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cell shipped so before I get started and introduce myself to you I just kind of like to get a little bit of feedback in terms of why you're here what you'd like to get out of today so we'd like to start come on down they'll be shy I'm here as an entrepreneur the product side of things where you knew everything about the product now you need to understand the customer right about when you might not like to share [Music] network meet some people and learn okay alright alright so just a little bit about me I have spent six essays and business business sales account management and sales management I have done everything from paging that's when I started so that'll take me to sell you know radio cell phones office supplies and RF supplies advertising but so two decades of business business sales and management and I loved it I loved it every single moment of it I pretty much say I was born that way because my mother was an outside sales my grandpa grandfather was yellow pages back in the day we milk pages with about the only advertising as a newspaper or radio you need to do and he was always the topic this company throughout the nation so I pretty much I didn't have a choice in the heavens multiple sex when I joined my last company I said I would retire with them or I would start my own business and I was looking for a different trajectory professional career and leading sales teams one of the things that actually be thing that I loved the most was coaching and helping to and helping to see my cells team grow and their professional nature they had to do the hard work and they had to they had to be open to it that I enjoyed it so much and so and I've mentored other cells professionals and throughout my career and I just be passionate about it so I really saw a need because a lot of a lot of themselves people sell schemes they're pesto focus their product and service this is this is what we have we got to get out there and sell it right well the thing about that is is that doesn't work in today's market space quite honestly it really hasn't worked for quite some time but change is hard so we've got to focus on our customers so instead of our product and service we have to focus on on what problem we're solving for them with our solutions or a product and service so people might have so to say that I have sold commodities in there never sold psi sold solutions you go get coffee paper from anymore to tell the story for 10 cents or a dollar cheaper right that's not what what we were selling it's not what I was in the market for so I so passionate about coaching and really shifting the trajectory of the way customers few sales professionals because inevitably reviewed us inevitably were viewed as you know in fact in Glengarry Glen Ross racing that boilerplate so we're in evolute we're inevitably hewed is that and I'm super passionate about changing that so but the only way that we can do that is if we go and meet our customers where they are and so tell me what experience has anyone had in terms of training or solutions going out there and marketing to your customers and sitting in front of your customers and customer focused or what are you thinking in terms of customer centric what does that mean to you making sure you're aligned where your fibers in the cell cycle yes absolutely absolutely absolutely so how would you how would you do that I was actually my boyfriend his boss and we're sitting outside by the fire pit and all that and I'm just peppering him with questions about my boyfriend it's not he's been he's intact he's gone in sales right and so I'm just asking all kinds of questions trying to get to know me so with that today we have a short period time together so we're just really gonna really hit the highlights we're gonna focus a lot on the research and prospecting because you're first you only have one chance to make a good first impression so your research is the biggest part of that right and prospecting so we're gonna hit the highlights I get way more in depth so my company sells ship we do 360 degree sells assessments base your own sales teams and organizations we do workshops seminars and individual Commission as well the key thing with any training that you do whether it be in sales or product and you can always say that if you don't follow it up with consistent feedback and coaching with your sales team they're going to forget it within 30 days after that and after initial workshop so another thing because I know yourselves people said well I'm kind of changing that a little bit instead of sitting in a 3 day 8 to 5 or 8 they were waiting for the next to break so they can get out and make the call or customer and they're like I need to be out selling not learning come sell anybody I see a lot that's checking on that so so I really want to change that to where it is a three to four hour one day a week over a consistent period of time where you all we also get feedback and and then consistent coaching so we can we can really hone in and it's not just a three day one and done and then 30 days later they're back to their old way of doing things that make sense so this really it did not surprise me about the the type of this so 96% of decision makers are more likely to consider a company's product or service if the sales professionals have a clear understanding of their business names 96% that is a huge number and 51% of decision makers rank trusts as the top factor in working with a sales professional if you look at the flip side 79% the makers are least likely to engage with self professionals who lack knowledge of their company and 70 cents percent of decision makers will not engage that the products or services represent are irrelevant how many times have maybe you been marketed to because think about this for all consumers right how many times and believe me being an entrepreneur and new entrepreneur I am getting pinned up on LinkedIn like you would not believe and they they're they know nothing about my business right but and honestly a lot of it a lot of them it's irrelevant to what 100 spaces right so we've got to we got to as we go out as sales professionals we really need to be that right we're not cells people we're not out there and the boilerplate