Is Cold Calling Dead?

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to another episode of marketing for accounting firms, the podcast. My name is Matt Banker. I'm the owner of Benchmark Growth Marketing. We're an agency that does marketing for accounting firms. And our website is marketingforaccountingfirms.com. so it all kind of fits together. You can probably guess. Today I have Brooke Greening with me, and she is the co owner of Building Momentum, and we're gonna have a great conversation about Sam. Brooke, thank you for being on the show.

Thank you so much, Matt. I'm so excited to be here.

All right, so first question I always like to start is why should anyone care what you have to say about sales and cold calling and marketing and what are your credentials or background experience? What have you got?

Yeah, no, no problem. Specifically in regards to sales, I was in corporate sales and training for over 15 years before we started our own business. When we're talking about cold calling, I have been in cold calling centers where I worked there. I also have written scripts for many cold centers and calling centers, helping them. And then we use it in our own business as well. And then I train others to use scripts too, so.

Well, so we're kind of teasing it here. Yeah, we're kind of teasing it here. But you and I, we were. We decided we wanted to have a conversation about cold calling. Now, I. My first job in a marketing agency, I was brought on board as. As someone to kind of support sales. And I quickly moved out of that role because actually I was a lot better at kind of the production and operations side of things. But for about three months, I sat and I had to do a lot of cold calling, and I was building my own list. And I'll tell you two things. One, I, like, I absolutely hated it. It was like the worst thing in terms of my personality. It was not something that I ever wanted to do. And second, I'm really glad that I went through that process and kind of got over the initial fear, fears and difficulties in it. And so I don't. I don't really use a lot of cold calling in my own business now, but I've gone through that and I find, you know, for a lot of people, the idea of picking up the phone and just calling someone as, like, really scary is one. But also, I guess there's a question of how effective it is. So as just kind of an intro, do you think is. Is cold calling? Is cold outreach like that? Is that dead? Is it worth doing anymore? What's your perspective?

No, I. I don't Think it's dead. But I do think if we're talking about having like that robo calling, like when I was in college getting my masters and I was like, basically changed to a desk and it just kept putting the calls through. And at that point it was for Wells Fargo Financial, so they had just been denied a loan. And then I was trying to get them to work through Wells Fargo Financial. Not very happy to talk to me. That is getting harder and harder because the phone numbers aren't necessarily being recognized. People don't even know if they're talking to a real person and anymore. And so there's a lot of skepticism. So I think that is getting harder. But I do think you can be very strategic in regards to cold calling and have it be very effective. But I don't think just being connected to a computer and hoping you find someone is the best route.

Yeah, I know a lot of us screen our calls pretty effectively. I know specifically in the accounting space in the last few years, a lot of ERC mills have popped up and they've built these big call centers where we're all getting. If you're a business owner, you've probably gotten like dozens of calls from someone saying they're from the financial department and you could qualify. And so I think it's always. Spam calls have always been a problem. But in the last few years, I think they've even increased to the degree that we're screening pretty severely. I know I don't answer the phone very much, but you say there is kind of a strategic approach. How would you know if cold outreach is a good tactic or strategy for you to use? And then how would you start going about having an approach that is actually effective and is going to help your business now?

Yeah, the first thing is I look at cold calling, and when I'm talking with my clients, I'm asking them to say, I want you to think about it in two different categories. One, who do you know of but you do not have a working relationship with? And two, who do you know of that could be really helpful for you in regards to referrals? Those would be the people that I would focus on cold calling. And it's still cold calling because you don't really. You don't have an appointment with them, they're not expecting your call. And so that's how you would want to be strategic. Like, I've also worked with clients and I'm working with one now where they've had someone create a whole list for them with LinkedIn. In regards specifically to the businesses that they want to be a part of. That's great. Like, let's work with that. But being a lot more strategic with who would we want to get referrals from or who would we want to be able to work with?

