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Speaker 2 (00:00)
All right, welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. I am Gershon Margolis. I’m the founder of Imperial Advisory. We are a fractional CFO firm. So we’re a team of CFOs and we go into businesses. Larger businesses, we work for the CFO, usually something relating to giving them extra bandwidth. And smaller businesses, we work as the CFO. So kind of taking the CFO role.
off of the CEO’s or owner’s plate.
When we get involved with the business, there’s, there’s a variety of things we do. Our people on our team, again, we’re usually going in either as or working for the CFO. it’s financially focused, but we get involved in all sorts of other things through our finance work. So for example, we do, we work on a budget with a client. Well, part of the budget is part of the conversation around the budget is what’s your sales forecast?
because if we want to know how much revenue they’re going to have, we don’t want to just say, well, last year it was 10%, this last year it was 10 million, this year it will be 12 million, or last year was 100, this year it’ll be 105 or 150 based on what. So we end up getting in these conversations with clients about how are you going to control growth? And, you know, we get involved, sometimes people is the bottleneck, sometimes sales is the bottleneck. There’s a variety of different things that can come up, but we always like to…
including our education and our educational series here, our webinar series, we like to include other things that are going to be really important for helping our clients and our network achieve their goals and aspirations. So that’s kind of the reason why we have Tyler here today. I’ll talk more about Tyler in a minute, but it’s going to be a, let’s call it sales growth oriented webinar. I just want to take a moment to
welcome Dean from our team who is here. Always good to have you. We have someone else whose picture I can’t see. ⁓ We also have Brittany. Thank you, Brittany, for helping put this together. And thank you, Dean, for finding Tyler, actually. So besides for coming, you also helped find the speaker. So I’m very much looking forward. So anyway, Tyler actually, believe it or not, used to work at a fractional CFO firm. That’s fun fact. But besides for that fun fact, today,
He is a sales coach and I have experience with his system a little bit, because I read another book by the guy who designed Outgrow. So it’s a sales approach. I’m sure we’ll hear more about, about sales and sales growth from Tyler, but anyway, Tyler has been involved in sales for quite a while. And like I said, he is a sales coach and we’re so excited to have him here. Tyler, would you introduce yourself and then.
Teach us some good stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:05)
Absolutely. Thank you for the invite. And yes, Dean, I appreciate you coming to my life about a few months ago. That was a fantastic ⁓ collision of just meeting another awesome human. So thank you. ⁓ I do have a little bit of about me in one of my slides. So we’ll get to that in a second. But hello, everybody. Thanks for joining this morning. I’m going to share my screen now. Just hopefully everyone can see it. Did that come up Gershon?
Speaker 2 (03:34)
All I see is outgrow a predictable revenue for revenue growth.
Speaker 1 (03:40)
Yep. Awesome. Okay. So let me get into it and then I’ll introduce myself. So for today, what you’re going to learn is why most organizations are totally reactive and how to immediately stand out from competition. Why two thirds of your revenue growth starts with your mindset and why don’t you don’t need to add complexity, pressure tactics or friction onto your customers or prospects.
and then how to infuse something called confidence, optimism, positivity and enthusiasm into your entire customer facing culture to sustain repeatable behaviors that generate revenue. So as the introduction and the LinkedIn post said, this is about how to turn all of your customer facing people into revenue drivers. So a lot of this will be covered here today.
And I really would love any interaction. prefer people to start, just interrupt me, ask a question. I prefer that rather than a chat. I will not bite. So feel free if you’re scratching your head, if you need some clarity, just ask, please.
This is me way back when I had hair. ⁓ I am a Outgrow certified advisor. My name is Tyler Nicolets. I focus on growing mindsets and growing revenue. I have entrepreneurial roots. I see my dad has joined the call here. I can thank him for growing up in a home that has an appreciation for the SME business owner operator. I’ve been in business development sales for a while as Gershon said.
It’s 28 years and counting as of this year, very fortunate for my background. And that includes some marketing stuff, some client relations stuff, leading myself, leading teams, very fortunate for the background I have been involved with public, private and startup. As Dean mentioned, work for another fractional CFO company. That is a company that I helped start up and scale up a few years back.
