A (3:18)

Yeah, so I actually co host another podcast. I guess I've recently took on that one over on another network that's focusing on sales and marketing. And really the theme of that is how sales and marketing should be joined at the hip and how they need to work together. Those really shouldn't be two different silos. And a lot of times salespeople maybe look at marketing from an archaic viewpoint of maybe like, oh, this conference we're going to, we need some graphic design or you know, they're doing high level marketing, we're, we're closing the deals. But with Martech, things have changed and account based selling, things have changed. And for marketing and sales to work together creates a really, a strong synergy and a superpower. I think that you can really target some accounts, you can create some personalization and you can drive sales really, really effectively. I mean, I was a sales guy too and I was just looking at marketing as leverage. And so I think there's a lot of people that listen to this that are marketing that are now moving the other way into sales. And so always I think that that is where I've seen a big opportunity of, of marketing people to better articulate to C suite as well as salespeople what they do and how they can help and to integrate that a lot better. So I'm excited to have you on.

B (4:40)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm a huge fan of that conversation in particular because I think that it's left hand and right hand in terms of just bolstering the customer's experience. And with marketing, I always think of, you know, what is their job? Their job is inception. Right. They're the ones that help people see and help businesses see what's possible. And then sales is really the consultative arm. It's like once you can see what's possible, then we walk you through making that happen. And so yeah, you do have to work together and then on the back end we can talk about the systems and the operations to make that happen.

A (5:14)

Yeah, I would also say the biggest kind of call out that we had when we started the podcast, as we were speaking mainly to sales managers and sales directors, was that sales qualified lead and a marketing qualified lead are the same thing. It shouldn't be, oh, we're going to rate it this way. And that's what salespeople do sometimes is they cherry pick the marketing leads and then they're like, oh, these leads are bad or whatever. Well, if your marketing direction is not on point, it's kind of like bait that you're fishing with. You're, you're getting the wrong kind of bait. So you got to make sure that that feedback loop, loop to marketing on what they're doing is producing the right kind of leads. Whether it's different kind of content, different kind of format, what are the different kind of touch points that you're getting involved with somebody to, to get them going. So when you look at it, when you look at any organization, give me like the, like what you often see when you walk into an organization, what typically happens? I think that that would be a great place to set the table.

B (6:22)

Yeah, I step in and typically I see silos and I see chaos that is ensuing because of it. And so these teams aren't talking to one another, they're in competition with one another. Typically leadership doesn't connect with one another. And so this isn't this like top down, you know, communication about like what is the North Star and what are the expectations and then working through different systems. Right. Whether it's, you know, sales team is on a CRM and then marketing team is on a whole different, you know, content platform and there's just no way to, or there hasn't been an intention to connect these systems or to make the data and the reporting available to the other teams. Right. So there isn't that cross pollination and then ultimately leveraging the data. Right. Sales is focused on conversions, marketing is focused on conversions, but at very different touch points. And then we also need to look at all the things that are being overlooked. Right. I often when I step into organizations, for example, I talk to sales leaders, they're like, I just want my people to be making more calls. We just need an increase in volume. We need more dials. More dials means more at bats. More at bats means more revenue. It's like cool. If your conversion rate is 1% and I give you a thousand more calls, is that really efficient? Is that really the best strategy? We have to look at the data across the entire funnel and so that's why we need marketing and sales playing together on that same platform. But when I step into organizations, that's the first hurdle is just breaking down those walls.

