“Sales” is NOT a Dirty Word | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

SUMMARY: In this episode, Bill Morrow and Matt Zaun unapologetically talk about Sales.

BILL MORROW BIO: Bill is the Managing Partner at Empirical Consulting Solutions.  Empirical is a management consulting firm focused on helping clients overcome hurdles that prevent them from growing. They take the time to understand their client’s issues, build a plan forward and then work shoulder-to-shoulder through implementation. Their experienced senior-level consultants know how to provide guidance across multiple functional areas including sales, marketing, HR, finance, leadership, supply chain, distribution, change management, and more.

For more info, check out Bill here:
www.thinkempirical.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/billkmorrow

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzaun/

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

Last week I was speaking to an organization and halfway through the workshop, the ce o raises her hand and says Matt, you need to stop using the S word during your presentation. That word was banned in our company and we do not use it anymore. completely stunned. I looked at her and I said, I will respectfully use other words, but I just want you to know my relationship with the S word is clearly different than the relationship your organization has. Now, of course, the four letter S word that I'm talking about is sale, which apparently is the dirty word now in some circles, but regardless, that's what we're going to go over in this podcast episode because today, we will not be censoring the word sales because our entire conversation will focus on unpacking numerous elements of sales. Today, I'm joined by Bill Morrow. Who is the managing partner and empirical consulting solutions, which is a management consulting firm that focuses on helping their clients overcome hurdles that is really preventing them from growth. They focus on areas such as the dirty S word sales, marketing, HR, finance, leadership, supply chain, change, management, and much much more. I'm interested to learn in what they don't do, because it seems like they do everything. So Bill, welcome to the stories with traction podcast. Thanks
for having me, Matt. I am excited to have a conversation with you and I'm glad to see you in one place long enough to have a conversation.
This is great. We've been we've been planning this for quite some
time. It's been a while it's been a while but I'm excited. This is very cool. Yeah. So
thank you so much for your time. I know you're extremely busy. I do want to kick it off with just talking about sales. Like apparently there's a lot of people that that really looked down on even the word sales that the relationship they have with sales. Obviously there has been some type of negative story that's impacted the way they view it. So do you feel that as a culture we've really, actually you'd like to see it and hear it as a dirty word?
Yeah, unfortunately, maybe due to poor sales across the world. It has become a negative connotation. And I do know, even even I sometimes depending on the industry and what we're doing, tell and, you know, get people to you know, navigate away from using the word sales because it has a visceral response sometimes from their client base. Sure,
sure. Yeah. And that's unfortunate. It's really unfortunate in many, many, many ways, because there's a lot of sales reps that I know that they desperately want to help their clients and what they're selling, whether it's a product or service actually does a ton of good and they know that their clients lives will be radically improved because of what they do. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about your definition of sales when you hear the word sale or sales. What is the picture that you have?
Yeah, and my world of sales is is that it's about problem solving. It's about changing maybe even the way a client views a problem or an issue or really identifying a problem or an issue that the client has and aligning solution to that that issue. And again, I think good salespeople will align where they can and where they can and they have an issue, let's say, hey, this clients issue or problem falls outside the realm of what we do or we do well, and they would be better suited with a competitor of mine. They're they're okay with that. Then don't let that business go. But that's, that's how I view good sales and good problem solving. Basically, it's, if you're built that way, and you'd like to solve problems. I think sales is a great place to be.
