Simplify Your Strategy – Magnify Your Results Podcast
On each episode Brian Margolis helps entrepreneurs, sales pros and other professionals create a simple weekly strategy using The Pillar System. A system that's helped multiple individuals become 7 figure earners and is licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to help their teams grow through simplification Some episodes have a 2nd part where Brian helps guests review and refine their initial pillars and solidify the CAP strategies they can use to turn pillar execution into a habit.
John recently took on a job selling a new direct health care service line his company introduced for Fortune 1000 companies. He has been tasked with getting existing customers to purchase the new service, but also finding new customers. Listen as we identify the following pillars to help him hit his sales goals:
To hear other episodes go to https://productivitygiant.com/simplify-your-strategy-magnify-your-results-podcast/
Simplify Your Strategy – Magnify Your Results Podcast
On each episode Brian Margolis helps entrepreneurs, sales pros and other professionals create a simple weekly strategy using The Pillar System. A system that's helped multiple individuals become 7 figure earners and is licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to help their teams grow through simplification Some episodes have a 2nd part where Brian helps guests review and refine their initial pillars and solidify the CAP strategies they can use to turn pillar execution into a habit.
John recently took on a job selling a new direct health care service line his company introduced for Fortune 1000 companies. He has been tasked with getting existing customers to purchase the new service, but also finding new customers. Listen as we identify the following pillars to help him hit his sales goals:
To hear other episodes go to https://productivitygiant.com/simplify-your-strategy-magnify-your-results-podcast/
Brian Margolis (00:00:00):
This is Brian Margolis. And welcome to the simplify, your strategy, magnify your results podcast, where on each episode I use the pillar system to help a sales pro entrepreneur or other results based professional, create a weekly strategy to run a simple, more lucrative business strategy. So simple. It can fit on an index card, but so powerful. It's actually helped create multiple seven figure earners and is now licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to create strategies for their teams. If you'd like a free copy of my book on exactly how to do this, or want to be considered as a guest on a future episode, head on over to productivity, giant.com. Enjoy the episode I, John, we should be, should be recording at this point. I do see it's recording. Perfect. All right. That just means you have the most up to date. So let's begin. So, John, John, you reached out to me after you read my book and that's why I thought you'd be a great candidate for this. You reached out to me, went through the book, kind of figured out your pillars yourself, right?
John (00:01:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Brian Margolis (00:01:12):
Ashton's I'm guessing. Just wanted to make sure you have the right things. And so before we dive into that, just give me the background, what you've done, what you do, and maybe anything about, I don't want to say the word struggling, but you know, where you want to improve or where the bottlenecks are in your business.
John (00:01:30):
Sure. So I, I saw this the index card business plan and the use of the pillars and thought that this could be real applicable to a new job that I was starting. And I was starting a job in national scope in a sales position, business development position, knowing that the requirements were going to be crazy, knowing that there's going to be so much activity that from a mindset I, I was planning to go into this job, very focused, very organized, and came across this red. It sounded great to me. I went out and I got the book I've gone through the book. It's, it's marked up, it's highlighted, it's noted it's everything. And although I believe I have a basic understanding of establishing pillars and staying focused to them. I'm just not sure I'm doing it right. I'm just not sure it's, it's correct. And I get a little bit of anxiety around making sure that it is focused. It is organized. It is leading me constantly towards that goal that I've, that I've got to get to, which obviously is a sales goal. And so that's why, you know, I reached out and said, Hey, I need some help here. I am not sure I'm doing this.
Brian Margolis (00:02:56):
Perfect. So, and then a little, like, what industry are you working in now? What, what do you actually have to sell? Sure.
John (00:03:04):
So we are a direct healthcare service company. We are targeting self-insured fortune 1000 employers that are looking for onsite direct healthcare. And there are many lines of service within that direct healthcare model. I represent one of them, the, the line of service that I represent is not the primary line of service that our company offers it's considerably smaller. But my job coming into this from a business development perspective is to grow this line of service. And so obviously I'm looking for ways to generate growth, generate activity, generate movement to, to, to escalate to sales and our little line of service as compared to everything else that we're doing.
Brian Margolis (00:04:02):
Okay. And when you say, just so I'm clear, when you say self-insured fortune 1000 companies, you mean these are, you mean they pay their own premium, they pay the premiums for the employees. Is that what you mean? That's correct. That's and, and when they're self-insured, is that different than a company that just offers employee benefits?
John (00:04:23):
To a certain degree, it is because the employer really bears the cost of, of all of those healthcare dollars. And so the, the strategy is let's provide the direct health care right at our work site. So as opposed to being a, let's say, a hospital or a family care, a doctors group on the outside that's volume driven, and you realize going into a doctor's office now that they're seeing probably more people than they have capacity for when we bring that model to a work site, it's not based upon volume, it's based upon quality of care. So providing the employees a place to go for their healthcare right there at the work site actually helps to reduce their costs and improves that healthcare to the employee.
Brian Margolis (00:05:15):
Got it. Okay. And you are representing your company offers a number of things, but you're representing, you're trying to grow a very specific line. That's correct. And can you give me any what that line is, what its goal is?
John (00:05:31):
It, it is a, it is onsite fitness management.
Brian Margolis (00:05:37):
Okay. W what does that mean in the real world? Getting people to go to the gym or we're, we're, we're actually
John (00:05:42):
Xining developing and managing fitness centers on site. Got it. Okay. So
Brian Margolis (00:05:49):
Your goal is to sell the company, your service of building out, or baby rebuilding if they already have something there, the fitness center, right. Increasing, increasing employee participation. Correct. And then what did you say? What was the last one design and developing, and you said managing
John (00:06:11):
And, and managing. So if I, if I look at my role within this company and within this line of service, I've got, I've boiled this down to two goals, grow our existing business. So customers that already have our healthcare business, but don't have our fitness management. I want to introduce our fitness management to them. Second goal is to develop new business. So where there are employees, they do not use our services. Obviously I want to target them as well. So to grow existing business uncovered new business.
Brian Margolis (00:06:52):
Okay. And is there from a compensation standpoint for you or for your company's goals is one more valuable than the other?
John (00:07:00):
Yes. Considerably and I'm, and I'm on the lower side,
Brian Margolis (00:07:07):
But I, well, I think what I'm saying is, do you get, is the company the way they're compensating you and managing you? Do they want you focused? Are they compensating you better based on developing new business or growing existing business or it's the same?
John (00:07:26):
I am compensated better for growing new business. Okay. Yeah.
Brian Margolis (00:07:31):
So that's a, obviously going to be an area of focus for you, correct. Growing existing business is kind of the hitting singles, right?
John (00:07:41):
That that's correct. And the challenge with growing the existing business is that the other than my line of service, that that line of service said is, is our primary is enormous compared to what I'm doing. So I do not have direct access to our existing customers. I've got to go through the proper channels. I've got to go through the proper steps and the proper people. And that, I understand that that makes sense because that side of our business is so large and so powerful. We've got to make sure that we do it right. So I don't, I don't have free access to our existing customers.
