To call or not to call?

To Call or Not to Call?

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast. On today's episode, we have a very special episode that I've been waiting on for a little while to call or not to call? That is the question, and we are going to answer it and stay tuned to the end of the episode where we are gonna do some shout outs to people that have given us some great valuable input for the podcast who've just reached out, left reviews, today we are recognizing our listenership. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world.

You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the The Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 17 of the Business Development Podcast. Let me just start this episode out by highlighting all of you, all my listeners, I know we have a lot of new listeners this week. We've seen a massive uptake in the listenership of the Business development podcast, and I just wanna say ahead of time to all of you who are listening, who are enjoying the show.

Thank you so much. This is what we do it for. This is what I am invested in. I'm invested in helping you grow, whether that be your business as a business development rep, or just as an entrepreneur. We hope to deliver value to help you grow week over week. And I just wanna say thank you. If you're tuning in, if this is your first time, or if you are a seasoned business development podcast listener.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really appreciate it. And just to give you an update, we have surpassed the 2000 downloads mark this week. And actually I think it's quite a bit more, I think there might be a little bit of an error with with our tracking, but just for week over week, we have surpassed the 2000, the tracking that I have been using and just want to say thank you so much. We couldn't have done it without you.

On today's episode, I wanna start off just by saying a big thank you to last week's guest and next week's guest, Colin Christensen. Colin Christensen is an amazing entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur. President of multiple companies, but well known for the Entrepreneur Roadmap book and app, and he provided so much valuable input.

Last week. The show was so well received. Everyone loved it. And just wanna say thank you, Colin. You were an amazing guest. You were a pleasure to have conversate with. You. Were just a wealth of knowledge and such a great person all around. And We'll chat about it at the end of the episode, but next week's episode, guys, you cannot miss it.

It is unbelievable, and I mean that by every meaning of that word. It is an unbelievable episode, so next Sunday, but we'll chat about it at the end. On today's episode, we are gonna be talking about to call or not to call. Yes, I know. We live in a time now where people seem to be reluctant, if not afraid to pick up the phone and call their client.

We are relying on passive marketing, passive marketing is more popular than ever. What do I mean by passive marketing? I mean LinkedIn marketing, Facebook marketing, digital advertising, Google ad words, whatever you guys are spending your money on and hoping to god the phone rings. That is passive marketing and there are some flaws.

Unfortunately, passive marketing leaves much to be desired. I, on the other hand, am a gigantic active marketing guru. I love active marketing. Active marketing in my mind, is still the most effective way to market your company. What is active marketing? Active marketing is going to be physical, physical touch, going in and actually talking to somebody, dropping a physical brochure by an office.

It's gonna be direct emails. Now this means direct emails. You have the contact, you needs email. You've figured out who the target is at your, at your client office. You know exactly who you need to talk to if you're sending a direct email that is active marketing, and obviously the dreaded. The hated, cold call, phone call.

Physically calling your customer. I know, I know. It's I know it's scary, guys. I know, I know. Believe me, I'm a business development guy. I get, I get nerves, you know, I've been doing this a long time and I remember the beginning. I used to get nerves all the time, but I'll tell you what, a direct marketing approach is not only the most effective, it is also very cost effective as compared to a passive marketing strategy. Why? Because you're just making phone calls. You're not spending thousands, over thousands of dollars dumping into LinkedIn ad campaigns or Google AdWords campaigns and just hoping you're not hoping for anything. You are actively searching for your clients, guys, and it is just, it is the way to go.

So is it okay in the modern day cold call? Yes, absolutely. It is totally okay. I don't know who's telling you guys that it is not okay to cold call anymore. They are completely wrong. Okay. It is, if not the most effective, it might even be the most effective it's ever been. Why might I say that? Because so many people are investing in a passive strategy that if you are the company that is then taking on an active strategy, you are actually the oddball out and you're actually more effective for it.

Because as humans, we still crave person to person interaction. We still want someone to reach out to us. Right? It just, it's incredibly effective, a passive marketing approach. It puts too many steps in the hands of your customer, more hoops to jump through, equal less chance they call. What do I mean by that?

If you, if you have a passive marketing strategy, okay, let's say that you know, you bought in, you bought in and you bought all the LinkedIn ad campaigns, you bought your Facebook campaigns, you're paying for Google AdWords, you're paying maybe for other digital marketing. What you're doing ultimately, and, and please don't think I'm calling you out, I made all of these mistakes as well, and, and I knew better when I made them.

