March 27, 2025 • 38 mins
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What separates thriving businesses from struggling ones? It's rarely the product or service quality alone. David Fastuca, CEO and co-founder of Growth Forum, reveals how effective sales frameworks create sustainable growth regardless of industry or size.
From starting his first design business at 14 to achieving a $30 million exit with his tech company Locomote Fastuca's journey demonstrates how mastering sales transform business outcomes. His refreshing perspective challenges common assumptions about business growth, particularly the misconception that adding more products automatically increases revenue.
Beyond theory, Fastuca shares practical frameworks for systematizing sales, building healthy pipelines, and creating predictable revenue growth. Unlike relying on "rockstar" salespeople who typically leave within two years, his approach creates sustainable systems that scale with your business. These frameworks provide structure while still allowing for individual style and personality, ensuring consistent results that don't depend on any single person's talent.
For business owners overwhelmed by sales challenges, Fastuca introduces his new book, "The B2B Sales Playbook," designed as a practical resource that can be read chapter by chapter based on immediate needs. Whether you're struggling with messaging, objection handling, or simply maintaining consistent outreach, this conversation provides actionable insights to transform your approach to sales and business growth.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by MediaClip,
advertech Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pegeau, andtoday we're joined by David
Fastuka, who's the CEO andco-founder of Growth Forum, and
he's coming to us from Melbourne, Australia.
Hi David, how are you today?
David Fastuca (00:33):
I'm fantastic, Gary.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
Gary Pageau (00:38):
So you work with businesses to improve their
sales.
That's your charge in life,that's my jam.
How did you get into thatbusiness of of saying I want to
help other businesses grow theirbusinesses?
David Fastuca (00:52):
Yeah, I think it's a.
It's a bit of a funny story.
So, like I'm a, as we'retalking earlier before hitting
the good old record button, I'ma designer by background.
Um, love drawing and and intographic design, then into web
design.
But in order to do the things Ilove, I needed to sell.
So it often started withfriends and family, the low
(01:12):
hanging fruit.
That's nice and easy.
And then once you sort ofexplore and finish all those
sort of projects, it's thengoing out to people who have
never heard of you before.
So that's when I started tolearn the art and science of how
to position myself, how topitch myself and basically how
to sell my services.
(01:33):
And then over a period of time,I just started to fall in love
with the whole sales andmarketing part of the business
and then just sort of went allin on that side.
That's my love for the game.
Gary Pageau (01:48):
So how long have you been in that piece of the
business until you foundedGrowth Forum?
David Fastuca (01:55):
So I started my first business when I was 14,
back in high school in graphicdesign, and so it sort of lead
oh, like three years ago yeah, Iwish Fast forward a few more
years three kids and lots ofgray hairs.
I've been in it for quite awhile.
So any business that I'vestarted or run, I've always led
(02:18):
the charge on the sales andmarketing front.
It's just something that camenatural to me.
I'm a bit of a control freakand it's something where I don't
(02:41):
like to point fingers and makeexcuses where high-pressure a
area of the business, of course,because you know you live and
die by your last sale and howthe business is growing and the
buck stops with you.
And I sort of just liked andembraced that pressure and,
knowing that I had control overit, things weren't working.
It was in my world.
So I dare say from the age of14, without you know, really
knowing.
That was when my sort of salesand marketing business worked
here so what was that firstbusiness?
Gary Pageau (02:59):
Was that a graphic arts business?
Or were you selling candydoor-to-door?
What were you doing?
David Fastuca (03:02):
No, it was.
It was a graphic designbusiness.
I'll never forget, I wasliterally in class and instead
of doing the school project, Iwas doing my own project and
using a school printer to printmy own business cards, laminate
them myself and cut them out,because I didn't have money to
get 100 or 200 made.
And then the teacher came up tome and goes David, what the
(03:23):
heck are you doing?
This is not the project.
And I told him and, to hiscredit, he was like I love this.
He goes you fine, you just doit.
Um, you just do your thing.
And so that that's when.
That's when it all started.
Back then, so lucky, I had agreat supportive teacher and, if
you're listening, tags, thankyou well, I'm sure that that
person's among my many hundredsof people.
Gary Pageau (03:43):
yes, so tell me Growth Forum kind of the
services you provide for thatand who is like your ideal
customer for that?
David Fastuca (03:53):
Yes, it spawned together in 2023 with my
co-founder, Luigi.
So he actually trained andcoached me in the whole sales
front when I was a previousco-founder of Locomo, which was
a business travel tech companythat I co-founded with my cousin
.
Yeah, so, from tech to alsofrom design to technology, I
(04:13):
love that space.
We moved into that because wewanted to build a product of our
own, something tangible that wecould, you know, continually
resell, which, you know, a lotof the people listening today
have that sort of product tiesbusiness, which is great.
So I enlisted the help of mygood friend, louis to really
help me systemize and structurethis out, because I wanted to
build a team.
It was a business where itcouldn't be just me.
(04:35):
If we wanted to grow to theheights, we wanted to grow the
business too.
So, you know, through that sortof teaching and learning,
through that process, again fellin love with that and the help
that it could provide to otherbusiness owners.
They can, you know, systemizetheir sales process.
They can build a teamunderneath them that they know
(04:56):
to a high level of confidencethey're going to execute,
because the founder or thebusiness owner has run the
playbook themselves.
So they know that you.
You know the system works.
You just need to execute, youjust need to put in the sets and
the reps and and you'll getthere and you'll grow the
business.
And for the right person, theylove that.
Um, they get fulfillment out ofhelping the business grow
(05:18):
themselves, growing becausethey're learning.
It was just it's a reallyfulfilling which might sound
fluffy, uh, operation that werun, but it has a real impact
because you can have the bestproduct or service in the world,
but if no one knows who you are, if you can't sell it, then the
business is going to quicklydie.
So we help unleash that growth.
Gary Pageau (05:35):
So do you think sales is in most cases, because
we're going to talk about somedifferent cases, but do you
think it's more of an awarenessthing or an education thing or a
relationship thing?
Because it sounds to me likeyou're talking more about the
awareness thing.
David Fastuca (05:52):
It's all that, unfortunately, because that
means there's a lot of work andmarketing has its job there, and
I was CMO of my previouscompany, the tech company that I
was talking about, so I get itfrom a marketing perspective now
.
Our role as marketers is tomake sales easier.
People need to, you know, begreat if people knew who we are
(06:13):
when we're reaching out to themcold.
So it's it's, it's it's thelifeblood of any business, right
, it's the engine, the salesside of things, and I like to
think of it.
You know, I'm second timefounder now, so I exited from
from locomotes and then in 2016,then we brought it back.
That was a great exit.
It was a 30 mil exit for myselfand my co-founder and the
shareholding team.
(06:33):
But then we bought it backduring, covered and then built
the pipeline up, relaunched itand then I was never really, I
didn't really love businesstravel.
It's not a industry that's uh,not lights my fire, sort of
things.
I exited from that, startedgrowth forum, uh, with my
co-founder, uh, luigi now.
So I like this back to thepoint of second time founders.
(06:56):
First time founders focus on theproduct and the service because
they've got this great idearight and just want to get it
out there second time.
Founders always talk aboutdistribution, where you can have
a half-baked idea, somethingthat obviously needs to provide
value.
But if you've got the rightsales strategy, the right
channel strategy, you can becomea much bigger, larger, happier
(07:18):
business than if you don't havethat component.
So whenever I'm talking withbusiness owners and founders,
I'm really trying to get to thecore of how are you going to
grow this business?
What is the strategy?
What are the partnerships youneed?
What's the sales numbers looklike?
What does the team makeup looklike?
Because you might have a goaland a number in mind, but unless
you've got the framework andthe systems in place, your
(07:42):
chances of getting to thatnumber and to that dream
objective are really slim.
Gary Pageau (07:48):
Now, you mentioned that phrase a couple of times
framework or system or somethinglike that.
How important is that for salesto have a regimented process?
For you know, let's say you'rea business, you got three
salespeople and then you getfive or seven right, so you're
scaling that piece of thebusiness.
(08:08):
How important is that to havesome sort of process?
David Fastuca (08:13):
It's critical.
If you look at any successfulbusiness, the thing that allows
them to scale to the heightsthat there are is the systems
they put in place.
Right, McDonald's, any sort ofmanufacturing business Right.
They're able to produceconsistent quality through the
systems that they put in place.
Right Now, with sales, you'regoing to have an individual that
(08:34):
has a bit of nuances tothemselves and a little bit of
aura.
That's hard to replicate, ofcourse, but what we like to do
with the framework and systemsthat we teach it's giving them
the guardrails.
Here is the guidance, here isthe framework.
Now you can add your littlespin here and there to it, but
here's the messaging, theprocess and the steps that take
place in order to close the deal.
