SPEAKER_00 0:13

And

Welcome And The Alignment Question

SPEAKER_00 0:14

welcome to the sales and marketing playbook unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and my partner in crime, I verified it before the show, Evan Poland. How are you doing today, Evan?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

I'm doing well. I'm surprised you had to verify that I was your partner in crime, but we can talk about that later. We'll we'll yeah, later we'll talk about who else you're stepping out on me with in terms of other podcasts you might be doing.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Nobody but you, Evan. Me and you, we're together here. We're talking about that. That's actually the theme of the show, right? How can marketing and sales are actually put it up here? You ready? Here we go. Bam! How to know if your sales and marketing is aligned, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So make sure marketing's not screwing things up, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Or sales doing the same thing. That's both scenarios. Um, but I got asked this question not too long ago. How do I know if it's aligned? And so it's not necessarily a hardcore formula, as much as it is to make sure that your system is moving in the way that it should feel. Meaning, um, we both have scenarios where sales and marketing get into arguments, and ultimately at the end of the day, from a marketing perspective, we always think that we're correct because we're doing it based on what we have as an overall goal and process. And we've had situations where the sales side has always created their own stuff and off-brand. Uh, and so we had an episode that we shot not too long ago where we spoke about the promise that marketing is making to the out to the you to the end user and making sure it comes back. Uh, have you had scenarios like that when it comes to a sales perspective?

Systems And Communication Fix Friction

SPEAKER_01 1:41

U Yeah, absolutely. Uh and first two things I think something that people will hear us come back to. A word that you kind of slipped in that I think is going to be really important is system. Um, if you don't have a system, don't have a process, it's going to be next to impossible to know whether or not your sales and marketing is working, whether or not your sales and marketing is aligned. If something's broken, what what needs to be done to fix it? But yeah, and I think a lot of it comes back to communication because oftentimes sales is creating their own materials because they don't feel like the materials that they're getting from marketing is representing what they need or is filling what the clients are asking for. And again, it goes back to that alignment, that communication. If sales and marketing aren't on the same page, if the president, CEO, owner isn't leading things to ensure that everybody's going in the wrong direction, that's when you have everybody going out creating their own stuff. That's when you have just random acts of marketing, random acts of trying to sell, not getting the results that you want to get, and that finger pointing going back and forth.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

That's right. And so all of this kind of comes into one of the episodes that we had in the past, uh, the relationship episode, right? Where we talked

Dating Marriage And Brand Expectations

SPEAKER_00 2:57

about, you know, how marketing and dating and all sales and all that stuff works together. So funny enough, I said I found a post the other day which says, Sales is like a one-night stand, marketing is dating, and branding is marriage. So what's interesting about that is I posed that to my wonderful wife, and she goes, Of course, you have that all wrong, Greg. I said, Of course, yes, hon, you're right. I do have it wrong. How do I have it wrong, hon? And she said, the thing that you're missing in that statement is that sales is actually the marriage. And I said, Okay, how are you getting there? And she goes, That's the binding agreement.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

That's right, that's the commitment.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

That's the commitment.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

That the contract is putting a ring on it.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Put a ring on it, you know. We all saw the Beyonce thing, right? So absolutely. Put a ring on it. Is the commitment.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Should we recreate the Beyonce thing for our RDAZM?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

You want to? Go ahead. Let's go. Anyway. Um, so if that's the case, if you agree with her, which is I'm wrong a lot with her. Anyway, we'll go back to another time. I I've heard sales is the marriage. What do you consider the marketing?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

So, and I I would say that the marketing is the even the pre-dating is the going out there again, yeah, going back to that episode, getting the profile out there to see kind of what you're pulling. To then figure out, yeah, who you want to have that those first conversations with, who you want to have that first or second date with. But the marketing is finding the pool of candidates. Right. That that that potential dating pool.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

And so then to conclude that, then I would say the brand is more along the lines of kind of what you like, right? So from a branding perspective, we already have preconceived notions of who we want, who we like, who we want to be around. And the brand is out there to kind of put out that message in terms of this is who I am, this is what I represent.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Right. And I would say the the brand is what other people think of you when they first meet you.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

That's right. That's correct. Because you can have some bad first impressions, right? That's very easy. So when we're talking in the the function of alignment, right, making sure that those three are in alignment is very important.