So I want to unpack something that you said I think it's extremely important because often it said, you know, value and sales we need to offer value, but what you're saying is actually radically even expanding the definition of value, because you mentioned that even if your competitor handles something better than you, it's you having so much care and offering so much value to your client that you would actually connect them to a competitor connect them to another company so that I really want people to to hear that as not only understanding Yes, you need to offer value but so much value that you know you are going to put them in a place to succeed regardless of where that is. I really appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah,
I have that kind of candor, and I think good companies do when they you're not a good fit. I think it's okay to step up and say hey, we're not a good fit. I think the fallacy that you're gonna win every deal you walk in on and you're some super salesperson you always hear that that person can sell ice to Eskimos or some other type of thing. That's a silly statement. You know, in the world today, people want that value, but they they want to know you're working with them in a way that is best for them. And I can't tell you how many times I've walked away from business and and turn that over where that that clients so trust me down the line that they're coming back to me with every issue even when we're not good fit and they know we're not they keep coming back to us because we they know they're gonna get transparency from us and we're going to provide them as with as much value as we can in and around both. Sure,
sure. And that's almost the difference between deception and manipulation versus inspiration. Yeah, first actually persuading them to take an action that you know will benefit them. And I remember early on in my sales career, some of the exercises on you know, sell this pen and do this and so it sounds like you're trying to really muscle someone into believing that it's a good product when in reality it's there's there's better ways to go about that for sure. As you know, and I want to talk about the different ways because even the name of your firm I found it fascinating because I you know, you look up the meaning of empirical and it's almost experience versus theory. Like it's actually doing something versus just thinking about doing something or reading about it in a textbook. So it was that part of the naming.
Yeah, that was that the my business partner and founder came out of big companies, he worked for Aramark and he was always so disappointed and when he hired consultants and other groups that they they use a lot of a lot of gut feel and he really wanted something that denoting strong processes and analytical analysis and taking all of that and helping guide his end users or our clients and that it's a strong tenant. It's a tenant of what we believe and it's everything we do. It's not just hey, this feels good. Some of that is out there. But it's this makes sense. Because even when it's uncomfortable, because this is where you need to go as an organization.
I like that. That a lot. That's really good. And so let's take a step back. Even before you started the company that you run now, and I want to talk about that. So several months ago, I actually had the opportunity to speak with your former boss from Lakeshore, thank you for setting that meeting up. I very much. Appreciate it. Yeah. And just so the audience knows, Bill used to be the Vice President of Sales for Lakeshore learning materials, which is one of the largest retail and online suppliers of education materials in the world. Um, so your former boss and I were talking and he referred to you as a sales genius, delivering incredible amounts of value and actually begged you to stay. But even though his his pleading did not compare to your desire and vision for empirical, empirical consulting solutions, so I wanted to talk about that from a couple angles. So So one, let's talk about it from just lake shore in general. So you you come on board, you are the vice president of sales, you implement processes that you put in place that increase sales by 20% from year over year, and just want to talk about that from a culture perspective. You need to change the culture of that organization. What were some of the things that you implemented at Lake Shore that you feel really helped with creating a company culture of sales?
Yeah, first, I'm gonna hire Jared as my hype man is gonna go out in front of me every time ahead of time. I gotta remember this. It's worked out really well. So I'll do that next time. But yeah, you know, Lakeshore has an amazing culture. I mean, a fantastic company. And I was really happy that they do amazing things and they help and again, you're selling products that help students learn and teachers teach as they you know, talk about value every day. It was it was really cool. But what Lakeshore lacked was was some process and I'm gonna use the word professionalism and it's probably not fair but I'm going to use it in their in their sales approach. They had some amazing salespeople that knew how to make relationships or relationships, but they get lost in their own process. So I say where are we at with that million dollar RFP deal? What does that look like? And I get, depending on who I was talking to, I get different answers and responses, because they didn't know what questions to ask. They didn't understand where they were. And it wasn't because they were poor salespeople. They just had never been taught and process and doing things in a manner that allowed them to do what they did best, but allowed us to all understand where we were in the process of what needed to get done to get to the next step. We put basic processes that didn't interfere with what they did well. They adapted to it well across the board. I had all kinds of different types of sellers and they did an amazing job. And that is much to the team. That successes as much as the team as much as what I put in place. They were a good team. They were they still aren't.
That's awesome. That's awesome, especially the process. Do you feel that the different elements of what you learned there really helped position you to start the firm that you did? Oh, absolutely.
