0114: Retaining Customers & Generating Leads with Continuity Programs with Kirk King
23 Dec 2019 · 42 min
Kirk King, CEO of Continuity Programs, explains why most businesses fail at follow-up and how systematic outreach across email, phone, and mail converts more leads. A bank using his system saw measurable gains in conversions and customer lifetime value through consistent, empathetic contact.
Questions this episode answers
Episode 114
December 23, 2019
About 15,000 rows of data
About 600 leads within six months
Over 1,100 leads within the first year
Chapters
Ea interviews. Episode 114 Inspiration, Transformation, Success Stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. I don't know about you, but when I started my business, I wanted to get new leads. I wanted to get new clients. I'm going to blow this thing up and I'm going to be a millionaire. I'm going to have all these cars. I literally was looking at cars to buy, to have my sales team drive around Metro Detroit and go sell. And then I got an office and all these different things and then the studio, and it was just like, I need a business this. And to me, it was a big building. And I quickly realized the business is serving people in your clients. And how do you get clients? It's with leads. And you don't get clients unless you follow up and nurture those leads.
And.
And so many people overlook the simple, tiny little fact they don't have the continuity of getting a lead, nurturing it, following up. They just kind of treat it like if they don't buy in the first day, it's lost, it's no good. And that is not the case. And that's why I'm excited to have the CEO of continuity programs here, Mr. Kirk King. I'm going to bring him up right after we thank our sponsor.
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He is, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Kirk King. Kirk, how are you feeling today?
Feeling great, Mario. How about yourself?
I'm excited to learn because I know you have a wildly successful business. You've been helping people in the CRM and lead space for quite some time, I think. I mean, we're going on a decade since we've known each other, and I just want to know, why did you get into the business? And why CRM and leads and everything? I mean, it's important to business, but you took it to a whole new level.
Yeah, to be honest, the opportunity was there. So I was working in the automotive industry. I had a successful career there, and I found out about this company that had been in business since 1973, and the founder was wanting to retire and he was wanting to sell the company. And I went and met with him, and over about six months, we worked out a deal where I bought the company. And then I thought, why? You know, I've made it right, I've done it right. I've become an entrepreneur. And then I started realizing that a whole lot of things had to be improved because we needed to make sure that the leads that our clients were getting were actually being converted.
What were you finding as far as the leads not being converted? What were they missing in the process that you were able to deliver to them?
Well, the most basic thing is just keeping in touch, right? Following up, following through.
So no matter what the situation is, you know, people often look before they're ready to buy, right? So you might look for a new kitchen, or you might look for a new furnace or a new house, or maybe you're even thinking about refinancing. You might check rates. And no matter what it is, you often, unless it's an urgent matter, you're checking before you're actually ready to buy.
And that's an important factor for every salesperson to realize.
Is that once, once somebody raises their hand and they said they're interested in something doesn't necessarily mean that they're ready to buy right then. But because it's on their mind, we know it's coming. In the future.
What is the, would you say is the biggest thing most people don't do after the first initial, you know, the initial follow up? Because I don't want to give it away just yet, I'll let you do that. But I've seen what you do with your system and it's impressive. And I know most people just get a card follow up. They leave an email or a phone call, and that's pretty much it. What are some things they could do to ensure the sale, to help actually be able to help the person, even if they're just starting out or they already have a successful business and they just don't know what to do next?
You know, Mario, it's one of the craziest things, Mario, is that when somebody gets a contact, you know, a potential customer, a client, the almost every salesperson only does one thing and they leave a voicemail. And that's about the extent of it. So the most important thing is, is to keep contacting them until you actually have a conversation with them. And I know that a lot of people are hard to get in touch with. Everybody's got busy lives, driving their kids around, you know, all this stuff, demand on their career, their relationships, you know, the things they've got going on in their job every day. But the truth is, is that you actually have to keep following up with that person until you actually have a conversation with them. And then once you have a conversation with them, just because they don't say they're interested to buy today doesn't mean that they're gone. It just means that.
