Understand why 90% of businesses don't meet their annual goals, with a sluggish first quarter often to blame. This episode highlights the critical impact of Q1 performance on achieving yearly objectives, especially in sales. It stresses the need for thorough preparation in Q4, building a solid pipeline, and maintaining team motivation. We also explore the consequences of inadequate budgeting and the risks of over-reliance on end-of-year growth. Learn how a focused Q1 strategy can help your company join the 10% who consistently meet their targets, avoiding the common struggle of playing catch-up.
Thanks for listening!
Understand why 90% of businesses don't meet their annual goals, with a sluggish first quarter often to blame. This episode highlights the critical impact of Q1 performance on achieving yearly objectives, especially in sales. It stresses the need for thorough preparation in Q4, building a solid pipeline, and maintaining team motivation. We also explore the consequences of inadequate budgeting and the risks of over-reliance on end-of-year growth. Learn how a focused Q1 strategy can help your company join the 10% who consistently meet their targets, avoiding the common struggle of playing catch-up.
Thanks for listening!
All these years blood sweat and tears
Scott Scully:nothing could stop me. Welcome back to the growth show. Your number one resource for business growth. This is no textbooks no theory, just real stories, real stuff. actionable advice to grow your business. We're just trying to make it a little bit easier on your journey. Because fired up about today. Oh, yeah,
Jeff Winters:yes. The lights are bright.
Eric Watkins:Lights are the lights are brightness. We got kind of reorganized. I'm in a different position. I don't love it. But you know, you got to do with the producer tells you Jeffco was didn't show up today. Almost. We almost had a podcast without him. You know why he showed up? He didn't want the deputy to step in and take his job.
Scott Scully:I'd like to make an announcement. We're about just over a year in. Right. Yeah. And in 2023. We won two national Podcast Awards. Nice job producers. Yeah. And we are in the top 10% of podcasts on Buzzsprout. No kidding. One of the largest podcasting tools in the world. We're in the top 10% Already, gentlemen, a big deal. That must mean that people are looking for the goods. Trying to make running their business a little bit easier. So Feels good. Feels good to be part of that. Nice job guys.
Eric Watkins:Well done. Well done crew.
Jeff Winters:We love hanging out with every like, you know, this is a this isn't our standard boring podcast. Again, we'd like hanging out with Alyssa, this is sort of like we're all hanging out together for 40 minutes feels that way.
Scott Scully:Who's hanging out on LinkedIn. The usual whose lives
Jeff Winters:are the usual the usual folks talking and the usual of me listening and filtering it all down for you all two truths and a lie from LinkedIn. Let's get it started with one of our friends, Casey Devine. Casey did divine business acumen is all caps the focus I'd recommend to any professional looking to hone their craft this year, sales account management business acumen. The What do you say your truth?
Eric Watkins:It's the number one skill as you move up in the organization that you see lacking when you go look into certain areas. How, how you're representing a company how why would we make this decision over this decision and how that impacts growth revenue profit and I think it's one of the harder things to learn without experience. So you got to find ways as a business to to get that information out there.
Scott Scully:Agree truth and that don't teach it in college.
Jeff Winters:Don't cheat on the job either. You're taught
Eric Watkins:how to do the job how to do the job
Scott Scully:but I think there's a big assumption that kids are coming out of college and getting these big let's even the kids getting big consulting jobs. It's like they don't come out of college understanding business period. And a story and the story I love it truth Truth.
Jeff Winters:This is a truth on LinkedIn about how to use LinkedIn. When a Christian Krauss You don't sound interested you're gonna be Christian Krauss says 99% of sales reps LinkedIn profiles now he's describing their LinkedIn profiles. Unused custom button, unused feature section. headline is title at company generic background image iPhone headshot taken during COVID Experience section written like a resume about section talks about their pet and football team. Do it like the top 1% of social sellers. This is great tips for for our listeners out there. Ie This is an easy these are easy fixes. Custom Button used for booking appointments if you haven't used the custom button check it out. It's free real estate Features section with valuable lead magnets headline I help customers with problem background image for target buyers professional headshot photo or AI experience section product pitch and about section is buyer point of view.
