Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Mark Evans from Wisconsin, and Mark has a really great business helping entrepreneurs, with companies around $1-5 million, build and deploy sales teams to grow their businesses.
We had a really great discussion about the impact of what he does, the result, versus the mechanism that he uses to do it.
A lot of the time, people who help people 'do things' focus on the mechanism, the track they follow, the product, how much they actually do for people, instead of focusing on the outcome, the results of what is being produced.
So that's what we talked about today. Focusing on what it would mean to focus exclusively on the result you're able to create.
There are a lot of great ideas here to help you focus more on what people really want — the results.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 162
Dean: Mark.
Mark: Dean! This is awesome!
Dean: Yeah, it is. We've all been waiting.
Mark: Well, I have. I don't know about you. But man, I'm so excited to be here, Dean. This is such a thrill for me, so thank you so much for having me on.
Dean: Oh, great. Well, I can't wait to hear what you are up to, and we've got the whole hour here to see what we can do.
Mark: Sounds great.
Dean: Why don't we start with the whole... just the relevant, the Mark story so far, and while we're working on it-
Mark: Oh, boy.
Dean: We're trying to... what we want to focus on today.
Mark: Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, firstly, I've been listening to this show as well a to I Love Marketing for a long time, so I just want to say thank you so much for the value that you put on this - for a long time, yeah, so thank you, I really appreciate that.
Dean: That's awesome.
Mark: Well, my story... So, I come from a family of entrepreneurs but it took me a couple of years to really work up the courage to start my own business. And so back in November of last year, actually, I broke out on my own and started my own sales coaching and consulting company. I had worked with a lot of very high growth and fast growing sales teams and organizations throughout the past decade or so, and over that time I really started to see why some companies grow their sales team and their sales force and grow sales and grow revenues, and why some companies hadn't. And with my family owning a small business and ultimately selling it and my wife being involved in a family business as well, I just felt that, Hey some of this recipe and this formula that I'm figuring out for these fast growing sales teams, needs to go to other companies. And so I started to grow with one company, moonlighting and as a side-hustle, and one turned into two, and two turned into four, and things just progressed here.
So, I've been in business since November of last year, and I work with companies that are looking primarily to either start their first sales team, so the entrepreneur is currently the chief bottle washer, the marketing department, the sales person, and then also the janitor too.
Dean: It's the self milking cow, is what you're talking about. Right?
Mark: Yep. They're milking themselves.
Dean: They're trying to do it all.
Mark: Yeah, they're trying to do it all, and so the companies that I tend to work with are ones with entrepreneur issues. They're ready to start their own sales team, they're ready to hand off that follow up and prospecting and loan generation, stuff like that to a salesperson. So I help them build the systems that it takes to really understand from a cultural perspective, what type of salesperson do you need; to setting up the compensation structure, the recruiting apparatus where we're going to find this sales superstar.
And then I also train companies and teams on how to more effectively reach out to prospects and close more sales, and be more effective in their presentation in sales. Sales environment, sales meetings, things like that.
Dean: Right, awesome. So where are you, what part of the country?
Mark: I'm about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Dean: Okay. All right, and are these companies that you're working with...are they Wisconsin local companies, or are you working with people all over?
Mark: Yeah, they're all local at this point. They're all primarily within southeastern Wisconsin, but I'd really like to expand that - eventually.
Dean: Well, the thing is, you're doing all the right moves in terms of...you've spent your whole life up to this point getting the body of experience that you have. Realizing that you've developed your own ideas and your own methods for doing things and they seem to be working pretty well in your own family's business. And you start to think, I think I can help other people with this. So you get one person and successfully help that person, and that turns into two and four.
Like you said, you're doing all the right things...to create what I call your scale ready algorithm. And that means your ability to take your method and apply it to somebody and get consistently repeatable results. And once you've got that documented and polished to the point where you can now show somebody else, how to show somebody else, to implement your system. Now you're on your way, because the thing is, you are the one who's been able to get that result. The secret to really scaling this, is going to be your ability to show other people, how to show other people to get the results. - In Indianapolis or something right? That's...gotta be the opportunity for somebody like you to do that.
What kind of companies are you working with? What is the ideal kind of person for you, and what kind of outcome are you able to create for them?
