Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you, 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.

Speaker 2: 1:11

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig, that's Evan, and next to him is Amelia. That's our running joke, amelia, in case you haven't seen it. So, anyway, this is the Sales and Marketing Playbook, in which Evan and I break down the differences and the similarities between sales and marketing and how they should work together. Simplaybookcom, or you can go to our LinkedIn channel on LinkedIn, or you can go to YouTube and see our wonderful faces all day long watching these episodes. But today we're talking about accountability and before we get there, I'm going to have Evan start. Oops, see how I Evan start and give a background, evan, so that people know why you're the sales guru that you are.

Speaker 3: 2:05

So and just to warn people, you know, if you're trying to decide between watching the YouTube video or just kind of listening, craig and I we've got faces, we've got styles for radio and not not, not for the over the air broadcast. So just kind of keep that in mind if you're deciding which platform that you're going to watch us on. A little bit about myself. I am president of Poland Performance Group. It's a sales consulting, sales coaching firm the kinds of challenges that I'm helping small to mid-sized businesses with small to mid-sized firms with. They want to proactively grow their business and a lot of them they've gotten stuck, they're at a plateau and they're not quite sure what they need to do different and they're really trying to get in front of more of the right kinds of prospects and they're not getting meetings with decision makers the right kinds of prospects. Or they're having lots of meetings providing lots of great advice, lots of free consulting, and not nearly enough of those are converting into clients. Or the sales cycle is taking way longer than it should.

Speaker 3: 3:07

And I help other folks who have been in business for a long time, have a great reputation, have a ton of contacts, just aren't getting the referrals and introductions that they know they should be getting and they're not quite sure why the phone isn't ringing off the hook, why they're not getting more people just reaching out to them. And I'll help them in that area. And I also will help folks attorneys, accountants starting their own firm. They may have an idea of how much business they want to bring in. Maybe they're even bringing one or two clients with them, but they have no idea how to go from that idea that they have in their head to actually bring in the business or managing partners from those mid-sized firms who are sick and tired of bringing in 95% of the business. They want other people in the company, other people in the firm to start bringing in business and those folks don't know how. That's how I help and, craig, why don't you share with folks a little bit more in terms of how you help companies over at Beholder Agency?

Speaker 2: 4:10

Absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 4:10

What we do at Beholder is that we help small to medium-sized businesses navigate the world of digital marketing and marketing as a whole.

Speaker 2: 4:13

Ultimately, we have clients who say I have a website but nothing's coming from it, or I've been doing this with this other company and nothing's happened with it. We have a different approach. We call ourselves a growth marketing agency primarily because we want to see how the leads come in and nurture them all the way through your sales process, which is why I got my buddy yeah, I got my buddy right here with me and all the way to the end. And once we find out the solution to that, we want to repeat the process and double down on it, and that's how we work with our clients all the way through. That could be anywhere from home services, legal professional services, accounting, anybody, because realistically, our services are very agnostic to almost any industry. The difference is that what's the level of threshold that you're willing to go into to solve your problem from a marketing perspective so that your sales guys can now have a flow of traffic that'll help them grow their business, and that's what we're really interested in.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Right, and actually today we're going to talk a little bit about accountability. But the one great thing that yeah, I got it right that Craig and Beholder Agency can really do is, once they figure out what that right mix is, is really add rocket fuel to that. Out what that right mix is is really add rocket fuel to that. And once we identify what's working is really be able to do more and more, and more and more of that so that you can grow to the point where you have more leads than you can handle. And again, I think for most business owners, most managing partners, that's kind of the dream.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Absolutely.

Speaker 3: 5:40

So again today we may get into data and analytics a little bit. We're certainly going to talk about accountability, but the more that you can layer that on to your marketing and not just throw stuff up against the wall and see what sticks and do one thing for a little while, then get bored and go and do something else that data behind what you're doing you can actually predict and determine what those results are going to be and then do as much of what you need to do to make sure that your funnel is full of those opportunities and then down the road, whoever's actually talking to your customers can close the business.

Speaker 2: 6:17

And so you bring up the accountability. So I brought the powerhouse in my partner, Amelia, who's our executive, who I call the brains over the brawn brawn, Not you Evan the other one, brains.

