SPEAKER_00: 0:11

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

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

And as usual, welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and my partner in crime, Evan Poland. How are you doing today, Evan Poland?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20

I am doing great. How are you doing today, Craig?

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

I'm not doing too bad. You know, like I said before, it's a brand new year. We're actually completely running on full cylinders, and we're ready to roll this year.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

That's awesome. And Craig, for people who may be newer to the podcast, you want to share with everybody a little bit more in detail about what you do. And uh today we're really gonna be right in the middle of your wheelhouse.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43

Absolutely. Uh Beholder Agency, which I'm a partner in, is uh a growth marketing agency, and we specialize in helping small to medium-sized businesses who are frustrated with the outcomes of their marketing. They may be saying something on the lines of, you know, I'm getting nothing from my website or my marketing is doing horrible right now, or something in that fashion. Uh, and what we try to do is we try to put a data approach and a marketing approach together to generate revenue year after year. Um, and as we as we progress in helping companies build their businesses, you know, we like to stay close to them. And uh, you know, I think we're good at what we do. That's all what you do.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22

Sure. So Craig does a great job in terms of making sure that you get found and the right people are finding you. I come in to help once you start having those conversations with those folks to help you more effectively qualify and disqualify those opportunities, shorten the time from the first touch through getting a decision one way or the other. And then for those of you who are in relationship type businesses, helping you to really leverage your relationships to get more introductions, get more referrals, upsell, cross-sell within your current client base, um, as well as build up some of those sales plans. And we may have some exciting announcements on that uh sometime here in the not too distant future. So, again, that's why we are the playbook. That's why we partner up. We take both sides of the driving the right kind of leads in, and then how do you do a better job converting those? So, Craig, uh on the marketing side, there have been any changes in the last five, six years in terms of what people are doing for marketing or how people are getting found?

SPEAKER_02: 3:22

Yeah, there might be this small little thing called uh AI that might have changed the whole industry. Uh, I'm sure you use AI all the time, right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

I absolutely use AI, uh, use it using it more and more every day. Um, and it's absolutely been a game changer for my business. And I know that I'm only using about 2% of it.

SPEAKER_02: 3:43

Absolutely. And most people are. And so, as that's a great segue into what we're going to talk about today. Um, I'm gonna start by telling a quick story. So, a couple years ago, probably about this time, January, February-ish, Amelia and I took a trip up to New York uh for a work trip. And early morning, we were walking through the streets of New York. You can kind of visualize it was kind of gray and cold, and and we're kind of like today. Kind of like today, yeah. And we were walking through the street and we happened to go by these small little bodegas, and I saw a cupcake shop that only sold cupcakes. So we walked in and we took a look at it, and the cupcake was like$30, one cupcake. And I'm going, wow, like how do you stay in business? And that's what kind of spurred this conversation today. You know, most local businesses don't fail because they're bad at what they do. I'm sure it's a very good cupcake. They fail because the right people are not finding them. So that was really a big thought today in terms of our topic, which is local search, uh local marketing, and how do you market yourself to stay in business and grow with a$30 cupcake? I mean, come on, that's that's kind of that's a lot of money for one cupcake, but it was huge. But anyway, I'll diverse.

SPEAKER_01: 4:56

So so so, Craig, why why don't you share with the audience a little bit what is local marketing? What is local search marketing and and why is it so important these days?

SPEAKER_02: 5:05

Yeah. So local search marketing is a strategy by making your business visible when people search with a local intent. Uh, for example, they might say, in that example, cupcake shop near me, right?

SPEAKER_01: 5:18

Ridiculously priced cupcake shop near me.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

That too, that's a possible search, right? Um, or they might say something on the lines of uh cupcakes New York, right? Something simple like that. And the reason why that's important is because it's a high intent. They know exactly what they're searching for and in the process of looking for what they're looking for, and people are ready to buy in that moment. That's a very important point. If you think about it from the perspective of all of us, how when was the last time you went without your cell phone for a day, Evan?

SPEAKER_01: 5:49

Uh on purpose, I can't remember the last time.

SPEAKER_02: 5:52

Yeah, I can't either, right? I just I literally just put it down before the podcast, right? Because I was answering some texts and calls. If you think about how AI and combined with local search has now put people in a position that they're on their phones all the time trying to get quick answers, being in the right place at the right time with the right search is incredibly important for businesses today. Um, in your case, from a sales perspective, what is it, what does it mean to you to be in the right place at the right time to the right audience?

