Sales & Marketing Playbook: Unleashed

Stop Wishing, Start Planning: Your Post-Summer Sales Playbook

• Evan Polin & Craig Andrews

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The back-to-school season isn't just for students—it's the perfect time for businesses to refocus and strategize for year-end success. Seasoned sales expert Evan Polin and marketing strategist Craig Andrews reveal the playbook for maximizing your Q3-Q4 performance when summer distractions fade and serious business resumes.

We dive deep into the critical task of pipeline review, teaching you how to perform an honest "autopsy" of your year-to-date sales performance. Discover why successful businesses maintain pipelines four times larger than their revenue goals and how this cushion ensures hitting targets despite normal sales attrition. Learn to distinguish between real opportunities and wishful thinking in your pipeline—because as Evan bluntly states, "wishing and hoping aren't strategies."

Marketing success hinges on message clarity and audience understanding. With attention spans lasting mere seconds, your ability to immediately address pain points determines whether prospects engage or ignore you. Craig reveals why "it's not the marketing that stinks, it's your message," and provides tactical advice for crafting compelling communications that speak directly to what matters most to your audience: "What's in it for me?"

The episode delivers actionable strategies for evaluating performance data, recalibrating sales activities, simplifying marketing campaigns, and planning your calendar for remaining industry events. We outline step-by-step approaches to ensure your sales and marketing efforts align perfectly for maximum impact during the critical year-end period.

Don't wait until December to realize you're behind on goals. Implement these proven strategies now to position yourself not just for a strong finish to this year, but for a powerful start to the next. Connect with us on LinkedIn to continue the conversation, and remember—stop cramming for business success and start following the playbook.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Meet Evan Polin, the president of Polin Performance Group. A master in sales coaching with over two decades of experience, evan is not just a consultant. He's a force in sales, focusing on mindset, planning and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services, the Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency. An expert in growth marketing With 20 years under his belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 2:

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews, and my partner in crime, evan Poland, is here with you today, evan. It's that time of year again, brother. The weather's getting a little cooler. I'm already thinking about sweater weather. I'm already thinking about the styles of the fall. We're getting there right, and so today's theme, as we bring it out to you guys, is to kind of talk about that back-to-school season or, in reference the back-to-work really get back into it. What's your take in terms of the fall, evan?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's not cooling down quite yet. We are starting to get there. But this time of year and again, I don't know when you're going to be listening to this episode, but we're talking mid-August or so it's really time to focus. Kids are either, depending on what part of the country you're in either back in school or will be gone back to school over the next two to three weeks, and for businesses, this is a great time. A lot of folks have taken a little bit of a break, slowed down a little bit over the summer to refocus, kind of. Take a look at okay, we're two thirds of the way through the year, we've got a third of the year left. What kind of plans, what kind of push do we need to make from the end of August through at least Thanksgiving? Look at what needs to be done, both from a sales perspective and a marketing perspective, to make sure that you are able to hit your goals or overachieve between now and the end of the year.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this is what the people in our industries use as a litmus test, right? Did you really do your homework in the summer like you should have, or are you just kind of like, ah, I'll get to it when the fall kicks in or when I get back to work? And so in this episode there's a couple of areas that we want to make sure we focus on, that you guys can concentrate on. One is pipeline review, one is marketing campaign planning and make sure your content and your marketing planning operate and work together, similar to what we always say. So, evan, why don't you start us off and start to talk about the sales pipeline?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So this is a great time to not only look at the pipeline but look at your sales year to date. I was just on a call with a client where we just went through his closed business for the year. What was in the pipeline, what was expected to close between now and the end of the year? We've talked to you in previous episodes about cookbooks, about going back, looking at how much revenue you want, how much of that revenue you want coming from small, mid-sized and large clients. So you should be going back through the numbers right now.

Speaker 3:

Now was a great time to do an autopsy. What business have we actually generated so far for the year? Then let's work backwards. How many proposals, how many quotes did we do, and what percentage of those actually closed into business? What percentage of our first conversations, first meetings, turned into quotes? Did those percentages that we had in our cookbook at the beginning of the year? Has that held true? Has our closing percentage been better? And if that's the case, maybe we don't need to do quite as much activity in the second part of the year? Has our closing percentage not been as good? Did we overestimate what we thought was going to close? And if that's the case, do we need to plan on doing more activity between now and the end of the year to hit our goals?