Speaker 3: 6:32

Brains and the beauty of the agency as well.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Absolutely, absolutely. You'll never go wrong with that one. So we bring Amelia back in. She was in before because a lot of the accountability stuff is really from her end of the business and how she makes sure she stays with clients and, on top of clients, to making sure the accountability comes in. So when you told us that you wanted to have this section or this podcast be about accountability, I said you know what? Let me bring the one who deals more with the clients and the accountability pieces of it, whether it be-.

Speaker 3: 7:01

And the one who holds you accountable.

Speaker 2: 7:04

You're not supposed to tell everybody that, evan, but yes, the one that holds me accountable, amelia, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Speaker 4: 7:10

Yeah, definitely. So I kind of changed up a little bit about how I present myself as well, just because of how many projects that I've been so involved with, and not even just now, but over the span of the last five to seven years. So the way that I present myself now is that I've been so involved with, and not even just now, but over the span of the last five to seven years. So the way that I present myself now is that I'm an entrepreneur and strategic executive and I work with growth-minded companies. I'm very, very interested in companies that want to go from whether it's startup to, say, a million, a million to two, two to six, et cetera. I really take that approach of being a growth marketer and growth executive, so partnering with those organizations, and I help them develop their strategies, their processes and their procedures to enable them to really grow, expand and reach success. And so I say that with the understanding of a lot of times, businesses with a small medium, whatnot we can all get into the, the habits of our norm, like all right. Well, what do we have to do? We have to add a few more clients. We're, you know, attrition on those that may have left, or whatever the case may be, but when I work with companies specifically, I may be positioned as a president, I may be positioned as a fractional CMO. However, I'm positioned in a particular company.

Speaker 4: 8:37

The main thought that I take is not thinking exit plan like we're not planning all of this for exit, but how can small businesses utilize the business or business owners, I should say utilize the business as a part of the retirement plan? How can they actually build it to a way that it could potentially be for sale or for growth or building up their own net worth, as opposed to just working in their business? They're working on their business growth. And so when I heard about when Craig and I were talking about the accountability piece, that's so huge because, yeah, once your strategy, your process and your procedures are in place, that's great. Who's doing it? Who's checking it off? How are we making sure as owners, as business execs, how are we making sure that not only ourselves but our team is doing what they need to do? So I was like, most definitely, especially when we're looking at different times of year, whether it's end of a quarter, end of a year how can we make sure that we're setting our team on in the right path?

Speaker 2: 9:41

So, evan, in terms of accountability from the sales perspective, what type of things do you do to keep your clients accountable?

Speaker 3: 9:49

Sure, there's a couple of things, and before I get into this with accountability, Craig, people have listened to multiple episodes, know that you're a sports fan. I'm a sports fan. One of the things that you hear in sports all the time a cliche the best availability I'm sorry, the best ability is availability. So in this, at least from a sales perspective, the best ability is accountability.

Speaker 2: 10:18

Right.

Speaker 3: 10:19

So if you, if there is nobody, kind of looking at, ok one, do we have a plan in place? And then, two, once we have the plan in place, are we executing upon the plan? Right? Huge mistake that I see firms make. I see companies make especially this time of year get November, december, people start planning their goals for the following year. Year. Get November, december, people start planning their goals for the following year. And what they'll do is sometimes they'll spend half a day a day, they'll do a two-day retreat coming up with these beautiful looking plants, and then the start of the year rolls around and those plans were saved to a file somewhere In the olden days, they were stuck in a drawer somewhere and that, following November, december, they were pulled back. Oh yeah, now I kind of sort of remember doing this. Let's kind of see how we did.

