Episode 112: Colleen Francis

Have you ever tried online marketing before and weren't sure if it was working? Maybe your rep talked about all the impressive features and stats and said things were going great, but you didn't know how all that tied into raw new policies written. Well, that's not the case with DirectClicks. DirectClicks is the premier Google Ads and SEO option exclusively for State Farm agents.

Why?

They're 100% results-oriented with an exclusivity guarantee. Every review call you have with your account manager focuses on what really matters to your business, and that's leads and call-ins received. Everything will get broken down to cost per lead received. By investing with DirectClicks, you're gonna free up time and energy to focus on what's most important in your agency and doing what it is you do best. This will be the best investment you make for your team by spending confidently and scaling your agency today with exclusive online marketing partner DirectClicks. Visit us at directclicksinc.com. Ambition is the first step towards success. It's time to level up your agency, and Coach P Consulting will help you do just that by using the same strategies he used to sell over 700 life insurance policies in 2021 alone. Now, this is not your regular one-and-done type coaching. You'll get personalized coaching 2 days a week, every week of the month, and you'll get a live look behind the scenes of his team training and an office that's performing at the highest level. There's a reason Coach P Consulting is the fastest growing coaching company for insurance agency owners in the country. Coach P will train your team alongside his own and show you the exact steps they are taking to achieve Chairman's Circle, Exotic Travel, and Multi-Line Presidents Club and be one of the few agents to be selected to have a third office. So whether your goal is to be at the top of your local market or amongst the best in the country, this training will give you the strategies and the tactics to get there. For just $250 a month, you'll get high-level coaching each week from someone who is already getting it done at that level, and his strategies work, and it's time to put them to work.

For you.

Sign up at coachpeakconsulting.com and get your first full month for free when you mention the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation? Check them out at club.capital.

Colleen Francis, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey, I am exceptionally happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Oh, we're great to have you. So you, as I was sharing with you earlier, that you have been one of our most requested podcast guests to come on. We want to start with background and origin stories. So some people may not know your story, have heard of you, and so why don't you give a little bit of your background and kind of bring us to, to present day and how to frame the conversation?

Sure. I think it's important for everyone out there who owns a business or sells for a living to know that I really grew up in the world of sales, right? You know, my dad was a sales director. I was one of those kids who had to take everything door to door. He wouldn't take chocolate bars, Christmas wrapping paper, poinsettias, spices, you know, whatever else I had to sell. I went door to door with all of that. And so sales and, you know, marketing, entrepreneurship really was how I grew up. So when I graduated from university, I went to work in the insurance market in the life insurance. So we did, you know, health insurance, life insurance, what we call in Canada RRSPs, but, you know, savings programs, retirement savings programs, disability insurance, all those kinds of fun things, both from a corporate and individual standpoint. And I really enjoyed my time in the insurance business, but wanted to move into a more business-to-business type environment. Environment, you know, working in software. It was kind of the time where, you know, the dot-com boom was starting, and I found it to be a really exciting place to be. So I went into software sales and had a great career and a lot of fun doing that for a lot of years until things crashed. I'd been with a startup company, and we were out trying to get funding when, you know, Cisco announced an earnings disappointment and the world fell apart in our world. So I guess that was 2001. So, you know, I, I realized, um, that there were a lot of small companies, startup companies and small companies who needed my expertise but couldn't really afford to hire or shouldn't afford to hire a full-time sales VP. And so I started consulting and training and working with companies who really needed the help but weren't in a position necessarily to have, you know, some of that expertise in a full-time basis. And that was 21 years ago, and here I am.

Yeah, I think that, uh, you know, my dad was a small— or still is a small business owner. My mom operated in a small business environment, and I think it just had such an impact on me and seeing that world. And even though my dad— now, some people have mentors— I don't know how yours was with your father— where my dad never took him, took me under his wing and said, hey, now this is how you balance a checkbook, and this is how you run the business. He didn't do that. He didn't do that at all.

He would have—

he listens to some of my podcasts. And so, Dad, I love you, but, you know, he, he— I kind of learned by just catching things than I did necessarily about him teaching me that. What are some of the things that you feel like I guess it's a little bit of asking— you brought up software. Some people seem to be hardwired into first sales, and some people where it just comes easy. So if you give them scripts, they're just able to build rapport. And then sometimes it's, it's just more difficult. And I think we see that within our teams. And so how do we reconcile that as, as business owners trying to hire and develop sales teams?

