Welcome And The Big Question

SPEAKER_02 0:13

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews. There you go, Craig. My partner in crime, Evan Poland. See how I got the little cue there before we got started. I always go the wrong way. You guys know this by now, so just deal with it. Anyway, today we are speaking with a guest of ours who is going to talk about leadership and how the leadership in effects uh works with sales and marketing. But before we get going into that, I'm going to have my partner in crime, who's that way, uh Evan Poland, describe who he is and what he does.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So thanks, Craig. Uh I am Evan Poland. Um I am the owner of Poland Performance Group, and I help organizations where their sales just aren't where they want to be. Oftentimes they've got a steady customer base, but it when it comes to bringing in brand new customers, they have a hard time. Oftentimes I'm hope helping owners, founders, managing partners who are sick and tired of being the only ones bringing in business and they want more of the folks in the firm and the company to develop business. And I also find that people that come to me are frustrated, they're getting used for free consulting, they've got all kinds of expertise that people don't want to pay for, or the sales cycle

Evan’s Sales Process Fixes

SPEAKER_01 1:30

from first conversation to getting a signed contract just takes way too long. They do great work for their clients and just not getting as many referrals. Um so I really help to put together a process to help folks from how do we put together our plan all the way through how do we make sure that somebody doesn't back out once they commit so that we can really grow our business. And Craig, why don't you share with everybody a little bit more about yourself and Beholder Agency?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Absolutely. Uh I'm glad to. So now, in terms of our side of the coin here, uh, Craig Andrews, I am with Beholder Agency. We are a growth marketing agency. And we help our clients who are frustrated with their disconnecting marketing. They have one person who'll do the website, one person who will do their marketing strategy, one person who will do their SEO or pay-per-click. And what we believe is that that disconnected marketing is actually hurting your marketing for your business. So we bring it all together into one plan and one system that allows people to be able to get one consistent concept that is projected out into

Craig On Connected Growth Marketing

SPEAKER_02 2:40

the their audience base. Now, why is that important? This is where our next guest comes into play, is because we're going to speak to our guest, which I'll bring to stage right now. Davy McFadden, how are you today?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. Very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Great. So you saw how I tease that, right? We're teased it into how you're going to become effective here. But before I give them the answer, because we are the playbook, we're giving you the plays to be successful and grow your business. What I want you to do is tell everybody, Davey, who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Thank you so much. My name is Davey

Meet Leadership Coach Davy McFadden

SPEAKER_00 3:15

McFadden. I'm a coach. I help leaders that are concerned about making the right decisions in how they lead their organizations. They're sometimes frustrated with feeling overwhelmed and buried by the constant change. And right now the pace of change is just moving so fast, and leaders are trying to keep up with that change and figure it out for themselves while they're expected to lead the organization through it. So they're often concerned that they're not leading their organizations or showing up as well as they could. So when we work together, leaders get clear on what matters and feel more confident in how they lead.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

I love that. That was very good. I like that a lot. So the key part to there that you guys as our audience should hear is we all deal with frustration, right? And a lot of times what happens is that the leadership has a different message than the employees. And that's

When Culture Conflicts With Brand

SPEAKER_02 4:10

kind of what we're here to talk about today. Um so, Evan, did you have a question that you wanted to uh give Davy?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Sure. So I I guess uh where I'd like to start is uh what are some of the challenges that an organization runs into? Um if there's that disconnect uh between the message, um, if the external brand promise uh doesn't really match uh how employees are treated internally, if that leader, if that owner is conflicted and communicating one message one day, a different message the next day, how does that impact the employees, the morale, and then how can that bleed over in terms of how an organization shows up for their customers?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Wow, there's a lot in there. But the thing that that I hear the most in all of those examples, Evan, is churn. It creates so much churn in the organization and it distracts people from the work that they're actually there to do. So if employees are trying to figure out what exactly is my leader asking? What exactly is my leader wanting me to do, or we were doing this last week and now we're doing this, that's all a distraction from actually getting the work done, which is a distraction from meeting our customers' needs. So the more churn there is happening internally, the less we are delivering the results that we're trying to deliver to our customers. And um, it's all a distraction that employees don't want and leaders don't want. Leaders don't want people working on the wrong things. They don't want to be paying people to do things that are not essential, and team members don't want to be working on the wrong things. They don't want to be told after they've done all this amazing work how it was not what they needed. The other thing that happens is that team members become engaged and they're not doing their best or disengaged, sorry, and they're not doing their best work. So they might deliver that website to the client as an example, or they might have those sales conversations, but maybe they're not closing them. Maybe they're not the quality that we're looking for because they're just exhausted and they're just getting good enough out the door instead of getting great out the door. Um, so sometimes that's the that's the hidden cost, is what people could be delivering versus what they are delivering because of how exhausted they are.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

