The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

How to Turn Vendors into Strategic Partners

• Scott Scully, Jeff Winters, Eric Watkins • Season 2 • Episode 58

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Many companies overlook the vast potential their vendors have in contributing to problem-solving and innovation. Vendors are more than just service providers—they can be pivotal partners in solving your business challenges. By proactively involving your vendors in your business strategies, you can harness their knowledge and capabilities for mutual success. This shift can lead to greater efficiency, reduced costs, and a more dynamic business environment.

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Unknown:

All these years, but I'm still here.

Jeff Winters:

Nothing could stop me. Welcome back to the gross Show, everybody. Jeff winters, Eric Watkins, Scott is out once again, unfortunately. But what is exciting, and you can't see this, not on camera, not live, but Eric Watkins is actually live on location. Where are you Eric, and why are you there? Live

Eric Watkins:

on location. So I'm here in Kansas City, Missouri. I'm actually in Overland Park here, and we are starting a remote office in Kansas City. Oh, so I'm here with our first new hire class. They're actually in the room across the hall, just so we didn't have any I'd have them in here, but the sound and they're listening, you know, but it's a it's a big deal. We're super excited about it. I just met with them for an hour and a half, incredible class, and we're looking at planting some roots here and really growing our our office in Kansas City, and then, you know, expanding in different parts throughout the

Jeff Winters:

country. Any truth to the rumor that you will be moving full time just Kansas City with your wife? Can you confirm that rumor? Eric,

Eric Watkins:

I can either confirm or deny these allegations. I will say that. Jimmy, who is running the Kansas City team up here, one of our directors, I asked, I made the comment that Kansas City is basically a clone of St Louis, and he said that Kansas City is like if St Louis took a shower. That's how he described it. Do you take you take that personally a little bit. I

Jeff Winters:

do take that personally.

Eric Watkins:

I didn't get a chuckle.

Jeff Winters:

I do take that because I didn't know where it was going, and I was nervous, and I was just thinking about how they were gonna edit you out in post production. All right, let us get in to the episode. Today. I am going to introduce myself. So today, two truths and a lie. From LinkedIn as always, our first section, we have to do it, Eric, we have to do it because we have people who are out there telling amazing truths that need to be, need to be brought to more people's eyes and ears, but also, there's some people that are spreading some lies, lies, the lies. And I am going to start with our first truth of the day, which comes from Ken Weston. Ken Weston, he says, I am starting to wonder if, quote, no AI in product will become a sellable feature. I'm starting to wonder if marketing your product as no AI in it will become a sellable feature. I i think this is interesting, and I think that this is, this is a a truth, at least for a little while here, Eric, what do you think? Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

I think that's interesting. I will absolutely say the AI thing is completely it's overdone. Everything is AI now, so it might, you might as well not even say it anymore. So actually saying the opposite, I always love the contrarian opinion. I think there's something to that. Now, how would, how does it make the product better? Because there's no AI in it. I have no idea, you probably need some, but maybe for a short little while, this could be an interesting play. I

Jeff Winters:

think for a short little while it is an interesting play. And here's why, because, and this isn't broad sweeping, this isn't everybody, but there are so many products and services that are offering AI and the promise of AI in the product and then not delivering. And so for some period of time, you're going to have a lot of product, not all, lot of products and services that are offering some amazing, AI driven outcome that aren't going to deliver on it. There might be a little backlash, and I think the market could start to go, Oh, thank goodness there. I'm not being promised something that there's no way can be delivered on, not only truth, but thought provoking.

Eric Watkins:

Very thought provoking. I like it. Truth.

