The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines
The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines
A Rule is A Rule
Consistency is the bedrock of success in both business and personal endeavors. Establishing clear rules and unwaveringly enforcing them turns high standards into routine achievement. This disciplined approach guarantees that objectives are not just met but expected, driving team performance and transforming goals into concrete accomplishments. Discover the power of consistent action in realizing your team's potential.
Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AICan't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
- 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!
Welcome back to the growth show. My name is Scott Sculley. I'm here with Eric Watkins and Jeff winters. Hello. We're back. Back at it.
Jeff Winters:I miss doing this.
Scott Scully:I feel like we say that a lot, right? They're listening down the episodes. But I mean, I just listened to you last week.
Eric Watkins:It's hard running a business and a world class award winning podcast at the same time. A lot of
Jeff Winters:pressure. You don't want to let the standard slip, you know? Right.
Scott Scully:Right, you got to have the right things to talk about, which we do today. We've got a hot episode. And before we get into some of the gems on growing your business, we're going to head over to our local sheriff.
Eric Watkins:On Oh, the sounds are back to hear that. The sounds are back.
Jeff Winters:He takes that so seriously, the sound effects and I love it.
Unknown:It makes the show really does no stop. You think? Yes.
Jeff Winters:That's really nice. Yeah, no,
Eric Watkins:no, the sound effect.
Jeff Winters:Oh, nine segment,
Eric Watkins:man, not the segment.
Jeff Winters:The sound effect.
Unknown:It's great. Yeah, I
Jeff Winters:was gonna say that was so out of character for you to be so complimentary.
Scott Scully:The segments, amazing. It was ranked, you know, fourth out of like five segments, I think. But yeah,
Jeff Winters:well, it's all downhill from here. Let us dive in. As we always do every single week, where I am going through LinkedIn, I saw a stat that like 400 million people have joined LinkedIn in the last like seven months, some crazy stat, really. And with them, they have brought even more garbage.
Scott Scully:It's going up even more
Jeff Winters:terrible. Wretched advice.
Eric Watkins:Is that real? 400? I don't
Jeff Winters:know if that's exactly okay. So many check my math on that. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. They'll help us out. Everybody's on LinkedIn, or you who's not on LinkedIn at this point. Right? You're in business, spouting off what you think, without any consequences. Until now, let us get into the truth and the lies. Let's start with our first truth, which comes from our friend Sahil Blum. So he'll says traditionally, people have turned to mentorship to navigate the uncharted waters. But having one formal mentor often fall short. Your single mentor may not have encountered the challenge you're facing, they may not have a map that you can leverage to navigate the terrain. Rather than focus on finding one single mentor. We can leverage Pixar his idea to form our own brain trust a personal board of advisors for our lives. I thought this was an interesting and cool idea. I think people sometimes often hone in on having like one mentor to go to for everything. But I've done this in my life. Like I've been very fortunate. I've had a lot of people that have different areas of expertise. And as I think it's good advice, and this is truth.
Scott Scully:To have as many mentors as you can, or or more than one. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:more than one who have different smarts and sets of experiences.
Scott Scully:I totally agree. For the reason you just said, everybody wears a different hat. Everybody has different levels of expertise. And some people are good at sales. Some people are good at finance. Operations. I love it. Yeah, I like that reason for a board of
Jeff Winters:directors. Right? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing sort of harkens back to your banker lawyer. Yeah.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, I agree. I think the thing there is in a mentor, you want to make sure that somebody's shooting you straight. So not excuse me, not so many that these people don't even know you that well or care about you that much, but enough to get a good variety.
Jeff Winters:Truth. Truth are weird about mentors. Will you mentor me? Now? Just fucking call me though. Another truth. From Zachary Ratner. The most important lesson I've learned as a founder, sometimes the businesses that appear to be the most boring, are the most vital. I love this. The businesses that appear to be the most boring or the most vital. I saw another stat don't quote me on this one either. But like the number of software companies on one of the review sites went from like 25 million to like 250 million in the last 10 years yet, how many people are doing quote unquote, boring businesses? We have such exposure to what some would stupidly call boring businesses and boy are they vital?
Scott Scully:Like pest control? Yeah. I totally agree. I thought you were gonna say the most boring businesses are sometimes the most fun on, I was wondering how that was definitely the most vital. For sure,
Eric Watkins:yeah, the sexiness of your business is directly correlated, or I guess the value of your business is directly correlate correlated to how many people are experiencing the problem yourself. And I think a lot of, you know, having insects running around your building or your house is not the most exciting business, but a lot of people experience it. So yeah,
Jeff Winters:not everybody has the next amazing software company. That's almost exactly like the other software companies that you want to go tell your friends about. That's my my takeaway. Sure. Oh, my gosh, I just started this new software. It's like, yeah, you know what I did? I bought eight pest control companies, and it's doing 50 million profit. We make sure you don't have mosquitoes. Like, that may not sound real cool to your friends in your head. Sounds cool to me.
Unknown:Yep. Yep. Profits truth. Yeah. Profits, cool. Profits. Cool.
Jeff Winters:And now I like lies that are timely. lies that are timely. They are lively. And okay, and I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm a huge Halloween guy. I love Halloween. Top. Top to holiday for me Halloween.
