The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

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The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

Enjoy The Ride

June 22, 2023 • Scott Scully, Jeff Winters, Eric Watkins • Season 2 • Episode 28

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In this episode, we dive into the mindset of entrepreneurs and the constant pursuit of success. Our hosts reflect on the common belief that reaching a certain level of revenue or wealth will bring happiness, only to find that it's never enough. We explore the importance of enjoying the present moment, celebrating achievements, and avoiding the trap of relentless self-imposed stress.

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Thanks for listening!

Unknown: 0:00

All these years blood, sweat and tears, I'm still here nothing could stop me. I was feel the back in the studio feels great.

Jeff Winters: 0:17

Just like we were on summer break kind of like we graduated from, you know, whatever the equivalent of high school or colleges in the podcast world to share days off and now we're now we're here now we're

Eric Watkins: 0:28

back better than ever summer camp.

Unknown: 0:31

We're back, we've been out participating in some other podcast, having some fun learning some things ourselves. And we're gonna bring the heat today. Again, lots of good stuff to talk about. But as always, we we hit the pasture first LinkedIn pasture.

Jeff Winters: 0:55

I will tell you the comments, the opinions, good and bad on LinkedIn, take no break. They take No nap. They're always awake. They're always here. And therefore, we and I'm more specifically, I'm needed to call out fact from friction and truth. From Alia Saito via hope I got that right. says, And this is truth. Number one, you don't necessarily need a gap in the market to build a startup, an analog of an investment of an existing product or service, just like a competitor of an existing product or service might work just as well. Like Paul Rand said, everything is a copy or Marie Antoinette's Modi stay rose Burton, there is nothing new, except what has been forgotten. I think all too often, and we've gone a different route here. All too often, entrepreneurs, people who want to start businesses, divisions of businesses are looking for this huge, amazing discovery. Fire wheel light doesn't have to be that way you get into an existing business and execute better. It's often a path of least resistance. I think this is a good message.

Unknown: 2:11

Truth. You know, we've been talking a lot about how there's more people in our space, and how some folks are saying it's a little bit more difficult to sell today. And I'll never forget the past when we were in the direct marketing world in the automotive industry, selling direct mail. But, you know, we made this kind of shift to selling it as a consistent form of advertising, database marketing, small quantities, mailing weekly, it wasn't all about the weekend. And that was difficult because it was such a turn from what everybody else was doing. But then when there were more people that started messaging like that, actually, that's when when we took off, because then people were open to that school of thought than we just had to have better messaging, we had to do it in a better way. And it's true.

Eric Watkins: 3:07

Yeah, I think it's true, too. I think, you know, I've done this a couple of times, where I'm like, Man, I have this great idea for a business. And then I Google it, and 100 people have already thought about it, like the reality now is its execution. Right? taking somebody's idea, and how well can you execute it and, and it to what you're saying, like, a lot of these individuals are using different products and services, finding the flaws of what you don't like about them, and then building a business around those. That's how you're gonna compete with those individuals directly.

Jeff Winters: 3:39

And you got so many people whose goal it is to raise money. That's the goal. And you know what, it's easier to raise money on a new amazing multibillion dollar idea, you know, when you go to raise money, they go, what's the billion dollar mission? And there's so much capital and intellectual horsepower going that way. There's probably a little bit of a void in some quote unquote, boring businesses that you could just do better. Sure be successful. A message for all those?

Unknown: 4:08

Can I say something? Yeah, do you? Because I think we're hitting on something here. I think a lot of people are thinking that they have to think of the next app. Sure, or the next social media platform. And I don't think we're saying that's not great. That's just really hard. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's just hard to do. Super rare. The unicorn, not as hard to go in, look at something that's there, know that the demand is there and do it better.