I’m an industry agnostic person, very fortunate again from my background with many different business models and industries. have a lot of depth in. am a previous, regardless of being an owner today in my twenties, ⁓ my first failure happened ⁓ and I’ve learned from it. And if anybody knows John Maxwell, I look at it now as a failing forward exercise, which took me many years to get over.
so I can relate to anybody that’s gone through that hardship and mental fitness coach and thinking partner so I take my years of experience in sport and business and ⁓ Integrate it into my outgrow practice and integrate it into just helping any human under any personal professional title Still good on the screen Gershon All right, so quickly I’ll go a little bit into outgrow ⁓
Speaker 2 (06:45)
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52)
I’m happy Gershon talked about knowing about the practice. The gentleman we have to thank for Outgrow is Alex Goldfein. He’s on the right. So this book called Outgrow was released on April 8th. ⁓ It is now number two on the planet behind the top of habits in the business book category. So his background is a sales consultant for many, many years.
He built this model on over 400 companies and proved it for over 20 years straight. And every business that ran on outgrow achieved 15 to 30 % predictable annual revenue growth. He’s an author of seven books, besides what you’re seeing on the screen. And three of them are Wall Street Journal bestsellers.
I do not have that ⁓ writing and book credibility behind me, but I’m very fortunate to have the depth in the business development sales experience. I said, ⁓ Alex is just a gift, I think to some of what Gershon was talking about with predictability and sales and revenue growth for small to medium sized companies.
Here is the compilation of Outgrow. These four books. Take a screenshot if you’d like.
Three of these have become Wall Street Journal bestsellers. I can see the three on the right. Pick up the phone and sell is his latest one before outgrow.
And Outgrow, believe it or not, I’m not here to train you how to do sales. It’s about the knowing versus the doing and doing what you know. And what I mean by that is simplifying the sales process for everybody beyond just the sales department to contribute.
And one thing that’s near and dear to my heart that resonates with me is the three simple truths about revenue growth. And that is phone calls are more effective than emails.
Would anyone disagree?
Thumbs up if you agree.
Referrals are the best way to get new business. Again, disagree or thumbs up if you agree.
Speaker 2 (09:31)
Quick question.
Speaker 1 (09:33)
Yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (09:34)
So referrals are very good. And a lot of our business is built on referrals. But what I’ve found is if you find somebody not through a referral, often they’re not talking to multiple people. A lot of people who refer will refer to three people at once as a matter of policy. So referral is like a higher quality intro, but in some ways.
Couldn’t other things be really powerful? More powerful perhaps?
Speaker 1 (10:07)
For sure, sorry, I want to be clear, what’s your question?
Speaker 2 (10:12)
think I’m interrupting too soon. We’ll talk about this later. don’t want to derail this. are amazing. I love Rappers.
Speaker 1 (10:20)
They are, yes sir. There’s a way to ask for them too. ⁓ And you cannot communicate less and sell more. Again, thumbs up.
Alright, let’s move along. If we know these things, all these three, why don’t we do them?
What stands in our way?
Beer. At the heart of it all.
Fear is the precursor to our procrastination, asking people how we can help them more, asking for the business and so forth. It’s okay. I have it and I’ve been in this profession for almost three decades. It shows up with me every day.
What are we fearful of? We’re fearful of rejection. It is not the easiest thing to hear no in our ear hole. I’ve had that again my entire life. Whether it’s at the grade eight dance when you ask your girl to, like the girl that you have a crush on to go dance and she says no or vice versa.
It is in the sales profession. It’s all through our life and it’s a very difficult thing for us to live with. It’s the strongest emotion and sales is a rejection profession. Boil it all down. The best, most successful salespeople get the most nose.
That’s ⁓ that’s as lived experience sharing it with you early on. don’t know it when you’re starting in this world. You don’t know it if you’re a non-traditional salesperson, like we’ll talk a little bit about today, but it is a rejection profession and that’s okay. We just need to have people put in the effort and be okay with hearing no. That’s a difficult thing to do, which is why
Most of revenue growth work is two thirds mindset. So with respect to going back to just even my own experience, resetting every day, no matter what, if I’m leading myself or leading teams, making sure that I’m showing up with a mindset that will serve me and serve others is a constant thing that you need to develop and work on.
