And here we are. Live. My goodness me. I can't tell you how. How last minute this has been today. It's all the audio on. Audio is on. There are some days when you think that you've got so much time and you just think you can float through this. And then you realize, it's a Boston run suit. And then I'll just I'll just change out my T-shirt.
I think what we're going to put on, you're wearing black. So, so welcome to today's show. I have a co-star, my absolutely wonderful wife, Liz, who's joining me today. Hello. And today's show is about our journey getting to this point of attempting to systemize new business generation. So you think, okay, that's one part of it. The other part of it is, is this this this, this set up.
And every week when I do a show, it's not for the sake of the show. listen to me. I'm attempting to communicate. I am communicating that what we're doing is saying, you can do this, your company can do this, or rather, you should be doing this, but it's not because. Well, I can do it. You should do it.
It's got nothing to do with that at all. It's got everything to do with the the type of media that we as business owners want to consume when it suits us, not when it's attempted to be rammed down our throats or cold court. So that then the business community is desperate. I say, for a quantum of change in the way that we attempt to generate new business fun.
So going back, you know this and the point of doing in this format is that we've been together for 20 years. We met through work and our kind of our journey starts just aft in 2003, it was 2003. Yes. And and prior to that, you know, I was up to doing different things and trying to work out how to generate business like everybody else.
I'm nearly I've been doing this nearly 40 years. And throughout that time, you know, you we are told as starters in selling technology, you've got to do it this way. So you listen to your bosses or your peers or whoever, and they tell you what you should or shouldn't be doing. And you just it is told and it gets to a point where it gradually or it gradually dawns on you this this is this seems like too much hard work.
Not that anybody you know, certainly we're not shying away from hard work, but this doesn't seem right. And so, you know, when I think back to I'm not going to say the day, but a long time ago, you know, cocooning, you think, you know, people look at these these types of shows and think you're just a you know, you just another marketer.
I hope not. I hope not to be associated with marketers, to perfectly honest, having doorknocked cold colcord in the rain, sleet and snow for days on end, looking to generate new business and then telephone cold calling as well, using the yellow pages. And I mean, if you haven't done that, you don't know what what you are doing in marketing because marketing is I mean it's all part and parcel of this series that I kind of say that marketing is trying to hijack or has hijacked process and it's damaging businesses.
And so rather than go down that route, I mean, the whole thing about this, I mean, you lis you tell them where you started in sales and what have you in them, what kind of. Okay. So basically my and my first foray into sales was as an estate agent, I think. And when I first moved down to London in the at the beginning in 1990, it was but actually I think it started before then.
I think I designed I fancied myself as being in sales a little bit earlier than that, and I moved down to London and worked as an estate agent for a while and then moved into recruitment sales. And then, and it was at a time when it was, I mean, it's bad now, but then it was really difficult.
I mean, we were in massive recession, everybody was in negative equity and it was a real challenge bringing up companies when you got, you know, you've got your index cards and you're working with and trying to get trying to get jobs online about jobs to be had, I forgot about them. So, yeah, so that was pretty much my the initial part of it.
And then I think it was probably about 95, I think I'd gone back into work in an again and then in 95 and with my ex husband we were working in, he was selling telecoms and I remember the first book I ever read on and on selling was called Telephone Selling. And I was thinking, I thought about this this morning and I thought, telephone selling was about selling telephones, not doing telesales.
And I was a bit confused when I was reading the book on St Talk that anything to do with telephones, it just talks about, you know, making phone calls and stuff. So that was the first book that I ever read about selling. And so for a while selling telecoms, my biggest deal, I think, was probably we sold a phone system to the Royal Center in Nottingham.
Yeah. And that came about because we got the sheet paper with the Royal Center on it. And they had at the time they had to know if you, you might remember this, anybody watching this is old enough might remember the BT Monarch phone system and and in back in the day then telephone systems were rented so you rented them and.
BT Yeah. And you rented your cable from Beattie and I had this conversation with the one of the directors as well Center and he said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we still rent a phone system. And when we worked it all out, they were going to pay in less to take out the monarch, which was a 20 year old system, then put in a new phone system.
So that was my, my biggest deal. That was my biggest success, I think. Yeah. I mean, I, I think the funny the funny thing, you know, door knocking and getting through the door, actually someone opens the door and getting a compliment slip from someone passing it to a gap in the hall. Well, no, I mean my I remember my very, very first deal was in South Audley St Mayfair.
yeah. And company was called Tide UK. Someone said to be on I'll never forget your first day and it's like it was Tide UK and I sold them a photocopier at retail and I knocked on the door. They opened the door, they gave me a compliment slip. I phoned up, I got an appointment, did a presentation demonstration south of salt.
The kit rang the bell, you know, that kind of thing. And it was, I mean, even doing that, I mean, when I think back at it, it was like what a basic way of, of getting businesses effective, you know, because I, my then my journey in sales then kind of continued. And, you know, we we did buy a buy database.
We bought we bought actually a list of 20 I think it was 20 or 30 leads which I followed up like a a dog with a bone. I joined them and I got a deal from it and for a company that used to provide recording media and for like the big recording studios like Abbey Road and whatever, and they moved to premises in Maida Vale not far from Abbey Road.
And but I also used to act out as a newspaper because my view was if they were looking to recruit somebody, they weren't going out of business. So yeah, and I got a deal that way as well. but kind of obviously life changes and whatever. And then I went eventually selling voice recording solutions, which I absolutely believed in.
I believed in what voice recording was all about. And I sold to end users. I sold to dealers. Yeah, kind of resellers and to the distribution channel. And it was I wouldn't say it was tough. I mean, I absolutely loved it. I mean, I just I was a road warrior, so I did like 40,000 miles in one year.
That huge territory, everything south of Birmingham, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Yeah. And, and I absolutely loved it because, like I say, I believed in what I was selling. Yeah. And obviously that's how we met through coming to see you, an appointment and whatever. shit. Shit. So just nothing a level of am ever amount from my disappointment.
Okay, so but I had been providing support and I was installing software and so on, and we had this little piece of software which you would install on, on a just on a regular PC. And this problem, this guy had been having a problem with his software that he'd bought, not from us or not from a distribution channel, but from this site called NSM Direct.
And I talked the guy through. I helped him. We did this report and from when I came off the phone, the girl that had given me the wasn't it wasn't a lead. It was just, can you help this guy? And I happened to be in the office that day. And I said, Yeah, sure. And anyway, she, she gave me this and she said, Awesome, you need to shut up.
Looked at this guys, this website. She said, It's huge, but they're selling our equipment. I don't know who they are, but they're selling the this and this software and whatever. And I said, okay, well, it gives them a call because they're like, They'll now be a dealer as opposed to distributor. So I phoned up and it was just before Christmas, it was the 16th of December, just before Christmas.
And I got the name and it was, you know, Nigel Main. So I rang Nigel Main and Nigel Main said, don't know, I don't see me not call me back in the New Year and maybe we can have an appointment. Then I said, Yeah, sure. So the new year comes around. I make the appointment for the 15th of January 2003, but somehow it burned into my memory and, and I said, Yeah.
