Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

When we talk about capturing leads online, we're referring to lures and lead magazines. It could be a free report. It could be a cheat sheet. It could be some sort of checklist, something that they request, they download. It would be offered on your website. And ideally, you would have some sort of sequential autoresponder connected to the back end. So that the minute they enter their information, it's processed by the system, and the thing they requested is sent out to the email address they provided. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of capturing leads online. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. It's great to be here. And I think this is such an important topic especially when people just have a website that just talks about what their services are, but it's not designed to capture any information. And I think that's a huge, missed opportunity. David: I think so, too. And there are so many businesses who know they need to have a website and they generally do have websites. Very often they're brochure sites where it'll just have some information about the company. In some cases, they'll have catalog sites. If they have actual images of products that people can look at. Sometimes they'll have a full e-commerce site where people can actually buy products online. So lots of those types of things are generally thought of as being what's required in a website. But one of the things that seems to be missing from a lot of small business websites, is just some sort of engaging lead capture system. So that's really what I thought would be worthwhile discussing today. Capturing Leads Online Starts with a Goal Jay: Yeah, absolutely. I think that each website should have a goal, at least if you're selling online, and that is to get them through the funnel, into a purchase. Or to get them to sign up and give you their email. Because an email list today is one of the most powerful tools that you have to market your products. David: Yeah, it definitely is. And I think a lot of times, business people and salespeople can forget that in typical sales scenarios, you have to meet someone before you can sell to them. So the idea of having your website set up in a way where you can actually attract and get people to provide their information so that they will eventually interact with you is really key to that process. I think a lot of people still approach their website as something that when they're talking to someone, they can say, "oh, visit my website." Or they can put it at the bottom of their email signature and maybe people will go there. But the truth of the matter is that if a website is not set up properly, then people are going to bounce off it the way that a bug bounces off a windshield. You'll never even know who was there. And that's why I think this idea is so important. If you look at the fact that there are going to be people hitting your site. Now, that's not always the case. Sometimes people have websites, and nobody knows about them. Nobody's hitting the site. However, if you've been in business for any length of time, if you've been promoting your web address, then people are going to go there. And if they don't have something to do that will allow themselves to be made known to you like to say, "I'm here. This is who I am," then you're just never going to know about that business. Jay: Yeah, exactly. and I think that how you harvest that email is also very important. I get frustrated sometimes with this process. Because somebody will say "get a free estimate, instant estimate" and I'll go, "okay!" And I'll enter some information and then they're like, "give us your email and we'll send you the estimate." And I'm like,

Technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it's used. It's like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think the technology is being used the same ways, where they're trying to save themselves time and energy and effort. And they're forgetting the fact that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of customer service. Is it well and truly dead? Welcome Jay. Jay: Well, I think it depends upon the industry, but I'm going to say it's more dead than not as far as I can tell. David: Yeah, it's sad. And I feel like in some businesses, in the best businesses, it's not dead. And it creates a tremendous advantage for those who are still keeping it alive, whether on life support or just because it's the way they do business. But wow. I have had so many experiences recently where it seems like not only is the customer service unresponsive, uncooperative, unpleasant... Jay: Mm-hmm David: And there's just this level of apathy that seems to go with it, which when you combine those things, really does seem pretty deadly. Jay: Yeah. And I think there is a temptation -- because there's such great technology out there -- there is a temptation to say, "look, we can cut our costs if we just implement this new technology that maybe answers questions online" or "press one for this or for that." I can see the temptation, but I don't know if they clearly understand the frustration. I'll tell you one of my pet peeves right now are the chatbots. I'll go online and they'll say, "Hey, if you don't want to sit on hold," which is an admission already that you don't have enough people, " go ahead, just chat with us." And I'm thinking I'm going to get a live person. And no, I get a chatbot and I type in my question and it sends me to a predefined link that doesn't answer my question. And I'm like, "I've just wasted 15 minutes and I could have been on hold the whole time." So, very cool tech, but on the customer end, I think it's frustrating a lot of people. Does Technology Help or Hurt Customer Service? David: It really can, particularly because technology can either help customer service a whole lot, or it can harm it a whole lot, depending on how it's used. It's just like any other weapon, right? It's like a weapon. You can use a knife to cut a steak, or you can use a knife to hurt somebody. And I think the technology is being used the same ways, where they're trying to save themselves time and energy and effort. And they're forgetting that there are other human beings on the other end of that technology. But even beyond that, tech aside, there are now situations where you leave a message for somebody, or you send them an email. I mean, that is obviously tech as well, but if the human being behind the email does not respond to the email or they don't return the phone call or they don't return the voicemail or they don't return the text. Now it's actually more human error than tech error. And that's where I think customer service is really struggling right now. Because if you've got well-meaning well-intentioned people who are determined to use the technology to make customer service better, then those companies are not just going to survive, they're going to thrive. But the problem is there are people in organizations who just don't care enough about the customers to even do the basic minimum things like returning phone calls, returning voicemails, and that sort of thing. Jay: Yeah. And then there's the question of, you know,

