3 Experts, 1 Broken Sales Pipeline: Here Is Exactly How to Fix It

If your referral pipeline has slowed to a trickle and you are not sure whether the problem is sales, marketing, messaging, or all of the above, this episode is for you. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock brings together an expert panel to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing small business owners right now: how to build pipeline and drive revenue when the economy is uncertain, tariffs are biting, and the old ways of generating leads are no longer working. To ground the conversation, Corey introduces a fictional $8 million industrial manufacturer called Precision Works. The company has grown almost entirely through referrals, has a CRM that nobody consistently uses, a LinkedIn page that gets updated whenever someone remembers, and a sales team that has never had to answer the question of why a buyer should choose them over anyone else. Stop us if you have heard that before. Joining Corey are three guests who each bring a distinct lens to the problem. Tara Wagner of Breakthrough Boss works exclusively with small businesses and immediately asks the question most owners are not ready to hear: where is the leadership team and why is the CEO the one stressing about this? Nader Safinya of Black Ribbit brings a culture and brand strategy perspective, pushing the conversation toward the foundational question of what experience a business actually delivers and whether the people inside it can even articulate that consistently. Neil Benedict of Silverbrick Sales Solutions, a Sandler-trained sales coach making his first appearance on the podcast, argues that this is not necessarily a sales problem at all. It is a clarity and consistency problem, built up over years of never needing to answer the hard questions because referrals did the work instead. What makes this roundtable especially valuable is the way three professionals with very different disciplines arrive at the same diagnosis. Before you change your messaging, run paid ads, restructure your sales team, or launch a new LinkedIn strategy, you need to look inside. Talk to your top customers and find out why they actually buy from you. Talk to the deals you lost and find out why they said no. Talk to your managers separately and listen for the discrepancies. And then use what you learn to build messaging, targeting, and a sales process that reflects reality rather than assumption. If you are a small business owner trying to get out of a referral-dependent growth model, a sales or marketing leader trying to build a more predictable pipeline, or an entrepreneur wondering whether you have a sales problem or a foundation problem, this episode will give you a clear framework and a lot to think about.

KEY TAKEAWAYS
This is not necessarily a sales problem — when a business has lived off referrals for years, it has never been forced to answer why a buyer should choose them, and that gap gets exposed the moment the referral engine slows down
The bottleneck is almost always at the top — at $8 million in revenue, the CEO should not be the one stressing about LinkedIn; someone needs to own sales and marketing and the org chart needs to reflect that
Talk to your best customers before you change anything — they will tell you why they actually buy from you, and that language should be driving your messaging, your targeting, and your sales conversations
Talk to the deals you lost too — understanding why people said no is just as valuable as understanding why they stayed, and most companies never do it
The greatest insights come from the discrepancies — when managers at the same level are telling three completely different stories about the business, you have a clarity problem, not a sales problem
Fix the wrong things first and you will burn time, money, and energy — get the diagnostic right and the repair becomes obvious
Do this work iteratively, not all at once — surveys instead of interviews, one conversation at a time; it does not have to be operationally straining to be effective

LINKS & RESOURCES
Learn more about Nader: https://blackribbit.com
Learn more about Tara: https://breakthroughboss.us
Learn more about Neil: https://www.linkedin.com/company/silver-brick-management-solutions/
Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/
Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions

EPISODE CHAPTERS

• 0:00 – Introduction: BD and pipeline — why this roundtable topic won by a landslide
• 1:28 – Meet Precision Works: the $8M manufacturer whose referral engine is running dry
• 5:01 – What the panel is seeing in the market right now: winners, losers, and the overwhelm paradox
• 10:40 – Which industries are holding up and which are hurting, and why differentiation is the dividing line
• 13:56 – Where do you even start? Tara, Nader, and Neil each take their first crack at Precision Works
• 17:52 – Neil's call: this is not a sales problem, it is a clarity and consistency problem
• 22:12 – Tara on leadership: the bottleneck is always at the top and the CEO needs to get out of the weeds
• 25:41 – Talk to your best customers, then talk to the deals you lost
• 28:37 – Nader on the holistic picture: when people at the same level tell different stories, that is your diagnosis
• 30:48 – Getting tactical: using what you learn to build messaging, an ICP, and a real sales process
• 39:11 – Corey's synthesis: every discipline in the room came back to the same answer — look inside first
• 41:14 – The biggest objection: this does not have to be operationally heavy, do it iteratively
• 43:11 – Tara's mechanic analogy: get the diagnostic right before you start replacing parts
• 45:01 – Closing thoughts and where to reach Nader, Tara, and Neil