SPEAKER_01: 6:22

So it's extremely important. And if your marketing is doing a good job and you have people who are looking for a conversation and they know what they want and they're ready to buy right now, there is a ridiculous difference in your close rate. It's in much, much, much higher. Your sale cycle is much, much, much shorter. It may even be in that conversation. Um, and it's something that salespeople are craving, they're looking for it. When you can get people funneled to you who are looking for the products or services that you sell and they're looking to do something right now, so that is gold for the sales folks within the organization.

SPEAKER_02: 7:13

And I think where the beautiful thing about our relationship is is understanding that sales and marketing is an alignment is very important. You're going to hear that if you guys are tuned into our show. You're going to hear that on a regular basis. And so when I when I bring up that expression, just to be clear, there's a difference between local search marketing and localized marketing, two different concepts. And so, just to help us kind of get through in the conversation and defining it, localized marketing adapts your messaging and your offers and your positioning to a specific audience or a market or community that's going to help serve them in that area. So we talk all the time about making sure that the messages are congruent between salespeople or messaging is congruent among company thoughts or the owner or the CEO or the firm manager or the managing firm guy is all the same messaging. Can you talk a little bit about messaging and how important that is?

SPEAKER_01: 8:11

Messaging is incredibly important because if we can't articulate how we help our clients, the problems that we solve, whether it's I've got a lot of money in my pocket, I'm looking for a huge cupcake. Yep. Or it's legal services, it's accounting services. Again, these days, right now, if accounting firms who are looking to bring in more business have, you know, great search for people looking to get their taxes done right now and answering tax questions, they're going to do really, really well over the next uh two or three months. So, you know, it really helps to make sure. But back to your point you made a couple minutes ago, if they're searching for one thing and then they get on the phone and the salesperson, the business owner is just, you know, if you're describing an Apple in the marketing and they call up and you're trying to sell them a watermelon, they're gonna be like, wait a second. I I I think I misdialed. I I don't think I'm on the phone with the right company, and you're gonna lose all credibility. And the prospects probably gonna be turned off and go somewhere else. That's right. So it's incredibly important that marketing and sales are speaking the same language, are pushing out the same message, otherwise, your business is not going to look authentic, you're gonna lose credibility with your prospects, and you're probably gonna lose those well-qualified leads.

SPEAKER_02: 9:40

And I think to piggyback on top of that, you know, just to kind of sum it up, people buy from businesses that are relevant and familiar. You know, if you're talking very generic, like that Apple example, you're going to lose people because we're in an AI world now where we go and we find the direct answer for exactly what we're looking for without the fluff around it. And so we preach a lot in our marketing about kiss, keep it simple, stupid, right? We we kind of want to keep it incredibly simple because we start the conversations even before we take clients on. Is are you willing to explain your business to a 12-year-old? That's how simple it is. Because right now, kind of in the research we've been doing, marketing now has gotten flipped back to 2012. We're in 2026, and marketing's been flipped back to 2012 of keep it simple. Imagine the birth of the internet, right? Keep it simple, explain it directly, play no games, give me my answer. Because of our simple little cell phones here, in which we can be in a position that we can find exactly what we want exactly at the time. We don't need the fluff and the big sales pitch like the the sales guys who had the big floating dolls in the street. We don't need that anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 10:50

They know exactly what they want. And for all of you listening, just think about the last time you searched, whether it was for where you wanted to have dinner or where you wanted to get your car detailed or something else. You probably knew pretty much exactly what you were looking for, and you went in to search exactly that. So those companies, those businesses that are really generic probably aren't gonna pop up if you're looking for something very specific. So we need to keep that in mind. What services are we providing? Who's our target audience? And what is the shortest line to get from where they are to get to you? Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 11:33

And I think that I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01: 11:35

I was gonna and that's what we need to think about.

