Episode 1 Fundamentals of Sales and marketing

Craig Andrews: 0:03

There we go.

Voice Over: 0:16

Welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed, the premier podcast for innovative growth strategies hosted by two seasoned experts. Meet Evan Poland, the president of Poland Performance Group, a master in sales coaching with over two decades of experience. Evan is not just a consultant. He's a force in sales, focusing on mindset planning and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services, the Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency. An expert in growth marketing With 20 years under his belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Craig Andrews: 1:16

Welcome everyone to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I am your host, craig Andrews, and my partner in crime, evan Poland. This is our first episode in our series of podcasts that we're looking to deliver to you. I'll say that some of the things that we're going to cover in this episode per se is we're going to be talking about the reasons that we started our podcast, the misconceptions that come with sales and marketing and the differences between sales and marketing. Before we get too deep into that, what I want to do is I want to introduce Evan. Evan, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Evan Polin: 1:51

I'm Craig and I am really excited to go on this journey with you For our listening audience. Good news is this is episode one. It's got to get better. I hope that you hang with us as we go through this With the video. I've always been told I've got a face for radio, so let's hope that that doesn't turn you off too much. You just focus on the content.

Evan Polin: 2:15

A little bit about my background. I had a sales training franchise for 20 plus years. Half of my client base were small and mid-sized business owners and companies and half of who I worked with were professional service firms law firms, accounting firms, engineering firms who needed to grow and get larger and focus on business development. After the sales training franchise, I went to work for a large corporate tax firm. Then two years later went back out, started Pulling Performance Group, where I'm really focused on customized training, customized coaching specifically around sales and business development and really helping my clients grow, get in front of more opportunities, bring in more business, have more people within the organization and the company, close in more business.

Evan Polin: 3:06

As Craig and I share our experiences with you, we really felt passionate about this project. I've worked within hundreds of different companies, seen a lot of what works, seen a lot of what hasn't worked when it comes to sales and marketing. Hopefully, through these upcoming episodes, you'll all be able to gain a lot of insight which will really help you grow your businesses. Hopefully that you can learn from the mistakes that a lot of our previous clients have made and we can introduce best practices to really help you add rocket fuel to your business and really kind of accelerate your growth. Craig, why don't you share with everybody a little bit about your background?

Craig Andrews: 3:47

Well, I'm an open book, Evan. What I'll tell you is that I've had Beholder here for over 20 years now, and actually Beholder started as a video production company Over the years, as we were doing video productions and we were doing video production work for major Fortune 100 companies, everything became a lot more complicated once everybody had a cell phone. What we began to do, and what we saw years ago, was the need to transform into marketing as a whole, primarily because of the fact that people were misunderstanding how marketing works. They thought I create a video, I should get sales. I create this other type of video, I should get sales. The reality behind it is that marketing is more than just a simple vehicle, a simple tool. So when we created Beholder, we actually transformed it and molded it into a marketing agency, a growth marketing agency, specifically to help enhance businesses in all different types of industries and how they can grow in different ways.

Craig Andrews: 4:50

There's more than one way to skin a cat, if you will. I have a cat so I can make that joke. So there's more than one way to market yourself, and so Evan and I, as he mentioned, are very passionate about this, because we both have heard in constant times that I've consulted with Evan on the sales perspective and he consulted with myself from a marketing perspective. We've heard so many people make the confusion that sales and marketing are the same. I'll tell you, evan, I was frustrated. You know I was frustrated. You thought it's like Evan, sales and marketing ain't the same thing, man.

Evan Polin: 5:22

So and it is really, really ugly when, yeah, sales gets confused with marketing, marketing gets confused with sales. I know you probably have very similar experiences to me, but I've worked within company. There's a sales leader, there's a marketing leader, there's a business owner, and amongst those three, there's eight different opinions about what the strategy should be, how things should go. When things go things go well, people will kind of coexist. When things don't go well, fingers are pointing, but nobody's ever pointing back at themselves.