Don't move to this step unlessyou've done xyz.
(08:57):
Now you might add a bit hereand there, but the framework is
there for you to follow.
So it's's critical to enableyou to then consistently grow.
Otherwise, if you rely on youknow the creativity and
intuition of an individual, it'shard to hire and clone.
That you know across thebusiness.
Gary Pageau (09:15):
Sure, well, that's one of the things you always see
is like you know, quote unquote, superstar salesperson or the
hotshot or you know.
I mean I don't know if theyhave that in Australia, but over
here you know, of course youalways see that in the in the TV
shows.
Right, you got the yeah, thehotshot sales guy.
But what you're saying is thatthat may not be actually the
best solution for everyorganization because you can't
(09:36):
scale that guy specifically.
David Fastuca (09:39):
True, and it's a risk, right?
So, while it's great whenthey're nailing it, but what
happens when that person leavesthe company and moves on?
Because the average tenure fora rockstar salesperson the data
shows it hovers around a yearand a half to two years before
they're looking at a newopportunity to tap the new
(09:59):
market, bring theirrelationships over to something
new.
You might get a quick, a quickwin, but over the long term,
it's just not sustainable, right?
So it's something that youreally need to think about, um,
and if you've got a rock star inthe team, it's like cool.
Maybe you can build the system,the framework around what
they're doing, right?
You know dissect, you know thesteps they're taking, how
(10:21):
they're doing it, and then tryand build a framework around
that for the other team membersto follow.
Right?
Gary Pageau (10:26):
Because I mean, you know clearly if they're quote,
quote, rockstar, unquote,they're doing something right to
either reach the audience ormeet the clients that know how
to build relationships orconnect with people or something
like that Correct.
So let's talk a little bit aboutone of the issues that you know
I know runs rampant in myaudience with the photo printing
(10:47):
people and people who areproviding output services, where
they may have dozens and dozensof products that they want to
sell Right, because literallyyou can print on almost anything
now by sixes piece of paper,and now we're printing on canvas
(11:09):
and billboards and and glassand metal and all these various
surfaces and different devicesand all kinds of crazy things.
So that's a lot.
How do you suggest coaching ateam or something that has all
of that stuff in the arsenal,all of those products they could
possibly sell, which areoverwhelming to the, to the
prospect and difficult to narrowdown?
Do you pick it on like theprofitable that you want to
(11:31):
pitch, the more profitableproducts which are probably
maybe better for your bottomline but maybe of less interest
to the consumer, for example?
David Fastuca (11:38):
There's a bit of a fine art to that.
Now I'll bring up a story thatwas recently told to me by a
good friend of mine.
So he was giving me thisscenario where a friend of his
took over the CEO role for thismultinational chocolate business
.
Now chocolate business had beenaround for I think it was close
to like 80, 90 years, so greatestablished business.
(12:01):
But they were on the declineright.
Their sales year after year forthe last 10 years had declined.
So they moved out.
The ceo got a new one in.
So new ceo comes into play andimmediately looks at all the,
all the SKUs, all the productsthey've got.
They had a range of like 150different types of chocolate
that will sell them out, becauseit's easy you have success with
(12:22):
one, let's build another one.
Let's build another one.
Right, exactly right.
It's easy.
You have success with one,let's build another one.
Gary Pageau (12:24):
Let's build another one Right Exactly.
David Fastuca (12:26):
It's that a little of more products equals
more revenue and happy day.
But the effect that it washaving was their marketing spend
was getting diluted across allthese products.
Their messaging and what theybecame known for became diluted
because they had to talk aboutall these new initiatives and
all the new products thatthey'll come in now, and it's
only so much that the audience,your customer, can really take
(12:50):
in and understand what the CEOdid.
He just looked at everything,looked at the numbers, looked at
what they were known for, howthey grew in the early years and
did a bit of a survey withtheir customers on what's your
favorite chocolate, what's yourfavorite flavor, and they end up
reducing their SKUs from Ithink it was around 150 all the
(13:12):
way down to 30.
Massive cull.
Gary Pageau (13:16):
Yeah, five acts and just cut them.
David Fastuca (13:18):
Yeah, yeah, the board was against it.
You know it caused a lot ofarguments because some of the
products might have been an ideafrom one of the executives or a
board member.
Gary Pageau (13:29):
Exactly.
David Fastuca (13:30):
That's right.
It always comes from I think weshould do this and you go.
Okay, but he got his way.
He's like you got me here, ceo,let me do my job Right, and if
it doesn't work, you can find meRight.
And the end result was thecompany is now on the incline
because now they focus back ontotheir core offering Right, and
the messaging becomes a lotsimple because they're only
(13:51):
talking about, you know, alimited amount of products and
30 is a lot of products If youthink about it.
It's still a lot.
That's right, yeah.
And their marketing now goesdown into just 30 products.
So now say they were spending amillion dollars per product
across 150.
Now that's 5x across those 30products.
So they get more exposure.
(14:12):
So everything becomes easier,right, your systems, your
process, what your sales teamneed to talk about.
It's easy to complicate things.
It's very hard to simplifythings and I think apple does an
amazing job on the simplicityfactor.
Sure, now they're probably.
Ever since you know the passingof of the late steve jobs, you
(14:34):
know they've added more skewsand things like that.
But one could argue they'resuper successful still, which
they are right, but that's onlycomes after once they've truly
nailed a sector, before youstart adding things on there.
Yeah, it becomes too easy justto add another five SKUs,
another five products, because,hey, like you said, I can print
(14:54):
on the t-shirt Now I can printon glass, now we can offer
everything to our customer.
Right, but why did yourcustomer come to you first?
Why did they come to you andnot the other person down the
road that can do the same thingor 50 other things?
Gary Pageau (15:07):
You know, because I think the R industry got kind
of swept up in sort of the longtail thought.
Right, remember Chris Anderson,the long tail, yeah, you know
you got to offer it.
Even you know the example youused was you know MP3 downloads
right, you know you got yourmost popular songs and it goes
down to you download it threetimes but it's still that's
(15:30):
three sales you wouldn't havegotten if you didn't offer that
song right.
And I think the reality is,when you're dealing with a
physical product and you'retrying to gain mind share in
today's customer, that limitedapproach is actually probably
more vital now than ever.
David Fastuca (15:48):
Yeah, I think most companies the companies
that we're seeing, that arereally on a tear and succeeding
are the ones that really nichedown and focus.
They focus on two or three corethings that are super tightly
related and they focus on aspecific industry, solving a
specific problem, and it'salmost like self-selection.
(16:09):
If I once I'm aware of thisbrand, if I'm in your ideal
customer profile, you're talkingto me, the message hits me half
the sale is already done, right, right, which is great.
It's like going to a restaurantand they sell pizza, pasta,
then indian food and chinesefood.
Instantly, you're thinking howgood can all this you know
(16:30):
different type of cuisine be,versus going to one place and
all we sell is pizza and pasta.
You know, it's like aperception that I'm going to get
a great meal here.
Yeah, and it's the same as ifsomeone's trying to hit me up to
sell marketing services and youknow they claim to be the best
in paid advertising, but theyalso do websites, they also do
SEO, they also do this.
(16:51):
I'm instantly and they might begreat at it I instantly just
put them in the bin because I'mlike you can't be great at all
those things.
It's impossible to be that goodat it.
It just doesn't work in thisday and age.
Gary Pageau (17:04):
Well, you know, it's just kind of interesting
because you know, look what'shappening in, like fast food,
for example, you know, used tobe the fast food brands were
very much.
They had a very specificperception of what they were
right mcdonald's was this,burger king was that, taco bell
was this, kfc was that.
And now when you look at theirmenus, you know Arby's is
(17:24):
serving Italian subs and euros,you know, and I just, I just
wonder, like you said, theycould almost like pair that back
where probably the most popularchain here in the US is
Chick-fil-A and they probablyhave like four things on their
menu.
That's all they do.
David Fastuca (17:40):
Yeah, but look at it from a whole business
perspective.
When it comes to hiring someoneat chick-fil-a, their systems
are really down pat and there'sonly a few things they need to
know.
Right, the sales team there'sonly a few things they need to
sell.
When, when a customer comes into store, it's less intimidating
because there's only a fewthings I can choose from.
Right.
So everything becomes simple,from internal factor as well as
(18:02):
external.
And if I'm going into aChick-fil-A, I know pretty much
what I'm going to order before Igo in.
Versus going into somewherewhere they've got 200 things on
order.
You get the informationparalysis.
Things become harder.
We just want to make thingssimple for the people that work
for us and the people who wewant to buy from us.
Gary Pageau (18:23):
So why do businesses do that?
I mean, it seems to me like thedata is there, everyone can see
it that the most popular andsuccessful companies, at least
in most industries, you canpretty much pigeonhole what they
do in four or five things orproducts.
