For our fourth episode of the new Live Lunch Break format, we talked about how DISC can help you shift your focus in sales. After checking in with everybody's week, the conversation shifts to the things we've started looking at to keep our pipelines full. Things we didn't put as much thought into in the past. Because of the way things have changed, shifting your focus may be important to your ability to thrive right now. Communication has always been key in sales, but it continues to grow in importance when our ways of communicating are changing, maybe permanently. And the strengths from your DISC profile or the profiles of your team could help you significantly with that shift. If you haven't taken a full DISC assessment and would like to know more about those strengths, email us at DISC@salesthrowdown.com. It can make all the difference for both you and your team! ✅ Sign up for our emails: https://www.salesthrowdown.com/ ✅ Connect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Salesthrowdown ✅ Check us out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salesthrowdown/ ✅ And keep up with us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SalesThrowdown
Let's get ready to Throwdown.
Welcome, everybody. We're having some technical issues. So unfortunately we can't push this live to Facebook, which will be fixed before next week. But the zoom information is out there, you should have it. So if you want to hop in, hop in with us here, it'll also be dripped out later. So what's going on this week, everybody, I closed a couple of deals of business and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Congratulations. Good job.
Thank you both. Put out put out a, like a pretty big offer into my network and said, Hey, like, I'm willing to do this if people have it. And you know, some people came out and have some good conversations. I've been doing a lot of my actual kind of discovery on Messenger. So it's like chatty, and then moving it as late as possible to a phone call for the presentation and that's been working pretty well for me. But it's me having to adjust down to selling to people who were, you know, younger than I am, right which is important for because most of my market is younger than I am. So they want to let let it live in Messenger and via chat and everything else like that. So I'm letting allowing that to happen. And then taking a break at some point in the conversation saying like, Hey, I gotta go, let's come back to this tomorrow. Can we hop on a call? And that's been working for me pretty well. What about for you guys?
So, uh, for me, Nannette, and the surgeries have started, so I'm really excited. So I've seen a lot of you know, it's kind of like I'm going back and getting organized.
Can you stop chewing the chips please, please, Al?
My apologies. I'm the old guy in the group, shit. Sorry.
No, it's alright. So I think we should share. I think we should share what Clint said earlier before we started recording. So Al is the person Clint said this Al is the person on the plane to open up a can of salmon.
No, no, no, no, no, I My apologies that you guys were hearing too much in my crunch. I'm just, I'm starving and anyway.
So yeah, so we're, are hospitals like back to normal as far as like getting into the war has anything changed in the process or anything else?
Oh yeah, I don't think we're totally back to complete normal but it's started...
Excuse me, they put in a bunch of extra, like where the reps are not to be in the room they got to be out waiting to be called in which I don't think it's really going to work well. It's hospital, the hospital. So the initial knee jerk reaction is to set up all these parameters because we're doing it right. But doing it right unfortunately, you know, you get it on one end, but you suffer on the other because we need to be in there immediately if he's got somebody that if you hit a vein or an artery and you're bleeding and something doesn't work, and it's just mass confusion sometimes so you have to be there right there to say, Hey, don't do that, do this. So you can't, five minutes into the room, you've got a live patient, there's a big gash in their back that you're trying to put nuts, bolts and screws in it. So it doesn't work on all these surgeries. And I think there's some grumblings about needing to modify some of that. So but other than that patients are lining up, you know, patients health care, their situations haven't changed drastically with COVID. They haven't gotten any healthier or any better. So, you know, they just had to wait a little longer for these elective surgeries.
So are you focused on kind of nurturing the existing relationships? Or are you really focused on generating new relationships right now?
No nurturing the existing relationships because those pipelines were already set to go. From the clinical standpoint, we saw over 100 patients yesterday at the offices, so our volume has ramped up because other offices were closed. They haven't really come back online and not not across the board. I mean, a lot of them have come back, but we're finding more and more just on limited number of access and not taking on new patients. Some of these people are staying status quo. Well, that's that's brought us more business in in the clinical side of things.
Interesting. What about for you, Clint, what are you working on this week?
I mean, we closed a few big deals that have been in the balance for, you know, three, four months, and they'll really carry us through in our backlog. So, you know, surprisingly right now, I'm double the backlog that I projected on the regular year before COVID. So our backlogs, great. We're killing it there. Getting, getting the projects going and started bringing revenue in the door is the issue. Right? Because everybody's still just not really sure what to do. You know, with this whole deal. So, you know, I think that coming out of this, we're looking good, looking ahead of schedule. But I'm ready for it to just be over so we can all, you know, get back to business. And you know, and in this state at least we're, you know, in Texas, it's reopening faster than most. So, a little excited.
When So, does everything hit backlog or do certain projects not hit backlog and they fall into some other category? For you?
