a little bit maybe he'll he'll call me as he often does and say, Hey, that's not exactly what I meant. I think it's the fully remote work experiment. And Sam buddy's not yet but after this possible, the fully remote work experiment. Yeah, fully or fully remote work experiment is over. And it was wrong. And I think we've talked about this on past episodes. But this is evolving quickly. And we're not just going to drop topics that are important for our listeners lives. That's what's being said, by people that you would think might be saying things like that. That's this guy named Sam Altman saying remote work experiment is over.
Eric Watkins:I talked to different business owners, you know, for a variety of reasons, either their current clients or talk to other people in the space. And I've heard zero people mention how they're trying to go more remote. And I've heard almost 100% 100% of people mentioned how they're trying to backpedal out of their remote policy. I think that's happening for a reason. I think there's benefits. I love the I love the dynamic we have currently internally with a little hybrid approach. Yep. Yep. But yeah, the fully remote, I think I'm just not hearing a whole lot of people that are seeing success with it. Jeff spread close personal friends,
Unknown:call me new golf buddy.
Jeff Winters:And now we come to the This isn't this isn't what I'm about to share is not isolated. This is a movement that people are talking about. And we talk about it a lot in our organization. And it's I couldn't disagree more, it's from Justin, leaders have been conditioned to tell their teams bring me solutions, not problems. This needs to change. And then Justin, and I'm paraphrasing goes on to say that all leaders can't bring solutions. And it basically hampers people surfacing problems because they're not capable or thoughtful or whatever. And that people should be celebrated for just bringing problems and that shouldn't be considered complaints. I'm paraphrasing the last part, you know, and I think this is a huge lie and could stifle growth in your organization, if you just blanket went back to your company and rolled out Hey, guys, from now on, bring on the problems. Don't even try to think about the solutions. I think this is a lie. And a lot of people are talking this way and making it okay. And I think we that's our job is to make sure they know that it's not this is a lie for me.
Scott Scully:Let me make sure I understand he's so he's just saying, Stop bringing problems.
Jeff Winters:No, he's saying certain people will be able to identify problems, but they won't surface those problems because their company has said if you're gonna bring a problem, bring a solution, but they're not capable of finding the solution or they don't know the solution or they're not gonna even try to come up with a solution. So don't let bringing a solution be a barrier to bringing me the problem.
Scott Scully:Well, we created the map that everybody goes through here weekly for a reason and you know, major projects activity measured and last one potential business issues. And again, this is through consulting and outside experts and much larger organizations spanning back lots of years. They said the best thing would be to show up, lay out anything that's in the way any potential business issues that are there with an attempt right at, here's what I'm doing to potentially solve it. And if It's a safe space. And you appreciate that they told you the problem, and at least tried that that will mean development. But it's got to be the right space where if it's not exactly the right solve, you can commend them for bringing it and coach them through potentially what the solve is that I mean, that's what I would do
Eric Watkins:agree 100%. And I think to Scott's point, it's not about you having the perfect solution, it's about you having a solution. And if you don't have your team do that you're just stifling their growth. Because the number one thing you do as you move up in an organization is you solve bigger and more complex problems. So for me, to just teach my team to just bring me problems, stifling their ability to continue to progress in organization.
