Welcome And Live Event Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:12

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_03 1:11

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and my partner in crime here is Evan Poland. Hey Evan, how are you today? I'm doing great. How are you doing? I'm doing well. We are actually here live at the PJ Wellahan's in Oaks PA with our with our favorite client, uh the Electrical Association of Philadelphia. Can you guys give a big round of applause for us? Thank you, thank you. And so to to uh make sure that we talk about how great EAP is, we want to feature our guest, our primary sponsor here of Colonial Electric. Big hand round of applause.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

A little bigger than that, more applause means maybe more drink making, so give it up.

Why Sales And Marketing Must Align

SPEAKER_03 2:01

We have the wall over here. I know you guys can't see it, but they're here. And last but not least, we're walking. Thank you guys for showing up today. We appreciate it. Okay, so briefly, what we want to talk about here is a comment and things that Evan and I go through all the time, in which sales and marketing kind of go hand in hand, but we're saying they should work together. We get into a lot of arguments, right, in terms of sales and marketing?

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Absolutely. On the one side, marketing thinks that sometimes sales can't close the door, and oftentimes sales is blaming marketing for not bringing the right leads in. So what we really find is if the two work together, along with leadership from the owner, the manager, that's really what's going to drive results for you and for your company.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

And so we're gonna start with a gift real quick and see if anybody can get close. If sales and marketing work together within your business, does anybody have any idea on what the percentage of revenue growth is? And we'll take any guess. Any guess anybody have any guess?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

30%.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

30%. Anybody else?

SPEAKER_02 3:12

35 is 35.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

35?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

60.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

60? Anybody else? 20. 20% is technically increased to 100% when sales and marketing come together and increases your business 100%. Because a lot of times what happens is that, as Evan just mentioned, marketing will do something and get you guys tons of leads, and all of a sudden they aren't good leads, right?

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Or in the sales case, in the sales case, going out there talking with prospects that just aren't the right prospects, and you need those two again to work in tandem, work together to drive those results and to get you where you need to go.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Absolutely. So, quick question. Anyone who's the first to raise their hand, and I'll give you, I'll give you a hat. Who, okay, here we go. Okay, what type of jobs do you hate getting? Did you help us with that?

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Uh commodity-based jobs.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

Okay, Evan, you have feedback in terms of how we can help with that? So, yeah, no, absolutely. And then for those uh listening on the podcast later, it was commodities. And show of hands for the folks in the room. How many of you have had a client you took on over the last three months that you were ready taking on that client after the fact? So just a few. Yeah, beyond this here, they can't see you. Yeah, almost 100% of the hands went up. So, what we find in general is if you are buying your jobs, if it's a race to the bottom, people are not going to see value in what you bring to the table. My guess is for most of you in this room, your least profitable jobs are also the ones who are the biggest pain. People who are complaining, nothing's getting done right, they want it done twice as fast. So, part of what you need to do to go from somebody who's more of an amateur to a professional is make sure that you are getting across the value that you are bringing to the table. My guess is a lot of you have taken jobs away from other people who all at the beginning won the job by being the cheapest because that cheapest person screwed up. They either didn't know what they were doing, it didn't work, it broke, and somebody else had to come back in. So, part of what we need to do is for all of you as you're out there talking to customers, is utilize your expertise. Ask the right kinds of questions to get them to see the value that you're bringing to the table so that you can get paid the value that you you deserve when you're going out there and bringing new customers.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

And to piggyback on top of that, what I would say here from a marketing perspective, which is a very good answer from a sales perspective, I like that. But from a value, from a marketing perspective, is what's missing today is most of the guys you're getting jobs based on what they're researching and found for you way before they called you. So it's important to be have your integrity up high, make sure you deliver on exactly what you say you're gonna deliver, and before they even reach out to you, be sure that they know exactly what you offer. A lot of times the race to the bottom is coming because of the fact they don't know really what you guys offer. How many guys here have had somebody say, I didn't know you guys did that? Yeah, right? It's not quite clear to them. We're no longer in a space where we're sitting back putting up a billboard going, we do this. They now have the opportunities to research and to look. So it's very important that you guys are very clear about what you offer and deliver that. That's where you'll also be able to show value from a marketing perspective, even before they come in for you.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