You were the first one to the game. Right. Which is a good thing. Right? You'd rather be the first one to the game knowing that they're planning to buy a house in the next six months so that you can continue to maintain that relationship. But believe it or not, most salespeople stop at the first voicemail.
Why do you think people do stop so early on? Do you think there's. Have you ever heard where people are like, well, I don't want to pester them?
Sure, absolutely. And there is definitely that concern in everybody's mind. But if you follow it professionally multiple times, then the person on the other, other side is actually feeling a little responsible, like, hey, you know what? I need to call them back. They've called me a few times, and I need to touch base with them and let them know that I am planning to buy a house, but not this week. So if you just keep following up professionally until you actually have that conversation, that is the biggest.
The biggest paradigm shift, in my opinion.
So tell me what you do for real estate agents. Because I know there's people going. I've actually heard people say, I just go door to door, so I save money on ads.
And I've heard other people say.
I've had other people tell me what they're doing, and it seems like it's everything under the sun. And I know there's this fine balance where you want it to be more than you, because I still can't wrap my head around not spending even a thousand dollars on ads and then walking around for four days straight. But there's other people that just kind of throw everything out there, and they don't really know what's working. How do you improve this process for your customers?
Well, first of all.
There are a very small percentage of agents that actually walk neighborhoods door to door. And if you did that.
You. In some neighborhoods, that would not be a good thing. What we found to be the most successful is if we send out a mailer throughout the neighborhood, first of all, announcing the agent. Maybe they've sold a few houses in that neighborhood already. They're an expert in that neighborhood. And then actually giving the agent the list of addresses where those mailers went, so they can actually walk around and say, hopefully, you received my mailer last week, But I just wanted to come around and introduce myself. So for that small percentage of agents actually go door to door, it'd be better for them to have a list and actually say, hopefully you receive my mailer. I want to introduce myself personally. Follow up with the mailer. It's kind of like telling somebody you're coming to the house before you knock on the door.
Give them a little bit of a warning instead of just dropping in at 10:30 at night when they're watching a movie.
Exactly.
How many touch points would you say it takes to make the sale or at least get the conversation going?
Yeah, that's a very, very good question. It depends on which industry.
Mortgage loan officers have it a little bit easier. Those sales usually convert within six months. Real estate agents usually take about a year in many cases, and it's not because they're not looking during that year.
The consumer has to go through a process in their mind where they realize that just because I want $500,000 house, if I'm approved for $175,000 house, that there has to be that realization on the consumer side. And sometimes that takes weeks, sometimes it takes a few months. And then once they come to the realization that I'm looking for the best house that I can get in that price range, sometimes they're putting in offers on houses, they're getting outbid, Sometimes they get a purchase agreement.
And then something goes south on the inspection. So it usually takes about a year from. From the initial contact that somebody's looking at houses to the point where they actually close on a home.
I think that's a great point you're making, because so many people, if it's not 14 days to 30 days, maybe I'll give them the benefit out of 45 days. I mean, you said a year. That's not a small chunk of time to, you know, houses are a larger sale. But still, that's still 12 months. Is there anything you advise your customers as far as just overall patience, like, hey, it's going to be okay. It's going to be worth it. You know, here's what you can do in the meantime.
Yeah. So with a good system in place, that can help aid that process. Right. So let's just say that you find out that Mr. And Mrs. Jones are looking for a house, and you make a phone call, you leave a voicemail, you leave another voicemail, you leave another voicemail, and then eventually you speak to them and they say, yeah, I'm interested in buying a house, just not, you know, in the next few months. Right. And then Just putting them into a system where it'll automatically keep sending them communications, letting you know, let reminding that client that I'm here to help you when you're ready. And it sounds like a simple thing to do.
But it's often a challenge for a lot of agents to actually put just, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Jones name into a system, put their email address in the system and let the system take over. And I don't believe in just relying 100% on emails. You know, an occasional phone call every other month is a really positive way to differentiate yourself from other agents that might also put them into like a drip campaign.
