Dive into the world of sales and marketing with Erik Huberman, a maestro in attracting and retaining attention in our bustling digital age.
In a world where attention is the new currency, Erik's strategies offer a blueprint for success.
This episode offers insights for anyone looking to elevate their sales and marketing game.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Event Networking as a Top Funnel Strategy:
Erik emphasizes the power of attending events to meet new people and expand one's professional universe. He advocates for using these opportunities not just for direct sales but for building a broad network that can lead to diverse opportunities.
2️⃣ The Art of Follow-up:
Diligent follow-up is Erik's secret sauce for nurturing relationships. He suggests touching base with contacts every 90 days, ensuring you remain top of mind without being overbearing.
3️⃣ Social Media Consistency:
By posting daily across various channels, Erik maintains a steady presence, subtly reminding his network of his expertise and offerings, making it easy for them to reach out when the need arises.
4️⃣ The Three Pillars - Awareness, Nurturing, Trust:
Erik breaks down his approach into these fundamental elements, focusing on building awareness, nurturing relationships, and establishing trust through third-party validations like reviews and testimonials.
5️⃣ Sales and Marketing Synergy:
A unique insight Erik shares is the symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing. He views marketing as a support system for sales, with both departments collaborating closely to enhance the overall business outcome.
Whether you're in sales, marketing, or just looking to expand your professional reach, these insights are invaluable.
Remember, it's not just about grabbing attention; it's about holding it and converting it into meaningful relationships and business outcomes.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships
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Social and AI in the buyer-centric age.
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Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside
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Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom
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Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet
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Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind
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successful executives and sales professionals.
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Dive in to business growth, personal development and the
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pursuit of excellence with industry leaders.
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Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader,
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this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business
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landscape.
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This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist
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Bump.
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Speaker 2: Everyone, welcome to episode number 77, mastering
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Modern Selling.
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I'm here today, as usual, with my awesome co-host, brandon Lee
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and Carson Heddy, and we have a very special guest, eric
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Huberman.
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Eric welcome.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me.
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Speaker 2: So we're gonna talk about something today that I
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think is pretty important to everybody, which is attracting
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and keeping attention.
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Obviously, in sales and in marketing, right, if you don't
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have somebody's attention, you're gonna have a little bit
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of a problem.
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So we're gonna talk about some tactics and strategies for that.
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Before that, brandon, do you wanna shout a little bit about
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the upcoming webinar?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I was actually just pulling up
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links for it.
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Yeah, so Carson and I are running a webinar on March 21st.
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It is gonna go through Carson's playbook with a little bit of
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my playbook built into it, but look, it's part of our Modern
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Revenue Generation series.
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This one's called the Playbook of a Salesman on Fire, mr Carson
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there, and that'll be on March 21st Free registration and all
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that register.
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You don't show up, you get access to the recording.
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But hey, look, this is everything that Carson's done
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and learned of his last 10 years with Microsoft and has done
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what Carson?
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Over a billion dollars in revenue in that timeframe.
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Speaker 5: Billions and billions served.
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There you go.
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Speaker 4: So, yeah, just invite everybody March 21st.
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You should see links wherever you're watching this.
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There should be a link in there somewhere, and if not, you can
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ping one of us and we'll get you a link on a problem.
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You can't wait.
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Speaker 2: All right, so let's do it.
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So, Eric, again welcome.
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You're the founder and CEO of Hock Media in LA, correct or
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based in LA?
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So yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself, Hock Media and
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your background Sure background's.
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Speaker 3: Ecommerce built and sold a couple Ecommerce
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businesses the last one over 10 years ago now and then started
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consulting and advising for a bunch of large and small brands
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on how to drive revenue growth using marketing, how to get
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attention in an attention deficit world and turn that into
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a sale, and started working with Red Bull, verizon, hp.
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A bunch of startups found that it was really hard to find
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people that got to execute this stuff and so started building a
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small team and that team's turned 10 years later into about
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220 people.
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We've spent over $3 billion on advertising.
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At this point, we've worked with almost 5 brands.
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We've built our own AI system that is digesting 8
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companies, marketing, media and revenue data in real time so
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that we can actually provide the exact insights by where the
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opportunity is in an individual business.
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We have a venture fund.
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We just closed our second fund at $20 million.
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We're invested in a lot of the major marketing tech stack,
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especially around Shopify, like Klaviyo, postscript, tapcard,
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faring, superphilia, sway, et cetera.
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So, yeah, we've just tried to make a marketing powerhouse and
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gold being working for a marketing foundation and seems
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like we're on our way.
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Speaker 4: So, eric, you're saying you have a little bit of
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experience in this industry, is what I'm hearing.
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Speaker 3: I'm starting to yeah exactly.
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Speaker 2: Hey Eric, would you say that you focus more on B2C
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or B2B, or is it a mix?
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Speaker 3: It's absolutely a mix .
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It's probably 65, 35, B2C and B2B.
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So B2C definitely leans more into marketing, so it's been a
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bigger part of our business.
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Also was my background, but now like we drink our own punch.
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Hawk Media has a massive sales and marketing effort and we also
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work with a lot of software companies, service businesses,
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et cetera.
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Speaker 2: So let's see if we can set the stage a bit.
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This show is called Mastering, modern Selling and long story
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short, mastering or Modern Selling in this day and age, is
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about creating demand, building relationships.
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We're kind of the opposite of the SDR and Smile and Dial.
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We're really looking at how to use modern strategies to build
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pipeline and build forecast From .
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With that context, eric, what's your thought and what you see
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now, especially in the B2B world , in your B2B space?
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What are you seeing related as relates to attracting and
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retaining attention, and what are some of the strategies and
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techniques that you're seeing, you and your clients, employing
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in this sort of new world where attention is everything?
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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So the nice thing is, I always caution people.
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I think that the world is changing to a craft because
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human nature is not, and so a lot of the things that have
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worked forever still work.
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And so you mentioned relationships.
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You mentioned, like, not the SDR Dial for a dollar, kind of
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thing, and I agree to take a step back.
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We kind of look at marketing like we wrote a book about this
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called the Talk about it, and look at marketing, which to me,
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marketing is basically a one to many sales strategy.
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But we talk about it in three principles awareness, nurturing
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and trust, which works for sales too.
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So awareness how do I let new people know I exist?
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How do I get new contacts?
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How do I get in touch with new people?
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That's number one.
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Number two nurturing how do I stay as people, get the sales
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cycle to actually convert and then keep them as a customer?
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So it's also customer retention strategies as well.
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And then trust, I'd say, is synonymous with brand, but in
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lieu of a brand, when you haven't built a brand yet,
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nobody knows who you are you need to find ways to build trust
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.
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That's usually through third party validation, reviews,
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testimonials, case studies, whatever that might be, and so
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all those together is really what drives a successful
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strategy, and so I wanted to set that framework and then I can
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talk to like specifics.
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You know, thankfully, and from what I've heard in terms of like
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from sort of the bankers in our industry, et cetera, like we
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have the most robust sales and marketing strategy of any
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marketing agency in the country, so we have more throughput,
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bringing more brands work with more people than anyone, and so
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how we've done that is drinking our own punch in that sense, but
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from a sales strategy standpoint.
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Number one how do I always make sure that I'm meeting new people
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?
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So you can have the SDR method, but let's be real, like I have
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personally never called or called emails, I can 98%
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certainty say I have never just reached out and be like can we
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work together and gotten a customer that way?
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That's just not a strategy I'm for.
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I don't know that's a really tough way to do it, but I do a
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lot of other things to make sure I'm constantly meeting new
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people.
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Number one, and this is legit, that's why I say what's all this
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new?
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I'm at events all the time.
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You know, I just canceled the trip because, frankly, my wife
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and baby have a cold so we can't go away for the weekend and I
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immediately replaced it with going to a conference tomorrow
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and it's like if I have some free time I'm going to find
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what's a good event.
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This would be the best CPG event in the country, called
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Expo West.