And I would imagine if it's confusing for the employee, it's gotta be that much more confusing when that's getting out whatever that deliverable is to the client.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Right. Right. Absolutely. If the employee doesn't know what they're they're supposed to be doing, then they're gonna likely give the wrong thing to the customer. And the customer is gonna be frustrated when they have to go back and say, no, that's not what I want. Um, and the customer is less likely to um consider you in the future, you know. So it's it's lost opportunity, it's tremendous lost opportunity that um just kind of builds on itself. It continues to compound and you lose potential talent too. You had asked earlier, Evan, about you know, the different message internally versus externally. Um, there are so many platforms out there now where people are telling the real story of what's happening in organizations. So you can't just have a great website and a great career page and think that your organization is going to get great talent. You have to actually be creating an environment that people want to be in and giving them the motivation and the inspiration. Otherwise, they just go to the glass door or they ping that person that they know that that worked there before. Why did you leave that company? What was really going on? Um, and it's so easy to just ping someone on LinkedIn and uh and get the real deal. Um, so what you're offering your employees has to align with what you're saying you're offering your employees.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

And I would imagine with your services, the the the president owner of the organization can't go to their employees and say, Hey, how am I coming across? Hey, how is my messaging? I I would imagine imagine that may be tough for them to do.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Well, absolutely, absolutely. And there are a lot of ways that we can help them with that. Um, a lot of organizations use engagement surveys. Engagement surveys are great in intention. Um, but how organizations actually use them sometimes is where it gets lost. And similar to what we're talking about here in in um sales and marketing, we want what we're talking about to really be what we deliver. And sometimes those um those engagement surveys, they have great intention and employees give honest feedback and then it just falls apart, like nothing happens with it. So the follow-through is essential and the immediate follow-through. Sometimes we do these massive surveys and it takes six months

Churn Exhaustion And Customer Friction

SPEAKER_00 8:50

to get the data. It's not useful because the world has changed. Um, and we really need to be having more real-time conversations with employees. So that's one of the things that I help leaders to do is to figure out ways that day to day they can constantly be checking in and getting feedback and insights from their team members and um also giving them tools that they can use at an organization level. You know, if you've got a team of 50 people, you can't have the one-on-ones with every single team member all the time. Um, but um, but there are resources and tools that we can use, there are things that we can use, but it's all about the follow-through. What are you going to do with the information that you receive that your employees give you? And if you just hear them, that's great, but hear them and take action.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yeah. And I think that in a in the case of Evan and ourselves, sometimes we have to be the bad guys in the relationship, right? So as advising them from a marketing perspective, advising them from a sales perspective, we have to talk to the leaders of the organization. And sometimes um we have a glass ceiling of how we can get to those leaders depending on the organization. Right. What what do you suggest for, let's say, outside consultants who are talking to the the trying to talk to leadership and trying to get through to them that these certain things are off? How do you get through to them from a leadership uh executive coach perspective?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Relationship. It's all about the relationships, building the connections before you have to have that conversation with them so that there's trust and that they know that the conversation is coming from a place of um uh wanting them to be as successful as possible, wanting their teams and their organizations to be as successful as possible. So everything that you are doing in service to that leader and that organization is building that trust and having that trust before you have that conversation. Coming in right away with a here's everything that's wrong is is uh a good way to not be invited back in.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

