July 3, 2025 • 22 mins
You think you're being helpful. Your clients think you're being annoying.
Early in his career, Justin Goldstein learned this lesson the hard way. He admits, "I thought that picking up the phone and calling a client to talk about almost everything was the right way to go. I personally hate communicating over email. I'd rather just talk to you and figure it out."
The reality hit hard: clients viewed his frequent outreach as a burden rather than a benefit. Weekly update calls meant to show dedication became time-wasters in clients' minds. Daily email updates intended to demonstrate thoroughness turned into inbox clutter.
This scenario plays out in sales organizations everywhere. Well-meaning professionals mistake quantity for quality, frequency for value, and availability for service excellence.
Why Your Communication Style is Pushing Prospects Away
The key to avoiding this trap isn't about reading minds; it's about understanding communication preferences. As Justin puts it, "You really have to understand what makes your clients tick, and you have to understand the nuances of how they work."
This means recognizing that being understanding matters more than simply being helpful. Your client might prefer monthly check-ins over weekly ones, or end-of-week summaries instead of daily updates. They might prefer text over calls, or structured emails over casual conversations.
The biggest mistake most sales professionals make is assuming their communication style is universal. It isn't. Effective communication emphasizes understanding and adapting to individual client needs.
Reading the Room (and the Inbox)
Here are the warning signs your communication style might be pushing prospects away:
Response Time Changes: If a prospect who used to respond quickly starts taking longer or giving shorter replies, you might be overwhelming them.
Meeting Resistance: Clients rescheduling frequently or suggesting less frequent meetings signal communication fatigue.
Email Behavior: Prospects responding to every third email instead of each one indicates your messages lack sufficient value or arrive too frequently.
Energy Shifts: Noticeably decreased enthusiasm in client responses means it's time to reassess your approach immediately.
The Professional Sales Communication Framework
Instead of guessing what works, use this framework to optimize your communication:
Ask Direct Questions Early
During your initial meetings, ask prospects about their preferred communication style:
"What's the best way to keep you updated on progress?"
"How often would you like to connect during this process?"
"Do you prefer calls, emails, or something else for routine updates?"
Start Conservative, Then Adjust
It's easier to increase communication frequency than to dial it back after you've been labeled "high maintenance." Begin with less frequent touchpoints and let the client guide you toward more contact if they want it.
Make Every Interaction Count
When you reach out, ensure it delivers value. Random check-ins and meaningless updates train clients to ignore your communications. Each email, call, or message should serve a clear purpose and advance the relationship or project.
Focus on quality over quantity. One valuable update weekly beats five pointless check-ins that add no value to the client relationship.
Establish Communication Boundaries
Be explicit about when you'll reach out proactively versus when they should contact you. For example: "I'll send you a brief update every Friday afternoon, but please reach out immediately if any urgent questions come up."
Clear boundaries create mutual respect and prevent communication chaos that frustrates both parties.
The Business Impact of Getting It Right
Getting client communication right builds trust. When clients see that you respect their time and communication preferences, they're more likely to:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi. I'm
Jeb Blunt, best selling author of fanatical prospecting
objections, sales EQ, and inked, and I'm here
to help you open more doors, close bigger
deals, and rock your commission check.
Welcome to the Sales Gravy Podcast. I'm Jeb
Blunt Junior filling in for Jeb Blunt Senior.
And, today, we have an amazing guest. I
I'm really excited for this conversation, something a
(00:23):
little bit different than we've done, through our
entire series, and he's got insights that I
I just I can't wait for you for
you to hear. But before we get going,
go check out SalesGlobe University. SalesGlobe University is
the most powerful sales training platform on the
market for sales professionals and sales teams anywhere.
It's, the place where you have access to
live training every week of every month of
(00:44):
every year on topics that range from prospecting
all the way through closing and negotiating and
even master classes,
around management and sales management and sales leadership.
You you have access to a thousand plus
hours of on demand sales training from 45
plus of the world's leading experts in sales.
It's the only place where you're gonna find
this content. So go to Sales Gravy University,
(01:05):
that's learn.salesgravy.com,
learn.salesgravy.com.
And if you wanna take a free class,
use the code podcast at checkout. That's code
podcast at checkout. Learn.salesgravy.com.
And we've got Justin, Justin Goldstein with us
today, and he is,
the founder and lead strategist at PR seventy
three out of New York City,
and has, some amazing insights.
(01:26):
Justin, thank you so much for joining us
on the Sales Review podcast.
Give us a little bit of your background,
and then, I have some some questions that
I I need you to answer today. Thanks
so much for having me, Jeb. And, yeah,
I've been, in public relations and marketing and
communications
for,
close to fifteen years now, which is pretty
insane to say.
But started off at, you know, sort of
(01:47):
a smaller venture,
went to work for a large, PR firm,
and then started PR seventy three, which is
formerly Pressacore Communications,
where we focus on driving public relations and
biz dev and marketing solutions for organizations large
and small.
And and you work with,
founders, leaders,
you know, business owners, business strategists,
(02:08):
who are,
you know, trying to promote their brand, trying
to promote their credibility, trying to,
really develop,
their, you know, their system for,
for winning that is not just, you know,
direct sales or, you know, traditional digital marketing
routes,
and through PR. But and PR has been
around forever,
for as long, you know, for as long
as there's been a human who needs public
(02:29):
relations.
But it the art has changed so much.
And
when you work with customers,
or people who are prospects who wanna work
with you, you have an interesting insight into,
like, systems versus just, you know, buying a
placement.