Jeff Winters:I think this is a big deal. I recently read a book that proclaim this exact same thing. I don't know why it's caught fire, but it has. And I think, if I weren't charged with at least attempting to bring a solution to solve a problem, I'm just making my boss the easy button for everything going wrong in my department. So those are the truths. Those are the lies killing it
Scott Scully:again, back to you, Scott, killing it again. All right, we are 5450. And I was thinking a lot about this over the last 24 hours. And this is really important. And there's several legs to it. This is one of those things where we could talk over a couple of episodes. So I'll try to make it as short as possible. And that is, it takes money to make money. This is not a new concept. However, if your growth is not there, you may be thinking, well, I've got to cut back. And then a lot of times, the first thing that you think about cutting is marketing dollars. And you do that, of course, because a lot of times that's not a person, right? It could be if your marketing or business development dollars are wrapped up in sales, sales enablement, commissions, salaries, right, but it's the first thing that you look at. And if you are going to be a growth organization, you have to be committed to spending x percent of your top line on marketing and sales, it drives the entire organization. And when times get tough, you have to be willing to sacrifice margin, because that growth over time, it's I guess, what I'm gonna say is it's easier to go adjust margins down the road, when you have the business, right. But if you are spending less and getting to the end of the year, you know, you don't have that extra revenue to go adjust the margins. And I know this is a very simple concept, but it scares the shit out of people in business. When they're new, they're at that level, they want to grow by X percent this year, they get three, four months into the year, they get scared, they pull back, they protect margins, the owner gets to make the whatever they want to make that year. That's it smallest companies, that's the that's the one of the bigger deals, it's like, okay, I got 10 employees, I got me, I want to make sure I make a quarter of a million dollars this year, I cannot go backwards from that, right. Alright, so here's where it gets interesting. First, if you're at the beginning stages of your business, and you're starting to make money, and you're an owner, or you're a CEO, and you're running it, do not pay yourself a lot of money, do not overspend, live under your lifestyle. Because what's going to happen is you're going to get into a spot and you're going to hit several inflection points, and you're going to want to grow but you're going to be in a spot where you can't afford to do it because maybe you can't not pay yourself for three months or six months, or you can't pay yourself less or take less in distributions. And you know, it's so hard to think about if if you haven't been there before, it's like you get into year one, year two, maybe you're in year two, and you're making more money than you've ever made, and you start taking that don't like get several years into your business. Put that money back into your business hell here. We didn't have outside investment. I don't know if we paid ourselves for year and a half then we then the next zone was five grand a month. And you hire people you pour back in. And then when you get to those time periods where you want to grow and you need to have a level of patience to keep spending money. You don't because there's not enough money in your corporate her bank account, there's not enough money at home. So you can't get over that hump that happens constantly. The other thing is, you need to be planning your growth early the year before. And then you need to go through your budgets. And you need to build up at the end of the year, so that you have the infrastructure in place and the spend going on so that you can hit numbers in January, and February and March in April, because those damn numbers are the most important ones, because that revenue carries across, you know, especially in reoccurring revenue businesses, right? Like, like ours, that revenue carries across the whole year, right. So if I add somebody in January, I got 12 months of that person, you can't go make that shit up in the last quarter of the year, not in the kind of business that we're in, like not without a ridiculous amount of spend. Sometimes one would suggest you could overspend in the beginning of the year, so that you're not minus that revenue, and then readjust your margins, and then figure that out once you actually have the business. But there's nothing worse than getting to the end of the year, or the end of a couple years of not having that revenue. It takes money to make money. And a big, big reason why people don't grow, is because it takes balls, it takes sacrifice, and you have to be smart with your money, you have to be because it's there's going to be a point in time, when you're going to want to crack, you know, there's the 50 factor, it sucks when you get to 50. Because all hell breaks loose, you got to start having a human resources manager and different levels of management and, or getting past $10 million is hard or getting past $20 million is hard, there's going to be different time periods. If you don't have the cash in the bank to do it, you're just not going to break through. You just won't yep, I want to, there was a lot Scott said there. I know, it's there's there's just so much to it, it wasn't critical,
Jeff Winters:I was just being complimented your credit, I was just gonna figure I was gonna share the experience on a piece of it. Yeah, which is around your personal salary. And this is so hard, because for a lot of people, it's a family conversation. I know, and I'll personalize it to me, I, when we started the business took no money for 18 months, and then we started to make money. And I was talking to my wife, and I bet a lot of our listeners did the same thing, you know, between 1,000,010 million and you go look, if things keep going the way they're going, we're gonna be making x in a year. And then you realize that that's not going to happen, because you have to layer in this other layer of management that eats up cash. And that's a really hard thing to do business wise, it can also be really hard for you at home, because you've promised your significant other or your wife or your kids a certain thing. And it's then you have to make a really hard choice. And that choice is do I keep the promise I made to my family? Or do I do what I think is best for the business. And I just want to say, Scott, I know you went through that. I went through that. That is the one of the hardest parts outside of the business world of running a business is figuring out do I or don't I from a spending perspective. And my my guidance would be to do exactly what I didn't do, which is true with most things, but do exactly what I didn't do, and under promise at home and spend the money on the business because if you're doing if you're running a sub 10 million sub $20 million business, for lifestyle business doesn't apply to you. If you're running it for growth, it does. Don't make those promises. Because you don't know we're telling you, you're going to have to spend more than you think. And you don't want to disappoint either side. So keep the expectations low at home,
Scott Scully:or or make sure that all parties understand that you are building wealth. It's just in the business, the value of the business is x. So even though we're not taking it out, even though we're not living a luxurious lifestyle. Now, a year later our business is worth X. So you know just the other thing is it's it there's got to be a huge part of it where you're in it for the problem you're solving and the people that are on the team, right so that's the other thing that your money is not the it shouldn't be the biggest thing and if you make it that way you will get yours. One day you will get yours if you make it about others, period.