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But like I'm always on Sunday to Wednesday, next week I am at
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Shop Talk, one of the biggest e-commerce sites, like every
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couple of weeks.
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I was at South by Southwest last week, et cetera, et cetera,
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et cetera.
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So why I say that is like that is the number one top of the
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final strategy for me?
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Because it does two things.
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One, I get to meet tons of new people and I'm not the guy and I
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always try to emphasize this.
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I may seem like an extrovert and I am extroverted on a
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spectrum, but I am not the guy that walks into a room and knows
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everybody in an hour and I'm not the wife of the party.
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I meet a few people, I stay connected with them and this
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goes into the next part of the strategy, but I get those
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contacts.
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I make sure I get their contact and I am the most disciplined
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about follow up.
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So I will come in with a day or two.
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I'll get stay in touch with them and this could, by the way,
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I also try to turn every contact into potential business.
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So it could be a client, it could be a partner, it could be
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me, be a friend, but someone that may know someone else, etc.
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So it's like everyone's worth talking to and I because to me
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it's again top of the funnel I just am building this universe
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and I'm always growing that universe, because the other side
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of this that people forget this again goes for marketing and
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sales.
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People are going to move on as customers or potential customers
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for you for many reasons.
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They lose their job, they lose their life.
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I don't mean to be morbid, but it's just a factor that people
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forget.
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It's like, no, you're never going to be stable.
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So get that out of your head, that there's any sense of
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stability.
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I built my universe.
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I'm good.
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That universe is always shrinking and you always have to
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add to it just to maintain.
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Sorry, but we're all on a treadmill here or a hamster
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wheel.
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You got to do it.
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And so the next piece is nurturing.
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That's where I follow up with everyone on my contact list
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every 90 days and people that get to know me start to realize
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it, it's fun.
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They'll say like you know, come on, man, what are you doing?
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But it doesn't piss anyone off.
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And this is important because with our business, with
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marketing, you might not need what I do now or three years
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from now, but maybe seven years from now you will, and so it's
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about just staying in touch and staying top of mind, so then you
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can come to me.
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I never have to hard sell because they know what I do,
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they know we're good at it.
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I just stay in front of them so that when they go shoot, I
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really need help with this.
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So like, oh yeah, there, he is Perfect, and so that's a big
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strategy.
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As well as on that same nurturing idea I post on social
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media every day, across all my channels, about something to do
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with the business and marketing and stuff.
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So it's again another reminder oh yeah, that's what he does.
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We should talk, and people are that simple, and I don't mean
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that in a demeaning way.
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I mean it's just like you literally just lay it up for
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them and go oh yeah, that's right, you're the guy.
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That's how people work, and so you just make it easy for people
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while also having a very concise way of articulating what
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you do for us, where you outsource CMO and marketing team
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, like nobody has a hard time understanding what I do.
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Nobody has a hard time telling other people what I do.
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Word of mouth is a huge other aspect of this, because those
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intros if someone introduces you to someone else, that trust
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factor, that third pillar, that third principle is covered.
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You just got introduced.
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That is a huge part of human nature and this is a quick
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little side note.
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We talk about this a lot you guys watched how you think your
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mother.
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Yeah, so for people that don't, there's the main characters Ted.
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He's telling, like going flashing back to telling his
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kids in the future how I met your mother, and it's all these
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stories about his dating life and his friends and his best
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friend, barney, is kind of a complete womanizer and Barney's
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favorite way to get Ted to meet girls is to walk up to random
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girls and go, hey, have you met Ted?
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And it works every time.
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And so I've been talking about that with our sales team from
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like nine years ago, saying like just get an intro, like they
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don't need to even know that person.
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Confidently, that intro actually creates a lot of trust.
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I then happened about a year ago to sit across the table at a
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lunch from the show runner for how I met your mother and told
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her like, oh, that's what you like, we didn't know each other.
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She just so what do you do?
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Kind of thing.
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She's like, oh, I ran this show called how I met my mother.
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Okay, hold on.
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So I've been talking about this for a while.
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She's like oh yeah, we used to do it all week.
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We'd stop filming and go out to the bars and we'd like do it in
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the bar.
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It works every time.
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So for you single people out there, just get a random intro,
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it works.
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But for business it works as well.
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But again, that comes to that trust factor.
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People inherently want to trust who they're talking to, and the
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way you do that is third party validation.
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The irony is I do this as well.
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My favorite thing on the marketing side is I go who here
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shops on Amazon?
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Everybody raises their hand when I'm doing public speaking
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stuff.
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Okay, and out of all of you who here reads reviews on the
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products you buy, everyone raises their hand.
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Great, and how many of you believe that on Amazon, most of
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the reviews are probably fake?
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Everybody raises their hand.
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Just sit there for a sec, you're like isn't that funny.
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You all like the reviews.
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You know they're fake, but you still do it.
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Human nature can't be fought.
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And that's back to that trusting, like people really
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want to trust.
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And so, again, thinking about sales strategies, it's continue
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to fill my funnel aggressively all the time.
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I want to constantly know, like I thankfully have thankfully in
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some ways, I guess, have built almost an anxiety when I don't
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have, I'm not meeting new people and I'm not trying to find.
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Okay, I got to get out there.
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So, like for me it's become automatic, like I just need to
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see that I'm funneling in new contacts all the time.
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And then I built a system that I'm going to stay in touch and
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top of mind with them.
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And the trust side is really then where the effort comes in,
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which is being on this podcast, doing interviews, getting press,
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showing testimonials, reviews, case studies, all that stuff,
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and that is it.
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And then you know I always articulate.
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Hopefully this is helpful because I think it will be for
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anyone to put into their contacts.
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But for my team, I explain our job is not to tell people that
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they need marketing.
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Everybody should know, every business owner should know that
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they need marketing.
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That should be staple stakes.
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So like I'm not here to explain to you why marketing will help
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your business, that's crazy.
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Hopefully you understand that I need to tell you why we're the
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best.
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You need to decide to choose us over every other option you
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have.
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That's my job, and so how do I do that?
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That's where the credibility and differentiators come in.
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You know, that's where our different systems, our success,
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all these things.
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But that is a constant effort that it never goes away, that we
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have to constantly reinforce why we're the best and that is
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where our marketing strategy comes in, and then from that,
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sales can actually do their job.
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Well, that's really yeah.
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Speaker 5: So much goodness in there, eric.
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First off, I feel like we're all kindred spirits because you
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talk about a lot of the things that we talk about on the show.
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You know the intentionality, the discipline, the true follow
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up.
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You know earning those relationships.
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I also I quote, barney, a lot from how I met your mother, but
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I always say challenge accepted.
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Something sounds impossible.
00:13:47
I always say challenge accepted and I'll go out and figure out
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a way to get it done.
00:13:50
You said something that really struck a chord with me and I
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think it's.
00:13:53
It's a unique message for a lot of our listeners and it's that
00:13:58
kind of that marriage between sales and marketing.
00:14:01
Sometimes sales and marketing don't jive.
00:14:04
I've done some success in my career because I've always found
00:14:07
ways to go out and serve marketing, leverage their
00:14:10
content, but also the report back to them in meaningful ways,
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are going to help them be successful, promoting the things
00:14:17
that they're doing, etc.
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How can sellers today wrap their head around how they could
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and should better partner with?
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Speaker 3: marketing.
00:14:25
Yeah.
00:14:25
So I would say the onus in that situation is on the marketing
00:14:29
side, not on the sales side.
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Sales you know what sales want to do and I think marketing
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forgets.
00:14:34
In my opinion, when you have a robust sales team, marketing is
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a support system for that sales team and that's how we operate
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and that's how our team operates and it works really well.
00:14:41
They all get along well because when sellers are like this is
00:14:44
what I need to do my job well, or marketing team listens when
00:14:47
they say I'm getting bad leads, it's not the.
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You know, when we're going Ross, the leads are and shit your
00:14:52
shit.