Ideal Client Profile And Right Deals

SPEAKER_00 5:08

So when you have a scenario talking, uh trying to kind of transition here into the ICP, the ideal client profile, imagine a scenario where you sign the deal, you're right, you did the Beyonce game, but then all of a sudden that wasn't the right deal, right? So talk a little bit in terms of the ICP and the right deal and how all that works together.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So there's a lot of things that go into that formula of making sure that we've got the right ICP and making sure that we're closing the right deals. We need to look at when the deal is closed. Has the client received what they thought they were getting? And do they see value in what they've gotten once they've made that commitment? So that's something that you need. And again, that's gonna be really important if you want good reviews, if you want referrals, you want introductions. That's only gonna happen if the client is happy, and the client's only gonna be happy if the solution is aligned with what the client's needs are. The other thing internally that I think doesn't come up enough in the conversations about sales and marketing is was that customer good for the organization? Yeah, I've worked with a number of organizations, they're doing a bang up job with sales, but they're losing money every time they close a deal because the client's not profitable. It's either you know costing way too much for the goods in terms of what they're getting in return, for service industries, a law firm, accounting firm charging on a flat fee, and then it taking twice as many hours as they thought to keep up with what they promised, it wasn't priced in the right way. So now they've got these clients, but rather than maybe their target is $150, $250 an hour in profit, now it's like $30 or $40 an hour, and that can be really difficult to get out of. Um, and oftentimes the client doesn't really want to hear it. Uh if they've if they've agreed to a certain fee, uh, and then we're going back later, and that that can be a tricky conversation. So with the marriage, it needs to be good from the client perspective so that they will continue to stay clients, so that they will refer us, so that they will give us good reviews, but it also needs to be good from the firm's perspective, from the company's perspective, because it doesn't do many of us very good to have unprofitable clients.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And so when I mentioned earlier in terms of the promise, um, and and you cut upon it of very much from a sales perspective, but if you reverse engineer the the end consumer, client, customer, however you phrase them, if you reverse engineer that to understand what made them tick and make them a good client, now you can adjust your brand, you can adjust your concepts to make sure that as you make a promise out there to the public, however it be social media, website, whatever it might be, emails, now when you're going to have a better chance of bringing in the appropriate client that you're trying to look for when you're marketing. So we really do put out in terms of what we believe is the correct. But the thing that most people fail to understand is that it's never said and forget it. You know, I've said it before, marketing is an art and a science. And it's very important to constantly look back at the data and understand what made this work. And a lot of times we go, woo-hoo, somebody contacted me. There's a lead. Yeah, we're super excited. And then they work the guy and they go, I couldn't stand him. I couldn't stand the guy, right? And so a lot of times you have to look back from your marketing and say, What am I, what am I promising that brought this person or this company or whomever in the door? And because if it happens enough times, it's it's probably your marketing. It's probably your marketing needs to be adjusted. Uh, you're like to your point, the sales is killing it, doing a great job of it. They're closing, but are you bringing the right people in? Is part of the marketing message, the marshmallow marketing story. And that's important to make sure you've nailed down and not just I worked with big names. Sometimes working with big names is the a blessing and a curse because there's expectations that comes with working with those big, big, big organizations, which is great for the bottom line. But if you can't fulfill the promise, if you don't deliver in time, those lead to the bad experiences that you referenced before in terms of reviews and things like that, which has a much, much bigger pull today than it did ever before. Um, so if you have bad reviews and they go out there from a marketing perspective, the world sees it. And so it's very important to make sure that the promise you make is the promise you deliver, and then you make sure you close it based off of that promise. And then the key part that we all miss is how do you go back to them and make them, as you say, your evangelist. You want to talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah,

Post Sale Value And Client Evangelists

SPEAKER_01 10:01

it's closing the deal is just the beginning. If you want to have a good long-term sustainable business, if you want to work smart and not just work hard, you need to make sure that after the customer pays you, they feel like they're getting great value for the service that you're providing, for the product that you're giving them, that they really like working with you. So that one, they continue working with you. And again, in the service industries, good law firms, accounting firms are keeping their clients 10, 15 plus years. Yeah. Yeah. If it's a product that you that you're selling that doesn't last forever, hopefully they're coming back over and over again to purchase more of the product. They're telling their family, they're telling their friends about it. And that's only going to happen if you fulfill the promise. And then I think the other thing that I think a lot of companies forget is they get complacent and they don't continue to go back and survey what they're doing. And my guess is for most of you listening to us right now, your service or product today is not exactly the same as it was five years ago. You will you evolve, you change based on what you see works best, based on what the market is asking for. But if your messaging and your branding and your marketing isn't reflecting the changes, people are gonna have unhappy surprises because they're going to expect one thing, and now you're doing something completely different. So this is not a one size fits all, a set it and forget it, but it needs to be an ongoing conversation, continuing to go back and re-look at what are we promising? What are our clients getting? Are we delivering on what that promise is and making tweaks where it's appropriate?