So it sounds like starting with, you know, that second circle of contacts. Right. So if you think LinkedIn, right. Like, you're. That you've got your first connections where you're actually connected, and then you've got your second connections who are like people connected to people that you're connected. But you're not just building a random list and then doing that robocall. You're actually saying, where. What's that next circle that I don't have direct access to yet, but let's. Let's start making direct connections with them.

Correct? Yeah. And also, just as an example, if people are part of, like, the chamber or different associations, they. That would be one where you would really start to look and say, okay, they may not need my services, but they could know other people that do, and I want to be able to talk with them. And all of that would be cold calling.

Okay, so let's say I've decided that I'm willing to make some phone calls every day. Where do I start? Is this something like, you got to do it every day, Build a habit? What are your recommendations for someone who's trying to just maybe, like, dip their toes into this kind of direct outreach?

Sure. The very first thing I would say is you want to have a plan, you need to have a really clear call to action. That is why cold calling works. When you're on these robocalls or whatever the case is. Like, if people are actually listening to you because they get to the point immediately. So you have to have a really clear call to action that is building value. So I would say if you have webinars that you're getting ready to do, have a actual business plan for what you want to talk to them about. That would be the very first thing. Then you know how you're going to have these conversations. They're going to be able to work a lot smoother for you as well. I've worked with other people where they also create whole email campaigns, and then they're calling through that email campaign as well.

Got it.

With a clear call to action.

So you're layering in phone calls as maybe part of this nurturing campaign that you've got. I know several of the clients that I work work with accounting firms. That's part of their system. So they, they have an email sequence that's going out and then touch points of direct calling is part of that as well. Yeah, you know, in the, in the accounting space there's a lot of folks that are using like appointment booking services or like telemarketers, direct outreach. Is that a good way to use resources? I'm totally open. You don't have to validate it one way or the other. But what's your, what's your opinion on that right now?

I think if there's a clear call to action in regards that they know, hey, we're going to do a webinar or we're going to do a free resource, you want someone to call those hundred people or whoever it is that you're trying to get in contact with? Absolutely. If you have appointment setting and there's something that I call like virtual coffees, where you want to learn about their business and for them to learn about yours. But as your business is growing, you don't have time to be making all of those calls and you want someone to do that for you. That's a great, that can be a great thing because they're creating those leads, generating it for you, setting those appointments for you.

Do you have to have something like an intro offer or like you mentioned, like a webinar? Do you have to have something that's a little easier to say yes to? I don't. Or can you really do outreach where you're trying to sell your, your kind of top line service, you know, monthly accounting or something like that?

I would say for me, and when I'm talking with clients, if people don't know me, they're usually not going to be signing high ticket items the very first conversation that we have. And so in order for them to continue to trust me and work through what I would call like the sales funnel, then it's a lot easier to have something that they want to say yes to and has a lower risk to it. So in regards to a resource or wanting to schedule a call so you could have an appointment setter, just talking with them about the needs that they have for accounting and wanting to set up an appointment with them, that would be a clear call to action that is not as big as, okay, let's start talking about me meeting with you monthly. Because I don't, I don't think people who don't know you, that's not usually where they're going to head in the first conversation.

Yeah. What are you seeing right now as sort of effective you know, initial CTAs. So if that's the first piece, you have to have a really clear reason to call and a model. What are some of the things that you see working in the marketplace?

Yeah, well, with me, because I work a lot with coaches, consultants, professional services, they usually are having different resources. I know we mentioned like webinar, but something that you could invite someone to that would be incredible that they could be able to be a part of, whether that's complimentary or there's a low cost to that. Also, when we were talking about, like wanting to get to know them for referral sources, just to just completely say, I just would like to learn more about your business, share about mine, and see if we can be a resource for each other. That is a good call to action for cold calling that someone else could do for you, like an appointment setter. If you didn't want to do that. Other things would be. If there are other resources that you have that you could offer to them, those are the things that I find the most beneficial.

So you're trying to get into their world and get them into your world in some way, but you're not usually leading with the, hey, have you thought about firing your current accountant and hiring us instead?

