Few can boast a career as illustrious as Deion Sanders. Yet, his transition from NFL superstar to Colorado coach was met with skepticism. Through sheer determination, preparation, and a deep-seated belief in his team's potential, Sanders orchestrated a remarkable turnaround. This episode explores how his philosophy of 'practice like it's a game' can resonate beyond the football field and into the realm of business and personal growth.
Thanks for listening!
Few can boast a career as illustrious as Deion Sanders. Yet, his transition from NFL superstar to Colorado coach was met with skepticism. Through sheer determination, preparation, and a deep-seated belief in his team's potential, Sanders orchestrated a remarkable turnaround. This episode explores how his philosophy of 'practice like it's a game' can resonate beyond the football field and into the realm of business and personal growth.
Thanks for listening!
Hey bro nation, we're live. We're live. show two. We are live. We decided to do it again. Whether or not you believe we should have done that. We are back. Because we had fun. Don't you guys agree?
Eric Watkins:We did have some fun.
Jeff Winters:It was blast, some kinks.
Eric Watkins:Some kinks,
Jeff Winters:like anything else you do that's new. There's okay. How
Eric Watkins:can we ask the viewers real quick? I know we got a lot of people on right now in Jeff's legs. Look, I can't he was a little worried. He was a little worried about I was like, Look, last last episode, can we do it
Jeff Winters:wire like my legs are like the Worst Supporting Actor. Socks.
Scott Scully:We have no camera man and one camera. We get another angle.
Eric Watkins:Jeff, we can't zoom it?
Scott Scully:Well, we are super glad that you're back. We've got a lot of really good things to talk about today. But again, this show is all about us trying to give back. We have learned some things along the way as we have been growing our businesses. And the hope was that we could make it just a little bit easier in your journey towards growth. And that's what this is all about. We love when you're engaged asking us questions, you know, with us with us on social media. And just we just want it to be a little bit easier, don't you think? Guys? That's why we struggle, entrepreneurship, growing businesses is a struggle. And there are some things that just make a little bit easier. And that's what we like to talk about right here on the growth Show. Before we get into some of that content, though, we have our very own traffic cop on LinkedIn share.
Eric Watkins:He's the traffic. Traffic cop was you got demoted. Yeah, it was a demotion. Well, I honestly, don't hold on. Isn't a traffic cop lower than a sheriff?
Jeff Winters:We can go to the viewers. But I do believe in the hierarchy that they report to the sheriff. Neither neither here nor there.
Scott Scully:There are people speeding through LinkedIn, causing all kinds of harm. Jeff is pulling him over. He's wearing orange vest. He's saying now wait a minute. Yeah, not so fast. So fast. There are some lies. There are some truths. And you're on one right now. All right,
Jeff Winters:you all, you know, the Okay, I've done an immense amount of preparation for this. Good. Because the the viewers deserve it. The viewers deserve to know they're on their journey to growth. They're using this podcast, and they're probably using LinkedIn. There's some stuff on LinkedIn that you should take as truth and implement your business. And then there's some stuff you should run away from as fast as you can we've spotlight both here. So let's get started. Scott, you talked about helping people grow their businesses. I think this fits right in SAM Jacobs says, Do you know the hardest part of moving from start up to scale up. So as you're really trying to grow your business, and we see this here, make sure that as you grow, you are handing off rituals, processes and procedures to the right people. And that nothing gets lost in translation, because otherwise, you'll check back in with the team months or years after handing off the responsibility and realize you're no longer doing the things that used to work. I thought this was really important, particularly the rituals part. This is great advice to companies that are growing.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, I love the rituals. I've never heard anyone use that word and like how you scale and it's so true. Yeah. Like, that's the stuff that makes you you is the rituals.
Scott Scully:I just think anything that where you realize extreme success, there are some things that are you're repeating over and over again, and you don't lose sight of those things, period. Right? We're going to talk about Deion Sanders a little bit later in my section because I'm a little obsessed as of late with the man and what he's doing. But some of the things that he does, he's been doing for years without fail, and he would never let those things go. I'm a big believer.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, we're going to talk about Deion Sanders in this section, too. Oh, good. Maybe in the live session.
Eric Watkins:What's the spread?
Jeff Winters:It's up now. This is not a gambling show.
Eric Watkins:We do not condone gambling, buying stocks or gambling. If
Jeff Winters:you were
Eric Watkins:to bet on a team this week. Hypothetically, hypothetically speaking, Colorado. Looks good. But I do.