Eric Watkins:Agree. Agree. I
Unknown:love Halloween. Yeah. Love it.
Scott Scully:That we should have hours of conversation. I can't even believe you just said that. Can you believe how that he loves Halloween?
Eric Watkins:I love Halloween.
Unknown:I can't believe that he said it Memorial Day, which was Halloween like people I know.
Eric Watkins:love Halloween. You love strangers coming to your door?
Jeff Winters:I don't think never met a stranger. My door never greeted us. I don't do any of that. I like the idea of gratuitous eating.
Eric Watkins:Thanksgiving over it. Hey, Thanksgiving disgust but that's gratuitous eating.
Jeff Winters:But that's gratuitous eating in public. That's different. This is gratuitous eating in private.
Eric Watkins:You take your bucket of candy and you go to your room. That's
Jeff Winters:right. That's totally different. This is a lie. This is a live from Landon. And it says if you're in your 20s and spent last night being Halloween, partying, you need to stop and take a hard look at your life. If you're spending a random Tuesday night staying out late and eating heaps of candy something is wrong. Maybe you still like behaving like a teenager and Halloween is just another reason to blank around. What emotion are you trying to numb?
Unknown:What are you trying to escape?
Eric Watkins:Sounds like there's a little bit of truth.
Jeff Winters:No, Halloween, it should be a national holiday. I disagree. Enjoy your Halloween people.
Eric Watkins:I don't care. I'll eat the candy. That
Jeff Winters:candy have a little fun so that
Scott Scully:adults can be allowed to trick or treat. If adults were coming to your house asking for candy. What would you think of that?
Jeff Winters:I don't I don't like that. That feels that feels like a misdemeanor
Scott Scully:the whip but but you want him to dress up? Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Winters:Oh yeah. I'd like a long Halloween celebration. I like gratuitous eating and
Eric Watkins:private give me just give us a little rundown of what you've ran through Halloween night. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:I probably had 412 Tootsie Rolls I just have to remember just just free eating for me just doo doo doo yeah, there's no calories and I go chocolate then I go fruity then I go I just love them all star matters.
Scott Scully:I don't care out of the bucket you were going to hand out or out of your kids bucket of
Jeff Winters:core and I hate to be the trite dad but out of the kids bucket but honestly more so here at the office upstairs day after not a good situation.
Scott Scully:Is that where the salespeople were? That's why trick or treating. That's
Jeff Winters:why we don't like when the last day of the month or the quarters on Halloween Tuesday.
Eric Watkins:What's your go to candy bar and then we'll go we'll move on KitKat KitKat Okay,
Jeff Winters:do you not yet
Eric Watkins:they're good. They're just kind of like basic. What do you like a Toblerone? I like Almond Joy. Tobler is that what that's probably what
Scott Scully:Almond Joy almonds. Never heard anyone say that was their
Eric Watkins:favorite payday. Payday all enjoys
Jeff Winters:almond choice. My friend. A guy who tries to be healthy says I just got a little protein LinkedIn in 140 141 million people log in every day.
Unknown:That is insane. Ridiculous. Insane. You
Scott Scully:are the most important sheriff in the world.
Jeff Winters:Who else is policing 141 million people daily?
Scott Scully:Nobody in this country. You all right. Incredible advice as always,
Jeff Winters:I think we did it there.
Unknown:I think we did it. Yeah. Nice.
Scott Scully:Have you caught two more? Are you celebrated to caught one more? Yeah. All right. 5450. Just as a recap, this section is the items that we would put in place, no matter what processes, no thought process actual processes know how, if we were to start a business from scratch, these are the things that we would do. Or think about when we did that, no matter what, when you guys agree, like no matter what kind of business, these principles would apply. And we just wanted to make it easier for you to grow. Now 50 for 50, to 50, things that you need to put in place to make it easier to get to 50 million plus in revenue. And we got here by making some mistakes, but also doing some things right. And we've landed on just a handful of principles that we would suggest that you put into place as soon as soon as humanly possible. So I've been thinking over the last 24 hours about what I was going to talk about today. So here we go. A rules a rule. And consistency matters. And I would put this all the way at the top. And as I talk about it a little bit, you are going to become more and more familiar with this philosophy. Especially if your parents, okay. So this is really a life thing. And it's really timely in the world today. Because we all all of us at this table in this room. And all of you listening, this is probably one of our biggest weak spots. And that is by setting a goal or putting a rule in place or having an expectation, and then being consistent with accountability towards that being the rule or the expectation. You know, there's a little thing called 123 magic, I think I've mentioned it before, some old school parents would know about this, there was books, seminars, classes, videos on how you do it. You know, and it was all about, you know, teaching your kid, okay, one, you know, and then your two and then if you get to three, you're taking them to the corner of the room or the step and then there's a certain amount of time that they have to sit there and that they can't come off. It's a very set process, right? Well, some people would do it sometimes. All right, I'm Junior, I'm at 122 and a half, I'm serious. Two and three quarters. All right, get up to your room, like not even finish it or then sometimes they'd be 123 I'm taking you to the stairs. Or sometimes they'd be furious and take the kid right to the room. Right? And total inconsistency. But I just I guess I've been wrong long enough where I watched some parents, you it's called 123 magic. And I watched some parents. And it was magic, because they did it the same way every single time. And guess what? There was no room to breathe. The kid knew. If mom got to three, what was happening every single time. Okay. And those of you that are parents are thinking about that, like, You got to be home at midnight. Right? And one night, kid comes home at 1230. And it's okay, it was raining writer or he's been good this week, you know, so I'll just let that slide. You know, then the next time it's like you're home at 1230. All right, you're losing the car for two weeks. And it's just so inconsistent on what's going to happen. I've done it by the way. I'm thinking