And when you show up, or sorry, when you show up consistently with a mindset of serving and helping, you grow confidence, you grow optimism, you grow positivity and you grow enthusiasm. Right here on this screen is at the heart of outgrow. Regardless of my CFO friends on this call that want to see those, the data.
and the predictability and the revenue growth and meeting budgets and exceeding budgets. Those are all fantastic things. Within our minds, when we develop these four critical components, you and others can show up consistently. This fades in a day. This fades in a week. Sustaining this over time is one of the most challenging things for us to do as human beings.
especially in the rejection profession. When we can develop this and maintain this type of mindset, we will show up with more gratitude, we’ll be happier, we’ll persevere, and we’ll be more bold.
and bold in a way, we’re just going to be able to be confident what it is we’re doing and what it is we’re offering. And this takes time.
Helping to reduce the fear, COPA help with. When the fear goes away, we can get people to systematically communicate with customers and prospects when nothing is wrong, repeatedly, systematically, every day.
The starting position of all customers is they want to be helped. If we know that at the root, why can’t we lead that way? What I’m focused on today is your friendlies. So whatever business you’re in, think about the people that already know you or you know them.
So I’m not focused on cold calling here, which is a part of business. It is the most difficult way to grow business. I’m focusing on the friendlies and most of who you’re dealing with and past prospects, past customers, the starting position is they want to be helped.
Questions so far? I know everyone’s a little quiet. I don’t want to rush through without giving a moment. And again, feel free to interrupt me.
Speaker 2 (15:53)
Question. Does the idea that people want to be helped have an application? Is that like a primary thing when you think about cold calling?
Meaning, can you approach that with the same mindset or does that this mindset of go help the people you know, does that does that type of thing translated into cold calling or not necessarily?
Speaker 1 (16:16)
Absolutely.
Absolutely. does. You’re just again, choosing a very, the most difficult way to build revenue, grow your business is by speaking to somebody that doesn’t know you or you don’t know them, but a hundred percent. Most of those people don’t realize, meaning the people outbound calling prospecting that those people want to be helped.
There’s a way to approach it. So yes, this can be overarching with cold calling. I’m not here today to focus on that, but yes.
People are not.
Thank you. So outgrow all customer facing employees, not just the sales team. Super important. ⁓ Michael Scott in the office, if anyone’s watched the office, which we’re watching again in our home, I love that show about 15 years ago, they had this concept in that business to have it all of their employees, including their people and their distribution facility. ⁓
help their customers more from a sales perspective. Why not? Why can’t everybody generate revenue?
We’re just doing sales. We’re not trading sales.
Focus on the positive, not the pain. Super important. So again, we don’t need to create friction. We do not create tension. We do not induce and create fear and then position ourselves as a solution to the fear people have or to the, to the, ⁓ to the pain. ⁓ people have enough pain in their life. So for outgrow focusing on the positive, not the pain is at the heart of it all. Positive psychology.
absolute roots of positive psychology. And when we do this, we create a revenue growth culture of everybody swinging the bat, like we like to say in outgrow. Why not? Why can’t everybody be a revenue driver? Some people I know have a fear even deeper than what I’m sharing today, and that’s okay. We can help them along the way.
Baseball is at the heart of my sporting life. So you’ll hear me speak a little bit about swings of the bat. We focus and I personally focus in my career with respect to business development sales is effort. Put in the effort.
Measure what matters. Get up and swing the bat. Who cares if you hit the ball? Just swing the bat. That’s what we focus on. That’s what compels effort. And that’s what we reward is effort. Our KPIs are very different than most. We don’t focus on the results every week. We focus on the effort every week. And when you do that,
Your confidence, optimism, positivity and enthusiasm amongst all of your customer facing people grow because the results will happen if the effort is there. Super critical, especially in the rejection profession.
So in the helpful revenue growth mindset, be aware of your great value and behave accordingly. Your mindset, so your, your behavior, the mindset that you create, your behavior follows. So if you show up and if you think you’re, perhaps you make a phone call and you think you are a burden to that person or they’re too busy or all the things that perhaps get into your
way before you even make that call or have that conversation, you will show up that way.
When you realize that person wants to be helped and why can’t it be you? No matter who you are in an organization, you have all this great value to offer. Behave accordingly. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? They’ll say no. They might ignore you. You tried. You’re coming from a helpful mindset. Why not try to help more?