trying to get work were there to sell and we're though there to increase revenue for our company as well as profitability but what we're not there to do is push ourselves and push our products and services on a customer before we even know if it's relevant to them right so research we show hands how many people do research on their customers okay that's a good amount however I will tell you that I would venture to say 80% of professionals do not research their company or the company that they're prospecting to before they start prospecting to them about the same percentage do not even do any type of research prior to their first meeting with our customers and if you're not doing research on your customers prior to engaging with them you are missing a huge opportunity because as those steps statistics show companies are more likely to engage with you if you have a clear understanding of their business of their company and other means so this is something that is fantastic so this is a winning vendor so the winning vendors 73% demonstrated a stronger knowledge of our company and its needs 73% the timeliness what we like to call the dental follow-up right and then they had gazelle team had more insights about their company and their mates you see the very important piece of this is demonstrated a stronger knowledge of our company and its needs now prior to going in before you have a meeting with a customer you get you get to know a lot about them but then you're also going to co-create with boom that insights and what their needs are because you're going to you'll have a 50,000 foot view from what your research does you but once you get in and meet with them then you get even more in-depth right so first and foremost do your homework social media so on the flip side of this Zoomers the reason that this is also more important as the kiss consumes but those businesses have more choices and are typically 50% along and their buying process before they even engage those sells professional at one of the companies they've also narrowed it down to maybe three or four at that point because they have information at their fingertips right so think about that too when you're when you're doing your homework LinkedIn if you're in the b2b market space for your where your market you're selling into businesses if you're in the business to consumer market space Facebook looking at how looking at the analytics and things like that but LinkedIn I'm gonna if you are not on LinkedIn and you are not posting constant content on LinkedIn you're missing a huge opportunity I'm going to show you a stand in just a few minutes about how many buyers when they're out there and they're vetting vendors are looking at LinkedIn LinkedIn is a big portion of this so when I look at LinkedIn so I follow the companies that I'm prospecting to also look at the people within the organization so who here does that he's almost done you do a lot of thing like them okay give me give me some samples of how you recently utilize LinkedIn to prospect we get our web session content garbage their information so I went out and research okay background from that's good that's great the Facebook those of you not even see the be to see market face Facebook is it's huge in that arena YouTube so I put videos every week I do a weekly video that is video content and also that I link back to my blog i house everything on youtube and then of course i posted about posted on social media so but so you can go to youtube because alou most companies nowadays have a video for their clients right so they're showing they're doing some sort of demonstration or they're marketing to that so you can understand where they're how they're going to market with their clients instagram its weather I don't know I'm on it but you know for my company and I post up on there but but my meetings but my main focus for my business is LinkedIn Facebook and YouTube company website this has so much even you just have a 10-minute span of time to research go to the company's website look at their about page how long did they get in business what are their core values look at white papers and case studies especially I'll give you an example in my last roll contributor I had a property management company and they account for about 1.5 million dollars in annual revenue Quran and when I when I took that company over and started managing that account I went on looked at their website looked at their white papers and their case studies looked at their locations that I had a full portfolio 1,400 locations big big buildings all that kind of stuff anyway I didn't use it initially but that ended up using it and how I used it was some of the some of the people were like kind of naysayers we had the National contract all that good stuff but they were like we can break it up and we can go do this and we can go do this and so there instead of being consolidated supplier that we work for them they were looking at breaking up to save money well in part costs not necessarily but I referenced and I pulled out their case study that actually had to do with them and their client that I was helping to helping them to serve right and their case study with that client was all about consolidation of suppliers was all about making things easier and make me think you know really making sure that their client was taking care of but making it easier for their client correct so I pulled that out and I started speaking to that well this is what you did through your client and this is how you were able to do that you are able to do that with in part and part with our help with the consolidated fire want me through why do you think it's going to be easier for your client and for you if you do this well needless to say they didn't do it right after we vector much discussion at that so while it might not be something that you utilize and necessarily a meeting or whatever and that would your initial meeting or whatever it can be personal for you later on so the internet in the news who here has ever done the Google like you followed it so you get updates when anybody wouldn't any of your companies and then in the news yeah but that's a good thing if you're not worried about that that's a good thing to do but I also look at in the news as well