You can kind of pick out whatthey are.
And I'm not talking like aWalmart where it every product
(18:46):
on the planet, but I'm talkingabout, you know, brands that are
selling specific things.
But when you see, like you know, coca-cola now has I don't even
know how many flavors of Coke.
It's ridiculous.
And Pepsi is the same thing.
They've, you know, and it'slike.
David Fastuca (19:08):
it's like like don't they realize that that's
actually probably increasingtheir costs and lowering their
sales because there's a lot ofoverhead with each one of those
brands.
True, but a lot of these smartbrands, the ones that execute
really well, treat as each ofthese products as pretty much
its own business.
Right, and that's the smart wayto do it.
So if you think about a productline within your business,
let's look at Coke, right, sothey've got the energy drink
(19:29):
division, the water division,and then they've got their hero
division.
Now, each one of these areaswithin the business would have a
let's call it quote unquote CEOor head of director, their own
team, marketing team, sales team, their own marketing budget,
and they need to succeed ontheir own.
If they don't, then, like anybusiness, they get shut down or
(19:50):
sold off.
I'll look at it like this in ourbusiness.
So we've got, obviously, ourcore offering, which is our
training program that people gothrough.
Then we've got our podcast, ournewsletter, our upcoming book.
Each one of these takes up acrap ton of effort.
There's pretty much almost amicro business in itself and
(20:11):
that effort that goes into it.
So we could easily go hey, weshould be doing SEO, hey, we
should be doing this, but I'mlike the time that we can give
each one of these things isfinite.
So let's just pick off the twoor three that we can give the
right amount of time to, theright amount of budget to, and
let's just become great at thosebefore we even look at anything
else.
Um, it's just too easy to keepadding more and more on, but
(20:35):
what happens is you dilute yourtime, effort and budget and then
everything becomes, you know,executed poorly because you just
can't execute all that well.
Gary Pageau (20:43):
Just say that I looked it up while you were
talking I was kind of being rude, I apologize that there are
over a hundred different flavorsof Coca-Cola available.
Now I'm talking about energydrinks, I'm talking about just
Coca-Cola.
Now that's crazy, that's liketo the extreme.
So let's talk a little bitabout your process, your sales
strategy process.
(21:03):
So let's talk a little bitabout your process, your sales
strategy process, because Ithink you know, for a lot of the
people in my audience who maybe retailers or service
providers or folks like that,you know they may have gone to a
seminar, they may have seen aworkshop or something like that
and maybe this stuff didn't sinkin.
What makes yours more effectivethan maybe something like that?
David Fastuca (21:24):
Yeah, no, that's awesome.
So look a lot of those sort ofevents and they're great.
We love going to events, butthe truth of the fact is that
after I think, you only consumearound 20% of what's spoken.
This is like data that's outthere on, you know education and
learning events, and then, aseach day passes, it's
diminishing returns on what youretain, unless you actually
(21:45):
execute on that which, let's behonest, not many of us execute
on what we've seen in such quicktime.
We go back to a normalday-to-day in our operations.
The difference with Growforumand how we operationalize the
business is that one, Luigi, myco-founder, he's been doing this
thing for over 25 years.
He's actually trained me in theprogram and we're running the
(22:06):
same process ourselves to growour own business Right.
So while we have a team thatare in sales and do that work,
we're on the tools as well.
So we've got like our heart onthe beat.
We understand what's working,what's not working.
So we provide that dailyguidance.
Two, we provide a framework anda system that people will go
through to execute out.
(22:27):
We coach and guide them, so it'snot just here's a course, go
through it and then, on your way, we stick with them until they
execute, provide them guidanceon how to execute and then make
the adjustments with them toensure that they get the result
that they came in for.
And then the third component,and the key difference, is that
once they've proven that thesystem works in their world, in
(22:50):
their industry, we can then helpbolt on outsource salespeople
into their team, Okay yeah, thatare trained up in a growth
forum way, that understandeverything.
They understand how to buildthe playbook, so they know
everything.
That's been done.
All that needs to take place isthat the business owner founder
and they just need to educatethat individual on their product
(23:11):
and their service, and thenthey know with a high level of
certainty that this outsourceresource is going to execute
quite well because the playbookis proven.
Now you've got someone that'sgoing to work on this eight to
10 hours a day, five days a day,five days a week, just for you.
So that's the difference.
We provide the coaching andframework, the guided execution
and then the resources to takethat off your plate once it's
(23:33):
ready.
Gary Pageau (23:34):
So tell me your most exciting success story you
had with this the client thatcame in that you were like I
don't know if this is going towork, but then they bought into
it and they were successful.
David Fastuca (23:47):
Yeah, love it.
So it's a.
It's a well-known brand name.
They created the term inboundmarketing, so you probably guess
who that is.
I'm happy to share that HubSpot.
So they get an abundance ofinbound leads, right, they're
very lucky.
But I'm just that lucky.
They have spent the time andeffort to generate that.
It's still, you know, aninbound lead, and what I mean by
(24:10):
inbound?
This is someone that just comesto your website or inquires
directly on your form, on yoursite, because they know who you
are and they want to inquiremore.
So you've done the outreach tothem.
Now one would assume that thesepeople are easier to sell to,
(24:33):
and yes and no, but they stillrequire the same amount of
follow-up.
They need to go through theprocess of whatever it is within
the business.
So HubSpot initially had theapproach where these people will
come in.
We'll just run them through ademo and they'll sign up, right,
I've been through a couple ofHub'll sign up.
Gary Pageau (24:44):
Right, but after time I've been to a couple of
HubSpot demos.
That's exactly what they did tome.
At least that's right.
David Fastuca (24:50):
And look, it's not cheap.
Hubspot has increased theirprices over time because they've
got a great product, which isfine, but now there's a lot of
competition in the spaceAbsolutely that compete with
them.
So it's not an easy sale, nomore.
So the biggest win there wasthen, you know one admitting to
that, two adding their, theirsales team members to the
program.
(25:10):
And then those sales teammembers have been with us for
you know, since, since inception, and zero churn, because they
get in the value, because weprovide that continuous learning
.
It's not you go through theprogram and then, on your way,
it's we.
We run weekly sessions.
They can reach out to us ifthey're having a bad week or a
bad month.
We can diagnose what they'redoing wrong or what they need to
(25:30):
move on and help them.
You know, get back up there.
It's like any sort of coach,sporting and the like.
You just need to continue to dothe reps, do the exercises, and
you're going to have thosetimes where you go through, you
know, a bad patch and you needthat motivation and you need
someone with a bird's eye viewto say hey, you know you're just
(25:51):
missing out these two or threefundamentals.
You know you're skipping them.
Get back on Twitter, get themand you'll get the results back.
You know someone that's not inthe business that can see that
and be really black and whitewith them.
It's not everyone's cup of teathat sort of approach, but we're
not for everyone.
Gary Pageau (26:07):
So how many steps are there in this process that
you go through?
Now, if I understand, it's akind of a two-step process where
the business learns about youand then there's the process the
salespeople go through.
So what are those like whenyou're onboarding a company?
What's that like you through?
So what are?
What are those like when you'reonboarding a company?
What's that like you're?
David Fastuca (26:25):
you do an audit for example, what they're doing,
right, correct.
We do an order just to get alay of the land.
You know what sales look likewithin your organization, who's
doing it, how's it been run,what process do you have in
place, what technology do youhave in place?
And then that gives us a goodlay of the land to say, okay,
cool, then we can prescribe abit of a learning journey.
And here's what you need to do,first and second, before you
(26:46):
tackle the call offering here,and then from there we
understand where they are andthen we can help them develop
their journey towards getting arobust system in place.
And it might sound like a longand arduous task, but
effectively we try and push ourmembers to go through to
learning, to execution, so whenthey're actually running the
(27:08):
sales system and play within twoweeks okay so it's like you're
here, you've got a problem.
Let's fix this now and quick.
Let's dedicate the time andthen let's once rubber hits the
road, let's actually.
That's when we're going to getthe real learnings once you're
customers, once you're gettingrejections, once you're getting
approvals so we can understandwhat's learning and then tweak
(27:30):
it so we can quickly help scalethis out for you and the team.
Gary Pageau (27:34):
What are some of the things that salespeople are
doing day-to-day that they couldbe improving on?
David Fastuca (27:42):
It's just the simple things.
It's ensuring that you'reblocking out time within your
calendar to do new pipelinegeneration and what I mean by
that is reaching out to newprospective customers that
haven't heard of you yet andjust getting on their radar.
Ensuring that you're blockingout time every day for that.
People always cut corners whenthey've got a thin, skinny,
(28:04):
unhealthy sales pipeline.
What you want to do is buildenough deals and opportunities
within your pipeline that arethe right profile for you and
nurture those people through.