Correct. That's the second call.

Okay. That's the second call.

No, I'm kidding.

Well, so, no. How about when it comes to dealing with things like voicemail, I guess there's two things. Let's. Voicemail is one, obviously you're going to get a lot of voicemail gatekeepers. And then maybe occasionally, like you've mentioned, you know, people who are not excited that you're calling their phone, you know, what? Negative. Negative responses. What. What do we do with these?

Yes. All right, so let's talk about negative responses first.

Okay.

In my opinion, if you could have 20 great cold calls as opposed to 150 mediocre, that would make a huge difference. And what I mean by is that you would take the time to do a little bit of research on their business before you have a conversation that's all about, like establishing rapport so that you can show, like, hey, I just saw on Facebook you wrote this, or I saw on LinkedIn you did this, or I saw your blog post in this. Those are things that you can start to build rapport to help them to understand. I'm for you. I'm not just randomly calling people. I really would like to know more about your business and how we could work together.

Okay.

That. That makes a huge difference. And if they're not, then I just validate it. Like, if they're like, hey, this is not a good time, I'm like, you know what? The last thing I want to do is be wasting your time. Is there another time that we might be able to call? Or I'll say, the last thing I want to do is that this was the reason I was calling. Does that sound like something you would be interested in? Very quick. To help them understand what's going on, you have about three to five seconds to talk to them, and that's. And they're probably not going to hang up on you. When I did cold calling days like Wells Fargo and then I was in a car dealership as well, I got hung up on. On a lot. And so I learned within those three to five seconds to gain their trust and be able to have that conversation. When you're talking business to business, there's usually a courtesy, especially if you're saying, hey, I'm part of the Chamber, or I'm. This is who I am, or, I've noticed you here. I saw you at this conference. That's what I mean by 20 great cold calls as opposed to 150. Just random.

Yeah.

Try to build that rapport as quickly as you can.

Sure. So you're doing a little research, establishing a little bit of rapport. Three to five seconds. So you've got a really limited time. What's the most important thing to do in that three to five seconds?

You just need. You need to introduce who you are and set the expectation for the call.

Okay.

People don't want to be like, it is so annoying when you're like, hey, hi, I'm Brooke. How are you today? What's been going on? Like, no, no.

Do you find it's helpful just to say, hey, my name's Matt. This is a sales call. I like to lean into. Probably overly transparent. Wondering if that almost is more like, catches people off guard, but is helpful. People know exactly what you're talking about, you know, or does it just put their guard up too quick?

No, I. So I've never said that specifically. I'll usually be like, hey, this is Brooke. I'm calling from Building Momentum Resources, just as a Chamber example. I saw that you were part of the Chamber, and this is what you do. And I'm. I'm part of the Chamber as well. I just wanted to see, would you ever be interested in meeting for about 30 minutes so I can learn about your business and share a little bit about mine and see if we can be a resource for each other.

Got it. That does sound a little more maybe disarming.

And then if it's. If you're inviting them to something, you can absolutely say this. Hey, this is Matt. I just wanted to touch base with you. I'm hosting a. And I wanted to be able to invite you. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?

Yeah, got it. So lead with value, not with, like, the thing that they're dreading, which is a salesperson.

Correct. Exactly.

See, this is why I need. This is why I need coaching and information about this as well. So I don't. At this point, as a business owner, I might be convinced that cold calling is something that I want to do for my business, but actually, it's not something I want to do. It's something that I want somebody else to have to do on my behalf to. What kind of advice do you have from a business owner's perspective in terms of what they should expect from and how they can kind of manage, coach, train, and resource someone in their organization or someone that they're working with outside to do cold outreach on their behalf?

Yeah. So here's the deal. And I completely understand, because a lot of people either don't want to or they don't have any time to, but you want to be able to set them up for success as much as possible.