Being profitable is important, even with higher costs. Generally small and medium-sized businesses want to hang onto their staff. We want to keep our people. We recognize that we’ve got responsibilities to people other than ourselves. What I’ve been seeing though in the news lately, is that a lot of larger companies see this stuff coming and they’re like, okay, we’re cutting costs. We’re laying off 10% of our workforce, that sort of thing.  So it’s different, depending on the size of your business and depending on your mindset, what you are willing to do and how much pain you’re willing to take when it comes to absorbing some of these extra costs. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of being profitable even with higher costs. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much, David. What an important topic. So many businesses are experiencing this right now. Their costs have gone up. Inflation is affecting everybody right now. So I love that you're taking some time to talk about this topic. David: Yeah. I saw an article recently where they were discussing the fact that in the promotional products industry, in particular, what a lot of businesses are noticing is that even when their sales are even or potentially higher than they were last year, they're not as profitable because their costs have increased. So keeping at the same sales volume is not going to cut it anymore. Jay: Yeah. And, we all hope that this is a temporary problem, but in the meantime, people have got to learn how to pivot. And I think that is one of the hardest things for businesses to do, especially quickly. The quick pivot. Like, okay, what are we going to do in the short term while our costs have gone up? David: Yeah, and I think that word, "pivot," has probably gotten more use in the past 18 months to two years than it probably got in all of human history before that. Because everybody realized we have to do things differently. And what are we going to do and how are we going to do it? And when it comes to increased costs, the options are relatively limited. I mean, basically, you either have to be able to increase your overall sales and make up for it with the profit that you're already getting, or a reduced profit. Or you've got to be able to reduce your cost so that you can get that spread back. You've got a cost to do things. And you've got a cost associated with what you're going to sell it for. And the gap is where all the money is made. Without the gap, we're out of business. And so keeping your sales at a certain level is not going to do it if your costs are approaching that same level. So a lot of it is really about identifying the primary costs in my business. And unfortunately, it's really a matter of also being rather relentless about the idea of cutting back on the things that are not currently working. And that can be really difficult because one of the biggest expenses in a business is very often personnel. And so what that means is looking at the people that you're working with and saying, okay, who's pulling their weight? Who is more than pulling their weight? And those who aren't, what can we do to help them to pull their weight or more than pull their weight so that we can continue to grow to be able to simply offset the costs that have increased so much? Jay: Yeah. I think the knee-jerk response from most businesses is let's find a way to increase sales. But you know, they have to understand that depending upon their profit margin, if you increase your sales by $10, that may be $1 to the bottom line. But if you save a dollar in costs, that's a dollar to your bottom line. If you save $10 in cost, that's $10 to your bottom line.

If you don't think increasing order size and frequency is important, consider the alternative. Small orders and one-time clients can kill a business. You can spend an enormous amount of time tracking down one small order. And if you do a lot of that with a lot of different people, you can be busy, busy, busy, all day long, but not generating the revenue you need to sustain, let alone grow your business. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing increasing the size and frequency of your client orders. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you so much. And I have to tell you, I really love this topic. Because I think people get in a rut where they think the only way to increase profit is to add more customers, instead of looking at your current client base and saying, well, how can we expand on what they're doing and using them as a lead source? David: Right. Yeah. And there are lots of different ways that people can engage in this. And the reason that I raised the topic is that Chris Ruvo from ASI recently published an article about a survey they did at the ASI Show in Chicago recently. And they talked about the biggest concerns that promotional product distributors have. And the one that came up as number one in the options that they were given was increasing the size and the frequency of client orders. So I thought, okay, this is a really good topic to discuss. Because it has such a tremendous impact on people's businesses and it's hardly ever considered. Right? A lot of times, as salespeople, we go out there, we get an order and we bring it back and you know, it's just like hunting. You go out. You hunt it down. You kill it. You drag it back. You cook it and eat it. A lot of people take the same sort of approach in sales. And we don't recognize the fact that different clients are going to behave differently. Different orders are going to be different. When we combine small orders and one-time clients, that combination -- small orders, and one-time clients -- can really be a business killer. Because you can spend an enormous amount of time just tracking down that one order. It's a small order and you spend a lot of time on it. And if you do a lot of that with a lot of different people, you can be busy, busy, busy, all day long, but not generating the revenue you need to sustain, let alone grow your business. Jay: Yeah, such a good point. And I think for a lot of companies, their biggest expense is that customer acquisition cost. Right? And if you can lower that or make it so once you've experienced that cost, you don't have to experience it over and over again. Because you're increasing sales with your clients and increasing their orders. That's just a really smart way to go, I think. David: Yeah, exactly. And so when we have clients who are able to spend more, place larger orders and are willing to do so more frequently, then that's a real winning situation. But for people who don't have that, it becomes a real struggle. Because they say, "okay, well I've got all these different customers, and they buy from me once a year and they place small orders. Where do you go with that? And the reality of the situation is that if you don't have clients like that and you want to create a better, more sustainable business, you're going to have to actually go out and hunt them down. As you talked about, it's better when we can do it with our own internal customer base. Unfortunately, that's just not always possible. Jay: Yeah. Not always possible. But I'm sure there are some tricks to the trade. I'm wondering, do you do this by offering or adding different product lines so you can offer something new to these clients? What's the smart way to go about this?