That's the difference. I actually knew better. So I'm don't feel like I am calling you out. I am not calling you out. This is a mistake that I am equally guilty for. So I just wanna get that outta the way before we kind of get started here. When I started Capital. I thought to myself, well, why not? Why couldn't a LinkedIn campaign work?

You know what it's targeting, potentially entrepreneurs. It's targeting business owners who I want. The problem is, guys, we are so bombarded with these advertisements that we are just completely desensitized to them. We're not even paying attention. All they are good for at this point in my mind is brand recognition, and that's what I advocate for.

And I will talk to a passive strategy potentially later in this episode, but, You need to do it for brand recognition, but please don't be doing it as your only form of, of advertising. You have to have an active strategy to back that up because you are simply making too many hoops for your customer to jump through, right?

You have to get them at the perfect time. They have to absolutely need or be begging for your product to click that ad and search you out. And it's just too many, it's too many hoops, right? Like they don't, they don't want to jump through that many hoops they want you to find them. So an active strategy is really great because you meet your customer where they are at.

If you can meet them where they are at, you are gonna be so much more effective. You're gonna stand out from the crowd. And in this day and age, with so much heavy competition, we have to be finding ways to stand out from the crowd. Guys, I'm telling you, an active strategy is how you were going to do it In this modern day and age of everybody dumping all their money into LinkedIn, digital ad spend, robo calls, who knows, whatever, all the garbage.

If you can stand out as a human who is doing a soft touch, finding them on LinkedIn, making that digital introduction. Remember, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not just advocating for a direct cold call. We always want to have a soft touch, a soft introduction. We wanna somehow get your company in front of that person. The way that I like to do it, and the way that I think works best is by adding, adding the target, the correct client, the correct person who can buy your product at a company, and doing a targeted LinkedIn introduction, which I mean like the briefest of introduction guys, we're, we're doing like maybe like a five liner, 10 liner tops. Just introducing yourself, giving a brief overview of your service, maybe attaching a brochure that is a soft introduction. And then from there, we want to find their contact information and we want to directly reach out. We want to contact them by phone, by email, and we wanna make that human to human connection because that is where 100%, that is where you were going to be the most effective.

If you can meet the customer where they are at. You might be getting the customers who aren't looking, which is you, don't mean another side of it. You remember, with a soft approach, your customer has to actually be looking for your product. Remember, that's not, that's, that is not marketing guys, because the reality is your customers may not need your product today.

So you are really, really missing out if you were only looking for people who are desperate for the service. When you should be contacting all the potential targets in your industry that you can sell to make that initial introduction, make a direct introduction. Take them out for a lunch, take them out, even if they don't need your product today, take them out for lunch.

They might need your product in six months in a year, but guess who they're gonna remember. They're gonna remember you. They're not gonna remember the LinkedIn ad, okay? They are going to remember you. You okay? John, Jill, whoever I'm speaking to on the other line of this, they are remembering you as a person.

Because at the end of the day, we don't sell to companies. We sell to people. If we're selling to people, we have to connect. We have to be human. We're all human guys. We're human first, business people second. Okay? Regardless of what you're doing, whether you're business development, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're an ops guide, trying to market your company too, whatever it is you're doing, you are a human first.

You have likes, hobbies, families, loves, right? We need to connect with our clients in these ways because that is just how humans relate. If you can do that, if you can build an emotional connection with your client, they are going to remember you. They're never going to remember your LinkedIn ad. They're never going to remember your soft marketing strategy or your passive marketing strategy.

They're gonna remember you and you are gonna get there through an active marketing strategy, through direct contact, through phone calls, through direct emails, by doing a little bit of detective work to make that connection, show your customers they matter. You show them that you matter by by reaching out to them as a human ok?

Remember the goal of all your calls and emails are to lead the customer to a meeting where you sell in person. This is the downfall of passive marketing strategies. Guys, you cannot sell with a passive marketing strategy. The only exception to this is b2c. Okay? But remember, this podcast is very much related to business to business. We are very much focused on business to business. You can sell b2c. It works very effectively with passive marketing strategies where it does not work as. Is when you need to build a business to business relationship. Okay? And so the focus with this very much is on business to business. So how do we, how do we go about doing this?

