Ep. 189 Why He Stopped Cold Calling And Hit 4x His Quota Instead with Ronald Bolden Jr.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello everyone, Welcome to Achieving Success with Olivia Akin. I'm
your host, Olivia Akin. Each week we will discuss the
role map of achieving your personal and professional success. We
give you real life stories on growing personally and professionally
to achieve your life and career goals with the help
of some top not guests. Today we are speaking with

(00:26):
Ronald Colden Jr. Ronald Holden Junior is the founder and
CEO of Shy Marketing, and he's proven that you can
generate four time dear quoda without making a single cold call.
What makes Ronald's story so compelling isn't just his success,
it's how he turned conventional sales wisdom on its head.
While Corporate American insisted he needed to co call, Ronald

(00:49):
was quietly building AI powered systems that eliminate cold communications
entirely and generate consistent revenue through strategic partnerships. After nineteen
years of building revenue engines for sas, fintech and service companies,
he's discovered that when business struggles to grow, the problem

(01:12):
isn't usually the team, it's broken systems. And that insight
is exactly what we're diving into today. You can find
Ronald by going to his website Shy MARKETINGLLC dot com,
or on LinkedIn at Ronald Bolden Junior, or by email
at ron at Shy marketingllc dot com. By booking a

(01:33):
call with him by going to Calendar dot com Backlash
Ronald Bolden Junior. Hello, Ronald, it's fantastic having you on
the show.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you for inviting me. I look forward to our
conversation today.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I'm excited for you and to start off the show,
can you tell me what success means it looks like
to Ronald Bolden Jr.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yeah, So, my definition of success is when the person
who you're serving is solostatic about what you've done for
them that they can help, but contain sharing it with
other people. I don't define success as to what I
do and what I see. I find success is what
you deliver to someone else. I got fortunate enough to

(02:15):
be trained by zig Ziggler when I was in college.
I purposely took three summers from engineering internships to be
trained by him, and he always talked about helping people
get what they want. What help you get what you want?
And I've lived by that pretty much my entire life.
So that's my definition. Of success.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
And I love that because it's all about showing up
the best way you can to lead with service and
lead with impact, and that will pay it back. And Ronald,
we've talked about your journey before, but I think it's
so interesting how you really understood, from a young age,

(02:55):
like myself, the importance of picking up other skills they
might not be getting in regular paths of education. What
made you decide, Okay, I'm going to go the route
of engineering, but I also need this training and these skills.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, great question. It starts with the fact that I
did an internship. I did the traditional thing. First of all,
I was in a business major for three and a
half years in college, and then right before I'm close
to graduating, I decided to change my major. Now, my parents,
who were both educators, almost lost their mind. But you know,
I told him, I believe this is the direction to go.

(03:36):
My roommate sout out to Regie Stevenson out there somewhere
who's still doing engineering. He helped me kind of see
the more the better path. But when I did my internship,
I did it at home for utility company. Most of
the people I ran across no offense, were very were
high introverts, phenomenal technical minds, but they didn't communicate hard

(03:58):
at all. You may have to add them five questions
to get the conversation going. And I saw myself because
of my high school life, where I was an athlete.
I was popular, but I was shy, very conservative. And
then I got to college and I was heading.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
In the same direction. I said I'd do something different.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
So the same company that I interned with told me
that the internship was no longer available. So I lost
my internship. So I was looking for a job. Some
guy walked up to me and says, hey, you look
like a sharp guy. I'm sure it was his line, Hey,
would you like to hear about an opportunity? Went to
the opportunity. Turned out it was a door to door
sales opportunity where you would go to a state you

(04:37):
don't live in, pecure housing from strangers, and then worked
six days a week doing door to door sales all day long,
and then you go to a training on Sunday. First
I thought it was crazy. Then I said to myself, well,
how much better would I be prepared to communicate if
I did a job like this. So after my parents

(04:58):
yelled at me and previous disowned me for while I
still took the job. I went and did this not
only one summer, for three summers, and all three summers
I finished in like the top one hundred. And the
main trainer wasnig Ziglar, who you know, rest in peace,
famous trainer, famous philosopher, famous person to teach people about
how to communicate. And the first year five thousands were

(05:21):
out there. Now the five thousand, I was the only
engineer in the old group. And he when I met
him after I earned my way to some of his
private trainings, he was like, yeah, I heard you were
in Wisconsin. I said, yeah, that's not one of our
historically good territories. What did you do? I said, I
just told stories. My parents were education. I told stories,
and I talked about how what they're experiencing. I was basically,

(05:44):
I guess we're gonna say speaking with empathy. And I
learned a long time ago, help people get what they want,
and you'll get what you want. And people who said
i've never bought from a book person before, from a
door dowd person before me, you're different, And I said
why because you were listening to me and I was like, Wow,
I had no choice because I was a shy personality.

