The Grow Show: Business Growth Stories from the Frontlines

The Must-Have Hire: An In-House Graphic Designer

• Season 2 • Episode 68

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The episode covers several insightful topics for growing businesses, starting with a discussion on the importance of self-sourcing in sales. Eric Watkins and Jeff Winters highlight data showing that only 25% of sales reps have a chance of hitting quota this year without taking on more of their own prospecting.
They then dive into tips for effective public speaking, emphasizing the importance of not wasting time introducing yourself and instead jumping right into the content. Eric and Jeff also discuss how important a Graphic Designer is for the growth of your company, from branding, to website design, pitch decks and more, they agree a Graphic designer is an essential hire early on in your business.
Another focus is on leveraging an omni-channel sales strategy, explaining the value of targeting key accounts with a combination of phone, email, and LinkedIn outreach, rather than spreading thin across too many contacts.
The hosts also explore the psychology of negotiation, introducing the concept of "threading the needle" to help buyers feel like they're getting a unique deal.

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Unknown:

All these years, but I'm still here. Nothing could stop me.

Eric Watkins:

Welcome back to the Grow show. I'm here with my partner in growth singular today, Jeff winters, how we doing? Jeff?

Jeff Winters:

We're back.

Eric Watkins:

We're back, baby, stretch

Jeff Winters:

run of the year, by

Eric Watkins:

the way, stretch run of the year. What do you mean by that?

Jeff Winters:

I mean, the summer's over, the fall vacation is over for many people, and now it's like, we're going, we're going, we're in the ground until the end of the year. Yeah. How did like Thanksgiving? But we're rolling into the end of the year. Q3, q4, head down, grind mode,

Eric Watkins:

focused, focused, focus. And in order to be focused, you got to know what you should listen to and what you shouldn't listen to. That's right, and that's why we have the Sheriff of LinkedIn to let us know two truths and a lie from LinkedIn.

Jeff Winters:

We are back as we are every week, bringing you truths from folks who are giving you great information on LinkedIn and also policing the lies allies and now preview the lives are coming in video form. Oh

Eric Watkins:

no,

Jeff Winters:

have you seen this?

Eric Watkins:

Oh no. Oh, we're gonna tackle it.

Jeff Winters:

I would not steer Claire, but first, let's go to a subject, Eric, you consider yourself an expert at public speaking? From Catalina Bora. Hot take. Don't start your talk and I'm parentheses speech by introducing yourself. Here's why, nine out of 10 times people in the room know who you are. If they don't know you personally, they at least know that you're going to be speaking. They've probably received an agenda ahead of time. They know who the speakers are, and even if they don't, there's usually a slide behind you with your name, title and company on it. Now all the research shows you've got about 30 seconds to capture your audience's attention before they say, Oh, great. It's going to be that kind of presentation. Oh, I

Eric Watkins:

love this tip. This is good. I love this. And I'm gonna take it a step further. Do it best man made of honor speeches. I knew this is where you were going. You know, I've done four now. I'm a certified professional. You're an expert. If you start your speech with, for those of you who don't know me, I already know to stop listening.

Jeff Winters:

It's so funny. You say that that I am allergic to that phrase. Yeah, that's, that's, I get up, go to the bathroom. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

they know who you are. You were on the program. You stood up by him at the wedding. And just get into it. For

Jeff Winters:

those of you who don't know me,

Eric Watkins:

it's 100% like, Ev, everybody says it, so just set yourself apart from the jump. Don't say it, or,

Jeff Winters:

if you must, I'm, huh, yeah, I'm Eric. I'm the friend of the bride. Like, yeah, but don't even do that. We all know who it is, and if your speech is good enough, everybody's gonna find out who you exactly. We don't need the context. Let it ride to the material you got 30 seconds. Let it ride mine. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jeff, and I'm here to talk. No, shut up.

Eric Watkins:

For those of you don't know me, my name is Eric, and I've known Jeff for, oh,

Jeff Winters:

yeah, yeah, and I've been doing sales for 37 and a half years.

Eric Watkins:

Truth be quiet.