What would be the steps of a great first contact? Okay, so now let's say that we've done the legwork. I get it guys. I get it. I get it. Cold calls are scary. I get it. I've been there. I remember. I still remember cuz I do it actively. If you guys don't know with Capital Business Development, I'm still a fully participating business development lead with capital business development. Okay. It is my company, but yes, I still work it. So I still do the work. I still do business development service. I have clients that I, that I love and I do good work for. And I, I truly love business development and so I'm not ready to take a step back from that yet.

The podcast is great, but I don't see myself taking a step back from the active business development role for some time. But What we want to do with a great first contact is we obviously need to make sure that we are getting the right person. Let's assume that we've, we've already done that soft introduction.

Okay. We've done the soft introduction, they've gotten the LinkedIn introduction, they've gotten a brochure, and we've found their, their office number, and now we're just making that initial contact. Okay, well, what do we do? Okay, well first we take a big deep breath cuz we're nervous as shit. I totally get it.

Especially if we're new to business development or we're new to marketing our own business. It's a scary prospect. I get it. Take a minute, take a breath, take a walk, do whatever you gotta do, just to mellow out. And then let's make that call. So what do we do? We call the main office and typically you get either the receptionist or you get a robo call to direct you to the next place.

And what are we gonna do? Well, we just introduce ourselves. Hi, I'm John with Capital Business Development. I'm looking to speak with Gary in in operations. Great. And then they transfer you over to Gary in operations. When Gary picks up, you introduce. And then you let them know who you are and what company you're with.

Now, I, I mean, really brief guys, just, you know, I'm John with ABC Company. Introduce your service and ask if this is something that they ever use. So the key is always just to say, Hey, I'm John with ABC Company. We sell vacuums. Yeah, I just thought, you know, you guys might be interested in, in a new vacuum vendor is that something you guys are interested in right now?

And that's really the secret guys. It's just straight up, just ask, right? Just ask if it's something that they need. If it is something they need, great. Just say, hey, great. It's great to connect with you. Do you mind if I just send you a formal introduction email where I'll just give give a brochure to, you know, all the vacuums that we have, we can chat about something down the line.

What I'll do is I'll send you this brochure and we can chat again say next week, and they'll say, yeah, not a problem. They give you your email. Great. That's it. Say, Hey John, thank you for your time. I'll send the email shortly. And then from there we want to move on to, we move them into weekly contact, right? And they're in the weekly contact.

Then from there, we just follow up until they either disqualify themselves or we get the meeting. Now what do we do in the follow up calls? Okay, so we've gotten, let's say that we've gotten to this part. Now we have them on that weekly contacted stage. Remember the goal now, the goal after you've sent the formal introduction email is to move them into that into a meeting, right?

Because we sell in person. That's the number one rule. We want them in person. Now I get that. That could be a teams meeting. Sure, whatever. It just depends on your business and what is normal for your business. However, we, we want to get them to some type of meeting. So the follow up call is super easy.

Guys, once you got up on that weekly contact list, you've sent the formal. Oh, guys, you, you are set up. This is, this is it. This is the stage we want to get them into because now every weekly call is just to say, Hey John, it's really great to connect with you again. Just following up on our discussion from last week, I'd love to line up a meeting to chat about it further.

Are you available next week, the week after to grab a lunch or to just have a coffee or come down to your office? What works best for you? Great. John just tells you, yeah, not a problem. Come by for Wednesday and boom, pat yourself on the back because you just did the whole thing. That's it. That's the whole goal.

We need to get in front of these people. It's very, very, To sell over a phone or to sell through an email, or to sell with a passive strategy guys. You gotta get them in person. We get them in person by doing that weekly contact, getting 'em into that weekly contact stage and just, you know, if they have the email, you've sent the formal email, you've, you've introduced your company, you've introduced your products, now we need to get the meetings.

So just follow up on a weekly basis. No more than a week. We don't wanna piss them off or annoy them, but on a weekly basis, leave a message or get 'em on the line and ask for the meeting, and that's the key. We have to ask for the meeting. If we aren't asking for the meeting, they're not gonna give it to us.

We need confidence, okay? You have to have confidence in yourself to ask for the meeting. If you guys ask for the meeting, guys, you will receive, okay? So in conclusion, active marketing is extremely effective. I would say it's potentially more effective than before digital strategies, because now you stand out from the crowd by literally picking up the phone, right?