So and by the way, from you from your perspective, I would imagine that it's really important for the leader to build trust with their team, with their employees. Do you have some suggestions, some best practices of what leaders can be doing to really build that trust, build that credibility with their internal teams?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Absolutely. It's really matching what they say with what they do. A lot of organizations will create values or you know, whatever it is that is aspirational. And that's great to be aspirational, but it actually has to show

Employer Brand Gets Verified Fast

SPEAKER_00 11:30

up too. It has to show up in those tough moments. So if you have a uh a value of um honoring your commitments and uh you're constantly changing things and not honoring your commitments to your employees, then employees are gonna lose trust. So whatever you say you're gonna do, really following through on that. And one of the ways that I help leaders do that individually is to get really clear on their individual purpose. How do you want to show up as a leader? Um, for some leaders, it's about um it's about leaving a legacy. And so, what kind of legacy do you want to leave? Um, and so every decision day to day ties back to I want to leave a legacy of um uh quality, or I want to leave the leave leave a legacy of empowerment. Okay, well, are the decisions that you are making empowering the people that you are able to lead? Um, so that clarity of your purpose beyond the values that are on the website, uh, the clarity of your purpose helps with making those individual decisions day to day and making sure that you're fulfilling the commitments that you've made to your team. That's where you build the trust.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

What I find interesting about all that we're talking about here, and I know in each one of our different levels, we have the trust conversation, as you mentioned, right? We have to deal with trust online. We have to deal with trust in everything that we're saying for a messaging going out. Uh, I know in Evan's case, because I've been through his training several times, and yes, Evan, I'm still learning. Our best clients are slow learners, so is the the trust factor before you can just jump in there and make the sale, right? They have to be able to trust that you have their best intentions at hand. So, in a lot of cases, you know, for somebody like yourself, Davey, you know, how do you develop the trust when you're approaching a client for the first time?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It's very much about being a listener, you know, really listening to what their needs are and being there to help, um, regardless of whether or not they ever become a client. But I'm I'm always willing to serve. And um my commitment to the person that I'm talking to is that I will help you any way I can, whether that is I can help you as a coach

Surveys Versus Real Time Feedback

SPEAKER_00 13:50

or I can help you find what it is that you need, or maybe it's just a conversation that sparks the inspiration. So um, but the place that I'm always coming from is I want to support and serve you, and how can we do that in a way that's most useful for you? And not having an attachment to what I think that looks like, um, but really being in service to that individual. I find that that's um that feels really in integrity for me. And um, I find that people feel supported, and that's really the foundation of working with a coach is you have to feel that this person is here in your call.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

So I as a follow-up to that, um, because sometimes leaders, owners, they don't know what they don't know. Sometimes, you know, they're this is something that they're doing for the first time. What are some things that those leaders may recognize that's happening in their organization that might let them know, uh-oh, I may have a problem, um, you know, I may have a need for some IT help. What might they be seeing from their employees that might let them know that there's issues that need to be addressed?

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Um, so there are the leading indicators and the lagging indicators. The lagging indicator is attrition. When people are just leaving and you don't know why they're leaving, you probably do know why, you just haven't acknowledged why they're leaving. Um so that's the lagging indicator. I would say the leading indicator is the what are the day-to-day obstacles and challenges? And as a leader, are you really taking a step back and listening to what your team members are saying? So, as an example, I was working with someone recently that she was frustrated because she didn't feel like she had direction. And so she asked, she kept asking her leader, so how should we be doing this? And how should we be doing this? And what's the next step? Um, and he's he's a pretty um uh you know impromptu kind of person. And for him, it's like, oh, well, I just kind of go with the next thing. Well, she requires structure, she requires a plan and a path. And when she has that, she is at her best, and then the innovation and creativity come out. Um, but he wasn't hearing that she needs that foundation of a path forward, and so she's been frustrated for like a month and he has no idea. So it's really listening in those