SPEAKER_00 11:52

And

Keep Promises Updated With Data

SPEAKER_00 11:53

so part of Evan and I have worked together for so many years, so many years, so many years.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

But that's all good stuff back when I had hair.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

And so uh we've we've created a product here in terms of the revenue cookbook that allowed his world and my world to come together. And all the stuff that we referenced to you guys before through this episode is about alignment. And so when you have the revenue goal, which is obviously the goal from the sales perspective, incorporated into the marketing, you're gonna have an alignment that happens. And it's very easy to see what leads we're getting in the pipeline in terms of what's closing and not closing and that stuff, where traditionally people look at a CRM. Uh, CRM is just more kind of just real how the relationship with the client works out for the most part. Yes, there's there's things in there in terms of pipeline and so forth, but we developed this program called the Revenue Cookbook. Uh Evan, why don't you give them a view or take from your perspective in terms of what the revenue cookbook does for clients?

The Revenue Cookbook Planning Framework

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Sure. And then I think we'll be able to tie it back to marketing a little bit as well. But the revenue cookbook is essentially having a written plan for the business that you want to develop. Unfortunately, both Craig and I will see that clients will come in, prospective clients will come in with a big goal. I want to do $5 million in revenue, I want to do $10 million in revenue, I want to do a million dollars in revenue, and not really understand what that means. How many clients need to close? Yeah, what percentage of my business should be coming from small clients, from mid-sized clients, from large clients. What is my closing percentage to know how many quotes or final meetings we need to have? What percentage of my first meetings turn into qualified prospects where they're getting a quote, they're getting a proposal, how many contacts, how many conversations do we need to have to even get that number of first meetings? So, what we've done is really broken it down for you so that you can plug in based on your own data, what is a small client worth, what is a mid-size client worth, what is a large client worth. Based on how your firm or your business is constituted, what percentage of your business do you want coming from each? Craig, you just referenced before. Sometimes people will like, bring me the large clients, bring me the large clients. Well, guess what? If 75% of your revenue is coming from one client, your business is at severe risk. That's right. You may also not be able to service too many really large clients. So, what does that client mix need to look like? And then how many opportunities do we need to be in front of? And then between the sales and the marketing, what is the plan going to be to have enough touches with enough potential clients to hit the goal? Once you do that, Craig, going back to three of your favorite words, data, data, data, we can now track the marketing that we're doing. That's right. Is that getting us in front of enough leads? Are we converting a high enough percentage? And if we're tracking this on a regular basis, after a month, we can figure out wait a second, these numbers are off. Are we not getting in front of enough opportunities? Do we need to touch something in the marketing? Are we not closing a high enough percentage? Do we need to look at the sales? It's tough to do that if you don't know your numbers and you're not tracking the data.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

That's correct. That's correct. And the thing I like about it from the marketing perspective is it forces communication. It forces communication with all involved with the sales and the marketing. To your point, it'll say, hey, how many opportunities or how many marketing opportunities have we really been into? Right? It's not just the SEO, it's not just the emails, it's also the manpower of being on the street and creating relationships. So also, so by being on the street and creating relationships, you're going to hear feedback from what you're talking about and have people go, yeah, but why would I do that? Why wouldn't I just do this? Okay, go back to marketing, give them that feedback, give them the indication of what's happening so we can refine the message that'll help us get back into better prospects. I think also from the cookbook perspective, what it does do is it allows us to say, let's think out for a year about the type of number of clients we want to get, as you referenced. Not all clients are good clients. And so when I put this in front of my clients, A, I'm absolutely amazed at how many go, uh, I don't know what the average price of my customers are for the year. Okay, let's start there. You have historical data that tells you what you've sold thus far. I've had so many conversations where they go, just just kind of put something in. I said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that because we're trying to create the alignment between sales and marketing in addition to the ROI that you're getting from your sales and marketing process. And this software does a great job of bringing that to the forefront.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

So, and one other thing that you should all be doing, this software is a great tracking software and to keep you on track, whether in your CRM or somewhere else, you should also be tracking all of the business that is closing. How did we get in front of those opportunities? What market act the what marketing activities, sales activities, what combination got us in front of them? All of the things, opportunities that didn't close. Is there a common theme? Is there something we're doing? Maybe geez, you know, everything coming into Facebook isn't qualified. Okay, if we're doing Facebook ads, then maybe we need to change those up because obviously something's not working there. But I'm a big believer in working smart, not working hard. The better you're tracking all of these things, the more systematic that you can be, which is going to lead you to being more successful. And quite frankly, you typically not having to work as hard to get there.