And I'm worried about my brand, too. Right. Like, I don't want someone who's making cold calls. That sounds like the easiest way to, like, ruin my company's reputation if they're not doing, you know what? We've got all these stereotypes about, you know, bad sales calls.

Yeah, no, it's true. It's very true. And you don't want that. So that's why I'm saying you want to set them up for success.

Yes, for sure.

You want to train them and it's okay. Like, it was really helpful sometimes to have a clear script for them and then don't have them make 100 calls on the first day. Have them make sense some. And then if you can hear them, if it's possible that it's recorded or you can just sit in. Those are really helpful because it helps you to see kind of where they're getting a little bit stuck. But help them to be as successful as possible. Give them the tools, give them the training, give them exactly what you want them to say, and then have, like, tangible goals for them. And also have, like, if you can commission different things related to that because you win if they Win and that's, that's what you want. Like if they're giving you qualified leads and then you're able to talk to them more. And that's what I would say for appointment setting. They're not going to be selling your packages or your, whatever the services that you're doing. You're just trying to help them to build that trust enough that they're willing to talk to you. That is what the goal is. And so if they're giving you qualified leads, everybody wins. That you don't have to like spend time to do. So I would say when you're looking at what the expectations are, give them the tools that they need, train them, have them have the scripts that they want, listen in and then give them clear directions and goals. Like the goal today is I want to hear 20 and I would like to see one appointment set, like start showing it. And if you're noticing like in the next month or two, like they hate it, it's super uncomfortable. It's not giving you the results that you need. It doesn't usually get like at that point. But give them time and give them goals.

Yeah, but you have to have tangible things like you said. So I know in my world when it comes to marketing, we like to take people through phases of a marketing campaign. And the first one is you gotta get the work done right? So it's like a production goal. Did we publish the number of blogs or videos or social media posts that we want per week? And then the next one is we're looking for signals that this is yielding some results or at least has the potential to yield results. So you know, we're looking at like click throughs and things like that. I imagine there's something similar, you know, with, with cold outreach. The third one obviously is you do want to correlate it with results, right? Like actual mean set and sales, you know, sales goals and things like that. But, but it sounds like the first thing is you have to have clear expectations of production that they actually are able to do it. And then secondly some signals that they're being effective at what they're doing. Is that the point when you, if you' I don't know, what's a timeline maybe for expectations around that kind of, if that makes sense as a framework.

If it's a pretty clear call to action and it's pretty simple, they should be able to be starting appointments probably in a month or like ideally we'd want them to be doing it like the day of the next week or whatever. But if we're not making any progress a month in and you gave them tools, it wasn't just like, hey, learn about our business, and then call people, because that's not fair. Cold calling. Sales conversations require skill, and you have to be able to know how to do that. And so, but if you've given them those tools and they're just not. You're not seeing very much progress at all. You want to look at two things. One, is our call to action, what our customer wants? Like, are we. Are we actually. Is that what they want? We need to, like, look at that. But then two, where is it kind of falling apart? Like, are they able to overcome objections? Are they just like, okay, sorry, goodbye, it's done? Are they creating objections for the customer even before the customer has them, just to kind of work through things like that? So I would say if in a month there's nothing, then there needs to have some other conversations of like, okay, how could, like, I want you to be successful, but this is not going to work if we're not seeing any results.

Yeah, you don't want to. I mean, I have, when I've been in that sales call seat, if I'm not seeing any success, it's hard to keep a good attitude too. Like, I would imagine. I don't know how much of. How much of being successful in sales is related to, like, personality or kind of internal, I don't know, fortitude or something like that versus something that can lead. Yeah, like grit versus training and all of that. I imagine you do a lot of that kind of coaching. I would assume that people are coach. You believe that people are coachable. But how much of that is, like, innate personality or something?