about this a lot in parenting in running a business. Right? And it's, it's like, it just needs to be here are my expectations. If you do that, I'll absolutely celebrate that fact. If you don't, here's exactly what's going to happen. And you made that decision. And then we can emotionally get ourselves behind. Hey, the kid or the person in bed Business made the decision to not do it, they had the clear expectation. Here's what happens. In business, it could be number of words, somebody writes, it could be number of cars, somebody sells it could be number of clients, someone implements. And if it's a number, like if the Job says, I need to implement 20 clients in a month, and I need to do it this way. And then somebody does 15. And we make it, okay. It's a disaster, because then they know that, hey, sometimes I could miss. And they're gonna be okay with it. Or they may not know what what's coming, maybe you celebrate five short sometimes, or maybe people are in trouble, sometimes. Sales happens a lot in sales, which we talk a lot about sales and account management on this show, because it's other than fulfilling a good product. That's what gets us to growth, right? Well, if you say to a salesperson, your number is XYZ and revenue. Right? And then you get to a month, and let's say you have 10 salespeople, and only three hit target. And so that you just make it okay. That you know how economy or Oh, it was a short month, throw whatever it may be, then all of a sudden, you've given somebody air, you've been inconsistent in what you said the goal was for the month for the year. And then we all do this, we're like, Well, I don't want to. And this is not just sales, this is any department. But I only have 10 salespeople, and they're really good. And I want to keep them. So I can't write up seven out of 10 of my salespeople, I can't do that. Right? When you don't, and then they know that. And then all of a sudden now, not hitting that target can be a thing, as opposed to, here's the target, you hit it, this is how much you make, you'll be celebrated. You don't do it, here's exactly what will happen. And if you don't do it for X amount of time, then you don't have the job. So if you think about every single position that you have in the building, if you design the expectations, right and what you want them to do, and they know it and you know it, and it's documented. And they know exactly what happens if they don't do it. And you stay married to that no matter what you're probably thinking that people will run or you'll lose good people or you're not being flexible. But what actually happens is that people get the rules. They know that you're serious about those rules. And maybe it's not always fun. But what happens is more success. And when people are having more success, then they're happier. They'll stay longer, there'll be more productive. You've all heard it give people the gift of high expectations. But the problem is we give people the gift of high expectations, sometimes. Not all the time. I use my dad as an example. And God I hated it until I got to college thought about it and called him I think sophomore year and thanked him. But every single time that I mowed the yard I was back in the yard mowing something or trimming something again. missed a spot you forget trimming today. You missed a spot over by the driveway you like he did it every single time he actually walked around and tried to find stuff. Just in teaching me that hey, if you're going to do it, do it right, do the do the whole job. But that was the expectation. He never came off of it or my parents were really good at. We got I knew that if I made my mom cry it was over. She'd just say hey, wait till your dad gets home. He'd get home. I'd hear him walking up the stairs. I've said this before. I knew it was going to happen 100% of time and then guess what if they said I'm at home for three days. I didn't get off in one for good behavior. It was three days every single time. So guess what? I didn't do that shit again. And that doesn't have And today 100% of the time, in fact, we're better at given leniency to as parents, as friends, as spouse, as a spouse. But it happens a lot in business. And I think people are fearful of folks jumping out of a job. They want everybody to be happy. And a lot of times a company, like here will do it. Because we'll say, well, we've grown by 20%. So it was a good year. Right? But that might not have been our goal. Sure. So then we make it okay, because we still grew, but we failed to hold certain people in the organization accountable. And what would it have looked like? Where would we be, if we were relentless about going through the work of putting together the expectations, making people agree to it, and then holding them accountable to it 100% of the time, every time without fail. And I so I guess my suggestion to you would be, if you could do that, you'd kick everybody else's ass because nobody is doing that. Everybody's leaning, right now everybody's leaning because of the economy, or because of impending doom, or Biden or inflation, or since COVID. It's like it's almost like, well, COVID was miserable. And this isn't as miserable. And wait, you know, we're all alive. And so Johnny's pretty good. Yeah, he was 80% to target, pat on the back. Yeah, he's still getting over COVID. Right. It's not good. It's not good at all. And I'm rambling, but I could talk about this all the time, because I'm in the middle of it as parents, as a parent, I see. I'm surrounded by other parents, and I see the and, and schools, schools, parents, coaches, I see everybody unwilling to hold people accountable to like the set rules that are even documented. A lot of times a kid drinking on the soccer team is supposed to mean x, it doesn't like the amount of tests you can retake as a student. You know, what, if you're tired one night, why study for tomorrow, why not just go to bed Bomet. Because your teacher lets you retake five tests during the semester, it's going on all over the place, you would murder it as a business, if you put a lot of thought into each position, what the expectations are. And you wouldn't, and you just don't let people off. For it, a job well done is doing exactly what is expected. And if you don't, you don't get the job, period. I don't know what the label of that would be. But it's everything in life and in business, The more consistent you can be to holding people accountable to the to the set things, the more people get used to what you're looking for. And the more that they deliver over time. If they're confused about what you're looking for, or what you're going to do when something happens, good or bad, then you're going to have some pretty inconsistent performance. See, seems simple, hardest thing in the world?