A (7:54)

Man. I hear that you really resonated with me when you said unifying all the data. So I feel like with the advent of LLMs, the unification of unstructured data, thinking about marketers logging into multiple platforms all the time, every day, that data is just siloed and locked up and it's not useful to different people across the company. And so that's been my primary focus, is cleaning up the data across the Internet. We actually created our own offering based on what we're seeing with clients because it's just one giant LLM and it's trying to figure out all the unstructured data. And the more you can help clean it up, the better it is for them. But even internally with your own data, like you said, yeah, everybody's shooting for a 1%, 2% conversion rate. It's like, okay, let's get that conversion rate up there. And we don't have to force as many people through the funnel. It's fix the funnel. And then on the back end, like, what I'm even seeing in the data as well is once people find you, the search journey has changed a lot. And so you also, people are going to be investigating you like there. You can't just run them to a landing page and they convert. And if you're talking about enterprise selling, there's multiple touch points, but they go to Google, they investigate you, they go look at your website, they look at your social media, they're trying to make a determination about you. We're seeing the number of searches, brand searches go up exponentially. And a lot of times what where we're seeing an exit is people are going to LLMs, like a chatgpt after they go to your site. So we're seeing people go straight to LLM. And what we're assuming that data is, is they're okay, I've looked at the website. Now let me get AI's analysis of what they think of this company. And then guess what? It can pull up all kinds of reviews, from Glassdoor to, you know, fraud awareness to like, I mean, these LLMs are grabbing data all over the place and you need to have reviews everywhere. And so it's just really important to understand where your data is. Have it everybody at everybody's fingertips and try to, like you said, increase the conversion rate of different areas or different steps in the funnel. And if you can do that you can actually have the same kind of lead quality, same volume and have a higher close rate if it's somewhat on point, if you're fixing those things. And yeah, people got to talk. There seems to be a lot of like fiefdoms I call it, or kingdoms depending inside organizations. And there's politics and power structures inside these organizations. And sometimes how do you push change forward, like as a outside agent? Because you have to have a lot of difficult conversations. And you know, I assume that like when I've had to go in, I made sure that like executive team is supporting this, that you have the authority to be able to do that to influence change. But then it becomes like a lot of difficult conversations one after another and trying to educate people on why they should do this and why this is actually good for them. I'm curious what your experience has been.

B (11:09)

Yeah, it's different companies have different vibes and cultures. And what I ultimately try to do is just create oxygen and space for listening to happen. Most times when I step into any situation, you know, as I mentioned, departments are siloed so they're not talking to each other. But then even within one department, there's also people not really, you know, communicating with one another because they're in competition with one another. They're scared of any damage to their reputation, they're scared of losing their best people. They're scared of being on the chopping block for the next round of layoffs. Right. There's a lot that's happening psychologically when I step into a situation. There's also a lot of assumptions people assume, you know, borrowing from the example I mentioned a few minutes ago, stepping into an org, sales leaders, like I just want this person to make more dials. Are you assuming that everything else is right? Have you looked at this? Have you considered that? Right. So I'm actually taking people through a line of questioning where I'm re educating them on their own business by just holding the mirror up and letting them see for themselves where the spinach is between their teeth. Because that is a very different experience than me pointing at the spinach and saying, you should do this and you should do that. No one's going to buy into that if I just come in waving my wand and trying to magically change things in an organization that I, you know, technically don't belong in. I'm an outsider, right? And so I have to hold that mirror up. I then have to bring everyone together because they don't speak to one another, round them up and share My findings with them. You know, this bone is not connected to that bone. This system doesn't exist at all. Everyone thinks that the elephant is this in the room, but it's actually that one. Right. No one's looking at this data at all. And this is what it's telling me, right. And so I have to really just unearth all the skeletons. I don't know if you remember back in the 90s, there was this acne treatment. It was. I forget what it's called where you apply different layers on your face and you would ultimately break out before it would heal. Right. And so that's what I'm typically doing when I step into an organization is like I'm unearthing all the things that are toxic and not working. And I'm trying to do it in a very neutral way that isn't attached to anyone's reputation or personality or tenure within a company. And I'm just calling out the facts and then I'm. I'm laying out the prescription, right? Because it's not enough to just be that person that calls the things out. I also have to confidently leveraging the data, guide them through the phases of transformation and the realistic timeline for getting there. Because that's the other thing. Everybody wants things five minutes ago, but change happens over time. You know, that's just physics or any other law, man.