Eric Watkins: 4:43

Yeah. And all those companies and you go look at their stories and how they grew their business. They were one economic downturn away from not being what they are today. Like it's it's risky, like if it pays off great, you're a billionaire. Incredible, but there's like 10 of those So and here's

Jeff Winters: 5:00

the other thing, there's one hurdle you don't have to leap over, which is, does anybody want this thing? And is anybody going to pay for it? Like, I know, in accounting services, people want it, people are going to pay for it. So that that is that's out of the way. If I'm going to build, you know, a lipstick container that morphs itself into a GoPro, I don't know if anybody wants that, really? I mean, I know I do. But I don't know if anybody else does. Truth, I thought it was interesting. trademark that copyright. Alexandra s says in Truth Number two, defining the culture in an organization is not about what you present in your introduction, PowerPoint to employees. It's about what you see and feel on the floor. When you talk to a front of house or an admin employee. I think all too often you see, our culture is this. And then people go, yeah, they're disconnected, that you don't feel it, go and see what your culture is. Because that's where it'll show up. Like this.

Eric Watkins: 6:04

Yeah, I think that's completely true. You can say whatever you want your culture to be, but your culture is what your culture is. It's not a it's not a word, or it's not something you put on the wall. It's what people do on a daily basis and the behaviors of it. And I think that's, I think that's a great point. If you want to judge your culture, go watch your business work and how people operate.

Unknown: 6:27

Yep. You know, they say that a person is when I say it wrong, but, you know, watch, watch a person or see how they're acting when someone's not looking. Like I think a business is, you know, when bosses are away, or supervisors aren't looking, and it's what are those people doing naturally, is, would be the culture right? Now. You'd know the culture if all supervisors took a week off, and then you filmed what happened.

Eric Watkins: 6:59

I think that's a great way to say it's a great way to say that's a great way to say,

Jeff Winters: 7:03

which is not a PowerPoint that you present, right? Truth. And now we're gonna make some history. We are naming full name, full name in our life today. Oh. And not only that, this is a past podcast guest, a friend of the program. And a friend to me.

Unknown: 7:25

Oh, I think I know what you're gonna say. But it doesn't stop us

Jeff Winters: 7:29

because we can

Eric Watkins: 7:30

not what you are. No one is watching the integrity

Jeff Winters: 7:35

of the truth and lie segment.

Unknown: 7:37

I know what the common the great Joe Gilkey.

Jeff Winters: 7:40

I love Joey Gilkey friend of us all. He's gonna be coming to visit shortly

Unknown: 7:46

Jeff's offended by his comment I am

Jeff Winters: 7:49

but I also think it's halfway true. It bums me out. Joey kilkee. Since I do feel compelled to defend myself and my fellow. Well, you'll hear CROs Chief Revenue officers are the most overrated player in the entire company. So much money so little value when you can't communicate a cohesive outbound sales strategy to me. And all you want to do is talk about your sixth sense outreach, zoominfo Gong and Salesforce, these are these are tech vendors set up. I know you are a waste of payroll. It's not your fault. The market let you get here. Joey Gilkey one of our favorites always, by the way, great follow all Western love file. And I'm going to take a moment to both defend my self as the chief revenue officer and some of my chief revenue officer brethren. And then also say why this might also be true, a little bit. So chief revenue officer could be in charge of many different disciplines within a company marketing, sales development and enablement Customer Success sales or some combination of those disciplines. If you're if you're a chief revenue officer, and all you're doing frankly, is like the higher level VP of sales, who just reports at board meetings, I think this probably is pretty true. And if you're doing what Joey says you're doing and some are it's pretty true. But I think there are a lot of Chief Revenue officers out there and I hope I'm one that's digging into the details helping develop leaders in charge have a huge engine of growth that is a marketing engine, a sales development or enablement engine, a sales engine, jumping into the details and not just managing numbers. I think the chief revenue officer can have a huge impact. And I would cite examples and I won't name them of companies who have hired or mis hired, I should say Chief Revenue officers and things have hit the skids and really, really gone south so that that is why I think Joe Gilkey you are the Have you lied here?

Eric Watkins: 10:04

I think that I agree. Like you can absolutely have an effective CRO I think, what it may be, this isn't what he was going for. But where I could see this being the case is in smaller companies where they want to give somebody a title. And then all of a sudden you promote this person to Chief Revenue Officer. And they immediately absolve themselves of hopping on any sales calls or being in the weeds at all. And I'm high level and I'm looking at the software and I'm looking at the, and I'm living in the spreadsheets, versus being the feet on the ground actually hearing what's going on hopping on sales calls. Yeah, that's real. That's real. But as you get bigger, like at our size, like, yes, we need a chief revenue officer that knows the software and knows the details of what's going on. Jeff, I think you're valuable, man. No, no, no, no, no, no, that's right.