Yeah, we, we've got a few. I mean, some of them are, you know, bid them and start tomorrow. So, you know, obviously, those go straight into the revenue stream. But yeah, for, you know, most cases, most of your stuff is in backlog at least, you know, four to five weeks. Okay, you know, so go ahead, go ahead. No, good, good, Clint, some of those jobs, you know, you're talking about a year and a half to two year final closeout. So, you know, you're talking backlog, going into maybe even 2022 at this point, you know, some of that, you know, maybe maybe it's only $500,000. But you know, we should got the doors open in 2022. Absolutely.
Clint brought up a point where he said, you know, we tend to be opening a little quicker in, in this area, meaning state of Texas. But I have my I have some concerns because we had our first patient put on a ventilator this week. And we she was a cancer patient. So she had some comorbidities. We also have seen more positive tests. We've got people that are quarantining for 14 days, because they just tested positive, and we're getting the antibody tests 250 of them next week, so we can do the blood and determine whether you have antibodies or antigens built up against it. And we have a lot of people, I'm still thinking, we've got to have more testing out there. People need to know where they stand. And if it's testing every day before you go to the mall or to the to your job. I mean, this is such an easy if we would just put all our efforts into understanding where this virus lives. And who's it in? I think we could I think people will self quarantine, we've had nobody say Screw it, I'm just gonna go infect everybody. But there's a lot of doubt and we've had limited capabilities of being able to give people answers. Um, so I think it's all about information. And I hate that the economy shut down. No, I'm a small business guy. It won't take much to put me out of business. We've been fortunate. But but but, you know, I want the I want the state open. You know, and I think there are a lot of healthy people out there that just need to know Do I have the antigens? And even if you do, there's the precaution of, we're not sure what next season looks like, but you seem to be doing okay now. I don't know. That's that that's, that's my biggest frustration with running a business in dealing with COVID-19 right now.
Yeah, I'm kind of in , I'm kind of in that same boat because my day to day hasn't really changed and terribly much right so I am not in that group that people that have to go out and, you know, drive to work or you know, are essential and so they're out there and around and everything else like that. So fairly lucky in that instance. But, you know, I'm also concerned right because as of now our state's back open, right. So, you know, I'm getting hit up from you know, like, my, my jujitsu school like hey, you know, when are you coming back? Probably June. You know, the guy, the guy who cuts My hair is like, trying to get me on board for an appointment. And I'm like, I'm just, I'm just letting this thing grow.
Yeah, we see we can see that.
He figures he's got at least a good six months worth of work out of you.
Here. Here's the dilemma. We get back that first haircut's a whooping on him and he's like, like trimming trees up and snip instead of
Well, it's like that's like cutting the toenails on Dumb and Dumber, you know, the grinder.
Well, I hired a lawn care service as you know, as soon as grass started growing again and they came out and they charge me double because like the grass was too long so yeah, hopefully that doesn't happen when I go back to the you know, the barber.
That's that's who you need to cut your hair.
Yeah, they had the same tools and the way that things grow and man that's more like a bush than a head of hair.
So yeah, I do I do have something I'm curious about with you guys and your businesses. Have you guys seen personalities really flare because we used to talk about that a lot in the beginning of our podcasts was uh, you know, when you get stressed out and you get to that corner, you know, your real personality flares and I'm noticing that a lot even just in my co workers, my customers, even in myself, you know, you get you feel your backs against the wall so your true personalities are coming out. And I think it's a good reveal, you know, to be honest with you.
Yeah, I mean, I can't speak for everybody else. But I have retreated pretty harshly into like, critical, you know, Vulcan mindsets of just like data and facts, data and facts. And partially is just, it's just like a bandwidth issue. Because, you know, with everything that's going on, like, what do you trust in the news? And who do you trust for information and stuff like that? And for all these. Yeah, some people.
I knew you would.
But like, so, like, some people are pulling up these like data points that are just like, ridiculous. I'm like, have you ever done like an actual, like, experiment, or done anything with like, some actual data to it? Because, you know, finding one case in a haystack isn't indicative of, you know, a conspiracy or anything else like this, it means that someone maybe made a mistake. So like, Are you Are you mad because like, there's cause Are you mad, just get mad kind of deal. And so that's kind of pushed me back into more of like facts and figures and logic, but then also just not knowing right? Like, what do I have control over right? I have control over facts and figures and logic and expectations. So let's go back to that stuff. I don't really know that was serving me very well. But if I feel better.