And I want you to expand on the
theory why you ask your customers, as a
very specific question when they come to work
(02:49):
with you because I I think that it
it would provide a lot of insight for
sales professionals
in all industries and pretty much everywhere you
go. Yeah. 100%. You know, I tell all
of our clients and prospective clients that
if you don't have a system in place
to leverage
the work of any public relations or marketing
campaign, you're gonna feel as though they likely
are gonna feel as though the campaign is
(03:10):
falling flat. And, you know, that's because especially
on the PR side, when you're talking about
something like media relations where we focus a
lot here on earned media relations, which means
that we're we're not going to magazines, for
example, and paying and, you know, guaranteeing placement
for our clients. We're going to reporters to
persuade them and talk to our clients on
different topics.
And so
what often happens is that when clients try
(03:31):
to factor in PR, let's say, or their
business development efforts, what they expect is that
if they get into the Wall Street Journal,
The New York Times, let's say, that their
phone's gonna be ringing off the hook the
next day or the same day, and, you
know, 20 people are gonna be calling them
for their services. And in reality,
it often doesn't work that way. It's more
so what I call thinking past the placement
and being able to
(03:53):
leverage the work that we're doing proactively on
your own channels to generate interest, which I'm
sure we'll we'll get into in a little
bit.
Yeah. And you've you actually you had another
conversation with
a a customer of yours that I I
thought was,
insightful into this very specific challenge. Right? So,
you use
your placements
proactively
(04:14):
late after it's been on air, after it's
been the Wall Street,
Wall Street Journal, after it's been on, you
know, whatever platform it's been on, and you
use it for prospecting efforts.
And and that's a a really, maybe not
novel idea, but it was novel to me,
and I'd love to explore that a little
bit more. So can you provide some insights
into how you do it or how you
help your customers do this, and what channels
(04:34):
you use to to bring in more more
customers to to your business?
Absolutely.
You know, I think
often what happens with any sales professional, whether
they're in sales or sales is a big
part of their business is that
there's two main challenges to getting to the
point of conversion, which, of course, are top
and middle of funnel. Right? So getting people,
of course, into your funnel and then continuing
(04:55):
the conversation.
So where something like media placements where public
relations comes into play with that from a
top of funnel perspective is that it helps
to build that brand equity and brand visibility
and trust with the prospect to be able
to come have them come to you and
potentially hire you for your services.
Where it's also really valuable is when you
get to the middle of funnel and you
(05:16):
feel like those conversations are stalling out, maybe
the conversation is going longer than you would
have liked, and you're kind of running out
of things to say or ammo to be
able to use to get them to come
back and finish it off and convert. And
that's where the PR work, especially media, comes
into play because you can say, you know,
hey. So and so. Hope your week's going
well. You know, I thought you'd be interested
in reading up this on this Wall Street
Journal article that I got, coverage in or
(05:37):
have my comment placed in, where I share
my insights on x y z and thought
it'd be a good read for you. Would
love to connect and talk about next steps.
Right? So it's providing value in that way
while you're also building credibility with the prospect
and then seeing it through. So that's just
one way, but I I think, you know,
again, it's really having that mindset of thinking
past the placement and putting it to work
on your own that you're gonna start to
(05:58):
really see,
some value.
And so thinking past the placement,
what is your
what is your philosophy about how far past,
you know, what do you what are your
channels? Do you have different ideas for for
for different ways that you go to market
when it when it comes to you have
a a Wall Street Journal ad versus a
journalist who comes and does a a video,
(06:19):
with a business. Kinda walk us through your
different theories on on on where to go
from there. Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be,
at times, the shelf life on the different
placements that you secure, but what I found
is that you can always find a way
to call back to the work that you've
done. So even if you're talking about something
that's a year old, two years old, whatever
it might be, there could be a way
to weave it into the messaging that you're
(06:40):
putting together for an outbound sales campaign or
a warm lead that you're just trying to
continue
to have that conversation with. And so,
you know, I think that's why having those
systems in place are really important because you
also don't wanna lose track
of that works that you remember to call
upon it at a certain point in time.
You know, I think also and we might
get into this a little later in the
(07:01):
conversation. It's looking at the different channels that
you have at your disposal
to make that content evergreen, whether it's a
newsletter, social media campaign,
you know, using it for securing speaking opportunities
even, whatever it might be.
There's different ways in which you can continue
to even use the logo of a media
outlet that you've secured interest with to be
able to get new opportunities. So I think
(07:22):
it's just evaluating what's in the mix and
your content mix and then putting it forward
from there. And you work with, a lot
of different
industries,
a a lot of different,
styles of business. And I I what I
what I maybe wanna learn from you and
and for the leaders, for the marketing strategists
who are listening to the podcast,
who maybe look at, you know, placement and
(07:44):
especially for, like, Wall Street Journal or or
for these, you know, different avenues that are
more traditional,
and and and maybe their field, but not
so much in their execution.
They might say, well, what is what's the
worth, of that versus, you know, the the
digital marketing campaigns or or other organic channels?
Walk me through how you help your customers
understand
what the value is of, you know, professional
(08:07):
PR
work that that drives their business? There's a
couple of ways that I do it. One
of which is to be transparent and upfront
to say, hey. You could do this on
your own, technically. Right? Like, you could go
and get
a media contact database,
whip up an email that you blast out
to a thousand reporters and cross your fingers
that you're gonna get something. And that, you
(08:27):
know, when you do get something, you're gonna
actually handle that opportunity the right way. Because
when you're talking to reporters, there's a lot
of missteps that you can make that can
damage your business. So I'm always kind of
like, you can try it yourself if that's
an option for you and that's what you're
thinking, but there's a really big downside to
going that route. So that's number one.
