Transcript
WEBVTT
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Are you trying to establish your brand
as a thought leader? Start a PODCAST,
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invite industry experts to be guests on
your show and watch your brand become
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the prime resource for decision makers in
your industry. Learn more at sweetphish MEDIACOM.
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You're listening to be tob growth,
a daily podcast for B TOB leaders.
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We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary Vander truck and Simon
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Senek, but you've probably never heard
from the majority of our guests. That's
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because the bulk of our interviews aren't
with professional speakers and authors. Most of
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our guests are in the trenches leading
sales and marketing teams. They're implementing strategy,
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they're experimenting with tactics, they're building
the fastest growing BTB companies in the
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world. My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of sweet fish media,
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a podcast agency for BB brands,
and I'm also one of the cohosts
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of this show. When we're not
interviewing sales and marketing leaders, you'll hear
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stories from behind the scenes of our
own business. Will share the ups and
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downs of our journey as we attempt
to take over the world. Just getting
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well, maybe let's get into the
show. Welcome back to BEDB growth.
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I am your host for today's episode. Nikki Ivy was sweetfish media guys.
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I've got with me the day James
mackew was CEO of secure vision. I
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got James and he's got opinions and
thoughts and takes for y'all. Well,
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we're going to be talking about,
you know, this question of when is
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it okay to actually sell? So
much work is done by thought leaders and
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it contributors a like to talk sales
people out of selling most of the time
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because it's offensive. Is this sort
of the idea that's out there? I
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won't put words the James's mouth,
but this is like. If you've countered
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this idea, you know what I'm
talking about. We're going to dig into
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it and figure out when is it
okay be a salesperson. Before we dig
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into that, though, James,
I'd love it if you would just give
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us a little bit of background on
yourself and what you and the folks at
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secure vision or up to these days. Yeah, sure thing. Thank you.
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Thank you for having me today.
Really looking forward to this. So
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Secure Vision, we're a boot teak
agency and we combine traditional headhunting with modern
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recruitment consulting. Basically what we do
is we help high growth tech companies higher
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revenue generating talent. We also advise
them on best practices and how to implement
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process the technology stack and build out
their internal teams so they can have an
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internal recruitment strategy that works at scale. So we work with companies just to
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help them high we help other companies
actually build out program at scale. So
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it just depends, but that's that's
basically what we do and we work with
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around a hundred and ten companies in
the hypergrowth, if you see backed SAS
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space typically. Yeah, so my
friends, all my friends in the hypergrowth.
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Yeah, back I spent a little
time in the Austin startup streets.
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I like to talk about it.
It was a one time learn some stuff,
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failed, some stuff right, yep, and on some stuff. So
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you know, I think I've got
pretty much everything one can get out of
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that environment. But what I didn't
get was definitive, conclusive advice on when
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it is okay to sell, particularly
when it comes to a social selling strategy.
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I talk to markers every day on
this podcast, as you know,
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and the consensus is generally, when
it comes to a social content strategy,
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that we're not selling, that we're
building awareness or building brand or sort of
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doing this, you know, make
them come to you, type of strategy,
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but to directly pitch, directly asked
for the business is a no no.
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But James says there are nuances and
that we would do well to explore
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those. So give us a quick
overview of, first what your successful social
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selling strategy has been and has had
to be and how you build your business
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on it, and then your philosophy
on why you think maybe we need to
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rethink these ideas. Well, I
think it's just it's for stuff. It's
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a little bit funny because I think
it's just commonly accepted now and the vast
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majority of salt leaders that I'm seeing, particularly on Linkedin or saying, Hey,
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your whole content strategy just give,
give gift. Never talk about what
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you do. You should just focus
on adding value, and I always thought
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that just sounded a little weird to
me because I was thinking myself like well,
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if you're not in a business that
adds value, why are you doing
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it? Like obviously your product or
service adds value to a specific market and
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that's why there's a company. Pay
You, people pay you to provide that
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product or service. It just didn't
really make sense to me. But more
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so, it's a I'm just looking
at facts and I know when I started
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my company I didn't have any money
saved up and I actually didn't have any
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leads. I didn't go into secure
vision having a client base and I also
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at the time was living in Europe, so I didn't have the ability to
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go to conferences and go to Silicon
Valley and meet with people in person.
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So I had to find a strategy
online to acquire customers. So basically what
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I did is I just started marketing
out candidates that I was working with and
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basically asking for business on linkedin and
directly, but posting content talking about Hey,
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I'm partner with this really great candidate
who's exceeding quota and a highly relevant
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ass environment's currently looking for their next
role in October and this sounds like somebody
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that you be interested in speaking with
him. Yeah, let me know,
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and just dropping that type of content, and the response was just amazing.