Eric Watkins:If you look at it, you know someone's running, let's say a million dollar bill. Business. And let's say they're making, they're not taking a salary, they're making 15% profit. So they're making about 150,000 a year, you know, they're making 11 grand a month right around there, you make a decision, say you want to spend$3,000 on something with marketing and sales. It's very tough as a business owner to not look at that as man, that's$3,000 coming out of what I could be taking home every single month. But what they're not thinking about is what would that be? What would that 15% be or that 10% be when we're $3 million, when we're at $5 million. And I think the root of this, what you're talking about Scott, is people not thinking long enough and not thinking big enough. And they're worried about the short term, and they're sacrificing what could be for what's right in front of their face. And then you make decisions from a scarcity mindset, instead of an abundance mindset of what this could turn into. These are
Jeff Winters:really easy things to think about. hard things to talk about on date night,
Scott Scully:I'll get personal with this, I'm about 29 years in but just say 28 For now, I did not take more than $20,000 a month in let's just say almost a 29 years, in 24 of the 29 years, never took more than a $240,000 salary or combo salary. distributions. And, and by the way, it didn't start that way. Several times it was zero several times it was five grand a month, but never more than$20,000 until four years ago. Right? So I keep that in mind. Like, I've been involved in three companies. And do I sometimes make more than that now? Yeah. But it's a grind. Right. But I always wanted to have something, I wanted to impact lives and have something much larger one day impact, more people do do good. And there were several years of giving back and putting in to get mine eventually, right. And that's just something that you need to consider. So stay small pad your pockets, make good money. But if you want to grow your organization where there's value, if you want to impact more lives, if you want to have it be about more than just you, then it's gonna take a commitment to doing things the right way. And then you will experience growth. And the
Eric Watkins:last thing I'll add here is do something. So like I talked to clients who are smaller companies, they make a significant investment in our services. And they're kind of banking on getting a return in three, four months, which is just with any marketing isn't necessarily realistic. And I'll talk to them on their way out. And I'll say, here's the deal. If it's not our service, it needs to be something because if you're not going to spend money to invest in sales, you're gonna be in the same spot, you were in that same spot you were was a million dollars, and you're gonna lose clients, and you have to do something. If you want to grow your business, you're not just going to sit around, sit around and wait and, you know, pinch pennies to get there got to spend money to make money.
