MMS #102 - Scaling Success: Lessons from the Frontlines with Eric Watkins

[00:00:01] Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling, relationships, social and AI in the buyer-centric age.

[00:00:08] Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller

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[00:00:50] Welcome back, episode number 102, Mastering Modern Selling. I'm Tom Burton and I'm

[00:00:57] here with Brandon today from Cairo, Egypt. Brandon, welcome.

[00:01:02] Yes, thank you.

[00:01:05] And Carson is, I think, doing a birthday party for his kid today, so he is not here. I hope

[00:01:13] he's having fun and but we have another great guest, Eric Watkins. Eric, welcome.

[00:01:19] Welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to be on here. Cairo, Egypt, you're making me look bad

[00:01:23] in St. Louis, Missouri. But they're somewhat close. Yeah. Yeah. Now, pleasure to be

[00:01:30] on with you guys. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:31] Bob has joined us, which means Bob, I need to show you. Bob had sent me, I don't know

[00:01:39] if I can, I don't want to share my screen, but I'll show it this way, Bob, and see

[00:01:44] if it comes through.

[00:01:45] How much across did he get off the camel?

[00:01:48] Yeah, he told me last week that it's free to get on the camel, but it costs you

[00:01:53] to get off the camel. And Bob sent me a picture that was very, very similar to this, so I took

[00:02:01] it. Let's see, Bob, can you see that?

[00:02:05] Yeah, there you go. That's good.

[00:02:07] Oh, look at that.

[00:02:08] Yeah. I like your finger on top of the pyramid there.

[00:02:11] Yes. And my camel was Charlie Brown and the other option I had was Bob Marley.

[00:02:18] I should have chose Bob Marley, but he was great.

[00:02:20] So were you able to get off? Okay. Or how much did it cost?

[00:02:23] I got off, okay. You know, it is interesting though, because you don't realize how tall they are.

[00:02:28] So when he first started to stand up, I would, and he told me to hold on, but I immediately

[00:02:33] started falling forward and was like, whoa, whoa, I really need to, I really need to

[00:02:38] hold on here. So yeah, if I'm going to shoot cost you get off the camel.

[00:02:42] That's great.

[00:02:44] All right. Well, let's jump into it.

[00:02:46] Yeah, Eric, you're the president of Abstract Marketing Group. I know you have quite a bit of

[00:02:51] history there. Tell us a little bit about Abstract and your background and kind of how

[00:02:56] you got there. And then we're going to dig in, I think, into some pretty cool topics today.

[00:03:00] Sure. Yeah. So we're a sales development company based out of St. Louis, Missouri.

[00:03:05] We've been in business for 15 years. I started here 12 years ago when we were around

[00:03:10] $3 million and about 35 employees. Started as an unpaid intern, came here straight out of college

[00:03:17] and have been lucky sort of right place, right time to be along for the ride. And

[00:03:22] you know, now we're 70 million in revenue. We have over 500 employees here work with over

[00:03:28] 2000 clients and all different industries across the country. And what we really focus on is

[00:03:34] making sure our partners never have to worry about where their next deal is coming from.

[00:03:38] That's the number one thing for why businesses go out of business. It's the number one thing that

[00:03:43] keeps business owners up at night. And then we solve that in a variety of different ways, but primarily

[00:03:48] through an outbound process that we've refined and perfected over the 15 years to generate new

[00:03:55] sales opportunities for our partners. So in addition to that, web development, SEO, agency

[00:04:01] works and cloud consulting, some recruiting. So we've really kind of surrounded ourselves

[00:04:06] with building predictable sales pipelines for clients and everything that comes with that. So

[00:04:12] I started a little bit about my background. I started as an intern, started actually in

[00:04:16] operations and really just fell in love with the game of sales and the metrics and the numbers

[00:04:22] and how you know, the effort that you put in directly correlated to the result that you get

[00:04:27] out. And it was a game to me. And so I love that aspect of it. And as I continued into

[00:04:33] operations, I started into implementations, which is the onboarding of all of our new clients.

[00:04:40] And this was, I was about 24 at the time. And I really love talking to the clients and learning

[00:04:47] their message and figuring out what's the best way to take this to market. How's it going to resonate

[00:04:51] with the target that you want to go after? And then, you know, I've played that role,

[00:04:57] did a really good job. And then eventually our CEO at the time came to me and said,

[00:05:01] hey, Eric, we want you to be a partner sales manager, which was managing the accounts and then

[00:05:06] managing a team of eight SDRs that are doing the calling and outreach on behalf of these clients.

[00:05:12] So I'd never made a cold call to this point. And I didn't think that this was the right fit

[00:05:19] for me. I was very operationally minded. I did marketing in school, but that was kind

[00:05:24] of my background. And it was a, I really thank our CEO for pushing me outside of my comfort

[00:05:29] zone. And I took that role and it was as bad as I thought it was going to be.

[00:05:35] First thing I had to do was learn how to cold call. So I embarrassed, I humbled myself in front of a

[00:05:40] team of wonderful people that let me do that. And eventually figured it out, got really good at

[00:05:45] it, was surrounded by really good people. And then sort of the rest is history from there.

[00:05:50] And grew that division eventually took on operations and sales. And now president and

[00:05:57] we're continuing to grow as an organization and went through an acquisition three years ago,

[00:06:01] went through COVID. I feel like I've been through it all now, but learning every day.

[00:06:06] You know, it's funny. I have a lot of respect for that. I came out of school as an intern,

[00:06:11] joined a startup as employee number four. And when we sold the company 12 years later,

[00:06:15] we had 400 people. I tell people you can't, that was my on the ground MBA program.

[00:06:22] And I'm sure you feel the same way, right? You just never, you can't make the stuff up that

[00:06:27] happens in over that time period. So congratulations. I totally, totally can respect, you know,

[00:06:34] that growth because it's definitely a roller coaster at times.

[00:06:38] It is. It is for sure. There's ups and there's been downs, but it's cool to

[00:06:44] see what it was like from the beginning and then be able to continue to share that vision.

[00:06:48] Because you know, as your company goes from four to 400, you start to lose a bit of that

[00:06:52] magic that you had in the beginning and it takes people sticking around and being able to tell the

[00:06:58] story. Yeah, no, there's a few stories for sure. We should do an episode on that someday. I mean,

[00:07:05] my first company, I was employee number one with two partners. I was the third person on

[00:07:10] the team. And I mean, we can go around and talk about that for a little bit. We can actually

[00:07:14] show all of our scars from those days. They're probably still visible. Yeah.