It's, you know, we work in the Lower Mid market, a lot of private equity or privately held companies and they all have similar issues. They want to get to the next level. How do I get to the next level, though? What do I need to do? And they probably know their product or their solution really well, but they don't know the sales process and they don't understand some of that we do marketing as well, some of the marketing components that are necessary to move things along and to drive business overall. And that's what we do. We I take learnings from that I had from running large sales organizations to that middle market and applying the ones that make a difference and not taking them or trying to take them too far. That's the key. You want to you always want to incrementally grow and incrementally get better. But you don't need to take a quantum leap if you can grow and get these things right and probably make a big difference. In your business.
It's interesting. So so instead of big change, it's almost an enhancement, taking what they already have and enhancing it through processes. But
it's always the big fear of people. You know, getting wet, especially with private equity take company over we're working with several right now that have been recently bought by private equity, they're worried you're gonna destroy their culture, they watch the woman, they saw that guy come by private equity by that company and he's gonna tear it apart and throw everything out the window and that's all they care about is that's just not true private equity today, and it's not true of successful value creation in the company. It's those small incremental changes that make a big difference, preserving what you do well, which you probably do a lot of things really well, why throw that out and start over with a whole brand new system that makes no sense
either, so I like the small incremental change. So one of the best books that I read, and quite some time was about that change. And I'm actually drawing a blank on the name of the book, but I know that the presenting the idea was the 1% difference again and again and again and again. And one of the stories that was shared in the book, which will probably come to me hopefully soon is that there was a gentleman who took over for a the United Kingdom biking team, and basically it's 1% increment again and again, in all this very interesting things very detail oriented as far as let's make this change. Let's make this change. And it added up to a lot. There's also another book by Darren Hardy, that's really, really good at the compound effect that talks about that incremental growth, that incremental change. So let's talk about that. So an organization really wants to start the process of change. What would they do? What's the first thing that he would recommend that they do? Yeah,
and again, I I'm gonna sound like such a consultant. It's gonna sound self serving, but I would really recommend having someone from outside your organization take a look and and look at what you're doing and that can be that doesn't need to be super complicated and cost lots of money that can be done over you know, couple, three weeks, just just an overview. Here's what we see. And here's what we've got going on. It's so hard and I'll tell you we even bring that into our company. We'll bring in people from outside to take a look at what's going on and and just help us reset and recalibrate to where we need to go. And it starts with that you know and really identify, find, because you're in it every day. It's hard to take a step back and do that on your own. And really, you know, here's what we've got going on. Here's where I see opportunities. And again maybe it's an advisory board, maybe it's a consultant, maybe it's maybe it's combination of both, but really take a look
at what we've got going on. I like that I like that a lot. So I know that there are people listening to this actually screaming at their phone right now. The book title so it is atomic habits by James clear. So that's what I was drawing a blank on. And then of course, the compound effect by Darren Hardy. So as far as I love what you said about having someone come in and like see different things that the organization doesn't see it's very difficult to actually edit our own work. I do a ton of writing. And sometimes I write something and I think it's fantastic. And then someone looks over it and says, maybe you want to think about this, this and that. So it's really tough to edit your own work. So with that said, When you come into an organization, let's say that it's a good organization, but it's not outstanding, you know that there's so much more room for growth, so much more room for them to crush their sales goals. So they're good. They're not great. They're not outstanding. What's the first thing that you look for? What's the first thing that you go to to kind of unpack what's happening in this arena? What would that one arena big? Yeah, we
we always start those conversations with the company as a whole. So I have got one coming up tomorrow, and we're talking to the Congress. We're having a conversation with this client for the first time, and they've engaged us to do a bit of an assessment and we're going to start with the key leadership, the CEO, CFO, and we want to understand where they want to go, you know, I want to understand this is our strategic direction built this is our vision. This is where we want to go because it makes no sense for me to come in and say, here's what you can do and they say, well, we don't want that built. We really don't want to go there and we want to go there. So I always want to understand what they're doing, what they what they have. And then level two is what issues do you think you have where do you see problems? What do you think you could do better? And that's often a good place to start, but it often will evolve from there depending on the conversations we have with the next level. Taking a look at the tools they use, the processes you have in place and everything else along the way. We look at about 40 different things in sales and marketing and our RSS was come back with a great red, yellow, green, red is maybe there's some things that we need to do better yellow, you're doing most of the things better, but maybe we can do a little bit better in green and say You're perfect, I'll change it.