Number two is having the same kind of
(08:48):
conversation that we're having today, which is
if business development is a big part of
what they're doing is having that conversation to
be like, we're gonna be there to hold
your hand as much as you need us
to to build that business development
machine for you to leverage the work that
we're doing. Because I think
what we find with prospects often is that
they have touched PR in some way, shape,
or form before, and they haven't really seen
(09:10):
that come to fruition.
So it goes back to the original issue
that I flagged earlier, which is that they
often get the placement and nothing happens to
their business. And it's like, no. We need
to figure out what your content mix mix
looks like right now and help you to
push you forward to leverage it to the
best of your ability and put our work
into that and incorporate what we're doing into
what you're doing for biz dev on a
(09:32):
daily basis. So I think as long as
we show them the the path forward for
that and, you know, really connect the dots
in terms of how our our work is
gonna support, not guarantee, but support the bottom
line, that usually you're able to convert as
long as they feel like you're the the
right fit overall. And with what you do
requires an immense amount of emotional control, emotional
(09:54):
intelligence,
and one of your superpowers is building trust.
That's one of the things that, you know,
you are,
and you know this better than I do
because it's you. You're the one who is
helping businesses understand a kinda not not necessarily
rocket science, but a complex strategy,
that affects every part of their business, whether
that's, you know, marketing, whether that's sales, whether
(10:14):
that's operations,
credibility,
notoriety.
How do
you how do you go about really developing
a relationship with your customers that sales professionals
need to understand first and foremost? I think
you really have to
understand, to your point, emotional intelligence, what makes
your clients tick, especially if you're in the
(10:36):
service profession,
where you have to understand the nuances of
how they work. Because
sometimes it's not about being helpful. It's about
being understanding and knowing that being overly helpful
actually works against you. You know? So for
example, you might think that having weekly update
call with your clients is showing that, hey.
I'm committed. I wanna be here to help,
(10:56):
and I wanna sipping in tune and sync
as much as we possibly can. But they
might look at that as a burden and
be like, I don't wanna talk to you
every week. Maybe every other week, maybe once
a month, but I don't have time to
do every week. Right? Or
maybe it's, hey. Like, I'm I'm getting a
billion emails a day. So, like, you don't
have to write me every day with an
update. Just give me give me an end
of week update on where we stand. Obviously,
(11:17):
you know, communicate with me if we've got
a media opportunity in progress, for example, or
there's an update on a speaker submission, let's
say. But
beyond that, I don't wanna have another email
in my inbox that isn't necessary. Whereas you
might think over communication
would be really helpful. So I I think
it's, again, understanding the nuances of how the
client works that helps you to keep that
(11:37):
relationship long term. Because at the end of
the day, if you're being productive and you're
not being seen as an annoyance, that goes
a long way towards them keeping you.
I I I think that's a really fundamental
tip that's hard for a lot of sales
professional sales teams and leaders to understand because
we wanna serve. Right? I mean, and a
lot of people in what we do are
are here to serve other businesses and help
(11:58):
their customers win. Like, that's ultimately the goal.
But we get overeager. And and eagerness is,
something that, you know I'm I'm a young
sales professional. I always deal with this where
I wanna jump on everything, and I I
think it looks a little annoying. Like, oh,
we have to meet every single week. That's
a crazy amount of time. I'm I'm an
executive. I don't have an hour or a
week to give to to Jeb Blunt Junior
(12:19):
because of the sales training that we're doing.
You you must you must have learned this.
Do you have a story behind learning, you
know, the fine line between,
like, annoyance and overburdening with communication
to building a trust level that says, hey.
I'm doing the work. You don't need to
check on me because I'm gonna tell you
when it's done, and they believe you. I
don't have a particular story, but what I
(12:40):
can say is that earlier in my career,
I thought that picking up the phone and
calling a client
to talk about almost everything was the right
way to go because I would and I'm
still kinda that way where I I I
personally hate communicating over email. I'd rather just
talk to you and figure it out. But,
you know, this was earlier in my career.
And what I realized and it's so hard
(13:01):
for me to do today because I am
more of a phone person and, like, I
just wanna solve the issue and get it
over with and off my plate. So it's
more of a me problem. But,
what I what I found out very early
on in my career was, like, that's not
actually the way you're supposed to do it
because as much as you think you're being
helpful, it's just them having to get on
the phone. And that was several years ago.
Now we're in 2024 where everything is text,
(13:22):
everything is email, and calls of any kind
are seen as an annoyance. So I've I've
learned that fairly quickly, and ever since then,
I've really tried to,
dial the the the calls back
and make it so that it's as painless
of a process as possible. But I absolutely
will pick up the phone if I feel
like it's something that needs to be talked
about in real time.
(13:43):
And another minor but important thing that I
learned early on was I I would sometimes
send emails and the subject line would be
all caps because I was like, oh, I
wanna make sure they see this and know
it's important.
I learned very quickly not everything is important,
and putting an email subject line in caps
can actually be off putting. So,
yeah, those were those were two key learnings
(14:05):
that I've definitely taken with me more recently.