[00:07:20] Yeah, I think anything that could have happened. I had a full head of hair when I started there. I was

[00:07:26] like, you know, it just gradually over the 11 years. This headset's nice. These headphones

[00:07:34] are covering my bald spot up. So that's nice. I think headsets like that are what created

[00:07:39] my bald spot. It could be all those years. So Eric, before we get into a little bit of kind of how you

[00:07:46] your secret sauce a little bit and you mentioned, right? You got kind of thrown into the cold call

[00:07:52] deep end. Yeah. At a high level. What did you learn about cold calling? Like what was it that

[00:08:00] wasn't working? And what was it that you figured out at least made it bearable? And

[00:08:05] and, you know, because obviously, right? Why are people hate cold calling? Because you don't want to

[00:08:10] be hung up on yelled at, screamed at, whatever. Right? Obviously, you had to have transitioned

[00:08:14] so that you maybe had a successful cold call or maybe more than that. Yeah. What did you learn there?

[00:08:20] So I think the first thing is I learned after I set my first appointment, which took a little,

[00:08:27] you know, couple of days. But once I set my first appointment, I realized that, wow,

[00:08:31] this is pretty powerful, right? Like I just called somebody that wasn't expecting my call.

[00:08:36] I opened them up to have a conversation about the services our client offers and I found

[00:08:41] I uncovered a problem that they have and this could be a solution that could really help them.

[00:08:45] So like once that clicked, it makes it a lot easier from there. But before that,

[00:08:51] I think I was building it up into something that it didn't need to be like, I, you know,

[00:08:55] I think you can you can get caught up in I have to get the appointment. I have to get

[00:08:59] the appointment. And what worked for me is that I just needed to get this person to open up and

[00:09:04] have a conversation because if I can do that, that's where I'm going to uncover something

[00:09:08] that's actually going to make sense for them. And then I'm helping them at that point.

[00:09:12] And I think people get so focused on the outcome that your close rate is going to be 10 times

[00:09:18] higher when you get into a back and forth conversation with somebody rather than trying

[00:09:22] to force an appointment through. That's good. Brandon, what was it that Carl, remember

[00:09:28] Carl on our show? What was the suggestion about when you when you're talking to someone like,

[00:09:32] think of you as your eight year old. Yeah, we were actually just talking about that with my team

[00:09:37] here in Egypt over the last couple of days. It was think about them as their eight year

[00:09:43] old self and you're talking with them as your eight year old self. Just just simplify it.

[00:09:47] Like we get so worked up in our minds and and yeah. And Eric, I had my second company.

[00:09:54] I had a call center with about 100 people in it up in Cordelain, Idaho. And we talked about this all

[00:09:59] the time. It's like, Hey, they're just they're just other people on the other side. They have

[00:10:03] challenges in their company. You may call and get them on a bad day and they might be rude,

[00:10:08] but it's nothing personal. You might call somebody on the right day and that problem

[00:10:13] was just something that they've been struggling with and they love you for it.

[00:10:17] You know, and it's in the one thing that I've learned from Brian Tracy that we talked

[00:10:20] about again today was, you know, you start to learn how many calls you need to make before you get a

[00:10:27] yes and it allows you to celebrate the nose because you change your mindset in your one step closer

[00:10:33] to a yes. Because you just you just got another no out of the way for sure. Yeah, the people that

[00:10:39] have done it for a while and that are really good are always talking about that. Yep, didn't get

[00:10:43] an appointment today, but man, I'm 10 knows closer. Like I'm probably going to have five

[00:10:48] tomorrow. So I yeah, I think that's a that's a really good it's so much easier said than done.

[00:10:55] I will let that be stated but but it is absolutely the mindset it takes. And you know,

[00:11:01] part of me relates it to golf a little bit or baseball, right? Where there is no such

[00:11:07] thing as perfection. Like no one's going to go out. No baseball player is going to go out

[00:11:11] and hit 1000%. So when there's no such thing as perfection, if you get in a good way but if you

[00:11:19] get addicted to the game, like it's it's everything is seen as a challenge that you can overcome and

[00:11:25] improve and get better. And if you really fall in love with that, the rejection really doesn't

[00:11:29] matter to you much anymore because it's just, you know, something that's in your way that

[00:11:33] you need to figure out. Yeah, and I would say to extending that analogy, if you

[00:11:40] if you don't try so hard, you actually do better. Yeah, that's that's a really good point.

[00:11:45] Yeah, when I was younger. Yeah, I mean, when I was younger and I tried to whack the

[00:11:50] shit out of the ball playing golf, man, I'd hook and slice all day long. And now that

[00:11:55] I've gotten older and maybe a little bit wiser, I just let the let the club do the swing.

[00:12:00] The club do the work and yeah, and I think in the same thing if you if you get into

[00:12:05] the basics and you just follow the process and and do the work, it pays off.

[00:12:12] One thing real quick, and we may be getting into something we could talk about later, but

[00:12:17] you just reminded me of one of the things the first things I do with everybody we hire is I

[00:12:21] walk them through what I call like the mindset pyramid. And at the foundation is our belief system.

[00:12:27] So nothing is either good or bad in the world. It's how we perceive it or believe it to

[00:12:31] be. And then our beliefs lead to our thoughts. We have 50,000 thoughts going through our head

[00:12:37] every day. And, you know, we have a part of our brain that's selective about what to think about

[00:12:41] our thoughts lead to our words or words lead to our actions, our actions create our habits.

[00:12:47] We do so much training in sales and sales development. What I would say is above the

[00:12:52] surface where what it's what's the script I'm using? What are the different words

[00:12:56] I can be saying? And we don't train enough on what was my what did I believe to be true

[00:13:02] when I started my job today? Like, did I think I was going to have a great day? Did I think I

[00:13:07] was going to be successful? Or when the phone's ringing, what are the thoughts going through

[00:13:11] my head? Right? Or my is my am I like, Oh, don't pick up. Don't pick up or I'm like,

[00:13:17] please pick up. Like, I can't wait to talk to you. And just that mental aspect is so huge

[00:13:22] in what we do. How hard is that you find to get people through? I mean, I assume not everybody

[00:13:30] makes it right? It's Yeah, no, not everybody makes it. And I think it's, you know, it's a little

[00:13:36] bit. I mean, this is going to be a bad analogy. And I'm not saying there anything the same,

[00:13:41] but it's kind of like boot camp or something like that where, you know, if you do, you are

[00:13:46] going to be a completely different person coming out the other end, and it's going to help

[00:13:49] you in everything you do for the rest of your life. So we try to continue to talk about

[00:13:53] the long term. And then what's in front of your face doesn't seem so bad, because at the end

[00:13:57] of the day, we always say like, we're not digging ditches here. It's not a it's nothing, you know,

[00:14:02] we're not doing manual labor. There's worse jobs for sure. And I'm a little crazy and I actually

[00:14:07] kind of like it. But you know, we've got to continue to like think about the long term.

