Small Biz Buzz Podcast - Why Follow Ups are Critical - Brendan Alan Barrett
00:48:10
Small Biz Buzz hosts Crystal Heuft and Jack Smithson are joined by Brendan Alan Barrett, founder of StartInPhx, who talks about how to overcome pushback when it comes to following up with B2B clients. It’s a matter of talking to as many people in the same area on the same day to build content, collateral or touch points that you can refer back to. While prospecting into an account, there's always something that can be learned. The rule with prospecting and follow up is questions. You're going for engagement, but if you're asking the right questions, you can decipher if this is engagement for their benefit versus engagement for your benefit. Know who your audience is so you don’t spread yourself too thin and make sure you're following up with the people who are going to move through the funnel and be acquired. At a certain point, you should also know when to cut your losses. In matters of work-life balance, the big themes are boundaries. To set good boundaries, you have to have good clarity and best practices put in place. Tune in for more.
Transcript:
Derek Harju: 00:00 Howdy, listeners. As we all know, Planet Earth has 7.5 billion people, and 7.4 billion of those people have small businesses. Now, to be fair numbers that size can be hard to envision, and to be even fairer, most of what I just said is entirely made up.
Derek Harju: 00:14 But I'll tell you what isn't made up. Keap. Keap is the all in one client management software designed specifically for small businesses. Keap takes the most annoying and laborious parts of running a small business and metaphorically tosses them into the sun. Stop grinding yourself to death with busy work and repetitive tasks. Let Keap integrate your customer followups, messaging automation, next level appointment setting, and so much more. Head over to keap.com and start your free trial of Keap Grow, Keap Pro, or for those looking for something beefier, talk to one of our coaches about Infusionsoft, the product that started at all.
Derek Harju: 00:47 More business, less work. That's Keap. Just go to keap.com to start your free trial. That's K-E-A-P.com. One more time. That's K-E-A-P.com.
Crystal Heuft: 01:03 Hi, this is Crystal.
Rob Stevenson: 01:04 And I'm Rob.
Crystal Heuft: 01:05 And this is Small Biz Buzz, presented by Keap.
Rob Stevenson: 01:08 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to another edition of the Small Biz Buzz. I'm your host, Rob Stevenson.
Crystal Heuft: 01:14 Oh, Lord.
Rob Stevenson: 01:14 And I'm joined today by my other host, the other better host ...
Crystal Heuft: 01:18 Sometimes. Crystal.
Rob Stevenson: 01:19 And today we're joined by a guest, the lovely and talented JT Benton, founder and CEO of WorkBook6.
Rob Stevenson: 01:26 JT, thanks so much for coming today. How are you?
JT: 01:28 I'm great. Thank you so much for having me, Crystal and Rob. Thrilled to be here.
Rob Stevenson: 01:33 Just for the record, it's Rob and Crystal.
JT: 01:36 Okay.
Crystal Heuft: 01:36 Unless you go by who's the best, and then it's Crystal and Rob. It just really depends on how you categorize.
Rob Stevenson: 01:43 That is not untrue. I actually want to jump back into a conversation we were having shortly before we started recording today about coworkers and friends in Disney movies, and we have a very interesting opinion. Crystal, please share us your opinion of Flounder from The Little Mermaid.
Crystal Heuft: 01:59 I just said Flounder is like an amazing sidekick because he was like, "Whatever you need. You want legs? I'm going to stay here in the sea. You go do what you need to do, but I'm here to support you."
Rob Stevenson: 02:08 So Flounder was the yellow and blue fish that was Ariel's friend the entire time.
Crystal Heuft: 02:12 You know it. Ariel's friend. Bestie.
Rob Stevenson: 02:13 Thoughts, JT?
JT: 02:14 Yeah. Would Flounder be analogous in a non-animated movie space like like Turtle from Entourage, like just kind of the-
Rob Stevenson: 02:24 Which one was Turtle?
JT: 02:26 The chubby one who wasn't chubby at the end because he was a celebrity now.
Rob Stevenson: 02:28 Jerry Ferrara. Now he's in great shape.
JT: 02:30 Yeah, he's all ripped up now.
Rob Stevenson: 02:31 No, but he was the glue guy, the guy that just kind of did everything, and, like-
Crystal Heuft: 02:35 That could be similar.
Rob Stevenson: 02:36 I'm not sure I agree that Flounder is the best sidekick. He's not even the best sidekick in his own movie. Sebastian was like, "Look, here are the rules. Let's follow the rules. Okay, you didn't follow the rules, and now you're in trouble. Let's get you out of trouble."
Crystal Heuft: 02:48 Well, this just goes to show the difference of you and I in general.
Rob Stevenson: 02:51 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 02:51 You like the structure and that's why you kind of move us along here, which is nice. But I tend to like the support. No rules, the boundaries are off. Let's just get supported and feel like we're going where we go, and that's what Flounder did.
Rob Stevenson: 03:07 Yes, that's what Flounder did. So that's a good point, and actually it's a good segue into what we're going to talk about today.
Rob Stevenson: 03:12 So, JT, I mentioned before-
Crystal Heuft: 03:14 I'm not sure how, but I'm sure he'll make sure we get there.
Rob Stevenson: 03:16 He'll get there. Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 03:18 As I mentioned before, JT Benton is joining us today. He's the founder and CEO of WorkBook6, and WorkBook6 is a strategic partnership marketing ... I would call it agency, but that doesn't describe the expertise that exists inside the company. So I'll leave it to you, JT. Tell us a little bit about what WorkBook6 does, because from a small business perspective, it's like nothing I've ever seen before.
JT: 03:40 All right, thank you.
JT: 03:43 It's actually always a challenge to describe our business because, to your point, there are not many, if any, firms that I know of that do what we do or at least do what we do in the same way that we do. The simplest way to put it is to say we power partnerships, right? We are all about creating a really unique, lasting, and well aligned strategic partnerships, and who we do that for has evolved a bit over time. The bigger picture and the longterm picture of who we do that for, or for whom we do that ... I'm not sure the right way to say it. Rob will probably ...
Crystal Heuft: 04:21 Luckily, it's a podcast, so no one really cares.
JT: 04:23 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 04:23 So you can just do what feels natural.
JT: 04:25 All right. So the folks that we do this for are large US-based typically enterprises, and they are customer acquisition minded firms, right? They sell a product or service that consumers use every day. We're in a bunch of categories. It was really important to me when we started the company that we be industry agnostic, and so we have clients that range from some of the largest retail organizations in the world; huge personal lines insurance carriers; platform insurance agencies that cover multiple products across multiple regions, and customer types, and that sort of thing; banks; lenders; mortgage companies; online marketplaces. Basically, any enterprise that's got a really scalable national offer, and they're looking to acquire more customers more profitably. That's who we represent.
JT: 05:21 And what we do for them is we target strategic partnerships with entities that have a scalable source of new customers for them. Now, as we've done that, we've also grown to serve the other side of things, which is maybe a company's got a lot of customers, but their relationship with those customers is very finite. They sell a product or service, and they want to round out that offering, and improve relevancy across other categories. And so we'll recruit other products and services that they can market, and sell, and provide to their customers, either as a value-added benefit, or as an additional expense.
Rob Stevenson: 06:01 That's super interesting. And I just want a proviso here. Before JT came in to talk to us today, he did indicate that unfortunately, due to NDAs, we can't name names.
Crystal Heuft: 06:13 He's such a good friend there.
Rob Stevenson: 06:13 So we will dance around, and we will not name names. In fact, he made Crystal and I signed an NDA, and then he made us sign each other's NDA, and then he made me sign mine again in blood. So we can't name names here, but for the record, we're talking about multi-billion-dollar, multinational corporations.
Rob Stevenson: 06:30 And what's fascinating to me is how does a small business exist in that infrastructure? You talk about gigantic companies and the roles that they play. You talk about the shared common target audiences that they work towards. How on earth does somebody sit at home and think, "You know what? I deserve to be in this space. I'm going to be in this space. I'm going to create a category so I can exist in this space."
Crystal Heuft: 06:55 I was actually really excited about this topic. I believe when I asked you what are we talking about, and you slacked back what we're talking about, my first response was, "Ooh." I feel like this is like good to think about, and probably a lot of people are thinking about this, all you entrepreneurs out there. How do you kind of get by with all of these companies that are just huge?
JT: 07:15 Right, right.
Rob Stevenson: 07:17 Is there like an imposter sentiment at some point? Do you feel like, "Do I belong here?" At what point are you sitting at home thinking "This is it. This is the plan."
JT: 07:25 It's a huge, huge question. So let's break it into chunks.
Rob Stevenson: 07:30 Well, it's a half hour show, so let's break it down.
JT: 07:32 Yeah, let's break it into chunks.
JT: 07:33 So the first thing is sort of origin story. I was doing some of this work for a business that's not a multi-billion dollar enterprise, but served multi-billion-dollar enterprises. And I recognized a really interesting unit economic trend within the digital marketing space.
Rob Stevenson: 07:55 What's a unit economic trend?
JT: 07:56 So a unit economic trend, or the one that I specifically recognized in my prior role ... I was the chief revenue officer for an insurance company. This particular company was a marketplace, and we represented the largest property and casualty carriers in the world, right? Or certainly in the United States. And our job was to sell their products and services. We were responsible for the cost and the investment to go acquire those customers, and we made our money based on the longevity of those customers, right? So if a customer bought an insurance policy from a major carrier through our sales organization, and they stayed there for seven years, we recouped seven years worth of commission. Just like your normal insurance agent would.
JT: 08:40 And what I recognized in that business was that it was becoming evermore difficult to scalably acquire customers online profitably.
Rob Stevenson: 08:52 And that's the heart of the unit economic crisis. What a customer's worth versus what you paid to acquire them.
JT: 08:59 Correct.
Crystal Heuft: 09:00 Thank you, Rob. Making sure I keep up to date here.
JT: 09:02 Yeah, so basically, what I was learning or what I learned there was that in order to scalably grow and profitably grow, we had to look well beyond Google and well beyond online lead marketplaces, and-
Rob Stevenson: 09:19 Some of the more common demand gen techniques.
JT: 09:21 Right.
Rob Stevenson: 09:21 Buying ads.
JT: 09:22 Social media, media buys, et cetera.
JT: 09:24 And so what I began to do was look at organizations that had a similar customer base but didn't buy an insurance product from their provider. So that could have been a home security company. Home security customers make a great home insurance customer.
Rob Stevenson: 09:40 That actually makes a ton of sense.
JT: 09:42 Auto dealerships create thousands and thousands of auto insurance customers.
Rob Stevenson: 09:49 That is so interesting. You never think Ford ... Would totally make sense if they sold insurance. I know Tesla has started doing that in the marketplace because there are so many companies that are risk averse at the electric. But, yeah, that's such a curious thing.
JT: 10:02 Right. It is a curious thing, and it's hidden in plain sight. You see it every day. All right. Everywhere you go, you see products and services that are inserted into the funnel or cross-sold that really originate elsewhere. Right? The relationship between the companies that provide those is really interesting to me. I found that fascinating. It was a really cool hack to get around the expense of advertising on Google or Facebook, or buying leads, and that sort of thing.
JT: 10:31 And so I, in my prior role before I started this company, began to do some of this work, began to get pretty successful with it, mostly by necessity. Hadn't done a lot of it before, but I just had to to help this business succeed.
Rob Stevenson: 10:48 And so was it an instance of working for the man, or were you creating a role, or how did that go?
JT: 10:53 Neither. So I was just trying to help one company solve a really big customer acquisition and monetization problem, because that was my job. Started to get good at it, and started to hear from insurance carriers that they were taking notice of the fact that we were actually kind of beating them to new business opportunities, and they were curious as to how that was happening.
Rob Stevenson: 11:19 So you were finding more customers more inexpensive ... I don't want to use the word "cheaply," because we're not talking cheap here. But you were finding more customers more inexpensively than previous models, and all of a sudden everyone's like, how?
JT: 11:31 Right. And more importantly, access to customers which displayed better longevity characteristics.
Rob Stevenson: 11:39 Okay. So the LTV is higher.
JT: 11:40 Right. Right.
Rob Stevenson: 11:42 LTV is lifetime value.
JT: 11:45 Lifetime value. That's right. And so for so many of our clients, the north star is the outcome of dividing the cost of acquiring a customer into the lifetime value, which gives you sort of a profitability outcome.
Rob Stevenson: 11:58 And that unit economic detail that we talked about.
JT: 12:00 Correct, right.
Rob Stevenson: 12:00 Excellent. Now it's making sense.
JT: 12:03 All right, so-
Crystal Heuft: 12:03 I hope everyone brought their calculators today.
JT: 12:07 Listen, I'm nobody's mathematician.
Crystal Heuft: 12:09 But to speak to simplicity, let's break it down. Let's pretend we were writing a Twitter feed right now.
JT: 12:14 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 12:15 Let's summarize what you just said as a hackable tweet for everyone listening. Something that changed your mind and really moved you forward to this business idea.
JT: 12:25 Sure. I was able to discover that strategic partnerships could deliver the right kinds of customers at better economics. It's a lot of work, and that many of the enterprises that we presently serve and will serve and have served don't have the systems or personnel in place to go scalably approach those and engage them.
Crystal Heuft: 12:53 I love that. See, that's why they invite me here, because on topics like this, it's over my head, so I can just be here to make sure that anyone out there is going to grab the morsel of, nugget of information. Because I think what you're also doing is really you saw a trend, which I think sometimes small business, they get used to doing things the traditional way. And I love tradition. You can ask anyone in my family, I love tradition, but I think what you noticed was a trend, and you were able to look at it from both the traditional and the trend mindset, and really be ahead of a problem. Which I think is something that small businesses really need to start getting a little bit more out there with trends, and finding out how what they do will solve that problem.
JT: 13:36 Totally.
Crystal Heuft: 13:38 So I think that's really impressive actually.
JT: 13:39 So I appreciate you saying that. What I would offer to piggyback on that is, to your original question, how does a small, small company ... We started with two people across the desk from each other, didn't raise any capital, have remained independent in that sense. And I've turned down a lot of inquiries on that front to infuse capital into the business. The way that you do that is you figure out a really compelling problem, and you start to solve it. And if you do that, big companies and small companies will want to work with you because they have a problem. And if you prove that you have a solution, or even that you have a point of view toward a solution, they'll invest.
Crystal Heuft: 14:26 We know we have you at the edge of your seat, but we're going to break and go to Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 14:34 Howdy, folks. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:35 And I'm Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 14:36 And this is Worst Business Ideas in History.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:38 The show where we look back at some of the most brutal missteps, failures, and flops in consumer history.
Derek Harju: 14:44 And make fun of it.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:45 But also learn something.
Derek Harju: 14:46 Nope, it says in my contract I don't have to learn.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:49 Fine. The rest of us will learn something and you can just mock people's misfortune.
Derek Harju: 14:53 Sounds good.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:55 Welcome to the Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 14:59 Hey, everyone. Welcome again to Worst Business Ideas in History. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:03 And this is Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 15:04 And today, we're going to be talking about the DMC DeLorean.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:09 This is the Back to the Future car.
Derek Harju: 15:10 Yeah. That's how most people know it is the Back to the Future car. You tell somebody you're like, "Oh, the DeLorean," and they go, "I don't know what you're ..." You go, "The Back to the Future car."
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:18 Yeah. With the flux capacitor.
Derek Harju: 15:20 Yes.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:20 And the Mr. Fusion.
Derek Harju: 15:23 In the second one, Yes, there was a Mr. Fusion.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:25 But those weren't actually on the actual car.
Derek Harju: 15:27 No, they weren't. But, fun fact, people that are in a DeLorean clubs, which there are a lot of them apparently, routinely put a flux capacitor in them because they get bombarded by people asking about the flux capacitor. So they just buy one off of Think Geek or something.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:43 That makes sense. That makes sense.
Derek Harju: 15:45 So the DeLorean is just kind of like a weird cultural touchstone from the 80s. It's very, very rooted in the 80s, and there's a good reason for that. It only existed for two years in the 80s.
Derek Harju: 16:00 The car was originally developed by John DeLorean, as that would make sense.
Dusey Van Dusen: 16:06 There we go.
Derek Harju: 16:06 And there's a lot of people that think they're like, "Oh, this weirdo came out of nowhere and made this car." That's not true at all. The fact is John DeLorean had been a designer and an engineer for GM for a very long time, and was actually on track to be President of GM. Everybody had this guy slated to be the next in line to be President at GM, and he just straight up said, "Nope." He just bailed, took some time off, went and did his own thing, and basically disappeared from public view for a while.
Dusey Van Dusen: 16:41 I also always heard it was a out-of-nowhere story, and I figured he must have just gotten with people who knew how to make cars or something.
Derek Harju: 16:48 Oh, no, no. This guy was absolutely legit. He's responsible for the GTO. He created the GTO. He was with GM for a very long time, and he was kind of a rock star. He was sort of like a Steve Jobs of his day, like a brilliant mind, but very much a rebel, as much as you could be a rebel in that time period.
Derek Harju: 17:11 And so basically he's just like, "I don't want to be President of GM. It's too structured. It's too old school. I won't get to do the kind of exciting designs that I want to do." So he just bailed, and started coming up with his own ideas. And the one that he just absolutely locked on to was the DeLorean, creating his own car.
Dusey Van Dusen: 17:36 Locked onto naming a car after himself, the one named after him.
Derek Harju: 17:41 Now, that's absolutely true. What you can definitely say about this guy is that he had confidence. You see him, and he's always in an impeccable suit. He's got awesome hair for the 80s, meaning it's as huge helmet of dense hair. He married a supermodel who was half his age after he left GM. The guy had no shortage of confidence.
Derek Harju: 18:05 The marching orders that he gave for the car were you can design it however you want, but it has to have a rear engine, and it has to be made of stainless steel, and it has to have gull wing doors. And those were his marching orders. And so after doing some research, he figured out that the best way to start a car company from scratch was to go overseas, to go to Ireland specifically and leverage their tax laws-
Dusey Van Dusen: 18:35 I was going to say it's financial stuff, right? That's why a lot of people go to Ireland.
Derek Harju: 18:38 Oh, absolutely. He needed millions of dollars to start the company. I believe even to open the doors on the factory, he needed something like $2 million in 1986.
Derek Harju: 18:51 Oh, and a quick correction. I said $2 million. I actually meant $200 million.
Dusey Van Dusen: 18:56 Okay. I was going to say. I was going to say $2 million does not sound right at all.
Derek Harju: 19:01 No, $200 million to open the factory. Sorry. Missed the decimal place by two spots. But, regardless, and so-
Dusey Van Dusen: 19:09 That seems like nothing to start a car company nowadays.
Derek Harju: 19:12 Yeah. No, no, no. It's like you can't buy a dealership for that much money.
Derek Harju: 19:18 But he got lots of investors. He got Johnny Carson to invest. He actually got the country of Ireland, because they had no job creation in the country at that time. They were absolutely starving for job creation. And so he's like, "Hey, I'll come. I'll open a plant there. It'll be awesome."
Derek Harju: 19:42 So he goes to open the plant. They literally move a mountain to make up for the landfill that he needed. They re-divert two rivers. The plant opens, and then there's some minor production problems. The first production problem being that at the same time in Ireland, they were having The Troubles, which is the wars between the Protestants and the Catholics. Like the IRA, like daily bombings, people going on hunger strikes. And it actually got so bad that at a certain point they had to build the production calendars around the projected deaths of workers that were on hunger strike.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:26 Whoa.
Derek Harju: 20:27 Because it happens so routinely that they had to just build it into their business model.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:32 And on that note, this has been Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 20:37 So there was that. They put it out, huge marketing push. They offered through Am Ex, you could actually put down a deposit on a gold-plated DeLorean. Yeah.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:52 As if the stainless steel being mandated from on high wasn't enough, you could do a gold plate ... Like anywhere the steel ... Is that what I should be picturing? Like the whole outside?