Speaker 3:

So the first thing that you should be doing is taking a look back, taking a look at what has already closed. Look to see how close you are to the numbers that you had, the goals that you had for the year. Look to see if those percentages are true and we talked just an episode or two ago about we now have a dynamic cookbook in Excel. You can go back into that cookbook. Plug in what is the gap between what your goal was and what you need left between now and the end of the year. Plug those percentages back in so that you've got a very clear plan for what you need to do, moving forward to make sure that you hit your hit those goals. Again, if you don't have that, just hit me up in the comments, request it. Happy to email, email that dynamic cookbook out to anybody who wants it.

Speaker 3:

But that's what we want to do is first take a look back. Craig, you say it all the time data, data, data. We've now collected seven and a half months, almost eight months worth of data. Let's go back and look at that data, let's do the autopsy. Let's go back and look at that data. Let's do the autopsy. Let's see where we stand before we move forward. So, craig, before I talk about the pipeline moving forward, any comments, anything that you want to add to that?

Speaker 2:

Not necessarily a comment, but I have a question for you. So you've been giving the audience here a nice silver platter of what they should do, here a nice silver platter of what they should do, but in your professional opinion, how often does that happen? How often does that really happen when your client comes and has that data and able to present it and show you and say here's my information. I'm killing it right now. How often does that really happen for you?

Speaker 3:

So I've been doing this since about 2000,. 2001,. And I can't wait for the first time that happens.

Speaker 1:

I'm still waiting for that client to show up.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll have those numbers locked in? Have that ready to go? So I'm waiting for the day.

Speaker 2:

Yes. So the reason why this is the playbook is because we're trying to tell you guys the answer. We really are. It really is this simple assuming all of those foundational things are in place, and a lot of times what we find is that all that data points we have to kind of pull and pull and pull from them and then they have that epiphany moment in which they go, oh, is that what that means? Right? So it's the playbook, I'm sorry. So continue your point in terms of the sales pipeline.

Speaker 3:

And I know when we both work together on a number of different clients. Oftentimes, when you're working with clients from the marketing side, I'm working with clients from the sales side. Oftentimes we need to take our first two or three or four meetings to ask those questions.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Because, unfortunately, too frequently, people don't have the numbers or they have them in their head and they're not written down and what they thought was the case isn't actually true. And the better that we can have that data, the more we can have a plan. And I'll use this to transition into talking about the pipeline. People are always disappointed when I share with them that wishing and hoping aren't really strategies, right. Um, yeah, well, we can do it. Unfortunately, a lot of people that you know my numbers have always just kind of worked out or I'm not sure. I I just need to keep you. There should be a process in a system. Yeah, the numbers will flush out. If we don't know those numbers or we think we know them, but we've never really tracked them before, we need to take a step back, get that data to really be able to help you with the path moving forward.

Speaker 2:

I'll use my my weight loss journey as a as an example. And we've all done it. And so I used to track my calories and then I stopped. Yeah, magically, the weight never went away, right? So pure coincidence, pure coincidence. So we need to make sure that we're tracking every little bit of it, even though it's a pain. But it's important because we've talked about this in other episodes where the efficiency is incredibly important I know you've talked about on many occasions you could hit that one big client who sets your year up and you would have done little work to get them. Or the alternative is worse You're grinding constantly trying to find a new sale when, realistically, if your systems was in place your sales system was in place you probably would be able to be much more efficient to get to that bottom line.

Speaker 3:

Craig, it's interesting you bring that up. It's interesting you bring that up. Oftentimes companies will come to me because what you just described happened and they luck their way into a really large client and they go oh that, you know, this is easy, you know I'm sure that it'll happen again.

Speaker 3:

And then when that client goes away and they haven't just lucked themselves into another client, they really, really, really start scrambling because they have no idea what to do, what needs to be done to be successful. But unfortunately, one of the major times when people come to me is when 50, 70% of their business came from one client. That client unexpectedly goes away and they go oh crap, what do I do now? I didn't plan on how to land that first client. I certainly don't have a plan for what to do now and I oftentimes and I'll see that deer in headlights look in the first meeting. But that's what can happen if we don't have a plan.

Speaker 2:

And I just want to, before you go on to the other parts of your sales component, I just want to let everybody know nothing in sales and marketing happens overnight. It just does not happen. It just does not happen. And please, when people contact us, for sure they go. Oh yeah, I have about two months to make about a half a million dollars. I need my marketing to really kick in.

Speaker 3:

Right, and their sales cycle is six months long.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly, right. So again, this is the playbook. We're trying to give you guys the cues here and if you're not sure, always hit us up and ask for sure. I might not, you know, I can't make a lot of things happen, or I can make a lot of things happen, but that that's a little difficult right now.