Speaker 3: 11:16

For companies and firms that are successful, setting the goal is just kind of the first stage. It needs to be a living, breathing document, absolutely, and it needs to be referenced on a regular basis. It needs to be tracked on a regular basis. How are we doing compared to what we said the goals were? And the other mistake and I don't know if you see people do this on the marketing side. They'll also come up with a big, grandiose plan hey, we want to bring in a hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue, we want to bring in 250, but then that's not broken down. So it's like, okay, we want to do this, but there's no roadmap in terms of okay, well, now, what do you need to do to make sure that you're hitting these goals? So one of the things that I do with all of my clients something that everybody listening should be doing, if you're not already doing it is put together what I like to call a sales cookbook or a sales playbook. I just got off the phone with a client walking through this exercise, essentially working backwards Okay, how much in overall revenue do you want to bring in? Okay, what is your average client worth over the course of a year? So, okay, how many clients do we need?

Speaker 3: 12:35

And then, especially for folks in a service business, oftentimes they need to do quotes, they need to do proposals Nobody closes a hundred percent or they're having final closing meetings. Okay, what is your closing percentage? So if you need to close 50 deals and your closing percentage is 50%, well, that means you need a hundred final meetings or a hundred final proposals, then not everybody, every prospect you talk to, is qualified enough where they're going to get to the end of the process. So how many first meetings do you need to have Then? How many people do you need to touch?

Speaker 3: 13:10

It may take 10, 20 phone calls, emails, outreaches, to get one person who's actually willing to have a conversation with you about a specific opportunity. And again, I find that most companies aren't breaking their goals down to figure out whether you're the owner and managing partner and you're the one responsible for business development, whether you have 25 salespeople out there selling, but really breaking down how much activity needs to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis to ensure that you're getting enough at-bats going back to the sports analogy to hit your goal. And then from there, what sales and marketing activities are you going to be doing? How many opportunities do you expect to come in from the website? How many things are coming in from trade shows? How much is coming in from networking?

Speaker 3: 14:06

But then figuring out what activity someone should be doing and how much of those activities should be done to get enough at-bats, to get enough qualified opportunities to close enough deals, and I find that there's only a very small percentage of firms and companies out there really breaking it down that way. And those who might go and break it down the majority of them aren't then holding their folks accountable. And there's a company I'm dealing with right now and then business owners going crazy because the sales manager is treating everybody as an adult and thinks that once the plan is laid out, that people should just do it.

Speaker 2: 14:49

We've all been there.

Speaker 3: 14:50

But surprise, surprise, 75% of the people aren't doing it unless somebody sits on top of them and checks in with them on a weekly basis. On top of them and checks in with them on a weekly basis. So, when it comes to the plan and accountability on the sales side, that's what I'm talking about and that's where I see that folks need to do to be successful.

Speaker 2: 15:09

Well, I'll say this let's get a little more granular, right? So we've all we've all been in a situation where we've had clients who we set this plan up for them. We said here are your data points, here are the things you should be hitting. And then guys, guys and gals like us are in a position where we go you didn't quite hit your plan. So so give me some hardcore facts here, Amelia, maybe you can jump in on this one. What, after you've laid all that stuff down? I know we've worked with them for years that that cookbook is everything for us. Now Give me some hardcore tips that the listeners can do to make sure that they're following that plan, exactly as we asked for.

Speaker 4: 15:46

Well, if I could jump in, actually, I wanted to toggle on a little bit of what Evan was just saying. Number one it really depends on the industry as to what the activities are. And so if you I'm just going to say this if you're a pest control company and your friend has a engineering firm or an architecture firm or whatnot, and you think that you're going to do the same activities as that person, or you're in the same industry, but they're in totally different parts of the country, so the behavior of the consumer is totally different. You can't just plug and play somebody else's thing into yours and think it's going to work.

Speaker 3: 16:26

That is imperative Even along those lines. Different people have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to prospecting. There's 20 different activities that someone could do. Most can only really do and track any three to five at any one time. But you may have people in the same firm, in the same group, doing completely different things because they have different strengths and weaknesses. Somebody who's been in industry for 25 years should have more strong relationships and should be doing different things than somebody who's been doing it for three years. So not only is it by industry, not only is it by region of the country, but it's also by individual person and their strengths and weaknesses in terms of how their plan might look.

Speaker 4: 17:14

I mean, just as an example, look at Craig and I, craig, for many, many years. Look at Craig and I, craig, for many, many years. My daughter likes to call it the social battery and for him it's just like hey, hey, we just started. Five minutes in, it's gone Two hours. I can still mix, mingle, talk with folks and he's like I'm done. He's grown really well at being able to have more conversations as far as it relates to sales.

