Quarterly vision meetings are key for setting clear goals and fostering team alignment. These sessions provide a transparent look into leadership's plans, celebrating team achievements and discussing future challenges. They energize the team, create a sense of ownership, and highlight growth opportunities. Learn how these meetings, akin to energetic sports events, are crucial for keeping everyone informed, motivated, and focused on the organization's objectives.
Thanks for listening!
Quarterly vision meetings are key for setting clear goals and fostering team alignment. These sessions provide a transparent look into leadership's plans, celebrating team achievements and discussing future challenges. They energize the team, create a sense of ownership, and highlight growth opportunities. Learn how these meetings, akin to energetic sports events, are crucial for keeping everyone informed, motivated, and focused on the organization's objectives.
Thanks for listening!
All these years blood, sweat and tears. I'm still here nothing could stop me.
Scott Scully:Welcome back to the gross show. You know, I've been thinking about the CRE show a lot lately.
Eric Watkins:Me too.
Scott Scully:I have. And I'm proud to say that I'm on the crusher. You know why?
Eric Watkins:Why is that?
Scott Scully:Because I got two emails this week, from people that listen to the gross show. One that's just been religious week after week after week, one that took a little time off, and then came back. And both were talking about the value of it. And when we set out to do this thing, we said we wanted to be real open about things that we've done, maybe things that didn't work, but drive, drive deeper on the things that that work for us for growth. And I think some people are listening, I think it's actually been helpful for people out in the universe, I think it's making their journey towards growth just a little bit easier. And I'm proud of that. That's, that's my thought for the week. Love to
Eric Watkins:hear that. And they must be listening to everything you're saying. And nothing, just saying I would say, I'm
Jeff Winters:quite sure that that's right. Also, side note, how many times a day do I have to talk to you without you bringing that up?
Scott Scully:I don't know. What's your point?
Jeff Winters:I mean, that's you got to lead with that information. You and I talk all day. All right. It's important for me,
Scott Scully:I'm sorry. Oh, Sheriff. Well, I
Eric Watkins:just observe need to know. Yeah,
Scott Scully:but you want to know what a heavy part. So with that said, one of the emails did spend a lot of time talking about how he was out in his neighborhood walking. And we got to the whether or not you should eat in the grocery store part. And he said he was laughing out loud, walking by himself in his neighborhood. I've ever been so happy. And then he closed with a go eat more chips and dip person. That's awesome.
Jeff Winters:Someone stays for your section there.
Eric Watkins:They really do. It's the goal, the real goal. The second goal?
Jeff Winters:I'm thrilled by that. That's awesome.
Scott Scully:They, they like to truth and alive from LinkedIn as well. And speaking,
Eric Watkins:you brought it up second, yes. Feels like when you mentioned it second after the
Scott Scully:it's not. It's not. So this gross show, write stories from the front lines. We're just we're just sharing those tales and trying to spread a little bit of good knowledge, things that you can implement in your business. To keep growth going to fill your pipeline to close at a higher level to just have a more predictable business. We're going to keep gunning at that if there's anything that that you have in the way of advice for us so that we can make the show even more impactful. Please keep your knowledge coming. We are listening and we will implement I promise. With that said let's go to everyone's favorite section. To truth and alive. We'll go to our resident LinkedIn Sheriff every winters, evidently
Jeff Winters:not everyone's favorite section all of a sudden tonight Eric Cech two truths and a lie from LinkedIn. I constantly scouring the platform to make sure that you get only what the truth is. And we're able to call out people who are saying things they shouldn't got to do it. Little surprise today, gentlemen, some people have been escaping LinkedIn and giving good and bad advice on different social platforms. So today with our second truth, we found him Don't you worry. My eyes can see it all. And we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna explore another social platform for
Scott Scully:you follow them off of LinkedIn. Oh, wow. Well, you can't do it's like going over county line. You fall over the county line. I like
Jeff Winters:That's exactly right. Because they know I'll find them on LinkedIn, but they thought they could escape me where they go went on Instagram. Oh, I'm there too. I'm there too. All right. But that's for our second truth, which I think you all like so let's start with our first truth. Very traditional on LinkedIn. Comes from Caleb widdle Caleb widow says and he's talking about people's websites. If you have a pricing page on your website, very simple. Show the price. Show the price don't have a contact us don't have $2 signs or $4 signs. Don't bait and switch us if it says pricing. I don't have pricing and don't show it but if it says pricing it Don't say only contact sales show people the price, truth.
Scott Scully:Truth.
Eric Watkins:I agree, be transparent. Or don't or don't. But don't be in the middle
Jeff Winters:of that. Have you ever had that situation where like pricing and contact sales cycle if I wanted to contact sales, I would have
Scott Scully:used our calculator build your price. And then it's confusing. Yeah. either have it or don't. I actually wished that we did more of this because I'm proud of our price. Everywhere in all the things that we do, I'm proud of proud of what you get for what you pay. And I feel like we should do even more. I agree on pricing out there.