Jeff Winters:

Okay. Greg Shoemaker, when scheduling meetings, if you say, let me know when you're free instead of, here are some times that work. You're just spinning everyone's wheels, especially if you're asking for the meeting. And now often we talk about this in terms of prospecting, Eric, but I want you to talk about this too in terms of internal meetings, because this happens all the time.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, I so hold on. What is he saying here? He's saying Don't ask. When are you free? Just give them times that work,

Jeff Winters:

right? Don't make me do two different and don't, let's cut down on the comms back and

Eric Watkins:

forth. Yeah. So the fir, the first thing in prospecting, I would say, is, when you give them specific meetings and you say that these are times that I'm available, you're giving a a better position of authority, right? You're not begging for their time. You're like, this is, this is one. And I could potentially meet with you instead of, I'm free whenever you know, you hear on calls like, Yeah, I'd meet. When are you free? We're free all day, every minute of every day that you would want to schedule. We're free. So free. And then, yeah, and then internally we, I mean, we're terrible at this. We everything gets scheduled over everything. So, and there's nothing worse than being on an email with six busy people, and someone says, When is everybody available? Oh, like, that's ever gonna work itself out? It's not. You're never gonna figure it out. Just book a time, like just book a time, you got a better shot at that than everybody's saying when they're available.

Jeff Winters:

The last thing I want is eight emails back and forth to coordinate a meeting like honestly, tell me a bigger time wasting exercise than that at work, because you can't. That's it. No, it's the worst. Give me a few times I'd rather you book over stuff I already have than have then have to go back and forth. I'd rather cancel a meeting than take six emails to schedule a meeting. That's my take.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, I've started to just be like, we're meeting at this time. And someone says, Well, I can't make that work. I say, Okay, well, we'll get you up to speed later, like you're not. I don't know what to tell you. Sorry. That's a good truth. Yeah, that's good.

Jeff Winters:

And now for the lie this second, second week in a row. This is a lie that is, I don't want to say viral. That's wrong, but like it's been popularized, like people are talking about this. Greg C in a video that was posted on LinkedIn, goes all in, triples down, quadruples down, in a very emphatic way. Quote, sales is a science and not an art. Sales is a science and not an art. I gotta tell you. Come on now. I mean, is there some science? Is

Eric Watkins:

it not a Is it not a Num would you say sales is a numbers game? Oh, man.

Jeff Winters:

I mean, yes, it is okay. So

Eric Watkins:

when what are would you say numbers relate more to science than art?

Jeff Winters:

What do you think you're gonna walk me down this path and I'm gonna fall into your little trap like you're so smart? Oh my gosh, yeah. Tell me what the next question is. Tell me how it's gonna stay at the end, it's both. It's both. It's definitely both. But to say it is science and not in art is a lie. That's dumb, that's not fair, that's not fair, no,

Eric Watkins:

because how many times do you have a extremely high performer and you can't even really explain why they're good? Couldn't a lot have said it better. You you find a unicorn, and you're like, I can't even tell you why they're so good, but they are. Well, what are the numbers show? Well, they show like, the same thing as everybody else, but there's something there that they do differently. So I disagree. I would agree with you. That's a lie, but it is both. It is

Jeff Winters:

both. It is both. That is the truth would be it is both. I know that's not as an exciting of a take, but it is getting I think we are going more and more, especially as we head toward the the age of AI sellers, which is never coming, but especially as you head in that direction, it is sales is a science. It's a formula. It's a decision tree. No, it isn't, because there is an empathy component that is not science. And there is a thing in sales, Eric, I know you've seen it, but there's this moment, there's this there's this time in any sales process where you think of something or you based on how somebody's body language is you you go a different path than you otherwise might, or that a computer would tell you to do, and that's when the deal happens. And so it's definitely both. It is not a science. It is not robots. You gotta have both.

Eric Watkins:

I think you want to feel good about what you're buying, and it's hard for a robot to make you feel good, you know, like you want to like something about that human connection. On all the things that I've purchased, big purchases, there was something there that just, I don't think is ever going away. I just don't see it getting replaced.

Jeff Winters:

You can't make a sale with a test tube and a beaker in a lab.

