Love Your Sales

The Human Touch: Building Trust in Modern Sales and Branding

In the latest episode of "Love Your Sales Podcast," Beatrice Gutknecht explores the importance of team integration in building lasting businesses. She emphasizes that companies engaging their teams effectively are more likely to thrive, especially as Gen Alpha and Gen Z emphasize trust and human presence in brands over logos and names. Beatrice discusses how relatability to a brand is crucial, highlighting that businesses fostering genuine human connections will stand out and endure over time.
Contact Beatrice
Email - beatrice@badasserybyb.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beatricegutknecht
Website - https://www.badasserybyb.com
 
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Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Beatrice Gutknecht She is the Founder of Badassery by Bee . She's About taking seamlessly boring business and shaking up how they're seen inside out through practical strategies and actions to stand out, not 69 page documents, pretty design or templates. Beatrice, I'm so excited to have you join me [00:02:00] today.
Welcome to the show.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Thanks so much for having me on, Leighann, I appreciate it. I'm so excited about the conversation we're about to have.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about your business and what you and how you, um, help people.
Beatrice Gutknecht: So basically I'm all about perception and breaking those unwritten rules in industries where we're just so used to following and looking to everybody else.
In the industry, especially when we get going, it's like, there's so much to do. You're like, Oh, you know, actually, what, what, what are they already doing? Let's just follow that. Like, we'll make it easier, but in a way that kind of makes you follow and be a little bit behind. So where I come in is to reposition you in a way where you're kind of leading your own way.
And often our way [00:03:00] that's it's earlier in the process. So you stand out and you're actually sticky in minds and you're proud about your brand.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And in today's world, you have to, you have to be able to define your brand and yourself as something that is unique and different. Otherwise people, they're not paying attention.
Or, and I shouldn't say not paying attention because let me, let me rephrase that today's world we are bombarded with so much information and so many, um, loops and bings and so many things are happening that it's hard to grab somebody's attention in a way the information is retained. Exactly.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Exactly.
And even more so, the idea of a rebrand has just been [00:04:00] so. commercialized. It's like Valentine's Day and people like, you know, businesses are just like, Hey, so let's, we're going to rebrand, but it's basically just change up the colors, change up the logo, change up maybe some wording, but the real rebrands is what happens from inside out, right?
Like you're making sure that the entire team has the buy in because otherwise it's not. Going to work. It's not going to stick. It's a, you know, if we're talking about the Twitter to X shifts, right? I see you there going, yes. There is no alternative for tweeting, right? They didn't do it. They didn't think of it.
It's just, they put that surface, but using. Using the platform, using the software, it's still exactly the same. Maybe even you're dealing with customer service, it's [00:05:00] still going to be the exact same. So what's the point?
Leighann Lovely: Other than that, it's broken now.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Exactly. It's like surface level and. Real, like if you're going to rebrand, I would recommend more like, Hey, let's have a look at a refresh,
Leighann Lovely: you know, let's, let's talk about that because this, this is wildly, I find it really interesting because yes, I could very easily put, you know, stamp a new logo on my brand.
I could, you know. And companies do this all the time where they're like, Hey, it's, and stamping a new logo, let's make something crystal clear. Rebranding is not just simply putting a new picture on. old logo was. I mean, yes, that is, yeah, technically you're rebranding,
 but when I [00:06:00] think of that, , , that's not, you're not, that's, there's so much more to it.
So let's get into the, , the meat and potatoes of what you are talking about. You're, you're talking about almost a mind. A shift, a mindset change. And you're talking about bringing in the team. You're talking about bringing in other people's buy in in order to do that. So how do you begin this process?
Why do you begin this process? And what does it look like on the back end? And I guess let's start with the why. Why do we do this?
Beatrice Gutknecht: I was just about to start on the why because You know, everyone talks about there's, there's the sales and marketing silos, right? That that's quite frequently talked about that there is a friction which leads to a lot of issues, but I would almost [00:07:00] push on that more that there are business silos within all the departments.
So say, for example, if you, you have someone on customer service, They have someone walk into the showroom and they're like, Oh, you know, how did you find us? What are your, like, what's been going on? They will get a hell of a lot of information, which they'll just say like, okay, this is part of my job. Like I've noticed 10 other people like this over the past week that have had similar problems, but they won't pass that information on to the marketing, to the sales.
To anyone else, because that's just part of like, Hey, you know, I'm just employed to get people to be here for this nine hours. That's it.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Beatrice Gutknecht: So the, how I do it is going deep in terms of [00:08:00] understanding what you've done thus far as a business, where you want to be going that direction and really pulling on all of those strings to like, Understand, you know, what you want to stand for, what, say, for example, from your team's perspective, how, how do they see you represented?
Like what, what are the values, how are you positioned to them? Right? Because if you're involving them in their, in that process, you're also going to get ideas from them, right? Of how things could be worded, Hey, like I could be saying this in my sales calls. Or like, if marketing is listening to that, they're like, Oh, like that would go really well with this campaign and have everyone on board.
And it is really building out that strategy from that internal space, like, okay, directly [00:09:00] with the founder, the owner and CEO, et cetera. And here's our vision, finding that position about you're doing something already in your business, which is different to everyone else. So it's honing in on that
Leighann Lovely: and it, this goes to, you know, the same thing that good, marketing companies do that they that they're attempting to do.
But again, you know, I see marketing companies come in and they're like, okay, we're going to do your marketing, but they're not, they're not always grabbing all of the information from, , and it's not necessarily that they're not trying. Sometimes they run up against, you know, okay. XYZ company and working with you and they are only working with maybe three contacts at that company and at that company, those three contacts are the owner, the marketing director, or if it's a large company, they may have a marketing director.
And if not, then it's [00:10:00] the, you know, the owner, the salesperson, the, . The second in command, whatever it might be , and they're only getting the information from those three people, which means they're going to build their marketing strategy based on how those people see the business, which means that they're missing out on the people who are actually boots on the ground, who are living in and breathing the real world of what the clients, the customers, the prospects are all saying.
Yeah. About the business, the experience, the customer experience, the customer journey, the prospect journey, all of that information is truly what drives interest, what drives business. And that's where I see businesses go wrong because. Those are the people who are actually the ones determining whether or not they're going to buy, they're going to refer [00:11:00] somebody, they're going to buy more and blah, blah, blah.
And you know, you're shaking your head like, yep, I get it. And yet I see this repeated over and over and it's like, okay, yes, owner. Or CEO or CFO, I know that you know what your business does, but you're not in it every day talking to, and if the flow of information starting with the janitor and the receptionist who will be cleaning the floor while customers are walking through and overhearing what they're saying.
Very well could have the most crucial information about your business, but you're not opening the door to hear what they have to say about it. And that right there is probably one of the most. Valuable insights that you could, that you could get, [00:12:00] you know, and here's something that I, you know, as a sales professional, as somebody who has sold, I can't even remember, I don't even know the number of, of different types of products that I have sold now.
I regularly go out and still allow random people to pitch me on their product. And it still, to this day, drives my husband crazy. He's like, don't don't walk over to that person. They're just going to pitch you. And I'm like, yeah, that's the point. I do that because I want to see what's still happening in the real world.
If I isolate myself from being pitched, from being sold, I'm losing that education piece. I'm losing what tips and tricks and hacks are now all happening in the real world, and I'm, I'm not educating myself to what's really going on. And I'm [00:13:00] becoming one of those owners that doesn't know what's happening in my own business.
It's the same. Yeah. And it's the same thing with now the rise of, of AI, , the rise of all of these new tools. If you're not constantly educating yourself, you're, you're going to fall behind. And to your point, you want to put these businesses in front of the competition. You want to try to get them doing something that's going to be sticky to you know, to the new possible buyer
Beatrice Gutknecht: or even be considered earlier in that buying process.
Right. Sometimes I see a lot of businesses because everybody else in the industry is so used to like, okay, we've been, we've always been doing this. Perhaps there's [00:14:00] something that you can give, you know, okay, there, everybody else is doing this, let's give up that part so we can lean into this part that they're maybe have a weak weakness in, or maybe this, an aspect earlier on in that process that we can lean in on and be considered even before they're, they're working with everybody else, you know, so say, for example, with one of my clients.
Their architectural hardware, where usually the industry only contacts them after the house is built, after the door frames are there, right? But say, for example, if the end client, one of these amazing, fancy openings, you know, just to come into the house and the house has already been [00:15:00] built, they might not have had that.
So what we did was position them way earlier in that process to talk to the designers to be help
Leighann Lovely: to
Beatrice Gutknecht: them.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting. Right. And, and now they're, you're opening up the door for them to be able to offer so much more and have a larger market share of business to be seen
Beatrice Gutknecht: differently. You know, it's almost like you're creating your own category, but what I encourage is Both, both elements, you know, if you're creating your own category, it needs to be grounded in the known, right?