Jeff Winters:Yep. I think this is a timely message. Because before COVID, it felt like you were sort of doing this or not doing this based on who you were subsequent COVID economy. It I agree with you, Scott, it just seems like there's every reason in the world to let people not meet or exceed expectations. And the more you do it, the more you get inconsistent behavior, and I'm as guilty of it as anybody. And I, I wholeheartedly wholeheartedly believe in this.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, there's been times in my career where I've done this very well. And there's been times where I haven't done so well. And, you know, a couple of things that come to mind is the first one is trust. So when you're inconsistent, as a leader, typically you're doing that, because you want your employees to like you, you want them to trust you, but you're actually going to be building up this trust over time. And some of the more uncomfortable conversations that you have as a leader is because you weren't clear every step of the way or you let certain things slide here and not there. And that just builds up and it builds up and it's a slippery slope and it just keeps going. The other thing is fairness to your team. You know, it's If you truly want people to love where they work, they need to feel like they're not at a disadvantage to others. And I feel like sometimes when you adjust how you're handling certain situations, if they just know you're going to be 100%, consistent, it helps that. And the last thing is you could be listening to this and saying, Well, there's no freedom, I just have to do exactly what I'm like what I'm told, and I, there's no flexibility. And I actually look at this as the opposite way, if you're clear on a rules a rule, and you're clear on the exact expectations, people know where they have the freedom and where they have the autonomy to get the job done. And I think actually, you make things less autonomous, when you don't have clearly defined lanes, because people start to make their own, just based on assumptions. And I think
Jeff Winters:that's a really good point. Like, it's one thing to go, hey, here are the 50 things I want from you. And here's how you're going to do each one of those 50 things versus like, here's the 50 things I expect, like you're a VP, do your job solve the problems. But like, here's the framework, I think it gets tricky. When it's like, here's the framework, here's how I want you to do it, go do it exactly. As I am saying, especially at at higher levels, it can get a little a little tricky, like the sandbox, Eric, you talked about it often like, especially at the executive level, like, here's the expectation, here's the sandbox, if you don't meet it, we got a problem
Scott Scully:totally depends on like, you build a car certain way, like there's, it depends. Because if you're talking about manufacturing a minivan, it's like, here's how we do it. Top to bottom, this is it's all documented, this is exactly how we do it. This is how you run this plant. This is how your people operate. This is this is what the people on the line do. You know, there's a lot of jobs. What's weird is, you know, there's a lot of jobs where this is pretty self explanatory, you don't get to put three out of four wheels on the car. You know, or you don't get to you don't get to not show up to teach, right? Or you you don't you don't get to, if I'm gonna have my knee fixed, the expectation is that my knee gets fixed. Not maybe it'll get fixed. Oh, sorry, you gave me 30 grand, and I didn't fix your knee. I'll try next time. Like, if if somebody has the expectation to write 100,000 words in a month, and they write 80,000 words in a month. That's that's not the job. Yeah, that's, and there might be some circumstances in that one month, you know, so maybe you're dealing with that and figuring that out. But then if they do 80,000, the next month and 80,000, the month after that, and you're like, well, they've been here forever. And they're really good person. And I just, I'd like to keep them around. And then someone else has held to different expectations, or they're watching you not hold that person to accountable to write in 100,000 words, it's a big deal, it breaks down an organization, it's just
Eric Watkins:too big deal. And I think the what we've done here, because we've learned this lesson in a variety of different ways, and this has been the best way that I've found to do it is you have in regards to how you do the job, we have our top five processes that are extremely defined, and you need to follow follow those to the letter of the law. And obviously, within those top five processes, there's some positions more than others, there's maybe a little bit more room for freedom, but pretty much, it's that process. And that's what you need to follow. And then you have your key result. And that's ultimately the expectations of your job that you need to run these top five processes to hit this key result. If you have to do 20 other processes that we didn't define to hit your result, great, do those but you better do these top five and you better hit the result.
Scott Scully:And and and if you want people to be able to break the rules, then define it. It's like, hey, you know what if like in our sales, for instance, like let's say somebody sold $30,000, in new monthly reoccurring revenue, maybe that would be the level where we'd say, Oh, you didn't do these two things. You sold $35,000 I'm like you get to break the rule. Sure. Like define when they can break the rules, if you want to have that if you want to, and then be consistent with that. Yeah. Oh, Eric. Didn't whatever Eric didn't show up for the 10 o'clock. meeting he was 10 minutes late. Well, Eric sold$42,000. Last month, you sold 17. So I don't care right now, when Eric shows up, I care more about you hitting your expectation. Sorry, I don't mean for that to be this huge, heavy, negative topic because it goes both ways. You know, you should be rigorous in celebrating the things that do get done. And that's going to be way more than the things that don't get done. Right. So we all have to figure out how 80% of the time we're celebrating the good works being done. And then we can't back off what we laid down as expectations. Yep, period, you do that you're going to you're going to have a better business, that's it. And that might be the thing. That might be the difference. Between those of you that are kicking your competitors ass you know, or those of you that are getting your ass kicked that that might be the very thing that's going on by the in the company that's kicking your ass. So I should look, look at what's going on in your four walls.