Jeff Winters:

Our second truth today comes from a former guest,

Eric Watkins:

Jason Bay. Jason Bay

Jeff Winters:

show favorite, and he's quoting someone else here when he says only 25% of our AES have a chance of hitting quoted this year if we don't figure out self sourcing. That was from a conversation he Jason had recently with the VP sales q4. Pipeline is alarmingly thin for many sales orgs right now, and you might be getting a lot of resistance from your salespeople on doing their own outbound quote. It's marketing job. It's the BDRs job. I don't have time to prospect. I'm working deals. This won't cut it in 2024, and beyond, SDRs and marketing can't be expected to provide 80 plus percent of an 80s pipeline. Self sourcing is a mindset. It either exists in your sales culture or

Eric Watkins:

it doesn't truth, speaking the truth. Jason, good to hear from me again. Yeah, this is, this will just, it's kind of like natural selection. It will just, it's, this is where it's going. Sales reps are going to have to self source, and those who don't will not be in sales much longer, or they won't be selling what they're used to be selling. So there's this is a truth, 100% I think so too.

Jeff Winters:

It's just a, it's not an and it's not an or not. Think thing either this is, hey, you can still rely on the BDR team in the marketing team, everybody's got to do their job, yeah, but shifting the mindset of the team from, I'm gonna get all my leads from, yeah, the marketing and sdrt. The

Eric Watkins:

reality is, like, an easy way to look at it is, say you hit quota in 2023 right at 100% of quota. In order to do what you did in 2023 and you did no self sourcing, you're gonna have to go get 20% from self sourcing. Just real. It's gotten harder. People are tighter. Pipelines are a little thinner, makes sense. I agree.

Jeff Winters:

And now to the lie controversial this has been overtaking LinkedIn in terms of arguments back and forth. The people really care. And I'm, I'm interested in this take. Did

Eric Watkins:

it have a picture associated with it? What do we think about every post now has a picture?

Jeff Winters:

Have you seen that? No, and then don't distract Okay, for those of you who don't know me, that's Eric. This comes from Dylan.

Eric Watkins:

What about those pictures? Though?

Jeff Winters:

Dylan says, you've got a good thing going LinkedIn. Don't mess it up. I don't watch short form videos on LinkedIn because I'm here for thoughtful ideas and meaningful human connections right now is the right now. LinkedIn is the social network of choice for me, and it's precisely because it's not an endless stream of algorithmically optimized content. Dylan is referring to the fact that LinkedIn is in the for lack of a better word, Tiktok game. Oh, yeah, you can now just scroll up and down. I think Dylan's lying. I

Eric Watkins:

don't. I agree. Oh, I agree. I agree. It's everywhere else. It's on Instagram, tick tock, face bike. I know they're going to have to do it to stay competitive, so I get it. But man, it would be nice if they didn't. That's what we're doing here. Like, what are you gonna You gotta patrol all the videos now. I mean, like the

Jeff Winters:

I want short form video content wherever I can get it. I disagree. I love it. I'll watch the same short form video on multiple platforms. I find it fascinating, and I love where I'm at in the algorithm. You

Eric Watkins:

need to read, you need to read a little bit, read what read the post.

Jeff Winters:

I obviously read all the posts, hence my my job title. But I'm telling you, give me some short form business advice. Oh, I love it.

Eric Watkins:

Okay? Little lie, little truth, little lie, little truth. Good job from the from the sheriff. Now we move into our 50 for 50. Jeff, what do you have for us today?

Jeff Winters:

So much. I'm tired of myself. It's too much. Jeff, 50 for 50 this week is around our friends in the art community. And what you may not know if you have not started a business, or if you have not grown a business from or been on the sort of the the inner circle of growing a business from, you know, five or 10 or whatever, to 50 million. You don't have any idea how much graphic art you need, the website, the pitch deck, the trade show booth. There is so much you need in the way of work from a graphic artist, and I will say, having not had access to a full time on staff graphic artist, when I started a business years ago, we were constantly like outsourcing. It was always such a pain to get on brand art, and then we didn't like the brand, and we had to go through a whole exercise, and people can capture it. And it was so interesting when because at abstract, one of the first hires at the business, who is still here, is a legendary graphic artist. And in talking with Scott, who occupies this seat most weeks, he would tell you, Oh, I'd do that again in a heartbeat, I would have a awesome graphic designer as one of my first hires in a business, even we're a world where freelance graphic design is so easily outsourceable. And so I just whether it's, I think it's having somebody on staff that you could just turn to and go, Hey, we need a website. We need this page update, invest in that person earlier than you think, because you will use them more than you think. If they're on staff and it'll it'll help your brand.