(06:06):
So you learn to listen, you don't really want to speak,
and then you start speaking after you've been spoken to.
So when I combined it all, I realized this is
where I needed to be in for the next two summers.
I just kept doing it until I graduated and I
realized my entire life, I keep hearing these words. I
know you're an engineer, but you're different, And I said,

(06:26):
how you communicate different? And I give it all credit
to those three summers. So doing door to door sales
and really learning how to deal with the good, the bad,
and ugly of conversations.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Well, and let's dive into that for a minute too,
Because door sales, I don't care who you are. I've
had We've had a guest on this podcast before who
was a door to door salesperson. It's hard. You're not
putting the work. You're you know, you're not dealing with juice,
the weather, right and law, looking and all in your

(07:03):
mind yourself all day, but you're also having You're knocking
on the door and you don't know what's standing on
the other side of the door. You don't know if
they're going to answer, and if they are, what the
conversation might lead. So for you, how did you build
up the mental strength, not just the physical strength, to

(07:23):
be doing that every day, six days a week. And
what was it like knocking on a door and mentally
not known, you don't know where that conversation is going
to go.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, I'll give them credit, you know, mister Ziggler and
the team, they really prepared us for the unknown, right.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
I remember the approach.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
It was we had a book bag because we were
selling educational books, and so the method was you put
the book back between you and the door, and you
step back two big steps so you would be in
a non threatning position so people can be comfortable. Okay,
the next thing, and of course they call everybody the
way we trained with mister and missus Jones. So you say, hello,
mister Jones. You know my name is Ron and I'm

(08:05):
a college student working here in the local area. And
you had this entire little script. But it was the
whole idea was to make it be disarming, so that
there would not be this issue with you coming out
of the blue as a stranger talking to them and
then having this assumptive step of when you reach down
to the bag, what eye contact, and walk towards the
door to see if they will let you in. Now,

(08:29):
believe it or not, nine times out of ten people
would let me in the house. And so I said
to myself, thinking of it, now, that would never work today,
right because people it's not letting strangers in the door.
But back then I was working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and
the second summer I was in Gamesville, Florida. In the
thirst summer, I was in Dallas in Texas, and then Houston.

(08:50):
All three summers I was getting in the doors talking
to people. A lot of the people I was working
with were women or I would meet because they would
be home some time and they maybe shift work, whatever,
and so you know, I want to be as as
comfortable for them as possible.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
And what I learned was that's it.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
You have to make people be comfortable to talk to you,
and then everything else opens up from there. If you
make people comfortable, you cannot possibly help them because they're
constantly sitting there thinking about all this.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I don't like this person making me uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
How can you make a decision when you're constantly feeling uncomfortable.
So that to me was what I learned is a
key thing making people comfortable. And sometimes it can be natural,
and sometimes it can be sort of you call it forced,
but no, you just got to read the face, read
the body language, read the signs. If somebody looks a

(09:50):
little nervous, don't push.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Don't push.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
That's why well, that's why hope falling. I knew I
was never little love that, but because of that, it
felt like you're pushing.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
But anyway, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
No, no, And what I would say too is it's
the same thing so many sales coaches right now, I
feel like, especially right now, are like close in thirty minutes.
Just push the you know objection do you have? Just
keep pushing, keep pushing until you get the gas and
they'll pay on the phone, right and that might run

(10:27):
over a thirty minute conversation, but don't kind of let
up the gas until they're willing to pay. And as
I went through like my sales growth and getting more
comfortable with it, right as you and I have talked
about before, I was like, this doesn't feel like me

(10:48):
and everybody's in a different situation as well, so understanding
like I had someone who has signed with me, who
was like, hey, yeah, I'm the business owner, but we
have our process to make decisions with the other people
in the company, and I would really also like them

(11:09):
to get involved. And I was like okay, and he's like, well,
we're having our next big company wide meeting. And it
was almost like thirty days out. I forget if it
was a little shorter than that, a little longer than them.
And I said okay, and I asked him, I'm like,
what's the actual date of it. It's like, oh, March seventeenth.
I'm like, okay, perfect valn here by from you by

(11:33):
the eighteenth? Can I follow up with you then? And
he's like, of course, right, Like I could tell the energy.
It was like, this is the process. There was nothing
I was going to do to get him to buy
in that time, and because I like lifted that foot
off the gas and was like, okay, let me know right,

(11:54):
he then came and in between that time, he was
so excited and so like aligned. He was reaching out
to people. He like, put me on an email change, Oh,
I have already talked to these people. They're interested. Fast forward,
March seventeenth came that evening, got an email talk to everyone,
we're in we're going to actually start April first. Can

(12:15):
you invoice me on April first? And it's like, okay,
could I have potentially gutten him to buy on that call?
Probably not. And if you keep pushing, not being able
to read the room and just going off a script
or being told what you're supposed to do, you probably
I probably would have lost the sale together.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, and think about this, right, this is and this
is the tough part. Right.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
When you're working with quotas, you have timelines, right, everyone
has these, you know, monthly.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Quotas, quarterly quotas, yearly quotas.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Bottom line, I all love the companies with the yearly
annual quota. And it doesn't matter what you do per
quarter because it allows for the natural progression of a
sale to happen versus this monthly pressure that I better
hurry up because I'm running out of time, which becomes
a natural thing that you will display over your conversation.
Had a person I talked to yesterday sounded like what

(13:10):
he needed, I could do everything he was saying I
could do. I mean, it's like I don't want to
do this. I don't want to do that. I have
the saying, and you know when I say I met you,
I believe in the hat removal business. Whatever you are
doing as an individual, contributor or a founder, as an individual,
and you're wearing hats, you're wearing a sales hat, a
marketing hat.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
You have to self generate business.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Why in my company wants to take those hats off
your head so you don't have to do that by
yourself anymore. It's amazing how many people I say, give
me ninety days for this to work, and within thirty
days they don't see what they want to immediately want
to go back to wearing the hats again. It is
built in almost to self generate this pressure. And I'm
wanting to say it again, why do you do that?