Eric Watkins:So I took way to know that that's good. It reminds me of the bill Walsh, when he took over the 40 Niners in the first practice, he, they didn't pick up a football, they lined up for the national anthem, and they like couldn't get it right. So he's like, we're literally not moving on to anything else until we can line up for the national anthem, right, and obviously went on to have extreme success. But that's, that's what you're sitting here. Like, that's the culture that you build. And it's ugly. At first, if you haven't been doing that, and now you have to do it, you're gonna have a lot of turnover, you're gonna have a lot of problems. But for the future of your business, it's gonna be the best thing you can do. And
Scott Scully:kids coming out of college, that hasn't happened for them yet. Right, right. So so it's going to take you a minute, sit them down and say, here's how it goes here. But the good news is, when you do these things, here's the reward. Right? Right. It's going to be a little bit different than college, because 90% got ena, but they let you redo things four or five times to get to the 90% at an app and a year. Here's what's gonna go on. All right, we'll, we'll let that sit for a minute. And let's head over to mining for growth, cue
Eric Watkins:the noise. There we go. Thank you, Scott. So today for mining for growth, gold, we're gonna talk about what we call here is the wrap up call. So you sell a client, you onboard them, they go through implementations, and then you start servicing that client and how everybody goes through that process is a little bit different. But over here, we have a different person who sells a different person who on boards, and then a different person who manages that account ongoing. And regardless of what your setup is, I think it's super critical that when you start before you start servicing a client, that you make sure you are 100% aligned with the expectations of the program and the definition of success. So we have the wrap up call, which is wraps up the end of their implementation month. And the purpose of this call is really to do two things at the same time. And that is maintain the excitement and momentum of the sales and implementation process, while making sure you have a realistic definition of success, defined for the partnership. And the reason why it kind of sounds like common sense. But what most people do typically is they just start servicing the client. And in that first period, everything's good sunshine and rainbows, there's no problems that come up. And then inevitably, as any good relationship happens, you have ups and downs, and you hit that first down. And it's catastrophe. And the world is ending, because you didn't have any of those conversations up to that point. So what we believe is talking about the rainy days when it's sunny outside. So in this wrap up call, there's really four things that we want to make sure to do with this client. First thing is align on clear definition of success for the program and make sure we can achieve it. For example, if somebody comes on to our program and says, you know, we're setting them 60 appointments over the course of the year and they say yep, I want 100% close rate, and I want to close $100 million. I'm not going to tell somebody, anything is impossible, but that's not likely. And so I would work with them on realigning to a more likely definition of success. So then once I have that it's providing clarity that my job Obviously, your account manager or partner Success Manager, is not to be your best friend, we're going to like each other, we're going to have a good relationship, but I have one job and one job only. And that's for you to achieve that definition of success. So we're gonna have some good conversations, we're gonna have some tough conversations, we're gonna have some bad conversations. But most important thing is we're going to have some conversations, and we're going to work through it, and deal with that. And then I'm going to address all the common pitfalls of why maybe partners have been unsuccessful in the past, that could be reasons why we dropped the ball, and typical things that would come up and how we can address it. And that would be things that partners do to not be successful with the program. And when you do this, instead of when you have issues, which if you have, like I said, in any relationship or partnership you've ever had, there's always some type of issue at some point, when you have these, these turns the turn these from catastrophes to just bumps in the road of the partnership. So every business is a little bit different. But I would have some sort of framework, especially if you have a handoff, from sales, to delivery or fulfillment, or service, that you have some framework where you are addressing, realigning on exactly why they bought the program and what they want from it. And then let's just go through some of the things that are typically going to come up and let's talk about how we're going to handle them now. So when they come up, we're going to navigate those much better together.
Jeff Winters:I think the most important thing that you said is something about the rainy days in the sunny that sort of zone that
Eric Watkins:we talked about the rainy days when it's sunny outside days. Yeah, no one's saying about the rain when it's sunny Jeff, and people
Jeff Winters:run away from the rain when it's sunny, because it's so easy to be on the surfboard, riding that wave of sunshine, resist the urge to do it. Tell them the bad stuff upfront. It will pay dividends tremendously down the road, the most excited your customer is ever going to be until they achieve whatever success outcome that customer achieves, which could be in some cases for you all years away, is right when they sign. So take advantage of that moment, set Great Expectations and tell them the bad things that could happen without dimming the light. Totally on the excitement, like
Eric Watkins:you gotta give the hope you got to keep it going.
Jeff Winters:You got to keep it going. You can do both, you can do both. And you should? I
Scott Scully:think probably not probably I think that people that are really good at this are people that manage money.