Jeff Winters:We don't condone that behavior at all. Moving right along, because I think we'd like that one. Next, Edward, and Bruce says thinking of starting a business with your friends, think twice, mixing money and friendships can create unexpected conflict and strain your relationships. This is a good one. Couple of us have started business with friends and family others are now in that same mix with friends. I think this is a very important truth because it is so easy to start a business with Hey, Joanne, we should you like business, I like business, we got a problem we think we can solve. Let's do it together. We'll figure out the details later. And if that business is successful, or even if it's not, look out, look out, it's hard to do a lot to a lot to anticipate. Think twice. Not don't do it think twice. Yeah, you
Eric Watkins:you both have more experience with me here. But I think just like anything, if you don't have clearly aligned expectations up front, you're set up for a future disaster. Because no one no one's exactly like some people put more effort in some people don't some people have different skill sets in certain areas. And if you if you have those clearly defined lanes, I think great. Like, this is exactly how we're gonna go about it. But if you go in not knowing those things. Yeah, I don't think that's a good idea. I know. One of my, one of my friends, his dad is super successful, runs a great business. And he has blatantly said you will never be a part of this business. Like we will not know I love you. Yeah, take care of you. But I will never mix family with business. And I appreciate that. Because then you, you got to think it's not only at the business every day, you bring that home with you, too. Yeah. And then it's, you know, you don't have a way to get away from it.
Scott Scully:I think family and friends are two different categories. I would say family, don't even think about it. I just would. Because that is so much more important. And even if you're directly aligned, have complementary skills, both believe in the same thing, some sort of business issue could cause a family issue. And that's just not even remotely worth it probably isn't with friendships, either. But here's if you're going to go into business with with friends. You can't both be good at the same thing, in my opinion. Like, I just think you should have different skill sets. You both have to have the exact same work ethic. You have to have the same goals. And when some of those things aren't aligned, you're you're looking for trouble for sure. Again, I think because one of you said it, it's not just about having fun working with your friends. It's a whole different thing, especially when things get stressful. And by the way, if your friends are that group that you escaped to, to have fun and not think about work, you know, work that now you've just kind of knocked out that safe time with your friends. So that truth, right? You should think twice.
Jeff Winters:Think twice Be careful, have good agreements, and it sounds silly. But you know, we know so many times you hear people don't have like robust operating agreements, you're gonna go into business and friend. Fine. You've thought about it. You've deliberated heaven, really good agreements on really detailed, who's going to do what what happens if things go south? What happens if one person isn't exerting as much effort? Those kinds of things can be
Eric Watkins:helpful. What would like to do without you? I mean, it's doing the Lord's work.
Jeff Winters:I feel like I'm doing doing good
Eric Watkins:stuff. The traffic cop. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:I want to take on a little bit of a thing I hear. Okay, thing I hear. And I know, from ambras I know this is going to irritate some people. But I also know many will agree can we decrease the use of sports analogies in sales and team environments? Listen, I love football. I was raised in Ohio, we lived and breathed football and LeBron was our unofficial state mascot for a while, but it doesn't mean I relate to your hype video. So I will. It's it's just so easy to relate sales, sports, but I'm not saying this is a lie in general. Like I agree that there can be like overly analogized in the sports context in sales. I get it. He tried to compare it to other things. And I never played sports in high school. So it was easy. You know, I'm always telling people high school newspaper stories. Here's why this is a lie right now, because of Deion Sanders. That's why it's a lie in this moment right now because Deion Sanders is the inspiration to all sales teams, teams, leaders, Scott, you did a darn townhall on it. Right in this moment. Embrace the best material you have, which is Dion
Scott Scully:I'm gonna I'm not gonna I go deep into this because I am gonna go a little bit deeper later. But you can use things other than sports. I'm gonna go on record and saying that if some some there's something LeBron, I'm not watching because I can't stay on the guy, but it's just set up to work, the way that sports teams work, the practice, the setup of a game, a common enemy, a common enemy of victory or a loss, there just aren't that many things that you can pick that coincide with what we're trying to accomplish in business. So sorry, folks that didn't play sports, it just works.
Eric Watkins:I think an analogy in the sense of the word just needs to make sense. So if it's sports, and you didn't play sports, but you understand the analogy, and you can explain it to somebody who didn't play sports, they get the point. Does it hit a little bit harder if you played sports? Sure. But overall, yeah, sure. You can use other examples. I just think it's there's so much specifically with sales, there's so much correlation. Yeah. Competition. Being down having to come back, rallying together as a team. It's hard to use anything else that exemplifies that. And that's why millions of people watch sports every week. It's literally probably what's keeping TV alive is live sports. So
Jeff Winters:and I also think, look, you should you should try to vary it up. Don't get me wrong. But right now, in this moment in time, we got something good. Scott's gonna go into it. Let's, let's embrace it.
Eric Watkins:Let's embrace it. That's where I'm at.