And Craig, if I can jump in from a sales perspective, you show value by being proactive, by asking questions. Anyone can go out there and just take an order. As long as you have the technical expertise, you can go and look. But it's really professionals who ask the right kinds of questions, who identify that customers may have two or three different needs that they didn't even realize that you could fill. And once you go out there, you ask the right kinds of questions, you show the value. That's when you really have a customer who's gonna stay with you, stay with you for a while, and how you are gonna differentiate yourself from the guy in the truck who's going out trying to sell a job for the cheapest price they can, but not bringing that value to the table. And the other thing I know Craig's gonna jump into a little bit, maybe I'll jump ahead. Marketing and sales need to really work together because if your marketing says one thing, and then when you're out there in front of the customer, what you're talking about is completely different than what they read online or what they heard when they were talking to the person in the office, you're not gonna have credibility. They're gonna think that this seems like two different companies, and if that happens, they're not going to trust what you say, and you are going to lose out on more opportunities when you're not authentic and those two things aren't working together.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

So, this might be a question that doesn't fit everybody in the room, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. How many how many uh business owners or managers who run kind of partially with marketing or in here? Okay, how many of you guys have Google My Business profile? Just one. How many, how often do you use an update?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

I have a company that I work with uh quive weekly.

Defusing The Price Objection

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Okay, good. If you guys who who don't have that, you need to have that. That's very important. That's how the internet changes. Right now, the internet, which a lot of us are getting researched and found out and learned about, is coming through the internet. I'm sure we all do it, right? We're not we're not all like that archaic and we're not good, right? The key thing to understand here was your reviews are incredibly important for people to trust you. So, sort of piggybacking on what Evan referenced, if you guys are not going out there actively getting new reviews, you will fall behind as the internet changes. So, how many guys here actually have within their active process of finding and getting reviews from clients who are very happy with you? Good, good. That's a huge thing, and make sure you use that as part of your marketing. So now they become a way of trusting you before they come in the door, and somebody like Evan gets to you and explains why what value do you bring to the table? So, the next question I'm gonna ask you what is your biggest objection you guys run into? Anybody? Nobody gets objections? You guys are really good. Wow, you guys are good. Rock stars price, yeah. Okay, so how would you attack the price from an objection perspective?

SPEAKER_04 9:42

So uh the the first thing that I I like to do um is if somebody asks if the price is negotiable, my first answer is absolutely how much more did you want to spend? Um they don't typically get as big a kick out of that as I do. Um but then I will ask questions. I'll say, hey, you know, understand cost is important. The work that we're doing, how long did you want that to last? Because somebody can come in and do it really cheap, but are you gonna be upset if it has to be redone in six months? Or are you gonna be upset if things stop working? And the answer is, well, yeah, no, definitely. I you know, it needs to work. I said, so a question for you do you think the cheapest is also gonna be the highest quality? Is gonna work the best? And sometimes what I'll do if it's appropriate is I'll ask the other person that I'm talking to, geez, you know, what kind of business are you in? What do you do? They'll tell me, I'll say, geez, who who's your cheapest competitor? They always have an answer right away. My next question is, what's the reputation of that company? I promise the answer is never anything good. They suck, they don't deliver, it takes them forever. How do you think it's any different in our world? And a lot of times that light bulb, I almost see the light bulb go off over their head, and they start to get the fact that what might be the cheapest up front could end up costing them a lot more, whether it's an actual dollars and cents or aggravation, chasing people down, things not working, having to redo the work. And then we can get into a conversation about what they're really looking for, about what their budget is. I can kind of share with them that we probably could be the cheapest, but then sharing with them what the work typically looks like at the end if you go with the cheapest quality stuff. And I find that about two-thirds of people are willing to have that conversation, and then we can bring value to the table. That other third, quite frankly, are prospects that typically I want to disqualify because it's going to be a race to the bottom. Whatever price we come in with, they're not going to want to pay that full price, they're going to want me to rush the job, that there's going to be all kinds of problems. So, those are some of the different ways that right up front, I'll try to handle those price objections to see whether or not they see value and they care about that and what they're doing. And if not, it may not be the right customer for me. Because going back to the Google reviews, that's the customer that's going to complain, gonna give the one-star reviews, gonna cause a lot of problems down the road if they're just buying the cheapest.