Unknown: 10:54

I have insight. Because I talked to him insider info. First of all, he was successful in one area, which is this went viral and has had like a million views. Right? That's crazy. And that was on purpose. Because this is what he does. Right? He does this on an outsourced basis. So he's basically on the attack for most people leading sales, because most people actually aren't very good at it. And he is. So he's telling the world why a lot of these people are overrated and overpaid, and not good. Not all of them. But But it worked for him. Because the you know how viral this went. When I talked to him. You know, he actually has created another line because he was going in and kind of taken over sales and building the tech stack and, and started noticing very quickly that these people hadn't even differentiated themselves weren't really specific to particular industries, just really didn't even have the research and the strategy done before they did all this. And then a lot of people were just listening to everyone else. And adding the gong, getting the data not doing anything about it, jumping on in for us, or or zoom in zoom info for a fortune, but not really knowing how to use the dip just kept adding tech stack, because that's what everybody else in the position was doing. Didn't know which ones to buy, how to buy it, how to make them work together. So there's just a lot of people out there with that title that are failing miserably. But I think if he was sitting here talking to you, he'd say that position super valuable, as long as they're good at it.

Eric Watkins: 12:53

It sounds like a try, like a truth lie.

Jeff Winters: 12:56

Yeah, I try. I try. Yeah, we can. And he would, by the way, he would add I only use his full name because I know he would. But not only be okay with it, welcome.

Unknown: 13:05

But people people think that a piece of software is going to save the day. And being in the right niche, differentiating yourself from competitors, figuring out how to, you know, get people wanting to buy is totally different from software that might help you communicate to more people on a daily basis or keep track of, you know, conversation so far run sequences, but that's, quite frankly, not the most important part. And now everything I hear everything is about the software and not about the training and the strategy. And you know, you know, what about salespeople being two 3% better at closing. Big organizations, if they ran those kinds of numbers. That's way more impactful than buying a million dollars of software. So they can have a couple more conversations a day and people don't think about that. Try,

Jeff Winters: 14:10

try, try. But a fun try.

Eric Watkins: 14:13

But a fun try. Yeah,

Unknown: 14:14

it's good one ianya named him. Yeah,

Jeff Winters: 14:17

he got named only because he'd wanted

Unknown: 14:20

he would. Okay, awesome stuff on LinkedIn. Jeff, thank you. Alright, we're going to say it's gonna be a little bit different in the 50 for 50. Because I'm going to tell you that this should be a 5050 for sure. And I'm also going to tell you that I have not figured it out. So a lot a lot of things that we talked about. We we have them in action, and we've been doing them for a while and they're working. But we did say that we would talk sometimes about some Things that we haven't necessarily figured out. So I got a story and it's not a fun one. But I think this is an important message for people listening. So I got a text last night. It was from a friend. And he had just returned from Canada, with his dad and other family and one of his dad's friends is an entrepreneur, I've known this guy for a long time. He grinds, okay. He is super, super successful. It was never enough grind, grind, grind, doing very well. Okay, so they're up in Canada. And my friend comes back, sends a text last night to a group of high school buddies, and says, I'm on the struggle bus today just got back from Canada. I hear my dad crying out from the dock. And Steve, this is this guy, his dad's friend was laying on the dock. So they all run down. And my friend and, and his brother in law, perform CPR for two hours there in Canada. The helicopters two hours away,