Speaker 3:

I yeah, we're talking playbook, we're talking back to school. You know you can only cram so much. You know if you're, if you leave it to the last second. But you've got, you know, a two month runway left and a six month sales cycle. We're going to, unfortunately, tell you that we can't help because it's last year we both ran out of that magic dust.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Just kind of sprinkle it on a prospect and now, all of a sudden, they had the business that they needed. It takes work, you need a plan, you need a process, so so again, this is the playbook. We're talking back to school. Don't cram too much, because at some point you're just going to fail the final and there's nothing that anybody can do to help you. Summer school start over. Summer school start over. So we're talking about the pipeline.

Speaker 3:

The other thing this is a critical time to do is really look at your pipeline and be critical. That stuff that's been in the pipeline since March and really hasn't moved along. Now's the time of year to go okay, is that a real opportunity? Or were we just wishing or hoping, or we just never gave them the opportunity to say no? We're never going to get a yes, but we never gave them the opportunity to say no. So we've kept it in the pipeline, but that's going to give you false hope. So now is a great time to go back through and go okay, which of these is just not real? Which of these am I going to disqualify?

Speaker 3:

Or, if any of you want to follow, up with me later we can talk about a close, the file message. It's kind of a good way to get somebody to take action or to know that they're just never going to move forward. And now at least we know and really take a critical look at that pipeline what's real, what's in there, what's got a chance to close before the end of the year, those things that have gone cold? Okay, as people are coming back from summer vacation, what is my strategy for the proactive outreach? And then again tying it back to our goals. Then looking at okay, how much more do I need in the pipeline to be able to hit my goal? Just a rule of thumb for all of you At any one time I want four times the amount of business I need to close in my pipeline to feel comfortable that I'm actually going to achieve my goal. So if your goal is a million dollars, I want $4 million in the pipeline, because that's what we're going to need to make sure that we overachieve and hit those goals.

Speaker 2:

I just want to make sure everybody heard that Four times the amount should be in your pipeline, which means you really have to grind and get that pipeline filled up. You know, a lot of times we might get to that 2 million and go, oh we should be okay. No, no, no. Four times the amount is what helps get you there. And as we kind of transition here into the marketing a little bit, the one thing I want to bring up that I learned from you is going back to the push for the no right. Sometimes no answer is the answer, I remember that to this day.

Speaker 3:

That's right, yeah, know, you know a decision not to make a decision is a decision. They just haven't told you that yet. You have to figure it out yourself after you've done a lot more follow up.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so you know a lot of times, filling that pipeline is a falsity, that you want to make sure that to your point, that you want to clear up Pipeline is a falsity, that you want to make sure that to your point that you want to clear up. And so, as we talk about the marketing here in the fall, the one thing I want to support again is, when you're talking about marketing and aligning with the sales, simplifying the message. I've seen several scenarios, evan, where clients will try and pitch three, four ideas to the same audience and now they're completely confused, right. So we are very big on whatever your campaign is, whatever the thing is that you're trying to sell, make sure that the message is simple and unified into one message. So if you can do that and start your planning for the fall now, you can really be in a position where you hit home by October and November, right, depending on what you're selling.

Speaker 3:

So you're saying that if I can't articulate my message and I can articulate my value prop clearly, then my prospects are going to have a hard time figuring out what that value prop is.

Speaker 2:

That would tell me that you don't know, so they won't know. Right, and I think you're absolutely right. You know a lot of the times, in all of our technology and all of our capabilities and all of our softwares, we tend to absorb a lot of information, but we absorb information that doesn't mean anything to us. So the ability to simplify that message I have a product that solves your pain. Going back to your sales process, I have a service that will solve your pain. That message has to come across. I just had a conversation with a client the other day and I explained to them about people's attention span is the length of a goldfish I think that's the line out there and that gives you about seven seconds. So imagine driving down 95, go birds by the way driving down 95 and seeing a billboard. That's about your seven seconds to get the message across. What are you saying to them? And they said that's it, that's it, and they might come back down 95 another day and see it. And then, oh yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 3:

And Craig to that point. I just want all of you listening to this podcast to think about how many unsolicited emails do you get a day and how many of those do you actually read? And if you actually open one, how much time do you give it before you decide whether to, whether to hit delete or read the whole thing?