Derek Harju: 21:03 Every part of the stainless steel body would be gold plated in 24 karat gold, which meant that once you bought that thing, if you got so much as a nick in it, you had to send it back to the factory to be re-plated.
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:14 Just send it to the local paint job that does 24 karat coatings.
Derek Harju: 21:20 Right. So, again, think about this. $85,000 for that particular vehicle in 1986.
Derek Harju: 21:27 Now-
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:28 Wow.
Derek Harju: 21:29 The car comes out. It looks great, but the problem is it looks like a sports car, but it's underpowered. The first batch of cars that were sent just were horrible, horrible productions. They were falling apart. People were having problems with the gull wing doors. The roof was leaking. Just bad press from stem to stern.
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:52 It sounds like he had some very specific ideas about what it needed to be. I'm wondering if those, if those mandates of rear engine and stainless steel ... I know that makes it super heavy ... Started to cause ... If those were design issues that were just set from the beginning instead of worked through with the engineers.
Derek Harju: 22:13 Yeah, well, that's the other part is that the company was bleeding money, so they had to get this thing out immediately. They couldn't sit and prototype this for five years and then launch it. This car needed to hit the mainstream right away. So by the end, they had produced about 7,000 cars, that, by the end, there was a total of 9,000 including the spare parts. So they put out 9,000 of these cars, and within the first year, 2,000 of them get returned to the dealerships.
Dusey Van Dusen: 22:46 Oh, man.
Derek Harju: 22:46 And here's the other part of this. The dealerships themselves, if you wanted to be a DeLorean dealer, you had to invest $25,000 in the company because they needed cash infusions, and they were getting it from anywhere they could.
Dusey Van Dusen: 22:59 People think the preorder on Teslas is weird. That is something.
Derek Harju: 23:05 So the company's bleeding money. There's bad reviews. The next thing to happen that is a real nail in the coffin is John DeLorean gets arrested.
Derek Harju: 23:17 John DeLorean is arrested. He is filmed by the FBI trying to sell them a suitcase full of cocaine. I can't stress that enough. A suitcase full of cocaine.
Dusey Van Dusen: 23:34 This story is even more 80s than I thought it was when we started. This is fantastic.
Derek Harju: 23:40 Unless there's a bulldog riding a skateboard, it doesn't get more 80s than this.
Derek Harju: 23:47 So he's selling cocaine in an attempt to infuse money to his car company. So he's arrested. It's a huge scandal. Then this other stuff starts coming out of he buys the most expensive house in New Jersey at that time in history. He bought the single most expensive piece of real estate in all of New Jersey, and he apparently did it using company money.
Derek Harju: 24:14 So the company folds almost overnight to the point where a lot of people who owned DeLoreans would call into the customer service line and they just basically-
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:25 Just nothing.
Derek Harju: 24:25 Just an empty dial tone.
Derek Harju: 24:28 So, eventually, he's actually found not guilty of cocaine trafficking despite the fact that he's on camera selling a suitcase of cocaine. I can't stress that enough.
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:40 There's a whole story there somewhere.
Derek Harju: 24:42 Yeah, but he's cleared because they charged the FBI with entrapment, and he gets off effectively scot-free. The DeLorean comes out in the movie Back to the Future, but by then-
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:56 So this is after it's closed. You can't buy one, a new one.
Derek Harju: 25:00 At the time that Back to the Future came out, the company was basically in the process of foreclosure.
Dusey Van Dusen: 25:06 Oh, man.
Derek Harju: 25:07 So it was too late. The word was out. People knew that there was this cool car, but they couldn't overcome the bad press. And within two years the company opened and closed. And then after that, another company in Texas basically bought out all of the back stock of the parts, and the company that bought them out is actually the parent company that now owns Big Lots. And so they bought all the leftover DeLorean parts for a song, and then went on to create this sub-business selling these parts to DeLorean collectors, which has turned out to be relatively lucrative.
Derek Harju: 25:45 So the question becomes what can small business owners learn from this?
Dusey Van Dusen: 25:49 Yeah, you read my mind. I was going to say, okay, this is a wild story. Don't sell coke to the FBI. Be aware of megalomaniacs. But how about some real lessons?
Derek Harju: 26:02 Well, I think the first thing that we can take from this is you have to be ready to walk before you run. This was a case of this person had an idea, he was passionate about it, and all of that is great, but he didn't take the time to properly grow his business. He wasn't patient enough to take the time, test the product, let it get to market, test it again, and be prepared to take some losses. And the other thing that this should be huge advocacy for is having working capital on hand. John DeLorean was flying by the seat of his pants from the second he had the idea until the second the company closed. Just trying to shuffle things around from A to B, getting money wherever he could to basically bring life into this dream of his.
Dusey Van Dusen: 26:51 Yeah. I think a lot of time if somebody is thinking of leaving their corporate job and starting a small business, or if you're running a small business, a lot of the advice out there is about not going into debt ever for anything. And I think there's some wisdom there because if you get in over your head with an idea that doesn't take off, that's obviously not great. However, it takes money to grow a business into something, right? So it's a slower, steady approach. And then also looking into your business and saying, "Okay, if I could have this one other employee, or if I could have this solution that would help me do X, Y, and Z, I could grow but I can't afford it right now." I think it can be worthwhile to take some time, and really evaluate your situation, and say, "Can we get some capital in here to take care of these things, and bring in the right people to actually grow the business beyond what it is?"
Dusey Van Dusen: 27:50 It gives you some breathing room and thinking room so you're not running around all the time, Mr. DeLorean, just trying to make ends meet. If you have some brain room in your business to think on your business, and some weight off of your shoulders for just enough time to put those things into place that'll help you grow, that can be a very smart way to go about it.
Derek Harju: 28:19 Right. This has been Worst Business Ideas in History. I've been Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 28:22 This is Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 28:24 And we'll talk to you next time.
Dusey Van Dusen: 28:25 Bye!
Derek Harju: 28:27 Keeping ever expanding client info straight, sending the same emails hundreds of times, scheduling and rescheduling appointments over and over. Who enjoys this nonsense? No one, except my cousin Brent, and Brent is the absolute worst.
Derek Harju: 28:39 Keap is the premier all-in-one CRM. Just head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com, and start your free trial today. Get the busy work out of the way so you can focus on what's important, and make your small business grow with Keap. Start your free trial at keap.com. That's K-E-A-P.com. More business, less work. That's Keap.
Rob Stevenson: 29:06 You talked a little bit before about how tradition is so important to a lot of small businesses, but one of the things that small businesses are famous for is solving problems first. Being the first to discover a problem, and then going to market, and starting as a one-and-two person Mom and Pop shop, and then, the next thing you know, it explodes.
Rob Stevenson: 29:23 The WorkBook6 story is fascinating to me, and it's got two very distinct components. The what, and that's crazy. We've talked about the unit economics. We've talked about solving problems, and realizing, and having a role kind of ... And I don't want to use the term "inside the machine," but I'm not smart enough to think of a better one. But you were in the industry. You were looking and seeing, and you were working for ...
Rob Stevenson: 29:43 Let's talk about the how. So you're married, couple of kids. Come home from work one day. "Mrs. Benton, I'd like to sit you down for a second. I have an idea." So maybe take us to that point, and let's start talking about where the courage, where the gumption, where the-
Crystal Heuft: 30:02 And hopefully the support, because that's grueling.
Rob Stevenson: 30:04 Yeah. Where did all of this come from? How does it exist?
JT: 30:07 Yeah. It's almost like an emotionally driven response, and there's so much to unpack, but I'll keep it at a high level.
Rob Stevenson: 30:15 Again, half an hour podcast.
JT: 30:16 Yeah, no, I hear you. But you've asked a huge question.
Crystal Heuft: 30:19 That is huge.
JT: 30:21 So the first gumption to start a business and do it this way just comes from the way I was brought up. Both of my parents were entrepreneurs. They both kind of relish in quality of life, and have made great trade-offs that I've seen pay off really well. They're both brilliant people, and could have been executives for big businesses, and traveled the world, but they value time with family. I wasn't getting a lot of time with family in my last role. In fact, I lived in another city-
Rob Stevenson: 30:55 In a corporate world.
JT: 30:55 Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 30:56 And I don't want to use corporate as like the big bad, but I'm using air quotes for corporate here.
JT: 31:00 Yeah. A venture backed, high pressure, dynamic environment competing with the big ones. And so the first thing was truly I had a personal problem that I needed to solve. I didn't see my kids enough, and I didn't see my wife enough.
JT: 31:17 I also really just kind of felt outside my skin. I was always really good at being an employee and an executive from an external validation point. My reviews were great. I got raises. I was paid well. I was an executive way, way earlier than a lot of people that I went to school with, and that sort of thing. And I was getting all that validation. But in terms of did I like it, was it in my DNA, I'm pretty individual, right? I'm pretty individualistic, I'm pretty unique in that way. And so feeling like I really needed to be in a place where I could kind of use that creativity and that way of thinking to power my business, win, lose or draw, and own those consequences was really important to me.
JT: 32:14 Just it all kind of came to a head, right? There was a really unique opportunity to exit and walk away from the business that I was serving as an executive. And something really needed to happen at home for me to be able to make that transition. And so the biggest place that that gumption and courage came from really was my wife, Jenny. Not from an entrepreneurial background. Mother was a teacher, Dad worked for big companies. Stability is something that she's a big fan of.
Crystal Heuft: 32:53 Me, too. That's my favorite thing. If something can be real stable, I'm happy.
JT: 32:58 Right. So if you ever meet a person like me, run, because I'm like the anti-stable.
Crystal Heuft: 33:04 I don't know. I think people like probably Jenny and myself, I think you almost start really appreciating that in others because you don't have the gumption.
JT: 33:11 It could be a good podcast.
Crystal Heuft: 33:12 When I've talked with Clate-
JT: 33:14 Significant other, right? Yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 33:14 Yeah. Right. But I literally, when I talk to Clate here, and he's talking about how he felt, I'm like thinking to myself, I have never felt like that a day in my life. Like never. But I love that he had, and he also had a problem he was trying to solve for, and I think like it's so cool to have that kind of purpose. So I identify with your wife. I think that's cool. She was supportive. But yeah, I'm the same. I love stability.
JT: 33:39 Yeah. And so the promise was let me get us to stability, and in the process I'm going to create a lot of chaos. Should last a year. Just hang tight.
Crystal Heuft: 33:51 Did it only last a year? I need to know now.
JT: 33:52 Oh, God, no. It lasted for so much longer than a year. It still persists, right? The life of an entrepreneur is never stable.
Crystal Heuft: 34:00 Clate says, yeah, it comes back, and every time you get to a new level, you're solving new problems, and getting to the chaos again. Right?
JT: 34:07 Right. Right. Now, bear in mind, we bootstrapped, right? And so-
Rob Stevenson: 34:11 So what's "bootstrapped?"
JT: 34:12 Bootstrap is to operate without the aid of external capital. So what that really means is the external capital was us. Right? It was being very judicious with cash flows, and also investing some of our personal savings, and some more of our personal savings, and then what was left of our personal savings. That sort of thing. And I can tell you, look, it could've gone the other way lots of times, but it didn't. Right? We kept kicking. We kept kind of winning on a bigger and bigger stage, and impressing larger and larger companies, and gaining larger and larger engagements to the point that we feel really good that we not only have a standalone business, but one that has some really kind of unique commercial traits that make it really valuable.
JT: 35:01 But I think the most credit for that courage really goes to my partner in life, Jenny, who was willing to be patient with me, and then my partner in business, Brett Kaufman, who Rob has met knows, for being courageous to join me in that, right? Because he's a very talented guy. I think either one of us could've had great jobs as executives many times over. Throughout the process of growing this when things were lean and thin and scary, but you just to keep kicking. If you really believe in what you're doing, you'll find a way. You'll find a way.
Crystal Heuft: 35:42 That's great.
Rob Stevenson: 35:43 For a lot of entrepreneurs, those are the entrepreneurial spirit. It lives in and flows through them. It's their lifeblood. And they're not the eight hour days. The 10, the 12, the 16 hour days. They're the ones that turn the lights on in the morning and turn them off at night. How do you cope with that? How do you turn JT off after a long day? How do you relax it and find peace in a world that can not always be peaceful?
JT: 36:10 Yeah, that's a good question. The short answer is I'm only kind of good at it. Right? And anybody who tells you that "I just leave work at the office, and then I go home, and I hug my kids, and do yoga, and do whatever," that's not real. I don't believe them. I don't believe that there's this work/life separation. I think we have lives, and our work is a really meaningful part of it.
JT: 36:45 I worked really, really hard when I worked for other people when I worked for other companies, because I sincerely care. I totally ... Can we cuss on this?
Rob Stevenson: 36:55 Go ahead.
JT: 36:56 Yeah, I totally give ... right? My name is attached to it.
Rob Stevenson: 36:59 Oh, you can't do that one.
JT: 36:59 Okay.
Rob Stevenson: 37:02 There's seven words you can't say.
JT: 37:03 Dammit.
Crystal Heuft: 37:03 That's fine.
Rob Stevenson: 37:04 That's two.
Crystal Heuft: 37:04 Please go on with your profound answer.
JT: 37:06 Awesome. Awesome.
Rob Stevenson: 37:07 Also, when I said what do you do to relax? I was thinking like fishing, but this is a good story. This is a much better story.
JT: 37:12 Right? So, okay. So, so yes, I fish a lot, right?
Rob Stevenson: 37:16 A lot. JT brings a boat to work ...
JT: 37:19 Three out of five days.
Crystal Heuft: 37:22 A boat? Is that "about," or a boat?
JT: 37:24 About. I get it, a Canadian thing. Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 37:26 JT's like, "Oh, by the way-"
Crystal Heuft: 37:27 I'm not quite sure which it was. I'm being serious.
Rob Stevenson: 37:29 "By the way, it's lunchtime. Who wants to go fishing?" It's like, "Okay, let's go fishing."
JT: 37:35 So I do fish a lot, and I would say if you think about the business that we're in and the work that we do, which is finding targets for our clients, finding out how they like to be communicated, where they interact, and how best to engage them, that sounds a lot like fishing, just in a corporate partnership world.
Rob Stevenson: 37:59 Ooh.
Crystal Heuft: 38:00 Look at this tie back.
Rob Stevenson: 38:01 Allegories. Ooh.
Crystal Heuft: 38:02 He's good, guys. Watch your wallets.
Rob Stevenson: 38:06 He's good, he's good.
JT: 38:07 But you can't always go fishing, right? So we live in the desert. It's hours to do that. And it's a pretty good way to alienate yourself from your family if you do it too much, so be with family-
Crystal Heuft: 38:19 Just ask Scott Peterson. Just kidding.
Rob Stevenson: 38:21 Wow.
Crystal Heuft: 38:21 Sorry. Bad joke.
Rob Stevenson: 38:22 Holy cow.
Crystal Heuft: 38:25 Too much true crime this week. Too much true crime.
JT: 38:26 Yeah. So what I would say is-
Rob Stevenson: 38:27 It does bring it back to the Flounder reference earlier, but-
Crystal Heuft: 38:30 Accidentally.
Rob Stevenson: 38:31 It does.
JT: 38:33 What I would say is for everybody, it's different. For me, I get better by helping other people. So I try to coach my kids' sports teams. I try to engage with other entrepreneurs who are either earlier in their mission or they're struggling with something later in their mission.
Crystal Heuft: 38:51 That's great.
JT: 38:51 And that gives me the opportunity to think in different ways. Sleep's really important. I don't work late at night ever if I can avoid it.
Crystal Heuft: 39:03 Wow. Disciplined.
JT: 39:06 My partner Brett works all hours. Right? He's constant, and that's his release, for me, I just find that the quality of my work really dwindles after I kind of reach an exhaustion point. I try to do something physically active, but not at the gym. Like I mow the lawn, or I'll go like work on something at the house to just get out of my screens a little bit. And I just try to remind myself that progress takes time, that urgency is important, but so is patience.
Crystal Heuft: 39:42 So we're getting ready to wrap up here, but I want to ask ... I know it goes quick, right?
JT: 39:46 So fast, yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 39:47 Probably because we hardly let you finish the sentence, but I hope you felt like you got some stuff out.
JT: 39:52 I did, yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 39:53 But what I want to end with is if you had really one tip for how a small business can make it with these huge conglomerates and huge companies, what would be your tip to get them motivated and keep going?
JT: 40:08 Sure. Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to understand their problems. You have to develop empathy. So my one tip-
Rob Stevenson: 40:16 Can a billion dollar company have empathy, or do I have to have empathy in order to understand their problems?
JT: 40:21 You have to have empathy for them.
Rob Stevenson: 40:23 I see, I see, I see.
JT: 40:24 Okay. Curiosity creates empathy. Empathy is a thing that you have after you understand, so develop a real curiosity, and then deploy that curiosity with a willing partner on the other side. So before you try to sell anything, just try to learn, right? Just listen, ask questions.
Crystal Heuft: 40:42 I love that. That's so important.
Crystal Heuft: 40:44 Well, you guys heard it here first. Curiosity builds empathy.
JT: 40:49 Yeah. It creates empathy.
Crystal Heuft: 40:50 Creates empathy from JT Benton. Thank you for being here.
Rob Stevenson: 40:53 Wait, Curiosity Creates Empathy was the name of my high school bagpipe band.
Crystal Heuft: 40:58 Good. Good way to bring it in.
Rob Stevenson: 40:59 No, it was. It was Curiosity Creates Empathy. Free hugs after each performance.
Crystal Heuft: 41:04 100%. Who wouldn't after a bagpipe performance?
Crystal Heuft: 41:07 Anyways, thank you so much, JT, for being here. We really appreciate your time, and we hope everyone's listening, and got some good nuggets out of that.
JT: 41:16 Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Crystal Heuft: 41:19 Thanks.
Rob Stevenson: 41:20 Thanks.
Derek Harju: 41:22 Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz. Please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five star rating. It helps keep the show going. And if you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com, and get started. More business, less work. That's Keap. Derek Harju (00:37):
Head over to keap.com and start your free trial of Keap Grow, Keap Pro, or for those looking for something beefier, talk to one of our coaches about Infusionsoft, the product that started it all. More business, less work, that's Keap. Just go to keap.com to start your free trial. That's K-E-A-P.com. One more time, that's K-E-A-P.com.
Crystal Heuft (01:05):
Okay, we will be ready if you stop chatting. Just kidding. Dusey knows I love him. Okay, gentlemen, I want to hear about your great weekend plans. Dusey was teeing it up earlier, Jack, so what do you got going on this weekend?
Jack Smithson (01:21):
Well, something I feel very strongly about, actually, yeah, we do have to come in with the intro to the podcast.
Crystal Heuft (01:33):
Okay, that's my fault. Geez, I'm so messed up. No, yeah, good. Because then I would have to fake a reaction and I'm not someone who lies. Okay, so hi, I'm Crystal.
Jack Smithson (01:47):
I'm Jack.
Crystal Heuft (01:48):
And this is Small Biz Buzz. Let's get into it. I'm dying to hear because this has been teased for a bit and we've been waiting for this moment to share it. What are you doing this weekend, Jack?
Jack Smithson (02:01):
I have been forced into a coed baby shower. New day.
Crystal Heuft (02:10):
Sounds dreadful.
Jack Smithson (02:11):
It's, yeah, good God, right? Now, what guy, point to him, that said when he heard about a baby shower said, "Man I wish I was invited to that?"
Crystal Heuft (02:22):
I'm going to be real honest, I don't know a lot of women... Oh, gosh. Dusey's raising his hand. I was just about to say I don't even know any women that actually like going to a shower. If I was a man, I think it would be worse because women at least tend to be a little bit more like, "Okay, well we've got to rally for our friend." But showers are freaking boring but go on. Not many men and not many women.