Like the same thing as we go back to the going from horse carriages to cars, right? They didn't go, Hey, buy our car, buy our horseless couch, the no one. So stick with the [00:16:00] known and then adjust interesting
Leighann Lovely: I love that. And that goes to
 I'm trying to rephrase this right, that, that is creating. A path for people to fully understand the value that you offer because now you're following that path of, Oh, okay, I, I, I know exactly what the horse and carriage does. So now you're telling me that, Oh, Oh, I don't need the horse anymore.
But if you were to just jump and I'm following your example, just jump to the car. People are like, I don't know what that does.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Yeah. A lot of the inventions failed the first time they came out. Because it's like, I don't know what this is. Like, it was too much of a jump. Right. And that's why I really, like, I put it in my headline.
It's not about having a knee [00:17:00] jerk reaction. It's not about a sudden virality. And that's why I have such a big issue with the Jaguar Ray brand. Because It's, it's not the fact that they didn't include the car. It's, it's not about the colors. It's the fact that they lost everything that they stand for, that they built over decades, building that trust that in itself is gone.
They could have, you know, had a sub brand for that, you know, another generation or reached out to like, okay, how can we make this relevant? So you're staying in the known, you have the existing brand, people know that, but okay. How do we make that relevant for now? Let's work with, um, millennials, Gen Zers who align with that.
Leighann Lovely: That's really [00:18:00] interesting. And you use the word relevant, and I like that because a lot of companies don't,
they don't realize that, especially in the manufacturing space, that if they don't shift, that they are not going to remain relevant, and I'm not talking about their product necessary, I'm , I'm talking about The way that they do business, the way that they market business, the way that they sell business is that if you don't make those shifts on a regular basis, that they will not be, they will not be seen, they will not be, and let me give an example.
I walked into a manufacturing company that, this is years ago, that I was helping staff. And I said, you know, I was really having trouble finding your website. And she said, that's because we don't have one. And this was probably seven, eight years ago. And I said, you, you don't have probably [00:19:00] 10 years ago, actually.
I said, you don't have a website. And she goes, yeah, we don't, we don't need one. I said, well, well, you, what do you mean you don't need one? And she goes, all of our, all of our buyers, everybody that we sell our product to, they were, we only sell two items and. We're pretty much a niche, like we're one of two companies in the country that sell this product.
And I went, okay, that's great, but a website is not designed only to sell product. It is also to sell people on coming to work for you. It is also to create a legacy business that one day when you retire and somebody else takes over, or when somebody else gets smart to how to create [00:20:00] your product better.
And I went down a long list of all of these things. And she was like, Yeah, I don't, I don't think we need one. Business will not be relevant in a couple of reasons. They're not going to be able to continue to recruit people to work for them because in today's world, everybody, before they do anything with the business.
They want to know that they're a real boy and I use this term all the time, you know, are you a real boy? Let me go look. Oh, you're not online. You're probably not a real boy. I mean, that's, that is in today's world. That's what creates the beginning of being relevant and If we don't lean into, you know, and now it's, it's even further than that.
Oh, you have a website. Great. Okay. Where are you on LinkedIn? Where are you on Tik TOK? Where are you on Twitter? Where are you on [00:21:00] X? Where are you on? That's where everybody wants to gather their information about who they are. And I'm not saying that, Oh, unless you have an online presence, you don't
exist. But it, it matters. It absolutely matters for multiple different things. And in some industries, you, it can be just a simple, like, yep, here's who we are. Here's what we do. Doesn't, you don't sell online. Great. But at least having some, explanation because the younger generation, that's their security of, yep, this company exists.
I'll go interview there. Great. But that's our security blanket to know that that is a real, that company or that place or that person is a real person. I mean, let me ask you, Beatrice, when was the last time that you met somebody or that you talked to somebody that you didn't immediately go and look them up somewhere [00:22:00] online?
Beatrice Gutknecht: Never. I, before every call, I will go and like stalk them and try to find out, like I even started it. And this has been. Such a time saver. I've gotten AI. I'm using perplexity. I don't know if it like helps with pro, but I'll be like, okay, what can you tell me about XYZ person from XYZ company? And it'll just drop from everywhere.
And I'm like, yes. Obviously you need to check, but
Leighann Lovely: right, right. Oh, AI is, is wildly amazing when it comes to gathering of information and ridiculously, confident, but very, some very often, you know, inaccurate in its confidence, depending on the inaccurate information that exists on the web.
Beatrice Gutknecht: I mean, that being said, it will look through anything that mentions you.
It doesn't matter [00:23:00] how long it's been. So that's another thing that you need to be careful of. Right? Yes.
Leighann Lovely: Put a naked picture of yourself online and expect that it's going to disappear in 10 years. You
Beatrice Gutknecht: know, it will pick up those things. Like if you write up articles, and that's why I do kind of. Be like, uh, cautious or aware of how much you, how big of pivots that you make.
I always say , okay, do some pivots instead of completely rebranding into something fresh. Cause that way it's like mini moves, mini moves, mini moves.
Leighann Lovely: So let's, let's refocus here. I went off on kind of a tangent about the whole real boy and you know, so let's, when you engage in. [00:24:00] You know, working with a company, you start with working with, and typically who, who is the first person that you start working with at that company?
Beatrice Gutknecht: So usually it's the, the business owner or principal because you know about what you built.
Leighann Lovely: And then how long typically does that process take in order to pull in? You know, these, you know, everybody and gather that information. And then, you know, what does that buy in look like at the end?
Marker
Beatrice Gutknecht: So it is ongoing, you know, at every step we try to make sure that we're implementing, how can we say, for example, at the beginning where we're talking about, okay.
What's, what's your vision, mission, et cetera. How can we, what does that look like in play? So that they, they can start putting that, be it in social media or start talking to [00:25:00] their sales and marketing team. So it's not about like waiting to kind of put it all out. Like, Hey, you know, this is, this is our road, Brad.
Um, it is, there's little changes. And yeah, it does take time and it is a lot of work. So I often am working with people seven months plus to get it a not only just that strategy clear, but the implementation and then the accountability because. We have so much going on and I see a lot of strategists who are just like, Hey, so here is our, uh, 69 page document.
Have fun with that, which we both know nobody's going to read that, right? It's about making sure, like, how, [00:26:00] how does this look like with your sales and marketing? Probably let's, let's bring them together on like a zoom meeting, have like everyone talk about it. Get rid of those silos, increase, like, people being able to put forward their thoughts without like some kind of backlash.
Right?
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Beatrice Gutknecht: And it is understanding, like, the dynamics. Maybe some people are shy. So what if we, we put it as like a anonymous, like, Hey, let's, let's put Some thoughts in, in a jar to start off with, or maybe like start off with one on one. Hey, what do you think about this? Then go to the next person. Like,
Leighann Lovely: and that's sad, like, and I hope, I think that some of this is starting to slowly go away in, in certain industries.
You know, I was talking to a woman the other night where I asked her, I said, would you, would you do this video? Like thing and she goes, I can't. And I said, what do you mean? She goes, well, I work in the nursing industry and they get really weird about us [00:27:00] putting our faces out there. I'm like, what? Like, that's terrible.
Right. I'm like, you're, you're just doing a review for something that you do. And she's like, yeah. And if we're on social media, they don't want us representing, you know, anything that's, you know, personal to her. Cause it might look bad. And I'm like, that's horrible that you still are in a. in a discipline or working in a job where they're saying, no, you can't do a, a refer or like a review or a reference, and this is for a pool league.
And I'm like, you, you can't go and say, Hey, this is like a really awesome thing that I do. I really enjoy it. But I think that more and more companies are being more accepting of feedback from all levels. Especially the smaller ones. Some of the bigger, huge ones are just like, you know what, just do what I tell you.
I don't want to hear it. Like, we already [00:28:00] have the plan in place. And that's sad. Um, some of the, like those smaller to midsize businesses are like, yeah, I'd like to hear if we can improve, I want to hear what, and, and we'll take it into consideration. I'm not saying that they're going to take, they, they can't, they can't take everybody's suggestion, but you know, there are some really great ideas out there and more and more systems in place for them to take feedback.
Marker
Beatrice Gutknecht: And I would say those companies who are actually bringing the team into the play. Are going to be the ones that outlast the companies who don't because if we're looking at Gen Alpha, Gen Z, what we were talking about before is the brands that have that human presence that build the trust through that, that will be the ones that they choose, [00:29:00] not the logo or the name, et cetera.
It's like, Hey, you know, can I relate to this brand? And it's those businesses that are going to stand out and last,
Leighann Lovely: right? And those businesses that people are going to want to work at, I think that we're going to see a shift in, younger generations looking to work at small to midsize businesses that meet their goals because they're being treated better and they're willing to give up these big bloated salaries.
For the work life balance and the treatment like yeah, I could go work at Nike and make a maybe 80, 000 salary, or I could work at this small to midsize business and make a 70, 000 salary, but also be treated better, have more of a work life balance, be heard, and those are important things, really important things.