Mark: Yeah, so the industry I've been, I guess kind of diverse from an industry perspective. So I work with companies that create sass products, and software for...the healthcare system as well as background checking. I've also worked with companies that are commercial real estate firms as well as personal realtor's or real estate companies that want to grow. And so there's a variety of industries here from the common thread of the entrepreneur...that I'm seeing...they're overwhelmed, they want to grow, but they don't know where to go or what to do next. And that's been the mental similarity between the entrepreneur's that I've been working with.
Dean: So what's your first step? Walk me through one of the success stories that you've had.
Mark: Yeah, so most...or I should say just about all of my contacts and all of my current clients have basically come from me working and milking my network. So what I've been able to do is just start reaching out and having conversations with a lot of people that are in my network; that I've either done work with, or they know either of the companies I've worked at in the past and I've got results for.
So typically the first conversation's a relatively warm one. And I sit down and I've got ten or twelve questions that I like to ask each an every single time...to really understand; Where are they currently at? Where do they want to go? What's holding them back from that? I'm usually able to dial into what they need to do from a sales perspective. And so I just, in that first meeting; which usually lasts about 45 minutes or and hour; just try to give them as much information, as much advice, and as much free content that I've created, as possible.
And this usually works out for me. They may not say yes right away, but they'll say yes within a couple of weeks. And then a good situation that comes to mind, I'm working with a company that wants to grow from their current...she has about 12, and want to get up to about 100 sales people. Right now, we're really working through the process. What's the playbook right? What's the one playbook where all the best tricks, tips, techniques, that 12 salespeople are currently using right now. How can we bring that all into one document, one central hub, so that the best practices are used every single time? So we have a scalable sales team there and scalable sales model.
Dean: - And what kind of impact does that have on their bottom line? Or...how do you measure the -
Mark: Yeah, so that specific example is a work in progress. So it's been difficult to try to nail down the actual revenue numbers. But for that one...as I continue to tabulate this up, just with some different outreach formulas we've put together and sales methodology we've put together, they've been able to close anywhere from $35,000 sales up to $75,000 sales that they wouldn't have done before or they wouldn't have been able to do previously.
Dean: Nice!
Mark: I think I need to do a better job of really documenting...where are we starting at and then what's the impact.
Dean: Yeah, and that's I think, going to go a long way if you can...so that way you know what the result that you're able to deliver for people.
I say it a lot, that part of the thing when you're really thinking this through...to really figure out what the actual product, you're productizing a service that you're offering basically, what the actual outcome is. One of the questions that I would ask people is... either what would you do if you only got paid if they get the result? And it's a clarifying question in that, it forces you to see what the important things are that need to get done to actually get the result. And it also helps you realize what is the result that you're able to create?
And so, when you look at it...any time people are exchanging money for something, especially in this context...it's a no brainer that the result is that, it's going to be more money. That they're going to have a ROI on the money that they spend with you. And that working with you is going to be a faster, easier, more certain path to the profits than to figuring it out on their own.
You've figured out some ways to make that go faster for them it sounds like.
Mark: Yeah, that is the concept to write selling money at a discount almost.
Dean: Well, that's exactly it. So do you have a sense of what that could be? The reason I ask is because a lot of times, especially in starting up, people are more clear on what their process is, or what their method is, or the way that they deliver their course, or their consulting process, without it being as focused or clear on the results. So you end up selling the process, or selling the curriculum, or the training itself without really the focus being the end result. You know?
Mark: Yeah
Dean: So I wonder...what is the result that you could create for people?
Mark: I think the result that really fires me up the most and that seems like the most successful clients that I've had, has really been from taking them from, “hey we don't really have a professional sales organization” to, “we now have a sales company”.
It's the entire process of giving them the sales...I call it my 90 day sales blueprint. It's really the entire - how to go from nobody in sales, I'm the entrepreneur trying to do all the sales stuff, to, in 90 days I'm going to have a sales person that's on their path to seven figure salary. I feel like that's the best...that's what gets me fired up, that's what gets my customers really fired up. And I feel like that's what I can deliver for the best results.
Dean: That's so awesome! Have you done that, had that successfully happen yet?
Mark: Yes...so I started off as really a 1 to 1 model. I would meet with a company and then I would talk them through this curriculum and go back and it would take a while. And I just recently started putting together videos and an online training course where I can effectively deliver this more through the internet and...at a little larger scale.