Why is it that some businesses take off like a rocket while others can languish for months or years without creating explosive growth? Why do some businesses plateau at a certain level and struggle to break through, while others are able to grow consistently? In my experience, it boils down to three things we'll discuss in this podcast. Recently, I was reminded of a story about how Chinese bamboo trees grow very slowly underground, for years, completely unseen. The people who plant these trees water and fertilize the soil every day, even though there are no signs of life. Sounds tedious, right? Watering the same patch of dirt for years? I mean, that HAS to feel pretty unfulfilling at times. But the amazing part of the story is that roughly five years after planting -- when the bamboo finally breaks the surface of the ground -- it can grow up to 90 feet tall in just five weeks. That is a great example of creating explosive growth! And while a typical bystander might see that and think, "wow, that grew really fast!" The people who actually do the work -- those who plant, water, fertilize and cultivate these plants -- know EXACTLY what it took to trigger that growth. I love this analogy because it tracks so closely to the work I've done with promotional product businesses over the past 20+ years. Some of the people I work with might start out feeling a bit like the bamboo gardener -- tending, nurturing, and cultivating a business that seems like it might never break through the soil. In fact, some are stuck for more years than it takes for a bamboo tree to crack through the dirt and see the light of day. But the good news is that promo businesses AREN'T bamboo trees. They're not subject to the same restrictive laws of nature. Instead, there are very specific steps we can take to prep the environment and TRIGGER explosive growth much faster. In fact, when I work with clients, we operate in two primary modes: First is Stealth Mode This is where we lay the groundwork that no one else sees. It's what's happening beneath the surface. In bamboo terms, it would be the equivalent of supercharging the seeds, soil, water, and fertilizer to create a better, stronger, faster-growing plant that is heartier and more resilient than the other plants. Second is Intimidation Mode I know that sounds obnoxious. But the simple fact is that when you initiate explosive growth in a business, people notice. Their prospects are excited to see something new and different. Their clients are excited to be associated with a winner, OUR clients are excited to have their businesses attracting the right people and growing the way they want... And their competitors? Well, they just get intimidated. It's not the intention. But it's often a side effect. So each month, we offer a small group of promotional product distributors the opportunity to work with us to plant the seeds. Our goal is to help you quickly: * Lay the groundwork * Plant the seeds and * Trigger explosive growth And we do this using our proprietary, proven framework. It is NOT cheap, but it is EXTREMELY effective. So what does creating explosive growth actually look like in a promotional products business? Well, let's start with what it doesn't look like… It doesn't look like 10 to 20% annual growth. I mean, think about it. If you start at $50,000 in sales your first year and settle for 10% annual growth, it would take you more than 32 years to hit $1,000,000 in sales. Even at 20% growth,

It's not like, well, there's just one method for ruling your territory. But the one thing that is critical to all of it, is identifying your area. Identifying your territory. Focusing in on it and making sure that you become a known commodity in that area. So that people have the opportunity to choose you. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast in today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of ruling your territory. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah. Thank you, David. This is a really interesting topic. I've been excited to get to this topic, ruling your territory, being the master of your general... David: your domain Jay: ...area. Yeah, of your domain. David: That was a Seinfeld episode, I think. Jay: Yeah, that's right. However you want to say it. So many of the things that we talk about, I don't know if they're top of mind for business owners or for salespeople. They have so many other things going on. For them to be thinking about market share or things like that and how that can affect their business, especially over the long haul. David: Yeah. That's why I think it's great to discuss. Because when we are in the thick of it, we tend to forget about the fact that, whoever we are, if we're a business owner or a salesperson, we are operating in a particular territory. And recognizing that we could be spread out, we could have a few customers. Let's say we have two customers in one huge city, and we've got two customers in another huge city somewhere else. If we're sort of spread out, but nobody else in either of those cities even know who we are, at that point we're really not ruling our territory. And this idea sort of traces along with the idea of dominating your market, which is something that we talk about quite often. You know, what is your market? What is your territory? How do you define it? Is it defined primarily geographically that you sell primarily in your small geographic area? In your area of town? Your city? Your state? Is it nationwide? Is it with particular industries? How do you define it? Because that's going to determine whether you are just inhabiting a territory or ruling it, dominating it. Jay: I like that question. Are you just inhabiting? Are you just there? Or are you ruling it? And I think one of the things that can be done, and I don't see this in a lot of small businesses, is just making a list of all of your potential clients. And that should give you an idea of where you stand. And then if you know a list of who they're using. And so, you know, your client and you know who your competitors are. I would think that that's probably a good place to start. David: It's a great place to start. And also thinking in terms of the other people who are like your clients who operate in a similar area, either in a similar geographic area or a similar demographic, however, you're defining your territory. Also, when I use words like ruling and dominating, I don't want them to sound as intimidating as some people interpret them to be. What I mean is that you're essentially staking your claim. You're saying, okay, look, this is an area where I want to do well. I want to excel. I want to be known. I want people to know me and I want to know other people in this particular market. They're not all going to do business with me. I recognize that, but I want to make sure that all of the people who could potentially use my products and services at least know that I exist so that they could consider me if it makes sense for us to work together. Jay: Yeah. I think that's really important. I think a lot of times people think about, well, I go in and I get the sale and if I don't get the sale, well, then I'm done with that customer.