Unknown:Yeah, great point. Yeah. Because your
Scott Scully:money goes up and down. And the last thing in the world they want you to do is call them when you're 5%, down, three months in, when you know that you're going to end up 8% up by the end of the year 10%. Whatever it is, that they're good at it, they know that the market goes up and down. But if you keep your money in place in the right investments, that over time, you're gonna get your return. And so that group of folks have perfected the conversation up front. Yeah, you're gonna give me your money. And they're making them believe why they shouldn't worry, right? Yeah, I do this for a living, I know the market, we've got a team, you are going to have some dips, but for the long haul by the end of each year, you're going to have a positive return. So let's not get antsy when you've got a couple of bad days. Don't turn on the TV and freak out and calm. Yeah, that's a great analogy. And then we should kind of follow that model.
Eric Watkins:Now that it's been, it's been super helpful for us, and it's better for everybody. It's better for everybody. We're more likely to have success, if we're aligned and how we're going to navigate these things as they come up as uncomfortable as it is to talk about them. Right up front.
Jeff Winters:Let it rain when it's sunny. Yes.
Eric Watkins:You've seen the rain when it's sunny outside. That's when it gets confusing.
Jeff Winters:Is it my turn again?
Scott Scully:Eric, nice job. Thanks. Awesome. Yes, Jeff, we let's go Jeff, back to you. What,
Eric Watkins:what are the cash register?
Scott Scully:What are we gonna do? I have leads tactic you have leads? What are you going to do with them? Here's
Jeff Winters:what happened. You have leads, you pitch those leads? Some of those leads close. Some don't. The ones that don't what do you do with them? That's what I'm talking about today. And I'm going to share with you a play that I ran yesterday myself. And one of the responses I got from a prospect on this play was and I want to quote I will meet with you to discuss this all makes sense. Second, by the way, I will meet with you to discuss if it's okay, if I steal this play for myself and send it to my friends, smiley face. So that's what we're going to talk about today. For the bucket of opportunities that do not close in a given month, what do you do with those, some people maybe nurture them, most of you cast them off to see, maybe you'll follow up with them again, in some like emergency fire drill in six months. Here's what you're going to start doing now. You're going to call those people, whether it's you, CEO, head of revenue, head of sales, or other sales reps, pass them back and forth, you're going to do this, you're gonna go Hey, Scott, how you doing? This is Jeff winters. I'm one of the owners, that abstract marketing group. And I know you went through our sales process with Joe, from our sales team. And I was looking over the notes and over the profile your company, and typically companies like yours, that set up like this, tend to come on board and become customers, and you didn't. And so as part of our obsession with customers and prospects, I just, I just wanted to follow up and make sure everything was okay in the sales process and get some feedback, like the word obsession. Yeah, get some, get some feedback. I'm telling you would be shut and I just made these calls. Take this as truth. The guard comes down. Hey, thank you. That's awesome. I really appreciate it. First thing, they always say Joe is amazing. Joe is incredible. Nine out of 10 loved him. And then they proceed without you asking to tell you why they didn't sign up. Or that they didn't get a proposal when they should have or that wait a minute, we loved it. I've just, I just got a project two days ago, that's taking up all my time, I'm going to come back in two weeks, I've been meaning to call Rachel. That's or your rep said they insourced. Or they did it internally and they actually went with a competitor. That's the stuff you find out this is a goldmine of not only getting customers who said no or said nothing to come back, but also of just learning and getting a taste for the customer in a super low risk way. And it's a great thing to do for salespeople, especially at the beginning of a month or quarter. When they think their pipelines rundown it is not shift opportunities from salesperson, a salesperson VP should call manager should call owner should call. That is my tip of the day.
Scott Scully:What was what were three of the most common things you heard
Jeff Winters:the number one thing that I heard was, and these are from prospects who had ghosted who had not was I had this or this or that was happening. And I was going to get back to them acts and I just haven't I've seen the messages. So that's number one. Which is really good. Because then I get to
Scott Scully:get psycho Jeff isn't calling me back, right? For two women get
Jeff Winters:ahold of them. Oh, and then I call and they picked up whether it's because they haven't seen my phone number or whatever. Right? That was far and away number one. Number two was, we're going to do it. Just that's a week away or two weeks away for for a reason or another. That was number two, you heard that that? Oh, yeah. And then number three was, we went with a different we we went with a different solution, whether it was a competitor, or we decided to do nothing. So those were the three things that I heard.
Scott Scully:Do you you've been talking about this today, which is exciting. Yeah. We've done versions of it. Right. But I think you're saying do it to everyone every month period, build it into your process, store the data.
Jeff Winters:Right, let first day of the next month, these people get called.
Scott Scully:And I and I bet I don't know what you guys think. But I bet if they knew we were going to do this every single month, that sales reps would be asking more questions or realizing sometimes it might just be that they needed more time or, like overtime, you probably hear less of I guess you would hear less inconsistencies in what rep told you versus what prospects have Yeah, and
Jeff Winters:more digging. I think too. You get more digging, and you can get it nobody did anything wrong, wasn't nefarious, it was just sometimes you take people at face value, and that's not they're telling you something to be nice. Not to be honest.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, in this bucket. So I've made a lot of these calls as well in this ghosted bucket. Yeah, everybody I talked to, it was never the reason that I was given on why they didn't buy or it never added up to what they actually said when you get them on the phone. And it's because a, I think the sales reps are a little bit of a disadvantage than being someone else coming in from the outside of the process. But it's taking people at face value like you have to dig in. It has to get a little uncomfortable. But you have to work harder as a sales rep to get the full truth. And the true concern,
Scott Scully:if you had to guess from making those calls. This is kind of further. Well, I'm wondering, but it's also for people listening. Like, okay, great. He made that. But what's what will the results be of that? Like? How many calls total? Was it? Do you think?