No, that's a great question. So I'm thinking of a team that I'm working with. And we saw. We saw success quickly, but, like, we're really beginning to see success now. Like, we're 30 over what they were last year. Like, the. It's just growing and growing. And it took a. It took time for them to really. But they weren't just doing appointment setting like we were. They were enrolling students for college. Like, these are big conversations or talking to parents or talking to students. And so. But now we're really seeing tons of success in that. And as they have success, it just really encourages them to keep going because they. They see it. You are absolutely right. When you're not making the goals that you need and you know that your boss is asking you to do that, it is so discouraging. And frustrating. And then sales is tough. Like in almost every other job, if you don't get it right, it's okay. Like, people will try to figure it out. They bring in other things. Sales, you don't sell, you don't, you don't work. Like, that's just the way that it is. And so that can have a really deep impact on people. And so they need to know like, okay, it's safe. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna work really hard. But they need to see success soon. So that then it just keeps encouraging them to go. Like that is the building momentum. Once you are successful, then it'll keep growing and growing and growing. But if you're not, you hate going to work, you hate what you're doing. It's just, it's not a good, it's not a good fit for anyone at that point.

Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. What would you recommend? So it's just a scenario. You've got a, you got an accounting firm, they've got goals to, you know, grow by 20% year over year. They know that some of that involves like outreach based sales. Right. So you've got your. It's not just waiting for calls to come in and booking appointments, but we actually need to go out to the market. Where. How would, working with like a sales coach, how would you expect that to help with like a go to market? What are the ways that you work with people and what are, I guess, what are the opportunities for like an accounting firm where you think, yeah, this would be really beneficial at like, at which, which points or along that process. How would they know that having someone from the outside help with their sales process, that, that would be a good thing?

Sure. I would say the first thing is like when you're talking about sales coaching and how that can be helpful, we start to look at your business and we're just saying, okay, where are your goals? And then how are we going to be able to accomplish them? And it's more than just, okay, this is how we say it, because we do work through that a lot. There is a lot of skill in having conversation. I actually have my master's in counseling and so that's what I've applied to my whole sales career. And it's listening. Like that is, you're listening, you're trying to understand where your customer is coming from, where their frustrations are. And then that's when you start talking and sharing how you're going to be able to meet those needs. But the first thing is like, we're going to just figure out where are the categories that you can start to do the outreach, like what are the most impactful places for you to go to be able to do that and create a whole sales plan for that. And then there's a lot of accountability. And then we start talking about, okay, how are we going to talk to them, how are we going to go to that networking event and reach those referrals? How are we going to use our sales strategy in this situation? So that's what the coaching is. And then working through this is how we actually have these conversations all the way to closing proposals, reviewing proposals, different things like that.

How do you get into, like helping build out compensation models and incentives and things like that for sales teams? What, what does that look like?

I do? Yeah. Because it is really difficult to sell something. You don't know what you're. You don't know what it is.

Yeah.

So if you have all of these great customized packages or whatever, you're confusing your customer and they don't really know what's going on. And so if you're having a hard time explaining what you do, then they're gonna have a very hard time understanding how to be able to do that. So one of the very first things we do is we look at what exactly are you selling? Because I believe you can either be proactive or passive in your whole sales conversation. And you always have to be able to move them forward. I'm always telling my clients, you have to know, does your customer know what they need to do? And do you know if they're going to do it? If so, when, and if not, why. And if you're not clear in your sales process, your sales steps, what you sell, that's why we lose people, because they don't really have any idea what they're supposed to do next. So you have to look at that so then you can go back to that every single time. And then your follow up is so much more effective because you actually have things that you're following up on instead of just checking back in.