Eric Watkins:That was lovely. It's good stuff tactical go put it into play. I agree truth.
Scott Scully:Truth and people don't think about LinkedIn as a search engine. And if you think about what it is that you're providing service product, and you go out and you're keyword rich within your LinkedIn profile and you Keep testing that against how you come up and what your rank is when you go search in that particular area. I've done it, I've actually worked my way to the top. Jason and I did that a couple of years ago, we're literally sat there played with our LinkedIn profiles, and certain search terms and worked all the way to the top of search, by playing with the keywords that are people don't think about that keywords in your LinkedIn profile, so that you show up when someone's searching for somebody that does X. Yep, treat it
Eric Watkins:like a website, treat it like a website.
Jeff Winters:And now to lie. You guys are gonna think this is a truth when I first start, but then I'm gonna you're gonna come around. This is important. Joe, this is why the top 1% of reps never get ghosted. One word, six letters, what is the word bam, fam. This is where you guys are gonna think. Once you book a meeting from a meeting, let me explain the aim of any sales call should be to move the sales forward or decide that it's not a good fit, or it's a goodbye. If you haven't disqualified the prospects, that means there should be a logical next step. In that case, you should always book a next step in the diary on that call, so you don't run the risk of losing momentum or getting forgotten about. Okay, on its face. Of course, I should book a meeting from a meeting. Of course you should. Of course you should. That's not the liar. The lie here is that plenty if you if your reps start gaming it so you have follow up calls, but your call sucks and you're forcing the follow up call, you'll get no showed and you'll get ghosted, and we have this happen frequently. So that's how I know this is a lie. You should always book a next step. But just because you book a next step doesn't mean you're not getting ghosted 100%, you will get no show calls. You will not the best reps don't not get ghosted, because they book follow up calls, they don't get ghosted, because they book follow up calls. And they have amazing problems that their business solves, they figure out how to inject that into the prospects mind. And the follow up call is an exciting ball rolling down the hill of momentum for the sale. Not a thing that people just don't want to say no to. So they take. And that's what I'm trying to espouse here. That's why I think this is a lie.
Eric Watkins:So I think it's true. And I think what you said is the second level to make it even better, but I was just on a call the other day. And to be honest, I didn't have a ton of interest in the demo that I was doing. But I would have still been a prospect like our company was a fit for the services, I would have set a follow up date for 90 days out 120 days out. They didn't do it. I'm never gonna talk to that person. Again, if they would have put it on the calendar, I probably would have talked to him. So I would say step one, book a meeting from a meeting step two, to get them to show up to those meetings provide good value and have good calls.
Jeff Winters:You don't be shaky? No, no. Step one is have a killer meeting.
Eric Watkins:But you can have a killer meeting and not book a follow up call. And that person can get lost in the abyss. You should never do that.
Jeff Winters:You should never do that. So
Eric Watkins:you should always book a meeting from a meeting always but don't
Jeff Winters:but don't but that's not what the that's what I'm saying. That's not what the post is say. The post is saying. If you book a meeting from a meeting, you won't get ghosted. Okay, that's not
Eric Watkins:okay. I do not agree with that. You can still get ghosted, get ghosted. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Okay,
Scott Scully:here's my semi off track comment. I'm not sure I'd even have a meeting with half the people that people are having meetings with. Right. So ask enough questions to know if you should even book another meeting. Right. But But then the other thing, which is related a little is I'd give them homework. I'd give them homework. Okay. We're going to meet next Tuesday at two o'clock. I'm going to send you an email. It's got a link to two people that I think that you should call. Here's what I'm gonna do before Tuesday, here's what you're gonna do before Tuesday. And then we'll get together and we'll push this thing forward. And if they're doing the thing, like if they're finishing the homework, then you know that they're legitimately interested. That's how you don't get ghosted. I don't know what the I don't know what the homework is. Could be calling a referral. It could be asking three people in their business, their opinion of X, Y, and Z. give them homework. If they do it, you're in a good spot.