I, you know, I see some of it, you know, in my staff. But we've kept that to a minimum because we've said, hey, look, you have your job you need you have, you have something to be thankful for. Right? This could be harder on us, we're in an industry that will potentially survive better than most. So we preset to our staff. But you know, I have, you know, reaching out to other business owners and other colleagues. I think if you felt any, any little bit of disenfranchised in your career, in your social life, in any of these different arenas, this has compounded that, right? If you weren't really doing as well as what the economy was projecting, right, because we're on this big rocket to the sky, and everything was going great, but that's not, that doesn't mean everybody's business was going great, right? So if you had any kind of struggles in a really good environment, maybe you made some bad choices, maybe if you spent too much money or whatever it may be, this then compounds what you are already doing, right. Um, and then stack on top of it that, you know, we've got, you know, close to 30 million people that literally got furloughed laid off. They don't have any real and here's what happens every time guys, I'm going to tell you because I've been through this. We learn as business owners to do more with less. And then labor...
That's a word.
And then labor becomes cheap, meaning I can hire a guy cuz he will work for less because he does not have a job. He has all the qualifications. So now you got more people than you have jobs, what happens then? Its supply and demand just like everything else. Yeah. And that's frustrating. And I, I completely understand it. But I can, you know, it's easy to easy to define as well.
So I'm curious for you, Clint, I mean, being being a D, and then also being, you know, a leader of a sales team, you know, we've kind of talked in the past about how some of that doesn't always, that the D-ness has kind of has to soften up sometimes so that you can be nurturing and like actually there and help, as opposed to just screw you, I'm going to run with the ball. Like, are you having to fight that in yourself right now?
Um, no, I think, I think all the times that she, you know, we say D-up a little bit, but this is kind of a time where you've got to make some hard decisions. So we can't chase that right now. We don't have the bandwidth, like, you've got to drop that deal. Whereas, you know, three, four months ago, you can be a little more compassionate and understanding, hey, you know, we've got, you know, we've got people not doing anything, so we can just do that as a trial or we can kind of go on a fishing expedition in that market. And you can't do that right now. At least, we can't. You know, so it's really getting down to you know, when people want to do something versus have to do something, somebody's got to be there to kind of make that decision. So, so I'm not really fine at that much but I will tell you that, you know, the personality flares from everybody is a little more I see a lot more compassion from everybody from all walks of life. You know, everybody's going through the same thing you know, this isn't like it's a you know, this markets good and that markets bad and I'm in the good one and you're in the bad one. So I don't have any compassion for you. Everybody's in the same economy. Everybody's in the same crisis. So I see a lot more compassion in everybody.
Gosh I hope so.
intel
But i think that i think that'll go away soon. You know, I think that once it once it flips, it's gonna you're gonna go right back to even maybe even worse than it was right? Because people are going to be really hungry and take advantage. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, you know, I've seen the same thing Clint, and I know Nan and I've spoke about this is, you know, there's more Hey, how are you doing with the real emphasis on how are you doing? I am concerned. And and so that statement has means a little bit more these days because some people are struggling and particularly if you're not struggling you're still way concerned about your well being, how long can you stay on survive? What happens if next week, you know, numbers start to go down or I I start to lose some traction on my end, because it's incredibly difficult to go gain traction in these markets. It's just not there. And so you're, you're you're clutching onto what little you have, hoping that it doesn't go away. And it's a hard place to be.
Yeah, and so you know, some of you know pre-qualifying questions that we give to our customers and even our customers give back to us as you know, before we give you this job, how are you guys know, what's your manpower? You know, where are you guys? how busy are you when this projects going on if we give this to you, and you know, before those were checking the box questions that they had to do to get on paper, you know, to get on record. So if you fail, they had that to fall back on. And now it's a little more like you were saying, Doc, it's you really feel it in there. It's like, Hey, you know, I'm really concerned about you guys, because you guys did have to downgrade you guys don't have the manpower that you used to once have. And, and can you do this job? And if you can, let's talk about that. And if you can't, let's talk about that, too. So there's a little bit more open ended questioning now, you know, with real answers than there was three months ago.
Hmm. Interesting. Nan,
And I'm seeing some of that. So yeah.
With what's going on with your stuff. Like is it is it harder to remain attentive and have relevant conversations with the surgeons whenever you can't go into the O R.