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, this is insightful. I I remember, you know, starting here as an intern and going to our monthly company meetings. Yeah, we had like 3040, people in there, but I felt like we were already a $50 million company. And part of it was how professional the slides were and how our company was branded. And, you know, everybody wants to be that 100 million dollar company from the jump, but the reality is you're not. And until you're there, you have to always a little bit fake it till you make it. And you have to look bigger and more professional than you are. And I think this is something that could be seen as not as important. We'll get we'll figure that out when it when it means more. But I think that's it invokes trust in your brand, and it invokes trust in your employees that they feel like they're in the right spot and they know where the company's going. It company's

Jeff Winters:

going. It makes you look established to whoever you got to look established to. And especially important, when your sales presentation, hey, I got to whip up a, you know, it's Sunday, and you got to whip up an awesome custom presentation for a Fortune 1000 client that you have no business being in the room with Well, hey, I'll call the grabby designer. Well, it'll look beautiful, versus like I'm gonna spend all night on my PowerPoint. That's gonna look like shit. Anyways, yeah, and where I'm gonna outsource, and they don't understand the concept. If you can make yourself look credible, it can have meaningful impacts, talent acquisition, talent retention, customer acquisition. It's, this is a unique one, but I think that's part of why people come here, is they want little unique insights. If sky were sitting here, he'd be full force agreeing on,

Eric Watkins:

oh yeah, yeah. That was great. Good job. Jeff. Thank

Jeff Winters:

you. Is it finally time for you.

Eric Watkins:

It's time for me. Oh, it is.

Jeff Winters:

Go into the music. I almost stepped on his theme song. You can go into the music for those of you who don't know him. Eric Watkins, thank you. Grinding for

Eric Watkins:

growth, gold grinding for growth. Gold mining, not grinding, but maybe both. I think it's grand. So today, I felt like it was necessary to talk a little bit about channels. You know, the word omni channel gets thrown out a lot, and we talk about these specific channels and tactics that work in each of these channels, but we haven't talked about high level how we use these and so obviously, we're a big proponent of the phone and running a cold calling process and strategy. And you know, if we just take a random company and say they have 2000 companies that are likely a fit for their company, you go into these companies and you try to put together the best list possible. And typically, you know, depending on the service you sell, there's probably five to six individuals you could target within that company. And one mistake that you may be making out there right now is for your calling strategy is you're taking those 2000 companies and you're calling each of those five to six individuals within that company. And what we have found is that's just not quite as effective as working really taking a more account based approach working that company and only in your call process, targeting one company, one person within that company, it may be whoever has the highest likelihood to be the decision maker, or involve has huge involvement in the decision making process, or It might be who you have the best contact information for, who you're most likely to get on the phone based on the data and research that you've done. So then what do you do to go what I would call deeper within a company? So I have my one calling contact. This is where the other channels come into play, because the phone's expensive, like you have to have a person making that call and going through that and the return that you get of them calling five people across 2000 companies, 10,000 calls, basically to hit everybody once, you're just not going to get through the volume of companies you need to for that to be effective. So what we really look at is we keep our call process kind of skinny, so to speak, and target one individual, and we'll rotate that individual out if, while we're making calls, there's a better person to make decisions. But then this is where LinkedIn and email comes. This is where you can go deeper within organizations and use these channels to get your message to multiple people within that organization, because nothing's better than you've been calling Jeff at abstract, and you've been leaving voicemails, and you've been branding your company, but you've also been sending LinkedIn messages and emails to myself and Scott, and I send Jeff a message, and I say, Hey, Jeff, have you looked into this abstract marketing group that seems like they this could be an interesting solution that can help us. And Jeff says, You know what? I just got a call from them yesterday. And just this strategy of how it comes together and how to target these accounts, you're going to be more effective and have more success if you keep your call process skinny and then you focus on your other channels, on how do I go deeper within the organization? And you have to be conscious of. The message that you're delivering and that it's consistent across the brands, and how does it play to different people that I would call our more fringe decision makers, and maybe aren't making the ultimate decision, but that's just a little insight into how we work that process. And in this day and age, you have to be working in omni channel process like you air, land and sea. You can't just be attacking it from one angle.

Jeff Winters:

Yeah, and what you said about cost makes a lot of sense, especially if you're a company that has a large Tam, because you know you're prioritizing channel to decision maker based on in some degree, like the cost and therefore the scalability that channel. So email will forever and always be the lowest customer acquisition cost channel, LinkedIn, especially the free version low customer acquisition cost channel, phone, as you said, is high because it requires a body, and so your ability to maneuver through an organization in a multi channel thoughtful way and be cost conscious at the same time will serve you Well. Will serve you well, because otherwise you're either not creating that halo effect of the omni channel approach and talking with multiple decision makers, or you're not being persistent enough, I guess. Option two, you're blowing the cost the roof off of the ceiling, the roof off of the ceiling. You're blowing the roof off of the spending. A lot of the roof is the new ceiling. You're spending too much money calling.