00:14:52
It's like, ok, well, explain to me what's going on.
00:14:54
Why are they bad?
00:14:55
Let's fix this, let's see what we can do, tweak.
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We don't want to lessen our lead flow and end up throwing
00:14:59
the baby out with the bath water , but like, let's figure this
00:15:01
out.
00:15:01
So it's a collaborative effort that we, I think, pretty
00:15:05
consistently had that culture on that piece of the business is
00:15:08
like just making sure that that is understood.
00:15:11
Like sales on their or sorry, marketing on their own will go.
00:15:14
You know, we think that the collateral that sales is using
00:15:17
is not good enough.
00:15:17
We're going to go redo that, like they're thinking how do we
00:15:20
make our sales people more powerful?
00:15:21
And then I would say vice versa , our marketing especially is
00:15:26
very active in what, watching the pipeline and going hey, why
00:15:29
do you need to call this guy back?
00:15:31
You want it like what's going on?
00:15:32
He's almost a secondary sales manager in some ways, because he
00:15:35
cares about the outcome.
00:15:36
He wants to know that I did all that work to drive all those
00:15:38
leads.
00:15:39
Those leads are good because now we have a lot of qualifying
00:15:43
insight into them.
00:15:43
I just heard him this morning.
00:15:46
He's like we got a lead that wants to spend 50 grand a month
00:15:48
with us and that's a decent number for us.
00:15:50
So he's like, hey, what are we doing here?
00:15:52
What's the strategy?
00:15:52
Hey, sales director, I think you should jump in here and help
00:15:56
.
00:15:56
There's no reason not to put a little reinforcement on this.
00:15:58
He's like a good one.
00:16:00
But that's how they think about it.
00:16:01
It's like we're all on the same team here.
00:16:03
We're all connected, we're going to collaborate, and I have
00:16:07
seen other organizations that it's like oh God the marketing,
00:16:09
oh God the sales.
00:16:10
That's just a bad cultural problem that is hard to solve,
00:16:13
but you solve it.
00:16:14
We had that problem here for a long time between sales and
00:16:17
services, which I see happen a lot.
00:16:19
Where sales would sell, someone in now services has to manage
00:16:22
them and it's just more work.
00:16:23
But it took a lot of work to change the culture to be like no
00:16:27
, no, no, you want.
00:16:28
Even though it's logical, it's like you want us to have
00:16:31
business to pay you right.
00:16:32
This is a good thing and I think it actually took a couple.
00:16:37
It took kind of a COVID hit and then a hit in 2022 when
00:16:41
everyone got scared of oh God, is everyone going to stop
00:16:43
marketing?
00:16:44
I think those made people realize do not look a gift horse
00:16:47
in the mouth.
00:16:47
Getting a new client signing a new deal sometimes takes work,
00:16:51
but that's a good thing.
00:16:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel, guys, for everybody listening, if you
00:16:56
just stopped right here and actually applied and really
00:16:59
thought about what Eric shared in the first 15 minutes.
00:17:02
That's the show, that's the meat of what we, what every
00:17:06
company should be doing, I think we're just not that, we're done
00:17:10
.
00:17:10
I'm sure you got a lot more to say, but and then also just one
00:17:13
trick.
00:17:13
Speaker 3: Tony, I'm out.
00:17:14
Yeah, we're done.
00:17:16
Speaker 4: Okay, everybody, thanks for coming.
00:17:17
No, but anyone listening to we forgot to let everyone know.
00:17:20
Bring your comments, bring your questions.
00:17:22
Eric is a wealth of knowledge.
00:17:24
Please ask questions and let us know what else we could do to
00:17:29
help you or share with you.
00:17:29
Eric, I am a little curious too .
00:17:33
Can you ask how is how do you guys coordinate that like the
00:17:37
marketing type of content used by and I don't even like calling
00:17:41
it marketing content.
00:17:42
How is marketing, or whatever the team is, help, that's
00:17:46
creating content?
00:17:47
Are you creating that with sales and sales utilizing it?
00:17:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question.
00:17:53
So I so the content strategy started with.
00:17:56
I've been writing for like Forbes and Entrepreneur and
00:17:58
Rolling Stone and a lot of other publications for a long time
00:18:01
and a lot of the things I would write about go to our sales team
00:18:03
like, what are you dealing with ?
00:18:04
What's your challenges?
00:18:05
They think, oh man, like everyone keeps saying they're
00:18:07
going to bring their marketing in house.
00:18:09
I'm like, oh well, that's a stupid idea.
00:18:11
We all know that.
00:18:11
We've seen how that turns out.
00:18:12
I'm going to go write an article with the research on why
00:18:15
that's a bad idea.
00:18:16
Now, guys, here's your article.
00:18:18
Next time someone says that, be like, yeah, we actually
00:18:20
discussed this, here's all the data and so just give it.
00:18:22
That's what I mean by the marketing and sales
00:18:24
collaboration is like having that open communication about
00:18:27
like, what is your challenges right now?
00:18:29
What are you dealing with?
00:18:30
And, frankly, having enough senior people that we have some
00:18:34
really good sellers.
00:18:35
When they tell me they're having an issue, I can take it
00:18:37
seriously.
00:18:37
You know, on the junior side sometimes it's a training
00:18:39
problem.
00:18:39
You have to differentiate that.
00:18:41
But when they're telling me some of these things thankfully
00:18:45
I come from you know I'd say one of my superpowers is sales.
00:18:48
I ran.
00:18:49
I did all our sales for three and a half years before we built
00:18:51
a team.
00:18:51
So, like we built the team to like 70 people on me selling and
00:18:55
so I know what they're doing and so I'm kind of able to, when
00:18:59
they tell me something, I can kind of differentiate between
00:19:01
like yeah, I see that you need some third party like ammo there
00:19:04
to really help, or yeah, they probably said that because you
00:19:07
said this.
00:19:08
Like there's, as we know, in sales, like once you get into
00:19:11
the weeds on my company, what are their 10 objections and
00:19:14
that's it.
00:19:14
So like you start to go, okay, well, they give you that
00:19:16
objection, you probably didn't do this, this and this.
00:19:18
Like you can start to get there too.
00:19:20
So there's a combination there.
00:19:21
But we also like we pump out, I think, a case study a week now
00:19:25
for guys.
00:19:26
So there's always something fresh and new.
00:19:27
Which is funny because I talked to my team.
00:19:29
Like you realize, like the hundreds of case studies we
00:19:32
already have, none of our new clients have seen.
00:19:34
So like the fact that we like they want new ones.
00:19:36
I mean, you don't need new ones I'd use one years ago, it's
00:19:39
fine, but sure, we have like that momentum and we also share
00:19:42
on social and stuff.
00:19:44
But we win one or two awards a month.
00:19:47
We're and, by the way, people always ask what's the secret to
00:19:49
winning awards?
00:19:49
Number one a pie.
00:19:50
So that's a big part of it is like we have a PR team that
00:19:56
looks at what awards should we win and where are we outpacing,
00:19:59
let's go apply for them, and so we get a lot of awards we get to
00:20:03
share.
00:20:04
We constantly make up content and data on the industry and
00:20:08
like all these things that are just and then the sales person.
00:20:10
The other part of this is we have a certain cadence and style
00:20:13
and process that we try to teach people and then, as they
00:20:15
get better, everyone ends up falling into their own unique
00:20:18
way of doing it that works for them and that's been.
00:20:22
I would say that's probably counterintuitive to a lot of
00:20:24
sales organizations where it's like follow the process, but
00:20:27
we're dealing with founders of companies, all types of
00:20:30
companies etc.
00:20:31
Like you start to see that different strategy, having
00:20:33
different people running different strategies, actually
00:20:34
works really well for us.
00:20:36
For that diversification For one strategy is working really
00:20:38
well in one period, another one will work in another period yeah
00:20:42
.
00:20:43
Speaker 4: I'm going to pause for everybody listening, because
00:20:46
Eric said something I think is extremely important and we don't
00:20:49
highlight it nearly enough.