Earning Trust Before Hard Truths

SPEAKER_00 16:10

conversations and looking for patterns and themes. If you're hearing the same request from your employees over and over and over again, that's an indication that there's something that is not being met that needs to before it turns into attrition down the road.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Wow, that's that's powerful. That's true. Because a lot of people just don't hear it, don't want to hear it, too busy to hear it, whatever the reasoning. Um, that makes a lot of sense. So tell us of kind of uh your best case study that you've worked with a client. What's happened that you've kind of transformed their business?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

That's a great question. Um, well, there is a leader that I worked with early on in my coaching, um, and she was uh working in a large organization and she was um on the path to promotion. But she realized that she was not honoring her commitment to herself because she was working West Coast hours, living on the East Coast, not able to spend time with her family. Evenings were everything other than um what she really wanted to be doing. So she ended up leaving that position. She got the promotion, but she left before it happened. Um she ended up leaving that position, and the role that she went into, she has absolutely thrived. She's built an amazing team, the organization has grown. Um, all of the things have happened once she got really clear on what her priorities were. It's not that she um is not a workhorse, she absolutely is. She works tremendously hard. Um, she puts the time and effort in, but she puts the time and effort in in a way that aligns with who she is and her, the legacy she wants to leave. Um, and now it just makes it just opens things up. And she's creating more within her role, she's creating more leaders who are doing the same thing. So she's not just executing for her clients, absolutely she is. That's table stakes to her. Um, but she's also creating the organization that can sustain this long after she's gone. So she's really creating an environment and culture of sustainability as well.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

So I wanted to touch upon um something you said there, and it's a common phrase among all three of us, to be perfectly honest with you. Um, you said she got very clear. So, what I want to do here is a quick little exercise, and I'll start just to make it clear. Defining in each one of our disciplines what

Purpose Follow Through And Credibility

SPEAKER_02 18:40

clear means. Right? So if you sit back and from a marketing perspective, we'll come in and go, what is your objectives? What are you trying to accomplish? Let's get clear on who you're talking to, let's get clear on what outcome do you want, let's get clear on how we're gonna get there, just as an example. There's obviously many more, but that clarity that we go in and we use very broadly, the people in our audience, the people that we serve and as our clients, sometimes aren't clear. And we have to work through the process of getting clear. I'm gonna give you a little bit of time to answer it, Davy. Evan, I'm gonna jump all over.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Sure, but put me on the spot. Great.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Absolutely. That's what we do with the playbook.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

It's time to hit that home run, baby. So for me, and again, sales and marketing work very closely together. We need to understand who is our ideal client, who can we help? Because if we're talking to the wrong person, nothing else matters. We then need to be able to clearly identify what problems do we solve for our clients. And then finally, we need to be able to articulate and show to our prospect what's the what's in it for them and what value can they expect to see if we're working together and those problems get solved. So if we can get clear in my world, we call it a value proposition statement, but if we can be crystal clear with our value prop, it will be very easy to quickly qualify or disqualify opportunities. And the clients that you work with will be very happy that they're working with you because they'll have a very clear expectation of what they can get and what they should expect if we're working together. Davey, how about for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

There's a lot of there's a lot of consistency and overlap. I think from a leader perspective, getting clear on what it is that you want to accomplish. Absolutely. What do we want to accomplish with our customers? And how do we want to do that through our team? So, you know, we can we can meet our customers' needs and leave our employees feeling devalued and unappreciated, or we can meet our customers' needs with our employees feeling empowered and appreciated. So, what do you want to accomplish and how do you want to get there? And I love that you used value proposition, Evan. In a lot of organizations, they will use the EVP, the employee value proposition. Um, and it's the same thing. What is the deal that you make with your team members so that they are delivering the outcome that you want for your customers and your organization? So, from the leadership perspective, I think it's the what and the how that drives the clarity.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Beautiful. See, for all you guys listening and watching, we just defined it all for you. Okay, so I don't want any excuses when it comes time to perform. So, another point I want to touch upon here, right? We're all experiencing this change in technology, right? Where technology is giving us information that some people are taking to be true or not true. And the point that I want to hit upon here is the importance of humanizing in a space of technology. And I know that from our perspective, again, starting with myself, from our perspective, it's important to understand and have the human touch. And not let the AI or the technology drive your beliefs versus inputting your beliefs into the technology and allowing it to be more efficient. That's how we would use uh AI in our marketing process is that the human touch is the ones who's having the conversation with the ICP in some way, shape, or form to understand how exactly they want to be spoken to. And then we use the AI to make our slides more efficient. Now I'm gonna skip you this time, Evan. I'm gonna skip you this time and go right to Davey

