Rebrand And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_02 0:12

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and the co-host. Yeah, I got a little shaken by the new intro there. So if you guys have noticed, uh, we've done so well that we began to rebrand the sales and marketing playbook unleashed. Uh, and we want you guys to keep winning. So we're gonna bring together tons of different experts, our own expert opinion in ways to help you grow your business. Uh, and we promise you'll learn a little something if you pay attention closely. So, to begin, since we're doing the new rebrand, I want to introduce myself, Craig Andrews, with Beholder Agency. We are a growth marketing agency and we help uh clients build their brand, their digital presence, and lead generation with one marketing system built for measurable results. Um, and the importance of that is going to be when our guest comes up, um, you'll hear how all that stuff kind of comes to play. Evan, why don't you introduce yourself and then introduce Patrick when you're ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So, and Craig, absolutely loving the new intro. So, I'll awesome version two is even better and more impactful than version one. Um, for those of you who don't know me, I am Evan Poland, founder of Poland Performance Group. We are a sales consultancy, sales advisory firm, and we are helping companies and professional service firms who are frustrated because the amount of sales and new revenue just isn't coming in to the level that they'll like to see. Oftentimes we're working with a lot of organizations that are really successful but have hit a certain plateau, not quite sure how to get to that next level. And the challenges might be hey, there's certain kinds of prospects we want to get in front of, and we're not getting in front of as many of those kinds of prospects. Our sales cycle is way longer than it should. Our closing percentages isn't what it needs to be, or hey, is the managing partner owner of the business? I'm knocking it out of the park. But I need other people in the company to be more successful, other people in the firm to start participating in that business development work. That's where I come in to help put together a process, help to put together an approach, and then provide your team the skills and provide the accountability to make sure that you are absolutely you're crushing your sales and business development goals.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

So, with that being the case, as we try to promise to everyone uh in terms of what the sales and marketing playbook is, it's the opportunity to spell to explain to them how sales and marketing should work together for success. And a lot of times people put them together. Now, with our new guest, which I'll have Evan introduce, uh, he he does a lot of stuff with Agentic AI. Now, I'm not gonna butcher what he does, okay? I'm gonna let him come to the table and do it. But Evan, why don't you give him the grand intro like you always do,

Patrick On Agentic Growth Advisors

SPEAKER_02 3:01

sir?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Absolutely. I am excited to bring to um brand bring to the show today uh somebody who I've known for a long time, uh Patrick Begley from Agentic Growth Advisors. Um Patrick and I first met 20-some years ago, I promised we weren't talking about AI. Uh that that that was still in movies and still very futuristic. Um, but uh Patrick, I'm really excited to have you on the sales marketing playbook. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about yourself uh and a little bit about your firm?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

You guys, it's great to be here. Thank you for uh for the invitation and for the opportunity to uh to be on the show. And Craig, I love the intro. That was so well done and uh and so professional. So uh that was great. So I started the firm about a year ago called Agentic Growth Advisors. And uh we focus on helping mid-market companies automate cold outreach and a lot of the top-of-funnel sales motions that traditionally keep salespeople away from being with clients and driving revenue. And so we typically will commit to the outcomes that matter to sales leadership in terms of generating new meetings and pipeline growth that ultimately lead to a significant um revenue uptake for our clients. Um, and we do use an agentic platform to do all of that. So we have agents that basically play the role that sellers uh will often play uh in terms of cold outreach and the sales motions that we talk about. So that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

And so before this starts to sound like a complete sales program, which it's not, there is a tie here, I promise you. Go ahead, Evan.

