Start your own podcast... we dare you! Podcasts are a great way to reach a wider audience, get to know your customers better as you interview them, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Also, hosting a podcast forces you to be intentional about your leadership and consistently follow the best practices you share. This will help drive results for your business - higher customer and team member retention and even more sales .
Thanks for listening!
Start your own podcast... we dare you! Podcasts are a great way to reach a wider audience, get to know your customers better as you interview them, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Also, hosting a podcast forces you to be intentional about your leadership and consistently follow the best practices you share. This will help drive results for your business - higher customer and team member retention and even more sales .
Thanks for listening!
All these years blood sweat and tears. I'm still here nothing could stop me. Welcome back grow nation. You are listening to the number one podcast for business growth. The growth in the world in the world,
Eric Watkins:maybe universe, maybe the universe the intergalactic, intergalactic? What's the difference between intergalactic and the universe?
Jeff Winters:I think
Eric Watkins:what is Brian into pretzels are I think
Jeff Winters:the idea of the universe includes your galaxy. And I believe intergalactic is the idea that you are. There are other galaxies.
Eric Watkins:There's other galaxies in the universe, I
Unknown:believe.
Eric Watkins:That's it. I saw a movie called guardians
Jeff Winters:asked me a harder one.
Unknown:Right now, you might be wondering, why am I listening to this? And you're here, because we're trying to make your journey just a little bit easier. In route to predictable growth. It's hard. It's hard out there. And man, we've screwed some things up but then there's some things we figured out. And so that's why we did this. We want to share the knowledge the things that are working, hopefully so you can implement these things in your business and have even more success than you're having today. So welcome back. Jeff, Eric and I are excited about our show today. And I will not skip or try to skip Eric to do or no please don't there's a last step Nope. Yeah, last episode I almost made a really bad Fatal Error fatal error. And Jeff saved me so thank you your mouth
Jeff Winters:wrote a check we almost couldn't cash out guest Exactly.
Unknown:So we're going to head over to Jeff and he's going to go through just you know some goodies out in LinkedIn
Jeff Winters:been reading I've been getting tagged real I had this is the most tags I've ever gotten just if people could be a little more specific it'd be helpful I just they just put my name Jeff winters like below the below the post you don't know if it's a truth or a lie I kind of like I know but it's just people tag me and I'm looking at my feet and going I this stranger just put my name underneath this post little context would be helpful.
Unknown:I will hold on before you get it. Yeah. Do you have a LinkedIn Sheriff uniform?
Jeff Winters:You know, i i Should I don't currently have any.
Unknown:We need to take some pictures that needs to be your LinkedIn profile pic is you and one of those old school Sheriff hats.
Eric Watkins:Well, you've worn that you've worn that shirt three days in a row so you could use
Jeff Winters:my hygiene is not the subject of this episode. What is the subject of this segment though, of course is reading on LinkedIn scouring LinkedIn, looking at where I am tagged on LinkedIn. So that I can separate fact from fiction truth from lies and I love the light at am foreshadowing I love the lights a little lighthearted, but I think it needs to be talked about. But as always, we begin with a truth from Scott Anderson. And I find this to be interesting and specific. He talks about the hell of middle management. He says I'm currently coaching a group of Rockstar middle managers and being reminded of the unique challenges they face. They are limited in what they can say both by an to upper management and by and to their teams. This can and will cause value conflicts. For example, if honesty and slash transparency is a personal value, as it is for most successful leaders, middle managers will inevitably reach the point where they can either tell their teams 100% of what they've heard from management or can't tell management everything they've heard from their teams, big source of burnout. really true, underrated as you grow your organization to a certain size, you're going to have middle managers, I think this is a largely true, but you can figure out ways around it and ways to not have this occur. But I think it's an important topic to surface and a great call by Scott Anderson.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, I think this shines the light on the importance of continually asking for feedback from everybody and having a culture where it's okay. No matter what you're thinking, say it. Like I'd rather you say it then hold it in and say it to somebody else behind the scenes and let's talk about it. As a group. I feel like that's kind of the what I take away from that. Post is They just you know, especially the communicating backup, you can't have an organization like that, because then you're just not going to be aware of the problems that are going on.
