The Content Crib Podcast

Cold Is Not Dead, Trust Is #21

• Eric Anderson and Chris Grosse

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We lay out why buyers now outresearch sellers and how authority has replaced pressure. We share a concrete path for social selling, the collective intelligence model behind Content Crib 6.0, and why reputation warms every cold touch.

• buyers entering with more research than reps
• authority and public trust replacing aggressive tactics
• collective intelligence as a team production model
• event details for Content Crib 6.0 in Bentonville
• alumni talks, prework, and small-team collaboration
• Content Crib RX: social selling and frameworks
• warming cold outreach through reputation
• avoiding pitch slaps and earning the ask
• personal branding in trust-based industries
• the Dan Gallagher example of top-of-mind recall

If anybody's listening to this, they want to come, just you know send us a DM or something of that nature and we'll connect with you

Go out to that www.contentcrib.co


SPEAKER_00:

Buyers have more information than sellers do now. Cold outreach feels like you're being violated, right? It's not like an opportunity. And authority in your space has replaced aggressive tactics, right? Why can we assume the old model works anymore? You know, the old model assumed the rep knew more than the buyer. That world is long gone. With ChatGPT and all the research. You know, buyers often walk into a conversation with more research, more reviews, and more comparisons than the rep is even prepared to do. I mean, 21 is a lucky number, so here we are.

SPEAKER_01:

Is it your birthday or something? Episode number 21.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, all right. Didn't know if the 20 you're born on the 21st or something.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, no, no. No. On the second. But uh we are on up episode number 21, and so I know in the gambling world, 21 is a good number. So there you go. Oh, yeah, duh. Nice. I don't I don't really play blackjack at all. I don't play the gamble, but I I know that anyway, we've talked way too much about the number 21. But yes, uh, podcast 21, here we are. How are you? I'm good. Good. How are you? Good, good, doing well. We uh content crib 6.0 is locked and loaded and ready to go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we had a a good little uh exchange this morning, you uh Matthew and myself about kind of where we want to take this. And I I love the idea of doing some of this team model, and I came up with a fancy word uh of collective intelligence, which I think is just maybe like that, dummies pairing together together, getting smarter. No, but everybody the everybody that has content group is very smart. So I generally get a lot smarter every time I spend time with the attendees. But I think uh, you know, a single viewpoint can create the good content, but coordinated, I think, really like creates dominant content together, you know, could instead of just like when they stop comparing ideas and then they just combine them. So I love that potential.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think so too. And I I uh I'm excited about we're gonna do a pre kind of assignment task for everybody who's coming to Content Crib. So they'll come with something that they've already developed to a certain degree, and then together we'll work on things in a with collective intelligence and uh develop it uh to be the best it can be.

SPEAKER_00:

It's better than artificial intelligence. I think collective intelligence is we're still using the human brain, right?

SPEAKER_01:

That's right, yeah. The humans are definitely going to be involved in this for sure. Um, but yeah, we uh I mean we're we're we're in our second or third wave of invites that just went out again. Um so if anybody's listening to this, they want to come, just you know send us a DM or something of that nature and we'll connect with you. And and then uh if it all is we are all click all the boxes and we're all together on everything, we'll we'll send you out an invite to come.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if you listen to the Content Crib podcast, you're definitely on the you know VIP invite list without even needing to know. But yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So um back well, let's cover the little logistics. March 20th and 21st, back in Bentonville, Arkansas. We've just kind of settled on Bentonville, at least for the time being, because it's centrally located. Everybody seems to enjoy coming to Bentonville. It's uh it's been a lot of fun. It's a town that I would have never in a million years gone to unless this happened. So, and everybody who comes does the same thing. So that's uh we may be our next content crib 7.0 will be in October of next year, and um we may look at another location for October. So that's the plan.

SPEAKER_00:

It's so hard though, because October is the best time of year to go.