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

So we did a survey a while back to see what every uh what the common consensus was about what we're going to cover on our round table this month. And overwhelmingly it was BD and how to build pipeline. The economy sucks. We have tariffs, we have a war, we have the perfect storm of difficulty happening for small businesses owners, uh small business owners out there trying to build business. So today we put together an expert panel of guests who are going to help us walk through how they would either build their business or advise you on how to build your business.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Welcome to the Key Hire Small Business Podcast, hosted by Corey Harlock, creator of Key Hire Solutions, where small business owners learn how to build stronger teams, simplify growth, and scale confidently. Got feedback or topic ideas? Send us a text. If you're listening on a handheld device, tap the link in the show notes to message the show, subscribe or follow on your favorite platform. And follow Key Hire Solutions on social media for more insights and updates between episodes. To learn more about how Key Hire can help scale your business, visit keyhire.solutions. Connect with Corey on LinkedIn through the link in the show notes. Mention you're a listener, and he'll accept your request. And now, on with the show. Here's your host, Corey Harlock.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

So before we get started, we sent out a little case study. It's bad. But we'll push through. So we sent out a mini case study to the guests, to our guests, who I will get to in just a second. And we're we're gonna we have a fictitious manufacturing company called Precision Works. And I just want to walk you through some background so everyone kind of understands what we're talking about. So Precision Works Manufacturing, they're an industrial B2B manufacturer. They deal in uh industrial service, uh they're in the industrial services, have about $8 million in revenue, 42 employees. They're located in the US, pick your market. Uh, their buyer is an operations leader, plant manager, procurement teams, and business owners sales model. They're very relationship-driven, long-tail sales cycle. Historically, they're referral heavy. Their current challenge, leaders have become inconsistent, referrals are slowing, and the owner is unsure whether the problem is sales, marketing, messaging, targeting, follow-up, or all or any combination of the above. Uh, precision works has grown steadily over the past decade. Most through referrals, as we mentioned, repeat customers, local relationships, and a few large accounts. Uh, the current state of the business, they have a basic website which explains what they do, but it does not generate leads. They have a LinkedIn page that's updated inconsistently, a CRM, but it's not always maintained. Uh, stop me if you've heard that before. A few past customers who could uh become repeat buyers, but there's no formal no formal nurturing process. They have a sales team that's mostly reacts to inbound interests or referrals, no clear content strategy, no defined lead generation targets, no consistent follow-up cadence, and no clear answers as to why should a buyer choose us now. So the owner's concern, and this is what we're gonna talk about the owner is starting to feel like the business is slumping. And it's they don't feel like it's failing, but they are definitely feel like the old ways of generating leads aren't working the way they used to, and they're seeing that lead generation or those leads starting to dwindle. There's your background, that's what we're gonna be talking about. Now let's get to who's gonna be talking about this stuff. Uh, we have Tara Wagner. Tara was a guest on episode 87, and she talked about the Instagram business card strategy. It was a really popular episode. We got really good feedback on Tara. Uh, she is also the owner of Tara Wagner Coaching. She works exclusively with small businesses. We have Nadir Sefinio from Black Ribbit. He was on episode 109, and Nadir talked about the intersection of brand strategy, design thinking, and the modern workplace. And then we have new to the show and longtime friend Neil Benedict from Silverbrook Sales Solutions. He's a Sandler trained sales coach, and this is his first appearance on the podcast. Matt, let's welcome them, welcome them all on. Everyone, thanks for joining us on the show. We'll give you a chance to tell us how to get in touch with you at the end, but let's jump in here because people are really struggling right now. You know, let's just start with this. What have you guys experienced in the market and what are you seeing when you're talking to small business owners? And Neil, we'll start with you because you're the newbie.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, Corey, I wanted to say I don't know how good of friends we could possibly be if uh this is the first time I'm being invited on your podcast, but uh but I'll I'll I'll still be as gracious as I can be while we're here. Take it up with you after we're finished. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 5:14

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yes. Um, so yeah, I think your case study uh demonstrates uh an extreme amount of relevance in today's market. Uh I work a lot with small to medium-sized businesses that are almost always trying to figure out how to grow revenue. And because my background is mostly sales and sales leadership, I spend a lot of my energy and time trying to figure out that equation as well. And so I think this is very relevant to most of the customers that I deal with, not only um at the current moment, but historically. And I think things haven't changed too dramatically as of late. They've just gotten a bit more intense. I think to your point early in the in the podcast, you know, you've identified some real headwinds in the market. And hence, um, again, this is a very relevant case study for us to be talking about at this moment because I do think companies are still struggling and trying to figure out new markets and trying to figure out how to adjust to the headwinds that they're facing.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Yeah. Anyone else want to jump in on that?