Evan Polin: 5:57

Everybody's blaming each other in terms of why companies aren't getting the results they want to get, and you can't step back and hopefully part of what we'll do with this podcast it's help you reset, refocus. We look really clearly, understand where marketing starts and where sales jumps in, really truly understand the difference between identifying opportunities and increasing awareness and how that's completely different than actually qualifying the opportunity, closing the opportunity, converting that opportunity into new business, and the importance of really having a streamlined strategy, haffering everybody on the same page, having people held accountable for their roles and for communicating with each other. But that's how companies really grow. A lot of times, people are like, geez, this company was a small little company. Yo, how do they go from X to 10 X so quickly? Typically it's because the strategy is aligned.

Evan Polin: 7:03

Yep the people in charge of those strategies are aligned, yeah, and all rowing in the same direction, versus on opposite pages, that row boat spinning around in circles, not getting anywhere.

Craig Andrews: 7:15

Yep.

Evan Polin: 7:16

Because everybody's not on the same page.

Craig Andrews: 7:18

And what I'll tell you is, and I'm gonna say it, evan, you're ready, I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it in advance.

Craig Andrews: 7:25

I'm gonna say it. No, I'm gonna say it all of our listeners which there aren't very many right now, but there will be all of our listeners You're welcome, because we're going to give you guys tips, we're going to give you guys strategy, we're going to give you guys information and, and, and Evan will say, if you guys pick anything, any one thing, out of this, you should be somewhat better than you are when you started, and I think that's important when it comes to this podcast, to understand that we have nothing to hide. We have nothing to hide here at all. We have nothing to hide. We can tell you whatever you want to hear. You just got to ask us the question.

Evan Polin: 7:58

And, as we're doing this podcast, craig and I want to keep it real. There are all kinds of great videos that you can watch, these strategies that work in a perfect world in a well-running economy when all of the stars align.

Evan Polin: 8:15

Unfortunately, in my 22, 23 years of experience, there haven't been too many years like that where everything aligns. So, as we're talking to you about strategy, we want to talk to you about real-world strategy. Yeah, we want to give you stuff that you can take and implement and execute upon. You don't need to have a Harvard degree. You don't need to have Hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars poured into a sales and marketing departments. We want to give you actionable, executable advice. Yeah, and, quite frankly, not only help you and your company and your firm to make money, but we also want to have you save money by not making the same mistakes that we see people make over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Craig Andrews: 9:00

Hold on, evan. Tell them that. Tell that to the people in the back. We want to save you money. Tell them again, evan you marketing and sales.

Evan Polin: 9:08

you should be able to track an ROI. If you are not tracking ROI, if you're working with professionals who say no, no, that's not too difficult you really can't do that. You can't put one and one together and get two. You need to find new professionals. You can absolutely track and measure results. We're gonna talk about leading indicators. We're gonna talk about lagging in the hitters. We're gonna talk about growth. We're gonna talk about results. If you can't see that, if you can't measure that, if you can't look at that in dollars and cents, we need a new strategy.

Craig Andrews: 9:42

You're welcome.

Evan Polin: 9:43

Thank you very much.

Craig Andrews: 9:44

You're welcome. That is a purified fact. Okay, and so when we go to move forward here and we talk about what are the some of the misconceptions of sales and marketing, why don't you start on the sales perspective and then I'll jump on the marketing perspective?

Evan Polin: 10:00

So, from the sales perspective, and over and over again, it continues to amaze me when I start working with a lot of companies, when I ask them about their goals are I don't get numbers, I get weather reports. Things are partly cloudy now, I'd like them to be partly sunny. We just wanna grow, we just wanna get bigger. And I say, geez, craig, all great ideas.

Evan Polin: 10:26

When you say you wanna grow, where's your revenue now? Where would you like it to be at the end of this year? Where do you need to be five years from now? By the way, how many new clients do you need to make that happen? Do you care about revenue or do you care about profitability? Do you want just lots and lots of money to come in, even if you're not making a profit off of it? Where's profitability important? What's your closing percentage? How many leads would show us in the marketing you need and you should? If I could add up all of the deer in headlights looks I get. Or what are you talking about? Or geez, we put together a plan in December and yet next November, december, we'll look at it again, or better yet, or better yet?

Craig Andrews: 11:09

I have to look into that and tell you.