Jeff Winters:Go talk to the technical person. Yeah. So
Eric Watkins:cold calls and if you set an appointment, you don't need to show up to our next meeting. You will
Jeff Winters:like that back to you in the studio Scott.
Scott Scully:He's just a little spicier now that he's looking straight at the camera. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:it's a little radio thing.
Eric Watkins:Got a little creepy. Accent maker with the camera. Don't wake, don't we get?
Scott Scully:We were on the 50 for 50 Now I'm gonna tell you, I'm a little jealous of your sound bites you guys in your different sections. I think I'm looking for looking for something new 50 for 50 I
Eric Watkins:don't know what it's gonna be. Okay, Ryan surprise. Okay, I'm
Scott Scully:looking for something new. This is a this is a doozy. It's not gonna sound like it. But it is. And I
Eric Watkins:know your sound clip by the way, what is it? I'm not gonna tell you, but I will surprise you in the next show. I know the sound clip, right? I got you don't worry about it. Okay,
Scott Scully:thank you. I'm looking forward to Alright. Have a fast start, where your business will fall apart. Oh, have a fast start or your yearly goals will fall apart, whatever, whatever you want to call it. 90% this will probably surprise all of you out there. 90% of businesses don't hit their goals for the year 90%. guys believe that? That's okay. 10% hit their goals. You know what one of the biggest reasons is they miss in the beginning. And if you miss in the beginning, oh my Do you miss? Overall, it's hard to catch up, right? Like, so if you're selling some sort of MRR product service, and you missed by $20,000 in the first month. And if you don't make it up, go forward, you actually missed by 240,000. Or the next month 220 Are the next you know, that just built. And a lot of people within your organization don't understand that. If your sales goal is $100,000, and you hit 80. They're like I will make it up. What they don't get like we'll hit gold next month. Right? So maybe they do. Maybe in February, they do hit 100,000. But they don't realize that they missed 20. And that wasn't 20. That was 240. So in the first quarter, it's has the most impact throughout the year. People don't think about that. And so what are you doing fourth quarter, actually, in upping spend or preparation to make sure that you have enough meetings or whatever you need to hit first quarter a goal, because that revenue is going to carry out over 12 months, 11 months, 10 months. If you're missing in the first quarter, it is really, really hard to catch up. And people don't think about it, they don't have the right strategies in play. You can't start the year have an increased sales number. And then start thinking about what you need to do to get to this increased number over last year. It's you got to be full stream. January one. You know, if I now need 120 New pitches instead of 100. I can't say January one. All right, I got to figure out how to have 120 pitches because that would that's backwards. You screwed it up already. So what are you doing in the fourth quarter to think about the first quarter? And then what are you doing to have a really good start. The other thing is to time period. It's cold in a lot of parts of the country, most parts of the country, people are frozen. They're getting out of the holidays. They sucked last year they're trying to think about their New Year's resolutions. They're already missing. I've joined the gym, I'm gonna go every day I'm already missing going to the gym. I'm tired of being cold. I can't wait for spring break like January February. Suck for a lot of people. What are you doing, not only in your preparation for sales, but with your culture to make sure that things are way, way, way more fun in January and February, because people don't feel great. You think they might come in out of the holidays, but quite frankly, they couldn't wait to get their family out of town. And they're tired and they're broke. And they're miserable. Well, it's fact
Jeff Winters:tired, broke and miserable to
Eric Watkins:do or not to do get your family out of town as soon as possible. Yeah,
Scott Scully:depends on the family like that. So so that this is broad, but you have to do your planning fourth quarter and you have to make sure that you are hitting goals in the first quarter. You have to have a fast start. My recommendation is you're sailing past your budget goals in the first quarter. So that you have a little bit of Lee way go forward should you miss if something happens to your business, plan out that first quarter plan out making sure that your people are good, your managers are good, the culture is hot. And you will be one of those 10% of businesses hitting their goals. Otherwise you will be in the 90. That is not that smart 50 for 50. So