(13:53):
We have this short window of life and our time
is not guaranteed. Why do you waste time wearing a
hat you don't like to wear or want to wear.
And so if you're going to keep wearing that hat
no matter what anyone says to you, including the pressure hat.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Enjoy that life. I'm not doing that anymore.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
We've talked about the book Who Not How, and that
mentality of bringing on a person that knows how to
do it instead of just trying to figure out or
the who I should say, the person who knows how
to do it, instead of trying to figure out how
to do it yourself. And sometimes that also looks like,

(14:38):
what is the thing that's been on your to do
list every single day? But somehow every single day's the
thing that doesn't get done and next thing, you know,
like two weeks has gone by and it's still sitting there.
I recently even had that when I was I'm like
wrapping up my second book. My first book process was

(14:59):
bare different than this process because that one, a publishing
company came to me. You know, I get the Royalty Sport,
but they did every the whole system built in right,
the editors, the design artists for the cover, all this stuff.
I wrote this book and it's completely self published. And
the one thing that was really getting me was I

(15:22):
wrote the whole book. I looked over it and then
I was like, okay, now I got a format it
and at the end of the day, it's two hundred
and twenty pages that now I'm like, okay, am I
just seeing like everything on a screen and it's like
overwhelming me, and is this the best way? And this

(15:45):
and that, and finally I was like, Okay, this book
could have been done a month ago, because at the
end of the day, I'm tired and I want to
pay attention to it, but it just is looking too much,
and so I don't do it. I'm like, oh, I'll
get to it tomorrow, or I'll spend time this week
and do it. And then I'm like, what I'm gonna
do fun stuff.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
I mean, it's your core that you create. You did
the heavy lifting, You created this content. Now let someone
else who lives and breeze formatting, who lives and breeze
edited thing, who lives and breeds that turn your content
or your dream and your art into reality. Let them
do it, and when they do it, you get it faster.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
You take a lot of that extra on you.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Because see, here's the thing I believe now, Olivia, especially
with two sons, one being a student athlete, the other
one changing majors, Like I did whatever we do with
ourselves and then we let it go later, that weight
or residual effort is still on us. It's like eating
a bunch of bad food. You've eating bad food for

(16:52):
so long that the weight you gain does not go
go away overnight. And so when you make a bad
decision business wise, that stays.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
On you for a while.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
And that's why when I tell people don't buy leads
buying systems, then they go, yeah, I need to go
buy some other lead system. I say, well, I told you,
if you don't have a system, why are you buying
a bunch of leads and then plugging it into your
procrastination system. Procrastination system not a system. Procrastination system. You
don't have the time, the energy, or the want to

(17:22):
to do it, and you're still going to take on
more because you're going to save ten bucks.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Your time is too valuable.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
And the other question is was that ten dollars really worth?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Right?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
At the end of the day, you're always going to
give up something, right, And I love the analogy you
said as well as like when you do a bad habit,
when you're going through that process, it doesn't just like
shred it right away, Like I love the eating junk,
food and energy. I'm like, that's so true. But it's
also the importance of understanding the system in place, and Okay,

(18:00):
listening you buy leads great and if you're just plugging
it into something and you're doing all the outreach, all
the follow up, all the things, especially if you're solo entrepreneur,
even if you have a small team, Well, guess what
that is time you could be doing something else, whether
it is business oriented and more in your zone of genius,

(18:22):
or hey, I want to take the day off or
you know, not work crazy hours. And I think people
forget that so often. And I want to dive into
more of what you're doing now as well with Shy Marketing,
But I kind of want to start at the beginning
because I feel like there's such an interesting story here
on why you decided to name your company Shy Marketing

(18:45):
and help shy individuals really succeed in sales. What was
the moment for you that you realized that shyness wasn't
a barrier but actually a super power to leverage.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, it's a great question. I appreciate that it was.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Actually I was an engineer still and I had just
come back from like I think it was nine weeks
of this intense training. Okay, when I took test and
when I always stake tests, you know, I have sort
of this mental challenge that I have to go through
to give myself ready. And you know, I learned a

(19:23):
while from test taking that if you don't know an answer,
skip it and just come back to it later. Okay, Well,
we had this end of the nine week session test
and I had skipped an answer, skipped three or four answers,
and then when I went back that so I'm running
out of time. I went back and started answering the questions,
but I answered them from the wrong start point, so
I was giving the answer that I would have said