Brian Margolis (00:08:22):
Okay. And so from again, from a goal focus, I don't know if their company goals, are there your goals, what do you, what do you have as your goals? What are we designing pillars to hit?
John (00:08:34):
We're designing pillars to hit the growth of existing business, which I'm estimating between 60 to 70% of what I'm doing. I'm estimating that growing new business is 30 to 40%. Cause my overall goal, although I'm, I'm compensated better for that. Our, our organizational growth goal is to grow existing business.
Speaker 3 (00:09:04):
Got it. Okay. And does all right. And when you are, are you saying, are those percentages based on what your company wants you to do or are they based on the concept that developing new business is much harder? Therefore you don't, you don't see as many wins in that category.
John (00:09:18):
That's correct. These, these goals are part of the strategic plan that I'm building for our specific line of service and knowing what we have in front of us now for existing customers knowing what our overall goal is for revenue generation. I am estimating that that, that new business goal is, is more difficult. It is tougher. It solely rests on my shoulders singularly as opposed to growing new business, which rests on many people's shoulders,
Speaker 3 (00:09:54):
Meaning
John (00:09:56):
Meaning that our, our existing business is, is managed by hundreds of people. So I've got more access or maybe more access isn't the right word. I've got more opportunity because there's more of us out there managing the existing business. So they will, they'll reach out to me to bring me in, to talk about our specific line of service, as opposed to growing new business or identifying and, and and bringing in new business. That's all me, there's nobody else helping me do that.
Speaker 3 (00:10:37):
Okay. And, and on the existing business side of things, when you say they reach out to you to bring you in, you mean people with other people inside of your company? That's correct. Okay, dude. Now, do they have an incentive to reach out to you? They do.
John (00:10:53):
If it's an opportunity to grow the overall business. Yes. So there is financial incentive for them to do
Speaker 3 (00:11:00):
For them to, so for that, for you to add the fitness part of this, they gain as well. That's correct. Okay. And then the developing new business is the idea that you lead with the fitness part of it, and then hopefully other stuff will come in later or do you try to sell them the whole package?
John (00:11:18):
No, I'm leading just with the fitness. And then as, as that, as that evolves, then I'll be looking for an opportunity to bring my colleagues into it from the other side of our business.
Speaker 3 (00:11:31):
Okay. And you'll be incentivized for that as well. Correct. Okay. You also said fortune 1000 companies. Now, is that a mandate or is that just your kind of target?
John (00:11:44):
It seemed as far as I know of that seems to be the general target for the company. This is, this is sort of their sweet spot from the fortune thousand on up.
Brian Margolis (00:11:55):
Alright. So fortune thousand on up, and then is, you mentioned something to me in the email when we were going back and forth. Do you see yourself at some point developing a sales team under you? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. I got you. All right. So having said that, and I'm sure there'll be some more questions, you know, coming through let me hear what you came up with for your pillars. And then after that, what I'm going to do is kind of start from scratch and kind of ask you the questions that are in the book and, and kind of build it from the ground up using kind of the intelligence you gave me with, what you thought, you know, your focus should be. Right. And I'm going to do that for a very specific reason, because there's also an opportunity here to, from hearing what you came up with pillars, maybe putting some criteria around them or sharpening them, or if it's not a pillar making them a pillar. I just think there's a learning opportunity in that as opposed to just starting from scratch. So why don't you tell me what you came up with with regards to your pillars?
John (00:13:07):
Sure. So I, again, I kept my pillars centered around my two major goals of, of growing existing business and then finding new business. Okay. So from the, from the growing existing business one of my pillars was to have regular communications with the kind of prednisone with the others that, that manage our existing business. One of my other pillars was to
Brian Margolis (00:13:41):
Wait, hold on, let me, I'm sorry. I should probably hold look so regular, regular communication with others, managing a different, the different lines of business. And what do you refer to those people as do we have a name for them? Are they,
John (00:13:53):
They are they're strategy directors strategy. Okay. Yep. So she would just refer to them as strategy directors. Sure. Okay. All right. So staying in touch with them is important because it helps keep our line of service top of mind and in front of them. And they have, they have so much activity around it and they manage multiple, multiple different clients sites that it is it's difficult to continuously keep our line of service top of mind for them. Cause there's so much else going on. And there are other lines of service that they're trying to bring in as well. Some of them are more profitable than ours. Some of them are I don't think they're compensated differently for bringing in other lines of service other than the fact that if they are more profitable and they're off higher dollar, then their, their compensation goes up.
John (00:14:54):
Sure. one of the other pillars is around identifying the current business opportunities that we have. So those, those current customers that are using our healthcare services to identify, do they have fitness management? Are they using us? Are they using somebody else? Are they not doing it at all? So identifying what those current opportunities are, and then we'll have a, we've got a whole followup plan to that. Once we're able to do that, then I sorta jumped over to new business and new business is prospecting is one of my pillars and prospecting, you know, via, via our traditional means, phone calls, emails, social selling, if we can get out there and do that. I have not identified specific metrics around that yet, but I know I should. Meaning how many, how many contacts am I making a week? How many, and even breaking that down from phone to email, to online, social selling, if you will got it. And then really the last one that I have here is focused in, on marketing and it it's building building opportunities to market our line of service out to our industry.
John (00:16:30):
We, as a, as a total organization, look at what we do as a whole and not as individual lines of service. So from a marketing perspective, I'm, I'm sorta handcuffed a little bit in that I can't go out and market specifically what I do. I can't go out and create a LinkedIn posts and LinkedIn stories is specific to what I do. Cause the organization looks at this as though we are, we are a total healthcare organization. We're not a single line of service organization. So there's, there's parameters around that. And so from a marketing perspective, what I'm trying to do is build up opportunities to provide marketing with stories, metrics of successes maybe even around company awards that we've won on behalf of our clients.
Brian Margolis (00:17:35):
Let me ask you something. When you say your Mo you gotta, let's get real specific here. You're marketing to who the fortune one thousands.
John (00:17:43):
That's correct,
Brian Margolis (00:17:45):
But you're marketing your entire company, not that's
John (00:17:50):
Correct. And that is, that is part of my challenge with this. So if I am, if, if I am saddled with the goal of growing our, our specific line of service, I know I can't do that by myself. And right now I to generate new business, it is me alone. And so I know that I need marketing help to do this. I know that I need marketing to help create visibility. I'm a firm believer in that visibility and awareness creates opportunity. If I'm a single person that's responsible for growing new business coast to coast, North to South, it makes it tough, makes it tough. And so what, what my goal was coming into this job was to create some marketing initiatives where I could go out and in a very blanketed fashion demonstrate the impact that our line of service has on those employers, those targets, and use that to specific, to target specific individuals, groups, and companies.
Brian Margolis (00:19:04):
Okay. But I thought you weren't allowed to do that.
John (00:19:05):
I am not allowed to do that. That's, that's my challenge. That's my challenge.