No, um I, so the entire time that we've been in this situation, I've it's just been via text message, a few phone calls. So it's not like there's been a lot of one on one conversation, you know, in front of each other, which is fine it, but what it has made me look at is I need to really get out there and build more relationships like that. Because if this does happen again, you know, I don't want to be in the circumstance of I only have a few people that I can reach out at that level. So I really want to get it and when we were talking about when you were talking about just different personalities, this subject that Clint brought up. I was thinking, you know, being an S i really like when we have you know, everybody's symbiotic relationships. Well, I just think this whole thing has escalated the whole, you know, hate to bring it up but the whole republican/democrat, you know, the whole and again being an S, I would like to have everyone be symbiotic and try to figure out how to heal this whole situation. But I think the proclivity for everyone is to jump on what they when they think they're right. I mean, across the board people have one opinion now even stronger, nobody's really going okay, well let's try to figure out how to where I mean, I think people want to feel that way. But when you get nervous about a situation I think it draws you to defense you know, and I'm so I've seen a lot of that. So I and I'm really trying to just step up step by step back even with some of my white knights that I'll talk be talking to them and they'll bring up something I'm like, okay, step back. You know, it is about choices of you. You have to choose sometimes you just keep mouth shut, you know, you know, I've talked about that a lot, you know, don't go in there and just think you have to win the situation. Just go Okay, you know, I understand how you feel. And sometimes you shouldn't even say that. I think a lot of times I preach this all the time. A lot of times just hold your tongue, you know, because people are really defensive right now. I think what everyone was saying you when you get nervous about your job, what's going on in the government? What's going on? I mean, people get nervous and get a little riled up and you do. I think an S is always going to be a little bit better off because you know, you're not trying to be the I and go Hey, or be the D and go this is the way it is, or be the C and say I have I've got the answers. I've got the facts. Well, when you're that's your facts. You know, everybody has a different fact. You know, that's an I know Al might argue with that maybe even Clint, but I think you have to be respectful of other people's opinions. Especially when things are difficult.
Yeah, you know, to that point Nan, you know, you talk a lot about DISC and so have I. And the rest of us has talked a lot of. John, will you give kind of a quick rundown for people that maybe haven't joined us from the beginning? Can you give us a quick DISC rundown just so everybody knows what D, I, S, and C is?
Absolutely, so we sit on the four different quadrants of this. So Clint is our D, D stands for dominant, they are really great at accomplishing tasks, they are not very people driven. They are they're gonna lead with their gut. So you see, these people tend to be entrepreneurs, you know, C-suite executives and things like that, because they're very good at making decisions and have a have a history of making good decisions. Al is our I, which stands for influencer, these these people are more people driven than Clint are, than Clint is, excuse me. So you know, rapport, getting along with people, influential, they need to be the center of attention. They have their stories, you know, and they also don't really love conflict. Clint loves conflict most these two because they just don't care eyes because of people driven don't like conflict as much. Now Al does a really good job of being able to shift more towards that D side because he's been an owner for so long. But Al in party mode is straight up I. Straight up I. We have we have Nannette, who's our who's our S. S stands for steady motivator steady relator. And essentially they are people driven like the I, but they are not going to be gut driven like the I is, right I's and D's are gut driven, S's and C's are going to be fact driven. So what that means is they don't like conflict, they're not going to get into big heated conflicts over opinions, which is kind of what we heard Nan just talking about a moment ago. And they want everybody to get along. And then you have me, I'm a C, right. So C's are very focused on facts, logic, it has to make sense. Let's dig into all of this stuff, very clear expectations. And so what we see is when when you're not under any pressure, you can move pretty fluidly between these states at least once you kind of have an idea of where they are and where you hang out normally and stuff like that. But under pressure we kind of retreat back to our our entrenched positions right of data for me, decision making for, for Clint, some of that for Al. But But as you know, when you look at an AI who doesn't have as much D in them as Al does, you know, they're normally very attached to any shiny thing, right? They're not super focused. They're not really historically great at doing the day to day, this is not meant to be bad. We all have our
No no, I was gonna say yeah, that. You know, the key to some of this John's talking about though is being able to reach out and get a C to help you with in some of the weaker areas, having an S, having a D. So when you surround yourselves and you know, because if it was a roomful of I's, we'd be screwed. So in my in my group, and I'm sure Clint and John can all speak to this. We have people who help shore up are deficiencies and we are not so entrenched in who we are to not be able to slide that's part of this is being able to slide away from what your natural tendencies are, being self aware. And having the like Clint says, having to man up sometimes. Sometimes I have to handle conflict conflict inside my business world. And I don't like doing it. It's probably my least favorite thing to do. But I do go do it. And at the end, I try to make it a win win situation instead of a scorched earth. Yeah, so I have my own spin on those particular, you know, uncomfortable events that I have to handle.
So real quick, let's talk about a conversation that I had this week with someone who wanted to sell me something for our show. Right. And the conversation was good. I see some utility in what he does, and I think it could help us. But towards the end of it, he started trying to like insert his agenda over my agenda. Well, let's just get everybody on a call and let's just talk through this. And I'm like, first of all, getting all three of us here for for any meeting is hard enough. So if you don't want to play ball and like, talk to me, and then, I'm sorry, all four of us, I'm getting corrected off screen here. So I was like, I was like, No, like, I set the expectation upfront, I'm collecting this information, I will share it with them. If there's value here, then we will kind of take that next step. But whenever he started try, trying to override my process, that doesn't really work when you're selling to a C, right, because I've already kind of have an idea in my head about how I want this to work. So it's not like a lack of decision making ability. It's the lack of, you know, asking questions to figure out what my process is. I didn't do a very good job with that. So in those kinds of situations that were that's why it's really important to know who you're selling to, right because if you're talking to someone who's very people driven and stuff like this, that's going to be easier, right? Because they might not have a process they might not have the steps like laid out in their mind. And so then it's just easy to be like, hey, should we do this? Absolutely. Whereas if you're dealing with someone like me, or someone like Clint, who was very task driven everything else if you try to volley up a task that I don't see value in, and Clint probably feels the same way. I'm not going to do it.