Cutting Through AI Tool Overload

SPEAKER_00 4:53

So um just a question, and then Craig, this is where some of the marketing may tie in a little bit, but there's like hundreds of AI tools coming out every single week. How do business owners, many of which this is you know, kind of new to them, how do they decide, how do they figure out what's worth paying attention to, what they can safely ignore, and at least from a sales and marketing side, what are some of the things that might positively impact your business?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Patrick, you want to take that one first before I jump in?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, no, I I'd be happy to. I mean, I I I think that there's a really big opportunity for for leaders to um suffer FOMO and distraction. I mean, I I've never, I don't know, maybe since the dot-com thing anyway, seen such a surge of energy all directed towards one thing, but it's it's a double-edged sword. And so I feel like leaders need to, this is the most important time for leaders to be very clear um about uh what's important to their customers and what's important to their employees. And I think that that communication has to come from the top down. And you see a lot of organizations developing this like AI manifesto that really I think trumpets the um, it brings to bear and it brings to light the the values that the company already has, but it puts it in context of what are we going to do with AI? And um, I think that that puts a lot of people at ease when they see that from their leadership. Unfortunately, most organizations are not doing that, but the ones that are doing it are I think um getting better engagement with clients and their employees. And um, and I think that's a really important first step in this whole AI journey. So, Craig, I'm not sure if you're seeing the same thing, but I sort of think that top-down messaging is like step one.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

A thousand percent. Um, and and I think you hit the key phrase there is clarity. So, as as the viewers know who've been watching the show and Evan know, for me it's data, data, data. Okay. And so a lot of times what happens is that data can fool you if you're not clear. One. Two, if you're in a position that the the top does not is not sure how they're going to use it and start to run from it, they're going to be in trouble. Let's just be very clear about that. Uh, a report came out recently that spoke about how for the first time in internet history, the bot traffic, not just spam bots, but bot traffic equaled human traffic, which means more people are using AI to get their answers. Okay. So it's it's the fact that it's even is an indication about how important it is to adapt it in small bits as you need to. Nobody's saying you have to jump all in with two feet. But the more you get used to it, the better you're gonna be often from that perspective. Um, Evan, and from the sales side, I know that you uh actually the point I want to make is that what you both also touch on a lot, uh, because obviously I've known Evan forever, is the human side is gonna start to come out more with the AI uh intervention here. So the little details in terms of actually talking to people who've already been kind of prepped through the process is gonna be even more important. Um, Evan, talk a little bit in terms of the the human side of the sales process so we can get back to Patrick and his AI.

Keeping The Human Touch In Sales

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Sure. And I I I yeah, you and I have had, you know, several joint clients over the years. Um, and I think something that we're both finding is people who are naturally uncomfortable having conversations, naturally uncomfortable with the sales process, were hoping that AI would be a cure-all. And they were hoping that it would take them out of the process. And okay, well, my AI will do the lead generation, and then I'll just have them come to the website, and then I'll just have the website ask them a couple of questions, and hopefully they'll become a customer. And I think we've both seen a couple of people who were extremely disappointed when their sales they were starting to spend a lot more money, but their sales results weren't there because they refused to engage with their prospect. They refused to engage with their client. And my belief, and a lot of what I've seen anyway, is that people want to use the AI to do all of the research to identify who it is that they want to talk to. But then it needs to be that human interaction to know that it's a real life person, to know that it's a real company, to make sure that we've got the trust, have the authority. And for companies that are trying to take the human out of it altogether, they're not going to see the result because we still need that interaction. We still need to build that rapport. Even if our website shows all kinds of great stuff, even if we've got all kinds of great content, we ultimately still need to, you know, be able to have that credibility. And that's where that human-to-human interaction comes in. And Patrick, I know that you and I have talked um, yeah, off-camera a little bit. And I know that your philosophy isn't about replacing salespeople. It's really about helping them to spend more time selling and more time in that client interaction. Um, can you talk a little talk about that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, it's interesting. I, Craig, you made this point earlier about data. And I I actually think that um I'm sure both of you see this with mid-market companies sometimes, but I think that one of the things that companies struggle with sometimes is they think they know their ideal client profile. And uh, but they're a little bit misaligned. And with marketing activity, if that's not aligned to ultimately who the target audience is, and if sales are selling to the wrong people, you've got a real sort of uh just a bad calibration amongst all the you know client-facing you know, activities that ultimately are responsible for driving revenue. And so I think one of the things that is a big opportunity for the mid-market, because AI is so democratized, is that as you operate at scale with you know, cold outreach and bots and a lot of the cool things, Craig, that you alluded to, you can ultimately have so much more data to understand who, first of all, has their hand up and needs your services. Yeah. What are those signals out there in the marketplace that agents are so good at recognizing immediately, and they can bring those people into um your sphere so that sellers can ultimately touch them. And um we can then calibrate like between marketing and those initial cold outreaches and like that MQL stage ultimately to who are sellers engaging. And like Evan, to your point, I mean, salespeople are going to become so much more effective if they're talking to the right people who have the need and who um, you know, are more of a qualified type of candidate. And so um, data and agents and all the technology that we talk about are really good to help better align who the ICP ultimately is. And then salespeople spend all of their time talking to people that are qualified and ready to buy and want to develop some type of long-term relationship. So we think about like automating all of those sort of, you know, the cold outreach, um, you know, whether it's through LinkedIn or email or even voice, uh, to help, you know, sellers get in front of the right people. But we sort of operate under the premise, and I just this is from experience and spending so much time with CRM updates and proposals at cold calling during my career. We operate under the premise that sellers should be in front of their clients four or five days a week. And that means, you know, SaaS salespeople, that means, you know, professional services firms and partners, it means solopreneurs. Like there's just no reason to be in front of your computer all day anymore involved in administration. Agents are here to help us with that. And if we've, you know, when you think about like salespeople and the tension that sometimes exists with their leadership, our our interests are aligned. Like leaders benefit if salespeople sell more, and and of course, sellers do too. And so what we're hoping to be able to do is bring leadership and sellers together so that they're in front of clients more often. Uh, and you know, by virtue of that, they're um they're they're with you know qualified prospects and able just to just to close more business in the field, face to face, on their side of the table, doing the things that salespeople like to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Right. And if we're using the technology properly, we're gonna be in front of more qualified prospects, which means that that closing percentage should go through the roof if we're not wasting a lot of our time with prospects that aren't qualified, which brings me to my next question is and Craig, for