(19:45):
to the wrong section because I was skipping, but I
was answering, so I was throwing everything off. It's not
about fifteen questions that I answered probably completely wrong for
the other one and I knew and I realized that,
and I couldn't get the about it. So you know,
the end of the time, I think they ranked everybody
as to everybody finished in terms of scores.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Now before I was in the middle of the pack.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
Sometimes it'll be up and at the end because of
my score was low at the last of the lowest.
But you know, I'm still nine une percent. So my boss,
I'm forgetting. We're having this sort of post. You know,
I passed. I qualified. I'm now certified. And he says, well, hey, Ron,
it's okay. Uh you know, you know I'm a slow learner,

(20:26):
and I know what it's like to be a slow nurner. Now,
when your boss says that to you, there's a couple
of ways to take that. You can kind of eat it.
But I immediately corrected them and said, I'm sorry, I'm
not a slow learner. The last I'm the first one
with a slow learner there is. I had a little
test malfunction and that's it. I apologize. Feel bad for
you that you're a slow learner. I'm not a slow learner.
And he had a look in his face like, how

(20:47):
dare you I said, well, no, how dare you do?
You're not going to put me in the category of
something that I'm not. I am a person who switched
from business of engineering with no prep classes first time
seeing class, I says, and I managed to still graduate
I think about four years after doing that, and I
am proud of it. I'm proud of my C average

(21:07):
because I had never seen any of those classes before. Okay,
I mean, while everybody else had taken those classes three
or four times, and I graduated had a career in engineering,
did what I had to do, and I've learned that
when I was in tech, I met a lot of
people in my major with that internship who just couldn't

(21:28):
say anything, They couldn't communicate, they were uncomfortable. And when
I would gain trust early with people because that was
maybe you know, that's one of the gifts I think
the Lord for me forgiving me. I said, Ron is
not comfortable to having these public conversations. I'm not comfortable
even communicating what I did as part of my section.

(21:49):
And so when I heard that, I said, well, what
if I'm in the room with you and I help you?
And I said, you'll do that. I said, man, I
did a door to our sales thing. I'm really comfortable
now having conversations now. When I first started talking, I
started because I still have uncomfortable which is why my
logo has a little.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Spreading person on it, because any speech I.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Do, I will start to perspire, and then I'll have
a towel and then I'll wipe myself off and I
get comfortable, and then people bond over the fact that
I power through it. And so shy marketing is for
the introverts, the people who are not comfortable doing sales,
and for the folks who don't want to have to
fight through it because they don't have the time, the energy,
or some people make some ill and I basically will

(22:28):
take that off of your head so that we will
do the sales and the heavy lifting part for you.
That's identifying opportunities, verifying they really are real, having that
first conversation or code conversation or data qualified lead which
leads to the conversation, and then put them on your calendar.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
That's our goal.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
And by doing that as a primary, it makes a
lot of people's lives easier because they have now somebody
working on their behalf who wants to take it off
their plate, not do it temporarily take it off. You're
playing completely right, and so shy marketing is built to
help eliminate the hats that you're wearing when it comes
to generating revenue. And even for nonprofits, I want to

(23:12):
say this, Olivia, a lot of profits. If you think
about the nonprofits in our lives, they have a bakes cell,
fish fry, some kind of meal, crab feed, the golf tournament,
love all those things, Okay, but it is the make
or break of their budget for the entire year. That's
how they can do operations. I said, what about this,

(23:35):
What if you referred me nonprofits to a for profit?
I helped that for profit in some capacity, whether it
reduced costs, help them more revenue, and then as part
of the deal, they donate a portion of their benefits
to that nonprofit on a monthly basis. Now the nonprofit
wins because they're getting monthly support and the for profit
wins because they're getting monthly help.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
And I called it a win win program. I try this.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Fifteen years ago there was so much well what about
you and what do you get and what do you gain?
I listened and I say, you know what, I'm just
gonna shut this down. It makes no sense for me
to keep trying to do this. And people are all
they worried about is what I get versus the big picture.
You're benefiting, they're benefiting. But I feel now in our

(24:22):
current society, it's time to revise that. So I say,
for the nonprofits, I have something for you. For the
for profits who have want to give back, then also
need to create a way to do something. I have
something for you that to me is what shy marketing
is all about. Right, It's technology combined with partnerships. We

(24:46):
combine the two, we help you get to revenue faster.
That's what we're about and that's what will always be about.
Because partnerships is why I don't have to do the
cold calling per se anymore, because enough people refer me
and I have people working with me that generate opportunities
that come inbound, and then when they have services that
are not in our core, I bring in a partner

(25:09):
to help me fulfill. I think I mentioned this to you.
I'm like, I like the Avengers analogy. I'm great at this,
you're great at that. We're going to work together. I'm
going to save the company or you save the organization.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
And I think it's so important too to identify where
your superpower ways in the skill set and instead of
just trying to be like, oh yeah, I could help
support that, bring on other people and partnerships that it
is in their zone of genius, because that also, at
the end of the day, gives you way more credibility.
But it's also about how you go about that, right

(25:44):
And for example, like I get so many people who
come to me whether it's just to be a guest
in my podcast, and they're like, yeah, I want to
sell this product or service and I'm like, okay, well
that's going to come off real fast if that's what
you're leading with abscrossing like we're not doing this, or

(26:04):
they'll be like, hey, can you refer me people? I
know you have a massive network, and yeah, I have
a massive network, But if I don't know you from
a hole in the wall, why would I refer you?

