The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines
Empowering Growth: How Shadow Sessions Transform Careers
Simply defining career paths isn't enough; making them real through shadow sessions and proactive growth opportunities is crucial for both employees and the organization. By allowing team members to experience various roles within the company, you will foster clear career trajectories, increased collaboration, and a deeper understanding across departments. As an example, team member Khalil shadowed this week's recording since he is a podcaster himself and wants to get more involved with The Grow Show. Stream his podcast, The Almighty Show, here.
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- Connect with Eric
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Thanks for listening!
Simply defining career paths isn't enough; making them real through shadow sessions and proactive growth opportunities is crucial for both employees and the organization. By allowing team members to experience various roles within the company, you will foster clear career trajectories, increased collaboration, and a deeper understanding across departments. As an example, team member Khalil shadowed this week's recording since he is a podcaster himself and wants to get more involved with The Grow Show. Stream his podcast, The Almighty Show, here.
- Follow us on LinkedIn
- Connect with Scott
- Connect with Jeff
- Connect with Eric
- Grow your business with Abstrakt
- Join the Abstrakt team
- Email us
Thanks for listening!
All these years, but I'm still here. Nothing could stop me.
Eric Watkins:Welcome back to the Grow show. We have a special edition today. We have an individual from our team. I want to introduce him, Khalil, who's sitting in the room shadowing us today. He runs his own podcast on the side. Was interested in our podcast. Welcome Khalil.
Jeff Winters:Khalil, welcome we've it's good to have a professional in the room, yeah,
Eric Watkins:it really is, because we sure as hell have no idea what we're doing.
Jeff Winters:Amen to that.
Eric Watkins:Jeff, how we doing today? Uh,
Jeff Winters:we're doing great. Midsummer. You know, I always my mood gets better the closer school gets for kids. So, um, we're over the hump.
Eric Watkins:You're not sad about summer ending.
Jeff Winters:No. Parents are sad about summer ending. At this point, parents are thrilled. They're craving the routine. They're excited about the new life they will lead once school begins anew,
Eric Watkins:you don't want to spend more time with your kids. No,
Jeff Winters:no, not in this state. And by this state, I mean Missouri, no. Well, there too. They get antsy. They get they get rambunctious. You know, all parents enter the summer with great intentions, we're gonna have an amazing summer full of fun and adventure. And it's like four hours in there screaming at me. It's like, No, we're gonna have a shitty summer, just like we did the last nine
Eric Watkins:oh, they're great.
Jeff Winters:They're the best. I wouldn't give back. I'm saying, yeah, it's summer. It wears you down. You're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. Best intentions. Now we're deep in it, but I see over the hill, school is coming. We're
Eric Watkins:mid July. You're already it to the end of summer. We're not even close. Oh,
Jeff Winters:man, school. School gets out so early here. You have no idea, teacher meetings. I mean, it's all the same thing. Finally, yeah, over the hump, over the
Eric Watkins:hump. And we're here, that's right. And we got some great, great stuff that we need to talk about today. But the first thing as always, what's going on in LinkedIn,
Jeff Winters:as usual, patrolling. The pastors of lichten separated Licton LinkedIn, separating truth from life, fact from fiction. The first truth comes from Greg Shoemaker. Greg says customer email should be acknowledged by end of day or sooner the following morning under extenuating circumstances, especially if you're in a sales role which everybody is show me how bad you want this. I think this is a, a truth, but B, something you need to build into the culture and the process of your organization? Eric,
Eric Watkins:yeah, we actually recently had a like string of issues of like people responding to clients the next day, and we just made it very clear as an organization that if if a client responds to us in the morning, we need to get back to them by lunch, if they respond in the afternoon at the latest by end of day, things move too fast in this day and age, and I want my information now. Now. What I do want? I believe in time blocking. I believe in working your day with intent, and I believe in not jumping on every single issue that comes up, but you should be able to get back to somebody within the day every single time, and it's the one thing, as if you're managing accounts, or if you're in sales, you have 100% control over that helps your results. Key
Jeff Winters:word in this particular post is acknowledged. Yep, acknowledged, yeah. That doesn't mean every client email needs to be responded to with a five paragraph essay exactly, but it needs to be, Hey, Eric saw your note at a minimum. Hey, Eric, saw your note. Want to give this a really thoughtful reply. We'll be back to you by x, but didn't want you to think I didn't see it exactly. God, it makes me feel good when I when I have something like that, yeah? As opposed to I sent in the morning, and now it's the next morning. Yeah?