I I I I love it. I mean,
I I'm I'm learning that as well. It's
it's something that I that I, I work
on. And so as a sales professional or
leader, you know, helping your team, understanding,
you know, there is a professional
way to go about communication that doesn't,
it doesn't impose on the customer themselves. And
and this is a a follow-up question for
(14:27):
you is you work in an industry where
your customers are so important to the work
that you're actually doing in the business. Like,
you you have to pick the right customers
to work with, which means that you're qualifying
your potential customers,
heavily, I imagine, before they even get into
a real sales conversation because you have to
make sure it's worth it for you and
your team, to to to jump into the
(14:48):
rabbit hole of of their business. So walk
me through
how you go about qualifying,
and and how you've learned to qualify your
prospects so that you're spending time with people
who, are gonna impact your business in a
positive way. Yeah. I think you kinda hit
the nail on the head there with the
last part about making sure they impact us
positively because I think
our process here
(15:09):
is that unless a client,
their budget is incredibly low, like, obscenely low,
and they just don't know any better to
even say a number,
We're willing to take them on if we
feel like it's gonna benefit us in the
long term. And that might mean growing the
budget over time. That might mean using them
as a case study
or
in an industry that we don't already have
a case study in or having them refer
(15:31):
us to bigger clients that can afford our
normal rates.
We we assess things like that because I
think our rule of thumb is we don't
wanna turn any business away unless we absolutely
have to because you never know where that
business is gonna lead. It's not to say
we we take on everybody off the street,
but I think we're definitely a little bit
more flexible than, you know, the billion dollar
(15:52):
PR firm that's out there that wouldn't take
someone on that's a bit smaller. So I
I think we're a little bit more flexible
in that way, but we just wanna make
sure that from a long term perspective, we
get some kind of value out of it.
And and since you're in a in a
service,
a business service,
when you think about the the process, the
process of of the sale, of getting them
from the top of the funnel to, you
(16:13):
know, their client working with you and you're
gonna go start meeting with them and and
and delivering on your services.
What is an appropriate,
you know, rule of thumb
for
running that process? Is, you know, is it,
is it five meetings? Is it seven meetings?
You how do you go about thinking,
as a as a business leader what the
timetable should look like before you say, you
(16:34):
know what? This is something I gotta take
out of the pipeline. This isn't real.
Yeah. It's a really good question that we're
actually wrestling with right now.
You know, I I think that I probably
let things go a little too long because
I just you you never know. Right? I
I don't think there's ever a situation where
we totally take a prospect out of the
running. It's more so just where we wanna
(16:55):
spend our time
on that prospect. And
you're kind of onto something where it's like
one component of it is, well,
how much time has gone by and they
haven't responded or they haven't carried this over
the finish line.
That also depends on timing. Right? Because we
have a couple of prospects right now that
would be larger accounts for us where we
just wanna get it signed.
(17:16):
Problem is we're heading into the end of
the year. It's hard to get people to
commit. And so that's an example of where
it's like, we don't wanna drop them because
it's probably just
they are dealing with end of year
stuff that makes it harder for them to
just get a deal closed. But, yeah, I
I think it's also taking a look at
how the interactions are going. So if we
feel that there's a natural back and forth
(17:36):
and they're investing time the way that we
would like into making the deal happen, then
we definitely wanna continue to try to see
it forward with the understanding
that perhaps in the first few meetings we
put, you know, we were putting all of
our effort into it, and now maybe we
dial back and follow-up every other week. Right?
So, and, you know, I think your clients
naturally or prospects naturally leads you that way
(17:57):
as well where, you know, things seem really
good, but then they taper off a little
bit naturally. They're not getting the answers that
they want in time, and then you kind
of mutually understand that maybe we need to
follow-up in three weeks instead of a week.
Right?
So, yeah, I think it's I think it's
looking at the amount of time that's elapsed,
how valuable it would be to get the
client.
And also just, you know, from a productivity
(18:18):
perspective, whether
you're being annoying by following up too much
because you know that they're not gonna have
an answer, but you're trying to push anyway.
So there's definitely a bunch of different factors
there. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, in that process
and as you're you're working things through the
pipeline, you're how do you and your team
handle objections? Because I imagine you get
really hard ones,
(18:39):
and and a lot and a lot of
them a lot of the time.
So most of our objections more recently haven't
been hard no's. They've been later on,
I would say, which is pretty common for
us. We've never really been in a situation
where
we've gotten a pass because of clients gone
to another
firm. I mean, it's definitely happened over the
(19:00):
course of almost six years for sure. But
I would say it's more not right now.
You know, we thought we would have the
budget, but we're gonna get it in a
few months, follow-up then, or,
you know, just just something that is out
of our control that kicks the can down
the road.
So I would say that's probably more of
where we see objections. And when we're in
that case, we try to be sympathetic to
(19:20):
the situation.
But I also try to instill some kind
of urgency to say, you know, hey. Look.
We understand we didn't have, let's say, the
max budget of what we wanted. Could we
take a portion of that to do something
now
that builds up to next year, let's say?
Mhmm.
We'll see if that works this year. But
but, it's it's helped in the past. So
I think it's just trying to assess,
(19:41):
you know, just kind of where we stand
with the prospect and if it's realistic to
ask for something minimal and then working up
to something bigger, I'd say. Absolutely. And and
that's a strategy that, you know, I've I've
used in the past, and and it's helped
win deals. It's helped, you know, win parts
of deals, which is, you know, winning some
is better than winning nothing at all. And
Right. And maybe it doesn't turn into something
else, but you've served a customer well with
the budget they have. You say, you know,
(20:03):
hey. What's the easiest route into
helping you today? Your budget isn't where you
wanted it to be. Your timing isn't where
you wanted it to be. We offer x,
y, and z, and here's my recommendation. Is
this something that we can get, you know,
through this year so at least you've got
something that's helping push your business forward and
and creating some urgency on that as well?