Speaker 4: 17:47

Let me specify that If we're talking about basketball, he could be there all day. It's over. No, but it really comes down to being able to understand, yes, where your strengths and weaknesses, challenges, lie, but also understanding how much the other and I'll call them, in this case, departments If you think that marketing is going to provide you everything and if you didn't get as many leads as you thought that you were going to get you on the sales side, don't have to do anything. Then you didn't hit your numbers. And so, for instance, there's going to be ebbs and flows. There's going to be some months that you're going to get gangbuster leads and then the next month it's going to be a lot lower. You have to really ebb and flow with it, which means that month where it's a little bit lower, you're going to have to chime in, you're going to have to beat up the phone, set a few emails, go to networking events, whatever the case may be, because your goals haven't changed. And so what I often find is that where I brought that up is a little bit has to do with what you brought up in the sense of weekly tracking, weekly communication.

Speaker 4: 18:53

No, do I want to daily handhold sales team salespeople's hands? No, do what you need to do, because I clearly have to do things that I need to do. If you have questions, if there's a concern, if they're like, hey, I want you to jump on so we can close it together. Absolutely, bet, let's go. But when it's a function of, well, you didn't talk to me or we haven't talked in three days, so I didn't make any calls and I figured I went and did something else. I'm like like again, like you brought up, like if you work at a McDonald's as a 16 year old and expect you to make fries, just because I'm not standing next to you doesn't mean you're not making fries. You need to still make the fries, you know. So those are the type of things that's so important.

Speaker 2: 19:34

You know and I think that part of the conversation that we're having here that's very important is the business. I always try to tell clients that the business is an entity in itself. So when you're talking about these accountability goals, the thing you have to realize is that the answer, even though you're a small to medium-sized business, the larger corporations, who have tons of people in place, have all these different departments as you called it, amelia segmented already, so they may have a marketing department within their company, they may have a sales department, they may have an executive team, who all has their own individual responsibilities. So the key is that this is where I'm giving a plug to us as entities. You have to understand sometimes you have to get a view outside of yourself to ensure that accountability, and I know, evan, that you have now introduced a new app to help your clientele. Tell me about that.

Speaker 3: 20:32

Sure. So one of the things that I found again is accountability can be challenging and sometimes people get busy, people forget. So just this week I've introduced a new app for my clients and in the app it has laid out for them what we've agreed upon in terms of what their goals are, both in terms of leading indicators, which are those activities that you should be doing on the front end to get your pipeline full, and then lagging indicators. So, with my clients, I now have within this app there's some content in the app, but on the other side, it's okay. Together we're going to determine. For you to hit your goals, you need to do, you know, reach out the X number of your contacts. You need to ask for Y number of referrals. You need to go to Z amount of networking events. And then people are just checking the box yes, I did it, no, I didn't do it and there's a dashboard so that we can see what percentage of the things that people agreed to do to hit their goals did they actually do, so that I can come in and coach them if they're doing all of the right activities but not hitting their goals. We can then see what are they doing. That's not really working, not really resonating, or what activities should we throw out and what new ones should we introduce in for them to have better results?

Speaker 3: 21:51

And unfortunately, what typically happens more frequently, they're not doing the activities that we laid out, especially the professional service folks, the attorneys, the accountants, the consultants, their client facing so oftentimes they don't have as much time. Also, just dirty little secret, they don't love doing it. So if they can find anything else to do, they will do it. But if we see that they're not doing and not executing upon it, then we can have a different conversation. But that app is just giving me visibility, giving the managers visibility and also allowing the individuals to see oh shoot, yeah, you know what. I did agree to do these things. I didn't do any of them and it's like okay, well, what do you think your results are going to be If you're not doing any of the things that we agreed you needed to do to hit your goals? And it's really helping. So they're not just hearing it or it's going in one ear and out the other, but they're looking at it on a daily basis.