Brian Margolis (00:19:14):
Maybe I'm not following here. You're trying to develop a marketing program that you're not allowed to do it, or figure out a creative way to do it. I am trying to figure out a creative way to do it. And is that going to happen? Is that going to happen without your company, or are you trying to work inside of your company to do that? Like with the marketing department or something like that?
John (00:19:40):
I, I, I'm obviously trying to work within our marketing department and I'm looking for opportunities with them to create stories on our behalf. And again, those stories could be around case studies and and six success factors and different metrics.
Brian Margolis (00:19:57):
Okay. So let's say you have a great marketing piece about success, stories and metrics and all that you're talking about for your specific line. Correct. But then you're not allowed to share that.
John (00:20:08):
Well, the, the idea is that the marketing company will build a larger story around it. So it represents the total organization versus just my line of service. So it's, I look at this as that, I understand that it makes sense to me that we are total organization, not, not specific lines if this is one way in which I can get my message out there, even though it's part of a larger hole, then that's better than nothing. Then I, I may very well then be able to take that story individually and use that to target specific prospects that I've got. So I may, I may take that. Let's say it winds up in a blog about our company and that, you know, we are, we are a company that provides several lines of service. Here's an example of where one of them has had great success. Got it. Okay. I'll then lift that. Or at least I, I intend to, I, I haven't, I haven't been told yet that I can't, or maybe I haven't been caught yet, but I intend to lift that and use that as an opportunity to, to target a specific company or specific individual within a company.
Speaker 3 (00:21:27):
So right now, when you're pro, so I guess the way you differentiate between prospecting and marketing as marketing would be more passive where it's out there, someone else, the company, whatever is distributing this piece, or the pieces out there, and that's bringing people in versus prospecting. You're thinking of more as a hunting sport. Correct. Okay. Now when you prospect and then we can dive right into the pillars here, when you prospect, do you not have marketing pieces, you can send, if they want more information or infer, you know, things like that, or I do
John (00:22:03):
They are limited. They're, they're good. They're good pieces, but they're limited. I essentially have two documents that I can use.
Speaker 3 (00:22:09):
Okay. And so the goal for you based on, you know, I know this is a newer job, but based on you, is the goal to get them on the phone initially, or is the goal to get them to look at something before you get on the phone. Here's why I say that, for example, in my personal, just the coaching part of my business. Right. Okay. I don't want to talk directly to people on the phone at first. That is not my goal because I wasted a lot of time doing whatever you want to call them. Question calls, consulting, calls that don't line up at anything. So in my goal is to get people to read the book. My goal is to get people, to join my email list, my goal, there's another industry I work in. I do very specific coaching for, you know, I have a whole series of audios that are free. You get all my content for free, that I want people listening to that before they, even before I want to get on the phone with them. So they email me, I'll literally tell them a lot of times that they email me, you know, to listen to the audio is first, right. Because you know, I'm a, I have a great track record and it's a premium thing and it's, but for the right people. Right,
John (00:23:17):
Right. Correct. And I mean, I'm in agreement with that, Brian. I, it,
Speaker 3 (00:23:21):
No, if you're at the phase right now though, where it's just like, get them on the phone, get them on the phone.
John (00:23:26):
I am, I am not a believer in the success of cold calling. I am not a believer in the fact that sitting here with a hundred, a hundred phone numbers in front of me is going to yield the results I need to hit my goal.
Speaker 3 (00:23:40):
No, no, I I'm clear about that. I know when someone reaches out to you sees a marketing piece or answers an email you send is your goal to get them on the phone with you
John (00:23:52):
At that point. Yes. I don't want to chase customers. I want them sharing information. Yeah. I want them seeing our information going. Wow. That's exactly what we're trying to achieve. Let me get in touch with these folks.
Speaker 3 (00:24:07):
Perfect. Okay. No, that's just, it's just, you're in a different phase of the business and it's a different kind of business than I'm in. That's all. Yeah, because initially when I decided to, you know, I didn't, my intention was never to have individual coaching clients or anything like that. I've always kind of been an entrepreneur when I did decide to add that to my business at the beginning to get things moving. You know, my goal was to get them on the phone. Right. I said, I created an email campaign that was pretty successful. The idea of the campaign was to send them a piece of information. I, you know, 99% of them didn't look at the information, even though they requested it. I knew that would happen. I follow up to try to get them on the phone. That was worth it at the beginning. Now obviously that's changed. So you are at the phase right now that you're trying to get, once you've identified them as a customer, you're trying to get them on the phone.
John (00:24:57):
That's correct. Okay. Correct. Answers that any other builders right now that's what I'm focused in on. And that's, that's where I, you know, I reach out to you and say, God, is this right? Am I, am I on the right track with this? Is this going to help me?
Speaker 3 (00:25:14):
So you're on the right. You're definitely on the right track. You don't have actual pillars. Okay. So what you've identified as areas you want to focus on, and this is a common mistake with pillars, right? And you, and you alluded to this a little bit on pillar, number three, that, you know, you have to get into a little more detail, but of the six characteristics of the pillar, the one says that it's measurable weekly. Right, right. And measurable weekly. What I'm getting at, when I say that is you need to, at some point in the week, you need to be able to cross it off and say, I did it right. You need to be able to say, check, check, check, cross off. Like I completed that pillar for the week. So generalities and platitudes about, you know, focus more on regular communication and identify opportunities.
Speaker 3 (00:26:03):
Those are starting points, but they're not pillars. Okay. And I think you kind of understood that based on what you were saying earlier. So what I do want to do is I want to turn these into pillars and then see if there's any other pillars maybe we're missing. Right. Okay. So, so let's just, let's just go to the initial question. You know, there's three questions to kind of get the brain going about potential pillars. And question number one is, you know, what is one thing you already know how to do effectively. And again, when I say effectively, don't have to be a master at it, but you currently have the skillset to do it and a response.
Brian Margolis (00:26:44):
So what is something you already know how to do effectively that if you just did more of, or were more consistent with would have the biggest impact on your business, even if nothing else changes.
John (00:26:57):
You know, I would say one of the more basic sales functions is reaching out to people via, via phone, via email
Brian Margolis (00:27:05):
And people being let's get specific. Are these, the strategy directors are these, the,
John (00:27:11):
It would be, it would be both. It would be the strategy directors for the existing customer base. And it would be targets that I'm identifying for new business. Okay.
Brian Margolis (00:27:23):
So let's, let's just start out with the, the strategy directors. Okay. These are people I'm, I could be wrong, but I'm guessing within the organization of your company, you're, they're expected to talk to you, right? Or is this very, there's everything in silos and they're almost like prospects where some of them don't even want to talk.