Eric Watkins:I couldn't agree with this more. And this is something that, you know, sometimes I would say some years, we do a better job than others. And the one tip I would have when we do it really well, we are super prepared for next year early. You know, we've got our budgeting done, we know exactly what our goals are, we're all aligned, and we're ready to hit the ground running. And then I think the thing that goes with that is the work you do in October, November, December, is really what is lining up the momentum for January, February, March. And you have to find ways to keep your team motivated through the holidays as well. And then if they're winning, and you've established some momentum going into the year, it's so much easier to carry them through that and leverage this new year, right? leverage this, you know, I want to be a new person, I want to commit to these goals. Hold your people accountable to those things outside of work, because if they do those things, they're gonna be better inside of work and and for your clients. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:I think this comes back to two things. The first is budgeting. Eric, you said it, people a society business society is like all of a sudden made it okay to not finalize your budget till February. And the reason for that is? Well, we haven't closed the books. We don't know what December is. And so what we do here, and I think it's right, we had a budget in October, we had a budget, and we're going to trim it up after we close the year. So you just incrementally trim it up, right? Yeah, have your budget early. Now, the other thing you can't do is like what everybody does, which is alright, let's be realistic in the first quarter, and let's back in the shit out of the back end of the year. So we're gonna grow like 1% the first quarter, but boy, at the end of the year, we're gonna grow 80%. It's like, No, you're not. You're not You're not going to do that. And you're only saying that because you didn't prepare for first quarter to be good. And you want to hit a certain number. In the absence of like, you know, seasonality Christmas shopping, like if you're not in the Christmas shopping business? Yeah, you
Scott Scully:do all your growth in the first quarter and not grow and still have big growth for the year? Because most of that revenue? Yeah. Carry? You know, I mean, if you're a managed service provider out there, and you have 20 clients, well, if you went out and got five new clients in January and February and then carried that revenue go forward, you know, your business is going to be substantially different than it was the year before. If you didn't add another client, the rest of the year, as long as you held them. All right, yeah. It's just people don't think about it. And anyway, that's it, it's a good one that is good. There's a lot of different ways to take it. But in all reality, just make sure you're thinking about it, and you're going to be in a better spot.
Eric Watkins:If you're running a business out there, go run the spreadsheet, like put the numbers in and do okay, if we go to 120% of goal January through March, what does that do for our business versus October, November, December. Obviously, if you have recurring revenue for your project base, it's a little different, but like, it's crazy, it's actually demotivating. If you if you don't, you know, if you're looking at it, and you're not planning it in advance, because you can't, there's only so much ground you can make up if
Scott Scully:I have a if I have a goal, which is a good goal 520 clients and I want to add 10 someone maybe is celebrating at the end of the year, because they added 10. But they did it at the end of the year, like so it's got to be pretty specific of when you want to add them so that you can carry as much of that revenue throughout the whole year as possible. So a lot of people just plan on the number of clients that they want to get by the end of the year. But that's why they don't hit their revenue goal. Because they didn't front load hitting five of those 10 clients in the first quarter. Yep. shit out of that one, aren't ya? That's good. Makes sense. Makes perfect
Jeff Winters:sense. miserable, unhappy oil.
Eric Watkins:This is it. For me. Maybe I'm dumb. But this Don't nod your head, Jeff. But this is an obvious like, this was a aha moment moment for me when we were looking at goals, you know, five years ago, and I was like, Oh, wow. If we don't hit these goals right out the gate, that's dramatic what that does for our business slides. Yep.