Early Warning Signs Inside Teams

SPEAKER_02 22:30

since we don't want any hard feelings. Um Davy was a good thing. Oh, there's hard feelings.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Well, it's a great question, Craig. And actually, I was thinking about this just this morning. Um, that as a business owner, I use AI, I distinguish AI when it comes to good, good or good enough. Oftentimes when I use AI for some of the efficiencies, it's because good enough is okay. Um, you know, if I just need a quick little image or a quick little edit of something, AI is great and it's good enough. But if I want good, if I want really good that I'm gonna put in front of my clients, I'm probably gonna go to my my marketing team, my social media person, my graphic person. I'm gonna have their eyes on it, or I'm gonna have them build it instead because I really want good. So for me, part of the distinction in how to use AI is what's good versus good enough. And AI can do a lot of amazing things for us, but to really get to good, it needs the human, it needs the human element. We really can't let go of that. And that is where we really get um innovation because AI is not innovating. AI is spitting out what we've already told it. Um, but to have real innovation, we have to have the human element. So for me, I've I've kind of gotten to the place where when I look at the output from AI, I realize my what I'm asking myself, is it good or is it good enough? If it's good enough, great, I can use that. But if I really want good, it requires much more human intervention.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Love it. All right, sir, you're up. So, and from my perspective, one in sales and business development, you need the trust, you need the relationship. So AI is not we're gonna replace that. What AI will help with is volume. Once you've identified your message, if you want to get it out to a lot more people, AI can help create the list. If but again, you need to know what your ideal client profile is. Otherwise, you're spinning. I can't tell you how many messages I get a day. You know, AI generated emails from I I don't know about any of you, but I've got all of these people apparently who want to invest millions of dollars in my business. Um 10, 15, 20, 20 companies a day. Yeah, so you need to identify your ideal client profile, then AI can really help with the volume. AI can also help with some of the research in terms of giving you ideas of where you may need to start the conversation, but then it's gonna need to be the person who's actually having the conversation, having the interaction to understand what the client's needs are. You know, we've you know, a lot of folks have chatbots on the website. And again, if you want concrete answers like what are the hours, do you provide this type of service? It's gonna help for that. In terms of the nuance, do you have the right feel for what's gonna be comfortable for me? I think it's gonna take a very long time, if ever, for AI the AI to be able to work within that nuance.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

I agree. I agree completely. Absolutely. And I wanted to make the point because the the I I've have to research everything, right, with all the changes that's going on very fast. And I'm hearing all these things about the AI replace your marketing team, AI replay your sales team, the AI replace, you know, all that stuff, right? Don't believe it. Don't believe it. Please don't believe it. Because at the end of the day, when that thing potentially fails, in in the based on the expectation, you're coming back to one of us anyway.

unknown 26:09

Right?

SPEAKER_02 26:09

And then you're gonna be able to do that.

A Clarity Story That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_01 26:10

And then it's gonna be a bigger, more expensive problem to fix.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Correct. Because we went down a rabbit hole we shouldn't have gone down in the first place. So I love I love the conversation. Go ahead, Davey.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

