Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you. Meet Evan Polin, the president of Polin 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: 1:12

Welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I am Evan from Poland Performance Group and that is my tag team partner Craig from Beholder Agency. I don't know Craig. First time I got it right.

Speaker 3: 1:26

Still struggling, Still struggling with it but that's okay, we take our lumps where we do and we move on.

Speaker 2: 1:34

So perfect practice makes perfect right.

Speaker 3: 1:38

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Speaker 2: 1:41

And that's going to lead us into today's episode, and for those of you who may have the pleasure of watching us, whether it's through YouTube or somewhere else, you can see that Craig and I are repping our Philadelphia apparel Craig with the jersey of the Super Bowl champion, philadelphia Eagles, myself with the Phillies jersey. And today what we're really going to talk about is sales and marketing lessons from summer sports. So, really looking at what golf, baseball and the newest trend, pickleball can teach us about sales and marketing, can teach us about prospecting, and we're really going to look at today, as we go through with golf, the importance of using strategy, patience, having a plan, having an approach. I know that that's how I get through. The clown hole is with that patience and that approach really helps with the windmill hole as well. With baseball, we'll focus on consistency and timing when it comes to sales and marketing.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Yeah, and with pickleball, uh, for those of you who know me, you know I'm all about agility, all about follow-through, um, and we're really going to talk about how that relates to sales and marketing, yeah, so we thought that this would be a great time of year to pick a fun topic and also really look at some of these things. We're getting into the dog days of summer late July, august. Sometimes people can be a little bit slower to respond, but this is a great time of year to be smart about our sales and marketing approach, really kind of refine our game. We talked a little bit last time about looking at strategy, tracking metrics, seeing what's working, not working. So, craig, do you want to start by maybe talking a little bit about how golf relates to marketing?

Speaker 2: 3:36

and what kind of approach people can take to make sure that they can shoot low so they're earning high absolutely.

Speaker 3: 3:44

I love the analogy and just to kind of piggyback on your statement earlier, even though football is not a summer sport, you can always talk about super bowl champions, we can always talk about it. So that's why I'm wearing it, because there's an opportunity, um. So what I liked as well is your analogy that you use in terms of the miniature golf versus regular golf. It's actually pretty good when you really think about it, because as soon as we walk into a golf course and in a miniature golf course at that, um, one of the first things we do is we start to plan okay, which hole is going to be the hardest. So when we're talking about in terms of knowing who you're calling, you're, you're developing a strategy, in terms of why you're calling, in terms of what clubs to use, in terms of your toolbox in this case case, it'd be your message. A lot of that's very important.

Speaker 3: 4:26

When you're talking about sports and sales, you're talking about reading the green right, we sometimes miss the mark, but a lot of times the idea is to do the research well enough so that you become more consistent with hitting the mark right. So, no, we're not going to be perfect. Nobody hits a perfect golf shot, except for me on that windmill hole. But the idea is to be as consistent as possible and when you have the misses you know when the misses are coming, so then you can correct it. So the research part of things and that's from the sales perspective as well as the marketing perspective you have to do your preliminary research, whether it be who am I calling? Am I calling the right person? Am I calling at the right time? As you mentioned somewhere might be slow, but technically I should have done the work prior to the slow season so that now they had a little touch prior and now after the slow season. Now they know who I am when I'm calling.

Speaker 2: 5:19

It's a little warmer. Lead in that fashion and, craig, for those of us in sales and marketing, for the overwhelming majority of the folks that we're reaching out to, are they going away for three months in a row?

Speaker 3: 5:29

Good question. No, very rarely, very rarely. And if they are, I want to know their secret sauce.

Speaker 2: 5:35

Exactly. You may have the large CEOs, high income. Unless you're calling on those folks, I promise your prospects are not gone from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Speaker 2: 5:50

Yeah, I was just on the phone with a prospect today. He's an attorney, he's going to be in depositions just about the entire month of August. So we've talked about now is a great time. Now is a great time. Reach out to schedule meetings for the first second week of September and not wait until after the summer to set things up, because then it'll be late September, early October before you have those meetings and conversations. So again, getting back to the planning, it's really important to be able to do that to be successful.