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I mean in my first month of
business I signed up a two billion dollar
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publicly trading company and within the first
three months we had a signed an exclusive
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contract with them to do the all
their be to be SASS sales. It
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was three months. I was halfway
across the world, all right, but
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I just had the right social strategy
and from there it just snowballed. I
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signed up. We work and similar
web and all sorts of really great hypergrowth
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late stage SASS company is. So
I've done it, and so I have
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now a client book of a hundred, hundred, ten great customers and we've
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posed millions in terms of revenue throughout
the years. And and it's funny.
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I'll comment on the different thought leaders
out there and I'll just say like,
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Hey, look like so I understand
maybe there's some different philosophies, but that
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said, what about these hundred ten
clients and all this revenue and all this
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success over here? How is this
fit into that? And they're just doesn't
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really seem to be a desire to
want to acknowledge that there's a place for
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it, and I think that one
of the things that I've been talking with
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my network about is just that it
just it all depends on your objectives.
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You got it. What is your
objective on social what do you want to
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do, and I would agree that. If you're a CEO that's focused on
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building out your personal brand and you
really just want to focus on being a
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thought leader and being known as an
influencer and you want to get, we're
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speaking, engagements, then yes,
you should focus on content that isn't directed
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at selling darkly your indirects. You
what you do, just adding value and
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being seen as that expert. But
if you're an str or an account executive,
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I think it's completely reasonable to talk
about what you do. You just
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have to do it the right way. You can't, you know, if
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you're just saying like hey, we're
analytics platform and we do this and that
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and if you're interested in a demo, hit us up, like nobody's going
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to engage with that. But if
you, on the other hand, say
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something to the effective like wow,
it was just in New York City today
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I visit one of my biggest clients
and I was walking them through one of
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the features that we just released and
it was so cool to see the look
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on their face when they experience to
success and they were able to get XYZ
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done in a shorter amount of time. And this is what I play for.
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This is what I love and if
you're struggling with this, I love
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to help you out, to feel
free to DM me. If you posted
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like that, like one to three
times a week, just a story like
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that, people would be much more
likely to engage and Pete, you would
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start to get in bound leads.
So that's I think that's it. Like
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people just aren't creative. They're like, Oh, I can't sell on social.
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It's like no, you're just doing
it wrong, and it's like,
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you know the thing, the same
people who are saying you can't sell on
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social they advocate for for cold calling, and that's like saying cold calling doesn't
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work because only a small percentage engage. will cold calling does work. Well,
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yeah, a lot of people don't
want to hear it, but when
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you do engage with the right person, it's successful and that's why people advocate
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for that. It's the same thing
with selling on social. Yeah, you're
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not going to get five hundred likes
on that post unless you tell a really
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good story, and you probably could, but you might get a lot less
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likes. But like, I've had
plenty of posts that have like ten likes,
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maybe one comment, where I sign
up a great client and then I
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had, you know, a few
weeks ago I had this post about how
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to answer if somebody asks you how
to sell a pin on an interview,
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and it went viral and, you
know, got five hundred thousand views and
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thousands of comments, these types of
things. No business is landed from that.
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Now might strategies changing, though?
Right now we have all these clients.
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Now I want to do the thought
leadership and I want to do this
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speaking engagement. So my strategy is
changed. But there's absolutely no reason for
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somebody in the selling position shouldn't be
selling what they do on social and it
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should be valuable to their network and
if it's not, they should go sell
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something they believe in. That does
add value. Talking. That's you hit
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on so many key things. The
first one, though, is this idea
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of we talked a little bit about
about offline as well. Is that it
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depends on what your role is or
your seniority in your organization or in your
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career. So far. So what
we have a lot of the time is
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CEOS telling SDRs to basically mirror a
CEO social strategy. Yes, exactly the
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same time. As an SDR,
you're at a disadvantage because you likely don't
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have the experience or the perceived expertise
to speak from the same place of credibility
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as the CEO. So you're if
in you're competing with them for the same
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social space to come through the same
social noise. I've seen it done.
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I've seen it done, but to
what end? Right? Yeah, like
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the for the STRS, like they
can certainly gain a fallowing if they speak
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to what they know and if they're
speaking to other strs, they can still
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be effective as a quote unquote the
fault leader, whatever that really means.
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But you know, if they can
gain a following and do that. But
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it's just it just depends on what
their objective is. If they're looking to
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use social as a means to connect
with more buyers. And if you're like
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Mostes to yours, you have a
monthly quota. Yes, your prospects don't
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want to hear you talk about how
you became such a good salesperson, unless
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other salespeople, and not most of
us, don't sell to other sales people.