We end up in, I think, similar conversations a lot when it comes to websites. We do a lot of work with clients on their website. And one of the big things we see these days is having a pricing page is a really important thing. People want to do a lot of their research before they talk to a salesperson. They don't want to have to wait to get that conversation. But what we find is a lot of times, business owners, they're afraid of putting pricing out there one, because they think it's going to, the price is going to be too high and that's going to scare people off. But I think too is a lot of times when you're a smaller firm or an agency, you've kind of built a lot of customized plans because you as the owner who really understands the craft and all of the factors in terms of the services you could offer, you can kind of build, you know, a service on the fly based on what you see in front of them. And it's all, it's fully custom and you're probably kind of going with your gut. That's in a really difficult spot, I imagine, to put a salesperson. You know, people who are good at sales are probably not great accountants because otherwise they would have become accountants and not gone into sales. You know, they can obviously understand your business really well. I've seen, I've seen incredibly successful sales teams for accounting firms, but it sounds like from a business owner standpoint, you've got to do the work to set them up for success of being able to know what they sell. And I don't know if it means it's fully productized, but to have real clarity around how to build out and price and sell whatever it is, the service and things that you've got in front of you. Right?

No, you're absolutely right. And just to piggyback on that, when we first started our own business and I was in sales, corporate training, all of that 15 years, thousands and thousands of conversations, and the sales that I were doing were between like eight to $10,000 a month for these senior living communities. Like they were high ticket items. I was not afraid of talking about costs or investments or anything like that. And when we first started our business, I looked at my husband, I was like, why can't I sell? This doesn't make any sense. Why is this happening? And we looked at it and he was like, you don't know what you're doing. Like you don't know what you're selling. And for the first time in my life, it was true. Like every company I went to, every organization I went to Brooke, this is what you sell. This is what it is. These are the pieces. Yada, yada, yada. You learn it, you sell it. So you have to do that for your business. Otherwise your conversations are, are just all over the place. And then it's great to have customized packaging. Absolutely. But you have to make it a little bit more easy to Understand and digest in those first couple of conversations so you can get to that point and really talk about what you're going to do. And so if you don't, if you don't know what you're selling, it's going to be really, really hard.

It's funny how whatever, it seems like wherever your entry point is, the conversations still kind of circle back to a lot of the same things. Like we can start having a marketing conversation or a sales conversation, but it always ends up, I think, circling around business model. Right. Like all of these things are so closely tied together and having clarity across the board in what are the services that you deliver, how are they packaged up, you know, all these things. It's not really, you can't put that conversation onto a salesperson or a marketing person, but if you figure that kind of stuff out, you can really ensure that that person's going to be a lot more successful in their job.

Absolutely, I agree with that 100%.

Talk us through a little bit more of your process. When you work with a business owner, what are you selling on the front end and then how do you, how do you help them in that process?

Sure. So I do both. I do group coaching and I do one on one. I have created the Confidence building sales framework. So it's a acronym of service, helping them to know how to work through that. And then I also do business development coaching with them as well. So we're looking at the, we're looking at sales as a whole process. Then we also start talking about, okay, how do we do cold calling, how are we doing our outreach, what are our emails looking like? All of it we're taking a look at. But I meet with them on a weekly basis. I also have like an accelerator course as well. So a lot of times people are coming and they're like, I love it, I want to do it, but I want you to train me quickly. I don't want this to be a long process. And so I offer that as well. Where it's one on one, it's a compact course and so they have my video courses and then I meet with them usually a couple times a week and we get everything figured out. What is their business model, what are their strategies and how are we going to start moving forward?

Are you usually working with business owners in these cohorts and one on one things or is it often like an in house salesperson?

I'm usually working with the business owners but I'm also working with the sales teams as well. So sometimes I'M working with them and then they're hiring people in and then I start coaching them.

Yeah, we see a similar thing. We run some a mastermind for marketers at accounting firms. And sometimes that's an owner, sometimes it's a marketing person. But if it is a marketing person, the owner has to be a part of those conversations. You can't. It's rare that you can just completely outsource this function in your business to someone else. Like on your team. You've got. Owners have to really be involved in that.

Yeah, yeah, I do do sales teams as well. So a lot of it is with the professional services. But like I said, I also work with a university as well. And so that's where I'm training their admissions team week by week. And then I'm meeting like with the VP and the president like on a quarterly or monthly whatever they need basis.

Yeah. What do you, what do you find are the biggest struggles for professional services companies? Do you see kind of common patterns that like they're coming in with the same problems every time regarding sales and you're having those conversations?