Eric Watkins:

Is the roof

Jeff Winters:

or you're not being persistent enough. And when you say skinny, like, I know you also mean you're you're persistent, and you're not going, Okay, we'll call the decision maker twice, an influencer twice, and this person twice, and that person twice. Yeah, it requires a lot of touches on the phone. So to me, this is a, this is a thoughtful approach to how to manage the account based

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, you're gonna be what we have found is that you're gonna be more successful calling one person six to eight times than you are to call six to eight people one time, just from the law numbers and being, you know, and the ability to get somebody on the phone. And again, like in this process, it always changes. It's very fluid. You talk to the gatekeeper and you had Jeff's name, and then they say, yeah, no, Scott's really the decision maker for this. So then I swap that in, and now I'm targeting Scott. And, yeah, it's just something that is kind of basic, but is core philosophy that I don't feel like we've we fully shared with

Jeff Winters:

everybody. Well, now consider it fully shared. Shared. It's

Eric Watkins:

there, and you know what we have to do now? Tell me we have to sell these leads that we're attacking from all these different channels. So what do you got for us today? In Tales from sales,

Jeff Winters:

I've got a phrase I'm liking, and when I like a phrase, you know me, mm hmm, I'm not afraid to trot that puppy out. Mm hmm. Call after call, 234, times in a call. Buyer psychology lesson, not data backed, but I know this to be true. Buyers want to feel like they've won. Buyers want to feel like they've gotten something from you that other buyers don't get. There's a book out there called never split the difference. Buyers want you to be splitting the difference, or taking the difference all to yourself. And I, as a buyer, know that I'm conditioned this way. You as a buyer, Eric, are conditioned this way. If you if you go to a brand and they give you nothing, maybe it doesn't feel as good. Maybe it doesn't feel as good as a purchaser, you go, huh? I couldn't get anything. You know, the I went to the car dealership and I had to pay full boat. It doesn't feel I couldn't even get a free oil change. So I often hear in the negotiation process language that, to me, feels a little clunky when it comes to compromising or giving discounts or what have you and I have taken to the phrase thread the needle. I really like the phrase thread the needle because it invokes a great image of Ooh, like you had to sort of go to bat for me here. Were having a compromise. You took my needs into consideration. I'm gonna give you an example in a second, and then you also had to give a little and so I think thread the needle to me is just an elegant phrase to use. Dollars when you have to, when a customer or a prospect has asked you for some concession, and you can, you can not go all the way. So the customer might say, you know, we'd love to have an agreement that instead of has a 13 month term, that we can't terminate, that we can terminate at any time. And you might say something the effective, look, you know, I I completely understand why you might want something like this. And maybe you dig in a little, and at the end you'd go, you know, look, I I completely hear your position, and I can tell you're sort of dug in, and I respect that. So we've tried to come up with an alternative scenario. And I think we've we've done well to thread the needle here and identify a term that is both acceptable to you and to us. And you might be sitting there saying, Jeff, this is a damn waste thread the needle. What do I and you watch, you will use the phrase thread the needle the next time you are on with a prospect, so you can show them that you have made a move in their direction without going all the way. And invoke this. This person really found something creative. He threaded the needle. I

Eric Watkins:

like that. I like the fact you said something key there at the end of without going all the way. Because if you do say that of you know, where, instead of saying thread the needle, you say, I gave you everything I can. Nobody ever believes that no threading the needle. I believe sounds difficult. Sounds like you did the best you could, sounds like you got as close as you could. I think that's, that's really good. And like, you know, when you're at a whatever fair and you're buying something off a street vendor, and what do you want to do? You want to come back and tell everybody how that price was 10 and you got it down to four. We've been conditioned this way since we were young, so I think this is true. This is real. People deal with it all the time, and that's a great way to handle it. Somebody

Jeff Winters:

do this. Can someone use this and text me, yeah, I promise it worked. I did it on a call this morning. Yeah, works like a charm. Works like

Eric Watkins:

a charm. Shout out to that person who bought this morning. Let's listen to this. They're on the finish. They're on the finish. Okay, okay, I was threading the needle. He did say not data backed. So for what it's worth, thread, not data back the needle.

Jeff Winters:

And now, speaking of necessarily, isn't threading the needle.

Eric Watkins:

No, we're

Jeff Winters:

going all the way there, all the way there. He's giving you do exactly what you want. Yeah, to

Eric Watkins:

do or not to

Unknown:

do, or do not.