Eric Watkins:No, I was busy. We're dealing with this with a vendor right now, and we've been kind of waiting on something for a while, and we've had to push. And that's just not
Jeff Winters:no pushing. Yeah, don't make me push, but build it into your company. Build it into your culture. Yep. Boy, oh, boy. Truth, lot of agreement. The next comes from Eric. Excuse me, Aaron turnmeyer, you're Eric. This is Aaron. Aaron turnmeyer. Lot of people applying for jobs, a lot of people receiving resumes, in today's day and age. Now. Any shortage of folks getting hired or trying to get hired, or folks hiring. Let's do some resume tips. After reading hundreds of resumes for the first time in what seems like ages, I thought I'd offer some tips to job seekers after seeing some trends, just gonna read a couple no pictures. Really fun fact, pictures on resumes became a thing in the mid 1950s and 60s, when some companies were trying to bypass racial discrimination laws, what you look like should have no decision on whether you whether or not you can do the job. No pictures. Second, no. Bold, red, bold, pink or bold neon green. It hurts to read. Yes, it stands out, and it is different, but not in a good way. And the last one I'll read. And Eric, I know you love this one. No resume should be eight pages long. Keep it short, sweet and to the point, maybe counterintuitive, but it's not impressive. Rather, it causes a sigh before I even read the content.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, I here's my thing. I'm not a big fan of resumes in general. Oh, really. And here's, I know they're a necessary evil, and you have to have one. It's table stakes. Call the company you're trying to get hired by. Send them a message on still gotta
Jeff Winters:give up red. They're gonna say, Send me, I said you have a resume. They're gonna say, I don't care resume.
Eric Watkins:Yes, they will. But if you have a conversation with them now, it'll mean something, and it doesn't matter if your resume is pink, green, blue, you have your picture on it. You don't. It doesn't matter. You talk to them. You have a relationship.
Jeff Winters:It's a terrible take. What
Eric Watkins:are you talking about? A terrible if, okay, if you were, if you're gonna hire a sales rep tomorrow, yes, and you, they see the job posting, and you have 10 resumes on your desk, right? Somebody gets you on the phone, find your cell phone, Zoom info, text you, Hey, Jeff, I'm interested in the position. I want to call you. Calls you, yeah, has a conversation. No doubt you love them. And then they send the resume. That's not better than being in your stack.
Jeff Winters:The second part of what the what you said is what you said, you could have a resume. I mean, at some point,
Eric Watkins:that's what I said in my first answer, you could have a resume, and the rest. Table stakes. Do you know what table stakes are? Table stakes is what you have to bring to the table. I
Jeff Winters:mean, you know, nobody explains the obvious to the informed like my friend Eric Watkins, it's unbelievable. Let me explain something. The resume is so it's it's all you have in so many cases, yes, I suppose some people get a hold of the hiring manager and do the call, but in most cases, and by the way, I'm hearing this with people in and around my world, they're flipping resumes into what they what appear to be nowhere. That's what it feels like. And maybe it's because their resumes suck. Yeah, you should go above and beyond, but maybe your resume sucks, yeah, and you know what? No Picture, completely agree. And with all the rationale, I don't want pink highlighter, absolutely not. That tells me nothing about black and white, like, absolutely right? And I gotta tell you something. I bet you. Obama could get his resume on a one page. Yeah, so
Eric Watkins:can you Yeah, and I 100% agree with that one. And
Jeff Winters:Aaron also says, Don't make your resume small by reducing the font size to six. I don't want that either. Just tell me what you've done. You haven't done that much, I guarantee it. And if you have, you're not getting a job that you need a resume. That's the reality. Like no one has, I haven't you, haven't you? Get your resume on one page, yeah, black and white. Want to take from you, don't make a resume. Calling,
Eric Watkins:I didn't, did I say don't make a resume. You might as well have Ryan. What'd you hear over there? Ryan? Ryan's impartial. Yeah, he's
Unknown:not. Yeah,
Eric Watkins:he's not paying attention. He's impartial. I don't know whichever one of them is paying
Jeff Winters:attention to something more interesting. He's watching Tiktok, which, by the way, is a recent joiner of Tiktok eight days ago. How did I know any but I don't know where I was. I was against it now. Oh my gosh. Thank you, Tiktok. We
Eric Watkins:haven't seen Jeff in 10 days. That's why I want my kids to go back to school so you could watch more. Tick tock, watch more. Tick tock,