[00:14:15] And if you do, then it can benefit you in the long run. But it's not for everybody,

[00:14:20] which is good. If it was, then we wouldn't have a business.

[00:14:24] Hey, Eric, I have a question in Bob Britton, who's a good friend of the show and friend of ours.

[00:14:31] And he mentioned on there about caller ID as prevalent back when you started. And when I

[00:14:37] had my call center in 98, and then another one in 2002, caller ID wasn't as prevalent. And

[00:14:47] we didn't have to have to deal with that challenge. I think over the last probably 10 years or so with

[00:14:54] the amount of startups, funded companies, all that means mean just a lot more people calling.

[00:15:01] And we all have caller ID and we all have voicemail now. What give us like, obviously you

[00:15:08] have a successful SDR outsource company. How is all of that affecting what you do?

[00:15:14] And the success rate with people making those calls every day?

[00:15:20] Yeah. So this is a really interesting topic. And I sort of relate it to email in a way of

[00:15:27] the game now has become like, yes, you have to be good on the phones. Yes,

[00:15:31] you have to write good content, but just to land in the inbox or just to get

[00:15:35] people to pick up the phone is now a thing. Whereas before you just

[00:15:39] all every dial was the same. It wasn't frankly, when we started, it really wasn't a thing.

[00:15:43] The biggest thing right now is numbers getting flagged for spam. So with Zoom, it's probably

[00:15:50] Zoom Infos fault, love Zoom Info, not, you know, nothing against them, but because they made

[00:15:55] cell phone numbers so prevalent, it's now become a part of business in COVID and more people adopted

[00:16:02] it. So now these numbers are getting flagged by carriers. So just you call the wrong person,

[00:16:08] they didn't want your call, they don't know who it is. They market a spam that number could

[00:16:12] be coming up the spam consistently. So we actually, we have a tool we use called Oram,

[00:16:19] which allows you to rotate your numbers and it'll let you know if your number has been flagged

[00:16:26] a spam. If you call from a number that's been flagged, like you might have a 1% contact rate

[00:16:33] and we're looking to have around 8% typically. Wow. See, that's, I mean, I appreciate that

[00:16:41] as technology advances to protect the recipient on the other end, the calling, you know, the

[00:16:49] calling teams are trying to constantly be smarter and it's just this continually evolution of tech

[00:16:55] and anti-tech if you will for it. And hearing that you're looking for an 8%, when I had my agency

[00:17:04] with the call center in 2002 to 2010, I mean, I think we were up over 80% answer rate.

[00:17:12] Answer rate, were you B2C or were you B2B? We're B2B.

[00:17:16] B2B. Wow. Yeah, no, we've never really been, I mean, we've been at around 10%

[00:17:22] since I've been involved in it, which is 12 years ago. But, you know, we've kept

[00:17:29] pretty close to that. But yeah, that's typically what it is.

[00:17:33] Yeah, and I would attribute a lot of that to the prevalence of caller ID and voicemail.

[00:17:39] Sure. Yeah, that'll drop your numbers in a hurry.

[00:17:43] So let's walk through that because to me, right, I've never had a call center, Brandon, like

[00:17:49] you did 8% or 10% seems pretty remarkable actually in this day and age on to getting

[00:17:56] people to pick up. And, you know, we talk a lot, we were talking about before we went on the show,

[00:18:01] right? A lot of what we talk about on the show over the last 104 episodes or 102 episodes or

[00:18:06] whatever is not is to be respect the buyer, right? Respect the buyer journey. Don't try and be

[00:18:13] cheesy and spam and, you know, basically be a jerk, right? And we all get a lot of that

[00:18:18] over the course of the day. So if you're getting those results, and then obviously

[00:18:23] those are converting into appointments, there's got to be something that you're doing that is

[00:18:28] valuable, right? To the people on the other end of the phone. Take us through a little bit if you

[00:18:33] don't mind, Eric, what it is that you're doing that makes what you're doing, A, not hopefully

[00:18:40] not spammy and cheesy, right? And, and disrespectful to the buyer journey, but at the same time,

[00:18:45] valuable in a way that they're willing to have those conversations and turn into things.

[00:18:51] Sure. Yeah, one overarching thing is that if you look at all of our appointments that we set,

[00:18:58] 46% of them come from somebody who's told us no before. So we're really not concerned with that

[00:19:05] first yes, which I think makes us a little different as people may take...

[00:19:09] Can you stop right there? Hold it. Stop. Yeah.

[00:19:10] So when you say no meaning, you get them on the phone and they just say we're not interested

[00:19:14] or what is the definition of no? Yeah. So it could be as hard as never call me again,

[00:19:21] like we would just actually never call that person again, but it could be no, not interested,

[00:19:26] or it could be this is something I should probably look at. I just don't have any time

[00:19:30] to do this right now. So no or not right now. And so we call those every 90 days and that's

[00:19:39] where 46% of our appointments come from. So for us, it's more about the journey of that company

[00:19:44] because we know the people within that company are going to frequently change.

[00:19:49] Like what I really want to know is I want to know the data intelligence about that company.

[00:19:54] So we'll have our initial call and I'll say something to the effect of,

[00:19:57] hi Tom, this is Eric with ABC Company. We're based out of St. Louis, IT service

[00:20:03] provider that's... I'm calling you specifically because of X, Y and Z. And I was curious,

[00:20:08] I'm sure you have something in place, but I was curious how you're handling your IT right now.

[00:20:12] So we just use... We don't do the, hey, can you give me 10 seconds to give you my pitch or

[00:20:16] it's just, how are you currently managing your IT? And majority of people just tell you,

[00:20:23] they say I have a current provider that I'm working with. So then I'll say something to

[00:20:27] the effect of, that's great. I imagined you did if you didn't have someone

[00:20:31] that took care of your IT, that's pretty important to a business. So

[00:20:35] how's that relationship going? Would you say on a scale of one to 10?

[00:20:39] 10, I'm absolutely happy. Great. Just so we can improve our service, what would you say is

[00:20:43] makes them so good so we can evaluate our company and they'll give me something or,

[00:20:48] yeah, they're an eight. Okay. Well, eight's pretty good. What are they doing that you really like?

[00:20:52] What are they doing that you could improve? Okay. When do you... I know you're happy

[00:20:56] right now. When do you typically evaluate your contract? So I'm just having these

[00:21:00] low pressure conversations over and over and over. And then over time, I have this list of,

[00:21:07] I know the company, I know if they're the right fit, I know who makes the decisions,

[00:21:11] I know when they re-evaluate their contract and I know what they care about most.