And he said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, come to see me. But my boss's time, it was like, Let's just go through your diary. And I was like, I really objected to that the eyeroll thing. And, and he said, What's this one? You said, You've got an appointment. He said, I'm filled in the same direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a reason.
Well, why are you going to see him unless he sells our and Amazon. Besides, you never know. Something great might come out of it. Here we are. And, and so he was like, okay, but on that particular day I had to take a girl with me from the office. And so this girl came with me from the office and we did an appointment in the afternoon.
I remember that one was, well, that was Lewis Day, that was a courier company. So that days is burned into my memory to the appointment, tried to show what we were doing online. Obviously things didn't work out, unlike when I did the tried to do that. The damned anybody that's by the by left didn't really think any more of it, but I was going to follow it because it was late and I think I was in the office the following day, which was unusual because I wasn't often in the office because I was on the road so much and the girl in the offices, she said, I got this email.
She said it came through to the general email just because it recognized the domain. Should they spell your name wrong? I was like, okay. She said, No, Germaine, you went to see me yesterday. And it was like, Yeah. She said, Well, I'm here. She said, He's asking you out to go out for lunch them. And I was like, I wasn't going there.
I was just like, This is about have we met? Yeah, not, not lunch, not yet. So anyway, we did lunch and on the 20th of January I was okay and, and a month later I gave up my job and we, we ended up working together and that's what we've been doing ever since, you know, we've been working together and but that was my kind of beginnings and in sales and kind of really continued in selling until kind of circumstances took over.
Yeah. And it became a bit more challenging with family stuff and whatever, but, you know, never really kind of lost interest in sales and and why and how companies have really struggled to be consistent. I know that it was hard for us in the early days because we just had a small business. But, you know, you get a deal that a lot of the project managers do and so you lost momentum.
Yeah, I think it was that momentum that I could never maintain with the telesales. Yeah, because if you didn't hit the phones every day and were making back then 120 calls a day, you know, and I would, might get through to ten people. So the ratios were tiny and you might get one appointment the day if you were really lucky if you were, but if you lost that momentum, you go back to it the following week and they go, yeah, we've installed a phone system because it was quite a boring time to be honest.
Yeah, and it was, it was. But I think it's, it's, it's always been unsustainable. Always, always, always. I mean I because good days and bad days, but you know good days it be called bad days would be like but I mean if you were looking when I think when I think back you know we're in over an infinite you know we I people working for me people on the phone, you know we they would they would do my my or telesales for the company but I was changing the ratios then and I didn't only because I knew, you know, I couldn't stay on the phone and not stay on the phone.
Hated phoning, absolutely hated cold calling. Still do it. Absolutely doesn't set me cold. I just despise it with with an absolute passion because it it's not what people want to hear. They don't want you phoning up saying, I want to come and tell you how to run your business and and get you to buy something from me like a a doctor ringing you up saying, come in, come in and let's see if there's anything wrong with you.
I can give you some drugs or a a car mechanic saying, let me go. Let me have a look at your car and see if I can charge you for something. People, people, people not like that. And because I was running a business, I was looking at this thinking, I don't want to talk to anyone. I wouldn't talk to You can't come see me another time or whatever.
It it's how business is operate. But the people to drive telesales I would say tend to be I've got just for the just for the for the record okay I've got a foot pedal down here because this is a solo operation. There's no there's nobody else in the room and it's and your chair's just in the way of that.
So if I can just move you around a bit so I can get this, this foot pedal in the right place, because then once I got it in the right place and I'm and I'm good with that, I compress that, that, that one there and now you can see me here. So this is this is what you call about being properly live because it's it's this this process of communicating who your business is.
And when people are doing telesales and the people that are managing or driving BTR are telesales people. They have never run a company, period. I think I just do it this way. I did it this way. I'm look at me, I'm a manager now. Do it this way. And the expectations of them are ridiculous. And I mean, so when we're in Enfield, going back to Enfield.
So my I'm training these, these people on the phone and they said one of them said to me, I'm just not getting any work. Can you show me how it's done? It's like, give me a break. Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've got it's not just telesales, it's telesales with an audience. which is even worse.
It's like reverse parking with an audience. shocking. man. So just. Just give me a name. Give me a name. So she gives me this, this, this name. So. Okay. Darren. Okay. Hi. My name is Nigel Main. I'm calling from a local telecoms company that I would like to speak to from Cleveland, please. And and so, yes, of course, put me through.
hello. I'm Nigel and a local company that we're doing this and the other. I'd like to go and have a chat with you, see if we can help. We do it. Yes, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah, no problem. Next week, put the phone down. They're all like, I never knew it was that easy. And inside I'm going, I can't believe that just happened.
I said, Well, you know, it's a piece of me. Is of experience themselves and going, My goodness gracious me, this is this is spectacular. However, it wasn't that the bubble burst, not by a long shot. So I've gone to the meeting and I've gone out to reception. Is it? Hi, my name's Nigel Mayne. I've come to see Ron.
And there was this long pause of this receptionist looking at me. Yes, of course. Thinking, okay. So I sat and waited and. And then the guy that I wasn't office manager or anything, he's like a technical guy. Anyway, can't you come? Is Nigel Main? Yeah. Hi. Nice to meet you. Come in, come in. Comes went to his office and had a big stack of brochures and signed on his desk.
And he has an interesting name. Sit. Really? Because. Yeah, a managing director is called Nigel Raine. David has I got the appointment and we did we, we put systems in all their offices like it was like you have me at. Hello. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She thought you said Nigel. Right. So yeah. So that was, that was, that was funny.
But, but the whole point of it was that there was no other way of doing it. The new business generation, you either sent stuff out or you cold called. Yeah. And, and that was it. There was no other alternative. You email is is an age thing here. The email wasn't wasn't a thing it was starting to become a thing.
I have to say that caffeine started to become a thing but but people and it was at 90 like mid late nineties but because you know the thing is is that as entrepreneurs you're looking at trying to look at different ways of doing things and there's always that kind of burning desire to, to, to be able to find something, not just sell the kit, but to find a way of, of, of finding new business.
We're all superstars in front of the customer. We all know we know the kit. We know how it works. We know how it's going to impact them. We know everything you need to know about it. But just put me in front of a customer. Yeah, well, I mean, but I remember when we don't know what year it was.
It was perhaps about 2006, 2007, and we kind of focused on voice recording because that was where my expertise was. And, and there wasn't and the market wasn't flooded like it was with, with a regular telecoms equipment like Yeah. And systems and whatever. And we got that brochure printed, if you remember. So we went to some quite considerable expense, printed a really good brochure that laminate pages.
Yeah, it was great. And we got a temp in to help us envelope it all up and I think we sent out, I don't know was to two or 3000 to 3000 if these brochures, which in theory sounded great, but in practice we had no means of following it up. Yeah, there was no way of speaking to even a fraction of that audience and not really knowing either, whether I think we probably focused on things like insurance companies and companies that we knew would were probably going to look at voice recording at some point.