Speaker 3: 6:21

And I think the thing that's important about that planning piece that you just referenced, you know, from a marketing perspective we take there's a small window when we get back in the fall, right. So from August, probably more September, october, november, we're starting to get into that back half of the holidays. So, to your point, it's always good to try to get ahead of the front part of that summer break. Do your work, do your research, do your cold calling so that as soon as you get back you can hit the ground running. And the final point in terms of a golf reference is in terms of your pre-shot routine. So we all stand there, even though we act like we know what we're doing. We take those temporary swings that we take that pre-hit routine to kind of get an idea of flow and rhythm.

Speaker 3: 7:03

Same thing applies in the sales perspective, right? So when you're talking about a consistent prospecting rhythm or a daily outreach, everything's about habits. Marketing is about habits, sales is about habits. If you're not creating the right habits, all of a sudden now your shot is choppy. Right, you're hitting the side of the wall in the miniature golf perspective or you're knocking in the trees, which I do a lot. So ultimately you want to have a good routine that you're being consistent with, and I think that's very important. If we're making a sports analogy In terms of some of those tips Evan quick sales tips that apply to that, you want to talk about that a little bit in terms of the golf analogy.

Speaker 2: 7:37

Yeah, and sticking with the golf analogy a little bit, I'm actually going to throw in another sports analogy as we go through, but there's a couple of things that are really important from a sales perspective. First is having a plan. When you go to a hole, the clubs that you're going to take out for a par three are going to be a lot different than the clubs that you're going to take out for a par five, which are a lot different than the club and the strategy that you're going to use for that windmill hole. So what you need to do is, before you approach the opportunity, let's look at, okay, what is the opportunity and then, based on the opportunity, let's pull the right clubs out of the bag. Yeah, to make sure that we've got the right tools to make us successful so that we can hit the right shots to more effectively qualify and close the deal. It's also important for those of you who are out there on the course. When you are on the green again, I think they say drive for show, putt for dough. When you're out there trying to make that putt, you need to read the ring. Where is it breaking? Where is it going downhill? Do you want to leave the ball below the hole, above the hole if you're not going to make the shot. So we need to do the same thing. We're not treating every prospect the same.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Craig, you've heard me say this before. In school we all learn the golden rule treat others the way that you want to be treated. In sales, it's the platinum rule, which is treat other people the way that they want to be treated. So we need to read the whole. We need to read the prospect. Does this prospect care more about results? Does this prospect care more about service results? Does this prospect care more about service? Is this prospect a just call me when you have something specific? Or is this a prospect who wants that consistent touch, wants that relationship? The better you are at reading the green and reading the prospect, the more effective your approach is going to be and the more successful you're going to be in terms of closing that deal, getting the ball in the hole.

Speaker 2: 9:45

The other thing that's really important when you get out to the golf course, you're not going to practice. Once you're on the course, once you're playing the 18 holes, it's really important to get your reps in going to the driving range, you know, working on your different shots, working on your different approaches. People don't tend to just show up to the golf course ready to go. They're putting in the practice beforehand. So in sales, are you getting reps in? Are you meeting with lots of prospects? Are you practicing in between meetings if you don't have a lot of meetings in front of prospects?

Speaker 2: 10:23

But the other sports analogy I want to lay in. And for those who don't know, before having my own consulting practice I had a Sandler training franchise for over 20 years. The very first book that the person who created the Sandler selling approach, david Sandler, wrote was called you can't teach a kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. There's only so many videos you can watch about riding a bike, so many books that you can read. Eventually you got to get up on the bike, start to pedal, fall down a couple of times before finding your balance.