Yeah, you know, it's a great question because of course, like anything, you know, there's some people who have the innate skill. But I think two mistakes are made. One, business owners who hire salespeople or team members who do have an innate skill to sell and sell successfully need to recognize that those people still need coaching and training, right? I mean, you know, take whatever top sports star you love, right? I'm Canadian, so we use Wayne Gretzky. Obviously, the kid had more talent in his pinky, innate talent, than, you know, most hockey players. But his dad recognized he needed coaching. His coaches recognized that he still needed to show up for practice. And so, it's a huge mistake to take someone that you say, oh man, they're just a natural superstar and let them do their own thing because they will either wither or they get frustrated or they'll want to be better and they'll go somewhere else who will provide that better coaching.

Sure.

On the other hand, it's a mistake to think that only people who have natural talent can sell. Because there are a lot of people who might not come by it naturally, but it is a learnable skill if that person has desire. If they want to help people, if they're curious, if they have a passion for learning, you know, if they like to be with people, then sales skills can be taught. We just have to figure out the right skills that they need and provide ongoing coaching because it's not something that you can take someone and just say, well, here's the course, do it on your own, and then leave them alone. Right. They do need coaching and training in an ongoing way.

Yeah. So, so true. I love to play golf. And so I think a really good example of that would be Tiger Woods. I mean, he's had so many coaches since he was really young, and obviously he's been— was gifted with incredible talent. So I think that makes so much sense. I think, I think that's a great parallel between the two. Congratulations on your book that came out just a few months ago from the time. Right on the money. And so I want to talk about, I want to talk about this concept of, I think we're all tired of talking about COVID I mean, you and I had a conversation right before we started. But that being said, let's talk about how things have actually shifted. And in some cases, things have just been accelerated. We were probably going certain direction, but now it's just been accelerated over the last 2 years. When we think about sales, what has shifted in the— how, what, how has the landscape actually changed?

Well, a couple of big ones, and you're right, you know, there were some movement towards many of these shifts already, you know, more virtual meetings, say for example, you know, a move to more digitized sales process. But I think one of the things that is really critical that's coming out of this that shifted is this shortage of workers, change, and change in work style. So I think at the beginning of COVID a lot of my clients really felt like, well, everyone will be back to the office. In, you know, a month, and so I don't have to master this video platform. I don't have to master, you know, my telephone skills because I'll be able to go back on site and see people. And clearly that's not the case, and it's not going to be the case. There are companies who have just decided to get rid of their office space, right? Sure. Or they've allowed their workers to work flexibly, and so while you, Bradley, might be in the office Colleen might be working from home, and if I need to have a meeting with both of you, then, you know, I've got to master this hybrid approach. So I think that that's one thing that's really critical. I think time though is the bigger issue. People are more pressed for time than ever before. You know, companies are still recovering and they're asking their workers to do more with less. They're— or they can't find people, or they're trying to advance and get ahead of the competition. And so what we're finding is that salespeople are being pushed more and more out of the sales process. One, because of time, and two, because of risk. You know, I'm sure you guys have seen this. We're seeing this entirely new crop of buyers in the marketplace. People who've never been in decision-making positions before, also having to navigate doing business with you. And they see that as risky because they've never done it before. And so they're not inviting us in to allow us to help them. They're trying to make decisions on their own and then calling on us at the last minute. So that time is really critical.

Yeah, so true. There's some statistics around, and I think that if we think about it like Amazon experience.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of times that I would Search something on Amazon. Okay, so, um, I was gonna get, um, a new podcasting technical thing to go, like a RODECaster basically.

Yeah.

And so what I ended up doing is I went to Amazon to look at the— and look at for reviews and kind of read about it, but then I ended up picking up some— the phone from B&H Photo and called them in New York. And they're awesome. They're awesome. Because then I was like, hey, well, which one? Because I'm reading it, I was a little confused on why I should even need the thing to begin with. And so my point is, is I ended up buying from them to help with that. And so I think about it, about what you just mentioned there, which is people are going to do the research online, but they still actually a lot of times want to talk to someone.

So here's what's interesting to me about that as well, and I talk about this in the book. People have become even more important in the sales process than ever before. Now, a lot of people will look at me funny because I say, hey, you know, digital, web, video conferencing, LinkedIn, all that stuff, and then people are more important, and it's hard to correlate the two. But when you were on Amazon, you probably did what I do, and you look at all the reviews, and maybe somebody recommended you go buy a certain product, but then all of a sudden you see 1,000 reviews from random strangers that are either positive or negative. And I make decisions like this now all the time. There's 1,000 reviews of this one and only 200 of the other, so this one must be better because it's more popular because more people I don't know have recommended it.

Exactly, that's so true.

So, you know, there's always been this adage in the business-to-business world that business-to-business business trends follow business-to-consumer trends by about 6 years. I think what we saw over the last 2.5 to 3 years is a real acceleration of that because business-to-business buyers were forced into the, as I call it, the Amazonification of their purchases, right? Without people being able to come on site, they had to go online. They had to buy remotely. They had to pick up the phone and call. And so those people, those reviews, what people are saying about you, those influencers and advisors have become even more important in the sales process, even if you never meet them.

