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 Andrews and my partner in crime, Evan Polin, is back again. How are you doing, Evan?

Speaker 3: 1:20

I'm doing great, craig. How are you doing today? And I'm glad that, for those of you watching on video, we was able to point in the right direction this time.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I get it every once in a while. It's hit and miss Still 50-50. So let's start the show off this way. Very simple. I know that I deal with a lot of companies that have a lot of regulatory issues, right, Certain things. As creative as I want to be, they won't let me be creative because I have rules I have to deal with. How about you, Evan?

Speaker 3: 1:45

Yeah, I run into the same thing from a sales and business development perspective. There are certain folks in different industries who are allowed to do certain things and not allowed to do certain things and can get in a lot of trouble. So it's really important to kind of pay attention to some of those things when we're working with our clients attention to some of those things when we're working with our clients.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Yeah, I know for myself. We've dealt with healthcare, pharmaceutical, food and beverage technology. Are there other industries that you've dealt with that has the regulatory restraints, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 2:18

In addition to those industries, folks in financial services, folks in legal services, folks in insurance for some reason, they don't like you to promise on things that you can't deliver, make promises on certain outcomes as well as a number of other things, so it is something that really needs to be paid attention to.

Speaker 2: 2:36

Listen, I'm not making promises, I'm just trying to make it look really good. I'm not promising, I'm just trying to make it really look good so that more people come in the door and then you can sell them on it. How about that? Let's stick with that one.

Speaker 3: 2:50

Hey, let me know. Hopefully you've hired a good attorney.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Well, speaking of attorneys, good segue. I like the way you did that. We have our good friend Bernard Williams. Hey, bernard, how are you?

Speaker 4: 3:04

Hey Craig, hey Evan, Doing really good. How are you guys Doing well, doing well?

Speaker 3: 3:08

Great to see you, Bernard.

Speaker 2: 3:13

So, Bernard, why don't you tell us how you kind of started your firm and what you do and kind of things in that fashion?

Speaker 4: 3:21

Sure, Well, my law firm is called Company Counsel. We are a small business firm located in the greater Philadelphia area and we work with small companies that are growing and scaling and have a lot of things going on, a lot of legal issues going on, but not quite the volume of issues or the resources to bring on full-time in-house counsel. So that's where we come in. We work alongside our clients and help them to strategically build. We remove the legal obstacles and help them to put things in place that makes their scaling more likely and more stable. So that's my day job.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Wow see, we brought the perfect guy in to help us get through our creative problems. How about that? How about? Is that a fluffy way to say it?

Speaker 4: 4:06

I think what you guys are really saying is that I'm the leash, whereas in marketing you're unleashed. I think a lot of times people think of the attorney as that leash that we rein things in, we delay things and slow things down, and the truth is that that's not our approach at all. Sometimes we do slow you down a little bit, admittedly, but it's all for a greater good and it's all because we're really trying to achieve the same thing. We just are a little bit more focused on those pitfalls and those, those problem areas, and we really want our clients to be able to navigate around them on the way to victory.

Speaker 3: 4:41

So when you leave the room, we shouldn't be calling you the fun police or any anything like that. Uh, what do people do that? No, no, I, I, I, I don't. You may want to have a side conversation with craig after the podcast, but I, I would never and I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 4:59

So, bernard, and give us some of those, uh, legal hurdles, as that you referenced, that somebody like a marketing and a sales firm might have, just generally, it doesn't have to be anything specific.

Speaker 4: 5:12

Well, something any kind of firm would experience is when a company is growing, typically when things are going really really well, the money is coming in, the sales are getting closed uh, everything is, you know, firing at all cylinders. That's what I think mistakes can happen, that that can derail that progress and that really can sometimes even bring down that company. Uh, so examples are you know you're in hiring mood, you got to bring on a big team right away to satisfy a big client name. Uh, so maybe skip a couple of steps. Uh, you know, maybe you cut some corners and you know bad hiring decisions and and really not thinking through that, that hiring or onboarding process can lead to a lot of legal issues.