Right. Yeah. So to what you're saying, I think it's important in case the listeners don't know. And what we've talked about numerous times is when you're talking to a potential client or a client, you need to know where they're comfortable. So if they are, if you're an S, and I'm talking to a D, I'm not going to go in there warm and fuzzy. And, you know, just how's everybody has everybody, you know, they don't they don't want to talk about that. They just want to know, what are we doing? You know, so it's super important to know who you are and who you're talking to. I mean, I know this is redundant, but I think it's just good to bring it up.
Yeah. And the interesting thing is, you know, with this whole crisis going on is that most of your sales people in the world fall in that I category, right, that's very traditional personality to have to get out in front of customers. So, you know, the concern is now is that if you are a super I, and you're killing it in sales in February of this year, you just taken your biggest weapon out of your arsenal and thrown in the trash can, which is getting in front of people and them liking you and, and you showing that personality side. It's really hard to do right now. Right? And, and so this is where you've got to look around the spectrum, and really pull, you know, the C into, hey, I need data in facts because I might have one shot at this, who is the person I need to contact, you know, right now? Who's the best shot that I have? And that fact doesn't come from an I. That fact, usually comes from your C's, your accounting department, your financial people, right? Or even some of your D's have a lot of that information because I collect that as well. But you know, that's the thing, right is that if you if you've been successful before the crisis, and then they shut off all communication, which is your biggest asset. How do you do it now? Right? And you got to teamwork?
Well, one of the things did two things came to mind when you guys were talking. First of all, John, you're spot on. When somebody comes to sell to me, I want to know what their process is. Because I don't even have one, right most of the time now have internal processes. But when you bring it to me, I'm like, Well, tell me about your process. And then I'm capable of making a decision at that point, but I don't have an agenda many times. And back to Clint, when you said, you know, with an I, you know, some of our tools have been taken off the table. But that's when you use the ones that are still left to express yourself, right? Be you in this new medium, right? We're all having to find out who the new you is right? With some of these changes. And the new normal means that I's use their voice, use your to show your empathy, show your excitement, in your words and in your conversations. And you know, maybe your hand gestures are taken away. Maybe some of it's shortened down. You don't have as much time as you had before, whatever that may be, recognize it and then modify yourself because if you can't bend and you can't modify, you're gonna be screwed. I don't care whether your C, D, S, or an I. Agree.
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of, you know, we talked about this a long time ago, man, it's probably been seven or eight months ago on a podcast. But, you know, we talked about traditional salespeople a lot that, you know, I take you golfing and you're my drinking, buddy, so I buy from you. We talked about that a lot. But there are still a ton of traditional buyers out there that look for that, right? They don't know how to buy from somebody that doesn't show up like that. So so both sides are in this predicament as well. Right? And so of all times that you have to show value for what you do, it's now, right. Your what your product value is, whether it's your c ustomer service value is that's probably most important right now is that you're there when they call.
And you need to reach out and understand their pain, right? Because pain still exists, or you wouldn't be having the conversation, something needs to either be fixed or the potential is there for them to use you to solve an issue or a pain. So, so focus in on those key factors. So that you're, you're germane with your conversation. So what I hear you telling me is, you know, and that's just an I summarizing, obviously, but make sure that you're not just going on the assumption that people still aren't traditional in the way that they hide the true pain. Right? That just because we have COVID-19 doesn't mean I'm going to tell you that this is my real problem. I'm going to have some superficial-ness that can come through on a zoom meeting that can come through on the telephone. Well, no, we're doing okay. What do you got? Right, that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, those conversations are still gonna hit with the people that are in the position to buy what you have. So go at it the traditional way, just use some of the newer technology or be prepared to do it at a distance. Yeah, more. You know when Oh, by the way, by the way, if you do get a face to face, stay six feet away be respectful, freaking, I see to many, I'm like, you can stand three more feet apart. All right, you don't have to touch genitals to freakin get anything done. Stop it.