Justin, a question for you. Is there anything
(20:25):
I shouldn't I should have asked you that
I that I didn't, about what you do
for,
for the market and, and at p r
seventy three. No. I think you covered it
very nicely. I would just, say if, you
know, the listeners wanna learn more, they can
visit us at pr73.com.
They could also email me directly at justin@pr73.com
or email the firm at info@pr73.com.
(20:47):
And you can find me on LinkedIn as
well. And who who should reach out to
you just to make it make it even
better? Who who if they're listening in this
audience, who should be reaching out to you?
Yeah. So, you know, we work with
different types of ICPs from public relations directors
to marketing directors to CMOs, chief communication officers.
So from an ICP perspective or or if
you happen to be a marketing or PR
(21:08):
agency that we can collaborate with, we work
with them as well.
But I would say our core verticals range
anywhere from b to b, b to c,
public affairs,
real estate, areas like that. But we're more
general. So I would say if you have
an interest in PR, especially, you know, integrating
it into your business development efforts, reach out,
and we normally can find a way to
to make something work. Awesome. Well, thank you
(21:29):
so much for joining us on the Sales
Gravy Podcast. Go follow Justin Goldstein. It's p
r seventy three. So if you find him
on LinkedIn, he's there. Their website is pr73.com.
They've got some amazing work. They they they
do awesome stuff. So definitely go give them
a follow and Justin a follow as well
because he posts great videos. So if you're
looking for sales tips, it it's not exactly
sales, but it's sales.
(21:50):
And I I love watching his stuff on
on LinkedIn. So go follow them. Thank you
for joining us on the SalesRemie Podcast, and
we'll see you next time.
This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. Hi. I'm
Jeb Blunt, best selling author of fanatical prospecting
objections, sales EQ, and inked, and I'm here
to help you open more doors, close bigger
deals, and rock your commission check.
Welcome to the Sales Gravy Podcast. I'm Jeb
Blunt Junior filling in for Jeb Blunt Senior.
And, today, we have an amazing guest. I
I'm really excited for this conversation, something a
(00:23):
little bit different than we've done, through our
entire series, and he's got insights that I
I just I can't wait for you for
you to hear. But before we get going,
go check out SalesGlobe University. SalesGlobe University is
the most powerful sales training platform on the
market for sales professionals and sales teams anywhere.
It's, the place where you have access to
live training every week of every month of
(00:44):
every year on topics that range from prospecting
all the way through closing and negotiating and
even master classes,
around management and sales management and sales leadership.
You you have access to a thousand plus
hours of on demand sales training from 45
plus of the world's leading experts in sales.
It's the only place where you're gonna find
this content. So go to Sales Gravy University,
(01:05):
that's learn.salesgravy.com,
learn.salesgravy.com.
And if you wanna take a free class,
use the code podcast at checkout. That's code
podcast at checkout. Learn.salesgravy.com.
And we've got Justin, Justin Goldstein with us
today, and he is,
the founder and lead strategist at PR seventy
three out of New York City,
and has, some amazing insights.
(01:26):
Justin, thank you so much for joining us
on the Sales Review podcast.
Give us a little bit of your background,
and then, I have some some questions that
I I need you to answer today. Thanks
so much for having me, Jeb. And, yeah,
I've been, in public relations and marketing and
communications
for,
close to fifteen years now, which is pretty
insane to say.
But started off at, you know, sort of
(01:47):
a smaller venture,
went to work for a large, PR firm,
and then started PR seventy three, which is
formerly Pressacore Communications,
where we focus on driving public relations and
biz dev and marketing solutions for organizations large
and small.
And and you work with,
founders, leaders,
you know, business owners, business strategists,
(02:08):
who are,
you know, trying to promote their brand, trying
to promote their credibility, trying to,
really develop,
their, you know, their system for,
for winning that is not just, you know,
direct sales or, you know, traditional digital marketing
routes,
and through PR. But and PR has been
around forever,
for as long, you know, for as long
as there's been a human who needs public
(02:29):
relations.
But it the art has changed so much.
And
when you work with customers,
or people who are prospects who wanna work
with you, you have an interesting insight into,
like, systems versus just, you know, buying a
placement.
And I want you to expand on the
theory why you ask your customers, as a
very specific question when they come to work
(02:49):
with you because I I think that it
it would provide a lot of insight for
sales professionals
in all industries and pretty much everywhere you
go. Yeah. 100%. You know, I tell all
of our clients and prospective clients that
if you don't have a system in place
to leverage
the work of any public relations or marketing
campaign, you're gonna feel as though they likely
are gonna feel as though the campaign is
(03:10):
falling flat. And, you know, that's because especially
on the PR side, when you're talking about
something like media relations where we focus a
lot here on earned media relations, which means
that we're we're not going to magazines, for
example, and paying and, you know, guaranteeing placement
for our clients. We're going to reporters to
persuade them and talk to our clients on
different topics.
And so
what often happens is that when clients try
(03:31):
to factor in PR, let's say, or their
business development efforts, what they expect is that
if they get into the Wall Street Journal,
The New York Times, let's say, that their
phone's gonna be ringing off the hook the
next day or the same day, and, you
know, 20 people are gonna be calling them
for their services. And in reality,
it often doesn't work that way. It's more
so what I call thinking past the placement
and being able to
(03:53):
leverage the work that we're doing proactively on
your own channels to generate interest, which I'm
sure we'll we'll get into in a little
bit.
Yeah. And you've you actually you had another
conversation with
a a customer of yours that I I
thought was,
insightful into this very specific challenge. Right? So,
you use
your placements
proactively
(04:14):
late after it's been on air, after it's
been the Wall Street,
Wall Street Journal, after it's been on, you
know, whatever platform it's been on, and you
use it for prospecting efforts.