We're gonna stand out from our crowd. We're gonna be better business development people, we're gonna be better entrepreneurs. Why? Because we're going to, we're gonna connect as humans, right? We're gonna connect as humans in a time that it has never been harder for people to connect as humans. And if you can do that, if you can have that active strategy where we are connecting as humans, we're making the phone calls, we're asking for the face-to-face meetings, we're not relying on our passive strategy, we are simply just going to be more effective.

I did say that I would briefly chat about a passive strategy. Okay. Where is it needed? It is needed in brand recognition. Okay? We need a passive strategy in a brand recognition sense. So I like to utilize a social media strategy. I like to use like a, like an AI-based social media generator to just create some like valuable information, just a little blurb on capital business development or if we have a podcast episode out.

And I wanna, I want to advertise it. Or if we have some really great quotes from the podcast, we've created some quote templates and I like to, I like to advertise that way. Why? Because it, it provides value. Quotes are great, there's lots of good inspiration in them, and it's always quotes from the podcast. So it's always great to just highlight our amazing guests that we get on this show.

So I love to just give a quote from the podcast. I like to just highlight capital business development and what we can do with regards to the business development space for your company and how we can help you grow exponentially. And you know, I mean, I like to just do those in. In small batches, but you don't need to be paying million dollars for LinkedIn.

Guys. You don't need to be paying for these gigantic ad strategies over social space because the social space, if you just use it for a brand recognition, which is frankly all it's good for these days, for business to business anyway, bring some recognition to your company. Just get your logos in their face.

Get their, get the name of your company in their face. You are doing what you need to be doing. You are being effective. At the goal of a of a, of a passive strategy. Okay? But let's make sure that we are utilizing an active strategy. Let's make sure that we are actually picking up the phone, that we're making the calls, that we are asking for those face-to-face meetings.

We are creating real life human relationships. Okay? Let's make sure that we are creating real life human relationships. And you are going to be a hundred times more effective. You're gonna stand out from your competition and you are just going to be better overall at business these days, because nowadays it's, it's ironic.

But the way to stand out is by going back, by going back to the basics, by going back to what it was before, which is an active of strategy is going to be likely more effective for your business to business growth. Okay. Well that is it for our show today. I wanted to just give some shout outs. Okay. I know I haven't, we're 16 episodes in.

I haven't really thanked people that have reached out. So I just wanna say, shout out to Fabian, Henke out of Germany. Fabian reached out to me actually this week, just gave me congratulations on the show. He is been listening from Germany. Really enjoy. So cool, so cool to see that we have international listeners.

We have so many international listeners. Actually I was really surprised at how many that we've had but Fabian, thank you so much for reaching out. Tristan Field- Jones. Tristan, I reached out to him. He's an experienced podcaster and I just wanted to kind of pick his brain a little bit and he's been kind enough to reach back out and gimme some great tips for the podcast.

So thank you so much. Tristan Field Jones. Mel Morris. Cerbito Sorry, Mel, if I, if I messed up your name, but yeah, just thank you so much for the inspiration. Troy Hale, Troy, I know you listen and just love our conversations on LinkedIn. Just wanna say thank you, Troy. Thank you so much for the support.

Colin Harms left me an amazing review. Thank you Colin. So, so awesome. Really appreciate that. Zach Cross is an old client of mine from from my days before when I did Quality. Zach's been a huge supporter from the beginning. Zach, I know you listen just wanted say thanks, man. Really appreciate it.

Brenda Renaud. Thank you, Brenda. You've been you've been highlighting us from the beginning and and sending really motivational really motivational messages. So thank you so much Brenda. And 1440 bd. Don't know who you are, but left me an amazing review and just wanted to say thank you.

If you have been enjoying this podcast, if the Business Development Podcast is doing it for you, please rate, subscribe, tell a friend, send any questions you may have for me that I could answer on the show. I love business development questions, guys. If you have a question pertaining to your business, send it over.

I'd love to answer it on the show for you, and you can send that to podcast@capitalbd.ca that's podcast@capitalbd.ca and stay tuned on Sunday for exceptional success, crushing pain, and back again, part two with Colin Christensen and guys, it is, it is a no miss. You are gonna find this one of the most amazing entrepreneurial crash and burn to just total recovery stories that you've ever heard.

It is, it is truly unbelievable. Colin Christensen is an unbelievable entrepreneur, an unbelievable man, and. Yeah, stay tuned. You're really gonna love next week's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Business Development Podcast. This has been episode 17. Catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you. Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.