, [00:30:00] and I think that the younger generation is seeing that. Like, hey, I'm willing to give up a little bit right now. So that I can leave every day and not feel like I'm doing something wrong by leaving and have vacation. Be respected, be heard, be seen. I mean, I left corporate with a big bloated salary to start my own business because I wanted all of those things, which is funny because now I work three times as much and I'm working towards having the work life balance back.
But that being said, I regularly ask the people who work for me, like, what can I do better to support you? What do you think that we can do better to support our clients? And I hear them, I listen to them and then we implement because I want them to be a part of it. I don't want them to just do what I [00:31:00] say.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Exactly. And leaning into that, that's, that's another big part that I see missing is HR bringing in that brand strategy. Most people like most businesses don't even think about that. It's like, Hey, are we hiring people that align with these base values? I don't need people copying and saying the same thing, but the values need to align, right?
So that that way when you're having these conversations, and when you're getting everyone in board on board, they're like, Oh, you know, I get that. But, and then they're also thinking their own like direct like, Hey, maybe I can say it like this, and having that group of people. That's cool. And then they're kind of.
Bouncy off each other. And this idea is growing. And like you said, maybe you're not taking all of these ideas, but there'll be a hell of a lot of good ideas there.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, [00:32:00] absolutely. So we are coming to time. Um, and I could continue to have this conversation for the next two hours, but, this is where you get your 32nd shameless pitch.
So go for it.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Yay. So, I mean, we've, we've covered a lot, but. Basically, when you're spending a lot of money on your advertising, on your SEO, marketing sales, et cetera, and it isn't producing any results, perhaps it is time to look at your brand strategy and go from inside out to reposition your brand and have it stand out and have it be sticky in minds, in which case, You can reach out to me on the show notes.
I believe the details will be,
Leighann Lovely: yep, absolutely. We will have your contact information on the show notes. , but, , if somebody does want to reach out to you, where is the best place that they can do that? [00:33:00]
Beatrice Gutknecht: There's a couple of places. If you want weekly tips, I highly recommend the badass mob newsletter, which is on my website.
You can sign up there. Every week, I go into a lot more detail than I do in regular content. Otherwise, I am very active on LinkedIn and the Art of Branding podcast.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Again, Beatrice, thank you so very much for joining me today. It's been an awesome conversation.
Beatrice Gutknecht: Likewise. Thank you for having me.

Securing Your Sales: Navigating IT and Cybersecurity for Small Businesses

Join Leighann Lovely on this episode of the Love Your Sales Podcast as she hosts Ari Milner, a technology and cybersecurity expert with over 15 years of experience. Ari shares insights on how small and medium-sized businesses can protect their digital assets and secure their systems in an ever-evolving cyber landscape. They discuss the critical importance of cybersecurity, practical solutions for IT management, and the intricacies of dealing with modern cyber threats. With real-life anecdotes and expert advice, this episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs aiming to safeguard their business from digital threats. Tune in now to learn how to build a robust IT infrastructure and ensure your business's security and continuity.
Contact Ari
Email - ari@planitinnovate.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arimilner/
Website - planitinnovate.com
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am thrilled today. I am joined by Ari Milner. , a small business technology and cyber security expert with over 15 years of experience. As the founder of Planned IT, he helps business secure and streamline their IT web.
And compliance needs all while working entirely remotely from Mexico city. Ari is also the president of the center of natural medicine in Portland, a [00:02:00] clinic founded by his father in 1991. Now managing the clinic with his brother as their father battles Parkinson's.
Ari is deeply committed to helping small businesses, whether through technology or healthcare operate efficiently and securely. Please join me in welcoming Ari. I am really excited to have this conversation with you. You and I talked previously, obviously, and, um, yeah, I'm just, I'm really thrilled to have you join me.
Ari Milner: Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.
Leighann Lovely: So why don't you tell us a little bit more, You know, what I absolutely love is starting your own business. There are so many nuances as an entrepreneur that we do not think about in the beginning. You know, we're like, okay, I've got my laptop. I'm armed with, you know, this product I'm armed with this widget.
I'm going to go out and people are just going to show up and buy my stuff. [00:03:00] There are so many layers that as you all of the sudden become a real. company, a real boy, as I like to say, or a real girl, , that we don't think about. And one of those is security.
Ari Milner: Yeah, security, I. T. Totally. This is before plan. I.T. I had a computer repair shop in in Portland, , where I'm from. And that's where I got into doing the business. I. T. managed services and, uh, started supporting businesses there. Um, going on site and, , setting up networks, securing networks, , and the landscape has changed so much in the last, uh, 9 years of doing plan I.
that the cyber security needs have gotten. , way more complex, and there's just so much that [00:04:00] you really can't do on your own as a small business anymore. Like, it used to be that you could just go by, like, the Norton or McAfee and you'd be fine. Right? But those days are long gone now and like, 1 example is.
In gosh, it was, I think about 2018, 2019, we rolled out a Sentinel one as a security service option for our clients. And it's a, it's a service that is incredible with how it's actually using AI to Combat cyber threats, and that that's probably the first product in our stack that really had AI as an important component of it.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting. And you're right. The landscape has drastically changed. I remember I was actually talking to my husband and I and we were watching a show from the 90s and there was this, you know, like. Big [00:05:00] huge computer sitting in like the family, you know room of the of the show the house that we were watching and it's like this Gigantic computer.
I'm like you remember that do you remember when you had? That huge computer the dial up you weren't worried about somebody Hacking in and stealing your information, you know the games that I would run home from school I'm like, I'm gonna play a computer game and it was the little the little line that got bigger as it ate The dot on the screen, you weren't, yeah, the snake, is that what it's called?
The snake game, you know, it was a DOS prompt in order to get into it. I don't know if, you know, my daughter's not even going to know what DOS prompt means and I, you know, I'd call my mom up and be like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to play this game. I can't remember what's the DOS prompt to play this game.
And then I'd have to hang up with her and try it because now I have to use the phone line to dial into the internet. That was not. [00:06:00] Security was not a thing,
Ari Milner: right? Yeah, totally. And that's like, reminds me of, , like you mentioned doing that back in the day where you and every end user had to do those kinds of prompts, but that's something that we're still doing as it professionals writing scripts to run in the background, to automate processes.
Um, and that's also what. I've been incredible at doing in the last couple of years with the large language models where it's a great tool for doing scripts and automation, but all of those tools are being used by the bad guys too. Right? So it's, it's a, you know, a tug of war, I guess, between who can, who can stay ahead, uh, in order to.
You know, protect systems or attack systems.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, that's that's totally true what what the good guys are doing. The bad guys are doing equally as fast to try to [00:07:00] to basically beat each other out on. Well, how quickly can I break into the system? Well, then that you gotta how quickly can I stop them from breaking into the system?
Wildly interesting, completely like, I'm glad I don't have to do that part. So let's, let's talk about how that has changed and how it has changed when you talk with people about the importance. I can sit here all day long and be like, Oh, Ari, are you telling me that I'm going to have to pay you X, Y, Z a month to keep me secure?
What I mean, come on, really? I'm a small business owner. Are people really going to try to come after me? Like, I don't have anything that they need.
Ari Milner: Yeah, totally., you may think you don't have something valuable, but even just like your contact list in your CRM or in your email client. Like, any of that can totally be used against you and your clients.
Um, your [00:08:00] system could be attacked by ransomware, is a newer, more common threat, that, where you, just locks you out of all your systems, so then your business can't function. Do you have, like, insurance for business interruption? Do you have backups to get it back? Cause even if you pay the ransom, there's many, many cases where, You still don't get anything back after paying the ransom.
It's a, you're, you're negotiating with a cyber criminal, right? So, what are the chances that they're going to even follow through and then even, even once you do pay, say, you get it back, they still have a copy of your data. They could still do nefarious things with it. Right? So, yeah, it the whole industry 20 years ago, um, was mostly like, you're saying break fix.
It wasn't managed services. It was I've got a problem. My system goes down. I'm going to call an it guy. They'll come out and fix it. Um, they may be able to remote in that was [00:09:00] pretty rare back then. Right? Um, but you would get, like, a bill for the fix 1 time, but that just doesn't work for cyber security because we need to be constantly monitoring systems constantly protecting systems.
Um, like, I get alerts all the time for my clients, like, getting, um. Sign is blocked from China or Russia or wherever people trying to get in. There's a lot. That's probably happening to you right now. And you just don't know because you're not monitoring it. Right? And that's that's where an it partner, like, me would come in and make sure you've got the policies in place to make sure that even though they're knocking at the door regularly that that nobody's going to be able to break in.
Leighann Lovely: That's so scary. That's, it's, well, okay, so here's a perfect example of actually something that just happened to me this weekend. I went, I took a little mini vacation. I used my credit card, um, [00:10:00] at a little kiosk in an arcade really quickly, just, you know, reloaded the arcade credits for the girls to go and play games, right?
What a waste of money. And actually, no, because they were entertained. You know, I get to see big smiles. They're entertained. They're playing arcade games. I slipped it into my pocket. We then went home afterwards. I then had an engagement where I had to go out that later on that night and I opened up my wallet.