but then if you just look at and see what pulls up I'll give you an example I was prospecting to a company in Mississippi they were a health care company and they and I was just I'm like okay let me pull up and we do a little bit of research of course you're calling on come to find out they have been hit with the 300 thousand dollar fine the year before because of Cetus you may know what see this is really bad infection caused by maybe shoddy environmental practices you know the click the kill rate complaint so what I happened to be looking to prospecting them for was for Environmental Services and for janitorial sanitation products and we could just release a product that had a three segments children so I took that I didn't utilize that in my the top track good film bad idea you got hit with disable $300,000 how about we talk I what it did say was that we have help we we understand the challenges that healthcare assembly centers are facing with had other clients that have had outbreaks and yadda-yadda love to set up a meeting right but I knew that that would be key component for them they be looking for that now kind of meeting within a week with them so it's just it just knowledge is power right information is power industry trends anybody look up their customers industry okay this is one please if you take nothing else please go and do this because look up state you are targeting manufacturing clients look up manufacturing industry trends what the challenges are being faced in manufacturing in particular it's always there's gonna be a lot of around safety but in what your clients particular industries and whether be property management whether it be retail whether whatever that makes may be look and see what their what trends are on for 2019 what challenges the industries facing if property management one of the challenges that they always face is having to do more with less with less people in the job the plant I was telling you about 1,400 locations they had 50 technicians across the southeast that had to serve as 1,400 locations 50 talk about doing more with less right that that says and your competition what is their competition doing a group most clients want to know what their competition is doing and if they're doing different than what they are so and I'm sorry are you not able to see yeah so what questions at this point do we have a great tool if you are using that now pick it up free trial well that's can you speak to how this works when you're moving out of a kind of a need space into a one space but if you think about fashion right it's not because you have this crisis and we're solving it for you but means this is cute or you know this is what we make have to move up in sales kind of hit where you you're not so that's a good question right because so I would say more code towards the one space right so if you have a now do you have a particular demographic in mine I think you think you were think about say say women 35 to 55 whole okay so you need to meet them where they're at Facebook would be a would be a prime example of that and anybody's your followed Gary meet Gary Vaynerchuk you know when you're looking at the demographic and at you not expect before so I know you're probably dealing with a lot you're dealing with several different areas with that that is it all fashions or is it fashion in terms of home fashion in fashion but still in that you know visual so the commercial that I think of is that am is that think that's amazon where the they are visualizing themselves and that he's visualizing themselves with that headboard or whatever and it's like a toward them there so the mother that she's like seeing herself and then because that's a that's a is not necessarily solving a problem but it is solving it one and how can you and how can you go towards that demographic and what are what are their trends I look at that trends in that demographic in terms of the home fashion and femme Goods and what that looks like and especially in particular because you're looking at particular areas to write like Birmingham proper or is that is that right so I would look at that and see what type of demographics then there's a lot out there when it comes to business to consumer on that so I would think about that and how you can really come in and focus on what the trends are and that and because you can look at that as an industry right that that particular demographic okay so when you're trying to look at competition that often there's a lot of competitors beauty tricks for honing they consider their competitors so what I look at a lot in the competition is where the person I'm prospecting to come out prospecting to where they sit in their market space okay so where do they sit are they or they consider number one or are they consider number ten and they're trying to get to say this and who are they out there to be and what that looks like and how they're marketing to it that's what I look at a lot in terms of that but also to if you have you actually service one of their competitors with your particular product you know their industry you're familiar you've got you have familiarity within the industry then that's what I would I don't necessarily reference that we work with so-and-so because that's a legal deal but that hey I work with another another company that is in your industry that's in your space one of your competitors we have had great success with this this or this right so but I do like to look at where they sit in the market space that they're number one number five I look at what their revenue is in comparison to I would look at a watch and I might get a little bit more granular than what you want to but again you never know when you have them how that information when you're when you might need to pull that out hey our references because I even use it even if it's not directly related solution that I'm providing I actually reference it in business meetings hey I saw you guys just won this great project congratulations or you know hey I see you're expanding into this particular area hey I see you finally beat so-and-so your competitor you you know you serve them so it's really about conveying to them that you're coming to them with from an authentic place and that you care about their their