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So so I think that's the the
disconnect and I'm really glad you illuminated
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this for me because it's something that
I had been struggling with that. Maybe
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I didn't understand why I was struggling
with it, but I was like,
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look, the fact is, I
guess I hadn't had draw, I hadn't
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drawn this line in the sand of
what exactly do I want from my social
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strategy? You do I want to
be necessarily a thought leader, or do
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I want this to be a channel
to get more prospects and to get more
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business? And I had not decided
that until today, James, until until
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I had to sit in for me, I'll tell you, I was leaning
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very much, I have been leaning
very much toward the thought leadership piece because,
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for whatever reason for me, that's
been easier. We talked about offline.
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How like, depending on the things
that I the content that I put
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out, there's a discernible difference between
their response I get a thought leadership piece
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and the response I get when I'm
talking about what I actually do and who
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I actually want to work with.
But the I hate to call it a
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formula, but the sort of framework
that you use in the way that you
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ask for the business, I think
is something that folks that, no matter
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what industry are selling into, can
use. So one more time, talk
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us through what that looks like,
what that sounds like when you're pitching,
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but indirectly how to do it's it's
a very thought through strategy and the way,
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I'll just give you the real life
opposed to just giving like a sure
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marching like step by step. I
just going to tell exactly how we did
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it. So probably in fall two
thousand and sixteen, I sat down with
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my team and we had done what
we call candidate marking, marketing out people
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that we had spoken with through email, and we're like, okay, we're
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going to take that approach and we're
going to apply it to Linkedin. And
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this was before everyone was like linkedin
liked let's all post every day. So
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we were doing this like we were
under the first and we were doing this
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better than, I think, pretty
much any most services companies we know.
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But I didn't see any other recruiters
do it or anything else, and we
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just started doing that. I just
set a goal with the team like all
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right, guys, I want everyone
to mark it out three candidates a week,
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and it got to the point are
most success we ever had was in
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winter two thousand and seventeen. Early
two thousand and eighteen, we had a
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three month period where we signed up
over thirty clients due to this strategy.
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Wow, so that's I mean it
just to give you a sense. But
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the way we did it was we
basically just it was like going fishing.
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We put out the bait. This
is like, Hey, this is the
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the value that we can offer.
We tied it into a story about like
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one of the things we love most
is when we see somebody who's super passionate
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and hard working. And reminds me
of this the candidate that I just spoke
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with today and she was telling me
about her story and how she was able
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to persevere through X, Y and
Z, and she went to this company,
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did very well and then at her
next company they went through three layoffs
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and she made it through that.
She made the cuts and this sat in
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the other and you humanize it,
you make it real and you say like
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you're there at and and we've refined
it and we continuously change it up.
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And that's just for us, but
for different industries it's just like if you're
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not a recruit, of course you
can still do this, you just have
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to know how to apply it and
SASS. It's very you can. It's
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very easy to do this and pretty
much any industry that if your buyers are
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on Linkedin, obviously, but you
just have to think about like how can
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I show my expertise and an indirect
way that's just hyper focused on what the
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buyer cares about, and that's also
that's that, you know, doesn't come
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across as a hard cell. I
tried the hard cell to. I've I've
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done the post off back of the
day few years ago. I was just
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like secure vision, you know,
is a recruitment resource for this, this
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and that, and starts talking about
like what we do, and that really
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didn't get us anywhere. But I
tell you, pretty much every time I
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speak of the prospect of like Oh, yeah, I've seen your post for
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the last few years, that's why
you decided to reach out. Yeah,
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definitely works. So okay, so
I get it now. And what's crazy
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is that it really what you're describing
is just like being a good sales person
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period. Like they any sales person
who is winning or who's got it right
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is telling a good story. They've
figured that part out. Yeah, absolutely,
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and and they have figured out how
to do that without, you know,
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boiling down what they do to the
nuts and bolts of boiling down what
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they do to the features and benefits, and it is very what it's very
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similar to. Reminded me of when
you were just saying it. It sounds
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a lot like a snub speech.
Right. So I'm a politician and I
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say it's like a young mother that
I met in California who was working three
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jobs. And you know what,
like, you laugh, you left,
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but that resonates, right, that
resonates now. Now you like you said,
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it humanizes and you give me so
many ideas. I can nowt wait
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to us feel well of it.