And and that's a a really, maybe not
novel idea, but it was novel to me,
and I'd love to explore that a little
bit more. So can you provide some insights
into how you do it or how you
help your customers do this, and what channels
(04:34):
you use to to bring in more more
customers to to your business?
Absolutely.
You know, I think
often what happens with any sales professional, whether
they're in sales or sales is a big
part of their business is that
there's two main challenges to getting to the
point of conversion, which, of course, are top
and middle of funnel. Right? So getting people,
of course, into your funnel and then continuing
(04:55):
the conversation.
So where something like media placements where public
relations comes into play with that from a
top of funnel perspective is that it helps
to build that brand equity and brand visibility
and trust with the prospect to be able
to come have them come to you and
potentially hire you for your services.
Where it's also really valuable is when you
get to the middle of funnel and you
(05:16):
feel like those conversations are stalling out, maybe
the conversation is going longer than you would
have liked, and you're kind of running out
of things to say or ammo to be
able to use to get them to come
back and finish it off and convert. And
that's where the PR work, especially media, comes
into play because you can say, you know,
hey. So and so. Hope your week's going
well. You know, I thought you'd be interested
in reading up this on this Wall Street
Journal article that I got, coverage in or
(05:37):
have my comment placed in, where I share
my insights on x y z and thought
it'd be a good read for you. Would
love to connect and talk about next steps.
Right? So it's providing value in that way
while you're also building credibility with the prospect
and then seeing it through. So that's just
one way, but I I think, you know,
again, it's really having that mindset of thinking
past the placement and putting it to work
on your own that you're gonna start to
(05:58):
really see,
some value.
And so thinking past the placement,
what is your
what is your philosophy about how far past,
you know, what do you what are your
channels? Do you have different ideas for for
for different ways that you go to market
when it when it comes to you have
a a Wall Street Journal ad versus a
journalist who comes and does a a video,
(06:19):
with a business. Kinda walk us through your
different theories on on on where to go
from there. Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be,
at times, the shelf life on the different
placements that you secure, but what I found
is that you can always find a way
to call back to the work that you've
done. So even if you're talking about something
that's a year old, two years old, whatever
it might be, there could be a way
to weave it into the messaging that you're
(06:40):
putting together for an outbound sales campaign or
a warm lead that you're just trying to
continue
to have that conversation with. And so,
you know, I think that's why having those
systems in place are really important because you
also don't wanna lose track
of that works that you remember to call
upon it at a certain point in time.
You know, I think also and we might
get into this a little later in the
(07:01):
conversation. It's looking at the different channels that
you have at your disposal
to make that content evergreen, whether it's a
newsletter, social media campaign,
you know, using it for securing speaking opportunities
even, whatever it might be.
There's different ways in which you can continue
to even use the logo of a media
outlet that you've secured interest with to be
able to get new opportunities. So I think
(07:22):
it's just evaluating what's in the mix and
your content mix and then putting it forward
from there. And you work with, a lot
of different
industries,
a a lot of different,
styles of business. And I I what I
what I maybe wanna learn from you and
and for the leaders, for the marketing strategists
who are listening to the podcast,
who maybe look at, you know, placement and
(07:44):
especially for, like, Wall Street Journal or or
for these, you know, different avenues that are
more traditional,
and and and maybe their field, but not
so much in their execution.
They might say, well, what is what's the
worth, of that versus, you know, the the
digital marketing campaigns or or other organic channels?
Walk me through how you help your customers
understand
what the value is of, you know, professional
(08:07):
PR
work that that drives their business? There's a
couple of ways that I do it. One
of which is to be transparent and upfront
to say, hey. You could do this on
your own, technically. Right? Like, you could go
and get
a media contact database,
whip up an email that you blast out
to a thousand reporters and cross your fingers
that you're gonna get something. And that, you
(08:27):
know, when you do get something, you're gonna
actually handle that opportunity the right way. Because
when you're talking to reporters, there's a lot
of missteps that you can make that can
damage your business. So I'm always kind of
like, you can try it yourself if that's
an option for you and that's what you're
thinking, but there's a really big downside to
going that route. So that's number one.
Number two is having the same kind of
(08:48):
conversation that we're having today, which is
if business development is a big part of
what they're doing is having that conversation to
be like, we're gonna be there to hold
your hand as much as you need us
to to build that business development
machine for you to leverage the work that
we're doing. Because I think
what we find with prospects often is that
they have touched PR in some way, shape,
or form before, and they haven't really seen
(09:10):
that come to fruition.
So it goes back to the original issue
that I flagged earlier, which is that they
often get the placement and nothing happens to
their business. And it's like, no. We need
to figure out what your content mix mix
looks like right now and help you to
push you forward to leverage it to the
best of your ability and put our work
into that and incorporate what we're doing into
what you're doing for biz dev on a
(09:32):
daily basis. So I think as long as
we show them the the path forward for
that and, you know, really connect the dots
in terms of how our our work is
gonna support, not guarantee, but support the bottom
line, that usually you're able to convert as
long as they feel like you're the the
right fit overall. And with what you do
requires an immense amount of emotional control, emotional
(09:54):
intelligence,
and one of your superpowers is building trust.
That's one of the things that, you know,
you are,
and you know this better than I do
because it's you. You're the one who is
helping businesses understand a kinda not not necessarily
rocket science, but a complex strategy,
that affects every part of their business, whether
that's, you know, marketing, whether that's sales, whether
(10:14):
that's operations,
credibility,
notoriety.