And how long do you run the drip campaigns for?
We traditionally run them here until they buy.
Or unsubscribe, I guess.
Now let me ask you about that because, you know, a year later someone might be going, wow, that's a long time. Conversely, in the grand scheme of things, it's really not that long. It's only 12 months. Yeah, but I know you also don't want to annoy them. So do you keep the frequency higher in the beginning, high throughout the whole thing? Does it flow, fluctuate? Tell me more about what you do as far as the frequency is concerned.
Yeah. So, you know, based on.
Direct consumer industry best practices, we've learned that a high frequency in the, in the beginning is best practices and then it should slowly tail off. So it might, it might start out with a few emails just in the first week, and then it goes to once a week, then it goes to every other week and then every third week. And then eventually it goes to a monthly touch point. And that monthly touch point will keep going on until they actually convert, get a house or they unsubscribe.
Well, that's good because I think there's too many people that keep the frequency high, like the entire time, whether it's three months, six months, 12 months. And it's just like I didn't open the last 18 emails, you sending me 35 more isn't going to change anything. But I know you're still there. And I'd say that's the main thing is just letting them know you're still there. So when they are ready, like you said, they'll convert or they'll buy.
Absolutely. Mario. There's a fine line there of reminding somebody that you're available to help them and so much that they unsubscribe. So if you think about like a retailer, my wife I think signed up for every retailer there are, of course, we use a Different email address for that. But retailers are ruthless. You know, they'll send four and five emails in a day. Right. And if they were sent it to me the occasional time I buy my wife something online, you know, I'll unsubscribe by the second email I get. Right. So you really want to balance that touch point with.
The process in which you're selling. Right. So you're not trying to sell a sweater online or a pair of shoes online. You're trying to sell them a $200,000 house. So to send them four emails, five emails a day, you're just going to upset the client to the point where they're unsubscribed right away.
Yeah, that's something to be aware of because you have to tailor it to your customer or client, that's for sure. So I love what you're sharing with the process, and it is given some great expert authority insights on to, you know, play the long game, but be aware of what you can do in the short game and don't annoy them. Let me ask you, what's your biggest success story from someone who was just doing whatever they were doing before, and then they started using your system, and what was the end result of that?
Yeah, so we can talk about that in two. Two aspects.
There was a bank with about 12 loan officers that had never had a system in place.
And they actually signed up with us and we put in, I don't know, about 15,000 rows of data, you know, bank customer data. And then all of a sudden, they started realizing that their customers are always putting their house on the market. Right. So people are doing this every day. People are putting their home on the market every day. But without a system tracking those people that are putting their house on the market, you know, the bank was under the illusion that all of their customers were coming back to them.
And. And they weren't. Right. They were being. They were being easily swayed to different lenders. They were picked up by some of the large consumer direct lenders. So they were able to actually.
Kind of tighten up the funnel in their own customer base and bring back two, three times more repeat customers. So within just the first six months, generated about 600 leads, and then within the first year, over 1100 leads. And the SVP of the bank realized, oh, my goodness, I need to hire more loan officers. The first time in our history, we can't keep up with the number of leads that are coming in. So that was exciting. And then we see the same thing in real estate, too. So it's usually set up in the enterprise level because we have to do all the data feeds have to be set up where the MLS data feeds come in. And a lot of the data feeds come in with the contact information. So we usually set up a company level and that, lo and behold, the market share of that real estate company starts growing. Right. So here they thought that, that if my one agent didn't get the house, another agent in my same office would get the house. And it turns out that wasn't the case. There's a lot of real estate agents, a lot of real estate companies. So just by using our program, they were able to retain and grow back market share in their area. Because there's a lot of homes that are bought, sold and mortgaged every month, every year. It's a crazy number. So people are under the illusion that they're getting their customers are coming back to them. In most cases, it's less than 2 out of 10 will come back without a system in place.