Jeff Winters:I think so too. I don't see what the issue is. Everybody knows anyways, let's just do it. Let's put it on there. Truth. Truth. I really liked this advice from Eddie Wilson. But I had to find him on the Instagram. Are you on the Instagram? My mom sent it to me.
Eric Watkins:Oh, well, truth from Jill, she listener
Jeff Winters:will find out. visa vie my mother. Thank you for this submission. Mom. Eddie Wilson says Eddie Wilson said he's been a part of 93 exits. So Mergers Acquisitions, and he was given the top three things that people look for when they're buying or merging companies, which I thought was interesting advice for our listeners. Number one, he said clear cut is EBITA. Right? What's your profit? Like? Bottom line? Number one gotta have it. Number two, IP? Why are you different? That comes in any number of different forms, he referenced the Mr. Wonderful statement of, hey, if I could just spend $500,000 and do what you're doing myself? Why wouldn't I do it? Again, pretty obvious. The 30 said, this is way less obvious and something our listeners need to take heed of. He said the third thing that people don't often think of in terms of increasing your valuation is having an operating system, he said, You always get another multiple or two, if you have a system in place, so that if the top layer of leadership gets moved out, retires or leaves, something happens, the business can still sustain. It was really interesting from Edie Wilson.
Scott Scully:So is Edie to find an operating system as a layer of leadership or
Jeff Winters:necessity processes. I think he's talking like I would make it equivalent to our a player structure, our a player score, like the way the maps, the dashboards, the training, like the way that you run the business. So it's like, if Scott left, we'd all know we still got to do the one on ones every week. We got to truth. Truth.
Scott Scully:I wouldn't say an easy one. Yeah, totally agree.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, I agree to but it's interesting to hear from somebody who's been through that many exits, that it's so easy to think all people care about when you're buying a business is profit. Not true. Like, yeah,
Eric Watkins:and I bet people fall in love with their IP, or fall in love with the crazy way they do things of like, we're so unique. We do it in this weird way. But it's not scalable. It's not repeatable. Like, that's great. Gotta
Scott Scully:be safe. It's got to be easy to understand what you're doing. Right. And predictable. But not like the others,
Jeff Winters:not like the others. Back to LinkedIn.
Eric Watkins:Speaking of not like the other speaker, now it goes.
Jeff Winters:We had our two truths. And now we have a lie. I know this is a lie. Because I did it. You wrote it. Adam said stop being funny. Wait for your section. Adam says if a job is 100% Commission, run away as fast as you can. If a job is 100% Commission run away as fast as you can.
Eric Watkins:I actually saw I saw a post from Mark Cuban and they said if you had to start over tomorrow with like, no money, what would you do? And he would say I would, first thing I would do is I would go get a sales job. And I would put this much of my income on commissioners, they would let me do it. And I would rack up an insane sales amounts. And then I would go to the leader and I'd say here's my value. This is what I want to be paid. Moving forward. He's like I Yeah, it's I disagree. Well, one of the smartest business people out there disagrees with it. So I would say it's definitely a lie.
Scott Scully:Yeah, I just I think someone should not fear commission. Everybody's looking for a bigger salary for different reasons. But if you're on 100% Commission, there's chances chances are that you're going to make more, right. Yeah, as long as you're good at what you do. People are willing to have pay out a larger percentage if You are on 100% Commission. And frankly,
Eric Watkins:we don't we don't do this here. We don't have any 100% Commission jobs. Probably just simply because people don't have the the appetite for it, or they have families that they want the consistent income. But the best investments you make in life are typically in yourself. So there's no better way to like if if the structure is lopsided, and there's 100% Commission where you can bet on yourself. I mean, that's typically the ways in life, I feel like you can make the most out of what you provide
Scott Scully:to anything to people making the most are on commission, if you will, some way shape or form. You certainly are if you have your own business. Yeah, I was
Eric Watkins:just gonna say every business owner is 100% commission
Jeff Winters:100%. Commission all time. And by the way, this counts for a draw. I have people in my life they're on a draw. That's 100% Commission. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think. And just because it's 100% Commission, doesn't mean it's a bad job at all. Could be great for you. Yeah. Yeah, this
Eric Watkins:was really a just a blanket statement. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:this is a lie. Oh, I feel like we did good this week. Yeah. Good. Work. Your work. Got the whip. People were into that a little bit.
Eric Watkins:Hit that whip one more time. One more. Nice.
Scott Scully:Jeff, you continue to impress me now?
Eric Watkins:Not bad for the second section.
Scott Scully:Your your dedication to the cause? And
Eric Watkins:best section is?
Scott Scully:Hey, we, this might be that. Oh,
Eric Watkins:he says his name. I am not alive.