Eric Watkins:

Is it okay? I have a question. Human is it? Are it more? Is it more art or more science? Sales, I

Jeff Winters:

think it depends on the seller. I think it depends on the seller. I think in the aggregate, it's more science, but the best sellers, oh, they paint beautiful pictures. Yep,

Eric Watkins:

I agree. That's what I thought. Good. Take. That's a lie, though, blatant, blatant

Jeff Winters:

lie. Okay, now I'm gonna Eric, I'm gonna flip it to you our 50 for 50 section, if we were starting a business again, what are the 50 things we would absolutely do or advise people to do, as they are on their journey? From zero to 50 million in revenue. Eric, what do you have today? Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

so we recently talked about the importance of speaking with your vendors and bringing your vendors in and holding them more accountable to what they provide your company. And the I'm going to add on to that. So it's sort of in addition. But I think it is, it is clear to I think this is something separate, and you should absolutely do this, and this isn't something that we've been good at in the past. So these 50 for 50s, they're not all, yes, we did this and we were successful. This is something we've started to do, and we've realized, wow, I wish we would have done this sooner, and that is, have your vendors help you solve your problems that you're dealing with. I use a specific example here. Recently we're in talks with a partnership relationship with Zoom info, great conversations, great partnership that we're working through. And in going through this, there's just win win situations for both of us, and in one situation, there's a specific product that they already have that's already built, that could add a lot of value to our clients, and they could get a lot of value in return. And we were going to spend 1000s of dollars developing this product, figuring it out, we haven't built it before the expertise, et cetera, et cetera, where, if us just having this conversation with our vendor, and now we're in a completely different spot, and it's going to be a huge impact on our business if we can figure out the right way for this partnership to make sense for both parties. And that's we haven't done this typically you think, oh, that's just the vendor. They don't care, or they only provide this service. And I think taking your vendor relationships, and truly, you know, this is overused, but taking them from a vendor to a partner, and really looking them as this is a strategic partner, we pay them a lot of money. How can they help us solve this problem?

Jeff Winters:

These vendors and potential vendors want to help you beyond the service they provide. They do. They all direct. They want to be value add. And so let me expand this and say, when you have a problem, even if it's not with the vendor, because I think it's easy, like, oh, the vendor is creating a problem, a software doesn't work. Boom, that's easy. I'm saying you have a problem that's close to what the vendor does, or that other customers of that vendor might also have the vendor's gonna have incredible insight. We had a massive issue probably six or seven years ago around email and just some changes in the environment, in the ecosystem, and we went for months and sort of tried to solve it ourselves. We're doing okay. And then we called the one of our email sending vendors, and they immediately helped us fix it. And so I remember, in retrospect, going okay from now on, as we're doing the debrief on this call, the vendor first. Call the vendor first. And let me give you the next step on this call, potential vendors that want to sell you stuff. And you know, are you going to switch from what you're doing? Are you going to buy their solution? Maybe, maybe not, but ask them questions. They're dying to help. They're dying to help you with problems. And Eric, I know you and I, when we're facing issues from time to time, we know we're not the smartest people in the world on a particular issue, but you know who might be the vendor in the space where they're having an issue? We'll call and we'll have a demo with that vendor. We'll ask a bunch of questions, and often questions, and often we'll get a lot further than we otherwise were would have been without

Eric Watkins:

I think about this in this way, like, if you look at our service, you know, over 1000 partners on our outbound BDR product, we get to see the inside of 1000 organization sales process. So if someone had a question about, hey, our sales process just isn't working, and they wanted to talk to us about how they have it set up and what's the process, we'd be able to give them so much more information than they would ever get from anybody else that's your vendor. In a lot of these situations, like there, there's hundreds of other companies that are using the same exact service that have all the same questions and problems that have probably solved them already. Like it's, it's a big deal.

Jeff Winters:

It's a, it's a nuanced piece of advice, but it could, it could really be a a massive problem solve or unlock or time save in your business. So Eric, thank you for bringing that to the forefront. Really well done. You're welcome. And now we move to another Eric section. For all the Eric fans out there, you're really getting your a full helping.

Eric Watkins:

I got a whole room cheering on the other side right of Eric,

Jeff Winters:

you're getting a full helping of Eric. Today, Eric's going to talk to us about growing your business through his section, mining for growth gold.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah. Well, I can't even hear this sound.