Wow, you were reading my mind. I was going to ask you what was the percentage? Because I know when you're dealing with large companies like that and you've got tens of thousands of, you know, leads, names, numbers, data points, whatever you want to call it, you know, you can go, hey, we grew 10% this year, and what company wouldn't want to grow 10%? But you may have been losing 60 to 80% in the process and you think you're doing good. So I love hearing, you know, it's why I put it in the show, I mean, frankly, because I love hearing the success stories that, you know, you took them from 600 to let to 1100 leads in six to 12 months. I mean, that's huge.
Yeah, they hired three more loan officers and they converted 30% more loans that year. So, I mean, it's a really, it's really exciting thing.
You know, nar, national association of Realtors, they do a great study every year and they identify how many consumers will go back to the same original agent.
And then the Mortgage Bankers association, they also do this nationwide study and for the mortgage guys, they usually end up with right around 22, 23% of their customers will come back to them, which means that 75, 80% are not coming back to them. And then the same stat almost exactly in real estate, if it was a buyer agent, it's a little bit over 20% will come back to them. If it's a listing agent, it's less than, it's less than 15%. So. And when you ask these consumers, like, why didn't you use your same agent or the same loan officer? It's not because they didn't do a great job. It's because I forgot who they were, I forgot their name. And then turnover is a big thing in the industry too, which makes it really hard on the consumers. You know, a real estate agent may leave a company because they're going to get a couple more percent of the commission, or a loan officer might leave a company because their feelings got hurt, but they really should think about that before they switch companies because for the last four years.
Their consumers knew of them at that company. Does that make sense? So let's say the consumer remembers that the loan officer was a great guy and he always had a goatee and his first name was Brian and he worked at ABC bank, right? Well, if Brian left for whatever reason.
You know, and he doesn't have a system in place to keep in touch with those clients after he leaves that company, you know, those clients that do remember his first name was Brian and that he had a goatee and he was a nice guy, they're calling that bank and the bank saying, well, Brian's not here anymore, but now Jim can help you. So it's a real easy disconnect. And there's so much turnover in the industry that you really gotta have a system in place to maintain communication with all your clients because if you don't, you just leave a lot of repeat business on the table.
I agree 100%. When I went full time in business years ago, I mean, when you have five clients, it's one thing, 10, it's another 20, it's another 50 and 100. Things start changing and I quickly realized that post its weren't going to cut it. So first and foremost, within the first year I got a CRM and I've been, you know, marching, beating the drum, marching the bandwagon, whatever the phrase is. And it astonishes me even to this day. And this is really pre social media, pre everything that everyone goes to. They're like, well, I just add them on LinkedIn. Well, I just add them on Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And it's like, that's not a CRM. That's a great way for to stay in front of them, frankly. But that's not necessarily the business conversation or you know, tracking what they're doing with the email opens or did they get the postcard? I love that UI incorporate the direct mail aspect of it. I think that's severely underutilized even nowadays.
Yeah. So social media, it's very powerful.
But let's just say that you're connected. You know, I think you and I are connected on LinkedIn. If you don't go into LinkedIn, you know, the day that I post something, then you didn't see it. Right. So I mean, We've met almost 10 years ago, right around the time I bought continuity programs. And you've probably only seen a handful of my post in 10 years. And then if you think about it, the same thing, let's say you decide you're going to use Facebook. And a lot of real estate agents love Facebook. And I'm not discouraging it, I think it's a great idea. But even Facebook is running all kinds of algorithms and if one of your clients didn't click on a couple of your posts, then Facebook's not even going to show what you posted to those clients. Right. So to rely only on social media, it's definitely not a good business long term tactic. You really need a combination of, you know, direct consumer communication, direct touch points, physical electronic social media. I mean, you kind of want to be.
You kind of want to be everywhere all the time. And that's how those top producing agents, those top producing real estate agents, those top producing loan officers, those top producing teams, I mean you can't Drive them down I75 without seeing a few real estate agents teams names. You can't drive.