Speaker 4: 5:56

Or you know, recently I worked with a client who was growing and scaling and a lot of things were happening at once and they brought on investors. However, because things were happening at once and they brought on investors, however, because things were happening so quickly, they didn't quite paper things up the way they would had somebody slowed them down. So, as a result, no contracts were ever signed and it became confusing years down the road as to what the parties actually had agreed to and what that relationship really was going to be about. So it's really when things are going well and when things are accelerating from a business perspective that it's all the more important to take a step back and think about well, what are the consequences, what are the pitfalls we may be stumbling into if we're not more careful?

Speaker 3: 6:42

So, and Bernard, along those lines, yeah, from a sales perspective, I know a lot of times people just want to get deals closed. Sometimes you may be talking to entrepreneurs and they're running before they've crawled, before they've walked. When good contracts aren't in place and people start signing up clients but maybe don't have the best contracts in place, what kinds of problems can that lead to for companies as they're trying to grow and scale? Yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 4: 7:09

Nobody cares about the contract when they're trying to get that sale done right. Sometimes it's get the contract all together, sometimes it's a handshake or a verbal agreement, or sometimes it's just an exchange of emails. Other times it's a full-blown contract that nobody actually reads. You know they chalk it up to legalese or you know whatever. The truth is, that contract cannot be more important, and the importance sometimes does not reveal itself until there's a problem, right? So, yes, I mean, if everything goes according to plan and the relationship is pretty, you know, short term in nature, and everybody gets exactly what they want out of it, uh, then that contract will never see the light of day. Uh, but uh, if there's any change of circumstances, uh, if, uh, one party thinks that something was promised, but they're they don't really quite remember. Another party remembers it differently, then that creates a conflict.

Speaker 4: 8:00

Uh, if there are expectations, uh, uh, you know, craig, you're talking about guarantees. If one party thinks that there should have been a guarantee and the seller thinks there shouldn't have been and that's not clear in the contract, then that could cause quite a dispute. If payment terms are not clear and if it's left ambiguous as to when payment is due and what happens if there's a payment dispute? Uh, that can cause a lot of problems. Uh, there there's. There's so many different things that that go into the poor corners of that contract. Um, that I mean the. The examples of problems that could occur are almost limitless if you, if you don't take the time to think through what could occur and, ideally, work with an attorney to put those things in place that protect you down the road.

Speaker 3: 8:48

So, and Bernard, for small business owners, for entrepreneurs, do you want to give folks, just in round numbers, an idea of how much more expensive it is to deal with the problem after it's come up versus being more preventative in terms of getting the right contracts in place in the first place?

Speaker 4: 9:06

Sure, and you know, listen, I have a law firm that is, we're a small firm ourselves, small company ourselves, and we're designed specifically to work with other small companies. So our rates and our fees are going to be a lot different from what you might find on Wall Street or, you know, at a larger center city firm here in Philadelphia. But, speaking in very broad terms, you're probably talking single digit thousands for an attorney to help with a contract on the front end. However, if something goes to litigation, if courts are involved, if there are two different law firms battling it out, you're talking tens of thousands of dollars. So the difference is pretty stark.

Speaker 3: 9:51

And my guess is, most people who end up in court don't think that that's where things were going to end up when they got started.

Speaker 4: 9:59

You know, one of the things that I love about entrepreneurs is is how optimistic uh entrepreneurs can be. I mean, you have to be right to to launch a, to launch a company, and to step out in faith, uh, you know, without any, without any sort of support or uh, or um, well, anything purchasing you up, just either, just just believing in yourself. But you need that optimism and I think that's awesome uh. But where I think sometimes entrepreneurs stumble is that in that optimistic world view, uh, they don't see the red flags or they ignore them, or they think that, yeah, that may have happened to that other person, but that won't happen to me, and um and and.

Speaker 4: 10:38

And that's why I mean from, if you want to talk about sales, it's so much easier for me to become engaged by client who has been threatened by litigation and who has that to do with, than it is to be engaged by client who is contemplating entering into a joint venture or some other business transaction, some other business transaction, uh, because that fear of litigation and that and all the things that potentially could come out of that uh, once that lawsuit happens is is just. In some cases it can be catastrophic and it can mean the end of that company. Uh, so, um. So my role becomes amplified when there's a dispute now, but what I'd rather do is tell people much, much earlier than that. I'd rather, uh, help on the front end. It's less revenue for me, but it's much more fulfilling and I think it's being better for all. I'll consider.