Jeff Winters:

Oh, it's so good. It's great. I love it. New sound,

Eric Watkins:

okay, I'll yeah. I'll hold off till next time I'm in the office where I can hear it all right, mining for growth gold today, specifically, I relate back to what I just said recently is not all of these things are things that we've done perfectly over time. We're learning and we're bringing to you what we're learning on the front lines. For anybody that is doing their own email sequences a probably stop and outsource it, because it has gotten so expensive. It's so much more complicated and complex than it's ever been before, and it's changing every single day. Second thing I'm going to give you something that we've recently learned, and I want you to put this into effect immediately. You should not have an email sequence that is over three emails immediately. Now you ask, Why? Why? Because all of these entities have tightened up and tightened up in the majority of the times that you're getting marked as phishing or spam is after someone has had the has sent you three emails already, and you're sending the fourth and you're sending the fifth, and that is what our numbers show. And because you know, before you could get away with it, you didn't have as many emails in the inbox. There weren't as many restrictions, but it is just not worth the risk of the fourth and fifth emails. And so what we recommend and everybody that we're speaking to in the space as well, shorten your emails to three emails and then recycle them in in that series of three emails, versus running a longer sequence. And you're going to have better luck from a deliverability. You're going to be marked as spam or phishing lesson. Then you're going to get more eyes on your emails and inboxes lots

Jeff Winters:

of people out there today, Eric, trying to do email, trying to do email scale, trying to figure out what can work from a delivery standpoint. And you, you have to be employing what I would call tech perfect infrastructure. You have to be perfect, from a technical perspective, in terms of all the back end setup, the domains, the senders, the tool you're using, and you have to be perfect in terms of the number of emails you're sending. You just must. Otherwise it's just the entities Eric's talking about. It's too easy for you not to get your message, which people need to hear, into the inboxes and to the eyeballs of the folks who need to read about it. So this is, this is a part of a tech perfect setup that is a must have and a must change, and something that's different from, you know, even a year ago

Eric Watkins:

in in here's the reality of it is, not only do you have to have a perfect tech setup, it has to be ready to pivot on a dime at any given time. Because what what is working right now, I can guarantee you, in six months, will not be like it will change. It's sort of adjacent to what's going on with SEO and what's been going on with SEO, and how Google makes a change, and you have to readapt and relearn, like that's just what it is, except Google typically tells you what they change. Gmail and Outlook are not telling us anything that they're changing, and you have to guess, and you have to test, and you have to try and you find ways around it. But it is. It's changing dramatically, and yeah, it's not a part time job anymore. It's not write some good content, set up a campaign and blast some emails out.

Jeff Winters:

Very true, very to Eric, great tips,

Eric Watkins:

Tales from sales. Let's hear what we do with these leads. Jeff, I was a little worried. Did you want to introduce yourself?

Jeff Winters:

Kind of neither here nor there. Okay,

Eric Watkins:

you'll be all right, all right. You'll

Jeff Winters:

be alright, yeah. Well, you talked most of the episodes. So thought maybe I could get a word in edgewise. I thought this was my section too. All of a sudden, you're like, out of town, you're gonna talk the whole time. Didn't realize I was part of it. If that's the case, I'm going on town next week. So I got a lot to say. Tales from sales. You have all these leads that Eric's helping you generate now via email. What are you going to do with them? And I'm here to offer every single week a tip or two, hopefully that is tactical, that you can put into play. And so here's my tip for today. And I bet you this happens, if not all of us, to most of us. It's the dreaded question, if you don't have it, and you'll understand in a second, do you have experience in my industry when you don't how do you handle the question? Do you have experience in my industry when you don't have experience in that industry? Because well,