Unknown:Do you think that they're not allowed to say, as much because the communication was poor and a business started with the being open minded and saying we're going to be super transparent in our managers are going to be able to talk about what's going on. But then the telephone game caused the middle manager to not be communicating in a great way about some strategic business things. So they just said, Hey, you got to stop at this. Like, what causes that? And
Jeff Winters:here's my two cents. I think it's it's, it could be three things. The first is what you said, the telephone game, the second I'd call the softening game, I think sometimes middle managers feel the need to shield their people from the harsh realities of the business and from what they've learned and been told from leaders. And I think that's a huge mistake, easy to do, huge mistake. And then, and then last, it's building a culture where you don't have the ability to give feedback and you don't have the the outlet or the vehicle. You know, I share here, we've talked about this in our one on ones you don't have to we mandate that that feedback from all levels of the organization gets gets surfaced, how are you creating those pathways if you don't have them already?
Eric Watkins:I just think of like an example of, you know, if I'm meeting with my leadership team, so our EVP level, and I make a comment of hey, our profits, not where it wants to be. That may make its way to the director level of hey, like profits down, and then the director level to the manager level. It's like, we're on a hiring freeze, we have no money. Like the the telephone game just distorts messages. And I think as much as the business like I love that we do the company meetings in Division meetings, where they can hear it from one voice sometimes I think that really helps make sure those messages at home. And I
Jeff Winters:not to say we do a great job, everything here we don't. But I think sometimes CEOs, and leaders make the mistake of oh, I'm going to not talk to directors or Macintosh VPS. Like that's my team's job to talk to. Sure. And it and it, it can promote this disconnect. You know, I think, need to do both. You got to do both. Yeah.
Eric Watkins:You can't do it. Yeah, you can't fully go around your team? Or why do you have your team in place? Well,
Jeff Winters:but like having a directors meeting, and a VP meeting, where Scott can be the voice of the customer, whoever can be the voice of the business? Sure. So there is no mixed message. You have to do it every day. Yeah. But having that one source of truth, on some occasion, ensures less distortion, good dialogue,
Eric Watkins:good dialogue, love it. That
Jeff Winters:means people care. This is top of mind for for us from Joshua Copeland. It's something that we've talked about on this podcast, but I like the way that he frames it. So Josh was says the biggest not big the biggest Miss managers have is not recognizing their team. giving credit where credit is due is one of the things that really differentiates a leader from a manager. bad bosses take all the credit and shift the blame great bosses, highlight the team as a whole, and individuals and do the best they can to be the filter and reduce blame. This is something that's top of mind always for us. We always could be better. But at least we know the importance of recognition. And it cannot be overstated.
Unknown:Truth. We just did a podcast segment on it. Right? Yeah, just the importance of recognizing people. And the power that that can power you can create.
Jeff Winters:It's hard to resist the urge as a boss to take credit when things are good. Yeah, that's the that's the that's the note here. That's almost
Eric Watkins:what I take more than the Yeah. Yeah. And greatest strength is your greatest weakness. Part of the reason you have these people that have moved up in your organization that have worked so hard is because they want to look good. Yeah, like they want that validation. So when you get as you move up, it's more important to be less about that. And less about yourself. And that's hard to lose.
Jeff Winters:And also as you move up leaders now, like I can I know if your team's doing great, it's you.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, you don't have to Yeah, yeah. Because it doesn't matter. It's like the you could do nothing. But if your team produces the result that they need to produce, you created a culture and environment for them to be successful. It's like a doesn't I don't care how good your team is or how bad how much you did to get them there. They just need to Add me there.