Speaker 2: 11:33

So let me ask you this the sales stuff is so boring when it comes to sales and marketing. Do you ever find that, from a marketing perspective, the things that someone like myself could get into from a pharmaceutical perspective, or promises that might be made, or people's interpretation of those promises on what they see from the marketing perspective, ever get people in trouble. Ever get businesses in trouble.

Speaker 4: 12:01

Yes? The short answer is yes, and every industry is different and for that reason the regulations in every industry is different. So for marketing people like yourself that wanna be creative and wanna sort of push the boundaries, I encourage that. But I think you need to know what those boundaries are first so you can be creative within those limits. And that's why it's just so important to one, to know your industry and then two, just to continue to get continuously educated.

Speaker 2: 12:35

I know that most industries have um uh events and programs that they allow you to see after date on the changes and regulations and updated laws and and to the extent that you're in an industry that does that I really recommend being involved in those things so the thing that sticks out to me and we've had between the three of us, we've had many conversations is until I met you, I've never known of a fractional general counsel. Is that still the case for you? Right, you're still fractional general counsel, virtually, absolutely what that means, because usually you think I'm in trouble, I need a lawyer, but you have a new take on it in terms of your business model. That I think is going to be interesting for the listeners and viewers to kind of catch on to.

Speaker 4: 13:26

Yes, and I'm glad that you introduced it that way, craig, because I think that you're really speaking on behalf of small business owners when you say that, when you say that usually we would engage an attorney when there's some sort of a problem, when there's a lawsuit. That is the mindset that a lot of small company owners have and I guess I would encourage you to think otherwise. I would encourage you to involve that attorney much earlier in the process. Yes, involve us if there's a dispute, if there's a lawsuit. But we really a fractal general counsel gets involved in the front end and what we're trying to do is we know that you have limited resources and, to the extent that you have a legal budget at all, we don't want you spending that budget fighting it out with somebody else and trying to use that legal budget on on defending depositions, and and discovery, and and and amico and accordingly.

Speaker 4: 14:22

That's not going to help you to grow. If anything I can mitigate, I can mitigate loss. If we're in that scenario, uh, but but that expense is not an investment that's not going to help you to to scale your company, whereas a much smaller investment could help you to avoid those problems and can write better contracts and sign better deals and help to negotiate better scenarios for you, so that you're that much more likely to actually achieve the goals that you want to achieve. So, as a fractal general counsel, what I do is work with my clients on the front end. We're looking proactively and strategically. So I'm asking them hey, it's the beginning of Q1. It's in two days.

Speaker 4: 15:04

What are your plans for Q1? What are you trying to achieve in Q1? What's your revenue goals? What challenges do you foresee? And then I can put on my legal hat and say, all right, well, if you're trying to achieve, uh, this in revenue, uh, then let's look at, uh, your, your collections and make sure that you're actually bringing in all the money that uh, that you should be bringing in, based on sales that that you just right, uh, uh, if you are, um, acquiring a company, uh, let's talk through what the legal steps are going to be to make that acquisition so that you can add that company's assets and revenue to your bottom line. Whatever the case may be, whatever that business objective is, there's a legal element that we can bring to bear and help you to be more successful. So, as a fractional general counsel, that's what we're doing, except instead of doing it only for one company in the way that a traditional general counsel would do, we're doing it on a fractional basis for lots of different small companies.

Speaker 3: 16:08

Yeah, I think and Bernard correct me if I'm wrong the way that a lot of small business owners should look at it is most people have health insurance. The hope is that nothing catastrophic happens where they need to use it for something major. But most of us are paying that small amount so that if we have needs, we've got that coverage, and it's almost the same thing with the Fractional General Counsel. We hope that we never have to worry about litigation or getting sued or contracts going bad, but we're much better off investing a little bit of money up front to make sure that we are protected and doing things the right way to minimize the chances of something catastrophic happening in our business down the road.

Speaker 4: 16:52

You know, I guess the one area where I would push back a little bit on that analogy is that you hope to not have to use your health insurance, right, you hope to never have to avail yourself of that benefit, whereas I want my clients calling by my fractional account.