[00:21:15] So then my next call is my best call. So every next call I'm making, now I'm calling

[00:21:21] and I'm following up and I'm saying, hey, Tom, this is Eric with ABCIT Company.

[00:21:26] We had talked three months ago, you shared with me, you were working with so and so

[00:21:29] you're about an eight out of 10 out of satisfaction and what you cared most about was response time.

[00:21:34] And the reason why I'm calling you is because this, like insert whatever my,

[00:21:40] what makes me different about, and now I'm just way different than any other call that

[00:21:44] they're going to receive. So what I'm hearing you say is that first conversation, right,

[00:21:50] you're trying to get to know a little bit about their current situation, whatever it may be.

[00:21:56] And correct.

[00:21:57] And then we were talking before you got on, Brandon, they're representing other companies,

[00:22:02] right? So here's, they're calling on the behalf of some other company that's there.

[00:22:07] So you obviously need to know what that company does and so forth. But then you're trying to

[00:22:10] get to know that company and where they may or may not be in that buyer journey.

[00:22:17] Yeah. And not as much even about buying, like I wouldn't even want to use the words

[00:22:22] buying in my first call. Like it's just, you know, I am a company in the market.

[00:22:27] I do these services. You looked like a company that made sense for us to target based on this.

[00:22:31] Most of the companies we're talking to are experiencing this. What's your current situation

[00:22:35] like? And then I'm just gathering information. And then we set appointments with people that

[00:22:41] we've talked to 12 times over three years. And they're like, honestly, you're,

[00:22:45] you communicate with us more than our current provider, like just us prospecting.

[00:22:50] And that's where I feel like people miss the boat. They get really caught up on number of leads.

[00:22:55] They get really caught up on cost per appointment. And they, you know, go either as the provider or

[00:23:04] as the customer, they go for a short-term approach of how do I send your message out to as many

[00:23:09] people as possible right out of the gate versus our call process? We only launch

[00:23:14] 100 to 150 companies into the process monthly and make about five to eight calls to each

[00:23:20] of those companies. And then depending on where we nurture, they work their way back into our process.

[00:23:26] Yeah. So you're really doing an account-based approach, right? You're doing named accounts.

[00:23:31] You're not just smiling and dialing with a dialer or something like that. So

[00:23:35] you know a bit about those accounts before you pick up the phone as well.

[00:23:39] Correct. Yeah. And we have, so the benefit of us primarily working with small to medium

[00:23:44] sized businesses across all different industries is we have a universal database on the back end.

[00:23:48] So we make probably 8 million calls a year and send 80 million emails across all of our partners.

[00:23:58] And so all that data is getting logged and we know information about these companies. So we can

[00:24:03] usually start in a pretty good place for our partners from the jump, but no list, it doesn't

[00:24:09] matter how good your database is, no list is perfect. The minute you upload it,

[00:24:14] the minute it starts becoming out of date to you. In a lot of these things, you know,

[00:24:17] you need to find out through conversation. Interesting. So I know you also use LinkedIn and

[00:24:27] social and things like that with your customers, kind of an omni, I guess a little bit more of

[00:24:33] an omni channel approach, right? You're not just making cold calls or sending emails.

[00:24:38] How does all that work? And how do you see there's a one plus one plus one equals five

[00:24:43] or how do you see that kind of building on each other?

[00:24:47] Yeah. So it's actually starting to become really hard to figure out where we got the lead from,

[00:24:53] you know, like when you have different groups. So we don't have an SDR that is responsible for

[00:24:58] sending the email and making the calls and doing the LinkedIn. We specialize that. So we have a

[00:25:03] LinkedIn team, we have an email team, and we have a calling team. And then, you know,

[00:25:09] when people start arguing over credit for leads, that's when you know the omni channels

[00:25:13] working because it gets a little tricky to figure out where it came from. Because our first touch

[00:25:17] may have been on LinkedIn. But they also happened to get this email, but then they called them and

[00:25:23] they said they didn't see the email. So that is kind of like how we evaluate that it's working.

[00:25:29] And then our approach very simply is we try to go, because we use an account based

[00:25:35] approach with our calling. We try to focus on one contact per company. So we're going,

[00:25:41] we're just trying to, trying to, you know, there's multiple people involved in the decision,

[00:25:45] but we're just trying to target one person, whoever we feel like would be that best candidate.

[00:25:49] So we really use these other channels to go deeper within companies. So we'll go after

[00:25:54] multiple decision makers who may have a say or be a part of that process. And that's kind

[00:25:59] of how we use that alongside of our calling process. So Eric, is that what you do for your

[00:26:04] company's lead generation? Or are you all, are you do that for your customers as well?

[00:26:10] Both. So we actually do it for, yeah. So we do our, we pretty much do our exact same

[00:26:15] process. The only difference is with our product, it's exclusivity. So it's,

[00:26:20] we don't get to do it for the long haul forever. So you drink your own champagne is

[00:26:25] what you're saying. Drink your own champagne, eat our own dog food. I've heard like a million

[00:26:29] verse or sales guys always have to do version of it. Nobody wants, nobody wants to eat dog food.

[00:26:34] I've never understood that expression. I don't get it either.

[00:26:39] The other one I don't understand is drinking Kool-Aid. Like everybody that drink the Kool-Aid

[00:26:43] die. Like that analogy just doesn't work for me. Not a good one and probably not

[00:26:50] appropriate, you know? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So how it get, I love, I love moving this in.

[00:26:57] Now we're getting into the Omni presence and we've got, we've got the calling capabilities.

[00:27:03] What are you doing specifically in LinkedIn? And I know Tom and I are really curious too about

[00:27:07] how you use your show as part of your, your brand building, your personal branding and your

[00:27:13] lead generation. Yeah. So for, for our company, for LinkedIn, we actually do, we offer this as an

[00:27:23] incentive to employees. So a way for them to make a little bit more money. So we have like 100

[00:27:28] employees here currently that allow us to use their LinkedIn profiles to do outreach on behalf

[00:27:34] of them. And then they can pop into the inbox and respond. And then they get paid for us

[00:27:39] to be able to use their profile. Then they also get paid per deal that closes. And that's really

[00:27:44] important because with LinkedIn, authentication is becoming an even better, bigger thing. I don't

[00:27:50] know if you guys have had to do it yet, but you got to send in your driver's license and have a real

[00:27:54] account, which I can't wait for. So all the fake accounts go away. But that's how, that's how

[00:28:02] we run our process. And then we, you know, we segment our list by, we work in a lot of

[00:28:07] different industries. So we have a specific message that will go to this industry and we'll

[00:28:11] use this profile. So let me make sure I understand. So you're using employees LinkedIn profiles

[00:28:19] and you're using like LinkedIn automation, you're sending cold connection requests

[00:28:24] and sending messages out through their profile. Correct. And then as soon as we get a, so there,

[00:28:32] I would give it a little more credit than cold. It is cold. We've never spoken with them

[00:28:36] before, but it is more specific based on the industry that they're in. So it's something more

[00:28:41] relevant. But as soon as they respond, it goes to a team that manages that inbox. So they'll

[00:28:47] manage all those responses and it's a human responding from that point forward.