Scott Scully:You're on a lot of people that are using the sports analogies probably played sports, right? Maybe it's just the easiest thing for them to do. Here's what I would suggest. How about people that didn't play sports, use whatever you did, and start putting some some content out there. And then we'll talk about that as well. Okay, Jeff, share your newspapers drive saying I did not your newspaper. I played
Jeff Winters:no sports. It's very hard. High school newspaper analogies don't work. Spirit clubs. Don't work.
Eric Watkins:Give us your best comeback story. From the high school newspaper. Yeah, like when were you really down and out? And you just pulled it together? Yeah.
Jeff Winters:You know, I had written a bad column the last week and my social studies teacher didn't read it. And I was upset. And so I mean, it's a shitty story. It's a shitty story.
Scott Scully:Oh, boy. All right. I'm sorry for calling you a traffic cop. That's one of the you manage the traffic cops,
Jeff Winters:whatever. Your
Scott Scully:what is the what did we decide
Eric Watkins:share the sheriff, the warden, the Commissioner
Scott Scully:award, the Commissioner of LinkedIn. That's right. I want to talk about in the 5450. About thinking that you can. And that's, that's why I think that a lot of the world, even people that don't like football, are are loving, watching Deion Sanders, a big portion. He's got an enormous following of people that love him. And then of course, every time you have that you got to have your naysayers, your people that are figuring out why they should hate him. Right? But you're talking about an enormous comeback story. Like who doesn't like to see that? Right? And everybody was so critical. Like, this guy's gonna go into Colorado. He's never coached at this level. Right? He coached little kids. And then he went and had one year of coaching at an HBCU. Right? Whatever game until the playoffs, right? And then, you know, he basically got a really big institution to go out and raise private funds to hire him to take over their team. And then he immediately sat down and told the rest of the world that he's going to put together a team over the summer. That's going to be competitive. And everybody likes to talk about the number of people hitting the transfer portal or the number of new players or how he has the worst roster in Division One, football or how he hasn't coached at this level or how he's going to just really his his arrogance is going to come back and haunt him, right. Well, first of all, is confidence. Everybody thinks that a confident person is arrogant, but he is unwavering. You guys think that that there's anybody in the world that could ever get him to agree with the fact that he's going to ever lose a football game. No, like, like, I don't think that that it's even in his makeup that he can't do something or that the people that he's on a team with can't do something. It's fascinating. For those of you that I guess don't understand who Deion Sanders is, he's probably the best defensive back to ever play pro football. He was also used as a receiver. So he played both ways. He also played professional baseball. He's literally the only human that has been in the World Series and the Super Bowl. And he's always been super confident. And people love to hate that. But he's also a guy that doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do drugs, loves God, and is an incredible father and just takes kids in and loves on him and makes him belief. But there's something that that couldn't be more motivational, or inspiring going on to me. And that is that a group of kids that are playing at a football program where they were one in 11, he has a group of kids winning their tune, oh, they're going to win this weekend, they're going to be three. I know. Speaking of betting, I'm, I'm gonna let me because of that. Breaking news. There we go. He's going to be three, no. And they're ranked right at the rank to 18th. Already, it was literally I want an 11 program. And he's going to continue to do this. And he's going to continue to do it. Because they have an unbelievable team put together. They believe that they can, they have a common enemy. They have a common goal. They practice their ass off, one of the things that he says is, you know, practice, like it's a game. So when you're in the game, it's like practice, right? He literally knows that the victory happens before they even set on the field, because of preparation and mindset. And he's and he is proving that in a world where you turn on the TV, and there's so much division. Republicans and Democrats can't get along to save their lives. In our country. We're supposed to be not divided, but together as one versus the rest of the world. Everything's divided. Everything's negative. Everybody's telling you how you can't or why you won't. And then there's one guy in Colorado with a cowboy hat on that never wore a cowboy hat before, by the way. Love it, winning games, pulling a team together and making quite frankly, a big portion of this country feel great. I bet there is so much fricking Colorado gear being ordered right now. So much swag. The ticket prices are up. Everybody wants this. And I guess the reason that I'm bringing it up is how do you create that in your business? We've been lucky enough to have I'll take away lucky, there's been some skill in going out and finding the you know, really talented people bringing them in on one team, and doing some of these things to pull together as a team to create a mindset of winning. But there's so much more that we could do. So I guess those of you that are out there, how do you think about this? How do you get the best players that you can get them believing, you know, completely define what the game is or what the goal is? Practice your ass off and win all the time. Like as a group, there are people that will work countless hours if they believe in the mission. And if they think that they're accomplishing something, as a team, and if there's a common enemy that they're winning, you know, over. But it's fascinating, and I can't stop thinking about it. And I can't I pay him whatever he charged to come here and just kind of download on us how he is getting a few talented players and a lot of average players to play like a national championship team. I can't stop thinking about it. What do you what do you guys think?