Jack Smithson (02:46):
Yeah, it's actually family, but it's my wife's best friend. My cousin but, literally, her best friend and I said, "I'm going to be sick that day." She said she would be disappointed in me if I was sick that day.
Crystal Heuft (03:05):
The D word.
Jack Smithson (03:05):
Yeah, that's-
Crystal Heuft (03:06):
The only D word that comes after that D word is divorce, and you're not getting there with your great wife.
Jack Smithson (03:11):
No, and there will be like certain benefits to my marriage that I won't get for a while if I don't go to this.
Crystal Heuft (03:19):
You better go.
Jack Smithson (03:20):
Yeah, so I'm going.
Crystal Heuft (03:21):
Don't lose benefits.
Jack Smithson (03:22):
That's, actually, we have Brendan, Brendan Alan Barrett with us and you just had a child recently.
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:31):
I did, yeah, we're like six, seven. I should know better, but he's either six or seven weeks in.
Crystal Heuft (03:36):
He's so cute. I'm going to have to see an updated picture because although I don't like showers, I do like babies. I don't want people to think I'm like vicious.
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:44):
Well, my weekend is filled with making up for all the time I've been at work not doing my daddy duties and letting wife sleep. If I can talk her into it.
Jack Smithson (03:55):
How about your baby shower?
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:58):
I wasn't even aware it was happening.
Crystal Heuft (04:03):
Proper answer.
Brendan Alan Barrett (04:04):
Just guests showed up and I was like, "Cool. That's less stuff I got to buy. Awesome."
Jack Smithson (04:07):
You weren't invited, which is the way it should be. You weren't invited.
Crystal Heuft (04:10):
It should. My sister just had a shower two weeks ago but I don't have kids as I think I told you last time. She has these great sister-in-laws that love her and they have kids so they do all the work. I just showed up, which still, like I said, was painful. This time it was easy because it wasn't too showery but, yeah, their showers get crazy. Let's get to what we're talking about today because we're starting to go down a rabbit hole of misery and showers. But we have Brendan Alan Barrett here and you're pretty known out there for killing it in sales. So go ahead and tell everyone all the things you do because, to be honest, I wouldn't even know where to start. You have so many businesses, jobs, things you're working on for sales. You're definitely an expert. Go ahead and share so that we make sure we get it the way you like it and I don't mess up.
Brendan Alan Barrett (04:58):
Well, we'll keep it real simple. Yeah, I'm the founder of StartInPhx or startinphx.com, which is home to all kinds of training and content on best practices and sales and sales leadership. It's also home to the business of family and selling podcast, which interviews people who are doing it better than a lot of folks when it comes to sales and sales leadership. But more, importantly, the best practices that enable healthy work life, balance, or integration.
Crystal Heuft (05:28):
That's great. So important. I don't even have a family. I literally don't know how people do it. I can't even balance my own life without a family, so my dog doesn't get enough time. She really doesn't and she makes sure I know when she's not but also it's just hard to make sure you're getting enough rest. I'm still tired. I told you last time how tired I was. I'm still feeling tired.
Brendan Alan Barrett (05:51):
For a lot of people it's just like invention, it comes from necessity, right?
Crystal Heuft (05:58):
Yeah.
Brendan Alan Barrett (05:58):
There is the baby effect is a very real thing.
Jack Smithson (06:01):
Oh, for sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:03):
The birth of my first son definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things and it became very clear that, hey, I can't be the rep who's working 12, 16 hours a day because I don't have 12, 16 hours a day to do it anymore. I better get real smart and intentional about how I'm going about building a book of business, generating revenue for the companies that I'm representing. So then down the rabbit hole I went into best practices and sales and how do I get-
Crystal Heuft (06:29):
That's great.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:29):
... really good at this so that I can fit it in between 8:00 and 5:00 PM. 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM.
Crystal Heuft (06:37):
That's pretty good.
Jack Smithson (06:37):
And getting a solid three hours of sleep at night, right?
Crystal Heuft (06:40):
Yeah, hopefully.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:41):
Indeed, indeed.
Crystal Heuft (06:43):
You must be a great husband because you've mentioned a few times about how your wife's not getting as much sleep as you, but you always put it back on what she's doing. Which I think is really cool and stands out as a family man.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:55):
She's a saint, she carries so much of the weight and I think that was clear from the beginning that that's the kind of person she was going to be and I'm like, yeah, I'm planning to have a family, this is a good partner to do that with.
Crystal Heuft (07:10):
Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. Well, one of the ways you've gotten smarter, worked smarter, not harder is really looking at sales follow up, right?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:19):
Indeed, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (07:21):
You're really focused in on B2B although you've had probably experience in both?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:25):
Oh, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (07:27):
What are some main things that small business out there should really be considering when they're thinking of following up with B2B?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:35):
Well, going back to necessity, like it is a necessity. I think what DiscoverOrg just did like an internal, I don't know if they just did it, but internal study on what does it take just to get that first demo? How many times do you have to touch, to prospect just to win their attention and have a legitimate conversation? What they found over 10s of thousands of demos booked was that their average was seven touches. A combination of phone calls, email, social media touches just to have that conversation to say yes or no we're going to do this thing. I think if you're not good at it, it might take more than seven, right?
Crystal Heuft (08:16):
Well, and I think seven only accounts for the ones you knew you saw. A lot of times I think marketing today is so sly, you don't always know you even saw it. There probably is more than that but seven that someone will remember.
Jack Smithson (08:29):
Sure, and we're talking five to seven just to get people engaged with you in a meaningful way in the sales conversation and then there's your sales process.
Crystal Heuft (08:41):
Yeah, Jack you know all about this.
Jack Smithson (08:44):
Yeah, just getting people engaged just to get people engaged with you. You're talking five to seven people balk at that all the time. I've covered that one on one with small businesses in my webinars and live demo like people balk at the idea of having to follow up that often.
Crystal Heuft (09:02):
Yeah, totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (09:03):
Well, that often and that many times in a short period of time. It does surprise a lot of people. I think my first wake up to that was one of my first sales gigs. I was painting houses between my junior and senior year of college and I got a call from my manager and he's like, "Brendan, you've gone through more marketing material than anybody, you're working hard but like why aren't you getting as many quotes out as everybody else?" The reality was I was spreading myself too thin. I was focusing on too large of an area and not touching the same people multiple times, and so I was burning through my collateral and not getting as many meetings as people who went back to the same neighborhood three, four or five times, right?
Crystal Heuft (09:45):
Yeah, that's interesting. It always makes you wonder, because there's all kinds of marketing. They can have door to door. That's a great call out, I would not have thought about going to the same neighborhood multiple times but that's exactly how these touch points started, right? They used to start by getting in front of the actual person.
Brendan Alan Barrett (10:03):
Well, a good example of that is I interviewed the guys at 4energy, or one of the guys over at 4energy, they do energy efficient windows, doors, solar insulation, and so they're targeting homeowners. People who just moved in, older house typically. Their first touch is telemarketing. They're calling into a neighborhood, then they're working that neighborhood by knocking on the doors. If you don't get somebody to answer, you leave a door hanger or a flyer in the door. Then when you get a job, then there's two appointments, both those trucks are wrapped with company logos. When you get the job, then the sign is in the front yard and then you keep working those houses around that sign and around that job-
Jack Smithson (10:47):
Right, you canvass that neighborhood.
Brendan Alan Barrett (10:48):
Yeah, you're building momentum upon all of those exposures to your brand, to your message, and as you get a customer, now you have something new to bring to the conversation, "Hey, now we're working with somebody you know. Somebody in your neighborhood who's got a house exactly like yours because it was built by the same person." There are people who are going to be the low hanging fruit, and through follow up, you can build upon those experiences and make the thing you sell whether it's a service or a product that much more relatable to the laggards, the people who are harder to win over.
Crystal Heuft (11:20):
Totally, so what you're just saying, though, is a lot of B2C. If we think B2B, sometimes it's tough to get one touch point with a business. How can someone really get to those touch points through working business contacts? What are some of the ways people are getting in front of B2B clients?
Brendan Alan Barrett (11:39):
Well, people are people in like one thing. When we talk follow up, some of the push back is, "Well, it's so expensive to send a rep back to that office three, four, five times." I was like, "Well, I'm not telling you to send them three, four, five times. Let's place a call, send a couple of emails. See if we could win their attention. Then if still we can't win their attention and have a meaningful conversation, then maybe we deploy somebody to go out and when we do that, let's plan the route."
Crystal Heuft (12:05):
That's smart, so you're hitting up lots in the same area?
Brendan Alan Barrett (12:07):
Lots, as many people in the same area and the same day who we've already exhausted some of these other things and now we have maybe content or collateral or touch points that we can refer back to. Because while we're prospecting into an account, like on every call, there's something that can be learned. It's really cool if the thing that we learn is, "Hey, this person's as excited as I am to buy the thing I have to sell." But, typically, it's, "Hey, on the first call I tried to talk to Michelle. She's not the person, I got to talk to Michael. On the second call, I captured Michael's email address, so now I don't just have a way to call them, I can follow up with an email. Now they can hear what I have to say and read what I have to say. I can bump it up in their inbox a couple of times.
Brendan Alan Barrett (12:51):
Now I captured the cell phone because they replied to an email and now we're playing the scheduling game. But now I can send. Now because I have an email signature with a cell phone in it, now I can start sending text messages. Oh, they're really responsive to text messages because maybe nobody else is texting them." You're learning all these things and you're collecting. A lot of people, especially, when we're going into follow up for first meetings, prospecting into an account with all of these touches, a lot of people... when you say that, they hear cold calling and just like spray and pray, but the reality is prospector. If you think of the term, like gold prospector, they weren't going out there blindly.
Crystal Heuft (13:33):
The worst prospecting however.
Brendan Alan Barrett (13:35):
They're panning for gold defined deposits-
Crystal Heuft (13:38):
One little nugget.
Brendan Alan Barrett (13:40):
... to find a place worth digging really deep because that's where the real gold is. That's where the real material is but you don't want to dig a real deep hole and waste six months worth of work and food and time. Unless you got an indication that that's the place to dig.
Crystal Heuft (13:54):
What's the fool's gold of sales follow up for B2B? Because that fool's gold will get you every time. Suddenly, you're digging the big hole and it wasn't worth your time.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:06):
The time vampires for sure.
Crystal Heuft (14:09):
Agreed.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:10):
People who'll talk with you and if you've got a sales team of a couple of people and you're tracking talk time and that's one of your metrics that you're... A salesperson would love talking for 20 minutes to somebody who has no authority.
Jack Smithson (14:23):
That's such broken metric.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:25):
Yeah, their talk time looks fantastic.
Crystal Heuft (14:27):
Yeah but can't make a sale. How do you spot a time vampire coming a mile away?
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:34):
Well, like the rule with prospecting and follow up is questions. You're going for engagement but if you're asking the right questions, you can tell like this is engagement for their benefit versus engagement for my benefit. You should be a decent person and a nice person, enjoy the work that you do but at a certain point, yeah, you should know when to cut your losses. And through questions, through knowing, asking questions because even if they're not a champion, it could be a coach through that account. They could tell you who really pulls the strings, and then you have to be honest with yourself and know, "Okay, I've got what I've got, or I can get from this specific individual. They've coached me as much as they can coach me, now I got to go execute on the information.
Crystal Heuft (15:19):
Back in the day, I did do some sales. I actually was pretty damn good at it, but darn good, maybe I've just got a bleep, I'm not sure.
Jack Smithson (15:27):
I think damn's okay.
Crystal Heuft (15:29):
But I wasn't selling. I wasn't selling B2B, I wasn't selling some services, I was selling family portraits. But I think one of the things I always found is that there are time vampires, and you have to be daring enough to ask bold questions to start identifying what their interest level really is. Like what's stopping you from buying this extra portrait package? Is it that you don't like the portrait because then let's cut our losses. Take this other one and let's go. But I think sometimes in B2B, we get nervous to ask the tough questions because you don't want to burn the bridge. But sometimes they're just not ready. I was always shocked when you'd ask a more serious follow up question, and you'd find out they're either just sometimes just waiting on getting answers from other people, and that's great, that you can handle. Then it's like, "Okay, well, I'm going to check in with you. Does two weeks sound good?"
Crystal Heuft (16:22):
Then you know when to check back and you're not waiting those two weeks hitting them up every day? But what are some good questions that people can ask to identify if they should continue following up or should they cut their losses?
Brendan Alan Barrett (16:35):
Okay, well, here's a linkable moment for you because when I was talking to, or when I was here last time talking with Clate, one of his big insights was, "You have to ask for the business." If you're just tiptoeing around it, at a certain point, you got to ask for the business or you're not going to get a yes or a no. If it's if you spend a decent amount of time exploring it and you haven't asked for the business, yeah, you haven't given somebody a chance to cut you loose as somebody who's selling to them. That no could be the permission, "Okay, finally, I can leave this person alone and go focus on somebody who I can actually do business with."
Crystal Heuft (17:15):
I think that's great.
Jack Smithson (17:16):
Right, and you brave up and then if it is a no you get reason and a no isn't always a solid no, it maybe no right now or maybe a no depends but it's a no is great, a yes is great, a maybe is not where you want to be.
Crystal Heuft (17:33):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (17:34):
Well, so asking why, well timings not right. Well, what would make it right? Is it that you don't have time to do it right now, he's like, "Oh, I need three weeks." "Well, why do you need three weeks." He says, "Well, in three weeks, I think I'll be done with this project." "What would help you get that project done sooner? Can I connect you with somebody?"
Crystal Heuft (17:53):
I like it, there's that expert shining his light. Okay, so we're going to take a break and kick it on over to worst business ideas ever. Hopefully, you enjoy that and then stick around, we're going to talk some more with Brendan on some more follow up and how he balances it all. So, thanks come or I guess hang out a little longer and listen.
Derek Harju (18:24):
Howdy folks, I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:25):
And I'm Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (18:27):
And this is worst business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:29):
The show where we look back at some of the most brutal missteps, failures, and flops in consumer history.
Derek Harju (18:34):
And make fun of it.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:35):
But also learn something.
Derek Harju (18:37):
Nope, it says in my contract I don't have to learn.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:39):
Fine, the rest of us will learn something and you can just mock people's misfortune.
Derek Harju (18:43):
Sounds good.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:45):
Welcome to the worst business ideas in history.
Derek Harju (18:50):
Hi, I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:51):
And I'm Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (18:52):
And this is worse business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:54):
What are we looking at today?
Derek Harju (18:56):
We're going to look at a couple of interesting topics that I'm excited about, which is the war between HD, DVD, and Blu-ray?
Dusey Van Dusen (19:04):
Okay, these are anybody who listened to the football episode, I know a little bit more about these things.
Derek Harju (19:12):
We've seen the format wars in the past, there was VHS versus Betamax, there was a laser disc tried to take off and didn't really go anywhere and DVD came along. DVD kind of ruled the roost for quite a while, but then it was in the early 2000s we got these two competing formats, HD DVD, which was produced primarily by Toshiba and Blu-ray which was produced primarily by Sony. Some of the factors in the VHS versus Beta debacle was just adoption by things like video rental stores and the ability to tape things off of TV for a long play.
Dusey Van Dusen (19:54):
The amazing thing about all of these wars is usually whichever format has the best quality is irrelevant to whichever wins out over time.
Derek Harju (20:06):
Absolutely, like Beta is an absolutely both on an audio and video standard, preferable to VHS. What VHS had over Beta was that you could record over two hours on a single tape. Which a lot of people what they were using it for was to tape things like football games or other sporting events.
Dusey Van Dusen (20:26):
Movies that would air.
Derek Harju (20:27):
Yep, movies, which if you remember if you were a child of the 80s, every time there would be a TV ad for, say, like The Hobbit on VHS, they would be like, "Do you want this in VHS or Beta?" If you got it on Beta, it came on two tapes.
Dusey Van Dusen (20:40):
Oh, wow.
Derek Harju (20:43):
Blu-ray is going head to head with HD DVD, and the first thing that happens is Toshiba and Microsoft team up and they're like, "We're both backing HD DVD. We think it's going to work better for personal computers." What we find out eventually is that really neither was adopted for PC use. Like Blu-ray, like most personal computers just never shipped with either an HD DVD player or a Blu-ray player.
Dusey Van Dusen (21:11):
Yeah, and it was obviously CD players and DVDs eventually became a really big thing on computers, not so much nowadays as discs are becoming a thing of the past slowly. But, yeah, it never really despite the huge amount of storage space that both these formats had, it just didn't seem to pick up. I guess the internet came and broadband came too soon.
Derek Harju (21:33):
Yeah, that's always I actually was a very staunch believer that I was going to skip the Blu-ray format altogether, but it stuck around long enough to where I had to adopt.
Dusey Van Dusen (21:41):
I'm kind of with you, it's been around longer than I thought it would be.
Derek Harju (21:43):
Yeah, I was like, "I'm just going to wait till everything's 10 ADP streaming and then I won't care about this." Now everything's 4K and that's a whole other, that's a different show. Both sides are trying to get people on their side, and the first place most of them go is the studios. HD DVD had Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. on their side. Meanwhile, Sony was backing Blu-ray as well as Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox were on board. Now, both of those have pretty wide movie and TV because this was the time when people were getting excited about owning entire TV shows on discs so they could just play them whatever they want, right? Sit home and binge watch the Simpsons on a Sunday.
Dusey Van Dusen (22:27):
Or Lost, I had all of Lost, I had all of 24. I can't believe I binged those on DVDs.
Derek Harju (22:37):
What ends up happening is that Steven Spielberg actually ends up playing a huge role in this whole thing. He's tied to Warner Bros. at the time who is backing HD DVD, but he specifically stipulated that his movies had to be available on Blu-ray. Which immediately eroded their partnership, and in short order, Warner Bros. ends up jumping ship. Now, Blu-ray has Warner Bros. on their side in addition to Sony, Fox and Disney. So they've got all the powerhouses with the exception of Paramount.
Dusey Van Dusen (23:10):
That first defector it's got to have people worried as soon as you start to see that.
Derek Harju (23:16):
Absolutely, and then the very next thing that happens is Blockbuster Video after they have... they test out both in some target markets and after six months, a year of testing, they're like, "Well, 70% of our sales are going to Blu-ray so we're stocking our shelves with Blu-rays." That's where the holes in the hall of HD DVD really start to show. They try to get a little bit of traction by pairing up with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 comes out and the Xbox 360 is a fairly qualified success. They offer a peripheral which is an external HD DVD player.
Dusey Van Dusen (23:56):
An add-on, which I completely, in my head, it was part of the system, that you had to go buy an add-on and plug it in to the side, it would sit there.
Derek Harju (24:03):
Correct, and it was almost $200. I remember it was like $150 or $200 and that's after you have already bought an Xbox 360.
Dusey Van Dusen (24:10):
An Xbox 360.
Derek Harju (24:13):
Meanwhile, Sony, who owns the Blu-ray format, the PlayStation 3 comes out, so guess what's pre-installed in it? Not as a peripheral, built into the system, you buy a PlayStation 3, you've got a Blu-ray player.
Dusey Van Dusen (24:26):
Now, these PlayStations, I mean, they sold really well, the PlayStation 3. But they were super expensive, especially, those first few years that they were out, weren't they like 400 or even 500 for different models?
Derek Harju (24:38):
Yeah, absolutely. You could make the case you're like, "Well, after you spend all the money, they cost about the same." Consumer mindset can be an odd thing to track. Even though the PS3 was more expensive, because the Blu-ray was bundled in, people who actually didn't have much interest in video games were buying it because it was actually slightly cheaper than a lot of the standalone Blu-ray players that were being put out.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:03):
Blu-ray players, yeah.