SPEAKER_02: 11:38

Yep. And so we say all this stuff, so who is it really for? Right? It's easy to say it's for everybody, which is, but when you're talking about local marketing, local search marketing, you know, it works best for service area businesses, which could be home services, legal, medical, professional, things that you might be searching for, like right now. Hey, I just my son just broke his foot. I need to take him to the hospital. What's the closest hospital? Because we've traveled to a whole nother city to do the sport we're doing, right? Whatever it might be. Those are great examples. If you're talking about legals, legal situations. I'm moving to a new city, I need a lawyer in town. Who am I talking to? I do a quick search to find it. If I'm looking for a laundromat, I mean, these this it's this goes on and on and on. Uh, it also includes multi-location brands, right? So we've all seen like where's the local Wawa near us, which if you guys don't know about Wawa, you you should. Um, you know, where's the closest local franchise? Small and medium-sized businesses. All of these businesses are affected by this localized search. And if you're not on it, you need to be. Um, Evan, talk to me about sales when it comes to different franchises and how they're in a position that they need to sell, right? So if you got multiple locations, you know, what's the best approach when it comes to selling localized?

SPEAKER_01: 12:56

It's really important to make sure that you get found where you actually are. There's nothing more frustrating than, okay, I know that I want to, and I I'll I'll find this with with restaurants sometimes. I'll pull up, you know, yeah, Outback Steakhouse near me, and then it's showing up five states away. And it's like, I know that there's one within 10 miles of here. I'm just trying to get the address. And if you have to do a lot of searching, I might give up and I might go, you know what, Texas Roadhouse is just as good as you know, outpack. This is taking too long. Let me go that look look that up. Um again, if you're in a business where it's a heavy touch business and you're getting inquiries from three states away, that's probably not going to help you very much. So again, the key is to make sure that you're showing up for what it is that you want to be searched for. But if people need to come to you, if they need to be local, if you're a service company servicing different things, you also need to make sure that you're somewhere close to the seat neighborhood. Otherwise, you're gonna be wasting a lot of people's time and your prospects are gonna be frustrated and you're also gonna get frustrated.

SPEAKER_02: 14:20

Absolutely. So, because we're the playbook, I'm gonna give you guys as close of a framework as we can in terms of how this process should work for you. In terms of philosophy, growth happens when you have a good strategy, system in place, and sales alignment. Very important when it comes to localized marketing. In terms of the core pillars, it's incredibly important to be visible on all types of platforms. So that way you can demonstrate I'm that local cupcake place that's here in New York or whatever the case may be. I've had these type of reviews of showing how good my cupcake is. You you're a big thing, and you're you're big in terms of showing value, right, Evan? In terms of sales, right? So you can't you how do you show how do you show value when you're in a position that people don't know who you are? That's that's almost that's almost impossible, right? In terms of credibility, uh proof. Some people you know buy cupcakes with their eyes. Wow, that really looks good. I gotta have that. When you're talking about reviews, other people in the same neighborhood, the same town who's going, that cupcake was amazing. If you have not tried it, it's worth every dollar, right? So now I think you kind of put this within your sales training in terms of some of the ways that you get proof, right? Get people other people to be um evangelists, I think you call it, in terms of talking for you.

SPEAKER_01: 15:40

Absolutely making sure that you've got raving fans and that people are not only love what you do, but are willing to tell others. So whether it is writing a review on your website, you know, get getting those five-star reviews, whether it's on LinkedIn, getting people to give you endorsements, getting people to give you testimonials, being able to have quotes on your websites, but people really tend to buy in when other when they hear great feedback from other people. So if you can do that and get that up in different places, yeah, when people find you, you're going to have credibility and they're gonna want to learn more about you if they've seen all kinds of other people's positive experiences with your products, with your services.

SPEAKER_02: 16:28

Now, all of this sounds very easy, right? Sure, I get reviews all the time. Sure, I'm in a position where I everybody knows who I am. Do they really, right? So you've all seen those reviews where somebody has five reviews on their side, right? Five may not be enough. Ideally, you're looking to get around a hundred reviews to really get Google and start to really work for you. The other thing is what I want to highlight now is some of the mistakes people make in the process of trying to do this. You know, have you ever seen that somebody does all these people love me, but then when you call, it takes forever for anything to happen?

SPEAKER_01: 17:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 17:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 17:06

So I'm willing to stay on hold for a good 15 or 20 seconds before I'm going on to the next one.

SPEAKER_02: 17:11

That's right. Big mistake. Use mirror the language of the area. We've all seen it. Best cupcakes in the world. What does that mean?

unknown: 17:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 17:22

Really? In the world? Really? Right? How about you know, New York's finest or the New York 2026 best cupcake in town, uh, Manhattan, or something specific will help draw people back to your area. Very important. Um, you know, we could say best two-looking guys on podcasts, right? That's who we are. What can I say?