Marketing Strategy Beats Faster Content

SPEAKER_00 14:38

you. Yeah, from a marketing standpoint, how has AI changed the way that companies think about marketing, or how should they be thinking about marketing when utilizing you know the AI that had technology that wasn't around a couple years ago?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

So Patrick hit it right on the head, and I don't know if the the audience caught it. The clarification or the calibration with the ICP is majorly important. And I find that a lot of clients have a uh 30,000 mile view of their ICP, but the details of how they think and how they activate and how they search is a little gray uh for them. So an AI agentec agent would virtually be able to push back a little bit, at least my experience with it, push back a little bit. So if I'm saying I'm looking for this type of person and I'm looking for this type of information, it has the ability, assuming how much you give to it, to give you feedback if you're correct or not, right? Based on what it understands. So if I'm thinking that, you know, I serve the mid-market and I want to target plumbers, for example, and I all of a sudden start saying, oh yeah, all plumbers, you know, drive around in Cadillacs and all that stuff and so forth, it might come back and tell me you're you're a little bit off, buddy. Um, and so to be able to have that from a marketing perspective allows you to align, to calibrate properly to who you're talking to, thus bringing all the stuff that Patrick and you talked about a little bit earlier. Patrick, what's your take to that?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, I know I I think that's right, Craig. I mean, I I think that there's um you just think about like all the time and you know, energies wasted when you know marketing thinks, and I I I can't think of a firm I've worked for where marketing and sales were completely on the same page in terms of like who is our customer. I mean, I remember being in like very heated debates with uh with my marketing team at TMF group, you know, all very respectful and you know, thoughtful. But I mean, just at the end of the day, they thought we were selling to a different, you know, constituency. And um, and they and they thought we were selling different services to a different constituency, which is really scary. Like to me, the bigger the firm and the more diverse your service offering or product offering, the more opportunity there is to be completely off the same page with your uh between sales and marketing. And so I think the technology here can really provide that alignment so that you know, marketing and sales are all, you know, kind of um, you know, uh walking to the to the same to the same beat of the same drum.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

And actually, uh along those lines, uh Craig, question uh a question for you or something that I think would be good for you to address uh for the audience that is listening. I I think one of the fallacies that a lot of folks have with the AI when it comes to marketing is that AI just creates content faster. I can I can write write but blogs quicker, I I can just produce more. Why is strategy becoming even more important? And why should you not leave that strategy piece up to the AI? And why do you need to have somebody with the background, with the expertise to actually implement the right strategy for then the AI to be able to take off?