So there's something that you said within that that's really important that I want everyone to to really understand and focus on. So I had mentioned to you, you know, what's the first thing that you do? You know, what do you say? What do you say? And your response was you listen, essentially you listen, you bring on? You bring leadership to the table and you're asking them questions. What do you want? What's your why? Behind this? Where do you see room for improvement? What what do you want to focus on? And it's really listening. And what's amazing is we've we've really lost our way when it comes to listening as a society. We've gotten pretty good at reacting not necessarily responding to different things happening, which there's many differences. I really appreciate that. I know it sounds very simplistic, but every single person can grow in that arena when it comes to listening. And I really appreciate that. That was the very first thing that you had mentioned was you bring the leadership to the table and you're listening to what they have to say so thank you.
You know, it's funny that you mentioned that and people will try to hire us and they say, I want you to teach my salespeople the magic words they need to say in order to get a sale, and there are no magic words. If somebody's out there with them. Go hire them. Because I will not teach you any magic words we will we will look at different things but in a lot of what we do is about listening. It is it's about active listening.
A lot of people want the magic where I mean hey if you if you find them please let me know. There's so many personalities so many dynamics, there's there's so many differences. It's no no verbiage is going to work for one person and that's where we really exactly what you're talking about actually listening to their needs and delivering what they need. So I think that's really, really important. So I do want to unpack a few things that I think that just it's been very done very poorly I think in the business world, especially when we're talking about corporate America. So I want to and even medium sized businesses, even even individuals when it comes to them being entrepreneurs or solopreneurs I think all across the board, whether it is massive corporations or entrepreneurs, meaning solopreneurs are doing this wrong. Okay. So let's let's unpack this. So about follow up. I think based on what I've seen, follow up is terrible across the board. I don't know what it is, but follow up is just not there. Companies do not know how to follow up properly. Why is that? What is what is the deal when when you when someone has a hot lead or snore or you're working through different issues like if they want to buy but for whatever reason there's not there's not proper follow up what what do you think that is is that they don't have a process in place back to your your process. Ideas. They don't have some systematic approach for follow up is that the main cause of this
guy you know, that's a great question, and I don't I don't know if there's one reason for it, but yeah, to your point and what I mentioned earlier, I think process is part of that, you know, I'm not sure you know, you get into the motion of the sales conversation and and now what do I do you know, where do I go next? What What how do I go next? And I also think ghosted part of it is listening. And then part of it is just pausing and setting that next getting agreement to the next step. And I lately I've seen a lot of fear in a being rejected or being told no, and it's when you think about it, you know, you'd rather you hear this a lot fail fast and, and get your client to tell you no, I don't like that. I don't like that direction. But it just seems to be an overwhelming fear. They're going outside the bounds of what I'm all about, and it's kind of given you a hodgepodge, but that's kind of what I'm seeing and and then if I don't set the next appointment, or I'm not sure how the follow up is gonna go. i Hey, I'll get back to you next week. Sometime you know a lot of those vague givebacks and which never happened and and then people go away you wonder what happened to that hot
lead? Yeah, that's that's a really good point. I want to get back to the the word you use the no words. I do want to talk about that. But before we do, I want to just talk about the psychology if you will, of this whole process because I think everything you're saying regarding the actual process, systematic approach, you know, people don't want to hear the know and they they're hesitant to reach back out. All I completely agree with you. Part of it and I don't have research to back this up but just based on my experience. I feel like there's a natural high when someone gets a big, resounding YES on a sales call or when they're in a meeting and they literally get that natural high they get an they get a rush. Like they're so excited. Wow. I closed this sale. And then what's interesting is maybe and again, I don't have research to back this up, but I think part of it could be if they have to do research if they have to do a lot of work behind the scenes and get back on board and connect with that person. A week or two or three or whatever the case may be later. It takes away from that natural high it takes away from that rush. And a lot of sales reps they love that they love crushing sales goals meeting their quota exceeding it. They love that they it's literally a natural Hi. So I wonder how much of it is like a psychological element. And that's really important. And I was actually just talking with someone recently about the difference between passion and profit. That I think it really is to a lot of people's detriment when it comes to business and I painted the story of a baker right. I mean, you could be an amazing cake baker. That's your passion. If you go into business and you open up a shop that actually sells cakes, you got to worry about profit. You got to have that you you have to keep the lights on and I feel like a lot of sales reps they get in this in this like this trap between I want that natural high. I want that yes, I want. I want to be the victor when it comes to sales in my organization. I want to feel great, but sometimes there's logic that comes into play where you do have to have systems you do have to have processes you do have to have mechanisms. Where Hey, you're not going to get that yesterday out of the gate. It's going to take three weeks it's going to take three months it could take three years to quote depending on the on the magnitude of the sale, and it takes away from that high so again, I don't know research to back that up but based on what I've seen, there is psychology at play here.