Anybody who's been in sales has probably been in a situation where you've been in a room with someone and you're looking at them and you're having a conversation with them. And they're looking around the room. They're looking at things. People are buzzing them on the phone. They're like, "excuse me." They're taking the call and you're sitting there and you're thinking, "why am I here? Why am I doing this?" So other people's focus or lack of focus will give you a really good idea of where you stand with them. David: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. We are back once again. Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing, maintaining focus in your day. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It's so good to be here, David. And I know that focus is something that everybody's working on. One of the reasons I know this is all of the technology companies are building focus tools into their devices. We must be wanting this because I can now tell my phone, no I'm focused on this and it gives me different screens for that particular time so that I can be focused in on this. So we must all want to be able to focus better. And the question is, how do we achieve that? David: Yeah. Especially when there are other technology companies that are trying to get you to focus on them. Right? You gave a great example. I noticed that too, on my phone, there's the new focus button. And I like that idea, but in the meantime, nearly every social media platform is designed to steal your focus, to derail you from what it is that you wanted to do today in favor of what they would like to have you do today, which is to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and then scroll some more. So we do have technology that is working for us, and we have technology that is working against us. But last time when we were talking about the idea of building proactively, I think these things tie together. As we're building proactively, we recognize that it does require day-to-day focus. And so in order to do that, we have to say, okay, how are we going to make it happen? Particularly with all sorts of forces, potentially conspiring against us. Jay: Yeah. I love that point, that on the one hand tech is trying to help us focus, and then everything else in the world, I'm like, "squirrel!" You know, squirrel there's something new and it's not just social media who's trying to distract you. It's the employees who want your time, the customers who call up because they don't know your schedule. They just know they have a question, right? So they're calling you. So how do you go about building some semblance of focus throughout your day with all of these distractions that are coming in constantly? David: Well, from my standpoint, I think we need to decide at the beginning of the day, as early as possible, what really needs to happen today? Because that'll help us to determine where our focus needs to be. What is it that actually has to get done? What has to happen? What do you have to do versus what do other people in your organization have to do? So if you own the organization, you're going to have to determine what you're doing and what they need to be focused on. And how are you going to avoid distraction? Lots of people have, or had, open door policies when people were working together. Do I have my door open? Do I have my door closed? I liked the idea of having an open-door policy. So for many years in my business, I did. But unfortunately, that sometimes programs people to think, okay, door's open! I'm constantly available. So you really need to balance that and make determinations as far as how much of your time during a given day is going to be dedicated to focus time. The work that you have to get done in a specific timeframe, in a specific way, without distraction.

All of the things that we're talking about, go to the idea of building your business proactively. From the standpoint of a business owner, how am I going to do this in a way that will actually work? From the standpoint of an employee, how can I get that stuff done? It requires coordination. But more than anything else, I think it requires this proactivity that we're talking about.  David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of building your business proactively. Jay, great to see you. Jay: Thank you so much. So glad to be here as always, David. And I love this word, proactive. I know a lot of small business owners and I wouldn't say they're proactive. I would use the word haphazard. David: Ooh. Jay: Things just kind of happen. They're lucky because they get referrals or things like that. But there's not really any structure or proactivity to how they grow their business. David: Yeah. And I would love to say, "well, I started out being proactive." But I really didn't. And that's why I particularly enjoy this topic. So often when I'm doing presentations for live groups, this comes up. Because so many people feel like they're constantly having to react and deal with the day-to-day, I've got clients calling. I've got employees knocking on my door. And when you are reacting all day, it really leaves you in a difficult situation when you are actually trying to build a business proactively. So that's why I think it's a great topic to discuss. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree with you. When you're in your reactive mind you're, just not in a good place. You're going to be responding quickly, not giving time to actually think about what you're doing. If you're doing sales, it's going to put your sales at risk. If you're working with your coworkers, it might turn out to be something you're apologizing for later. Reacting is just not the way to go. I've always been taught you can act or you can react. And you want to focus on acting, because that's purposeful, and that's more the person that you want to be. David: Yeah, I think it was Steven Covey in one of the Seven Habits materials that he put out where he was talking about the difference between responding and reacting. Subtle nuance there as well. But I think when we talk about proactive, it's a completely different discussion. Jay: Yeah, I totally agree. So here I am. I've got this business, like you said, phone calls coming in. I got employees knocking on the door. I'm trying to have meetings. How do I go about this? What are some of the first steps to get to where I'm acting instead of reacting? David: Well, I think one of the first things is allocating time, creating time setting aside time. I'm not going to say finding time because no one ever finds time to do things. But creating the time, allocating the time to really think about what you want to have happen in your business. What type of clients you want to attract. What size customers you're looking for. How many you're looking for. What industries? All those types of things. Because, when we are being reactive, none of that comes into play. It's basically whoever stumbles through the door, whoever can fog a mirror. And if you want to build a business like we're describing, you can no longer just settle for that. Jay: Yeah. Are you a fan of time blocking? Like looking at your calendar the next day and blocking out like this hour is going to be for sales calls. This hour is going to be for training or whatever. David: I think it can be very helpful, but I wouldn't say that it's always completely effective. I think it's a great idea when you can pull it off, recognizing that life interferes sometimes. And so, yeah,

Particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you're doing to get past a sales plateau. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves. So we either need to implement new procedures and new processes, we need to get some help, or something needs to change fundamentally in the business, in order to get us to that next level. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the idea of overcoming your sales plateau. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: It's so good to be here again with you David, and as always, I'm very excited about this topic. I know businesses that hit these thresholds. It can be a monumental task to get to the next level and they're not sure how to do it. Is it, is it marketing? Is it adding new products? I think that's what a lot of them try to do. They're like, well, let's add 10 more products to the lineup and then we'll do it. And oftentimes that can just make the situation worse and not better. David: Yeah, it's true. Most businesses, I think it's safe to say, at some point run into some sort of plateau. They hit a level of sales and they can't get past it. I believe in small businesses this is particularly true, where you're just working and pushing and you're trying to get to that next benchmark. And you just can't reach it. And there are thresholds, I believe in small business, getting to your first hundred thousand in gross sales and then your first 250, and then you hit 500 and then a million and then 2 million and going from there. And in the early stages, you can generally do pretty well, like to get from a hundred thousand to 250 is often easier than it is to get from a million to 2 million. But most of us, at some point, will encounter some sort of plateau. You get there, you see it, you're targeting it, you're working toward it and you just can't seem to hit it. And so it's really just a matter of getting stuck. It's like, I feel like I'm stuck and I'm here and I need to be here and I'm not sure what to do next. Jay: Yeah. And I wonder how much of it is that they're not really sure how they got to the first plateau. I mean, they may think that they know, David: That's true. Jay: But it could be something completely different. And this could go back to something we talked about in a previous podcast: following up with your customers. Find out why they purchased, how they feel about their purchase. Are they returning customers? Are they not returning customers? So if you didn't understand why they bought in the first place and how they felt about that purchase, it's going to be hard to push through that next plateau. David: It is, absolutely. And the biggest hangup that I see for most people is not knowing, "what do I do next?" And as you indicated, people get to a certain point in some cases, they're not sure how they did it. What's that referred to as? Unconscious competence? Jay: Mm-hmm, David: Where I'm doing things and it's working, but I'm not even sure of what I've done. So I haven't gotten around to building a system around it to put that into place so I can replicate it. But there's also the idea that what gets me to here will not necessarily get me to here. Right? So what gets me to level one won't necessarily get me to level two. That's not always the case, particularly in the early stages, you can do more of what you're doing to get to a higher level. But generally, at some point, we hit a plateau that is created by the fact that we can't run any faster. We can't do any more by ourselves.

Reactivating your client base is easier when you create a community. This is overlooked by a lot of business people. If you're interested in keeping your clients engaged and interacting, then by creating a community where you can interact with them on an ongoing basis, and they can, in some cases, interact with each other, it creates more of a bond than they would likely have with somebody if they're just doing more of a transactional type of thing. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today's episode, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing reactivating your client base. Welcome Jay. Jay: It's good to be here. You know, it's funny. I hear this everywhere I go now. If I watch Shark Tank or anything else, I hear this term CAC. You know, what is your CAC? And it's your customer acquisition cost. And I have to believe that your CAC, for a customer you've already worked with, has got to be lower than trying to bring in a brand new customer. Am I right? David: Oh, absolutely. And I think instinctively as business people, we probably already know this. We've probably heard it a hundred times, but the purpose of this discussion is not to have you hear it again. The purpose of this discussion is to ask, "are you doing this?" And if so, how well are you doing this? How much better could you be doing this? Because as you pointed out, once you've invested that money to acquire a customer, now you want to be able to leverage that relationship as much as possible to provide them with additional help, additional solutions so that you can generate the revenue. They can get the results they're looking for, and you're not spending more money to attract people. You're able to just expand the relationships that you have with the people who you've already acquired that first time. Jay: Yeah. And I think it's disappointing if you spent that money for customer acquisition and then you don't have a system to retain them or keep them online. And so now it's almost like you're spending the same money twice. If you're trying to get them back again. David: Right. Yes. And so when we think about reactivation, there are a couple of aspects to it. One is just people who haven't bought from you in a little while, to touch base with them again, to reengage those people and to see what they want, what they need. Essentially, requalifying them to find out where they are in that process. Are they ready to buy more things? Do they have a date in mind when they want to buy? Are they ready to go now? Or are they just not ready to do anything? Are they sort of disqualified for the moment? Are they unresponsive to you? Because they'll generally fall into one of those five categories. They're either ready to buy. They have dates in mind when they want to buy. They're open to the idea, but not sure when. Or they're disqualified, or they're not responsive. When you are able to go back and sort of requalify your existing clients, you can reactivate the ones who are ready to go now. You can schedule the ones who know when they want to go next. And the ones who are generally receptive, you can just stay in touch. Jay: Yeah. Or what about the ones who were disappointed, but they didn't take the time. Right? So many customers will never tell you that they had a bad experience. They just move on and... David: Yeah. Jay: you had no idea. So you're not improving your customer service and your chance of reviving that customer is very low. David: Yeah. And that's an excellent point, too. Because as you indicated, if you don't know that, but you're reaching out to them to see how you can help next, and you find out about that problem, then at least you have the possibility of restoring the relationship,