So just blocking out that timeto ensure that, before you do
any other task, you're knockingthat out, and if you do that, it
(28:24):
will compound over time andit's like the best tool in the
world is compounding Just ask MrWarren Buffett and once you've
got that into play, you willnever struggle to close deals on
the regular basis if you dothat and it's the hardest thing
to do Well, that's what I wasgoing to say Mentally that's the
(28:44):
hard thing to do, becausethat's where you're hearing all
the no's right, that's right.
Gary Pageau (28:48):
It's easier to talk to a warm prospect or a current
customer to see how they'redoing because they already have
a relationship with you.
But you know if you're doingany kind of cold prospecting,
you know you're going to hear alot of no's and a lot of people
don't like that.
Now I know there's people whoget excited about that.
They go.
You know every no I hear is ais is the brings me closer to
yes.
(29:08):
I've heard that a thousandtimes but for a lot of people
it's difficult.
David Fastuca (29:13):
Yeah, it is, and I like to look at it as like yes
, I've heard the same saying andoften give it out, but it's
also okay If someone says no,reflect on that.
Okay, or ask another question,go, cool, you know quite quite.
If you've lost the deal already, just go, you know, interrogate
a little bit more.
You know why.
No, like, was it something Isaid?
(29:35):
Was it the messaging?
You know, is it something youdon't need right now?
Try and get a data point, tryand get something from that.
No, that can help you.
Gary Pageau (29:42):
Just don't take no for an answer.
But you're not necessarilytrying to sell them.
You're trying to find out whatthe objection actually is.
David Fastuca (29:49):
Exactly Like.
I had one literally yesterdaywhere they're like Dave, we like
this, but you know it's not theright time for us because we're
looking at execution and Ihadn't spoken to them yet about,
hey, when you're ready, then weinstall someone into your
business and I'm like, oh, okay,cool, mark, I didn't explain to
this yet because you know wehaven't jumped on our discovery
(30:10):
call, but once you've built outthe system and process and
executed it and got some wins,then we help take that off your
plate by putting someone intothe business.
I go is that something that youknow sounds like what you're
looking for?
Because for him it was aneducation that I hadn't provided
that person yet, based on hiscore need, where I want sales
(30:30):
now, but I don't want to do it.
I'm like, okay, you know, sothis is the approach that we
need to take.
Gary Pageau (30:36):
Right right.
David Fastuca (30:36):
So there's always a learning that you can get
from that.
You know if you're going to geta no.
Get a learning that you canmake the next one easier.
Gary Pageau (30:43):
So when you get that feedback where I think this
runs into a brick wall perhapslet's say, for example, you're a
salesperson and you're talkingto somebody and then you get
this great feedback there has tobe a system in place to record
the feedback and act on it Right.
(31:04):
In a lot of businesses there'sa disconnect because the
salespeople are providingfeedback that they're getting
from prospects and currentcustomers, and maybe production
or marketing or somebody or theother people who could act on it
are dropping the ball.
So does your system kind ofaccount for that?
David Fastuca (31:21):
That's always a tough challenge.
I like to.
Whenever I'm hearing a no andgetting some feedback.
What I'm doing personally isI'm taking responsibility for
that.
I am writing these issues downon like a Google Doc.
Then I can run it through someAI to give me okay, over the
last month, what have been theno's, what are things I need to
(31:42):
change in the business?
And then I'm presenting this toLuigi and say, okay, these are
the things that we need tochange in the business.
Now, if you're relying on otherpeople in the business
production a CEO or someone elsethat's internal sales, same
process.
So how would you approach it?
You need to get them to changesomething.
They think that what they'redoing is right.
(32:03):
You need to convince them ofchange, and there's going to be
a monetary investment somehow,of time or effort and hard
dollars for them to make achange.
So just because you're talkingto someone in the business
doesn't make it any easier.
You need to have the same salessystem to sell internally.
And if sometimes it's oftenharder because there's a lot of
(32:28):
emotion in there, it's well.
I've been doing this for years.
This is what works and you'llgo well.
No, this is what our customerswant.
So the more data that you canpresent back to that team that
needs to make a change justhelps your argument and then try
to pull the emotion out andbring it back to-.
Gary Pageau (32:46):
Sometimes hard in smaller companies.
Right, because you got thefamily we're on the same journey
here.
David Fastuca (32:50):
We want to grow the business.
This is what the market'stelling us, you know.
So let's trial it right.
So a light touch could be.
Let's, instead of changingeverything, let's just trial it
for the next five or six andlet's see what results we get
and then we can make a decisionas a team.
Right treat is like a beta test.
Everyone loves the ab testingand let's just treat it as a
little test and let's just seewhat happens and we can squash
(33:11):
it quickly if it doesn't workright.
So it's a low risk.
It's almost like gettingsomeone, a customer, in on a
free trial.
Or hey, try the camera out now,try the printer, see the
quality.
You know, get them involved,almost like the ikea effect,
where they now feel like theyown it, and then get their
buy-in and then, once they'vetried, tasted the offering, then
they're like okay, cool To moveforward with the sale and or
(33:35):
the change within the business.
It's a lot more palatable.
Gary Pageau (33:38):
That's interesting because I hadn't thought about
it as sort of like internalsales.
You're trying to sell yourcoworker using many of the same
principles right To find whattheir feedback is, respond,
provide information, do allthose things but you're doing
that internally to sell thechange you may want.
David Fastuca (34:00):
Yeah, like one of my good friends, michael
Margolis, over in the States.
He literally has got a businessand he trains basically people
within the business to sellinternally and these are like
big like it's.
He's talking like dealing withpeople inside of meta to go ask
mark zuckerberg for two billiondollars to work on project x.
You're right, there is aprocess to get that right and to
convince mark to.
(34:21):
You know, invest some heavycoin in doing a project right.
So there's a whole dynamicbehind that and a process to it
as well.
Gary Pageau (34:31):
You've got a book coming out.
David Fastuca (34:33):
Yes, we do.
Gary Pageau (34:34):
We haven't even talked about the book yet.
This is crazy.
We've been talking almost 40minutes and we haven't even
talked about the book yet.
David Fastuca (34:41):
Tell me about this book, the book it's called
the B2B Sales Playbook Boringname but filled with a lot of
I'm sure you did a lot of A-Btesting on that name, right?
We just want to make sure ifsomeone looks up B2B Playbook,
we're number one, right?
So here it is.
If you're seeing this, it's anice and simple stands out.
It's basically has everythingthat I spoke about on this call,
(35:03):
everything that we train aboutin our program, as well as all
the resources, templates,everything.
In the first few pages we sayenter your email here to get the
resources, and then there'seven coaching, chapter by
chapter, on what to do.
We spent the last 15 monthsworking on the copy in the book
(35:25):
and Luigi and I are super proudof it.
It's a way for us to impact alot more people than we can
service within the business.
Our goal for it is to be thelittle black book that sits on
every business owner's desk,whether they're B2B or B2C.
Gary Pageau (35:41):
And you hope they're actually reading it and
not just sitting on the deskright.
David Fastuca (35:44):
Well, that's right.
We want people to read it, andthe good thing about this book
is that we designed it where itdoesn't have to be read from
front to back.
The chapters are very pointedout as to here is what you're
going to learn in this chapter.
So if you're having aparticular problem this month,
just go in and just read thatchapter, get the insights, get
the coaching, get the resourcesand apply it to the business.
(36:05):
You could be that person wholoves to read from front to back
Awesome but if not, it's achoose-your-own-adventure style
of book.
There you go.
Gary Pageau (36:13):
I love that.
David Fastuca (36:15):
I love that, so you can get the book read one
chapter and this is my ask forthe audience.
It's live now, as you listen.
It's only $2 for the Kindleversion, so grab it.
We'd love for you to leave areview.
If, for whatever reason, youdon't have an Amazon account or
can't invest into it, find me onLinkedIn and I'll give you a
(36:36):
copy for free.
We just want to impact morepeople.
I just want people to read thebook, execute and then share
with us.
David Louis, this really helpedme in the business and that's
enough for us.
So where can people go forinformation on Growth Forum and
(36:56):
or the book?
Very simple, so for the book,just go to growthforumio forward
slash book and then that willpoint you in the right way to
collect it, and then on the samesite as well, and within the
show notes, you have my LinkedInURL.
If you want to connect with methere, it's just David Fustuka.
You'll find my mug on therewith a nice green background.
So yeah, I invite you toconnect with me.
Ask me a question.
(37:17):
If you need a copy of the book,I'll send you a copy of the
book.
We just want this in the handsof as many people that we can
impact as possible.
It's a bit of a legacy projectfor us.
Is that two dollars australianor two dollars?
Gary Pageau (37:37):
us two dollars, us, okay, two dollars globally,
depending on how the the marketis at the moment.
It's a, it's a bargain.
There you go and that's outlike this week, so that's
awesome.