Jeff Winters:really hot take on the future of outbound sales from Cody, the lies a hot, bad take. Kind of sounds like sales and marketing are going to get closer together, with a salesperson reaching out only only to very warmed leads that are picked based on engagement level to marketing. What a wonderful world this will be. The sales reps are going to be able to look at a list of prospects and go, Oh, that one's not hot enough. That one's not hot enough. Finally, I can call this prospect that has been warmed Eric. Is that where tell people how great it's going to be once we get to this? Yeah, Disney World of selling, yeah, not going
Eric Watkins:to happen. And if you do that as a company. Me, you're missing out on 95% of the market, dad, doing yeah that you go build relationships with and you get a proprietary lead instead of competing against five other people. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:Now, by the way, if you work at a company where you can select which leads you're able to work because some of them aren't warm enough for you yet. Let me know the number. Yeah, congratulations to you. There's like six. They grow on trees, six companies on earth like that. Yeah, no, that is not what's gonna happen at all. Maybe sales will get closer to marketing that's gonna fluctuate like an accordion it has since the dawn of time itself. But you're not cherry picking which like, get don't do this. Don't fall into this trap. Don't think this is going to happen for you. Sellers, sales managers, sales leaders, CEOs, owners, founders, VPCs, no chance. Sorry,
Eric Watkins:there's people out there's like, this dangerous narrative of people out there that are, like, we're just going to hunker down for you know, really focus on our client base and then drive marketing to get leads in. Yeah, and they're gonna be in a worse spot here relatively shortly, where they have no idea where their next deal is coming from.
Jeff Winters:Let me, let me dispel any myths and rumors. Prospecting is harder, but it surely isn't impossible, right? And don't give up and try to go to something like this. That's just not gonna work. I mean, good luck. If it does, great. Good on you. I want to invest. Call me lie.
Eric Watkins:What business is that? I have no idea. Okay, maybe, maybe isn't in business. Since that post, we
Jeff Winters:don't do follow up questions. Okay, we just let me go. Okay,
Eric Watkins:all right. Well, moving on to the 50 for 50 today, this one's near and dear, near and dear to the
Jeff Winters:heart, it's literally near, near and
Eric Watkins:dear, right? So we talk a lot about vision within our organization. We promote from within. And it's important to us that everybody that comes into the organization is always, you know, growth is our key value at this organization. You're growing personally. You're growing professionally. And we want to make sure that everybody in the business has a defined career path that they can go into. But you just can't define the career paths. Put them on paper and talk to people about them. You have to make them real. And today, I mentioned at the beginning that we have Khalil in here, and Khalil runs a podcast on the side. He does his own podcast. So he said, we'd love to check out. I'd love to sit in and see how you guys do it, and, you know, learn more about my craft and what I'm doing from that perspective. And that's just one example of how, throughout our organization, at different times, we expose the people within our business to different positions where they can do shadow sessions and actually learn more about the position, and that makes the vision real until I've seen and I know it doesn't have to be something that's in your company as well. Maybe Khalil wants to run his own podcast and do that full time in the future. Great. We want to help the skills that you need to learn here and develop to achieve whatever dreams you have in life from there. And I think making the vision real is something that we've done, maybe even unknowingly along the way, and as you look back, you see the impact of it.
Jeff Winters:It's so easy. How long you have you worked here? Khalil has worked here seven months. Okay, so it's not like Khalil's worked here five years. He's worked his way into it so important. Khalil came up to you, Eric, right, like and wanted to do this too. That's the other thing you gotta not only do you have to talk about it. Not only do you have to act on your words, but also you got to have amazing people who believe it and who will proactively go, Hey, this is where I want to be. Can you help me, here or elsewhere, make this a reality and sit on a podcast or whatever it is, it's it's this virtuous cycle that we've been fortunate enough that we've done plenty things wrong, but one thing we've done right is that, yep, and now you you get exposure to whatever the thing is, whether it's sales or podcasting or whatever, you also get exposure to the people who are doing it. Yep, it's it's a great way to run a business, and to ensure that, especially if you've got individual contributors, and lots of them stay at a particular level, some for some period of time, like boom, doesn't have to be that way, we got lots of avenues here for growth. Yeah.