Unknown:Would you be more impressed with somebody that said, Man, I led my team last month 220% over goal or Gosh, our team got 120% over goal. I didn't do anything. I mean, I just have like the best people and they have really stepped up. Like, you're on a ladder. Well, like I if I heard those two things, I'd be thinking the person that said, I didn't do anything like Fulshear I'd be thinking, oh, boy, I bet they like really did something. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:yeah. I do too. And I think it's like saying you're, you're like, Okay, golf and abuses are okay. Golf is amazing at golf. I know that. Yeah, he does a great good, it means those are Bad's terrible.
Unknown:That scenario, and all golfers cheat,
Jeff Winters:right? Everybody? Well, bookmark that. But if you say, you know, the team did an amazing job, or look, it was those it was those folks or I'm really or even better, you know, I'm really proud of whoever your direct report is who manages that group. That's, that's my favorite. Hey, I'm really proud of Jeremy, he, he did an amazing job leading the team that to me is like, feels authentic. If
Eric Watkins:you have to continue to talk about what you did. You're not a very good leader, right? Like you're making up for your shortcomings in leadership or you have the wrong people on your team or whatever it may be. But it's nothing to really brag about.
Jeff Winters:Now on to the lie. I don't have to be serious all the time. But the lies to I know, be light hearted here. naming names again. Like
Unknown:you're going the whole name again all night. Crowd like this. I like this, which I know
Jeff Winters:Craig Underwood. And I think this is I've been I've been I the seeds at me. Craig says just a few opinions. They keep going around and around in conversation at the cafe. Which ones do you agree with? And he listed a few in here.
Unknown:Hold on. Craig's at the cafe. I think that's like a figure of speech. Okay.
Jeff Winters:at a cafe one the opinion. That is a lie. He says this chapstick is a scam. This is a brutal lie.
Eric Watkins:He should be punished.
Unknown:Brew. i If you said SPF and yes,
Eric Watkins:I gotta have chapstick.
Jeff Winters:I leave the house without chapstick. I'm going to get chapstick. I need chapstick. Like I need air to breathe and water to drink. Craig. Thanks for helping us out. But You my friend are a liar.
Eric Watkins:That's just he may be right though. But we don't care. Like I want to still buy my chapstick.
Unknown:I have to do it for because I burn the crap out of my lips. Right? So there are certain ones with SPF and if I didn't do or when I don't I just my lips explode. So that's both
Eric Watkins:you know what is a lie? Carmax you ever use karma? Romex IS A LIE doesn't do a damn thing doesn't work. Really? No, it doesn't work people who are like addicted to it. And it's not it doesn't make your uncap your lips or prevent not a future sponsor? Yeah, not a future sponsor this Carmex or they could win us over maybe send us some samples. Let us try it out. Let us do a test
Jeff Winters:send us a box of that. Whatever anybody's sent me a box of that. Box. That's what I saw. That's what I saw this week. That's the important stuff back to you, Scott.
Eric Watkins:Which Galaxy were you looking at for these columns? Enter.
Unknown:Okay, all right. So you mentioned the individual in the poster. We're going to tag them like you're you know what? It's because you've got this Sheriff following now. That's like in the beginning you were a little frayed now. You've got some level of prestige.
Jeff Winters:Yeah. clout getting a little bit spiritual. Is that the right way to say cloud? Yeah,
Eric Watkins:your cloud chasers? What they say these days. Is that good? Ah, no,
Jeff Winters:I don't think it is. Well, I'm not that
Unknown:all these people have been doing a really good job on LinkedIn. saying good things and negative things and you're just finding those and passing them on to the world. They're doing the hard work.
Jeff Winters:Keep tagging me I love that. Tag me.