Derek Harju (25:03):
Now, Sony did this, this is a fun fact for everyone listening, Sony loses money every single time they sell a console, the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 4, they lose money every single time they sell a console.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:18):
That's like they sell a lot of them.
Derek Harju (25:21):
Yeah, they lose, no joke and-
Dusey Van Dusen (25:24):
Like, how does that work? How does that help them?
Derek Harju (25:25):
So they lose anywhere from $100 to $150 every time they sell a PlayStation 3, they get it back when you buy games. What they're really doing is they're paying 150 bucks to gain entry into your living room.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:38):
They're the original, cheap printer expensive ink.
Derek Harju (25:42):
Correct, so things just start sliding from there, Target follows suit, they're only carrying Blu-ray in their stores. Warner Brothers, then one of the last holdouts, like Warner Brothers as I said, jumped ship and is pairing up with Blu-ray. HD DVD producer, Toshiba, tries dropping. They actually slashed the prices of their players in half hoping that it'll spur adoption. But by that time the damage is done. There's nothing they can do.
Dusey Van Dusen (26:18):
What I immediately think of when trying to apply like look at this situation like that loss leader idea really stood out to me. There are a lot of companies that will do this, that they'll sell something, Walmart will sell something at a loss. Not because there's something specifically tied to it, but just because it gets them into the store, it gets consumers into the store and then they pick up other stuff while they're there and then make up their money there. How can a small business apply that idea? Like small businesses don't have a lot to just give away.
Derek Harju (26:48):
It's good to look for places where you can provide people with value that doesn't necessarily have to cost you a lot of money, but you may be giving it away. That may be in instructional videos, and online content, blogs, tip sheets, white papers, that kind of thing.
Dusey Van Dusen (27:07):
Something else that you can do as a step into, so there's that free stuff but you can also have an eBook or a webinar series or something like that, that is 20 bucks to buy. That gets people in the door starting a relationship with you, and then they're more likely to come back to you later after you've made that initial transaction. The thing you want to make sure of is that it's things that aren't going to cost you time and effort. If you're giving away something that you personally have to follow up on or do a service that you have to give, that battle's never going to end in your favor. Yeah, find something that you can give away that doesn't cost you time or effort besides getting it up and running first to start to create a relationship with people that might be interested in your service.
Derek Harju (27:54):
Absolutely. Well, we want to thank you guys for tuning in. This has been Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (27:58):
This is Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (27:59):
And this is Worst business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (28:01):
Bye.
Derek Harju (28:02):
Keeping ever expanding client info straight, sending the same emails hundreds of times, scheduling and rescheduling appointments over and over. Who enjoys this nonsense? No one except my cousin, Brent, and Brent is the absolute worst. Keap is the premier, all-in-one CRM. Just head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com and start your free trial today. Get the busy work out of the way so you can focus on what's important and make your small business grow with Keap. Start your free trial at keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com. More business less work, that's Keap.
Jack Smithson (28:47):
Okay, we're back and we are here with Brendan Alan Barrett Barrett and we're going to continue our conversation and we're going to segue over from follow up and then crossing over into sales and work-life balance.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:03):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (29:04):
So how do you do it? I don't know.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:06):
A little fairy dust, a little blind luck.
Crystal Heuft (29:13):
It seems like something you would need to make that happen.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:13):
No, so that topic alone was ultimately the spark that started the podcast, the business of family and selling. I was an independent sales rep for a construction company, and I was driving out to a job in Wickenburg at 10:30 at night listening to an audio book that my wife and I had decided to listen to together. That right there was just trying to consume some of the same content that was a step in that direction of work-life balance. Because I think I heard Seth Godin say it first that when you read the same books as people, your conversations start to change. I think that's really true, you start to have a vocabulary from which to have, or a common vocabulary, from which to have really productive conversations no matter what it is. That particular situation it was me and my soon-to-be wife like how the heck are we going to merge our finances? How do we navigate that and we're still doing it.
Brendan Alan Barrett (30:10):
I just suggested another book this week that we should be reading together so that we can start making more plans for the future and refining that. But, again, that was this work-life balance thing and being self-employed and a sales professional, like those are long, stressful days. They can be, especially, if you're not super intentional about it. There came the podcast, the business of family and selling where I interviewed a bunch of people who were farther into fatherhood and farther into marriage than I was.
Crystal Heuft (30:41):
That's cool.
Brendan Alan Barrett (30:42):
Who were doing really big things or had one or two pieces of the equation really well figured out. Really, the big themes were boundaries, but to set good boundaries you got to have some pretty good clarity, and then the other part of it is best practices. The things that work really well right now are the things that are going to give you time back. Whether it's organizing your day when it comes to prospecting the activity, following up on existing pipeline, getting paperwork done. Right, like doing that really well and keeping it organized and efficient is going to make it easier for you to feel good about "clocking out" at 5:00-
Crystal Heuft (31:33):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (31:33):
... and focusing on the people at the dinner table. Then like as a sales leader, having processes and procedures documented, both written and then maybe in more consumable fashions like video and audio so that sales people don't have to feel like they need to call their boss to get a question answered or to learn how to do something. The bus is already laid out. When you have these questions, search this database, I'll show you how to do it in the video I created two years ago. That was the podcast, and again, the lessons learned are clarity, boundaries, and then always trying to revise best practices. They truly are the most efficient ways of growing revenue and leading a team.
Crystal Heuft (32:18):
That's good.
Jack Smithson (32:19):
Right, and systematizing as you essentially for yourself and for your team members or?
Brendan Alan Barrett (32:26):
Yeah, so if you're going at every day, you're shooting from the hip every morning, like there's no consistency to that. Not only are you going to be frustrated, and at the end of the day, feel like you didn't accomplish anything and then feel guilty about "clocking out" at 5:00 and sitting with the family. But you have no data from which then to reflect on and try to make pivots and improvements upon. I think the last time I was here we were talking about being super organized and documenting your sales processes and your follow ups in your CRM. Because only when you document everything and you document things accurately, are you really going to have true data from which to make decisions and improvements from.
Crystal Heuft (33:10):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:11):
The same thing applies to making time for both being a fantastic provider, getting your feelings of self-actualization from your career, and also being a good husband, wife, parent, child, brother, sister, whatever it happens to be.
Crystal Heuft (33:33):
I feel like for small business owners, it's so tough because you're-
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:41):
Agreed.
Crystal Heuft (33:43):
... trying so hard. I don't know what that sign means Jack, help a girl out.
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:48):
It's audio, they can't see the facial expressions guys.
Crystal Heuft (33:50):
I don't know what this means yet. We need a sign language lesson after so I can take up on the cues Jack gives me.
Jack Smithson (33:58):
[inaudible 00:33:58].
Crystal Heuft (33:58):
Oh, so it wasn't even a sign, I'm like, "What did I do wrong [crosstalk 00:34:03]?" Okay, so back to this topic, I didn't forget guys, what I was talking about is that small business owners really find the struggle to balance that family in life and business. Whether it's a family or you're just on your own, you still need a work-life balance. I have a friend, actually, I've been giving him a lot of feedback lately that, "Hey, you're going 110 miles an hour 24/7. You need to take some time out and make a little time for something outside your business." Because he's very successful, he's doing great things. But at the end of the day, you still need that time for yourself to grow in other ways as well. I guess what would be a tip you would give to my friend, Juntae, if you're listening? But I would say what would you tell him about really managing his work-life balance? What would that tip be? Like the number one thing he should be trying to do?
Brendan Alan Barrett (34:59):
What is your fear if June doesn't take this?
Crystal Heuft (35:02):
Juntae, I don't have any fear, I just want everyone to live like a balanced life. I think he's killing it, so taking time to celebrate is also part of continuing on to big goals. But I also think on all the small businesses we've talked to, this is a struggle they find of it's not a 9:00 to 5:00. If you want to succeed, you're probably working so many hours so-
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:26):
It's a marathon.
Crystal Heuft (35:26):
... if you can't clock out at 5:00, what should they be at least making sure they do to make sure they have a healthy, sorry, work-life balance?
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:36):
Well, one thing for myself right now is focusing on my eating because I tried to make the physical fitness, physical activity, shift first and I was successful with that for a while and then not so successful and then everything was a mess. Like take the early wins, right?
Jack Smithson (35:55):
Have you ever been there at all?
Crystal Heuft (35:55):
Never.
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:56):
Take the early wins. Like right now, for me, it's just eating more Whole Foods and vegetables and making that my first choice over a sandwich.
Crystal Heuft (36:09):
Yeah, that's great.
Brendan Alan Barrett (36:10):
All this processed stuff and french fries from Wendy's that I can get in a minute rather than having to wait five minutes for my steamed vegetables to be ready. I don't know, circle back to the why though because, for me, I want to do all these things. But to do that, I'm going to have to live a decently long life to see my grandkids and give my grandkids the lives that I foresee them to have. Talking about that on a regular basis is important because if you're not revisiting it, yeah, you forget about it, you focus on the now. I guess, focus on the why first, and then two, take the easy wins. What is the easiest thing that you can do and then build upon those wins. I think like even Zuckerberg preaches that kind of stuff, right?
Crystal Heuft (36:58):
For sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (36:59):
He did the easy stuff first, and that's what allowed them to get build momentum and now do things that a lot of people wouldn't have ever dreamed that they'd be able to do.
Crystal Heuft (37:07):
Yeah.
Jack Smithson (37:09):
Okay, so I'm not organized, I've never been organized. I'm the guy when you said, "Hey, people get up and they shoot from the hip." I'm like, "That's me."
Crystal Heuft (37:17):
But you usually get the bullseye.
Jack Smithson (37:19):
Right. I do okay there but I just recently started listing. My wife is really organized, and her whole life is lists and checking boxes and feeling really good about kicking the crap out of her lists. I've never been a listing guy until recently, and it's made a huge difference. Because if I just try and get something in my head, which I've done for a long time, and then I realize, "Hey, my head it's not a very good organizer." It's all over the place. I drift in the best of times. Actually, having lists and writing something like, "Oh, I need to do this, and now I'm going to write it down."
Brendan Alan Barrett (37:54):
Amen, and that's what my book is. The only thing I brought in were my keys, my phone, and my notebook. I carry that thing with me every day.
Jack Smithson (38:04):
Mine's right next to yours.
Brendan Alan Barrett (38:04):
I sit down while I'm drinking my coffee or when I first get to my desk, if it was a rushed morning, and brain dump all the things that I got going on in my head. A lot of it is from pages before like it just it never happened, whatever. Then after it's all out, then I start numbering it. What's the most important thing I get done today, or what's going to make me feel accomplished at the end of the day? The thing that's going to move that needle the most, that's number one, number two, number three. Then if I do more than three, then I start to get distracted and so I try to only do three at a time. If I get through all three, which some days doesn't even happen, but if I get through all three, then I can renumber.
Jack Smithson (38:44):
Yeah, I don't know if you have Jordan Peterson. I read one of his books recently, the 12 Rules for Life, and he has a conversation with himself where he says, "Hey, self, I'd like to reduce some of the unnecessary suffering around here. Is there something I can do?" He has this conversation with himself, and so I look at that list with that in mind. I'm like, "So which of these are causing me the most pain? Where's the most consternation here and which one should I probably knock off the list so that I don't need the Xanax?"
Crystal Heuft (39:16):
You guys are speaking in book language here, I'm going to go ahead for anyone out there that might be like me, and I'm going to speak to a meme because that's what social media marketing managers do. The one that always gets me to sit and reevaluate is the one that has the lady and she's got her hand up and she's like, "Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by your own bad decisions." Anytime someone posts that, I put the emoji of the woman with the raised hand because I'm like, "Amen." That's how I get to reevaluate those choices because I'm like, "They are right, I'm personalizing or I'm personally victimizing myself right now by sitting here and eating this ice cream or by skipping the gym or by not prioritizing those things that I need to really recharge." Journaling, and I have started journaling a little, it's foreign to me, but it is important I think for me to clear that head space and get realigned to some of my goals and missions in life. So things like that, I think, really help.
Jack Smithson (40:16):
But some of our best stories come from our worst decisions, I'm just saying.
Crystal Heuft (40:20):
Oh, and the best lessons, best stories and best lessons.
Jack Smithson (40:24):
I have so many great stories-
Crystal Heuft (40:25):
Me too, Jack.
Jack Smithson (40:26):
... because I've made horrible decisions.
Crystal Heuft (40:28):
Me too.
Jack Smithson (40:28):
I'm like, "Yeah, [crosstalk 00:40:30] not to do that," and then it goes.
Crystal Heuft (40:32):
Let's do the sharing of those too, I'm ready. Let's do here. I was just sharing one, actually, yesterday, I should have called you over. I was like everyone was really enjoying it, but we're not going to share that here. But I'll fill you in. But you are 100% right, those are the best stories and they are usually for me the best learning experiences.
Brendan Alan Barrett (40:50):
Well, and for those out there like that is the trend, without conflict, there is no story. But I was just listening to an interview, I think it was Dax Shepard was interviewing Judd Apatow.
Crystal Heuft (41:03):
That's gotta be a good one.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:04):
Yeah, and he followed the Avett brothers around for I don't know how long, and they were filming and filming and filming and couldn't find the conflict. They are like, "Where is the story?" It took them forever to realize that is the story, there's these two brothers who do this awesome thing together and they don't fight.
Crystal Heuft (41:24):
I don't believe it.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:24):
It's a beautiful thing and they have a fantastic life like-
Crystal Heuft (41:29):
They didn't get in deep enough. They didn't go in the right closed door, I'm telling you right now, there's no way two siblings go a whole, this amount of years in the industry with no fighting.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:38):
Well, again, not to the degree that you would think is a story worthy I guess but their whole thing is like they go to their dad like he checks them. When they butt heads, it's not a knock down drag out fight. It's, "Hey, we're struggling with this thing. Let's go to our corners and reassess. Maybe we got to get some outside counsel." Usually, it's their dad telling them to just man up and quit being a jerk and accept that that's the way it is.
Crystal Heuft (42:07):
Well, they've either spent a lot of money in therapy long before this guy was following them, or their dad is a therapist. Because all I'm saying is my sister knows where all the dead bodies are buried, she knows where everything is, and most the time I think she wouldn't sell me out. But every once in a while, I'm like, "Hmm, who would you... how much?" It might only take a 20-
Jack Smithson (42:27):
With siblings with so many like chiclets.
Crystal Heuft (42:28):
Yeah, it might only take a 20 and she might share all of it on some given days.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:33):
They're also at an age where in their relationship, I think, they're at an age in their relationship because they've known each other since birth that a lot of people won't get to until it's their spouse and they're like in their 90s, right?
Crystal Heuft (42:49):
Or they're just very mature and I'm never going to be that.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:52):
Well, I would imagine as kids they weren't as peaceful. Like you learn and you grow.
Jack Smithson (42:57):
Oh, sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:58):
I've been married two years now, and we're learning stuff about each other every day but we're also being very conscious about that. Anytime I get into it like argh, it's, "Oh yeah, we're learning how to coexist. We're learning how to do this thing called life together and we are two different people. We came from two different places." Part of that is why I was so attracted to the woman who became my wife. The other part of it, and that's, I guess, growing up in marriage and growing up in business is very similar. You're going to butt heads with people you do business with.
Jack Smithson (43:34):
Oh, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (43:35):
Is it, Jack?
Jack Smithson (43:36):
My wife once did shake me till my ears bleed at least once every other day.
Crystal Heuft (43:41):
His wife is, honestly, so supportive. She's a very cool chick.
Jack Smithson (43:45):
She's lovely.
Crystal Heuft (43:47):
When we do lives with Jack, she's one of the first people viewing and then she immediately like waves or says hi, she's commenting on there. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what a social media marketing manager's dream come true."
Brendan Alan Barrett (44:02):
There you go.
Jack Smithson (44:02):
It's not that she's not busy, she's a pediatric nurse so she's busy.
Crystal Heuft (44:05):
Yeah, actually, what are your tips for balancing life? Because it's interesting to me, you've got a whole family, you're married. I'm curious about you've got a boss Lady as a wife, you're a boss man here. So how do you guys balance that life at home too?
Jack Smithson (44:23):
Because we're both super A type, we collide hard when we collide. It's, and jokingly, it's like we fight for the pants and it's not overt that we're fighting for the pants. Sometimes it's-
Crystal Heuft (44:38):
Clear.
Jack Smithson (44:38):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (44:38):
And other times it's-
Jack Smithson (44:40):
It's covert that we're fighting for the pants, and sometimes it's just right out there. We've been together about eight years, and we're a lot better at it-
Crystal Heuft (44:49):
That's great.
Jack Smithson (44:49):
... but we still collide because we're both like super A type and you know.
Crystal Heuft (44:52):
To Brendan's point, it probably takes time to get to that growth.
Jack Smithson (44:53):
And my way is always better and I'm always right.
Crystal Heuft (44:57):
You better be careful, I'm going to Facebook her right now.
Jack Smithson (45:02):
Well, I mean, she'll tell you different but I know it that my way's better and that I'm always right.
Crystal Heuft (45:07):
Okay, so we're going to go ahead and remind everyone what we've talked about today because I think we, for a minute there, I think Brendan was ready to leave because we were laughing and making jokes and he was really having some good points. I'm going to wrap it up here a bit and say we started this conversation really driving in on the importance of follow up. Then we went to the importance of work-life balance. So, Brendan, as a way to start closing this out, what would be one tip you would give in follow up, one tip, for the small business owner out there? Then one tip for really balancing that work-life balance?
Brendan Alan Barrett (45:45):
Well, it's a mindset thing. Yes, it really does take that many touches to have meaningful conversations with the people who, when they see the light, will be thanking you for interrupting their day.
Crystal Heuft (45:57):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (45:57):
Yeah, and that realization might keep you from spreading yourself too thin trying to get in front of too many prospects when you have just enough in your database on your spreadsheet, whatever it is, to hit the revenue number you're going after. Only by not following up with that targeted audience, you're going to spread yourself too thin and you're going to be pulling out your hair and, yeah, you're not going to be able to unplug at 5:00 and focus on the people at the dinner table.
Crystal Heuft (46:26):
Totally, so what I'm hearing is know who your audience is so that you can not spread yourself too thin and make sure you're following up with the people that are going to be able to move through the funnel and be acquired.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:38):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Crystal Heuft (46:39):
Then if you do these things, you will have more time for your family and be able to set those boundaries you're talking about.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:45):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (46:45):
Did I do okay there?
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:47):
Indeed.
Crystal Heuft (46:47):
I was even through the jokes trying to take in the lesson. But, anyways, thank you so much for being here, Brendan.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:53):
Absolutely.
Crystal Heuft (46:54):
We are going to send people in our blog to get a 98% of the people that aren't opting in to convert. Where can they find that again?
Brendan Alan Barrett (47:06):
Yeah, so if you have a decent digital web presence or internet assets and you're interested in not just continuing to convert the 1, 2% who are already converting on your sites, but there's another 98% of the folks who are visiting your website, checking out what you have to offer. But for one reason or another, fall off the path to doing business with you, you can learn more about ways to convert that other 98% by visiting startinphx.com/b2bleads.
Crystal Heuft (47:37):
We'll put that link in the blog. Thanks, everyone, for listening, thanks for being here, Brendan.
Jack Smithson (47:41):
Right, magic, it's wizardry.
Crystal Heuft (47:42):
Yeah, it is. It was a great topic and we really appreciate your [crosstalk 00:47:46]-
Brendan Alan Barrett (47:46):
Well, thanks for having me.
Crystal Heuft (47:46):
Yeah, great. Thank you guys.
Derek Harju (47:52):
Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz, please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five star rating. It helps keep the show going. If you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com and get started. More business, less work, that's Keap.