My credit card's not in there and I thought, oh my God, where's my credit card? You know, now you do the okay, where was the last time I used it? Oh, it was at the arcade. Okay, put it in my pocket. It must have fallen out of my pocket because that sweatshirt now has found its way into the laundry and I'm calling my, yeah, my credit card.
Did you find my credit card? So the great thing about, you know, credit cards nowadays that everybody has apps for them. You could literally pull it up on your phone. You can turn off your credit card with a click of a button. That's great. Not, you know, back in the day you had to track down a phone number.
You got to call them. I [00:11:00] was able to turn it off just like that. But that fear for that moment is I lost it at the arcade. Somebody picked it up. Somebody used it. And now I've, the numbers out there, right? You're talking about an unknown fear of somebody literally just logging into my system and my system houses.
All of my credit cards, possibly my client's credit cards, all of my client's passwords to anything that I may need to access in order to support them and being that I'm a mark sales and marketing company, I'm in sometimes their domains, I'm in their, the back end of their websites I'm in and all of a sudden that crushing feeling of, Oh my God, uh, they're not stealing my information.
Just they could be stealing somebody [00:12:00] else's information and I would be responsible for that.
Ari Milner: Yeah, totally. And there's even like, , depending on your location, there's different local laws for like, breach notifications. When you get hacked, then you have to publicly tell your, your clients and report it to the state and in many states.
And there's a certain different thresholds and windows for that and such. But you're, you're totally responsible at that level. And that's where, , not just cyber security services come in, but, , like mitigation services, like an insurance, , our, our latest service, we've just rolled out this year is a cyber warranty that.
Is actually a 3rd party vendor who's connected to our systems and, , can provide a financial guarantee of up to half a 1, 000, 000 dollars a year in coverage because they're saying, yes, plan. [00:13:00] It is covering our clients and doing best practices. Right? So there's those kinds of. Levels of protection that you can get, , in case an incident like this happens.
And, and frankly, it isn't really like a, an, if it happens, it's a, when it happens, , who are you going to be dealing with? Who's going to be your partner on your side? Right? When something like that happens, how much are they going to be able to have mitigated it? Stopped it, you know, kick them out, , before any real damage could get done.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Very interesting. , and let me just promise this by say, I don't keep credit cards in my system specifically because of that, because I don't know what I don't know, like, I don't
Ari Milner: like, like you said, credit cards are very protected. Right. But But a lot of payments now are happening, like with ACH or, you know, [00:14:00] just electronic bank transfers that don't have that level of security or insurance that a credit card has.
Right? So. Yeah. Right. It can be scary.
Leighann Lovely: And that's where, you know, it's like, okay, what information do you want to house on your system? Because then you become more and more liable for X, Y, Z. So what do you think the biggest hurdle in your, you know, sales process when you're talking with these small. To midsize companies what do you think for them is the hardest to digest when it's talking about?
And this really is about the sales process like. Because sitting here and talking to you, I'm going, okay, well, fear will drive me to go. Yep. I need you. Some, some companies are just like, yeah, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. I don't need that. You're, you're just trying to take my money. What do you say to that? How do you overcome that objection?
Ari Milner: Yeah, [00:15:00] there's a few sales tactics we use in in I. T. For that specifically, , my personal favorite is when I go into a sales call with, like, a new prospect who I'm not already working with. I'm focusing entirely on. What their pain points are right? And I'm going to sell them on the minimum package that gets them what they need.
So then we have a relationship and we can build up from there. Right? I can always upsell on more cyber security later. Right? , if they're not seeing the value at the moment, and then the tactic to to sell them on it later is we actually have. , a waiver that's like, okay, we recommended that you buy this cyber security service, you know, or this backup service or whatever you're opting to not do that.
We're not liable for that in case something goes wrong. Right. So separate [00:16:00] from all my general agreements that I have with all my clients, if they say no to something that I'm recommending that's best practices, I'm going to be like, okay, you're saying no sign this, please. Or we're not going to be able to continue working together.
Right. Right. So, and that that works probably 3 quarters of the time. Right. They're like, oh, okay. Yikes. Maybe I will buy this.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and it's, and it's funny because it comes down to the same thing of. Hey, here's your house. Here's the insurance we recommend. And I've, I've gone around and around in circles with my, my insurance agent on, and she makes the recommendations and then we go down the list, right?
You know, she's like, well, I recommend umbrella insurance and I recommend it be X amount. And then she'll go, and here's why, because if you have a total loss, blah, blah, blah. And then I go, oh yeah, I should definitely go with the recommended amount. Because now [00:17:00] you, now you understand what the point is, you understand the why behind it.
And now that I'm, now that I've been talking with you and I, and I know other people in, in this, you know, in the managed service. arena, you understand the why, , and you kind of go, right, now I get it. Like, if you're an outsider looking in going, yeah, nobody's ever going to hack me. I'm a one person show.
Doesn't necessarily mean, especially if you have no security whatsoever, you're an easy, you're easy pickings.
Ari Milner: With AI and automations. Now, a lot of the bad guys are doing stuff where they're just trying to break in everywhere with the easy method and whatever they can get in and grab it.
You know, it takes them nothing relative to breaking into a, , a bigger corporation. So they'll, they'll totally take that and run with whatever they can get.
Leighann Lovely: Oh, I, and I've gotten what I think in my career now, um, [00:18:00] I had. , it was an email of, this is an oldie. I'm sure that many people out there are going to go, Oh yeah, that one's happened to me.
Um, an email that looked identical to somebody else at my company that emailed and said, hey boss, can you please update my payroll information? My new bank account is. And then all of a sudden, and it never came from me, and then all of a sudden payday came.
And I'm like, is there a reason you guys didn't pay me this week? And they're like, well, yeah, you emailed us and said you wanted us to update your payroll information. And I'm like, no, I didn't, did not do that. . And it was a really large company. And so somehow that made it all the way to HR because the first person didn't look at the email address.
And see that it was a spoof email address. They [00:19:00] then emailed the next person saying, Hey, this information, this informa And this was a long time ago when this was first happening. And they traced it all the way back to that first person who thought they were talking to me.
Ari Milner: Wow, that's a great example, because , there's so many, there's so many, , possible ways that that could have been stopped along the way, if the right technology, the right security piece was, if there was like a good inbound email security filter, it would have just been like, oh, that's a spoofing thing and blocked it there, right?
Leighann Lovely: Correct.
Ari Milner: But also like, if there was a process at the company that anytime there's a change. You know, call the person to verify it, right? That one seems obvious. It's super obvious, like, you know, just business process, human way to do it, right?
Leighann Lovely: Or you have to have a signature when a bank information changes.
It's kind of [00:20:00] like, but again, this was a really, this was a long time ago when people. weren't expecting that. Nowadays, I think that more people are like, duh. I mean, come on, but yeah,
Ari Milner: well, and user training too is super important for that too. Like maybe if that person who received the, the spoofing, the spoofed email had taken some fishing training and realized it.
, the, the method for checking if an email is legit, they would have taken a few seconds and been like, oh, no, that's this doesn't look right. Let's double check this.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, right. . And I could go, you know, on a tangent in a million different directions on why, like. Why would I have emailed you and not gone directly to, you know, HR when, you know, you could go in a million different directions, but it's like, wow, how did that, you know, and then there were other ones like, oh, I got a text message, you know, directly from the [00:21:00] CEO of the company with a link in it saying here, can you please click on this and follow the instructions?
It's like, no, first of all, . It was a CEO that always went by an abbreviated name and they put their full name in there and it was like. From, you know, instead of Rick, it was from Richard. And it's like, wait, you don't refer to yourself as Richard, you know? But those, those are the ones like either in, as soon as you click on that link.
And I've, and I've, again, I've gotten emails that come through where,, it really quickly, I've clicked on it and gone, Oh, no, I shouldn't have clicked on that and immediately notified, you know, the IT, I just clicked on something, you're going to probably want to do a complete now, like cleanup of that.
And, and I've been hacked, you know, or at a company, I, I knew that I was the breach and then did the notification of, , sorry, boss, I think I may have [00:22:00] just screwed up. Like, I clicked on this link and now we're, and sure enough, my clients all started getting these spoof emails from me. And I'm like, yeah, , you know, it's one of those put your head down and walk out of the office going.
Yeah. I just created a shit storm here.
Ari Milner: Yeah. Well, so I'll tell you our one breach we've had with the client in the last. 9 years of plan. I. T. , is a tax prep firm and the owner of the of the firm wanted remote access to their own computers. And that's something we do and set up for them. Right? But what happened is the password they used for that happened to be some password that was exposed in another previous breach.