SPEAKER_01:

It is so it's like yeah, yeah. Um it is that is a great time of year to be there. So, but you know, no matter what, wherever we go, we always uh we get to our max number, and um that's pretty cool, pretty exciting. And um, this time around, we're gonna go real heavy and do some presentations from people that are past content crib alum, kind of talking about their success, and then have exercises where you coordinate, you know, those who are wanting to get to the next level and their thought leadership and what they want to do, they're gonna be able to do that there and learn from others who've already done it. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the uh interesting part was will be for us trying to understand how to create that you know cross-pollination between the participant participants without kind of like overwhelming them or put too much pressure on some certain individuals to do that. Do you have any thoughts on how we we may be able to do that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think where any wherever you're starting, whatever your starting point is, this this content crib is one that you'll be able to chart your path or chart your course of where you want to go and what you want to do. But then you'll what's gonna be really cool is you're gonna be able to see what others have done, and they were in your spot. They started from square one and they knew where they wanted to go, or at least they anticipate where they want to go, and it was the steps in between that they had to figure out well, this is gonna be an opportunity to learn from others, learn how to do that. And I I think that when you know, we've figured out over and over and over content crib is all about community, it's about you know locking arms with others and learning how to do things and bouncing off ideas, going in the business together, that kind of thing. What what do you want to see out of 6.0? What do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I think the best ideas are uh typically trapped in the quietest person. And I think treating treating 6.0, content group 6.0 like a production team will be super successful because each person will contribute to research, frameworks, story fragments, how they edit it, and give constructive feedback on how they're communicating what they do. Because you know, we we always start with that, right? And then to have that one-on-one feedback and then craft it from there, I think will be will be huge.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great way to put it, too, because that's that's exactly what's going to occur. Um, you know, when they're each teammate, team member that we assign before coming to Content Crib, you know, they'll be in you'll be in contact well in advance of the meeting, strategizing, figuring out what you want to do, and and then get to Content Crib and then you get to unveil, or at least we're gonna give you the opportunity to figure out what the surprise is in this whole thing. I don't know if this rest is necessarily a surprise, but you know, we'll we'll we'll keep it under wraps at what is what's going to happen with you your what you've accomplished.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think it's important because platforms kind of shift, behaviors shift, and people are doing new things and they're not always talking about them, right? Yep. So, and then consumption pattern shifts, algorithm shifts, like what worked last year became noise this year. What works now is you know narrative tension, and it's just it's interesting to see, you know, what other people are doing, and and if other people can gather some some thoughts and strategies in a small team environment. I think it's I think there's a lot of benefit there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I do too. I I really do. And and um by the flurry of signups, it looks like we're well on our way to doing that. So uh yeah, March 20th and 21st in Bentonville. Um, you know, I I take away from every content crib. Like there's always new information that I get, and somebody shares with me something that they've been doing and or how they've been doing it. And you know, we we uh you know, we'd be remiss in talking not talking about Content Crib RX. It's something that we launched, and I think we're gonna try to fire up another cohort here before the end of the year. Um, so maybe it's you know, if if you're interested in Content Crib RX, go out to that www.contentcrib rx. It's our it's our platform, Chris and I, that we developed, and 98% of it Chris developed. But you know, it's it's it's uh it's it's a it's it's everything from social selling to thought leadership to uh tools, AI tools that can help you, the content crib co-pilot. So it's you know, it's really I mean, I I'm I'm very impressed by it every day whenever I whenever I use it, actually. So that's gonna be something that we're gonna fire up, hopefully, by the end of the year. What are your what are your thoughts about that? For sure.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean it's just getting more evident than ever that you know, if you're an entrepreneur or if you're B2B salesperson, marketer, or individual surgeon, CEO leader, like you need to understand how to communicate your value proposition publicly and as well as you know, direct one-on-one, whether it's in like DMs or um text messages or whatnot, you know, rather than just like traditional kind of outdated marketing methods. Uh, people want to work with people, and Content Care RX lays that out very nicely so you can be able to, you know, craft your ideas, follow the frameworks, because people don't really know where to start. So that was the idea of kind of building it. Um yeah, and I mean it it's more about you know, you don't it's not that necessarily you need more ideas and how you want to communicate them, you need sharper ways to do it. And I think that's what contact group does. It gives it to you know it gives you that ability to to craft it, yeah, and then get it out there.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and there's a term that keeps coming up more and more and more and more, and that's social selling. And man, I you know, it's there are people who are hawking new courses about it every day. It's like I I got another I got another ad that rolled through, and it's um, and I think we'd be you know, we're we're in the social selling business for sure. For people who are listening and they have no idea what social selling is, what are your thoughts about social selling?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's not social selling is not selling on social, it's more it's about earning trust in public so that the sale can happen in private, right? People understand who you are, what your brand is, and what your brand is is just how you serve others, right? Yep. And you know, you want to become less of a stranger and more people, you know, you understand what people talk say about you when you're not there. That's what social selling is. And once people understand that, then they know how to refer people to you, they know when they need you, and once you've reached that point, it be everything else becomes easy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's very well said. You know, it's it's developing no like and trust well in advance so somebody can know you before they meet you. And that's you know, it's the I I did a video earlier today of some long form stuff I did on YouTube, and and it was really it was inspired because I talked to a guy uh someone yesterday afternoon. I and uh they they all they're gonna laugh when I say this, but you know, they were like, I said, Oh, so you had a sales meeting. What was that? How was that? And they were like, Well, we had to hit this number and um we're not gonna get there. There's no way. And and so we had like an emergency meeting. I was like, All right, so what was the cool takeaway from it? I knew what he was gonna say well before, because I know the organization he works for. He was like, Yeah, if we each make 10 more calls and if we do this, and then which equates to, I mean, it was like literally the 1994 playbook taken out again. Let's gonna go make a hundred more phone calls because if we make more touches, more people may open the door and talk to us. And it's like, man, it's the same old thing over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00:

Buyers have more information than sellers do now. Cold outreach feels like you're being violated, yeah. It's not like an opportunity. And authority in your space has replaced aggressive tactics, right? So why can we assume the old model works anymore? You know, the old model assumed the rep knew more than the buyer. That world is long gone. Long gone. With ChatGPT and all the research, you know, buyers often walk into a conversation with more research, more reviews, and more comparisons than the rep is even prepared to do. I mean, it would take a tenured rep in a certain position selling a certain product that knows the market landscape super well, you know, even if they're well trained on it, it takes time to understand all that, right? So, I mean, an unexpected call now feels like someone stepping into your living room uninvited, like it's just not the same. So cold is not dead, but it just has to be warmed up by your reputation and your ability to portray how you help them by kind of exposing maybe the challenges that they're experiencing and how they can't be solved unless they work with you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and you know, uh it's this weird, weird pushback that I it's a lot less than it ever used to be, but this is weird pushback, and it's build timers, you know, 1994, you know, they go and they're like, Yeah, cold outreach is not, you know, no, we're still making cold calls and we're doing this. It's almost like you're taking something away from them, like you're you're stealing some of their once you know fantastic achievement that they were able to make 84,000 cold calls and this is what happened. That's not it at all. It's like, why not enhance your? It's kind of like why don't you, you know, if you have an appointment 22 miles away, why don't you walk now? I'm like, well, because you have a car, it's the same thing. It's like, why not access the tools you can use to make your life so much easier? You know, at least instead of a cold call, it can be a warm call, or at least, you know, tepid call. I mean, what you know, what why not?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean the default reaction now is like suspicion, it's not curiosity, where you know the old outreach relied on kind of that curiosity, yep, and now it's like total skepticism, right? You're your prospect isn't wondering, you know, what you have to offer, they're wondering what you want, right? They're not they don't great, yeah. It's perfectly said. Yep. If you if your message looks like if it looks and feels like a pitch before you even talk, like you lose them, it's over.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's no, I get it totally. I mean, I see it all the time. It's like, you know, we need to do this, and you know, more pressure, blah, blah, blah. And it just, you know, buyers are defending their attention as aggressively as sellers are chasing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh, 100%. And and let me tell you, everybody listening right now, don't do what I'm about to say because it happened, it happened this morning. You have the best don't do advice. Yes, exactly. You always do it. Well, this morning I had like this person sent me a message, thanks for connecting. Let's jump on a phone call and like put their phone number in the message. And that was it. And like, it did work to a certain degree because I went and looked at their profile because I was like, Well, maybe I know this person, and I don't, I'm like, I have no idea who this person is whatsoever. Like, why would I ever get on? It was to the point where I was like, that's rude. That's what I said to myself. I'm like, that's rude that you want to get on a phone call with I'm like, I, you know, you know, I'm I'm not that I'm that important, but at least I had some time that I need to do certain things. But anyway, yeah, I was gonna say, if you pitch slap somebody with the old call mean thing, you might as well just you're not even in the running anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, he could have he or she could have at least said, you know, I see you own a distributorship, I also live in Florida, something, et cetera. You know, something, you know, we should jump on a call and maybe able to help you. Right. You know, right. I may be able to help you, you know. I know some surgeons that are, you know, that work with some of the products you might or whatever. Or, you know, I am interested in you know attending content crib or something. I don't know. Something, something, something even pretend, even if they don't want to attend content.