Oh yeah, totally. And there's always a lot we you know, psychology that goes into both sides of the sale and you're spot on you know, salespeople love that Hi, I mean I do I love that, you know getting you know, you know I use a CRM called a Pipedrive and love Pipedrive and they when you click on one deal, a little person comes running across and shoots a goal and does all and fanfare comes up. It's super cool. So I find myself excited to look forward to pushing the button one, you know. Yeah, he brought up a really good point. That sometimes you got to know your shortcomings as a salesperson and being on that side. I know where my shortcomings are, and I know where I'm not good. That's why when we're going to certain clients or we're working with new folks, we typically go together as a team. We come in and we're we might I might bring my analytical operations guy who sometimes drives me nuts but brings all of that with him. And I'm the person that's more of a vision big picture type of guy and, and together me and we do some beautiful work and that's why you know, it's it's sometimes understanding where I'm short here. I'm going to bring this person with me and then B, this is so hard for salespeople, but taking a back seat sometimes and letting that person drive the conversation.
It's a good point. It's a really good point. I appreciate you mentioning it. Let's talk about that. That word, another dirty word, right? No, no, hate. No. So I mentioned you that I have three little kids and I am really doing the best that I can to really create an environment where they will be great leaders one day, and it's been it's been challenging with that no work because there's a lot of psychology if I continue to tell my kids No, no, no, no. What's the relationship that they're going to have with that word? So do everything I possibly can to say no without saying no. And I've been I've worked really hard with them on emotional intelligence and understanding why they're making the decisions that they are because I understand that that could have I hate to use the T word trauma, but there it's going to become part of their story later on in life on their relationship to the word know like what it actually means to them the picture of that word in their mind. And many, many years ago, this has to at least a decade ago, I read this book. I remember the author because I have it written down here but I read this book called go for know and if you've read go for nobody's by Richard Fenton and Andrea waltz they wrote this book about 15 years ago. And again, I read this book over a decade ago. I don't remember every piece of it, but I do remember a story. And basically the whole premise was there's an individual in this book, and it's based on fiction. So he's creating a bunch of stories that really unpack different sales ideas, one of which being the upsell. And he's working in like a men's clothing store almost like a Men's Wearhouse. And he gets someone comes in and they want and I'm sure I'm paraphrasing I'm probably butchering the story again, I read it over a decade ago, but then someone comes in and they want to buy a shirt. So instead of just stomping on a shirt, he sells the tie that goes nicely with that shirt. Oh, well here are shoes that would go really good with this suit that you just bought. So they buy the shirt they buy the tie, they buy the suit, they buy the shoes that and basically he continues to go until that customer says No, I'm done. I'm done by. And we're so frightened of that word. No. And I think often This really hurts our ability to upsell because I've seen time and time again in business, where we just I don't know why but we think if someone buys one of our services or one of our products that naturally they're gonna buy another service that we have and they may not even know that we offer that service and instead of actually selling them so that we already have a great relationship with them. But instead of instead of that frightening word, no, I don't need that service. We don't even we don't even mention it. And so I want to talk about that. Have you have you read that book, but for now, I
got it but like you it's been about 10 years, but don't quiz me for sure.