So what an outgrow client does, super simple, target actions every week, communicate, log those activities, you receive data and analytics, and most importantly, we celebrate the stories and the recognition of the effort and obviously results if they’ve happened. Super simple, this is the cadence. And I know a lot of other companies, ⁓
Follow something similar, perhaps. KPIs are different, but simple works. Simplify, keep it simple, focus on effort. Helpful growthful mindset work, or sorry, revenue growth work is focused on bad as averages. Going back to Alex Goldfein who created this for over 20 years and over 400 companies. The statistics is what’s at the foundation, which is what
any of you can take into your practice or your companies today. You’ll learn some things coming up besides what I’ve shared, but most importantly, statistics of knowing the batting averages. The next page will show you at the heart of what I’m talking about are the most important things of doing sales versus training sales. And it’s this simple folks.
Go ahead and take a screenshot. This is in the book. Anyone who’s read it or you will read it, but the batting averages is what we focus on. So again, going to effort versus results.
These data points are derived from over 100 million swings of the bat for over 20 years.
from a variety of companies, from a variety of industry. Voicemail to text, did you know questions? Reverse did you know? Pivot to the sale, pivot to the next conversation. Percentage of the business, internal referral request, external referral request. I’ll share a little bit of context on that as we go forward. We’re doing okay for time.
So one in particular, all of you can take, take whatever you want from my sharing today, but this one in particular, two or three voicemails followed by text communicate back.
Fascinating, hey? When you don’t send a text after a voicemail, that drops to one third.
Leaving a voicemail for an example is, Hey Sarah, it’s Tyler. I was thinking about you the other day because I was talking with a customer that reminded me of you. They’re buying some things from us that I would like that I think would really work well for you and your business also. Let’s talk about that and catch up to hear the latest in your world. Short, sweet, make it your own, your authentic voice. This is just a super brief example for you to see the simplicity of a voicemail. Then once you do that,
send a text and your text is something like per my voicemail, how’s Wednesday or Thursday at 1pm.
Two thirds of people will communicate back in that type of mechanic. Make it your own. Make it your authentic voice.
Questions? Ah-has? Agree? Don’t agree?
Speaker 2 (24:37)
I’ve been doing this. I have not been properly tracking it. The, but I have definitely seen this type of thing work very well, much better than calling and not leaving a voicemail, which when I read the, one of the books you had on the screen before, that’s what he says. Most people used to do, or most people do you call and you don’t need a voicemail because you don’t want to sound annoying.
So when you call, leave the voicemail, send a follow-up text, I have seen a dramatic uptick in responses.
Speaker 1 (25:10)
Yeah, there you go. Simple. If they don’t respond, they don’t respond. In that moment, you can try again.
Love as lived experience. Thanks, Gershon. So on that note, ⁓ maybe because you’re interacting or I’ll throw it to anybody. When was the last time anybody here got a proactive call from a supplier when nothing was wrong? Somebody in your business that supplies you something without them asking anything besides calling when there wasn’t a problem.
There isn’t anybody, maybe Gershon?
Speaker 2 (25:56)
No, it doesn’t happen to me. But I’ll tell you that we try to do this. And this is the first time I’ve ever heard of Alex Goldfein. We have something on our team where we’ll go in proactively. We have a second person calling the client like once a month, basically, trying to ask them just what’s going on. And Dean actually does this a bunch like what’s going on? How are you? How’s everything going? How’s it working out with whoever your team is?
Etc, etc. Just trying to understand, make sure things are good. What else could be doing better? Do you need this? Do you need that?
Speaker 1 (26:33)
Excellent. love that. Good on you, Dean. Not surprised. It is amazing though how much they open up, right, when they have a set of eyes and ears to open up to. So it is very helpful. Yeah, for sure. ⁓ Just considering time, won’t go in too much depth to this, but the point of what I wanted to get to, and if I was live, we’d have a different conversation. It is what it is on the webinar, but
When you do what I just suggested with the call and text, you stand out.
Most people will email.
Most people will volunteer themselves into the trash with respect to a sales driven reach out or email for a check-in. Why not pick up the phone? Nothing’s wrong. Pick up the phone. Human to human. We are all human to human. I don’t care if you’re a B2B, B2C, non-profit organization on this call. It does not matter. We’re human to human. Pick up the phone. Stand out. Most people are not.