And the 2FA [00:23:00] wasn't set up on it on their account. It was on our accounts, right? And somebody got in. We taught them within half an hour, like, within minutes, essentially, of them getting into the remote system. We were able to block them and kick them out and mitigate a lot of the damage, right? Which we, yeah, we wouldn't have been able to do, or if they didn't have an I.
partner that couldn't have happened. Right? If they had just done the remote access set up to their own system, and then that happened, they would have been like, oh, what's going on? How do I kick this person out? What's yeah, what are we doing? Right? So
Leighann Lovely: interesting, but yeah, how the normal person wouldn't be able to go in and be like, Oh, I'm going to kick you.
I mean, it would be like walking blind.
Ari Milner: Yeah. What they start doing is they'll just [00:24:00] turn it off, unplug cables, and then they'll be like, okay, now what, how do I function as a business? Right. Well, even if you're
Leighann Lovely: unplugging cables, though, we were talking about. You can't unplug the internet. Yeah, it depends on the
Ari Milner: complexity of your environment, right?
Yeah, there's so much that,
Leighann Lovely: yeah. I'm thinking like, you can't unplug the cloud. Like, everything is now in the cloud. Like, you can't, that's, you can't, uh, I guess the main server to where everything is housed. Yeah, if you shut that down. But, I mean, my email is shut down right now and I'm barely functioning.
If you shut down my main server to where everything, I'd be like, Okay, I might as well just go and take a vacation because
Ari Milner: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: I got nothing to do.
Click on the keys, like, okay, got a black screen. I'll just pretend to work. Yeah, it's, you shut down one system, and you, you don't [00:25:00] realize until, I have a list of things that I have to do right now, that I can't. Because I'm in the middle of migrating my email and it got shut down and they're like, oh, it'll be about 60 minutes.
You don't realize how frustrating that is because you're moving so fast that I never realized that, oh, I send an email, then I go back to something, then I send an email. Now, every time I have to send an email, I have to write down, I have to send this person an email, to send this person an email. Oh, God, this is, this is frustrating, like.
Now I'm creating a backlog of all of the stuff that I didn't even realize that I'm constantly doing on a regular. So if your main system of something went down, your domain, your server, your whatever, the backlog, not to mention if there was damage. [00:26:00]
Ari Milner: Yeah, well, and that's why, that's when you want to already have.
An incident response plan, or a continuity and disaster recovery plan in place. So, you know, like, oh, if this goes down, then this is what we're going to do instead. Right? Or this is how long it's going to take to get back up. Right. There's, there's so many considerations that way, and that's, we call it business continuity instead of just backups where we can actually have backup systems that are like extra copies of the system.
And then the main system goes down, we just like, flip a switch, like, kick it over here instead. Right. And then you're back up and running in minutes instead of like, oh, sorry, it's going to take. 48 hours to do a data restore or whatever. And you're, what are you going to do in the meantime, right? So it depends on how essential the system is, what, how you need to consider it in the, in the continuity plan [00:27:00] and what it's worth, you know, how much.
, is it worth paying more to have it, have a backup continuity system that you can just flip on like that because it's that essential to your business, right?
Leighann Lovely: Well, and it's funny because, you know, for the majority of everything else that we have, your, your website, for instance. You, you always, you have a backup of your website, I mean, you should, you should, if you don't, I mean, if you create a website, you should have a backup, you should have, regularly backing that up, if something happens to your, your main website, you should be able to really quickly just restore that with, like, the original content and everything else, you should have a complete backup of that, and you should be regularly backing that up, if you're making any changes.
You should have a backup of all your files, or that should be backed up on a regular basis, and Even, you know, myself still being a small little shop, I still regularly go in and manually do backups of all my files. Because if my main [00:28:00] computer goes down, God forbid, you know, somebody dumps water on my computer or my computer breaks or whatever.
I have a hard drive, an external hard drive that has a mass quantity of space. I literally back up everything. I'm going to guess that there are a lot of business owners out there that don't think about that. They're brand new. They're like, okay, I'm starting. And then all of a sudden, Oh, gee, I just lost my laptop.
In fact, I was talking to a woman not too long ago who was driving to a meeting at four o'clock in the morning and she got in a severe car accident, almost lost her life. We were talking and now she's, she's getting through the healing process. Three months later, she's still in, still healing from this.
And one of the things she said to me was my laptop survived and I'm like, okay. Like, we shouldn't be talking about how you're so thrilled your laptop survived, you should have a backup with everything that's on that laptop somewhere so that if it hadn't [00:29:00] survived, your business wouldn't have completely just gone away.
Ari Milner: Yeah, totally. The backup super important, but also the encryption on laptops and mobile devices is important. And that comes back to like the reporting requirements like that's something for. , HIPAA, for example, if we've got patient information on a doctor's laptop, right? And that laptop gets stolen, then that has to be reported, right?
, but if the laptop's encrypted when it's stolen, it doesn't need to be reported. They can just buy a new one and be back in business. And not have to worry about it because whoever stole it's going to have to wipe it to even use that machine at all. So there's, there's considerations like that, that.
Most business owners have no idea about that. I'm helping educate them on, like, during, , the audit or risk assessment process. Right. Right. I, I [00:30:00] recently found I did a security risk assessment with a law firm recently and this exact thing came up. I was like, oh, well, we found. Millions of dollars worth of private information on the owner's personal laptop, and it's not encrypted.
So, , if that laptop were to be stolen, you would be in big trouble. Right? That's that's the kind of thing that, , we help with all the time.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting that do you think and this will be my last question because we are coming to time before you get your 32nd shameless pitch here. Do you think there will come a time where it just is mandatory for everybody to have encrypted devices because of that?
I mean, my cell phone, for instance, like. Yeah, if you get my cell phone and you were able to break it, Apple is actually quite amazing [00:31:00] when it comes to like, Hey, if you lose your password, you're screwed. Sorry. We don't give out passwords. We don't give pins. It's, it's your responsibility. Like, and there's been people who, what I, this whole story about a kid who was playing around and it locked it for like 2 million minutes or something like there are Two billion minutes and then Apple's like, yep, there's nothing we can do for you.
We don't that's great. You know, like hey, you can pretty much Know that you're not gonna be able to break into somebody's phone unless you You can figure out the past because it'll continue to just lock you out. So do you think there will come a time when, I mean, devices, it's just a standardized feature that it has to be encrypted?
Ari Milner: Yeah. Well, it's the trend has been going away. Definitely. , , a lot of services are starting to be encrypted by default, like messaging services too, right? Whatsapp and Signal are doing that. Right. They're rolling out, , [00:32:00] even encrypted SNS is, is coming very soon and, yeah, it used to be that the default when you got a new phone was not encryption and that's already changed too.
So, but in terms of the requirements, it just depends on your, your jurisdiction. Like right now, the U. S. doesn't have data privacy and security regulations like Europe does, right? Where a lot of this is mandatory, but there's individual states in the U. S. that do. Right? So it's the kind of thing where it'll probably be coming here soon.
And, and yeah, you're going to need an IT partner to help you fulfill those requirements.
Leighann Lovely: Hmm. I mean, it just makes more sense. It
Ari Milner: just,
Leighann Lovely: it just,
Ari Milner: then again,
Leighann Lovely: one other
Ari Milner: bit related to that is. , quantum computers are coming. [00:33:00] Also, they're already here, but they're, they're very, uh, minimal in terms of their capabilities and how much data they can process.
But quantum computers. , can essentially break any standard encryption. So, regardless of what your regular, your encrypted private key is, a quantum computer is going to be able to break into that and get through the encryption. There's newer encryption techniques that have just been discovered in the last couple of years that are actually quantum proof.
And so that's really the next level on this. Story of where we're going with encryption is we need to get encrypted systems converted over to quantum proof encryption because 99 percent of them are not currently and the quantum computers are coming. That'll be able to break into any of this stuff.
Leighann Lovely: Okay, so you, this would be a whole nother conversation because you lost me at I understand at a high [00:34:00] level that quantum computers are like, next level that I don't get, but I, I did not know that those were becoming. Like, like available. Are you talking available to like the general public?
Ari Milner: Oh, no, no, they're not available to the general public for some time, but they're already available for governments and and schools doing research on them and large institutions.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Ari Milner: And they're getting bigger and bigger and more complex. And that's, but that's one of the first practical implications as quantum computers become more common is standard encryption is not going to work anymore.
Leighann Lovely: Right. So
Ari Milner: yeah, that, that's where I was going with that. So
Leighann Lovely: basically the government is not going to be able, an encryption is not going to keep the government out of knowing exactly what we're doing and when we're doing it.
Ari Milner: Yeah, I mean, the NSA is going to be buying all the, all the quantum computers they can, because they want to break in everywhere [00:35:00] and read everyone's everything. Right? So
Leighann Lovely: we'll never be protected from the government basically sticking their fingers in whatever they want to stick their fingers in is the moral of the story.
Yeah. They always got to one up us, don't they?
Ari Milner: Well, but like I said, there is math that is quantum proof encryption that is doable. So that would be a whole other conversation we could get into sometime. It's, uh, yeah, that's kind of the next frontier there in terms of data privacy.
Leighann Lovely: God, that's so interesting.