Scott Scully:And, you know, if not planned, like you're not looking way in advance because we've done this, you know, you get to the fourth quarter, and then you're just trying to hit this last year's numbers. It's like, well, we can't spend that to be prepared for next year. We'll totally screw this year. Yeah. So it's like this year when we're Janine, we need to budget for actually spending more in the last quarter to get prepared for next year. Correct. And that's what people don't think about. It's
Eric Watkins:really good. You gotta it's really gaming your revenue, like when we
Scott Scully:might need to look at our budget. Yeah, I'm sure we did look at the budget.
Jeff Winters:Let's get the budget up. All right.
Eric Watkins:Good there.
Scott Scully:I know there's a lot of leads out there.
Eric Watkins:Oh, there's a lot of leads out there. How do we get and I've been in the mind. I've been making some cold calls. And I got a little
Scott Scully:just witness witness. How
Eric Watkins:was it? He's pretty good. Not bad.
Jeff Winters:I'll pick up give me a headset. Yeah,
Eric Watkins:we'll get you got one on right now. I've
Scott Scully:heard that you do that? I've
Jeff Winters:never seen it. Yeah, let's go live on LinkedIn in an hour. I'll get ahead. We should come on. That would be fun actually loved
Scott Scully:where you guys are? Cold calling competing? Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:won't be much of a competition.
Eric Watkins:Yeah. Now Jeff doesn't know how to set a qualified appointment. Okay, anyway, no matter what intro you use, you use a permission base opener, you use a the reason for my call, whatever it is, you're inevitably going to run into a point of your call, where the person is gonna say, I'm good. Like, I'm good. I have somebody, I have it taken care of Thank you. And they're gonna want to, like hang up the phone right away. And I think this point of resistance, this first point of resistance in the call is super important. And I just have a little tactic on how you can use sending them an email as a way to disarm them, and then further qualify and get into a better conversation. So immediately, when someone tells me if I'm calling for it, and someone tells me, yeah, no, I'm good. I have a provider, I want to immediately acknowledge that I already knew that going into this call, like, Absolutely, I honestly, in this day and age, I assumed you did. And then I use feel felt fat. You know, a lot of the people that we work with, we're actually partnering with someone before, much like yourself, and what they found, and why they ultimately moved us is ABC, XYZ, whatever it is. And then I'm going to say what I did least instead of like going into my pitch further, or asking for an appointment, I'm gonna say what would at least like to do is get you an email over with some information about our company? Would that be alright? 99% of people say, Sure, absolutely. I'll say great. Okay, what's your email? What's best email for you? Get the email down. I confirm the email and say, I really don't want to send you a generic email, like, could you tell me what what matters most to you, and an IT provider and what you really look for, and then they start giving me information, like I want someone who's, you know, security is really important to our business. And it's important that they have a quick response time. And then I might dig a little deeper on those, okay, like, what's response time? Like, what is good for you? What's bad for you? When have you experienced pain in the past? I'm in a conversation. This is great. Like, I use the email to disarm and get them in there. But then from there, I'm in a conversation now. And that is out of sight out of mind. They're disarmed in your shark. In worst case scenario. I go, I go back for the appointment. And they say, you know, it's just, it's just not the right time. I just don't you know, I don't want to do this right now. Perfect. My next call with them is gonna be so much better than me saying, Oh, no, I know you have somebody Thanks. Have a good day. And like that's, that's a real key tactic to get them talking.
Jeff Winters:Wow, my mind is blown with that. Do you like that? Yes.
Eric Watkins:Are we doing that all the time? We're gonna start.
Jeff Winters:Because here's, here's why this is so brilliant. And I don't, you know, I don't throw that the B word around. Lightly. Brilliant. Meaning. Because everyone who ever has received a cold call, and says, Send me an email is expecting what?