Client Mix Risks Rabbits Deer Elephants

SPEAKER_00 17:40

That's right. And you'll be amazed through the software at how much, depending on your revenue goal, obviously, how much work you can actually get through that what we call the deer stage versus the elephant stage. It's always seems like it's easier and smarter to go after the big guy. Uh, but there's also, tell me, Evan, there's also downsides of working with the small guy, right? Which is the rabbits on our on our stage. Uh, tell us a little bit about the downside of working with the small guys, which we call the rabbits.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Sure. So a major challenge with working with a lot of small clients is that you need a ton of them to be able to hit your revenue goals. And it can be a lot of work to provide customer service, to close the deal. And if you're only working with really, really small clients, then you're gonna be running around, you're gonna be constantly busy. Sometimes I find that those really small clients will arm wrestle you over every penny. That's right. And sometimes take even longer to close because of that, versus the mid-size and larger clients. So that's why we need to be balanced. Okay, what percentage of my business do I want coming from the small clients? And those really small clients, do I want to do proactive things and spend time and effort to go after them? Or do I want a shopping cart on my website or something that's just really, really easy that doesn't take a lot of human interaction for those people to just buy without spending a lot of time selling them and servicing them versus how I might approach those larger opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And so I want to revisit this the topic, right? So alignment. Alignment's a tricky word. Alignment's also by perspective. But what we want to do is give you guys tools and knowledge in terms of understanding what true alignment means. So Evan kind of alluded to it a little earlier in terms of post-sell, which is just the beginning, right? But I want to now jump to pre. If you're

Brand Story And Whats In It For Me

SPEAKER_00 19:36

I'm I'm a big fan in having a brand story. I think that we are all uh built and constructed to listen deeper into stories versus just give me data and facts. So it's very important to be able to, prior to jumping too deep into explaining your features and benefits, is what's your brand purpose? What's the purpose of you being in existence? What pains, big part, what pains of mine are you solving that I even care to even look you look for you? And that is really the bread and butter that a lot of clients that I've run into don't know what pains. They'll say, Well, you know, I need a lawyer. You need an employment lawyer, do you need a real estate attorney? Like what get more detail? And if you can kind of um, and I learned this from Evan's training, right? If you can kind of get to the position where you can kind of niche down to be very specific and clear about what you offer and who you offer it for and the problems you solve, not the features and benefits of your business, but the problems you solve, you have a greater chance of finding the right client that's in that dear range of the middle range, who is specifically that you're going to give them a better experience because you fixed their problem. You use a great analogy, which we can all understand in your training, in which you sit back and you say, if you dropped your cell phone off the top level of them all and it broke, what would be the first thing that you would do? And I use that all the time. They go, Well, I gotta get my phone fixed. Correct. That's a pain, right? So go ahead, Evan. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

So that the the other the other way that I like to position this, um, and Craig, you've heard me say this a hundred times before. The number one most listened to radio station in the country is W I I F M. It stands for what's in it for me. If you can have your potential client see the what's in it for them for working with you or buying your product, they are going to become a client. If they can't see the what's in it for them, they're gonna pass, they're gonna go on to the next one. So we really need to look at things. I just did a training yesterday, and we talked about really looking through the client's eyes and from the client's perception, what perceived value do they see? Yeah, if they see perceived value, they're gonna become a client. If they don't perceive that value, they're not gonna become a client. Or again, it's gonna go down to an negotiation down to the penny and okay, well if you offer it the cheapest, well I see you as a commodity and maybe maybe I'll buy it if it's the cheapest. But that's not gonna not gonna how you're gonna bring in your best clients.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

And to that point, that's how you balance between that rabbit and the deer stage andor the deer to the elephant stage. Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Right and just for people who are listening to us for the first time, the the animal sizes, what what we're talking about is revenue to us for a client. So a rabbit is a small little client you may identify for your business it's under $500 under $1,000 under $500,000, but those are your smallest clients by revenue. Deer are your mid-size client your bread and butter if you could identify the ideal product or service you're selling at the ideal price that would be your deer size client. Elephants are those really large clients it's not by brand name I could have the big I could have Disney as a customer. If Disney only buys one small little thing for me they are a rabbit customer so that elephant is in excess of one amount of revenue is your biggest client. And that's what we're looking at with these kind of animal analogies is revenue to you and identifying small, midsized and large clients.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And it's it's amazing when we speak about that in our in our kind of onboarding meetings because we we make sure we use this as right very beginning. So we have an idea of where they are and where they want to be which is a very important part of the marketing process um because marketing can be seen very tactical. I put out X number of social posts I put out X number of blogs and you know so forth the work was done. But what's important for us from a marketing perspective is how is it tied to the revenue. And so that's why we start with it in the very beginning. And we have that funding analogy.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Because Craig how much do people get paid for a visit to the website?