Speaker 2 (26:18):
They're a platform, we know where that happens.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
And I'm sitting here saying I've never talked to you,
But you want me to refer you to somebody who
I might personally know, who's going to look at me
and say, Ron, why did you refer me to this person?
Then I have to deal with that backlash. It's happened
already a few times. And I say no, Now, I say, respectfully,
I need to get to know you first. If you're
not willing to at least have a conversation with me

(26:42):
and know who I am and how I take and
how I think, then probably the world. Am I going
to refer you to somebody else who I do know
how they think?

Speaker 2 (26:51):
That doesn't. It doesn't match.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
You know, no, it doesn't. And I'll use a podcast
related example, right, because I have always been you know,
because of the industries I've worked in prior to starting
my business, prior to having this globally ranked podcast, working
in professional sports, working for a Fortune five hundred company,

(27:14):
Lackheed Martin, I very much understand the power of your
name and the power of what you build and that reputation,
and so I've always been like kind of cautious with
that and really mindful. But I remember I was starting
my podcast. Yeah, I was like more starting out and

(27:34):
a good like one of my best friends who grew
up with her. She's an amazing individual. She is in
the gymnastics space. She knows a lot of contacts in
the gymnastics space. And I was looking for a certain
like a pro athlete kind of guess my celebrity guests.

(27:55):
And she's like, Olivia, there's I know this really big
college coach right now, she's the first female like blah
blah blah. And we went in and she's like, I'll
text her, I'll get you. I'm like, okay, great, right, awesome,
thank you so much. So she did in intro text,

(28:17):
got on a call with her, this woman, which had
to be rescheduled, but I'm like, okay, life happens, right,
we book it, and the day of the recording, I'm
sitting there and this was the first time too, I
had someone like no show to a recording, and Ben,
my producer, will say, I've maybe had like five of these,

(28:39):
you know, the two hundred recordings I've ever done, and
that was my first one. And I'm sitting there and
I'm emailing her. I'm like, hey, you joining like this.
No answer, no answer. So she's like and this recording
was happening after Thanksgiving, so I spent part of my
Thanksgiving break prep for this because this had for her schedule,

(29:02):
had to be a quick turnaround, and I was like, okay, whatever.
So I was already like okay, well now now showed.
And I spent my Thanksgiving break prepping for this and
then I'm like okay. And she ended up like an
hour after the fact calling me and was like, hey,

(29:24):
I'm sorry, I got the times wrong. This came up,
whatever it was. I'm like okay. Then we rescheduled for
like a week later, and the same thing happens. I'm
like what is going on? And she ended up finally
getting a hold of me like two hours later and

(29:44):
was like, oh, well the time, but also this like
hurricane happened and this and that, and I'm driving home
and I'm like it just the math wasn't mathing, and
like the excuses she was giving verse like what she
said was happening, and my friend felt so bad and

(30:05):
I said to her, I was like, it's not on you, right,
you didn't know she was gonna do this. But at
the end of the day, like not for anything. Liz,
and that's my one of my best friend's names. She's amazing,
so kind of individual. I was like, this kind of
like the next person you refer to me or say, hey,

(30:26):
can you put my friend on your podcast? Like it's
gonna damper the weight a little bit because there's a
level I put out and expectations I fit. And now
in the back of my mind, I'm gonna be thinking
is this person gonna do what the next like the
last person did? And so it's one of those things

(30:47):
you have to understand that weight that comes with it
as well.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
No, and it's a great and thanks for sharing that
because I think a lot of people when they maybe
even watch this, they made think you know, okay, you
have a successful podcast, you've made it, so they don't
understand some of the stories of the moments like you
just said. You know, like Ben talks about five times
in two hundred podcasts, right, this is the third No,

(31:13):
this is the we have a third podcast I have
ever done with shy marketing. I have been asked tell
you about two hundred times. This is only third one. Now,
why when you're a marketing, branding solution provider, would you
not do a bunch of podcasts or do a bunch

(31:35):
of this or a bunch of that. Get yourself out there,
as they say, Well, because shy marketing is for who,
the actual person, the person behind the scenes, the one
who needs someone to do it for them. Right, So
if I don't have someone at the time who I'm
currently trying to promote or put shine on, I don't

(31:58):
see a reason why I would do it.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Now.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
I have several right now, several dynamic founders who I
would love to bring to and one's attention, right, and
I won't do that now. But that's not what we
talked about doing. But what I do know is when
people go to the website and they see certain services
behind every service is a partner, and I had to
structure myself to be like that so that they can

(32:24):
still benefit, almost like the wizard, right, they're behind the
scenes delivering a service, but they've hired me to be
sort of the face of the brand. And I think
that's valuable because some people Lady how to today, brilliant,
brilliant HR mind. I mean, when people deal with people,