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Go ahead, Tara.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

I've really seen uh a wide variety. I've seen a lot of people who are definitely feeling the pinch, they're feeling the shifts and the changes. And I'm also seeing people that are like, we're doing great, we're doing fantastic. And I think the difference, well, I've I've noticed the difference is in how they're approaching it. If it's like, oh crap, everything's changing, am I going into panic mode or am I going into listening mode? Because the businesses that are always going to rise to the top are the ones that are just listening to their audience. They're talking to them, they're asking questions, you know, where are they at? What are they needing? And always in business, we're here to serve the audience. We're here to serve our ideal client or audience. And so if we just understand where they're at, and that's a constant conversation, and we don't get complacent in that conversation, then really our marketing, our sales, our branding, those things should be ever evolving. And it shouldn't feel like, oh crap, all these changes just happened in the last six months, you know, or 12 months or whatever it might be. You've been making changes all along the way because you're responding to that audience feedback all along the way. And the people that I'm seeing doing that, they're not hurting. They're still feeling the changes. It's still like a things are moving and they're moving fast, but they're doing great. Their revenue is still doing great. And it's just because they're re they're responding instead of reacting.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Okay. And Nadir, what are your thoughts? Um, I I echo a lot of the sentiments from both Neil and uh Tara. I um one thing that I have, there's definitely a discrepancy. One thing that seems to be consistent across the board is um the ones who are doing well, the ones who are still profitable and generating revenue are um, like Tara said, they're able to pivot. It's whether it's whether it's uh already baked into their strategy to enable them to be flexible, or if it's something that they're just good at doing because they're listening and they're paying attention and they can flex quickly. Um, one thing that remains true is that they're still staying the course, they're not doing anything huge, they're not doing like big changes or making big investments. Um, and uh the ones who are suffering, like the one, like this case study would suggest, and so on, which that thing is written down to a T with so many I've I've spoken to and worked with myself. Um one thing that I've noticed all year, in fact, uh is yes, it's true that everyone is chasing from my research and my observations, AI ops, and fast ROI.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

On the other hand And that's the one thing I didn't say in this perfect storm, there's this huge surge of AI.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah. Uh on the other hand, um, there's also this uh sentiment from vendors like ourselves who are saying things like I don't know if it's if it's indifference or fear or uncertainty or just indecisiveness, but people aren't moving. Everybody wants speed, but no one can make a decision. These kinds of these kinds of sort of um paradoxes. And at the same time, my observation is that is that it's none of those. It's actually uh avoidance, it's a non-committal kind of a behavior. You know, um I'm noticing myself included that there's a lot of overwhelm. There's so much uh so much just over, oversaturation of information of different channels of where to place my empathy. You know, you got you got your house, you got your kids, you got your kids' friends, you got your wife, you got your wife's friends, you got your your neighbor's dog, the trash guy, the this, the that, the utilities, you got the wars, the war I should actually care about, the tourism from the World Cup. Like it's just endless. And then I walk in and I'm like, buy my thing too. And they're like, get the hell out of here. You know, it's just so like there's this air of like non-commitment that it doesn't mean they're ignorant or they don't get it. It's just like if you need to, you know, and I know the people in this room get it, need to co need to be very compassionate and listen as to how to re-remove the stress and reduce the overwhelm.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

Do and the one thing I wanted to ask, and we'll try to keep this really brief. Are you guys seeing industries that aren't struggling as much or certain industries feeling it harder than others?

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Of course. I work with a lot of local service-based businesses, they're not feeling it in the same way. I mean, they'll feel it, they'll feel changes, but they're gonna be the last people to lose their jobs to AI because they're you know, fixing electrical wire or they're giving a massage or things like that. Service-based businesses are are traditionally gonna be more stable.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Neil, are you seeing specific industries that are are uh faring better than others?

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, I would I would echo Tara's thoughts on that. I mean, any anybody who's providing utilities, anyone who's doing power generation services, anyone who's doing, you know, relatively consistent commercial construction, all of those people are doing pretty well at this point, particularly in Houston. I can't speak for Washington where Tara is, but particularly here in Houston. So I would say, yes, she's right on in that regard. Those companies are doing really well. Um and the and the people that are struggling are the ones that can't clearly articulate and identify a very differentiated approach to whatever it is they're doing. And that can be in software, it can be in consulting services, it can be across the board. But yeah, I I agree. The the the the technical um companies are doing pretty well right now that that are actually delivering a service.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

And did you have anything different there?

SPEAKER_03 12:13

No, I would I would just emphasize um the word service becomes nebulous in this context because I'm a service-based company and people offering soft services like consulting and so on are the ones that are um let's call it challenged, more challenged. Uh, but the trades, you know, are doing well. Uh the the ones that uh Tara listed are I I'm experiencing the same thing. And um, yeah, no, I honestly I echo what Neil said. It's really the differentiator that becomes the the laser pointed, very pointed. Do you know how you're different? Can you answer why anyone would buy from you instead of anyone else?