Jeff Winters:I think it's Adam. Adam calling from his heavy bass job. Adams and accountant. Adam
Scott Scully:Adams not happy with your statement? Yeah. All right. Thank you, Jeff. You're making the world a better place. You're making LinkedIn, the pastures and Instagram. Yeah, he has crossed over, which is that's just a whole new concept all together, that your jurisdiction could go across county lines, county
Jeff Winters:lines is a funny way to go, I really liked that.
Scott Scully:We are to the 5050. The intent of this section was that we wanted to pass along 50 things that we would put in place no matter what business we went to start, that we felt would cause us to operate in a better way. Right, we'd be more organized, we'd retain people with weed grow, weed flourish. These are the 50 things that we believe in the most they come from years and years of certainly making plenty of mistakes to arrive at the things that we believe in that we continue to do. Over and over and over again. Today is another one of those, we have the end of the year coming up. And one of the most important things that we do at the end of the years, we have our our our last vision meeting, that vision meeting is to review all of the incredible things that have happened for the year and to really set the stage for what next year looks like what our goals are going to be. Get people charged up. We have taken this to a whole nother level. I'm just going to be clear with you all out there. Yeah, this is this is where things like abstract as a cult comes from is the meetings that we like to have on a quarterly basis. We do this on purpose. We we lay out goals. And we want to do that publicly. And we want to be very clear about what those goals are. We've We've said that in a show before. That if you're finding all the ways in which you're going to be held accountable, you're just going to have a better chance of getting there. And this is one of those when everybody knows everybody on the team knows exactly where we want to go, how we want to grow, how we want to get there, then. I guess as leaders, we're accountable to those numbers that we're calling out. And the individual contributors know where we want to go. They've got a clearer vision as to what we want to accomplish. And I think that that helps us be more successful. These meetings are about celebrating our people. So lots of content around good things that are happening that are caused by, you know, the members of the team. You know, one of the things for us is to continue to re emphasize our business model, why it's important to others. How It's safe, how we're creating growth for them as individuals, we talk a lot about the growth and the opportunities that will come from that growth, so that they can see where they're growing. Maybe they may be interested in account management. And if we add another account management position, for every X amount of revenue, we add, and they know we just grew by a couple$100,000 Last month, then they can say, Oh, that's a couple of new account managers around the corner. That's exciting. I've been looking for one of those positions. But we make a very big production out of this. Because it's really, really important. It's important to have clear vision about where you're going, it's important that everybody knows what they need to do. To make that happen, as a team, it's important to celebrate what's happened so far. As an organization and individuals. It's important to talk about developments, product development, new service lines, things that they can get energized around. It's just a significant meeting. And I think if you're out there and you're small, you're thinking it doesn't matter. Well, here's what I will tell you, six of us used to sit around or stand around on a floor. And, and have a vision meetings. And, you know, we talked about agencies in town on how they thought we weren't going to make it, how we were going to be the largest agency in town first, and then in the country next, and how we were going to do that. And you know what, we were small. But everybody remembers some of those sessions, everybody remembers what we talked about what we did after those meetings, I just, I remember it like I was there yesterday, these meetings stick, if done the right way, hour, two hours, you know, the slides are there, the contents there, it's exciting. The people that are at the meeting are totally tied in participating, cheering. It's like a honestly, it's like a football game. And the frickin marching bands there, and the cheerleaders are there and the fans are asked to participate, you know, and all those and then you know, the players are on the field, and all of those things coming together, create a victory. And the intent is for everything to be totally clear for people to feel good about what they're doing, and to leave energized, and ready to go accomplish what they need to accomplish for the next quarter. I would never not do this meeting. At our size, we actually spend a significant amount of money doing it. I don't think you have to do that right away. But I would urge you, do this, have these quarterly meetings to check in on progress, celebrate, and make people feel good, because a whole year is a long period of time? You know, see, these are like quarters in a game, you know, so take a break, after every quarter, have some fun, get people centered and ready for the next victory? What do you guys think?