David Fastuca (37:41):
It's brand new, fresh stuff, the ink is launched
this week well, let's see alittle bit of steam coming off
the, the printing press and yeah, for those in the in the
printing industry, yeah,criticize the, the print quality
, tell me about the design.
I love to hear it all awesome.
Gary Pageau (37:57):
Well, david, it's great to meet you.
Thank you so much for your timehope the book is a huge success
.
I will be plugging it, like youwon't believe, and I may even
read it myself, so thank you soso much.
Appreciate it, thank youBye-bye.
Erin Manning (38:10):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by MediaClip,
advertech Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pegeau, andtoday we're joined by David
Fastuka, who's the CEO andco-founder of Growth Forum, and
he's coming to us from Melbourne, Australia.
Hi David, how are you today?
David Fastuca (00:33):
I'm fantastic, Gary.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
Gary Pageau (00:38):
So you work with businesses to improve their
sales.
That's your charge in life,that's my jam.
How did you get into thatbusiness of of saying I want to
help other businesses grow theirbusinesses?
David Fastuca (00:52):
Yeah, I think it's a.
It's a bit of a funny story.
So, like I'm a, as we'retalking earlier before hitting
the good old record button, I'ma designer by background.
Um, love drawing and and intographic design, then into web
design.
But in order to do the things Ilove, I needed to sell.
So it often started withfriends and family, the low
(01:12):
hanging fruit.
That's nice and easy.
And then once you sort ofexplore and finish all those
sort of projects, it's thengoing out to people who have
never heard of you before.
So that's when I started tolearn the art and science of how
to position myself, how topitch myself and basically how
to sell my services.
(01:33):
And then over a period of time,I just started to fall in love
with the whole sales andmarketing part of the business
and then just sort of went allin on that side.
That's my love for the game.
Gary Pageau (01:48):
So how long have you been in that piece of the
business until you foundedGrowth Forum?
David Fastuca (01:55):
So I started my first business when I was 14,
back in high school in graphicdesign, and so it sort of lead
oh, like three years ago yeah, Iwish Fast forward a few more
years three kids and lots ofgray hairs.
I've been in it for quite awhile.
So any business that I'vestarted or run, I've always led
(02:18):
the charge on the sales andmarketing front.
It's just something that camenatural to me.
I'm a bit of a control freakand it's something where I don't
(02:41):
like to point fingers and makeexcuses where high-pressure a
area of the business, of course,because you know you live and
die by your last sale and howthe business is growing and the
buck stops with you.
And I sort of just liked andembraced that pressure and,
knowing that I had control overit, things weren't working.
It was in my world.
So I dare say from the age of14, without you know, really
knowing.
That was when my sort of salesand marketing business worked
here so what was that firstbusiness?
Gary Pageau (02:59):
Was that a graphic arts business?
Or were you selling candydoor-to-door?
What were you doing?
David Fastuca (03:02):
No, it was.
It was a graphic designbusiness.
I'll never forget, I wasliterally in class and instead
of doing the school project, Iwas doing my own project and
using a school printer to printmy own business cards, laminate
them myself and cut them out,because I didn't have money to
get 100 or 200 made.
And then the teacher came up tome and goes David, what the
(03:23):
heck are you doing?
This is not the project.
And I told him and, to hiscredit, he was like I love this.
He goes you fine, you just doit.
Um, you just do your thing.
And so that that's when.
That's when it all started.
Back then, so lucky, I had agreat supportive teacher and, if
you're listening, tags, thankyou well, I'm sure that that
person's among my many hundredsof people.
Gary Pageau (03:43):
yes, so tell me Growth Forum kind of the
services you provide for thatand who is like your ideal
customer for that?
David Fastuca (03:53):
Yes, it spawned together in 2023 with my
co-founder, Luigi.
So he actually trained andcoached me in the whole sales
front when I was a previousco-founder of Locomo, which was
a business travel tech companythat I co-founded with my cousin
.
Yeah, so, from tech to alsofrom design to technology, I
(04:13):
love that space.
We moved into that because wewanted to build a product of our
own, something tangible that wecould, you know, continually
resell, which, you know, a lotof the people listening today
have that sort of product tiesbusiness, which is great.
So I enlisted the help of mygood friend, louis to really
help me systemize and structurethis out, because I wanted to
build a team.
It was a business where itcouldn't be just me.
(04:35):
If we wanted to grow to theheights, we wanted to grow the
business too.
So, you know, through that sortof teaching and learning,
through that process, again fellin love with that and the help
that it could provide to otherbusiness owners.
They can, you know, systemizetheir sales process.
They can build a teamunderneath them that they know
(04:56):
to a high level of confidencethey're going to execute,
because the founder or thebusiness owner has run the
playbook themselves.
So they know that you.
You know the system works.
You just need to execute, youjust need to put in the sets and
the reps and and you'll getthere and you'll grow the
business.
And for the right person, theylove that.
Um, they get fulfillment out ofhelping the business grow
(05:18):
themselves, growing becausethey're learning.
It was just it's a reallyfulfilling which might sound
fluffy, uh, operation that werun, but it has a real impact
because you can have the bestproduct or service in the world,
but if no one knows who you are, if you can't sell it, then the
business is going to quicklydie.
So we help unleash that growth.
Gary Pageau (05:35):
So do you think sales is in most cases, because
we're going to talk about somedifferent cases, but do you
think it's more of an awarenessthing or an education thing or a
relationship thing?
Because it sounds to me likeyou're talking more about the
awareness thing.
David Fastuca (05:52):
It's all that, unfortunately, because that
means there's a lot of work andmarketing has its job there, and
I was CMO of my previouscompany, the tech company that I
was talking about, so I get itfrom a marketing perspective now
.
Our role as marketers is tomake sales easier.
People need to, you know, begreat if people knew who we are
(06:13):
when we're reaching out to themcold.
So it's it's, it's it's thelifeblood of any business, right
, it's the engine, the salesside of things, and I like to
think of it.
You know, I'm second timefounder now, so I exited from
from locomotes and then in 2016,then we brought it back.
That was a great exit.
It was a 30 mil exit for myselfand my co-founder and the
shareholding team.
(06:33):
But then we bought it backduring, covered and then built
the pipeline up, relaunched itand then I was never really, I
didn't really love businesstravel.
It's not a industry that's uh,not lights my fire, sort of
things.
I exited from that, startedgrowth forum, uh, with my
co-founder, uh, luigi now.
So I like this back to thepoint of second time founders.
(06:56):
First time founders focus on theproduct and the service because
they've got this great idearight and just want to get it
out there second time.
Founders always talk aboutdistribution, where you can have
a half-baked idea, somethingthat obviously needs to provide
value.
But if you've got the rightsales strategy, the right
channel strategy, you can becomea much bigger, larger, happier
(07:18):
business than if you don't havethat component.
So whenever I'm talking withbusiness owners and founders,
I'm really trying to get to thecore of how are you going to
grow this business?
What is the strategy?
What are the partnerships youneed?
What's the sales numbers looklike?
What does the team makeup looklike?
Because you might have a goaland a number in mind, but unless
you've got the framework andthe systems in place, your
(07:42):
chances of getting to thatnumber and to that dream
objective are really slim.
Gary Pageau (07:48):
Now, you mentioned that phrase a couple of times
framework or system or somethinglike that.
How important is that for salesto have a regimented process?
For you know, let's say you'rea business, you got three
salespeople and then you getfive or seven right, so you're
scaling that piece of thebusiness.
(08:08):
How important is that to havesome sort of process?
David Fastuca (08:13):
It's critical.
If you look at any successfulbusiness, the thing that allows
them to scale to the heightsthat there are is the systems
they put in place.
Right, McDonald's, any sort ofmanufacturing business Right.
They're able to produceconsistent quality through the
systems that they put in place.
Right Now, with sales, you'regoing to have an individual that
(08:34):
has a bit of nuances tothemselves and a little bit of
aura.
That's hard to replicate, ofcourse, but what we like to do
with the framework and systemsthat we teach it's giving them
the guardrails.
Here is the guidance, here isthe framework.
Now you can add your littlespin here and there to it, but
here's the messaging, theprocess and the steps that take
place in order to close the deal.
Don't move to this step unlessyou've done xyz.
(08:57):
Now you might add a bit hereand there, but the framework is
there for you to follow.
So it's's critical to enableyou to then consistently grow.
Otherwise, if you rely on youknow the creativity and
intuition of an individual, it'shard to hire and clone.
That you know across thebusiness.
Gary Pageau (09:15):
Sure, well, that's one of the things you always see
is like you know, quote unquote, superstar salesperson or the
hotshot or you know.
I mean I don't know if theyhave that in Australia, but over
here you know, of course youalways see that in the in the TV
shows.
Right, you got the yeah, thehotshot sales guy.