business it's not just I mean obviously you want to marry things and you want to have information that's going to bring back tell the story of either solving the problem or solving a wine or what have you but building that relationship with your customer is the is the key to to that again a lot of that information I think helps to do that in terms of just showing that you care about your customer but you actually have to care about it so any anybody else well I guess my question would be at work for Alabama Employees Credit Union okay and so we're a clothes field-of-membership so there's like a bank or credit union pretty much on every corner but with us not everyone can join you have to be associated in some way with one of our select partners or I'm one of the album powers a nuclear Southern Company or something like that okay so that would be the only way that you can join or join to a family member but I guess my question would be to you when you're talking to businesses about being a select partner when they don't really know a whole lot about you because you don't do advertisement who don't do you know the billboards we don't do commercials because we don't have to because of our mental power i era clothes fill the membership but how do you meet with the businesses and attract them when they don't know a whole lot of bachelor because they don't see on TV when they don't really know you know they hadn't got a flyer in the mail they you know mean so most people that know a whole lot about us they're associated with us in some way of things they've heard about it there's mom dad and grandfather mom okay how do you kind of break the the ice or the mold with the businesses that you'd go out and say hey would you like to be one of our sub a partner here are our benefits but they don't really know a whole lot about you other than what I'm saying to them hang here your benefit okay let me ask you this question what are you what are you when you're talking about the partnership with businesses right so you're wanting them to be a partner with you what are what are they what are they being partners with you about well they're being partners to be able to have those things benefits as somebody that works out of them a power so their employees their employees okay okay so any particular business so take away the yep because you don't market you know you know so they're not necessarily familiar but you don't want to start out with your your benefits and features right okay what you want to start out with is their benefits what are they getting out of this right so are they so that's how you start off the conversation we have a partner program now you do have the power of Alabama power named behind you right so that that in itself is it is a great thing but I would really focus on you know I mean if they have a particular amount of employees you can get that kind of information how many because this is about benefits to their employees this is about employee retention rates employee you know the more benefits companies can can bring to their employees the better so they can retain their talent right that's it that's a big thing so I would have to think about that but I would look at and see what they you know kind of from their business perspective what how they take care of their boys you can see that on their website typically like what their focus is that their diversity is a big thing for the diversity and inclusion you know making sure that they have the top benefits for their employees you can see a lot in terms of like their careers when you go to their careers tab on this particular one to look at that but employee retention is a huge thing so I will look at come to it from there aspect of the benefits of being able to to harness the power of a credit union like that and what that means for their employees and then thereby for their business does that make sense great questions anybody else okay all right so prospecting so after you've done your homework and by the way guys I couldn't totally go down and research rabbit hole I've been known to like it so I'm not saying you're everybody's busy so I'm not saying spending an average day about how its researching but if you can spend 15 to 20 minutes just looking up you know prior to engaging with a with a prospect I'm gonna give you an example so my best friend she's she's been she's been in business to business sales and account management as long as I have well she just recently she's been with her company for 11 years now and she just recently got a whole neighborhood business and but she has 88 pounds like that's a lot of people to get to right and so so she was out on client meetings and she's like well there's this there's this customer you know right by this I'll just drop in and see if I can schedule an appointment with him right so she she she goes in she thinks she does no research she's thinking because of the name of their business that they're an attorney firm and she goes in and they're in health care and they have managed like 14 facilities well the conversation that she was prepared to have she ended up not being able to have it she had it she did not know what conversation to have with them because she went in and turning firm and guess what the person that she was going to schedule a meeting with could see her right then so she's like sitting in front of them and what she brought with her was so and this is a current client so they're already doing business but obviously you know that goal is to increase business right so so she called me new people Lisa she you know resurfaced a because she can just hurry I was telling her about what I was doing anyway so I think we all do it I mean it's just but inevitably this one customer that she popped in on and like hey I'm in the area and I want to see if I can get in a point with them and you haven't done the research to deepen you can't have like a a really thoughtful conversation with them about their business and edit ibly that's gonna happen it's just the way does anybody ever have that happen okay so ask yourself these questions why does your customer need your solution why do they need them what problem is it salting for them or what point is it solving for them and how does your solution solve that