Mm-hmm. That's so true. I think it's actually really good for people to hear you say that salespeople have never been more important, truly, because people are concerned, uh, in different industries, insurance, etc., about, you know, what, are we going to just get moved out But with bots and automation that's happening, and I think it's really good to hear you say that. What are some of the things that 10, 15 years ago, let's just say 10 years ago, because I think a lot of people can remember back 2010, 2012. What, what are some of the sales tactics, even sales strategies that you have seen that, that it's just, it's gone by the wayside. It just does not work. Anymore in this environment.

You know, it's really funny, I was just on my LinkedIn page the other day, um, and we were talking about sales skills, and someone said, do you remember the time that we were taught to use the bone-crushing handshake? Introduce yourself like, oh my God, that's funny. Yes, that may have been 20 years ago, I don't know, but that definitely doesn't work anymore.

Yes, very true.

So increasingly pure unadulterated cold calling doesn't work anymore. Now, what I mean, when I was in the insurance business, um, cold calling to me was showing up in my office, opening the white pages, because I had a copy of the white pages on my desk, and just deciding, ah, it feels like an S day, so I'll just start calling, you know, in the middle of the S's. They've never heard of you, um, they're— they've never seen you before, you know, they have no idea who you are. That doesn't work anymore, um, because people— I mean You know what it's like, you know, I even with my friends when they're calling me on the phone, I'm like, why are they calling me? Why don't they just text me? Yes, yes, we don't pick up. Um, and that's basically because there's no excuse to having to do that, and everybody knows that. We have so many tools to warm up the marketplace that you're serving. I think the stats show that a pure cold call has a 0.3% chance of turning into a sale. It's not even 1%, it's a third of a percent. But if you're meeting people on social media platforms, if you're networking in person or networking online, if you're building relationships in the associations that you want to serve, then you're inviting that call. What you want to do is, you know, create this ubiquitous sales environment where people know you and see you so that they recognize the phone. They're like, oh, Colleen's calling, I do want to talk to her because I just saw the article she posted last week and it was good. So, so that doesn't work. The other thing that doesn't work from a sales management and coaching perspective is these sort of standardized coaching metrics that say everyone on the team has to make 40 dials a day, right? You know, even to the point where customized compensation plans are becoming more important because sales managers are really— the smart sales managers are really looking to individualize the performance so they know that in order for you to hit your goal, you got to make 10 calls a day. For me, I only need to make 5 because I'm averaging, you know, much bigger deal, I'm chasing a different market, or I'm in a market that has more opportunity, whereas you're in our market that's saturated. And so I think that that's a really important differentiator in terms of sales skills, is understanding your very specific performance or velocity metrics to ensure that success. And then lastly, I think for small business owners, what's really critical— doesn't work— is thinking of sales as a siloed individual function. Because I believe in this marketplace, every single person in your business is a profit center. And what I mean by that is every single person in your business has the opportunity to make your business client attractive or client repellent. And it's done by their actions on their kids' soccer team. It's done by their latest social media post. It's done by how they're interacting with your audience on professional business media or at networking events. And so business owners have to really work hard to bring those, you know, traditional silos together and show every employee how, you know, like it or not, they are a spokesperson and an avatar for the, clients that you want to attract and retain.

Those are good. All of those have been— are things that make me really think, uh, and challenge the status quo a little bit about what kind of the way things are. So going back to number 1, I'm curious, because somebody's listening to this and saying, man, I've had a lot of success standardizing cold calls and saying we're gonna make 100 hours a day because I know that the law of large numbers is there. And then also, Colleen, they say, you know, the stats show that somebody is not going to close until the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th contact. And so somebody is probably in their mind saying, well, how do I reconcile that? And how do I begin to kind of change that whenever that's kind of all I've known? Yeah.

So the first thing that you said there, the law of, the law of large numbers, I would suggest to everyone who has that in their brain, just check it out because the law of large numbers is no longer applicable when it comes to cold calling. And my supposition is, is that you're working yourself way too hard, um, and that you should be figuring out a way to make less calls and be more productive. I had a really interesting experience 2 years ago with a client. She said to me, you know, we've got this standardized demo that we do for everybody, takes about 45 minutes to an hour, and our closing ratios are about average. And we just recognized that our top closer, who closes about 50% of the deals instead of 30%, only does a 20-minute demo. So we have to figure out why she's doing less work and getting more business. Smart sales VP, as opposed to just saying she's not doing the standard, she's not following the rules, right? So I contend, and I've seen this work with my clients, well, before I get into a solution, you know, one thing about people who get into that mindset of I know I've got a perfect method is you really should be tracking your performance on a month-over-month, quarter-over-quarter basis. Because what I have found with clients who get stuck in this rut is, you know, 3 or 4 years ago, it used to take them 50 dials to get a sale. Now it's taking them, you know, 200 dials to get a sale. But because they're still getting that sale, the activity is justified, even though they might be doing 4 times the amount of work. They're not measuring the right ratios there. Yeah. So warming up that business before you make that call is always going to be more productive.