A (13:58)

I can tell you the reason I stepped heavily into digital marketing and SEO was the data. Right? The data guides the decision making and pushes out, like, the assumptions. Like you said, I've dealt with a couple recent kind of fractional CMO agreements where going into the organization, they didn't have a lot of value for data. And I'm like, how. How are you making decisions? Right? Like what's like, data is probably the most important thing that you can lead with. It's a forward indicator. It's a forward indicator. It can tell you where you're at right now. Have you dealt with that at all? I'm asking this on a. On a more of a personal note. And how have you had those conversations with executives if they kind of have a gut, They've been doing it a long time, they know what it is, but the data might tell them something different. How do you have those conversations?

B (14:57)

Yeah, I'm trying to think of a reminder of a client in particular. You know, he had his spreadsheet, even though we implemented the CRM, created the dashboard, right. He had his magic spreadsheet with the formulas that he relied on for years and so on, that spreadsheet it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You know, what we need to do is we need to increase volume. We need, you know, we need to increase more of this and do less of that. And it's just all, it's all right here, right? Like, and, you know, doing the screen share thing, etc, it's like, okay, that's one perspective. Right? Let me show you what I see, because we're describing the same elephant, but you're grabbing the trunk of it and you're describing how long and bristly it is. And I'm over here in the back leg describing how wide and how leathery it is, but we're talking about the same elephant. I just want to show you my perspective and what I see from back here. I have to take that approach of, you know, affirming that your numbers are right. It's not that you're wrong, it's just that it's incomplete.

A (16:02)

Right.

B (16:03)

Let me show you the full view on your business, because why else would you bring me to the table if you weren't looking for a fresh perspective, if you weren't counting on me to untangle the things that you didn't want to be bothered with?

A (16:16)

Yeah, no, and I love that. I think getting them to make the, the like, decision themselves. Right. Like looking in the mirror so that they make that decision for themselves is really where. Where you can drive change. Now you come into agencies as well. Right. And I, I can see a lot of kind of people have brought you into their agencies to help build better revenue lines, to make sure that they're utilizing everything's, talking to each other, they're upgrading their systems. Tell me a little bit about that. Because there's a lot of agency owners that are listening on what you do there and what kind of tools you use and, you know, maybe some success stories. I think that would be interesting for the audience.

B (17:03)

Yeah, I typically step into an agency that's in that messy middle of, like, they've got revenue going, they've started scaling, they might have scaled a little bit too fast or they didn't really look at, you know, the scalability of their current offering. And so they are up against some real friction in a very short Runway. Like, literally, they can't mess up or they have to, you know, start laying people off. Right. It's that kind of precarious of a situation. And I highlight all of that because that's what I'm up against and trying to persuade someone to walk the path that I'm about to do describe is I step into agencies at this messy middle and I look at their menus and their menus look like a Cheesecake Factory menu. I don't know if you've ever shown up hungry at a Cheesecake Factory, but you're starving. You just need food after waiting 45 minutes for a table because there's always a wait. There's always a wait at the factory, right? And so you sit down, you're given a 75 page menu. The linguine looks great, the burger looks awesome, the flatbread awesome, the lettuce cup awesome. But I just, I don't know, I don't feel particularly adventurous. I'm going to keep it really safe. I'm going to go back to page one and pick the burger because it's just what I know. And so that's what's happening with agencies when I step in is that they have been so reactive because they're so scared of leaving things on the table or they're trying to, you know, take small budgets to earn bigger ones down the line, etc. That their menu looks all over their place, all over the place. It's not very clear, you know, what their area of expertise is or even the specific problems that they solve. And so I take them through this journey of let's do the prefix menu. You're a Michelin star restaurant and I come in and there are eight courses already designed for me. I might substitute the protein in the fifth course. Maybe I do the salmon instead of the beef. But otherwise there's not very much overthinking that I'm doing. I know there's going to be excellence and you've already described the path for me very clearly. And I know that you're known for doing this, this really well. So I'm happy to sit here, pay the premium and enjoy this dinner. And so that's what I take agencies through is like, first things first, let's make sure that you are right sizing the things that you offer. Because if you're doing things by the hour, you're already bleeding out in the wrong ways. Let's look at the outcomes that you drive. What do you want to be known for? How do we tie all this together into a signature framework or method, something that you go to market with and you talk about over and over and over again. Possibly trademark and protect, right? Possibly create technologies and things around, right? And then let's look at the process for going to market with this beautifully curated service and experience for customers. That's where we Start to look at the tech. Let's start to break down the silos and the automations and the reporting and all the things. Let's start to make sure that the marketing and the sales are, you know, working with the same intelligence, driving towards the same goals and outcomes. Let's make sure that all the behaviors on the sales teams are, you know, where they need to be when I speak to the account executives or the sales directors, making sure they have the same fluency in the customer profile and the offering and how to position it. And let's also think about how we standardize the experience so that customers don't feel like, you know, oh, I heard from so and so that they got this deal, or I heard from so and so they got a preferential rate. Because people do talk in industries, right? And so that's also why it's important to really standardize these things. The method that you create, beyond really streamlining services also becomes the backbone of the marketing, right? That's how you start to feel that lead generation as well. And so that is typically how I step into an org, right? And typically the walls that I break down and the method and the process I take them through. But we've got to go from the Cheesecake Factory menu to the Michelin star prefix menu. And that is the most difficult part. The rest of it, there's a blueprint for a checklist, a tool, right? We can start to implement the automations for engaging buyers on LinkedIn. We can start to launch the campaigns via email, all those things. But the real transformation is letting go of that anxiety of saying no to certain projects and yes to very specifically defined scopes.