Eric Watkins:I think the it's just the epitome of what and kudos to you. You've always talked about this is mindset is the most important thing above everything else. You can have the best processes, you can have the best people, but if that team doesn't feel like they can, they will not. And just the importance of I think as a business. You can get so caught up in the X's and O's of we should do this or we should move this thing around or we should change how our product flexor excetera. And first, like just make a note to before you make a change is mindset, right? Like is mindset in a good spot first before I worry about all these other things that cause a bunch of ripple effects and change within the business, and I think he's, and the other thing it shows is like what the right leader can do. Like you have a team that's struggling, no bad teams, only bad leaders, you bring in a leader who is literally, if you would have just kept that team running kept the same coach, they'd be open to, and probably thinking they're gonna win one game, again, I completely changed the day.
Jeff Winters:And this is why it was alive for me on LinkedIn. And the specific moment was because this is a class in leadership that is happening in a very, very short period of time. It is such an amazing case study, because you've isolated so many variables, you get, like, what changed, it was this guy, this guy, this leader, changed the entire course of history for this program, in a very, very short period of time. And it just gives us so much we can take away terms of tactical leadership lessons, it's how do you get as many good players as you can on the field as fast as you can? How do you set standards that you don't deviate from whether times are up or down? How do you practice? How do you instill belief, I guarantee you Deion Sanders has to or at some point had to work mentally on his own at like, moving disbelief out of his body. Like that is not a natural thing. For leaders, it's so easy just to but you got to just not you got to move it out of your body. And it's tough. And he has just done a textbook job of leadership and historians will write books about what happened here. But we as a business community should not wait until they're finished, we should look at what's going on because it can be translated to you and your business.
Scott Scully:I want to use an example here. Because well, this is the best example I could make here. When COVID hit. Man, we were scared, and we lost, we lost a ton of business in a hurry. And, you know, a lot of our business was set up where we were setting appointments for people that were going out and seeing their prospects face to face, right. So a lot of our clients were used to that they weren't used to doing meetings over zoom or doing things remotely clearly COVID change that for a lot of industries. But I'll never forget a conversation that we had with our salespeople, and the materials that we put together. And just the effort in a very short period of time that went into getting our salespeople to believe that this was absolutely positively the best time to buy our services. And by the way, this was this, this is not wrong. It worked like well and in and we weren't trying to get them to believe in something that wasn't true. Like our whole thing was, look the rest of the world shutting down. But you can't just give up in business. So So although you may not be able to go see them right now, unfortunately, you probably will lose some clients, some of them may go out of business, you need to build your pipeline right now. So you have a fighting chance when you come on the other side of this. And that was our message. And we were talking to struggling businesses who were also losing business. They had no idea what was around the corner. And our salespeople were so good and so convincing. And we sold just as much, if not more during that period of time where we probably shouldn't have sold half of what we sold, because we were talking to people that had fear. And they were scared for their businesses. But we gave them hope. And guess what, since then, we've had clients that have told us, man, I'm glad that I did that I did lose clients. And because I was calling and building a pipeline early, I was able to climb over that client loss and I am okay. And thank you like so that feels amazing. But our sales, people could have felt horrible. They could have listened. Instead of fighting with the with the prospects that we're trying to sell. They kind of listened and they went away. But no, they convinced these people I'm fighting for your business. You have to do this, we're going to win together. There was nothing in their head like that was the one period of time in our business where I felt like there was a group of people that you could not tell them that this wasn't the best thing to do. That this wasn't the best way to save a business during COVID. They felt like they were doing something important. They were you couldn't talk them out. Have it. They were super convincing. And we won. Like, it's just a perfect example of an entire team saying, hell no, we're not going to lose if I businesses to help. As a team, we're gonna kill it. And they and they did.
Jeff Winters:Yeah. And you could in a smaller way. Talk about this time we're in right now for a lot of sellers as similar, obviously, in a much smaller way to that period of time, I could have pulled 20 and almost did for lies from LinkedIn, 20, sales leader sales gurus, top sales, voices saying, quota attainment is down across the country, 40%, it's not as good you need to lower goals, you need to change this. No, you don't. You, you, you can't do what you were doing that is true. But you got to find the industries, you got to find the prospects, you got to find the talk tracks, you got to change the comp plan, you got to do whatever you got to do to make changes internally, but do not think it's impossible, it is not impossible, it wasn't impossible, then it certainly isn't impossible. Now, you just got to be better.