Eric Watkins:I think this is a huge, huge differentiator. And I know we went you know, we've done monthly meetings for a while. And we've always been very good about getting in front of our whole group and communicating. And when we really put an emphasis on a quarterly vision meeting, you I think it brought about a couple of things. First thing I'd want to say is the timeframe. I think one year is too little, it's not frequent enough. And if you're talking and then monthly is too much. If you're talking if you're changing your vision or adjusting monthly, it's just quarterly is the perfect timeframe. I think we've seen as we've done this, and then I really lean on three, three things that come out of this, that are really exciting for me. One is like the wind in the sails, it really re energizes your team, because you're celebrating what went well, and you're talking about what's going to happen in the future. And you're talking about why that's exciting for all of them. So everybody leaves your company just naturally gets a little boost in productivity and energy and enthusiasm to do the job just from these meetings. Second thing. This is sort of a scheduled event where you can communicate major messages to your entire company. You know, you send out an email, you do a video you do some meetings with leadership teams. You don't really have a ton of opportunity to get in front of all when you have as many employees as We do to get in front of all of them and letting them hear from you. So Scott really use this as an opportunity. If we have some major events we need to communicate. And the last thing is, you know, in the day to day, you're really focused on what your position is what your department's doing. And you don't realize you're really a part of this bigger picture, and where we're going and headed, which is so much more exciting when you think about how you how your part fits into the whole puzzle overall. And I think that's what people get fired up about is that they see how their impact on it on a daily basis is helping support and impacting all the others within the organization. So it's a big deal.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, this this company has been doing the vision meeting, Scott since the beginning, right, 15 years, in some form or fashion. Right. I joined three years ago, and came to the first one. And it was shocking. I mean, you walk into a huge ballroom, there's hundreds of people there cheering and together. And and that's the first piece of it where you go, this seems a little different. But then there are a couple of others that are more in the how to do this. Right, that I think unless you're here, you wouldn't know. So I'll run through them. First is radical transparency, not transparency around, oh, we're doing well, or we could be doing better. It's numbers on display for everyone. That is notable. Second, is clarity. You walk out of that meeting, I think Jack Welch famously said, like he wanted things to be initiative to be so clear that if you woke an executive in the middle of the night, that could tell you exactly what it was. You walk out of those meetings, knowing what the clear direction of the company was such that if you stopped somebody on the street after the meeting, they could tell you, everyone's aligned, it's clear. Third, honesty, if you're not doing well, say you're not doing well, everything can't be great all the time. When you are in this meeting, if you're doing well, you're going to know. And if we're not doing as well, you're going to know that too. And it builds trust in leadership. And then last is this mobilization, it's okay, here's, here's how it went, here's how we're doing, here's what we want to do. And now I want all of you to do something, I always leave those meetings with a, go recruit another person or go grab another client or go have this energy or, you know, repeat this mantra, it's some of the how is really important to why it's successful. Good points.
Scott Scully:I think a lot of people might think about Steve Jobs, when you think about this, you know, in the auditorium talking about the next thing that was coming out, lights are down, visuals are up. People are just charged up about changing the world where there's like, but that wasn't some of the things that you just said, which are important. In just for for everybody in the organization and running it like the numbers and some where we're doing well, where we're not, that was just really kind of a product release type thing. But you got to kind of merge them together.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, that if you just do the numbers, you're going to bore everybody to sleep, if you just do the high energy football game, people aren't going to leave and know what the hell's going on in the business. So it's this delicate balance of merging the two that you know, you do a great job of frankly.
Scott Scully:Well, what here's what we're going to do for you out on our social channels, we're actually going to have a, I believe Katie said a download available of our format, right, kind of a sample format vision meeting without the specifics, but it'll give you an understanding of what a good meeting could look like. So definitely go out. Find that. And let us know if you have any questions or if we can help you. Eric, what are we thinking in the way of mine and for growth school?
Eric Watkins:There's my pickaxe, we're mining for Chuck, we're ice pickaxe you like that?
Jeff Winters:Well, you recorded that yourself, was it heavy or no,
Eric Watkins:you know, you just get used to it when you're mining for so much gold all the time I get it. And, you know, today is gonna be quick, quick and easy, but super important. So you know this, we've been in this game for a long time. And when we started in this game, it was as simple as you set an appointment, somebody showed up. And as it's continued to evolve and get more complicated and are competitive, and complicated, frankly, it's a little bit tougher. There's your there's a lot more things in front of prospects face, it's Ding ding ding their alerts and notifications and different channels and CRMs, etc. And ultimately, getting them to agree to the meeting is just table stakes at this point, getting them to show up to the meeting is the number one key in the prospecting game right now. And so how we sort of went through this transition as I referenced as we started, we just simply agreed on a date and time set the meeting sent over calendar invite, later that day. And we had a really good show, right? And then as you know, industries have gotten more competitive, we've had to figure different things out. So the next change that we made, is at the end of every call, just saying, Hey, Jeff, would you mind if, if you just accepted that that calendar invite when I sent