Speaker 2: 11:03

It's the same thing in sales. You can read every sales book out there. There's nothing like being in front of a prospect when the lights are bright, when the lights are on, realizing that your prospect doesn't have the other half of the script and you may have to be conversational. You don't get those reps by just reading about that in the book. So the more that you can practice, the more that you can get out there. And for me, practice with low end, low risk kind of opportunities. Practice with your small opportunities, your low conversion opportunities, so that you feel good about your skills when you get out there into the main gate. So, craig, you were going to say something.

Speaker 3: 11:47

Yeah, so I would tell you from a marketing perspective it's very similar. You know, I always tell people all the time that when you're, marketing is a science and an art. So a lot of times I find that when I'm talking with clients, they have an idea of what their clients are like, but the reality behind it is is that they don't have the data behind it to prove that's what they're like. And so a lot of times when we're putting out stuff, the practice swings that you referenced before is really just putting it out to a larger audience and see, now read the data of what comes back in terms of how they responded. So that would be like from a marketing perspective our practice swings. Let's put it out to a wider base so that way that we can now get data, true data, based off of your information of who likes what.

Speaker 2: 12:30

so sorry, and that's also and and we talk so often about the importance of sales and marketing working together that's part of the reason. Oftentimes, marketing's putting out that wide net, putting the message out to many, but then it's the salespeople who are interacting day to day with the prospects and the clients. The more that the sales folks can then bring back the information and say, hey, this is what we're hearing in real time, this is what the market is asking for. Yes, we put this out, but it seems like this other thing is a lot more urgent. That's how you get those two things working together to be able to optimize the results.

Speaker 3: 13:11

So before we transition, so technically, what you're saying is that I'm the driver, you're the putter.

Speaker 2: 13:18

And, as I just referenced a minute ago, you drive for show but you putt for dough, so I couldn't agree more. By the way, that's one for sales.

Speaker 3: 13:32

Touche, touche.

Speaker 2: 13:35

So, craig, do you want to talk a little bit about? You know in marketing, how marketing aligns with baseball.

Speaker 3: 13:42

Absolutely so. When you're talking about percentages, right, we're talking about batting a certain percentage. We don't chase perfection, we trace, chase consistency. And so, from a marketing perspective, when you're talking about baseball, I can, I can, I can go by strategy in a marketing space, or I can go by the show, as we just referenced before. So a lot of times when we're confronted with clients and so forth, they've been taught the show. But the strategy of hitting that base hit at the right time is far more important. And so we may have to in our case, from a marketing perspective, is pare down a client off the show, not trying to be hitting, not hitting home runs every pitch, cause that's not, that's not real. Let's get a couple of guys on base, then hit another base hit. Sometimes it's just the base hit. That works far better. And again, the concept is consistency. So if I, if Evan, you're a big baseball fan, I like it. I'm not as big of a fan as you are If every person who came to bat hit a base hit.

Speaker 2: 14:43

What happens to the game? Your team keeps scoring, you keep scoring, you keep scoring and you win the game.

Speaker 3: 14:48

Right, that's what we're here. We're about the sales and the playbook. We're trying to win, so ultimately it's not always the big show. Some people try to shortcut and hit home runs, which help, but I would use that analogy, similar to your elephant analogy Right and so the home run is beautiful and I think that knocking out of the park is great. Everybody gets excited, but the reality is is behind. The strategic of being consistent is what grows your marketing.

Speaker 2: 15:14

And typically the home run hitter strikes out a lot more than the guy hitting singles and doubles. So again, if that's part of your strategy and part of a much larger strategy, it's awesome when those home runs come, but we need to get those base hits in between. We need those runners on base so that when somebody hits that home run it's a three run home run, it's a grand slam, yeah, and not just a solo shot.

Speaker 3: 15:41

That's right. That's right In terms of prospecting is that you're at bat Right. So now the marketing does job best. Then, ultimately, when they tune them up for you, as my cleanup hitter, as a salesperson, as my cleanup hitter, if I pitched it right, I know exactly where the pitch is going to be thrown. I know exactly how you're going to hit it, which means I'm probably going to knock at the third base and it's going to be a perfect, easy throw to first, because I know how, when I pitch it, how it's coming off, this particular prospect's bad. We're serving up the same way from a marketing perspective. We're trying to serve up the perfect scenario that when they hit your door, it's not a hard sell. They already should understand what I'm offering, who I am, what I'm about, so that you can deliver on what the client's looking for. What's your take on it?