Scott Scully:Here, I know that you guys have really good content that we need to move to. So I'll wrap it up with this, like those of you that are listening. This is where your analytics department is going to hate me. But like, here's what I think I can save you the time for walking down the hall. And, and asking somebody to give you data about how you should run your business going forward. There there are, there isn't data, you're not going to go find it, that's going to suggest that you can do what is up in your head, what you want to do, you have some things in your head, some growth, you want to accomplish a product you want to develop, you're not going to go find the data that's going to suggest that you can do it, you're going to have to have that mindset on your own. And you're going to have to get your team believing if you go backwards, and you look at old customer retention rates, or what I sold last month, this month, and then you try to formulate something that would suggest that you're going to have the growth that you want this month, you're going to lose, you got to set a new bar a new standard, and you got to have a new belief. And that's how you're going to accomplish something great. That's just my my feeling you guys know how I love past data. Yeah. We got to build those leads to have a lot of sales, we
Eric Watkins:got to build a mining for growth gold. And that's a good segue because I actually have some past data, but I'm using it to tell people why they can't, which is how you should use data, use it in your way to build an instill belief.
Jeff Winters:What a beautiful segue you like that? Or was that gorgeous?
Eric Watkins:Did you like that? Do you like that? Your boy Kirk Cousins last night segue. What I'm going to talk about today is playing the long game when it comes to cold calling, or any type of calling on the leads that you have, by collecting critical sales data on your calls. So at any given time, you know, let's just say your total addressable market, on the high end, I would say 10 to 15% of that market, actually would even take a meeting with you 85% 90%, probably even higher than that, they have no interest in what you're talking about, at this point in time. So let's say you get 10 decision makers on the phone, one to two is actually you're going to be able to convince in meeting with you. The other eight, what are you doing with them? And I think the problem that I see is you even have this internally at times is you have tunnel vision on okay, I'm calling to set appointments, and this person isn't going to set up an appointment with me. So I'm getting off and I'm moving to the next one. And what people do is they miss the opportunity to collect some critical data on these calls. And let me give you some stats, because I didn't even believe these. My data team just gave these to me this week, and I didn't believe the stats until I looked into it myself double checked it. And it's right. So we have surveys for our clients, we make hundreds of 1000s of calls a month. And we have surveys that we fill up for our clients where we're collecting critical data like when's your contract up? Who are you working with currently? What do you like most about your current provider? How many questions about their environment and their square footage or their user count etc. When we have a survey filled out before a pitch, our close rate goes to 21.8%. When we do not have a survey filled out, it is 12.6% We are TWO TIMES as effective. When we have those that data collected then when we don't. The other thing is we have what we call pitch rate, which is the likelihood someone actually gets into a C reach a key decision maker. What's the likelihood that they actually get into a conversation with you super important because a lot of people just click hang up right away. Our pitch rate when we have a survey filled out prior is 82% when we don't it's 82%. And these numbers, like, you may say, like, oh, that's just a couple of percentage points, when you're making 1000s of calls or hundreds of calls. This is huge, huge differences, huge, huge differences in your performance. So I would say, first thing is, ideally, you're working this into the talk track, you're asking open ended questions, you're finding these things out, and it doesn't feel like a survey, you're just uncovering that. But inevitably, you're gonna get into conversations, and you're not going to get that data in that call. So worst case scenario, you need to ask questions at the end of the call, and I'll give you an easy way to do it. Hey, hey, Scott, I really appreciate your time. And, and I know you're happy with your current provider. But before I let you go, would you mind sharing some quick insights, so I can make our future discussions as relevant as possible for you? Some people are gonna say no, but there's gonna be a handful that are gonna say yes. And then I'm going to ask them, Do you usually review this type of contract annually? No, we review it in October, right? Who are you? Would you mind if I ask you you're currently working with? Do you mind if he asked are, you know, what do you like most about them? Just some simple questions, just get one or two questions answered at the end of the call. Because then the last thing here, when I make that follow up call, I'm different from every other cold call they will receive in the day, because instead of saying, Hey, Jeff, I wanted to reach out about your it. I can say, Hey, Jeff, you know, last time we spoke, in April, you shared with me that you're using ABC provider, you had about 30 users and you really loved you know, in a provider, someone who specialized in security, I'm immediately into a better conversation with that prospect. So my advice is play the long game, the stats show it based on our millions of calls over our history. That's the growth gold for today.