Yeah, that's good. I want to ask around this idea, and I don't know how else to put it. I'm sure you have a better way to kind of phrase this, but it's getting clients that sometimes, no matter what you're selling, there is competition that's there. And that has to— I understand that that needs to be acknowledged, but sometimes the biggest competition is what you mentioned earlier, which is really time and attention. So in other words, it's inertia. It's just getting the client to actually say, okay, fine, let, let me actually focus on this. Enough to make the switch to buy this thing, that they're just not giving it attention because they're just— there's so many things that are inundating them on a daily basis, whether it's work, family, kids. I mean, we oftentimes default and say social media, which is certainly— yes, that is a distraction, but sometimes it's kids' soccer and it's just all the other things in our life that's going on. So how do we, in our sales conversations, our follow-up process in this new environment, get people to go ahead and take action? What are some of the strategies we can do to fight that?

That's a great question, because you're right. And I think there's more and more reasons why people create that inertia now than ever before, right? So creating urgency has always been one of the most difficult things to do as a, as a sales rep. And in fact, I wrote about this pretty extensively in Non-Stop Sales Boom, which is the book that came out 7 years ago. But you have to— there's a couple of things that you have to do here. One, you have to understand and get the client to understand what the value is in doing business with you from a financial standpoint, or whether it's tangible value, money, or time saved, or intangible value, reduction, stress reduction, and as best as possible monetize that. So that the client, the conversations becomes, this is what it's costing you not to do business with us. So every month that goes by, it's costing you an additional $1,000, right? Whatever that looks like, or $10,000. At the same time, you have to get the client to buy into a date in which they'd like to make a decision, and that date has to be theirs, not yours. I mean, I know you want to close the policy next week, right?

Yeah.

But if you have an honest conversation with the client and they say, look, I got so much on the go, I actually, I can't get this done until July 1st. Then that's the date, right? And we then work backwards to figure out what has to happen, and you get permission to do the follow-up there. Now, if they delay it and they say, I can't make a decision for 2 months, then I think that's why you have that conversation around this is, you know, this is how much it's costing you, this is how much you're leaving on the table, these are the problems in. But ultimately, that conversation has to happen during the you know, your qualification phase. Because if you're not building huge amounts of value, then it's very hard for the customer to want to make that change. As one of my partners, Brent Adamson, you know, says, we've got to make the cost of staying the same more painful than the cost of change.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it goes back to a word I was just in my head whenever you said it earlier. It's risk, and it's putting the seed of doubt in the person's mind about Oh, it is. Is it actually costing us this amount of money for not working with us or not doing business with us or not purchasing that policy, whatever? I love that. I think it's really good. Yeah, that's great. All right, so I know that you're not necessarily in the recruiting space, but I would be remiss— you have been around sales professionals, sales managers for years, okay? You have seen what works and what doesn't. Help us in our recruiting process to be able to find someone who either— okay, your dad was in sales, like, you know, I can just see you in the initial interviews, it's like, this is a natural porn salesperson. But for those people, person who has not done that, doesn't have this long litany list, and they're— we're wanting to— maybe that we're going to be their first entry-level sales position, but they do express what you said, and which is that desire. How do we do that?

So what skills are you looking for? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, how do we find, really source the great, great salespeople for our teams?