Most people are fearful. Most people are stuck in this loop. So you have all of this amazing, your culture is amazing at solving problems and the urgency of what’s happening in your business. Manufacturing, healthcare, construction, professional services. We all have that. We are professional problem solvers. We’re really good at the client experience.
but we forget about the 80 to 90 % of your customers. They’re quiet and they’re happy. They don’t hear from us. Outgrow is about reaching out to those people when nothing is
I love this quote. You know, if you have to eat a frog, eat it in the morning. If you have to eat two, eat the biggest one first. Get over it. Pick up the phone, make something happen. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? Somebody says no or ignores you.
20 % of Did You Know questions closed.
This is as simple as, how much time? Yeah, we don’t have a lot of time. So if you have 15 customer facing people in your organization, for example, you have five, did you know questions in a week? You want those 15 people to ask. That’s 75, did you know questions in a week? Four weeks in a month. That’s 300, did you know questions in a month?
12 months in a year, that’s 3,600 did you know questions in a year. 20 % of those will convert into a new piece of piece of business. That’s the power of this because we know the batting averages. So just ask the question, 20 % will close. It’s not hope. It’s fact. You get more people swinging the bat. This is what will happen.
Batting average is over 100 million data points from people swinging the bat for over 20 years. 80 % of reverse did you know questions close. So those are the what else questions. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (30:07)
The the did you know questions are basically did you know that we also do blank is that yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:14)
I’m
sorry, I was rushing there. Yes, it is. So if you have, ⁓ you know, multiple ways that your CFO services are offered Gershon. Yes. Did you know if you have a CFO, we can work for that CFO. Did you know we also offer ⁓ controller services? Those are all examples of very basic, did you know questions?
You are firing a bullet at the customer, meaning you’re telling them what it is you offer in all the different varieties. But it’s, yes, that simple.
A reverse did you know is asking them what else? Asking them what else they need. And when you do it that way, you’re not firing that bullet at them, like the product or service that you offer we just spoke about. You are asking them a what else question and 80 % of the people tell you. So why not ask them? And I have some examples in the next slide coming up of some call mechanics.
But what else are you doing with my competition that I can help you with? That’s an example of a reverse did you know question.
A grocery chain story from myself early on in diapers and business development and sales, I’ll call it in my early twenties. ⁓ Not knowing that some of the principles you’re learning about today, I was embodying going to a grocery store up north in my province of Alberta here, going to every single department representing a company that had a product or service for every single department in a grocery chain.
consistently showing up to every single department asking them, did you know we offer this? For example, a bakery department, had a packaging solution for all the different baking items. Did you know we offer this container? Is a did you know question. A reverse did you know question. What else do you have going on this month with respect to birthdays that I can help you with?
birthday cake conversation happens. All of a sudden there’s new packaging opportunities. And then it progresses to other departments. And then it progresses to other ⁓ people in the organization and other locations. All from showing up asking, did you know questions consistently? Reverse did you know type questions? What else are you working on that I can help you with? What else do you have coming up that I can supply you consistently?
Every three weeks led to me servicing 12 different grocery stores within a chain. That’s at the heart of what Outgrow is, consistently asking questions from a helpful mindset and showing up.
25 % of pivots lead to a yes. So why not pivot to the sale? When would you like me to send that? How many would you like? Ask for it. Know when to pivot, pivot to the sale, ask how you can help and when. 25 % of those will lead to a yes.
Call mechanics. Gershon, doing, you wanted about 15 minutes at the end?
Speaker 2 (33:56)
No, keep going. Let’s leave five minutes at the end.
Speaker 1 (33:58)
Okay.
Okay. Call mechanics. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (34:03)
No, go ahead. I’m learning a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:06)
Awesome.
So again, this is very, ⁓ some of this is in the book, but this is a very simplified version. It’s not exactly what would happen in the conversation, but to show you how simple this can be applied and you can operationalize opening, catch up with somebody against somebody, you know, current customer. was thinking about you. How’s your family?
When you shift to business in that conversation, could be the first minute, could be five minutes. What are you working on these days that I can help you with is a example of a helpful question. I would like to help.
Let them talk. During that conversation, you can throw in a reverse did you know question. What else do you need help with? Again, you are asking them 80 % of the people will tell you.
Did you know we also offer X or do Y or Z? A did you know question in one conversation, you already have two actions from Okro that could happen.
Another reverse did you know question, what is happening that we are not working on with you?
and let them tell you.