Eric Watkins:One of the hidden benefits as well is when you shadow individuals in different departments, they start to learn more about the company as a whole. And what you find is, oh, you know, I wanted to shadow someone in operations, and they learn more about how we make our list. And then someone has a question on their team about, man, this list isn't good. Well, this is how, this is their process, and how they make it, and they educate them on that, and it's hard to put up value on what that. It is, but the more collaborative you can be as a business, the better you're going to be.
Jeff Winters:And the other thing is, you know, you avoid this the following exit interview. Are
Eric Watkins:you going to one more me on my own section. I went, you went, I went.
Jeff Winters:I didn't realize there was a Go
Eric Watkins:ahead. Yeah, just go ahead. But
Jeff Winters:yes, and I you avoid the exit interview conversation of, yeah, I'm leaving. Why? Well, I didn't, I didn't grow in my position. Well, why not? I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And now I know because I went and found some other job and that's what I want to do. Well, like you could have probably found whatever that was here, if we had just exposed you to more stuff. Sure.
Eric Watkins:One more thing, one other thing,
Jeff Winters:God, you know, the last couple of weeks, you've really, I think, behaved yourself, because we had guests, and then you're in Kansas City, and that was kind of a fun thing for you today. Different.
Eric Watkins:You bring your whole self to work. That's what I've been told definitely I'm all here.
Jeff Winters:All right, no question about that.
Eric Watkins:Well, one of my favorite things to do every single week is not only mining for growth gold, but passing it from myself to myself. So thank you, Ryan. So for today, mining for growth gold, we're digging into show rate. And we have talked about this before, but I want to go back over it, and I want to reiterate the importance of it. When you are setting an opportunity for your sales team, or maybe you're doing this for other companies, whatever it may be on that appointment call, you need to get the calendar invite accepted on that call. You need to actually, physically. You don't have to write in all the information. You can even just say, Hey, I'm sending you a skeleton to make sure that it's, it's blocked off on your calendar. And you know, there's a couple reasons. A when we started this, we did it just for show rate, to make sure that more appointments show up. Naturally, if someone accepts the calendar invite, you're going to have a way higher likelihood of showing up. The second thing, people today have their email spam filters tighter than a pickle jar, like there are some companies where you're going to land in spam. It doesn't matter what email you're sending from, and so figuring that out right then and there, versus two days later where they realized it's in their junk. Third thing, you get a pulse on how excited they are about this meeting. It becomes real when you have to hit Accept and know that you are, you are showing up to a meeting, and you can address any concerns right then and there. It's like, Yeah, I'm not by my calendar. Well, Well, Jeff, are you? Are you excited about this meeting? Like, we're really excited to talk to you about these services. And I just think this is, instead of just you get so excited, you get the meeting. Okay, we're gonna meet at this date. You get done with it, great. I got a meeting, but go that extra step, get the calendar. Invite, accept it. Tighter than a pickle jar, tighter than a pickle jar. You ever tried to unscrew a pickle jar? Never. Not my you don't need pickles.
Jeff Winters:That's not the my role in my family dynamic.