Eric Watkins:Some generic templated Well, or before that, like, No, I
Jeff Winters:don't want to send an email, send emails or whatever, you got to have a meeting have a meeting of a meeting. Now. It's like, I'm moving toward something that I know you'll accept. Can I send you an email? Thank goodness, I'm off the hook. Right now. I'm off the hook. Yeah. Big deep breath. Yep. I really enjoy that. What a great that is a tremendous tip.
Scott Scully:I, I love it. And I love it in combination with and most people aren't willing to do this, but I think that they should if your whole goal and doing all of that is to be their number to add. Like look, if you've got something going on that you like right now. That's great. But technology is so important to your business that you know every client that we talked to before they were a client at least at a minimum wanted to have someone waiting in the wings and be getting some advice from them as well. And then if there's ever an issue you know, we could step in i We need to talk more people into a love that approach and we need to talk more people and having a result of being the number to be okay as well.
Eric Watkins:Yeah. And, and honestly, you're not going to close. Like, if you're really good at cold calling, you're closing 20% of the people you pitch, if you're amazing, you're closing 25 If you're average, you're closing 10 to 15. I may not, I'm not going to get this appointment the majority of the time, but that next call, which is what cold calling and building a pipeline is all about is going to be so much more impactful. Because now when I'm following up, it's Hey, Jeff, instead of Hey, Jeff, I'm Eric with ABC IT company. We talked a while ago, blah, blah. Hey, Jeff, last time we spoke what you shared with me about what's really important to an IT providers this this this and this, what we have done to get better at those services this this and this and then you can you know, you can go right for the appointment.
Scott Scully:some case studies. Yeah, about that particular I love it. A lot.
Eric Watkins:Good job. Found the growth goal.
Jeff Winters:That was really good. Thanks. Thanks, Jeff. Deserving of the sound of Now
Scott Scully:Eric sends a really incredible appointment over to Jeff, Jeff does what with it?
Jeff Winters:So we pitch it. And then what's going to happen after our pitch, we're going to schedule a follow up with good intent,
Eric Watkins:good intent.
Jeff Winters:And then inevitably, you're gonna get off the phone as a prospect. You're gonna go online, and what are you gonna check Eric
Eric Watkins:review,
Jeff Winters:you're gonna check those reviews. And I wanted to say, I want to tell you all something we are revolutionising.
Scott Scully:Is that too big a word? No, no, and it's brilliant. revolutionising
Jeff Winters:the way you're going to deal with customer reviews. Everything you know about how to deal with customer reviews, prior to this moment is gone. It's obsolete, it's useless. From now on, here's what you're going to do. Because what happens is, everybody has either you have no reviews, or you have three reviews. And they're all great because they're from your cousin, or you have a big business, you have some bad reviews I get it happens. You get the Ritz has bad reviews, the Four Seasons had bad reviews. And what you do is you talk around it, or you try to hide from it, or you have good language and like, Yeah, you should be armed with that stuff. No more. What we are doing from henceforth, is we are sending out after all of our sales calls a landing page. And you know what that landing page what most people haven't that landing page, all good stuff, the balloons, the circus, the acrobats, not us. Testimonials, good reviews, references and wait for it. Scott, what else? Do we have? The bad review the bad reviews, we're going to put the bad reviews in front of you. And we're not going to have one of those crappy responses at the bottom that nobody abstract Marketing Group is thrilled that you get comments. No, we're gonna tell you what happened. In that situation. If we screwed up, we'll say we screwed up. If that clients love sold a gazillion dollars, and they're coming back because they didn't like something we're gonna tell you that too. But from now on, we're going on offense with bad reviews, and we're showing it to you if you don't like it, don't buy it. I love
Eric Watkins:that when you think when you look at our business, and like there's some bad reviews out there. But we have worked with I did the math there was like, I don't know. 20. And we've worked with how many companies at this point? It's like less than point oh, 5% Yeah. And it just sucks that, you know, oak? Did we mess up on a couple of those? Probably. Yes. And have you messed up on point? Oh, 5% of your clients probably are you're too damn small to even deal with those problems yet, right? It's like you will but you know, it's, it sucks that people don't go out, you know, and when they have good experiences, leave a bunch of reviews, it's when you have a bad experience. And we we love that approach. That's so great.