Protecting yourself from recession isn't always easy. You've probably been through a recession or two in your time. And so for people who haven't done this, it's not fun. It's not an exciting time. But I think the first thing that leap to mind for me is not to panic because for a lot of people, that's the go-to strategy, and not necessarily the best one. And you recognize that, okay, things might be different here. Just as they were during the pandemic. They're different, but it doesn't mean that you can't succeed, even while others are struggling. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Jay McFarland and I will be discussing the idea of protecting yourself from recession. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Yeah, thank you for letting me be here. This is a big word that I'm hearing a lot now. The potential for recession, you know, we have a lot of inflation. We've got supply chain issues. You've got real estate issues. And so it's something I think every company should be saying, "okay, what are we going to do if things start to turn south?" Because we really have enjoyed a pretty aggressive economy even through the pandemic. David: Yes we did. I feel a little bad even really talking about this topic. Because I feel like, for some people, they are just getting past pandemic stuff and quarantine and all that kind of thing. Jay: Mm-hmm David: And things seem to be going reasonably well with a lot of businesses at the moment. Sales are up in a lot of businesses compared to last year. But everything we hear in the news is very concerning. And so I thought, okay, well we should at least discuss this. Not from the standpoint of how bad things are, but what can we do about it? Because that's really the big thing. Jay: Yeah, you know, I work with a lot of restaurants and I watched them pivot during the recession. And a lot did very well, but they had to be very smart. Like let's shut down our dining room. Let's go delivery only. Let's go drive-through only. David: Mm-hmm Jay: And it's something they were kind of deciding on the fly. It made me realize that every company should have a plan, not just like "let's hope this doesn't happen. And if it does, we'll figure it out when it does." David: Yeah, it's really amazing. Because some restaurants did really badly and others, who were able to make that switch, have now not only done well during a difficult time, but they've also created a secondary revenue stream for themselves. Whereas before they might not have done takeout, they might not have done a lot of that sort of thing. And those restaurants are doing great now because they still have all the people who are picking stuff up, but then they also have people coming in. But when we look at this, I think, you know, the idea of a recession and thinking in terms of, okay, well, what are some things we can do? And I've been through them before. You've probably been through a recession or two in your time. And so for people who haven't done this, it's not fun. It's not an exciting time. But I think the first thing that leap to mind for me is not to panic because for a lot of people, that's the go-to strategy, and not necessarily the best one. And you recognize that, okay, things might be different here. Just as they were during the pandemic. They're different, but it doesn't mean that you can't succeed, even while others are struggling. Jay: Yeah, and for me, it's always an issue of, okay, we know we're going to have to have cuts. We don't have the revenue coming in. And so where do we start? And oftentimes I see the cuts in what I consider to be the wrong places. Like, okay, the first thing to go, it seems like always to me is marketing, right? David: Marketing, right.