Yeah, but in reality, the fact that we sent out thousands of them, then it was worth it. I can't remember exactly, but it was a lot. And it was it was too many to follow up. But then not following up again with another letter and another letter, because the point is that, you know, like I go back to the Royal Center.
I mean, I had spoken to that guy over the course of maybe two years. I'd spoken to him every three months. And I just happened to ask the right question at the right time. Yeah. And it never occurred to me before. And and was it they've made it would have made a decision sooner or not, I don't know.
But that's not the point. But the point was I kept in touch with him and sometimes I reached him, sometimes he was on holiday or whatever. But I had to go through that process of just keeping in touch. Keeping in touch, keeping in touch. And I had no because I know the means of actually communicating with him. It was only by phone.
Yeah. And occasionally, you know, I think probably wrote to him or whatever or sent him a brochure just to keep front and center. But everybody else was doing the same and there was no differentiation between me and anybody else. It was fine. And everybody knew they had a monarch. So everybody knew at some point they they wanted to change out because whatever you find them using, you could hear it.
You could hear the noise, couldn't you, when that's how they got the recording of your upgrade. And at some point and but that same time, like mid late nineties or whatever, there was a guy called was about 97. Right. Well this book came out in 97 and it's name would come to me Lambert the American guy. I mentioned it last week that this guy came out with a book and he he established peddle again, established that it took 30 attempts to contact to get through to someone to the point of only becoming familiar.
So that was 30 attempts. So we're doing this in 2005, six, whatever, sitting at 2000. But the previous number of years working in sales, mail shots were being done for places that I knew, places that I'd worked in and so on. Mail shots were being done and they were never, never ever being done consistently. No. So he said, it takes 30 touches to 30 messages to become familiar, but that was based upon ten messages getting through.
So one in three. So 24 now that's 25 years ago. Now we've got Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, whatever. And then you've got the amount of noise that's across all of those and you've got the competition that you've got with all of the the luxury brands as well. So you've got great content, lots of information going out now it's 20 to 30 touches are required to become familiar and one in 5 to 1 in ten get through, which means you need something like 200 to 300 messages going out and being distributed across all of those platforms on a regular basis.
And if you said to someone, okay, you've got to produce 100 to 300 adverts, they go you out of your mind. Yeah. And, and, and what we've, what we've seen even now, you know, is the fact that it, it, it works. I mean the whole, the whole thing works, but it is this system ization of doing this because the thought of doing loads of adverts means surely means a staggering amount of cost, doesn't it.
Well, no it doesn't. And that's the whole point of what you know. Why would we be doing all this and setting this up and communicating this is because things have changed and they've changed so much so that I have a kind of a bit of a problem with marketing over and over are the marketers because this technology has been around for some years.
YouTube's been around for ten, 15, ten, 12 years. Whatever it is. So we've had all this technology, we've had life around for ages. But why aren't businesses adopting it? Because marketers don't want to adopt it. It's not for any other reason. I mean, it's so, so bloody basic marketers don't want to do it. Always took too expensive for us or I hope I heard from a response from a company that said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Very nice. Yeah, yeah. But we're way too small for that. They were 450, 500 person company. We're too small. It's like now you're too small minded. You are. Or rather you're out of your mind because, you know, if here we are doing this, we've got one camera camera there and a camera there and there's a couple of microphones and some kit that broadcasts and so on.
This is in the overall scheme of things, this is not expensive kit, this really expensive kit around. But, you know, most people know that you can get a camera that's got an HDMI plug in it and you can plug your camera straight into your computer without that with an adapter, but you can plug your camera straight into a computer and that the technology is so accessible and so low cost, why isn't anyone using it?
It wasn't. None of our prospects will ever watch you or watch this. That wasn't the response. Or that old hat or that's a load of rubbish or that would never work. No, we're too small. So if you go see, I'm always a 500 person company saying we're too small. Clearly they're in the wrong job. And that's what that's what these streams this is what this is all about, is to say, stop listening to them, stop listening to marketers because they're getting it wrong.
They are destroying your business. And it's a it's a brutal message, but it's true. And that's why businesses you know, I've said I said this I know so many times that businesses have got this technology or father who are selling technology, not business is selling technology. I've been doing the same thing over and over again for years, for 20 years, doing the same marketing for the past 20 years.
I think it's even got more difficult because obviously in the last three years we had COVID and everything shut down and it was really difficult to communicate with people because they were no longer working in their offices. They were working from home, which made it much more difficult to reach people. And I think that because of that, even still now, you know there are still lots of companies that only have, you know, maybe 60% of their employees in the office at one time if they've still got offices, because some companies have like shut their offices because they're an unnecessary expense, depending how their what their model is, you know, whether they've got international coverage or
not. And I think this is what the great thing about doing this is, is because it doesn't matter where you are in the world, you can communicate to your audience wherever they are in the world. So, you know, we can communicate from here in our in this office, in this studio. And we have gone international. We've gone worldwide at the click of a button.
Yeah. Whether everybody can understand what we're saying, you know, whether we're all speaking English or not. Well, that's, you know, so, you know, we know that we you probably going to have to do this. If you take it up in your business, you're probably going to have to do it in the languages, like whether it's Spanish or German or whatever.
I mean, I, I, I mean, it's 100% degree. I mean, it's great that we've got international companies and people to speak different languages, but if you're in England speaking English, get someone from Scotland and someone from London, London on the show. So you've got you've covered it, cover the country. But but the point is you can go, you know, from one, whether you're an international company or a local company, it really doesn't matter because now I think with this using the livestreaming and model, yeah, it means it it really doesn't matter where your prospect is.
You prospect can be sitting at home in his pajamas with his feet up with the cat on his lap, watching your stream in his own time. Yeah. Or he can be sitting in his office, you know, with his headphones on so that nobody around him can hear what's going on. But he's watching it or he's listening to it.
And I think that is where, you know, you can't do that with with telesales because people can watch this in their own time. They can watch it in their own time zone. Yeah. And, you know, I think having done the really hard work, the phone and knowing that the ratios are falling, you know, people don't want to speak to people.
And I know because I take up for the company I work for, I take all of the the incoming calls and somehow I've become the receptionist for the whole company. And I say, I'm sorry if you're not if they haven't given you their phone number, then I can't share that with you and I can't transfer. You called, can't slash, won't transfer.
You call. And and I know that companies you know, they're looking for different means of communicating and even email can easily be ignored. Just delete, delay, delete. Well we we've been doing this for six weeks. This is the seventh livestream. And in six weeks this is this is this is the shocker. In six weeks we have reached over a thousand companies, people who have engaged with us through either the live stream itself to this thing right now or the podcast.
And so we after we do the show within I'm I'm kind of I'm saying it for for for the listeners once we've done the show, we then convert it to a podcast and that goes to a platform. We use Corpus out and that gets syndicated out to like 20 plus different platforms like Spotify, Google, Apple. And so and that to, to think about that level of engagement, I know, you know, most telesales people get blanked is it's 300 to 1 shot of speaking of getting through to someone and finding someone who's interested.
And I was talking to a guy that did this and he said that he would be really rapt, stoked if he spoke to them for more than a minute. I like is it really not that bad? And you think life's, you know, the ice cream is, you know, an hour or a bit longer. I could speak for England, but that's not the point.