SPEAKER_04 12:56

And it's funny because we had uh Bill Connorly, who's our uh economist, who comes on every now and again, and he was on on uh April 6th, and the war had just kind of started, and he said, if it if it ends in less than three months, we're we're back in business. Three to six months, we're gonna feel a bit of a blip. More than six months, all signs point to recession. And I don't know, I feel like we got to be over six months at this point, or we got to be close to it, aren't we? April, we're in June. Oh, maybe we're like four or five months, so we're teetering on that uh that six month prediction he made. But okay, let's get into this. So we look at um our company, Precision Works Manufacturing, TM. And uh I just curious to know each of you, just kind of we'll we'll keep it brief and then we can build on it. But where do you start? What's what's your when you go into this company? And what's interesting is all three of you have a very different approach. So this will be super interesting for every anyone listening, for me as well, and maybe for each of you to say, Oh, I never thought it. That's an interesting approach, or that's kind of cool. So interested in Otara, ladies first, we'll let you go first.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Thank you. Um, honestly, when I read this, the very first question I thought was where in the world is the leadership team and why is the CEO stressing about this? When I look at an $8 million company, they should have a sales and marketing director. They should have somebody overseeing that sales team, making sure that sales team is performing, having clear KPIs. It shouldn't have gotten to a place where it feels like the business is on fire. And the CEO should not be the one having to stress about it. The CEO should be the leader, not the doer, not the, oh my gosh, you know, what's going on LinkedIn? I have no idea what's going on my LinkedIn, and I'm not an $8 million business. There's like when you get to that stage of business, there's no way the CEO can have all of this on their brain and not lose their ever-loving mind. So my first thing would be show me your team. Like, I want to see your org chart. I want to see who's doing what. And I want to know is there, do we have underperformers on this team, or do we just have missing leadership? Somebody who needs to step in and make sure that the people who are being paid to do the sales and marketing are doing the sales and marketing.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

Okay, very cool. Nadir, where would you start?

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Um, I would start with uh observation. I would want to know um, you know, the just go in and ask a whole bunch of questions. I want to talk to leadership, like Tara said. I want to talk to middle management. I want to talk to um the other employees. If it's 42 employees, is that what it was? 42 employees um in a company making eight something, what is the uh what would like the average you know this, Corey? It's like what are they spending, like 40%, 30% on on uh uh labor costs?

SPEAKER_04 15:58

If you have their payroll costs, that's that I would say that's that's heavy for an eight million dollar year company. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

I mean, even if you just divide like the 35%, that's like not even 70 grand per person, if you actually divided it by the whole 42. So, like, what is that implying? You know, is there an actual C-suite? 8 million uh with a real C-suite is not typical. So um, you know, what is that looking like? I just want to go see what's up very, very openly and uh, you know, give me a day, two days just to go ask questions and walk around the office.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Neil, what's your approach?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, uh I mean I think as a sales consultant, um, we carry, you know, a certain set of tools in our bag and and we carry a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Anyone who has a sales problem, we start wanting to hit it with that big hammer. I think in this case, it's really not I I think I'd try to avoid making too many assumptions here because I'm not certain this is a sales problem quite yet, based on what we know. I think it's probably more of a clarity and a and a consistency problem um because they've they've clearly never had to answer the why us, why right now, because they've been basically living off referrals. And and again, referrals are part of selling, don't get me wrong. So it's okay to have referrals, but when you're building your business model or your sales model off of referrals, and that referral engine slows down, it exposes every question in your sales organization because they've never had to answer those really deep questions for customers, because you know, referrals don't typically ask as many questions, right? They they get referred based on a trusted relationship, and hence they they're not as complicated to win. So I think again, there's probably more of a uh I would agree with both Tara and Nadir here that um you know we need to investigate this more. But again, I I wouldn't immediately think this is necessarily just a sales problem.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

So let's let's take the leap and say we have a sales manager, we have uh a marketing coordinator, because that at we're you know, what do we say, $8 million a year? So you probably have a sales manager, probably not a director or a VP. You might have someone you call a director, but they're probably truly a manager at this point. Um, you can't commit to a full marketing person, so you probably have a marketing coordinator who's running your socials and maybe some paid ads, uh, but also maybe is doing benefits or payroll or another job is the EA for the the business owner and uh trying to do social at the same time. And uh trying to think, and then maybe it's you uh you know, you got to look at your manufacturing side as well. Maybe it's a quality or an OTD on-time delivery issue. So it I specifically pulled those out because we have someone who someone who specializes in culture, someone who specializes and and Tara, you talked a lot about social before last time you're on, and then Neil in sales. So maybe you know take take one of those that that lines up with what you do and talk about how what your next steps are. We know who's in there. So we have uh an ops manager, we have a sales manager, we have a marketing coordinator. How would you coordinate those three pieces maybe to drive more awareness or get get out of the referral cycle?

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Go ahead. So um you don't need you don't need to raise your own. I don't okay. I'm just gonna jump. I don't like talking over people. So um the uh teacher, teacher. Um so again, I I'm most interested. The way that I approach these things is at the end of the day, everything is connected. It's all there's an interconnectedness within the company between departments. Uh you could all the invisible stuff, you know, you can talk about morale, you can talk about, I don't know how old this company is. That wasn't written. If it's a manufacturing company, is the place falling apart? I mean, how old is it?