Unknown:I love that you're doing this. Alright, so we're gonna go through another 50 for 50 You know, relevant topic, podcast, we're doing one. Why? Right there is a you may be thinking about it. Or you may listen to us and think I'm not gonna really do that. Those guys are making fools of themselves. But let me tell you why we do it. We want to To have a show where we talk about the things that we do here at abstract. And we talk openly about it. And, and, you know, there's in depth conversation. And we really wanted our people to understand why it is that we do what we do to grow, right. We've got new folks coming in all the time. And if they plug in and they listen, they can understand what we're doing. We've got a couple 1000 clients, and it's hard to get out to, you know, that number. And we thought this would be a good format for us to share good business growth advice, we, we provide business growth services, but we also wanted to share with our clients, the other things that we're doing in our business, hopefully to make it a little bit easier for them. We also, you know, we are selling at such a high level, and doing so many new sales presentations on a monthly basis that we've got a really large number of people we've had conversations with. And we wanted to have really good nurture content to stay in touch with the people that we've had presentations with, and, and, you know, hopefully along the way, they'll gain trust and, and, you know, maybe we'll teach them a couple of things. And they'll say, you know, what, like, when they do come into the mindset where maybe I want to get a little help with business growth, I'm gonna reach out to those guests. And, you know, there's specific things that that we look at it because I know that people are, maybe you're even doing one, it's like, okay, I don't have that. I don't think I have that many people listening, which by the way, it's hard to actually identify some of the steps. So we said, look, there's a lot of things we're doing, this is one of them, and, and if our customer retention is going up, because we're providing good time content, that's great. If we're having new sales presentations, more of them. And that's great. You know, if we are closing more people, if we're adding more clients, that's great. If we're having lower turnover rates in our organization, that's great. And we are, check, check, check, check,
Eric Watkins:check, check, check, check.
Unknown:And it's not the only thing. But it's one of the most important things. And, you know, I wanted to get you thinking about this. We're putting content out into the world. And it has shelf life. Right? Like I'll notice every once in a while where somebody will go listen to an episode they love last year, and share it and comment on it. Right? Like we we have a library of content online that has shelf life. And and it's more of an in depth conversation, there's only so much that you can do in other channels. But the message has to be so short, so sweet that maybe it doesn't sink in, right? If you think of all the way the ways that we would get out into the world that, you know, we think you should do a map meeting with, you know, the people that report directly to you on a weekly basis. Like, wait, there's a lot of things that we could do to send that message out. But there aren't many where you could really sit here, have a discussion, and probably get people to really understand. And the good news is we put some good content out like that, and then it's out there. Always right, then you just continue to build upon that. And then we can use that in different ways. Yeah, there's so much more in doing a podcast. Right? There's, you know, I was I talked to a guy the other day he was he was doing a podcast and he's a he sells businesses for living. Right. And so he was getting CEOs called second bite, podcast, right? And he's he's talking to CEOs, business owners, about their business. Right? This is smart. Right? Then he's sending the podcast to his network of people and generating interest, you know, in the person's business that he just did a podcast with and then of course, saying hey, you know, did you know you could get X, Y or Z for your, for your business? So smart, so smart. Like there's just it we could talk for days about how you could actually use a podcast in your marketing, right? But it's absolutely a fit For 50, and maybe it took us a minute to understand that and how powerful it could be, and in all the different areas that we could use it. And the first thing that you're going to be thinking about is why don't have that many people listening. But you got to stay with it, because it takes time before it catches on. And then there are so many areas of your business that you can impact. So what do you think?