The thing is, is that you've got something to say. You haven't. But the point is, is that this is what people do. I mean, there are more searches on YouTube than are done on Google because people are looking for content they can engage with and look at. And you mentioned about lockdown, you know, people being locked up in their homes.
What's their outlet? What's the screen? Is that that's what they're seeing the outside world on. And so that's kind of hit home even more. And I think that that the the point of these live streams, like I said right at the beginning, is not look at our product. It's got nothing really to do with the product, but it kind of has.
But it's to say if it's not, if but you should be doing this with your staff, with people that are in your team. And two or three or four or five or so. It doesn't matter how many get everybody talking together because people on the outside want to see this. They want to hear this. I want to see what your what you're like.
Can you react in your own social environment and pick? Because that's that's how people take on board who and what you are. Yeah, but if you're not doing it, how on earth are they going to get to know, like, and trust you? And I think it also depends on how, you know, the how creative you are because, you know, if you just think of this as being, you know, well, this is no more than a webinar, but actually when you take it, you know, the quality, first of all, is nothing like, well, I'll make my, my, my microphone out of your screen, shall I?
That's fine. But the quality, you know, the production quality is, is infinitely better. But the thing is this is having a conversation. You don't have a conversation on the webinar. It's more like a death by PowerPoint. Yeah, Yeah. And so I've gotten one this morning. Yeah. So, so that's, that's one thing. But also it means that you can stream to those people that maybe don't they don't want to sign up for a webinar because they're not ready in their journey to sign up for a webinar.
They don't want to be harassed. In fact, I spoke to somebody just as the day who wouldn't even give me his name and telephone number so I could give him some information. He's like, No, no, no, because we don't want to be called. So even if they make they phoned me to ask me for but wouldn't give me his name and telephone number so I could follow, so I could phone him back to give him the pricing he was looking for.
Yeah. And a just a decent that's a bit extreme, but I'll clarify, just clarify something for listeners and viewers. And I do. This is my day job. Do they set this up, build the website right for the website, kind of direct and produce. So everything so everything that you see on the website, I've done every single page, every single piece, everything.
So that's my day job list. Doesn't have the same day job list works for a software company, an international software company. This is my office and studio and Liz has her office and studio next door. So we're kind of a it's not quite as fancy. it's not bad. Hello. But we're saying panels and we haven't. I didn't not.
Yeah, it's like echo you walk in my office only at the moment we just want to make it your, your, your, your, your, your studio set up to be the envy of the whole company. But that's, that's how it works. But the thing is, is that people don't want to talk to, you know, and that there's a reason every business owner wants to remain anonymous and it's not just the business owner that wants to remain anonymous.
The employees are told, do not tell anybody. Yeah, we don't want to be co called. It's like the the the the telex, jungle drums, whatever you want to call it. As soon as you say you're you're looking for something, everybody seems to know about it. How is that. Why is that. Where's my phone to turn your phone off then.
Because someone, someone, somewhere is listening. But the problem is, is that people want to self educate. They want to self-serve and remain anonymous whilst they establish and work out. And Roy does the other thing. The thing is, is that we as business owners are not daft. Yeah, that was the wrong pedal. That was the one I wanted. We're not daft, you know, we're running companies, we're doing things.
We're technically technologically astute, but we know how to run companies. We employ people. I mean, the most people I've ever employed was 40. I hated it. I couldn't stop, you know, like managing lots of people. No, that's not me. I'd do this. So there are other companies with hundreds of staff, and that's that's a really serious entity. And some salesman comes along who says, I'm going to come and tell you how to run your company.
Is that right? You've got the wrong software. Is that right? You know, And it's like, what? What, what telesales, as some salespeople don't appreciate, is that business owners are pretty switched on. They probably know about the software that you do and the types of software software that you've got. They're connected and hooked into their solicitors, accountants and their own small network people that are senior level and so they know what's going on.
So if they need something, do you not think they're bright enough that we are bright enough to work out? I'm going to have a look this. But telesales people don't see that. I'm not just telling marketing people. Marketing people don't think that. They think we're everyone's stupid. And if it wasn't for marketing, where would everybody be? I think far more profitable, far more profitable without marketing.
And and I mean, I've said it multiple times that, you know, the average tenure for a CMO is 18 months, 9 to 18 months. Why is that? Because they keep getting it wrong. And it's not it's not moving people and people are still, and in my opinion, still getting away with it. And because of that, I think that the the whole thing about the way that businesses want to engage with a company, with an external company, yes, it's cautious, is always cautious.
I'm not going to tell you my inside leg measurements just because you're asking. We're not interested. Go away. And and that's why that, you know, when you take time to look at the website, the the website itself is very large. There's about three quarters of a million words on it, give or take. But the point is, is that you can self-serve on it, on everything and decide what you want to do if you want to do it, and if you want to do it by yourself or do it or get us to do it, getting us to do it's quicker.
But the point is, is that if if the likes of if the likes of Gartner are saying businesses want a self service self educate, they type they don't want to be cold called downmarket automation stuff is a waste of time, effort, money and space and so on. It does not work because people, they don't be cold called and they don't have email out as in spam emailed and they don't want to fill out a form because everything about being anonymous, you check a form in front of someone who says, This is who I am, this is my inside leg measurement and you've got to call me a know you're going to call me and I
don't want you to. And I think it was in 2014, so nearly ten years ago the research was done. They said 97% of businesses hated filling out forms because of the knock on effect demand based now. So it's 100% and so the guy bringing you up saying I'm not telling you who I am is a good case in point.
But that kind of sends me that says, well, maybe there wasn't the information or accurate navigation on the website for them to find what they needed to. And so that's why the the whole self-serve thing is, is so critical. And it kind of lends lends itself which kind of moves back into this whole self-serve and self-education of kind of a side by side because not all products can be sold off a website.
No. And and they require a degree of technical input. You know, there's quite a number of products that are like that. But so in that case, you've got to think self-education is the key. And if you have a product that is like that, if you have a product and that requires technical input because it needs integration with other platforms of the software, whatever, and then self-education is the thing and you've got to be able to provide enough information for that for your prospect that potential buyer to be able to to determine, Yes, they know what they're talking about.
Yes, I think this could be a viable solution and I know enough about them because at that level, the price isn't is more academic. It's more about what what the product can do for them and how it can help them, whether it suits their needs. So that's I think that's where the self-education thing comes in. And yes, people do want to self-serve if they can.
If they can buy your product, they want to self-education, self-serve. So they want to have and they want to have the the ability to do that on your website generally speaking. And I think certainly for this, you know doing the live stream allows people to and to dip in allows people to listen and effectively kind of build that relationship.
I mean, we watch a ton of I mean, a ton of YouTube videos. Yeah. And and a lot of what we watch and we watch one this morning, a lot of what we watch are creators, you know, creative people. You doing doing this or producing videos or whatever. And when you watch a few of those videos or you watch the livestreams, you you feel like you know them, right?