Down, you know, M59 and not see a couple loan officers names. And I guarantee you that their clients are in our system already. So they're already getting touch points electronically, you know, printed touch points. They're, they're being, if they type in that person's name and the company they work at, you know, they're great. Testimonials are showing up online, they're seeing them on a billboard, they might actually catch a funny Facebook post. You know, you really want to be everywhere all the time so that anytime one of their friends or family members or even themselves have a need that they don't think of anybody else.
Yeah. And I think that's great because I agree social is, it has its place, don't get me wrong, I love doing videos and posting, you know, whatever you want to do on there. But I love the direct mail. I mean, one of the most successful things I've done for lead gen and I teach it to my author clients is publish a business book and then send it to them. You can sign it, you can put your private cell number in it, it's direct mail. But it's not a stupid letter that they're probably going to just throw in a pile. I mean, it's substantial. And you could send 10 of those out or a hundred of them out, and that's going to be way better than a thousand to ten thousand, you know, on the LinkedIn or whatever, and hope that they see the post because it's only going to a very small percentage of that. And like you said, if you're not there for the day or the week, you know, we're all successful and we speak and travel and do all these things. It's like no one's sitting there for 15 hours a day just waiting for you to post something if they're your ideal client. Yeah, it's great for humor, though.
It is fun for humor. I get a lot of kick out of social media, too. I think some of the memes are just, you know, make me laugh out loud. But yeah, I like that idea. You know, the book idea. I get books here and, you know, it shows up as like a box. It's lumpy mail, it sticks out. And, you know, you'd be kind of crazy not to look at it, right? So people do open those up. I found the books that are sent to me. Sometimes they'll send books and then they don't have anything in there. And then they send another, you know, maybe a second book. They don't send anything in there. And then they send an email that goes to my junk mail saying, hopefully you got my books. And that's not really a great concept. I really do like a short sticky note on the front of the book or a letter that's kind of folded in the COVID of the book. It says, you know, I'm sending this book. I think that it's going to help you. You know, I look forward to speaking to you. I'm going to follow up with you next Tuesday. If that doesn't work, you know, feel free to call me, let me know when a better time to work. Just sending a book is. Is cool, but I think you really need to have, you know, the messaging in the book too. Kind of really understand why did you just mail me this book out of, out of the blue?
Yeah, I agree. Putting the sticky note on the COVID or right inside the front cover. I like to sign it, always add a message because it does come down to the messaging. And, you know, but that, that's another way that you can say, well, this is direct mail. This is online. The same way you would say, well, what's better Facebook or LinkedIn for a post. You can send anything in the mail, but if the message doesn't resonate and you don't have the call to action or the benefits or, you know, like you said, even why you're doing it, I mean, you might as well just send a fruit basket and put the word enjoy.
Yeah, it's, it sounds silly though. I mean we all have these books, we call it the, A lot of people call them the, the pile of Book of Shame. Right? So there's some books that we read all the way through, like the, you know, great by choice or Good to grade or Crossing the chasm or these, you know, these high renowned books. And then we all have these other books where we start reading them and about a third of the way through we lose interest and then Some, we get 2/3 of the way through, we lose interest and then there's some books that we don't even open. Right. So you got, you know, a dozen books in your office that you've never even opened and without a message on it anyway. If you're gonna send a book, at least put a little note in there, a message why you're sending it to me and, and the reason you thought of me and why I might enjoy the book, you know, it might get me to open it and start reading it. You know what I mean? So.
Yeah, that's, that's another great point. You always not just want to get in front of people, but make sure they go through it. And like I tell my author clients, you want the COVID good, because if the COVID is bad, they're not going to open it or read it. And if you're doing direct mail, the postcards got to be good. So again, they want to flip it over, read it, take action. And if it's a video, it's the same thing. You need, you need the headline. You know, no one's even with this. No one's going to listen to it. If it's just like two if the headlines, two people talking.
Right? Absolutely.
So it's a great point.
Let's.
Let me ask you just one more thing before we go to the thank our sponsor and go to the imperfect action round. If you could have dinner with any entrepreneur in the world, who would it be?