Jeff Winters:That is gold that should that should go like people should have people who like or care about or whose business has anything to do with prospecting? should really, that's great advice, I think, look, two times, just to recap what he said, if you have data on the prospect, you're calling, you're twice as likely to schedule a meeting on a cold call. So what does that what does that mean for you, if you're a prospector, maybe you don't like making calls that much possibly. And so now, you know, like, hey, my path of least resistance is like a call my whole list, try to get some data and call next, and you're gonna have twice as much twice, twice as good, a chance of scheduling a meeting. And it sort of takes you off the hook to as a cold call or a little bit, you know, I think when you go in, you don't know anybody, you don't have any data in any context. If you just as a sales leader, like hey, just just get some data, your goal here is to get a meeting, he had a meeting, great, go grab some data, you'll get a meeting with this person next week. I think people should really listen hard on this one.
Scott Scully:Gonna, like over simplify this, but talk time matters. So if if you know your sale is an appointment, or if your sale is selling your product or service, the amount of time if you're on the phone, the amount of time that you're on the phone matters, you're probably hearing that I'm saying you should talk more. That's not what I'm saying. The amount of time that you're on the phone should be as much as possible, which means you're asking questions engaged in conversation. A lot of people feel like you have to go immediately to the decision maker. And, you know, if, if you called here there's a lot of things that you could learn from, who answers the phone to maybe even getting transferred once to somebody do that. Like if you're not, if you're calling to get a hold of Eric, and you can't get a hold Eric, then get transferred somewhere else and ask a few questions. And I think you're going to be surprised at how much people share with you. And then like Eric said, then the next time you call you're super smart. Yep. You may even have the exact way to get to Eric, because of the questions you asked somebody else. That's a bad
Jeff Winters:example. Yeah, getting a hold of Eric. I can't get a hold there.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, but here's the here's the point to just to clarify this information, this critical sales data. This ain't on Zoom info. This isn't on Hoover's Good point. This isn't on the web. This is you picking up the phone and asking questions that no one else knows the answers to, or else you're the same as everybody else. And you're in one of those like automated messages that come out where they scrubbed data from all these places, like make yourself different, like you said, rip through your list. Don't be worried if you're getting rejected collect data. Phone is
Scott Scully:going nowhere.
Jeff Winters:It's not growth silver. They don't call that segment growth silver. Now it's not bronze, gold. It ain't growth bronze. Rosko boy wasn't nicely done.
Scott Scully:What do you think you could do if you were sitting on top of a big pile of growth gold,
Jeff Winters:I think that there are a lot of deals out there right now that are more competitive than ever, meaning you have at least one competitor in the deal with you. And there's all sorts of reasons for that. I mean, maybe there's fewer people buying, there's more competitors in your marketplace, people are more aggressive, but for a variety of reasons. Deals are more competitive now than ever. And salespeople by and large, I hate to say this, it's gonna suck at competitive deals. They really do. And I don't blame them. It's a hard situation when somebody says, Yeah, we're also looking at another competitor, what happens to sales, but I'm not the only person in this deal. Wait a minute, I've got an obstacle and other competitor. And it becomes so hard because I know salespeople and I love you. And it's difficult because you go, Well, I don't want to trash him. Whatever I do, I don't want to dog him, because then I'm going to sound small. But I do want to make sure I differentiate myself. So they go kind of like one of two paths, if you will, will tell me about this other competitor, what do you what do you like about him, and then the prospect kind of, you know, make some stuff up, and they and then they like counter every point, it's like, this is kind of not great. Or they just start spewing why they are better than that competitor. And that's not great. And they don't figure out how they stack up. So I'm going to give you a framework in competitive deals, that has won us three competitive deals in the last seven business days. That's data, small, small, some
Eric Watkins:good data, good data. And I'll tell you how you can data, how you
Jeff Winters:can data. This is how you win, compete deals using this framework. Because the key is to get the prospect to self discover and to confirm to you verbally, that you are the choice. So when someone says hey, yeah, you know, we're also looking at x y&z vendor. Oh, okay. If you if you've heard of me go, You know what? You know, obviously, you're looking at, you're looking at some really good choices, and you're doing your due diligence.
Scott Scully:Hold on before you do this. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt your flow. Great job.
Jeff Winters:I've never had that happen.
Scott Scully:I know. But I feel like the audience is going to miss out if you don't just take the names away. But tell me the exact using email only versus you on the phone do give that story. You don't have to call out the competitor. Okay. But oh my god, you're so good at it. And that's what you're talking about. Any that's what I'm talking
Jeff Winters:about? Go specifics. Okay. Good. Live show.
Eric Watkins:Yeah. Tell you something. Sorry. Hey, you know what? That just by our leader at all? Yeah, live on LinkedIn. Doesn't matter. opportunity to coach
Jeff Winters:don't take time off. Oh, good. I know what that is for our audience. Ladies and gentlemen, that's us prioritizing you over my feeling. Yeah, that's what that right. That's right.