Yeah, it is. It really it
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works and it's funny. It's like
I've suggested this to people that are really
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respect that are very prominent on linked
in and I just just I love you
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talked about want it here. So
it's a lot. It's a it's pretty
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there's so many like anyone who sells
to like, anyone who's influencer and their
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buyer is in marketing or sales,
is kind of perpetuating it. And so
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to me it's like, yeah,
there's certainly a place for that, but
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it's like saying that, like cold
coin doesn't work because of the tactics on
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the call like well, why don't
we just get created and keep switching something
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up and make it fun? Right? And like there's there's other ways,
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like if you look at there's all
sorts of TV shows about small businesses in
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the to keep behind the scenes of
like a brewery or like an artist,
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or they's talked about the process and
how they do things and the kind of
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these behind the scenes thing. That's
another great way to do it. Ark
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About like behind the scenes, like
you know what you guys are doing and
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how you make decisions and how you
evaluate certain things and how you test certain
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things. Like those are all opportunities
to engage with the buyer in a way
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where you're not just like saying like
Hey, this is our service, but
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you're actually providing some kind of unique
value and making it a little bit more
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interesting to digest for the right person. And Yeah, so what it gets
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less engagement, like that's the other
thing. Everyone's so obsessed with likes and
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comments, like I would rather get
a post with ten likes. Are used
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to at least right when my strategy
was client acquisition sole and Linkedin, it
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was like I would rather get a
post with ten likes in a comment were
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that that engagement is going to turn
into business. Didn't have a post with
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a hundred likes and a hundred comments, and the counter argument to that is
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like well, yeah, but you
know, you spread the word, you
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get in front of more people and
then they find out about you and like
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okay, like sure, I understand
that. I'm not saying it's wrong,
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I'm just saying I can just speak
from my own experience and it's worked quite
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well. So I just think that
it's like, you know, it's something
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where we have to whenever something gets
to the point where it's like created,
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it's like it's considered like sacred within
the realm of like sales or marketing,
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that's exactly when you have to start
questioning it and figure out, like how
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can I get ahead, because everybody
is doing the shit right. Everybody wants
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to be a thought leader. Now. Everybody's publishing content. Right. Well,
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not everyone, but like a much
bigger percentage of people are, sure,
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right. So it's like, honestly, there's never been a better time
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than to sell your services on Linkedin
content there right now, because nobody is
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doing it. Yeah, nobody's just
coming out there just saying like hey,
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like I just had this great success
story, sincially a little bit of a
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case study. Put it in there. If you're dealing with this, I
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love to chat with you. Feel
free to hit me up. Yeah,
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yeah, I can think of a
couple of organizations that come to mind that
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I've seen doing it, and I
was like shock and disappointment at and disappointed
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at how little engagement that they got, because the way that these books did
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it was was brilliant and that the
only the only sin that committed was at
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the end of telling this story,
there was a call to action and Okayo,
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which likes the term, people out, but it's like I still really
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I stand what they did. I'm
a fan of it, I believe in
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it and, like I said,
yeah, I'll look out this coming see
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that's that's it's okay, though,
right, like if k, let's say
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that only like a few people engage
with it, but it gets in front
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of a buyer at the right time, they're going to full up on that.
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And that's the thing. It's like
when I was cold calling, I
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were not back in the day,
when I was an Stdr, I was
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doing like a hundred cold calls a
day and a successful day was having three
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meeting set. Yep, who successful
day was a three percent success ratio,
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right, and you just have to
train your mind to work in that way
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when you're in sales. and to
me, when I would get low engagement,
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like I didn't really care because,
okay, yeah, most people didn't
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seem to want to engage with it, but the few that did become paying
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customers and that that was a whole
other thing. It's like like it be
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considered shortsighted. No, it's not. These are real relationships that, right,
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are with me, like I have
really amazing relationships with all these companies
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and that's going to be with me
for the rest of my career, in
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my rest of my life. That's
incredibly valuable. Like I have infinite amount
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of options because of the strategy,
you know. So I don't know,
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it's just a give or take,
right. I think it just always comes
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down to what what objective do you
have, and just constantly testing things to
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try to figure out, like what's
the most effective strategy to get there?
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So that's it, guys. If
you're taking notes, know why you're there,
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tell a story and lean in.
So what you want to get out
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of the relationship? There know that
it's been textual. There's a ride and
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a wrong way. We just talked
a lot about the right way. So
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reconcile with yourself and your soul that
you are in fact the sales person and
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the sales people sell and that have
done right. It really isn't something that
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you should ever have to regret or
downplay or look or, you know,
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have looked down on. So thank
you for laying this out for us.