Now, I haven't been able to launch that yet as I'm still working through that, but that's my end goal. The ability to broadcast that to a much larger network.
Dean: Are you helping hire the salesperson? Some of us really don't have one yet, is that the...
Mark: Yeah, I'm not personally going out and interviewing and recruiting for people, but I'm showing a business owner how they should go out and actually recruit. What job description they should write. And I'll help review the job description. There's homework elements of it.
Dean: Right.
Mark: I'll help them review the job description and the compensation package, but I'm not actually recruiting and knocking on doors for it.
Dean: I got you. So when you look at the way that you work with them, is it something that would be done in a group? Or is it something that you do 1 on 1 with companies?
Mark: I guess I'd be curious to get your feedback. What I've been thinking of doing, and marching with it, they'd of course have the online modules, and they'd have the online education, but I'd like to almost have a hybrid where there is elements of that group, kind of that mastermind - everybody on a Zune webinar where they're all thinking alike and we're going through the wins as well as the challenges.
Dean: Right.
Mark: But then also an element of individual coaching too. Where I would see you like every 2 weeks, or every month having a 45 minute call just with me where we're just taking a deep dive into your problems, your situation, etc.
Dean: Gotcha. How quickly can it happen for someone? - How quickly can you see getting the result for someone?
Mark: If the result is recruiting, and hiring, and onboarding a salesperson, that can happen in 60 days or even sooner. A lot of it is based on the company...being persistent and staying on top of the hiring process, if you will, and the billable process.
Dean: So what kind of investment does it take for someone...let's give an example of who would be an ideal business for this. What are they doing revenue wise right now, and what kind of investment does it take for them to be...for them to expect to make before this sales team start delivering profitability, or delivering sales?
Mark: Good question. The companies that I've typically worked with from a revenue standpoint are anywhere from 1 million to 5 million.
Dean: Okay.
Mark: Now I do have a company I'm talking to that's closer to 10 million, and they don't have a sales force at this time. They've just kind of grown organically. But I really feel my sweet spot is probably between 1 and 5 million. That's typically been the companies that I've worked with.
Now as far as a return, that's been a little difficult to put my finger on because industries are different. Selling on a healthcare sass product that has a 12 month buying cycle, is a little different than a local manufacturer here that almost turns out widgets, if you will, and they're able to...there's a lot of people in the market. I wish I could give you a really great answer to say, it's day 0 when you start working with me, to day 90, you're going to have your first sale. But that always hasn't been the case.
Dean: And this is why, when I say this about focusing on the result, the result versus the activity is a completely different shape. It helps you really get clarity on your messaging, and who you're selecting. Because if I say to you that...how much do you charge for this service, how much is this package that you offer?
Mark: So for me to do it in person, I traditionally charge $80,000. As I look to launch the more online program, I'm looking at a lesser rate between I think probably $1,000 and $4,000.
Dean: Okay. So when you look at this that somebody has a million to 5 million dollar company and they meet you or they come into contact with you, you're saying give me $8,000 and I'll take you through this process and get your...what are you delivering for that $8,000? How long am I going to work with you? And what's going to happen? When do you consider that complete?
Mark: For that product, me going into the organization, really getting an understanding of what their current sales process is, and putting together a sales playbook that they can really scale if the CEO is hit by the milk truck the next day. There's actually some sort of sales process for them to go off of. And then, as we loop that into the recruiting and the onboarding, and the actual bringing a salesperson on, that usually takes about 3 to 4 months.
Dean: Okay. So at the end of that, I've got a salesperson, or two salespersons, what do you normally recommend for people? Just one salesperson in the field.
Mark: I usually like starting off with two, but some companies due to budget and just to try to test it, they usually start with one.
Dean: And what would I have to expect, what would you advise people to budget? How do you walk through the economics of this with someone?
Mark: So usually it looks like there's a base salary, and again, this is for most companies, there's a base salary element. - So usually there's a base element, anywhere from $30,000 to $45,000 has typically been the base model I've seen. Now, if you're in San Francisco, or one of your more populated areas, that base is tending to be higher just based off of cost of living, things like that.