You’re building a relationship in these conversations. You are helping, you are not selling. You’re helping people that want to be helped.
Pivot to the sale when that happens in that conversation. When would you like us to do this?
Pivot to the next conversation. We never leave a conversation without knowing what the next action is. No matter if that’s just a general conversation with somebody, you’re building a relationship. None of this is happening. You never leave a conversation without knowing what’s next. That’s as simple as when would you like to talk again next? Put it in the calendar. When do you want me to follow up with you? If you’ve sent a proposal, for example.
and somebody says what date that is and you say, great, if I don’t hear from you, is it okay to follow up with you on Monday? Never leave a conversation without knowing the next step. As simple as that. No pressure, no friction, helpful mindset. I’ll stop there. Gershon or anybody else?
Speaker 2 (36:43)
I’ll just say one thing to add on that last point that you made, take it to the next level. What we try to do is we set up a follow-up call. If we’re sending out paperwork, we send up a call to do our best to set up a call to review it. Because not just we’ll call you if we haven’t heard from you, we’ll cancel if we do hear from you.
Speaker 1 (37:06)
Will, sorry, say that last part?
Speaker 2 (37:07)
Instead of, call you if we don’t hear from you, we set up the call and then it’s, we’ll cancel if we, if we really heard back from you and everything’s good, then we can cancel that call.
Speaker 1 (37:16)
Fantastic. That’s an example of what I just went through and that works specifically for your business. Make it your own. But that’s a perfect real life example of never leave a conversation, excuse me, without knowing the next step. Fantastic. Make it your own. So let’s be helpful. Help more people more. Why not?
some stats on some of what I shared and I put this on, especially for my CFO friends that have joined me today. ⁓ Typical companies where sales that happened to them, you’ll see representation of a typical year up and down, up and down versus sales they created. And this is just where outgrow was inserted into an organization that was more reactive.
versus proactive. So they started picking up the phone when sales were created. They started doing some of those actions that you’re learning about today. And lo and behold, consistently happened, consistency built, effort was rewarded, results were driven over time.
Reactive selling versus proactive selling.
That’s as simple as it gets folks. And most of the business are stuck in that loop servicing, doing a wonderful job, solving problems and doing the best they can with client experience, reacting, reacting, reacting, and not spending time proactively selling and helping their people more customers, prospects, past customers.
Speaker 2 (39:03)
In a service business, would you be putting service professionals on these type of calls or would you have a separate sales team going and calling everyone up? Hey, how are we doing? What else could we be doing better? What else do you need?
Speaker 1 (39:18)
So everybody, so in that situation, especially what you’re referring to, and I can think of your organization, Gershon, I’d consider that question in your type of environment as seller doers, meaning people that are delivering the work. Why can’t they also ask how they can help and sell more? So call that service person company, a seller, doer of the product or service you provide. So that makes sense.
Awesome. What we doing for time? Okay. ⁓ this one. I forgot I concluded this. Caribou coffee. So I won’t get into the full story, but Alex ⁓ has a beautiful story about his experience at Caribou coffee at the Minneapolis airport, where an example of a did you know question happened for him when he went to get some coffee. So between flights shows up young lady at the counter.
Um, you know, the order transaction is specifically for a cup of coffee. And she asked him, would you like a bottle of water to go with that, sir? Now it’s not prefaced with, you know we have water? It’s a form of a, you know question, but that simple question led to Alex purchasing a $5 bottle of water. When Hudson’s gift shops.
right down the corner and that same bottle of water is $3.50. He’s exactly in that environment where she, in this case, was trained to ask, did you know questions? So that customer is exactly, Alex is exactly where he needs to be for that person to engage and ask, did you know we also offer something else? He bought the bottle of water. So
Now I know some statistics.
I think they’ve almost doubled or tripled their sales in this business on a tertiary product called water, not coffee. Because that simple question leads to most people buying a bottle of water on top of their cup of coffee. That’s a simple real life example of
We don’t need complexity. We don’t need friction. No matter what the product or service is, just ask the question.
My ⁓ as lived experience, which is why I put this story up here, happened in early April this year where I was going through that same airport and I saw that coffee shop. I was so excited to go in there and be asked this, did you know question? I would have bought two bottles of water. I know it’s not to me, that’s a very powerful story.
But I went in, I needed some coffee, wanted some coffee, and I was so ready to be asked if I wanted a bottle of water. I was not asked.