Eric Watkins:I'm not the unscrewer Katie does the pickle jars. Oh,
Jeff Winters:she's amazing at it. Let me say this, I view this in a more boring way, and I'm harping on the spam filtration and I'm harping on the pickle jar, you are now hearing more than ever anybody who's in sales out there. I didn't make it on my calendar, right? I didn't get that invite. Okay. Well, is that an internal issue for you, maybe, but maybe it's totally out of your control, yeah, and maybe you have to be on an approved sender list that's either actually dictated by that customer, or you have to have had some back and forth with that customer, and then the system will know to accept your invites. This is completely logistical to me. Also, calendar systems are different. Some, you have to accept the invite for it to be on your calendar. Some, if it's it's in a light gray versus a dark gray, if you accept versus don't accept. Some, if you don't accept the invite, someone else can't see it, and they can book over it. To me, this is purely logistical. Make sure they accept on the phone, because they might be telling you the truth that it didn't make it on their calendar. And
Eric Watkins:then the other thing so the reverse, when you get somebody back on the phone and let's say they didn't show up for the meeting, what's the easiest thing for them to say of why they didn't show up to the meeting? Worse, yeah, never met. Never made my calendar, right, right? And you get rid of that right up front. So, boring, simple, not super easy to implement, because it's an extra step that everybody has to go through. But important, very, very important, very important. Jeff, what do we have for tales from sales blasted area? Oh my
Jeff Winters:gosh. That last coin falling really makes it? There's 1000 of them. Yeah, the last one really doesn't. Yeah, we're talking about commitment on the prospecting side today, committing to the meeting. We're also going to talk about committing on the sales side. And I'm going to talk about a very specific person, because we've talked Eric endlessly, almost, about when you're on a sales call, you must schedule a next step. But for some people, that is not enough, a next meeting is not enough. And I'm gonna tell you some I'm one of these people, because the people I'm talking about are the get swept up in the moment. Get excited, people, I'm gonna get swept up in the moment. Oh, you're pitching me a product. I am excited. This is awesome. I'm in. I love it. I get swept up in the moment, especially by a good presentation for there. And I am the most dangerous prospect to have in your funnel.
Eric Watkins:I'm because they're getting off this guy's gonna buy, he's gonna buy. I'm telling
Jeff Winters:him, I'm so excited. And then I am gone. Because I if I'm getting that excited about your thing, I'm getting that excited probably about a competitor's thing. I'm getting that excited about my next meeting. And then, you know who that person isn't logistics person, like, that's not me. I'm not logistics person, get swept up in the excitement and the wave. Person, typically isn't logistics person, so what I'm gonna probably do is I'm gonna get really excited about whatever product or service you're pitching me, and then I'm gonna go talk to someone who is a logistics person, and what are they gonna say to me? Eric, 12
Eric Watkins:things of why it's a
Jeff Winters:bad idea. Slow down. Jeff, slow down. Buying it this month. We're not buying it this year. Yep. So these are tough people to handle, and you gotta know them, and you got to manage it right. And scheduling a next meeting isn't enough, because I'll blow off that next meeting as soon as I get to the logistics person and they say, No, then I got to blow it off. And I haven't given you the concerns yet, yeah, so we got to go a step further. We got to be uncomfortable in the next step for this person, and typically, depends on your sales cycle. It could be earlier in the sales cycle if you're selling something a little lower dollar with a quick sale cycle, it could be later in the sales cycle if you're selling something at an enterprise level. But still, it always works. I'm gonna give you a couple of tips and ideas. I'm gonna give you five. Eric, latch on, whichever one you like. All of these. I've used one, and this is enterprise setting, non binding. Loi, I've used a non binding letter of intent, which means absolutely nothing, legally, literally nothing, but it's getting someone to sign something next simpler, schedule your first customer facing interaction. Okay, and I have two ideas here. Onboarding is easily, easy if you do onboarding on the call, great, Jeff, I'm so excited. You're excited what time's good to schedule the onboarding?
Eric Watkins:Whoa, boy coming real now, I
Jeff Winters:gotta backtrack a little bit, yeah. Alternatively, it's look. We've, we've really thought about this. We have a perfect account manager for you. We'd love to introduce you so you can kind of get to know the team that you're going to be working with. When's a good time to meet that person. That's another easy substitute. Second, awesome. We're so excited. Or I guess this is third, I suppose we're really excited to have you on board as a customer. We'd love to fly you out when would be a good time. We'd love for you to come to our offices and tour we and we're going to set something up so you're going to be there. And then the last one, if you have a podcast, or if you have a session where customers or prospects talk to your team, fill them in on the market, or you want them to talk to the sales team, invite them to that event. Invite them, Ryan, we're so excited to have you on board. We can't wait. You know, would would love to have you we do a little series where our sales people hear from the market, where our leadership team hears from the market. Would you mind participating in something like that and just sharing some thoughts on the process, given that you're sort of becoming a customer now, don't get swept up with the get swept up in the moment. People next step meeting's not enough. I'm going to get logistics. I'm going to get logistic Yeah. And therefore you're gonna lose a deal.