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Me not a lot so so so most of us again are not getting paid by the website visit by the conversation by the retweet yeah we're getting paid ultimately when they become a customer that's right that's right and that's very important to understand. So

Clear Signs You Are Truly Aligned

SPEAKER_00 24:17

to kind of round out here when we're talking about the um alignment between sales and marketing I think I would hope that you guys what you got out of this is that it's it's a multiple number of things but the I think the overall viewpoint is is that the communication among sales and marketing needs to happen on a regular basis. Your partners in crime you guys whether you know it or not the marketing and the sales combined is a major platform for growing your business period hands down nothing else. If you're not marketing they don't know you exist and if you're not selling and closing you're not growing. So at the end of the day it's very important that those two arms of your business yes the operation is important yes the finance part important yes the staffing and all that stuff's important but if you're trying to grow I've never seen anybody tell me if I'm wrong who's grown their business without making money yeah no they they they end up working very very hard but their business isn't growing their revenue's not growing and at the end of the day they're not very happy. So what

Free Trial Offer And How To Use It

SPEAKER_00 25:19

we're offering you guys is a free 14 day trial for the revenue cookbook. Sorry it's broken up there uh but it's the revenue-cookbook.com uh in which you can get a 14-day free trial you can plug in your own numbers you can work it like you owned it uh and get a good idea in terms of those rabbit deer and elephant that Evan explained uh and it's also a great opportunity to have your sales team on it so one of the things that Evan suggested as we were working through building it was how do they stay accountable for the for the closing and the the work that they're doing. So in there as well is an opportunity to add employees and sit and to say hey on this day we had X number of activities that led to X number of closings and so forth. And it'll do the auto calculations for you. It's a great tool and we highly suggest it. Evan so to round out the show I'll give three and you give three in terms of the alignment I'll start to give you a little time to think about I was going to say that's pressure. One you know you're in alignment if you're communicating with your with your marketing I'm sorry sales team uh in terms of how it's working on the field. Two you have of course I love it data data data you must know the data and understand the data and re reuse the data in a way to your advantage and three you know you're in alignment because you'll all of a sudden the whole thing will seem easier. The whole process of closing will seem easier because you'll draw in the right number the right people you'll draw in the people who are who already are the pains are they're asking you can you fix my problem if the marketing's working well and three you're in a position that when the marketing's working well the closing would appear to be easier but I'll let I'll let the sales guy speak to that.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

So and from my perspective I think there's three ways that you know that you're in alignment first and this sounds simple but most organizations aren't doing it there is a plan in writing that sales and marketing have both signed off on to ensure that we're on the same page right from the very beginning two the closing percentage is increasing so that that way we know that more of the right kinds of leads are coming in and the salespeople are doing a good job closing those leads. And then three what we're finding is the clients that we have are profitable. Again we're just not churning revenue but it's a profitable business we're coming in that means that we know that our message is getting out there people are seeing value and as an organization we're able to make money and be profitable so that we can continue to stay in business to service our clients love it love it.

Subscribe Follow And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 27:57

So what I would offer everyone is if you're in a position that you've heard anything here that sounds remotely important to you or sounds good to you or you learned anything from it by all means please please please please please please I can't say it anymore make sure that you're in a position that you like subscribe to our channel uh is the uh sales and marketing playbook unleashed.com is the website um in addition to Evan what's I always forget what podcasts we're on we're on so many can you remind me of a clip absolutely so I know that we're on Spotify Apple uh we've got a YouTube channel so you can go and find us on YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Uh on LinkedIn you'll see clips of our podcast every day. So go on there'll be the link to be able to listen to the full episodes you can also follow us on LinkedIn comment like make suggestions of things that you would like to see on future episodes.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

And if you are interested in being a guest by all means we're going to uh actually have a form on our website uh s uh smplaybookunleash.com say that's one of those I put it up on the screen um but we'll have a a form on there if you're interested in being a guest um it's very important if you have questions by all means evan and I are both available through the through the LinkedIn posts and all that fun stuff as well uh and ask us questions we ain't as scared of you we know exactly we know how to win we want to keep you winning and that's what we do here at the playbook so I'm Evan I'm sorry Jesus I'm Craig Craig that's Evan I'll get it right one day Evan uh and we'll see you guys next time keep winning