Scott Scully:We, in the last 12 months, I've had 100 reviews. We have 85 fives and fours. And then if you're not a four or five, we consider it that like we want to be fours and fives. So the 1515 out of 100 are either a three, a two or a one. And in our sales process, somebody may go look at one bad review and say, I'm out of here. You guys are horrible. Yeah. And what we're saying is look, most people don't go do reviews period. If they do they actually typically go give bad reviews. Go look at the Ritz that's a wonderful place to stay. I love that you brought up the Ritz. Yeah, but you know what, I know that you want to go do research, why wouldn't you? Here's our pitch deck. Here's here's a video. Here's here's someone you can call here's the good reviews, and you're gonna frickin tell me about him. Anyway, here's the 15 bad reviews and exactly what happened to all on one page. You just totally took away that. I'm not going because I went and found Got a bad review? You're just gonna give it to him. Right? Yeah. In
Jeff Winters:your face.
Eric Watkins:It's over. That's great. revolutionize.
Scott Scully:And you set it to key or you. Yeah whisk whisker down up.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, like, we're not perfect. It's but there's like three
Scott Scully:of those 15 I think that. Yeah, like we really kind of screwed that one up. And by the way, we actually tried to fix it right? But there's there's a lot of times where somebody won't actually let you fix it. So yeah, this is
Eric Watkins:gonna, we're in the age of transparency.
Scott Scully:And salespeople sometimes can blame not hitting a number on a bad review, like oh my god, we got a bad review and then it's like, how am I ever everybody's gonna see it? How am I ever gonna hit my sales number? Well, you're gonna because you're gonna have all these other things to send them before they even go out. You're gonna present them. And then Jeff's gonna have a video at the top that's like, Hey, why wouldn't you want to do research? Here's everything. Yeah, come
Jeff Winters:watch the video. Stay for the reviews. Come for the video.
Scott Scully:You're actually pretty good at those stickers. Good job. Good idea. All right. Everybody's favorite section.
Eric Watkins:We're here to do. What not to do.
Jeff Winters:We're here. Great tip so far. Do not screw it up. This has been a great yeah, it's
Eric Watkins:been a great valuable episode. And that's why I'm gonna put this cherry on top. I'm gonna put the cherry on top.
Scott Scully:Now he's gonna say something completely irrelevant. Yeah, people are gonna want to listen to
Eric Watkins:it. No, we have we have a friend here. Jeff, who's in the process of buying a new dog don't have it yet. But tomorrow, Sunday, supposed to get it today. We're good for they're on the verge. And he shows me this picture of what he bought already. And it seems like a smaller dog. So there's there's part of me that could understand but it's a hawk protector. Correct. A hawk guard Hawk guard. Yeah. And it's got the big metal spikes. Huge. Yeah. On the on the across the vertebrae on their back. So the hawk can't pick them up and take your dog away. Hello, because that happens a lot. I think. Does that not happen? So it brings me to my question of how much is too much for your pet? How much is too much for your pet scan? We'll start with
Scott Scully:your your new you'd start with me and you're staring at me and laughing because you know that I currently have a diaper on my dog. moved into a new house. Didn't want my dog to mark its territory. moved in with somebody that didn't have a dog. So now my 10 year old dog is wearing diapers sir anyone's house. Eddie does not have that he's not a wimp. He doesn't have spikes on his back. Like Jeff's really training his dog to not fight for it self. Yeah. People take take it a long ways.
Eric Watkins:Are you gonna strap that Hawk guard on every time? Yeah.