Speaker 4: 22:51

If I could actually jump into that. The one big thing that had me thinking about, too, is it's monitoring your performance isn't just to, in essence, prove or show accountability, but it's to also help you realize and see where there may be deficiencies. For instance, like if something's not converting, if you're not closing well enough. Like what are the things? What are you providing? What are you showing? How long are you having these closing meetings? How many do you need to have? Like are you skipping steps, thinking that it's going to work when it really doesn't? Like it's all of those little details.

Speaker 4: 23:29

That's where it goes back to Like you have processes in place so that way you can see where are the holes and that you may need to address them. And that you may need to address them. You may need to say, hey, look like the issue, the reason why I'm not closing, is because customer or prospect may not have a full understanding of something, so there may be a little bit of a confusion or hesitancy. If you eliminate those barriers, your closing rate may be higher. But you wouldn't know that unless you actually document your behavior, your process, what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 24:03

Absolutely. The only thing worse than not hitting your goals is not hitting your goals and having no idea why you're not hitting your goals. So then you don't know what to change, what to tweak, what to work on to get back to it. So it's one thing if we're not hitting our goals, but if we're tracking these things, if we have what I like to call lessons learned and we can go back and figure out why it didn't work, then we can make tweaks, we can make changes, we can get better. If we're not tracking anything, it's like oh well, I'm not hitting my goals, I'm not quite sure why. And then people get into that definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, not getting different results and getting more and more frustrated. So we spend a lot of time on the sales side. From the marketing perspective, what does accountability look like? As you're working with business owners, as you're working with internal marketing folks, what are the things that you're looking at? What are the things that they should be looking for?

Speaker 4: 25:01

And how should accountability be? On the marketing side of things, craig, if I could actually jump right in real quick, one of the first things I thought about when you were saying this was really breaking down the demographics, and in marketing, we really like to know, like, okay, well, demographics as far as your title, your role, your household income, whatever that may be you want to fully break it down. So say, for instance, in this situation that we're pitching a certain product to or not product, but service line to restaurants, well, the sales team already has an alignment with them, like all of the main information. So, whether you're talking to whose ownership as far as office manager or actual owner of the restaurant, who's responsible for the marketing or the, you know, improved sales, like on a daily basis, like if you're trying to get your your, if you're a startup restaurant and you're trying to get her from like four or $500 in sales to a thousand dollars a day in sales or something to that effect, just as an example.

Speaker 4: 26:06

Um, you want to talk to the girl behind the counter who's putting, you know, the food in the bag. She is not the decision maker. So to assume that that's who you should talk to because, well, I did something. I talked to them. You actually, in my book, you did nothing but waste time Because you, you know, if you ask that person, hey, who is this, this and this, then that's the next tier where you should go. But to assume that, well, I talked to anybody in there and I didn't get anywhere. That, to me, is so important for your own accountability to know your progress is based off of you making sure that you follow the steps that's assigned to you, if you would, that you know that you're talking to the right people, so that way you can go down a proper path and improve your conversion ratio versus hey, well, I talked to them and didn't work.

Speaker 2: 26:59

You know, one of the things I would say to piggyback on top of that is one of the reasons why we like targeting kind of professional services, home services is because we already know from the door they don't have time for that accountability. And the reason why we like to target them is that we generally try to take that away from them and do it ourselves. So when it comes to a marketing, it might be something where I said, okay, I need the logos that you guys have been using for years and they take two weeks to give it to me. Your website's not doing anything. I need the backend information. I got to keep contacting them to get that information. So in a lot of cases we take a lot of that accountability away as best as we can and take it in-house for our team to handle.

Speaker 4: 27:40

Well, more of the burden. We're taking that burden away.

Speaker 2: 27:42

The burden as well, but when it comes to once the system is flowing, we try to take the accountability away so that we can kind of bring the leads in for them and ship it to the next person, as opposed to go to whether it be sales or whatever the process is. In addition to that and you guys have heard me say this before data, data, data, data, right. So the accountability of why didn't more leads come in the door from a marketing perspective, those demographics that Amelia spoke about, it's a lot easier for us to show them. Here's what's happening from an accountability perspective, and actually I heard this this morning on one of my groups, the provisor groups, which we're part of, um, the uh, uh.