Evan Polin: 11:12

I have to look into that and tell you or I think we did that a couple of years ago and, yeah, it's just not relevant. These should be living, breathing documents you should be tracking. Your marketing team should know how many marketing qualified leads need to come in to be able to start at the top of the sales funnel. The sales team should be able to know what percentage of first meetings turn into clients or prospects that they're given quotes or proposals for. What percentage of those quotes and proposals turn into business. Well, we're gonna talk a little hunting. We're gonna talk a little sport. How many elephants, rabbits, deer, large, mid-sized, small clients do you need to make sure that you're achieving your goals and unfortunately, again, companies don't have clarity and, by the way, there's a reason for that. When there's clarity, there can be accountability, and the large majority of people do not like accountability. But once we put those things in place, we can actually develop a plan, execute upon the plan and then track what's working and what's not working to ensure that our clients are hitting their goals.

Craig Andrews: 12:23

And what I'll say is that you hit it right on the head. Tracking is the commonality between marketing and sales right. So where you might be looking at how many deals closed, how many things are actually happening from a marketing perspective, we want to make sure we're talking to the right people. So a lot of the measurements for us is are we talking to the right people? Do they feel good about our brand? It's more than advertising, by the way, which again goes to that saving money piece. A lot of people throw money at it and then all of a sudden wonder why it's not working. I don't know, because I'm throwing money out to get people to come in, but I'm not talking to the people who would want to buy my product. Makes no sense. But from a measuring accountability perspective, it's important to know who you're talking to.

Evan Polin: 13:05

From a marketing perspective, and the classic trap that I see companies fall into when they've got a salesperson and a marketing person is the marketing person will go. We are bringing all these leads in our sales team sucks. I don't know why they're not closing anything. And then I'll go and talk to the sales leader and the sales leader will say marketing is clogging up our calendars with all of these unqualified appointments with people who will never be customers of ours.

Evan Polin: 13:32

Why are they wasting our time? None of what they do is getting us in front of the right people, and if you don't get those folks in the same room, you don't have the business owner, the business leader running the show in terms. Of this is what we're looking for Now. Guys, let's get on the same page Again. We're wasting time, wasting money, but at least animosity is building up because everybody's got somebody else that they can blame when they're not getting the results they want to get.

Craig Andrews: 13:59

And that's where the clarity that you brought up before comes into play. So whoever's in charge, whoever's the lead in terms of the overall vision, needs to understand what is the marketing going to do for them, then apply it to how it talks to the sales people. Now here's the big catch, and here's where some of the differences come into play between the two. If marketing and here's a quote I have for you if companies that align their sales and marketing practices generate 208% more revenue from their marketing, efforts.

Evan Polin: 14:29

How much more revenue was that?

Craig Andrews: 14:30

208%. Think about that. And that's just from clarity, evan. That's just from clarity. If I know who I'm talking to and what their problems are and what their pains are, and I can solve the problem and send the sales guy to answer those problems, what's the problem? No problems, no problems exist because I would have solved my client's problem. Now here's the big catch Not only did you sell them, but now it's getting them to come back some more, and come back some more, and come back some more. That's where the marketing piece comes into play and talks to the sales. After you deliver the sales lead hey, these guys love my product. Then I'm going to say, from a marketing perspective guess what I'm going to say have them, be an evangelist, tell other people Now. Does that make your job easier or harder, evan?

Evan Polin: 15:18

Way easier. And, by the way, if sales can come back and say, hey, marketing, this is why our clients tell us they love our products and services. This is what they are telling me is our secret sauce and why they're working with us rather than competitor one, competitor two or competitor three. Now marketing has more real world data where they can continue to push that message, and not only push the message. But if they knew who our best clients are, they can now make sure that in what they're doing, they are getting in front of what that ideal target looks like. Yep, and then everybody wins.

Craig Andrews: 15:55

We'll say that again, say that again.

Evan Polin: 15:58

Everybody wins.

Craig Andrews: 16:03

Everybody wins. So now we all look good in front of the boss, we all look like we're moving in the same direction as a business and all of a sudden we look like geniuses from something very simple as clarity Evan, Something as simple as clarity.

Evan Polin: 16:18

That's ridiculous. Reminds me of one of my all time favorite movie quotes Show me the money.

Craig Andrews: 16:26

Hello, I've seen that movie. I think a lot of people have Correct and again, everybody's job becomes easier. Now, all of a sudden, we're all of a sudden moving in the same direction and we're all happy, and now our jobs become easier. Now the bonuses, now the praise that comes with it. It all becomes very easy.