You feel like you've you've got to know them over a period of time because they become familiar to you. yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Go you went to Iceland or, you know, he did a shoot over and you know, he's a documentary. Yeah, yeah. You know, we watch one guy who's Canadian. A lot of them seem to speak Canadian.
Yeah, but he's Canadian. And, you know, we watch him, we go, yeah, yeah, I remember he did that. We did that documentary. And they talk to you like they know you. And yet you've got like hundreds of thousands of followers and millions and millions and millions. There's one of them that's got like, five and a half million followers.
Yeah. People with Canada. Yeah. And, you know, and really good luck to him. But you feel like you know him. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know, he's putting out content and and then there's another guy that we watch. He's a lumix ambassador. He, he does livestreams. Yeah. Yeah. And he does stream for hours. And they love conversations with the livestreaming community.
U.S. and maybe even takes in a bit of Canada. You know, you get to know them. Yeah. And they don't know who we are. No, but we get to know them and we get to know a little bit about them a bit a little bit about their their background, you know, why they're doing what they're doing that, you know, the ups and the downs of what they've been doing.
And it's it's a great way of engaging with your prospects because it can be banter, it can be, you know, obviously the serious stuff, but it can be, you know, who is this company? What what did they do what are they you know, where are they going, What what's, what's their plans? And and, and the only way that and you just bring new people, you can bring new people into into those conversations Because of that there's no restricted customers or Yeah there's no the senior management or whatever it is and I think that that you know we is yes, of course it's technology driven and you start to realize how tiny the cost is to
do something. So, you know, we're having a conversation here. So if we wanted to, because we've got I've pressed one of these buttons here. This is so if you listen to this on podcast, you can't see it. Describe it to you. So so here we go. So we've got we've got the story, we've got the two shot, we've got the shot for Lays in the shot for me.
Those can be split up, which comes to look at now they all look at this one. These these screens can be can be set up so that they can be different countries. So you can have someone from Germany, someone from North America, someone from Singapore, all on the show at the same time, just because you've got Zoom and you've got a couple of little £250 boxes to plug into this and enable you to do it and you got to look at you think, wait a second, this this, this technology, it's it's not used in B2B.
That's the point. Yeah. And, you know, the creative community community using it, the people that do live events and so on, and they know all about it, but it's not being used for prospecting. It's like you could cry. So, so six weeks, a thousand people and across multiple channels. And I think that's that's the interesting bit about this.
Yeah yeah. Because this is across different channels, different media. So we've got, you know, the podcast, we've got the live stream as it is now, and then we streaming it and then you've got a video that comes out with that. Yeah. And you know, you could chop it up if you wanted to and do little snippets like little trailers or videos.
Yeah. And so you've got different ways of communicating with your audience. But then, you know, the fact that you can communicate across different channels. So you've got you linked in Facebook and YouTube, but then you've got, you know, you could do Instagram shots or you've got podcasts. I mean, podcasts are really a really popular and I and that I, you know, I think that we've done we've done a few podcasts.
We've we've done podcasts between this and what yeah, I mean, this, I mean this this is, is no different to podcasts. So this is a video podcast. I think it's Riverside and Spotify. Spotify, their video podcasting is growing and the the I think is the most popular streamed content is when two or more people are talking so that that except my video, except my livestreams, of course.
I mean, who knows. But, but the thing is, they are popular. And I think, you know, businesses are seriously missing a trick because I think they've put their eggs into into this basket over here that says we have to do pay per click, We have to do the blog. You know, we have to do like little shop blog.
And so you've got the pay per click, the blog, and possibly, you know, do an event that's organized by somebody else. So you've got no control over who comes to the event. Yeah. And so you're just hoping for the best when you get there. And there's an expression, you know, you get a lot of tire kickers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And people that really, frankly, they're wasting your time. We used to call them twats total waste of times. Yeah. You know, people that have no interest will never buy from you because of that. They've made a commitment somewhere else or they're just, they're on a jolly, you know, that they're out of the office for the day. Yeah. And so I think businesses are seriously missing the trick because they're not meeting their prospects where they are.
Well, this is this is the big deal, isn't it? That because there are lots of platforms, that's one thing you you've then got the medium by which people prefer to engage or listen or learn. And so something and the thing is not one or the other, it's all of them. Because a certain time of day someone would listen to a podcast, another time of day they might listen or rather watch a video and another time a day they might watch a a live stream and another part at part of the day.
They might want to read something so nobody can turn around and say, we've got everything covered, not knock off unless you've got all those bases covered. Literally. Yeah. And then of course, you know, you've got articles and downloads. You mean you mention about little blogs. I mean that's an absolute hive mind because as businesses, you must not be doing blogs and people listen to this kind of what is it?
So everybody's got a blog now. You haven't Well, you don't. What people have been convinced into believing is you have to do blogs. And so what's a blog is three or four or five paragraphs. Yeah, give or take. Yeah. Bog standard stock image, chuck it onto LinkedIn and ask your staff to share it. So that's what the standard practice everywhere you go.
no, it's not just that we've got, we've got people doing a SEO. Really. Show me, show me how search engine optimized that blog is and that reason being I'm deriding it. If you understand what Google say with ITI expertise, experience, authority and trust, and then you understand about the really useful content update, you're pretty screwed in terms of content because your content needs to be 2 to 6000 words long, obviously properly written with H1, H2, H, threes, fours, bullets, bullet list number lists and old tags for all your images.
But it needs to be engaging. It needs to be written by someone that knows what they're talking about. It needs to be sticky. It needs to have the right image at the top. And you know, you can't you've got to have that a leading image and you can lots, lots of different things in terms of images and external links.
And you think we've created a masterpiece. You put it on your website and hope for the best. You go, no, no, no, no, I spit more. We would be more sophisticated than that. We've got a site map goes now, Site map. A site map is is uploaded every every time a new piece of content goes in there.
Our site map is updated on the Google search console. well done. Well done. I'm really pleased to see that. And how much stuff is indexed and not indexed, how much stuff is crawled are not indexed or even crawled in First. We should we should get crawled in the first place because it's going to be discovered. But how much stuff actually gets indexed by, Google and how much stuff is not indexed and why?
And the reason you have to understand why is because Google have hundreds millions of people writing for them. Google is the platform, not your website, not your not even your content you're writing for Google. Google's customer is not your prospect, it's their customer. Google's objective is to make sure that people receive accurate information based upon the search criteria that they've entered.
Who you are is irrelevant. So if you produce a piece of content that is really good and readable and follows, they're different algorithms, yada, yada, yada, and ticks all those previous boxes, you'll get indexed. But you also have to remember that you can't put it beyond a form because Google. forget it. No, no, no, 100%. And you think you've created Masterpiece.
Everyone agrees it. Now put that behind a form, put it on on Marketo, Pardot, whoever HubSpot and hope for the best you get how much traffic, how much traffic to get to the website in the first place. If people actually looking I looked at, there was one thing with business process management management companies, but BPM is also beats per minute.
So you've got people in BPM hoping for the best, come up with some some company name clicks and people get thousands of clicks but no business. Why is that? Because is BPM maybe. And the problem is is that you know, you've got this web, you have a website entity that's got loads of content on it, how much traffic you get, how much time do people spend on the page, how much, how much dwell time is there on your actual content?