Okay. Well, and I would love to continue this conversation cause I just, I, I love knowledge and I know that my listeners, you know, know I'm just, I'm a, I'm a total geek, I'm a total nerd. Um, I just, I love to learn, but we are coming to time. So 32nd shameless pitch.
Ari Milner: Yeah. So if you're running a small business, you already know that tech can either be, uh, your biggest advantage or your worst nightmare.
And [00:36:00] that's where PlanIT comes in. We bring enterprise level. IT, web, cybersecurity, and compliance solutions to small businesses, but without that enterprise price tag. Our global team delivers cutting edge technology trusted by business leaders. It's never too early or too late to find the right IT partner.
If you're interested, come to planitinnovate. com and click the button to book a call with me. I'd love to chat with you about your business's tech needs.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And how can somebody reach out to you?
Ari Milner: Uh, yeah, my website plan it innovate. com, or you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Ari Milner, uh, A R I M I L N E R.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And Ari, your, um, contact information will be in the show notes. So if somebody is trying to reach out to you, you can check on the show notes. The full show notes are listed on Podbean, but you can also find that on, uh, YouTube on the, [00:37:00] um, where our, uh, Um, show is, listed on Love Your Sales and the YouTube channel.
So please go ahead and, um, you know, find, , Ari's contact information there, but I really appreciate our conversation. It's been fun and, , just filled with a ton of good information.
Ari Milner: Yeah. Thanks so much, Leighann, for having me.

The Power of Persistence: Sales, Service, and Success

Join Leighann Lovely as she hosts Steve Wallace, CEO of Maverick app, on this episode of the Love Your Sales Podcast. They dive into the struggles and triumphs of sales, from missed opportunities to the importance of hard work and exceptional service. Steve shares his journey from bartender to business leader, emphasizing the value of putting in the effort and the human element in sales. They also discuss the significance of creating meaningful customer experiences and the pitfalls of relying too heavily on automation without human input. Whether you're a seasoned sales professional or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights into building lasting sales relationships and driving business growth. Don't miss Steve's advice on leveraging sales automation and setting up your business for success right from the start.
Contact Steve
Email - steve@maverickapp.io
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefsalesnerd/
Website - https://maverickapp.io/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 
Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Steve Wallace. Steve is the CEO of Maverick app. Steve's journey from humble beginnings as a bartender to becoming a trailblazing force in the world of business and sales is a true testament to his hustle and relentless drive. I love that behind the bar. Steve learned the importance of hard work and exceptional service, adopting the mantra.
[00:02:00] If there's time to learn, there's time to clean. The mindset always pushing to go faster, serve better, and never stop improving has fueled his success in the business world. Today, Steve is helping companies grow by leveraging his unique experience and insight into sales, leadership, and customer relationships.
And I have to say, I absolutely love, the mantra. I love, just the tenacity, you know, that's the type of personality that truly creates a really well rounded and just self driven human. So Steve, I'm so thrilled to have you here.
Steve Wallace: I'm glad to be here. We're overdue. This is gonna be fun. Thank you.
Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: So tell me a little bit about, you know, your business
Steve Wallace: Yeah. Where do I start? Right. Uh, as a child or a little bit later on, right. And what more of my professional journey, right? Um, I think the best place to [00:03:00] start is, is the why I was never particularly well taught in sales and that's now my why.
So everything that I now speak about that I teach about I've experienced. And, and had the pain of experiencing it, not in like a visceral paper cut or type of way, but the emotional pain attached to, to not being great at sales. I was never taught sales, never had great leadership until later on in my sales career.
I never had the money for a sales coach. Matter of fact, when I first started, it was as an insurance agent and I did okay. I hit. Certain records and won some awards in that world. That doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. And fast forward, I actually got in my car repossessed and went into some really difficult financial and emotionally distressing times.[00:04:00]
My brain wasn't ready and I wasn't ready to have remarkable accountability in my, my sales process and my business ownership. And it took some time for me to pick myself up by my bootstraps and diagnose what went wrong. I don't think you can ever have a real conversation about how to improve unless you identify what went wrong and attach it.
To yourself or to something, somewhere you cannot improve unless you, I, unless you anchor yourself in some reality. And I had that come to Jesus moment, call it. And I said, Oh, wow. Like I could have done a lot better along the way. Sure. I made some money, but I could have done a lot better. And once I identified what those betters were, what those factors were, then I could fix them.
Marker
Steve Wallace: And what that involved was study of sales that involved putting myself in uncomfortable positions, learning how to cold call, learning how to network. I I'm a big subscriber to giving other people what they want as often as possible, even if it's [00:05:00] not something that I can personally financially or professionally benefit from just finding a prospects, common enemy.
And helping them attack that enemy. So to speak, I'm a big fan of that. Even if it means that I don't get to work with them right away. Anyway, I learned all these lessons on my own over time. And as you can imagine, Leighann, like that doesn't, that involves quite a bit of discomfort and pain. And fast forward to today where I, I head up Maverick app.
The mantra time to lean, if there's time to lean, there's time to clean is still applicable today. If there's time to, to dilly dally, there's actually time to do something that of significance. Maverick app is a tool that, that in my eyes fits that mantra perfectly because one of our internal core values is do the work.
There's no such thing as a [00:06:00] sales. Automation tool or no such thing as a silver bullet sales automation tool. You still have to make it work for you. So anytime somebody says to me, I don't know if, if I'm an automation prospect, I don't know if I'm the right fit for this. They may or may not be right, but I can tell you right away that unless you're willing to put the effort in to make something work, it won't work for you.
So hopefully that's a good intro for, for you and your audience.
Leighann Lovely: That's perfect. You said so many things that truly like hit with it. I was like, Oh, I want to interrupt and like, but no, no, no, no, no, no. And, and so there's a couple of, you know, putting in the work, obviously , you know, I'm a big, big, huge proponent of AI tools, but those tools only.
Work for you. If you put in the work up front one to set them up and then chew on the back end that you're utilizing them the proper way, you know, people are like, Oh, it's going to take [00:07:00] over the world. It's going to do everything for you. Well, no, it's not. Um, you still have to. There's still the human element that will never go away.
Like, yeah, okay, I can go online, Microsoft, for instance, I can go online and buy my Microsoft products and all this stuff, and now they're like, oh, and we do it for you. Okay, great. And I'm going through this right now, which is why I use this example. They, you know, I'm every two seconds I'm getting an email and they're like, you have to do this now.
Okay, great. Now they're going to do this portion of it. Now you have to do this. There's always something that a human is still responsible for doing. We cannot possibly make it all automated. Like right. There's a human element to it. Um, the other thing the mantra, If there's time to lean, there's time to clean.
I, I absolutely love this because I, I talk about with the people that I work with that revenue generating tasks, [00:08:00] like people are like, well, I've got, I've got a lot of extra time on my hands. I'm going to just do no, no, no, no. We've gotten so used to like, Oh, I've got some extra time. I'm going to work on some whatever task.
And I think to myself, you need to work on a revenue generating task and wipe away all of this junk that we think is important, that we fill our time with,
Steve Wallace: right?
Leighann Lovely: And make that revenue generating activity. And people think , oh, I'm busy. I'm really busy. I don't have, no, busy does not create, like, busy is not activity.
 And, and I, there's somebody in my network who says this all the time. They're like, if somebody comes up and you ask them like, oh, how was your day? Oh, God, it was so busy. Well, okay, great. That could mean a million and ten things. But if somebody comes up and they say, I [00:09:00] was very. I, like, I had a ton of activity going on, I was very intentional, I got a lot done.
I'm like, oh, okay, wow, it sounds like that was a really powerful day. And if you eliminate the busy work, all of the sudden you're like, wow, I'm really hyper focused in on what is important. Versus what is not important, especially in sales, half the crap that we do in sales. We're like, Oh, this is really important.
Not, not really.
Steve Wallace: Not as important as you think,
Leighann Lovely: right? Spending a half an hour researching somebody's website just so that you can make one phone call and then you're never going to get in
touch
with them.
Steve Wallace: It's like, it's like you're looking for the perfect ammunition to make the perfect call and you warm yourself up.
to the idea of making that outreach. Maybe it's a cold call. Maybe it's not. But you're trying to look for just enough sales intel to make the [00:10:00] perfect outreach to Lee and for example, and I finally do it and I pick up the phone and I call you and nobody answers. It's like, I just wasted so much time doing nothing like just.
Pick up the phone.
Leighann Lovely: What, what are you going to find on their website that's going to make them say yes versus just picking up the phone and
it calling
them
Steve Wallace: right. Right. And asking questions and finding a pain and trying to solve that problem for
Leighann Lovely: right. And you could spend a half an hour researching one person to call them and have them go.
Oh, yeah, that used to be my responsibility. That's just been delegated to so and so.
Steve Wallace: Right. Oh, unbelievable. Yeah. So,
Leighann Lovely: and I fight this battle all the time with, with clients, with , my call center of stop doing that. Just call them.
Steve Wallace: Right.