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Is the is the Yeah, so let's say it's 10 years old and and it's it's it's a good modern company and they they they their product is sound.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

So so even so, um, you know, I want to go speak to the managers that you just described, the ops, the marketing, and so on. I want to talk to each of them separately. I'm gonna ask them very similar questions. You know, what um nothing leading, you know, how long have you been here? Uh, what's changed since you've been here? You know, what's been working recently? What's not working? What what do you need to do your job better? What do you think is not taking place that's you know affecting your job? How do you feel about your own team, et cetera, et cetera? And then I would talk to their team as well. Um, you know, Neil said maybe it's not a sales problem. What the the list of issues that um is listed there, know this, know this, know that, uh, describes a very lack of uh of a clarity problem. What are we even doing here? Why are we here? What is the point of all this? To whom are we selling and why should they care? I wanna I want these questions to be answered first before I get into anything that has to do with systems, processes, or any sort of concrete recommendations or outputs, because if we go ahead and jump into creating um uh SOPs and protocols and you know, all the if this then that's on top of a broken or non-existent foundation, you're just putting band-aids on bullet wounds. So it's just a waste of time. And more than that, I want to make sure that you know, if is it truly founder led? You know, this is uh um, this is Tara's domain. Like, are you is what happens when the founder is not in the room, when the CEO is not in the room? Are priorities shifting when the leadership, so called, is not there? You know, how does that impact everyone's uh uh decision making abilities or ability to execute?

SPEAKER_04 21:59

So Tara, he put it on a T for you. You might as well continue that. He just talked about, you know, what happens when the founder's there. And then we have our marketing coordinator and our sales manager as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah, I mean, that's that's the big glaring thing that jumps out at me is leadership, because, you know, you said at $8 million, they may not have or may not need a marketing director, but they do need somebody leading this. And the CEO can't lead everything. What the CEO needs to be leading is what is the direction? What is the the brand? What are we trying to do? And then are we, do we have the team underneath us? Are we leading that team to do their job and to figure everything out? I don't, I don't want to see my owners in the weeds like this when they're at that level. Being in the weeds like that, you're in that up to half a million dollars, three quarters of a million dollars. And then your brain starts to just fry out. You have to start stepping back and start giving things away. And I absolutely like that's my big thing is I want to see owners being able to step out of their zone of excellence and their zone of competency and definitely their zone of incompetency, and step into what's called their zone of genius, really understanding, and and this is where I go back to that org chart. What are the roles and responsibilities? And what should the CEO actually be doing? And what are the other pieces and who is doing those things? And do we have the right people in the right seats? And is that owner leading? Or are they kind of running to catch up, micromanaging everything, inserting themselves back into stuff, taking over stuff, going in 10 different directions? Do they have a self-leadership problem where they don't even know what they want and where they want to go? So they're going in, you know, different directions that's pulling the team apart and the team is confused, and so they're not taking action. There's so many different variables that I see that can happen. But that that quote, the bottleneck is always at the top. It's a hundred percent true in ways that we often can't see it for the same reason we can't see the nose on our own face. We're just gonna be too close to the case.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

And Neil, before I get to you, I mean, Tara, you bring up a really good point. And I talk about this all the time. When someone starts a business, they hire their neighbor, they hire their neighbor's cousin, they hire their friend, and everyone jumps in and everyone has fingers in every pie and everyone helps where they're needed. Then the revenues go up. If they do a good job, the revenues take off. But the the capabilities, the capacity, the experience of the leaders stop at a point. And that's where you get that kind of the revenues are up and the experience stays down here, and you get that experience capacity gap in the business. And that's where this business is. And um, they were all kind of doing their own thing, they didn't have a lot of systems in place because when you start a business, the last thing you think is we've got to have great systems. You just go out and sell and make it, and people ask for stuff, and you're like, we can do that, and then you you find your lane, right? And so I think in this case, I mean that might be where these people are. It's kind of they don't have the experts or that those uh experienced professional leaders in the business yet. And I think they're they're teetering on needing that. So I'll just kind of throw that in, Neil, and I'll I'll give it to you.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah, no, I think that's a very valid point. I and when when I if I when I go into situations like this, one of the things I often realize is that when I ask the sales team or even the senior leadership in the company to define who their customers are, why their customers buy from them, how they're different from their competitors, most of the time they think they know, but they almost never do, right? They never can really clearly articulate it. And when and so one of the things the the thing that I would do initially, I'd reach out to the top 20 customers, the people that continue to buy from them on a regular basis, and I'd schedule conversations and I'd talk to them about why they're buying from the company, what keeps them buying from the company, and um what makes the company different, right? I'd want to juxtapose that with what the leadership and the sales team think so that I could start to understand from a standpoint of why, you know, why they're in the situation that they're in, because I care about what the internal team thinks, but I care more about what their customers think at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 26:40

Yeah. And then what else could you do with that info though? As you start pulling this back from those clients, you could you could be using this for your online marketing, your advertising, your socials. They're gonna give you terminology that resonates, right? Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