And that's that's what all of the media platforms, the social media platforms are interested in. They're interested in dwell time. And and it just goes, you know, you only have to scroll through your Instagram. You know, if you've got Instagram in you, you look at something for more than must be some kind of algorithm. If you look at something for more than, say, 3 seconds, it thinks you're interested in that.
So it then it presents it again, because I'm thinking monthly. But look, I know these, okay? Okay. I'm sure I'm don't follow anybody. It's like, yeah, I don't follow this one. But if you understand how the algorithm works. But, and I think because I'm linked in, I don't follow many businesses as such. But there were things that I was interested in following, like Chanel and admires PJ and the Watch people because they do some really nice videos and that's why I followed them, because I was attracted by video that they were playing.
Not that I would probably they'd be in time to come maybe buy the most PJ watch, but I'm not in the market for it. But I was interested because of the video and a while back we were watching or we were listening to something that said, Your competition is not who you think they are. Yeah, yeah. And this guy, I think he was talking about brand and your competition.
You think if your competition is the other people, the people that work in your industry. But that's not, that's not true. Because if you scroll through LinkedIn, for example, your competition or Facebook is another good example. Your competition is not the people that sell in your space, the same products that you sell or same software that you sell.
It's people like The Economist and the Times and the the watchmakers. Seiko Yeah, you know, Yeah, yeah. Luxury brands. But it can be brands that are not luxury brands. It can just be things that you personally are interested in that have. And you know, that have that a presence on LinkedIn. They are your they're your competition. And if your content is not as engaging as something, say, from The Economist because they've got a short video that pops up or whatever it is, then you've not got that.
That's not your you've lost them because they're more interested in looking at it. Yeah. So you've got to be, you've got to understand that. And if you're providing stuff like a live stream to your prospect and you know, the because we, we've not talked about the total addressable market, but the thing is the total addressable market, you know, your total addressable market in any given space could be, I don't know, it could be 50,000 customers or prospects that you could sell.
So 50,000 companies that you can sell to worldwide because you've, you've set who you want to sell. Yeah, Yeah. You know most companies don't have more than a handful of you know borders telesales people How are they ever going to potentially reach 50,000 could it's physically statistically impossible. I mean it would take them years and decades. And so with that total addressable market, you know, if you're doing a live stream, you're inviting people to join you on a live stream that they can dip in and out of if they want to.
But that's that's that's I was saying about the people in six weeks. So that's what 150 people a week to get 150 people a week who are interested in watching or listening to what I'm talking about. I need 150 paddles on the phone because it's a 300 to 1 shot to try and find someone to go with 100 people at 50 because you want that.
You want someone who is fairly decent on the phone. Yeah, that's £5 million a year to employ 100 people, 100 videos. It's is insanity. Yeah. The math stones. I know. And so I think you know, this, this medium, this medium and then the the podcast medium of being able to reach people where they are, you know, are they in the car?
Are they watching something in their downtime even in the middle of their working day at lunchtime or whatever in the morning when the you know, they're just browsing through the social media and they catch 20 minutes of a live stream that, you know, that you might be hosting or that you've hosted before but is now sitting there on LinkedIn is a there's a video.
Yeah. You know, you invite people you can invite people to watch. And what surprised me actually about linked in is that people have connected with as people have watched the stream or have said and signed up for the stream are not first kind of second and third tier. So there's an exponential aspect to that. Yeah. As you put these messages out there that people that you're not connected to will will see it.
And so that I find that kind of interesting. Well, one of the one of the things is kind of on the previous the previous streams that I've done, I'm just going to show you something on the previous streams that I've done. We've done this kind of format and we've had slides and information and so on and and what have you.
But to show a transition and I think this is the you'll see what I'm smiling at is to show a transition from what businesses were doing to what they're doing now. There you go. There's a picture of me and Liz when we first met, I was bigger then. I did not belong New England. And so, you know, we looking at this transition of of how how businesses can kind of be the same but can look and operate much more smoothly.
Does that does that say so much more smoothly? I can't really I mean, you know, we're talking about at the beginning about doing, you know, different things happen to businesses. This is two critical, really, really critical things. So so you go and it's okay for you. You got all this case up and everything else. So we go back to the beginning or not right the way to the beginning, but as a as a business owner, it's kind of a bit more serious as a business owner, you and I go through a lot of grief, not just in business, but externally, because that's called life.
So I had lost my daughter. My daughter died. She had a bicycle next three years later, had a quadruple bypass and three years later got divorced. And a year later I met Liz. And there's a lot of stuff goes on, a lot of stuff happens. It's really serious. And how earth do people you do muddle through it? Some people don't, but you know, you get through it somehow.
But with all that stuff being thrown at you, how on earth do you keep the business going? Is is actually nigh on impossible unless you've got a good team around you and so on. But but that's you know, that the stress is constantly there, you know quadruple bypass to confirm that. So this driver looking at systematizing new business, which is which is what this is all about, you know, looking at how different people react and different businesses react to different things, what do we do when it comes to to our our our our business environment?
And, you know, you're touching on on how you keep information out there. And one of the things that we realized you had to do was to have multiple adverts that would keep telling people who you are and what you're doing and you couldn't use telesales you couldn't you couldn't tell people direct. You had to allow them to come to you and order all the martech companies we got now, you know, inbound, inbound, inbound, you know, get lost.
It doesn't is not delivering what people want. And so when you look at this and realize that you have to create a mechanism that delivers that information and communicates to an audience ongoing, not relentlessly, but consistent you've got to be it's got to be consistent. Otherwise it's going to fail. And that's, I think, is one of the biggest challenges, actually.
I think and I always use I did find that, you know, that consistency and is the key. Yeah. Because if you can be consistent in what you're doing and it's not just about being consistent in your messaging, I mean the consistent in the activities. So if you can be consistent and your, your prospects know that you're going to be like, for example on the live stream that your, your prospects know you're going to be online delivering a live stream 11:00 every Thursday, then they know that they can join you.
They know that they can. Yeah. And they can dependent. They've got the opportunity or they can watch it on catch up or whatever, but they know that you're going to be there. And I think the thing is with consistency telesales is consistent. And the reason I know that it's like I touched on I mentioned it before that when you if you have a day off, you lose your momentum.
Yeah. If you have a week off, you're properly behind then yeah. If you have two weeks off you take two weeks holiday. It takes you a long time to get not just to get back into the flow of doing things, but you've lost two weeks where you can't, you can't make that two weeks up and then and you've got this.
We get like five weeks holiday. So if you think that that's five weeks and if you're making 300 calls a week, that's kind of 1500 calls. You're not making calls. You're not making if you're sick. So yeah, you know, five day, so say you're not working for 20 days out of that. But it's but this is this is the critical thing.
This is the critical thing for businesses that, you know, if we look at we look at this this kind of stuff and say, right, okay, well, we the company your company, this company, we can do livestream, we can do every week, certain day of the week is going to go out and you might get ten, you might get 10,000.