Eric Watkins:I think you're spot on. And I think there's another impact as well. And maybe this is selfish, but it's forced me to be intentional about what I do, to have to come on to the show and explain how we operate and how we do certain things. You have to figure out, you know, like, how do you compartmentalize it? How do you have a framework to it, and you just get more intentional, as a business owner, how you operate. It's really kind of like a retrospective as well, you get to look back at how you've done things and what worked and what didn't work well, and where you weak at. And you know, we're just busy, we don't ever do that. We don't have the time to do it. But when you prep for the podcast and do the podcast, it's an opportunity to do that. And I think you just get better as a business. I think this has actually helped us, in addition to all those results, that it's driving, and it's absolutely doing that we're being better at business.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, it harkens to a thought of why why you start doing something, and then you do it. And then you figure some stuff out. And then you keep doing it sometimes for other reasons. You know, for instance, probably a lot of people that start businesses, start businesses to make money, to be independent, to have their own schedule. And then your two or three years in and you see someone who started as an entry level employee, and now they're a VP, and that lights you up. And then you realize that's really why you're doing it. I felt that way with this podcast, I think we started the podcast for all the reasons Scott mentioned. And then from that, had people come up to me randomly and say, Hey, I took your advice, and it really worked. Or you have people internally in a meeting that you're shadowing say something that you said on a podcast, as a strategy or something that you employed, and you got to them in a different way, I didn't really expect that was going to happen. And so I I'd be cautious of being not being blind to all of the other things that happen beyond what you set out to do from the podcast stuff you set out to do you got to do. But beyond those things, can, I think have been really interesting and important.
Eric Watkins:And it's fun. It's fun. No, it's not fun.
Unknown:It's a blast. Look, I'm clearly the older one of the bunch here. And and I'm sure that some of our listeners are in the same spot, like podcast, right? But get used to it. A lot of your customers and future customers are taking in content this way. Like you just have to open yourself to it. And here, we want to simplify it, you know, interview your customers, interview your customers, and talk about their business and how you serve their business and the impact of that. And then use that in your sales process. Just do that. Like that's one of the greats one simple way, like the guy was doing, you know that I met with his second bite podcast, right? He's just interviewing people and what they think about growing their business, and are they going to acquire or they're going to raise capital and and then he's using that as lead generation for himself. totally make sense. So do that. Interview your customers, they want to talk about their businesses anyway. They're going to know you care about their businesses, when you're asking them questions. You integrate your products or services into that discussion, and then take that podcast and use it to go get new business.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, great solution.
Unknown:All right, we are going to head over to Eric, he's going to talk a little bit about growing that pile of leads,
Eric Watkins:growing the pile leads. So we're going to stay on the partner success theme. And what we're going to talk about today is being an octopus. Being an octopus, you guys said like what are you talking about being an octopus? So in sales, the sales industry consultants, experts have done a really good job of focusing on what they call multi threading, which is getting more stakeholders involved in the sales process. Because what we've seen as businesses, stats show that on average, there's at least three and a half decision makers involved in each whenever Jeff did his podcast not too long ago, that was the stat he used. Three and a half decision makers involved in every decision that's made for business, so you can't just sell to one person any more, you gotta sell to multiple individuals within a company. And what typically happens is we do this great job in the sales process of getting all the stakeholders involved. And then the contract gets signed. And then the other three step out, wipe their hands, and they hand it off to the point of contact. And then as partner success and account management, you are only introduced to this one point of contact, and then ultimately, that's where all your communication flows from. And that's a huge mistake, not only for the ability for that client to be successful for, but also for the longevity of that client as well. So what we call, what we do to train on this is it's kind of a silly thing, but we call it being an octopus. Your goal is to get your tentacles in as many parts of that business as possible, is it realistic to have a relationship with everybody on the executive team? No, but here's where you should start one, you're going to have your main point of contact, that's going to be easy, but really establishing and developing a relationship with that individual. Number two, make sure the economic buyer knows who you are, and you have some way shape or form that you're communicating with them. I don't know if that was the CFO that signed the contract, I don't know if it was the CEO president, but have that relationship with that individual. And then the third one, if I was, if I were only to have three would be the champion of who's actually using the service. So who is actually using the service, where you can have really an ear to the ground and understand how it's working, what's not going well, in between those three, you have a full scope of what's really going on within the business. And you have to keep in mind, the reason why they handed it off to one point of contact is because they didn't want to be involved, or they didn't plan to be involved. And they're all going to care about different things. So you have to figure out even if it's a quarterly email to the CFO, saying, Hey, I just wanted to update you on the progress that's going on with this campaign. And I know, here's some things that I'm really looking forward to and excited about, it's just gonna make sure that you have a team approach. And that what doesn't happen is nine months down the road, they're sitting in a budget meeting, and financials got a little tight, and you're just a name on a sheet of paper. But instead, the CFO actually knows who you are. So the reason why I talk so much about this is because 20% of when a partner leaves abstract has to do with what we call business reasons, or business changes. So that could be they just got acquired by another company, that could be something going on with their financial situation, a common one is our point of contact actually leaves that company and goes to a different place. And if you don't have relationships established with different individuals in the company, you're going to be left, you know, feeling like you're not going to have control and you're gonna get the cancel that says, Hey, Jeff, I, I really loved the program like this was this isn't my decision, this is coming from above me. If it were up to me, I'd keep it but unfortunately, you know, they're just making me cancel it. If you get that cancel, that's your fault. That's your fault for not establishing relationships with different decision makers.
Jeff Winters:I think here's in probably in today's macro economic climate, this is arguably more important than it's ever been. Because you can have the CFO or the CEO just on an email go, we're done with these types of services, or we're done with or we're cutting 25% of expenses here. I think why? I'm gonna tell you why. I think people don't do this. And I'll give you the strategy for how to avoid it. I think people, especially account managers, customer success managers, I'm talking to you we're on the same level, it might ruffle the feathers of the person I'm talking to if I send some communication above them, and I don't want to ask them because if they say no, then I definitely can't. So I think that's why you will you get into this you're sort of boxed in. And one strategy to avoid this is to have a director or VP above that customer success manager immediately upon signing the account or assigning the account to whichever account manager or Success Manager it is, can reach out unprompted to the CFO, Hey, I just wanted to introduce myself, why don't you make sure you have my contact information in case you ever needed me? Boom, now there's like a higher level hierarchical match that you could have. And then that director or VP could be the person communicating at that level. If you can create that relationship early, because another mistake you see here is it's almost the renewal, the contracts almost up and then I send something that doesn't work, you have to do it in a non buying motion. This is great advice.
Unknown:I love that you're touching on some account management or partner partner principles, right? You always you don't always need a new lead to grow your business. So I just love this discussion. Shouldn't I just, I know for a fact that it's easier to try to keep your clients than to go get new ones. And I think when you get to a certain size, a lot of people are spending a lot of money to acquire new customers. And not always considering best practices and taking care of the ones that you have, so that you don't have to sell as many new customers to grow. So I love that you're bringing it up. And we see this a lot. So I just love that you're bringing light to it that you need to stay in touch with the people that were part of the decision, because we've made that mistake a lot in the past and not staying in touch with the owner the check signer, and then that person that we're in communication with, maybe they turn over, or maybe we're generating a good on our end like for us like maybe we generate a good lead. But then the sales rep doesn't sell that good lead. So then we suck. So we're out because we haven't communicated with decision makers behind that salesperson. So
Jeff Winters:plus, it's one thing to fire vendor a it's another thing to fire Bob. Don't forget that people are humans, right? Yeah, I love that. It's weird. I said the people are human. And people
Eric Watkins:are humans take that to the bank. We get quoted and on a shirt, people are huge.
Jeff Winters:That's why people people are humans be an octopus people are humans, humans are people in this galaxy.
Eric Watkins:But how many? In all seriousness, how many meetings have we been in looking at a list of vendors and how much we pay? And none of us have any relationship with those vendors. But the ones we have a relationship with? Like, no, this is the value we're getting? This is what, like, that's what you want. You want in that meeting someone to have some context about what your service is doing. Otherwise, it's like, that seems like a lot of money we're paying what are we getting out of it? I'm not sure. Cut it.
Unknown:Love it. Love. So we still do need to acquire new customers we need to. So what do we got today, Jeff, bring us
Eric Watkins:something good, Jeff.