problem right so think about this through the research process and through and throughout the entire sales process that you're continuing whether it be prospecting or the prospecting things or whether why are you coming to this customer is this because think about the percentage of the relevancy right they're not going to it needs you need to make sure that you're prospecting to the correct customer that your solution or product is relevant to any other industry or business so think about these things as you're going as you're going through them so prospecting LinkedIn Facebook obviously across Facebook with your particular market email calls in-person networking now there's a lot of different ways with prospecting and I have to say that instead of prospecting but people have visiting do you set out a particular portion of your day of your week to prospect what do I need particularly do your Tuesday couple hours I make sure at least okay who else well let me Midway to in a second okay and when you're prospecting and when you're prospecting is that calling emailing following up calling okay are they people that you've engaged with prior ship or is it straight out both working careers right what do you do that is real life okay all right so when you're prospecting so 52 percent of buyer says LinkedIn had the biggest impact of their research process so when I think of prospecting in today's world it is obviously your coal cause worm cause all of that all the stuff that that we all do but it's so different now because what you have to do is you have to make yourself relevant and when I say yourself I mean yourself as well as your company right your company typically does everybody here company have a LinkedIn page and all of that and they're posting things on there on the continual basis okay so sharing what your companies are hosting but you also have to build a relevant content and content green you have to build a personal brand for what you're doing and what you're selling and how relevant that can be for your customers so think about that - posting posting content on LinkedIn and posting and making sure that your that when they look you up you called them and say they don't know you and you called them or whatever and they look look you up on LinkedIn and then they're going to look up your company look you up see testimonials that's something I've got working on right now is building a whole list of testimonials to put on my on my LinkedIn profile and my company page so that because that is very relevant to customers they look little they look at that a lot so connecting the people only do as an entrepreneur I have been getting a lot of connection requests for LinkedIn a lot of them so what when and I would not accept everybody because I don't care - trying to sell to me or not because I'm trying to sell to me then you're in sales so that makes you relevant for me I don't that's fine inevitably two hours later I get an ml and I'm being pitched something I hey I'll do whatever you want I'm not here to do anything but when I am here this day is you have to think about what you feel we have so as a consumer when somebody's selling to you I automatically know that the only reason that person connected with me was to pitch me something and that's not how we need to come to our clients right because the whole purpose is to be client centric and customer focus and to build a trusted business partnership with them and to be their advise their trusted business advisor right you're not going to be able to do that about it connecting and then two hours later pitching them something because why are you pitching them you don't even you don't even know they there's most people that are trying to pitch me I don't need what they're out me what they're selling so so I would say connect and a couple a couple of weeks later or a week later send them an email direct to their inbox asking for a meeting but I would advise against connecting and connecting and then trying to sell says everybody's anybody ever had that where you've had a connection request and then it's did you respond to it right I've changed mine I just I used to be connected to everyone and then accept connections at work some of them did the sales navigator piece team and I page at their book and I got all my connections that I can at least I know you introduce you so I flipped it a little bit say I don't serve other vision so they come to my page and they say hey I saw that you know are connected this person and I can confidently say yeah at least once hey here's this person I can't tell you how many times I go to my friends like you know this person nope just ya know and that's it that's a great point that's a great point now for me I feel like the because I'm because I'm creating content and posting content on a consistent basis that I don't care about how many likes for sure right I don't care how many watch together or anything like that what but I know that at one point somebody's going to see my content and it's going to be relevant to them or relevant to their space they're in right so and then again or you can find about that post relevant content where we talked about in melt and I think you can't email and say and request a meeting if you say you don't have their email address it's just not the connected pitch right and I'm just that's not necessarily what we do obviously we talk about the research and follow the company their company page on this make sure in testimonials we talk about that anybody else have any best practices for LinkedIn that they've done or they had success with hey guy well I do have a question night was so attainable you record sleep did you mentioned that you were in the project my head fit and I wanted apartment complex now they can use this and they can almost two months they have put the vacancy out of the princes which doesn't apparently work for what's the best way to reach out to potential tenants no I would I would absolutely say say Facebook would be a great one for that Craigslist I don't know about the curse says I would say Facebook and there's Facebook marketplace especially would be a good one and then you can do actually did a actually recently did a Facebook ad and I set a budget and like $60 $60 in reach like it was