Derek Harju: 00:00 Howdy, listeners. As we all know, Planet Earth has 7.5 billion people, and 7.4 billion of those people have small businesses. Now, to be fair numbers that size can be hard to envision, and to be even fairer, most of what I just said is entirely made up.
Derek Harju: 00:14 But I'll tell you what isn't made up. Keap. Keap is the all in one client management software designed specifically for small businesses. Keap takes the most annoying and laborious parts of running a small business and metaphorically tosses them into the sun. Stop grinding yourself to death with busy work and repetitive tasks. Let Keap integrate your customer followups, messaging automation, next level appointment setting, and so much more. Head over to keap.com and start your free trial of Keap Grow, Keap Pro, or for those looking for something beefier, talk to one of our coaches about Infusionsoft, the product that started at all.
Derek Harju: 00:47 More business, less work. That's Keap. Just go to keap.com to start your free trial. That's K-E-A-P.com. One more time. That's K-E-A-P.com.
Crystal Heuft: 01:03 Hi, this is Crystal.
Rob Stevenson: 01:04 And I'm Rob.
Crystal Heuft: 01:05 And this is Small Biz Buzz, presented by Keap.
Rob Stevenson: 01:08 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to another edition of the Small Biz Buzz. I'm your host, Rob Stevenson.
Crystal Heuft: 01:14 Oh, Lord.
Rob Stevenson: 01:14 And I'm joined today by my other host, the other better host ...
Crystal Heuft: 01:18 Sometimes. Crystal.
Rob Stevenson: 01:19 And today we're joined by a guest, the lovely and talented JT Benton, founder and CEO of WorkBook6.
Rob Stevenson: 01:26 JT, thanks so much for coming today. How are you?
JT: 01:28 I'm great. Thank you so much for having me, Crystal and Rob. Thrilled to be here.
Rob Stevenson: 01:33 Just for the record, it's Rob and Crystal.
JT: 01:36 Okay.
Crystal Heuft: 01:36 Unless you go by who's the best, and then it's Crystal and Rob. It just really depends on how you categorize.
Rob Stevenson: 01:43 That is not untrue. I actually want to jump back into a conversation we were having shortly before we started recording today about coworkers and friends in Disney movies, and we have a very interesting opinion. Crystal, please share us your opinion of Flounder from The Little Mermaid.
Crystal Heuft: 01:59 I just said Flounder is like an amazing sidekick because he was like, "Whatever you need. You want legs? I'm going to stay here in the sea. You go do what you need to do, but I'm here to support you."
Rob Stevenson: 02:08 So Flounder was the yellow and blue fish that was Ariel's friend the entire time.
Crystal Heuft: 02:12 You know it. Ariel's friend. Bestie.
Rob Stevenson: 02:13 Thoughts, JT?
JT: 02:14 Yeah. Would Flounder be analogous in a non-animated movie space like like Turtle from Entourage, like just kind of the-
Rob Stevenson: 02:24 Which one was Turtle?
JT: 02:26 The chubby one who wasn't chubby at the end because he was a celebrity now.
Rob Stevenson: 02:28 Jerry Ferrara. Now he's in great shape.
JT: 02:30 Yeah, he's all ripped up now.
Rob Stevenson: 02:31 No, but he was the glue guy, the guy that just kind of did everything, and, like-
Crystal Heuft: 02:35 That could be similar.
Rob Stevenson: 02:36 I'm not sure I agree that Flounder is the best sidekick. He's not even the best sidekick in his own movie. Sebastian was like, "Look, here are the rules. Let's follow the rules. Okay, you didn't follow the rules, and now you're in trouble. Let's get you out of trouble."
Crystal Heuft: 02:48 Well, this just goes to show the difference of you and I in general.
Rob Stevenson: 02:51 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 02:51 You like the structure and that's why you kind of move us along here, which is nice. But I tend to like the support. No rules, the boundaries are off. Let's just get supported and feel like we're going where we go, and that's what Flounder did.
Rob Stevenson: 03:07 Yes, that's what Flounder did. So that's a good point, and actually it's a good segue into what we're going to talk about today.
Rob Stevenson: 03:12 So, JT, I mentioned before-
Crystal Heuft: 03:14 I'm not sure how, but I'm sure he'll make sure we get there.
Rob Stevenson: 03:16 He'll get there. Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 03:18 As I mentioned before, JT Benton is joining us today. He's the founder and CEO of WorkBook6, and WorkBook6 is a strategic partnership marketing ... I would call it agency, but that doesn't describe the expertise that exists inside the company. So I'll leave it to you, JT. Tell us a little bit about what WorkBook6 does, because from a small business perspective, it's like nothing I've ever seen before.
JT: 03:40 All right, thank you.
JT: 03:43 It's actually always a challenge to describe our business because, to your point, there are not many, if any, firms that I know of that do what we do or at least do what we do in the same way that we do. The simplest way to put it is to say we power partnerships, right? We are all about creating a really unique, lasting, and well aligned strategic partnerships, and who we do that for has evolved a bit over time. The bigger picture and the longterm picture of who we do that for, or for whom we do that ... I'm not sure the right way to say it. Rob will probably ...
Crystal Heuft: 04:21 Luckily, it's a podcast, so no one really cares.
JT: 04:23 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 04:23 So you can just do what feels natural.
JT: 04:25 All right. So the folks that we do this for are large US-based typically enterprises, and they are customer acquisition minded firms, right? They sell a product or service that consumers use every day. We're in a bunch of categories. It was really important to me when we started the company that we be industry agnostic, and so we have clients that range from some of the largest retail organizations in the world; huge personal lines insurance carriers; platform insurance agencies that cover multiple products across multiple regions, and customer types, and that sort of thing; banks; lenders; mortgage companies; online marketplaces. Basically, any enterprise that's got a really scalable national offer, and they're looking to acquire more customers more profitably. That's who we represent.
JT: 05:21 And what we do for them is we target strategic partnerships with entities that have a scalable source of new customers for them. Now, as we've done that, we've also grown to serve the other side of things, which is maybe a company's got a lot of customers, but their relationship with those customers is very finite. They sell a product or service, and they want to round out that offering, and improve relevancy across other categories. And so we'll recruit other products and services that they can market, and sell, and provide to their customers, either as a value-added benefit, or as an additional expense.
Rob Stevenson: 06:01 That's super interesting. And I just want a proviso here. Before JT came in to talk to us today, he did indicate that unfortunately, due to NDAs, we can't name names.
Crystal Heuft: 06:13 He's such a good friend there.
Rob Stevenson: 06:13 So we will dance around, and we will not name names. In fact, he made Crystal and I signed an NDA, and then he made us sign each other's NDA, and then he made me sign mine again in blood. So we can't name names here, but for the record, we're talking about multi-billion-dollar, multinational corporations.
Rob Stevenson: 06:30 And what's fascinating to me is how does a small business exist in that infrastructure? You talk about gigantic companies and the roles that they play. You talk about the shared common target audiences that they work towards. How on earth does somebody sit at home and think, "You know what? I deserve to be in this space. I'm going to be in this space. I'm going to create a category so I can exist in this space."
Crystal Heuft: 06:55 I was actually really excited about this topic. I believe when I asked you what are we talking about, and you slacked back what we're talking about, my first response was, "Ooh." I feel like this is like good to think about, and probably a lot of people are thinking about this, all you entrepreneurs out there. How do you kind of get by with all of these companies that are just huge?
JT: 07:15 Right, right.
Rob Stevenson: 07:17 Is there like an imposter sentiment at some point? Do you feel like, "Do I belong here?" At what point are you sitting at home thinking "This is it. This is the plan."
JT: 07:25 It's a huge, huge question. So let's break it into chunks.
Rob Stevenson: 07:30 Well, it's a half hour show, so let's break it down.
JT: 07:32 Yeah, let's break it into chunks.
JT: 07:33 So the first thing is sort of origin story. I was doing some of this work for a business that's not a multi-billion dollar enterprise, but served multi-billion-dollar enterprises. And I recognized a really interesting unit economic trend within the digital marketing space.
Rob Stevenson: 07:55 What's a unit economic trend?
JT: 07:56 So a unit economic trend, or the one that I specifically recognized in my prior role ... I was the chief revenue officer for an insurance company. This particular company was a marketplace, and we represented the largest property and casualty carriers in the world, right? Or certainly in the United States. And our job was to sell their products and services. We were responsible for the cost and the investment to go acquire those customers, and we made our money based on the longevity of those customers, right? So if a customer bought an insurance policy from a major carrier through our sales organization, and they stayed there for seven years, we recouped seven years worth of commission. Just like your normal insurance agent would.
JT: 08:40 And what I recognized in that business was that it was becoming evermore difficult to scalably acquire customers online profitably.
Rob Stevenson: 08:52 And that's the heart of the unit economic crisis. What a customer's worth versus what you paid to acquire them.
JT: 08:59 Correct.
Crystal Heuft: 09:00 Thank you, Rob. Making sure I keep up to date here.
JT: 09:02 Yeah, so basically, what I was learning or what I learned there was that in order to scalably grow and profitably grow, we had to look well beyond Google and well beyond online lead marketplaces, and-
Rob Stevenson: 09:19 Some of the more common demand gen techniques.
JT: 09:21 Right.
Rob Stevenson: 09:21 Buying ads.
JT: 09:22 Social media, media buys, et cetera.
JT: 09:24 And so what I began to do was look at organizations that had a similar customer base but didn't buy an insurance product from their provider. So that could have been a home security company. Home security customers make a great home insurance customer.
Rob Stevenson: 09:40 That actually makes a ton of sense.
JT: 09:42 Auto dealerships create thousands and thousands of auto insurance customers.
Rob Stevenson: 09:49 That is so interesting. You never think Ford ... Would totally make sense if they sold insurance. I know Tesla has started doing that in the marketplace because there are so many companies that are risk averse at the electric. But, yeah, that's such a curious thing.
JT: 10:02 Right. It is a curious thing, and it's hidden in plain sight. You see it every day. All right. Everywhere you go, you see products and services that are inserted into the funnel or cross-sold that really originate elsewhere. Right? The relationship between the companies that provide those is really interesting to me. I found that fascinating. It was a really cool hack to get around the expense of advertising on Google or Facebook, or buying leads, and that sort of thing.
JT: 10:31 And so I, in my prior role before I started this company, began to do some of this work, began to get pretty successful with it, mostly by necessity. Hadn't done a lot of it before, but I just had to to help this business succeed.
Rob Stevenson: 10:48 And so was it an instance of working for the man, or were you creating a role, or how did that go?
JT: 10:53 Neither. So I was just trying to help one company solve a really big customer acquisition and monetization problem, because that was my job. Started to get good at it, and started to hear from insurance carriers that they were taking notice of the fact that we were actually kind of beating them to new business opportunities, and they were curious as to how that was happening.
Rob Stevenson: 11:19 So you were finding more customers more inexpensive ... I don't want to use the word "cheaply," because we're not talking cheap here. But you were finding more customers more inexpensively than previous models, and all of a sudden everyone's like, how?
JT: 11:31 Right. And more importantly, access to customers which displayed better longevity characteristics.
Rob Stevenson: 11:39 Okay. So the LTV is higher.
JT: 11:40 Right. Right.
Rob Stevenson: 11:42 LTV is lifetime value.
JT: 11:45 Lifetime value. That's right. And so for so many of our clients, the north star is the outcome of dividing the cost of acquiring a customer into the lifetime value, which gives you sort of a profitability outcome.
Rob Stevenson: 11:58 And that unit economic detail that we talked about.
JT: 12:00 Correct, right.
Rob Stevenson: 12:00 Excellent. Now it's making sense.
JT: 12:03 All right, so-
Crystal Heuft: 12:03 I hope everyone brought their calculators today.
JT: 12:07 Listen, I'm nobody's mathematician.
Crystal Heuft: 12:09 But to speak to simplicity, let's break it down. Let's pretend we were writing a Twitter feed right now.
JT: 12:14 Sure.
Crystal Heuft: 12:15 Let's summarize what you just said as a hackable tweet for everyone listening. Something that changed your mind and really moved you forward to this business idea.
JT: 12:25 Sure. I was able to discover that strategic partnerships could deliver the right kinds of customers at better economics. It's a lot of work, and that many of the enterprises that we presently serve and will serve and have served don't have the systems or personnel in place to go scalably approach those and engage them.
Crystal Heuft: 12:53 I love that. See, that's why they invite me here, because on topics like this, it's over my head, so I can just be here to make sure that anyone out there is going to grab the morsel of, nugget of information. Because I think what you're also doing is really you saw a trend, which I think sometimes small business, they get used to doing things the traditional way. And I love tradition. You can ask anyone in my family, I love tradition, but I think what you noticed was a trend, and you were able to look at it from both the traditional and the trend mindset, and really be ahead of a problem. Which I think is something that small businesses really need to start getting a little bit more out there with trends, and finding out how what they do will solve that problem.
JT: 13:36 Totally.
Crystal Heuft: 13:38 So I think that's really impressive actually.
JT: 13:39 So I appreciate you saying that. What I would offer to piggyback on that is, to your original question, how does a small, small company ... We started with two people across the desk from each other, didn't raise any capital, have remained independent in that sense. And I've turned down a lot of inquiries on that front to infuse capital into the business. The way that you do that is you figure out a really compelling problem, and you start to solve it. And if you do that, big companies and small companies will want to work with you because they have a problem. And if you prove that you have a solution, or even that you have a point of view toward a solution, they'll invest.
Crystal Heuft: 14:26 We know we have you at the edge of your seat, but we're going to break and go to Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 14:34 Howdy, folks. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:35 And I'm Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 14:36 And this is Worst Business Ideas in History.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:38 The show where we look back at some of the most brutal missteps, failures, and flops in consumer history.
Derek Harju: 14:44 And make fun of it.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:45 But also learn something.
Derek Harju: 14:46 Nope, it says in my contract I don't have to learn.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:49 Fine. The rest of us will learn something and you can just mock people's misfortune.
Derek Harju: 14:53 Sounds good.
Dusey Van Dusen: 14:55 Welcome to the Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 14:59 Hey, everyone. Welcome again to Worst Business Ideas in History. I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:03 And this is Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 15:04 And today, we're going to be talking about the DMC DeLorean.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:09 This is the Back to the Future car.
Derek Harju: 15:10 Yeah. That's how most people know it is the Back to the Future car. You tell somebody you're like, "Oh, the DeLorean," and they go, "I don't know what you're ..." You go, "The Back to the Future car."
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:18 Yeah. With the flux capacitor.
Derek Harju: 15:20 Yes.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:20 And the Mr. Fusion.
Derek Harju: 15:23 In the second one, Yes, there was a Mr. Fusion.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:25 But those weren't actually on the actual car.
Derek Harju: 15:27 No, they weren't. But, fun fact, people that are in a DeLorean clubs, which there are a lot of them apparently, routinely put a flux capacitor in them because they get bombarded by people asking about the flux capacitor. So they just buy one off of Think Geek or something.
Dusey Van Dusen: 15:43 That makes sense. That makes sense.
Derek Harju: 15:45 So the DeLorean is just kind of like a weird cultural touchstone from the 80s. It's very, very rooted in the 80s, and there's a good reason for that. It only existed for two years in the 80s.
Derek Harju: 16:00 The car was originally developed by John DeLorean, as that would make sense.
Dusey Van Dusen: 16:06 There we go.
Derek Harju: 16:06 And there's a lot of people that think they're like, "Oh, this weirdo came out of nowhere and made this car." That's not true at all. The fact is John DeLorean had been a designer and an engineer for GM for a very long time, and was actually on track to be President of GM. Everybody had this guy slated to be the next in line to be President at GM, and he just straight up said, "Nope." He just bailed, took some time off, went and did his own thing, and basically disappeared from public view for a while.
Dusey Van Dusen: 16:41 I also always heard it was a out-of-nowhere story, and I figured he must have just gotten with people who knew how to make cars or something.
Derek Harju: 16:48 Oh, no, no. This guy was absolutely legit. He's responsible for the GTO. He created the GTO. He was with GM for a very long time, and he was kind of a rock star. He was sort of like a Steve Jobs of his day, like a brilliant mind, but very much a rebel, as much as you could be a rebel in that time period.
Derek Harju: 17:11 And so basically he's just like, "I don't want to be President of GM. It's too structured. It's too old school. I won't get to do the kind of exciting designs that I want to do." So he just bailed, and started coming up with his own ideas. And the one that he just absolutely locked on to was the DeLorean, creating his own car.
Dusey Van Dusen: 17:36 Locked onto naming a car after himself, the one named after him.
Derek Harju: 17:41 Now, that's absolutely true. What you can definitely say about this guy is that he had confidence. You see him, and he's always in an impeccable suit. He's got awesome hair for the 80s, meaning it's as huge helmet of dense hair. He married a supermodel who was half his age after he left GM. The guy had no shortage of confidence.
Derek Harju: 18:05 The marching orders that he gave for the car were you can design it however you want, but it has to have a rear engine, and it has to be made of stainless steel, and it has to have gull wing doors. And those were his marching orders. And so after doing some research, he figured out that the best way to start a car company from scratch was to go overseas, to go to Ireland specifically and leverage their tax laws-
Dusey Van Dusen: 18:35 I was going to say it's financial stuff, right? That's why a lot of people go to Ireland.
Derek Harju: 18:38 Oh, absolutely. He needed millions of dollars to start the company. I believe even to open the doors on the factory, he needed something like $2 million in 1986.
Derek Harju: 18:51 Oh, and a quick correction. I said $2 million. I actually meant $200 million.
Dusey Van Dusen: 18:56 Okay. I was going to say. I was going to say $2 million does not sound right at all.
Derek Harju: 19:01 No, $200 million to open the factory. Sorry. Missed the decimal place by two spots. But, regardless, and so-
Dusey Van Dusen: 19:09 That seems like nothing to start a car company nowadays.
Derek Harju: 19:12 Yeah. No, no, no. It's like you can't buy a dealership for that much money.
Derek Harju: 19:18 But he got lots of investors. He got Johnny Carson to invest. He actually got the country of Ireland, because they had no job creation in the country at that time. They were absolutely starving for job creation. And so he's like, "Hey, I'll come. I'll open a plant there. It'll be awesome."
Derek Harju: 19:42 So he goes to open the plant. They literally move a mountain to make up for the landfill that he needed. They re-divert two rivers. The plant opens, and then there's some minor production problems. The first production problem being that at the same time in Ireland, they were having The Troubles, which is the wars between the Protestants and the Catholics. Like the IRA, like daily bombings, people going on hunger strikes. And it actually got so bad that at a certain point they had to build the production calendars around the projected deaths of workers that were on hunger strike.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:26 Whoa.
Derek Harju: 20:27 Because it happens so routinely that they had to just build it into their business model.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:32 And on that note, this has been Worst Business Ideas in History.
Derek Harju: 20:37 So there was that. They put it out, huge marketing push. They offered through Am Ex, you could actually put down a deposit on a gold-plated DeLorean. Yeah.
Dusey Van Dusen: 20:52 As if the stainless steel being mandated from on high wasn't enough, you could do a gold plate ... Like anywhere the steel ... Is that what I should be picturing? Like the whole outside?
Derek Harju: 21:03 Every part of the stainless steel body would be gold plated in 24 karat gold, which meant that once you bought that thing, if you got so much as a nick in it, you had to send it back to the factory to be re-plated.
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:14 Just send it to the local paint job that does 24 karat coatings.
Derek Harju: 21:20 Right. So, again, think about this. $85,000 for that particular vehicle in 1986.
Derek Harju: 21:27 Now-
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:28 Wow.
Derek Harju: 21:29 The car comes out. It looks great, but the problem is it looks like a sports car, but it's underpowered. The first batch of cars that were sent just were horrible, horrible productions. They were falling apart. People were having problems with the gull wing doors. The roof was leaking. Just bad press from stem to stern.