It wasn't that powerful. It's a powerful story on how is someone continues to see the value that we offer, continue to offer them valuable. It's how you know, but how much are we missing out on by not continuing to have that radical value that you talked about? And offering those things?
Yeah, no, totally, totally true. And, man, I gotta tell you I this is what I miss sometimes myself, you know, you get into Hey, I don't want to ask I don't want to be pushy, especially, you know, in the consulting world, they all are pushing you know, consultants and you know, they're always looking for the next spot. So I think myself I worry about that as well. I had a client just recently that through another one of my folks on the team that we're doing marketing and sales work with them and have for a number of years they they were looking for a recruiter of their own and a couple of salespeople. And they they mentioned uh, one of my team members mentioned hey, we've got a whole recruiting team over here and they the CEO calls me the next day and goes, Bill, I didn't know you guys do recruiting. Why don't you tell me do recruiting I need all these people and then they end up using us for all this stuff. And we successfully place all bunch of people and I call us and I was like, I really gotta get out of my own way when it comes to this. I've got to share Hey, if you need you know this we do this as well but it is it's a it's a block I have to so I'm not perfect. Well, I
appreciate you mentioned about that, that recruiting piece to mention that story. Because how terrible is it? When we have a great relationship with a client? They're already utilizing one of our services and then we find out that they're going to another outfit for something else when they could be coming to us. We didn't tell them we didn't we offer that it's horrible. So I've been there I've been there too many times. So I'm kind of preaching the choir here. So let's talk about numbers game because one of the things about go for know least the philosophy if you will is a numbers game. Okay. And after I read go for No, I actually did this whole game. I had like a gamification of my business to where literally I had numbers written now, where I want it to get a certain amount of knows a month and it was awesome. Like it was really good. I radically increased my sales because now it was a game now I'm on the phone and when I didn't hear no it didn't add to my game. That's what I was going to reward myself at the end the month with how many knows who did increase sales in a big way. But there is kind of a danger with it though the numbers game versus building solid business relationships, because I've learned over the years and a very painful way that often it's really good to have great relationships and continue to add value to those already. You know, pre established clients like you're already doing business with them. So where does it like where's the balancing act between a numbers game versus business relationships?
Wow, that's a that's a great question. And I love the fact that that you bring up how many importance there I mean, you're you're laying a great example of a leading indicator right you were going for the know you wanted that word no and you kept track of that. That's a unique and very cool leading indicator because you know, if you got somebody knows you're going to be driving more business and moving and advancing people through your sales process, which was fantastic. I think that's one of the, you know, sales I always tell people as part of art and part science and your goal is to learn a little bit of both. I'm not the first person to say that. But I think that goes into the art of sales and understanding. And I think probably the biggest skill you can learn is that social emotional piece about reading and understanding what your audience is telling you by verbal and nonverbal cues. And that's one of the things that you can learn some of that in a book, some of it in videos, but it takes practice and it's the art piece of your sales and I think you have to recognize you got different types of people on the other end, they learn in different manners. They react in different manners and you're looking to react and adjust your approach depending on who you're talking to.