00:20:50
He started that whole section saying they go to sales and say
00:20:56
why are you hearing?
00:20:57
Ask what are you hearing?
00:20:58
Really, really simple Go to sales and say what questions are
00:21:02
you hearing?
00:21:02
What objections are you hearing ?
00:21:04
That's rich content.
00:21:06
And then when your sales team and the entire brand is sharing
00:21:10
that content whether it's in social, whether it's an email,
00:21:13
whether it's direct message, they're sharing that content you
00:21:16
know that you're answering the questions that your, your total,
00:21:20
addressable market has, because sales are hearing it routinely.
00:21:24
Just pause a little bit, this isn't that hard.
00:21:26
Ask them what they're hearing and create content around it.
00:21:29
I love that part.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is that simple.
00:21:32
That's the thing is.
00:21:32
When you over complicate, this stuff is when you get in trouble
00:21:35
.
00:21:35
Keep things simple.
00:21:36
It's just like what does our sales team need?
00:21:38
I don't know.
00:21:38
Ask them.
00:21:41
Don't get me wrong.
00:21:42
I always remember the quote Henry Ford if I ask people what
00:21:44
they wanted, they say faster horses.
00:21:46
You got to be careful in some sense as to some of it has to be
00:21:49
strategic and you have to have a vision of.
00:21:51
I hear you and this is where we're going, and but a lot of it
00:21:55
is really easy in that sense.
00:21:58
Speaker 2: Let's.
00:21:59
There's a good question here from Tom Taylor.
00:22:01
I want to bring up next Tom's asking or saying I have no
00:22:05
issues getting attention in face to face interactions.
00:22:08
However, I struggle with social platforms.
00:22:10
I have a lot of great information from Brandon who's
00:22:13
Brandon?
00:22:13
Is that somebody, anyway?
00:22:15
And have adopted my profile.
00:22:17
How do you get those new connections and grab their
00:22:20
attention?
00:22:20
So, thoughts on that Eric.
00:22:23
Speaker 3: I think it has to do with.
00:22:25
Like you know, I think people forget about putting themselves
00:22:28
in their audience's shoes and, like I, get spammed all day,
00:22:34
every day.
00:22:34
I think I have 700 unchecked connection, big requests on
00:22:38
LinkedIn, just like can't keep up anymore.
00:22:40
And you know, I've got 30, something thousand connections
00:22:44
and followers, and all that on LinkedIn.
00:22:45
I get messages all day, every day, and most of them have not
00:22:49
taken any time to think about why it applies to me.
00:22:51
And so my number one rule and I try to teach my team this like,
00:22:56
if you're actually reaching out to someone cold, if you're
00:22:58
going to do that which, again, I don't do that, as you said, I
00:23:00
have no issues getting attention in face to face interactions
00:23:03
then maybe you should spend your time on face to face
00:23:05
interactions.
00:23:05
Why are you going to go down a path where you're?
00:23:07
Why are you going to fight an uphill battle?
00:23:09
That's my same experience, by the way.
00:23:11
I you know, but what I did was everyone I meet.
00:23:15
I added on social.
00:23:15
So now my social content creates top of mind.
00:23:18
Sometimes they share it, that sends it to their audience, etc.
00:23:21
But in terms of actually cold outreach, I'm super concise and
00:23:26
super specific to that.
00:23:27
I'm not reading your page essay about why we should connect,
00:23:31
about your new product or why you want to talk to me.
00:23:32
I'm not interested in being sold by you.
00:23:35
I'm busy, I have other issues.
00:23:36
This is most helpful.
00:23:37
If you can tell me very quickly something that you make me
00:23:41
interested, then great, and if you can't, then stop, you know,
00:23:45
again pushing the boulder up the hill like, just go find another
00:23:48
way to do it.
00:23:49
I think that people try to replicate.
00:23:51
People think that they need to utilize every tactic to build a
00:23:54
company Like they're like.
00:23:55
Well, this guy does great social selling.
00:23:57
This person's doing events.
00:23:58
This person's a public speaker.
00:24:00
This person wrote a book.
00:24:01
I'm going to do all of it and it's not tenable.
00:24:03
It's a problem in society we have these days where everybody
00:24:06
is trying to replicate.
00:24:06
Replicate the highlights of everyone else versus you know,
00:24:11
figure out your best strategy.
00:24:13
So again, on this new social connection side, my social
00:24:17
connections are people I usually meet or connect with, either
00:24:19
through introductions or directly, and then we end up
00:24:23
connect and then I connect on social.
00:24:26
I don't just blindly connect with people on social and try to
00:24:28
touch base with them.
00:24:29
I don't think that's ever worked for me.
00:24:32
Speaker 5: Those are various student observations, and I
00:24:33
liked what you said to Tom Eric about you know playing to the
00:24:38
strengths and sometimes you can leverage social as a way to
00:24:42
ultimately orchestrate those face-to-face conversations.
00:24:45
That's how I've leveraged it.
00:24:46
You know thinking about ways that you can uniquely engage
00:24:50
your target audience.
00:24:51
Yes, you want your LinkedIn profile to be spruced up.
00:24:54
You want to show it and showcase it as your.
00:24:57
You have a perspective, you have stories, you have a vantage
00:25:03
point for your desired target audience.
00:25:05
Furthermore, there's ways that you can go out and leverage
00:25:08
commenting on your target audience's posts.
00:25:10
Go out, follow those people, ring the bell in their profile
00:25:13
so you get notified when they post and then you can go out and
00:25:15
engage with them.
00:25:16
You know they're talking about things that they care about.
00:25:18
You can engage consistently and , to Eric's earlier point, those
00:25:21
are the ways that you can stay top of mind and nurture those
00:25:24
connections.
00:25:24
I've got a situation where I met a CEO of a customer
00:25:28
organization after six months of commenting on every post he
00:25:31
made, and then I got a meeting with him when the time was right
00:25:33
, because he already knew who I was, because we had developed a
00:25:37
rapport in his posts and comments.
00:25:39
And then, lastly, you know the ways that you can message folks
00:25:43
do almost do like the counterintuitive approach.
00:25:45
You know, to Eric's point, we get spammed so much on some of
00:25:48
these social platforms You're not going to get a response
00:25:51
unless you show up uniquely.
00:25:52
You show up immediately, with value.
00:25:54
You don't verbal vomit all over their inbox and talk about all
00:25:57
the great things about yourself and your company.
00:25:59
No, it's more talking about them, maybe something that they
00:26:02
posted or that you saw in their profile that there's some
00:26:05
commonality, there's some synergy where you can create a
00:26:08
conversation.
00:26:09
You want to create a conversation and if your strong
00:26:11
suit is getting in the room together, create that coffee,
00:26:14
create that lunch, sit down, think about unique ways that you
00:26:17
can engage them with video, with blogs, with articles.
00:26:21
You've got a unique perspective .
00:26:23
Use it and funnel that into getting face-to-face meetings.
00:26:27
Speaker 3: And I think you nailed it with like think of
00:26:29
social media if it doesn't work for you for awareness.
00:26:32
It's a nurturing and trust piece.
00:26:33
Utilize it the way it's benefiting you, don't force it
00:26:36
to be something.
00:26:37
It's not Same thing with like PR and getting articles now does
00:26:40
not create awareness.
00:26:41
There's too much content out there.
00:26:43
You kind of get the attention deficit world Like there's
00:26:46
billions of articles coming out every day.
00:26:47
You getting an article on Rolling Stone will not do
00:26:49
anything for you.
00:26:50
I literally had a TV show.
00:26:52
Did any of the three of you know that I had a TV show on
00:26:54
cable TV this past year?
00:26:55
I didn't Sitting here.
00:26:57
Wait.
00:26:57
Literally on a mainstream show was Cedric the Entertainer and
00:27:00
me building his barbecue brand.
00:27:02
This is on A&E like primetime great show, super fun, 12
00:27:07
episodes.