Scott Scully:Absolutely. All right. So my homework, if you will, is you've got to really evaluate who you are, and and what your mission is. And again, if you want to keep it small, and make sure you make X amount of money, because that's enough. And that's what makes you a happy individual, then that is wonderful. But if you want to crack 50 million, then you got to live underneath your lifestyle and make a serious financial commitment and do not spend less in marketing and sales development when things get rough. Right? Do not do that. But you got to make a decision who you want to be and then commit fully. All right, one of the ways that we're gonna get to that growth, if you commit to it is building a predictable pipeline. It's just mining for growth, coal,
Eric Watkins:mining for gross gold, take a little bit of that money and spend it on this topic that I'm about to talk about. But today we're gonna talk about how to use the gatekeeper, a lost art. It's getting worse and worse every single day, and the root of why it's getting and when I say gatekeeper, I'm talking about receptionist or actually calling in office phone and talking to who picks up the phone first. The reason it is getting worse and worse. Is because data is continuously getting more and more mobile lines in direct lines. And listen, I'm not here to say don't call mobile lines don't call direct lines, you're going to have a higher contact rate with those. But inevitably, if you are calling and found that mobile direct line, I hate to break it to you, but probably 100, other people are calling that mobile or direct line that week, as well. And what people are losing is the skill of how to work the gatekeeper who picks up the phone, to be able to get to the decision maker and a couple other things as well. So here's some value in what you get from this. Number one, you can actually qualify your prospect before you get them on the phone. No prospect loves qualifying questions. But the ability to get that information from the gatekeeper before you even talk to that decision maker is huge. Number two, if you're struggling getting to somebody from their direct line, they are more likely to pick up from an internal transfer from a gatekeeper than it is for you to call them directly. It comes across as different internally. And inevitably, they think, you know, Jeff at the front desk is transferring them over. And the third thing is, especially if you're in the SMB space, and you're talking to a lot of small businesses, a lot of these businesses get get their business through the phone. So they don't ever want their like, we're a good example, we don't ever want our phone not to be answered. So we will route those calls, to where to whoever is able to answer you'll, you'll end up getting to somebody in sales or somebody in operations, who will transfer you right over. So a couple things to keep in mind. So that's why you should do this. And a couple of things to keep in mind when you're doing this for tips. First one be nice. You'll hear different things you'll hear people say be authoritative. Show him who's boss pass me right through. I don't believe in that. That hasn't worked for me. I think You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar. So be nice. Second thing, little pro tip here, be a little confused. Be a little confused. We'll talk about that in a second. But the confused tone goes into the third thing, which is asked for help. Majority of people out there I'm not gonna say everybody, majority of people love to help others. Just saying the word. Hey, could you help me? With it literally gets people, it changes their mindset and they want to help you. And the last thing, don't ever say the person you're trying to talk to Don't ever say their full name. Say their first name. Sounds like you know him. Sounds like you belong to have this call. So this may go something like this. I'm calling in and Jeff's the reception receptionist. Hey, Jeff, this is this is Eric with abstract and I was looking to speak to John today. I was hoping you could transfer me over. But before you do that, I wanted to confirm, just to make sure that my my notes here are correct. You guys are looking to grow your business. Right? You guys are getting new new deals every single day. Yes. Jeff would say yes. Yes, I would say yeah. And in, you know, in the IT space, you guys have like I saw you had two or three technicians there. Definitely, definitely two or three technicians upgrade. Well, yeah, could you? Could you transfer me over to John, I just really need your help with getting the job. And typically, majority of the time, they're gonna help you do that and pass you right through. But I think a lot of people just assume if I can't get the direct line, or I can't get the mobile, I don't get passed along. What do you guys think?