Dusey Van Dusen: 21:52 It sounds like he had some very specific ideas about what it needed to be. I'm wondering if those, if those mandates of rear engine and stainless steel ... I know that makes it super heavy ... Started to cause ... If those were design issues that were just set from the beginning instead of worked through with the engineers.
Derek Harju: 22:13 Yeah, well, that's the other part is that the company was bleeding money, so they had to get this thing out immediately. They couldn't sit and prototype this for five years and then launch it. This car needed to hit the mainstream right away. So by the end, they had produced about 7,000 cars, that, by the end, there was a total of 9,000 including the spare parts. So they put out 9,000 of these cars, and within the first year, 2,000 of them get returned to the dealerships.
Dusey Van Dusen: 22:46 Oh, man.
Derek Harju: 22:46 And here's the other part of this. The dealerships themselves, if you wanted to be a DeLorean dealer, you had to invest $25,000 in the company because they needed cash infusions, and they were getting it from anywhere they could.
Dusey Van Dusen: 22:59 People think the preorder on Teslas is weird. That is something.
Derek Harju: 23:05 So the company's bleeding money. There's bad reviews. The next thing to happen that is a real nail in the coffin is John DeLorean gets arrested.
Derek Harju: 23:17 John DeLorean is arrested. He is filmed by the FBI trying to sell them a suitcase full of cocaine. I can't stress that enough. A suitcase full of cocaine.
Dusey Van Dusen: 23:34 This story is even more 80s than I thought it was when we started. This is fantastic.
Derek Harju: 23:40 Unless there's a bulldog riding a skateboard, it doesn't get more 80s than this.
Derek Harju: 23:47 So he's selling cocaine in an attempt to infuse money to his car company. So he's arrested. It's a huge scandal. Then this other stuff starts coming out of he buys the most expensive house in New Jersey at that time in history. He bought the single most expensive piece of real estate in all of New Jersey, and he apparently did it using company money.
Derek Harju: 24:14 So the company folds almost overnight to the point where a lot of people who owned DeLoreans would call into the customer service line and they just basically-
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:25 Just nothing.
Derek Harju: 24:25 Just an empty dial tone.
Derek Harju: 24:28 So, eventually, he's actually found not guilty of cocaine trafficking despite the fact that he's on camera selling a suitcase of cocaine. I can't stress that enough.
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:40 There's a whole story there somewhere.
Derek Harju: 24:42 Yeah, but he's cleared because they charged the FBI with entrapment, and he gets off effectively scot-free. The DeLorean comes out in the movie Back to the Future, but by then-
Dusey Van Dusen: 24:56 So this is after it's closed. You can't buy one, a new one.
Derek Harju: 25:00 At the time that Back to the Future came out, the company was basically in the process of foreclosure.
Dusey Van Dusen: 25:06 Oh, man.
Derek Harju: 25:07 So it was too late. The word was out. People knew that there was this cool car, but they couldn't overcome the bad press. And within two years the company opened and closed. And then after that, another company in Texas basically bought out all of the back stock of the parts, and the company that bought them out is actually the parent company that now owns Big Lots. And so they bought all the leftover DeLorean parts for a song, and then went on to create this sub-business selling these parts to DeLorean collectors, which has turned out to be relatively lucrative.
Derek Harju: 25:45 So the question becomes what can small business owners learn from this?
Dusey Van Dusen: 25:49 Yeah, you read my mind. I was going to say, okay, this is a wild story. Don't sell coke to the FBI. Be aware of megalomaniacs. But how about some real lessons?
Derek Harju: 26:02 Well, I think the first thing that we can take from this is you have to be ready to walk before you run. This was a case of this person had an idea, he was passionate about it, and all of that is great, but he didn't take the time to properly grow his business. He wasn't patient enough to take the time, test the product, let it get to market, test it again, and be prepared to take some losses. And the other thing that this should be huge advocacy for is having working capital on hand. John DeLorean was flying by the seat of his pants from the second he had the idea until the second the company closed. Just trying to shuffle things around from A to B, getting money wherever he could to basically bring life into this dream of his.
Dusey Van Dusen: 26:51 Yeah. I think a lot of time if somebody is thinking of leaving their corporate job and starting a small business, or if you're running a small business, a lot of the advice out there is about not going into debt ever for anything. And I think there's some wisdom there because if you get in over your head with an idea that doesn't take off, that's obviously not great. However, it takes money to grow a business into something, right? So it's a slower, steady approach. And then also looking into your business and saying, "Okay, if I could have this one other employee, or if I could have this solution that would help me do X, Y, and Z, I could grow but I can't afford it right now." I think it can be worthwhile to take some time, and really evaluate your situation, and say, "Can we get some capital in here to take care of these things, and bring in the right people to actually grow the business beyond what it is?"
Dusey Van Dusen: 27:50 It gives you some breathing room and thinking room so you're not running around all the time, Mr. DeLorean, just trying to make ends meet. If you have some brain room in your business to think on your business, and some weight off of your shoulders for just enough time to put those things into place that'll help you grow, that can be a very smart way to go about it.
Derek Harju: 28:19 Right. This has been Worst Business Ideas in History. I've been Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen: 28:22 This is Dusey van Dusen.
Derek Harju: 28:24 And we'll talk to you next time.
Dusey Van Dusen: 28:25 Bye!
Derek Harju: 28:27 Keeping ever expanding client info straight, sending the same emails hundreds of times, scheduling and rescheduling appointments over and over. Who enjoys this nonsense? No one, except my cousin Brent, and Brent is the absolute worst.
Derek Harju: 28:39 Keap is the premier all-in-one CRM. Just head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com, and start your free trial today. Get the busy work out of the way so you can focus on what's important, and make your small business grow with Keap. Start your free trial at keap.com. That's K-E-A-P.com. More business, less work. That's Keap.
Rob Stevenson: 29:06 You talked a little bit before about how tradition is so important to a lot of small businesses, but one of the things that small businesses are famous for is solving problems first. Being the first to discover a problem, and then going to market, and starting as a one-and-two person Mom and Pop shop, and then, the next thing you know, it explodes.
Rob Stevenson: 29:23 The WorkBook6 story is fascinating to me, and it's got two very distinct components. The what, and that's crazy. We've talked about the unit economics. We've talked about solving problems, and realizing, and having a role kind of ... And I don't want to use the term "inside the machine," but I'm not smart enough to think of a better one. But you were in the industry. You were looking and seeing, and you were working for ...
Rob Stevenson: 29:43 Let's talk about the how. So you're married, couple of kids. Come home from work one day. "Mrs. Benton, I'd like to sit you down for a second. I have an idea." So maybe take us to that point, and let's start talking about where the courage, where the gumption, where the-
Crystal Heuft: 30:02 And hopefully the support, because that's grueling.
Rob Stevenson: 30:04 Yeah. Where did all of this come from? How does it exist?
JT: 30:07 Yeah. It's almost like an emotionally driven response, and there's so much to unpack, but I'll keep it at a high level.
Rob Stevenson: 30:15 Again, half an hour podcast.
JT: 30:16 Yeah, no, I hear you. But you've asked a huge question.
Crystal Heuft: 30:19 That is huge.
JT: 30:21 So the first gumption to start a business and do it this way just comes from the way I was brought up. Both of my parents were entrepreneurs. They both kind of relish in quality of life, and have made great trade-offs that I've seen pay off really well. They're both brilliant people, and could have been executives for big businesses, and traveled the world, but they value time with family. I wasn't getting a lot of time with family in my last role. In fact, I lived in another city-
Rob Stevenson: 30:55 In a corporate world.
JT: 30:55 Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 30:56 And I don't want to use corporate as like the big bad, but I'm using air quotes for corporate here.
JT: 31:00 Yeah. A venture backed, high pressure, dynamic environment competing with the big ones. And so the first thing was truly I had a personal problem that I needed to solve. I didn't see my kids enough, and I didn't see my wife enough.
JT: 31:17 I also really just kind of felt outside my skin. I was always really good at being an employee and an executive from an external validation point. My reviews were great. I got raises. I was paid well. I was an executive way, way earlier than a lot of people that I went to school with, and that sort of thing. And I was getting all that validation. But in terms of did I like it, was it in my DNA, I'm pretty individual, right? I'm pretty individualistic, I'm pretty unique in that way. And so feeling like I really needed to be in a place where I could kind of use that creativity and that way of thinking to power my business, win, lose or draw, and own those consequences was really important to me.
JT: 32:14 Just it all kind of came to a head, right? There was a really unique opportunity to exit and walk away from the business that I was serving as an executive. And something really needed to happen at home for me to be able to make that transition. And so the biggest place that that gumption and courage came from really was my wife, Jenny. Not from an entrepreneurial background. Mother was a teacher, Dad worked for big companies. Stability is something that she's a big fan of.
Crystal Heuft: 32:53 Me, too. That's my favorite thing. If something can be real stable, I'm happy.
JT: 32:58 Right. So if you ever meet a person like me, run, because I'm like the anti-stable.
Crystal Heuft: 33:04 I don't know. I think people like probably Jenny and myself, I think you almost start really appreciating that in others because you don't have the gumption.
JT: 33:11 It could be a good podcast.
Crystal Heuft: 33:12 When I've talked with Clate-
JT: 33:14 Significant other, right? Yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 33:14 Yeah. Right. But I literally, when I talk to Clate here, and he's talking about how he felt, I'm like thinking to myself, I have never felt like that a day in my life. Like never. But I love that he had, and he also had a problem he was trying to solve for, and I think like it's so cool to have that kind of purpose. So I identify with your wife. I think that's cool. She was supportive. But yeah, I'm the same. I love stability.
JT: 33:39 Yeah. And so the promise was let me get us to stability, and in the process I'm going to create a lot of chaos. Should last a year. Just hang tight.
Crystal Heuft: 33:51 Did it only last a year? I need to know now.
JT: 33:52 Oh, God, no. It lasted for so much longer than a year. It still persists, right? The life of an entrepreneur is never stable.
Crystal Heuft: 34:00 Clate says, yeah, it comes back, and every time you get to a new level, you're solving new problems, and getting to the chaos again. Right?
JT: 34:07 Right. Right. Now, bear in mind, we bootstrapped, right? And so-
Rob Stevenson: 34:11 So what's "bootstrapped?"
JT: 34:12 Bootstrap is to operate without the aid of external capital. So what that really means is the external capital was us. Right? It was being very judicious with cash flows, and also investing some of our personal savings, and some more of our personal savings, and then what was left of our personal savings. That sort of thing. And I can tell you, look, it could've gone the other way lots of times, but it didn't. Right? We kept kicking. We kept kind of winning on a bigger and bigger stage, and impressing larger and larger companies, and gaining larger and larger engagements to the point that we feel really good that we not only have a standalone business, but one that has some really kind of unique commercial traits that make it really valuable.
JT: 35:01 But I think the most credit for that courage really goes to my partner in life, Jenny, who was willing to be patient with me, and then my partner in business, Brett Kaufman, who Rob has met knows, for being courageous to join me in that, right? Because he's a very talented guy. I think either one of us could've had great jobs as executives many times over. Throughout the process of growing this when things were lean and thin and scary, but you just to keep kicking. If you really believe in what you're doing, you'll find a way. You'll find a way.
Crystal Heuft: 35:42 That's great.
Rob Stevenson: 35:43 For a lot of entrepreneurs, those are the entrepreneurial spirit. It lives in and flows through them. It's their lifeblood. And they're not the eight hour days. The 10, the 12, the 16 hour days. They're the ones that turn the lights on in the morning and turn them off at night. How do you cope with that? How do you turn JT off after a long day? How do you relax it and find peace in a world that can not always be peaceful?
JT: 36:10 Yeah, that's a good question. The short answer is I'm only kind of good at it. Right? And anybody who tells you that "I just leave work at the office, and then I go home, and I hug my kids, and do yoga, and do whatever," that's not real. I don't believe them. I don't believe that there's this work/life separation. I think we have lives, and our work is a really meaningful part of it.
JT: 36:45 I worked really, really hard when I worked for other people when I worked for other companies, because I sincerely care. I totally ... Can we cuss on this?
Rob Stevenson: 36:55 Go ahead.
JT: 36:56 Yeah, I totally give ... right? My name is attached to it.
Rob Stevenson: 36:59 Oh, you can't do that one.
JT: 36:59 Okay.
Rob Stevenson: 37:02 There's seven words you can't say.
JT: 37:03 Dammit.
Crystal Heuft: 37:03 That's fine.
Rob Stevenson: 37:04 That's two.
Crystal Heuft: 37:04 Please go on with your profound answer.
JT: 37:06 Awesome. Awesome.
Rob Stevenson: 37:07 Also, when I said what do you do to relax? I was thinking like fishing, but this is a good story. This is a much better story.
JT: 37:12 Right? So, okay. So, so yes, I fish a lot, right?
Rob Stevenson: 37:16 A lot. JT brings a boat to work ...
JT: 37:19 Three out of five days.
Crystal Heuft: 37:22 A boat? Is that "about," or a boat?
JT: 37:24 About. I get it, a Canadian thing. Yeah.
Rob Stevenson: 37:26 JT's like, "Oh, by the way-"
Crystal Heuft: 37:27 I'm not quite sure which it was. I'm being serious.
Rob Stevenson: 37:29 "By the way, it's lunchtime. Who wants to go fishing?" It's like, "Okay, let's go fishing."
JT: 37:35 So I do fish a lot, and I would say if you think about the business that we're in and the work that we do, which is finding targets for our clients, finding out how they like to be communicated, where they interact, and how best to engage them, that sounds a lot like fishing, just in a corporate partnership world.
Rob Stevenson: 37:59 Ooh.
Crystal Heuft: 38:00 Look at this tie back.
Rob Stevenson: 38:01 Allegories. Ooh.
Crystal Heuft: 38:02 He's good, guys. Watch your wallets.
Rob Stevenson: 38:06 He's good, he's good.
JT: 38:07 But you can't always go fishing, right? So we live in the desert. It's hours to do that. And it's a pretty good way to alienate yourself from your family if you do it too much, so be with family-
Crystal Heuft: 38:19 Just ask Scott Peterson. Just kidding.
Rob Stevenson: 38:21 Wow.
Crystal Heuft: 38:21 Sorry. Bad joke.
Rob Stevenson: 38:22 Holy cow.
Crystal Heuft: 38:25 Too much true crime this week. Too much true crime.
JT: 38:26 Yeah. So what I would say is-
Rob Stevenson: 38:27 It does bring it back to the Flounder reference earlier, but-
Crystal Heuft: 38:30 Accidentally.
Rob Stevenson: 38:31 It does.
JT: 38:33 What I would say is for everybody, it's different. For me, I get better by helping other people. So I try to coach my kids' sports teams. I try to engage with other entrepreneurs who are either earlier in their mission or they're struggling with something later in their mission.
Crystal Heuft: 38:51 That's great.
JT: 38:51 And that gives me the opportunity to think in different ways. Sleep's really important. I don't work late at night ever if I can avoid it.
Crystal Heuft: 39:03 Wow. Disciplined.
JT: 39:06 My partner Brett works all hours. Right? He's constant, and that's his release, for me, I just find that the quality of my work really dwindles after I kind of reach an exhaustion point. I try to do something physically active, but not at the gym. Like I mow the lawn, or I'll go like work on something at the house to just get out of my screens a little bit. And I just try to remind myself that progress takes time, that urgency is important, but so is patience.
Crystal Heuft: 39:42 So we're getting ready to wrap up here, but I want to ask ... I know it goes quick, right?
JT: 39:46 So fast, yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 39:47 Probably because we hardly let you finish the sentence, but I hope you felt like you got some stuff out.
JT: 39:52 I did, yeah.
Crystal Heuft: 39:53 But what I want to end with is if you had really one tip for how a small business can make it with these huge conglomerates and huge companies, what would be your tip to get them motivated and keep going?
JT: 40:08 Sure. Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to understand their problems. You have to develop empathy. So my one tip-
Rob Stevenson: 40:16 Can a billion dollar company have empathy, or do I have to have empathy in order to understand their problems?
JT: 40:21 You have to have empathy for them.
Rob Stevenson: 40:23 I see, I see, I see.
JT: 40:24 Okay. Curiosity creates empathy. Empathy is a thing that you have after you understand, so develop a real curiosity, and then deploy that curiosity with a willing partner on the other side. So before you try to sell anything, just try to learn, right? Just listen, ask questions.
Crystal Heuft: 40:42 I love that. That's so important.
Crystal Heuft: 40:44 Well, you guys heard it here first. Curiosity builds empathy.
JT: 40:49 Yeah. It creates empathy.
Crystal Heuft: 40:50 Creates empathy from JT Benton. Thank you for being here.
Rob Stevenson: 40:53 Wait, Curiosity Creates Empathy was the name of my high school bagpipe band.
Crystal Heuft: 40:58 Good. Good way to bring it in.
Rob Stevenson: 40:59 No, it was. It was Curiosity Creates Empathy. Free hugs after each performance.
Crystal Heuft: 41:04 100%. Who wouldn't after a bagpipe performance?
Crystal Heuft: 41:07 Anyways, thank you so much, JT, for being here. We really appreciate your time, and we hope everyone's listening, and got some good nuggets out of that.
JT: 41:16 Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Crystal Heuft: 41:19 Thanks.
Rob Stevenson: 41:20 Thanks.
Derek Harju: 41:22 Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz. Please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five star rating. It helps keep the show going. And if you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com, and get started. More business, less work. That's Keap. Derek Harju (00:37):
Head over to keap.com and start your free trial of Keap Grow, Keap Pro, or for those looking for something beefier, talk to one of our coaches about Infusionsoft, the product that started it all. More business, less work, that's Keap. Just go to keap.com to start your free trial. That's K-E-A-P.com. One more time, that's K-E-A-P.com.
Crystal Heuft (01:05):
Okay, we will be ready if you stop chatting. Just kidding. Dusey knows I love him. Okay, gentlemen, I want to hear about your great weekend plans. Dusey was teeing it up earlier, Jack, so what do you got going on this weekend?
Jack Smithson (01:21):
Well, something I feel very strongly about, actually, yeah, we do have to come in with the intro to the podcast.
Crystal Heuft (01:33):
Okay, that's my fault. Geez, I'm so messed up. No, yeah, good. Because then I would have to fake a reaction and I'm not someone who lies. Okay, so hi, I'm Crystal.
Jack Smithson (01:47):
I'm Jack.
Crystal Heuft (01:48):
And this is Small Biz Buzz. Let's get into it. I'm dying to hear because this has been teased for a bit and we've been waiting for this moment to share it. What are you doing this weekend, Jack?
Jack Smithson (02:01):
I have been forced into a coed baby shower. New day.
Crystal Heuft (02:10):
Sounds dreadful.
Jack Smithson (02:11):
It's, yeah, good God, right? Now, what guy, point to him, that said when he heard about a baby shower said, "Man I wish I was invited to that?"
Crystal Heuft (02:22):
I'm going to be real honest, I don't know a lot of women... Oh, gosh. Dusey's raising his hand. I was just about to say I don't even know any women that actually like going to a shower. If I was a man, I think it would be worse because women at least tend to be a little bit more like, "Okay, well we've got to rally for our friend." But showers are freaking boring but go on. Not many men and not many women.
Jack Smithson (02:46):
Yeah, it's actually family, but it's my wife's best friend. My cousin but, literally, her best friend and I said, "I'm going to be sick that day." She said she would be disappointed in me if I was sick that day.
Crystal Heuft (03:05):
The D word.
Jack Smithson (03:05):
Yeah, that's-
Crystal Heuft (03:06):
The only D word that comes after that D word is divorce, and you're not getting there with your great wife.
Jack Smithson (03:11):
No, and there will be like certain benefits to my marriage that I won't get for a while if I don't go to this.