00:27:08
Speaker 5: Nobody saw it because Cedric the Entertainer and I
00:27:11
worked at the same Schnucks.
00:27:12
There you go, a grocery store in the middle of that, perfect,
00:27:16
and St Louis, it keeps your honor actually 100 months.
00:27:19
Speaker 3: Stop here, there you go and so yeah anyway.
00:27:22
So, that being said, I just had to tell you guys that I have a
00:27:25
TV show.
00:27:26
That's how ridiculous the world has gotten in terms of
00:27:28
attention.
00:27:28
So understand, I looked at it this way too.
00:27:31
I actually, when I signed up, I thought that this was going to
00:27:33
be a big thing, that it was going to get us a ton of
00:27:35
attention.
00:27:36
But thank you, tom.
00:27:37
But we ended up.
00:27:39
But now we have all these clips of, like Damon John introducing
00:27:43
me to Cedric the Entertainer, and telling him that I'm God's
00:27:45
gift to marketing.
00:27:45
Like the trust and validation that this created was huge and
00:27:49
so pivot it to be like, okay, that's the benefit of this.
00:27:51
It wasn't to create new awareness for the company, it
00:27:53
was to build trust.
00:27:54
So really identifying that's important too.
00:27:58
Speaker 4: That's really smart.
00:27:59
Yeah, and Tom, I know Tom's got to go, but for anyone else, you
00:28:03
know, I think people get stuck in Carson Excellent advice, go
00:28:07
and comment.
00:28:07
People say, well, I go and look at my target audience and we do
00:28:12
know that 98% of people on LinkedIn don't comment, don't
00:28:15
post very often, if at all.
00:28:17
And then a lot of them, when they do comment, it's things
00:28:20
that are like hey, look at our new brochure, look at our new
00:28:23
product.
00:28:24
Like how do I comment on it?
00:28:25
Go look and see who they're reading.
00:28:28
So go look and see who they've liked.
00:28:31
There's always the consultants, the authors, the influencers, if
00:28:34
you will, who produce content every day and your audience is
00:28:39
going and looking at their content and you can see by what
00:28:42
do they like and what do they comment.
00:28:43
Go comment on that stuff and you start using these digital
00:28:47
channels or LinkedIn, like what Eric saying, you stay top of
00:28:50
mind.
00:28:51
You're getting that credibility Because when you go and start
00:28:54
commenting on somebody who's very influential in a specific
00:28:57
industry and you're comment, you comment, you comment, you ring
00:29:00
their bell and you're commenting all the time.
00:29:02
Guess what you get implied?
00:29:04
I don't know what you call it endorsement.
00:29:06
You get applied authority and trust, because you're commenting
00:29:09
on that person's content all the time.
00:29:12
Speaker 3: Yep, totally agree.
00:29:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, early on, I started trying to gravitate
00:29:17
toward, you know, those folks that were out there doing what I
00:29:21
wanted to do or what I wanted to be known for, and it's almost
00:29:24
like setting up a billboard between your customer and their
00:29:27
destination, right?
00:29:28
So you're basically to Brandon's point.
00:29:31
I'm going to go out and I'm going to find, like in my case,
00:29:33
you know, I'm a firm practitioner of sales.
00:29:36
I spend a lot of time in the sales ecosystem working with
00:29:39
sellers and leaders, and so I gravitated toward people like
00:29:43
Jeb Blunt, mike Weinberg, jeffrey Gettimer and,
00:29:46
fascinatingly enough, you know, when you go in and you comment
00:29:49
on their threads to Brandon's point their followers will also
00:29:53
take notice of you.
00:29:54
But over time, what's even a more amazing is I've done shows
00:29:58
with all of those three and then some, so you never know where
00:30:02
it's going to go.
00:30:03
I've even gone so far as to reach out to customers, trying
00:30:08
to sound different than everybody else and stand out
00:30:10
from the noise and the attention deficit world, and instead of
00:30:13
asking them to a meeting where I can do a discovery about how we
00:30:17
might be able to add value to their organization, I've invited
00:30:20
them to be on my podcast to talk about leadership and
00:30:23
culture and things that matter to them, and then they've turned
00:30:25
into opportunities later.
00:30:27
But the relationship came first .
00:30:29
And that's what I think people should think about is how do I
00:30:32
create a relationship with this person?
00:30:34
Relationships to get deals it's not about you know, going after
00:30:38
the deal.
00:30:38
First and foremost, it's how can I best add value and
00:30:41
collaborate with this person.
00:30:42
You'll be surprised as to where these things can go.
00:30:47
Speaker 2: You know what I'm and tell me if you guys, if I'm
00:30:49
looking at this right, what I'm hearing everybody say here is
00:30:52
going back to the title of our show how to Get Attention and an
00:30:55
Attention Deficit World.
00:30:56
Getting attention is not an event, it's a journey and it's
00:31:00
something that has to continue and be sort of a perpetual
00:31:03
process versus, hey, I sent you a direct message and I got your
00:31:07
attention and you followed up.
00:31:08
And I think a lot of times you know even maybe Tom's question
00:31:11
earlier there's a lot of idea that, well, attention is an
00:31:14
event, I'm going to do something , I'm going to get your
00:31:16
attention and all of a sudden you're going to become riveted
00:31:18
on what I do.
00:31:19
It doesn't work that way, it's?
00:31:21
Am I hearing that right from what we're saying here?
00:31:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
00:31:26
Well, there's the initial attention, which is the
00:31:28
awareness piece we talked about.
00:31:29
There's no training, staying in front of people, Like people.
00:31:31
Again, the biggest thing I see missing in marketing is the idea
00:31:34
of a consideration for a sales cycle Like in sales it's so in
00:31:38
front of you it's hard to miss, like it's taking.
00:31:40
It takes people time to actually buy something.
00:31:42
You know most salespeople got this.
00:31:44
Marketers missed this, and so what you do during that period,
00:31:48
how you keep people coming through the funnel to the point
00:31:50
that they actually purchase, is super important and that's part
00:31:53
of that attention.
00:31:53
Keeping their attention is a big part of it, and then once
00:31:56
they're in, depending on the business, you probably want to
00:31:58
continue to keep their attention , to keep them coming back and
00:32:00
back.
00:32:02
Speaker 4: Hey, eric, I have a question for you.
00:32:04
I know, like we hear you, you're a machine, like you love
00:32:08
networking and that's kind of just in your DNA and what you do
00:32:11
.
00:32:11
What are some of the some of the ways you said there's
00:32:14
different systems you have and then people on your team kind of
00:32:17
create their own little strategy and what works best for
00:32:20
them.
00:32:20
What are some of those strategies that they use?
00:32:24
So, if you have somebody that's more in, like Tom Taylor shoes,
00:32:26
where you know he's a sales guys and he's working his butt
00:32:29
off trying to get more attention , what are some of those types
00:32:32
of tactics that producers are doing in your company?
00:32:36
Speaker 3: Honestly, a lot of the same.
00:32:37
They're all out of the offices, like half empty on the sales
00:32:40
right now, because they're all at different events.
00:32:41
They're going out and meeting people Again.
00:32:43
So we have a really big partner program too, where we, you know
00:32:46
, if you're not going to be a customer but you know a bunch of
00:32:48
people on the industry always make you a partner and a
00:32:50
referral partner.
00:32:50
So to meet both the best thing to do is go to all the different
00:32:55
events and there's just, we also are selling something that
00:32:57
like there is a massive total addressable market.
00:33:00
Like what who needs marketing?
00:33:02
Every single company in the country.
00:33:03
Like, so we can go to, you know , tomorrow I can go to a CPG
00:33:08
event.
00:33:08
Next week I can go to a commerce event.
00:33:10
Next week I can go to a farming event.
00:33:12
I was in Kansas City for farm con I key noted there in January
00:33:16
.
00:33:16
So, like, the industry size is really big.
00:33:20
So our people are networking in those industries, figuring out
00:33:23
where those spots are, where people have demand for what
00:33:25
we're doing and where we can actually make a difference.