Evan Polin: 16:46

Which takes me to another one of my favorite things. I want my clients to work smart, not work hard. It's not a matter of how much effort you're putting in. It's not a matter of how much activity is going out. It's a matter of what's closing. And if sales and marketing are aligned, I promise everybody will have to work a lot less hard to achieve better results.

Craig Andrews: 17:09

And I would say that, especially even clients of ours, in the same fashion of working smarter. What tends to happen here is that they always think throw money at us the answer. They always think that doing more is the answer. I'm here to tell you from my perspective. Without a doubt, it ain't always about throwing more money at it. Does it help? Without a doubt? Without a doubt, there's no. There's more than this conception. I'll want more money too, but throwing money at it doesn't always get you the direct answer you're looking for. It does cause, create more problems. I will say that Because what happens is is that they all of a sudden look at more products. That doesn't necessarily serve their client right. What they look at is more services. That doesn't always serve the client. After, the sales guy has already sat back and said this is what they like. So now, just throwing more money at it mean I can open up my market and make everything bigger is not the answer. I'm here to tell you. It's not always the answer.

Evan Polin: 18:02

I and Craig along those lines within marketing between yeah Between, stuff you can do on the web, stuff you can do on TV on there, how many different marketing activities could companies do if they tried everything under the sun, evan with?

Craig Andrews: 18:21

the digital revolution. It's endless. It really is, because it's not just a single service anymore. Now it's a combination of services that leads to a same result that is now less expensive but much more deeper Right. So that's endless. It could be endless.

Evan Polin: 18:40

And that's why we want to have a plan and track it, because it's the same thing from the sales perspective. There could be up to 25 to 30 different prospecting activities that sales people could be doing. Most can only do three to five at any one time. If we're not tracking what's working and what's not working and we're throwing time, we're throwing money into stuff that's not going to convert into business and that's going to lessen the amount of time that we have to do some of those things that could be converting into business. So, as we're doing all of this, we need to track what's working, what's not working, so that we can press on and maybe spend more time and money On both the sales and marketing activities that are leading us to the results that we want. And if stuff's not working, let's figure that out sooner rather than later, save the time, save the money and put our focus and attention somewhere else. So just to go, make sure we go a little deeper here and we've covered a lot here.

Craig Andrews: 19:36

What are some of the challenges that you find in the sales part of things when it comes to a new client, a new perspective client?

Evan Polin: 19:42

So I find that there's a couple of big picture challenges. First is the syndrome of this is the way that we've always done it, oh Wow.

Evan Polin: 19:51

Yep, so I'll go into a client and you know they're not happy with the results and and I'll start to ask them questions They'll go no, no, we can't do that. No, no, that's not going to work. And I ask why? And the response is always well, this is how we always done it, this is how we go to market that. Yet this is what our clients think are important, and they hate my follow-up question, which is Craig, how's that working for you? Because guess what, if it was working well, they wouldn't be talking to me. And I'll be honest with you, you've hit me with that one.

Craig Andrews: 20:25

You hit me with that one, and 15, 16 years later, we're almost there in terms of making the changes that we need to make.

Evan Polin: 20:32

So it starts with that and then really having people take a really good look at everything from their strategy, their process, their people, where the gaps are in the skills, where the gaps are in the messaging to the marketplace. And for a company to really change, they need to go through the pain of looking at themselves in the mirror, taking that x-ray, understanding that even if we're doing okay, we might be able to do better. Yeah, and being willing to make those changes so that you can see the results that you want to see. So it always starts there. I think some of the challenges from our perspective is what we always call here is the analysis by analysis.

Craig Andrews: 21:21

Because there's so many venues and so many changes that we're making. I might get a client who comes in and goes I'm doing great. I have, you know, 3000 opens to my email and and I'm getting a watch rate of I don't know 50, 60 percent. I go, oh, that's great. How many of those closed, how many of those reached out to you? But so many people watched it I, they, they did, didn't they? Congratulations.

Evan Polin: 21:49

Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, congratulations.