SPEAKER_02 18:00

See, that's why I like this guy, right, Kevin, because he just tossed that up for me perfectly, right? So here's in in part of the change that I spoke about earlier in terms of the bots taking over more. A, people do not want to search around for their answer, they want it immediately. Two, AI is going to be the primary source, it's already beginning to change where the AI overviews or that you search for are going to come up first. So, in the in that with that resolve, the only way you're going to be able to differentiate yourself from the others and to be able to appease the bots that's searching for you is to be able to demonstrate your expertise. So now, if you're in a position where AI is writing all this content for you, it's just the same fluff that anybody can get, you're going to fall away very quickly. They want to know percentages, right? They want to know percentages from your perspective. They want to know what numbers are actually solid that only you can answer, not a robot. Right? So that's one of the reasons why it's difficult because it is a great tool if you understand how to use the tool. But I got news for you. If I decided I wanted to build cabinets and I went to my garage to get the woodwork out, I would not be a carpenter. That's just the truth behind it. So the right strategy with the right ICP, with the right differentiator, differentiator, put the wheel, is is important to make sure you establish before you go into the agentic uh angle. Um, and a lot of times it's quick to write a proposal, it does these wonderful things, but we all have seen, we've all been around long enough to see fads come and go. This is not necessarily a fad. This is going to be a very powerful tool, and it's very important to understand how you're going to govern it to Patrick's perspective earlier.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So, and and Patrick, from your perspective with automation, what are some of the first sales activities that companies should consider automating to help make them more efficient, more effective?

Sales Tasks To Automate First

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, I I think that it's really important, Evan, to um and you're in the thick of this too. I mean, your clients are talking, you know, too, about this all day long, too. But like I I think that there's um it's important to find the right use cases and to not, you know, do all of this at once. Yes. Um, I happen to think that, you know, the if you listen to your sales organization, what they're gonna what they're gonna tell you is that they are most fulfilled and they get the biggest bang for their buck when they're in front of clients. And so what that means is that um if they're obviously uh able to sell more when they're with qualified prospects, which we all know is true, we should be finding ways to automate cold outreach um as quickly as possible. And companies, you know, can can do that at scale today. I mean, there's there's wonderful tools out there. There's companies who have really refined their ICP. They know who they're targeting towards, they know who has their hand up by virtue of the signals that we can measure online. And so, you know, by virtue of that, we can automate that at scale and give our salespeople actually have them walk into the office with meetings popping up on their calendar with qualified prospects. So I think that's one of the first things that will enable outcomes to change. Like, you know, meetings, you know, means if they're qualified meetings, that means more pipeline and of course more sales. So I think that's the first thing that I would um think about. Um, I think the other one is sort of the other uh time consuming activities that fall between cold outreach and closing, which is like proposal generation, solutioning, pricing, finding ways to use sort of CRM as your you know, enterprise. Enterprise sort of orchestration to bring all of those together. HubSpot, Salesforce, a lot of those tools are, you know, some of them are better than others in terms of facilitating that automation. But I think that with a lot of these tools like Claude and Perplexity and some others, there's a lot of companies, I think, taking those sales motions into their own hands and trying to figure out how to do all that in a more sort of DIY kind of way, which is fine too. You know, Craig, to your point, I think it's I think the DIY stuff can be can be really powerful. I think it can also can create some noise and maybe some some challenge because now all of a sudden we're all experts at develop at developing apps, which of course we're not. So I I think that's a double-edged sword too. But I think in the end, Evan, those are the things I would think about in terms of getting the biggest bang for their buffer leadership.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Okay. And and I I I'm so sorry, Craig, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