100% I would even say, along with that, reach out to 20 people that the sales team was not able to close and interview them and find out why. Why did they choose somebody else? What was missing? You know, if it was a seven out of 10, what would have made it a 10? Really understanding why people are considering you, but then saying no can give you some really big insight into any anything. It could be like, I, you know, I didn't like the salesperson, I didn't like their attitude, or it could be this little thing over here was missing, or this person, you know, had a better pricing, or something, it could be any number of things, but having that understanding of what's making people say no, not just what's keeping them on board, can be painful, but very insightful in terms of what's not working.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

What's interesting, just another insight, is you know, one of the um things we had under what's the current state is they're not correctly using CRM. And Neil, I know you like the CRM battle with every client you go into, but documenting conversations and understanding and just being able to go into your own CRM and pull reports and pull verbiage out of your own CRM, I bet you you would see some trends in there. So there's important that's an important documentation step that a lot of people overlook at first because we're too busy, and it can slow you down. But at times like these, being able to go get historical data, how important would that be?

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Data gives direction.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Nadir, what are your thoughts on what Neil and Tara had to say?

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Um, yeah, honestly, not a lot of disagreement here. Uh, I want to understand the holistic nature of what's going on. Um, Tara brought up the customer, both of you brought up the customers. You know, when we when we go into our uh into our client's um world, if we're talking about a 60-person company, even a you know, 40 to 50 person company or more, we're running 40 interviews in the first two weeks. And we're talking to customers, employees, and everyone in between. Um because that's how you start. You get you get a lay of the land through the eyes of the people who are living it. And you know, the the greatest insights come from the discrepancies. You know, three people in in apparently the same level or same tier are telling three very different stories, or they're telling the same story, you know, and and that brings up other insights. Okay, if you're all telling the same story and things are still dropping, what about the customer side? What are they saying? You know, and so on. It's just understanding how all the pieces fit together before doing anything. Um, how do you fix an engine if you don't look at it? Right.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

And then you have the owner a lot of what what you're talking about is that inside out approach going in. And then, you know, even Neil, your your sales-specific approach was was an inside out approach going in to fix it. So let's get a little more tactical in terms of okay, we've done our analysis, we see what's going on. Now, what what we're moving into the advice section of the conversation. If I'm a business owner, I'm thinking, okay, this is great. Like I got to look inside, I gotta, I gotta go talk to some old clients, I gotta talk to some deals we missed out, I gotta talk to my people. Then what do I do? Once I get that information, what how can I use that information tactically to build my sales or at least start building a pipeline?

SPEAKER_03 30:47

So we um we identify uh in my in again in our case, if you're talking about the culture brand system and the culture brand model, we're identifying what the intended brand is first. What is the intended experience you want everyone to have? Whether they're buying from you or working for you, um, that should be the same experience. When you are at your absolute best, everyone should ultimately tell the same story. You know, if everyone is telling different stories about you, then we have other things to worry about. But um in uh then once you have that understanding of like what do you want people to feel? What do you want people to say, what do you want the stories to be when you are at your absolute best, then you can start reverse engineering that into very applicable operational tools, principles, drivers, or otherwise that now start defining who are the right people that you want to approach? What is your ideal client profile? Will they be able to experience that thing you want them to experience when you're at your best? If the answer is no, sometimes there are circumstances and situations in place or variables in place that don't allow someone to ever experience that with you. So those become either lower down the tier of potential customers or not at all. And I think we need to identify exactly who our target is so we can get real specific about um again, what what uh both Neil and Tara said. What pains are we solving for them? What's uh what needs are we solving for them if this is manufacturing, if it's about tools in manufacturing. We all know manufacturing is historically a price war. So, like, why would anyone buy from us beyond pricing? The CRM is probably the most important thing in the manufacturing space. You need to start knowing when these people's birthdays are, when their kids' birthdays are. You got to start like hitting them up before that, really get on their radar as someone who gives a crap outside of just getting their business because they're going to the I I know I have a lot of colleagues and clients in this space. They're losing clients to pricing like that. Because if they don't answer the phone right away, they're off to the next place. It doesn't matter if they've been there for 15 years. They're like, I needed it yesterday, you didn't answer the phone, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

Anyone else want to pick that up?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

No, well, uh from a sales standpoint, I think there are some uh you know some critical aspects of things that you need in an organization to be successful, and I think Nadir identified quite a few of them, right? He identified, you know, who's your ideal customer. You need to really understand that. And again, these are no sequence of orders, so they're probably out of sp out of place a little bit, but you need to define who your ideal customer is. You need to be able to target those customers in a systematic and consistent way. You need to have sales ready messaging, which is really what Nadir is talking about. What's your messaging to the marketplace that you can communicate to those customers so that they understand how they're going to be different by doing business with you, right? What problems you're going to solve for them. And then you need to have a very effective interaction or engagement process all the way from prospecting to closing the opportunities that's well understood in your organization. It's well tracked, and we know in certain situations when that process breaks down, so we can quickly go in and adjust it to make sure that it stays consistent over time. And so you need all those components working together effectively. And I think logically you can figure out how to sequence them because I can't prospect if I don't know who my ideal customer is and I don't have a target list of those customers that I can manage, right? So I think the sequence becomes pretty clear. But you need those key aspects in your organization so that your sales team can start to execute a plan. And even if that plan is very high level and isn't very sophisticated, having having a really simple plan that's well executed is much better than not having a plan at all, right? And so I think that's really really what we need to think about going in here and how we'd structure it.