And then there's usually a compensation...there's a variable compensation package commonly known as a commission. And based on the amount of the responsibility that the salesperson's going to have in their impact and in their influence of the sale, the scale of commission will change. Most companies they find themselves between 5% and 15% of a variable compensation of either the first year of that product, if it's a software it would be setup, and then the first year maintenance usually is what it looks like. Or with some companies, let's say it's a $10,000 widget, they sold that $10,000 widget and then they take 15% of that or 10% of that. That's typically how it's gone.
Dean: Okay...so if they add a million dollars in sales, they're going to get their $30,000 base plus $150,000 for double compensation and maybe $180,000 on that. Is that the way?
Mark: Correct
Dean: That's how it kind of works out?
Mark: Yep
Dean: And so...the business owner gets a million dollars extra sales, hopefully their margins are big enough to accommodate a 15% commission and base salary and everybody's happy.
Mark: Yes
Dean: Okay, so at the 90 day, 3 or 4 month mark, when somebody's off to the races, they're off and running, are you actually, are you training the sales person to be successful? Or is your training about training the company to get a salesperson onboard that they can train in their methodology to get -.
Mark: Good question. In that $8,000 package, I'll do the initial training. So I'll walk them through the sales system that I've developed from my time in sales. That's what I'll start them off with. And then there can be ongoing coaching.
Dean: Gotcha
Mark: Yeah
Dean: Gotcha. Okay...it's interesting then. So you would say after 3 or 4 they kind of got them going and made their first things, then you'd shake hands, everybody's done, they've completed this $8,000 thing and then you're on to the next one?
Mark: Yeah, I try not to. I would like to really move to an element and then one or two customers I have where it's ongoing coaching either for the salesperson or the salesperson and the entrepreneur, the CEO, to turn it into what I call a sales driven organization. Because we've got the salesperson, but how do we keep that momentum, how do we...how does the whole business get behind that?
Dean: I gotcha. Perfect. What kind of resistance do people have? Is there any resistance when you approach the companies? Share what you do.
Mark: I think the main resistance that I've been getting is...well, show me the 100 or 200 past clients that you have. Or, hey you've only been doing this for a little while, what do you know about this?
So I think that's been some of the major resistance that I've had to get over just recently. And then just having enough prospects. For me, self milking, mild cow I guess, trying to keep my prospects up and that bucket full as well.
Dean: Yeah, you need a salesperson.
Mark: Yeah, that's what it sounds like right?
Dean: Oh, that's so funny. It's great isn't it?
Mark: What about the...what's with the cobbler's kids and their shoes?
Dean: No shoes. That's right. Exactly.
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: Very funny. Part of the reason, when I ask that about...what would you do if you only got paid if they got the result, is that, part of the thing that is the challenge with doing coaching and consulting packages like this are not necessarily attached to an ROI initially. For the thing to be complete...your goals are often not in alignment with the company.
By that I mean, with a lot of people...there's a perfect example of it at the I Love Marketing conference that Joe and I did, one of them. Somebody stood up, they were a SEO company. And SEO companies are like...this could have been any SEO company because this is exactly how that model works. They were doing SEO for dentists. They've narrowed their focus, they work with dental teams, dental offices. And they promised to get you on page 1 of Google and increase your ranking. So they're all about, let's get you ranked so you show up on Google. And their measure of success is when they've done that, they've reached that activity. Or they've reached that outcome. But the Dentist is sitting in his office there, and when the SEO company calls to say, ta-da we did it, congratulations you're number 1 we did it, it was great, all these months of work that we did are finally paying off, you're number 1. You're on the first page of Google for all these search terms. And the Dentist is looking at his chair, and there's nobody new in his chair yet. He's not as excited about what's happened as the SEO company. Because they're measuring that we completed our portion here and it's been great working with you. Would you give us a testimonial kind of thing, because they feel like they're complete now, or that somebody's going to continue to pay to keep the rankings up.
Now the Dentist's goal, and the SEO company's goal, are not in absolute alignment there. What I'm saying about any kind of service provider like that where it's not seeing all the way through, is that you're celebrating too early kind of. So if you're terminal... the end of the process is that the salesperson is up and running and out making sales calls, that is not completely what the business owner is celebrating yet. Because for them it's been...they've spent $8,000 plus their 5 or 6 or 7 thousand dollars a month now committed for the salesperson.