eighteen hundred people within the Birmingham area so so you might want to try that to a small budget I mean I know priceless is free but especially if you're trying to get a specific demographic you can see that analytics of who is looking at that particular ad that was my question so Facebook demographic - unless your location it's particularly now I didn't go I was like really that Barbie been to it so I don't know enough to see it to that we're taking a little but it was perfect an area they had specific Department so but you might can dig a little bit deeper and see if you can do that but I was just more focused about forget about all of Birmingham so and that's the reason I did know what they do is you set a budget and then they that they do ads and it came out and like I think twenty five dollar increments here and there and then I had a campaign end date so my end date was like Sega v and and so it was cut off at that point so then I said my budget was this used this amount and there we go and what was really cool about that is I got it also sees analytics so I got to see like eighty five point four percent was women a little bit my to look at it right and then I saw the age groups as well so you got to see a lot of cool analytics with that as well for future has anybody else so mo we already talked about that don't sell remember the why what and how and I always keep in mails and emails short sweet and to the point two to three lines and customer-focused like that health care customer that was talking to you about I sent them an email said hey worked with other health care clients I have other health care clients who are facing similar challenges and environmental services I'd love to sit down sit down with you on Wednesday at 10:30 to see what challenges you're facing and how we might be able to to help you with that but a being by bank right and inevitably I will get like this it's usually around 30 to 40 percent of the time I'll get back to number did see her know this dates not good how about this day don't be afraid of putting a date at time because the date and time is that it's they're like oh no I do want to talk to I do want to talk to her but I'm not available at this point right so both email and email do the same thing I think about that and in always pretty much the same about two to three months or so we can shoot eleven hell why am i reaching out to them what is what's what problem am i solving for them or think that I can solve for them then I have this abstract but Ephesus because this is when you when you actually get the appointment right so one thing they respond back to me I say that's great I'll send an Outlook and invite or whatever many of you use for your calendar who else who else should be included ask that who else should be included because there are in most decision-making processes there are anywhere from one to six people involved in decision-making the last statistic I would just heard a new statistic the other day that was six point eight people involved in a decision made so what you don't want to do is get in front of this person and not ask who else needs to be involved who else because and then you're sitting in front of one person and then you find out that three other people have been put into this because each person is going to have a different objective and different goal right so so you want to you want to get as much the influencers in as you possibly can on that first convenience so you can start building relationships with them finding out what their goals for the project or whatever it may be and then when I send out the n-body I send an agenda but I am what we what we've talked about so in our conversation if we were on the phone and I've set the meeting or email to set the meeting I put in bullet points about what were what the agenda is for the meeting and then I asked them to add anything that they would like to discuss this is especially important if you need are going to need specific information when you're in that meeting right so if you were going to have you need like usage on something so if or you need you need certain specifications or what have you what this does is it shortens your cell cycle because you can if you don't ask for it then what what is going to end up having is you're in the meeting they're saying okay I'll get back to you with that information but you have that information before you start compiling you know your solutions for them right so this helps to shorten your selling you're selling cycle if you can get all that information but oh but at least if you ask for it you know they're going to be more willing to they're typically I actually had one customer I could tell she was absolutely icy day because let me tell you something she came I mean everything was tabbed it was Oh looks like you know my customers be like you please but it uh suggestion tips about that so I'm gonna give this isn't this is an example of an ml that I got so read this and tell me tell me what you guys think about this first shot I had connected this actually was a recent connection connected with me two hours later or not this they know they do not know what I do they do not reference anything about my company whatsoever do they nothing it's all about them they connected it and then they pitched without knowing anything about me anything about my business anything about anything at all right so of course I'm not going to respond to that but if I might respond back hey you want some story idea I connect with everybody so actually before I get one of this one time I said this next one at this was I was actually at a networking event we'll talk about networking her in just minute but I was actually in a network it was a luncheon at the BJ and there was a gentleman speaking he was president founder I think of an ad agency great great speaker he was all talking about brand and at the time I had just launched I had just you know left my company to start my own business and I am all like going crazy thinking about branding myself and like how I know I need to know brand out there so like I'm spinning so I asked the question to him when he opened the question-and-answer segment I asked him I am like all over the place with this how do I hone in on what my brand