Eric Watkins:So I, I love this. I think the to me, I'm, I sum this up as you're making it real. You're making it real that they are gonna be buying the product, yep. And when it goes from oh my gosh, this sounds amazing to, I have to go talk to the logistics person. That's the next step in making it real, right? And so what then probably comes out is, well, I probably shouldn't fly out yet, because I still have to talk to Katie, and I know she's gonna have concerns. And now, perfect. That's what we want. Good. It's on the call.
Jeff Winters:And most of the time, if you just go, yeah, walk me through the decision making process, go, Look, I'm gonna go talk to Katie, it's gonna be no big deal. And then, like, that's, that's what I'm gonna say, Yep. And that's not true. I'm just gonna say that to move this along, because I know what you're gonna say, yeah, I gotta talk to Katie. Well, what's Katie gonna think? Yeah, like, I'm gonna avoid that. I'm hip to that. I'm gonna avoid that conversation. Yep.
Eric Watkins:And making it real. What's your favorite one?
Jeff Winters:It really depends on size of the deal. Whether or not it's a signer. There's a lot i i can tell you, the non binding loi is awkward in a lot of cases, but I gotta tell you, it works like a charm. Like our conversion, we used to sell really big deals to really big health systems, so it made a little more sense to, like, commit some resources, and we'd say, look, great. We'll send over a non binding LOI. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's just a letter of intent. It's non binding. And then people go, I'm not going to sign that. Yeah? Well, why? Why not? It's just non binding. It's not it's literally, it says it in the thing. It's non binding. There's no reason not to sign it, unless a, you can't sign, or B, you don't want to sign, right?
Eric Watkins:And you find out, well, I don't have the authority to sign anything. Yeah?
Jeff Winters:And that's, like, the strictest thing you can do a non binding LOI or, like, have them fill out an application. Okay, great. You have to fill out the application now. Yep, yeah.
Eric Watkins:It was interesting. I was listening to a sales of one of our sales pitches the other day, and the guy was like, I love this. It's like, I'm 1,000% and I just have to find the budget. And we didn't figure out what that means and, like, dig into that. This is where these calls are won or lost. This is where prospects go ghost, yep. Like, I love this. This is five easy things you could do, and
Jeff Winters:it's, but it's, but it's, you know, you it's probably you do with anybody. But there's plenty of people where they're really analytical, and if they say they're doing it, they're doing it, like, I don't need to worry. I mean, sure you maybe you could, but it could be overkill. This is for get swept up in the moment. Person, by the way, you're like this too. Yeah, you're a little better than I am. Yeah,
Eric Watkins:slightly, but, but that take the example of the pitch I was listening to. Yeah, guys. Like, I'm in 1,000% I just need to find the budget. Okay, great. Well, if you're in, like, I'd love to fly you out next week,
Jeff Winters:right? Well,
Eric Watkins:but, well, the budget, you know, yeah, it's just you get, if that comes out. I mean, in sales, the worst thing you get is maybe, like, we want yeses or nos. And I mean, that I love it. I
Jeff Winters:want to track the win rate. When people say I'm 1,000% in I bet it's zero. I bet we closed 0% of deals where people say I'm 1,000% because that's the shit I say, and then I'm, I'm 1,000% out 10 minutes later.
Eric Watkins:That's a very good point. We should look at that. Thank you. By the way. Shout out to our win rate when the Grow shows mentioned,
Jeff Winters:oh, we really buried the lead on this. This is so exciting. Our
Eric Watkins:some Gong analytics. When Grosso gets brought up on one of our sales pitches, we have a 58% win rate.
Jeff Winters:Did you know I actually dug into this deeper when they mentioned my name plus Gong 90% 90%
Eric Watkins:less, less. Yeah, yeah,
Jeff Winters:you are.
Eric Watkins:My name was more. All right. All right. We're finally here. We're finally here the moment that people have been waiting for to do or not to do, cue the horns. We still haven't had a better one than the horns. You can do better than that. That's all right, though. That's all right for today, this one's interesting. This one's interesting. What about
Jeff Winters:the past ones? They haven't been interesting.
Eric Watkins:I gotta make everyone feel important by saying it's interesting. Exactly. So everyone, if you could go back and listen to everyone and say, You know what, I really like this one, or this one's very interesting. But this one actually is very interesting. Take my word for it, it's the summer, even though Jeff wants the summer to end, we are still mid summer. And what happens in summer concerts, outdoor concerts, they're awesome. The venues, it's something to do. It's great. But here's my thing, I've been asked to go to a couple concerts. You got one coming up. Should you go to a concert where you do not know the music or the musician?