I walked out, went to Hudson’s and spent $3.50 on a bottle of water.
You know, inside I was a little disappointed because I thought it was just something that was going to experience and it’s going to relate to me. But there’s a power of that person and grace for him, whether he’s new or not or nervous or just forgot or what have you. He just didn’t ask the question when I was there fully prepared to buy a tertiary product, if he asked for them to double their sale with me.
So simple cadence.
Week one, ask for a quantity of specific actions. So that could be five proactive phone calls, picking up the phone when nothing’s wrong, calling a customer, calling a past prospect, calling a past customer. Five did you know questions, five reverse did you know questions. This could be an example of one human in your company.
where you would want them to do these actions in a week, whatever works for them. They can do some of them. The did you know could happen in one conversation. But this is an example of setting actions. Super simple, one step. Go do that action. Log the action.
In Outgrow we use a specific form because it’s revenue generating activities. We don’t get people lost into a CRM, which are fantastic, super critical tools. We focus on revenue generating activities. Tracking that is where those statistics come from. Effort not result.
Metrics look like this. So step four is looking at the data of the people of who’s doing what, who’s not doing so much. Going back to confidence, optimism, positivity, enthusiasm, that cope acronym. We are never going to lead with a stick. We are never going to tell somebody they’re doing something wrong. If they’re doing, if they’re trying, we’re going to help them with their mindset. are going to, we are going to encourage the behavior that eventually
Rewards the results that you’ve been learning about so people doing so much are not doing a lot and people not doing so much We lift people up. We pull people together built on positive psychology meaning reward the effort build positivity
Data from a CFO friends, when we start tracking this type of data, predictability in your revenue growth happens. It’s not a hope, it happens, period. When you start to put in these effort, you’ll see the leading indicators, which helps you plan, which helps you plan your human capital. You don’t need to add people in this work. You make all of your return on investment with every customer facing person increase.
You build their mindset. Everybody’s contributing. It’s a team sport, not just the sales department. Some may not do it and that’s okay. We’ll build them up over time, but leading indicators of what is possible when you do this type of work. This is a beautiful slide to show you. So this is all that step four component. And then critically we celebrate.
and recognize success. Here’s an example of an engineering type company where you have seller-doers Gershon, people that would do and perhaps design, also helping and selling, customer service, technical support, product manager, celebrate every single week.
Target actions, go do it, log it, get the data, celebrate it.
So predictable loop of revenue growth. That’s at the heart. Positive psychology, we don’t build pain, we build positivity. Perseverance and resilience happens because of that. It’s been proven time and time again that…
perseverance and resilience will supersede skill set. When you have a mindset that can overcome obstacles and challenges, whether it’s ⁓ created within yourself or others, how you show up and deal with that is at the heart of consistency, helping you persevere and be resilient in any and all situation, especially in the rejection profession.
Quickly a story about an RFP. I know Gershwin, you talked about healthcare being one of a lot of clients that you have in manufacturing. You have a variety of your industry agnostic yourself. ⁓ But going quickly to a story many years ago for myself in healthcare ⁓ sales. I had spent a lot of time with my team submitting an RFP to a health region. Unfortunately,
We were not rewarded. We were second runner up call it when that decision happened. ⁓ I’m pretty relentless as a human, ⁓ especially when I believe in something and I’m very helpful mindset focused in this circumstance. ⁓ there was something within my competition that was more about it, not aligning with standards.
and ⁓
I’ll just leave it at standards, for example, and the efficacy around what they had positioned. So I started having conversations with people, part of these decisions and going back to the pivot to the next conversation, never leave a conversation without knowing what the next step is. Led me to overturning this RFP decision a month after it was rewarded to my competition. I never cut up the competition from ⁓ a standpoint of
you know, intentionally doing something, ⁓ shady per se. It was a situation where there was a misalignment with standards and the product that they had aligned with the RFP. So pivot to the next conversation with decision makers, users of the product a month straight, they ended up rewarding and, ⁓ turn the RFP over to me a month later, which doesn’t happen often.
⁓ I’m not sharing it any other way, ⁓ in a way to say, know, I’m super successful. Look at me. It was just the power of.