SPEAKER_01: 17:42

It comes up immediately, but always first in the search.

SPEAKER_02: 17:46

Exactly. In terms of when people come in, ask them how, and then double down on it. So now sometimes people might have a loyalty program to help them kind of bring those people back and be a bigger evangelist for them when they go back out, right? If a mistake happens, own up to it, fix it, right? Don't be in a position that you're fighting every person on the internet. It doesn't work, I promise you. And so now, Evan, as we go into sales cookbook, uh, how how does this stuff align with the sales process for you? Any ideas or any comments that you can give us?

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Sure. So one of the things a company should be doing, and you'll probably touch on this as well, is you should be tracking how many leads are coming in. So again, if not enough leads at all are coming in, yeah, that's a problem. Next, we need to track what percentage of those leads are actually qualified opportunities? What percentage of people are actually looking for your products or services? Yeah, within the geographic area, within the construct of what you do. And then following that down the sales funnel. What percentage of initial inquiries turned into a qualified opportunity? What percentage of those opportunities turned into a final contract, you know, final meeting, final quote? What percentage of those closed into business? Where was that the kind of business that you wanted to close? You know, was were they small clients, mid-sized clients, large clients coming in? Are they for the products or services that you wanted to push that are giving you good margins?

SPEAKER_02: 19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:18

And once you get all of that data, you can then determine, okay, is what we're doing really working? Or do we need to reconfigure the campaign? Because maybe we're only getting really small, low-end things, and we want to be having people who are looking for the higher end things be finding us. Are we not getting the right people at all? Are we not getting any inquiries at all? But we need to look at those things. So this should be an ongoing feedback loop. We can make whatever tweaks or changes we need to make to make sure that we're getting with the really good sales qualified leads. And if you've got a separate sales team from the marketing team, they need to be talking. Sales needs to be giving market. Feedback. These things that are coming in are really good. These things that are coming in aren't so good. And again, to make sure that we're on the same page and everybody's falling in the same direction.

SPEAKER_02: 20:12

Love every bit of it. And just to make sure that you guys heard exactly what Evan said, the alignment between your sales and marketing, or if you're a solopreneur, the alignment still applies to you as well. And I think the thing that's important to understand is marketing and sales is not an overnight thing. It's not going to happen in a month or two, especially if your systems are not in place, whether it be marketing system or sales system, if your processes aren't in place, whether it be your marketing processes or your sales processes, the process takes time to develop if you're doing it right. But the outcomes is tremendous. I'm telling you, if you do it the right way, the outcomes will be totally beneficial. It'll run like a machine.

SPEAKER_01: 20:52

Craig, you know what may be helpful? And sorry to put you on the spot. Yeah. Can you maybe tell a story of a client that you ended up working with where this was not working for them before you started with them and kind of what they were doing, what was happening, what were some of the things that you did for that client, and then what were kind of the some of the kind of results that that client saw after you were done working with them?

SPEAKER_02: 21:16

Absolutely. Actually, it's a client we recently just signed. We signed with them, I would say, in July. And actually, and they were a brand new franchise and they had another agency prior. Um, and they wanted to kind of test us on their new franchise. So, with that being the case, the first thing we start with everybody is this localized marketing, is because we want to make sure right where you sit is an opportunity for people to find you almost immediately. Now, in the process, they kind of fought us a little bit because the process of what they've learned from other processes, which is probably like more of a generalized marketing, led them to sit back and go, this is what we've always done. So we said, in order for our relationship to work, try something new with us and we'll see how it works. We started with the localized marketing, and the way we knew it is because we actually put the data behind it and we tracked it so we could track the ROI. And within the first two months, they've already sold, and it's a construction company, they already sold something along the lines of a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment only because they were visible to the people in their area, period. Because they go, I keep getting these calls and I don't know how they found me. We just made them visible, right? We just made them visible. The people in the area knew that they were there now. We'd had a whole grand opening and everything else like that, but it all went to just the localized marketing. Then we doubled down and added more products to that localized marketing in which they began to grow and so forth. I think by the end of the year, end of 2025, they did pretty well near a million or so just in the localized marketing, is all we've really been able to do.