Jeff Winters:Really timely? So my my guy, James, loyal listener, invites us, weeks ago, to a concert with a guy named Billy kernington or something. Do you know this person? Never heard of no one's ever heard of this person. I think it might be a surprise party for me, and I don't know this guy, okay, but I'm going, and I'm excited because, let me tell you, this a concert, even a bad concert is probably better than a good dinner couples dinner date, you know, like, that's my take. Like, a bad and I don't know how I'm gonna conduct myself. I've never been to a concert where I didn't know, literally, who the guy was or any of the songs. I don't know if I'm gonna, like, bop my head or tap my feet or whatever. I'll probably just sit but I am excited to do something that is a fun activity. That's what I'm looking at this as it's a fun activity, versus going out to dinner, having a couple of drinks, going home, watching succession on rerun and going to bed. So that's what I think interesting.
Eric Watkins:Well, I'm a very boring person, so watching success. Session on rerun. Sounds fun after dinner and drinks, but, yeah, no, I'm not going unless I know the artist. I don't like it. I feel awkward at a concert when I don't know the music or the artist, but like, if the music, if the music is good, but I don't know the artist, and I can, like, Listen ahead of time and get a little feel for it. I'm, yeah, but if I'm, like, not into the music, and I'm just like, at the concert, not for me, but like, then here's, I want to sing along. I want to screw I want to sing along. I'm, I'm the guy at the concert. I'm saying every word.
Jeff Winters:I know that I've seen you. I've seen you awkwardly. Do that and I can, I can tell
Eric Watkins:you, No, it's not, it's not awkward. If you're doing it with everybody else you've
Jeff Winters:you've somehow beat the headwind on that. But here's what I would say, everyone would rather go to a concert where they can scream the lyrics. I get that. But what I think people underestimate is, in life, we need variety and a concert of any kind, even when we're I don't know who the hell it is. Is better than a regular night out. My producer is applauding granite musician, music a little bit of, I think the music community and I have now formed an unbreakable bond. I
Eric Watkins:did go to his concert. I'd never heard his music before, and how was that I wish I would have been home. You know what I will say? You know, maybe you're turning me on. Have I convinced you there's good people watching at concerts too? There you go. That's the part I underestimated. I'm Yeah, I love that. People, what
Jeff Winters:is your favorite concert that you've ever personally been to? Luke combs, the recent Luke combs concert. No,
Eric Watkins:the one previous to that is actually indoor, indoor. But I got, you know, I spent a little bit more and sat close, and it was just, is the first time. I've never sat close at a concert like with a bigger artist, and it was legit. You know who my first concert ever was? You're never gonna guess it. I'll give you three guesses. I
Jeff Winters:don't want any guesses. I
Eric Watkins:want you to I want three guesses. They are in prison. Now I believe
Jeff Winters:that narrows it down. I have no idea. R Kelly, okay,
Eric Watkins:first concert I ever went to is that right? Yeah, what's great? Hey, he at the time before he had jams like I didn't realize how many songs he had, but now I regret that that's my first concert. Is skin cut,
Jeff Winters:um, my favorite concert. My favorite concert was Beyonce. Absolutely Beyonce. It was, when
Eric Watkins:was it? A long time ago, in her heyday.
Jeff Winters:Oh, this was, like, depends on you're not that old. Four years ago, probably, oh, she's
Eric Watkins:old news at that point. Oh
Jeff Winters:my gosh. You'd never seen somebody perform like that. Beyonce and then, and then Justin Bieber, un match. I've
Eric Watkins:been to a Justin Bieber concert, unmatched Bieber everything is it's weird that you went to that one by yourself.
Jeff Winters:I don't think so. I
Eric Watkins:think it's weird that you went by yourself. I think like if you're taking your kids or your wife or something, but the fact that I saw you there all alone, and I was there too,
Jeff Winters:was the face paint too much.
Eric Watkins:The face paint was a little too much. All right, we're done with this as always. Thank you all Khalil, thanks for sitting in thanks. Khalil. Katie Ryan, thank you. As usual, until next time, let's grow. Let's grow.
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