John (00:27:44):
It's it's a little bit of both. And here's why that this, this position that I'm in now that they've brought me into, they've not had before. Got it. So in some cases, I'm, I'm, I'm breaking new ground and I am I could be reaching out to these people and they could be responding exactly how you said, I don't want to talk to you. Right. I don't know. I don't know who you are. I don't know what wow. They, they were small enough where they know who I am, but yeah,
Brian Margolis (00:28:13):
I understand. They'll probably do it diplomatically. It's not that they're saying, I'm not going to talk to you. They're just going to make it. They're not going out of their way to get on the phone with you. Okay. Correct. I got ya. So how many of these strategy directors are there? What kind of volume are we talking about? Oh, there are five of them. Are there 500?
John (00:28:33):
There are, there are six strategy directors and there are six sales directors that are responsible for growing the larger portion of our business.
Brian Margolis (00:28:50):
And are these the people you're referring to that you need to be in communication?
John (00:28:54):
Yes. Yes. So there would be picturing 12 altogether,
Brian Margolis (00:29:00):
12 strategy and sales directors. Okay. So that's not a lot? No. Okay. All right. So I got ya. Okay. So to be effective, right? To be effective at this, do you see this pillar for the strategy directors, as you need to reach out to them each week, you need to connect with them each week you need to schedule an appointment was one a week, right? Yeah. I mean, to me, that's where I would, you know, one of the things, it to be a predictable result. Right. Do you think it's a predictable result that if you reached out enough to them, that you could, that you could consistently schedule one phone call a week and for the future with them or, or one meeting a week, however you're thinking about it. Yes. Okay. Because that seems like a realistic. Now I'm not saying you can't, if you do more, that's fine.
Brian Margolis (00:30:05):
But if each week you're averaging putting one strategy director on the books, then you're going to average one a week right now, right. One conversation a week with them. Right. Okay. So that's a potential pillar, right? Is schedule one. I'm just calling them, I'm calling them SSDs for strategy and sales directors. Okay. To schedule one SSD per week we'll everything's per week. So schedule one and SSD. And then as far as the, as far as the prospects go, okay. The actual end users that the companies, what is your current prospecting method or what are you using? What kinds of methods are you calling? Are you emailing both, all that kind of stuff right now. It's, it's it boils down to calling and emailing. Okay. And, and there's obviously, if you're fortunate thousand, you're basically limited to what a thousand right now. Can you let me ask something real quick?
Brian Margolis (00:31:18):
Can you add to existing business by going direct to the end user? Or is that a no, no, that's a no. No. Okay. Got it. So how many of these thousand companies do you guys currently have that you can't go direct to? Like what's our fishing pond look like 800 companies. You're not working with 700 companies. There are of our total business. There are between four to 500 customers. Okay. So we're talking about a lot of about 500 prospects then, correct? For direct contact. Okay. Now again, this, now you're relatively new to this position, so I don't know how predictable this is. Should your metric be that you need to consistently reach out to these prospects, meaning, you know, reach out can be an email or a call, right. Or a physical package or a drop in, or however you're thinking about, I'm guessing you're probably not doing a lot of drop-ins, but is that, do you think at this point that's what has to be measured or do you think there's a, a predictable result in here that, Hey, I can, you know, I can have a certain amount of conversations a week or I can schedule a certain amount of future conversations or are we not there yet?
Brian Margolis (00:32:44):
Well, I, I don't, I'm not there yet, but I know I need to get there. Well, sure, sure. So, so again, you know, coming into this position where there, there wasn't anything before me, we were, we're starting from scratch. You know, I'm looking around, I'm looking at the CRM and of course there's, there's nothing in CRM because nobody's been inputting anything to it from, from the perspective that I need to have. Sure. So I do know that I need to, to do that externally, whether it, whether it is that call, whether it is the email, whether it is a package you're right. Drop-Ins on, in this type of business is you can't really do that. Yeah. Okay. I figured, but I just wanna make sure I don't want to assume anything. Yep. So would you say again, we're talking about minimums and I'm guessing there's multiple people within each organization you're going to contact because you don't always know who the actual decision maker is. Right? Correct. So when we say 500 companies, there could be 1500 people that you're going to be trying to connect with. Right. That's true. Okay. So is it realistic if we're talking about email and phone, you know, let's just throw this out there. We can come back in and change this number, but let's just call it, reach out to 100 prospects a week.
Brian Margolis (00:34:12):
And again, we can, we can change that number when we come back around. But, but you're going to be reaching out to a certain amount of prospects, meaning you're going to send a certain amount of emails. You're going to make a certain number of phone calls right now of those people. Right. Again, right now you don't have intelligence on who the decision maker is, right. For this kind of thing. Is that correct? That that's correct. Okay. So that's something that you have to con you have to kind of figure out yourself, take your best stab at, right. Because in these companies, people get all sorts of titles and no one knows what they mean. Right. Yeah. And I know, let me back up on that. I know that with our current business because they're in my specific line of business, there is a current customer base.
Brian Margolis (00:35:06):
Obviously that we're going to be growing. I know from that customer base who are direct reports are, I know who we're talking to at those locations. So I can pretty much hone in on who are the, who are the folks that I need to prospect. Okay. I pretty, I know I can boil that down probably to two to three to four different titles. Got it. Okay, perfect. So any, is there anything else you need to do consistently, something you already know how to do effectively that you need to do consistently or more of follow up, follow up pops into mind for me, right. As a general sales principle
John (00:35:54):
Always, always you know, without, without follow up, there's, there's just an emptiness there.
Brian Margolis (00:36:01):
Right? So in the current stage of business, you're in, obviously as time goes on, you'll have more people to follow up with. Right? Do you, there's a couple of ways you can measure follow up with regards to pillars, right? One way is you can do it in time. I'm going to spend 90 minutes a week, right. Actively reaching out to, you know, pipeline opportunities or opportunities that you've opened. Right. That's one way to look at it. And another one is you can, you know, you can have a number I'm going to reach out to X amount of, you know, follow up candidates or pipeline opportunities. However, you're looking at it every week. And then there's another one which I like, but doesn't work in every industry, which is, you know, if you're keeping in your CRM or report of people, you've connected with talk to giving information to that kind of thing.
Brian Margolis (00:36:56):
What I do personally for my business is, you know, I keep it on an Excel sheet, but again, I'm a one person operation, right? CRM report doesn't matter, but this idea that once a week or twice a week, however you want to think about it. You're going to go down that report from top to bottom, right? And by going down that report, anyone you feel needs another touch. Okay. I need to reach out to this person again. I need to follow up. I need to, they're going to get one and anyone who doesn't at that particular point, maybe you just talk to them or maybe just not the right time you're going to reach out next month. Do you see what I'm saying? So by getting to the bottom of that report, all the activity you do from person, number one to person, number 15, or number one to person hundred, depending on how much you have going on, as long as you go down that every week and, and reach out to the people who need it, you make sure you're consistently following up.
John (00:37:52):
Right. Right. And I do. And I do like that approach.
Brian Margolis (00:37:55):
Okay. So do you want to say review and I'm calling, I don't know what you're calling it. What do you want to call it? Review your opportunity sheet once a week review. So review op we'll call it a report since you're probably going to do it out of your CRM. Right. If,
John (00:38:14):
If I can make sense of it. Yes.