Referrals That Grow 25 Percent

SPEAKER_03 12:25

But you guys have no objection, so everything's good, right? Okay, so who's your best referral come from?

unknown 12:32

Consistent customers.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Consistent customers? Tell us how you get consistent customers.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Just provide good service.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Good service. Anything else?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Reliability.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Reliability, huge deal. Anyone else?

unknown 12:46

Consistent communication.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Communication. These are all things that are generally pretty basic, but we struggle at it as businesses, right? Because we're too busy, we're on the job, we're doing the things we're supposed to do. But this is all very important when you're out there marketing or selling, because at the end of the day, those evangelists for yourself come back and they explain because the referrals come because you did a good job. How many people here got a referral because they did a horrible job? No?

SPEAKER_04 13:11

So question for you, real quick for everybody in the room. Show of hands, how many of you are getting referrals now? Okay, most of you, that's great. Another question for you how many of you are proactively asking your customers for referrals? I saw about half the number of hands that went up the first time. Just rule of thumb for everyone. The number of customers you have should increase 25% each year, strictly through asking for referrals and introductions. So if you are not growing your client base at least 25% a year, strictly through referrals, you're leaving opportunities on the table. Uh, one other statistic I want to give you real quick when it comes to referrals. 20% of people will never give you a referral, no matter how good of work you do. That's them. They're afraid that if I refer somebody else and somebody out and it doesn't work out, it's gonna come back on me. Not gonna worry about those folks. 20% of the population will give you referrals without you having to ask. Those phone calls you're getting now. Hey, I heard from one of your customers, so and so said I should give you a call. 60% of the population would give you referrals if you proactively asked and gave them a really good idea of exactly what kind of work is the right work and who you want to get referred to. So, again, just a question for all of you to think about are we talking to that middle 60%? And are we doing a good job articulating exactly what a good referral looks like for us?

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Absolutely, absolutely. Anybody here communicate with their clients beyond just the job? So these referrals that are given to you? How do you communicate with them?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Text message, a lot of them become friends once you build rapport, it's relationship building.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Absolutely, absolutely. Anybody else?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Yep, sir?

unknown 15:13

Social media, huge online debt, online debt.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Oh, he hit your line with that. He hit your spot with that, whatever. I think he lobbed that up for you. Go ahead, buddy.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

Go ahead, you got it. So it it's really, really important to keep in touch through LinkedIn, through social media, through constant touch points, checking in with people, asking how things are going, asking what's going on. So all of those things are really important. The other thing that's really important with referrals, how many of you in this room have strategic partners, have referral partners, have other professionals feeding you referrals on a regular basis?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Well, if you're an EAP member, you do.

unknown 15:57

Uh-oh.

Differentiation Customers Actually Understand

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Uh-oh. Speaking of that, how many people here are AP members or guests? Okay, so let me plug this real quick. EAP has been glorious and wonderful to offer you guys training from both of us, right? Even though Evan's really good. I'm gonna take a little credit. He actually made my business much, much better using his sales process. So much that part of our marketing process includes his sales process. Because at the end of the day, the marketing stuff has to be able to be quantified to a revenue source, and if it's not, you're just throwing stuff up, you're just actively doing stuff for it's just activity, right? The idea is to grow your business. So EAP has created a partner program for members, must be a member first, that you guys can get access to a consistent training and get some of our knowledge to help your business grow year after year. Okay? Um now let me go to the next thing here. What differentiates you guys? You guys are all very similar in businesses, right? Give us one. No, you don't want to give up everything. I understand that piece. I understand that. Give us one small piece of what makes you different than someone else. Our dedication to our customers. Our dedication. A dedication? Dedication to our customers. Okay. Anyone else?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Innovative products and patents.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Go tell me more.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

So in our wall protection system, our 30-foot SRL, right? We have a system that nobody else offers in the market. We have brushless systems that nobody can offer, so it cleans the housing. Job sites are really dirty. You get something in the housing, it can lock up your housing. These are$600 pieces of equipment who wants to replace it. Having that innovation could cost the business a lot of savings.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Right. Those in that differentiation could be the difference of paying for more or less over time. Anyone else have something to add? Quality products. Tell me more. Tell me more detail about what makes them quality products.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

So higher quality, high-end products. So they're getting good stuff when they're using your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

So the thing I want to uh impress upon you guys is how often are you really telling your customer base about those differentiations?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Every day.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Every day? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

That's a good move, right? But it doesn't sound like it's happening a lot.