[00:28:52] It may not necessarily be the human whose account is being used.

[00:28:58] Correct. Correct.

[00:29:02] Yes. So the, so the employees are basically providing the surrogate accounts that you're using

[00:29:09] for to reach out. And I assume some employees may have more industry specific people that you're

[00:29:16] reaching out to based on their background or their area of expertise or

[00:29:21] Yeah, it's not really as much based on the employees, but it's just more, you know,

[00:29:27] we want to, based on our target market and how many companies we can go after will segment those

[00:29:31] based on the industries. And then, you know, they'll, they'll pop in there too. And I had

[00:29:38] somebody the other day was like, Hey, I got this hot lead in my LinkedIn and he wanted to give

[00:29:41] it to me. I'm like, just give it to the sales team. Give it to, but it was cool to see.

[00:29:47] And I heard you mentioned that you are compensating the employees or even getting

[00:29:52] them a commission. Are they just in a commission pool based on what close or is there something

[00:29:57] that's directly attributable to their LinkedIn profile that they would get?

[00:30:02] Yeah. So if it, we know what profile it came from. So if it came from their profile,

[00:30:06] they will get the commission on that deal. Yeah. And it's just an interesting way to get

[00:30:12] people involved in it. And it makes sense financially for us. We pay a lot of money to

[00:30:16] drive leads for our business and they're doing us a favor allowing us to do it. And

[00:30:22] they can win on the other side of it. I'm curious about your, your LinkedIn

[00:30:29] activities, Eric, as a president of the company, what do you, what do you do around LinkedIn

[00:30:35] and how important is that to not just you, but the overall company?

[00:30:40] Yeah. That's a great question. I would say this is definitely an area for growth for me.

[00:30:47] I tried to, we record a podcast every Friday called The Gro Show. See the sign behind me

[00:30:52] with my CEO and our CRO. And I try to post content relevant to that weekly,

[00:31:01] but I could do more. And I, you know, I'm probably not as engaged as I should be.

[00:31:06] So I just have the automated messages going from my campaign to typically like more

[00:31:13] enterprise targets is what they use mine for. But no, definitely something I,

[00:31:19] nothing to brag about from what we're doing from that standpoint. We could definitely

[00:31:23] So it sounds like your team uses your LinkedIn account for automation and messaging on your behalf?

[00:31:31] Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then, and then I'll, I mean, it depends on different

[00:31:36] targets. I'll use it as well. So if I'm getting pulled into or involved in a sales

[00:31:42] process, I'll use it in that way as well. I'd love to hear about your show too. How, how,

[00:31:51] how do you use the show? And then how do you use that content and how much, I mean, I understand

[00:31:58] your primary motion is going to be calling. That's your company. That's probably going to be

[00:32:04] the way that you grow like our primary, our service that we offer is CEO LinkedIn

[00:32:11] personal brand building to go, to grow their brand. Therefore we focus a lot on that. Yours

[00:32:16] is on the call side, but I am curious about your show. Why if, if you're so focused on the cold

[00:32:22] calling, why a show and how do you use it? Yeah, great, great question. So we started this,

[00:32:30] let's say it was a little after COVID maybe late 2020 early 2021. And the reason we did this

[00:32:37] is because we felt like we had all these stories and value we could add that we just haven't put down

[00:32:44] or taken the time to put together. So we really put this together for two groups of people. It was

[00:32:49] for our current clients, because a lot of them are running businesses. And the whole point

[00:32:53] of the grow show is how to scale your business from zero to 50 million. So kind of giving the

[00:32:59] lay of the land of here's the mistakes we made. And here's some, here's some things to think

[00:33:03] about as you're doing that. And then we also did it for our internal employees. And that was

[00:33:09] sort of a little bit of a hidden benefit, but we talk about things that we do here. And then we

[00:33:13] can use that for trainings, you know, like we talk about maps a lot, which is our one-on-one

[00:33:18] meetings is what we call them. And we have an episode where we're talking for 45 minutes

[00:33:23] about the importance of them. And, you know, somebody the other day was like,

[00:33:27] Hey, what was the link to that podcast where you talked about this? And then I'm able

[00:33:30] to just give them that and they can listen to it. And then they can share it with somebody else.

[00:33:35] And then, you know, I think it's for prospective clients, it's, you know, we originally when you

[00:33:41] do this, you're like, okay, we're going to get a ton of deals from this. And I think it's more

[00:33:44] of a certain people, you know, we'll get a few deals every month. But I think it's more of a

[00:33:50] credibility thing, just to be out there consistently putting out content and more of an in the

[00:33:55] process. But really trying to help our clients and our people, I would say.

[00:34:01] Do you feel like you're getting prospects or people that for your services, right,

[00:34:08] people that are coming in and asking about your services? Because they've heard you as

[00:34:12] through the show? Do you think that's a form of attribution that you're seeing?

[00:34:18] Yeah, I don't know if they're finding out before or after we've reached them.

[00:34:23] That's a little tough to tell, but I do know that our close rate in Gong is like 45% higher

[00:34:30] if the grow show is mentioned by the prospect. So I think it's more of a, okay, these guys are

[00:34:36] real. I've listened to a couple episodes. I like what they're saying. I'm aligned with

[00:34:40] what they're doing versus more versus a magnet to attract people.

[00:34:45] I mean, Brandon, wouldn't that basically be the whole premise of, Hey, I already know you

[00:34:50] and I see you everywhere. I already know you part, right?

[00:34:58] I think that's a good number. Like, I know Joe Hill was listening. I don't know if he's still on

[00:35:04] here and we've been talking about him launching a show for his higher performance group. And

[00:35:09] then he works with higher education organizations. But that data point, I think that speaks volumes.

[00:35:15] And what I heard you say is within Gong, so your AI tool that you use on your calls,

[00:35:20] if they mentioned the grow show, they're 45% more likely to close.

[00:35:25] Correct. Yeah. If the prospect mentions it, not us.

[00:35:31] And that goes, Tom, you and Kevin on your other show and on this show, we hear it as well.