So so I think this this kind of rounds itself back around to the human touch, right? So in every type of new something that comes out, everybody wants to do it themselves until they realize they're wasting a lot of time trying to figure it out, right? And so this is where the expertise of the three of us come into play because most of us has already been ahead of it, right? Before the DIY actions come across. But it's important to understand the time you're using in the development versus the time you're using to do what whatever your industry is and what you do. Um, and I think that's an important point to sit on top of uh Patrick's statement, um, because there's a lot of time and effort in developing what we perceive as the way to use it. And there's a lot of time in producing what you do every day. And and that's the key part of finding the strategy behind it, finding the the the stuff that we've been doing manually for years as a collective, uh, and finding the right vendor to help you do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah, no, and I I think that part's key. I was on the phone with a client yesterday who was looking to automate things, and all of the steps that he was talking about would have taken longer to set up the automation process than it would have been for him to just actually do it himself. Um, so again, I I I think we need to look at being strategic about it. And I I again being able to look at, okay, what do I innately do? Okay, I I I'm just kind of figuring out this AI stuff. Why would I try to figure it out on my own if there's experts like Patrick out there who can build it five times better in half the time? And if you were look at what your value per hour is, probably it costs you a lot less than doing it yourself. Um, and and people should look at what what Patrick's doing, what these AI companies are doing, like they would hiring an external marketing expert, hiring an external sales consultant. If there's people that have more expertise and can be more effective and can build something better in a shorter period of time, why would I not do that versus doing what I'm currently doing now? Um, so uh Patrick, two two qu two questions before we wrap up.

The Future Is Organized Data

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Um, and and actually Craig, this to you as well. If we were having the same conversation three years from now, what do you think is one thing that we'll look back on and say, I can't believe we ever used to do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Uh wow. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

I I I didn't mean to make you guys think I apologize.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

We typically don't do a lot of deep thinking here, but um you know, I I the best way I would approach that is is that I think because we're so deep into it now, the things that we all right, let me let me let me not answer the question, but answer the question. So Patrick earlier kind of touched upon taking it slow and building, right? And I think that's important because the the damage behind what we're gonna be doing three years from now is gonna be dependent upon our ability to adapt and change in small increments versus large big ones that we're all trying to hurry up and get doing, right? So you have to have the the point in development that you having the failure points in which I tried it, I like it, or I tried it and I didn't really quite like it. Let me make adjustments so that I do like that next step. And then you have to continue to build that per want. So as you look at three years down the line, if we're taking those small increments, that that process will get lost in our mind that we ever even did it. So I'm gonna take a quick story here. I remember the days where we didn't have to wear seat belts, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

And you could sit in the backpack without uh turn facing the other way in the station wagon, all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:03

So now it's a totally it's totally lost. I wouldn't even think about it until you brought that question up, right? I think that's what's gonna happen three years from now. I don't know if that really answered the question, but that's how I feel about it. Uh Patrick, what about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, it's funny. I was talking to someone um on my podcast last week, and she was she's a strategic advisor for CEOs, and she said that the the window that they're looking at into in e-commerce, which is her space, um, in terms of developing strategy has compressed from three to five years to three to five months because uh of the impact that uh AI is having in their space. And so when I think about that, I think that's true, like in most industries right now. I mean, I just came from professional services at Accenture, where I mean that whole business model is just massively disrupted. We're going from this like hourly billing to outcome-based billing. And for a firm that has almost a million people who were participating in that you know, commercial arrangement, um, it's just a massive disruption that we're watching play out across the big four and big firms like IBM and Accenture and others. And um, so like three, it's three years is a really interesting horizon, Evan, because um, and correct, you alluded to this, but like to me, three years now is what 10 years was some time ago. Like it's I can't it's so hard to imagine like what three years, what is that gonna look like? But I I do think that um I I sort of go back to like um I think my response to this question, Evan, is like data. I think it's gonna be I can't believe we had data like so disparate, disorganized, kind of like unstructured all over. Like I I think there's gonna be something something that's gonna help us better organize data in a way that's massively helpful. Like I'm using a tool you guys, I'm sure, are using too called Notion, which I'm just I just started with a few months ago, but I am so blown away by how that's helping me um keep data in one place, but also lending it to AI harnesses so that Claude can go search it and write into Notion and do really cool things to help people organize like themselves, their business, get a view on the market, their customers, like it's all in one place. I I think the answer is gonna be around data management, organization, hygiene, et cetera. I think we're really unorganized now. And I think three years from now, we're gonna look back and be like, holy moly, I can't believe we did it that way.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