Scott Scully:Can I add to that just with a script? It would it would have to do with us, but kind of pinpoint your example. So you're calling and you're asking some questions in qualifying, like you didn't trying to get transferred. And then he or she may say, not here. We're fine, or authoritative voicemail. And that would be where I would go with your help. Yeah. And it's like, my name is Scott Scully. And I'm in charge of our market development over here at abstract. And when we come into a town, we have 45 minute informational meetings with the top IT companies. And I've actually been able to schedule three of the four, but I haven't been able to get a hold of Eric, and I just want him to be able to take a look at this. Before we come to town. I want him to be part of the process. Can you help me? Can you help make sure that we can get Eric a 45 minute time slot so that that he can take a look at this provide feedback? Oh, it could be anything right. But if he or she is thinking, Well, I'm going to be doing a disservice if I don't go find Derek and get him involved in this because they're meeting with the most important or significant players in the IT space in this town in their market development process. And if I don't connect them with Eric might be upset with me if he doesn't get take a look at this. Like, there could be some guilt there that like involve them in, in the process, make it substantial, it works. And just another thing is, I think that 100% of the time, there's a gatekeeper. And there may be your hit one to transfer that there might not be a risk quote unquote receptionist, but 100% of the time, you're gonna run into some sort of gatekeeper. So 100% of time, there's a gatekeeper. And I bet less than 20% of the time, those of you that are listening to actually have a strategy, when you're teaching sales for gatekeeping. Yep, you talk to him about your interactions with the decision maker, probably not the influencer, definitely not the gatekeeper who is involved 100% of the time. So take that. And what Eric saying into consideration, it's important,
Jeff Winters:I'm going to give you my strategy with by style for the gatekeeper. My style for the gatekeeper is to get a smile, I want to get them to smile. Because on balance, if you're talking to a gatekeeper that this is part of their job, and it's probably not their favorite part of their job, probably they're getting these calls, their job is to in an instant figure out is the person who I'm potentially transferring this call to gonna want to talk to this person or not. And that's oftentimes not that much fun. And I think it's it's hard to get a smile on call once you get a smile on the second one, because if they picked up once it probably picking up again, you know, when I've got a history of going, you know, hey, hey, Eric. It's it's Jeff over at abstract Marketing Group, we had an incredible call yesterday, it was amazing. Last 37 seconds. But as the highlight of my day, I'm sure you remember, like, just something silly for me in my style to get a smile. And then they go in. It's like, it's like, what I'm trying to get a restaurant reservation at a pack place. And I call and they're gonna say no, and they're like, Who is this and like, this is Jeff from the shitty husband's Club. We're in town for a convention, and I forgot my wife's birthday. And now I need your help, like, just getting that smile can be a be a pro tip. That's great. That might be the nugget that people take. They're gonna be like, Oh, I've worked like a charm February 14, from the shitty husbands. Well,
Eric Watkins:that's, that's a great point, too. And the other thing is, we actually have a section in our CRM dedicated to gatekeeper notes. So learn about the person, you're gonna be talking to this person a couple different times. Yeah, like, keep that information handy. And I had a conversation with Jeff, he was incredible. That was good. Yeah.
Scott Scully:Love it. Awesome, as always. So now, we've broken through the gatekeeper. Our salespeople are talking to some decision makers.
Jeff Winters:That's right they are. And we talked earlier in the truth and a lie about buying software and not using it. So now I'm going to talk about some software we bought. And we are using, and is delivering some awesome insights that I want to share. So today, I want to talk about the importance and the impact of having more than one decision maker or influencer involved in your sales process. So doubles in win rate, think about that our close rate doubles, when we have more than one, and it triples when we have three, there is huge impact there. I think everyone knows you're in a sales process. You have somebody at the other on the other side, who's excited and who's interested. And they go, Great, perfect. I'm gonna go talk to Sandy, about this, and then I'll let you know. And at that point, you got a decision to make. Are you going to push for Sandy to be on that next call? Or are you not? And our data suggests, every single time you should push for it, you should push for it in a nice way so that you're not insulting the person that you're talking to. But if I'm telling you are win rates double with to triple with three, yet gotta be saying something to the effect of Oh, completely understand. What I'd love to do is I think I think my my VP could potentially be available. Why don't the four of us potentially jump on a call, like when when people buy our product, typically, this is always the case. But when people are really excited about it, and they want to sort of get it through and it sounds like you are having everybody on the call. So Sandy can ask us the 27 questions she's inevitably going to have right and then you too can can sort of get offline and give it a go no go when would be a good time for that. Assuming and teaching the prospect how to buy this is how people buy our stuff. Everybody has your situation. We always want people on it's not that I don't believe you can't carry the message. is that there's going to be questions and I want to alleviate that pain from you get more than one contact at your prospects company on your win rates will go up. That's one example as to how
Eric Watkins:big deal, huge deal. And sometimes I don't feel like the prospects always tell us who they need to talk to. And you may need to do a little research beforehand of Who do you think would be the next decision maker that'd be involved in bringing up that name in the same example you did? I think it's great. You know, I
Scott Scully:like this doesn't have to be confrontational could be Hey, Jeff, you didn't get to where you are today. Without surrounding yourself with a really good team. I'm sure that you guys make decisions together. Who else do you want to bring to the call, just so I can make sure to answer their questions as well. Do that we should do that in the appointment setting call. Yep. When they get on the call to do the presentation, we should verify. Look, I understand that you were interested in having a couple of your team members on do we have them here today? Or, you know, would you like to, to patch them in? Or do you want me to call you back in five minutes, so you can round everybody up? Because that'd be worthwhile, right? Just think about it like for us, if we do 100 new sales presentations. And let's just say today, we brought on 10 clients because of that. But we could go to 20 by just making sure that that person and another person were involved, that data would suggest that there's something more important than your thinking. And that is how do I get this guy or girl to bring someone else to the call so they can talk to each other? And that's big. That's huge.