it over, I'm gonna shoot it over right after this call. And then that helped. And that really helped show right. But you know, we just don't want to share what we've done. As a business. We also want to share what we're dealing with and what we're going to do, which we think is valuable. We are making the adjustment as a company, as we speak, to actually get the calendar invite accepted on the phone, on the phone. Hey, Jeff, just sent you over a calendar invite? Can you make sure that you got that and let me see that you accept it? I know that sounds a little invasive. I know it sounds a little painstaking. I know at times prospects are going to say, Hey, I'm on the road, or I can't do it, which is fine, you're not going to get 100% of people to do it. But having that meeting showing up on your calendar, and knowing it's accepted is 90% of the battle are we ran some numbers around this our show rate when people accept the calendar invite on the call was or just accept the calendar invite in general, it was 90% 90% Show rate. And when they don't, it was lower. So that you know, that's the part that you got to constantly do. And I've seen this as in being a prospect. I get I have I answer cold calls, I answer emails, I get LinkedIn messages. And I set up meetings and they send me calendar invites, and I never accept them. And they don't ever make it to my calendar. And then they're like, Hey, we had a meeting setup for and I'm like, I didn't have a meeting. This was five days ago, I don't remember this person. It's not that I wasn't interested in the product or service that they offered. I just frankly, live by my calendar. And it wasn't on my calendar. So I think this is a small thing. It'll be difficult for your STRS who have habits of not doing this. But it's something you have to get going within your business ASAP.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, this is this is becoming a really important nuance of prospecting and prospecting now has 1000 nuances. It's so it's so intricate. Now it used to be not. And this is this is one of those nuances. And frankly, we don't do a lot of talking about this on the show, but like why we're able to succeed as a business is because you might not want to do that. But we do we do want to have people except on the call this this is important not just for prospecting calls, but let me take it out sales follow up calls, hey, can you would you mind just accepting just so and yeah, make, you just gotta get good at coaching on it, you got to get good at coaching on the language. And like anything else, if you're intense, if you're, if you're afraid to do it, if you if you feel intimidated by doing it, you're not going to sound right. So just pretend like it's ordinary course of business, and increase your show rate because it's like Scott always says, When you build any projection, the appointments don't matter. If they don't show up, it's they're irrelevant. So get your show rate high.
Scott Scully:This is another one of those things, Eric, that you bring up that's so simple to talk about, but not easy to do. And there's so many people just catch us half of them that are out there saying outbound dead or the outbound games changed, and we've figured it out. You know who you are. And at the end of the day, it's like it's, it's not dead, it hasn't really changed, the same phases exist. And then you just have to find the things that have the biggest impact and really work on them. And you know, you've identified a such a small part of the process, that if you just get the invite accepted, the show rates there. And then if you just apply their normal close rates on held pitches, they're automatically going to be in a better spot because they had more meetings. And they didn't buy another piece of software repair. They didn't hire a tech team at 12 overseas to do extra parts of the process. Right or they didn't hire a new VP of sales. They just made sure that the prospect accepted an invite went to 90% show rate and closed a shitload more because of that one thing.
Eric Watkins:And that's that's a great point like this is so it is a little bit harder to execute it'll take a little training and development with your team. But like, one thing we did is we made it easy for him. So we have a tool that plugs into our CRM, and they can send the invite in 10 seconds, you know, and so, hey, give me 10. Yeah, give me a minute here. I got your email, edited it up, and I send it and you know what happens? person says, Oh, wait, I didn't get it. Okay, check your spam. Oh, there it is. Or no, it just didn't come through. Okay, well, then we know that well, what was your email again? Oh, I had this letter off. You know, when I was typing in the email, it's just, you work out so many of those situations just over the phone right there in the minute, then later on. Small thing, but I think can make a big impact. Can I
Scott Scully:call out the bullshit before it happens? Because it's going to this episode's gonna go live, we're going to do our social posts, we're going to do our own content. And then I know the comments, comments are going to be, well, if you just had a qualified lead, Id show up. That's what they're gonna say. Like, if you just did better at qualifying your appointments and you didn't have shitty appointments, then your show rates would be high automatically. That's where I say, bullshit. Right? Okay. Eric could be a very qualified lead. And if it's not on his very busy schedule, yeah, he doesn't have a high likelihood of showing. So I don't need we don't need the naysayers out there to give us all the social posts back that so why don't you just have more qualified leads, there's nobody that works harder at at a lead qualification process. And quite frankly, there's nobody that's better. And what we're saying in all the things that we do, the most important thing that we could work on, is calendar invite except not different management, not different software, not overseas. Something's right. It's literally something as simple as that. Because if they, if they do accept on the call, 90% show rate that immediately drives sales north. So even in a what all of you would say is a horrible business climate where we're all going to shit and consummate sucks, and everybody's screwed. Like, we're still selling, you should still be selling. And if it's a little bit harder today, which it is, then we need a higher show, right? Yep. And we're going to do it, and we're going to hit our sales goals. Because of it. I would suggest you all do the same.
Eric Watkins:To add to add to your BS comment, I made a big party saying that his comment was no, no. In reference, oh, I'm calling BS on my comment. Oh, come on. I thought you were listening and following along here shocked? He's only the sheriff and writing apparently not verbally. Sure.