(32:46):
you need to have solid HR services. And she's a
brilliant mind. And what I heard her say, but my
website is this, and this is that. I mean, you're
talking about all the stuff that's sort of a mess.
But she says, brilliant HR execution strategist. And I told
her it's our last five minutes of the call, I said,
I can help you with all of that. She's like,

(33:06):
I said, I can help you with all of that.
The website mess. I got you covered, the whole social
gotcha covered, generating, I got you covered somehow in twenty
eight minutes that didn't come through, and.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
That's on me. But that last five she didn't heard.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
I got all that card send me an email of
what it is you need send me an email. In
that email what your budget is and won't make it work.
Now people will say, what do you mean make work?
I said, she is picking what she can start with
the dollar amount. Why because she has a need and
she's a brilliant mind. And I want to have a
world where brilliant minds are not being blocked from getting

(33:47):
what they need based on their current budget.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
But if I help her and she helps me, we're
going to help a whole lot of people.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
And I can't get caught up in well I need
her to pay a certain amount. Hey, great thing about
running your own company. You can pick and choose who
you want to work with.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
It's amazing thing, amazing feeling.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
But I say to people, look, if you want to
know what joy is when you can say no to
somebody where they just knew it was a yes, but
you knew it was a no because they were just special.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
And when I say special, it is not in a
good way. They were special.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
And it's like, you know what, I would have a
nightmare every time I take a call with you, because
you're going to treat me like I'm some type of
servant and not a partner. You're going to treat me
like I'm not providing you a service by choice and
not by requirement. You're gonna treat me like I'm an
employee and not a service provider. And that's why I

(34:49):
started my own company so I can say no. I'll
tell you a fast story. Lady and I got along break.
She was one of the the founder got along great.
She's in a space that I really can appreciate education.
My whole family in education. So I anything to around education,
I'm always going to pok my ears up and want
to participate her I mean partner principle. I don't know

(35:13):
what it was. He got on the call. Now, I
joined the call five minutes late. For eight minutes late,
I had some technical difficulties.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
For some reason.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
It was some service in my area with the network.
I couldn't do anything about it. I got on late.
The whole time I was on the call, the first
five minutes, he was just looking at me like this,
And so she was talking. I was talking, We're trying
to kind of you know, we're moving on. But he
just kept looking at me with this irritated look. And
I said, well, as you can ask me the question,

(35:44):
it's can I ask you was there challenge right now
as her punk and he kind of went into this
whole rant about me being late and how that's unprofessional,
blah blah, and then I explained why, and then he
kind of didn't accept the easing, and so we got
towards the last five minutes and I said, I got
to tell you, I'm not a good fit for you.
He clearly is this is bothering him, this is not

(36:04):
I'm not a good fit. And you can see the
look on her face of really disappointed because we had
already she and I had worked out the whole master
plan to help her business, and he was caught up
in my five to seven minutes late and he wouldn't
let it go.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
And I'm believing we're not in this world of perfection.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
And if I'm going to make up the time and
we're going to make it work, and I'm I'm not
going to try to add more time to our poll.
I'm going to make it work with the timeline and
I acknowledge my lateness. I am not going to keep
begging you for forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Mm hmm. There's only you know, I mean, I can
get thought up.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
There's there's there's only one person who I worry about,
who I you know I worry about when it comes
to that, and we'll just at that.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Well I want I want to dive into for a
few minutes as well, the importance of systems. We've soften
about it periodic way throughout this conversation as well when
we talk when you talk about, you know, marketing and sales.
What do you think is a foundational system one should

(37:15):
have in their business.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
You have to have a way to respond to people's
questions twenty four x seven because the aha question they
have may come at any time, and if you have
a very clear way to answer those questions, I believe
that is the number one thing you should have. Because
I go back to listening on my website, I have

(37:40):
a system through a partner where people can click on
and ask questions and do a back and forth conversation
like you're having right now. Now, there's other companies that
do the same thing. I'm going to say that the
only one, but I like the robustness of their system.
I like how I can ask any question about any
rabbit hole what I want. I can answer those questions.
It can ask me stuff personal and can ask me
stuff it is. It can handle it all. It's that sophisticated.
And then if they're ready to talk to me, it

(38:03):
can do a live call transfer doing working hours I have,
but if my phone rings and I can't answer, it
goes right back to appointment booking services. So see now,
no matter what, all your questions get answered with the system,
the appointments going to be booking account or with a system,
live conversations can happen with a system and qualification. I
would say you need to have a system. If you

(38:27):
have no system and all you're doing is are lying on voicemail,
really good luck. How many voicemails have you left over
the last year?

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I mean, I'm a talker, so I will leave them please,
but not even that. I want to say, it's a
tremendous amount, and it'll be like, you know, if you've got.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
A business, if you call a business, it's a voicemail
like back in nineteen eighty. Yeah, I thank you for
calling ron Volding and Shy marketing. I'm sorry I can't
take your call right now. Lea, please get your name
in Mber after the tone? How does that come off
to you in a today's economy In today's world of tech,
it doesn't come off too.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Well right now.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
And there's times I get that and I'll just be like, okay,
well I got to take care of this now right
Like one am, I got too.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Sore. As you go.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
If you like them, you really want to work with them,
because you had a great meeting with them, you at
least want to have a system that can at least
address or service them until you can talk to them.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Right.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
So that's why I say, you know you're answer any
questions or questions get answered.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Can you tell me about your pointent booking philosophy? Again?