A (21:21)

Yeah, no, that was a big change for us a number of years ago to, to do that. I'm curious. Let's, let's keep going through that process. Let's say that we've, we've curated that, that menu. They productized what they're doing. I, I actually went to this conference, I think it was a digital marketer conference back in 2017. It was great. And it was all for agencies, how to do it. There was a number of people had a infographic that showed kind of the messy middle. A lot of small agencies, a couple big agencies, and then there was kind of a desert of how you had to get through the middle two phases. And productizing services was one of the big stepping stones. I'm curious. There's people that have productized services, but like you talked about, their data is still not unified. The tooling systems are maybe not Unified. You know, there's, there's, there's a lot that goes on and they, they feel that they need to expand that menu. Because I've, I've coached a number of agencies and you're right, they offer everything. And I'm like, well, but what are you really good at? Well, clients need the full service to feel comfortable. And I said, well, you know, you have contractors for that. Can you partner with them? Or like, do you need to do it all sort of thing? And let's say that they've like, they're kind of like through that they productize their services, they've streamlined it down. But we were talking a lot about like you coming in as a CRO. So how does it tie back to revenue? How are you looking at revenue? How are you enhancing that piece of. Because I feel like a lot of people scale. I've seen a number of businesses start to scale really quickly and then they missed like one or two things and things didn't turn out and then they have to lay off or start over or pivot again. And so I feel like there's a lot of people are like, okay, I got it. I productized my service. I'm doing this thing. This is what I'm known for. I'm going to niche down and. But they're still not where they need to be. Which it's like, okay, well, ramp up your marketing, ramp up your sales. And they do that and then they get the business. And they hadn't fixed like the whole process because they're spinning multiple plates at a time. I'm curious how, how you would answer somebody offering that as an issue.

B (24:02)

Yeah, the sort of overarching theme here is what you described is the need for revenue operations. So, you know, we need that function to step in, to get the systems humming along, to get the automated reporting generated and distributed so that everyone's working with the same intelligence and just to help, you know, sort of standardize protocol and procedure and standard operating procedures and things like that. So there's that function that needs to be pulled in at this point to help streamline some of those things. I think the other piece is before embarking on a radical change across an agency, we start small. So let's start with, you know, this new package, this new all in, full in service, flat cost for all deliverables and all support and all enhancement, you know, just the way the client wants it. Then let's think about getting a sprint together to our first revenue goal. Quarter million, Half a million. Then let's unpack that data. What did it take to get there? You know, how many at bats, how many calls? What was the sales cycle like? What did the customer say? Let's run these transcripts through, you know, and, and, and really make sure that we understand the things that are lying between the lines here. Let's make sure we tighten up the messaging, the positioning.

A (25:20)

So you were saying, you're saying take the transcripts, run them through a LLM based upon pre built prompts that tell you what you could do differently. Maybe you're talking too much, maybe you missed something that the client said. Maybe you needed to speak here. So building in that recursive loop for the human that's in the loop.

B (25:45)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because that's how we start to, you know, sharpen skills and that's how we start to sharpen messaging and positioning. And so once we get through that first sprint, we looked at the data, we see that there's viability. Right. Then let's look at the next sprint. How do we double this revenue now? We made the first half million. How do we get to the next million in revenue Selling this one thing? Right, as we are scaling this offer, then in the back end is where we start to prioritize. Okay, now that this is a viable option, we're going to let go of these three other services. We're going to free up bandwidth in terms of, you know, delivery so that we can start repurposing that bandwidth with, for scaling this one offer. Right. That's the way that we start to shift things. But it can't be a swift pendulum swing from one end to the other. It has to be a validated and methodical and data driven approach, not only to appease all the anxiety of the executives at the top level, but just so that we're doing due diligence to the business and making sure that we're not reallocating resources where, you know, based on, based on a hunch or based on, you know, consultants suggestion based on, you know, successes they've had elsewhere. Right. The data is the data, anywhere you step into it has to be leveraged every step of the way.

A (27:02)

Cool. What other things do you want to highlight? Or maybe there's some case studies that you can share to help people understand what you're talking about as businesses go through this transformation.

B (27:14)

Yeah, I'm thinking of a PR agency that I worked with that's based out of Idaho and they, the founder, you know, bootstrapped, started the agency, worked in PR for years, brought the first Publicists on board had a business development rep and an assistant like built the team day one, brought over a roster of clients, had some revenue going just to get the engine going, but ultimately hit this wall where the renewals weren't there and the inbound wasn't there. And also everyone was serving at a different level. Clients were having inconsistent experiences, the feedback was coming through, the results weren't the same. And so this was, you know, a quickly, you know, tangled mess where we needed to step in and we needed to first of all look at the numbers, look at the cycles, look at assessing skills across the team and doing a whole needs analysis before we came to a strategy. Once we had that nailed down, then the first thing that we did was we implemented a CRM. One didn't exist in the business. We had, you know, invoicing and some other things that were going on in the background, but we had no way of tracking conversations, nurturing relationships, no way of distributing information, case studies and things like that. And so there was just no way to really start to build that up. And then in addition to that, there were some folks that were on 3 month contracts, 6 month contracts, 12 month contracts, and we started to take a realistic look at the results. And what we realized is that there was this sweet spot where the short term contracts were not yielding results that allowed them to have conversations about renewals. The long term contracts were not properly nurtured because there were transition on the back end. And so one publicist would start with the client, but then they'd finish with another. And so there was a loss of knowledge and an interruption in the customer experience as well. So we dialed it in and we realized that six months was that sweet spot of delivering results without any, you know, interruptions and handoffs and things like that and making the best case possible for a renewal. And on top of that, we started to right size the pricing, we leveraged the data to look at what she was doing in market with her agency versus others. She was severely undercharging because again, that fear of I'm just getting started, I've got a team, I've got all these pressures, I need money in the door, right Then once we had all the systems in place, once we had the pricing and the client delivery systems in place, then it was a matter of dialing in the business development piece. So let's look at how do we have a consistent flow of book calls. Let's look at performance on these calls, right beyond the positive response rate that leads to the call. Let's look at discovery to strategy, strategy to close. Right. Let's really fine tune those sort of micro conversion moments and let's look at the ways that you're selling. We don't have visuals. Let's pull those in. She didn't have case studies. We needed to pull those in. Right. There wasn't a standardized way of demonstrating to the client what was up ahead for them. And so that's where we started to anchor on a signature method. And then we started to get into scaling. Right. And so that was beyond having the tools, beyond standardizing performance and client delivery. That's where we started to really step in and go, okay, now we need to expand market. Right now we need to go beyond one niche and step into another. So let's go to market. Let's figure out the marketing, the messaging, the positioning, leverage the data. Let's also look at partnerships. Right. I'm looking at every way to draw revenue. The company can go find its revenue. The CEO can speak on stages. But then there's also partnerships, referrals, looking at the opportunity to step in and be, you know, that, that preferred partner or that agency of record or something that helps to expand visibility, reputation and clientele. And so those are some of the ways that I take a business from doing the most to having more predictable revenues to then expanding those revenues.

A (31:25)

Yeah, I really like that. I would love to hear another case study or story. I thought that was really great. What are things that we've been talking about but maybe we haven't been talking about? So we've been talking about a lot of different things. We've gone a little bit all over the map. What are some key things that you feel like would be valuable to add into this conversation right now?

B (31:51)

Gosh, so many things, Right. We could talk about AI and the hesitation and the fear around that that I'm seeing particularly with agencies that are looking at their P L. They're looking at the hard lines and they're to going, going. Yep. You know, AI is going to give us some leverage, but then they're also up against customers that are chopping them because of AI. Right. So that's an area that I am of you know, constantly consulting through. And I think beyond that is. And also tied to it is just the way that people, you know, want to have experiences. I could, you know, GPT it. I could canva it. I could use all these tools to try to get it done. You know, what I'm looking for is someone to do it for me in excellence and someone to prove to me that it can do it. Right. So I'm often up against folks who, particularly in my line of work, they want to see skin in the game and results before they ever invest. So they're like, oh, you can help us with our sales. Great. We want to see, you know, x many leads in the next 30 days and then we can talk about a contract. Right. So we have to also think about proving ourselves skin in the game, case studies, testimonials. But also, what's that truffle look like nowadays? Right. You walk up to the chocolate shop, you get a little truffle, then they invite you in. That truffle needs to look differently these days. And sometimes that is about delivering a quick win or just a complete transformation and mindset before they continue the conversation with you.

A (33:17)

Yeah, I can. I can definitely see that. How are you seeing search change today? Like, what are you seeing and what methods are you adapting in that sales and marketing process that maybe wasn't the same two years ago?

B (33:34)

Yeah. When I'm stepping into a team. Right. Especially thinking about what we're up against, connecting with the marketing team, making sure that we think about the website and the blog being that knowledge base less so of a conversion machine and more so of a knowledge base that gets picked up by the LLMs. Right. And by the AI bots. We want to be in a position to demonstrate and flex the breadth of what the company can do and make sure that all that knowledge is searchable and reachable, but with less emphasis on things like backlinks and more emphasis on transparency and results and methodologies, full structures and, you know, sort of thinking and laying it all bare so that it's searchable. Right. The other thing is just meeting the customer where they are. Right. It used to be that customers had to go through their entire education with you. And then search came around. Customers were about halfway of the way there when they got on a call with you. Nowadays, a customer is about 75% of the way there. Right. And so you have to actually stop selling and you have to just focus on consulting. Yeah. You're probably, you know, working with GPT, talking to another agency. Cool. What is it that they're not doing that you're hoping that I can. What is it that they haven't done that you're hoping that I will? Right. And what is it that you haven't tried that you're hesitant to? That maybe I could be the one to walk you through. Right. And making sure that it's. Again, the conversation is Focused on the customer and the outcome for them and a whole lot less on features.

A (35:18)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I feel like that data point, I've seen that data point. I've shared that data point. About 75% of the search is happening online. That's also happening in B2B. Another interesting data point that I recently saw is more updated. Remember it was something like 11 touch points to get to a sale for B2B. It's actually 30 now. So there's 30 different pieces of content. Touch points. What does that customer journey look like? You know, what is the target Persona now you got multiple like a buying council or what, what have you. There's different stakeholders so you have to speak to them all differently. There, there's a lot of different factors that, that go into closing deals on depending on the size today than, than it used to be and how people are finding you online. Searching online is kind of like everywhere, right? Like you need to optimize everywhere. A buddy of mine actually trademarked that I think. So we're seeing with LLMs trademarks be something that can be rooted on you. You have a couple systems I would love for you to maybe share your, your frameworks if you can.