Jeff Winters:Sure. Go easy on the big guy.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, go easy. Trying to take his there was a substantial service we bought last year where I ended up three meetings didn't take place. So the first meeting, they didn't send me the calendar invite. And I forgot to accept it wasn't on my calendar, missed it. Second meeting was Something important came up internally. Third meeting I had scheduled before I had planned to be off that day, fourth meeting took place, I ended up buying the service and being a huge customer. There's and so you're, you know, the narrative around? Oh, they're not a qualified meeting? No, you when you're selling them something, it's something they they don't have currently, like if there's an emergency in their business, that's going to take priority. So I agree with that. 100%.
Scott Scully:Or I'm running hot on all these people that are out there that have that are now saying, Well, I've figured out outbound it's totally changed. No, it hasn't. You cleanse data, whether you do it overseas, if you're unsure if you're offshore, here's what I know, you can't buy it, right. So either hire someone to do it offshore onshore, quite frankly, I I don't know that there is an advantage one way or the other. When the rubber hits the road is really in the introduction phase, once you know that, that's a qualified prospect that you need to be calling. And then if you're worth a shit from a nurture perspective, because quite frankly, 50% of our appointments are no nose or not yet not not the right aways. And and so I just don't buy and all the bullshit that's out there that I've perfected the way to all of a sudden now only talk to people that are qualified or only talk to the guys that call on the gross show. When they're mad about what we're talking about. It's it it's it's hard work, but it's things like this that change the game. Yep. 100% And if I knew how to turn this actual New phone off, I would say, Sorry grown show ins, the
Eric Watkins:Grossman's the Grossman's? Should we transfer into a little tails from sales?
Scott Scully:Let's transfer over to, we've created this just enormous pile of leads that the pipeline couldn't be more predictable. What's the killer sales team do so many
Jeff Winters:people have accepted calendar invites so many people, so many people are showing up. What are we going to do? So some of this show is us telling you stuff we we figured out but Scott said it earlier, some of the show is telling you some stuff that we maybe haven't done as well that now are changing. And that's what we're going to talk about and Tales from sales today. I as a sales leader, ladies and gentlemen, have been letting our sales team off the hook on something. And given the sales environment today, we're going to change that. So what have I been letting them off the hook on? We've been pretty okay with a sales process where there is a champion or an influencer. And then there's a decision maker who sits above that champion or the influencer. And we've been kind of okay with convincing the champion or the influencer to carry our message to the decision maker, and lightly asked lightly, as well, you know, would it be okay, if we all got together? Maybe the champion in the decision making the guy Nah, you? Okay, great. We have to get away from that. And I'll tell you why. And I'll tell you how. So here's the why, according to data s on small midsize business deals, so if you're doing small deals with small or midsize businesses, when rates decreased by 80% 80%, when the decision maker is not live on a sales call, go down by 80%. And so all this hesitation around, okay, I'm talking to a champion or somebody that's interested in my service, but they can't make the final decision. But I don't want to upset them by getting to their boss, which you really need to do. You got to get away from that cuz you're gonna lose these deals anyways. So what do you do? There's two steps. Step one, is you got to figure out who else is involved in the decision making process. And you have to do so as I like to say, like a thief in the night. You don't have to be a dummy about it. And go, who's your boss? Is your boss, the person that makes all the decisions? Does that mean? I mean, don't say dumb stuff, but like, hey, at the end of year, and you got to do this, like not at the end of the call to like midway through your first call third of the way through your first call, you could say something like, look, in terms of aligning with your organization's priorities. When you guys make decisions on buying stuff like this. Who else is involved? Who are the other stakeholders involved in a process like this? Okay, that's interesting, or, you know, look, before I tell you about us really quickly, can you sort of just walk me through the decision making process internally? Should you want to move forward with a service like this? Like, who else gets involved? Who else cares about this? Or maybe I did some research before. Hey, I see Scott's The CEO says he'd like to get involved in stuff like this. Step one, figure out who the decision maker is. And then step two, right at the end. And I'll give you a quick analogy. Am I going to longer I like it. I'll give you a quick analogy. Okay. Eric, when do you like the call to Uber? When you're out to dinner? With your lovely new wife? When do you like to call the Uber?
Eric Watkins:Where as soon as I'm done, it's gonna be ready, right?