Eric Watkins:

There is no try. So it's a little rainy today. It's a little rainy. It's gonna be rainy all weekend, in fact. And there's two types of people out there, really, there's three types. There's three types. Yeah, there's the people that carry umbrellas and use them. There's the people that always have an umbrella in their car and never use it. And there's the people that, you know what? I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West. I'm not scared of a little bit of rain. I'm walking in for 30 seconds. I don't need an umbrella. Jeff, which of these people should you be?

Jeff Winters:

I'm struggling here because I know which person I am, and I know which person I wish I was. You know? Yeah, I am never. And I thought about this, I have an umbrella in my closet. It's a nice umbrella. It's got the name of some random bank on it. Every umbrella has a bank on it, Citizens Bank, or some shit. And I knew it was gonna rain, and I didn't take it. Just didn't even take it, you know? Why? Because I, I didn't want the responsibility of having to have it, yeah, and to bring it back, and to shake

Eric Watkins:

it off, and to shake it off, you get water everywhere inside.

Jeff Winters:

So no umbrellas. You think, no umbrella, no

Eric Watkins:

umbrellas. You don't need an umbrella. Everybody needs a little bit more moisture in their hair. You know, it's not like we're not out here drowning, like you don't need an umbrella.

Jeff Winters:

I think you don't need an umbrella. I hate to agree. I really I'm not an umbrella, but I understand if you're wearing a nice, okay, wearing a nice outfit. Okay, let's say you're going to a wedding or prom,

Eric Watkins:

shake it off. Probably no.

Jeff Winters:

I think, I think you're the hair. You know, it takes time. It could, it could get in this particular way.

Eric Watkins:

Maybe, maybe you could get me on that.

Jeff Winters:

I think I've taken it to a good place there. I think, I think there are occasions, but if you're not where, if you're just casually going somewhere, I don't think, no, no,

Eric Watkins:

here's the reality is. Majority, I would bet that majority of people have an umbrella sitting in their car and didn't use it. Do you? I don't have an umbrella period. I'm

Jeff Winters:

no umbrella. You have no umbrellas. I've

Eric Watkins:

never had an umbrella my entire life.

Jeff Winters:

Now I think that would put you in the minority. Yeah,

Eric Watkins:

I don't think, yeah. I

Jeff Winters:

think no umbrella is no lifetime umbrellas. Lifetime umbrella count is zero.

Eric Watkins:

I've never purchased an umbrella or had kept an umbrella on me.

Jeff Winters:

I think that there are people like myself and you who, if they brought an umbrella somewhere, would never remember no, no. And then there, I think there are people who can't imagine being people like us who know the umbrella. They're thinking about it. I'm gonna leave I'm gonna get the ad, don't I'm gonna get that umbrella. I'd never leave that umbrella. Get the umbrella. Of course, I got this umbrella. I'm never leaving this umbrella.

Eric Watkins:

Here's what they should make, uh, shoe brella, I don't like more than anything, get in the water, in your shoes, and the umbrella doesn't stop that. That's the worst part. Your socks get, what your feet are, what

Jeff Winters:

see now, what I do here, and I'm not, I wear, and you can see this, I'm wearing, like, pool shoes I would wear to the pool like, effectively, Aqua socks, because it's raining and then my feet are instantly dried. So he's got, for

Eric Watkins:

those of you who can't see, he's got flippers on right now, came in and flippers like scuba. Steve,

Jeff Winters:

yeah, see, this is our producers handing us some sort of that's a shoe. Brella, oh,

Eric Watkins:

that's a thing that exists. Shout out to that person. They probably, I mean, I might be the one customer that would buy that, but it's got to be on the bottom, like, that's what I'm saying. The umbrella doesn't help you. It's the stepping in the puddles or whatever.

Jeff Winters:

Let us know. Gang umbrellas. No umbrellas. There's only three types of people in the universe. Which one of you?

Eric Watkins:

Yeah, which one are you? We should put a poll out. This would be interesting. My whole team, by the way, I brought this up today in our little huddle, yeah. And all of them had an umbrella in their car that they didn't bring it tells you anything about my team statistics. Always prepared, never ready to use it.

Jeff Winters:

We should do short form LinkedIn video on the umbrella content.

Eric Watkins:

Let's keep it a post. Let's keep it a post and a poll. Let's keep it classic. All right. Well, appreciate you all tuning in. We're happy to be a part of your journey from zero to 50 million, wherever you may be, along that.

Jeff Winters:

Let's grow. Let's go.

Unknown:

The grow show is sponsored by abstract talent solutions, recruiting for the modern world you.

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Eric Watkins

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Jeff Winters

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Scott Scully

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