But what you're saying is thatthat may not be actually the
best solution for everyorganization because you can't
(09:36):
scale that guy specifically.
David Fastuca (09:39):
True, and it's a risk, right?
So, while it's great whenthey're nailing it, but what
happens when that person leavesthe company and moves on?
Because the average tenure fora rockstar salesperson the data
shows it hovers around a yearand a half to two years before
they're looking at a newopportunity to tap the new
(09:59):
market, bring theirrelationships over to something
new.
You might get a quick, a quickwin, but over the long term,
it's just not sustainable, right?
So it's something that youreally need to think about, um,
and if you've got a rock star inthe team, it's like cool.
Maybe you can build the system,the framework around what
they're doing, right?
You know dissect, you know thesteps they're taking, how
(10:21):
they're doing it, and then tryand build a framework around
that for the other team membersto follow.
Right?
Gary Pageau (10:26):
Because I mean, you know clearly if they're quote,
quote, rockstar, unquote,they're doing something right to
either reach the audience ormeet the clients that know how
to build relationships orconnect with people or something
like that Correct.
So let's talk a little bit aboutone of the issues that you know
I know runs rampant in myaudience with the photo printing
(10:47):
people and people who areproviding output services, where
they may have dozens and dozensof products that they want to
sell Right, because literallyyou can print on almost anything
now by sixes piece of paper,and now we're printing on canvas
(11:09):
and billboards and and glassand metal and all these various
surfaces and different devicesand all kinds of crazy things.
So that's a lot.
How do you suggest coaching ateam or something that has all
of that stuff in the arsenal,all of those products they could
possibly sell, which areoverwhelming to the, to the
prospect and difficult to narrowdown?
Do you pick it on like theprofitable that you want to
(11:31):
pitch, the more profitableproducts which are probably
maybe better for your bottomline but maybe of less interest
to the consumer, for example?
David Fastuca (11:38):
There's a bit of a fine art to that.
Now I'll bring up a story thatwas recently told to me by a
good friend of mine.
So he was giving me thisscenario where a friend of his
took over the CEO role for thismultinational chocolate business
.
Now chocolate business had beenaround for I think it was close
to like 80, 90 years, so greatestablished business.
(12:01):
But they were on the declineright.
Their sales year after year forthe last 10 years had declined.
So they moved out.
The ceo got a new one in.
So new ceo comes into play andimmediately looks at all the,
all the SKUs, all the productsthey've got.
They had a range of like 150different types of chocolate
that will sell them out, becauseit's easy you have success with
(12:22):
one, let's build another one.
Let's build another one.
Right, exactly right.
It's easy.
You have success with one,let's build another one.
Gary Pageau (12:24):
Let's build another one Right Exactly.
David Fastuca (12:26):
It's that a little of more products equals
more revenue and happy day.
But the effect that it washaving was their marketing spend
was getting diluted across allthese products.
Their messaging and what theybecame known for became diluted
because they had to talk aboutall these new initiatives and
all the new products thatthey'll come in now, and it's
only so much that the audience,your customer, can really take
(12:50):
in and understand what the CEOdid.
He just looked at everything,looked at the numbers, looked at
what they were known for, howthey grew in the early years and
did a bit of a survey withtheir customers on what's your
favorite chocolate, what's yourfavorite flavor, and they end up
reducing their SKUs from Ithink it was around 150 all the
(13:12):
way down to 30.
Massive cull.
Gary Pageau (13:16):
Yeah, five acts and just cut them.
David Fastuca (13:18):
Yeah, yeah, the board was against it.
You know it caused a lot ofarguments because some of the
products might have been an ideafrom one of the executives or a
board member.
Gary Pageau (13:29):
Exactly.
David Fastuca (13:30):
That's right.
It always comes from I think weshould do this and you go.
Okay, but he got his way.
He's like you got me here, ceo,let me do my job Right, and if
it doesn't work, you can find meRight.
And the end result was thecompany is now on the incline
because now they focus back ontotheir core offering Right, and
the messaging becomes a lotsimple because they're only
(13:51):
talking about, you know, alimited amount of products and
30 is a lot of products If youthink about it.
It's still a lot.
That's right, yeah.
And their marketing now goesdown into just 30 products.
So now say they were spending amillion dollars per product
across 150.
Now that's 5x across those 30products.
So they get more exposure.
(14:12):
So everything becomes easier,right, your systems, your
process, what your sales teamneed to talk about.
It's easy to complicate things.
It's very hard to simplifythings and I think apple does an
amazing job on the simplicityfactor.
Sure, now they're probably.
Ever since you know the passingof of the late steve jobs, you
(14:34):
know they've added more skewsand things like that.
But one could argue they'resuper successful still, which
they are right, but that's onlycomes after once they've truly
nailed a sector, before youstart adding things on there.
Yeah, it becomes too easy justto add another five SKUs,
another five products, because,hey, like you said, I can print
(14:54):
on the t-shirt Now I can printon glass, now we can offer
everything to our customer.
Right, but why did yourcustomer come to you first?
Why did they come to you andnot the other person down the
road that can do the same thingor 50 other things?
Gary Pageau (15:07):
You know, because I think the R industry got kind
of swept up in sort of the longtail thought.
Right, remember Chris Anderson,the long tail, yeah, you know
you got to offer it.
Even you know the example youused was you know MP3 downloads
right, you know you got yourmost popular songs and it goes
down to you download it threetimes but it's still that's
(15:30):
three sales you wouldn't havegotten if you didn't offer that
song right.
And I think the reality is,when you're dealing with a
physical product and you'retrying to gain mind share in
today's customer, that limitedapproach is actually probably
more vital now than ever.
David Fastuca (15:48):
Yeah, I think most companies the companies
that we're seeing, that arereally on a tear and succeeding
are the ones that really nichedown and focus.
They focus on two or three corethings that are super tightly
related and they focus on aspecific industry, solving a
specific problem, and it'salmost like self-selection.
(16:09):
If I once I'm aware of thisbrand, if I'm in your ideal
customer profile, you're talkingto me, the message hits me half
the sale is already done, right, right, which is great.
It's like going to a restaurantand they sell pizza, pasta,
then indian food and chinesefood.
Instantly, you're thinking howgood can all this you know
(16:30):
different type of cuisine be,versus going to one place and
all we sell is pizza and pasta.
You know, it's like aperception that I'm going to get
a great meal here.
Yeah, and it's the same as ifsomeone's trying to hit me up to
sell marketing services and youknow they claim to be the best
in paid advertising, but theyalso do websites, they also do
SEO, they also do this.
(16:51):
I'm instantly and they might begreat at it I instantly just
put them in the bin because I'mlike you can't be great at all
those things.
It's impossible to be that goodat it.
It just doesn't work in thisday and age.
Gary Pageau (17:04):
Well, you know, it's just kind of interesting
because you know, look what'shappening in, like fast food,
for example, you know, used tobe the fast food brands were
very much.
They had a very specificperception of what they were
right mcdonald's was this,burger king was that, taco bell
was this, kfc was that.
And now when you look at theirmenus, you know Arby's is
(17:24):
serving Italian subs and euros,you know, and I just, I just
wonder, like you said, theycould almost like pair that back
where probably the most popularchain here in the US is
Chick-fil-A and they probablyhave like four things on their
menu.
That's all they do.
David Fastuca (17:40):
Yeah, but look at it from a whole business
perspective.
When it comes to hiring someoneat chick-fil-a, their systems
are really down pat and there'sonly a few things they need to
know.
Right, the sales team there'sonly a few things they need to
sell.
When, when a customer comes into store, it's less intimidating
because there's only a fewthings I can choose from.
Right.
So everything becomes simple,from internal factor as well as
(18:02):
external.
And if I'm going into aChick-fil-A, I know pretty much
what I'm going to order before Igo in.
Versus going into somewherewhere they've got 200 things on
order.
You get the informationparalysis.
Things become harder.
We just want to make thingssimple for the people that work
for us and the people who wewant to buy from us.
Gary Pageau (18:23):
So why do businesses do that?
I mean, it seems to me like thedata is there, everyone can see
it that the most popular andsuccessful companies, at least
in most industries, you canpretty much pigeonhole what they
do in four or five things orproducts.
You can kind of pick out whatthey are.
And I'm not talking like aWalmart where it every product
(18:46):
on the planet, but I'm talkingabout, you know, brands that are
selling specific things.
But when you see, like you know, coca-cola now has I don't even
know how many flavors of Coke.
It's ridiculous.
And Pepsi is the same thing.
They've, you know, and it'slike.
David Fastuca (19:08):
it's like like don't they realize that that's
actually probably increasingtheir costs and lowering their
sales because there's a lot ofoverhead with each one of those
brands.
True, but a lot of these smartbrands, the ones that execute
really well, treat as each ofthese products as pretty much
its own business.