Speaker 2: 16:28

Yeah, absolutely. And again, along with that, I think, the other thing with your analogy, you need to make sure that you're paying attention to what the opposition is doing. If a batter is going up there and saying this is my batting approach, I don't care who's pitching, that batter is not going to be very successful and they're going to strike out a whole lot more than they get a hit. But a batter is looking at the pitcher saying, okay, I know, this pitcher has these tendencies. I didn't know. To look for the ball here. Okay, the defense in the pitcher saying, okay, I know this pitcher has these tendencies. I don't know. To look for the ball here. Okay, the defense in the infield, they're on a shift. So guess what? There's nobody between second base and third base. You know, if I'm good enough, let me just put the ball through the hole, hit the ball where they ain't, and I'm going to be a lot more successful. The other thing to keep in mind sales is much like playing baseball. In baseball, a 300 hitter is a borderline Hall of Fame player. So in sales you are not going to bat a thousand, you're not going to close every opportunity. The idea is to get up to bat at bat frequently enough, where, if you're getting a hit, two out of 10 times, three out of 10 times, you're hitting your goal. And for this next tool if you'd like a version of this tool, drop us a note in the comments and I'm happy to send this out.

Speaker 2: 17:57

Craig, you know, one of the things that I have for all of my clients is a cookbook. Yeah, looking at the numbers, helping clients work backwards Okay, what is my conversion rate from proposal to close or final meeting to close? Yeah, okay, what's my conversion rate from first meeting to the final meeting? Okay, what's my conversion rate from conversation to first meeting with a prospect to talk about a real opportunity? But you know, sabermetrics is a big part of baseball. Looking at the statistics, you know, looking at the numbers, it's the same thing in sales. Look at the numbers If you want to get a good sense of what end result you want.

Speaker 2: 18:35

Work backwards to figure out how many opportunities we need, how many conversations we need to have, and then you put your plan in place to get enough at bats, to get enough hits to be able to accomplish your goal.

Speaker 2: 18:50

But if you don't do that, you're just kind of left out there in the wilderness, you know, having having the sales strategies of hoping and praying, which aren't great sales strategies if you want to have good, predictable results. So, again, just make sure that you're putting together that cookbook, that playbook Again, if you'd like that, drop me a comment in the notes. I'm happy to send that out. And keep in mind that it's not just about us and our swing, but we need to pay attention to who the pitcher is, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what the fielders are giving us, and then use that to help us with our strategy for that particular at-bat. And you know that's really how we need to focus. So, finally, why don't we transition into the last sport that we talked about, which is pickleball? So do you want to share a little bit in terms of how pickleball may relate to marketing?

Speaker 3: 19:47

So I've seen pickleball at a distance, so my analogies might be a little funky here, but that's okay, I can work with it. You know, one of the notes that we have here is to be fast in your feet. So let me, let me gripe a little bit from a marketing perspective, just because I've had to give the lecture, if you will, from a marketing perspective, to our clients. The worst thing that can happen is we do all this work on marketing lead come in and I said, hey, I saw a lead come in, how did that work? And they go. I didn't call them yet. I didn't call them yet I't call them yet I'm saying wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 3: 20:22

You needed to answer that, like yesterday, like right away, right? So we're talking about being fast in your speed, quickly to respond when a pro shows interest. You must be there to answer their interest. Because the internet's so vast, I can find another answer like that in a heart, right? So why and make the analogy with pickleball is in terms of being quick and responsive Most of the time, if you're really operating the internet properly.