[00:35:38] We get the messages that say, Hey, I've been listening to your show for the past

[00:35:42] month. Can we talk? And that's like, had no idea who you were. You're an ideal customer.

[00:35:49] Absolutely. We're going to talk. But it's that inbound because of the show and it helps towards

[00:35:55] those two goals that we talk about. I see you everywhere and I feel like I already know you

[00:36:00] lowers a lot of those barriers to talking with people. Sure.

[00:36:06] So Eric, Brandon, do you have any more questions on LinkedIn before I switch?

[00:36:10] No, go right ahead. Go for it. I'd love to hear more about your product after this, Brandon,

[00:36:16] because I think I could probably use some help. Sounds good.

[00:36:21] He heard about you on the show, Brandon. See, it's a much higher.

[00:36:24] Yeah. It's not 100%, but 45%.

[00:36:29] 45 is good. That's a great number, Eric. I mean, look, Tom, excuse me a second,

[00:36:35] because let's unpack that a little bit for people that are watching it is,

[00:36:39] is that Eric, you were saying you've got an 8% answer rate, which is arguably low, 8% out of 100.

[00:36:49] It's low in our current times. It may or may not be a great number. I'm not an expert in

[00:36:54] the data you are. And I like your other number that said, Hey, you're tracking that 48% of your

[00:36:59] leads come from people who have previously said no. So we're creating this pattern.

[00:37:05] But when we're talking about the value of social, we're talking about the value of these digital

[00:37:11] tools that we can use, when you're saying that if a customer mentions the show, they're 45% more

[00:37:19] likely to become a client, there's tremendous value in that show. And what I would be thinking

[00:37:25] is, Hey, if it's a 45% more likely to close, how else do we use the show? How do we use,

[00:37:33] like we talk about, we use shorts from the show and we target our ad campaigns in YouTube and

[00:37:40] LinkedIn in front of our ideal customers. Can we turn that 45 up to 60 by getting in front of

[00:37:46] people? Or can we start? I mean, I would be curious your data too is how many people,

[00:37:50] how many of your prospects had mentioned the show? And if it's even if it's low, it's like, Oh,

[00:37:55] it's only 2% or 3% and we get it to 5%. Right. Right. There's probably the bigger lever for sure.

[00:38:03] And we just we live in this time now where we're always looking for,

[00:38:08] can do we have a higher and Carson's saying, can I do something that increases my probability

[00:38:13] for success just a little bit because everything is so difficult right now.

[00:38:20] Those are amazing numbers, Brandon, I think, I mean, and those are aligned with what we see.

[00:38:26] We don't have gong or we're not doing gong analysis. Maybe we should be, but I would say

[00:38:31] an Eric, I have a quote, I have a software company that targets

[00:38:36] manufacturers and wholesale distributors. So they're very it's a very industrial

[00:38:39] marketplace that we're dealing with. And we find that by far the quality of the conversation and the

[00:38:48] propensity for it to close or to move down the sales cycle is much larger if they've seen me on

[00:38:54] our other another show that I do. Oh, yeah. And I have a question on that market I want to talk

[00:39:00] about, but I want to hit Bob's question here first. Because I think it's nice. I was just

[00:39:05] messaging you that going really to ask Bob's question. Yeah, no. So and I think it's an interesting

[00:39:10] one he's saying doesn't outsourcing like this cause of sellers prospecting muscles to atrophy,

[00:39:15] it creates a dependency on others to reach out to other people.

[00:39:21] Well, if I was Eric, I would be like, I would love for my clients outreach muscle to atrophy

[00:39:27] is lifefully on us.

[00:39:32] The issue is, yeah, no, in Bob's spot on like you, I truly believe as a seller, you should always be

[00:39:40] doing a little bit of your own prospecting. I'm assuming that's where he's going here, right?

[00:39:43] Where you just have a seller sitting there taking leads all day. Yeah.

[00:39:48] But I will say, you know, I would love for our sales team to self source 50% of the day,

[00:39:54] it's just not happening. Like at the end of the day, sellers, we've created a seller's environment

[00:39:59] where they can make a lot of money being really good. They're not taking anything away from them

[00:40:04] without putting in the same amount of effort that maybe they had to in the past. And I just

[00:40:10] think you can do that, but you're not going to get the top salespeople unless you feed their

[00:40:14] pipelines with leads. And so I, I've always thought about my, my business this way of I

[00:40:22] want to figure out my lead flow first and foremost. And then I will figure out who those leads go to.

[00:40:29] And because I think a lot of people make mistakes when they're trying to scale their business,

[00:40:33] and we've done this is they just go hire a bunch of sales reps. Oh, I need to sell $100,000 more,

[00:40:39] I'll just go hire five sales reps and give them a $20,000 quota, which is great. But it's so

[00:40:44] much less predictable than I know my close rate is 15%. So for every seven leads, I'm going

[00:40:51] to close one deal. So I need to go generate, you know, 700 more conversations to hit my goal.

[00:40:58] I would, I would always rather sell for that problem that's further up the funnel and more in

[00:41:03] my control. And if you do it right is cheaper than the other way to do it. So yes, Bob is right.

[00:41:10] Long winded answer. Yes, Bob, you are right. I always think we still have our best sales

[00:41:16] reps self sourcing at least 10% of their time. They should never give it up. But yeah,

[00:41:22] the other 90%, we keep them fat and happy. And part two of Bob's question here,

[00:41:28] how concerned are you about AI automation? You hear a lot about, you know, AI is going to,

[00:41:32] you know, take over the BRSDR role, it's all going to be automated. I know it's probably

[00:41:38] hard to know, but do you guys have any concerns there? Well, yeah, I would be lying

[00:41:44] if I said I didn't. I think the, I always just think about myself and maybe I'm not,

[00:41:49] this isn't the best perspective to look at. But like if I'm looking at a product, I don't really

[00:41:54] want, there's going to come a point in time where I don't want to talk to a robot anymore.

[00:41:59] Even if they're 100% right and better than the person that I'm talking to,

[00:42:03] I want a little human interaction. And I think we're pretty far away from,

[00:42:09] I don't know who knows, right? I'm not the expert here. We're pretty far away

[00:42:12] from AI being able to 100% replicate what a human can do. From everybody that talks about it,

[00:42:18] that knows it says we will get there eventually. But I do know the one thing on the call side,

[00:42:25] I'm not as worried about it because if all of a sudden you made,

[00:42:29] first of all, I believe AI B2B calls are legal currently, unsolicited B2B calls.

[00:42:36] And if they're not, they will be relatively soon after it gets expanded because who wants

[00:42:41] their phone ringing from, part of the reason that keeps my phone rings a lot already, but part

[00:42:46] of the reason that it stays down is because the courage it takes for someone to make a cold call.