B (36:32)

Yeah, One of my signature frameworks, the revenue recode method I described earlier, I step in and I look at that Cheesecake Factory menu. We look at how do we deliver that prefix curated experience premiumly, right. Size pricing and all of that. And then how do we then translate, you know, that methodology to offers? How do we then methodically go to market with those offers? How do we enable the people that are selling those things? How do we enable the customers that are buying those services? Right. My methodology is all really about signature method and then the entire sales motion, packaging, pricing and everything based on that method. The other system is my book busy paid system. And so once you've gone through recoding your revenue and your offers, then it's a matter of leveraging the tools and the automations to buy you oxygen, right? To make sure that all the notes are captured in the CRM coming off of a call on automation, making sure that all the things are being fired off to improve appointment attendance and show up rates, making sure that the customer experience is streamlined through the delivery experience as well and making sure you're leveraging the data. Right. So how do we set up the proper dashboards and views so that you are not like my client that I mentioned earlier is stuck on that spreadsheet looking at the wrong things but instead looking at the Full breadth of your business and really the pulse of it.

A (38:05)

Yeah, no, I hear you. So what is one unknown secret of Internet marketing that you feel that is underserved today?

B (38:20)

Gosh. Wow. Are there any secrets left? Because at this point, I feel like.

A (38:26)

We'Re in the information age.

B (38:29)

I think we're in the AI overload age. I think that the most underestimated thing is we talk about authenticity as currency. And I think now it's actually just human connection. I think people know that the text was AI generated, the video was AI edited, that cartoon wasn't made by anyone. Right. Like, it's cool. What we need is connection. Right. I'm seeing the pendulum swing. People are seeking in person connections. There's a rise in conferences and things like that on the B2B side. Because. Because people want to get away from their screens, they want to get away from their feeds, they want to get away from being on LinkedIn all day and they want to converse and they want to connect and they want to share space. And so I think that that's something that is completely underrated or underestimated. And I actually think people are unprepared. I think there are certain generations that aren't ready for that in person connection because it's just not something that. That they're used to.

A (39:34)

I love that. I. I feel like people know that there's a lot of people out there that could do the things that they need, but they don't know the right person that they can trust, and they're trying to build that relationship with them. And. And so I think that that's something that, that you highlighted there as well. Last question for you. And then I want to give you an opportunity to share some of your sites and what you're working on, how people can find you. I was curious, what is your preferred tech stack when you go into a company now? It just seems like there's a lot of CRMs and content tools and digital marketing tools. Everybody's competing. There's a couple people that have a stronger voice than others, which have been sponsors of this podcast in the past, but it's very noisy. Right. And when you go into an organization, you don't really want to change their current tent stack unless it, like, hasn't been updated forever. Like, I'll give you an example. There's a client that we're working with right now that their CRM is not cloud based, so you can't log in call notes unless you're in the office. Okay. Wow. So now they've been around for a long time but like I'm like, okay, like that was talking to like national head of sales. It's like this is like an issue. We need to, we need to do it. You know, we need to, we need to get y' all migrated over to, to something that, that's a cloud based tool and I don't even really care what it is. We just need to be able to enter in the calls right after we do them in the field because waiting for everybody to come back to the office to enter their calls at the end of the day seems really, really silly. So that's just one example for me. What are, what are like when you go into an organization, what do you like to see? I guess like what are. Because a lot of some of these tools work together better. They have automations. I can tell you like when I try to install my Outlook email with my Google email they should work seamlessly and they don't always work. And I think that that's intentional. I think that those companies don't really want it to work. So but like what, what is the tech stack that you like to see and what are, what do you recommend people that are starting to upgrade their tech stack, what should they go to? What should they be looking at at least if it's not a specific tool when they do that?