Speaker 3: 20:46

People are searching the internet for a pain, which kind of goes back to our last conversation. They're searching the internet for a pain. They're now getting that pain answered. Or they found an answer supposedly and they found you answered, or they found an answer supposedly and they found you. So you have to be quick to respond to the interest so that now they feel at your top of mind. That works in the branding space, that works in the service space, that works in the nonprofit space, that works in any space that you possibly can have, Because all of us know and we've all been out to restaurants when they have that one waiter or waitress who takes forever to get back to the table and we're impatient, they had that one waiter or waitress who takes forever to get back to the table and we're impatient, right?

Speaker 3: 21:23

So this is the same type of scenario soft touch and finesse. Don't push too hard. If the, if the marketing piece was done properly, they already are tuned up for you, right? I know we're talking sales, but if the marketing's done, they already know you, they like you, they're, they're you, they liked you enough to call you. Think about the effort that it takes for somebody to reach out to you on a pain that they're trying to solve. They have X number of people they can contact and they reached out to you. So it goes back to our first point. You got to be there to respond, or otherwise they'll just go to the next person. Doubles I don't know anything about double. Is that double pickleball? Yes, okay, marketing internal champions I think that's another alignment to marketing and sales to a degree, but I think you would argue that it would be your best champions.

Speaker 2: 22:12

Absolutely. And oftentimes in sales you're not going out by yourself, you're going out with somebody else, you've got a partner. It's very important to be in alignment with that partner to make sure that you're on the same page. So just had a call with one of my clients, partnered a law firm. He's going out to meet with a very large client. He's bringing somebody else from his office. We talked about the importance of him and that person sitting down beforehand, making sure that they're on the same page, understanding what role each of them is going to take in the meeting, so that they are there as one cohesive team and not two people completely running into each other.

Speaker 2: 22:58

With pickleball, like in sales, you also need to play off of your opponent. So, again, in sales, oftentimes you don't know what the other person is going to say, what the prospects are going to say. You may not be sure what their pains are until you start to get in and have a conversation with them. In pickleball it's the same thing. You're not sure where the ball is going to be going, whether you need to rush towards the net, move back, and again it's a matter of looking at where the opposition is hitting the ball and then playing off of that. Again, it's much the same when we're talking about that sales approach. It's not a one size fits all. We're not doing the same with everyone, so we just need to kind of keep that in mind as we're going through and as we're taking our approach to winning the game.

Speaker 3: 23:48

You know, I think one of the most valuable lessons that you taught us in terms of what our agency does is that not every volley is the right volley to follow.

Speaker 3: 23:57

Sometimes you just got to let it go right and a lot of times we get caught up in everybody in contact as an opportunity.

Speaker 3: 24:03

We want to make sure we jump on top of them, but sometimes that you have to gauge when that ball goes over your head do I let it go or do I actually sprint back there to try to knock it back Right?

Speaker 3: 24:14

And I think that, if you know I don't know if that really happens to pickleball, I think it's when I think pickleball, but the reality behind it is is that sometimes you have to be able to let go of the opportunities. That is not the right fit and that goes back to one of our first earlier analogies in terms of finding the right pitch, goes back to one of our first earlier analogies in terms of finding the right pitch right. If you're going to be in a position where you find the right pitch and you know that you can knock that pitch out of the park X number of times baseball analogy you want to make sure that that's the pitch you're waiting for, because you know I'm going to tie this together. You know that the statistics on the pitcher who throws more of a knuckleball than a fastball, that you're waiting on that knuckleball because you hit the knuckleball. Well, that all comes together to a degree. Now, if I were to tie the clickleball to the golf, to the baseball, I'd have been a champ, yeah well.

Speaker 2: 24:59

So and I'll tie all of them together. Yeah, you go In all of those sports you keep score. There's a winner and a loser. Whether it's you know what score, there's a winner and a loser. Whether it's what you shot in that round of golf. Whether it's how many runs you scored in the baseball game and did you score more than the opponent In pickleball, did you win or lose? I won't get into the pickleball scoring. That's confusing on its own. It's the same thing in sales. You have a goal. If you hit your goal, you won the game. If you didn't hit your goal, you lost.