00:33:27
And they're, you know, building those pipelines.
00:33:30
And what's nice is, once you build a few relationships in
00:33:32
those industries, now they're saying like, oh hey, I'm going
00:33:35
to this event tonight and one of this thing tomorrow, like that
00:33:37
is part of it.
00:33:38
But I do think that ground game like people think because of
00:33:40
COVID, we've replaced in person with digital and it's BS it's
00:33:44
not that, it's not even close.
00:33:45
And the reason we've had recent success is because we've really
00:33:50
ramped up our visibility at all these things, because that also
00:33:54
gets you over that trust hurdle way more.
00:33:55
You get a random email or random LinkedIn message.
00:33:58
You don't know who the hell this is, but you meet them in an
00:33:59
event.
00:33:59
There's just that little extra step of like your real person.
00:34:02
You know you're in the same room as me, okay, let's talk and
00:34:05
that little extra step actually could be a huge difference in
00:34:08
terms of bringing in business.
00:34:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, just to give an example of that, the last two
00:34:12
days I was in an event and I was there with a client.
00:34:15
But I also knew, going into it, that somebody who I've met on
00:34:21
LinkedIn had engaged with LinkedIn, use that to create a
00:34:25
call.
00:34:25
We had a zoom just to meet each other, no selling, just meeting
00:34:29
him, knew he was going to be there, went over to his booth,
00:34:33
met him, shook his hand, hung out with him a little bit, went
00:34:36
back, saw him again and then he said hey, what are you doing
00:34:39
tonight?
00:34:39
And I said I have any plans.
00:34:41
You know Atlanta's hometown for me I was just going to go home.
00:34:44
He's like well, why don't you come to this event with me?
00:34:46
And I said, sure, and I went to the event and while I'm there,
00:34:50
I met the CEO and the CRO of the company that was throwing the
00:34:54
event, hung out with them, got to know them, exchange cards,
00:34:58
connected with him on LinkedIn, and now I'm having conversations
00:35:01
with them next week as well.
00:35:03
This stuff, it's not, it's not hard.
00:35:05
We just got to keep doing it, just keep putting ourselves out
00:35:08
there.
00:35:08
And that's what, for me, started with come, you know,
00:35:11
publishing content on LinkedIn.
00:35:12
I can, you know share the story , the whole thing, the content.
00:35:17
I created somebody my client now notice me at another event
00:35:23
and came up and said, hey, you're Brandon, right?
00:35:25
And I said, yeah, he's like, I follow you on LinkedIn.
00:35:27
And I said, yeah, I'm doing your stuff.
00:35:29
I said, great, we had a coffee.
00:35:30
A month or two later he becomes a client.
00:35:32
Now I'm serving him at a show and then there's will is there
00:35:36
and then will introduces me to somebody.
00:35:38
All of that isn't hard, it's just work.
00:35:41
You know doing the work, put in the effort.
00:35:44
Speaker 5: You also can't be rigid in your expectations.
00:35:47
You know these things can go anywhere.
00:35:48
And that's a very great point, brandon, because you know if you
00:35:52
go in thinking, hey, this relationship has to look this
00:35:55
way, you might be disappointed.
00:35:57
But if you go in, you know, I spent the last few days at a
00:36:01
very large convention and I didn't know, going in, what it
00:36:04
was going to be like.
00:36:05
It was my first time attending it in my new role.
00:36:08
It looked different than it has in years past.
00:36:11
I went in completely open minded.
00:36:12
I did take business cards.
00:36:14
I always think it's funny because I always don't seem to
00:36:17
have business cards when I want them or need them.
00:36:19
But I actually did, just because it is good to have that
00:36:22
extra personal touch.
00:36:22
But you know, I think the long and short of it is you run into
00:36:26
people and if you think about it from the connection mindset,
00:36:29
how can I add value to this person, how can I introduce this
00:36:32
person?
00:36:33
and sometimes it's also about being very opportunistic.
00:36:35
If I see two people that could meaningfully connect, putting
00:36:39
them together and getting out of the way so the magic can happen
00:36:41
At the time, that's what you do and they will always remember
00:36:45
that hey, you were the person that put those folks together.
00:36:48
So I think it's always look at how can I, how can I invest in a
00:36:52
relationship, no matter what that might look like, even if
00:36:55
it's just putting two people together that might be able to
00:36:57
go out and do beautiful things together.
00:36:59
Speaker 3: Yep.
00:37:01
Speaker 4: And that's Eric's earlier point.
00:37:03
They may not need you now and they may not need you in three
00:37:06
years, but maybe they need you in five years.
00:37:08
But it could very easily be three months where they may hear
00:37:11
somebody talking about a need and go.
00:37:13
You know what you got to call Carson.
00:37:15
That's what Carson does like all of this stuff, it's just
00:37:17
creating that opportunity.
00:37:18
We just got to be consistent.
00:37:22
Speaker 2: Sounds like a flywheel, Brandon.
00:37:23
Sounds like a flywheel to me.
00:37:25
So, hey, I want to transition a little bit over this.
00:37:32
Is you know, Eric?
00:37:33
Questions we get all the time.
00:37:34
Is you know what about AI?
00:37:36
Right, how do we use AI?
00:37:38
Is AI going to change the game, especially as it relates to get
00:37:41
attention?
00:37:41
I know you mentioned in your intro you said you're working on
00:37:45
, or have an AI platform.
00:37:46
Can you explain a little bit what you're doing with AI and
00:37:50
then your thoughts in general about how you believe AI will
00:37:54
really change the game or impact the game or affect the game,
00:37:58
especially in this attention deficit world?
00:38:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:38:01
So I thankfully came across AI and the idea of what was coming
00:38:06
like eight, nine years ago, and I mean more the actual pragmatic
00:38:10
.
00:38:10
We all saw Terminator, but we, and so I realized pretty quick
00:38:16
that that was probably going to be the biggest innovation to
00:38:18
disrupt what we do as on the marketing side, and so.
00:38:22
But what I also realized was I'm not going to be the guy to
00:38:24
build chat, gpt or Gemini or these things like.
00:38:27
I don't have billions and billions of funding to go build
00:38:29
AI and nor am I the engineer to lead it, and so.
00:38:32
But I so I was like okay, well, let's assume that world exists
00:38:35
in the next decade, what do I need to do to have a strategic
00:38:38
advantage?
00:38:39
And what I found was well, the other piece of the eye is
00:38:42
educating it.
00:38:42
Like, how do I do that?
00:38:42
Like, how do I teach it so that it cannot?
00:38:46
I can have that advantage, and so that comes from data, and I
00:38:49
think data gets overused.
00:38:50
But in my case, we have all the insights on what works and
00:38:53
doesn't in marketing and how to do great marketing.
00:38:56
Now all I need is the data to educate, like, what is happening
00:38:59
in real time?
00:38:59
Where are people succeeding?
00:39:00
What does success look like?
00:39:01
So I can actually measure an individual company against the
00:39:04
benchmarks, basically, and then advise on how to do better and
00:39:08
target that way when you're through it.
00:39:09
What that meant again in sort of a tactical level is I need a
00:39:13
ton of data in real time.
00:39:14
So, starting I think it was about eight, nine years ago
00:39:18
started digesting tons of companies marketing, media and
00:39:21
revenue data and at this point we have over 8 brands
00:39:24
marketing, media and revenue data running through our pipes
00:39:26
in real time.
00:39:26
We've done tests on it compared to the market at large and it's
00:39:30
actually statistically significant.
00:39:31
So we can actually use our data to see how Facebook is moving,
00:39:35
how Google is moving, how Shopify is moving all these
00:39:38
things which then, when we plug in an individual company into
00:39:40
that, we immediately can see where is their opportunity, like
00:39:43
, oh look, they can make 20% more money if they just fix
00:39:46
these three things like that, versus what traditionally would
00:39:50
be a CMO pulling their hair out, running through data, trying to
00:39:52
figure out what to even look at and sorry, but most marketers
00:39:56
are not that bright so most don't ever figure it out and
00:39:59
they run down the wrong path forever.