Speaker 3: 17:09

No, and I guess where I was going is. You know, we don't want to end up in court. We don't want to end up in litigation and again having those contracts done the right way the first time is going to minimize the number of chances that that's going to happen. Having contracts written by an attorney rather than written by the office manager is going to minimize the chances that there's going to be a dispute or that you're going to be in the wrong if you've had an attorney you know, put together that contract in the first place.

Speaker 4: 17:47

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right, and it's not just a matter of avoiding disputes, it's also a matter of putting certain things in place that can help you to advance your cause. You know, for example, you know there have been, have been, I've been, I've had conversations with clients, um, who may have had really valuable team members that they wanted to make sure didn't didn't leave the company uh, we talked about plans, uh uh, equity agreements, uh, you know, plans to have them buy into the company or otherwise otherwise reward those, those employees?

Speaker 4: 18:13

uh, there are there, sometimes there are. You are creative techniques that we can bring or strategies to bear that could help our clients to achieve their goals in addition to avoiding problems that could otherwise derail them.

Speaker 2: 18:26

You know, what I think I like about what you're saying to us, bernard, is it's a couple of different places right. One, it allows us to open our mind up and see the world differently. But two, what I like about it as well is it has an approach that Evan has in his sales arm of things. It has an approach that I have in a marketing perspective, which is see things very holistic, versus I just need a website or I just need somebody who's going to help me get more sales right. We among among the three of us, have to see the world a little bit more holistic because we're trying to be in a position that any caveat that we hit, we have an angle.

Speaker 2: 19:04

I can speak for myself more directly, because a lot of times what will happen is a client will come to me and say, hey, I need to improve my marketing. I know more people knocking on the door and one of the first things that I replied to them is can you handle more people knocking on your door? So if I start to open up the floodgates and you can't handle it and you cancel it, it kind of defeats the purpose of the action in the first place and a lot of the stuff that you touched upon there does really have the same thing. I never really thought about it from the perspective of having contracts into place in terms of having employees prize employees stay a little bit longer. That's a great aspect of it, evan. What do you think in terms of that?

Speaker 3: 19:45

I agree and I think, a lot of us. It's almost like screaming into a barrel, as we're an entrepreneur where, yeah, we have our own point of view. Yeah, if you're the business owner, there's not really anybody there to kind of tell you that maybe you could be wrong or you could be looking at things from a different perspective. And again, having that fractional legal counsel can really help you. Not only look at you know, legally, am I doing the right? Is that going to have any impact in terms of three, five, 10 years down the road? If I want to sell the business, bring in partners Again, I know myself as an entrepreneur. I'm not thinking that way. I'm thinking what clients do I want to attract? How do I provide the best services? What's my expertise? And again, to have that sounding board is something that I think is invaluable for, you know, small and mid-sized businesses.

Speaker 2: 20:36

So is something that I think is invaluable for small and mid-sized businesses. So let's do this as we start to round out the show here. Bernard, what we like to do is we like to have our guests come in and kind of give us three solid tips that you would have for a small to medium-sized business when it comes to the industry that you work in. So I'm going to give you a quick second as I give us a plug for getting people to subscribe to the Sales and Marketing Playbook on YouTube and on LinkedIn. We're really going to push LinkedIn and we're going to push YouTube because we're starting to grow. By the way, in case you guys didn't see other episodes, Evan and I have been listed as one of the top 100, no one of the top podcasts. I think it was top five, Top five.

Speaker 3: 21:19

Yeah, sure, let's make it top five.

Speaker 2: 21:20

Why not? No? But in all seriousness, we are listed as one of the top podcasts in sales and marketing space, so we are very excited about our growth into the new year and things of that fashion, and I think that ultimately, what our job here is to try to provide as much context and information in the sales and marketing space in any industry we can possibly provide. Was that enough time for you, bernard, to think of three, three, three different things?