Yeah, so sourcing them is tricky, right? I think as a sales manager, kind of like Glen Gary Glen Ross said, always be closing. For sales managers, it's always be recruiting. And you need to be looking for them in unique situations. I had a A client of mine, we were at a big event. He— all the managers went out for dinner one night to a big steakhouse, and one of the managers who lived in the region watched as the waiter upsold every single person around the table to either, you know, a lobster tail or a dessert. And at the end of that process, he's like, 'Can I— here's my card, because you just upsold 12 different people seamlessly and nobody even noticed.' Yes, so yes. You know, looking for skills in different places, I think, is critical. I like to encourage sales managers to look for people who are in complementary-type industries, but not necessarily in yours, right? If you run a brokerage, if you have a State Farm agency, you don't necessarily want to steal people from the Allstates of the world or the competitive, you know, independent brokers. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, but you don't want people who are just flitting between agencies. And I don't— it is the minority of people who say, I can bring my Rolodex with me and all my contacts and convert them over, that actually do. I have way more horror stories on that than I do success stories. So look for something complementary. What— in other words, what, what other kind of industries are similar to yours? Right? If you run a brokerage where— an agency where, um, or a business where you want a repeat customer, what are the other industries where your, your, um, the sales reps are successful because they get a customer and keep a customer for life? What are the other businesses where there's upsells, cross-sells? If you sell a value-added product, if you're the most expensive in your category, you need to recruit people from similar businesses where they are the most expensive. If you hire someone who's used to selling at the bottom, right? You know, if you're, you know, Neiman Marcus and you hire a sales rep from Walmart, it's a disconnect, right? Because one is premium and one isn't. I'm not saying one is bad, they're just a bad fit. You also need to find people who have a sales cycle that's similar to yours. So business owners make a huge mistake because they get really enamored with the sales rep. They're like, but Colleen, they sold a $5 million 'infrastructure system to the government of Mexico. They've got to be good.' And I said, 'But that's an 8-year sales cycle with lots of moving parts and expertise, and you have a, you know, a single-call-close, high-transaction business. You can't take a marathoner and expect them to win a 100-meter dash. This skill is different.' And so you have to be really careful there.

Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee, or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm.

Um, that is really good. That's really good.

I look for from a, from a recruiting standpoint, for sure.

I love that. And, and, uh, it reminds me, uh, so a mentor of mine was telling me, this is around a customer service example, but it's exactly what you just said. He had an amazing customer service manager, like the person that was all over the experience, and she was doing incredible, and it was a high-ticket sale. I mean, as a matter of fact, every sale was $40,000. And then they were going to bring in, and she was going to shift over and lead the customer service in an e-commerce brand. Selling something that was somewhere between $20 and $75. Yeah, epic failure. Epic failure. Just did not work at all because she didn't— she just didn't think that way. Yeah, she thought she could apply the great service that they were giving at $40,000 to a $40 product, and it didn't work.

It doesn't work. You know, the other one, um, as you were talking, it just reminded me that people make the mistake of— there's a huge difference between an organization that has a huge influx of inbound leads and their salespeople respond because there's a super strong marketing arm versus companies who need salespeople who go out and create all their own leads from scratch because those skills are different. Not everybody likes to do the harder build-your-own-pipeline work. And so you've got to make sure there's a match there as well.

Yeah, yeah, good point. I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about selling, uh, the difference— maybe best practices, proven practices selling virtually. And so now it is really difficult to get people to come in the office, let alone pick up the phone. So we've already talked about that. So if you're a local brick-and-mortar agency business and you're trying to get people to come, they're just gonna— it's gonna— that's just a huge barrier now. I mean, certainly some people will, but, um, far fewer than ever before.

Yeah.

Um, and so now we have the opportunity— more and more people are getting accustomed to being over Zoom. And or whatever platform. And, um, but there's definitely got to be some best practices around how do you transition, because it is a slightly different environment than being in person.

Yeah, it is. So, I mean, one thing I always say to, um, to my clients is when you're in this kind of virtual environment, um, you need to be on camera all times. Your customer, if they don't want to be, especially early on in the relationship, you got to give them that that privilege and that privacy. But as long as they can see you, then they're building a stronger relationship. So that is, that's number one. Number two, make it really easy for the customers. So I mean, there's a million different platforms out there, but you need to choose the one that's easiest for your customer. You know, if they have to download anything or, you know, if it's tricky to figure out, they're just not going to show up either. And there has to be options, right? So I hate it when people reach out to me and they want meetings and there's no option to dial in with my cell phone or the phone call. It's not obvious what we're doing, right? And so that ease of use has to be front and center, I think, which is critical. I also think you do want to keep the meetings a little on the shorter side because this is a harder environment, especially in a video-to-video environment. It's a harder environment for people than in person. There's more technology to manage. It's harder on the eyes. And so I think you want to make sure you're not trying to run a 45-minute meeting or maybe even a 30-minute meeting, but keep it in smaller doses to ensure. I also think that if you, for your type of work, if you're going to be talking about anything confidential, you know, if you need to be talking about money, You need to tell them upfront, hey, you know, I'm gonna have some questions for you around, you know, personal or business finances. So you might not wanna be at Starbucks, right? Like just, you know, just as a heads up, if you only wanna be on your phone and you can pull over on the side of the car, I just wanna make sure you're comfortable answering those questions because I, you know, we've been in those situations. You know, we've all been in those situations where we see people on Zoom, you know, on speakerphone in the middle of a hotel executive club talking about things that you shouldn't be sharing with everybody around, right? Sure, absolutely, yes. So set your customer up for success. I think the more information you give them in advance, the better. If you've got questions or information you want to share and you can send that in advance so that they're prepared, the easier the meeting will, will be.