Brian Margolis (00:38:17):
Okay. Well, are you, are you a CRM person or not?
John (00:38:20):
No, I I'm more of an Excel spreadsheet. Okay.
Brian Margolis (00:38:23):
Okay. Is there a company mandate that you use the CRM
John (00:38:25):
There hasn't been, I'm, I'm expecting that there will be. It's like, okay, now that you've, now that you've been bringing in some business, let's get it into the system so we can all look at it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:38:39):
And honestly, those CRMs, I mean, they can be extremely complicated. They can be black holes of information, but for what you're going to need it for most CRMs, honestly, are designed for companies, not salespeople. And you only need like a very surface layer, parts of the tools, meaning yeah. You know, I don't know if you're going to need basically the ability to enter information, check the boxes that you like to check, like opportunity here, like where you can check or uncheck it and then learn how to run the report you need.
John (00:39:14):
Right. That's it, that's it.
Speaker 3 (00:39:16):
And they can do all their, you know, the other stuff with all that information. Right. If they want to know when you visited them and all that kind of stuff. So at this point, I'm going to leave that up to you, leave that loose. Okay. I'm just going to call it, review your opportunity report and whether that's an Excel sheet or something you develop in the CRM you know, that's, you know, that's your call, right.
John (00:39:41):
Okay. Yup. Okay.
Speaker 3 (00:39:44):
Any, anything else, anything, again, we're just in that first question, something you already know how to do effectively. You just need to make sure you're doing it consistently.
John (00:39:52):
Yeah. The, the other thing, and I don't know if it's going to fall into this. Brian, is that the, I know, and I've been fairly good and successful at utilizing LinkedIn to, to touch people, to to share information, to target people. I'm evaluating right now, some of the services within LinkedIn, if I can hopefully get them covered within our budget, that'll give me some better, some better prospecting and targeting opportunities within LinkedIn. I'd like to on a regular basis, be, be sharing information through LinkedIn, to the, you know, the contacts that not only I have, but the rest of our line of service has, because again, it's, it all comes back to creating visibility for what we do. And again, we, you and I went back and forth on a little bit as like, what are you allowed to do? What are you not allowed to do? Well, okay, well, I'm not allowed to do this, but but I'm sort of doing it anyway. And until somebody tells me not to as long as I stay within the boundaries of the company where I can, I can take a message either that marketing has created or that I've seen in the industry and share that amongst all of our networking or our network people. So that, that word continuously is out there. There's, there's just a continuous feed, a constant or a consistent feed or track of there's information coming from these guys. Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:41:31):
Okay. So you're about posting to these people are sorry. The activity you're talking about is posting content. Yes. [inaudible] will you be creating the content as well? Where you only gonna use company kind of approved things? We we're, we're going to be doing both, but that, that we create will be filtered in through marketing so that they can brand it and send it back out. And again, once it comes out of marketing, it'll be, it'll be much broader in scope than what I personally would like it to be. But, but those are the parameters we have to work with, but you're going to be designing those, marketing the pieces, the content, and then sending it to marketing. Correct. Okay. And again, the, what's the word I'm looking for then, then the activity that you want to do is actually posting the content, right? That's correct.
Speaker 3 (00:42:35):
Okay. What about interacting with people on LinkedIn? Yeah. And that's ultimately what I'm trying to get to. Yeah. I want somebody to, to hit that, that blog or that post or whatever, it goes out from us, whether they like it, whether they make a comment on it and that's the opportunity to start an offline dialogue with that person. But there's also something to be said in LinkedIn for interacting inside of other people's content and posts. Right. Because if you just post things and you're not interacting with people knowing it's not going to show up on anybody's wall anyway. Right. Everyone thinks their stuff is going out to all of these people and then most people aren't even seeing it. So, you know, I'm looking at that more as a time thing where, okay, you spend 30 minutes a week, you know, posting and interacting on LinkedIn right now.
Speaker 3 (00:43:32):
I'm separating that from, I guess I probably shouldn't, but let me back it up here, prospecting on LinkedIn is different. Right. In other words, there's prospecting where you directly reach out to them, then there's using LinkedIn to identify who the person is to reach out to right. Doing the intelligence work. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I want to separate those things. Okay, good. Because I'm looking at the intelligence gathering, like, okay, I see this, person's got this title. Let me go on LinkedIn and see who they are. Right. And see what they're okay. That's just part of your prospecting, reaching out to, you know, your, your a hundred prospects a week. Right. the other part of it, the posting on LinkedIn and the interacting I'm looking at is something different. Okay. So to me, a possible pillar there we'll come back around again. And these are just possible. Yeah. It was just 30 minutes
Brian Margolis (00:44:33):
Of LinkedIn a week. And I'm calling that posting and interacting right now. Again, we'll come back to it. But at this stage of the game, there's a lot of work to create content before you post it. If you're doing it yourself and you got to decide, you know, is that really where you want to be spending your time right now? Right. I mean, it's a pretty busy world out there on LinkedIn. And you have very seat, you have very visible prospects, you know who they are. It's not like you're marketing to an entire country. And so a lot of times, and again, we'll have to make a decision here, but which is part of the pillar process, you know, is that really where you want to be spending your time creating content for LinkedIn?
John (00:45:32):
Yeah, that's a, that's a great point. And no, it's not. That's the quick answer. So what I am intending to do is to utilize our existing line of service staff. So just as there are the the strategy directors and sales directors on our larger side of the business, on our smaller line of service business, we have the same. I represent the sales person. I represent the, the strategy person, but we do have operation directors that oversee and, and and direct multiple different current clients sites. So these are people that are client facing almost every day. These are the people that, you know, are, these are boots on the ground, people that I'm relying on, or I'm turning to now and all in all own this process to provide me the data that we can feed into marketing. So when they've got, they've got a quarterly business review with a customer and they, you know, they knock it out of the park with all their statistics on utilization and penetration and all of this. We want to capture that. And so I'm, I'm going to rely on them to provide me different categories of information that they might be able to collect so that I'm not creating it. I don't want to create it. I don't have, you know, nobody's got time by themselves to just sit there and create this content. But if it's coming in from all these different avenues,
Brian Margolis (00:47:10):
But are they not, are the people on the ground not already talking to marketing like this or no, one's connecting them.
John (00:47:17):
Yeah. See that's and that's, that's the gap that we've had here. Nobody's been in that position to drive that. So I'm stepping in saying, I know I need it because I need to create the visibility if I'm going to achieve
Brian Margolis (00:47:30):
My goals. So I'm going to own it. Just so I'm clear, this is a new line of service. Most of your existing customers don't have it right now. Not necessarily a new line of service. Oh, okay. Got it. But a line of service that hasn't had this role before. Got it. Okay. Okay. So there, there are case studies and stuff to be had to, if you go get the data, there are people with the fitness program and all that. Right, right. But nobody, nobody was necessarily owning the the process of, of of collecting that of reminding people on a regular basis that we need that data. We need that as those case studies, we need those success stories. And so since I know that, that I needed to help me achieve my goal, I'm going to own the process of, of constantly following up and reminding people and collecting information and then filtering it into our marketing department. Got it. Okay.