Who knows? It doesn't matter. It's irrelevant because you've done the live stream is recorded and it's available on catch up for ever. Yeah, for ever. So you've got this situation that you're communicating, your message, you're transparent, you're engaging, you're speaking to your prospects on a regular basis. And it takes I don't know how I deliberately don't have a watch in when I'm doing this because you end up it doesn't flow and so on.
But the point is, is that for two people to sit down and do a livestream for it to be potentially watched by every single one of your prospects. And I've just just hold that for a second because prior to that, if you've done the job properly and you've messaged your total addressable market, if you just went with 10,000 people in the UK, okay, you can email 10,000 people in the UK, 12 times a month for about 150 quid on MailChimp.
That's it. So two emails a week. This is what we're going to do. This is what we did do this we're going to do. This is what we did do and keeping them informed about what you're doing. So it costs next to nothing to be able to keep in touch with these people. And of those that total addressable market that is mentioned between one and 15% are looking to start, they're buying journey to buy something like your product every week, every single week.
And the reason that's you cannot dismiss this is because that's why you set up in business in the first place, because you said you were great. You've been doing this for however long that you absolutely understood there was a market for your product. That's why you're in business. There's nothing to do with me. So you have a total addressable market.
You have 1 to 15% that are looking okay because if it was 1%, that's 100 people a week looking to buy your product. I go with that. The here 100 people a week, that would cost you 5 million if you have a go, if you were going to employ 100 ideas, that's really serious and it costs you 50 quid to tell 10,000 people come and watch this live show.
You've got two people sitting there, two of your salespeople, you telling me you're too small, you can't do it, you have got the technology, I've got the wherewithal. That's an excuse. Where's my phone? Where's my mobile? So you can use one of these go life. You've seen it multiple times. People going live on Facebook just need a little bit more kit to go live on LinkedIn.
That's it. So that's why this is so important. This isn't just what isn't that flash? Isn't that not. No, not at all. This is the most critical methodology and approach to generate it, to actually start generating new business that the B2B have ever, ever had. Don't want to do it. Don't do it. And I think the thing is, you know, it's about recognizing the opportunity that you have now and the opportunities that you have now is that not many you know, I'm not aware of anybody that's doing this to reach their total addressable market now.
So if you start this now, you know, if you start this now, lots just times, you know, if you start this now, you will be ahead of your competition by a mile. In fact, more than that, you know, if you started now, even if you were to start streaming in, say, the next three months, you would be ahead of your competition.
And your prospects would get to find out about what you were doing in your space, in whatever area you're selling, in, whatever product or software or solution you're selling. They would get to know about you first. And even if they're looking at the competition, you just elevate yourself above your competition because you're delivering something to them in a time and a medium that they want that that they really want.
And you can't underestimate the power of that. You know, I think we've talked about this. You know, you cannot underestimate the power of reaching your that total addressable market every week with this system and this that there's this a critical bit which is how long if you ever want to see how long it's going to take you know come on snap snap snap your fingers.
We want deals now. Now that's the crap that you've been told by marketing every time. That's why you said, come on marketing. When are we going to get the deals in? Where are you going to deliver the ROI? And it costs you an absolute fortune in loads of personnel. Goodness knows how much SAS you've got. There's a quick stat here.
There are 30,000 SAS platforms around the world at the moment, give or take. Half of them are marketing the average number of SAS platforms that companies use are between 30 and 70, give or take, but half of them apparently are marketing. So you've got massive annual recurring cost ons on software and software platforms. You've then got all of your staff and personnel, all of your expense on paper.
Click, and you're still not getting any inquiries on your website. So how long does this take? How long would it take you to buy into something? You're the gauge on this. Not not this. Because if if if they're saying it would take between 20 and 30 touches, well, you better get your finger out and get doing this and convert this to a podcast and get your adverts out there.
I mean, we, we and I wish it were small consultancy. I've got 280 adverts going out every month across every platform. Tell me you're too small. The difference is, yeah, it took me a bit of time to get it set up. I got my journey inside of Photoshop and a variety of different things. You've got your contract, that stuff out.
I mean, this is, you know, the long term objective is at some stage you'll say, Actually, Nigel, can you come in and have a chat with us about what we need to do? That's for later. But the critical thing is you've been marked. I'm saying the business is B2B have been mugged about marketing, about digital marketing. Automation is destroying your business.
And the reason being is because the strategies that people are using have been designed, were designed for consumers, not for businesses. If you want to buy pair trainers, you see a pair of trainers take out your card and pay for it. Job done. Do something for your company. You want to self educate self-serve and you decide on the ROI.
If you want to buy it very, very different. And that's that's the critical point. And so you need to make yourself available to your audience at scale and two people could do that three is better for makes easier you know what I mean, kind of the technical stuff and so on. But but there is a mechanism and it's it's, it's systematic because you don't need to blog.
You need a certain specific number of pieces of content that represent you and your and you can produce to ten 2200 adverts for one piece of content, very talkative graphic that says John learn this, click on that. Not complicated. And each week you can come and meet all of us. You can meet the team, can meet the technology team, you can make the support team, you can make customers, you could meet our partners, you can meet the directors, could make team the staff that anything.
And it doesn't matter. There are the numbers of different live type shows you can do are as long as your arm. I'm assuming you've watched television. How many programs are on television? So lots of different things that you can talk about. And that's the point, is that this is this is an opportunity for businesses. You know, you've seen the branches technology curve, adoption, adoption curve.
You know, we B2B have been laggards for goodness knows how long. Now it's time to switch this up and only certain people are going to do it. Good luck to you. But you can do it myself. We can do it with with our help and we make it happen quicker. That's always the only the only thing we've got to offer is speed, because everything's out there.
Everything's accessible. You've got the costs. It's a revenue expense, as you know. But the fact that it can only take it, it can only take a couple of people I only need a couple of people to speak to every single one of your prospects, no matter where they are in the world. I mean, if you're not enthusiastic or excited about this, sell something else.
I mean. But but that's that's it really. I mean, it's let me have a look. Did you all say something? no, no. For you on the spot, that's one thing. But. But the thing is, is that we knew, I think right back at the beginning, before we did the streaming bit, because could bring this back to our journey.
Whoops. Through back to Asia. So it was in September when I was asked to go and speak up in Cambridge and we were coming back from Cambridge and we're saying China was. I think what we need to do is cinematic quality video. That's what we needed to do, really high quality video and so we did that. We went out, we've bought all the care and everything that we needed and learned how to use it.
That was a steep, steep learning curve in itself and we kind of cutting a story short, but long learning curve got everything prepped up and ready for everything out on online. And then there was lockdown. Yeah, it's like, I can't believe that's just happened. Like a lot of other people. And then sitting there look, you know, looking at four walls at the time, I'm thinking, okay, well, what next?
And of course we're looking, we're into YouTube, we're watching everything on YouTube. New launches are coming out on YouTube and they pull out one of these switch boxes for video that you could stream with so you can have multiple cameras. And I kind of looked at it and I think there's there's something in this. So we've got the first the first small box, an eight mini it was called.