I love that I love I love that you said that. You know you can read all these sales books, but you need the reps like we need to be actively involved in this process. And it really goes back to what you said before on prospects saying to you give us the words give us the verbiage, right like you're in the process of moving them from prospects to clients and all day one is like give us the scripts give us the words and it's like if you haven't done this and you haven't learned how to connect with certain personalities and understand people's why you know, the deeper elements of their why and what they want to do and how they want to do it. You're not going to be able to deliver the value that you talked about. It's gonna be it's gonna be extremely difficult. And there's so many people that they'll read book after book after book after book. They're not applying what they're reading they're not actually doing and it goes almost back to the to the name of your firm. That's what I love it so much about experience versus theory. I mean, there are tons of people they've read so much they've read more sales books than you, right, Phil but they can't sell. They can't teach sales. That's a problem. Yeah,
yeah, it's spot on. And it is it's a you gotta get out there and learn it. And I you know, you and I chatted about this before it's, you have to be willing to learn and learn from those experiences and go out there and do it and spin especially in the pandemic. There's just been a fear of going out to do that. And now that things are getting back to face to face communication and the ability to move things along or just have basic conversations just seems to be lacking. So
that's a really good point. I want to I want to kind of dive into that a little bit because society culture is changing so quick, many, many good ways, some potentially dangerous ways in the future. Especially as a father with young children. I'm just blown away with the addiction of some of these like Instagram reels and now with tic tock and I was having a conversation with someone the other day about this where it's scroll, scroll, scroll five second video five second video. And so what are we programming our minds from a communication perspective? Like we're losing our ability to truly connect with people and I'm seeing this and I see this across the board. It doesn't matter if it's baby boomer Gen X or millennial Gen Z. I feel like all of us are having difficulty now connecting, not just communicating but truly connecting. And I want to talk about that. So from a communication perspective, you brought up actually a few times has been a reoccurring theme in this conversation. But the importance with meeting with clients actually taking time to talk. Imagine that actually a lot of two people. So let's talk about that. Like what what are you seeing from yes, there's different mediums coming out and now we're able to communicate in more ways than we ever thought possible. Is that verbal communication, whether it's in person or virtual, is that an app like is that absolutely mission critical verse like a text or a just just written word? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah,
I think it's the key differentiator in sales and business and in the world in general. Right now. I saw a she was probably 2324 years old woman and sales, newer to sales, but a fantastic communicator. And I watched her in action just recently she did a fantastic job and connected immediately and I my thought was, you know that somebody is going to be running a large company soon, because she was just so good at it. And, and, but you could see she was always practicing, always looking for feedback. How do I get better, trying to improve and was just very, very skilled communicator. I think it's a key differentiator in the world today. I watch people that come to me that we being we're a fast growing firm and we're hiring a lot of people. I see people from very cool schools, come to me with these big degrees and expect that I'm going to higher the degree and lack the ability to have a conversation with me even in an informal environment. And I just can't I and I think it's it is a problem, but it's also an opportunity for those that do well like because it's just, I see more of a need for those folks, and not less because there's so few people that do it well now.
Yeah, there's absolutely more of a need for sure. I really appreciate you mentioned that communication is so important. I know it sounds cliche and simplistic but we can spend our lives learning how to become better communicators. We really can and I know people that are at the top of their field when it comes to communication. For the last 20 plus years and they're still learning they're still unpacking better way to connect with people for sure. So Bill, thank you so much for your time. I very much appreciate it. I do want to wrap up with the three things that I learned. And I really, it got me really thinking with within this conversation I know a lot of people listening to this probably got other elements but the three that I took away my big three takeaways was radical value. I really appreciated not just saying let's offer value to our clients, but radical value that you know you you so strongly have their best interests at heart that you're willing to connect them with a competitor if you know that your competitor will do a better job that is radical value. That's the first point. The second point is radical listening. Not just reacting to what's being said but actually responding bringing people to the table and actually listening not that the first thing you're going to do is speak at them, but you're actually going to listen to them. I really appreciate that second point. And the third big takeaway for me, was I really appreciate you mentioning sales was part art and part science and we need to learn both. We need to learn both. So those are my three big takeaways. From this conversation. I'm sure a lot of listeners got other things. But those are my three big takeaways. So thank you, thank you, thank you. If people want to learn more about what you do, they're interested in your the services that you offer. Where's the best place that they can go to connect with you?
You hit us up on our website, you can check us out see what we're all about and connect through to our other social media platforms and everything else and that's think empirical.com Perfect.
So to make it extremely convenient for everyone. I will put that in the show notes. You could just click and you can go check out below check out his company connect with him. Follows content on LinkedIn. That's how we met. Bill, thank you so much for your time. I very much appreciate
it. Thanks, man. Appreciate being here.