00:40:02
Now we have objective measurement of.
00:40:03
This.
00:40:04
Is where you're failing compared to the market.
00:40:05
This is what we can focus on and, by the way, here's how much
00:40:08
money the opportunity is worth.
00:40:10
And so that's been the way we've leveraged AI, because we
00:40:13
have that now plugged into all our clients in real time, so we
00:40:15
always know where the best use of time is.
00:40:17
This is where we can make 100 grand and this is where we can
00:40:19
make 20,.
00:40:19
This is where we can make a million.
00:40:21
So we're going to go focus on the million dollars and fix that
00:40:23
.
00:40:23
That is what we spend our time on and we know that compared to,
00:40:27
again, the market, which we've already validated as
00:40:29
statistically significant.
00:40:30
So we know exactly where your shortcomings are and that's how
00:40:33
we've leveraged it and chatGPT's plugged into that.
00:40:36
So you've leveraged the large language model which all chatGPT
00:40:39
is.
00:40:39
It's just a language model.
00:40:41
It just makes it feel sentient, which is where we're at.
00:40:45
We're not going to have true AI for another five to ten years,
00:40:48
but we have things that feel like AI, which, if you read Ray
00:40:50
Kurzweil, who's one of the biggest thought readers in that
00:40:53
space, he literally called this a decade ago.
00:40:55
He said by 2018, computers will process at the level of a mouse
00:41:00
brain.
00:41:00
I think it was by 22 it'll be level of a human brain and by
00:41:03
2023 we'll start to have things that mimic AI, that look like AI
00:41:08
.
00:41:08
And that's where we're at.
00:41:09
And he said by 2029 we'll have true AI.
00:41:11
And I think he keeps changing that last piece of the timeline,
00:41:15
but it's again.
00:41:16
It's five, ten years.
00:41:17
We should have what looks like AI.
00:41:20
Speaker 2: So you're aggregating data from multiple, from all of
00:41:23
your customers, taking that aggregated data, looking at the
00:41:26
benchmarks and then comparing it individually.
00:41:28
So we only have let's say, about 500 active customers.
00:41:31
Speaker 3: It's also past customers, it's partners, it's
00:41:34
all sorts of other data sets and we've built out a lot of other
00:41:37
data than just who we're working with.
00:41:40
Speaker 2: And did you build your own model or are you just
00:41:42
using that to tune existing models?
00:41:44
Or?
00:41:44
Okay, interests, yeah, we built our own model.
00:41:47
Speaker 3: Now again, chat GPT from the language side of it so
00:41:49
you can just have a conversation with it.
00:41:51
We use their language model, but from an algorithm model for
00:41:55
what's working, what's not, the actual insights part that we
00:41:57
built based on.
00:41:58
Again, that's where our proprietary information and our
00:42:01
skill set came in, where it's like we know what to be looking
00:42:04
for and what matters.
00:42:05
So we you know tons of interviews with our marketing
00:42:08
execution team and our tech team to figure out what that should
00:42:10
look like.
00:42:13
Speaker 5: I think, it's a course you know Eric kind of
00:42:15
pointed out that you know the concept of AI is not new.
00:42:18
I mean, we've leveraged lead scoring and things like that for
00:42:22
years.
00:42:22
It kind of points us toward where there might be some
00:42:25
propensity or there might be some lower ish hanging fruit,
00:42:28
but one of the things that I become fascinated about it it
00:42:31
might make for a good episode.
00:42:32
You know, I'd love to hear from our audience like how they're
00:42:34
continuing to leverage some of these AI technologies in order
00:42:38
to improve their efficiencies or gather data.
00:42:42
I think it's fascinating that in real time, you know, I can be
00:42:46
on a customer call with someone and combing their LinkedIn
00:42:49
profile or combing their company website and they're about me
00:42:52
and funnel that directly into a chat GPT model and ask it to
00:42:57
come up with some just conversation prompts, things
00:42:59
that I could ask, based on what matters to that person and that
00:43:02
organization.
00:43:03
It's not about me, it's not about my company, it's about it.
00:43:06
In fact, I tell my team all the time don't even mention
00:43:08
products or solutions.
00:43:09
Let's try to uncover what might matter to this organization and
00:43:14
how, with my vast amount of resources, I'd be able to be of
00:43:17
better value to them.
00:43:18
One other thing that we're doing a ton right now because we
00:43:22
talk all the time about this and I work in an environment
00:43:24
where I've got a lot of customers and we're probably
00:43:28
talking to consistently 20, 30% of them.
00:43:31
Right, it's impossible to really effectively scale, or is
00:43:35
it?
00:43:35
So we're going out and we're trying to find ways, and I've
00:43:38
talked on this show before how we create newsletter lists and
00:43:41
build community around what we do.
00:43:43
But one of the things that's really advantageous that we've
00:43:45
leveraged AI for recently is you can go out to a company's
00:43:49
website.
00:43:49
You can feed there about me into the chat.
00:43:52
Gpt have it talk about how your organization might be able to
00:43:57
be a more valuable partner to these organizations.
00:44:00
On the flip side of that, a lot of times my organization, my
00:44:03
team, we're beholden to these very siloed conversations
00:44:07
because historically we've been a technology company, so we get
00:44:09
stuck in IT or procurement.
00:44:11
But the real transformation happens with chief strategy
00:44:14
officers, chief financial officers and if I'm going out
00:44:17
and creating those relationships , if you go out and you do an
00:44:21
internet search for the email address configuration of an
00:44:25
organization, it will tell you with 80 to 90 percent accuracy.
00:44:28
You can guess what anybody's email address is based on their
00:44:31
sales navigator when you pull these folks up by title, so
00:44:34
going out and finding like 20 executives that you can message
00:44:37
very quickly with that type of a message.
00:44:39
It's law of averages If I message 20 executives or
00:44:42
something that sounds interesting to them, I'll
00:44:44
probably get a meeting, and I've been doing that left and right
00:44:47
over the last few weeks and it's been working like gangbusters.
00:44:50
So food for thought about how you can leverage AI to
00:44:53
meaningfully show up with something that matters to your
00:44:55
customer.
00:44:56
Yeah, I agree.
00:44:59
Speaker 2: So, as we wrap up here maybe I think a good way to
00:45:03
kind of wrap up here would love to hear from all of us really
00:45:08
what would be if we could give sort of one tactic or strategy
00:45:12
to people about as it relates to getting and keeping attention
00:45:16
right, attracting and retaining attention.
00:45:18
What would that be, Not only now, but what we think is going
00:45:24
to really be a key tactic or strategy for the next, you know,
00:45:27
at least the rest of the year in the next year ahead.
00:45:30
Speaker 3: For me it's.
00:45:31
I mean again the tactics have a post on social media, stand top
00:45:34
of email, stand in front of people, do everything you can.
00:45:37
But it's the number one thing I think is sustainability.
00:45:39
Like do something you can do all the time, consistently,
00:45:42
forever, Like there's no finish line, Like I've been running
00:45:46
Hawk for a decade.
00:45:47
Nothing's changed.
00:45:48
In that sense, In fact, I look at like other ways to add to it,
00:45:51
other ways to step it up, other ways to improve it, but I've
00:45:53
never taken my foot off the gas, which I can do that because I
00:45:57
created it in a sustainable way.
00:45:58
What I'm not like good example is I'm not the guy that's
00:46:01
filming you know 30 second videos every day on marketing
00:46:04
tips because I don't have the time, Like I'm not going to.
00:46:07
I'm not like I've looked at strategies that other people do
00:46:09
and I go.
00:46:10
That's awesome.
00:46:10
The essays people write on LinkedIn.
00:46:12
That works for them.
00:46:13
I don't have the time or energy to go write an essay every
00:46:17
night to post on LinkedIn, so I'm not doing that Now other
00:46:20
people will do that.