Crystal Heuft (03:19):
You better go.
Jack Smithson (03:20):
Yeah, so I'm going.
Crystal Heuft (03:21):
Don't lose benefits.
Jack Smithson (03:22):
That's, actually, we have Brendan, Brendan Alan Barrett with us and you just had a child recently.
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:31):
I did, yeah, we're like six, seven. I should know better, but he's either six or seven weeks in.
Crystal Heuft (03:36):
He's so cute. I'm going to have to see an updated picture because although I don't like showers, I do like babies. I don't want people to think I'm like vicious.
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:44):
Well, my weekend is filled with making up for all the time I've been at work not doing my daddy duties and letting wife sleep. If I can talk her into it.
Jack Smithson (03:55):
How about your baby shower?
Brendan Alan Barrett (03:58):
I wasn't even aware it was happening.
Crystal Heuft (04:03):
Proper answer.
Brendan Alan Barrett (04:04):
Just guests showed up and I was like, "Cool. That's less stuff I got to buy. Awesome."
Jack Smithson (04:07):
You weren't invited, which is the way it should be. You weren't invited.
Crystal Heuft (04:10):
It should. My sister just had a shower two weeks ago but I don't have kids as I think I told you last time. She has these great sister-in-laws that love her and they have kids so they do all the work. I just showed up, which still, like I said, was painful. This time it was easy because it wasn't too showery but, yeah, their showers get crazy. Let's get to what we're talking about today because we're starting to go down a rabbit hole of misery and showers. But we have Brendan Alan Barrett here and you're pretty known out there for killing it in sales. So go ahead and tell everyone all the things you do because, to be honest, I wouldn't even know where to start. You have so many businesses, jobs, things you're working on for sales. You're definitely an expert. Go ahead and share so that we make sure we get it the way you like it and I don't mess up.
Brendan Alan Barrett (04:58):
Well, we'll keep it real simple. Yeah, I'm the founder of StartInPhx or startinphx.com, which is home to all kinds of training and content on best practices and sales and sales leadership. It's also home to the business of family and selling podcast, which interviews people who are doing it better than a lot of folks when it comes to sales and sales leadership. But more, importantly, the best practices that enable healthy work life, balance, or integration.
Crystal Heuft (05:28):
That's great. So important. I don't even have a family. I literally don't know how people do it. I can't even balance my own life without a family, so my dog doesn't get enough time. She really doesn't and she makes sure I know when she's not but also it's just hard to make sure you're getting enough rest. I'm still tired. I told you last time how tired I was. I'm still feeling tired.
Brendan Alan Barrett (05:51):
For a lot of people it's just like invention, it comes from necessity, right?
Crystal Heuft (05:58):
Yeah.
Brendan Alan Barrett (05:58):
There is the baby effect is a very real thing.
Jack Smithson (06:01):
Oh, for sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:03):
The birth of my first son definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things and it became very clear that, hey, I can't be the rep who's working 12, 16 hours a day because I don't have 12, 16 hours a day to do it anymore. I better get real smart and intentional about how I'm going about building a book of business, generating revenue for the companies that I'm representing. So then down the rabbit hole I went into best practices and sales and how do I get-
Crystal Heuft (06:29):
That's great.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:29):
... really good at this so that I can fit it in between 8:00 and 5:00 PM. 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM.
Crystal Heuft (06:37):
That's pretty good.
Jack Smithson (06:37):
And getting a solid three hours of sleep at night, right?
Crystal Heuft (06:40):
Yeah, hopefully.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:41):
Indeed, indeed.
Crystal Heuft (06:43):
You must be a great husband because you've mentioned a few times about how your wife's not getting as much sleep as you, but you always put it back on what she's doing. Which I think is really cool and stands out as a family man.
Brendan Alan Barrett (06:55):
She's a saint, she carries so much of the weight and I think that was clear from the beginning that that's the kind of person she was going to be and I'm like, yeah, I'm planning to have a family, this is a good partner to do that with.
Crystal Heuft (07:10):
Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. Well, one of the ways you've gotten smarter, worked smarter, not harder is really looking at sales follow up, right?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:19):
Indeed, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (07:21):
You're really focused in on B2B although you've had probably experience in both?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:25):
Oh, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (07:27):
What are some main things that small business out there should really be considering when they're thinking of following up with B2B?
Brendan Alan Barrett (07:35):
Well, going back to necessity, like it is a necessity. I think what DiscoverOrg just did like an internal, I don't know if they just did it, but internal study on what does it take just to get that first demo? How many times do you have to touch, to prospect just to win their attention and have a legitimate conversation? What they found over 10s of thousands of demos booked was that their average was seven touches. A combination of phone calls, email, social media touches just to have that conversation to say yes or no we're going to do this thing. I think if you're not good at it, it might take more than seven, right?
Crystal Heuft (08:16):
Well, and I think seven only accounts for the ones you knew you saw. A lot of times I think marketing today is so sly, you don't always know you even saw it. There probably is more than that but seven that someone will remember.
Jack Smithson (08:29):
Sure, and we're talking five to seven just to get people engaged with you in a meaningful way in the sales conversation and then there's your sales process.
Crystal Heuft (08:41):
Yeah, Jack you know all about this.
Jack Smithson (08:44):
Yeah, just getting people engaged just to get people engaged with you. You're talking five to seven people balk at that all the time. I've covered that one on one with small businesses in my webinars and live demo like people balk at the idea of having to follow up that often.
Crystal Heuft (09:02):
Yeah, totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (09:03):
Well, that often and that many times in a short period of time. It does surprise a lot of people. I think my first wake up to that was one of my first sales gigs. I was painting houses between my junior and senior year of college and I got a call from my manager and he's like, "Brendan, you've gone through more marketing material than anybody, you're working hard but like why aren't you getting as many quotes out as everybody else?" The reality was I was spreading myself too thin. I was focusing on too large of an area and not touching the same people multiple times, and so I was burning through my collateral and not getting as many meetings as people who went back to the same neighborhood three, four or five times, right?
Crystal Heuft (09:45):
Yeah, that's interesting. It always makes you wonder, because there's all kinds of marketing. They can have door to door. That's a great call out, I would not have thought about going to the same neighborhood multiple times but that's exactly how these touch points started, right? They used to start by getting in front of the actual person.
Brendan Alan Barrett (10:03):
Well, a good example of that is I interviewed the guys at 4energy, or one of the guys over at 4energy, they do energy efficient windows, doors, solar insulation, and so they're targeting homeowners. People who just moved in, older house typically. Their first touch is telemarketing. They're calling into a neighborhood, then they're working that neighborhood by knocking on the doors. If you don't get somebody to answer, you leave a door hanger or a flyer in the door. Then when you get a job, then there's two appointments, both those trucks are wrapped with company logos. When you get the job, then the sign is in the front yard and then you keep working those houses around that sign and around that job-
Jack Smithson (10:47):
Right, you canvass that neighborhood.
Brendan Alan Barrett (10:48):
Yeah, you're building momentum upon all of those exposures to your brand, to your message, and as you get a customer, now you have something new to bring to the conversation, "Hey, now we're working with somebody you know. Somebody in your neighborhood who's got a house exactly like yours because it was built by the same person." There are people who are going to be the low hanging fruit, and through follow up, you can build upon those experiences and make the thing you sell whether it's a service or a product that much more relatable to the laggards, the people who are harder to win over.
Crystal Heuft (11:20):
Totally, so what you're just saying, though, is a lot of B2C. If we think B2B, sometimes it's tough to get one touch point with a business. How can someone really get to those touch points through working business contacts? What are some of the ways people are getting in front of B2B clients?
Brendan Alan Barrett (11:39):
Well, people are people in like one thing. When we talk follow up, some of the push back is, "Well, it's so expensive to send a rep back to that office three, four, five times." I was like, "Well, I'm not telling you to send them three, four, five times. Let's place a call, send a couple of emails. See if we could win their attention. Then if still we can't win their attention and have a meaningful conversation, then maybe we deploy somebody to go out and when we do that, let's plan the route."
Crystal Heuft (12:05):
That's smart, so you're hitting up lots in the same area?
Brendan Alan Barrett (12:07):
Lots, as many people in the same area and the same day who we've already exhausted some of these other things and now we have maybe content or collateral or touch points that we can refer back to. Because while we're prospecting into an account, like on every call, there's something that can be learned. It's really cool if the thing that we learn is, "Hey, this person's as excited as I am to buy the thing I have to sell." But, typically, it's, "Hey, on the first call I tried to talk to Michelle. She's not the person, I got to talk to Michael. On the second call, I captured Michael's email address, so now I don't just have a way to call them, I can follow up with an email. Now they can hear what I have to say and read what I have to say. I can bump it up in their inbox a couple of times.
Brendan Alan Barrett (12:51):
Now I captured the cell phone because they replied to an email and now we're playing the scheduling game. But now I can send. Now because I have an email signature with a cell phone in it, now I can start sending text messages. Oh, they're really responsive to text messages because maybe nobody else is texting them." You're learning all these things and you're collecting. A lot of people, especially, when we're going into follow up for first meetings, prospecting into an account with all of these touches, a lot of people... when you say that, they hear cold calling and just like spray and pray, but the reality is prospector. If you think of the term, like gold prospector, they weren't going out there blindly.
Crystal Heuft (13:33):
The worst prospecting however.
Brendan Alan Barrett (13:35):
They're panning for gold defined deposits-
Crystal Heuft (13:38):
One little nugget.
Brendan Alan Barrett (13:40):
... to find a place worth digging really deep because that's where the real gold is. That's where the real material is but you don't want to dig a real deep hole and waste six months worth of work and food and time. Unless you got an indication that that's the place to dig.
Crystal Heuft (13:54):
What's the fool's gold of sales follow up for B2B? Because that fool's gold will get you every time. Suddenly, you're digging the big hole and it wasn't worth your time.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:06):
The time vampires for sure.
Crystal Heuft (14:09):
Agreed.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:10):
People who'll talk with you and if you've got a sales team of a couple of people and you're tracking talk time and that's one of your metrics that you're... A salesperson would love talking for 20 minutes to somebody who has no authority.
Jack Smithson (14:23):
That's such broken metric.
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:25):
Yeah, their talk time looks fantastic.
Crystal Heuft (14:27):
Yeah but can't make a sale. How do you spot a time vampire coming a mile away?
Brendan Alan Barrett (14:34):
Well, like the rule with prospecting and follow up is questions. You're going for engagement but if you're asking the right questions, you can tell like this is engagement for their benefit versus engagement for my benefit. You should be a decent person and a nice person, enjoy the work that you do but at a certain point, yeah, you should know when to cut your losses. And through questions, through knowing, asking questions because even if they're not a champion, it could be a coach through that account. They could tell you who really pulls the strings, and then you have to be honest with yourself and know, "Okay, I've got what I've got, or I can get from this specific individual. They've coached me as much as they can coach me, now I got to go execute on the information.
Crystal Heuft (15:19):
Back in the day, I did do some sales. I actually was pretty damn good at it, but darn good, maybe I've just got a bleep, I'm not sure.
Jack Smithson (15:27):
I think damn's okay.
Crystal Heuft (15:29):
But I wasn't selling. I wasn't selling B2B, I wasn't selling some services, I was selling family portraits. But I think one of the things I always found is that there are time vampires, and you have to be daring enough to ask bold questions to start identifying what their interest level really is. Like what's stopping you from buying this extra portrait package? Is it that you don't like the portrait because then let's cut our losses. Take this other one and let's go. But I think sometimes in B2B, we get nervous to ask the tough questions because you don't want to burn the bridge. But sometimes they're just not ready. I was always shocked when you'd ask a more serious follow up question, and you'd find out they're either just sometimes just waiting on getting answers from other people, and that's great, that you can handle. Then it's like, "Okay, well, I'm going to check in with you. Does two weeks sound good?"
Crystal Heuft (16:22):
Then you know when to check back and you're not waiting those two weeks hitting them up every day? But what are some good questions that people can ask to identify if they should continue following up or should they cut their losses?
Brendan Alan Barrett (16:35):
Okay, well, here's a linkable moment for you because when I was talking to, or when I was here last time talking with Clate, one of his big insights was, "You have to ask for the business." If you're just tiptoeing around it, at a certain point, you got to ask for the business or you're not going to get a yes or a no. If it's if you spend a decent amount of time exploring it and you haven't asked for the business, yeah, you haven't given somebody a chance to cut you loose as somebody who's selling to them. That no could be the permission, "Okay, finally, I can leave this person alone and go focus on somebody who I can actually do business with."
Crystal Heuft (17:15):
I think that's great.
Jack Smithson (17:16):
Right, and you brave up and then if it is a no you get reason and a no isn't always a solid no, it maybe no right now or maybe a no depends but it's a no is great, a yes is great, a maybe is not where you want to be.
Crystal Heuft (17:33):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (17:34):
Well, so asking why, well timings not right. Well, what would make it right? Is it that you don't have time to do it right now, he's like, "Oh, I need three weeks." "Well, why do you need three weeks." He says, "Well, in three weeks, I think I'll be done with this project." "What would help you get that project done sooner? Can I connect you with somebody?"
Crystal Heuft (17:53):
I like it, there's that expert shining his light. Okay, so we're going to take a break and kick it on over to worst business ideas ever. Hopefully, you enjoy that and then stick around, we're going to talk some more with Brendan on some more follow up and how he balances it all. So, thanks come or I guess hang out a little longer and listen.
Derek Harju (18:24):
Howdy folks, I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:25):
And I'm Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (18:27):
And this is worst business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:29):
The show where we look back at some of the most brutal missteps, failures, and flops in consumer history.
Derek Harju (18:34):
And make fun of it.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:35):
But also learn something.
Derek Harju (18:37):
Nope, it says in my contract I don't have to learn.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:39):
Fine, the rest of us will learn something and you can just mock people's misfortune.
Derek Harju (18:43):
Sounds good.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:45):
Welcome to the worst business ideas in history.
Derek Harju (18:50):
Hi, I'm Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:51):
And I'm Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (18:52):
And this is worse business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (18:54):
What are we looking at today?
Derek Harju (18:56):
We're going to look at a couple of interesting topics that I'm excited about, which is the war between HD, DVD, and Blu-ray?
Dusey Van Dusen (19:04):
Okay, these are anybody who listened to the football episode, I know a little bit more about these things.
Derek Harju (19:12):
We've seen the format wars in the past, there was VHS versus Betamax, there was a laser disc tried to take off and didn't really go anywhere and DVD came along. DVD kind of ruled the roost for quite a while, but then it was in the early 2000s we got these two competing formats, HD DVD, which was produced primarily by Toshiba and Blu-ray which was produced primarily by Sony. Some of the factors in the VHS versus Beta debacle was just adoption by things like video rental stores and the ability to tape things off of TV for a long play.
Dusey Van Dusen (19:54):
The amazing thing about all of these wars is usually whichever format has the best quality is irrelevant to whichever wins out over time.
Derek Harju (20:06):
Absolutely, like Beta is an absolutely both on an audio and video standard, preferable to VHS. What VHS had over Beta was that you could record over two hours on a single tape. Which a lot of people what they were using it for was to tape things like football games or other sporting events.
Dusey Van Dusen (20:26):
Movies that would air.
Derek Harju (20:27):
Yep, movies, which if you remember if you were a child of the 80s, every time there would be a TV ad for, say, like The Hobbit on VHS, they would be like, "Do you want this in VHS or Beta?" If you got it on Beta, it came on two tapes.
Dusey Van Dusen (20:40):
Oh, wow.
Derek Harju (20:43):
Blu-ray is going head to head with HD DVD, and the first thing that happens is Toshiba and Microsoft team up and they're like, "We're both backing HD DVD. We think it's going to work better for personal computers." What we find out eventually is that really neither was adopted for PC use. Like Blu-ray, like most personal computers just never shipped with either an HD DVD player or a Blu-ray player.
Dusey Van Dusen (21:11):
Yeah, and it was obviously CD players and DVDs eventually became a really big thing on computers, not so much nowadays as discs are becoming a thing of the past slowly. But, yeah, it never really despite the huge amount of storage space that both these formats had, it just didn't seem to pick up. I guess the internet came and broadband came too soon.
Derek Harju (21:33):
Yeah, that's always I actually was a very staunch believer that I was going to skip the Blu-ray format altogether, but it stuck around long enough to where I had to adopt.
Dusey Van Dusen (21:41):
I'm kind of with you, it's been around longer than I thought it would be.
Derek Harju (21:43):
Yeah, I was like, "I'm just going to wait till everything's 10 ADP streaming and then I won't care about this." Now everything's 4K and that's a whole other, that's a different show. Both sides are trying to get people on their side, and the first place most of them go is the studios. HD DVD had Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. on their side. Meanwhile, Sony was backing Blu-ray as well as Walt Disney and 20th Century Fox were on board. Now, both of those have pretty wide movie and TV because this was the time when people were getting excited about owning entire TV shows on discs so they could just play them whatever they want, right? Sit home and binge watch the Simpsons on a Sunday.
Dusey Van Dusen (22:27):
Or Lost, I had all of Lost, I had all of 24. I can't believe I binged those on DVDs.
Derek Harju (22:37):
What ends up happening is that Steven Spielberg actually ends up playing a huge role in this whole thing. He's tied to Warner Bros. at the time who is backing HD DVD, but he specifically stipulated that his movies had to be available on Blu-ray. Which immediately eroded their partnership, and in short order, Warner Bros. ends up jumping ship. Now, Blu-ray has Warner Bros. on their side in addition to Sony, Fox and Disney. So they've got all the powerhouses with the exception of Paramount.
Dusey Van Dusen (23:10):
That first defector it's got to have people worried as soon as you start to see that.
Derek Harju (23:16):
Absolutely, and then the very next thing that happens is Blockbuster Video after they have... they test out both in some target markets and after six months, a year of testing, they're like, "Well, 70% of our sales are going to Blu-ray so we're stocking our shelves with Blu-rays." That's where the holes in the hall of HD DVD really start to show. They try to get a little bit of traction by pairing up with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 comes out and the Xbox 360 is a fairly qualified success. They offer a peripheral which is an external HD DVD player.
Dusey Van Dusen (23:56):
An add-on, which I completely, in my head, it was part of the system, that you had to go buy an add-on and plug it in to the side, it would sit there.
Derek Harju (24:03):
Correct, and it was almost $200. I remember it was like $150 or $200 and that's after you have already bought an Xbox 360.
Dusey Van Dusen (24:10):
An Xbox 360.
Derek Harju (24:13):
Meanwhile, Sony, who owns the Blu-ray format, the PlayStation 3 comes out, so guess what's pre-installed in it? Not as a peripheral, built into the system, you buy a PlayStation 3, you've got a Blu-ray player.
Dusey Van Dusen (24:26):
Now, these PlayStations, I mean, they sold really well, the PlayStation 3. But they were super expensive, especially, those first few years that they were out, weren't they like 400 or even 500 for different models?
Derek Harju (24:38):
Yeah, absolutely. You could make the case you're like, "Well, after you spend all the money, they cost about the same." Consumer mindset can be an odd thing to track. Even though the PS3 was more expensive, because the Blu-ray was bundled in, people who actually didn't have much interest in video games were buying it because it was actually slightly cheaper than a lot of the standalone Blu-ray players that were being put out.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:03):
Blu-ray players, yeah.
Derek Harju (25:03):
Now, Sony did this, this is a fun fact for everyone listening, Sony loses money every single time they sell a console, the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 4, they lose money every single time they sell a console.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:18):
That's like they sell a lot of them.
Derek Harju (25:21):
Yeah, they lose, no joke and-
Dusey Van Dusen (25:24):
Like, how does that work? How does that help them?
Derek Harju (25:25):
So they lose anywhere from $100 to $150 every time they sell a PlayStation 3, they get it back when you buy games. What they're really doing is they're paying 150 bucks to gain entry into your living room.