Jeff Winters:Where as soon as you're done, it's gonna be ready. So me, I want to call it so five minutes before I'm done, it's going to be ready. I don't want any friction between me getting out of that restaurant, my desserts on the table, boom, I want to um, call an Uber. I let I'm not being disrespectful, but I want to leave as soon as I possibly can. So that's your key as a salesperson, you got to figure out when you're going to call the Uber. And in this situation, calling the Uber is coaching your buyer on the next steps don't ask, you're going to you're going to tell them look this toward the right at the end of the call in your book and next steps. Because you can't let them say, Oh, the next step is I'm gonna go no, no, you gotta get a cut them off, you got to head them off at the past, you gotta say something like, look, the next step usually involves getting your chief revenue officer, whatever it is Chief Revenue Officer Steve involved in the prospect in the process to gain their perspective. And by and typically, this works as follows. I take what I've learned, I'm going to compile some concrete numbers to present. I'm gonna and this is just me sort of rambling, but just give me an example. I'll bring some proof points from similar customers. And I'll even bring an executive from my team, or you don't have to say that, but I'll bring it I'll bring our CRO on or I'll bring my VP of sales on so they can aligned and maybe talk about broader industry trends. It's really going to be an impactful conversation. How does this approach sound? When can we get that scheduled? That's the key. You got to a know who the decision maker is and be, go for it. Boom, and if they push back then you push back but I've given a lot here. Go for it Coach, your buyer called Ubirr. Coach the buyer tell them you're going to have a conversation with you and them, there's going to be value on that conversation. Decision makers gotta be present.
Eric Watkins:I love that so much. I really do. And I think the the important part here is people might say, well just get the decision maker on the on the phone in the first place, like just set the appointment with them, I'll be honest, you're not setting an appointment with Scott, no, you're not setting an appointment with Scott, you might get me you might get me but you're not getting Scott on the phone. And you're like, that's a lot of businesses these days, you know, frankly, like, in a lot of these decisions, you're not going to get to the final decision maker for that first meeting. So you have to be a master at this, you have to be a master at this. And I love that it's great is a great way to handle it to assumptive Lee do it at the end, instead of tiptoe around like, you know, would you would I be helpful on a call with zones? Oh, no.
Scott Scully:I love it. And I wish the standard for a quality appointment wasn't always the ultimate decision maker. First round, right, because depending on the size of the organization, there's several influencers. And if as long as you're setting an appointment with somebody that's part of influencing that decision, it's a great first start, and probably the first started that you have to have. And then you just like you're saying, you just have to be good at ultimately, once you have them excited, getting all of the stakeholders involved in a conversation so that you can dot the i's, cross the T's make sure everybody's on the same page and win the sale. All right, I think it's important, another gem, another gem, but don't just go to I will only set an appointment with the ultimate decision maker because you won't get many. And quite frankly, we have some client relationships, if we're to be perfectly clear, that are that way where they'd love to have more appointments. What we should be doing is actually scheduling with influencers first getting them excited, pulling ultimate decision maker in after the fact. And then we could be getting in front of way more companies. There's just a small set of organizations that are out there that are willing to play the influencer game and and they should be Yep.
Jeff Winters:You have to I mean, Eric, you made the perfect point. Scotty mean with you? He ain't he's not doing it. Scott will be with you if I bring you in to meet with him. Yeah, but like, for example, health insurance, health insurance is so important to our company, we care so deeply about our employees. Scott, Scott will be involved in that decision. 100% because he cares, we care like that. And he's the head of the ship. He's not taking a meeting with you to sell us health insurance. You gotta go you gotta go through a couple of people who are the subject matter experts here on health insurance who will make a recommendation to Scott that he will then you know, all of us but Scott ultimately. So that so if you don't want to if you don't want to talk to influencers, you're never getting our health insurance, but
Eric Watkins:in the genius about what you coach, everybody on in my opinion is like you are educating like, this is how it goes. Yeah, so the person is getting off the phone. They're like, Oh, that's this is just how, why why do I need to get on the meeting? Oh, this is the next step in the process. So except for the process, it's it's me you and their CRO and we're all we all get together. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:And by the way bonus, if they say no, act shocked and be shocked. Really, you know that really? That really surprises me and I do bring on 90 customers a month and it's super rare that we can't have that conversation now I'm no I am curious. This is not something I mean it opens up that conversation. And
Eric Watkins:I personally I love when my people pull me in to things like I love to know that my people are a part of the reasons why I don't take a ton of meetings is like you can talk to my team and if they're excited about it then sure I love getting on those calls. I think there's this misconception that those people never want to talk to our take sales conversations no they're just not they just want their team to vet them out first I look you
Jeff Winters:don't get on a lot of meetings because you know you don't accept calendar invites is not an account either Oh, Z
Eric Watkins:yeah I did I was a no show I felt bad about I don't want to be a no show if I book a meeting I want to show up but one was on them one was on me and then yeah, I guess two were on me. Yes, when you add it all up.
Jeff Winters:Fool me once shame on me fool me twice. Shame on
Eric Watkins:me again. All right, we are there. Oh yeah baby you
Scott Scully:are walking around your neighborhood or your with your air pods in or You're in your car you're driving. Hopefully this just brings you a little bit of entertainment.