Leighann Lovely: And if you get ahold of them, great. Have a really quick conversation.
Hey, Steve. Um, I'm Leighann Lovely calling from Love Your Sales. I just, I [00:11:00] thought I would reach out to you really quickly and see if you're the person responsible for, for, you know, making decisions on buying, like, and you could really quick. Yeah, that's not me, but, uh, Sue in purchasing Sue. Okay, great.
Excellent.
Steve Wallace: Click. Yeah. Right. Right. It's, this connects in my mind, this connects to it, to a related topic if it's okay, Leighann. Yeah. Which is, we're talking about doing the work and I'm sure you've met with lots of business owners and salespeople who say they do it. They say they're busy. They're doing the work.
And I was so busy today. Well, was it with revenue generated activity? Yes. Yes, it was. It was Steve. Oh, great. Uh, tell me about, about what you're at, what you have to do now, since you've got all this busy work and did you did all these things, [00:12:00] tell me what, what came out of that and that's a conversation I had with a rep.
And I, I asked what, what came out of your daily activity and I know whether or not they're actually doing it based on what their responses, because if, if a rep says to me, we're a salesperson and business owner, whoever I'm speaking with, if they say to me, I have 10 followup emails to send, I have to make sure I send three calendar invitations and I have to do this, this, and this, I'm like, that means you spoke to people and regardless of whether or not you handled their, The timing isn't good or send me an email or those are objections.
That's a different conversation. We can talk about that. But if you spoke to people, you're going to have real actions to take after your busy work. But if you say I have to create this sequence that does this and connects to that platform, and then I have to buy the automation. I'm like, Nope, you're just.
Just you're working on fluff and it's [00:13:00] sometimes it's necessary, but, but that's a good way for me to tell if someone's actually doing the work,
Leighann Lovely: right? If you have actionable items after that are real actionable items versus, Oh, well I need to put in my follow up calls, um, , and I need to put in,
okay,
Steve Wallace: right. And, yeah, to who, why, what will you say, right?
Leighann Lovely: What else? Are we telling more? Right, because that, that's, that's something that you do right when you call them to ask. If you're left a voicemail to ask, you do that, okay, move on to the next., and I always talk, you know, activity creates activity.
Steve Wallace: Yeah. Oh, here we go. Let's go.
Leighann Lovely: , I always get this question, how many appointments are you going to schedule for me? in a [00:14:00] week. How many appointments are you going to schedule for me in a month? And I'm like, and people like to ask me that when, before they even tell me what their business is.
And I'm like, well, I don't know. Are, do you, do you sell widgets or are you a, you know, SaaS solution that, you know, is a six month to a year, Closing process, because those are two totally different, like if you sell candy, I could probably, you know, get a whole ton of appointments, your specialty popcorn, you know, depending on the time of year, I could probably get a lot of people interested really, really, really quickly.
But if you sell something that's like, you know, Hey, it's 50, 000 per whatever it's going to. And so my answer is, I will show you the activity that we are doing for you. And that activity will create more activity, will create more activity, and then [00:15:00] everything is going to fall in place, and you're going to go, Holy crap, look at all of this activity, and look at all of these appointments that are coming with it.
Right. But I, I love, I, I just love when people are like, well, exactly how many? Are you going to give me five appointments a week? Are you going to give me 10 appointments a week? And I'm like,
Steve Wallace: that's always a really, I tread on those grounds carefully because I want to know why they're worried about how many meetings I'm going to, I'm going to set for them or how much my platform Maverick Apple set for them.
If they themselves are not setting meetings for themselves. So if they're setting one a week and they want a platform to set four or five a week, okay, I mean, you can make an argument that an automation done well would, is that's the whole point of scaling is you're bringing on an automation to scale your efforts, right?
If you're setting one, then you want an automation to do five fine, but tell me why, tell me what the ideal outcome is, [00:16:00] how long did it take you to set? And when does it close? Do you care when it closes? Right? That's a big one, because if you tell me you set one per week but it closes in 18 months, then my, my scope of work just completely changed.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Steve Wallace: I have to understand the why behind You asking for how many meetings I'll set for you, right? So, yeah, it's, it's very, it gets convoluted and muddy quickly. And I don't even think, I don't think people even understand these things. They haven't had a chance to actually look at their sales process and decide for themselves, what could I be fixing before I even automate it?
Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, and that's the other thing too, is that people, you know, I'll ask them, well, how many appointments does it take for you to. Right.
Steve Wallace: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And then they'll go, well, you know, I, you [00:17:00] know, I have to have 20 appointments to have two closes and I'm like, okay, wait, wait, wait, okay, why? Why does it take 20 appointments for one or two closes?
Steve Wallace: Right.
Leighann Lovely: Are you selling a monster product that's at You know, 100, 000 is the buy in 1, 000 and you're only closing that because then we have to look at us and go, what are we doing at the closing that we're not having a higher success rate? And do we really need 20 appointments for, that close? Do we need to, you know, and that's another thing that all of a sudden it's like, okay, wait, so you're expecting me to set 20 for one or two closes.
Maybe we need to actually look at ourselves in the closing process.
Steve Wallace: Right.
Leighann Lovely: This was my problem early on as a salesperson. You said, you know, you did like, I could schedule and schedule and schedule [00:18:00] and schedule appointments. And then I would show up and I would just word vomit and be like, blah.
Steve Wallace: Absolutely. I was a world class opener, world class opener and word vomit. Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: same with me. I could schedule. I could schedule appointments because I was one of those people that could get on the phone and get that person to be like, yeah, I'd love to meet you. And then I would walk in the door and I would fall apart.
So early on in my sales career, I had to really sit down and go. What is the problem? What issue am I having when I walk in the door and they meet me? One, I was, I was so green. And two, I also, I also was really arguing with the proposal that we were required to present that was like 20 pages long. Ha, ha, ha, ha,
Steve Wallace: ha, ha.
That doesn't do you any favors. I swear, some organizations just don't understand what it takes for a [00:19:00] salesperson to sell and the process they implement is actually hurting their sales.
Leighann Lovely: Right. I mean, this, it was like a spiral bound proposal that we had to present to every, no, this was many, many years ago.
I mean, there were times where I'd look up and the people in the rooms, eyes were like pulling into the back of their head. And I'm like, this isn't working.
Marker
Steve Wallace: Well, there are still industries that. Put a significant amount of roadblocks between their salespeople and their buyer, their end user, or their client.
Like financial services is one, uh, less so much financial advisors because they tend to give advice there on the spot, but property and casualty insurance, insurance agents, how often do you, have you heard the phrase? Send me a quote,
Leighann Lovely: right?
Steve Wallace: It's like, well, no, nope. Don't do that anymore. Don't send quotes.
Right. Because that will give your prospect on the other end of the email, the opportunity to say, no, not for me. [00:20:00]
Leighann Lovely: Correct.
Steve Wallace: Too expensive. Moving on.
Leighann Lovely: And in my business, and I'm going to guess in yours, that it's not just as simple as like, Oh, here's what I do. Just send me, just send me a quote. In my business.
I can't. Right. I have to know. What you do, it's, there's no standard. I don't have a standard quote. I mean, I have standardized pricing for different things, but there is no like. We don't offer a, just one solution fits all
Steve Wallace: right. We have, we're a software, so we do have to have subscription levels that are public facing.
Matter of fact, I can't stand it when a really simple product like your, your, yours is, is not complex, but it's, it's consultative. So it makes sense why you wouldn't have prices on a website. We have to, but. Um, the high end, you look at our website [00:21:00] very soon and it's going to say, talk to sales for our highest subscription, because it's constant data, right?
We're going to patchwork different solutions and people together to fit the needs of our target market. And if we're not doing that, then it's a huge opportunity wasted where it could be underselling ourselves, overselling ourselves. Overselling is a huge problem because people will walk in with certain expectations.
And if they believe that they were oversold and then under, I mean, underperformed, then they're going to cancel. We don't want that. If we under sell and overperform, then perhaps we undercharged, right? So talk to sales. That's it. Just talk to the leadership,
Leighann Lovely: right? And that's, you know, and again, you know, standard, we have standardized pricing that not everybody needs the same thing.
Right. We offer marketing campaigns that somebody can go to MailChimp and do. [00:22:00] And so if somebody is already using MailChimp or one of those mail services out there and they come and they say, okay, well we need this, but we don't need this, but we don't need it. Well, it's like, well, I'm just going to pull that pricing out of there and be like, okay, now this is your standardized pricing without that service included.
But if they were to go to my website and they were to see like base the standardized, like they're going to go, well, I already have that. I don't need it. I'm not going to buy this.
Steve Wallace: Right. It's like. No perceived value.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. So, and then you're right, when it's the alt, like the, hey, we want everything.
It's like, okay, you need to call, talk to sales because now we're actually putting together your complete strategic plan. So let's, we, , we. Got off on a tangent here.
Steve Wallace: So
Leighann Lovely: let's talk about, again, I kind of want to, I want to dive a little bit more into your journey because again, [00:23:00] we as salespeople, I think that we, we're not born sales.