Those are great. Those are great. I really love especially that last one around sending questions in advance because that helps with your Third point, which is in shortening the meeting to where it's not extending it nearly as long. And it seems like too, I mean, you and I, we just did this before we actually got rolling. Build some rapport, where you coming from, etc. I mean, it seems like 4 to 5 minutes of that maybe is about tops on Zoom, whereas maybe in person that could be 15 minutes possibly.

Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, you don't have to do much of it, but you can still warm up the conversation. I think, you know, I think that it's critical. Like you do want to act, you know, somewhat normal, right?

Yeah.

I really discourage people, especially early on in the environment, from using virtual backgrounds because it makes you look a little weird and it's just a little off-putting. You know, I'd rather see the back bit. You know, you can't— you can see that I haven't hung the art yet.

Yes.

Yes. I agree with that. I thought the virtual backgrounds at first were cool. And I was like, oh, that's kind of neat. And then I'm over it. I'm like, no, just take— just, I don't care, you know, just fix your background.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I mean, we're all at the point now where I, I like to think that we don't have to say, hey, you know, don't, um, you've got to have good audio and, you know, no echo and a decent video. But I mean, all of that still has to be taken into consideration. And, you know, early on in the pandemic, I found a piece of technology. Now, look, I don't I don't generally endorse any one in particular, and I don't get money for this, but I have to say I was working out of my condo in Florida and we were finishing up a renovation and they were hammering and screwing and doing all sorts of stuff into the walls adjacent to my office. And I found this piece of technology called Krisp, K-R-I-S-P, dot AI, and it's a noise-canceling software that plugs in. And this thing is a miracle. I I have a 97-pound dog and she can be standing on the couch in full view behind me, barking at the UPS guy coming in the window. And my clients will say, Colleen, I can see that your dog is barking, but I can't even hear it. And she'll only be like 3 feet behind me. What? And it's $60. Seriously, it's my best virtual selling hack.

That's in my Amazon cart in about 5 minutes. Okay.

Fantastic. I've been on calls where I can't hear the customer because the noise around me is so loud and they can't hear a thing. Wow.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, we have had that. Uh, my, uh, EA Courtney, who I love, she'll sometimes go to Starbucks, you know, it's like, I can't hear that. I cannot hear. I have no idea what, what, what it is you're saying, you know. So it's so tough.

It's fantastic because I think that the audio quality. And, you know, I raised this sort of all joking about how wonderful the technology is. All joking aside, I raise it because the audio quality is so important to the relationship. You know, people will put up with like a fuzzy background or a weird virtual background screen if they can hear you clearly. But if you're cutting in and out, if there's noise in the background, it hurt, you know, it's hard to pay attention. And your, you know, professional stature is going to drop.

Yeah. All right. We're going to go into, you know, rapid-fire questions in just a second. But before we do that, is there anything around sales that we did not discuss that you feel like is important for us to touch on?

I think the one thing that is important for us to touch on is, you know, in this marketplace, when we talked about the changing environment, you know, like they say, you sort of never really know where your next hit is going to come from, right? People are so important. And it's really important for everyone involved in the selling of services, products and services, to be putting value out there in the marketplace for people to find you. If people can't find you, then they're never going to buy from you. And so, you know, delivering value, whether that be in articles or podcasts or videos or how-to tips, is so important. You have to be giving away a lot of value so that people say, I learned so much from Brad and his website for free. Just imagine what would happen if I started to pay him. And that's the market that we're in right now. And we have to toss out— 7 years ago when I wrote Non-Stop Sales Boom, I have an entire chapter on targeting your ideal buyer. In Right on the Money, I actually say that there's no such thing as an ideal buyer. Because, you know, the decisions are being made so broadly that we can't exclude any advisor, stakeholder, buyer from that decision-making process anymore.

That is so— I love that. That's so true about you are in the information, the value creation. You have to be putting things out there for people because they just develop Are you familiar with Google's study that they did that ended up coming up with this idea of know, like, and trust? They actually did some more like a calculation around it. I wish I could recall what it's called, but basically they say people need to spend 7— it's 7-11-4. So 7 hours with you, with 11 interactions in 4 locations. So 7 hours. So the idea is like, okay, wait a minute, do I have 7 hours of content out there, whether it's a podcast, YouTube videos, or just anything that somebody could spend 7 hours binging me, Colleen, etc., across 11 different interactions in 4 locations. And that's what was Google study was about. And I guess they did the analytics of how people buy things and how much time they spend.

I love this. Thank you for letting me know this. You know, I write about this kind of stuff all the time, and I didn't actually know that there was a study to prove out what I've been teaching people. So I will—

I wish I had it off the top of my head. I will email you that so you have it, Colleen, and I'll put it in the show notes for anybody else that wants to read that study.