00:46:20
So I think that's right and I go back to do the things that you
00:46:23
can do consistently, because the drum roll is what wins, not the
00:46:26
spike of like, oh, now you're posting, Like it's the years Joe
00:46:30
Rogan had his podcast.
00:46:31
For what?
00:46:31
Seven years before he got the sort of spike that he had, Like
00:46:35
that's and that's the pinnacle seven years of content every
00:46:39
week.
00:46:39
So like, yeah, you just got to do it for a long time.
00:46:42
It's the same thing with my podcast, or a hundred and
00:46:44
something episodes, and now it's starting to hockey stick.
00:46:45
You know it.
00:46:46
Just, you just got to commit and know that, like, in the long
00:46:49
run, that'll probably be worth it.
00:46:52
Speaker 2: Awesome, Brandon.
00:46:54
What's your take?
00:46:57
Speaker 4: You know, I feel like I'm an apperent.
00:46:58
I think, just because we're so LinkedIn centric, I would say
00:47:06
get out of your own way A lot of people by saying we tried
00:47:09
LinkedIn before and it didn't work, and realize that things
00:47:14
have changed a lot.
00:47:15
And when we're talking LinkedIn , I mean you know we talk about
00:47:19
looking at LinkedIn through the lens like a conference.
00:47:22
It's a 24, seven, 365 conference.
00:47:24
How do you act and behave and what are your goals at a
00:47:27
conference?
00:47:28
Do those things inside of LinkedIn, you know meet people,
00:47:33
create conversations, exchange business cards.
00:47:35
You don't pitch people as soon as you meet them.
00:47:38
So that whole old school mindset around LinkedIn being a thing
00:47:43
that we can just go blast people and, by the way, if blast is
00:47:45
still in your vocabulary, stop it.
00:47:47
Nobody, nobody.
00:47:49
You're not going to win by blasting anybody, so just stop
00:47:52
it.
00:47:52
But yeah, I think, from a LinkedIn centric standpoint at
00:47:56
least and it really applies to any other medium or channel you
00:48:00
may use it's about offering value and having conversations,
00:48:05
meeting people and building those healthy relationships.
00:48:08
The selling will come.
00:48:09
Trust the process, stop being in such a hurry, stop looking at
00:48:14
everybody with a target on their back and enjoy the process
00:48:18
, and I actually find you sell more Like my.
00:48:20
Inbound leads are so much better now because it's people
00:48:24
that when they're ready they come and talk to me.
00:48:26
But if I tried selling them when I talked to them, I never
00:48:30
would have got them to come back when they were ready.
00:48:34
Speaker 2: Great point.
00:48:35
Speaker 5: The things that have helped me tremendously with
00:48:38
getting attention and keeping attention are standing out from
00:48:41
the crowd and the noise, doing it in a unique way, finding ways
00:48:45
that aren't being leveraged all the time, like video and
00:48:48
personalized outreach to folks focused on the relationship.
00:48:53
Also, taking that multi-channel approach we talk about
00:48:56
sometimes on here, like having that diversified portfolio, like
00:48:59
a stock portfolio.
00:49:00
You don't bet it all on LinkedIn or email or cold calls.
00:49:03
You find where's your audience and you find meaningful ways to
00:49:06
engage them.
00:49:07
Eric, it's something that's got to be said again and it's the
00:49:10
consistency element.
00:49:11
You don't go out and just started to create relationships
00:49:14
once and it works and you're done.
00:49:16
I mean this is a constant deposit that you're making.
00:49:19
That's why I've leveraged passive education models like
00:49:22
newsletters and webinars, where, when they're ready to work with
00:49:25
us, they will, and then you start to hear from them and
00:49:28
they'll react and respond.
00:49:29
And then staying at the pulse of what matters to people as you
00:49:33
have these conversations react and respond to that right, be
00:49:37
responsive, but stay at the pulse of what matters, stay
00:49:40
informed, read up on whatever industry you're focused on.
00:49:43
Those types of things are super , super important.
00:49:46
And just making sure that you're being provocative
00:49:50
sometimes.
00:49:50
Ask questions, engage people with caring about their thoughts
00:49:54
as opposed to just talking about your own.
00:49:56
Yes, tell your stories and share your experiences, but ask
00:50:00
them to share theirs as well.
00:50:01
And sometimes I've found the best relationships from sharing
00:50:05
learnings from losses or bad experiences, by showing up as my
00:50:11
authentic self as opposed to just acting like everything is
00:50:14
always gravy.
00:50:16
I think finding the relationships based on common
00:50:20
ground is a great way to build a foundation.
00:50:24
Speaker 4: Can you tell them before you end this?
00:50:25
Can I echo one more thing, just because I think it's worth
00:50:28
repeating, and both Eric and Carson did say this in slightly
00:50:32
different ways Find what works for you.
00:50:34
Find your creative ways, but find what works for you.
00:50:37
There's so many people on any social or anything, saying this
00:50:43
is the way you do things.
00:50:44
It may work for them, but if it's not your style, don't do it
00:50:49
.
00:50:49
If you don't like writing content, don't be a blogger.
00:50:53
You don't like being on video, then don't use video.
00:50:56
But if you love those things, you prefer to talk than write,
00:50:59
well, then figure out ways to talk.
00:51:01
If sending messages to people, you can send an audio message in
00:51:06
LinkedIn, you can send a video message in LinkedIn or you can
00:51:08
write it.
00:51:09
Find the one that works for you .
00:51:10
Don't pair it with what a bunch of other people said works for
00:51:13
them.
00:51:14
Find it, try it, test it.
00:51:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and my take tonight is kind of what you're
00:51:21
saying, Brandon, but I'm going to go with a little bit of a
00:51:24
mindset issue.
00:51:25
How many people do we hear all the time ask us the question I
00:51:29
need more pipeline, I need more demos, I need more whatever.
00:51:34
From a mindset perspective, what you really need is you need
00:51:39
more high quality attention.
00:51:41
I think the biggest tactic I can say is look at the world
00:51:46
from this attention first perspective and then do what you
00:51:49
guys just said, which is, do what you do well to attract
00:51:53
attention.
00:51:53
But if you're not thinking in terms of attention and you're
00:51:57
thinking in deals or pipeline or demos or whatever, you're most
00:52:02
likely going to get, if anything , negative attention or no
00:52:05
attention at all.
00:52:07
And then even just what Al was saying here, right, this ties
00:52:11
into what you all have said love it, inform it not sell, Inform
00:52:15
not sell.
00:52:15
And that's how you will get the attention as you go forward.
00:52:22
Speaker 4: That was awesome, Eric.
00:52:23
I know we're wrapping up.
00:52:25
This was excellent, Absolutely excellent.
00:52:28
Every time I think we've hit our best show, then we end up
00:52:30
having something else.
00:52:31
I think the content, the meat of it.
00:52:33
Eric, anyone out there that wants to reach out to you, to
00:52:38
your company, learn more about you.
00:52:39
Where should they go?
00:52:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you want to get some help on the
00:52:44
marketing side, hawkmediacom is easy H-A-W-K-E media, but we're
00:52:48
on LinkedIn.
00:52:49
I'm on pretty much every social channel adder slash or Cuban,
00:52:52
so pretty easy to find.
00:52:56
Speaker 2: Yeah Well, thank you, Eric.
00:52:56
Really appreciate you being here.
00:52:58
Carson Brandon, any final thoughts before we wrap here?
00:53:01
No, this is Graham Mark, good to see you.
00:53:05
I want to say hello to Mark and good to see him here.
00:53:09
Mark's our friend from IBM, so we've got some big headers here
00:53:13
as well.
00:53:13
So, Carson, take us home.
00:53:16
Speaker 5: Eric, thank you, Audience, thank you and until
00:53:19
next time happy, modern selling.
00:53:21
Thanks everyone, Bye everybody.
00:53:30
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00:53:33
Selling.
00:53:33
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