should be and he was like well good news is you're not alone even billion dollar companies have the same problem and I very much so anyway he gave me a couple of tips but after after that was over already we were all you know to check amongst ourselves lady walked up to me her name was Michaela and she said go to watch this video which video it is right now but it was a it was an excerpt of the TED talk and I think it was called the wide and and she said go watch this it will help set up and she gave me her card and I gave her mine and so I wouldn't watched it loved it but still I mean this little twenty minute video was not helping a little bit with my branding so she worked for modern brand the modern brand company so again when she came up to me she was not pitching me about monogram and the company and all that because that's exactly what they do she just want me to watch a video so what did I do I well if she happens to be a project manager so she works with a specific client she's not you know she doesn't because it's Feldman or just branding or anything like that so she said so I emailed her because I had already sat down with two other branding companies and I emailed her she said reach out to Michael he's the he's one of the partners he'll get back to you so I emailed him and it was one line I'm looking for some help I am interviewing branding companies if you could please let me know a good you know good time for us to speak this was an email that he sent back to me so that's much more relevant he had talked to me but he took the time to go and look at my website he looked at my he looked at my LinkedIn he looked and he and he read what I was doing when I talked to him I actually talked to him Friday the 22nd when I talked to him and had the conversation with him he had gone he the first thing he said to me was okay so I'm going to shut up and listen because I read your blog because I did my blog on my blog post I had you need to listen more than you speak when you're in a meeting with the client right so he so I thought that that was great another thing he did and something to think about too in our conversation was he thought about he he I asked him what he thought of my name my company named my company that was not cell shipped at the beginning it was the sells charm so I said I need you to be honest I need you to tell me what you think my name and he goes and he asked me were the origin of that came from and I said well initially I was just going to be focused on individual and women cells professionals that the course has changed and how I'm gonna scale when did we deal with when were sales teams all that good stuff he misspoke and called my cousin said my company name as the southern charm twice in our conversation and that have been something I'm worried about because I am southern right and so I didn't I was worried about that and I said well he's like he said you need to you need to rethink your name he said he said because you're gonna be dealing with this this and this and I said well and I'm also going to be dealing with the fact that they're saying southern charm insistence Ellis dark and I'm not a charm school so but because he challenged me on that and he was truthful with me he wasn't worried it was not about who I better tell her what she wants to hear he was truthful with me about that I hired him and signed the contract because of that because the other two companies were not giving me the in-depth information that I needed they were not that they weren't they were worried about getting my business right that's what they and not that they were bad and I'm sure they're great companies but this approach is what got the contract for them so what's the definition of a cold call yeah now there's a lot of definitions out there for phone calls I'm sorry are we on time I do not have my phone in front names it's almost 1:00 o'clock oh it is so I don't want to keep a few guys on this day I only have a few more things if you don't want to go please I know everybody's had a busy day so so the phone calls Henan first of all so back in the old days it was the cold calling thing you needed to get out there and get as many or you need to make 50 phone calls and a day right and death and then they they were truly cold calls because you could never met the person or what happy right gone are said part of those days I would it's quality versus quantity right and you need to know your prospects I will say I have signed I assigned several between for a million dollar and half a million dollar bills by to Pope calls that I made it was it but it was because I was in the right place at the right time I would say that that is that is not the norm on it right so um just with phone calls be prepared of giving an example is this is a bad woman I was I had been trying to get in touch this particular person was it was hospitality cruise and I have been trying to trying to trying to get in front of them and call them and I just he picked up the phone one day I was so not prepared for that because I was prepared to leave another voice now like I had and all of that so he picked up the phone and I said and I'm like this is earlier my cells career if he goes and he's like I'm sorry he's like you know that you can't help us I'm like he was like and I said well what if we could save you 15% annually and as soon as I said it I wanted to put it right back in my mouth with the vital prize oh my lord because if you sell on price you will lose it on price right every day of the week so I said somebody said no and I was like and he goes and what his response to me was no you can't and I never got an appointment with him and never gotten from him because I made them I was not prepared for him to actually pick up the thing and I wasn't prepared for that and so I and then when I went like my service on first I'm so mad at myself that but anyway so with the phone call saying is that email short sweet to the point because if you're catching them they're not prepared for your phone call you know keep its humble people sweet all the love hey I sent you an email last week you know about this is would you would you are you available you know next Wednesday at 10:30 short sweet to the point and then go from there always specify a date and time as well in person calls I have done drop-bys where maybe I didn't know who the decision maker was and so my purpose for that call was to find out who it was and find out who was in charge of that not to get not to sit down the talks and then we start pitching then right then it was just to get gather information about certain things and you'd be amazed at what you can find out if you can build a good relationship with the gatekeeper but and but that enables you to go back and have a warm call right so happily speaking with you know Miss Mary Smith so it enables you to do that always leave contact information and always follow up who does that in person calls like when you're crawling on somebody saying you haven't been able to get in touch we have a name see if I do any of that it was it mainly you did okay so how do you how do you conduct those calls I bring it back in please Goody's what kind of goodies to bring she the snipers popcorn Andrew sucking cheap sweaters popping and say hi break the ice a little bit depends on the calling on so what's your intention when you're making much cost scheduling and time to fall back right time right and that's it and that's a good point that was always my I when I was doing that is is because I'm being respectful of their time cos if you're trying to buy Stan through this very the door and get in front of them your your number once you're not going to number two unless they were like oh you have money them and then there are pretty much you're gonna be what they call the time waster from the stuff in the south we have a lot of those right like they have all the time in the world yes sit down the chocolate immune is actually to bring in a popcorn and is right but uh the networking who was that the mix drawers legend learn think I need to mix trois lunch-and-learn but I do so it was fantastic I love those ladies they are fed what they kept on is great who here likes to go to the after-hours and networking and all that okay so a lot of people don't you know but and and I will have to say I would be I used to be of the early in my career I didn't like it because I was just you know inevitably you go in there full of clicks they known each other for years they're talking right and it can be intimidating to walk up to people who you don't know who are you know in a group of long-term friends it seems like right but now I don't care but but I have a gold or intention for whatever networking I don't I I go to any type of networking event that I can just because I want to build relationships in the Birmingham community it's not necessarily my intention is not to go and get business from a networking event right because I might meet five people and they may not have have a need for what I do but guess what if I build an authentic relationship and we having a great conversation and we change cards and we connect and all that they might notice somebody does and so I have a goal our attention hey I want to meet five people or you know hey I want to learn more about nonprofits because I want to get into that space or or I actually want to volunteer because I believe in that a lot right but the authentic make sure I meet new people a lot of people go to networking events with a buddy right and then never leave that buddies side so make sure that you go and you meet new people and you break away and say hey okay I'm going over there you go over there especially if you're with the same company I'm gonna have to say that's actually good technique let's go across that they get to know the person and then keep it short you know that have it have a good conversation and deaf conversation you can exchange cards and then move on right and then always follow up this is something that whether it be follow up after a meeting whether it be follow up after networking whether it be follow up after repay you've had the initial call with somebody follow-up is the key you meet that person connect with them on LinkedIn you know and say and send them a short note say hey is great to meet you of course you always follow up because follow up is key anybody have any good networking with events that they go to I'd like to share Network after work where's that is that if it's downtown or once a month I think it's coming up they move it to different areas so they live it up at the hotel over some bar or you know just different places - no so I went through a we sat down and did a three-hour brand roadmap session where we went through and they were asking me all types of questions about you know my intentions what I saw what was important to me what type of customers I think it was in depth and then they built out at brands roadmap for me and then we kind of went back and forth on it there were some things that I wanted to add some things only deleted and then they did that now in that that's where kind of my name self shift came from because in that roadmap session I said a lot because I was wanting to shift perspective I was to shift the customers perspective away sales professionals were reviewed I was wanting to shift sales people's perspective into the customer focused type of things so on the same shift a lot he goes you might want to think about shift and so so then I kind of like that because listen I had literally a notebook of that all kind of different names it was ridiculous and I wasn't married to the sellers charm and I knew it might have been problematic but so it wasn't like I was afraid to let that go it was just like picking a name for your business and then craning it and then you're gonna have a logo to you're committing to that name and that was like a huge space so that's that's how that worked out well I have several acts everyone's by a novel this is that's one of them and then I have and then I have little water marks that are SMS it's very simple I took they came to me with several different concepts some of them work work a little funky and I kind of like them but I was like I need something that can go along with everything anyway um if I could what would you be willing to fill out that aerobics all right for me so I just would like some feedback and then I'd love to hear what type of content that you would like that you would like to know in a workshop or seminar in the future