Probably Mr. Benefield, the CEO.
Who's that?
CEO of Salesforce, Mark Bin. Oh yeah, that'd probably be the guy I'd like to have dinner with.
I look up that, that would be fantastic. Salesforce is the first CRM. I remember I said within the first years, like, I knew I needed a CRM to do business the right way. Salesforce is what I went with.
Okay, cool. Yeah, that it's a great tool. They're definitely, you know, they've got a great platform especially for business to business and I look up to him. So that would be the guy I'd like to have dinner with.
What would you ask them?
You know, ask him how.
All kinds of things. I'd ask him like how we found the best programmers and.
How we kept all the programmers on task, you know, so that projects got done more efficient.
How we really was able to ask customers what they needed and get the answers. Because sometimes the customers don't always know what they need. Kind of like Henry Ford said, if I would have asked the customers, they would have said I wanted faster horses. Right. So, you know, to build a platform as successful as Salesforce is.
He definitely knows a lot more than I do and I'd love to pick his brain over at dinner, that's for sure.
It's a great answer. I think you're the first one who has said that. I would love to also, but that's a great answer. Thank you. All right, we're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round.
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Are back with the imperfect action around.
Kirk, are you ready to take imperfect action?
Sure. I do. Every day.
Yes. Love that. All right, number first question.
What?
Okay.
What is the fastest path to the cash.
Solve the biggest problem.
How would you say is the best way to find the biggest problem?
Ask lots of probing questions.
Okay, number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it?
The biggest problem is just that they can't.
They can't successfully keep up in touch with everybody. Right. The world is moving too fast. You can't keep up with hundreds of prospects, you can't keep up with hundreds of customers. There's just really no, you can, you can do it with sticky notes or you know, Excel or scratch pad when you've got five to 10 customers, but when you get in the hundreds and thousands range, it's impossible to keep in touch with them. So.
The best thing they could do would be to implement a system like ours where it's going to run automatic automatically. And that's really what differentiates us from any other CRM, is ours is really this the most self driving car out there. It pulls in the data automatically, it runs automatically.
And it solves the problem pretty quick.
That's fantastic. It is impressive because you can have a great CRM. You know, you could get Salesforce, but all you're gonna have to upload the data, you're gonna have to maintain it and all of that, that stuff and it doesn't do, you know, it's not going to be doing the direct mail and all the other stuff for you. It's a great start. But once you build up the funnels like you do and have have.
Once you build out all the funnels and touch points like you do, that's where the, the real fun is.
Yeah, there's, there's literally, I mean I 100 different campaigns that are running out of the system like every day. Like it's crazy. Like I can't even keep track of it sometimes. And there's just no way to do it without all the programming and software and everything like that. So.
Last question. What is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?
It's actually not that complicated. Kind of goes back to the golden rule, you know, treat people the way you'd want to be treated. Be honest, professional, caring. Show empathy, you know, throughout the entire sales process. And that could be when you first talk to them a year before they're ready to buy a house and it could be a week after they closed. But just having that, that genuine care about you, I mean we've got, we're north of 22,000 users in the system right now and quickly approaching 23,000. And that's 23,000 commission based salespeople that I'm thinking about how we can generate a lead for them every day. Right. So that they can have another closing, they can get another commission check. And every day it's weighing on me and it's weighing on all my staff internally. We say things like, hey, we got to get them leads so they can feed their families. Right. So we take it very seriously. But no matter what sales job you're in or what consumer facing job you're in or, or whoever, your prospects are, just having empathy, having that genuine I care about you.
I think is the thing that resonates the most because everybody's moving so fast. They don't take time to, to breathe and just talk like human beings. And then once you have that relationship, don't just forget about it. Right. Put them into some kind of system, you know, reach out and touch base with them every few months, Call them on their birthdays, call them on their anniversaries. You know, one of the best books I think was ever written was how to win friends and influence people. And the first few chapters is that simple. You know, send somebody a birthday card, call them every once in a while, say hi, and.