Jeff Winters:So much pressure, it's gonna be hard to overtake the octopus story. So speaking of stories, it's so easy in our sales presentations, or in our sales demos, or in our follow up calls, to get caught up in both what the customer needs and wants, but also what you have and how you're going to do that. But the how you're going to do that can go one of two ways. It can be very mechanical, how the product or service works, and you got to talk about that. Or you could tell great stories. And you could tell great, you can share great case studies. And you can share how this product or service has helped others in similar spots with real data and real true impact. And for some reason, and I don't know why, but I'll be vulnerable for on this moment. Before I before I got here, we did not do this. We went through the presentation. Here's how it works. We know what you need. We did a great presentation. But we didn't bring it to life with a story of someone else and the way people learn and take in information. You don't know what's going to resonate with somebody, especially in a particular moment. You don't know as Eric alluded to, what's going to resonate with the people that they talk to as they're making an internal decision whether or not to buy your product or service. Stories can be so powerful, especially if told right? They land right. And if they are then repeated, I would say mandate that your salespeople and sales reps and account executives are sharing at least one case study or story on every call. It will positively impact your win rates.
Eric Watkins:Think about think about just like the example we're talking about. So VP of sales, does the pitch they need to go to their CFO, they go to their CFO and they say you know this product, they make X amount of calls, they send X amount of emails, they get X amount of leads. You sound like every other person, right? Hey, they actually just worked with a company just like ours. They've been on for nine months. They've closed four deals they've already paid for the program they had they were doing no outbound before. And now this is their like it's just a completely different world. Story sell.
Unknown:Yeah, and I'm a firm believer in a sales presentation that there's a couple of things you have to get accomplished on every slide. You have to get people to to understand The content, right, you have to confirm that they understand that this is what we're trying to get across. And you have to get people to agree that this isn't current state. And if it was, they'd be in a better spot. And there's no better way. I'll use us as an example, like what our salespeople were once people doing the SDR work, like, there's no better way to talk about the cleansing phase of our process than to say, let me tell you about a client that I had for a couple of years and their mana dials that I made and the data that I collected and how that data eventually got me to where I was, got an appointment, and that appointment turned into new business for my clients. In fact, remember the story where the guy sold such a big new client that he flew in on his new plane, and he couldn't wait to tell us. He couldn't wait to tell his team that was working on his behalf that you got a huge piece of business and bought a plane and flew here on that lawyer on the plane. Well, that's a story. Yeah. Story. Like, hey, somebody that signed up with their services, like they got a huge piece of business where the guy actually bought a plane. That's a little bit different than will make 600 dials in a month. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:Yeah. And by the way, it doesn't obviously, it goes without saying doesn't just work here, hey, I was on a. I was on a huge roof of a school not but a few months ago, and they had the exact same situation that you were in, here's how we solved it, or I was at a business not but a few months ago, and they were having a major staffing challenge in this particular area. Here's what they did. I mean, there's those stories will work, you will see you'll be in a demo, you'll be on a screen share. And people will be looking down and doing something else. Like hey, I want to tell you a story about such as and boom, they'll perk up, hey, Jeffrey
Unknown:can go the other way to the roof. The roof thing made me think of the opposite. Like, look, I would, you know, we're out and we inspected the roof and these things needed to happen. And the guy sat on the decision for a minute. The roof collapsed, actually, there was a bad storm, the roof collapse, they had to shut down operations for eight days. And then it was harder for us to repair because now now we had to get up there and we had other things to do other than just what we would have done. So don't like this roof is not in a good spot. So so don't sit on this decision too long. There's some things you need to do to keep your operations going like it can be a yeah, good or a bad yeah. story to make people feel something.
Eric Watkins:Good to thank you. Good.
Unknown:Good. All right. As promised, I am not going to skip over.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, tell forgive me this time or not to do this is just a little controversial. You know, I don't want to offend anybody for fear of offending anybody. But that's really never been our style. Never. We've never really worried about that. There's this new trend going on. It's really bugging me, but I just want to see if I'm crazy. To do or not to do use a leash for your kids. New Track.
Jeff Winters:It's not a new trend.