And I like that angle. I I agree with that completely, right? Because I think that believe it or not, based on the things that we're doing, we're really not organized as well as we think we are from the information. We're going to so many sources to find the answer, where the new, even the baseline stuff that we're doing from an AI perspective is pulling that right for us. And I'm, you know, I'm able to bounce around. I can technically have two or three computers doing three or four, five, six, seven, eight, ten jobs at one given time. And it's all organized, right? I know exactly where it's at. Um, and then there's less thinking, but it's not less thinking, it's allowing me to be more the strategy side and counter what it's offering, and then it immediately picks it up. So I yeah, I love that angle, Patrick. I think that's that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

That's yeah, and like Craig, when I think about your business like strategy, I I just think that like back to your because I think this whole thing kind of comes together, this whole discussion comes together, sort of like with okay, what then do humans ultimately wind up doing? And I think that all of us become better at at strategy, like because we have the data to better understand our clients, our employees, the people that we care for, our constituency. Now we can make better decisions from a strategic perspective because we have access to that in one place. So I think like with marketing strategy and your business, Craig, like to me, that's a wonderful place. You can provide, like, just there's so much more value all of us can provide as advisors because because we can do more human things. And yeah, there's never been a more important time to develop trust with clients because of all the noise. And if we can help them cut through that, I think that that's a really valuable place for all of us to play, kind of thinking about what we all do for a living.

SPEAKER_02 31:58

I think I think you've cut it, you've cut to the point, Patrick. We love it. We love it. See the listeners, if you're listening, I'm telling you, we're giving you the playbook here. We're giving you the answers. Uh, Evan, do you want to kind of finish

How To Connect And Subscribe

SPEAKER_02 32:10

out for us? Uh, I know we're running a little long.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, no, so uh Patrick, we we really appreciate your time, your insight, you know, everything that you brought to the table. I think that this is just the beginning. Um, and again, it'll it'll be uh, I think fascinating to see what happens over the next two or three years and how we can utilize technology to better free us up to do those things that drive more value for our clients, for our employees, and be able to give up some of those more mundane day-to-day things that are actually sucking our time but not providing as much value. Um, so Patrick, do you want to share with folks how they can get in touch with you if they want to learn more, if they want to learn, you know, how they can make AI work uh for themselves and for their business?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, be happy to, um, Evan. Thank you. Our website is agenticgrowthadvisors.com. We've got content there, podcasts, um, you know, um demos of some of our agents that are in play. But um I I would say that um these these kinds of discussions are the kinds of discussions people seem to want to have. Like, what do I do with AI? How do I think about it? Where do I start? You know, what's the use case? How do you keep people from um like AI is the ultimate tool where it's looking for a nail to hammer sometimes, you know? It's and it's gotta be the other way around for it to work. So we try to help people avoid those kinds of mistakes too. But uh, but this has been wonderful, you guys. Thank you very much for having me. And thanks for the opportunity to be part of the uh the podcast. I'm gonna listen in next time just for the just for the opening. That was interesting.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Uh I like this guy. Awesome. Well, you guys heard it here first, okay? We definitely want to have you guys come back, subscribe. We're on all the major platforms, uh, Apple, uh, Spotify, and etc. Uh, we also are so you can see our wonderful faces on YouTube, uh which we propose these up all the time. Um, and uh LinkedIn. Uh we post the clips on LinkedIn as well. So if you want to follow any of the sales and marketing playbook unleashed on any of the social platforms, we are here for you and we want you to keep winning. That's what the new intro says. Keep winning, right? You're gonna win with information. All right. So for Evan, Craig, and Patrick, thank you, sir, for being here. We'll catch you guys next time. Bye bye now.