Jeff Winters: 16:22

oh, my god,

Unknown: 16:24

two hours. And then when the helicopter got there, this is where sorry to share a bad story. But there's a point in this. The guy was gone. He died. So we, as entrepreneurs, grind hard, and life is short. And here's what I know. You, I know, because I've experienced this, you are out there thinking if I just got to this point, if I if my business was this amount of revenue, if I just made this amount of money, if I got this many customers, then things would be good. Or here's what I can tell you just at our level, that when you get to that level, then it's always not enough. That toys like okay, what's the next level? And, you know, I've got friends that honestly have been really, really successful that have, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars and probably will be billionaires, you know, soon, because of things they've done in business, guess what, they're not any happier. They don't feel like they've arrived, you know, they can get on the jets and do whatever they want, go wherever they want, buy whatever they want. They don't feel like they have the right. So I'm using this story to say basically that you whatever it is, you've got to enjoy it, I guess is what I'm saying. You have to enjoy where you're at and celebrate what you have accomplished so far. And like I suck this, right. This shows about being vulnerable. Like I'm playing golf yesterday. And I just I'm boiling. I'm a cat I just started playing. There's no reason for me to like and I hit a couple of goods like I got a couple of pars. Yeah. Like, celebrate the fucking pars. You couldn't get a 10 on a hole a couple of years, right? But I'm just like, Well, why couldn't I have another bar? It's like, those of you listening you have to I bet you're like competitive like me. You want to be great. It's never enough. But why like yesterday, like why couldn't I just be like, Fuck, yeah, I got a par. But it's like, why should have many pars? Well, no, not really. I don't take lessons. I don't play that often. And I just started and I don't know we've we've accomplished some things here. I'm not saying don't keep grinding because that's probably what's a new but how do you figure out how to enjoy like, have it not be if when I get here, it'll be great. Yeah. How do you enjoy today? Because who knows if you have tomorrow. And and, and you could be out there stressing yourself out so much, that you're not well with, you know, family or friends or going on the vacation, you should go on or just celebrating the wins. So a 50 for 50 should be, enjoy the ride. Don't stress yourself out to the point where your health is not good. And your stress is a killer. So so if you are having fun, and enjoying what you're in the middle of, and celebrating things that you have accomplished, life will be better than it is today for you. And by the way, again, I am not good at this. So maybe this is one of those things where we'll get feedback from people and things that they're doing things that they're going through to be good at. Making sure that they do that.

Eric Watkins: 21:00

Sure. I think that the toughest part is, you know, oftentimes, I love the quote of I don't know where I got it from, but your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. So the reason you got to this point is because you had a drive that you were never satisfied. But unfortunately, as far as like the quality of life and happiness long term, that's also going to be a detriment, because nothing's ever going to be good enough. So yeah, I think I'm not good at it, you're not good at it, you're probably not good at it, we need someone to tell us how to be better at it. But it is a fact like you got to enjoy the process and the ride.

Jeff Winters: 21:36

It's so hard. It's so hard, you know, because when you almost have to change his, I don't know, I don't speak for others. But for me, it's like I had to almost change as a person, sort of like you feel yourself go to a different plan, I was so conscious of it. And still am. It's because I always sort of felt internally that satisfaction or celebration equaled complacency. Like if I was celebrating or happy or satisfied that that would then equal. I'm not going to drive as hard next week or next month. And in this business, it's so apparent, probably very different from others. Because this is not a year to year thing. This is not a quarter to quarter thing, this is not a month to month thing, this is a week to week thing. And if you let your guard down even for a second, you feel like a boxer put your hands down. Yeah, you get knocked out. And so it's an I don't have a good answer for this either. How do you? How do you have those things coexist? On one hand, and on the other hand, there's a certain specialness to it, there's a certain uniqueness to and Scott, you know, I'm no great kisser of your ass. But being the standard bearer as you are of this is great, we can do better, we can do better, we can do better, we can do better in believing it that's like belief and other people. So it's just such a it's a hard, I don't have a good answer. We're gonna ask the audience. I don't have good answer either. But

Unknown: 23:08

it's I'm not saying don't. You know, take it easy on your numbers, don't watch margins don't like, drive, get the team driving as hard as possible towards goal. I'm just like, there's, there's somewhere in that, where each day it's like, alright, we fucking killed it at this. Yeah, let's go tomorrow. Like, like, there's got to be something that was enjoyable about each day. Otherwise, it'll stack up and stress you the fuck out. And you know, there's only so many people that can kind of were that stress for a long period of time. And we're all made up differently. Some some people it cracks earlier than others. And, but it will eventually crack even God forbid, it's your health. And, yeah, we don't want that. So

Eric Watkins: 24:12

I think one of the keys here is looking at things with a longer term approach. I think the the reason that the stress eats hits you so much is it's this permanent event that just happened I either won or I lost, not building or gaining momentum moving forward. That's kind of the you know, I'm not always great at that as well. But if I know okay, you know, I'm pissed that we ended at this, but I feel confident in the behaviors that we did that's gonna lead to success down the road. It's a little bit easier to take, you can enjoy it a little bit more.