Well, the other thing that I would say is that to that same point is that we've all had to adjust and everything and one of the things that I kind of held in my head was it, there wasn't going to be a whole lot of business for me on Facebook, metal and prospects, not a lot of people in my target market. And I've been taking some of this time to kind of figure out if that was true and valid or if I was just telling myself a story because you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, social selling and some people say that social selling isn't really a thing and everything else. And you know, there's so many private Facebook groups, right? And you when you're really targeted and you hop into those groups, they're filled with your target market. So you can get in there, you have a captive audience, you can build some value, especially with like social posting and stuff like this, build some value, stuff like that, get into some conversations. And that is where the majority of my new leads have been coming from. I mean, both pieces of business from this week have come from Facebook and not LinkedIn, which is where I traditionally spend majority of my time. So take take some of this time and really figure out like, do the beliefs that you are operating under? Are they actually serving you? Or are you just taking them as cannon? And maybe you shouldn't? I think that that is really important in these times whenever we're trying to adjust.
Great. I agree. I completely agree. John, that's a great topic. I actually just wrote it down on my day timer here, you know, Facebook posts into those groups that will, you know, if you have some common ground, get involved with that. So that your voice can be heard. And I think if you get and I'm not very good at it. I think John, you do a good job. Much better than then. But I'm only not good at it because I haven't done it enough times. Hasn't been something that I've had to really rely on? So it's like anything else you're gonna be rusty, you're not gonna be just the whiz that some of these guys are that that's how they do most of their business. Yeah. But it still doesn't mean that you shouldn't really endeavor to be better at it and be good and see about, you know, is this a potential moneymaker? Because you I think you really hit on a really interesting topic because more and more people are going to those areas to get some information to find out about their business environment or their associations. And I think it's a great way to interject yourself into a larger group.
Yeah, I it that's what I've been solely focused on. And you know, at this point, you bring up a good point is that is that this is a muscle, right? So by this point, I've written so many like value posts, you know, and thought provoking posts, or, you know, whatever, that kind of generate conversations and get people to reach out to me and stuff like that, that I can knock it out pretty quickly. But, you know, for the first month or three months or whatever like it was, it was a brutal process like writer's block, and like is this good enough and everything else and sometimes, as a C, we're not inclined to jump into action before it's proven. And before it works, and sometimes before it's perfect, and so C's normally take a very long time to initiate anything new. And so finally, I just had to just start hitting post, hit post, hit post, hit post, and then track and then make adjustments as necessary. But there is, you know, when you public speak, every You look like an expert in front of everybody, their social media can be done the same way, right, you can create a Facebook group and put your target prospects in there and so that way they are captive to you, right, and then you can give value and you're not, you know, diluting your value to like the entire market and doing these things, but groups are groups or where it's at, not on LinkedIn, because I think that those are still dead at least for now. But on Facebook, you can find a group about literally anything. And since my age, my focus is working with like smaller digital marketing agencies, there's hundreds and hundreds of groups around Facebook ads and digital marketing, social media marketing. So I just hop in there, bring some value, talk about the stuff that I do and the things that I see from my clients and then people start to reach out, which is kind of a good indicator of like it How big is your market? Right? And how, how much can you do for somebody? But if you've not been successful doing social selling in the past, maybe take a look at it again, because more people are at home than they were in the past in some of these people might be seeing stuff for the very first time, so don't necessarily count it out.
Yeah, I gotta, I gotta throw one point in there from at least my industry is that, you know, the, and I'm not in the same realm as you john at all and what you're doing but, you know, the thing is, I almost look to that, for guidance to steer away from right so when I see businesses that are usually my cust-, because our customers are, are fishing for businesses as well, just like we are. So everybody from the top down is going through this. And the thing is, is when I see those companies that haven't skipped a beat, they're not, they're not efficient on social media, they're not posting stuff on LinkedIn, those guys are just cruising through. So I'm focused on those guys, right? They figured out a way to make it work without changing anything. And I'm really shifted my focus to them. The other ones are indicators of people that are fishing, and haven't figured it out, which in my business, can extend stuff out to a year, right. So if I, if I'm proposing stuff to somebody that's fishing today, I'm not going to see results for another year, versus sticking with the people that are on track. So it's kind of a key indicator for me to stay away almost. So I caution you to look at your market and see what you what you think about your own trades.
That that is that is a really good point, right? Because at some point, you have to you have to pull the trigger on something if it isn't helping you right I mean, continuing to invest time and money and effort into something that isn't providing you leads or results has got to be cold at some point because otherwise, why keep doing it. So I also think that because what I do is so drastically different than what you do in our, in the clients that we serve are so different, you're probably not going to see the same kind of response in conversations that I'm that I'm able to get into fairly easily, right. Like, running in these groups is more, more productive for me than doing cold email or running ads, at least in the in the experiments that I've done so far. So if I can do that with zero marketing spend, right? I just have to extend like some sweat equity, then I'm okay to do that. Because then eventually it just becomes a repeatable process with documentation, then I can let somebody else do it. It's kind of the goal for me.