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Right? That differentiation, I'll give you an example, and it's off of all this, right? When my wife and I, this is my wonderful wife and daughter, when my wife and I decided to take a vacation, we got a pamphlet that said, Go visit the white sandy beaches and the nice blue ocean. That could be Jersey in certain areas. Very few areas, very few areas, but that could be Jersey, right? So you want me to spend X amount of money to go to Caribbean and just tell me it gets white sandy beaches. Eh, I don't know if it's worth it. That value difference is similar to what we're talking about here with you guys, right? The value that you express could be the differentiation of signing that bigger contract through the sales process or just getting a tire kicker, right? So I impress upon you guys to make sure that as you're speaking to clients, your clients and the people who are also talking to your customer base is expressing that differentiation. Incredibly important.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

So, with that uh tip that I would give all of you a major mistake that most people in sales make is they focus on themselves. Let me tell you about us, let me tell you how great our quality is, how great our service is, all of the great stuff that we do. Unfortunately, that makes you sound just like everybody else. There's very few people out there going, you know what, our stuff kind of sucks. If you run into problems, good luck getting somebody on the phone. There's no way we're ever getting out there and fixing it. What people really care about is can you solve a problem for them? Can you make their life easier? Can you give them less aggravation? Do they feel like you're going to help them fix it and make it as easy as possible? So as you're out there talking to customers, rather than going out and giving a verbal brochure, they can get all of that stuff on the website. Really focus on connecting with them, having good conversations, finding out why they called you out in the first place, what their biggest challenges are, and how you're the best fit to help them fix those problems. And I promise you will look, sound, feel different than 80% of your competition who's out there just trying to sell price. Does that make sense to everybody?

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

It's also read your room. You know, like if you walk into somebody's office and they got Disney's products all over, hey, when's the last time you were at Disney? Then that makes them feel a little bit more comfortable, and hey, this guy really thinks about me and wants to know more about me instead of like, hey, I got this idea that you know exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 21:07

So uh along those lines, three quick rules of business. It it goes to rapport building and but really has to do with all of sales. If anybody disagrees with any of these, let me know. Rule number one, people like to work with people that they like. Rule number two, people like to work with people like themselves. And rule number three, it's really not about what you have, it's not about your product or service, it's about who you know in relationships. Do we all know people who get jobs not because they're the best of what they do, but they've got all the right relationships and know the right people? So a big part of what we really need to focus on, especially, and I hate to do this, and hopefully, people won't throw stuff at me. Good thing the food's not out yet. Um do contractors have a certain reputation out there amongst the general public? So if we were to if we were to play a word association game and I were to say the word contract. What are some of the adjectives that non-contractors might say about contractors?

unknown 22:05

No shows.

SPEAKER_04 22:05

No shows. No shows. What else? Don't keep their commitments. Don't answer their content. Crooks. Don't keep their commitment. Don't answer the phone. And by the way, do we all know contractors who live down to that reputation? Is there a reason why that's out there? So we need to show them right from that first conversation, right from that first connection, that we are different than that stereotype that they're thinking of. And doing that will go a really long way towards helping to win the work and have a great two-way relationship with our clients.

SPEAKER_03 22:40

Okay. So I want to run through a list of things here just to kind of top off the uh the show and top off our session here. And I'm going to kind of breeze through them. If anything strikes you guys, uh raise your hand, we can talk about it. Uh, real quick, people purchased with emotions. That's where Evan and I talk about the pain, right? We really focus on the pain that they're having that you guys come up as the primary focus. You're not selling a product, you're selling the transformation of what you're doing for them, right? So if you go in there selling the product versus what you do for me, totally different conversation. State your price. This is a little deeper. State your price and then shut up.

unknown 23:18

Right?