Jeff Winters:I think I probably made 60 or 70. dials? How
Scott Scully:many individual prospects Did you talk to? Do you think?
Jeff Winters:I think it was 12?
Scott Scully:Can you talk to 12? yourself, myself? Other people do? Yes. Out of the 12? How many will do business with us? So
Jeff Winters:by the way, if you do this prepare for these to be long conversations. So these were not shortcuts? Of the 12? I think the average call lasted 30 minutes. It was crazy. Awesome. Yeah.
Scott Scully:Someone could do that. Always. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:It was great. I think of everyone that I talked to. One was who was not going to sign in the month? Well, so pulled one deal forward. And I feel really confident that not because of me, and probably these probably would have signed anyways. But four of four others will ultimately come on board. So five of the 12. But the the other benefit here is I'm just talking to people there. And I could tell and I even said it's like, imagine how seriously we take our cars, you're not even a customer and I'm calling you and I own the joint. You know, imagine how seriously we're going to take your experience when you do when you are paying us? Yeah.
Scott Scully:I love it. Yeah. And most people listening don't have as many new sales presentations monthly as we do just because of the nature of what our businesses. So I think, I mean, you're suggesting that the owners, or CEOs that are listening, dive into this, and put it in their schedules at the beginning of every month, aren't you?
Jeff Winters:I mean, here's what I'm hearing out there. And I'm reading it on LinkedIn as I'm sure a thing. Right? What I'm hearing is our pipeline is low. I don't have enough pipeline, this is your pipeline. This is your second bite at the pipeline. You're not using all of your pipeline, you're just okay, that deals gone. Screw that. Well, I don't want to call because it'll, how do I do that? This is how you do that. This is how you do that in a nice way.
Scott Scully:I gotta tell you, if I'm, again, I know, this isn't about the salespeople. But if I'm out there, and the guy or girl that owns my business calls at the beginning of every month from everybody that, you know, was pitched the month before. I'm tip top shape on how I'm treating prospects questions I'm asking sales process. Yeah, yeah, right. I just like I just think it's it's good for the outside world. But I think it's good for expectations and coaching as well, you probably learned some things to help from a coaching perspective, I would imagine, huge,
Jeff Winters:huge from a coaching perspective.
Scott Scully:I love that. And I'm sitting here thinking, Gosh, our VPS should do that, you know, every month, and you even suggested that other sales reps could call for one another. But it's probably so powerful that you do it. Yeah, right. Plus,
Jeff Winters:you stay connected to the customer. Yeah.
Eric Watkins:And you'd probably talk to some who you just know, aren't a fit at all. And they maybe still have them in the pipeline. And you're cleaning. You know, making sure that those want because we do nurture and we do get deals from nurture that your nurture bucket is right as it should be.
Jeff Winters:The key is the reluctance. I think a lot of people are reluctant to make these calls for whatever reason, but just know the script that I gave you. There's no reason to be reluctant people were 100%.
Scott Scully:guard down. And if you're like us, you've spent a lot of money to eventually land on having a new sales presentation in front of that person. And they didn't sign. Yeah. Don't you want to know why or when or learn some stuff.
Eric Watkins:You brought up pipeline, which I think is interesting that the other root of this is if you have a sales team who's not performing well, and they don't have the deals closed, what they want to at least be able to show you is pipeline. And when you're operating out of fear or worried about not having enough pipeline, what you're not going to do is ask questions that would find out is this real or not? Yeah, and I think that's a root of this as well. that you have, you have the opposite problem. You have fake pipeline, you have all this pipeline that you think is coming, but they haven't asked the tough questions to
Scott Scully:imagine. Someone owns a real estate firm. Right? And they're calling and saying, Hey, Jeff, my understanding is that you went through one to 5/5 Street a couple weeks ago. You and your lovely wife and three kids. I, Sally really told me she enjoyed having you guys out and talked a little bit about what you were interested in. And I don't think we've talked to you since and I know life gets in the way I just wanted to follow up, make sure that we've taken care of you. And then they're probably learning some some things right. Oh, we had a vacation. We just came back or Oh, we switch things up. We're we're looking in this neck of the woods or this neighborhood right now. I just thought you think about so many different kinds of businesses. And they'd appreciate that, right? They didn't meet the owner of the real estate firm that's like, oh, you knew you knew that I was there. And you mentioned a little bit about my family. And you're wondering if you guys took care of me. Thank Thank you. Here's what's going on with us. So I love that thing.
Jeff Winters:It's going viral. It's gonna say that know
Scott Scully:what you're gonna give it a name. What's the name?
Jeff Winters:Give it a name. Sunshine express their Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. Oh, it feels it feels great. But also Someone's probably used. I'll get back to you.