And I started playing with it. I realized, wait a second, this this is even better than life than doing the the videos because there's no editing. And we're we're streaming now. When there's no editing, we set the mikes up, lights, cameras as it's done. You finish, press the button streams over. It's like, wow. And so with a bit of work and planning and understanding how you could do things like that and have all these multiple boxes and use what they call super source and and what have you.
And we of got to this point and thought, well this is the driver to and or the catalyst that businesses actually need because from a technical perspective doing video and lighting for video and editing video and audio is a skill The skill with this is setting it up. But once it's set up is set up. Yeah, we come in here, press two buttons, one records, the other one goes live.
That's it. Okay, there's one or two power buttons we've got to turn on, but that's it. So it's a really kind of important thing to grasp that this is not about making it complex, is it? No, no. And I think that and we're kind of at that place now where and if you don't do it, you are definitely missing a trick.
You are definitely going to lag behind if you're not already lagging behind. And I think that's the thing. You know, I think companies are more struggling now to reach that. The people they want to speak to. And, you know, they're clutching at straws, you know, spending more money on the things that they've and you've seen diminishing returns. Yeah, you know, you attend an event, but the people aren't there.
You put an out on paper click, but people aren't clicking, you know, or the people that are clicking don't want to fill in form. So you still playing for the click? Yeah. And so and even more and more and more budget is being allocated to marketing departments, but there's no return that the return isn't there. And the state clutching is they're clutching at straws.
They will defend their budget. They will they will do Don't care that you just reminded me. It just reminded me on that. Yeah, I don't time to go into that. But you know but I just think we're not I can't just leave that hanging. Okay. So defending the budget so we just think is is a way saying that nothing should have added in the nothing should nothing should need defending when it comes to a marketing budget.
No. Ever. Because it's supposed to be delivering what it's supposed to deliver, which is more income or should I say more leads, which is supposed to become revenue, which is supposed to become revenue. So you've got all these marketing teams, I'm giving it the big one, saying that, look, we're all our KPIs are up and everything else. We're we're superstars and sales people sitting around going, But, but where's the business?
We've got no leads. How can you be 100% a target and we've got no leads? I watched a video of a guy that was the senior person in demand base saying and listen, if, if someone's having a go at your marketing budget, leave it to me. I'll come in and defend it. I'll help you defend it. It's like arrogant.
Is that I mean, is that just rhetoric to me with proper red to a ball? I was absolutely disgusted because marketing is supposed to create the leads to engage with the to give to give to the salespeople. Come on. You both work for the same company. Yeah. You shouldn't be enemies. You're on the same side. But they're not.
And that's that's that's what this is. And why this is what this is. This is what it's all about. I think it's for me I think the streaming is it's putting the the sales activity, if you like, first and putting it back in the hands of the sales people. And I think because this the there this together what they give away is in the name isn't it.
Yeah. Sales. Yeah. So sales you know are you sell do. Yes I sell and you do marketing. What you do business cards. Yeah. On that. That all hate me for this. I don't care, I don't care, I don't mind. But the point I'm making is that this puts it back in the hands of salespeople, salespeople talking to prospects where they are, you know, salespeople doing, if you like, doing the prospecting that they did back in the day, which was successful because they had control of it right from start to finish.
Yeah. And and I think that is is so important for a really good successful salesperson. They have to be in control of it from start to finish. Unfortunately, the way I see it, Mark because marketers have never so I mean the huge, vast majority of marketers have never been at the sharp end of selling. They've never sat in front of a customer and tried to close them down and do a deal and sell the product that they're actually trying to market.
And so, you know, this puts it back with the salespeople to be in control of of who they speak to, how they speak to them. Yeah. And just reaching those prospects where they where they want to be met. And I think that for me is the biggest that's what makes this for me the most important aspect of it.
And this is just thing that's so important. There's one thing about this kind of set up and because we don't do it but with one more screen. So yeah, you could use you could use an iPhone, but I wouldn't recommend it. But you know, you got another laptop hooked into you, same account and you can have some a salesperson fielding questions.
Yeah, we do it live. I mean we're to do that and I don't know which show is whether it's next week or the week after, but we're going to do the live session, get two questions. Just do it live this, set it all up and and let's see how effective it is for you. I mean, we might be sitting there twiddling our sums.
I mean, that'll be really embarrassing. there's no one here. Okay, well, you'll never know. Get your mum. Get your mum on nagging friends and but, but the thing is, is that it's, it's, it's an exciting time because I was going to say just back, but the people that would answer the questions are to be the salespeople have always been answering those questions in front of the customers.
So it opens it up to more and more salespeople. And if you've got a a very popular type of product, you can have three or four people, salespeople on answering questions. And I think the I think the thing is really with this, it has never been more accessible than it is now. Yeah. And that that's it for me.
It's, you know, I don't know all the technical intricacies when I come to work, so now it's come up and so on, but it's never been more accessible. Yeah, yeah. And it's never been more affordable. And you know, your company might be spending 5000 grand a year on pay per click and you get nothing from it. You know, you could easily get out to studios for that.
Yeah. You know, and, and there's lots of money left over and reach your market. So I think really that's it for me I mean I I just think it's now it's just time to sort of start thinking about it and say yeah you know, can we use this? Can we. And not can we use but how can we use it.
Yeah, because you can use it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's how can we use it and how can we reach our market, the market that we're struggling to reach right now. How can we reach them, What content can we do? And it just gets all those creative juices flowing. Yeah, Yeah. And I think that's important because if you're not excited by this, then you shouldn't be in sales and you certainly shouldn't be in marketing.
Yeah, Yeah. If you can't see the creative, but it's all about money. So there's the ROI. I mean it's the, are always everything I mean and it does. Yeah I know it comes down to money, but you've got to be able to think of those, those ideas. You know, we talk about this a lot and we have ideas left, right and center and, and I just think people, you know, you, they basically you can't you can't afford not to think about it.
I think that's really important. Yeah. I think we've been talking for quite a long time. You know. Yeah I know. So some it's midday, gone past midnight. It is midday. 22 or 28. So that's how I because otherwise you get to a point you think, did I say everything I wanted to say. Did I mention that.
And it's just you want it to be relaxed and you want it to be transparent at the end of the day, I mean, that's it. And with that, I think we did cover everything. Yeah, Yeah. We're back again next week. And I think next week, I'm pretty sure next week is. For salespeople, it's about how you can set up your own smart studio, as in smart looking studio at home, because a lot of these processes and engagement is remote, but some remote stuff is pretty awful.
You know, with that, that that blurry, blurry background that's moving around your head and and so on. So it's about upping your game and maintaining eye contact when you're talking to people and so on, so they can get to know like and trust you on a professional level. If you're not looking in somebody's eye, how are they going to know you got one?
I even went away. But. But you know, you don't want people to to be doing that thing where they with it where they're looking down and that they're just you know that too their face in the camera but but to hear or they'll love that 1 to 2 inches from the screens there's a big picture sticking out but no that's it.
That's it from us I hope you enjoyed today. We obviously enjoy talking to each other. Yeah. I'm glad you didn't touch my need at time when your vote was on. Yeah. This by for me. And it's good bye for me.