Speaker 2: 28:23

A lady that I spoke with had the perfect line and I'm gonna. I told her I was gonna steal the line, so I'm gonna say it right now. She says when she she's a consultant, when she approaches to steal the line, so I'm going to say it right now. She says when she she's a consultant, when she approaches clients, customers, whatever the case may be, she says there's a question that she asks One do you want to solve the problem or do you want the problem to go away. Very poignant question, and that's where we try to make sure that we're solving the problem versus fixing the problem. So it goes away.

Speaker 3: 28:55

And a question for Craig, for you and Amelia how many of the business owners do you work with have marketing degrees?

Speaker 4: 29:05

Even if they do, they got it in 1988. Things have changed.

Speaker 3: 29:10

And how many of them opened their own business, started their own firm, because they wanted to do the marketing.

Speaker 4: 29:18

Oh, my favorite part is well, I heard this on a podcast that I should apply it to my business. I'm like wow.

Speaker 3: 29:23

Well, it depends. Now, if they heard it on our podcast, they probably should apply it to their business.

Speaker 4: 29:31

Even then, you should know better. Actually, you know what I wanted to ask you and this is really how do you handle sales team folks that make excuses, assuming they are provided everything? They are given the demos, they're given the information, they're given pitch decks, they're given literally every part of the process and they agreed that they understand, they're able to articulate who they need to you know target or speak to. When they have a full understanding of your product or service, how do you handle excuses?

Speaker 3: 30:23

So great question. And typically you know I'll ask them how happy are they with the results? I love, love working within, like, oh well, no, I want to be making more money, it's well. Let me ask you a question which is more important being comfortable and just continuing to do what you do and crying about not making enough money? Or is your discomfort with the lack of money that you're making great enough yet? Or is your discomfort with the lack of money that you're making great enough yet for you to utilize these tools that are in place to go out there and be successful? And then, separately, I'm having and again, occasionally, the answer is you know, you know what I'm going to change, because I'm not happy with what I'm doing. Unfortunately, very often and I give sales assessments to organizations before I start working with them If people don't have ambition and drive, no amount of training, no amount of coaching is going to inject that into people and I will tell the organization. I'll say hey look, this person has all of the tools, this person has all of the tools. They are not willing to change what they're doing. Now, craig, you as the business owner, amelia, you as the managing partner, what decision do you want to make, because unless something just hands them things that are ready to close, they're not willing to put in the work. So tell me what you want to do. And, by the way, if you continue not getting results, it's now your fault as the owner, because you've got all of the information and you know that they're not willing to do it.

Speaker 3: 32:05

And my philosophy is hire slow and fire fast. Good one, so people should be spending a lot. I just was talking with somebody um, ironically, and I it was on a provisor's meeting, ironically enough somebody who had a marketing agency who's on their fifth salesperson this year because they're just hiring who's in front of them. They're hiring quickly and then letting them linger when they're not seeing results. And it should be the opposite. I'd rather take longer to bring in the right person and if it's not working, let's again have that accountability. If we've been on them with the accountability from the beginning, one you can typically manage somebody out of the organization before it's time to fire them, because they know they're being held accountable on a weekly basis and they've got to come to that meeting every week and try to explain away why they're not doing what they're doing. Oftentimes they will self-select and they will voluntarily transition to the next career opportunity. But if they're not doing that, then it's up to the business owner managing partner, vp of sales to make a business decision.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Absolutely. So we're getting towards the end of the show and I'm going to put pressure on you guys here a little bit. I need three tips, amelia I'm going to have you fill in for my role Three tips on what people should know in terms of accountability, of accountability Go.

Speaker 4: 33:29

So I would say the first one is do you actually really want to do it? Do you have a goal and you want to set a goal and do you really want to accomplish that goal? I mean and it may sound ethereal and way up here, but it's true You're going to find an excuse not to do something if you really don't want to do it. So what's your goal and do you actively want to achieve it? I'd say number two is get yourself organized Really. Have an action plan, set it in advance. You can even have the same plan.