Jeff Winters:Don't question the data, either just do it don't oh, well, it could be don't worry about that data doesn't need to answer your questions
Scott Scully:is that not saying that like for us, I'm just talking about us as an organization. 100% absolutely should be baked in as part of our process that you have to bring another person to the meeting. If you have a meeting, and it's with one person, you're not doing your job, you got to get them to bring somebody else. Best case scenario, you get them to bring two other people,
Jeff Winters:I think the overlay to this is that deals that have more than two meetings and the process also doubles your win rate. So you start to really think okay, well, if I parlay those two, and I have three people on my third call, I basically can't lose one.
Scott Scully:That's worst case scenario, though. Right? Like why have if you can avoid having three meetings? Have one with everybody there? Yeah, or one
Eric Watkins:with everybody? So sales rep. I feel like a lot of sales reps know this in general, like know, they have more decision makers on the call, there'll be more successful, get more people involved, get the right people involved. Why don't they do it?
Jeff Winters:I'll tell you why. Because it was an experience I had, when I was first selling. I was talking to a guy at a hospital and He's the VP of blah, blah, blah. And I was like, great, you know what? He's like, I gotta run up the flagpole to Bob, the true story. And I go great, you know, would it be better if if sort of we all got together and talk to Bob, because you You don't think I could talk about myself explain this message like that? That is a very scarring. That's a scar. It's a bad moment. You're like, Oh, no. And so a the deal dies be that guy hates me and see, I'm young. So I'm like, Shit, I don't want to do that. Again. It's just easier to not because it's hard to be a Scot the way you said it's great. It could be seen as a tense moment. And what we need to get over as a selling community is that tense moments are great moments, not bad moments. And it's all in how you say it.
Scott Scully:I want to I want to save you time. Yeah. Like I'm asking you this for you. You clearly got to where you're at. Because you're a good leader. You make good decisions. Who do you involve in your process. And I would be more than happy to talk to all of you. Because if it is something that you like, I'm going to save you time. You don't have to go try to you know, play the telephone game and communicate to them if it's something that you like, and you want them to like it.
Eric Watkins:And here's the newsflash, if they can't sell them to come to a meeting, they're sure as hell not going to be able to sell them to sign a man to service man.
Jeff Winters:That's totally true. Yeah, sometimes you have to teach people how to buy.
Scott Scully:But I bet a lot of the sales coaching is not centered around things like that. Right? Like we spend so much time on maybe a question or a closing statement or a rebuttal. How much time are you spending on coaching people? And how to get all the decision makers into the room? Because the data would suggest that actually is the most important thing.
Eric Watkins:Right? And I don't think it's reasonable. Also to ask our sales enablement team for X able to get multiple people on the call like this is gotta happen in that sales process. Like they can ask, but ultimately, it's tough. Yeah, it's tough.