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: So they're $15,000, $20,000, 30, 60 days kind of thing...in. They've got $20,000 invested getting the sales team up and running there. You can see how that must be a different thing. So that's what I just wanted the tone of where your focus is. Whether that comes up in the companies that you're working with. Or whether you celebrated that, listen we create these wildly profitable sales teams for people, and you're confident enough that you could probably get, or definitely get more money for thinking it all the way through. Right?
And you wonder, you just think about that. Is that an opportunity, right? Rather than showing somebody how to do something, to just, do it for them in a lot of ways, or help them find the person.
Mark: Yeah. -
Dean: Yeah but you're plugging in almost...I always like to have this conversation to see whether you know how...at that confidence level...be able to deliver the result. Just so you know what you've actually got. You know?
Mark: -that's a little bit of a gut check moment for me to be honest with you Dean.
Dean: Yes
Mark: I mean I hear you -
Dean: That's the thing is, I say it to clarifying question, but when you first hear it, it's actually a terrifying question because now you start to think, okay what would I do if I only got paid if they get the result? Ultimately you're still responsibly for delivering the result. You still have to either convince people that you can get the result, or you have to be able to actually get the result.
What I've found is that sometimes, it's actually less expensive to get the result for somebody than it is to convince them to give you money to get the result.
Mark: Wow. Yeah.
Dean: You probably spend a lot of your time trying to convince people that this is the right thing. You have to show them, just like you said, they might ask, show me the last 100 people that you worked with. These are all questions that give you clues that what they're interested in, is what is this going to actually return for me? The only reason they're doing it is to multiply the money and they just want to know, reasonably, how long is it going to take for me to get an ROI on this.
Now what that forces you to do, or allows you to do, depending on how you look at it, is that in profit activator number 1, that we talk about, is select a single target market. Now, when I ask the question, what would you do if you only got paid if they get the result, what that is allowing you to do is to say, well if I was only going to...it's a chance for you to really flex your capabilities. You're often...I find that people at this stage, and you probably are in this thing, you have this fire hydrant worth of value. That knowledge and abilities that you have, ends up after all these years of doing this, and you're often forced to meter it out through a garden hose of what somebody's willing to pay for it, right?
Mark: Yeah, totally.
Dean: The limitation is, that you have to figure out, well how can I throttle it down so that for $1,000 or $3,000 I can get this right?
Mark: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: That's the frustration right? Is that you feel like that. Now, this is really fascinating to me because I have been talking about this for years. I don't know if you heard the episode on I Love Marketing, that we talked about what if you only got paid for getting results. Now, do you know who Charles Koch is?
Mark: Yes.
Dean: From the Koch brothers?
Mark: Yeah
Dean: David just died recently. I knew who he was, and I knew they were rich, I didn't know enough really about them, but it turns out, he's the head of the largest privately held company in the world. Over 100 billion dollars. And they grew it from...he grew up sort of well off. His father stated the company and when he took over in the 60's it was work 21 million dollars. And they've grown it 5,000 fold since he took over in 1961. But I heard him talking about how they did it. And the way that he approaches business, which is fascinating to me. He said that they took an approach, and this is what he advocates...they started developing capabilities and skills to produce results for other people.
That's an interesting thing. That the whole purpose of what they were doing was to develop their skill to deliver results for people basically. And then to seek out partners, the best partners to deploy that skill, that capability, that ability to get a result on their behalf, and share in the result that you're able to create.
Now that sounds exactly like what I'm talking about here right? An example that he gave was when they were...a lot of their businesses early on were all petroleum based, oil based, they would make things with oil, they would turn them into different textiles or different things, so one of the most important elements of their business was oil gathering, they had to get oil, so they had to go and compete with other companies who want to buy the oil from the people who are pumping the oil.
And what he discovered, this was like a magic thing for them, thinking from the other person's perspective, he knew that these oil companies that were digging or drilling for oil in a new oil field, were hoping that they were going to discover oil, and if they did, that they would want to get that oil commercialized as fast as possible. They'd want to get it out of the ground and into the market. Now, that would be an advantage for the oil company, if they already had a pipeline in place when they struck oil, and if they struck oil.
But, what all of the companies would do, all the oil gathering companies that Charles was competing against, mostly what they would do, is they would wait for an oil company to strike oil, and then they would all descend on them and say, let us build the pipeline, we'll build the pipeline. They put all these bids in, and everybody is competing to get this oil contract.