SPEAKER_04 35:05

And Neil, I think you even alluded to being able to measure each part of the process when you said if something's not working, you need to know when it's not working and make a change. And you can't do that if you're not measuring it, correct?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Correct, correct, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 35:19

Yeah. Tara?

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah, I mean, I agree with both of what you're saying. There's foundations there that have to be shored up. We have to make sure that they're solid before we even go and start to bring anybody in. So getting all of the messaging, figuring out who we're targeting, you know, making sure that we have the follow-up systems, all of that definitely to take it a little bit more granular, I would also want to look at that data that you just collected. And I would look to see are there certain um niches that we are doing better in than others that we can deliver better to? Are there certain clients that we just find it easier to close? Um, and then where have we found our last clients? Has it just been outreach? Has it been, you know, there were they we're talking about referrals, but somebody had to come to you first to be able to refer somebody else to you. Go back and just look at where your successes have been and what can we do to duplicate those successes, but potentially with a twist or in a new way or with new branding or messaging, so that we're making sure we're we're doing what we know has worked in the past, but we're doing it in a way that it's gonna work in the present. So if anything has changed in the marketplace, if um, you know, whatever it might be, we have to make sure that we're modernizing everything. We're not just like sticking to what we've always done and that's what we're always gonna do. But we do want to look to see historically what's worked and how can we emphasize that again and how can we maximize it? And then the other thing I would say is ask your clients what they need in that sales process. In other words, when they're finding you and they're making decisions to work with you, are they going to LinkedIn? Are they going to Google ads or Google reviews? Are they like, where are they going to make the decision about you? And where are they going when they are seeking you out? So are you finding that they're just going to Google and they're just Googling, you know, whatever terms? Are they um talking to other people? Are they going to organizations? Are they getting, are they networking? Like, like where do they go when they want the solution that your business solves? And how can you show up there? Because there you have high-intent audiences. You're not trying to track somebody down who's maybe happy or, you know, the problem's not even on their radar yet, they're happy with who's solving it or they don't think they need to solve it. You're going to people or people are you're showing up where people are actively searching for you. They already have their credit cards out, they're already ready to make a purchase. Make sure you show up there. And then whatever they need to help them decide. So if they're going to LinkedIn or they want to jump on a sales call or whatever it is, you have that built into your marketing funnel so that whatever they need is there and you're not wasting any time on something that you don't need. Like, I keep coming back to you, had mentioned, you know, LinkedIn and it's inconsistent. And I'm like, you know me in social media. Like, does it need to be very consistent? Is their audience actually going to LinkedIn? Do they care how recent their last post was? Or do they want to go get a baseline of understanding about the business and be able to hop out? You know, are they going to actually follow and engage with you there? It's just like like we talked about last time I was here when we were talking about Instagram. So many people think they need to be on Instagram when most people are not seeking out their businesses on Instagram, or most businesses, they're going to other avenues. And so, really understanding again, what is that client journey or that customer journey? Where are they going to seek you out? What are they using to verify that they want to work with you and making sure that everything that you need to, everywhere you need to be showing up is well polished.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

Perfect. I think that's that puts a nice tidy bow on it. It's it's interesting that each of you come from a very different background. I keep finding this when I talk to all these. One of the one of the amazing things about Happens Podcasts is you got to talk to amazing people, but it always ends up coming back to, you know, you guys all went back to a holistic view. You got to go inside the business. No one said we've got to get in there and start pounding the streets and get make sure the guys are making 50 calls a day and doing all this. Each one of you said, let's figure it out, let's get the data, let's talk to the people, let's make sure we're aligned, let's build a plan and use all that information to build the right sales plan and make sure we're calling on the right people and to to have the my right messaging if we're gonna go marketing and then make sure our people are saying the same thing that our messaging is saying and that we're saying to our clients, and then our clients are gonna say to the next person and training them. And so I guess the overall message is um don't do nothing, don't just get stuck in and say it's coming around, it's gonna get fixed. I truly believe things are gonna be a little different, right? It the pendulum's swinging, I don't think it's gonna come back to where it was. You have to do something, but knee-jerk reaction to use uh Neil's analogy to start just hammering every nail that pops up is probably um you might get a win here or there, but you're not you're not future-proofing your business for the change, the things that are coming. And so these steps that you guys have outlined, which I think are really valuable, like do some internal work here, spend some time and figure it out. And what's the expression? Uh, when the student is ready, the master will appear, right? And so once you do that work inside, you'll your your target client will appear, the person that needs your business will appear, the way to sell your business will appear. That's what I'm taking away from this conversation, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