Brian Margolis (00:48:34):
Okay. Green stories and, okay. So from a LinkedIn standpoint right now, I don't know that any of that stuff rises to a pillar unless I'm missing something. Cause right now there's not a lot to feed to the LinkedIn world. Right. Cause maybe two pieces you could do that today. So right now to me, LinkedIn is more of a prospecting tool. It is identifying people, getting intelligence. Okay. Is there, is there anything, anything else from, again, just from the first question, something you already know how to do effectively, just need to do more of it or be more consistent with it. I think that's it right now. Okay. So the second question is, you know, is there, is there one skill that if you improved on significantly would have the biggest impact on your business?
Brian Margolis (00:49:43):
Right. Is there a skill that if you see if you improved on significantly, like you could snap your fingers and go from a, you know, a three out of 10 to an eight out of 10, right. What would that be? I think it would be prospecting. Okay. Let's get more specific, you know, how to pick up a phone and you know how to send an email. Yeah. Okay. So let's dive in. Let's get real specific. I think I never gone, but I want to make sure. Okay. It's it's identifying the right target within the right companies. Okay. And you, you, you need to spend more time doing it or you need to get better at, I, I believe that
John (00:50:36):
I need to spend more time doing it.
Brian Margolis (00:50:39):
Okay. So that would actually, again, go back to question number one. Right. Which is spend time each week, dedicated time, you know, I would almost call this, you know, building your database. Right. I mean, figuring out who's who and the different companies, cause again, you don't have a list. Right, right, right. So I'm just going to, again, we can change the time, but just for the sake of this, I think that is critical. And I would say, okay, we'll just throw it on here. But one hour, a week of building your database, right. Or your hit list, or however you want to think about it. Right. But you need to be on LinkedIn or on just on the internet itself or asking questions or whatever, working on, you know, creating that, hit that database. Eventually you will have the database down the road and it will require, is that what you're getting at?
John (00:51:46):
Yeah, I am, because I know that there is an where the book has helped me is to identify the insignificant activities of which there are so many every day. And the, the urgent, insignificant activities that, you know, the proactive ones, I'm just reading that, reading the book and going through some of that has helped me to schedule my day a little bit better, push off those insignificant activities that they have to get done one way or another. Some of them, most of them probably not all of them, but not to not to approach it the same way I was approaching it before. Let's say.
Brian Margolis (00:52:29):
Yeah. And, and by the way, we're going to talk a little bit more about that on the followup call. When we talk about how to hit your pillars right now, I just, I want to play in this magic world of let's identify what ha what the most important things that need to get done with your limited focus, then pretending we can do it all. And then the next step will be okay, how do I actually do it? How do I structure my week? What cap strategies do I use to make sure I'm doing everything I claim has to be done, right? Because being unorganized and doing insignificant things and all that stuff, although that's a problem, it's not a problem in and of itself. If you tell me you're hitting all your pillars every week and you're unorganized, then I'm fine with that. Right. Could you tell me you do a lot of insignificant stuff, but you also hit your pillars. I'm fine with that. Sure. It's only when that stuff keeps you from doing the things that has to get done. All right. So building
Speaker 3 (00:53:26):
The database now, let's go back to, again, my question, let's talk about skills, specifically skills, something that, you know, if you improve John, again, you could snap your fingers, you know, that would improve your business in a significant way. Now you said you had to get better at prospecting. I still think there was something else there when you were saying that. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:53:52):
Are you a great prospector? Do you write, do you write emails that get people to respond? Do you get on the phone with them and leave messages that make them want to call you back?
John (00:54:03):
I would. I would like to think I do, but no, it's, I think that that's probably a good place to focus is what's what's the hook on that voicemail. What's the hook. What's the hook on the email. Somebody goes, wow. Oh, okay. He just, he hit me right. Between the eyes and I need to, I need to talk. So I think that's, that's probably a good area to focus in on.
Speaker 3 (00:54:32):
Yeah. And I'm going to call that direct response copywriting. Okay. One of the things I train is I'm writing emails that people respond to and they're, you know, there's writing emails for information, right? Like you're writing a letter to your grandmother where she's going to actually read it from the high grandma all the way to the signature, you know, or you write a brochure that someone's going to look at for informational purposes. That's a different kind of copywriting. That's a more logical grammar. Make sure you're explaining it well, versus direct response. Copywriting has one goal, which is get a response. Right, right. Get them to say, raise their hand and say, I'm interested in the milliseconds you have when someone opens an email or reads an ad or listens to a voicemail. Right.
John (00:55:23):
Exactly. Cause I, I know what I'm, when I'm dialing a phone number in my head, if I haven't done it prior to in my head, I know that they're not going to pick up the phone and I know I'm leaving a message.
Speaker 3 (00:55:37):
Correct. Yeah. And so, okay. So direct response copywriting we'll call that right. Direct response. Copywriting is a skill. And by the way, that's, that's a million dollar skill, right? I mean, I've worked, listen, if you become a tenant dad or an eight or a nine, believe me, you're not going to be in this industry anymore in any industry because you know, good copywriters, you know, they charge some of them 20, 30, 40, $50,000 a day. Some of them even more the ability to write a message that people respond to is about as valuable of a skill as you can have right. In today's world as much as more than ever. But you can certainly improve in it. Any other skills that you can think of are you, when you do sit down with a client, are you good at asking for the business?
Speaker 3 (00:56:35):
Are you good at having these clarifying conversations? You know, the general sales skills? I believe I am. I mean, the, the consultative nature of this side of the business I've been in for quite a while and have been successful in it, I believe I have been. Right. there's always, there's always room for improvement. I know I don't have all the answers. I know that when we can get in front of a customer, we will do very well. Got it. Okay. That's all I needed to hear. So, so let me ask the third question then. And the third question is, is there something you can organize plan or create prior to taking action that would make the action much more impactful? Right. So in English, you know, one thing I deal with with, with salespeople entrepreneurs is, you know, who are prospecting or doing different that cause, cause right now let's be honest, your business, the main thing is prospecting.
Speaker 3 (00:57:41):
Right? Correct. That may change over time, but that's the focus here. And so to me, it's okay. One potential answer to that question is some kind of hit list where, okay, I have, you know, a database of a thousand people I could call, but in a perfect world, you know, who should I be focused on? And you figure that out at the beginning of each week, that way, when you make those calls or send those emails, you know, the, the prospecting itself is much more effective. Right. I don't see you at that point right now, because right now you're just trying to get the names. Correct. Right. Like you're, you're not even, you're not you, don't not being selective. You're saying, okay, I have these thousand companies, 500 or so of which don't have our services already. And so, you know, as soon as I get a name I'm reaching out.