Dusey Van Dusen (25:38):
They're the original, cheap printer expensive ink.
Derek Harju (25:42):
Correct, so things just start sliding from there, Target follows suit, they're only carrying Blu-ray in their stores. Warner Brothers, then one of the last holdouts, like Warner Brothers as I said, jumped ship and is pairing up with Blu-ray. HD DVD producer, Toshiba, tries dropping. They actually slashed the prices of their players in half hoping that it'll spur adoption. But by that time the damage is done. There's nothing they can do.
Dusey Van Dusen (26:18):
What I immediately think of when trying to apply like look at this situation like that loss leader idea really stood out to me. There are a lot of companies that will do this, that they'll sell something, Walmart will sell something at a loss. Not because there's something specifically tied to it, but just because it gets them into the store, it gets consumers into the store and then they pick up other stuff while they're there and then make up their money there. How can a small business apply that idea? Like small businesses don't have a lot to just give away.
Derek Harju (26:48):
It's good to look for places where you can provide people with value that doesn't necessarily have to cost you a lot of money, but you may be giving it away. That may be in instructional videos, and online content, blogs, tip sheets, white papers, that kind of thing.
Dusey Van Dusen (27:07):
Something else that you can do as a step into, so there's that free stuff but you can also have an eBook or a webinar series or something like that, that is 20 bucks to buy. That gets people in the door starting a relationship with you, and then they're more likely to come back to you later after you've made that initial transaction. The thing you want to make sure of is that it's things that aren't going to cost you time and effort. If you're giving away something that you personally have to follow up on or do a service that you have to give, that battle's never going to end in your favor. Yeah, find something that you can give away that doesn't cost you time or effort besides getting it up and running first to start to create a relationship with people that might be interested in your service.
Derek Harju (27:54):
Absolutely. Well, we want to thank you guys for tuning in. This has been Derek Harju.
Dusey Van Dusen (27:58):
This is Dusey Van Dusen.
Derek Harju (27:59):
And this is Worst business ideas in history.
Dusey Van Dusen (28:01):
Bye.
Derek Harju (28:02):
Keeping ever expanding client info straight, sending the same emails hundreds of times, scheduling and rescheduling appointments over and over. Who enjoys this nonsense? No one except my cousin, Brent, and Brent is the absolute worst. Keap is the premier, all-in-one CRM. Just head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com and start your free trial today. Get the busy work out of the way so you can focus on what's important and make your small business grow with Keap. Start your free trial at keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com. More business less work, that's Keap.
Jack Smithson (28:47):
Okay, we're back and we are here with Brendan Alan Barrett Barrett and we're going to continue our conversation and we're going to segue over from follow up and then crossing over into sales and work-life balance.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:03):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (29:04):
So how do you do it? I don't know.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:06):
A little fairy dust, a little blind luck.
Crystal Heuft (29:13):
It seems like something you would need to make that happen.
Brendan Alan Barrett (29:13):
No, so that topic alone was ultimately the spark that started the podcast, the business of family and selling. I was an independent sales rep for a construction company, and I was driving out to a job in Wickenburg at 10:30 at night listening to an audio book that my wife and I had decided to listen to together. That right there was just trying to consume some of the same content that was a step in that direction of work-life balance. Because I think I heard Seth Godin say it first that when you read the same books as people, your conversations start to change. I think that's really true, you start to have a vocabulary from which to have, or a common vocabulary, from which to have really productive conversations no matter what it is. That particular situation it was me and my soon-to-be wife like how the heck are we going to merge our finances? How do we navigate that and we're still doing it.
Brendan Alan Barrett (30:10):
I just suggested another book this week that we should be reading together so that we can start making more plans for the future and refining that. But, again, that was this work-life balance thing and being self-employed and a sales professional, like those are long, stressful days. They can be, especially, if you're not super intentional about it. There came the podcast, the business of family and selling where I interviewed a bunch of people who were farther into fatherhood and farther into marriage than I was.
Crystal Heuft (30:41):
That's cool.
Brendan Alan Barrett (30:42):
Who were doing really big things or had one or two pieces of the equation really well figured out. Really, the big themes were boundaries, but to set good boundaries you got to have some pretty good clarity, and then the other part of it is best practices. The things that work really well right now are the things that are going to give you time back. Whether it's organizing your day when it comes to prospecting the activity, following up on existing pipeline, getting paperwork done. Right, like doing that really well and keeping it organized and efficient is going to make it easier for you to feel good about "clocking out" at 5:00-
Crystal Heuft (31:33):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (31:33):
... and focusing on the people at the dinner table. Then like as a sales leader, having processes and procedures documented, both written and then maybe in more consumable fashions like video and audio so that sales people don't have to feel like they need to call their boss to get a question answered or to learn how to do something. The bus is already laid out. When you have these questions, search this database, I'll show you how to do it in the video I created two years ago. That was the podcast, and again, the lessons learned are clarity, boundaries, and then always trying to revise best practices. They truly are the most efficient ways of growing revenue and leading a team.
Crystal Heuft (32:18):
That's good.
Jack Smithson (32:19):
Right, and systematizing as you essentially for yourself and for your team members or?
Brendan Alan Barrett (32:26):
Yeah, so if you're going at every day, you're shooting from the hip every morning, like there's no consistency to that. Not only are you going to be frustrated, and at the end of the day, feel like you didn't accomplish anything and then feel guilty about "clocking out" at 5:00 and sitting with the family. But you have no data from which then to reflect on and try to make pivots and improvements upon. I think the last time I was here we were talking about being super organized and documenting your sales processes and your follow ups in your CRM. Because only when you document everything and you document things accurately, are you really going to have true data from which to make decisions and improvements from.
Crystal Heuft (33:10):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:11):
The same thing applies to making time for both being a fantastic provider, getting your feelings of self-actualization from your career, and also being a good husband, wife, parent, child, brother, sister, whatever it happens to be.
Crystal Heuft (33:33):
I feel like for small business owners, it's so tough because you're-
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:41):
Agreed.
Crystal Heuft (33:43):
... trying so hard. I don't know what that sign means Jack, help a girl out.
Brendan Alan Barrett (33:48):
It's audio, they can't see the facial expressions guys.
Crystal Heuft (33:50):
I don't know what this means yet. We need a sign language lesson after so I can take up on the cues Jack gives me.
Jack Smithson (33:58):
[inaudible 00:33:58].
Crystal Heuft (33:58):
Oh, so it wasn't even a sign, I'm like, "What did I do wrong [crosstalk 00:34:03]?" Okay, so back to this topic, I didn't forget guys, what I was talking about is that small business owners really find the struggle to balance that family in life and business. Whether it's a family or you're just on your own, you still need a work-life balance. I have a friend, actually, I've been giving him a lot of feedback lately that, "Hey, you're going 110 miles an hour 24/7. You need to take some time out and make a little time for something outside your business." Because he's very successful, he's doing great things. But at the end of the day, you still need that time for yourself to grow in other ways as well. I guess what would be a tip you would give to my friend, Juntae, if you're listening? But I would say what would you tell him about really managing his work-life balance? What would that tip be? Like the number one thing he should be trying to do?
Brendan Alan Barrett (34:59):
What is your fear if June doesn't take this?
Crystal Heuft (35:02):
Juntae, I don't have any fear, I just want everyone to live like a balanced life. I think he's killing it, so taking time to celebrate is also part of continuing on to big goals. But I also think on all the small businesses we've talked to, this is a struggle they find of it's not a 9:00 to 5:00. If you want to succeed, you're probably working so many hours so-
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:26):
It's a marathon.
Crystal Heuft (35:26):
... if you can't clock out at 5:00, what should they be at least making sure they do to make sure they have a healthy, sorry, work-life balance?
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:36):
Well, one thing for myself right now is focusing on my eating because I tried to make the physical fitness, physical activity, shift first and I was successful with that for a while and then not so successful and then everything was a mess. Like take the early wins, right?
Jack Smithson (35:55):
Have you ever been there at all?
Crystal Heuft (35:55):
Never.
Brendan Alan Barrett (35:56):
Take the early wins. Like right now, for me, it's just eating more Whole Foods and vegetables and making that my first choice over a sandwich.
Crystal Heuft (36:09):
Yeah, that's great.
Brendan Alan Barrett (36:10):
All this processed stuff and french fries from Wendy's that I can get in a minute rather than having to wait five minutes for my steamed vegetables to be ready. I don't know, circle back to the why though because, for me, I want to do all these things. But to do that, I'm going to have to live a decently long life to see my grandkids and give my grandkids the lives that I foresee them to have. Talking about that on a regular basis is important because if you're not revisiting it, yeah, you forget about it, you focus on the now. I guess, focus on the why first, and then two, take the easy wins. What is the easiest thing that you can do and then build upon those wins. I think like even Zuckerberg preaches that kind of stuff, right?
Crystal Heuft (36:58):
For sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (36:59):
He did the easy stuff first, and that's what allowed them to get build momentum and now do things that a lot of people wouldn't have ever dreamed that they'd be able to do.
Crystal Heuft (37:07):
Yeah.
Jack Smithson (37:09):
Okay, so I'm not organized, I've never been organized. I'm the guy when you said, "Hey, people get up and they shoot from the hip." I'm like, "That's me."
Crystal Heuft (37:17):
But you usually get the bullseye.
Jack Smithson (37:19):
Right. I do okay there but I just recently started listing. My wife is really organized, and her whole life is lists and checking boxes and feeling really good about kicking the crap out of her lists. I've never been a listing guy until recently, and it's made a huge difference. Because if I just try and get something in my head, which I've done for a long time, and then I realize, "Hey, my head it's not a very good organizer." It's all over the place. I drift in the best of times. Actually, having lists and writing something like, "Oh, I need to do this, and now I'm going to write it down."
Brendan Alan Barrett (37:54):
Amen, and that's what my book is. The only thing I brought in were my keys, my phone, and my notebook. I carry that thing with me every day.
Jack Smithson (38:04):
Mine's right next to yours.
Brendan Alan Barrett (38:04):
I sit down while I'm drinking my coffee or when I first get to my desk, if it was a rushed morning, and brain dump all the things that I got going on in my head. A lot of it is from pages before like it just it never happened, whatever. Then after it's all out, then I start numbering it. What's the most important thing I get done today, or what's going to make me feel accomplished at the end of the day? The thing that's going to move that needle the most, that's number one, number two, number three. Then if I do more than three, then I start to get distracted and so I try to only do three at a time. If I get through all three, which some days doesn't even happen, but if I get through all three, then I can renumber.
Jack Smithson (38:44):
Yeah, I don't know if you have Jordan Peterson. I read one of his books recently, the 12 Rules for Life, and he has a conversation with himself where he says, "Hey, self, I'd like to reduce some of the unnecessary suffering around here. Is there something I can do?" He has this conversation with himself, and so I look at that list with that in mind. I'm like, "So which of these are causing me the most pain? Where's the most consternation here and which one should I probably knock off the list so that I don't need the Xanax?"
Crystal Heuft (39:16):
You guys are speaking in book language here, I'm going to go ahead for anyone out there that might be like me, and I'm going to speak to a meme because that's what social media marketing managers do. The one that always gets me to sit and reevaluate is the one that has the lady and she's got her hand up and she's like, "Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by your own bad decisions." Anytime someone posts that, I put the emoji of the woman with the raised hand because I'm like, "Amen." That's how I get to reevaluate those choices because I'm like, "They are right, I'm personalizing or I'm personally victimizing myself right now by sitting here and eating this ice cream or by skipping the gym or by not prioritizing those things that I need to really recharge." Journaling, and I have started journaling a little, it's foreign to me, but it is important I think for me to clear that head space and get realigned to some of my goals and missions in life. So things like that, I think, really help.
Jack Smithson (40:16):
But some of our best stories come from our worst decisions, I'm just saying.
Crystal Heuft (40:20):
Oh, and the best lessons, best stories and best lessons.
Jack Smithson (40:24):
I have so many great stories-
Crystal Heuft (40:25):
Me too, Jack.
Jack Smithson (40:26):
... because I've made horrible decisions.
Crystal Heuft (40:28):
Me too.
Jack Smithson (40:28):
I'm like, "Yeah, [crosstalk 00:40:30] not to do that," and then it goes.
Crystal Heuft (40:32):
Let's do the sharing of those too, I'm ready. Let's do here. I was just sharing one, actually, yesterday, I should have called you over. I was like everyone was really enjoying it, but we're not going to share that here. But I'll fill you in. But you are 100% right, those are the best stories and they are usually for me the best learning experiences.
Brendan Alan Barrett (40:50):
Well, and for those out there like that is the trend, without conflict, there is no story. But I was just listening to an interview, I think it was Dax Shepard was interviewing Judd Apatow.
Crystal Heuft (41:03):
That's gotta be a good one.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:04):
Yeah, and he followed the Avett brothers around for I don't know how long, and they were filming and filming and filming and couldn't find the conflict. They are like, "Where is the story?" It took them forever to realize that is the story, there's these two brothers who do this awesome thing together and they don't fight.
Crystal Heuft (41:24):
I don't believe it.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:24):
It's a beautiful thing and they have a fantastic life like-
Crystal Heuft (41:29):
They didn't get in deep enough. They didn't go in the right closed door, I'm telling you right now, there's no way two siblings go a whole, this amount of years in the industry with no fighting.
Brendan Alan Barrett (41:38):
Well, again, not to the degree that you would think is a story worthy I guess but their whole thing is like they go to their dad like he checks them. When they butt heads, it's not a knock down drag out fight. It's, "Hey, we're struggling with this thing. Let's go to our corners and reassess. Maybe we got to get some outside counsel." Usually, it's their dad telling them to just man up and quit being a jerk and accept that that's the way it is.
Crystal Heuft (42:07):
Well, they've either spent a lot of money in therapy long before this guy was following them, or their dad is a therapist. Because all I'm saying is my sister knows where all the dead bodies are buried, she knows where everything is, and most the time I think she wouldn't sell me out. But every once in a while, I'm like, "Hmm, who would you... how much?" It might only take a 20-
Jack Smithson (42:27):
With siblings with so many like chiclets.
Crystal Heuft (42:28):
Yeah, it might only take a 20 and she might share all of it on some given days.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:33):
They're also at an age where in their relationship, I think, they're at an age in their relationship because they've known each other since birth that a lot of people won't get to until it's their spouse and they're like in their 90s, right?
Crystal Heuft (42:49):
Or they're just very mature and I'm never going to be that.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:52):
Well, I would imagine as kids they weren't as peaceful. Like you learn and you grow.
Jack Smithson (42:57):
Oh, sure.
Brendan Alan Barrett (42:58):
I've been married two years now, and we're learning stuff about each other every day but we're also being very conscious about that. Anytime I get into it like argh, it's, "Oh yeah, we're learning how to coexist. We're learning how to do this thing called life together and we are two different people. We came from two different places." Part of that is why I was so attracted to the woman who became my wife. The other part of it, and that's, I guess, growing up in marriage and growing up in business is very similar. You're going to butt heads with people you do business with.
Jack Smithson (43:34):
Oh, yeah.
Crystal Heuft (43:35):
Is it, Jack?
Jack Smithson (43:36):
My wife once did shake me till my ears bleed at least once every other day.
Crystal Heuft (43:41):
His wife is, honestly, so supportive. She's a very cool chick.
Jack Smithson (43:45):
She's lovely.
Crystal Heuft (43:47):
When we do lives with Jack, she's one of the first people viewing and then she immediately like waves or says hi, she's commenting on there. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what a social media marketing manager's dream come true."
Brendan Alan Barrett (44:02):
There you go.
Jack Smithson (44:02):
It's not that she's not busy, she's a pediatric nurse so she's busy.
Crystal Heuft (44:05):
Yeah, actually, what are your tips for balancing life? Because it's interesting to me, you've got a whole family, you're married. I'm curious about you've got a boss Lady as a wife, you're a boss man here. So how do you guys balance that life at home too?
Jack Smithson (44:23):
Because we're both super A type, we collide hard when we collide. It's, and jokingly, it's like we fight for the pants and it's not overt that we're fighting for the pants. Sometimes it's-
Crystal Heuft (44:38):
Clear.
Jack Smithson (44:38):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (44:38):
And other times it's-
Jack Smithson (44:40):
It's covert that we're fighting for the pants, and sometimes it's just right out there. We've been together about eight years, and we're a lot better at it-
Crystal Heuft (44:49):
That's great.
Jack Smithson (44:49):
... but we still collide because we're both like super A type and you know.
Crystal Heuft (44:52):
To Brendan's point, it probably takes time to get to that growth.
Jack Smithson (44:53):
And my way is always better and I'm always right.
Crystal Heuft (44:57):
You better be careful, I'm going to Facebook her right now.
Jack Smithson (45:02):
Well, I mean, she'll tell you different but I know it that my way's better and that I'm always right.
Crystal Heuft (45:07):
Okay, so we're going to go ahead and remind everyone what we've talked about today because I think we, for a minute there, I think Brendan was ready to leave because we were laughing and making jokes and he was really having some good points. I'm going to wrap it up here a bit and say we started this conversation really driving in on the importance of follow up. Then we went to the importance of work-life balance. So, Brendan, as a way to start closing this out, what would be one tip you would give in follow up, one tip, for the small business owner out there? Then one tip for really balancing that work-life balance?
Brendan Alan Barrett (45:45):
Well, it's a mindset thing. Yes, it really does take that many touches to have meaningful conversations with the people who, when they see the light, will be thanking you for interrupting their day.
Crystal Heuft (45:57):
Totally.
Brendan Alan Barrett (45:57):
Yeah, and that realization might keep you from spreading yourself too thin trying to get in front of too many prospects when you have just enough in your database on your spreadsheet, whatever it is, to hit the revenue number you're going after. Only by not following up with that targeted audience, you're going to spread yourself too thin and you're going to be pulling out your hair and, yeah, you're not going to be able to unplug at 5:00 and focus on the people at the dinner table.
Crystal Heuft (46:26):
Totally, so what I'm hearing is know who your audience is so that you can not spread yourself too thin and make sure you're following up with the people that are going to be able to move through the funnel and be acquired.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:38):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Crystal Heuft (46:39):
Then if you do these things, you will have more time for your family and be able to set those boundaries you're talking about.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:45):
Yeah.
Crystal Heuft (46:45):
Did I do okay there?
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:47):
Indeed.
Crystal Heuft (46:47):
I was even through the jokes trying to take in the lesson. But, anyways, thank you so much for being here, Brendan.
Brendan Alan Barrett (46:53):
Absolutely.
Crystal Heuft (46:54):
We are going to send people in our blog to get a 98% of the people that aren't opting in to convert. Where can they find that again?
Brendan Alan Barrett (47:06):
Yeah, so if you have a decent digital web presence or internet assets and you're interested in not just continuing to convert the 1, 2% who are already converting on your sites, but there's another 98% of the folks who are visiting your website, checking out what you have to offer. But for one reason or another, fall off the path to doing business with you, you can learn more about ways to convert that other 98% by visiting startinphx.com/b2bleads.
Crystal Heuft (47:37):
We'll put that link in the blog. Thanks, everyone, for listening, thanks for being here, Brendan.
Jack Smithson (47:41):
Right, magic, it's wizardry.
Crystal Heuft (47:42):
Yeah, it is. It was a great topic and we really appreciate your [crosstalk 00:47:46]-
Brendan Alan Barrett (47:46):
Well, thanks for having me.
Crystal Heuft (47:46):
Yeah, great. Thank you guys.
Derek Harju (47:52):
Thanks for listening to Small Biz Buzz, please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave a five star rating. It helps keep the show going. If you need a hand with growing your small business, head over to keap.com, that's K-E-A-P.com and get started. More business, less work, that's Keap.
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