Speaker 2:

that's right, that's right and and that's that's part of the good and the bad. So I just heard something on Instagram recently where the guy said he was very blunt, I love everything about it, and he says it's not the marketing that stinks, it's your message. And if you refine your message to their pain, which you can go through a solidically about talking about somebody's pain, you all of a sudden have caught their attention. Have you ever had a scenario, evan, where maybe you're looking for a new car and let's say, you see a Kia, something whatever, and then all of a sudden you see Kia, kia, kia, kia, kia, your service, so that as soon as they're thinking about it, you're face, you're face front to them, right? Does anything like that happen on the sales side? That might, that might kind of, you know, get people to jog their memory in terms of the sales stuff that you do?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely and really kind of along with that messaging piece is your elevator pitch when you're talking to people. Again, you've got about 10 seconds for them to decide if they want to pay attention to you for the next 30 seconds. Are you capturing their attention? Little known fact for all of you Number one, most listened to radio station, wm, stands for what's in it for me.

Speaker 3:

Yes, if in your messaging you can hit on the what's in it for me for the person who you're talking to, you are going to capture their attention. They're going to want to talk to you further. They're going to want hey, how can you help me with that? Or jeez, yeah, I'm running into that. How did you know? Yeah, but if you keep your message all focused on myself, let me tell you how great I am. Let me tell you about all my products, all my services. They're out, I I call it the.

Speaker 3:

The eyes go on screensaver. They're thinking about their next conversation. So you need to, in that seven seconds, capture the problems that you saw. That may apply to the other person and from a sales perspective, it's great because it will help me qualify or disqualify that person in 10 seconds. So if I'm at a networking event, if I'm making a ton of calls worse than getting a no is not figuring out until 20 minutes into the conversation and it's not a good fit. So if we can have that good, succinct message to qualify or disqualify quickly, that's going to make all the difference in the world.

Speaker 2:

All the difference and that's a great tool to bring it back home again. That's a great tool to understand if your messaging is hit on point when you're doing your marketing campaigns, because realistically, that's really what it is in a marketing perspective is the elevator pitch. Now, what you may do and it's important when it comes to this, and here's your extra credit, if we're going to the school analogy is to make sure that whatever message you're sending in that seven to 10 seconds is to the right audience. Any one of us can have up to three to five different audiences that we're trying to approach when it comes to what we're selling service or product wise. So you cannot say to person A the same message you say to person C. It's just totally different people, totally different mindsets, totally different personalities.

Speaker 3:

So one and that's something I talk about with my clients all the time. You could have three different elevator pitches for the same organization If you're talking to the owner versus the technical buyer versus the financial person. Same company they care about three different things. The other thing, both from a marketing perspective and a sales perspective that I would strongly suggest you do that message, whether it's an ad, that you're creating an email, that you're sending out the elevator pitch, that you're giving talk to one of your friends who's not in your industry, and share with them the pitch.

Speaker 3:

If they can't get it, if they don't understand it, pretty good chance that your audience doesn't get it. And sometimes we don't realize it because we're iterating on it five and six and seven, eight times the people in our own company. We're reviewing it with them over and over and, over and over again, so they won't realize that somebody who hasn't been in the middle of all of these conversations may have no idea what the heck we're talking about. So I would suggest that you share it with people outside of your organization, people who weren't intimately involved in putting it together. If they get it right away, great, we're probably right on track. If they're like, I have no idea what you're trying to sell. I have no idea what you're trying to sell. I have no idea what you're trying to say. We probably need to go back to the drawing board.

Speaker 2:

And I would say is to kind of round out the show here Ultimately, that concept applies to the messaging, that applies to the content that you're putting out, that applies to your LinkedIn profile and your other social profiles. That accounts for everything, because nine times out of 10, before I pick up a phone or fill out a form or email, you text you. Whatever the case may be, I've already researched you and LinkedIn is a great example of. If I wanted to engage somebody like Evan, I'm looking at his LinkedIn profile. We might have somebody in common. I reach out to that person and say tell me about Evan Polin. And they go oh, great guy, great guy, a little overzealous on the Phillies and all but great guy, right. And so now, before I call Evan now I have a better idea of what I'm getting into before I talk to him and if your content's not up to place, if your emails aren't in the place and saying the same thing, if your collateral is not saying the same thing, now you have a broken message and that's important.

Speaker 2:

When you're going back to school, what does every teacher give you? It's more. On the college level, they give you a syllabus. They're telling you what's coming your way, just like we do here on the playbook, and so when you have that syllabus, you know exactly what's coming, exactly what time, exactly what's due, and that's how we, like our lives, pampered a little bit when it comes to what we're trying to problem solve.

Speaker 3:

And Craig. I know we're going to be out of time in a minute, but, along with the syllabus and kind of what to do, the one other thing I would strongly suggest you do this time of year was talking to another client earlier today. Every professional association that you belong to, every trade show, I promise they have their calendar out for the rest of the year. August is a great time to look at all those organizations that you belong, to Look at what all of those events are. Put those events in your calendar. If you're spending time spending money on a trade show, figuring out, planning out what outreach you should be doing before you ever get there, so that again there should be no pop quizzes Nine times out of 10, we know what's going on, now is a great time to look at it. Put stuff in your calendar. Figure out what planning you need to do so that you're in a great spot when those things come up and they don't take you by surprise.