Mark: No differentiation
Dean: What he did, was he went to the oil companies as they were drilling, and he said, I know that when you strike oil there you're going to want to get it out as fast as possible. Let us build a pipeline for you now while you're drilling. We'll pay for it, we'll do the pipeline for you, and if you do strike oil, would you sell the oil to us?
And there was zero resistance to that because they knew it would be an advantage and they're not paying to build the pipeline while they're trying to figure out if there's going to be oil there. And that was like the rocket fuel for them. They were able to get in with these oil companies at the ground floor. And then what would happen, as soon as they would strike oil, these guys have already got the pipeline built...and all these other oil companies would come and say, oh well let us do it, or, we'll do it for cheaper than they're doing it. And of course, the oil companies would say, no-no we're good, because they would appreciate what Charles and his company would do for them. Which is to invest along with them in the success.
Think about it, these oil companies are not just drilling for oil willy-nilly. They've put a lot of money and a lot of research, there's a lot stuff that goes into, we're going to dig or drill for oil here, and all the geological studies and everything that they've done. Plus the investment that they're spending to go down that path. So they're just aligning their goals completely with the oil company. We're in this with you. Right? If you strike oil, we'll all get a win.
So I'm saying that just as a provocation to think for you of what is the thing...I get the sense that you really do, you want to help people. You know how much of an impact it can make. You've figured out some things, and you really can help people. And sometimes, the biggest challenge is trying to convince them that you can help them and do it in a way that is affordable for them.
Whereas, what I ask is, what would you do if they would get out of the way and just let you do what you're capable of? Often you don't get to do what you're capable of, because you have to meter it with what they're willing to pay for.
So the gap that's standing in the way of actually getting the result, is something different, you know? That you're both losing in that way.
Mark: Yeah. It's a dis-service.
Dean: Just a thought, you know? When I say that to people, there's a difference between what I say, select a single target market, versus what most companies are doing, most service providers are doing, is they're trying to cast a wide net so that they are selected by as wide a possible net as they can. Because they're hoping to be selected, you're hoping that somebody is going to select you to help them. So you don't want to limit yourself to the number of people who can select you. That's not what it's about. It's about you selecting the ideal prospect that you know that you can have the biggest impact on.
Mark: That's powerful Dean. That is really good.
Dean: It is really powerful, and that's the thing that...that's why I'll start with that. So that you know because I think that you've probably got better than $8,000 capabilities, you know?
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: If you took it and you said, instead of what you can do in the first 90 days, to get somebody up and running and on the go. What if you took your framework and said, what would you be capable of in the first year with somebody. Right? Like what would that arc look like? Getting up and running for the company, you know?
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: Give me some thought about what have you observed...so you started in November of last year?
Mark: Yep.
Dean: So, and you started with one company?
Mark: Correct.
Dean: So, you're coming up on a year almost right? 10 months for those.
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: What happened with that one company? How are they doing and what has their ROI journey been?
Mark: They're doing incredible. Their sales team has been, I would say transformed. They've been able to really grow their result. The sales team is closing more deals than ever before. They're closing bigger deals than ever before, and the sales system that we put in place, they're able to reach out to a lot more people so they've got a lot more opportunity coming in. Where before, it was primarily based on what trade shows they went on. And still a large part of that is, they generate a lot of leads from trade shows and from online submittals. But now they're creating this portion of the business where they're able to generate their own sales, their own contacts, their own prospects and nurture them through. So it's been really powerful for them. They've had just a great year.
Dean: I love it. So, if you were to imagine that the...one of the simple...if you had some infographic that shows a case study of that, I'm a big believer in, sometimes a picture says a thousand words. Right?
Mark: Yeah.
Dean: If you were to think about your process here. If you were to draw just a simple graph with a...not an axis but up the left side to show revenue, money, and then put the months of the year so November, December, January, February, March, April, May, all the way to September. Now across going from left to right, and you use, red dots to indicate how much money they spent implementing this program so far. Say, when they hire two sales people, what are they out of pocket on this, so they paid you $8,000, they paid $2,500 each to two sales people, so that's $5,000. $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, as it goes right?
Across the month, the cumulative spend of how much they're spending. So if they paid you $8,000 in November...do they pay you first? Or they pay you at the end?