Scott Scully:We can't use Ghostbusters. Note
Eric Watkins:that Halloween. Bill Ackman in the spirit of
Scott Scully:all right, you know what we, we have kept you for a while. But I think that there's some really good nuggets in here. And we would never want to leave you before to do or
Eric Watkins:finally to do in Hanoi. So I went on a little trip. This past weekend. Yes, I did, did and went to California, which is not a short flight. Now it's about about four hours out there. And you know, a little faster on the way back, but I'm sitting in my seat, or about 30 minutes in to the flight. And the person in front of me, leans back their chair. Not a short, lean, full, full lean all the way back. Almost to the point where whatever you have set up on your thing is like basically falling into your lap. I just want to know, we need the people need to know the etiquette on should you be allowed to lean back your chair or not. We will talk we'll start with you, Scott.
Scott Scully:What airline this was
Eric Watkins:American.
Scott Scully:I mean, this matters. Some of them have way more legroom than others? Some of them you're like, literally now are your bodies cut in half? Because the tray is pressing into your gut? Your drinks on?
Unknown:So you judge the space? Well,
Scott Scully:I mean, kind of because I think that I think a lot of times they know because the person in front of them is leaning back. That's the other thing, did the person in front of them lean back to the point where they have no room. So now they have to lean back.
Eric Watkins:So we just screw the person over
Scott Scully:and sit up against it. Yeah, and by the way, that person in the back can't. So let's put it there. If you're in the row in front of the person in the back, you can't do it. You can't do it.
Eric Watkins:But even if the person in front of you does, but is
Scott Scully:it a dominant, just like everybody has to lean, I do feel like
Eric Watkins:there is a little bit of if the person in front of you is doing it, then you gotta kind of you can just be like, Yeah, this guy.
Scott Scully:What do you think when they get up to go to the bathroom, and they put both hands on the back of your chair to get up and your whole body? This is, man, the airline should give you enough leg room where somebody could
Eric Watkins:can they kind of crammed us in there?
Jeff Winters:I've I've talked with you I told you guys about my idea on this. No, no. Okay, there's two kinds of people on any flight. There are people that can and will fall asleep on the plane and there's people that can't or Walt and the airplane needs to be divided into those groups of people. And they should be treated completely differently. And and that solves a good idea that solves this problem and they should be honest and it should be reported on like a TSA PreCheck and if you say you fall asleep or you can and you can't and you don't you shouldn't be allowed on a flight forever. You should be immediately banned from all so instead
Scott Scully:of a curtain maybe at first classes a curtain down the whole Yeah, middle of labor.
Eric Watkins:party going on.
Jeff Winters:I've thought this through this sleepers should get extra room but the non sleepers should get like something else to entertain them. I don't I can't sleep on airplanes. I mean, I don't want to and you sleeping on an airplane repulses me. It is so disgusting. To see can you use are you I'm going to be up and you're gonna be no, not with the pillow with the neck pillow and the drool. That's so filthy. That's we space not me space, split the plane. You can and will sleep. You won't.
Scott Scully:But what I mean what if they're standing up straight? They're a smaller person. They've got the neck pillow. They're sleeping and they're not talking to you. So there's silence and you don't have to talk.
Jeff Winters:That's like watching someone eat soup. It's gross. Even the best person at eating soup. eating soup is disgusting.
Eric Watkins:Alright, I got a bonus question.
Unknown:It's what was the she don't think that's the I like
Eric Watkins:I like the suit. There's a lot of people that bonus question here. The Sophia, my wife was in the middle and I had the window seat and someone was in that the aisle and she was like scared to use. The person in the aisle not only had the aisle they had the right armrest, and they had the
Scott Scully:left arm needs to move that shit. Move that gas arm right. I
Eric Watkins:feel like the etiquette should be if you get stuck in the middle. You get both the middle armrests. That's good. You know? Yeah. Sometimes they don't have the left armrest on the end. Yeah. But I don't know. I think like what's your what's your philosophy on armrest? That's
Scott Scully:a good one. You own? You can put it right on the seat in front. Yeah, you. You own both armrests? How
Eric Watkins:about the people that share armrests disgusting. I know you're you're probably in that group, aren't you Jeff?
Unknown:I wouldn't ever
Scott Scully:touch a stranger's arm. Okay, the seat in the middle having more room.
Eric Watkins:I like that. Like that. Yeah, see in the middle is just not just not good. You should pay significantly less if you have to sit in the middle.
Jeff Winters:Want to Have some soup for dinner? Yeah.
Eric Watkins:I feel like some people can eat soup very class. Oh, yeah, right.
Unknown:It's revolting.
Scott Scully:Like you're in a hand Halloween candy. Yeah. Eric and Omen, Joyce almond
Eric Watkins:Joyce totaled around.
Scott Scully:All right. As always, we love hanging with you. If you need us for anything if you'd love to chat about growing your business, we're here for you. Abstract mg.com or on any of our LinkedIn profiles, reach out we'd love to be in conversation. Have an awesome weekend.
Jeff Winters:Let's grow. Let's grow up. Let's grow kids out fall off my chair and get down the stairs. Jokers to the right here I am stuck in the middle with you