Yeah, I would say the first thing we just talked about it like it's because if it's their business and they've created it, sometimes it's a little choppy of what they're offering. So that is a big concern that we see. That's why we address that pretty quickly. And then another one is they don't feel like they can talk about their own business. It just kind of feels a little salesy or it feels a little fake because it's their business, it's their baby. And so that kind of is a struggle. And then also there's people don't follow up the way they should.

Okay.

Like if you would do that, you would make a huge impact in your sales just by following up and having effective follow up plans and courses and conversations. And so those are the three. We really don't know exactly what we're selling. And people, I'm not saying that they're in their garage and they're not successful. Like they can be having a 500,000 million dollars company, $11 million company, but they sell still are not clear in what they're actually offering. And then the other piece is like if it's all on them, the follow up just completely goes to the wayside.

Yeah.

Like I try it once, they say no and then that's it.

Yeah, I would say that's. That's often a challenge personality wise. I don't. Are you Familiar with working genius at all. Have you seen Patrick Lencioni?

Yes, absolutely.

So galvanizing is one of my working frustrations. Right. And I think where that, where that happens in sales is, you know, I believe in our product, I believe in, in what we sell. But when it comes to sales, my tendency is to be like, well, this is the solution, take it or leave it. It's not my job to get you excited about doing this, which I think is the galvanizing piece. But I recognize that as something that a good salesperson is really good at, like following up and the tenacity piece too. I guess following up and getting people excited, all of those things are important. My tendency is to kind of put together a solution, send it over to you to like decide on or not. And yeah, we could probably get a lot more out of a little more follow up.

Yeah, I would say it's hard. And one of the things that people find is that they're in this feaster famine. Like they have a lot of sales, things are going great and then they have a famine. And what happens is because they worked hard to get the sales they have now, they're working with their clients and they've pretty much neglected what they needed to do to follow up with everybody else. But if you're following up, because the way that I look at it, you've got your 30 days, 60 to 90 and 90 plus. Those are like the categories that we're usually putting our clients in. They're going to buy within 30 days, they're going to buy within 60 to 90, they're going to buy with 90 plus. So that's the first piece of it. And then you start categorizing them. Like in my CRM now I have effective follow up for each parts of those. So then when all of this is going on, I've been nurturing these other ones that are not quite ready to go so that when this ends, they're ready to go. And so the pipeline is much fuller and I'm not scrambling all the time. And I think business owners end up doing that a lot. They have feast, they have famine, and the, the follow up just isn't there.

Do you think this is just my own curiosity. Do you think it's possible for a business owner to do, like to be in production and doing the work and be the primary salesperson? Or do you think those have to be like you're either the salesperson and you've got a team to deliver or the other way around?

Well, I think sometimes they don't have a choice. I think sometimes in the beginning they are both. And so as you're able to get out of that, you want to. But again, if you have that effective follow up and when you're having that sales conversation and you truly land on, my customer knows what they need to do. I know if they're going to do it. If so, when, and if not, why that leads you into your next follow up. So if you would just follow that path every single time, you would make more sales and you would be able to do that. When you need to do both, ideally, can you bring somebody else in to do it for you? Absolutely. That's great. That's when it continues to scale. But you can do both for a while if you're committed to it and just saying, hey, for an hour a day or 30 minutes a day, I'm doing my follow up. Like that's what I'm doing. Yeah, but you have to be intentional. You have to be strategic in it or it'll just fall off.

Do you have a. Are you CRM opinionated or agnostic about like, you know, lots of different CRMs are great. What do you need in a good CRM?