I think that's the learning for a lot of leaders, whether um, you know, you're a founder, you're an owner, you're a sales leader, it's recognizing the discernment. So we we want to use technology. Technology is here to, it's a tool for us to do these amazing things. And we have to figure out how to use the tools in the way that's most useful. If we're trying to use a wrench to hammer in a nail, um, it's not gonna go as easy as if we use a hammer, right? Um, but um, determining where do we use the technology and where do we empower our team members to use the technology. That's another challenge that I see often is someone has a really good idea and they know someone and they hire them to do all this work and building the AI app or whatever. And then the employee that's doing the work, fortunately, they've kept the employee who's like, yeah, this doesn't work because so, like you said, Evan, a lot of money spent to go back and fix that thing instead of bringing the team members in at the start. So if an AI is gonna send out all those communications, it should be your team member who is reviewing all of those things, making sure it's going to the right people. Like you said, that it's going to be putting that thought leadership in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

I just had a recent call with a prospect, uh, and they kind of hit me with the I can I can do all the AI stuff, I just need a strategy. Okay. But you're you're having technical issues with your site right now. So the bot that you have is not doing the stuff you need to do. So in a lot of cases, it's us trying to educate clients in terms of what's what's technically wrong so they can be fixed, so you can use those bots down the line. But as it sits right now, it's not working. Right. And that's that's a constant battle that we face in terms of it. But that's a whole other conversation for a whole nother day. Um, so okay, Evan, do you have any other questions? Because I think Davy was awesome today.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yeah, no, Davy, I I think this was awesome. I would just but before we're we're gonna give you in in a minute an opportunity to do a shameless plug in terms of how people can get in touch with you. But but are there two or three tips that you may want to leave with? We have a lot of managing partners with small and mid-sized firms listening, a lot of small business owners. Are there uh two to three tips that you may want to leave them with?

AI Needs Humans Good Versus Good Enough

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah, I think just to reinforce some of the points that you have both done such a great job in bringing out, and one is get clear on what it is that you want to do and how. So, whatever your your business objectives are, how do you want to leverage your team members to do that? And are you really following through on those things? Which is number two, uh, which is really listen deeply to your team members. Um, take some time to step away from the day-to-day one-on-ones and reflect on what you've heard in those conversations. Um, I worked with a leader who was surprised by feedback because I meet with this person pretty much every day. How can they say that we don't have enough conversations about their career? Well, they were talking every day. They weren't talking about what that team member needed every day. So, really listening closely and deeply, and um, then that's gonna that's how your strategy is gonna accelerate and move forward more quickly.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

So I'll do it this time, Evan. Don't worry about it. Sit back and relax. So if you ever want to see our beautiful faces on screen, you can always go to YouTube and watch this episode that we have on YouTube, and you can see it anytime. We're also podcasting this on all the major platforms between Spotify, Apple, and Amazon. Uh Amazon? Amazon music, yes. So um, you can always listen to our podcast, get information, get anything that you want in terms of the playbook because Evan, why? So we've got the answers? We've got the answers. That's the purpose of the playbook. We're bringing guests like Davey to the table so that you guys can hear and see all the little details that we're giving you. Now, does it mean you can just take it and run with it right now? Probably not, but it should get you thinking and churning and understanding in terms of the things that you need to be doing in your business. And that's why Evan and I created the playbook to give you guys an idea in terms of how you want to move forward. With that being said, Davey, I gave you enough time to think about it. Two to three tips that will help uh your uh the audience.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Well, I would say um the the focus on your goal. What is your goal? Get clear on it, um uh how the purpose and how you want to do that through your team members and listening deeply. I would say those are always the two tips that I would give any leader.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

And Dave, if people want to get a hold of you, if they have questions, what what is the best way, what is the easiest way for people to find you?

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Well, I would say LinkedIn and my website are the two

Final Tips Where To Find Davy

SPEAKER_00 31:10

ways. Um, so you can just look for Davy McFadden um on website, my website, or um search on Google. It is KathyDavy McFadden.com. Um, and Davy is D-E-V-I. Um, or find me on LinkedIn and uh send me a DM, I'd be happy to chat.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Awesome. And so for Davy, Craig, and Evan, right direction, like out at this time by the end of the show, uh, we're the playbook. And you know why we're the playbook, Evan? Because we want you to win. We want you to keep winning. That's what we do. All right, y'all. Till next time.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Thank you so much.