Right, and that's the smart wayto do it.
So if you think about a productline within your business,
let's look at Coke, right, sothey've got the energy drink
(19:29):
division, the water division,and then they've got their hero
division.
Now, each one of these areaswithin the business would have a
let's call it quote unquote CEOor head of director, their own
team, marketing team, sales team, their own marketing budget,
and they need to succeed ontheir own.
If they don't, then, like anybusiness, they get shut down or
(19:50):
sold off.
I'll look at it like this in ourbusiness.
So we've got, obviously, ourcore offering, which is our
training program that people gothrough.
Then we've got our podcast, ournewsletter, our upcoming book.
Each one of these takes up acrap ton of effort.
There's pretty much almost amicro business in itself and
(20:11):
that effort that goes into it.
So we could easily go hey, weshould be doing SEO, hey, we
should be doing this, but I'mlike the time that we can give
each one of these things isfinite.
So let's just pick off the twoor three that we can give the
right amount of time to, theright amount of budget to, and
let's just become great at thosebefore we even look at anything
else.
Um, it's just too easy to keepadding more and more on, but
(20:35):
what happens is you dilute yourtime, effort and budget and then
everything becomes, you know,executed poorly because you just
can't execute all that well.
Gary Pageau (20:43):
Just say that I looked it up while you were
talking I was kind of being rude, I apologize that there are
over a hundred different flavorsof Coca-Cola available.
Now I'm talking about energydrinks, I'm talking about just
Coca-Cola.
Now that's crazy, that's liketo the extreme.
So let's talk a little bitabout your process, your sales
strategy process.
(21:03):
So let's talk a little bitabout your process, your sales
strategy process, because Ithink you know, for a lot of the
people in my audience who maybe retailers or service
providers or folks like that,you know they may have gone to a
seminar, they may have seen aworkshop or something like that
and maybe this stuff didn't sinkin.
What makes yours more effectivethan maybe something like that?
David Fastuca (21:24):
Yeah, no, that's awesome.
So look a lot of those sort ofevents and they're great.
We love going to events, butthe truth of the fact is that
after I think, you only consumearound 20% of what's spoken.
This is like data that's outthere on, you know education and
learning events, and then, aseach day passes, it's
diminishing returns on what youretain, unless you actually
(21:45):
execute on that which, let's behonest, not many of us execute
on what we've seen in such quicktime.
We go back to a normalday-to-day in our operations.
The difference with Growforumand how we operationalize the
business is that one, Luigi, myco-founder, he's been doing this
thing for over 25 years.
He's actually trained me in theprogram and we're running the
(22:06):
same process ourselves to growour own business Right.
So while we have a team thatare in sales and do that work,
we're on the tools as well.
So we've got like our heart onthe beat.
We understand what's working,what's not working.
So we provide that dailyguidance.
Two, we provide a framework anda system that people will go
through to execute out.
(22:27):
We coach and guide them, so it'snot just here's a course, go
through it and then, on your way, we stick with them until they
execute, provide them guidanceon how to execute and then make
the adjustments with them toensure that they get the result
that they came in for.
And then the third component,and the key difference, is that
once they've proven that thesystem works in their world, in
(22:50):
their industry, we can then helpbolt on outsource salespeople
into their team, Okay yeah, thatare trained up in a growth
forum way, that understandeverything.
They understand how to buildthe playbook, so they know
everything.
That's been done.
All that needs to take place isthat the business owner founder
and they just need to educatethat individual on their product
(23:11):
and their service, and thenthey know with a high level of
certainty that this outsourceresource is going to execute
quite well because the playbookis proven.
Now you've got someone that'sgoing to work on this eight to
10 hours a day, five days a day,five days a week, just for you.
So that's the difference.
We provide the coaching andframework, the guided execution
and then the resources to takethat off your plate once it's
(23:33):
ready.
Gary Pageau (23:34):
So tell me your most exciting success story you
had with this the client thatcame in that you were like I
don't know if this is going towork, but then they bought into
it and they were successful.
David Fastuca (23:47):
Yeah, love it.
So it's a.
It's a well-known brand name.
They created the term inboundmarketing, so you probably guess
who that is.
I'm happy to share that HubSpot.
So they get an abundance ofinbound leads, right, they're
very lucky.
But I'm just that lucky.
They have spent the time andeffort to generate that.
It's still, you know, aninbound lead, and what I mean by
(24:10):
inbound?
This is someone that just comesto your website or inquires
directly on your form, on yoursite, because they know who you
are and they want to inquiremore.
So you've done the outreach tothem.
Now one would assume that thesepeople are easier to sell to,
(24:33):
and yes and no, but they stillrequire the same amount of
follow-up.
They need to go through theprocess of whatever it is within
the business.
So HubSpot initially had theapproach where these people will
come in.
We'll just run them through ademo and they'll sign up, right,
I've been through a couple ofHub'll sign up.
Gary Pageau (24:44):
Right, but after time I've been to a couple of
HubSpot demos.
That's exactly what they did tome.
At least that's right.
David Fastuca (24:50):
And look, it's not cheap.
Hubspot has increased theirprices over time because they've
got a great product, which isfine, but now there's a lot of
competition in the spaceAbsolutely that compete with
them.
So it's not an easy sale, nomore.
So the biggest win there wasthen, you know one admitting to
that, two adding their, theirsales team members to the
program.
(25:10):
And then those sales teammembers have been with us for
you know, since, since inception, and zero churn, because they
get in the value, because weprovide that continuous learning
.
It's not you go through theprogram and then, on your way,
it's we.
We run weekly sessions.
They can reach out to us ifthey're having a bad week or a
bad month.
We can diagnose what they'redoing wrong or what they need to
(25:30):
move on and help them.
You know, get back up there.
It's like any sort of coach,sporting and the like.
You just need to continue to dothe reps, do the exercises, and
you're going to have thosetimes where you go through, you
know, a bad patch and you needthat motivation and you need
someone with a bird's eye viewto say hey, you know you're just
(25:51):
missing out these two or threefundamentals.
You know you're skipping them.
Get back on Twitter, get themand you'll get the results back.
You know someone that's not inthe business that can see that
and be really black and whitewith them.
It's not everyone's cup of teathat sort of approach, but we're
not for everyone.
Gary Pageau (26:07):
So how many steps are there in this process that
you go through?
Now, if I understand, it's akind of a two-step process where
the business learns about youand then there's the process the
salespeople go through.
So what are those like whenyou're onboarding a company?
What's that like you through?
So what are?
What are those like when you'reonboarding a company?
What's that like you're?
David Fastuca (26:25):
you do an audit for example, what they're doing,
right, correct.
We do an order just to get alay of the land.
You know what sales look likewithin your organization, who's
doing it, how's it been run,what process do you have in
place, what technology do youhave in place?
And then that gives us a goodlay of the land to say, okay,
cool, then we can prescribe abit of a learning journey.
And here's what you need to do,first and second, before you
(26:46):
tackle the call offering here,and then from there we
understand where they are andthen we can help them develop
their journey towards getting arobust system in place.
And it might sound like a longand arduous task, but
effectively we try and push ourmembers to go through to
learning, to execution, so whenthey're actually running the
(27:08):
sales system and play within twoweeks okay so it's like you're
here, you've got a problem.
Let's fix this now and quick.
Let's dedicate the time andthen let's once rubber hits the
road, let's actually.
That's when we're going to getthe real learnings once you're
customers, once you're gettingrejections, once you're getting
approvals so we can understandwhat's learning and then tweak
(27:30):
it so we can quickly help scalethis out for you and the team.
Gary Pageau (27:34):
What are some of the things that salespeople are
doing day-to-day that they couldbe improving on?
David Fastuca (27:42):
It's just the simple things.
It's ensuring that you'reblocking out time within your
calendar to do new pipelinegeneration and what I mean by
that is reaching out to newprospective customers that
haven't heard of you yet andjust getting on their radar.
Ensuring that you're blockingout time every day for that.
People always cut corners whenthey've got a thin, skinny,
(28:04):
unhealthy sales pipeline.
What you want to do is buildenough deals and opportunities
within your pipeline that arethe right profile for you and
nurture those people through.
So just blocking out that timeto ensure that, before you do
any other task, you're knockingthat out, and if you do that, it
(28:24):
will compound over time andit's like the best tool in the
world is compounding Just ask MrWarren Buffett and once you've
got that into play, you willnever struggle to close deals on
the regular basis if you dothat and it's the hardest thing
to do Well, that's what I wasgoing to say Mentally that's the
(28:44):
hard thing to do, becausethat's where you're hearing all
the no's right, that's right.
Gary Pageau (28:48):
It's easier to talk to a warm prospect or a current
customer to see how they'redoing because they already have
a relationship with you.