Kind of, it kind of hasn't changed all these years later.
It's, it's the uncommon common sense, huh?
Yeah, just, just trying to stay connected with people. You know, it's. You don't know what people are going through every day. You know, sometimes they post those memes online that says like, you don't know the battle that that person is at war with right now. So just be kind with them. So, you know, the first time you call somebody, you don't know what they're going through. So at least be courteous enough to call back and say, you know what Tried to catch up with you last week. Still thinking about you. I just wanted to touch base with you. It just goes a long way.
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I, I agree. I saw something recently and it was like a crochet, knitting, whatever. And it shows the finished product.
It shows the finished product and it looks phenomenal on the front, but the back, it's all that, you know, crazy stitching and everything. And it's like you never know what's going on behind the scenes.
No. And then people often won't share that until you get to a much deeper level relationship with them. And most of your consumers, most of your, your prospects, even your professional clients are probably never going to share that level of information. With you or a very small percentage would. So just being kind and understanding. You know, sometimes we call a bank and we'll call a bank for six months, right? Mortgage. A mortgage bank. We know they've got a good mortgage site division. We call them and call them and call them and send them communication, emails, letters, same thing that we do. We drink our own Kool Aid. And then, you know, we start getting frustrated, like, oh, my gosh, why aren't they calling us back here? We can help them. And in the last six months, they've lost, you know, 5% of the customer base because they went with somebody else. And we start getting discouraged. And then I have to remind myself, well, you don't know, maybe, probably a turnover at the bank. Maybe they're wearing three hats. Maybe they got an FDIC auditor in there. Maybe they've got a new president of the bank. Maybe they're going through an acquisition. Maybe they're trying to buy somebody. Maybe they're potentially going to be bought out. So you don't know what people are going through. So just being consistent, following up and being kind and treating people, you know, with respect, I think it works in the long run.
Great advice, great advice. What is a book you would recommend to Expert Authority World?
The first one I recommend to every young person is literally how to Win Friends and Influence People.
One of the best books I recommend for new managers is.
Don't Don't Take the Monkey One Minute Manager.
I love that book. Those people that are, that are, have that certain personality that resist change. You know, have them read the book about who Moved My Cheese Right is a great book. And then a couple of my favorites is like, I, I think I even mentioned them earlier today, is, you know, good to Great, great by Choice. And then Crossing the Chasm, which is really what we're trying to do here at county programs. We're trying to get enough market share across the chasm and, you know, get exponential growth through referrals from our user base. So those are, those are some good, some of my favorites.
Great recommendations.
It's always good to read the Bible too.
Absolutely. Absolutely. You have great recommendations in there.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this. I want to thank you and want to say, where would you like everyone to check you out at?
I'd like us to check us out@continuityprograms.com. it's our website. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or on Facebook. Pretty active on social media, of course, knowing that not everybody gets to see your post.
And then if you're in the Walled Lake area. Just stop by our headquarters. Believe it or not, we're here 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. I think we've got somebody coming in today to use our guest office and we've got coffee here. Love to give people nickel tours. And we've got agents, loan officers, comfort advisors kind of stop in all the time. Managers stop in, graphic designers stop in all the time. So yeah, we have open door policy. When you walk in the door it says welcome and happy to give you a cup of coffee and give you a nickel tour.
I would encourage anyone to do that too if you are in the area. It's a very nice office and I appreciate you for that invite.
Well, hopefully you'll show up here to Mario.
I would love to come back.
Awesome. Thank you sir.
Thanks so much Kirk. All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great one here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. How can you know where you're going.
If you don't know where you're at? Pipedrive CRM makes your business easier, more enjoyable, and more profitable by allowing you to easily organize your deals and move them through your pipeline. Whether you're in the office or on the go. Get your free trial today@eainterviews.com pipedrive stop wasting your time, continually looking for your information when you can be investing it, adding more value to your prospects and clients. Once again, that's eainterviews.com pipedrive hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it.
I know I sure did.
If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow.
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