Eric Watkins:You're good at this Eric to do or not to do now famously proclaimed the best section of the podcast not surprised, not surprised, new at the whole way, but it's good to have a little validation. It's Thanksgiving week coming up. What's the reason? What's the reason people tune in one guy? It is Thanksgiving week coming up. And we've had some conversations around the table here is Thanksgiving. And you know, there's no alcoholics at this table. But, you know, we'd like to enjoy ourselves and your family have a couple of drinks. I personally look at things Thanksgiving as an eating holiday. And I'm not really focused on drinking. I'm not having a bunch of drinks. So I want to know, in the people should know. Is Thanksgiving a drinking holiday? Like should you be should you be enjoying yourselves? Jeff, let's start with you. And then let's kick it to Scott.
Jeff Winters:Yes, Thanksgiving is the drinking holiday. It outpaces New Year's Eve, Memorial Day, Labor Day. St. Patrick's Day, I said before this is my St. Patrick's Day is Thanksgiving. And I'll tell you why.
Scott Scully:subset of people that are outraged, outraged about
Jeff Winters:the drinking. This is I'm not even a big drinker. I'm gonna tell you, so I'm gonna start drinking early on Thanksgiving for a couple of reasons. First two are logistical. It's kind of at my house to go anywhere. That's an easy one. And if I do, I go over to my mother in law's and somebody drives me home. So I'm good. There's like a logistical element. The second Friday after Thanksgiving,
Eric Watkins:who drives you? You have to be driven home. That's embarrassing. Generally
Jeff Winters:speaking, my wife don't let me drive. Typically
Unknown:the Ubers outside Uber, right after his Wednesday night.
Jeff Winters:Then on Friday, most people don't have to work. So if you'd have to work on Friday, that's a four day weekend. Boom. I mean, I can sit down I can watch football. But then there's the obvious reason. The family it's a lot of family. I love my family. You love your family. At least you say you love your family.
Unknown:I need a little edge off. So it's early. edge off. So
Jeff Winters:yeah, I start you know, I have a drink less than 1510 45 730
Eric Watkins:Who's counting?
Unknown:Nine o'clock?
Scott Scully:Do you start with a Bloody Mary or do you go like right to a Manhattan right in the morning?
Jeff Winters:Depends. I'll do fireball shots of everybody's there. Just so you know what I'm talking about. You got to say, I want
Scott Scully:to be at your Thanksgiving. Yeah, it's
Jeff Winters:not like a dance club.
Scott Scully:Last time. Why not? Well,
Eric Watkins:Scott, how about you?
Scott Scully:So I agree. I agree. And i MAN i that's where I started to love Bloody Marys is my family. Never forget my, my uncle. He had a big Bloody Mary bar. And that was his thing. And there was lots of bottles of wine on the table. And as a youngster, you're sneaking in the wine given Thanks. And you can do it's a lot easier to do that the later it is into the evening when the adults are drunk. And it's easier to as a kid steal the alcohol. But Thanksgivings, drinking, especially since you're eating a lot too, right? So you can drink a lot and not be in that bad shape and just call the Uber get a ride home. We do not promote drink.
Unknown:Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Jeff Winters:Here's the other thing about Thanksgiving. Sneaky. Interesting. And I just did a study on this. Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. Every single one. You never had a Thanksgiving one on Thursday. Christmas can be on a Tuesday. Yeah, July 4 can be on a Wednesday. I got to work. Thanksgiving 100% of that. Is that right? Check. Can you check that? Check
Scott Scully:that in and back from college? Oh, forget it back from college to Thanksgiving break does the biggest drunken brawl
Eric Watkins:but that's Wednesday. Right? Isn't that Wednesday? That's
Jeff Winters:Wednesday. Yeah, but that's Thursday, like college kids. That's conversion. It's every Hiva rollin every day the week moves back one.
Scott Scully:That's so true. Actually. You do both nights. There's no way you're staying home on Thanksgiving night once it's nine and the adults are snoring on the chair after a couple pieces of pie. Then you go meet your friends and you do it again. That's
Unknown:right. Well, you
Eric Watkins:know what? You guys have inspired me. Oh yeah. This Thanksgiving. Oh, no. Go ahead. My you guys are great role models for sure. Go ahead.
Scott Scully:My kids aren't listening to this sneaking wine at. Neither one of them sneaks in anymore so they won't be sneaking any wine. They'll just speak openly.
Eric Watkins:openly. They'll bring their own Thanksgiving. Yeah,
Scott Scully:they'll bring their wives. They'll bring their backpack. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I'm gonna figure out what I'm drinking here in a couple of days. Good show. Great. Thank you guys for working hard at finding great content for our listeners. As always, let us know if you need any help in growing that predictable pipeline. We've got several different services here to make it a little bit easier for yourself. Not the reason we do this show. But if you can't do it on your own, and you want to reach out we'd be more than happy to help keep it going. Keep going let's
Unknown:grow let's grow let's grow. The grow show was sponsored by creative sweets big agency flavor fight size price.