No, that's a great question. So I am currently getting certified in KEEP right now, so I enjoy keep. That's helpful for me. And so I think that works out really well. I do think when you're going back and you're saying, what's another pitfall? I do think if people don't have any type of CRM, you are going to really get lost. Because I'll ask them, I'll say, okay, once we hit like 10 customers, how are you actually keeping track of them? How are you following up with them? How do you know what they need? So I think sometimes businesses think, oh, I don't necessarily need a CRM. That's not what I need. Yet you do. Because if you want to have effective follow up, you want to have effective sales conversations, you want to bring anybody else into doing it so you don't have to. So it's helpful. I know HubSpot's a good one, but right now I'm using Keep and Happy with It and learning it, the ins and outs of it.

Right now, yeah, we use ActiveCampaign. It's mostly an email delivery software, but they've built in a CRM. I'd be interested to know. We often are dealing with technology questions and I think a lot of times people are, they're looking for the one piece of software that's gonna solve their problem. And I think my perspective is usually tech can't solve a process problem. You usually have to figure out, like, what is it that you're trying to do first and how are you going to go about it. And then you can find there's a lot of technologies that can solve that problem or fit into your system. But if you don't have a system already and you don't know what you're doing from a process standpoint, the technology is just not going to solve it.

No, you're absolutely right. It just confuses. It complicates the matter. Now you've got all these things and you're trying to figure out how it works. So you need to know your system first.

Well, we could, I'm sure we could talk about. There's a lot to talk about in sales now. I really think, you know, this is marketing for accounting firms, but I think sales and marketing, it's, it's, it's a fuzzy line and handoff. You know, I think, I think that most marketers would be more effective if they thought a little bit more revenue focused and thought like salespeople, like, how does this actually, like, turn into sales for a company? And I think that a lot of salespeople are having to become more and more educators, marketers, building brands or being a part of that to be successful. So I think more and more of those lines are blurring. But all that to say we could keep talking about sales all day long. Where can people find out about you and the services you offer? And if they're looking for more information and resources, where would you point them towards?

Sure. So our website is buildingmomentum.info so they're more than welcome to go there. They can connect with me on LinkedIn as well. And then I also have a video series that I'm just getting ready to launch. And so it's the confidence sales booster. So it's things to be able to do to be able to kickstart your sales. So when you're in that famine, what can I do in the next, like, month to really start improving my sales process? So that'll be coming out in the next month and so people can start looking for that as well.

Okay, very good. And you're active on. Are you on LinkedIn or other social media platforms?

Yep, we're on LinkedIn and Instagram as well.

Okay, very cool. Well, Brooke, thanks. Thanks for being on the show. I think we've landed on Cold Calling is not dead. But you should have a strategy. At least that's where you should, you should start from any, any last nuggets of wisdom that you'd want to leave accounting firm owners and people doing marketing for their firm with.

Sure. I just, yeah, I just want to encourage you, like just keep going. So I know cold calling can kind of seem like a grind. I know follow up can feel like a grind and it is, but it makes a huge difference. So just keep going. Even if you can't do it every day, just don't stop. Even as we're going like into holiday seasons and vacations and all of that, just really keep going. Even if you can do two or three calls a day, that makes a big difference as opposed to just not doing anything for months. And so I want to be able to encourage you with that. I did want to share that I do have a resource. So if you're kind of in the cold calling and then objections hit. Yeah, you don't know what to do. I have created a 10 minute video of three ways to confidently turn your customers objections into sales. And it walks you through a process to be able to do that, that values your customer, that allows you to close more sales. Everybody wins. And so you're more than welcome to go grab that as well.

Very, very cool. Well Brooke, thank you again for being on the show. This has been marketing for accounting firms. You can, you can find us at marketingforaccountingfirms.com you can find me Matt Banker on LinkedIn and reach out if there's anything that to help you with your marketing. If you have questions about sales training, coaching, cohorts, resources, definitely connect with Brooke. I think the work that she's doing is really great at building momentum and I think with that we'll leave it there. Thanks again. This podcast marketing for accounting firms is brought to you by Benchmark Growth Marketing, our marketing agency that helps accounting firms get more calls books through their website. You can find us at Benchmark Growth growthmarketing. Com. Connect with me Matt Banker on LinkedIn.