Jeff Winters: 24:51

I envy the people who can disconnect. I swear to God, I do. I envy. You know, I live in the wind and loss in here at home. was different. I? And if so I wish somebody could tell me how to do it. I truly do that would work. I just, I've never been able to do it.

Unknown: 25:08

I have no idea. I really don't. I want to be good at things I shouldn't be good at, you know what I mean? And that's painful. Because yeah, there's no reason yesterday again, just not to hammer that to death that yes, that I shouldn't have walked off like that back nine, like, holy cow. I've made some progress, but I didn't I was thinking,

Eric Watkins: 25:28

the funny thing is, you probably would have played better yet, right? You know, like, there's a certain aspect of this, of having that gratitude mindset or happiness mindset that allows you to perform better.

Unknown: 25:46

So heavy topic, but worthwhile for you all to think about keep driving. But find the the way to, you know, give yourself and your team some credit, and enjoy something daily and celebrate your wins.

Eric Watkins: 26:09

So, good stuff.

Unknown: 26:12

We are heading over to figuring out how to get a shitload of leads.

Eric Watkins: 26:15

Yes. So mining for gross gold. So we were actually talking about this the other day. And my section is geared towards how to drive more leads for your business. And we were talking about it and you know, one of the areas where there's the most gold is actually within your customer base. So then the way you get those you mined that gold is you have to have happy customers, and you have to have good relationships with your customers. So what I'm going to be diving into over the next few podcast episode, episodes is really into more of the account management, customer success portion of things. And I felt like I'd start with the foundation. So when a lot of people, when a lot of companies look at their account management, department or function, they're really looking at churn, they're looking at retention. And in some cases, the sales rep is selling the deal and also managing the account. And they're actually looking at revenue growth. And that's great, those numbers are super important. You need to watch those as a business, you don't grow as a business, if you don't hit those numbers, but the reality of it is, your partners don't want to be retained, like they're not signing up with your product or service to be retained. So what I think is a key for every single individual who's in account management is to have what we call a definition of success, or what we call here is the Northstar. So for every partner that comes on to abstract, what we do is we ask them, What would success look like at the end of this contract? At the end of this year? What would success look like for your company, because then that gives us something that really the reason we call it the North Star is that guides everything to go with the partnership. So along the way, we're not making decisions to retain that client, we're making decisions out of their best interests, to be able to grow their business and reach that definition of success. Couple things that happen here, one, it's a higher purpose for your people working with your partners, right? It's not a transactional what the number was this month, it's a, this is my partner, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to grow their business. We believe in this so much. We actually used to call our people account managers, and we changed the name of the department to partner success, even before that became a popular term out in the ethos of account management. And a couple of things I've seen, so like, just yesterday, I was walking by, we have our partner success team in one room, and I was walking by an individual and, you know, they typically, you know, when they see me they want to, you know, share some good news or what's going on. He didn't say it was Jim, who's one of our experienced account managers, great guy. He said, He didn't say, Hey, Eric, I retained 50 out of 50 of my clients last month, he said, Hey, I just had a client who closed big deals back to back months. And they went from a little skeptical about the service to now they're in love with it. So that's what you start to see in your culture. And that starts to get translated to your customers as well. So, number one thing, if you're over account management, whether your sales reps are doing it, or you have a success team doing it, make sure that they're focused on what is their definition of success for this service, because that's what matters most.

Jeff Winters: 29:41

The other thing this helps you do is it helps you avoid the dreaded scenario where you thought you were winning and you actually lost. Oh, I sold a product and they use the product and the product worked well. They it we the product performed as we said it is going to perform, it never went down. They, whatever the product functionally did it functionally did and the customer left and at the end, the customer goes, you go to the customers like what happened everything. But then you realize that their goal wasn't to use the product or to use the service, it was to get something out of it. And if you don't know what that secondary call it North Star success outcome is, then you're going to end up in that awful scenario of we weren't even trying to hit their success outcome or Northstar, we were just trying to deliver what we told them the product was going to do. And that's the Miss. And I think that's what I would underscore about this whole point.