Craig Andrews: 21:51

I they, they did, didn't they? Congratulations. You are now a television show, but I don't know if that's necessarily based on the plan. The goal, when your boss pulled you in and said we need to increase our business by 50 percent, watching your show is not exactly the plan that you put in place, or it could have been. If it is, then you went, but most people that's not the case. So from a challenge perspective, I agree with you. It has to be. Let's look at the plan, let's look at the results. How is those results leading to it? How are those people answering? What is the feedback? And that again goes to the measurements that we have to make sure. Here's the key, that make sure and we'll talk about this in other episodes that the KPIs are legit to the business practices you're trying to do.

Craig Andrews: 22:35

And I think that those challenges is a is a come, come to the boss moment, if you will. It is a come to the boss moment and say we need to do things differently. Because and here's the big other challenge that we deal with I'll walk into a room and go. I know your competitor is doing x, y and z and you're just doing x. So when I make the comparisons, I'll say why aren't you doing Y and Z? And they'll go, but we are. And I'll say I don't see it. And if I don't see it, I'm not even your client, right? If I don't see it, how did they see it? And then, all of a sudden, when we go to break down and understand what's going on, I go it's not hitting the way you think it's hitting. That's one of the challenges we face a lot.

Evan Polin: 23:20

And that's going to something else that we'll cover in another episode is sometimes I run into companies and I know that you do as well that they see things in a certain perspective and they don't understand why their clients aren't understanding the message, why their prospects or clients can't see how they're different from the competition, and too often we're just focused on ourselves and companies are focused on what they want to get out, versus listening to why their clients make their buying decisions and making sure that they're putting the message out there in a way that the clients can see how you can help me fix a problem versus this is all of the stuff that I have, or this is why I'm really smart.

Craig Andrews: 24:04

So, as we touch into the next subject here, on this one, companies with a dynamic and adaptable sales and marketing process report an average 10% more from their salespeople meeting their quotas, right? So there, we are talking about the alignment, which is going to be another episode in the future, but the importance of getting on the same page can increase your business 10%. Imagine if it's more on the alignment moving forward, right? So as we sit here and we touch upon these different episodes, we wanna make sure you guys stay tuned to the other episodes that we're gonna have. Kevin, is there anything else that you wanted to add to the program here that I'm missing?

Evan Polin: 24:43

I think today is a good start in terms of giving our soon to be growing audience.

Craig Andrews: 24:48

That's right.

Evan Polin: 24:49

A good idea of some of the topics that we'll be covering in upcoming episodes.

Craig Andrews: 24:53

Very good. So just to give you guys, give it a little heads up, you can always visit our website which is oops, wrong one, sorry the sales and marketing.

Evan Polin: 25:03

I'm gonna wait this, what's that? I said we're new with this.

Craig Andrews: 25:06

We're new with this, yes, but we're gonna get better. That's a guarantee we do make improvements. We're the sales and marketing playbook on Leash. You can visit us on our website at smplaybookunleashcom, and there again, we're gonna add more things to it. We'll bring it to you, but we would support that you guys stay with us and ask questions. Some of you guys, who we're gonna send this to know us very well. Don't be afraid to ask us questions. We were willing to answer questions all day long. Anything else, evan, or do you wanna tell them a little bit about what's coming up in the future episodes?

Evan Polin: 25:40

So a couple of things that we will be talking about in the future. We're gonna be talking about best practices when it comes to sales and marketing, biggest mistakes and how those mistakes soon really cost companies money, the impact of specific strategies. We will be getting into what you should be measuring, how you should be measuring everything from digital to real world sales and marketing and, again, how to align everything. And we also welcome your feedback, welcome your questions. If there's topics that you'd love us to cover on the show, please drop us a note, drop us a comment, but this is gonna be a bombing. We're doing this for our clients, for small and mid-sized businesses out there, so if you want us to talk about it, just hit us up and we will make sure that we incorporate some of those things in the future episodes.

Craig Andrews: 26:36

And again, I'm Craig Andrews. This is my partner in crime, evan Poland, and we will see you guys on the next episode. Stay tuned.

Voice Over: 26:52

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of sales and marketing. Remember, the playbook is in your hands and the possibilities are limitless. Keep exploring, experimenting and innovating, and watch as your business reaches unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook unleashed on all major podcast platforms and follow us on YouTube, facebook and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.