I’m going to persevere through this decision. I know there’s something here that perhaps was missed. Maybe it was on me. Maybe I need to talk through this more. Let’s talk to people and never leave a conversation without knowing the next step left to them overturning the decision in a month. Super powerful stuff. More of the story, but I’ll stop there. Last quote, many of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Mr. Thomas Edison, super famous quote. And that is actually on my desk every single day and near and to my heart. Four minutes left. I’ll stop.
Kyle, that was great. I had one quick question as you’ve rolled this out numerous times. What do you feel is the biggest obstacle for a company to actually implement?
⁓ going back to this being for all customer facing people, for everybody realizing that they can contribute to revenue growth in an organization. Number one, ⁓ some people that are very experienced in sales, ⁓ will typically say, I know that. And so there’s sometimes a natural resistance, which is fine.
⁓ we take those people and help them be leaders and mentors in the company because that’s awesome. If they know now let’s go do and let’s all of us go do. And that is a very difficult thing for somebody that typically would say, yeah, I know all that. I do it already, but it’s consistency. So there’s a natural resistance from salespeople that have been in this and doing this work for a while to say, I know it. Don’t need that. Don’t need the help.
And then others that don’t realize, you know, a safety company or organization could be a part of generating revenue because of their relationships. That’s the biggest thing is realizing how much the current traditional salespeople and the non-traditional people can work together to create a culture of consistent revenue growth. ⁓ Thank you. Yeah.
I see Curtis has a question. Hey I’ll jump in here. time listener, first time caller. Good to see you. Maybe that was kind of my area of question and this might be over a coffee to go deeper on it, but it does sound like flags on culture there being like we’re a service-based organization, all client facing, maybe historically this type of work was happening and now it’s not. So there’s some kind of red flags, green flags on.
Speaker 2 (52:36)
Hahaha
Speaker 1 (52:56)
Like, is there a culture buy-in like before you dive into these types of things and start saying, okay, everybody, here we go. We’re going on this journey. Just some high level thoughts there. yeah. Thank you. Great question. And like I talked to Gershon, I’m not here to go through all the operationalizing of Outgrow, but that’s why Outgrow works because we spend three months
When we start working with a client, there’s three months of buildup before anybody starts swinging the outgrow bat. And what I mean by that is there’s things that we do with clients, customers, and then we have a full launch day workshop where a lot of what you’re seeing today is where the mindset gets built. And that’s a full day with all their customer facing people to start creating that culture. And then beyond that day, people start doing this work because
What you just said, it would fail 100 % of the time all the time if we didn’t do that.
Does that answer your question? Yeah, for sure, Awesome.
Speaker 2 (54:06)
All right. I have one question, but we’re going to put the poll up in a second and people, if you can answer.
actually.
Anyway, ⁓ anyone would like to get in touch with Tyler, please be in touch with myself or with Brittany and Thank you all. Thank you all for joining I’ve got Like I said, I have one more question, but I know that we’re at a time So if anyone wants to hop you’re welcome to hop I wanted to ask and if anyone wants to stay Tyler, do you have a few more minutes if people
Speaker 1 (54:47)
Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 2 (54:49)
So if anyone has more questions, you’re welcome to stay. have one question, which is you touched on referrals earlier that when you ask for referrals, those things tend to work well. You didn’t expound that much on that. Is there any, any quick pointers on that? Anything to add to that? Or it’s just what it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (55:14)
Yes, absolutely. ⁓ Again, super high level. Didn’t give you all the kernel secrets, but referrals. Great question. ⁓ one thing to know is we never use the word referral when we ask. It would be as simple as, ⁓ you know, an external referral request. So a company you’re working for today and perhaps there’s, you know, somebody externally in their network. You want to ask them, it would go something like.
Speaker 2 (55:27)
Okay.
Speaker 1 (55:42)
Hey, who do know I can help the way I’ve helped you? And that’s it. Not, hey, I would love a referral from you and then get into a deeper conversation. Who else do know that I can help the way I’ve helped you or the way we’ve helped you?
So I’ll leave it at that. Hopefully it answers your question, but we never use the word referral.
and keep it simple.
Speaker 2 (56:16)
Sounds good. Anyone else? Any questions?
All right. Thank you all. you. Great having you today.
Speaker 1 (56:31)
Thank you, Tyler. Thank you.
Hello, thank you very much, appreciate it. Thanks everyone. You have a great day. All right, see ya.
Speaker 2 (56:40)
Bye.