Yeah. And you know, just to be honest, it doesn't fit my personality at all. You know, being in the corner that I'm in that is not something that's attractive to me. It's not something I'm going to put effort into. And maybe I should write or find somebody on your team that does that well for you. And that's and that's the biggest for me, if I was going to do this, it wouldn't be me that does, it would be somebody that is, you know, probably a C/S that that actually cares to put content out there and actually wants results back. So for me, it's just, it's a personal thing, but it's also an industry thing as well.
Yeah, there's a guy that I follow, and he has this whole program. And it's, it's pretty cool, actually, because it talks about this idea that not everybody wants to create the same kind of content, right? So not everybody wants to be on camera like this, you know, not everybody wants to write, not everybody wants to go to the public speaking route or something along those ways. But it was kind of cool to go through through his assessment to figure out what kind of content creator I would be, because I like writing obviously, but through taking the course it shows up that I'm more leaning towards like this kind of thing, video and shorter and vocal as opposed to all written which is kind of interesting. But you know, you gotta I think, I think, as we're getting more and more and more connected. But you have got to be consistently putting out feelers right on these social media channels, especially if you think that that's where your decision makers are. Right? I think it'd be really hard for anybody to target people in your target market, Clint, on Facebook, you know, that's gonna be easier to do on LinkedIn.
I mean, there's definitely you know, there. There's also a generation thing that we're talking about here, as well. Now there's a, you know, these younger project managers that are coming through the doors on our customer side, that's where they know how to get information. So if your informations not there, they go straight to the competitor, that is right. And then that may be the sole decision process. So I think you got to hit all fronts. Whether you do it personally or not. Your team has to do it. I'm truly believe that because I will tell you, even when my team posts stuff on, on LinkedIn, a picture of something that we built, I think, what the hell are you taking a picture of that for? You did your job, go home? That's it.
That's a little harsh,
I get it. That's what I'm saying.
But isn't that a big deal? Right? I mean, I mean, isn't that kind of like a big deterrent in your industry? Can these guys get this job done? Yeah, look at this photo, we get the job done.
Well, that's, and that's what I'm saying, right? I don't, I don't, I don't go deter my team from putting more stuff out there. I'm just not the guy to do that. Right. I'm glad they do it. I'm glad that gets results but it's not me. Because I don't because to be honest with you, I wouldn't know what to take a picture of. Honestly, you know, if I walked out on our
Just give me a call.
But you know, if I walked out in our shop right now, and they built you know, some really cool platform, some people think that's probably a great achievement I look at and think hey, you did exactly what we said we were gonna do. This is no great feat. It's just got the job done. So it's just personality, man. I mean, yeah, it is what it is.
Well, I, I think we get stuck in these loops around ourselves, right? Because there's, there's so many times I'm like, oh, everybody's got to know what a CRM is at this point. And then I'll go talk to a client. Oh, like, what's the CRM? And I'm like, Okay, wait a minute, you know. So we kind of tell ourselves these stories and sometimes the story isn't relevent, right? You know, because all of us exactly, because if you're, if your client if their biggest pain point is lack of trust, can you get the job done? I'll take pictures of everything, just to prove that we can do these things and function in different environments and everything else. In my realm, well, that's kind of hard, because all I can really go off of is like testimonials and like social proof, right? Because like, no one, no one really wants to look at a screenshot of like a really in depth CRM. Like it's not it's not fun, I get that. So it I wish that I had something that concrete that I could be like, hey, look how good I am.
Agree, then, you know, the thing is, is like a, I get people that stop by the posts and stuff, you know, at least a couple of times, they're like, Hey, did you did you share my post on LinkedIn? I'm like, I you know, man, I didn't even look at it. And it's like, dude, all I need you to do is like it and share it. I don't care if you look at it or whatever, it's just getting the content out there. And I have to trigger that my brain to say, You're right, john, you do it to me all the time, like, Hey, did you just just share this, just like this, and I'm like, okay, but you're giving me a task, I complete the task, no big deal, but I'm not gonna feel compassionate about it. And you just gotta everybody's just got to understand that right is that I'm doing it for business reasons, not personal, versus somebody that puts it out there because they want gratification, or they want to show everybody something cool. They're just very different reasons. And they're all wrong, wrong and right. It doesn't matter. But I think I think you got to look at the data coming back in and what you're doing, whether it's social media, or CRM or who you're talking to, it's it's all data that you have to process and make a decision now.
Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, because we're looking at some options. We've, you know, taken some email lists, we're looking at ways to disseminate information and talk about, you know, the value in our clinic and without the numbers without looking back at the data and seeing what our responses are, then it's it can be a wasted endeavor, if you don't have a process to go gather that information and decide, okay, given this much time, we haven't seen the results, or Oh, wow, the results have been overwhelming. Right. And we've had a couple of those, you know, those little programs that we've run through our clinic, and they've gone well so far. So you know, we're continuing to expand. So we did little things, and now we're going to do bigger things. Sure.