B (42:03)

Let's just set the, let's just clear this debate right now. It's going to be Google over Outlook any day. So that's going to be step one stepping into the tech stack. You know, I'm not really at this point I've worked for with Salesforce HubSpot high level Monday. Like I, I've worked with so many CRMs. They all have their pros and their cons and it really depends on the size of the business and how the business is structured that will ultimately dictate the recommendations I make. I personally don't care at the end of the day. Just log the things, give me the report and then give me some intel so I know who to turn to when the numbers are tanking. What I care more about is performance. Right. There's a part of me that yes, I can be the chief revenue officer and all of that, but there's a part of me that's a coach all the way to my core. And so I'm looking at revenue intelligence. If your company has the cash flow, let's implement something like gong where we can analyze the calls, implement scorecards. I can asynchronous asynchronously coach up your team. Right. While also helping to unearth the sort of micro conversion moments that we need to really be focused on. If we don't have the budget for something like that. Let's use something like Fathom. Love Fathom, you know, also capable of recording and analyzing calls. Gives me just enough intelligence to work with to be able to coach and train someone. Beyond that, you know, I'm also looking at the ways that the reps are enabled to develop pipeline. So, you know, yes, we've got the leads that are coming in through marketing channels and efforts. We're also expecting the reps to be doing their own prospecting and outbound. The reality is that they. Because There are now 30 touches before a B2B conversion happens. Right, let's honor that. We want them selling as much as possible. So how can we automate some of their prospecting? There are tools like Heyreach that automate some of the LinkedIn outreach, bounding and connection requesting and things. There are tools like instantly, you know, which automate some of your outbound cold email. Those are things that I think are friendly for enabling individuals. Right. Versus some of the bigger systems marketo and all that to enable marketing for the bigger company. But I'm really focused on rep performance because here's the thing, I can come in, build the systems automations dashboards, get these executives bought in on strategy and all that jazz. Right? We can go through all those hurdles but if the team isn't doing the consulting, the prospecting and the things that need to be done on excellence, then the whole system just won't work. Right? There's still that human element because there are human, it's, you know, it's B2B but it's still a human to human interaction. We don't have an AI bot from one company signing a contract with an AI bot from. From another company when we're talking about agencies.

A (44:58)

Not yet. Not yet.

B (44:59)

We're getting there, but.

A (45:00)

We're getting there.

B (45:02)

But it's still human to human and so I want to make sure that the humans know how to connect with other humans.

A (45:08)

Yeah, no, I agree. So Louis, how do people get in touch with you? How do they follow you? How do they hear kind of what, what's going on in your head, where are you posting content, that sort of thing?

B (45:18)

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. You can hang out with me there and if you want to see what I'm up to behind the curtain, check out bookedbusypaid.com Very cool.

A (45:28)

Well everyone, hopefully you found this call useful. Thank you Louis so much for coming on. I think everyone needs to step out of their business every once in a while and look at the holistic picture of what's going on. You can be the best at search, you can be the best at paid ads, SEM right search engine marketing or anything else. But you need to make sure that your your business is running well as well as I think delivering consist consistency to each of your clients. So that's what people want to buy. They want to buy outcomes. They want to be by pes want to buy like certainty. Like I feel like there, there should be a premium uncertainty and that's how you get to that premium offering is we know what these outcomes are likely going to be like. We're going to bake the cake the same way. It's going to taste the same. That's why McDonald's or any other business, as you scale up, you continue to go to it because you have the same experience over and over again. So I think that's great. Everyone go check out Louis's stuff if you need help. Remember, if you want to grow your business with the largest, most powerful tool on the planet, you should reach out to ewr, which is our sponsor, which is the agency I work for. I don't mention that enough EWR for more revenue in your business. We specialize in search marketing. We do other things. We have great people in our network like Lewis that we can connect you with if it is something that we don't do. Thank you so much for listening. Please like share follow shaikh O us really appreciate we are trying to grow on YouTube now. Until the next time. My name is Matt Bertram. I can't even speak today. Bye bye for now.