But you know if you're doingany kind of cold prospecting,
you know you're going to hear alot of no's and a lot of people
don't like that.
Now I know there's people whoget excited about that.
They go.
You know every no I hear is ais is the brings me closer to
yes.
(29:08):
I've heard that a thousandtimes but for a lot of people
it's difficult.
David Fastuca (29:13):
Yeah, it is, and I like to look at it as like yes
, I've heard the same saying andoften give it out, but it's
also okay If someone says no,reflect on that.
Okay, or ask another question,go, cool, you know quite quite.
If you've lost the deal already, just go, you know, interrogate
a little bit more.
You know why.
No, like, was it something Isaid?
(29:35):
Was it the messaging?
You know, is it something youdon't need right now?
Try and get a data point, tryand get something from that.
No, that can help you.
Gary Pageau (29:42):
Just don't take no for an answer.
But you're not necessarilytrying to sell them.
You're trying to find out whatthe objection actually is.
David Fastuca (29:49):
Exactly Like.
I had one literally yesterdaywhere they're like Dave, we like
this, but you know it's not theright time for us because we're
looking at execution and Ihadn't spoken to them yet about,
hey, when you're ready, then weinstall someone into your
business and I'm like, oh, okay,cool, mark, I didn't explain to
this yet because you know wehaven't jumped on our discovery
(30:10):
call, but once you've built outthe system and process and
executed it and got some wins,then we help take that off your
plate by putting someone intothe business.
I go is that something that youknow sounds like what you're
looking for?
Because for him it was aneducation that I hadn't provided
that person yet, based on hiscore need, where I want sales
(30:30):
now, but I don't want to do it.
I'm like, okay, you know, sothis is the approach that we
need to take.
Gary Pageau (30:36):
Right right.
David Fastuca (30:36):
So there's always a learning that you can get
from that.
You know if you're going to geta no.
Get a learning that you canmake the next one easier.
Gary Pageau (30:43):
So when you get that feedback where I think this
runs into a brick wall perhapslet's say, for example, you're a
salesperson and you're talkingto somebody and then you get
this great feedback there has tobe a system in place to record
the feedback and act on it Right.
(31:04):
In a lot of businesses there'sa disconnect because the
salespeople are providingfeedback that they're getting
from prospects and currentcustomers, and maybe production
or marketing or somebody or theother people who could act on it
are dropping the ball.
So does your system kind ofaccount for that?
David Fastuca (31:21):
That's always a tough challenge.
I like to.
Whenever I'm hearing a no andgetting some feedback.
What I'm doing personally isI'm taking responsibility for
that.
I am writing these issues downon like a Google Doc.
Then I can run it through someAI to give me okay, over the
last month, what have been theno's, what are things I need to
(31:42):
change in the business?
And then I'm presenting this toLuigi and say, okay, these are
the things that we need tochange in the business.
Now, if you're relying on otherpeople in the business
production a CEO or someone elsethat's internal sales, same
process.
So how would you approach it?
You need to get them to changesomething.
They think that what they'redoing is right.
(32:03):
You need to convince them ofchange, and there's going to be
a monetary investment somehow,of time or effort and hard
dollars for them to make achange.
So just because you're talkingto someone in the business
doesn't make it any easier.
You need to have the same salessystem to sell internally.
And if sometimes it's oftenharder because there's a lot of
(32:28):
emotion in there, it's well.
I've been doing this for years.
This is what works and you'llgo well.
No, this is what our customerswant.
So the more data that you canpresent back to that team that
needs to make a change justhelps your argument and then try
to pull the emotion out andbring it back to-.
Gary Pageau (32:46):
Sometimes hard in smaller companies.
Right, because you got thefamily we're on the same journey
here.
David Fastuca (32:50):
We want to grow the business.
This is what the market'stelling us, you know.
So let's trial it right.
So a light touch could be.
Let's, instead of changingeverything, let's just trial it
for the next five or six andlet's see what results we get
and then we can make a decisionas a team.
Right treat is like a beta test.
Everyone loves the ab testingand let's just treat it as a
little test and let's just seewhat happens and we can squash
(33:11):
it quickly if it doesn't workright.
So it's a low risk.
It's almost like gettingsomeone, a customer, in on a
free trial.
Or hey, try the camera out now,try the printer, see the
quality.
You know, get them involved,almost like the ikea effect,
where they now feel like theyown it, and then get their
buy-in and then, once they'vetried, tasted the offering, then
they're like okay, cool To moveforward with the sale and or
(33:35):
the change within the business.
It's a lot more palatable.
Gary Pageau (33:38):
That's interesting because I hadn't thought about
it as sort of like internalsales.
You're trying to sell yourcoworker using many of the same
principles right To find whattheir feedback is, respond,
provide information, do allthose things but you're doing
that internally to sell thechange you may want.
David Fastuca (34:00):
Yeah, like one of my good friends, michael
Margolis, over in the States.
He literally has got a businessand he trains basically people
within the business to sellinternally and these are like
big like it's.
He's talking like dealing withpeople inside of meta to go ask
mark zuckerberg for two billiondollars to work on project x.
You're right, there is aprocess to get that right and to
convince mark to.
(34:21):
You know, invest some heavycoin in doing a project right.
So there's a whole dynamicbehind that and a process to it
as well.
Gary Pageau (34:31):
You've got a book coming out.
David Fastuca (34:33):
Yes, we do.
Gary Pageau (34:34):
We haven't even talked about the book yet.
This is crazy.
We've been talking almost 40minutes and we haven't even
talked about the book yet.
David Fastuca (34:41):
Tell me about this book, the book it's called
the B2B Sales Playbook Boringname but filled with a lot of
I'm sure you did a lot of A-Btesting on that name, right?
We just want to make sure ifsomeone looks up B2B Playbook,
we're number one, right?
So here it is.
If you're seeing this, it's anice and simple stands out.
It's basically has everythingthat I spoke about on this call,
(35:03):
everything that we train aboutin our program, as well as all
the resources, templates,everything.
In the first few pages we sayenter your email here to get the
resources, and then there'seven coaching, chapter by
chapter, on what to do.
We spent the last 15 monthsworking on the copy in the book
(35:25):
and Luigi and I are super proudof it.
It's a way for us to impact alot more people than we can
service within the business.
Our goal for it is to be thelittle black book that sits on
every business owner's desk,whether they're B2B or B2C.
Gary Pageau (35:41):
And you hope they're actually reading it and
not just sitting on the deskright.
David Fastuca (35:44):
Well, that's right.
We want people to read it, andthe good thing about this book
is that we designed it where itdoesn't have to be read from
front to back.
The chapters are very pointedout as to here is what you're
going to learn in this chapter.
So if you're having aparticular problem this month,
just go in and just read thatchapter, get the insights, get
the coaching, get the resourcesand apply it to the business.
(36:05):
You could be that person wholoves to read from front to back
Awesome but if not, it's achoose-your-own-adventure style
of book.
There you go.
Gary Pageau (36:13):
I love that.
David Fastuca (36:15):
I love that, so you can get the book read one
chapter and this is my ask forthe audience.
It's live now, as you listen.
It's only $2 for the Kindleversion, so grab it.
We'd love for you to leave areview.
If, for whatever reason, youdon't have an Amazon account or
can't invest into it, find me onLinkedIn and I'll give you a
(36:36):
copy for free.
We just want to impact morepeople.
I just want people to read thebook, execute and then share
with us.
David Louis, this really helpedme in the business and that's
enough for us.
So where can people go forinformation on Growth Forum and
(36:56):
or the book?
Very simple, so for the book,just go to growthforumio forward
slash book and then that willpoint you in the right way to
collect it, and then on the samesite as well, and within the
show notes, you have my LinkedInURL.
If you want to connect with methere, it's just David Fustuka.
You'll find my mug on therewith a nice green background.
So yeah, I invite you toconnect with me.
Ask me a question.
(37:17):
If you need a copy of the book,I'll send you a copy of the
book.
We just want this in the handsof as many people that we can
impact as possible.
It's a bit of a legacy projectfor us.
Is that two dollars australianor two dollars?
Gary Pageau (37:37):
us two dollars, us, okay, two dollars globally,
depending on how the the marketis at the moment.
It's a, it's a bargain.
There you go and that's outlike this week, so that's
awesome.
David Fastuca (37:41):
It's brand new, fresh stuff, the ink is launched
this week well, let's see alittle bit of steam coming off
the, the printing press and yeah, for those in the in the
printing industry, yeah,criticize the, the print quality
, tell me about the design.
I love to hear it all awesome.
Gary Pageau (37:57):
Well, david, it's great to meet you.
Thank you so much for your timehope the book is a huge success
.
I will be plugging it, like youwon't believe, and I may even
read it myself, so thank you soso much.
Appreciate it, thank youBye-bye.
Erin Manning (38:10):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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