Historically, I'm sorry, go ahead Clint.
One of the things I noticed here recently, and I just I try to remember things that trigger You know, my, I guess anger is what I would call it. Sometimes.
Aren't you always angry?
A little bit. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely cynical. There's no doubt about that. But you know, somebody sent a message the other day and it said, hey, look at how your competitors are selling they're using this tool. Check us out online and I instantly will never go to your page, right and mean, you talked about this all the time. Because you just sided with my competitors, you are an enemy of the state. See ya, you're done. I know but right. And the thing is, you just that message is not meant for me, you have to word that completely different. So, you know, once again, cautious on what you put out there, because you might only be hitting 10% of the volume that you want to hit. But you might be hitting people that completely deter away from what you're what you're trying to put out there. So you just got to be a little cautious.
You know, the thing is, is that like marketing used to be this very, like flimsy construct of a business, right? It was like, you know, newspaper ads, and you know, and there wasn't really any way of like tracking anything but now with digital marketing. It's the opposite. You can track everything like, I heard about something that could be really interesting for Al, right. So you can put up a like a like a called the geo-fence, which is anytime anybody drives close enough to als clinic, you can then send them ads, but only if they've been within certain amount of feet of the actual location like that's crazy.
That's cool.
It is. I mean, I mean, it's big brother, he is held, right? And there's all kinds of problems with it. But from the business owner standpoint, that's awesome, right? If this person parked in my parking lot, I want them to see more ads so that way they come back and then you don't have to spend and spray and pray to like everybody, just the people that were in that parking lot. I mean, it gets pretty granular and pretty crazy. And so sometimes when I talk to like business owners, and they're and they're like, Oh, yeah, I don't trust the the digital marketing thing. It's like, you know,
But if you if you hit it right, you can really exponentially get in front of so many more people. If you have the right message and Clint just hit the nail on the head. If it's not the right message, you're not going to get them particularly Clint and then John, you hit on it, the guy went to sell to you the wrong way. And I know Nan it speaks to all of us that if your target market is a certain individual or type of individual, if you can focus in and then present the right message, it's not all about the focus, it's all about the message as well, then now you've got somebody who engages you back. And when that happens, if you can do that enough times, you'll you'll win, you'll win a certain segment of that market, then the rest of its on providing what you said you were going to provide, and all the follow up and all the rest of that. Don't forget that. But But yeah, good.
We were just talking about this maybe a couple weeks ago, we were talking about redoing our website and trying to you know, reclaim some of our Facebook and social media you know, we've we've put together a small team here to do that. And you know, one of the things was this topic came up of how you word things right? And you know, somebody made the comment was very right is you can't word everything for everybody. And I said, I agree with I agree with you, you know, you kind of got to pick your target market and chase it. However, there's people out there like, you know, for example, like chick fil a, I think is what I brought up. They put a sign out that has a cow saying eat more chicken, it doesn't offend anybody. Right? The only people that have fans is vegetarians, and you're not selling to those people anyway. So, you know, things like that, you know, it's just kind of just got to be, I'm not saying you got to be right for everybody. But what you do is you got to go after your target market who you want to sell to and make sure that you're hitting the hot points for them to come back and even give it a second glance, that's all.
And then the really important thing to that is that is the work you put into crafting, like who your avatar is, right? You know, that very specific person. And we did that whenever we were launching the show. Like that also pays double duty in your sales conversations, right? Because if you know that you sell at the mid market to companies that have got X amount of revenue with X amount employees, and they've got these concerns anybody who doesn't fit one of those things, you're going to have skepticism about, right? And that skepticism is going to allow you to have a much better sales conversation because you're either going to get to a no quicker which saves you time, or they put themselves into the spot to where they have to sell themselves to you because you're like, Hey, I'm not. You know, Clint, based upon what we talked about so far, you're not dealing with any of the stuff that I normally help people with. What are you hoping I could do for you? Right? You get to have such a better conversation. Because on paper, this doesn't make sense. You're not you're not in the people that I normally help like, like, what do you what are you hoping I could do? Right? But you don't get to do that when you're when you're just trying to sell to everybody, right? Because there's some overlap here, right? There's a saying in marketing that when you try to market to everybody, you're not actually marketing anybody. And the same thing happens in sales when you're trying to sell to everybody, you're not selling anybody. Right. So there's room for that for that work into like the targeting to play double duty, if you, you know, go through the process and do it the right way.
I agree. I think that's a good point.
All right. So Clint has got some golf to go to go hit up.
Wow. All right.
He's working hard today.
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See you guys, be safe, bye bye.