Speaker 2: 25:36

And then we need to go back and look back at the game tape, look to see why we didn't achieve our goal, look to see what we need to work on, what skills we need to focus on, what strategy we need to change so that we can go out and win the next game, what strategy we need to change so that we can go out and win the next game.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Because again, much like you know, sales and sports again are the same. Neither is fatal. So we may not win that particular game. Then it's a matter of okay. Well, let's go back, let's unpack what happened in the game, let's figure out what we need to tweak so that we can be that much better, and that applies to whether you're playing sports, whether whether you're in sales. So, again, you know, hopefully you have a little bit of fun with this, with this episode, and, yeah, you really kind of take a step back, really, look at sales and marketing as a game, and we're giving you the playbook, we are giving you the strategy to give you the best opportunity to win the game. But, just like any other coach, we can only give you so much strategy.

Speaker 3: 26:35

You then need to take that strategy implement that strategy into the game to get the results that you want to get. And it's funny when you say that is because me, being a former coach years ago, I always have the analogy of now that you have that information, going back to your point about practicing, you guys have to do the other things on the small side to help aid that right. Another summary that I want to make as well, in addition to everybody's a winner and a loser in that scenario, is that your common theme among all that is my favorite line data, data, data, data data Data can help you improve, or data can help you get better, or data could. Without the data, you can fall back behind because other people are using data right, or it might help us sit back and say, hey, with this data, I have a close rate of X, y, z. So now you can say can I work on that data to increase the close rate? Yes, okay, can I get more opportunities to make that close rate fit right? Yes, so all of those scenarios work beautifully.

Speaker 3: 27:36

I love this baseball analogy. I can do that all day long, right, we all do it. You know such and such, and I'm a basketball guy, everybody, right. So I shot, you know, something like 20 from three. Well, stop shooting it.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Stop shooting it well, the good news is you couldn't shoot 20 from the three when you were back on the bench that's true, that's right, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3: 27:57

That's one way to stop it right. So, yes, as sports fans in philly, we love that stuff. So, um, we have a lot of guests coming, uh, in this next few weeks. One is a fractional CFO who I think is going to be a great guest for us in terms of giving you guys information again for the playbook, and the other one you wanted to tell. The other one is Evan.

Speaker 2: 28:21

Sure, we're going to have the founder of an AI company who's going to talk a little bit about how you can use lifelike AI to get those reps in, get that practice in, to do that role play in a much more lifelike scenario. So, again, that's really exciting and, whether we want to do it or not, craig, kicking and screaming, we're being pulled along with technology and, again, I think this is going to be a really cool tool that could really help a lot of you out. So we will get to that as well. And, craig, how can people find us?

Speaker 3: 28:55

You can find us on YouTube. If you like our beautiful face, you can come see it. Very often we're on Amazon, we're on all the major platforms and, if you're interested, follow us on the website SNPlaybookcom and you can see all of our social platforms in which we're sitting on. If you have any comments, feedback, if you don't like the Eagles, tell us. We'll probably tell you you're wrong, but you can tell us right. If you don't like the Phillies, you can tell us that too. We're always up for the debate, even though we're better. So at any point in time. If you guys have any comments or statements that you want to make in reference to sales or marketing, let us know. If you have a topic that you want to hear, let us know as well. We can cover all types of topics. We've been doing this for a minute, so I guess to finish out the show, did you have any other words to say, evan?

Speaker 2: 29:41

Just probably the biggest takeaway for everybody before you take us out, go birds.

Speaker 3: 29:46

Go birds. I think that's the best way to say it, and we can say it while we're still at Champs, and then we'll keep saying it, just to let you guys know. We don't do it often, but when we do it, we do it big. I'm Craig Andrews. That's Evan Poland. Have I got it? Did I get it? You got it All right? That's Evan Poland, and we'll talk to you like the Eagles go birds.

Speaker 1: 30:12

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.