Jeff Winters:Enough. This is a big enough problem where someone invented something to solve. There's and there's many Hawk guards on the market. So we have
Eric Watkins:huge how many of those do you think they sell? What a scam? What like, Damn, you
Jeff Winters:might need a hawk guard. If they saw the Hawks in my neighborhood. They're enormous. And they're like, protect. Yeah, I've huge hawks are like 300 pounds. Yes. And look, I am a first time 300
Eric Watkins:pound hawk. Is that a thing? I have it sounds like a pterodactyl should
Jeff Winters:see this thing. It makes it like when it flies by the sun goes dark. It's an enormous, it's an eclipse. What I'm saying is this to the community of people that listen, I am a first time pet owner. I'm lost. I have no clue. I never had a dog didn't really necessarily wasn't in the market for a dog. I'm happy to have it now. So if you have any tips for me, let me know. But I can tell you I got tons of gear including the hawk
Eric Watkins:hawk or you got more. Alright, we'll save it for another episode. I think the answer is there's no limit. There's no limit to what you can do for your pets. Keep your pets safe. Have you been to Petco? Petco is awesome.
Scott Scully:Do you were you in the conversation with Kyle? No, it's Kyle's a shareholder in our organization. He has a dog and it's was old. And you know, it got to the point where it was really sick and, and it was at the end. I mean, it was gonna be like 20 $25,000 to save this doc. They're gonna have to cut a leg off. Right? Like amputate your leg and go through this whole surgery. It's not funny, but and so Kyle's like, well, he's coming back from the vet. He's like, Well, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna tell the family Wait, what's going going on? Like, dogs? You know, on its last legs? It's at the end. I mean, of course, I'm sure you guys would pick the option of like, let's put it down, not put it through the punishment of having three, three legs at$25,000 Then he's I mean, He's way better at telling the stories like, than I was write a check for. He's like the family's like What do you mean? There is no choice? Yeah, but the dogs gonna have three legs. Yeah, but he's gonna be alive. And Kyle
Eric Watkins:has obviously done a good job and well off and could afford it. I'm hearing about people like literally going in significant debt to keep their dog alive for like, a couple more days. And honestly, I don't know if I'm above it. You You can judge but when the time comes when Eddie starts getting getting to that time, the scouts like the offcut. My dad, he's lived a great life. My
Scott Scully:my, my dog growing up, got hit by a bus shot. And at the end of its life, it was deaf and blind. And I was going to school I'm behind my mom. And she's backing up. And this dogs behind her wheels. She's like, my urge can't go backwards. My dog who can't see or hear is behind this wheel. Oh. And then we and then I'm holding the dog on the way to the vet freckles. And we get to the vet. What a great
Eric Watkins:dog now they could have still saved
Scott Scully:this dog. It wasn't dead. But you know, we're like, okay,
Eric Watkins:it's invincible.
Scott Scully:You know, made the decision wasn't a cat.
Eric Watkins:Kinda let's see what I did there. Nine Lives.
Jeff Winters:Oh, jokes are always better when you gotta explain them.
Eric Watkins:All right. Save your dog. Save your dog. Yeah. With a hawk guard. Hawk guard. If if needed? Should
Jeff Winters:we? I'm gonna post a link to the hot guard. Yeah, in the comments, or wherever you posted
Scott Scully:like all of a sudden everybody's gonna be sending in their hot guard. Yeah, they're hot guard.
Eric Watkins:Let's get out there in the hot guard community. You think there's big it's probably big community.
Jeff Winters:Oh, huge. We're probably I think we'd be big in the hawk guard.
Eric Watkins:Future sponsored sponsor. That'd be hilarious. Okay. All right.
Scott Scully:As always, we start with some, okay, advice, give some good stuff in the middle and end really badly. But somehow you guys still love it. So we'll keep it coming. I hope your life is just a little bit easier out there and run your business and you're taking these tips and you're using them. Give us feedback interact with us. And as always, if you need us, please reach out. We love you. Let's grow.
Eric Watkins:Let's grow grow.