So it doesn't surprise me because I think it's chapter 3 in the book. We, uh, I have a chapter called Critical Mass Influence, and critical mass influence is essentially taking what you just said, so Google, and saying, okay, how am I going to create that? Because it's about creating influence on a mass scale so that people are seeing you on— and I suggest 3 platforms. Okay, so maybe we go to 4 now, but 3 platforms, you personally being the 4th, maybe on a consistent basis over time. So I think that's fabulous.

I think I just remembered what it is. I think it's called Google's Zero Moments of Truth. Okay, zero moment of truth. That's what it is. I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad I thought about it before we go.

Okay, two are complementary now. So now that we know what Google's zero moments of truth are, you can use Right on the Money to help you execute it. Exactly.

Colleen, where would—

if people want to reach out to you, obviously they can purchase the book. Where do you want to point them to if they want to learn more about you?

Two places, either my website, which is engageselling.com, or LinkedIn. You know, we post— I post an inordinately large amount of content on LinkedIn, and so they're welcome to go there, take advantage of my LinkedIn Live podcasts and things. In fact, I think that's how we even connected originally, right? It was through LinkedIn.

Yes, yes.

And then if you want the structured content of my weekly videos and, and articles, my website, engageselling.com, is a great place to Find us.

There's the two— there's two of the locations for sure. You've got more than— way more than 7 hours of content on LinkedIn, no doubt about that. All right, here we go, real, real quick, uh, rapid-fire questions. You ready?

Yeah.

What is the last book you read?

The last book I read is a book called the, um— oh my gosh, what it's It's called, um, I can picture it and I can't remember the exact name. It's a book about the guy who wrote or who created Silk Road and the, the, the, um, the illicit website to sell drugs and the hunt to find him.

Yes, yes, I've heard about this book. What— okay, maybe it'll come up to you in a sec. Um, other than your book, what's the best, uh, what's the book you would recommend the most to other small business owners?

Other than my book, what's the book I would recommend most to small business owners? You know, I like to go back to a classic. You're, you're kidding me with them. Um, it's— dear Lord, um, Gazelles. It's the, um—

oh yeah, Scaling Up.

Yeah, Scaling Up. It's either Scaling Up or the book he wrote before that. Um, yep, it's fantastic as a small business owner in terms of the structure around setting goals. You know, I work with two businesses who are in the $15 to $25 million range, and they still follow that process of the goal setting, and it has served them really well.

That's a fantastic book. Vern is super sharp. For those of you that are familiar with EOS and, uh, Gino Wickman, Gino studied under Vern, and so there's a lot of similarities between Scaling Up and EOS.

Oh, wow. Okay, that's fantastic.

Mm-hmm. All right.

Favorite quote?

My favorite quote is, if you don't like change, you will like irrelevance even less.

Oh, well, that's good. I like that one. I'm stealing that one. I've not heard that. Uh, your favorite travel destination?

Oh, that's a tough one. Uh, Africa.

Favorite place that you want to go but have never been?

Um, Barcelona.

Best thing to come out of the pandemic for you personally?

More time at home.

When you're not working, uh, what do you love to do?

I love to run and, uh, I, I'm a Peloton zealot, so I have to admit.

Who's your favorite instructor?

Oh, Bex Gentry.

Okay. I'm an Alex Toussaint guy. So all you Peloton people, I'm an Alex.

I love Alex. Um, I, I do all of his recovery rides. He's fantastic, but Bex is my running coach.

Super good energy for sure. They're all awesome.

Exactly. Yeah. So as a result of that, then I love to eat as well.

Yeah, well, that's okay. You're on the, you're on the running of the Pelotons. It's totally fine. You're able to sit next to anyone dead or alive on a 10-hour flight. Who would it be?

Say that again?

You're able to sit next to anyone on a 10-hour flight, dead or alive. Who would you choose?

Uh, Ryan Reynolds.

Good, love it. It is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast after all. What's the best piece of leadership advice you've ever received?

Uh, the best piece of leadership advice I've ever, uh, received is to make decisions and to make decisions quickly. You can always change your decisions, um, but if you look at what good leaders do. They make decisions, they implement right away, and if they have to change, they measure, and if they have to change, they change.

Awesome. Colleen, it's been great having you on. Hope to have you back on in the future.

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. It's been really fun.