Eric Watkins:We want you to get your mailings tend to take a backseat in most for most. Thanks. All right. So
Jeff Winters:I'm on this sort of line. Yeah, okay. All right. I'm ready. You ready? Yeah. You ready? All right, good. So this is important. You're in a competitive deal. We're in a competitive deal two days ago. And perhaps because we're looking at X, Y, and Z vendor, totally up, you know, obviously, you're doing your due diligence. And you're looking at the right players, us this vendor. Yeah. And if you haven't heard of them, just go, Look, I haven't heard of them. I'm sure they're great. And then what you do is counterintuitive. You go, but let me take a step back and just tell you about how our industry breaks down. So now I've risen above the competitor. I've been doing this for a long time, let me tell you how the industry looks. Now I'm giving you an industry outlook. And then you pick three categories of that industry that are real. And the third one is where you live, and you're differentiated. So I said, Look, you know, the first bucket of there's three buckets of our industry breaks three ways. The first is gets sort of like nearshore. Offshore, it's a it's a whole group of companies, obviously, some cost savings there. And that certainly that group has a place. But you know, there's all sorts of pros and cons you have to weigh that out doesn't seem like you're in that bucket. The second is folks that use one channel to prospect. Those are the folks that use email only or they use phone only. And I said, Look, I ran an e mail only shop. It really can't work sustainably for the long term because increasingly you just have people that will either answer emails or answer phone calls, but not the other. And so if you go with a shop from a lead gen perspective, who is only email or only phone, you're gonna miss out on an entire swath of the population. So that's sort of the pros and cons there. And then last is the third bucket, which is folks that do both email and phone and there's been there's two flavors of this. The first is okay, we did. We started our company using phone prospecting. And then we sort of added email Are we started email prospecting and restore added phone. It's good, definitely better than one channel. But you sort of missed the nuances if you didn't grow up in it, right? If you didn't grow up in phone, you don't really know all the details, you sort of just added it on after the fact. And then, and then this is the key, I said, and then there's the group that we fall into, and take this with a cubic meter of salt. Because look, it it, it both benefits me and is conveniently true. But then you have companies that took the best phone call company in the world, and bought one of the best email companies in the world. So they know all the data, all the nuances, all the detail, and you put them together. And that's how the industry breaks down. But I
Eric Watkins:don't know, but I don't know you make whatever decision okay,
Jeff Winters:but let me tell you what happened, okay, you want me to give you the storm and give you the story. So that's, that's how the industry breaks. And you got to use the grain of salt line, or ice cubic meters a little funny. And then afterwards, you go, let them sort of react to the ego. At the end of the call go, how would you compare and contrast us with the competitor that you're looking at? And then you wait, and if they start talking about the stuff you said, you have achieved your goal, because at that point, they have verbalized, and cemented in their conscious and self discovered from your industry overview exactly what you wanted. And that, friends, is how you compete, in my opinion,
Eric Watkins:genius. And everybody's got, that's our example. But everybody has something, and you just have to bucket it in the way where your competitive advantage is last. That's really different.
Jeff Winters:You're not lying. Yeah, you're explaining the industry as you see it. And if you're in business, and you don't believe that your business is in the third bucket because of something. Well, then you got a different problem altogether.
Scott Scully:Yeah, if if if there was an HVAC company that was out there that went and bought the best plumbing company to add that as a service. That'd be an example. Yeah, they could use your story, right? Yeah. I love it. Sorry for interrupting but I just thought it was so good. And I just as a prospect, I don't know how I would come back at you. You've just kind of and it's true. Right? We did. We did. We did that. So it's not no, it
Eric Watkins:makes it's great. It's genius. And we believe that that's why we did what we really don't usually say smart things, but that was really smart.
Jeff Winters:I wouldn't have been I got a lot of prompting so
Eric Watkins:Okay, yeah, I Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Version. Well, I'm probably wouldn't have that's okay. That's
Scott Scully:not true. He He's a spy the way it was, like he says three in the last seven days. He was on three and so he's three and now he's three
Eric Watkins:and a half, three and a half and our own Deion Sanders
Scott Scully:on the lead from
Jeff Winters:the front row. All right,
Scott Scully:we're there. We're there. Everybody's favorite section of the gross show. Is this
Eric Watkins:this? Is it. This is it. Chanda Niall, our producers in the studio over here. I'd like some participation from our viewers in the in the chat here. Let's let's hear what they would do. So this comes from, you know, I'm the type of guy honestly, I'll just I'll just come out and say it if you go grab some food, and you got some fries in the bag, and you don't eat them on the way home. I don't trust you. If you're one of those people that just wait till you get home. And then you take your food out and then you eat your fries. I just don't trust you. But there is a line. There is a line.
Jeff Winters:I just said something so important. And now we're talking about eating fries on your passenger seat. Is that right? Is that where we are? It's relevant.
Eric Watkins:People want to hear it. The people want to hear it. They wait, they they fast forward. They just put it on mute. And then they know you
Scott Scully:sound like a guy that wraps the back up.
Eric Watkins:Dude is he's got word rise all over his lap.
Jeff Winters:He's not Yeah, giving killer advice. And now we're talking about anyway.
Eric Watkins:My wife is the opposite. She likes to keep her her bag nice and neat. And she waits till she gets home. And he tell clean. So but she accepts it. She's like, I don't get it accepted. Grocery Store. Not the case. So I don't know if I crossed the line or not. So this is what I want to figure out. I'm walking around the grocery store. Never go to the grocery store hungry. I was hungry. grabbed a bag of chips. pop them open in I mean, I'm gonna buy them in five minutes anyway, pop the pop the chips open. Had some chips. You thought I would have like spit in somebody's face. It was the most disgusting thing that she's ever seen before. So my question is to do or not to do. Are you allowed to pop open the food in the grocery store? Before you check out?
Jeff Winters:I want to say something. Did I text you this?
Eric Watkins:No you did not. I
Jeff Winters:thought of this the other day zero. I think the world breaks into two kinds of people. people that will open stuff and eat it in the grocery store and people that are disgusted by it. I'm having I'm having two meals in the garage. I'm trying everything I always pay, obviously, but like, there my card is basically empty. I think this is so important. Look I
Scott Scully:have deviled eggs in the grocery store. Did you pop oh that that pop open anything that I can't wait hold. I can't wait for a deviled egg.
Eric Watkins:Oh man, that is bold.
Jeff Winters:I've seen you bugles you ate an entire bag and
Scott Scully:we went on a trip. I was hungry. We ever eaten. Bugles around so
Eric Watkins:we're three you know? We're three now. How's the chat? Look? And would you?
Scott Scully:Would you pop open? I don't have an opener. Would you pop open a beer?
Eric Watkins:I don't take I do a beer. I don't think I'd actually do real food. Like just you don't eat real food? No, like, I don't want to get it all over my hands and shit. But like just some Oh,
Jeff Winters:the language on the line. Oh, sorry. Yeah, people are probably watching with their kids. Yeah, that's right.
Unknown:You get a lot of reaction around the fries. People are like, obviously you eat the fries. No one likes sudden fries, bonus fries, bonus fries at the grocery store. I get some people saying that's no way that's tacky. Drinks are okay. But everything else is offensive. Telling you people will feel
Jeff Winters:very strongly we got to get a poll going.
Unknown:As long as you pay for them. It's free game walk.
Eric Watkins:Exactly. Right. So we're not saying steal a bag of chips. So
Scott Scully:hold on. So if I cuz I like Dean's on. If I were if I were to open that Dean's onion dip, put it on the in where the kids supposed to sit? Yeah, that's open some ruffles that's overcome do that.
Eric Watkins:That's overkill. You know,
Jeff Winters:it's like you're where the kids sit for you. That's like your airplane tray.
Scott Scully:You know what that is? It's a celebration that you're not walking through the frickin grocery store with two kids that you've graduated to being able
Eric Watkins:to. They say don't go to the grocery store hungry. go hungry. Get your meal and make it happen. Get the Deans dip out. Get the ruffles.
Scott Scully:In fact, we would like you to go to the store get your DNS dip and the ruffles and send pictures to
Eric Watkins:some pictures. I bet I bet it's 5050 I bet it's 50 down.
Jeff Winters:You're wrong. It's 7030 70% of the population thinks this is totally outrageous.
Scott Scully:I think you're right. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:You know what though? Little tip to be a little more serious here and you got to sanitize before you go into the turkey like don't don't go shopping cart to deli meat to mouth
Eric Watkins:that doesn't bother me at all. That's disgusting. Just strengthen you sanitize them do
Scott Scully:you sit do open the Chick fil A bag. Sanitize and then eat your fries.
Jeff Winters:I sanitized before I sanitize. I want to make sure I'm sanitary. Sanitary before I sanitize Hell yeah. All right.
Eric Watkins:All right. Scott, wrap it up.
Scott Scully:Okay. We're sorry. For those of you that think were offensive while eating in the grocery store. If you see us please don't stop us. We enjoy doing it. Thank you for being a part of our live show. If you have any suggestions if you think that there is a way that we can continue to make this even better, please let us know we're all about growth. And we love chatting with you. Have an incredible weekend. Go Buffs.
Eric Watkins:Let's grow let's get
Unknown:the growth show was sponsored by outbound SDR building predictable sales pipeline.