Unknown: 31:20

I think I'm saying the same thing here. And not to oversimplify account management, but in the beginning, if you know why they bought it. Like what problem they were trying to solve what what outcome they want out of that investment. And then when you meet with them, you're consistently checking in to see if it's measuring up. And if we're leading towards or already at what they want out of the investment, then you will be successful. As long as you know if you're short of that you're doing things to make sure that we get it up to speed. So it is delivering what they want it to deliver. Sure. And most account management teams out there have tons of clients in their book. And they and they aren't like you said they're trying to retain them. And they don't even know why they bought it or what needs to happen exactly. To keep them. You should not be surprised when you lose a client or a like we commonly call them partners, you shouldn't be surprised shouldn't be a surprise, because you should have known why they bought it. You should know how much patience they have to get there. And whether or not you were successful in getting them there or not. But you should just know if you're going to lose a client or not. And that's knowing like you guys are saying knowing what they wanted from the get go right day one, why they made the investment?

Eric Watkins: 32:56

Yeah, I think it's I think it's just a really simple point that is so overlooked. And it took us a while as a business. I remember thinking of this like four years ago, like we're talking about retention all the time. But like, ultimately, if our clients grow their business, they're gonna stay. So that's the leading end indicator, instead of watching clients go out the door, focus on what you control, and we're going to talk about this more in further points. But it also gives you the right as their partner Success Manager to challenge the client. If you feel like we're doing something or focusing on something that's taking us away from that Northstar, they know where your interests are, you can explain why you feel like this change is more beneficial for that. So simple point. But I think a super important foundational point when it comes to working with partners, for your organization.

Unknown: 33:52

Awesome stuff. There is golden, your client golden, your client base and your client base. So what are we learning in the sales world? Today? Jeff?

Jeff Winters: 34:07

You know, Scott, often you say as you transition, it's less apropos in this particular episode, you go now we got all these sales leads? How are we going to close them? And today, you know what I'm going to tell you, there's a step in between. And it's a very important step. You know, what's got to happen in between a sales lead being created, and a sales rep having a call? Do you know what has to happen? That prospects got to show up to that meeting? They got to show up? Yes, they do. How many? Eric? How many deals have you closed with prospects that didn't show up for the meet a zero, Scott? None 0.0. So we're going to talk today about a few strategies that will help you increase your show rate on meetings so you can convert some of that growth gold into some of that revenue, some of them sales, right. So first, we've we've been doing some experiments recently, and I want to share the results because I think they're extremely powerful. Number one, you should be and I say this in an absolute way, and I say nothing. Absolutely. You should be texting your prospects to remind them of the meeting. Full stop implemented today. You should be texting your prospects. We had a SDR whose raise their show rate 35% Just through texting 35% increase in show rate just through texting. And you might say But Jeff, that's invasive. But Jeff, people don't want to get texts. So how do you Play for that a I don't believe it but be how do you play for that? So easy. You're on the end of your appointment setting call, say, hey, is this the best cell phone? For me, for us to use for you. As part of our process, we text your reminder, just just to make sure that you get the calendar invite you know how those can be. And to make sure that the appointment time is going to still be a winner for you. Yeah, sure. Okay, great well, texture in the morning, before the meeting. And we're also going to share probably a little case study or a success story just so you have it to prep for the meeting to make sure it's most successful for you. Boom, text and before the meeting. Number two, after you schedule the appointment, which is the most important important part of the sales development, call to cold call, whatever it is, ask a couple of questions. Ask a couple of questions. We've talked about this on prior episodes. We see this play out in real life. So often, you're scheduling a meeting, that meeting may stick it may not. But how are you going to increase the prospects likelihood of showing or interest in what the hell you're talking about? First thing you can do after you scheduled that appointment? Get them talking? Hey, Eric, you know, you had Eric agrees to a meeting, you don't know, they could have just said that because they're in the middle of something. They're busy or whatever. Hey, Eric, before before, before I let you jump, I'm really excited to get you meet with one of our sales execs next week, just a couple of quick questions. Can you just share with me and then ask two or three questions, get them talking. That's number two. And then number three, make sure that if someone doesn't show, you're not just letting them go off into the ocean, you need to have a process defined with your salespeople, or your SDR team, or ideally, or BDR team or ideally both. Where you're getting somebody back on the horn. Those are those are my three tips from sales today.