Speaker 3 (00:58:37):
Right. but another one that sticks out. Was there anything that sticks out to you? Something you have to create each week organized plan prior to doing things that'll make the action more impactful. Is there anything off the top of your head before I dive in it's as soon as you asked the question, the hit list was one. Yeah. It it's. I know, I know where I need to play, but I don't know who I need to play with yet. I know the titles, but it's the time that it takes to, to get those names and to get the right people and to get the contact information. I know the legwork needs to be done. Yeah. And, and I think we're going to cover that with the building the database, right. Yeah. Right, right. The, the one that kinda jumps out at me is the messaging. Meaning, you know, before you send that email, crafting your stories right before you leave that voicemail, crafting your voicemail, your script. And so by doing that, rather than just, you know, smiling and dialing or sending out a million emails, I mean, to me, I'd rather send out 10 really good personal direct, hit emails that I've thought about then just a blast.
John (00:59:54):
Yeah, exactly. And one of the, one of the tactics or strategies that I've got in this, in this plan that I'm putting together for this line of service is a targeted email campaign. And you know, the first part of that is exactly what you said. It's crafting the message is that I don't want, I don't want to just start throwing stuff out there and say, Hey Brian, it's John, how are you giving me a call?
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
And the problem is a lot of times people, emotionally, unsubscribe, they see your name a certain amount of times. They know what it is. So you almost, although email's free, it's not really free. There's a cost to sending an email. Someone doesn't respond to. Right. Because eventually they ignore your emails. A lot of people don't even unsubscribe anymore or say remove, they just ignore them. It's almost easy. It's almost easier in a way, which is
John (01:00:48):
Right. So yeah, to me, I see.
Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
So here, here's what I'm thinking. You should have a messaging pillar that now you got to decide what you want to break it up into one or two, one, one version says, okay, I have one pillar that says for one hour a week, again, I'm just throwing numbers around. We'll, we'll come up with the numbers. But for one hour, a week, I'm going to learn about direct response copywriting. Right? Okay. I'm going to read books, watch videos, read articles on how to write emails that people respond to, how to leave voicemails that people respond to. And there's a million sources of that out there. Right. so, and then the other thing is you then add a second pillar, which says I'm going to spend X amount of time crafting my messages. Right. So based on what I learned, I'm going to work on my emails, review them, rewrite them, you know, think about them, craft them, right.
Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Take the time to, to make them nails, so to speak. The other way to do it depends on how your brain works is have one pillar, right? Where you can say, okay, 90 minutes a week, I'm going to work on my messaging, right. 90 minutes, a week of messaging. And that includes both input and output. It means learning, but it also means, you know, a deliverable, right. Starting to craft these messages. And again, you have to be careful with that one, because if you're the kind of person who just really wants to check off your pillar and goes, well, I'm just going to listen to an audio book for 90 minutes, because that's a lot easier than actually crafting something. Then it loses its power. Right. Right. In that case, you want to break it up into two. Right. And personally, I would rather do that.
Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
I would rather, I'd rather be focused on, I know I'm going to, I'm going to have my learning block and go do that. And then once that's done, now I can have another block where I'm going to be crafting that message. Cause I, I agree with you, you fall into that trap of, I I'm just going to listen and I'm never going to get to the other half, which is probably more important. Okay. So, so in that case, we could, there's a couple of ways to set up the pillar. You could do it as two separate pillars, right? We might say 45 minutes and 45 minutes. The other one might be 90 minutes of messaging. I call it like a 60, 90, right? So it's like messaging 60, 90 it's 90 minutes. But at least 60 of it has to be, or 45 has to, you can call it 45 90, at least 45 has to be to output. Right. Got it. Which means if you want to spend all 90 on output, that's fine. Or if you want to do 45 foot, you know, then you can make it one pillar. It just really depends how your brain looks at these things. Right. Okay. So you tell me, you want to make it two pillars. One. I'd like to make it two pillars. Okay. Perfect. Alright, so, so here's, here's what I have then for your, for your potential pillars here. Alright.
Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
And there's maybe there's things I'm not thinking of, but schedule one at SSD a week. All right. That's a predictable result, right? Schedule one SSD a week, reach out to, and then let's put in the numbers. When I say reach out again, an email, a voicemail. They both County equally. Right? Write a LinkedIn message, whatever. What's a good number for you. What's a realistic number. Do you need to be doing a hundred of those a week? 50, 25 right now? I think I'm around a 25. Okay. But where do you need to be? Where do I need to be consistently? I mean, I imagine, listen, this number is going to change as you get more and more appointments, right? I'm guessing at this stage of the game, you don't have a ton of appointments. No, no we don't. Then again, you can go over this, but minimally, if, you know, put it this way, here's the way to think about it. If you were the manager and you hired a clone of yourself, same skills, same everything. And what would you tell them? They should be doing every week at this point in the game, what would
Brian Margolis (01:05:18):
You want them doing to feel like they were, their business was moving forward every week. Yeah, I think we're, I think I'd be between 10 and 20 a day. So it's up at a hundred. So you're a 50 to 100 a week. So you want to call it? Let's start low and let's say 50. You can always go over. Okay. Okay. And this is again, reach out to 50 prospects. All right. So that's pillar number two. Review your opportunity report. Now, right now that might have two people on it right down the road. It might have a hundred, right. We can always refine and change things. Okay. How long should you be spending each week building your database?
Brian Margolis (01:06:19):
I think it's gotta be a number of hours because that is ultimately going to be the most important. I'm thinking probably maybe five to 10 hours a week. Oh, wow. Okay. So a lot of time. Well, I mean, if we're, if I'm spending an hour a day, that's fine. Yeah. So start with five. Let's call it five hours building the database. Now I want to jump back up to one thing we didn't consider. So reaching out to 50 prospects, if for some reason on a give in a given week, you don't have 50 people to reach out to then you've hit the pillar. Like if you only have 33 people that you haven't, that you know of, then obviously you hit the pillar for the week. Right. So understand that. But also second attempts, right? At the same person, are we counting those in the 50?
Brian Margolis (01:07:36):
So you're not going to reach out to someone once and never call them again. Right, right, right. So one way to do it is reach out to 50 new prospects a week and then have a separate pillar for the other one. One is, you know, reach out to a hundred and included in that hundred is, you know, follow ups, things like that. Now follow now follow ups. That's the wrong word. That's where people you've talked to. Yeah. Second attempt. Third attempts. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be countless second attempts. Well, we want to make sure you're doing them though. Yeah. Right. As part of this system, I want to make sure. Cause second attempts. There's valuables first attempts to me and third attempts. There's valuable. Second attempts and so on.
John (01:08:18):
[Inaudible]
Brian Margolis (01:08:22):
So how again, how does your brain work? Right? You, I mean, you've been in sales before.
John (01:08:28):
Yeah. I mean, I look at them singularly,
Brian Margolis (01:08:31):
Right? Like as a second attempt, as a reach out and a third attempt is to reach out. And so it was a first one, right?
John (01:08:37):
No, that it's, you've got to hit these people eight to 12 times.