Speaker 3 (39:38):
For example, say yeah, And it goes down to can
you help me with I'm this kind of company?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
You help me? Yes, here's how we'll do it. Can
you do international? Yes?

Speaker 3 (39:45):
We All those questions can be addressed with the system
and still at least give the person their an answer
so they can at least have the time to wait
if you're not available, or you can go to step further.
Have a customer support team which we have available and
they can answer all your call. I answer all the
calls twenty four by seven, so no one ever misses
out on a live call conversation. So there's ways to

(40:07):
kind of make it work now in out of our world.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
But you.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Got to have a system, that's all. You've got to
have a way to address questions. That's the number one
thing I would say to people. Lots of doubling, lots
of researching, you need to be able to answer their questions.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
And that being said too, you brought a lead generation
and the aspect of like, Okay, it's one thing to
buy a lead list, it's another to like actually get
them to convert. So from that aspect as well, how
do you look at leads and the right people and
the right system to actually get someone to convert.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
That's a great question too, So you know, but I
shouldn't be surprised you and you asked a lot of
great questions. So leads, here's what I've said for twenty years.
Folks may disagree with me. I said, don't buy leads
by systems. Here's why, because depending on who you talk

(41:08):
to in the data, when someone is a warm lead
or hot lead, that temperature may be if you're lucky
five minutes of hot, then warm in cold. If I
call you, you're not available dead. If I've googled something

(41:29):
and I get forty thousand results and then I reach
out to that person they don't respond dead. So when
you buy leads from database companies, I won't say any names,
and that model is one where everyone can buy from
that database. Then if they don't update that database every

(41:50):
single day, you're basically going to be buy leads that
are going to be older. And if you're a popular
candidate for a industry, high networth, high income household blah
blah blah blah blah filling a blank, then everybody who
has a high ticket problem is going to be all,
bom bar are you trying to get you to talk
to them? And then you get five thousand spam calls,

(42:12):
and you get forty thousand emails and you get all
this stuff, and then somehow you're going to weep through
all that magic and you're gonna be the one company said, oh,
you have the key title on your email and now
I saw you. So I say it's good to get
systems that at least have a thing called intent.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
And everyone has different strategies.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
I won't get into all the strategies, but the bottom
line is you want to least something that lets you
know people are looking for what is you're asking for,
engaging them in a appropriate way, in a compliance level way,
and then getting those people into some level of conversation,
garnering their interest, and then saying, if they want to

(42:51):
have a conversation that's within the same thirty days as
the time you're talking.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Then do an appointment booking conversation.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
All of that is the art of getting someone from
buying leads to a system that gets people on your account. Okay,
some people are super skilled at doing this in a
live conversation and those people, some people are really good
with systems. Have those people or what I like to
believe in is you create a situation of combinational things.
Content that people say I want to learn more and

(43:19):
engage them, Partnerships that have people who are always looking
for what it is you do you engage them, and
then systems that help you indicate people who are looking
for what it is you ask for and you engage them.
So by engaging all those things, you create a world
of inbound and outbound opportunities that allow you to get
to the magical I need five appointments, I need ten appointments,

(43:41):
and your offer run from there. Now, a lot of
things have changed in terms of engagement since January first.
A lot of people I've even have as clients, a
lot has in fact impacted all of them since January first.
So now we're all working with the world of opt in,
and if you get people to opt in, you can
do a lot of great things. And so I've been

(44:02):
doing opt in for a long time, but still the
rules have changed. And so I tell people, you want
to work with somebody who at least has a variety
of ways of getting people to be aware of you
so that you can get them to help you with
what you want appointment booking services, and that's what we do.
We don't do one size fits all, because there's no
size that fits all. You got to do a variety

(44:24):
of things, and you need to have different specialists in
different platforms because the audience you want to attract is
different on different platforms. You know, you can't all run
to LinkedIn, great platform and with it since day one,
you can all run to Facebook, where you can't run
the TikTok. Different platforms have different responses, and you want

(44:48):
to work with people who at least understand it, live
and breathe it, which is why I say this again, Olivia,
I will never do my own social media. I have
a social media team that is a full time, intense job.
You gotta love it, Hey team, you guys make it happen.
A beautiful couple out of Utah. I work with husband

(45:09):
and wife team, their support team. I don't have to
worry about. They executed all for me. They've executed for
my clients. They're a phenomenal partner.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Love them. Got a young lady I work with out
of India. She does videos.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
She's a young lady who loves videos.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
She turned one of my selfies into a converting video.
Got a lover.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Got another young lady out of the Philippines. Righted Operations
used to work for a bank. Used to work for
one of the larger banks. The bank we all know.
She used to deal with fraud. Have her on the
team as my operations person.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Right different people, different parts of the world software coming
and working with for all the engineers are all. The
whole engineering team is a bunch of veterans. So helping
them of getting funding right now and once I do,
will be a phenomenal thing because they've been looking for
somebody helping with that for a long time and I'm
helping that project. Those are kind of things I like

(46:02):
to do, Sir, bringing people on the team through other
people and this is what their words were, Ron. No
one else was willing to work with me. You were
because again back to that core thing, service you're serving me.
I'm serving you. But the most important thing is I'm
serving you. Because I like to say this, if you
had kids, and you had kids walking by and they

(46:22):
saw me or heard my voice and says that op
Ron play Coron, that's the relationship that I'm always trying
to get to know that the kids know I'm working
with the parents to make things better. And I think,
but it is what it is.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
I think it's very important. I think it's also one
of those things that seasons in life can change. Are
you prepared for when things change?