How do
you how do you go about really developing
a relationship with your customers that sales professionals
need to understand first and foremost? I think
you really have to
understand, to your point, emotional intelligence, what makes
your clients tick, especially if you're in the
(10:36):
service profession,
where you have to understand the nuances of
how they work. Because
sometimes it's not about being helpful. It's about
being understanding and knowing that being overly helpful
actually works against you. You know? So for
example, you might think that having weekly update
call with your clients is showing that, hey.
I'm committed. I wanna be here to help,
(10:56):
and I wanna sipping in tune and sync
as much as we possibly can. But they
might look at that as a burden and
be like, I don't wanna talk to you
every week. Maybe every other week, maybe once
a month, but I don't have time to
do every week. Right? Or
maybe it's, hey. Like, I'm I'm getting a
billion emails a day. So, like, you don't
have to write me every day with an
update. Just give me give me an end
of week update on where we stand. Obviously,
(11:17):
you know, communicate with me if we've got
a media opportunity in progress, for example, or
there's an update on a speaker submission, let's
say. But
beyond that, I don't wanna have another email
in my inbox that isn't necessary. Whereas you
might think over communication
would be really helpful. So I I think
it's, again, understanding the nuances of how the
client works that helps you to keep that
(11:37):
relationship long term. Because at the end of
the day, if you're being productive and you're
not being seen as an annoyance, that goes
a long way towards them keeping you.
I I I think that's a really fundamental
tip that's hard for a lot of sales
professional sales teams and leaders to understand because
we wanna serve. Right? I mean, and a
lot of people in what we do are
are here to serve other businesses and help
(11:58):
their customers win. Like, that's ultimately the goal.
But we get overeager. And and eagerness is,
something that, you know I'm I'm a young
sales professional. I always deal with this where
I wanna jump on everything, and I I
think it looks a little annoying. Like, oh,
we have to meet every single week. That's
a crazy amount of time. I'm I'm an
executive. I don't have an hour or a
week to give to to Jeb Blunt Junior
(12:19):
because of the sales training that we're doing.
You you must you must have learned this.
Do you have a story behind learning, you
know, the fine line between,
like, annoyance and overburdening with communication
to building a trust level that says, hey.
I'm doing the work. You don't need to
check on me because I'm gonna tell you
when it's done, and they believe you. I
don't have a particular story, but what I
(12:40):
can say is that earlier in my career,
I thought that picking up the phone and
calling a client
to talk about almost everything was the right
way to go because I would and I'm
still kinda that way where I I I
personally hate communicating over email. I'd rather just
talk to you and figure it out. But,
you know, this was earlier in my career.
And what I realized and it's so hard
(13:01):
for me to do today because I am
more of a phone person and, like, I
just wanna solve the issue and get it
over with and off my plate. So it's
more of a me problem. But,
what I what I found out very early
on in my career was, like, that's not
actually the way you're supposed to do it
because as much as you think you're being
helpful, it's just them having to get on
the phone. And that was several years ago.
Now we're in 2024 where everything is text,
(13:22):
everything is email, and calls of any kind
are seen as an annoyance. So I've I've
learned that fairly quickly, and ever since then,
I've really tried to,
dial the the the calls back
and make it so that it's as painless
of a process as possible. But I absolutely
will pick up the phone if I feel
like it's something that needs to be talked
about in real time.
(13:43):
And another minor but important thing that I
learned early on was I I would sometimes
send emails and the subject line would be
all caps because I was like, oh, I
wanna make sure they see this and know
it's important.
I learned very quickly not everything is important,
and putting an email subject line in caps
can actually be off putting. So,
yeah, those were those were two key learnings
(14:05):
that I've definitely taken with me more recently.
I I I I love it. I mean,
I I'm I'm learning that as well. It's
it's something that I that I, I work
on. And so as a sales professional or
leader, you know, helping your team, understanding,
you know, there is a professional
way to go about communication that doesn't,
it doesn't impose on the customer themselves. And
and this is a a follow-up question for
(14:27):
you is you work in an industry where
your customers are so important to the work
that you're actually doing in the business. Like,
you you have to pick the right customers
to work with, which means that you're qualifying
your potential customers,
heavily, I imagine, before they even get into
a real sales conversation because you have to
make sure it's worth it for you and
your team, to to to jump into the
(14:48):
rabbit hole of of their business. So walk
me through
how you go about qualifying,
and and how you've learned to qualify your
prospects so that you're spending time with people
who, are gonna impact your business in a
positive way. Yeah. I think you kinda hit
the nail on the head there with the
last part about making sure they impact us
positively because I think
our process here
(15:09):
is that unless a client,
their budget is incredibly low, like, obscenely low,
and they just don't know any better to
even say a number,
We're willing to take them on if we
feel like it's gonna benefit us in the
long term. And that might mean growing the
budget over time. That might mean using them
as a case study
or
in an industry that we don't already have
a case study in or having them refer
(15:31):
us to bigger clients that can afford our
normal rates.
We we assess things like that because I
think our rule of thumb is we don't
wanna turn any business away unless we absolutely
have to because you never know where that
business is gonna lead. It's not to say
we we take on everybody off the street,
but I think we're definitely a little bit
more flexible than, you know, the billion dollar
(15:52):
PR firm that's out there that wouldn't take
someone on that's a bit smaller. So I
I think we're a little bit more flexible
in that way, but we just wanna make
sure that from a long term perspective, we
get some kind of value out of it.
And and since you're in a in a
service,
a business service,
when you think about the the process, the
process of of the sale, of getting them
from the top of the funnel to, you
(16:13):
know, their client working with you and you're
gonna go start meeting with them and and
and delivering on your services.