Eric Watkins:

no, but we have, but

Jeff Winters:

we do, but we want to. We could, we will, we will, yeah, how about you? What? Okay, so it's a very difficult question, especially when you're in a competitive deal, or you're competing against someone who does have x. Experience in that person's industry. So I'm going to give you a couple of tactics to use that can help you in this situation, because it's a tough one. This is a tough situation. So first look, let's let's not be scummy salespeople. If you don't have experience in a particular industry, because you're not going to be successful in that industry, you're just gonna say, No, we don't have experience in the industry. And the reason is we don't think we can help and let the prospect go elsewhere. But if you can really win for the prospect in that industry, I have two ideas. The first is to lean in and be the outsider. Make it a positive that you don't have experience in that industry. So here's how this this might go. You might so, so we make cold calls, right? And what we do here and send emails and do prospecting and other things, but like, focus on that facet of our business, as I'm giving this example. Okay? So we reach out to people on behalf of ourselves and our clients who are not expecting us, and then we talk to them over time and persuade them to have a conversation about product or service or what have you. And so that's what we do here. And so I was asked recently on a call, you know, do you have experience in X industry communicating with people about their benefits, like exclusively, like that was the thing which we don't. And I said, I gotta tell you, we don't. Absolutely we don't. And I think that might be one of the reasons why we could actually be successful. Because what we do have experience doing is we have experience talking to people who maybe aren't ready to listen to what you want to say, or weren't thinking about listening to what you wanted to say, but we get them to listen, and we get them to be excited about what you want them to say. That's the experience we have, and honestly, maybe that outside opinion, outside expertise could be helpful for you in this situation. So how do you make being the outsider? I get, it's an example that may be a little abstract centric, but how do you you get the point? How do you get people to how do you lean in and make the outsider a good thing? And the second, make it about the process, not about the industry. Make it about the process, not about the industry. Look, Look, Mr and Mrs prospect, the reason that this can work, or does work in a particular industry has nothing to do honestly, with the industry itself. It has to do with the process. It's all about our process. That's why it works. And and expand that out. But Eric, those are my two thoughts today. It's a dreaded question. What do you think?

Eric Watkins:

I think that? I think that's a great tip. It is a dreaded question. It is very tough. It just if you even have an answer, and you're prepared for it, and you know it in advance, and You sound confident saying it, it's going to help support. And I actually believe it like I you think of like someone's doing lead generation for commercial recycling, and they work with 30 competitors, and then say you're our first commercial recycling client. You get the benefit of being our only commercial recycling client. Like, you get everything like, and we're figuring it out together, and you get to maybe customize it a little bit more. There's just, like, a lot of there's a lot of benefits. I get it though, but it is hard to sell against. It's because it's real like i You want people that have experience in your industry, but I think there's definitely a couple ways to spin it. There

Jeff Winters:

are, and there's been plenty of times where we've hired the vendor outside the industry, and it's been a huge benefit, because we are not just the beneficiary of the group. Think of that industry, which we probably already know we're the beneficiary of. Let's do something different, outside the box. Let's, let's hire the B to C agency that can help us with our B to B messaging, like there's all sorts of things like that. I think it's a, yeah, you can be kind of good stuff. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Eric Watkins:

Well, it's time,

Jeff Winters:

it is time. It's Tom, doesn't matter, St Louis, Kansas City, anywhere in the world. We're

Eric Watkins:

doing it to do or not to do. That's right. And I want my my new Kansas City team members in the other room. I want you all to participate in this as well. You don't have to hop on the Zoom, but just, you know, do? I wanted to hear all your thoughts. We'll, we'll talk about it in a little bit. So this one comes from Sophia, my wife, and I've never seen her so mad for she actually texted me the words, I'm so pissed. And you know what that means? Usually that means, Oh, shoot. What? What?