Okay, Ali, this is the intro and the outro to the Colleen Francis podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Colleen Francis. Colleen is a driven— shoot, I messed that up. Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Colleen Francis. Colleen is the founder and president of Engage Selling Solutions. She's driven by a passion for sales and for results. You'll see that on the podcast. She's a successful sales leader for over 20 years. And she really does understand the challenges of selling in today's market. Clients note her frank, no-nonsense approach to solving problems and addressing opportunities, which is an approach that really delivers sales results. She just came out with a new book. She's an award-winning writer, consultant, bestselling author, and her most recent book, Right on the Money, that came out in March, is a fantastic read for anyone who is in sales or leads sales teams. She's a recognized thought leader in sales. Actually, I don't like this at all. Ali, I like this. Oh, this is terrible.

It's too long.

And it's not me. Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Colleen Francis. She's the founder and president of Engage Selling Solutions. You'll see she has got a passion for sales and for results. She's been in sales for over 20 years and really does understand the challenges of selling in today's marketplace. She just came out with a book in March, Right on the Money, which is a highly recommended book for anyone who's in sales or leads sales teams. And as a matter of fact, she's been named the number one sales influencer to follow by LinkedIn. Colleen has been one of our most requested podcast guests to have on. I'm so excited to be able to introduce to you all— I'm so excited to be able to introduce to y'all Miss Colleen Francis. That was okay, Holly. That was not great, but that was okay. Everyone, I really enjoyed that conversation with Colleen. She was great. It was great to connect with her. As always, I want to kind of give you 2 or 3 things that really stood out to me. I think number 1 is the very first question I asked her about just the experience salespeople have, and she gave the answer and said, well, I think it's really 2 things about whether they're hardwired or whether you can kind of teach it. Even if they're hardwired, for sales, they've still got to be able to have coaching. Uh, for many of you know my affinity with Auburn football, but look, Nick Saban is able to recruit 5-star talent over at Alabama and they still get developed. He doesn't just recruit 5-star talent and then say, okay, great, uh, you guys are good enough. I mean, they, they develop them. He's just starting with a better set of athletes than what other, other teams are. And then number 2, if they don't have maybe that sales background, maybe some of that natural God-given ability to be able to be successful in sales, they can still do really well as long as they have the desire. I think the conversation around just acknowledging that the landscape has changed in sales and in business, specifically around time and around risk, I think is a good one because, you know, it's— people are busy. And I think, as I said on there, on the podcast, that You know, we often say, well, people are busy on their phones with social media, and that certainly is true, but it has more to do with just all the activities that we're, we're involved with. Whether you have small kids at home and they're finishing up travel basketball or T-ball or gymnastics, etc., or band or whatever that may be for you and your kids, we just are involved in so many other things. And so we truly are, quote, busy. Um, I thought the things she shared about some of the specific, uh, tactics or strategies that haven't— don't really work that much anymore. Um, and I know many of you may hear her whenever she talked about cold calling networking. I think, you know, before you just completely dismiss that and say, well, that just works with us and that's been successful, I mean, obviously stick with it, but I do think that it's worth acknowledging how the landscape and dynamics are really changing. And think about yourself. How often are you picking up the phone whenever someone's calling that you don't necessarily know? Or how often are you picking up the phone whenever someone you know is calling? And then a couple of the last things just around urgency. How do we create urgency? And I loved how she said, uh, what's the cost of not doing business with us? I love that one. That really stood out to me. Um, and then whenever we talked about recruiting, so having some of that crossover synergy And of course, I gave the example from a customer service perspective. But I think it's worth when you're going across a different industry looking for someone to find someone who's been in a similar vein or has sold similar type things as you have. Make sure you reach out to Colleen, go to EngageSelling.com and make sure you connect with her on LinkedIn. She has got a ton of an incredible content across LinkedIn that can really be able to help you and your sales teams. Always big shout out to our podcast sponsors, DirectClicks, Club Capital, and Coach P Consulting. They're really some of the best in the business to be able to help you to grow your insurance agency. They've worked with people like you, they've seen every possible scenario, they've been around for a long time, they're getting it done. At the highest level. So if you want to reach out to someone that's going to help you with your, your online presence, as Colleen was saying, reach out to DirectClicks. Go to directclicksinc.com. And you understand the importance as a business owner of knowing your numbers. It's not just your sales and numbers that you need to know, but it's also around your financials. So you can use those financials to make better decisions. Book a no-obligation demo. Go to club.capital. That is club.capital. And then you've got to develop your team. You got to be able to develop your team, and you got to be able to develop not only your sales team but your customer care team. And as Colleen was saying in that interview, you know, it's about how everybody in the organization is providing value and being a profit center. And so if you want to do that, you want to invest in your, your development, you want to invest in the development of your team, Great way to do that is to work with somebody who's already getting it done at that level, and that's Coach P. Go to coachpconsulting.com, and whenever you do, make sure you mention that you heard about him on the Club Capital Leadership Podcast and get your first month off. All right everyone, great episode. Till next time, lead well. So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world, yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital.