May 14, 2024 • 46 mins
Our next guest on The Starfish Storytellers is my friend Tom Libby. Tom has been a Sales VP and Business Development Executive for over 20 years with a passion for helping companies with sales management and training across many industries. He believes that sales is about solving a problem first.
In this episode, Tom shares networking success stories, how to navigate partnerships, and the importance of bringing value to every professional interaction - reminding us that building RELATIONSHIPS should always come before doing business.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
(00:04):
at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
So I spent, I spent a good portion of my late teens and early 20s in the restaurant industry.
I actually went to culinary school for three and a half years.
I thought I wanted to be a chef.
I got into restaurants.
(00:26):
I was doing just fine and about halfway through my restaurant, 10 year, I became, I realized
I wanted to be in the front of the house.
So I was, I became a part of the management team in the restaurant.
At one point at about, I think I was 21 when I first became a general manager of the restaurant,
making very good money at 21, decided to have a family.
(00:48):
So my first son was born when I was 21 years old.
We got married and then I had my second son by the time I was 23.
And at that point I realized very quickly that the restaurant industry is really not conducive
of family life.
Like I felt like, I felt like I was spending, you know, when I was single and I was spending
80, 85 hours a week at the restaurant, it really wasn't that big a deal.
(01:10):
And then when I met my wife and, you know, splitting time between the restaurant, my
wife was fine.
When I had my first son, I was like, okay, because now I can spend at least every waking
moment I had with him.
And the one day off a week that I got, I could spend the whole day with my son.
But then when I have my second son, I had this like epiphany type thing where I was
like, this is just not going to work.
(01:31):
There's just not enough hours in the day where I can split one day off between two of my
sons.
What happens if they don't like the same stuff, right?
And I have to go play baseball with one kid and go to performing arts with the other or
whatever.
Right?
Like I was, I had this, this overwhelming feeling that I was just never going to have
enough time for my family.
So I started thinking about other jobs I could do.
(01:52):
And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll hint a little bit to my age here because I'm going to tell
you I found an ad in the newspaper that that was asking for management, caliber people.
And I read that and I was like, well, I'm a general manager of a restaurant.
I was running a restaurant with 70 people in it or 60 people is what's 60 people.
So I was like, I can manage people.
(02:12):
I've been managing people for the last few years.
I, I should answer this ad.
So I answered the ad in the paper and I realized very quickly throughout the interview, I called
the phone number on the newspaper.
They said, yeah, sure.
Come on in for an interview.
I told them very quick, the phone interviews back then, by the way, were very, very simple.
It was like, Oh, you answered that ad.
Did you read the ad?
(02:33):
Yes.
Oh, you qualified.
Yeah.
Come on in for an interview.
It was really simple.
It was not these elaborate, you know, interview processes that we have today.
So I went into the interview and I realized very quickly that this was not what I thought
it was.
They weren't really looking for management people.
They were looking for certain qualities of people and they were looking for salespeople.
(02:53):
And the, the first person I actually sat down with about this, this is really five minutes
into the interview.
And I said, thank you very much for your time, but I'm not your guy.
And the woman who was interviewing me said, Oh, that was really quick.
It's like, why do you say that?
It's like, you know, have you done some research on the company or like, what was the, and I
said, no, no, no, I'm not your guy.
(03:14):
You're looking for salespeople.
I'm just not willing to lie to people in order to be in business.
And she was like, interesting.
So that's your impression of what salespeople do when I went, yeah, isn't that what salespeople
do?
They just, they just do whatever they have to do to get a deal.
Right.
They'll say anything, do anything.
I hear stories all the time.
Like I would, I would, you know, I'd sell my mother for, you know, for this deal or whatever.
(03:38):
Right.
Like all kinds of really bad analogies ran through my head and she went, so that's
not exactly what sales is about.
She was very, she goes, how about this?
How about I put you in front of the sales manager at this, at this company that we're
recruiting for interview with him, tell him what you just said to me.
(04:02):
And then, and then what, when he responds to you, then you can decide whether or not
this, this job's right for you because I think it's right for you.
And I'm telling you, we set this whole thing was all of about six or eight minutes.
So this entire interview was six or eight minutes.
And so I went on the actual interview with the sales manager and I, I had this conversation
(04:23):
with him and I sat down and he's, his first thing to me was I'm looking at your resume
and I'm a little confused as to why you're applying for this job.
Like, you know, the sales job, I go, that makes two of us because I told the recruiter
that I didn't think I was the right fit for you either.
And he's like, Oh, if you don't think you're the right fit and I don't, I'm certainly not
sure you're, she goes, why, he goes, why did she send you here?
(04:45):
And I said, well, when I realized it was a sales job, I said to her that I refused
to lie to people.
And the conversation turned very quickly from him.
It was no longer an interview.
At that point, it became him trying to understand the perception that people have about sales
(05:07):
people.
And when it all became, instead of an interviewer, he became a student in that case.
And at that hit me really hard that somebody who had been in sales for like 20 years or
15 years at the time encountered somebody that was so puzzling to him that he just wanted
to learn more and had nothing to do with the job anymore.
(05:31):
And by the end of the 45 minutes to an hour that we sat and chatted, he offered me the
job because in his mind, he wanted people that were willing to solve problems, not that
willing to sell ice to an Eskimo or sell or talking to dog off of meat wagon or any of
those other weird cliches that we've come up with about sales.
(05:52):
So I started my sales career with the opposite of what people talk about with the ABCs of
sales, right?
We always hear the ABCs always be closing in like the sales are about competitiveness
and being number one and making more money and earning.
It's always been about these very cliche things.
And he wanted to flip the script a little bit and turn it on its head.
(06:15):
And he thought that with me, he found the right start.
Like that was the good starting point of getting people to understand that sales was more about
understanding your customer, solving a problem.
And really, you become almost, I don't want to use the word friends, but you become almost
friends with those customers because it's no longer adversarial.
(06:38):
It's more quality versus quantity.
And so we really changed the dynamics of that company.
And I feel very cool.
I felt very honored that I was the beginning of that.
What's even more impressive to me is that now it's almost like if you're a student of sports
at all, they talk about coaching trees.
(06:58):
I feel like we have started that in sales where now these tentacles are going out amongst
really high powered sales professionals that no longer think of the cliches and they're
always out now starting to solve problems and help customers.
Your job as a sales person is to help customers, not to sell them products or services or
(07:19):
whatever that is.
Hello.
(07:46):
My name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Markham and project management firm headquartered on
the east coast of the US in quaint colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
(08:09):
The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact,
one step, one starfish or one story at a time.
Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
and connect with you and we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready
(08:30):
to tell their own stories.
So thanks for tuning in.
Now let's get started.
Today's episode is about insights and results through networking success stories.
And with me today is my friend Tom Libby.
Tom has been a sales VP and business development executive for over 20 years with a passion
for helping small companies with sales management and training across many industries.
(08:55):
True to his mission, Tom has started several companies that have brought sales, marketing
and operations specialists together as a resource for his client businesses.
Expert at creating networking communities, Tom has helped these teams support each other
as they grow.
So thank you for being here.
It's really good to see you and catch up again.
Yes, my pleasure.
(09:17):
So we like to get started by having you introduce yourself.
Probably do a better job than I did.
So would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about you?
Yeah, sure.
So as you heard in the story, I started my sales career.
Actually, it's a little over 20 years now.
I'm trying to hide the gray as much as I can, but it doesn't work.
(09:38):
But I think I was around, I don't know, 24, 25 when I got into sales originally.
I think the thing that I found the most fun was the speed in which life moved when you
got into sales.
Everything was just 100 miles an hour.
And for a guy like me, who also was very athletic, I played semi pro football for a long time.
(10:03):
I played for about 10 years.
I was running and sprinting all the time.
So the business world to match that and just the constant changes and moving and shaking
and learning and all that stuff was really good.
So I ended up getting into sales haphazardly, as you heard in the story this morning, earlier,
I should say.
(10:24):
But I also realized very quickly, and I mean really quickly, like within six months I decided,
I really don't want to just be a salesperson.
I want to figure out a way to help as many people as possible on both sides of the coin.
So it was very fast moving.
I went to my VP of sales at the time.
(10:45):
I said, how do I become management?
Like I answered an ad that said management.
I want to be management.
How do I do that?
And the VP of sales was a really old, fun guy.
I liked him a lot.
I got along with him well, but it was much, much older than me.
He was probably just a few years from retirement at the time.
And he was like, well, Tom, you just got to be the best.
(11:07):
And I went, oh, so to be a manager, you have to be the number one salesperson.
And he goes, about sums it up.
And I was like, got it.
I can do that.
So I went out and for the next, you know, six to nine months, I really just killed myself.
I really, I ended up becoming the rookie of the year.
I won a bunch of awards, became a sales manager.
(11:29):
And from that sales management position realized, if I can go above that, and now I can impact
sales managers who have full sales teams, I'm going to do that.
Because I just kept creeping up the ladder.
And I went from just a sales person that had no idea what they were doing to running teams
of about, there was about 75 sales people working for me at the time that I finally left that
(11:51):
company, which was only three and a half years.
So I went from zero to that in three and a half years.
And once I got there, I was like, I'm not doing that again.
I'm just going to stay here.
So I just decided to stay at that level.
You know, I just kind of moved around to other teams until I decided to go out on my own
and become a consultant, which just changes the entire ballgame at that point.
(12:11):
But that's a little bit about me.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll talk a little bit about that, the whole consultant role versus being on a
team because I know that you work with a lot of sort of independent people in the sales
and marketing world and operations world.
So it is very different than being on the inside, on corporate.
So for sure.
(12:34):
I loved your story.
The favorite, my favorite part of your story was how you talked about the person that was
interviewing became sort of the student.
He wanted to learn from you and that he talked about, it's not just about, I got to sell something.
It's about helping people solve problems.
(12:57):
And I think, I mean, I'm sure as you do sales training, that must be sort of the foundation
for how you work with folks.
It really truly does because if you think of it from a practicality standpoint, it actually
makes far more sense, right?
(13:18):
So if I raised and trained a bunch of salespeople to basically be that stereotypical, do whatever
it takes, just sell, sell, sell, close, close, close, it doesn't really matter.
Think about the turnover rate in your customer base that that would create because you're
going to force feed a sale into somebody who may not be the right fit for your product
(13:39):
or service.
And if they're not the right fit, it may work for a quota for a month, like it may make
you look good for a month.
But if your turnover rate for your customer base is 50%, then that's telling you that
you're selling 50% to people that shouldn't be buying from you in the first place because
you're not really solving their problem.
You're convincing them that you are the solution when you may or may not be.
(14:03):
And the reality of it is if you're really focusing in on the people that you can truly
help and that stickiness or that customer retention rate can creep up into the 80s or
90s, then now, first of all, your salespeople aren't working as hard.
Your sale becomes a lot more functional.
I don't want to say easy because I don't want to lend anybody to think that sales is easy
(14:25):
because it's really not.
No, but it's more meaningful.
It's more meaningful.
Right.
And you become a better company because of it, right?
And you're the trusted advisor for the customer.
Exactly.
And the likelihood of that customer now becoming an advocate for you is much higher, right?
Because let's face it, small business owners, no other small business owners, right?
(14:45):
So if you do something that really becomes a detriment to their company, they're going
to tell people, if you do something that's going to be really great for their company,
they might tell people.
Right.
Very clear difference there.
I don't know if everybody caught that, but if you do something negative, they're going
to tell people.
If you do something positive, they might tell people.
That's the general consensus of business.
(15:08):
That just happens that way.
And I think a lot of that comes from my time in the restaurant industry because in the
restaurant industry, it's even worse.
If you do something outrageously bad, it's almost the back in the day when I was in the
business, it was, they were guaranteed to tell 10 people.
Like you were going to get that 10 people.
If you did something outstandingly phenomenal, they might tell one or two.
(15:32):
So I started employing that same kind of mentality into sales.
Like if you go out of your way and do the right thing by the customer and they're 100%
happy, they might tell one or two people.
But if you just really do the wrong thing, sell the wrong product, make a false promise,
whatever that detriment is, they're guaranteed to tell, now I can't make the same ratio.
(15:55):
I don't know if they're going to tell 10 people, but they're definitely without a doubt going
to tell other people.
Now you may be in one of those few circumstances where the benefit to them telling them is
that they're not business owners.
They may go home and vent to their family.
They may tell their brothers, their cousins, their sisters, whatever.
It may not be business owners.
It may not hurt you as much as you think it does, but it does eventually still hurt you
(16:17):
either way.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So it is about having that positive experience and making that as positive as possible.
But what you said was, they might tell business owners, no other business owners, and if they're
(16:38):
happy, they might tell someone else and that's part of their network.
Right.
And we're talking today about networking because you are an expert at networking.
You build businesses just with the foundation of the importance of networking.
So I wanted to hear some success stories.
(16:59):
I thought you would probably have quite a few that you could share.
So networking success stories are compelling narratives and they really highlight the benefits
of community and collaboration.
And they can really be useful for teaching moments as well.
And a networking success story can recount maybe how you solved the problem.
(17:24):
It can demonstrate your skills and values.
But generally speaking, there's always going to be some sort of a nugget in those stories
that is going to demonstrate what were the gains, what did you get from networking.
So this is something that has just been sort of at your heart.
I mean, you were just like, this is so important to you.
(17:49):
So let me, but it's not simply a story behind it.
It's almost like a learning process with it too.
So networking can come in a bunch of different shapes and sizes and forms and whatnot.
And when I first started the consulting business with my partner, we had what we thought a
(18:12):
good idea was, what networking is.
You'd go, we called it shaking hands and kissing babies.
Like no matter how many networking events you go to, you go out there, you shake hands,
kiss babies.
You grow the number of people you know.
There's ways of like, like, so networking by itself, there's multitudes of these, right?
So like you, if you are super new at this and you don't really have a lot, you feel
(18:37):
like you don't have a lot to offer or you feel like other people don't necessarily have
a lot to offer you.
The whole shaking hands and kissing babies is okay.
It's because it's really more about getting out there and being in front of people, just
passing the word along.
And I remember the very first time I handed my business card to somebody and he looked
at it and went, oh, it's like, I recognize that logo.
And I almost fell down.
(18:57):
I was like, oh my God, that's so amazing.
Like somebody actually recognized, like, I didn't even say anything to him yet.
And he's like, oh yeah, you guys do this.
And I was like, yeah, you're right.
I was like, how did you hear about us?
He's like, oh, blah, blah, blah.
That in itself does have some power to it, right?
So I'm not suggesting that's wrong.
But and what ends up happening in those types of environments is a very referral based network,
(19:19):
right?
And I see you at a networking event a few times.
We have a few conversations.
I get to know and trust you.
I bump into somebody else that I think might be a good fit for your service.
And I make an introduction.
I was like, so, hey, you know, Jane Doe over here, Leanna, I thought it would be a good
idea for you guys to meet.
And I send an email that says, hey, Leanna, Jane does this and hey, Jane Leanna does that.
(19:41):
I think you guys would have a great conversation.
You know, thank you so much.
I look forward to seeing you both again.
And that's great and that referral based networking is good.
And there's a lot of good things that can happen from it.
But I had this epiphany one day that made me think like there was more to it.
And what happened was I had a client.
(20:03):
I was doing some sales work with, some sales process improvement work.
And I uncovered that they had some marketing gaps in their marketing information.
So I went out to one of my, one of them networking people that I met and I said, I have something
that might be good for you, but it's already a client of mine.
(20:23):
So I don't want to do one of those traditional mutual introductions because I don't want
there to be any ambiguity between us.
Like I just felt like there were some weird things that could happen.
I said, so here's what I'd like to do if you're okay with it.
Other than just make an email mutual introduction, I'd like to schedule a meeting.
Have you come in with me?
(20:45):
We can make the introduction at the meeting and then explain to him, the customer, how
the two of us are going to work together to solve both of these problems.
And at the time she was like, oh, I've never really done that before.
I don't, you know, I've worked with other consultants, but it's always been in our
own little silo and the customer tells us what's going on.
(21:06):
And I said, that's great, and I understand that that's happened in the past.
I go, but I felt like that this was different.
And this was a good example to me of how the whole was greater than the sum of its parts
from purely business perspective.
So think of it from like a, if you're in the consulting world and you're thinking about
(21:28):
billable hours, I'm looking at this going, the customer gets three times the amount of
work from two people than he would get from one.
It's greater than the sum of its parts, right?
Because the outcomes are going to be better if her and I were working together and making
sure that everything was in sync.
(21:50):
And we ran our own separate companies, but that didn't matter.
What we ended up becoming together for and applying the teamwork approach to was the
customer's goals, not our goals.
And it ended up becoming, instead of me billing 10 hours a month, I was able to bill 15 hours
a month instead of her billing $3,000 a month.
(22:13):
She was able to bill $5,000 a month.
And the customer ended up getting literally triple the ROI.
It was like this exponential thing that happened.
And I went, that was the epiphany moment for me.
And I went, wait a minute, wait a minute.
This is incredible.
Like I don't ever want to be alone in a deal ever again.
If I can bring a partner with something to the table that I don't do or that does something,
(22:38):
even if I do do it, and they do it better than I do, it's even fine.
I'm okay with that.
The whole premise of it though was that even though we are separate and we own our own companies,
when we come together into this project, we are going to present to the customer as one
unified voice.
We're going to be one.
And it just raised the bar from this networking referral base.
(23:03):
We're going to be a part of the same tribe.
And Liana was going to find that much funnier than everybody else, but that's different.
We're all part of the same tribe.
And I'm like, no, but you're really not.
Now I am.
I'm creating, I'm really creating partnerships and really rooted in customer outcomes and
(23:27):
ROI and these things that customers really care about.
But I wanted them to know that we cared about it as much as they did.
And the way that I proved that was being selfless to a degree of bringing in people that I wasn't
worried about them taking money from me.
Because that was the other part of the consulting world that I found very interesting.
(23:47):
People were hesitant to give, even to give referrals to people that were in the same
field as they were because they were worried about losing their own ground and their own
billable hours.
And I was not.
I, because let me just tell you everybody, there's plenty of customers to go around.
Like if you can find the customer that works with you and loves you, that's all that matters.
(24:10):
They're going to love you whether you bring somebody in it or not.
To me, transparency was big.
I wanted to make it very crystal clear that we were not part of the same company, that
we were colleagues, that we worked together, that they run their company, I run mine.
But it was definitely an epiphany moment where I was like, wow, I've never applied the principle
(24:32):
of the sum, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts until now.
And it was really powerful for me.
So I challenge people now, even outside my world, even when like I'm talking to engineers
and other people that are in the consulting world, biomedical people, and I go, think
(24:53):
of how much more you can do.
If your purpose is to do good and you want to do better and you want to build things
with, and you want to really build relationships with people and it's not about the billable
hours, then this is the process you really should be taking.
You should be looking at this from a standpoint of how do I do what's best for the customer,
even if it's not me, even if it's not me.
(25:14):
Can I set that customer up for success?
Because here's what's going to happen.
If it's not me, and I introduce Leana, and Leana brings in two other people, and I'm
still excluded from this, but that customer is exponentially happy, and I provided that
happiness.
Who do you think the customer is going to call when they get another problem?
(25:36):
I'm probably going to be, now, again, unless it's directly related to the project that
they just did, which I would hope that they go back to you and ask you to help them fix
whatever problem they uncovered.
But if it's not, and if it's a different kind of problem or a different kind of sales
problem, they're going to feel comfortable and confident to come to me because they know
that my ultimate goal is just solving their problem.
It doesn't have to be me.
(25:58):
So they feel comfortable and confident that I'm going to give them or point them in the
right direction.
It's more about solving their problem and creating relationships than it is about billable
hours.
And once you really, truly understand that, I promise you, the billable hours are common.
I'm not living in poverty.
I do okay.
(26:19):
And I'm not wealthy either, but that's by design for now.
You were talking about, so it's really about partnerships is how you build your network.
And we are an independent marketing agency.
And as an agency who is new, I rely heavily on partnerships.
(26:46):
And we just wrapped on a big tech conference where we were the exclusive marketing partner.
And for a big event like that, there was a lot of needs.
There was needs for credentialing.
There was needs for promo items.
There was needs for signage.
(27:07):
There was needs for social media.
There was needs for photography and videography.
There was needs for video production.
And I have a small team, but I really relied on my partners, especially the days that we
were in Florida at the event, having my photography partners there with me.
(27:27):
I mean, it was a win-win for everybody.
The customer, the client got all these images.
They got all these, because they were videographers as well, videos done.
And we could divide and conquer.
You know what I mean?
Like we could, but it was the same thing that you're talking about.
(27:48):
I brought them in.
They went through me.
And any questions that happened during the event, people came and asked me.
And I had worked with my partners around promotion and the content we created and who owned that
(28:09):
and when would it be just dispersed and distributed.
And so it was important to have that, like you said, like the liaison.
You're the main point person.
Think of it like a project manager.
You're the project manager.
(28:29):
Everybody else works on the project.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yes.
It makes it so much easier for the client because they just have one person they need
to talk to.
They list off what their needs are.
The project manager, because basically it was event marketing program management is
(28:52):
what it was, goes out and takes care of filling all of those needs.
And so the client just needs to pay the lump sum or pay the billable hours and then they
have all of this stuff taken care of and they show up for their event and everything is
there.
It's all done.
(29:13):
So that was a huge win.
There's a question I was going to ask you.
Well it was about this, what we're just talking about.
So you're doing the introductions of these professionals to your clients.
You're making it easier for your clients to move whatever the project or the initiative
(29:37):
is forward.
So there's a real value to these sales and marketing professionals to either be part
of a bigger community or network.
So what happens if they're not connected in any way in any sorts of partnerships?
(29:59):
What is the best way for them to showcase their expertise?
Are there any sort of collaboration tools or tactics and specific that you think work
well?
What would be sort of your advice around sort of that?
Because you talked about relationships is key.
What would be your advice around like how do you get your foot in the door?
(30:22):
That's actually a really tough question to answer.
I was thinking about that.
Literally as you're saying the question, I'm starting to like try to prepare my answer.
Like Jello?
Yeah, right.
Because here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
I can tell you what some of my pet peeves are.
(30:43):
That's probably easier to answer.
I'll explain it like this.
This is probably the simplest version of this, which is if I meet somebody that tells me
that they are a social media expert.
And they say, I'm looking for clients that need help with social media.
I love social media.
I'm a social media expert.
And then I go check out their social media and it's garbage.
(31:04):
That to me is a red flag.
If you can't take care of your own social media, why am I going to trust you with my client?
I want to be able to see.
Now that being said.
Define garbage.
Give a tip.
Well, for one thing, let's just say no posts, right?
Or the last time you posted something was three months ago.
(31:25):
2022.
Yeah, exactly.
Or you don't have, because this is business related, we'll just stick with LinkedIn, right?
So I go to your LinkedIn profile.
There's no picture or there's no banner picture or there's a picture, but it's, you know,
and I just met you at a networking event and I could tell that the picture is about 15
(31:45):
years old, right?
Okay.
So it doesn't take a lot of effort to update your picture.
Now you can make the argument and this is the one, I have had this happen where they
pushed back because by the way, and again, Leanna knows me personally, so she'll know
that I'm not lying here.
I have no problem telling somebody that I'm not doing business with you because you can't,
(32:08):
I have no problem voicing my opinion on certain things, right?
He has no problem.
If you came to me and said, I need social media customers, I went to your social media
and said it's garbage.
I go, well, hey, by the way, you're not getting social media customers because your social
media is garbage.
Because when you are, even if you're out doing your own business development and you're
meeting people, they're going to do the same thing I did.
(32:28):
And why is a small business owner, would I trust you to do my social media if I can look
and see that you're not doing it for yourself?
So there's a lot of like these subtle things that happen.
So to your question is, how do you get in in the first place?
If I'm talking to those kinds of people that are relatively new to the consulting world,
build your own house, make sure your house has a very firm foundation, make sure people
(32:51):
know and understand what you do by looking at you very quickly.
And they can tell your good at it just by popping on your website or popping in your
social media.
And they can see that you're good just by you doing it yourself.
Because quite honestly, if you're just starting out and you don't have a lot of clients, then
you should have time to spend on your own stuff.
Because even the people that are the newest have something of value to bring to the table.
(33:15):
If you have to be open to that all the time.
And I think that's a big part of networking.
Go back to your topic here.
I think that is a big part of networking too, where it's not just about you going out and
telling people who you are and what you do.
It's also about learning.
It has to be a two-way street.
It always has to be a two-way street.
You always have to be willing and open to taking in as much as you put out.
(33:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the questions or one of the things I was going to tell at the Black
Dog Group, we tend to network a lot through the chambers.
And I've learned, back in the day when I had you and I met through when I had the Bill
Ricker Green newspaper, and I was a member of the Lowell Chamber in Massachusetts.
(34:00):
And I always went to those events, met people, but always was like, got to do business, got
to do business, got to do business.
And so when I started this business, I started networking.
I started coming through the door with sort of that same mentality, and I was forgetting
how important the relationships are.
And that was sort of what they were telling us when we were coming through the door.
(34:23):
It's like, relax, just meet people.
Start getting to know people.
One of the chamber heads, he is forever on us.
You need to get to more events.
You need to get to more events.
You need to get to more events.
It's like, luxury problem, I'm busy, which is a good thing.
But yeah, we do need to get to more events.
(34:46):
And I think what you were talking about, the etiquette too, which is important.
However, I can be helpful is what I'm looking for in those networking events.
It's not the other way around.
So to kind of validate your point, it can't be do business, do business, do business,
looking for business, looking for business, looking for business.
It can't be.
It has to be.
How do I bring value?
(35:07):
How do I help in this environment?
Right?
Regardless of what environment you're in.
And it can be a homeowners networking event.
It could be a sales marketing event.
It doesn't matter.
It could be a cultural event.
If you have the mentality of how can I help, that brings way more value to the table.
And when you bring value to the table, good things happen.
(35:29):
And when good things happen, nobody worries about money.
Everybody worries about good things happening.
Everybody is happy about, and Leah, I guarantee you can agree with me on this one as well.
We give away more free information than we ever charge for.
I'm a content marketing agency.
(35:49):
Of course I give away free information.
That's part of the problem.
But that's your job.
For me, thinking from a sales perspective, how many times I've sat with people and gave
them real quality advice on how to handle things or how to move things.
With no expectation of return.
I'm not expecting to be a customer.
(36:10):
What I'm expecting is for them to walk away going, my God, that was really helpful.
Because the next time they have an issue or if they meet somebody and they say, God,
two people frustrated about sales, they go, the person says, you really should talk to
Tom.
Oh, what's he cost?
And it doesn't matter.
Just go talk to him.
He didn't charge me anything.
(36:30):
He answered all my questions.
He spent a good half hour, 45 minutes with me.
I was able to really work through a couple of problems and it was really helpful.
I don't care if I have to do that a thousand times to find that one client that's going
to be a really good long-term partnership style client.
Because that's more valuable to me than these hit or miss onesie twosies.
(36:52):
I'm going to build 10 hours and that's not relevant for me.
Not that I won't take those clients, but this is not what I'm looking for.
Yeah, no.
And I think people are going to remember you because of that.
I was at an event where my partner in life, partner in business and I, Phillip, were talking
(37:18):
to an attorney and we had seen her at a bunch of the events.
So we kind of gravitated to go over and talk to her because she was a familiar, friendly
face.
And so we were chit-chatting, chit-chatting, chit-chatting.
And so we were telling her, we came out of corporate, we want to break into small business,
we need to pivot the messaging, what ideas do you have?
(37:42):
And she had a bunch of ideas and then she referred us to somebody who was like, I teach
storytelling and I teach things like elevator pitches, but it's totally different when it's
you.
And so she sent us to this specialist who just does elevator pitch.
Like that's all this man does, wrote books, does classes, creates elevator pitch documents
(38:06):
that you plug in a couple of words and it spits it out to you.
And I was like, at first I was a little like, okay, well, I'll check it out.
And I went and I checked it out.
I was like, this is amazing.
This was the best advice.
We so needed this help and it cost her nothing and it cost us nothing but our time.
And it was super helpful.
(38:28):
And I was so thankful that like, okay, okay, I get it.
I go and I chit-chat with people and you learn something.
You always find out something new.
Yeah, for sure.
Situations.
So, hugely helpful.
So you started the company's marketing connect to promote local sales and marketing professionals
(38:49):
to small businesses to provide business owners with resources.
You have a very varied and diverse network of sales and marketing professionals in this
community.
So, I do have this one question.
I'm curious about it because, you know, and I think this speaks to like, when you go into
(39:10):
like, gotta do business, gotta do business instead of relationship.
Like when the people come together and they have meetings and you, you know, you provide
all these programs for them because, you know, being an independent person or a freelancer
that can be lonely sometimes.
Definitely.
How do you handle, like, have you ever had to deal with something like competition?
(39:31):
Like, has anybody that signed on with you ever like asked that?
Were they ever concerned about that?
And do you sort of have like, like here are the guidelines for being a member of the community?
Like how do you handle something like that?
So I think there's gonna be a theme here because we've said the word so many times.
(39:52):
But it's, it really is true that it, it's a partnership mentality, right?
Which means like, if I have three or four or five different social media, quote unquote,
social media experts and I find all five of them valuable.
So if a customer comes to me and eating social media, how does, how do I, how do I pick?
Right?
(40:13):
Like what, how does that, how do I select?
So, I, there's, there's basically two modes of thinking here.
And for me, it depends on the client.
And remember, it's always about the client outcomes, right?
So for me, it's the relationship with the client comes first, knowing and understanding
who they are, what their outcomes need to be, what their requirements are, their personalities
(40:37):
and how they work, what they, how they, how they expect to be treated, how they expect
to be handled, can all have influence over which one of the social media people I pick,
right?
So, not everybody's the right fit for everybody.
And you might have somebody, again, like me, who's a little bit straightforward.
And sometimes I put my own foot in my mouth because I'm just, I don't want to say I'm
(41:01):
too honest because I don't want to make it sound like I, I'm disingenuous sometimes
and not others.
But sometimes the way I word things can be too abrupt or abrasive or I don't know how
to else to word it.
So sometimes that can be putting off to people where they, if they want to be handled with
kid gloves, I might not be the right fit for them.
So if they're working with me, I know they're okay with somebody just being straightforward
(41:25):
to the point, give it to them, let them, let them know what's going on.
So when I look at the social media stable of people that I have, I'm looking for somebody
like that, right?
I'm looking.
So if I have another client that really prefers to be handled with kid gloves, I go to the
social media state, people and I go, oh, I know that, that, that Melissa is going to
(41:45):
be, she's super nice and she's one of those, the customer is always right kind of people
and never, never, but I'm going to introduce them.
I'm going to bring her in because I know that they're going to get along and I know that
her outcomes are going to be what the client's looking for because they're going to be more
geared toward a particular set of goals, right?
So for me, it's not about competition.
(42:07):
It really isn't.
It's more, it's really about the, and the social media people knowing their lane, right?
Like who, who are you going to do business with?
Because again, not every social media person wants to do business with a $5 million company.
Sometimes they prefer doing business with smaller companies.
I want a million to one to two million because I know that I'm working directly with the
(42:27):
owner and I don't have sales and marketing professionals in the way and I would rather
work directly with an owner at five or 10 million.
You're working maybe with a marketing manager and you want, it's, it's easier for somebody
who listen, I just want to be creative.
I don't want to deal with the strategy.
You deal with the strategy.
You just tell me what to do.
And it's like, so there's fits in there, right?
Now, it's very rare to be quite honest with you.
(42:51):
It's very rare that I find two people that are literally the perfect fit for the client,
right?
There's always like that one thing or like, and, and so in that case, what I'll, I'll
actually go to both of them and say, I would like you both to meet with the client and
then I will meet with the client and then I'll let you know which one the client would
prefer to work with.
So then it becomes a very true competitive situation where both are good.
(43:15):
Their rates are close enough to the same.
It's not going to be a money thing.
It's really going to be a personality thing where the client feels more comfortable with
one or the other.
And fortunately for me, I know all of the people in smart and connect.
So for me, I, I know I can get along with all of them.
It's not, it's not about me.
I eliminate myself from that equation almost all the time, right?
(43:37):
So, so to answer your question, how do I deal with quote unquote competitive situations?
I find there aren't a lot of them.
I really, I really, because we get so, because we are so much in, in, in line with our client
and it's about, it's not just about partnerships with the sales and marketing professionals,
it's about partnerships with the client that it makes it very easy for us to know and understand,
(44:02):
the client, know who they are, know the perfect fit for whoever we bring on, whether it's
social media marketing, I got email marketing people, I got website design people.
It doesn't really matter.
Any one of those marketing disciplines that you're talking about in the newest one, the
AI driven marketing, and we, that could be a completely different podcast, by the way,
because I have opinions about that too.
(44:23):
But anyway, but like, but that's a whole new genre of marketing discipline that we're
now seeing coming into the market.
So if somebody is interested in AI driven marketing, I have a couple of people that I
can just bring in and say, let's, let's see who's the right fit for you.
So for me, it's never about, it's never about quote unquote competition.
It's more about outcomes and partnerships.
(44:44):
Well, I think that, that that what you're saying is the social media people are your
partners.
They come in knowing they're your partners.
And in essence, you're the liaison.
Like you're, by being sort of the middleman in a good way, you're making it easier for
them because, you know, you, you, you know, you have two social media management people
(45:06):
who come to the table and they're both competing without you kind of knowing the client, knowing
what they need.
It would be so much harder for them to get business.
But by partnering with you, they know, you already know, sort of the ins and outs, you're,
you're going to deal with whatever the clients issues are and like boom.
(45:29):
Because marketing connected is nationwide.
We have, we have advisors and consultants all over the country, but for, for here in
Boston, Massachusetts, where we are, I probably have a hundred people in our, in our world
that I can tap on the shoulder anytime I want and go meet with them.
I have another 200 people that are across the country that I can get on a zoom with.
Well, that is all the time we have for today.
(45:52):
We could just talk and talk and talk for hours about all of this being sales and marketing
folks.
I just really want to thank you for being our guest.
I, it's just been huge, just like helpful to hearing you.
I'm like, well, I've gotten so much from this myself.
So, so just thanks so much for being here.
I really appreciate it.
Of course, anytime.
(46:13):
And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple podcasts or Amazon Prime,
thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
Happy storytelling.
Bye for now.
Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
(00:04):
at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
So I spent, I spent a good portion of my late teens and early 20s in the restaurant industry.
I actually went to culinary school for three and a half years.
I thought I wanted to be a chef.
I got into restaurants.
(00:26):
I was doing just fine and about halfway through my restaurant, 10 year, I became, I realized
I wanted to be in the front of the house.
So I was, I became a part of the management team in the restaurant.
At one point at about, I think I was 21 when I first became a general manager of the restaurant,
making very good money at 21, decided to have a family.
(00:48):
So my first son was born when I was 21 years old.
We got married and then I had my second son by the time I was 23.
And at that point I realized very quickly that the restaurant industry is really not conducive
of family life.
Like I felt like, I felt like I was spending, you know, when I was single and I was spending
80, 85 hours a week at the restaurant, it really wasn't that big a deal.
(01:10):
And then when I met my wife and, you know, splitting time between the restaurant, my
wife was fine.
When I had my first son, I was like, okay, because now I can spend at least every waking
moment I had with him.
And the one day off a week that I got, I could spend the whole day with my son.
But then when I have my second son, I had this like epiphany type thing where I was
like, this is just not going to work.
(01:31):
There's just not enough hours in the day where I can split one day off between two of my
sons.
What happens if they don't like the same stuff, right?
And I have to go play baseball with one kid and go to performing arts with the other or
whatever.
Right?
Like I was, I had this, this overwhelming feeling that I was just never going to have
enough time for my family.
So I started thinking about other jobs I could do.
(01:52):
And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll hint a little bit to my age here because I'm going to tell
you I found an ad in the newspaper that that was asking for management, caliber people.
And I read that and I was like, well, I'm a general manager of a restaurant.
I was running a restaurant with 70 people in it or 60 people is what's 60 people.
So I was like, I can manage people.
(02:12):
I've been managing people for the last few years.
I, I should answer this ad.
So I answered the ad in the paper and I realized very quickly throughout the interview, I called
the phone number on the newspaper.
They said, yeah, sure.
Come on in for an interview.
I told them very quick, the phone interviews back then, by the way, were very, very simple.
It was like, Oh, you answered that ad.
Did you read the ad?
(02:33):
Yes.
Oh, you qualified.
Yeah.
Come on in for an interview.
It was really simple.
It was not these elaborate, you know, interview processes that we have today.
So I went into the interview and I realized very quickly that this was not what I thought
it was.
They weren't really looking for management people.
They were looking for certain qualities of people and they were looking for salespeople.
(02:53):
And the, the first person I actually sat down with about this, this is really five minutes
into the interview.
And I said, thank you very much for your time, but I'm not your guy.
And the woman who was interviewing me said, Oh, that was really quick.
It's like, why do you say that?
It's like, you know, have you done some research on the company or like, what was the, and I
said, no, no, no, I'm not your guy.
(03:14):
You're looking for salespeople.
I'm just not willing to lie to people in order to be in business.
And she was like, interesting.
So that's your impression of what salespeople do when I went, yeah, isn't that what salespeople
do?
They just, they just do whatever they have to do to get a deal.
Right.
They'll say anything, do anything.
I hear stories all the time.
Like I would, I would, you know, I'd sell my mother for, you know, for this deal or whatever.
(03:38):
Right.
Like all kinds of really bad analogies ran through my head and she went, so that's
not exactly what sales is about.
She was very, she goes, how about this?
How about I put you in front of the sales manager at this, at this company that we're
recruiting for interview with him, tell him what you just said to me.
(04:02):
And then, and then what, when he responds to you, then you can decide whether or not
this, this job's right for you because I think it's right for you.
And I'm telling you, we set this whole thing was all of about six or eight minutes.
So this entire interview was six or eight minutes.
And so I went on the actual interview with the sales manager and I, I had this conversation
(04:23):
with him and I sat down and he's, his first thing to me was I'm looking at your resume
and I'm a little confused as to why you're applying for this job.
Like, you know, the sales job, I go, that makes two of us because I told the recruiter
that I didn't think I was the right fit for you either.
And he's like, Oh, if you don't think you're the right fit and I don't, I'm certainly not
sure you're, she goes, why, he goes, why did she send you here?
(04:45):
And I said, well, when I realized it was a sales job, I said to her that I refused
to lie to people.
And the conversation turned very quickly from him.
It was no longer an interview.
At that point, it became him trying to understand the perception that people have about sales
(05:07):
people.
And when it all became, instead of an interviewer, he became a student in that case.
And at that hit me really hard that somebody who had been in sales for like 20 years or
15 years at the time encountered somebody that was so puzzling to him that he just wanted
to learn more and had nothing to do with the job anymore.
(05:31):
And by the end of the 45 minutes to an hour that we sat and chatted, he offered me the
job because in his mind, he wanted people that were willing to solve problems, not that
willing to sell ice to an Eskimo or sell or talking to dog off of meat wagon or any of
those other weird cliches that we've come up with about sales.
(05:52):
So I started my sales career with the opposite of what people talk about with the ABCs of
sales, right?
We always hear the ABCs always be closing in like the sales are about competitiveness
and being number one and making more money and earning.
It's always been about these very cliche things.
And he wanted to flip the script a little bit and turn it on its head.
(06:15):
And he thought that with me, he found the right start.
Like that was the good starting point of getting people to understand that sales was more about
understanding your customer, solving a problem.
And really, you become almost, I don't want to use the word friends, but you become almost
friends with those customers because it's no longer adversarial.
(06:38):
It's more quality versus quantity.
And so we really changed the dynamics of that company.
And I feel very cool.
I felt very honored that I was the beginning of that.
What's even more impressive to me is that now it's almost like if you're a student of sports
at all, they talk about coaching trees.
(06:58):
I feel like we have started that in sales where now these tentacles are going out amongst
really high powered sales professionals that no longer think of the cliches and they're
always out now starting to solve problems and help customers.
Your job as a sales person is to help customers, not to sell them products or services or
(07:19):
whatever that is.
Hello.
(07:46):
My name is Leanna Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a Markham and project management firm headquartered on
the east coast of the US in quaint colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
I'm your host and passionate about storytelling.
I'm actually on a mission to raise up the next generation of storytellers.
We've named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
(08:09):
The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact,
one step, one starfish or one story at a time.
Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
and connect with you and we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready
(08:30):
to tell their own stories.
So thanks for tuning in.
Now let's get started.
Today's episode is about insights and results through networking success stories.
And with me today is my friend Tom Libby.
Tom has been a sales VP and business development executive for over 20 years with a passion
for helping small companies with sales management and training across many industries.
(08:55):
True to his mission, Tom has started several companies that have brought sales, marketing
and operations specialists together as a resource for his client businesses.
Expert at creating networking communities, Tom has helped these teams support each other
as they grow.
So thank you for being here.
It's really good to see you and catch up again.
Yes, my pleasure.
(09:17):
So we like to get started by having you introduce yourself.
Probably do a better job than I did.
So would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about you?
Yeah, sure.
So as you heard in the story, I started my sales career.
Actually, it's a little over 20 years now.
I'm trying to hide the gray as much as I can, but it doesn't work.
(09:38):
But I think I was around, I don't know, 24, 25 when I got into sales originally.
I think the thing that I found the most fun was the speed in which life moved when you
got into sales.
Everything was just 100 miles an hour.
And for a guy like me, who also was very athletic, I played semi pro football for a long time.
(10:03):
I played for about 10 years.
I was running and sprinting all the time.
So the business world to match that and just the constant changes and moving and shaking
and learning and all that stuff was really good.
So I ended up getting into sales haphazardly, as you heard in the story this morning, earlier,
I should say.
(10:24):
But I also realized very quickly, and I mean really quickly, like within six months I decided,
I really don't want to just be a salesperson.
I want to figure out a way to help as many people as possible on both sides of the coin.
So it was very fast moving.
I went to my VP of sales at the time.
(10:45):
I said, how do I become management?
Like I answered an ad that said management.
I want to be management.
How do I do that?
And the VP of sales was a really old, fun guy.
I liked him a lot.
I got along with him well, but it was much, much older than me.
He was probably just a few years from retirement at the time.
And he was like, well, Tom, you just got to be the best.
(11:07):
And I went, oh, so to be a manager, you have to be the number one salesperson.
And he goes, about sums it up.
And I was like, got it.
I can do that.
So I went out and for the next, you know, six to nine months, I really just killed myself.
I really, I ended up becoming the rookie of the year.
I won a bunch of awards, became a sales manager.
(11:29):
And from that sales management position realized, if I can go above that, and now I can impact
sales managers who have full sales teams, I'm going to do that.
Because I just kept creeping up the ladder.
And I went from just a sales person that had no idea what they were doing to running teams
of about, there was about 75 sales people working for me at the time that I finally left that
(11:51):
company, which was only three and a half years.
So I went from zero to that in three and a half years.
And once I got there, I was like, I'm not doing that again.
I'm just going to stay here.
So I just decided to stay at that level.
You know, I just kind of moved around to other teams until I decided to go out on my own
and become a consultant, which just changes the entire ballgame at that point.
(12:11):
But that's a little bit about me.
Yeah.
Maybe we'll talk a little bit about that, the whole consultant role versus being on a
team because I know that you work with a lot of sort of independent people in the sales
and marketing world and operations world.
So it is very different than being on the inside, on corporate.
So for sure.
(12:34):
I loved your story.
The favorite, my favorite part of your story was how you talked about the person that was
interviewing became sort of the student.
He wanted to learn from you and that he talked about, it's not just about, I got to sell something.
It's about helping people solve problems.
(12:57):
And I think, I mean, I'm sure as you do sales training, that must be sort of the foundation
for how you work with folks.
It really truly does because if you think of it from a practicality standpoint, it actually
makes far more sense, right?
(13:18):
So if I raised and trained a bunch of salespeople to basically be that stereotypical, do whatever
it takes, just sell, sell, sell, close, close, close, it doesn't really matter.
Think about the turnover rate in your customer base that that would create because you're
going to force feed a sale into somebody who may not be the right fit for your product
(13:39):
or service.
And if they're not the right fit, it may work for a quota for a month, like it may make
you look good for a month.
But if your turnover rate for your customer base is 50%, then that's telling you that
you're selling 50% to people that shouldn't be buying from you in the first place because
you're not really solving their problem.
You're convincing them that you are the solution when you may or may not be.
(14:03):
And the reality of it is if you're really focusing in on the people that you can truly
help and that stickiness or that customer retention rate can creep up into the 80s or
90s, then now, first of all, your salespeople aren't working as hard.
Your sale becomes a lot more functional.
I don't want to say easy because I don't want to lend anybody to think that sales is easy
(14:25):
because it's really not.
No, but it's more meaningful.
It's more meaningful.
Right.
And you become a better company because of it, right?
And you're the trusted advisor for the customer.
Exactly.
And the likelihood of that customer now becoming an advocate for you is much higher, right?
Because let's face it, small business owners, no other small business owners, right?
(14:45):
So if you do something that really becomes a detriment to their company, they're going
to tell people, if you do something that's going to be really great for their company,
they might tell people.
Right.
Very clear difference there.
I don't know if everybody caught that, but if you do something negative, they're going
to tell people.
If you do something positive, they might tell people.
That's the general consensus of business.
(15:08):
That just happens that way.
And I think a lot of that comes from my time in the restaurant industry because in the
restaurant industry, it's even worse.
If you do something outrageously bad, it's almost the back in the day when I was in the
business, it was, they were guaranteed to tell 10 people.
Like you were going to get that 10 people.
If you did something outstandingly phenomenal, they might tell one or two.
(15:32):
So I started employing that same kind of mentality into sales.
Like if you go out of your way and do the right thing by the customer and they're 100%
happy, they might tell one or two people.
But if you just really do the wrong thing, sell the wrong product, make a false promise,
whatever that detriment is, they're guaranteed to tell, now I can't make the same ratio.
(15:55):
I don't know if they're going to tell 10 people, but they're definitely without a doubt going
to tell other people.
Now you may be in one of those few circumstances where the benefit to them telling them is
that they're not business owners.
They may go home and vent to their family.
They may tell their brothers, their cousins, their sisters, whatever.
It may not be business owners.
It may not hurt you as much as you think it does, but it does eventually still hurt you
(16:17):
either way.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So it is about having that positive experience and making that as positive as possible.
But what you said was, they might tell business owners, no other business owners, and if they're
(16:38):
happy, they might tell someone else and that's part of their network.
Right.
And we're talking today about networking because you are an expert at networking.
You build businesses just with the foundation of the importance of networking.
So I wanted to hear some success stories.
(16:59):
I thought you would probably have quite a few that you could share.
So networking success stories are compelling narratives and they really highlight the benefits
of community and collaboration.
And they can really be useful for teaching moments as well.
And a networking success story can recount maybe how you solved the problem.
(17:24):
It can demonstrate your skills and values.
But generally speaking, there's always going to be some sort of a nugget in those stories
that is going to demonstrate what were the gains, what did you get from networking.
So this is something that has just been sort of at your heart.
I mean, you were just like, this is so important to you.
(17:49):
So let me, but it's not simply a story behind it.
It's almost like a learning process with it too.
So networking can come in a bunch of different shapes and sizes and forms and whatnot.
And when I first started the consulting business with my partner, we had what we thought a
(18:12):
good idea was, what networking is.
You'd go, we called it shaking hands and kissing babies.
Like no matter how many networking events you go to, you go out there, you shake hands,
kiss babies.
You grow the number of people you know.
There's ways of like, like, so networking by itself, there's multitudes of these, right?
So like you, if you are super new at this and you don't really have a lot, you feel
(18:37):
like you don't have a lot to offer or you feel like other people don't necessarily have
a lot to offer you.
The whole shaking hands and kissing babies is okay.
It's because it's really more about getting out there and being in front of people, just
passing the word along.
And I remember the very first time I handed my business card to somebody and he looked
at it and went, oh, it's like, I recognize that logo.
And I almost fell down.
(18:57):
I was like, oh my God, that's so amazing.
Like somebody actually recognized, like, I didn't even say anything to him yet.
And he's like, oh yeah, you guys do this.
And I was like, yeah, you're right.
I was like, how did you hear about us?
He's like, oh, blah, blah, blah.
That in itself does have some power to it, right?
So I'm not suggesting that's wrong.
But and what ends up happening in those types of environments is a very referral based network,
(19:19):
right?
And I see you at a networking event a few times.
We have a few conversations.
I get to know and trust you.
I bump into somebody else that I think might be a good fit for your service.
And I make an introduction.
I was like, so, hey, you know, Jane Doe over here, Leanna, I thought it would be a good
idea for you guys to meet.
And I send an email that says, hey, Leanna, Jane does this and hey, Jane Leanna does that.
(19:41):
I think you guys would have a great conversation.
You know, thank you so much.
I look forward to seeing you both again.
And that's great and that referral based networking is good.
And there's a lot of good things that can happen from it.
But I had this epiphany one day that made me think like there was more to it.
And what happened was I had a client.
(20:03):
I was doing some sales work with, some sales process improvement work.
And I uncovered that they had some marketing gaps in their marketing information.
So I went out to one of my, one of them networking people that I met and I said, I have something
that might be good for you, but it's already a client of mine.
(20:23):
So I don't want to do one of those traditional mutual introductions because I don't want
there to be any ambiguity between us.
Like I just felt like there were some weird things that could happen.
I said, so here's what I'd like to do if you're okay with it.
Other than just make an email mutual introduction, I'd like to schedule a meeting.
Have you come in with me?
(20:45):
We can make the introduction at the meeting and then explain to him, the customer, how
the two of us are going to work together to solve both of these problems.
And at the time she was like, oh, I've never really done that before.
I don't, you know, I've worked with other consultants, but it's always been in our
own little silo and the customer tells us what's going on.
(21:06):
And I said, that's great, and I understand that that's happened in the past.
I go, but I felt like that this was different.
And this was a good example to me of how the whole was greater than the sum of its parts
from purely business perspective.
So think of it from like a, if you're in the consulting world and you're thinking about
(21:28):
billable hours, I'm looking at this going, the customer gets three times the amount of
work from two people than he would get from one.
It's greater than the sum of its parts, right?
Because the outcomes are going to be better if her and I were working together and making
sure that everything was in sync.
(21:50):
And we ran our own separate companies, but that didn't matter.
What we ended up becoming together for and applying the teamwork approach to was the
customer's goals, not our goals.
And it ended up becoming, instead of me billing 10 hours a month, I was able to bill 15 hours
a month instead of her billing $3,000 a month.
(22:13):
She was able to bill $5,000 a month.
And the customer ended up getting literally triple the ROI.
It was like this exponential thing that happened.
And I went, that was the epiphany moment for me.
And I went, wait a minute, wait a minute.
This is incredible.
Like I don't ever want to be alone in a deal ever again.
If I can bring a partner with something to the table that I don't do or that does something,
(22:38):
even if I do do it, and they do it better than I do, it's even fine.
I'm okay with that.
The whole premise of it though was that even though we are separate and we own our own companies,
when we come together into this project, we are going to present to the customer as one
unified voice.
We're going to be one.
And it just raised the bar from this networking referral base.
(23:03):
We're going to be a part of the same tribe.
And Liana was going to find that much funnier than everybody else, but that's different.
We're all part of the same tribe.
And I'm like, no, but you're really not.
Now I am.
I'm creating, I'm really creating partnerships and really rooted in customer outcomes and
(23:27):
ROI and these things that customers really care about.
But I wanted them to know that we cared about it as much as they did.
And the way that I proved that was being selfless to a degree of bringing in people that I wasn't
worried about them taking money from me.
Because that was the other part of the consulting world that I found very interesting.
(23:47):
People were hesitant to give, even to give referrals to people that were in the same
field as they were because they were worried about losing their own ground and their own
billable hours.
And I was not.
I, because let me just tell you everybody, there's plenty of customers to go around.
Like if you can find the customer that works with you and loves you, that's all that matters.
(24:10):
They're going to love you whether you bring somebody in it or not.
To me, transparency was big.
I wanted to make it very crystal clear that we were not part of the same company, that
we were colleagues, that we worked together, that they run their company, I run mine.
But it was definitely an epiphany moment where I was like, wow, I've never applied the principle
(24:32):
of the sum, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts until now.
And it was really powerful for me.
So I challenge people now, even outside my world, even when like I'm talking to engineers
and other people that are in the consulting world, biomedical people, and I go, think
(24:53):
of how much more you can do.
If your purpose is to do good and you want to do better and you want to build things
with, and you want to really build relationships with people and it's not about the billable
hours, then this is the process you really should be taking.
You should be looking at this from a standpoint of how do I do what's best for the customer,
even if it's not me, even if it's not me.
(25:14):
Can I set that customer up for success?
Because here's what's going to happen.
If it's not me, and I introduce Leana, and Leana brings in two other people, and I'm
still excluded from this, but that customer is exponentially happy, and I provided that
happiness.
Who do you think the customer is going to call when they get another problem?
(25:36):
I'm probably going to be, now, again, unless it's directly related to the project that
they just did, which I would hope that they go back to you and ask you to help them fix
whatever problem they uncovered.
But if it's not, and if it's a different kind of problem or a different kind of sales
problem, they're going to feel comfortable and confident to come to me because they know
that my ultimate goal is just solving their problem.
It doesn't have to be me.
(25:58):
So they feel comfortable and confident that I'm going to give them or point them in the
right direction.
It's more about solving their problem and creating relationships than it is about billable
hours.
And once you really, truly understand that, I promise you, the billable hours are common.
I'm not living in poverty.
I do okay.
(26:19):
And I'm not wealthy either, but that's by design for now.
You were talking about, so it's really about partnerships is how you build your network.
And we are an independent marketing agency.
And as an agency who is new, I rely heavily on partnerships.
(26:46):
And we just wrapped on a big tech conference where we were the exclusive marketing partner.
And for a big event like that, there was a lot of needs.
There was needs for credentialing.
There was needs for promo items.
There was needs for signage.
(27:07):
There was needs for social media.
There was needs for photography and videography.
There was needs for video production.
And I have a small team, but I really relied on my partners, especially the days that we
were in Florida at the event, having my photography partners there with me.
(27:27):
I mean, it was a win-win for everybody.
The customer, the client got all these images.
They got all these, because they were videographers as well, videos done.
And we could divide and conquer.
You know what I mean?
Like we could, but it was the same thing that you're talking about.
(27:48):
I brought them in.
They went through me.
And any questions that happened during the event, people came and asked me.
And I had worked with my partners around promotion and the content we created and who owned that
(28:09):
and when would it be just dispersed and distributed.
And so it was important to have that, like you said, like the liaison.
You're the main point person.
Think of it like a project manager.
You're the project manager.
(28:29):
Everybody else works on the project.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yes.
It makes it so much easier for the client because they just have one person they need
to talk to.
They list off what their needs are.
The project manager, because basically it was event marketing program management is
(28:52):
what it was, goes out and takes care of filling all of those needs.
And so the client just needs to pay the lump sum or pay the billable hours and then they
have all of this stuff taken care of and they show up for their event and everything is
there.
It's all done.
(29:13):
So that was a huge win.
There's a question I was going to ask you.
Well it was about this, what we're just talking about.
So you're doing the introductions of these professionals to your clients.
You're making it easier for your clients to move whatever the project or the initiative
(29:37):
is forward.
So there's a real value to these sales and marketing professionals to either be part
of a bigger community or network.
So what happens if they're not connected in any way in any sorts of partnerships?
(29:59):
What is the best way for them to showcase their expertise?
Are there any sort of collaboration tools or tactics and specific that you think work
well?
What would be sort of your advice around sort of that?
Because you talked about relationships is key.
What would be your advice around like how do you get your foot in the door?
(30:22):
That's actually a really tough question to answer.
I was thinking about that.
Literally as you're saying the question, I'm starting to like try to prepare my answer.
Like Jello?
Yeah, right.
Because here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
I can tell you what some of my pet peeves are.
(30:43):
That's probably easier to answer.
I'll explain it like this.
This is probably the simplest version of this, which is if I meet somebody that tells me
that they are a social media expert.
And they say, I'm looking for clients that need help with social media.
I love social media.
I'm a social media expert.
And then I go check out their social media and it's garbage.
(31:04):
That to me is a red flag.
If you can't take care of your own social media, why am I going to trust you with my client?
I want to be able to see.
Now that being said.
Define garbage.
Give a tip.
Well, for one thing, let's just say no posts, right?
Or the last time you posted something was three months ago.
(31:25):
2022.
Yeah, exactly.
Or you don't have, because this is business related, we'll just stick with LinkedIn, right?
So I go to your LinkedIn profile.
There's no picture or there's no banner picture or there's a picture, but it's, you know,
and I just met you at a networking event and I could tell that the picture is about 15
(31:45):
years old, right?
Okay.
So it doesn't take a lot of effort to update your picture.
Now you can make the argument and this is the one, I have had this happen where they
pushed back because by the way, and again, Leanna knows me personally, so she'll know
that I'm not lying here.
I have no problem telling somebody that I'm not doing business with you because you can't,
(32:08):
I have no problem voicing my opinion on certain things, right?
He has no problem.
If you came to me and said, I need social media customers, I went to your social media
and said it's garbage.
I go, well, hey, by the way, you're not getting social media customers because your social
media is garbage.
Because when you are, even if you're out doing your own business development and you're
meeting people, they're going to do the same thing I did.
(32:28):
And why is a small business owner, would I trust you to do my social media if I can look
and see that you're not doing it for yourself?
So there's a lot of like these subtle things that happen.
So to your question is, how do you get in in the first place?
If I'm talking to those kinds of people that are relatively new to the consulting world,
build your own house, make sure your house has a very firm foundation, make sure people
(32:51):
know and understand what you do by looking at you very quickly.
And they can tell your good at it just by popping on your website or popping in your
social media.
And they can see that you're good just by you doing it yourself.
Because quite honestly, if you're just starting out and you don't have a lot of clients, then
you should have time to spend on your own stuff.
Because even the people that are the newest have something of value to bring to the table.
(33:15):
If you have to be open to that all the time.
And I think that's a big part of networking.
Go back to your topic here.
I think that is a big part of networking too, where it's not just about you going out and
telling people who you are and what you do.
It's also about learning.
It has to be a two-way street.
It always has to be a two-way street.
You always have to be willing and open to taking in as much as you put out.
(33:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think one of the questions or one of the things I was going to tell at the Black
Dog Group, we tend to network a lot through the chambers.
And I've learned, back in the day when I had you and I met through when I had the Bill
Ricker Green newspaper, and I was a member of the Lowell Chamber in Massachusetts.
(34:00):
And I always went to those events, met people, but always was like, got to do business, got
to do business, got to do business.
And so when I started this business, I started networking.
I started coming through the door with sort of that same mentality, and I was forgetting
how important the relationships are.
And that was sort of what they were telling us when we were coming through the door.
(34:23):
It's like, relax, just meet people.
Start getting to know people.
One of the chamber heads, he is forever on us.
You need to get to more events.
You need to get to more events.
You need to get to more events.
It's like, luxury problem, I'm busy, which is a good thing.
But yeah, we do need to get to more events.
(34:46):
And I think what you were talking about, the etiquette too, which is important.
However, I can be helpful is what I'm looking for in those networking events.
It's not the other way around.
So to kind of validate your point, it can't be do business, do business, do business,
looking for business, looking for business, looking for business.
It can't be.
It has to be.
How do I bring value?
(35:07):
How do I help in this environment?
Right?
Regardless of what environment you're in.
And it can be a homeowners networking event.
It could be a sales marketing event.
It doesn't matter.
It could be a cultural event.
If you have the mentality of how can I help, that brings way more value to the table.
And when you bring value to the table, good things happen.
(35:29):
And when good things happen, nobody worries about money.
Everybody worries about good things happening.
Everybody is happy about, and Leah, I guarantee you can agree with me on this one as well.
We give away more free information than we ever charge for.
I'm a content marketing agency.
(35:49):
Of course I give away free information.
That's part of the problem.
But that's your job.
For me, thinking from a sales perspective, how many times I've sat with people and gave
them real quality advice on how to handle things or how to move things.
With no expectation of return.
I'm not expecting to be a customer.
(36:10):
What I'm expecting is for them to walk away going, my God, that was really helpful.
Because the next time they have an issue or if they meet somebody and they say, God,
two people frustrated about sales, they go, the person says, you really should talk to
Tom.
Oh, what's he cost?
And it doesn't matter.
Just go talk to him.
He didn't charge me anything.
(36:30):
He answered all my questions.
He spent a good half hour, 45 minutes with me.
I was able to really work through a couple of problems and it was really helpful.
I don't care if I have to do that a thousand times to find that one client that's going
to be a really good long-term partnership style client.
Because that's more valuable to me than these hit or miss onesie twosies.
(36:52):
I'm going to build 10 hours and that's not relevant for me.
Not that I won't take those clients, but this is not what I'm looking for.
Yeah, no.
And I think people are going to remember you because of that.
I was at an event where my partner in life, partner in business and I, Phillip, were talking
(37:18):
to an attorney and we had seen her at a bunch of the events.
So we kind of gravitated to go over and talk to her because she was a familiar, friendly
face.
And so we were chit-chatting, chit-chatting, chit-chatting.
And so we were telling her, we came out of corporate, we want to break into small business,
we need to pivot the messaging, what ideas do you have?
(37:42):
And she had a bunch of ideas and then she referred us to somebody who was like, I teach
storytelling and I teach things like elevator pitches, but it's totally different when it's
you.
And so she sent us to this specialist who just does elevator pitch.
Like that's all this man does, wrote books, does classes, creates elevator pitch documents
(38:06):
that you plug in a couple of words and it spits it out to you.
And I was like, at first I was a little like, okay, well, I'll check it out.
And I went and I checked it out.
I was like, this is amazing.
This was the best advice.
We so needed this help and it cost her nothing and it cost us nothing but our time.
And it was super helpful.
(38:28):
And I was so thankful that like, okay, okay, I get it.
I go and I chit-chat with people and you learn something.
You always find out something new.
Yeah, for sure.
Situations.
So, hugely helpful.
So you started the company's marketing connect to promote local sales and marketing professionals
(38:49):
to small businesses to provide business owners with resources.
You have a very varied and diverse network of sales and marketing professionals in this
community.
So, I do have this one question.
I'm curious about it because, you know, and I think this speaks to like, when you go into
(39:10):
like, gotta do business, gotta do business instead of relationship.
Like when the people come together and they have meetings and you, you know, you provide
all these programs for them because, you know, being an independent person or a freelancer
that can be lonely sometimes.
Definitely.
How do you handle, like, have you ever had to deal with something like competition?
(39:31):
Like, has anybody that signed on with you ever like asked that?
Were they ever concerned about that?
And do you sort of have like, like here are the guidelines for being a member of the community?
Like how do you handle something like that?
So I think there's gonna be a theme here because we've said the word so many times.
(39:52):
But it's, it really is true that it, it's a partnership mentality, right?
Which means like, if I have three or four or five different social media, quote unquote,
social media experts and I find all five of them valuable.
So if a customer comes to me and eating social media, how does, how do I, how do I pick?
Right?
(40:13):
Like what, how does that, how do I select?
So, I, there's, there's basically two modes of thinking here.
And for me, it depends on the client.
And remember, it's always about the client outcomes, right?
So for me, it's the relationship with the client comes first, knowing and understanding
who they are, what their outcomes need to be, what their requirements are, their personalities
(40:37):
and how they work, what they, how they, how they expect to be treated, how they expect
to be handled, can all have influence over which one of the social media people I pick,
right?
So, not everybody's the right fit for everybody.
And you might have somebody, again, like me, who's a little bit straightforward.
And sometimes I put my own foot in my mouth because I'm just, I don't want to say I'm
(41:01):
too honest because I don't want to make it sound like I, I'm disingenuous sometimes
and not others.
But sometimes the way I word things can be too abrupt or abrasive or I don't know how
to else to word it.
So sometimes that can be putting off to people where they, if they want to be handled with
kid gloves, I might not be the right fit for them.
So if they're working with me, I know they're okay with somebody just being straightforward
(41:25):
to the point, give it to them, let them, let them know what's going on.
So when I look at the social media stable of people that I have, I'm looking for somebody
like that, right?
I'm looking.
So if I have another client that really prefers to be handled with kid gloves, I go to the
social media state, people and I go, oh, I know that, that, that Melissa is going to
(41:45):
be, she's super nice and she's one of those, the customer is always right kind of people
and never, never, but I'm going to introduce them.
I'm going to bring her in because I know that they're going to get along and I know that
her outcomes are going to be what the client's looking for because they're going to be more
geared toward a particular set of goals, right?
So for me, it's not about competition.
(42:07):
It really isn't.
It's more, it's really about the, and the social media people knowing their lane, right?
Like who, who are you going to do business with?
Because again, not every social media person wants to do business with a $5 million company.
Sometimes they prefer doing business with smaller companies.
I want a million to one to two million because I know that I'm working directly with the
(42:27):
owner and I don't have sales and marketing professionals in the way and I would rather
work directly with an owner at five or 10 million.
You're working maybe with a marketing manager and you want, it's, it's easier for somebody
who listen, I just want to be creative.
I don't want to deal with the strategy.
You deal with the strategy.
You just tell me what to do.
And it's like, so there's fits in there, right?
Now, it's very rare to be quite honest with you.
(42:51):
It's very rare that I find two people that are literally the perfect fit for the client,
right?
There's always like that one thing or like, and, and so in that case, what I'll, I'll
actually go to both of them and say, I would like you both to meet with the client and
then I will meet with the client and then I'll let you know which one the client would
prefer to work with.
So then it becomes a very true competitive situation where both are good.
(43:15):
Their rates are close enough to the same.
It's not going to be a money thing.
It's really going to be a personality thing where the client feels more comfortable with
one or the other.
And fortunately for me, I know all of the people in smart and connect.
So for me, I, I know I can get along with all of them.
It's not, it's not about me.
I eliminate myself from that equation almost all the time, right?
(43:37):
So, so to answer your question, how do I deal with quote unquote competitive situations?
I find there aren't a lot of them.
I really, I really, because we get so, because we are so much in, in, in line with our client
and it's about, it's not just about partnerships with the sales and marketing professionals,
it's about partnerships with the client that it makes it very easy for us to know and understand,
(44:02):
the client, know who they are, know the perfect fit for whoever we bring on, whether it's
social media marketing, I got email marketing people, I got website design people.
It doesn't really matter.
Any one of those marketing disciplines that you're talking about in the newest one, the
AI driven marketing, and we, that could be a completely different podcast, by the way,
because I have opinions about that too.
(44:23):
But anyway, but like, but that's a whole new genre of marketing discipline that we're
now seeing coming into the market.
So if somebody is interested in AI driven marketing, I have a couple of people that I
can just bring in and say, let's, let's see who's the right fit for you.
So for me, it's never about, it's never about quote unquote competition.
It's more about outcomes and partnerships.
(44:44):
Well, I think that, that that what you're saying is the social media people are your
partners.
They come in knowing they're your partners.
And in essence, you're the liaison.
Like you're, by being sort of the middleman in a good way, you're making it easier for
them because, you know, you, you, you know, you have two social media management people
(45:06):
who come to the table and they're both competing without you kind of knowing the client, knowing
what they need.
It would be so much harder for them to get business.
But by partnering with you, they know, you already know, sort of the ins and outs, you're,
you're going to deal with whatever the clients issues are and like boom.
(45:29):
Because marketing connected is nationwide.
We have, we have advisors and consultants all over the country, but for, for here in
Boston, Massachusetts, where we are, I probably have a hundred people in our, in our world
that I can tap on the shoulder anytime I want and go meet with them.
I have another 200 people that are across the country that I can get on a zoom with.
Well, that is all the time we have for today.
(45:52):
We could just talk and talk and talk for hours about all of this being sales and marketing
folks.
I just really want to thank you for being our guest.
I, it's just been huge, just like helpful to hearing you.
I'm like, well, I've gotten so much from this myself.
So, so just thanks so much for being here.
I really appreciate it.
Of course, anytime.
(46:13):
And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple podcasts or Amazon Prime,
thanks for listening.
We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
Happy storytelling.
Bye for now.
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