Speaker 2:

And I'll remind you guys what Evan said earlier in the show here four times the amount in your pipeline. And so now, as we start to round out quarter three and into quarter four, you're almost, from a marketing perspective, preparing for quarter one as well. And so now, if you put all that planning into place, you can either get a great jump on the new year, because you've already done the work now, or you're playing catch up. Never a good position in business to be playing catch up. So, as Evan, let's, let's think about the last few points here that you want to leave with everyone in terms of what we talked about today, and I'm going to remind everybody if any of this information was good for you or valuable for you.

Speaker 2:

You need more information. You can always reach out to myself. You can always reach out to Evan. You, you need more information. You can always reach out to myself. You can always reach out to Evan. You can always put a comment in the YouTube or on the LinkedIn post that we put, because we are always here to help and I think, between our collective minds, we're pretty good at what we do and we can also make sure that we deliver you guys some real context of how you can make things better in your business. Evan, as you start to tell us the kind of the summary of this, give them a brief little hit in terms of your sales training that you're doing.

Speaker 3:

Sure, and I was also going to say you know Craig's underselling himself. He's really, really good at what he does. I'm pretty good at what I do, but yes, we have it. If you need help cramming for that final, I've got a 12 week sales training course coming up, starting the Tuesday after Labor Day, having that execution of that activity plan, figuring out your cookbook, figuring out the activities that you need to do, as well as teaching you a consultative sales approach. So, if anybody's interested, just look me up on LinkedIn You'll be able to find information. Or look up polin P-O-L-I-N. Pgcom and there'll be all of the information there for the 12-week sales training program. Whether you're just doing the sales training, you want some coaching as well, all of that will be in there.

Speaker 3:

So, going back to a couple of takeaways from today, look at what you've done so far this year. How are you tracking towards your goals? Look at what your closing percentage has been. Figure out how much business you still need to do to hit your goal for the year. Go back, redo your cookbook so that you know exactly what activity you need to do day in and day out.

Speaker 3:

Take a good, honest look at your pipeline. Knock out the stuff that has no chance of closing. Make sure that you've got a plan for the proactive outreach you're going to do for the stuff that does're going to do for the stuff that does have a chance to close, and then put together the plan for what we're going to do to fill up that pipeline with the new opportunities that we're going to need for us to hit our goal. Make sure that you're doing some of that research, you're doing some of that homework associations that you belong to. What events are coming up. Put those things into the calendar. Figure out what kind of planning that you need to do so that you belong to what events are coming up. Put those things into the calendar. Figure out what kind of planning that you need to do so that you're prepped and ready to go well before those events come up. And, craig, from the marketing perspective, what are some final things that people should be looking at as they make that last push for the year?

Speaker 2:

Awesome. I would say that. Simplify your marketing campaigns. If you guys are struggling getting anything from a marketing perspective to work, it's probably because you're giving too much information for somebody to absorb in such a short amount of time. Make sure that all of your assets are coordinated and that the information that you're delivering is delivering it to the right people. We're big fans of don't overspend, simplify and then know what hits. Then spend more with the ones that are hitting. I think that, ultimately, if everybody plays in that game and that scenario and you put together the sales and marketing team like you have here, you'll have a lot of success in what you're doing and going to the new quarter probably on easy street a little bit.

Speaker 2:

So, evan, it's time for us to get out of here, time for us to enjoy what's left of our summer and make sure that you everyone tunes into the sales and marketing playbook. We have a lot of guests coming in. We'd like to keep you guys informed and you can find us anywhere on YouTube, all the major audio platforms. You can absolutely find these little clips on LinkedIn and connect with us. By far. Connect with us and be ready, because we're going to give you a little bit more great stuff to help you guys win in this business. Any last point, evan.

Speaker 3:

So just keep practicing, follow the playbook and keep winning, keep winning, all right Till next time.

Speaker 2:

Go birds by the way. Go birds and keep winning. Keep winning, All right, Till next time. Go birds, by the way.

Speaker 3:

Go birds.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of sales and marketing. Remember, the playbook is in your hands and the possibilities are limitless. Keep exploring, experimenting and innovating, and watch as your business reaches unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed on all major podcast platforms and follow us on YouTube, facebook and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.

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Craig Andrews

Host
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Evan Polin

Host