SPEAKER_01:

Humor, humor may put something, but it's just a hey Eric, and let's jump on a call. Here's my phone number. I'm like, uh, probably not gonna happen. So anyway, that's you know content crib RX. We talk a lot about social selling and teaching on social selling. So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think it's important you said that though, because by the time that someone sends you the message like that, the relationship should already be halfway built. Yeah, right. Yeah, great point. Like send that message after you guys have built up a little rapport or engaged in each other's content, just a little bit, you know, nothing crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. And one of the things that I always talk about with people is social selling is and and because the old school mentality is I'm going to bother you or call you until you say yes to an appointment. That that's was the old school mentality. And now it's like it's really easy with social selling to weed out the people that can just waste your time. Now, will people waste your time? Of course they will, but there's so many instances where back in the day you'd be like sitting in front of a prospect, and you're like, this person doesn't have the wherewithal to buy the or doesn't want to or is getting out of the business or whatever you want to call it, they're they're working now. It's a completely different scenario and is completely different on how they'll react to you. So social selling decreases the time for someone to know, like, and trust you. We say it all the time, but it also increases the likelihood that you're gonna be sitting in front of somebody who actually wants to buy from you, and that's the goal. But the 1994 bros will tell you, you know, nope, I'm gonna call on you 41 times until you finally say yes to an appointment. And the reason that they weren't giving you an appointment is because they're never gonna buy from you anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean it's it's crazy. But the bottom line is you know buy, you know, strangers they they want some sort of proof, right? And familiar faces, especially if you're engaging, they require less of that proof, and it's gonna get you to the meeting quicker, you know. So when you show up often with more kind of depth and context into their lives or topics that they're interested in, it just kind of naturally happens a lot easier. Um, but you know, it's just a different frame of mind. You know, it takes time, those dinosaurs will never get it. I like how you said that they protect they protect it, and it's like their big accomplishment. It's funny, it's true.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it's yeah, yeah. They they love to share. Oh, I made 46,000 phone calls in my day, and like, yep, so we don't have to do that anymore. Just like I get to jump in my car and drive somewhere, I don't have to walk there. So same thing, you know. But anyway, well, I think that we have uh conquered podcast number 21 here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean I I love talking about social selling, it's just still, I mean, it's not going it's not going away, I don't think, anytime soon. I think it's gonna keep become more and more important every day and for the long term because of all the AI noise and how important it is to grow a personal brand and understand how to shape your voice, use video, get out of your comfort zone. It's just being more human and building, you know, especially if you work in trust based industries, especially you know, we work in healthcare, so everything, everything we do. trust base. Yep. Um that's not going away with AI, you know. So the more commodity selling you do might be uh challenging, but it doesn't mean you can't build a personal brand about a specific, you know, vertical you work in, because I guarantee you you'd be one of just a few that are actually sharing their their thoughts in a uh you know in a thoughtful way.

SPEAKER_01:

But oh we just we have a content alum I mean Dan Gallagher who sells logistics services and shipping services and I mean but a great every day I'm like glued to what he's got to say. And I'm like I I know more about shipping and logistics. And if there's ever a time and anybody ever goes you know what I need to ship something from you know the east coast to the west coast I'm gonna be like call Dan Gallagher like that's what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_00:

So I I'm so glad you brought that up because it is true. Yeah that's a perfect example of of if anybody says the word shipping and logistics that his name comes to my mind. There's no way it could be unburned from my brain. Yeah. And that's that's why it's so important. So we'll leave on that note. Hopefully that can make a lot more sense to people. There you go. There you go. Well cool thanks appreciate you all right see you man by