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Don't say a word because they'll give you their answer pretty quickly. Selling relief is often more powerful than selling the dream. Right? Again, it's kind of playing to the emotion. If you're ignoring from a marketing perspective, if you're ignoring psychology, you're marketing blindly. I guess you guys talked about it in terms of the emotion, a Disney example, the reaching out, having a personal touch. That's an important part of marketing because now you're giving me a feeling that I'm spreading other people. Very important. Don't force demand, find your basic your partners in the in the in the space, right? Evan brought that up again earlier. If you can, if you can know that you're trying to get to a commercial building, but you're working with the architect, or what are the other ones' examples you mentioned?

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Working with the architect, the project manager, the engineers, the folks who are typically the first ones on the job, who will then oftentimes make recommendations of who else that customer should be working with.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

We've all been in that pool. Um, no one really cares about your product. I hate to say that to the product people, but I do care what you do for me with your product. Huge difference. Again, I still like you guys, but you gotta understand if you make my life easier, if I gotta come back, if I don't have these things that's gonna dirty up my my uh my my warehouse had the save us time, save us money, make it longer before we gotta go out and buy new.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

That's what we're really buying.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Real faces. How many times have you guys gotten actual clients speaking on your behalf during your process? Something to think about. There's nothing like a face-to-face, even though he hates looking at my face. There's nothing wrong with a face-to-face to say this guy is really good. I I credit Evan a lot because he gave us one of our biggest years last year, just from me actually listening to him after 14 years and doing what he told me to do.

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Not everybody is as slow a learner as Greg is that.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Right? So that's a very important piece. Um, and so the market isn't saturated. Your information just isn't clear. Okay? Something to think about. If you ever have slow times, if your information isn't super clear, and imagine this who knows the um the goldfish rule? I know you do. You better know it.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

I bet I don't.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Anybody? Most people have the attention span of a goldfish. Or another hat. Anybody know how long that is? Nope.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

30 seconds.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Nope. Good guesses. Nope. Seven. Seven seconds.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

I thought it was three.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

It might have dropped a three. But the point is that imagine your clients really have a three-second attention span to the information you're telling them before they're already off to something else. It's very important to be super clear and super simple. And the final thing I want to bring up here is specificity is not optional, it's essential. That's part of the differentiation. From a marketing perspective, being able to differentiate is incredibly important. And that's one of the first questions we would ask you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you guys do XYZ. What makes you different than the guy at the research right now?

unknown 26:24

Right?

SPEAKER_03 26:25

And if we get him in halls, then we say, okay, then we need to work on that piece and now make sure it spreads among all of your people within your office. Okay? Anyone got any questions? Anybody got any statements? Yes, sir.

unknown 26:35

Can you give an example of that?

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Uh, an example of how to specify?

unknown 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Um a lot of times people will leave with the idea of having been in business for 50 years, right? But we really focus, primarily, we focus on what the pain is. What problem are you having? Maybe I just bought a new building that electricals back in the 1920s, and I don't know that it's a problem.

unknown 27:01

Right?

SPEAKER_03 27:02

So I may research and said, hey, I got this building, but something didn't come up to code, and I need help. You guys understanding and asking the right questions, as you reference, would indicate that. I'm not trying to scare you, but this will not hit code. We want to make sure we take care of you. That's the way of specifying how we're different. Versus, yeah, it'll be three thousand dollars to fix it. Totally different, totally different. Because now I'm leaving with the money.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

And as you're marketing, you know, talk talking from Craig's perspective, the more clearly you can identify what your ideal client looks like. How do you want to position yourself in the marketplace? You can then message that way so that you are attracting the right kind of business and not attracting a ton of calls when only a small percentage of them may actually be what good customers look like for you.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

If they've had bad experiences in the past, I would I would ask that question. What what you you hired electricians or whatever it might be before? What makes me different than them?

SPEAKER_01 28:03

I've had that where somebody's like, hey, what did you not like about this particular XYZ thing?

SPEAKER_03 28:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

It's a very powerful, powerful discussion.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Absolutely. And we've had it before where they said my last marketing agency did XYZ. Okay, what brought that upon them? What happened? We all can't be bad, right? As we said earlier, there's differentiation. What happened? Maybe it was a difference of the understanding and the clarity of what they said they're going to provide and what they gave two different things and cause a disruption. All right, so we're gonna end out the show here. Thank you guys very much. Again, thank you to EAP. Thank you to Colonial, thank you to Milwaukee and go up the little thing to wall. And good luck.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

All right, that was awesome, guys. Are there any questions?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Um 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.