[00:42:52] There's just not that many people that are willing to do it. And if all of a sudden

[00:42:55] a computer can do it, our phones will literally be ringing off the hook and it will eventually just

[00:42:59] kill the channel. So we'll just have to make a decision. And I think that just happens

[00:43:04] with phone. It's already starting to happen with email a little bit.

[00:43:08] LinkedIn's been really good about fighting this. So we'll have to learn and evolve over time.

[00:43:16] And AI has started to play a role in a lot of our processes, but I just don't see it

[00:43:20] fully replacing. I'm a little crazy. I could actually see it. This is a terrible take. I'm

[00:43:25] sure everybody will disagree with me. I could actually see it replacing the selling side more

[00:43:30] than I could see it replacing the sales development side because the sales development

[00:43:33] side is the door opener. It's how I even have the trust to look further.

[00:43:38] Sales side, I think people are so sick of being discovered on pitches. I do a lot of pitches

[00:43:43] for different softwares and tools. And it's like, I'm not ruling out discovery. It's huge.

[00:43:49] And it's a big part of the sales process, but you should know enough about my company

[00:43:53] where you can fill in a lot of the blanks and not ask me 20 questions every sales column.

[00:44:00] Eric, I think I agree with you. I think that and I know Bob's been, he's asked that same question

[00:44:09] multiple times over shows over the last probably six months, Bob. And I think it's a great question,

[00:44:14] but I do believe that there's something about the human spirit that's going to resist that to a

[00:44:19] point that it's not going to work. It's just like a lot of the AI driven comments in LinkedIn

[00:44:24] right now are getting ignored because we can smell them a mile away. We're like,

[00:44:29] I'm not going to respond to someone's comment that was done by an AI bot. I feel stupid talking

[00:44:35] to somebody's bot. So I'm just not going to do it. And I think it'll apply in the calling world

[00:44:40] as well. Yeah. And I think service wins out over time. You know, like, and I know it's not a

[00:44:46] direct correlation, but I think about like who are the companies that are doing it the best

[00:44:50] at scale. And I always think of Chick-fil-A. I don't know if you guys have Chick-fil-As by area like

[00:44:55] them, but it's like that place is an absolute machine. Like I get my chicken sandwich on time,

[00:45:00] quick, hot, fresh, friendly service. Like that will always be a differentiator even if, you know,

[00:45:06] everything is automated. Like that is people will pay a little bit extra to do that. And then

[00:45:12] here's the other thing is it's kind of like direct mail. Like direct mail came to a point

[00:45:16] where it was so saturated. You wouldn't even want to go to your mailbox and see what's in there.

[00:45:21] And then it went away. And then it's coming back, you know? So everybody stops making calls. And

[00:45:26] then now it's, you know, you're the only human making the calls. And you start your call with

[00:45:30] like, Hey, I'm a human. I promise. Like ask me anything. I'm not one of those other robots.

[00:45:36] So I think the market zigs, you zag, like, there always be a place for the human touch.

[00:45:41] I agree. And Eric, I love that analogy. I think that, you know, I used to own a printing company

[00:45:47] as well as part of my agency. And I think direct mail is making a good comeback because

[00:45:52] there's not a lot of competition in the mailbox right now. It's just not a lot of competition.

[00:45:59] Yep. We are actually just launching a product that's building that into our

[00:46:06] our call process that we have. And it's going to, we've already tested it and it's dynamite.

[00:46:11] It's just, it's huge. I'd love to see what you have back in, back in 2007, 2008,

[00:46:17] we built sequences and we didn't call them sequences. We weren't that smart at the time,

[00:46:22] but we had, we had a, I don't even remember the word we used for it, but yeah, it was direct mail,

[00:46:29] direct mail, phone call, couple, you know, and then we started incorporating email in it.

[00:46:35] And those direct mail pieces had a huge impact on how many people would actually

[00:46:39] either return a call or answer a phone.

[00:46:43] Yeah. And we've had, so we've had that as well. Like we see a lot higher contact rates and

[00:46:50] close rates when they have that. And then the other thing, sort of a hidden benefit,

[00:46:54] when you do this at the scale we do it at is it's so much easier as a rep to make a call

[00:46:58] when you send a packet, you know, it just takes a little bit of the pressure off as well.

[00:47:02] So I think there's going to be a little, a little heyday for that over the next couple years. And

[00:47:08] then I'm sure everybody will do it and then we'll be one of the same things. We'll have to find the

[00:47:11] next new thing. Keep learning. Eric, I have a question. Tom, can I ask one more question?

[00:47:17] I'm curious about this about two, what two episodes ago on our 100th episode,

[00:47:20] we had Daniel Disney as our guest. I don't know if you know who Daniel is. He is known

[00:47:25] as the king of LinkedIn. He's been doing social selling, coaching, training, speaking since,

[00:47:30] I don't know, 2012 or something. He's been around a while. And he was saying that one of a new

[00:47:36] cold call technique or strategy right now is actually when the person answers just to say,

[00:47:41] hey, this is Daniel, this is a cold call. And then saying something, is that something you all

[00:47:47] have used and tested? When he said that it made me really curious. And I got a cold calling

[00:47:54] expert on so I want to take the advantage of asking you about that as a tactic.

[00:47:58] Yeah. So that I would put that under the bucket of what I would call permission-based opener,

[00:48:04] where you're just being upfront from the start and seeing if they're open to continue to talking.

[00:48:10] We have tested it and we see about the same. But what we see is the amount of people that get

[00:48:18] turned off by it is greater than what you get from it. That's just been our perspective.

[00:48:24] I'm not saying it doesn't work for different, but we're calling small to medium businesses.

[00:48:28] We have a lot of industrial clients. So they just want to get into the conversation and go

[00:48:35] about their day. So I don't prescribe to it some really smart people do and I'm not saying they're

[00:48:39] wrong. But I'm always in favor of like, don't waste my time. Just tell me why you're calling.

[00:48:46] And then let's go, let's get on with it versus like, hey, give me 27 seconds to talk about

[00:48:54] but I don't know that. I'll give that with caveat. I don't know if I'm right on that.

[00:48:59] I'm sure people have data that could prove me wrong, but we've seen a lot of success.

[00:49:04] You probably have data that could prove you right too. So yeah.