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Right?

Speaker 1 (46:48):
It's not just about what's happening right now, but are
you kind of looking at that path of what does
the next six months look like?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Right?

Speaker 1 (46:57):
Even in podcasts, a lot of time I tell a hosts, Okay,
when we're starting to do this, we're gonna also do
batch recordings. That is something my amazing producer Ben, when
I initially interviewed him before I even started my podcast.
He talked to me about that and the importance and
why he saw podcasts failing and all the time he

(47:18):
did it, and this, that and the next, and we
went down a deep conversations. I always tell people now
be able to, for example, at least if you're in
April recording for April, when you already know what's releasing
in May, you're at least in April recording for episodes

(47:38):
that will release in June, so that if life happens,
you're not like, oh my god, what am I gonna do?
I'm flying by the seat of my pants. It's oh no,
we had a system in place, right, going back to
the system, we had this system in place. I don't
gotta worry I can move that recording because I don't
need it for this week or next week. We got time, right,

(47:59):
And I goes on both ends of it, And I mean,
there's so much more we could talk about, and ron
we're definitely going to have more fun conversations. But I
can't believe we're at the top of the hours. So, Ronald,
how can people get in touch with you if they
want to connect with you?

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Appreciate that question and thank you again for having me.
Thank you Ben for producing I appreciate that. I understand
the importance of that role as well. So for more
people who want to learn more about shy marketing, you
can come to my website. It's Shy marketingllc dot com.
On my website, it says a button on the right
hand course is talk with us now, asking any question

(48:37):
you want about shy marketing, our philosophy, what we do, how.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
We can service you, and if you like what you hear.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
That system alone will allow you to talk to me live,
or book an appointment on the counter, or talk to
somebody on the team. So that's all you need to
do on LinkedIn. Just like we said in the beginning,
Ronald Bolden Junior, I believe I'm the only one on LinkedIn, ironically,
So you look in Ronald Blden Jr. You can connect
with me except pretty much all connection request and then

(49:03):
we can always have a conversation. So that's the best
way to reach me is through my website and the
system or on LinkedIn. I'm on another platform that we
both met on called Alnable. Same thing I'm under Shy
Marketing there or roulable enginr and we can always connect.
But I will say this to you. When you talk

(49:24):
to somebody about doing or being a guest on a podcast,
find out if they have a system YEP.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
Systems are important.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Yeah, absolutely, And I really appreciate you inviting me to
get a chance to talk to you today.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
I'm so glad we had a chance to talk because
even in my head now I'm like thinking about different
things and like, oh, this could be interesting. Okay. You
know that's the amazing things of having conversations like with
individuals like yourself, where like you don't just leave the
conversation providing value. You leave the conversation going, oh, we

(50:02):
got to talk more about this and dive into that
and it's so amazing. And thank you Ronald for all
of your insight today.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Oh, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
And a few of our key takeaways though there were
so many fun takeaways and things to think about during
this conversation, but a few of them were help people
get where they want to be and you will get
where you want to go, and I think that's so important,
and Ronald brought that up in the beginning, but it
was also a theme of our conversation, I think, and

(50:36):
one of those key pillars to understanding that when you
serve others and lead with intention, business will come, opportunities
will come, and understanding that is really important because, as
Ronald said even later on in the discussion, the way
you show up, someone feels that and it is them

(50:57):
making internal decisions whether they want work with you or
don't write. He brought up the money mindset around it
as well as well as you have to make people comfortable.
Think one of the most important things is understanding where
that person is, not just in the call, but in

(51:19):
life and making them comfortable. Like Ronald said in door
to door sales, he back up, if you feed, lead
with engagement, lead with impact. Is also the fact that
even in today's world where you might not be doing
door to door sales, lead with understanding what where that

(51:40):
person is and don't try to push it in being
like I have to close. As Ronald said, when you
look at the full picture of a full year instead
of just like that month's money, that allows you to
be more comfortable yourself and allow others to be comfortable
as well. And I think one of the most important

(52:00):
things is don't buy leads buy systems. Ronald said this
multiple times and I really even enjoyed his point at
the end is like, what does buying that lead actually mean?
Will you get that to convert if you can't respond quickly,
if you don't have the systems in place, And when
you have certain systems in place, you might not even

(52:23):
have to buy leads because they're actually converting. This was
a great episode with our top notch guest, Ronald Bolden Junior.
Thank you for listening and have a successful day.

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Ep. 189 Why He Stopped Cold Calling And Hit 4x His Quota Instead with Ronald Bolden Jr.

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