Unknown:People but leash in their kids for years
Eric Watkins:heads just seems to be picking up steam. That seems to be picking up steam and I'm seeing a lot of kids running around on leashes. typically smaller children, obviously you're trying to keep them safe. What do we think about this? Is this you being a caring parent and making sure that your child stays close with all the kidnappings and everything that could go wrong? Or is this a little overboard?
Unknown:No look, a kid's got to be lost from his or her parents every once in a while growing up. Just really establish any kind of
Eric Watkins:character you're not found until you were once lost.
Jeff Winters:Humans are people he was ifif
Unknown:they're not dogs. Say Alex these
Eric Watkins:are universes source for
Unknown:Eric St. Louis Zoo. Go there. See lots of leashes. I never put my kid on a leash. I did however have a couple of very scary moments where I lost my kids for a bit.
Eric Watkins:Were you waiting?
Unknown:Maybe if I had a lot maybe it's a long leash. Problem is it just looks like you are you are punishing your kid? Yeah.
Eric Watkins:Do you If I've seen you walk in your kids before.
Jeff Winters:So first of all, I do want to say, the universal place to put your kid on a leash is the zoo, and I hate the zoo. I love the St. Louis Zoo. It's wonderful. I love what it stands for. I just hate zoos in general. I just I go there, and I look around. And no one's having fun. The animals aren't. I'm not having fun. It's a horrible, horrible place aside from the St. Louis Zoo, which I think is a wonderful beacon of our city. I hate zoos. So there's that I don't have to leash mechanism. I'll tell you the New Age leash that I did at a video arcade a few months ago. It's the Apple tech. So I slipped an apple tag in my kids pocket. What I thought was in a$15, Apple tag, I guess not. Not nothing. And and then I let them run around, and I couldn't find them. And they'd be he threw it away.
Eric Watkins:He was blocked. Why would you just tell them to just say, Oh,
Jeff Winters:I slipped it in his Pecos I had some of my pocket throw it away. I was like, Sure. Well never do that. So to those of you that are thinking of using the new age digital leash for your children, the Apple tag, it could be a many $100 investment. Yeah. kid runs away. At least the kid the kid doesn't run away. Don't leash the kid. I understand. Either way. I'm good. Either way,
Eric Watkins:you're good either way. So don't leave don't go to unleash don't on leash leash,
Jeff Winters:don't what's the right way. So
Unknown:you're more don't go to places where you have to leash your kids kind of
Jeff Winters:where I'm at. That's where I stand. And I know that's horrible. Because that probably eliminates a lot of places. But that's where I live on that. Or put him in a stroller till they're 20. If you're in a role where you don't have to be
Eric Watkins:leashed What about the wagon? The red wagon? Oh, I love the wagon. I'm not pulling it, but I like the
Jeff Winters:idea of the wagons. Sure. Who's pulled it now may
Unknown:maybe your kid should have bright yellow shirts with your cell phone number on it. The front there you
Jeff Winters:go. You know what else I'm not doing? I'm not putting any kid over 20 pounds on my shoulders do thank you. I can't get on your shoulders. No.
Eric Watkins:I think you're lying about I swear to
Unknown:you. I might that I still have a shoulder injury from that. That's what I'm saying.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, get on your shoulders. Ah yeah, here's that $20 tile you can put in your pocket.
Unknown:Shit. Well, good stuff. Very important segment. Yeah, to do or not to do Yeah, we know this is why you tune in. I say don't leash your kid let you know lose them every once in a while. They'll figure out how to get get back to you.
Eric Watkins:They'll have this somebody just pro leash.
Jeff Winters:I suppose I just don't go to places where leashes are required. So yeah, I guess I don't know.
Unknown:Please let us know what you think. Follow LIKE, SUBSCRIBE. Let your business colleagues know about us. We're just trying to make it a little bit easier for predictable growth. Thanks for tuning in. As always, let's
Eric Watkins:grow let's grow let's grow.
Unknown:The grow show is sponsored by abstract talent solutions recruiting for the modern world.