Jeff Winters:

Yeah, what did you

Eric Watkins:

Well, I'm in trouble. And then I didn't expect what was to come next. It was trash day, which was Thursday, and the one of our friendly neighbors who may be a friend of the Grow show, so they may be listening, I don't know. Through i. Their dogs poop into our empty trash can that has just been dumped for the week. So now we have someone's someone's dog poop sitting in our trash can when it's 95 degrees outside, just getting hot, getting hot and smelly. But oh man, on their end, they picked up the poop, they put it in the bag and they put it in a trash can. That is what that is the question today, Jeff, is it okay? I know you got to take your dog on walks. I know you're taking a poop bag. You're not one of those people that just let your dog poop in random yards. Is it okay? Do you have to carry that thing the whole time and bring it back to your trash can, or can you dump it off in somebody else's

Jeff Winters:

I want to take this as far as I can take it. I think you should be able to be arrested and jailed for doing something like that. That is a heinous that is, that is as bad as I mobile, order a Starbucks, and I show up and somebody else has taken my coffee that this, first of all, I know I as a new dog owner, I had no clue that anyone would stoop to this level. It is so low, it is disgusting, it's revolting. You should be able to be arrested for it, and like I said, at least do one night in prison.

Eric Watkins:

What if? Okay? Couple, couple questions. What if the trash hasn't been dumped yet? You're doing like, the nighttime, Wednesday night, the nighttime walk before trash day? Is that okay?

Jeff Winters:

Yeah, I think that is okay. I think it is

Eric Watkins:

okay. The Empty Trash can. Yeah,

Jeff Winters:

there's degrees. This a really good that's a really good nuance there. If. Okay, so if I'm walking the by the way, shout out. Thursday trash day. Thursday trash day is the best trash day. It's the king or queen of all the trash days, if you're because sometimes they change. But based on holiday, you know, like trash days, I'm like Tuesday, horrific. Thursday. Bang, great, Thursday, because the trash from the weekend is not, like, so disgusting, but like, it's perfect. I love it. I love Thursday trash shout out, Thursday trash day if you are walking the dog, and the trash cans are lined on the street to be picked up imminently. Totally okay. Totally

Eric Watkins:

okay, totally, if not, in the morning after they've been arrested, go to jail. Arrest will go to jail at least. All right. Last question, is it better to let your dog poop in somebody's yard and not pick it up, versus pick it up and throw it in an empty trash can?

Jeff Winters:

I think, I think you should do two nights in jail for the pooping and no pickup, and one night for the poop pickup and put in the empty trash can and and, by the way, I think you should be knighted if you consistently pick up the poop in the bag and dispose of it properly,

Eric Watkins:

yeah, for sure. Like, I

Jeff Winters:

think it's uh, for sure. I want to go so far as to say it, it may be an irreparable character flaw if you're doing that, like, that's like

Eric Watkins:

a find out a lot about a person the way they dispose of the poop.

Jeff Winters:

Can you even imagine doing that? Can you imagine knowingly, like, what do you think they were thinking more trash can

Eric Watkins:

best intentions would be? You know, one side of the street hasn't been picked up. One side has, they lift up the trash can and they're like, oh shoot, it hasn't been picked up. Well, I'm here now dropped.

Jeff Winters:

That's, that's the best case. I'm gonna tell you the worst case scenario.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, what's the worst? It's

Jeff Winters:

dark. It's you have no give a shit about other people. That's what you have lost, the ability to give a shit about others. And I don't think your wife was mad enough. And I think that that we should, we should file a petition. We should sue them or but, but I'm saying we got enough petition signatures, we could make this illegal, and I think we need to move it to the top of the docket.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, shout out to my HOA who find me because I didn't pay my HOA in a week anyway. God, you're neither here nor you're gonna get kicked out of your neighborhood. All right, everybody. Maybe that's why it's all coming together. Maybe that's why I got poop in the trash can.

Jeff Winters:

That could be it. Oh, it's a conspiracy now. Hoa,

Eric Watkins:

yeah,

Jeff Winters:

okay with it, Eric,

Eric Watkins:

you heard it here. First, you need this stuff. They need this. Everybody

Jeff Winters:

needs it. Welcome to Kansas City, abstract. Welcome to Kansas City. Eric Watkins and family, and now, not that you needed another reason to move there, but now you have one, because your entire neighborhood wants you. Thanks everybody for joining. Let's grow.

Eric Watkins:

Let's grow.

Unknown:

The grow show is sponsored by abstract cloud solutions certified Salesforce consulting services. You.

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Eric Watkins

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Jeff Winters

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Scott Scully

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