Speaker 4: 34:08

I know with what I've worked with Evan before is I have my same metrics, my same numbers that I did every single week. Now, did I hit them all every week? No, because life happens and things have to. You know different meetings or whatever the case may be, but at least set your numbers and know that you have to be active on it. And number three I'm going to do more of a marketing versus like a sales and generalized one is this is your business.

Speaker 4: 34:36

If you are pushing off your marketing, you are literally not thinking about promoting or advertising or getting your business or your brand out there. Why would anyone care to want to patron it. So you want to make sure that you're getting yourself out there, because either you have a solution or a product or a service that can help your consumer. So be an active member on wanting to get it out there. So that could be as simple as you know resharing social things or making calls, or adjusting or sharing different other elements, whether it's email or whatnot. But you really want to make sure that you are actively involved in the brand awareness or promotion of your company, because it's yours.

Speaker 3: 35:24

Evan. So I think Amelia's first point was a really good one and I want to reiterate it. If you're setting a goal just because you think you're supposed to set a goal in a certain way, or because other people are telling you that it's the goals that you're supposed to set, or you work for a company and somebody's setting a goal for you, if you don't buy into that goal, it doesn't matter. You're not going to do the hard stuff when you run into adversity. You're not going to push through it. So think about do I really really care about it? In a goal-setting session that I'll do, one of the things I'll do is ask people to set a goal, run through a whole exercise in terms of what they should be doing in terms of accomplishing the goal. At the very bottom, I ask them to rate on a scale of one to 10, how important is the goal One I wrote it down because I'm sitting in this session and that was the exercise To 10, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to set the goal. I will have people you know write down the number and then I'll say geez, by the way, if your number was less than a seven, just go ahead and crumple up the paper and throw it in the trash, because if the goal is not worth the paper it's written on, you're not going to be willing to do whatever it takes to do it. So you know what don't. Or you know if you're embarrassed just when you get home later, you know, go ahead and throw it away, but you're not going to be willing to do what it takes. And, by the way, I'm going to do a cheap plug. I am running a goal setting program on December 4th from 12 to 1 15 Eastern time. Anybody listening to the podcast, if you are interested in attending the goal setting program as a friend of the show, just drop a note on LinkedIn in the link when we put up this episode. Send me a quick note and I'm happy to add you as a participant for the workshop.

Speaker 3: 37:15

We're going to be talking about seven different areas of your life in terms of where you should be setting goals. It's not just about money. It's not just about professional goals. Talk about not only where you want to be next year, but where you want to be over the next five years. So again, one make sure that you care about the goal enough that you're going to be willing to fight through adversity.

Speaker 3: 37:35

Second, that goal needs to be in writing. It can't be up in your head, because then you change it over time, but that goal needs to be in writing. And then, third, somebody needs to be there to hold you accountable to hit that goal. So, whether it's using an external coach, whether it's a sales manager, whether it's a friend, it's a spouse, you need to have somebody who's going to productively help you, hold you accountable, to call you on your stuff if you're not doing what you should be doing, to be there to help coach you through. But those are my three tips in terms of what somebody really needs to do to make sure that they're going to be successful achieving their goals.

Speaker 4: 38:15

And if I could jump on that too, that helps you with referrals. You let people know those goals and it automatically they start thinking and they're like oh wait, I know somebody.

Speaker 2: 38:28

So I'm going to give some quick tips here. Here's my three Ready One get Evan's app. Two, go to Evan's session on December 4th. Three, contact one of us to help you, because we'll keep you accountable.

Speaker 2: 38:43

I promise Marketing Playbook with Evan, Amelia and Craig, and you can find us on any of the major podcast platforms, whether it be Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music. If you want to listen to it, you can go to our website at the smplaybookunleashedcom, in which you can listen to this episode and past episodes, the guests that we've had, like Amelia and others and I encourage you to like, subscribe, comment and you know what, Evan, one of the things we should do we should have a kind of one of those shows where we have somebody on and they ask us a question. We bump them off, we have another person ask us a question and then, between the sales and the marketing piece, we'll have a show. How do you think about that? That works for me Awesome. Now you guys know what's coming. I am Craig Andrews. That's Evan Poland, and we'll see you guys next time on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Have a good day. 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.