Eric Watkins: 37:22

Here's the I'll be on the other side of it. Because I take you know people LinkedIn me all the time for new software's or, you know, they want to sell us leads. And I love meeting with other lead gen companies just to talk shop and see what's going on. I've moved a meeting on a guy four times this week, and I feel terrible about it. But he asked to meet with me, I'm still interested in meeting with the guy, but I've moved it four times. So if someone doesn't show to your point on the process, real things come up where I like if I have to meet with Scott, I'm going to push this sales meeting that I had Scott, I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. But that I think that's huge. And then the other thing I would say is we actually ran the stats on all the appointments we set for clients, and the longer the duration of the call the higher the show. Right. So I think that goes to your ask a couple questions. And I would assume that also has to do with how much the prospect actually talks on the call. Yeah, it becomes more of a real appointment when they have to actually communicate and answer some questions or give you a little pushback, it just makes it a little bit more real for them.

Unknown: 38:33

A couple of things. This is really, really important. Look in, in in our world, the difference in US increasing show rate by 20% overall could be 20 to 25 new clients in one year. That's crazy. So we're already spending the money on the people and the tech stack and everything. And a lot of you out there thinking, Well, my show rates my show rate. So I've just got to go get more meetings. So I'm going to, I don't know, put more in spend or add another body or whatever it might be and chances are you you've got enough opportunities, you just need to make sure to take advantage of them. Like another example of that as is, and this is it's not show, right, but it's like you may already be there just be more effective. It's like a lot of people have the right amount of unique visitors to their website, but they haven't done the things on their pages to convert. So they've spent a bunch of money to get people to their website, they already have the people there, they just haven't done it enough on page to take advantage of it. So then they go spend more. Well, a lot of sales teams spend more to get more leads, as opposed to doing what Jeff sayin, which is really zeroing in on show rate to get 70% plus all the things that Jeff was talking about work and then I also believe in scarcity. Like so if you can do that. Like if if your business could be set up that way where like you're the only one or I only have x amount of this going on. Like where there's some sort of sense of urgency to get them to the call that will pile on as well. And and then I and I hope you are actually listening to appointment setting costs, because I think that you would notice some things in the scripting that you could tweak to help get more to show as well. Stuff to some things.

Eric Watkins: 40:54

dropping some knowledge today, increase that show, right? Do it.

Unknown: 40:59

Good show. Hopefully we are getting you thinking. And again, it's just our goal to give you a couple of nuggets each time to make your journey just a little bit easier on the way up. As always, please follow subscribe, share.

Jeff Winters: 41:17

Well, hang on. You're not winding this up. Yeah, or I know. Look, I know what you're trying to do. I know what you're trying to do. And I by the way, don't disagree with it. But I got a

Eric Watkins: 41:29

I got a

Jeff Winters: 41:32

good effort. Good effort.

Eric Watkins: 41:34

He really isn't. He really is a cop. Yeah, the sheriff. This is why they listen, they fast forwarded, they would have just had the outro they wouldn't even they wouldn't have heard it would have ruined their debt. Neil Neil. He tried. But you know what, just for that I got a good one. Today, I got a good one for you. So, you know, you see the people. You live in a neighborhood you live by, you know, certain individuals, and you see the people that are just best friends with one another that are neighbors. And you know, I have best friends. Like I don't I don't necessarily need more best friends. Right? I got some best friends. But people love it. They love being best friends with their neighbors. And there's pros and cons. But I you know, I want to hear your guys's thoughts should you be to do or not to do should you be best friends with your neighbor? Scott?

Unknown: 42:30

All right. That's a good one. Well, first of all, I'll say this, if I was better friends with my neighbors, they wouldn't call the cops on my teenager. Pro. So that's a that's a reason to be, I would say what's, what's hard, is, it's it can it can be great. Like I've had good neighbors before and you love seeing them. It can be great if both people have the same awareness of what's too much. Because if you're just walking into each other's homes, when maybe you just are in the middle of something that day, or you just don't maybe have the time to visit in the driveway today. You're going somewhere. I think I've seen neighborhoods be really good neighborhoods. But they've got to have like that balance where yeah,

Eric Watkins: 43:25

sometimes I just want to smile and wave.

Unknown: 43:27

Yeah, right. But But how do you do that? How do you know when the right time to walk over and talk to Sally is?