Scott Scully:All right on that, I think that when I'm in sales enablement, when I'm setting the meeting, I would make the suggestion, we should add it into the scripting. We've had it there before, maybe it is there now. But it's like, okay, Eric, again, like I told you, these markets go fast. We've got four or five meetings lined up, you're gonna have your 45 minutes to ask questions, see what we have going on before we come to your market. Clearly, you're a good leader, you involve other people in your day to day operations of your business. If there are other folks that you want to see this, in the case that you like it, and you want to be the partner, if we have a good fit. Who else do you want to have in the meeting? If we bring that up? Some of them are going to make sure that they have somebody there. It happens to us sometimes without even saying that. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:And those meetings are the best. Yeah.
Scott Scully:I love it. Thank you, Jeff. So we're there. We're there to everybody. All of us, I think get a little hurt. Maybe that our section isn't the most popular section that it happens to be, potentially to do or not to do.
Eric Watkins:To do or not to today?
Jeff Winters:Did they call this section out by name in the award? They did? Yeah.
Eric Watkins:This might have gotten its own award. Oh, probably for today, in the theme of we got a little NBA playoff action. And our our good old friend LeBron, fan of the podcast, barf is a he's on his way. And is what 21st 22nd year to potentially win another NBA championship? If he does, is he the greatest player of all time? Or is it MJ? I'm going to start with Jeff,
Jeff Winters:the answer is no. And the answer is no. Because of the sheer dominance, six titles, he would have had eight, I believe, check my math. But for the baseball diversion,
Eric Watkins:that was one year. Well, it's and you know what I care about?
Jeff Winters:Michael Jordan is the icon. He is the ultimate multinational icon. And that that, that matters to me. So Michael Jordan is still the best basketball player of all time, irrespective of what LeBron James fan of the show does.
Scott Scully:Here's my answer. Absolutely not. And you know why? Because if you're watching this year, if Anthony Davis does not play well, they do not win. Like Anthony Davis has to be a killer for the Lakers to win. If he's not, they lose a go look,
Eric Watkins:he's damn near 40, but go
Scott Scully:out there. But all I'm saying is Scottie, Scottie Pippen could have a bad game. And Michael Jordan, kicked into some sort of obnoxious zone where he took over the entire game, talking to people in people's faces he took over the game didn't matter if he had the flu, and he could win when Scottie Pippen had a bad game. LeBron, when when frickin Anthony Davis sucks, they suck. And look at the look at the amount of time that he was out this year when when he's back. He's clearly helping them. Yes, he's old, but he is not the greatest of all time. And in fact, I don't even think he's the greatest in the game right now.
Jeff Winters:Our kids are going to be wearing Michael Jordan apparel for like, there's so few things. I
Eric Watkins:think it's just as appeal though. Appeal is the icon. Let me tell you something in Michael Jordan when he was 38 which is what LeBron was he was on the wizards.
Jeff Winters:Let me tell you something in this everything was totally different workout you got bands now
Eric Watkins:Right? He's never terrible. So what'd he be? He wasn't terrible actually still average like 24 points. But what was the what would Michael Jordan do in this era with the diet nutrition fitness,
Jeff Winters:we plan to lose fat we look at Tom Brady. He's gonna he could have played until he was 50. But here's the even better here are there are so few things in this day and age that I know with certainty are going to be true in 10 to 15 years. The first is my kids are going to take their kids to Disney World. I know that for a fact. Disney world ain't going anywhere. I got Disney stock to prove it. The second we're gonna be wearing Michael Jordan stuff. You're at the end. My kids kids are going to wear Michael Jordan stuff. Nobody's wearing LeBron stuff in 30 years. I'm sorry.
Eric Watkins:You're probably right there. You're probably I'd
Scott Scully:love to hear what you all think. LeBron or Jordan. Okay, this has been Incredible episode. We love hearing your feedback, keep it coming. File subscribe, share, interact,
Unknown:let's grow. Let's grow let's grow. The grow show was sponsored by abstract cloud solutions, certified Salesforce consulting services.