So um I want to thank you guys, adds something to that. Um, just say uh hopefully a um sentiment of solace because what we're saying is often um misinterpreted, although rightly so, as um very operationally straining or very time consuming. And you know, it's gonna take too long or whatever. We don't have the time. We don't need we don't have to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

That's why I said don't need for that.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Like that's usually where the resistance comes from. And again, it's that non-committal, I don't want to add another thing to my plate, blah, blah, blah. Um, which again is understandable. Um, but I want to I want to be very mindful of the fact that it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be operationally straining nor financially straining. You know, do it iteratively, do it, do one thing at a time. Start just looking around, start asking some questions. You can do it internally, start with your own managers, then start with your customers, do surveys instead of interviews. They take less uh less operational strain. So there's there's methodologies that don't require, you know, for half your team to go on pause for three, four, or five weeks. You can do this iteratively, and um, you know, I believe uh Tara and Neil would agree, unless you don't, but I I think it's something that's oh god, I hope you don't.

SPEAKER_04 42:39

I need so I need one of you guys to disagree with that.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

You know, the thing is a great point. It's just pe what I'm noticing the resistance that I notice is that it's this uh this fear of operational strain.

SPEAKER_04 42:52

Because again, it's and business owners are they take action when when the chips are down, they act. And we're telling them to act, but in a very it's it's it's not it's not going out and it's like taking more calls. It's yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

It it's part of the action. If I have a problem with my engine, I'm gonna get a diagnostic done on it first. I'm not just gonna start replacing parts because that's gonna cost me more time and money in the long run than to just take some time and actually figure out what is actually wrong and then sit down and fix the actual problem. I have seen so many people waste time and money and energy and burn out and even lose their business because they're afraid of the data. They won't sit down and look at KPIs and they fix everything and they do everything when it was just like one little thing over here that needed an adjustment. They needed to hire somebody, they needed to fire somebody, they needed to clean up their messaging. Like it was one thing, but instead, they're gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars on ads and then get frustrated and say, Well, ads don't work for me. Well, your ads. Can't work if this thing's still different.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Well, it is and it's important, yeah, and it's just important to realize that most of us believe that all the activity that we're doing is equally valuable. They don't realize that they're that most of the work they're doing, 20% of it's driving 80% of the customers and driving 80% of the results. And if they could just sit down and look at that data and realize it for a minute, most custom most companies don't need thousands of customers, right? They need they need a subset of a small group of customers that really love what they do, are really consistent, and that will grow with the company, right? Most of us feel in sales, for example, we want to start going like this. When things slow down, we want to we want to just go and grab everything. And that's the exact wrong approach, right? The right approach is to ruthlessly prioritize what it is you're doing so that you are, again, extremely valuable to a small subset of people, and and and that will allow you to focus where you need to focus.

SPEAKER_04 45:01

Awesome. Great way to wrap it up. So we'll just go around the horn here. Um, let us know if people are listening and they want to reach out or learn more about you where we can reach you. We'll we'll go Brady Bunch here. We'll go uh we'll start with Nadir and then go Tara and then go Neil.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Sure. Nadir Safinia, you can Google me or find me on LinkedIn. I'm um very active there, or just go to blackribbit.com, check out our work, and reach out to me from there. Very cool. Tara?

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Awesome. Tara Wagner, uh, you can find me at breakthroughboss.us. Um, I especially work with people who are local service-based personal or home-based services. And if there's something where you're coming and you're like, I don't even know what my problem is, we have an assessment on the website. Just look for the button, take a quiz, and it will help you define exactly what the problem is in the business. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 45:54

Neil?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Neil Benedict. Uh yeah, best place to reach out to me is LinkedIn. I am an open networker. I accept basically all connections and happy to help in any way that I can with just a question or anything related to sales. I love talking sales, uh, whether you're a client or whether you're just someone who has uh general questions. So reach out on LinkedIn, Neil Benedict.

SPEAKER_04 46:15

Awesome. You guys are great. Thank you. Appreciate you. So there you go. Uh super insightful. Personally, I didn't expect the conversation to take that route, and I'm really happy it did because it it shows you when you get a cross-section of professionals and ask them how do you fix a problem, ultimately the right thing to do, and it was proven out here, is all three of them went to let's let's look inside and and get our data, get our facts, get the information we need so we can make good sound decisions. I get it. It's it's hard out there right now, and some people are struggling and saying, Yeah, I'm gonna go talk to my employees when I could be going out on sales calls. I get it. It's tough, and you got to find that balance. But if you have time and you have the resources to dig in, times they are a change. It's it's not going to be like it was. Uh, hasn't been since 2020. Things are different and they're continuing to change at a rapid rate, and we have to adjust, we have to um stay with it and be agile, change with the times, or we will die. So hopefully you got some use out of this conversation. I know I did. We're very fortunate to have Neil, Tara, and Nadir with us. Great show. Uh, my name is Corey Harlock, I've been your host. And until next time, stop grinding, start growing.