If outperforming your competition is an issue for you, you want to look at who is the primary competition and what are their advantages? In what areas are they outperforming me? Are they outperforming me in terms of just price? If that’s what it is. And a lot of times that’s what people are up against in the online market. The online sellers are able to sell for less. And at that point you have to say, “okay, is that something I even want to try to compete with?” Or am I more interested in finding the types of clients who understand and appreciate the value that I bring to the table. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, cohost Jay McFarland, and I will be discussing the importance of outperforming your competition. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: So good to be here again, David and this topic is very interesting to me. You know, I've been in small business. I know a lot of business owners and I got to tell you, oftentimes you're so caught up in, just generating sales that what the competition is doing, how much they're doing. Are you competing with the competition? A lot of times, those thoughts don't come up because there's just no time for that. And so I'm wondering what the consequences are if I'm not even thinking about my competition. David: Well, if you're doing great and you're making the money you need to make, maybe you don't have to think about your competition at all. Maybe you're the one that everybody is trying to come after. And when we think about that, it's not just about the fact that, okay, well, maybe somebody else is outperforming me. But a lot of people, if they've been in a market for a particularly long time and they've been selling to people who have other options, they'll find out who their competitors are. Because they'll say, "oh, I'm already doing business with somebody." And you ask who it is and they give you a name or they give you a company name. And you're like, okay, I've heard that name once now. And then you talk to somebody else and now I've heard another name and now I've heard another name. So you have three different names. Then you go to somebody else. And now you hear two for this one. Then you hear three for this one. And then four for this one. You say, "okay, this person has a lot of traction in this market." So you start to recognize them as competition. Also, as things have evolved online, there are now online competitors that compete with local businesses left and right. And so there are a lot of people who think in terms of the online competition. How can I compete with that? So, when we talk about the importance of outperforming your competition, it's not because, "well, I've got to win at all costs," and all that sort of thing. But if you are in business for yourself and you are counting on your sales and your salary to be able to put food on your table. And if your competition is sometimes interfering with that, then the necessity of outperforming your competition becomes very clear. You don't want to run into a situation where somebody says, "yes, I'm already dealing with this person." You want that person to go in there and they say, "no, I'm already dealing with you," right? Jay: Mm-hmm David: You want to be the person who already has that sort of foothold, that sort of traction in a market. So outperforming the competition starts with saying, "okay, who's doing a pretty good job in this market?" And is there somebody that I think is actually doing a better job in this market? Or is there somebody who is doing a job that the marketplace thinks is better? Right? Because you may know that you are already better than this competitor they mentioned. And nothing can be more frustrating sometimes for people, when you go into a situation, they say,

When we’re looking for alternatives to cold calling, we don’t want to turn the alternatives into something as clumsy and uncomfortable as a typical cold call. Right? Because a lot of times they are. They’re clumsy and they’re awkward and they’re not comfortable. We don’t want to just come up with another way to be that. The idea of looking for these alternatives is to say, “okay, how can I make this experience better for the person that I am trying to initiate contact with?" David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing alternatives to cold calling. Welcome back, Jay. Jay: I am so glad to be here. Thank you. Even the word sometimes, "cold calling." I get the shivers, not just cause it's cold, because I think that this is probably one of the most dreaded parts of the sales process, but in many industries, Absolutely necessary. And so how can you make it easier? How can you make it better? And what happens if you don't? David: Yeah, definitely gives a lot of people the chills. And the reason that I thought it would be good for us even to talk about alternatives is that there are a lot of people who have been trained that prospecting equals cold calling. Or cold calling equals prospecting. I need to do prospecting. I need to pick up the phone. I need to call people. And some people are actually trained that way. And some sales managers will evaluate people on how many cold calls they've made in a day. That's part of people's jobs description. If that's part of your job description I'm not saying don't do that, right? If that's your job description, you have to do it. However, for people who have a little more flexibility in terms of the way that they initiate contact with a new prospect, there are alternatives to cold calling. You don't necessarily have to pick up the phone. And so, there are two aspects of this. One is the first question that you just asked about, okay, now what can we do to make cold calling better? Considering the Alternatives And there are certainly things that we can do there in terms of thinking about how we're going to approach them, what we're going to say, how we're going to lead into the conversation, and all that sort of thing. But for a lot of people, a better question might be what could I do to sort of grease the shoot or grease the wheels so that when I pick up the phone and call someone, the results are a lot better. Yeah, and I think that's so important because you know, you would regret or not want to do cold calling less if you're getting a better result. And if, when people pick up the phone, they're not hostile towards you, or they're not indifferent to you, because you've done some things in advance. So that it's not so cold that I don't know what you would call it. Jay: Would you call it warm calling or something like that? Warmer Alternatives to Cold Calling David: It's certainly a lot warmer if you've had contact with them in advance. Like if you met somebody at a networking function, you exchange business cards or whatever, and then you picked up the phone and called that person. I wouldn't view that as a cold call because you've already met them. If you've got prospects that you've interacted with previously, then if you call them, yeah, that's not really a cold call. So I don't know, you can certainly call it a warm call. You can just call it a call. If I were to pick up the phone and call you, I'm going to give Jay a call. It's not cold, because we know each other. So, the question becomes, how can we get to know people better, get them to know us better, so that when we do have contact with them, it doesn't feel as cold. And so, even now, things like social media, if you and I connected on social media, if you commented on a post of mine,