Mark: They pay me first.
Dean: Okay, so they paid you $8,000. So the first entry is $8,000. How long did it take until they hired their first salesperson?
Mark: Let's say 90 days.
Dean: Okay. So that $8,000 stays stable. They've only invested the $8,000 in November, December, January, February, it stays straight line right across. Then in March, did they hire one or two sales people?
Mark: Okay. I'm following.
Dean: How many did they hire, one or two?
Mark: They had individuals already in place at that time and it was really just me working with them to almost the latter half, like how do we scale their sales team. Grow the result. We didn't have to hire in that case.
Dean: Okay perfect. Then you start to look at where did the first results of the impact of you, show up. Right? This is where, when you start to say now that the baseline of sales was established, and you're the improvement that has come. Because of working with you, you start to show them that the $8,000 that they spent in November of last year, has resulted in how much of an increase in sales over the first year, would you say?
Mark: - I would have to go through it but, I don't track that right now and I really need to after this conversation.
Dean: Right.
Mark: But I'm pretty comfortable in saying $100,000 easy.
Dean: Okay. They got a 12 to 1, 12.5 to 1 return on investment with you, right?
And that's kind of a...that's a really good ROI for a business owner. They spent money, if you told them...if your offer was give me $8,000, and in 1 year, I'm going to give you $100,000. If that was the offer.
Mark: Yeah. I would take that.
Dean: Right. It's a pretty good offer right? That's the thing...when you've got that ability to show, it's all about ROI when you're talking about the business relationship like that.
Mark: Yeah I can tell. I nee to do a much better job of tracking and focusing and then speaking to that.
Dean: Yeah. Because then that makes it easier right? Now could you have even done...are you still doing work with that company or did you do ongoing work in addition to the $8,000 that they paid?
Mark: Yeah, definitely I'm doing ongoing. They're getting almost a monthly coaching program where every month, or every week or two I'm meeting with their actual sales team. We're working through their hurdles and their wins, and really just trying to get them to produce at the highest level possible.
Dean: That's awesome. How much do you charge for the ongoing?
Mark: $1,500 to $2,000 a month.
Dean: Okay. Great. So when you look at that, it's like you're showing the ROI on this and year after year it's building on top of it because a lot of these sales that they're...you know yourself the cycle or the impact of what they're doing now, is really just the surface of what's going to come from that.
But your ability to identify specifically how you're affecting the bottom line, and creating the metrics that allow you to keep track of it, and demonstrate it, are going to be the absolute key to scaling this. Because if you setup, I talk about proprietary metrics, that you have metrics that you measure, that you name, that you can use as a diagnostic tool for companies when you go into them.
Mark: Yeah. Okay.
Dean: And then you show that you're able to affect that number. That's a big thing.
Mark: Yeah. And that's what people want. They want that result, not the everything in between.
Dean: That's exactly right. They want the result, it's not about the training per se that they want. The only reason they want the training is because they perceive, that's going to get them to the result. But they have to be able to connect all the dots.
Mark: Yeah. And help me connect a dot or two. The best companies that you've seen implement a motto like this, then do they charge a portion of the increased revenue? Or...help me connect a dot or two on the actual implementation.
Dean: You could -
Mark: I think this is an absolute fascinating idea.
Dean: Yeah, absolutely. You can charge a premium price for this because you've got...you're taking all the risk. You know? It goes back...in the 1800's there was this guy Cyrus McCormick who invented the reaper. The mechanical reaper. It was a revolution in the 1830's and allowed one farmer to do the work of fourteen men. But it was expensive and the farmers couldn't afford it. Right?
Mark: Sure.
Dean: What Cyrus said was, okay, I see the situation here, let me give you the reaper to use for the season and you pay me from the harvest.
Mark: Okay.
Dean: He's saying, go ahead I've got the machine that you need to make the extra money, and better I should wait for the money, than you wait for the machine to help you get more money. That's essentially what he was saying. And that paved the way for the reaper to make it's way all through the country taking over as the new norm for farming.
Mark: That's good.
Dean: You're Cyrus McCormick. You've got the reaper, you've got the sales reaper. The model, the system, the procedure, the trainings, that can allow one salesperson to do the job of 14 sales people. I mean that's essentially the thing I'm saying. You are a multiplier, and sometimes the biggest obstacle is that people...is the upfront money to get that going.