What is an appropriate,
you know, rule of thumb
for
running that process? Is, you know, is it,
is it five meetings? Is it seven meetings?
You how do you go about thinking,
as a as a business leader what the
timetable should look like before you say, you
(16:34):
know what? This is something I gotta take
out of the pipeline. This isn't real.
Yeah. It's a really good question that we're
actually wrestling with right now.
You know, I I think that I probably
let things go a little too long because
I just you you never know. Right? I
I don't think there's ever a situation where
we totally take a prospect out of the
running. It's more so just where we wanna
(16:55):
spend our time
on that prospect. And
you're kind of onto something where it's like
one component of it is, well,
how much time has gone by and they
haven't responded or they haven't carried this over
the finish line.
That also depends on timing. Right? Because we
have a couple of prospects right now that
would be larger accounts for us where we
just wanna get it signed.
(17:16):
Problem is we're heading into the end of
the year. It's hard to get people to
commit. And so that's an example of where
it's like, we don't wanna drop them because
it's probably just
they are dealing with end of year
stuff that makes it harder for them to
just get a deal closed. But, yeah, I
I think it's also taking a look at
how the interactions are going. So if we
feel that there's a natural back and forth
(17:36):
and they're investing time the way that we
would like into making the deal happen, then
we definitely wanna continue to try to see
it forward with the understanding
that perhaps in the first few meetings we
put, you know, we were putting all of
our effort into it, and now maybe we
dial back and follow-up every other week. Right?
So, and, you know, I think your clients
naturally or prospects naturally leads you that way
(17:57):
as well where, you know, things seem really
good, but then they taper off a little
bit naturally. They're not getting the answers that
they want in time, and then you kind
of mutually understand that maybe we need to
follow-up in three weeks instead of a week.
Right?
So, yeah, I think it's I think it's
looking at the amount of time that's elapsed,
how valuable it would be to get the
client.
And also just, you know, from a productivity
(18:18):
perspective, whether
you're being annoying by following up too much
because you know that they're not gonna have
an answer, but you're trying to push anyway.
So there's definitely a bunch of different factors
there. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, in that process
and as you're you're working things through the
pipeline, you're how do you and your team
handle objections? Because I imagine you get
really hard ones,
(18:39):
and and a lot and a lot of
them a lot of the time.
So most of our objections more recently haven't
been hard no's. They've been later on,
I would say, which is pretty common for
us. We've never really been in a situation
where
we've gotten a pass because of clients gone
to another
firm. I mean, it's definitely happened over the
(19:00):
course of almost six years for sure. But
I would say it's more not right now.
You know, we thought we would have the
budget, but we're gonna get it in a
few months, follow-up then, or,
you know, just just something that is out
of our control that kicks the can down
the road.
So I would say that's probably more of
where we see objections. And when we're in
that case, we try to be sympathetic to
(19:20):
the situation.
But I also try to instill some kind
of urgency to say, you know, hey. Look.
We understand we didn't have, let's say, the
max budget of what we wanted. Could we
take a portion of that to do something
now
that builds up to next year, let's say?
Mhmm.
We'll see if that works this year. But
but, it's it's helped in the past. So
I think it's just trying to assess,
(19:41):
you know, just kind of where we stand
with the prospect and if it's realistic to
ask for something minimal and then working up
to something bigger, I'd say. Absolutely. And and
that's a strategy that, you know, I've I've
used in the past, and and it's helped
win deals. It's helped, you know, win parts
of deals, which is, you know, winning some
is better than winning nothing at all. And
Right. And maybe it doesn't turn into something
else, but you've served a customer well with
the budget they have. You say, you know,
(20:03):
hey. What's the easiest route into
helping you today? Your budget isn't where you
wanted it to be. Your timing isn't where
you wanted it to be. We offer x,
y, and z, and here's my recommendation. Is
this something that we can get, you know,
through this year so at least you've got
something that's helping push your business forward and
and creating some urgency on that as well?
Justin, a question for you. Is there anything
(20:25):
I shouldn't I should have asked you that
I that I didn't, about what you do
for,
for the market and, and at p r
seventy three. No. I think you covered it
very nicely. I would just, say if, you
know, the listeners wanna learn more, they can
visit us at pr73.com.
They could also email me directly at justin@pr73.com
or email the firm at info@pr73.com.
(20:47):
And you can find me on LinkedIn as
well. And who who should reach out to
you just to make it make it even
better? Who who if they're listening in this
audience, who should be reaching out to you?
Yeah. So, you know, we work with
different types of ICPs from public relations directors
to marketing directors to CMOs, chief communication officers.
So from an ICP perspective or or if
you happen to be a marketing or PR
(21:08):
agency that we can collaborate with, we work
with them as well.
But I would say our core verticals range
anywhere from b to b, b to c,
public affairs,
real estate, areas like that. But we're more
general. So I would say if you have
an interest in PR, especially, you know, integrating
it into your business development efforts, reach out,
and we normally can find a way to
to make something work. Awesome. Well, thank you
(21:29):
so much for joining us on the Sales
Gravy Podcast. Go follow Justin Goldstein. It's p
r seventy three. So if you find him
on LinkedIn, he's there. Their website is pr73.com.
They've got some amazing work. They they they
do awesome stuff. So definitely go give them
a follow and Justin a follow as well
because he posts great videos. So if you're
looking for sales tips, it it's not exactly
sales, but it's sales.
(21:50):
And I I love watching his stuff on
on LinkedIn. So go follow them. Thank you
for joining us on the SalesRemie Podcast, and
we'll see you next time.
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