Brian Margolis (01:08:44):
Right. And I'm saying, and that's fine. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying as far as your pillar goes, where is that considered? Right.
John (01:08:53):
Yeah. And I didn't, and I didn't consider them. And when we were initially talking about the, the overall number,
Brian Margolis (01:08:59):
Right. And so maybe, you know, if you're thinking of them singularly, you know, maybe that number should be a hundred. Right. And again, right now I know you're at the beginning. So if there's not a hundred people, that's fine. You hit your pillar. Right. If you have, you have 67 people and that's what you send it out to, then you've hit your pillar. Right? Because again, your, your prospect list, even once you build your database, based on what you're telling me, it's only going to be about a thousand people at the most. Right. Right. I mean, these are because you can't reach out to existing. You might have a couple of names cause you don't know who to reach out to. Exactly. You got a gas. Maybe you're not going to have that big of a database. That's true. Well, why don't we just start out that way? Reach out to a hundred. Okay. We can always refine it. I don't want to get too hung up on it. Let's see what happens like Brian, I, you know, I don't have a hundred. Okay. Or Brian, I'm doing a lot more than a hundred. I'm fine with doing a lot more than a hundred. When I come up with the name 100 or the number I'm thinking every week. So on your worst week, you're sending out a hundred.
John (01:10:10):
Right. Okay.
Brian Margolis (01:10:13):
If you decide to adjust that, just, you know, let me know. But for now we'll, we'll, we'll leave it at that. All right. So five hours a week building the database view opportunity report now, and then the last pillar is your messaging pillar. Right. And when I say messaging, that's the, we're going to have 45 minutes messaging learning, right. Or dr. Learning, and then 45 minutes of messaging output. Right. And that's where, to me talking to the people on the ground, getting statistics, getting stories, that's all part of it because that's the kind of thing that, you know, that's the kind of thing that in a
Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
You know, in, in something like this, if you're gonna send a cold email, you got to give them some real credibility. Right. You save, we saved the company recently this much money or we, you know, something like that. Right. That's all part of messaging to me. Okay, good. That, I mean, listen, that's the skill of all the skills that we're talking about here, that your, your, your, your messaging and your willingness to test and learn more and correct it and get better. That's going to be more important than any of this other stuff. Right? You could train a monkey to send a hundred emails. You could pick up the phone. It's, it's what you're saying right now, your company doesn't, hasn't figured out what their messages for your line of work. They're kind of leaving it to you. Correct. And that's good. Anyway, because a lot of times, I don't know how big the company is, but when a marketing department does this kind of stuff there, they don't think in direct response, they think in branding campaigns, which is not what you need.
Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
Yep. It's true. That's exactly where we are our commitment to service excellence. And no one cares about it. No one hears any of that anymore. You got milliseconds to get someone to go, Ooh, I need that. Or that would make me look good or hit some kind of benefit. Right. We could do that. We'd be right. Exactly. No. And that's, you know, that's, to me where the money is. Okay. So I have six pillars for you, right? Okay. Yup. By the way, I'll just, I'll just give you this as kind of a clue, not a clue, but a lead down the right road. When I decided to take on a certain, it was a very specialized industry and start working with people. One-On-One I literally built my business. I had only helped one person in that industry, someone I knew and I'd help them double their business.
Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
They were like, they were a sales person and they were working for about seven years and I helped them double their business. And two, we started working together, help them double their business in two years after seven or income. And that's all I wrote in my emails. I basically said, you know, I recently helped a seasoned, you know, colleague of yours or co whatever, someone in the same field to double their existing business, you know, within two years, you know, and basically said, you know, would you be open to reviewing the strategy we used? Right. And if they said, sure, I'll take a look or whatever. Then I emailed them this little report that outlined it and then tried to get them on the phone. Write that, email me, that email built my entire business because then of course I started working with people, getting referrals, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
So I always joke. And it's been said before, but your one message one email away from, you know, don't ever forget about the messaging. Okay. That's a little slicker. Okay. Here's what I got. Schedule one SSD, reach out to a hundred prospects a week. Everything's a week. Sorry. Review your opportunity report from top to bottom. And then obviously take action on it. Five hours of building your database, 45 minutes of message. Learning and 45 minutes of messaging output. Those are the pillars I have. No, again, that doesn't mean there's not other things you can't do, but every week this is what you need to do.
John (01:14:20):
Okay. I like it. You like where we're at? I like it. Yep. This is it's the, and this is where again, it's where I struggled, struggled. It was like, I want to be focused. I want to be organized. Cause I know this is going to get crazy here. And if I can set this up now, then it's going to drive me down the road to where I need to get to. Because otherwise having been in this position before I know how chaotic it gets.
Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
Yeah. When they come re you become reactive all day, like a ping pong ball.
John (01:14:51):
Exactly. And it already is. It already is.
Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
Do you, do you li do you work mostly from home with this since your people are all over the country?
John (01:15:01):
Yes. Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
So most of your appointments are done by phone or by webinar or WebEx or something right
John (01:15:09):
Now? That's correct. Yep. Okay. So here's what I would say.
Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
You know, I know we're going to talk in about a month about how to hit your pillars and see where you're at with everything. The number one thing you could do is take advantage of Parkinson's law. Right. Which I don't know if you've heard that one before. I have not. Okay. You may have heard it, but not knowing it was called Parkinson's law, but this idea that, you know, tasks expand to fit the time you give yourself to do it. Right. Okay. I know you're kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like the day before a vacation, it's amazing what you can get done when you have a flight the next morning got 9,000 things and guess what? They all get done. Cause they have to get done, right? If you start your sales day and this is how I operate my business, by the way, which is why we're talking at 10 o'clock in the morning from seven to 10 is I think I wrote in my book, that's my time.
Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
I work on my business. That's when I focus on my pillars and other things, my first call of every day, client call prospect, call scheduled, call, whatever you want to call. It is at 10. O'clock nothing, nothing happens before 10 in that world. And the reality is I, most of the important things during my day are done by 10 o'clock, as far as moving my business forward. So I don't want to be, but if I happen to be on the phone all day from 10 o'clock through the rest of the day, being bang, bang all over the place, that's fine. I still, by the end of the day, had a great day. Right? So whether you start your day at seven, or you started at 10, the reactive part of your day, you're going to get all the you're going to get all that crap done. Okay.
John (01:16:44):
I promise you
Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
That first part of your day, that that'll be the advice I will give you for TechNet and don't relent. Oh, can you do a 9:00 AM call? Sorry, I can't how's 10, a 10 doesn't work. Okay. Can we do something later in the week then, right? Yep. You got to own that time. Alright. I think we're good. Any last minute questions I hit stop here.
Brian Margolis (01:17:12):
Well, good. I appreciate it. I like where this is where this is heading. I'm looking forward to getting on with this.
Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Thanks for listening to another episode of simplify your strategy, magnifier results. If you know someone you think could benefit from this episode, be their hero and share it with them. If you'd like a free copy of my book or you want to be considered as a guest on a future episode, head on over to productivity, giant.com. Have a great day. And thanks again.