SPEAKER_01: 22:57

And how did that compare with what they were doing before?

SPEAKER_02: 23:00

Uh there, they they were probably doing a couple thousand selling the smaller units uh in terms of what they were doing. And the thing that's important to understand is people only know what you show them. So, in a lot of cases, if you're not you're not giving them a very clear, direct idea of who you are and what you do, you're allowing their imagination to take over and you're and then you're allowing them to sit back and say, they don't really fit me. I don't get it, I don't understand. And there was no conversation. So one of the things that they also had is we said, take the pricing off the site. Why would you have the pricing on the site? Take the and I know that's your big faux power, right? Don't do that. Um, take the pricing off the site so they have to contact you so you can actually have human conversations instead of letting AI answer your questions for you. All right, and there's a lot of different techniques and styles that go into that, but that's a great example of how localized marketing helps.

SPEAKER_01: 23:56

It's probably so within six months they got 20 to 30 times the return of what they were getting before.

SPEAKER_02: 24:02

Yes, without a doubt. And the fact they upped with us the new year and now we're they gave us a bigger budget to work with. And I think that you know, the KISS model that we live and die by as part of beholders' infrastructure. Can I simplify it for a 12th grader or 12-year-old, excuse me? Can I simplify it for a 12-year-old? And it's not to insult anybody's intelligence, it's to make it as clear as possible as you as you looking for your search, and we gave somebody who was the right, the right target for the right people at the right time. That's larger.

SPEAKER_01: 24:33

So, Craig, uh, I'm gonna treat you like one of our guests. I'm gonna give you about 30 seconds to think about it. And I want you to, you know, come up with two or three really good takeaways for our audience. Um, we've got a couple of really good guests coming coming up. Um, we are gonna be talking about CRM specifically for consultants. Um, we're gonna be talking about um how sales and marketing is really important for solo and small law firms. Um and we're also gonna be having uh an episode coming up where Craig's gonna put me on the hot seat. We're gonna talk a little bit about sales training, sales coaching, what people should be looking for, what should be scaring them away a little bit. So those are a couple of the episodes coming up. And for this in all of our podcasts, if you want to see our pretty faces, you can find us on YouTube. Uh, you can also find us on Spotify, Apple, wherever you find your podcast, as well as on a regular basis. If you're following the sales and marketing playbook unleashed on LinkedIn, see clips from episodes that we have with our guests. So, Craig, hopefully I've bought you enough time to think about two or three key takeaways for our audience to walk away from today. Yes, you're pretty good at that. You should do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02: 25:54

Anyway, tip number one, okay. Local marketing is about being chosen, not just seen. Very important point. The right people at the right time, finding you at the right location. It's about being chosen, not just being visible. Okay, that's one. Two, search intent tells you what the buyers want, right? If you understand what the search intent is, they're telling you exactly what they want. You just have to be able to supply them what they're looking for, and it's a better conversion for your business. Sales should follow the signals. Keep that in mind. Three, local growth is repeatable when marketing and sales share the same playbook, right? Very simple formula. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, equals. Here's that equal sign. Growth. Right? Anything that's simple and repeatable, and you can grow with it. And go to the bank all day long, right? And so a lot of times I tell them this is my this is my new phrase in the new year that other than data data data. Simple as an art form. That's my new line. Simple as an art form. That's deep, Greg. You like that? I put a lot of thought into that this year. It's been a short year, but simple as an art form. And it's hard for us today to be simple because we always get our answers super quick. So if you learn how to be simple and to tell your message simply, it's sort of like your elevator pitch, right? I heard you. I heard you, Evan. Right? If you can keep it simple and get to the point, you'll probably convert more people. How was that? That was my first three three points for the year.

SPEAKER_01: 27:33

That was seven great three points. Ah so, but but I I I I think you've given our listeners a lot to think about.

SPEAKER_02: 27:41

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 27:41

Awesome. So, Evan, why don't you take us out since you're so good at this? I'm you're putting me under a lot of pressure. Um, we'd like to thank everybody for listening to this episode of this Dallas Marketing Playbook Unleashed. Keep winning, and we will see you in our next episode.

SPEAKER_02: 27:58

That's it, Evan. I love it. That's all right, guys. Till next time. Bye-bye now.

SPEAKER_00: 28:10

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.