Mark: Yeah, that's totally true. I've seen that in a couple of cases. Yeah, that's totally true.
Dean: Yeah, and so now if you've got these capabilities, now this thing is that you look for and start to be the best in the world at this. You focus on getting better and better at it. And now you are doing the selecting, you select the target market that is the best place for you to capitalize on your capabilities at their best. Not metered out. - You're pushing yourself.
Mark: That sounds like a lot more fun.
Dean: That you get bigger and bigger opportunities, because you're betting along with the company on your ability to deliver the result. You're along with them, being a steward of their investment in hiring sales people and...getting everything up and running. But you've got opportunity to win along with them. You know?
Mark: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That was awesome.
Dean: Well it's exciting when you start to think that way. You know? - You start to think that if you say that, what kind of companies would be the very best opportunities for you?
Mark: Yeah, I mean companies that want to go from 3 sales people to 100 within the next year or two. Right? The fast-fast growing companies I'm thinking like ones that are primarily in the software space, that they're just going to scale and I want to be there for them. I want to be able to help them go through that, I've been there, I can help them with that. I think that's where I get the best results from.
Dean: I love that. Yeah. If you think about...the real thing is that you're able to get them to profitability and get to the result, in 6 months or whatever it is. All you're really doing, is you're just...let's get on to the journey, and then we can start getting the result there. You know?
Mark: Yeah. We're just focusing on the brightest one. I think Bill Parcells says, show me the baby, I don't care about the labor. Yeah, what's the end result and focus on that end result.
Dean: That's awesome. That's exactly it. Show me the baby.
Mark: Yeah, no one cares about the labor right? And that's what I've been focused on. The nuances of the training and the day-by-day, when I should be focused on how can we get you a seven figure sales team as quickly as possible.
Dean: That's exactly it. The bouncing seven figure...the happy, healthy seven figure sales team. Not, how can we train you in the breathing and let me show you our delivery room and all this stuff. Nobody wants that. Let's go beyond that to the baby.
Mark: Yeah, absolutely. That is so good Dean. It's amazing how many shows I've listened to where there has been pieces of this advice I've heard before. But man, it's not until you've actually hear it through your own...in the lens of your business where it's really becoming very clear to me now.
Dean: I agree. Well that was fun. That went fast.
Mark: That was a blast.
Dean: Yeah. Will you stay in touch and let me know what you decide from that? Because I know you're going to listen back now and this kind of thing, your mind is going off into a thought coma while saying things. And so, you're going to listen back and you'll hear it even differently again listening to it again. I'd love to see what it stimulates for you.
Mark: Yeah. I definitely will Dean, I definitely will follow up with you with the paths. The immediate thing that I want to investigate is, maybe this is my ego, or maybe this is me being very vulnerable with you, how can I get paid for this? I think I may have to turn that a little bit to say, how can I get the best result? And then worry about the tactics of, well when does the invoice get sent and all that other minutiae that I shouldn't be focused on.
Dean: Right.
Mark: How can I just get the result now.
Dean: Yeah. Get the oil flowing.
Mark: Get the oil flowing.
Dean: Yeah. That's really what it's going to be so I'm super excited about that. That was a fun one.
Mark: Thank you Dean. I really appreciate it, I hope you have a great weekend as well.
Dean: Okay, you too. I'll talk to you soon.
Mark: Good evening. Bye.
Dean: Bye.
And there we have it. That was a great, great conversation. I really love to see the lights come on and to see the opportunity. When I really see among people, and when we have this conversation about focusing on their results for people, is that, it feels so good to think that you're able to give your 100%, give your best effort. And it's easy to do that when your goal is in alignment with your client's goal, so that you're both winning as things progress.
I really love to see how that happens. I can't wait to see how it unfolds for Mark. If you want to see how the 8 profit activators are working in your business right now, go to profitactivatorscore.com and you can take our profit activator score card. You can see where each of the 8 profit activators are either growing or slowing your business right now. And if you want to continue the conversation here, maybe even be a guest on the show, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book. If you want to be a guest on the show, just click on the "be a guest" link, and maybe we can get together and have some evil schemes for your business.
That's it for this week. Have a great week. I will talk to you next time.