David: Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today, co-host Jay McFarland and I will be discussing reimagining the essentials. Welcome, Jay. Good to have you here. Jay: It's so good to be here once again. I'm very excited about today's topic. What's the Point of Reimagining the Essentials? David: Yeah. I mean the whole idea of the essentials to some people it's like, "oh, essentials, that's boring." Right? But it seems to me that in current times we really need to look at the essentials and say, "okay, how can we tweak them or fine tune them or change them around so that they're going to be more effective in a 21st century post-COVID economy?" Jay: Yeah. When I think about essentials, I think about foundational type things. And once you take away the foundation, other things that you have in play don't work as well. So what type of essentials specifically are we talking about that we want to, that we might look at in one when everybody looks at it that way, but we're going to reimagine or rethink about them in a different way? David: Well, I guess when I think of the fundamentals or the essentials, I tend to think of the real basics, prospecting, presenting, following up when it comes to sales. And sometimes you start talking about those things and people's eyes glaze over like, "oh, I know all that stuff." And yeah, we all know we need to do it. Knowing and Doing are Two Different Things We all know we need to do prospecting. We need to make presentations. We need to follow up with prospects and clients. But knowing it, knowing what to do, is really not the issue at all. It's how are we doing it? How well are we doing it? How much better are we doing it than our competitors? How frequently are we doing it? How consistently are we doing it? There are all these different nuanced aspects of it that completely change the results. And when we look at things like prospecting now versus five years ago, 10 years ago, it's completely different. Same thing with presenting, same thing with following up. In the past, it was basically phone and in person. Well now phone and in person are a lot less popular than other methods of communication. So that's really what I'm talking about here. Jay: Yeah, I think again, it's so important, you know, it's so easy to just fall into that trap of I've, you know, we've done it this way forever and it's always worked. I think it's hard for people to break free from those things, because it's hard to know what type of impact you really can have. And I think part of that is even understanding what your baseline is before you can make changes to understand if you're making any progress, right? What Happens When Everything Changes? David: Yeah, absolutely. And I hear both sides of that from people. I hear people who are like, " oh yeah, you know, I've been doing this forever. I know exactly what I'm doing and all that sort of thing." And then I have people on the other side who are like, "Hey, I'm doing all the things that I've done before. I'm doing it more aggressively. I'm doing much more of it. I'm doing it with more people and it's not working." And so for the people who are struggling with that... again, it's not really a matter of saying, "well, now instead of prospecting, we need to do something different." No, you're still going to need to do prospecting. The question is, "can we now do it in a way that is going to reach the people that you need to reach, communicate the things that we need to communicate and allow us to advance our communications and close the sales?" Reimagining the Essentials Post-COVID Jay: Yeah, I have to think that COVID has had a huge impact on reimagining the essentials. Before,

There’s things we forget. And it’s good to have a plan. It’s good to be reminded of very key things that are specific, even to this industry, and just knowing the way to spot people who are actually capable of purchasing. Versus those who may love you and just aren’t capable. Or those who will just string you along. Or those who use you, just so they always have another price to show, to use the person they’re using already and that sort of thing. So I think finding clients, developing clients, all of that, everyone could use a reminder there. And if you’re not from a sales background then you absolutely… this is like the most direct sales class you could possibly take for this industry. And just be able to really get your business moving quicker. David: Hi. Welcome to the podcast. I am here today with Tracie Domino from Event Outfitters in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tracy, it's so good to have you with me. Tracie: Thank you so much, David. It's a pleasure to be here with you. David: You know, you and I met through the promotional products industry, but you do a lot besides just promotional products. So let's start, just fill us in on what you do and how you do it. Tracie: Well, I actually spent years and years, almost 20 years in the events industry. And started a promotional products business because of my need for so many promotional products for our own events. And my OCD personality took over and I wanted total control of the operation. So that's how we got started. David: Ok. And so now you're doing both? Tracie: Yes, still for a little while. But mostly promotional products at this point. Years ago, I worked for Tiffany and Company, the one with the blue box that everyone is very familiar with. And I did their events, but I also did corporate sales for them. And when I worked for Tiffany, it was promotional product sales. It was putting your logo on a Tiffany ice bucket or engraving it on a piece of silver jewelry and commemorating events. So those two things together kind of transitioned into all of this. David: Right. Okay. And so what type of clients do you like to work with? What type of people do you like to target? I mean, some people will take anyone who can fog a mirror, anyone with a pulse. But you've been a little more selective in terms of your clientele, is that correct? Tracie: For sure. And I mean, I'll work with anyone who wants to work with us, of course. But we have really been very lucky or fortunate, I guess I could say. Since I did work in events for so long, there are a ton of event people who we just know, across the country, who do all sorts of jobs in this industry. And by doing that, we've been able to branch out into all sorts of different events. Events that we never used to even work on. But work with our clients who plan them which has been great. And a lot of them are sports franchise owners, people doing all sorts of really kind of fun, different, interesting things. So we're really just blessed by our friends. In a lot of cases who would become our clients. David: Right. So, just a couple of niche industries. in addition to just sort of a wide variety? Tracie: Right, the people who work in the events business, are our clients, but our end clients are everywhere, and in all sorts of different industries. And yeah, it's really, it's just kind of everything now. David: Okay. So where do most of your clients initially hear from you? Tracie: Most clients now, thank goodness, are coming word of mouth, in most cases. And I think that's because we were picky at the beginning and really try to focus on customer service. You can't work for Tiffany and Company and not put a big value on customer service.