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I, like I said, I
was just was. It was highly anticipated,
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seem, on my show today,
and now that I've had a chance
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of successfully pick your brain, it's
time for you to tell us about what
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you are putting in it. So, James, talk about a learning resource
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that you have engaged with here recently
that you know is informing your approach with
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it has just got you excited these
days. You know, I could just
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give a book recommendation, but I'm
going to try to go and give something
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a little bit deeper than that.
I think that, honestly, my strategy
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my whole career really for the last
ten years, has been to constantly put
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myself in situations where I feel stretched, that I'm doing things beyond what I
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know how to do. In just
really just get myself uncomfortable and I kind
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of made a commitment to myself for
the next ten to fifteen years to always
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be in an uncomfortable place in my
career, always biting off just a little
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bit more than I could chew.
So I think in terms of like what
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kind of information repels me forward or
what I use as a resource, is
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just experiences in general traveling. I've
lived in a lot of different countries.
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When I started secure vision, I
also moved to Europe with my girlfriend.
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We were traveling around to different countries
as I started the company and that taught
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me just so much about life and
give me so much perspective. And whenever
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there's been a big decision in my
life and I wasn't sure if I should
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go for it, I've always just
gone for it and chosen the uncomfortable path.
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That just forces me to grow and
I think that that's you know,
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it's there's a time to listen to
other people and to to pick up a
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book and to read, but there's
another time where just make a strong decision
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that's going to force you to grow
and experience it in real life. You
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00:21:36.690 --> 00:21:37.730
got to put down the phone and
at it. Just get out there and
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travel and meet New People and just
make big decisions that you don't know how
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you're going to like figure it out
and just go for it and when your
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00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:49.519
backup is up against the wall,
you just you find a way and that's
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00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:52.960
where the real growth occurs. So
to me that's that's kind of been my
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00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:56.880
strategy for Growth and what I consume
is just I try to consume as much
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of life as I can and you
just try to learn as much as I
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can. I love it. Get
out there and do and live and be
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people. So I know, James, that, just like me, folks
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listening and become fast fans of yours, or they're going to want to send
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you all kinds of messages about how
Vehemli they disagree with you. Whatever the
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00:22:15.390 --> 00:22:18.059
case, let us know. I
love it, I hope. So connect
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00:22:18.099 --> 00:22:22.140
with you. So you can hit
me up on Linkedin. So my name
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00:22:22.339 --> 00:22:27.299
is James Mackie, but the twitter
the handle is Jimmy Mackie. If you
347
00:22:27.380 --> 00:22:30.410
want to search for me, you
can't find me. And then on Instagram
348
00:22:30.490 --> 00:22:36.329
it's James J Macki and I believe
it's the the same on twitter. Should
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I've been calling you Jimmy this whole
time. Now. I yeah, it's
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just I either one is fine,
okay, whatever. Nick, he is
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short. First unique was and now
we're officially appointed. All right, you'll
352
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:52.680
have to be on this show another
time, because I love, I love
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a controversial Queen and I love I
was I was speaking drag just now,
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just for all of your horse who
were wondering. But no, I love
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I love the absence of an Echo
Chamber, I love an opposing viewpoint and
356
00:23:07.309 --> 00:23:10.589
and out most of all, I
love what works, and that's what you
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talked about today, for really wasn't
just, you know, being contrarian for
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the sake of it. was,
hey, here's what's works for me,
359
00:23:15.900 --> 00:23:18.900
and then concrete examples of how and
why it's worked for you. So thank
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00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:22.740
you so much for that. Like
I said, I'm going to be watching
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your your content, and we're just
gonna have to have you on another time
362
00:23:26.259 --> 00:23:29.890
to talk about some more. Oh
Yeah, things that other folks aren't necessarily
363
00:23:29.930 --> 00:23:32.849
talking about. But for now we'll
close it out. Thank you so much
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00:23:32.849 --> 00:23:34.609
change being on the show today.
Thank you for having me. This is
365
00:23:34.690 --> 00:23:41.880
a lot of fun. If you
are a regular listener of B Tob Growth.
366
00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:45.880
Odds are you might enjoy sales success
stories with Scott Ingram as well well.
367
00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:49.640
This year, thanks to a partnership
with outreach and sales hacker, our
368
00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:55.829
friend Scott Ingram is making the live
stream of his sales success summit available for
369
00:23:55.990 --> 00:24:00.630
free. The event is on October
fourteen and fifteen, featuring thirteen presentations and
370
00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:06.750
five panels, all presented by top
performing be tob sales professionals. You can
371
00:24:06.789 --> 00:24:11.859
check it out and register at top
one DOT FM live. That's top the
372
00:24:11.900 --> 00:24:14.779
number one DOT FM LIVE