Speaker 4: 21:49

uh, I don't know, let's see. Okay, I'll start with the first one and then we'll see what happens. So one of the things that I see a lot with particularly first time entrepreneurs and particularly solopreneurs who have a DIY mentality is that they'll go to the internet and they will try to shortcut the creative process. And I'm sure, craig, you see this a lot right. They'll find a website they think has just this great description of other product or service I know, cut and paste, and they'll put that directly, that content directly into their own website or their own materials or whatever, and they'll call it a day. Or maybe they'll cut and paste a picture from another website and use it for their own or for their own promotional materials. Well, that's a copyright violation, that's against the law and it may be difficult for somebody to find you, but people can find you. It happens all the time and that's not a lawsuit, really, that you want any part of. So I guess my one piece of advice is to use only images that you own or otherwise have a right to, and to not cut and paste from other websites. My second piece of advice is related to that.

Speaker 4: 23:13

A lot of times, entrepreneurs may feel inspired by what a competitor is doing and very cleverly think that, all right well, if I can just and very cleverly think that, all right well, if I can just ride their coattails, then maybe I can cut into their market share and increase my own revenue. So they might use a logo that looks very, very similar to their competitors' logo. Or they might change one or two letters from a name and use that name with the intention of confusing people into buying their services. Well, that is a trademark violation, which is also against the law and also it's a problem that you just don't want to inherit. So, to the extent that you're thinking about copying or imitating your competitor, I would think twice about doing that.

Speaker 4: 24:03

And the third thing is that I know that a lot of people think that you know we joked around earlier about the attorneys being the leash and there is this perception that attorneys slow you down and you know we're the people of no and all those sorts of things. I've heard it all a million times and sometimes you know maybe it's well-deserved, but what I would say is that in an ideal relationship, you don't want to wait until you've done something and then tell the attorney, because I mean, that's how problems occur. You also don't want to wait until you're about to do something, uh, that you've already decided you're going to do and then tell the attorney, because it may be that we have information or perspective that it's important for you to know, and if we don't have the opportunity to share that with you until your minds are ready to meet up, then you're going to think that we're the problem. So instead, bring us in earlier.

Speaker 4: 24:56

If you're having those quarterly meetings, those strategy sessions, bring us in at the same time as the sales and the marketing team, so that we can all have the conversations together, all share the conversations together. I'll share our perspectives together and then, if there's an issue early on, I can point it out and I can say listen, you can't do it that way, but if you like that concept, here's a way that we can do it a little bit differently, and that way you haven't lost any time at all. There's no frustration when everybody's on the same page. So don't wait until the mistakes aren't even made. Don't wait until the mistakes are just about to be made. Get us involved early on and then we can come up with a solution that solves everybody's needs together. So how's?

Speaker 2: 25:34

that, greg? Well, I'm gonna tell you what do I say. Evan, this is the sales and marketing playbook. We're giving you the answers. If you go out and make the mistake, it's not our fault. We told you the answer already. I feel like I'm talking to my kids, anyway.

Speaker 3: 25:51

And Bernard, we really appreciate you being on today. We appreciate you giving us great advice, giving our listeners great advice. How can people get a hold of you? How can people get in touch with your firm If they've got additional questions? If they're sitting there panicking right now based on what you've shared with them, trying to think through how many mistakes they've made, how do people get a hold of?

Speaker 4: 26:11

you. Sure Anybody can reach us on the web. We're at wwwcompanycouncillaw. You can also call us at 484-325-5660. I had to think about that for a second because I very rarely call myself, but it's number 484-325-5660. We are licensed to represent clients in Pennsylvania, new York or New Jersey, so if anyone is listening that's not listed in one of those states, you can still contact us and we can direct you to maybe one of our states. You can still contact us and we can direct you to maybe one of our affiliates or someone that we trust in a different jurisdiction. But anyone who is listening in Pennsylvania, new York, new Jersey, who has legal questions or would like to talk about maybe having the resources of a fractional general counsel in their corner, we'd love to hear from him Awesome.

Speaker 2: 27:03

Thank you very much, Bernard, and I appreciate your insight. Evan, you have any closing words before we vamoose for this Vamoose? Is that a word? I just made up a word right now Before we take off on this episode.

Speaker 3: 27:17

I hope that word wasn't trademarked by someone. So Bernard again really appreciate it, appreciate the insights and we look forward to seeing everybody on our next episode.

Speaker 2: 27:29

All right, I'm Craig. All right, anyway, until next time. Talk to you soon, bye, bye.

Speaker 1: 27:42

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.