[00:49:07] Well, and the other thing is I like ending with the open-ended question about their situation

[00:49:12] because even when they reject me, I figure out their situation. So even when they say,

[00:49:18] nope, I already have somebody I'm working with. Okay. Now I have that as a data point

[00:49:23] in the future and maybe they'll let me get a couple of questions deeper. So

[00:49:27] that's our philosophy on it. That's cool. So what I hear out of all of this is kind of the common

[00:49:35] denominator here. And I think Eric, maybe this is probably what has caused you to rise above

[00:49:40] the noise a bit and what you're doing is always thinking about experience, right? So

[00:49:45] even in that initial phone call, that cold call, how do I make that as positive an experience

[00:49:51] for the customer is possible or the prospect is possible. And even the AI stuff that we were just

[00:49:57] talking about, right? If I'm just getting a bunch of AI crap, that's not a great experience or

[00:50:02] your Chick-fil-A example was a good experience, right? That you remember. I think that is no

[00:50:07] matter what we do, however we change the channels, the motions, all of that, if we kind of keep

[00:50:13] that experience in mind, which is the backbone of what we try and talk about here on mastering

[00:50:17] modern selling seems to be the common denominator yet once again.

[00:50:22] Yeah, I think you're really hitting on that. And honestly, I don't think about it that way a lot,

[00:50:29] but you're right. On one side of the axis, you have the customer experience and on this side,

[00:50:35] you have the volume in which you can do it. And I think what we've seen in the market is

[00:50:39] there's now like a bar established for the minimum experience. And if you're below that,

[00:50:44] you're just not going to land at all. So you have to find ways to improve the experience.

[00:50:50] And then volume is still a huge part of it. So you can't just sit there and

[00:50:54] research a company for three hours before you call them. There's a part of that game as well.

[00:50:59] But yeah, I think you're hitting on something important there.

[00:51:02] Well, I think even your fast food analogy, and I've read some stuff on this, right? As

[00:51:06] fast food has gotten more expensive and so forth, people are like, hey, if I'm going to go eat

[00:51:12] or go to fast food, I'm going to go with the best experience because I'm still going to pay a fair

[00:51:17] amount of money. So why not get a better experience? Right? I don't know if you have in an outburger out

[00:51:21] there, but in an outburger, Chick-fil-A, all of those are sort of recognized as providing a superior

[00:51:27] experience than a Burger King or a Wendy's or something like that along the way. And they're

[00:51:33] getting a lot of the McDonald's traffic is moving in those directions because of the experience.

[00:51:39] So yeah. All right, I mean that line is around the corner every time I pass Chick-fil-A.

[00:51:47] Oh no. I'm in it well, I'm in Cairo today, but I live in Atlanta. And so we get a lot of a lot

[00:51:54] of the things they test to I just read to Chick-fil-A is coming out with a new concept

[00:51:59] location where basically the whole everything is up like one story high and you place your

[00:52:06] order and then it like comes down into you know, some sort of almost like a bank teller.

[00:52:12] Just grab your bag and go. So that would be an interesting concept. And I'm assuming there'll

[00:52:17] be some sort of person there saying my pleasure, but we'll see how it goes. Yeah.

[00:52:21] Yeah. You know that Chick-fil-A came about because they were selling the chicken sandwiches

[00:52:25] in Waffle House and Waffle House basically kicked them out because they were selling too many

[00:52:31] chicken sandwiches. And so they started to do that. Yeah, Waffle House.

[00:52:36] And that was the mistake. Yeah. Their first location was right across the street from a

[00:52:41] GM plant and that was really everybody. It was in a shopping mall or something. Yeah.

[00:52:46] There I think their second one was a shopping mall, but their first one was more like a diner

[00:52:52] and it was across the street from a GM plant. Yeah. Well as we wrap up here fast food facts

[00:52:58] and our show. Yeah. That's right. I was just told there's a Chick-fil-A in Cairo also. I haven't

[00:53:04] been there yet, but there is one here. There you go. I'm not surprised. So Eric, great insights

[00:53:10] really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. It's brought some real food for thought, right? And

[00:53:16] with Carson all the time about is it brand new? Yeah. See it's right. That's right.

[00:53:23] Yeah. I like it. I like Eric. We need to have him back. That was good. Yeah. Bring me

[00:53:27] back. This has been a blast. Brandon, any final thoughts, questions here before we wrap up?

[00:53:33] You know, I think for everybody listening, you know, we talk so much on the show about

[00:53:37] modern and we talk about modern prospecting and it's not that we ever put down cold calling.

[00:53:42] Eric, we don't ever put it down. I mean, I, I mean my first three companies I built by cold

[00:53:47] calling. But I think that being able to talk about what are the strategies that are working

[00:53:53] and then in Courtney, I love that you brought up adding direct mail into the mix. And really,

[00:53:59] I think it's we live in a time where none of the tools are bad. We just need to start looking at

[00:54:05] the tools and how the tools support each other, how they put us in a position to create the

[00:54:10] highest opportunity for success. So I really appreciate you coming on today, Eric, and

[00:54:15] sharing with us. And I would love to have you come back again sometime. Yeah. No, I enjoyed

[00:54:20] it. This has been a blast. I'm learning about ourselves as well as every time we do this. So

[00:54:24] it's great. Yeah, and my biggest takeaway other than the experience part is right, it's not so much

[00:54:30] the motion, Brandon, that's a bad or good. It's the way, the approach that you take with that

[00:54:35] motion. Yeah. Right. And, you know, there's a lot of bad ways to use LinkedIn and then there's

[00:54:39] good ways to use LinkedIn. There's bad ways to use cold calling and good ways to use cold

[00:54:44] calling. So yeah, well, and it's like, you know, Bob mentioned it, and we've talked about

[00:54:47] this a lot that the data says at any given time, 2 to 3% of any market is currently in market. So

[00:54:55] when you're just calling, you're looking for that 2 to 3%. And it is a bit of a hunt game and it's a

[00:55:01] numbers game and all that. But when you supplement it with other things like your LinkedIn presence,

[00:55:06] you know, your CEO's reputation grows, you got direct mail, you have targeted ads,

[00:55:11] you're just increasing your opportunity for success and you're not, you know,

[00:55:16] you're not rejecting or neglecting any of the potential tools.

[00:55:21] All right. Well, thanks again, Eric. Yeah, we'll definitely have you back.

[00:55:25] Love to get more deeper insights. And I know Carson would have plenty of questions. So

[00:55:29] we'll have to get you back with when you're here. Brandon, wrap us up. We don't have Carson

[00:55:35] to wrap us up. So I'm leaving it to you. You're leaving it to me. Well,

[00:55:39] I don't want to use this thing. Hey, thank you everybody for joining us today on another episode

[00:55:44] of Mastering Modern Selling and hopefully we'll see you on LinkedIn real soon.

[00:55:48] Thanks everyone. See you next week.

[00:55:56] Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern Selling. If you enjoyed this episode,

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