Jeff Winters: 43:35

Well, look, here's the deal for me. I want to be left alone. Period. But and this is like the anti leave me alone. But I will say I do envy people where I go, What are you doing this weekend and they go we're gonna we're gonna go in the yard. And my neighbors Billy and Joe and Samantha and Steve and Susie, and the kids are going to run around and we're going to kind of hang out. I like that that I envy because you don't have to have a plan. I don't have to go to a restaurant. I don't have to go to the arcade. Like, I like that. But in general, just I just want to be left alone. Just like but I do want you to like get my mail and like make sure

Eric Watkins: 44:20

when I'm on vacation. Yeah,

Unknown: 44:22

he doesn't want to talk to you in college.

Eric Watkins: 44:24

Yeah,

Jeff Winters: 44:24

if I if there's very selfish I want you to watch my house like a ring doorbell.

Eric Watkins: 44:29

Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised but that's very selfish. Okay,

Jeff Winters: 44:31

just as a note, and I will not do the same for you.

Unknown: 44:34

Don't you want to move on? Either side of Jeff. Yeah. Wouldn't it be fun to

Eric Watkins: 44:42

just try to have a long conversation every day in the driveway? Don't you

Jeff Winters: 44:45

want to let the kids in the yard though? Doesn't that sound pleasant? Sounds good. There's some idealistic

Eric Watkins: 44:50

here's what here's the dynamic I got is my next door neighbor's my parents. So I got all those things that I need. I don't need that from anybody else. So if I see you, I'm smiling. I'm waving I'm done. Are they literally literally next door right next to literally next door? What's the best and that's day two? I was a little worried like when this because my dad own two lots. So I took one and then eventually he built on the other and I was worried about them coming over all the time. They've never come over once. I'm over there very frequently dropping off my dog going you know wherever I'm going going out for the night hey, can you watch Jackson etc, etc. We don't have any food you go next door get a little food little this little that it's nice.

Jeff Winters: 45:40

The worst part of that's gotta be like, Eric, my TV's out my internet's not work in my that there's, there's a lot of the sprinkler system starts too early in the morning. Yeah, yeah,

Eric Watkins: 45:51

the there's a lot of technology fixes but that's what I bring to the table they offer a lot, you know, I'll, I'll type in the Netflix password. I get that Internet work and I'll unplug it and plug it back in. I'm not above that. I'm not above that.

Unknown: 46:09

I love that your parents want to live next to you. I'm sitting here thinking about whether or not my parents would like

Jeff Winters: 46:16

me. Do you think your kids would want you to live next to them? No.

Unknown: 46:22

I don't do you would your kid

Jeff Winters: 46:24

probably right now he's nine. But like, I feel like there comes a certain age where your kids are gonna be like, what's going on next door?

Eric Watkins: 46:32

I think it's the youngest youngest child thing, the good point because like my sister, they actually were going to potentially live by my sister and she's like, hell no, no, not happening. In me, I'm like, I don't care. I'm embarrassed by my parents. Like, I love my parents to spend more time with them. I don't get to see him that much.

Unknown: 46:49

I mean, I'd love to see my parents more. I just I'm just thinking my dad in particular. Because he's like you right? Jeff? He's like, God, you know just I love seeing you but then sometimes leave me I could just see stopping over there. What's up dad? And he's like, hi. I thought we're getting together Friday

Eric Watkins: 47:18

All right, so don't be friends with your neighbors. I guess if you take anything away, don't be friends. Be related. Be related. Yes, there

Jeff Winters: 47:26

it is. Now you can wind it up, Scott be

Unknown: 47:27

good enough friends. Yeah, with the other nurse. We would love your feedback. You know, especially in any of the areas but we are interested in hearing how you might take a breath and celebrate and enjoy the ride. We need to learn from you. So reach out. You can find us on LinkedIn, the three of us, please connect. Let's have a conversation there. You can find us on our social channels. But we'd love you to subscribe subscribe and you know pass the show along to your friends and business colleagues. We just want to be helpful. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey. And good luck out there. Let's grow.

Eric Watkins: 48:23

Let's grow let's grow

Unknown: 48:30

the Grow show is sponsored by outbound SDR building predictable sales pipelines.

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