Okay. Let me refer. We are born as salespeople. We we're, we're negotiating, but we lose those. And you're not born a top performing salesperson. And just until recently, there aren't colleges who are training. Or teaching sales skills. And have you heard this now? Actual colleges are jumping on board. I'm so excited.
Entrepreneurship
Steve Wallace: sales. These are now, these are now elect elected. Uh, is that the phrase? Uh, these are now programs and courses you can now elect to take for sure. Or major in.
Leighann Lovely: I know. Isn't that amazing? Right?
Steve Wallace: Yeah. So I wish it was around when I was younger.
Leighann Lovely: And, and like you, I wasn't ready. When I wanted to, , start my career, I, I knew I would fail if I tried to become a salesperson.
Um, so I, I had another career before I even went into sales. I, I wasn't [00:24:00] emotionally intelligent enough. I think that was my issue. , I just, I was not. So let's talk about, you know, you went to college. What did you do and how did you start to really hone in on those sales skills?
Steve Wallace: So it's a long answer.
I'll try to keep it shorter.
Marker
Steve Wallace: I think it goes all the way back to the beginning of me working with other people. It was always a sale. Sales isn't just selling something, right? If you look up the definition of sales, they're going to the definition will be something like the exchange of goods for, for other goods, right?
Like blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. I'm talking about persuasion, right? So sales is effectively. Persuasion and painting a picture for people. And I've always been doing that. So I worked in retail in the electronics department and, and [00:25:00] people would come on in and they'd ask what kind of DVD player they should buy.
And I, I would, I wasn't compensated to sell more or less. It was just a regular hourly job, but I found myself. Having conversations with these people and explaining why they should do this one and not that one, right? Which one's going to make them happier. So that's just one example. And then the next one that really pops out is behind the bar.
This is where it really started to hit home. Like, wait a second. Like I'm running my own little micro business here. I have a W2 paycheck, but that doesn't tell the whole story, especially on the shifts when I was alone. So. This really started to sink in on Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights were, were, was the dead shift.
Nobody wanted to do anything. There was Monday night football. People would come on in on Mondays, not Tuesdays. There was thirsty Thursday. They'd come in on Thursday, not Tuesdays. [00:26:00] And so I looked at it as an opportunity to make my own money. If I had 10 bar guests, I'd make a hundred bucks easy, right? So I'm like, okay, this is not so bad.
I can, I can do this. And. It started to sink in that my job when I was alone was every penny. Every tip I made was mine to keep not splitting it with anybody that I would work my butt off and that I would learn to try new things with people to increase their bill. So somebody coming in for the first time, I'm going to give them the home runs.
Hey, these plates, these drinks make everybody happy. But Leighann, the next time you come in, since you liked this one, you should try this one. And I'm pointing them to a new menu item that's four or 5 more expensive. You love this one, this one will blow you away, but you gotta come visit me next Tuesday.
And I did that every single week to the point where Tuesday nights became a thousand dollar night for me, where I had eight tables around the bar with two to four seats, each a 28 person bar, every one of them [00:27:00] full and service bar, which for those of you. listening in who haven't don't know this before.
This is the bartender who makes drinks for the rest of the restaurant. So I was sweating bullets, but it all started with the idea that I was running my own little miniature business and no one was going to take accountability over that shift more than me. And so when they started to notice how busy I was, they asked me, they didn't ask me, they said, we're going to put a second bartender on.
And I'm like, no, you're not. I worked my butt off for this. I know every single person around this bar. And as a matter of fact, if you were to go ask them, if they're waiting a little extra time , to see me, they would all say yes. And that they don't care. Right. So they don't mind waiting a little extra for the value that I brought to the table.
Right. And that was a lesson right there, right? Like people are willing go to a thing about a restaurant. You think about a few different things. [00:28:00] The quality of the service, the quality of the food and the drink and how quickly it meets your schedule. I, at that point, it was impossible for me to deliver on all three, but nobody cared.
Leighann Lovely: And to your point, to your point, there have been places that I have over, you know, obviously when I was younger. There are places that I specifically go because of the wait staff, because of the bartender, because of now in my age, because of the owner, like, Oh, I know, I know the owner of this restaurant. I, I love the quality of his food.
Every time I go in, he will walk over or she will walk over and say, Hey, welcome in again. That is. You were literally becoming an entrepreneur right then and there. You just weren't the owner of it. You became an entrepreneur right there,
Steve Wallace: right?
Leighann Lovely: And that's, and people, when you [00:29:00] sit down at a restaurant and I used to think it was so cool when I was younger, my dad would go, we would go into a restaurant and The owner would come walking over and be like, Hey, how are you?
I do not, you know, and I was like, Oh my God, my parents must be celebrities. The, the owner of the restaurant knows them. And it, and it makes the, it makes the patron feel important, right? And when they feel important and seen, they are willing to lay down that much more. Of a tip,
Steve Wallace: right?
Leighann Lovely: They're like, oh yeah, I don't mind putting an extra $10 on top of the normal tip because all of a sudden they feel important.
Steve Wallace: Right? All people, all that's all people want, they wanna be seen. They want to feel important. , of course it has. Yes. The quality of the food. The, the quality of the drink. It comes down to how did [00:30:00] you make somebody feel in that moment?
Right. People will, and said differently, doubling down on your point, Leighann.
Steve Wallace: People will go to a restaurant with bad food and drinks for great service. They'll go back again and again and again. They won't do it the other way around.
Leighann Lovely: Nope.
Steve Wallace: Won't. No.
Leighann Lovely: You can have the best food in the world and if you have horrible service, they won't go back. Game over. Yep. Yep. Game over.
Steve Wallace: Yep.
Leighann Lovely: No, absolutely.
That I, and I have been to some restaurants where it's like, can we afford to, can we afford to sit in this restaurant? The food was so good, but the servers were, it was, it was horrible. And I'm like, I'm here, never coming here again. Like, right. Especially when you're paying that much, you're like, I came here to pay for an experience
Steve Wallace: Yep.
Leighann Lovely: And the experience. was so disappointing. I will never come here again.
Steve Wallace: Right? I mean, the [00:31:00] parallels between restaurants and entrepreneurship and sales are remarkable, right? The, the, the restaurants, especially like Michelin star restaurants, they've got something figured out that a lot of entrepreneurs and salespeople haven't figured out and you nailed it.
It's the experience, right? Look Michelin star plate. They're miniscule, like it's like one eighth of one tiny, you know, octopus leg with like some congealed fat, some other sauce, like daint. It looks like a Picasso painting. It's like, it's beautiful and you're not full. Right. And it costs you 100. Right. But what else happened?
Right. They personally escorted you to the table. They held the chair for you that the bathroom smelled incredible. Uh, the, the towels in the bathroom were actual cloth and disposable. Right. It's like this, they're creating this whole unique experience that makes you feel what wealthy scene, rich, special, whatever the [00:32:00] case may be.
And you draw these parallels over to entrepreneurship and sales. Why would we want to treat our prospects any differently?
Leighann Lovely: Correct.
Steve Wallace: Right.
Leighann Lovely: Everybody it's, it is the human condition. It is absolutely the human condition. People just want to be heard and seen. And they want you to not only hear and see, but when they're making a purchase, and, and I'll say, I'll say as small as that purchase is to as big as that purchase is, they want to make sure that you understand them.
If
I'm going and buying a Toyota versus if I'm going and buying a Mercedes. Now, obviously, I'm going to say, yeah, if I'm buying a Mercedes, I'm probably in a different tax bracket.
Steve Wallace: Yeah, money is different for you than for [00:33:00] somebody else. Correct.
Leighann Lovely: But, That doesn't mean that the person going and buying that Toyota doesn't want to be heard and seen.
It doesn't change the way that they want to feel that, you know, that even if it's a 16 year old kid, when they walk in there, they're like, Oh my God, I'm so excited. You don't want to write that kid. Like. You want to treat that kid like amazing. They're going to remember that experience and be like, Oh my God, this was so exciting.
And
Steve Wallace: right. Oh yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And if you, if you make that kid feel special, that parent is going to be like, okay, we'll come back to this place.
Steve Wallace: Right. Right. And that's just a car. Let's call it what it is. Cars are a transaction.
Leighann Lovely: Correct.
Steve Wallace: I typically don't buy from anybody I don't have a relationship with, so that even applies to the people I buy a car from.
That said, most people view a car as a transaction. They don't have this deep relationship with the person who sold them a [00:34:00] car. But extrapolate that out if it, if, if making someone feel special about a car, uh, typically a transactional purchase is so important. Extrapolate that across and into transactions that require a relationship and require you to understand how, how they feel and making them feel special.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Oh, I completely and totally agree. And recurring purchases.
Steve Wallace: Absolutely. Oh yeah.
Leighann Lovely: I mean, For a business owner, for instance. And I go to this one all of the time, all the time, your accountant, accountants have a tendency to not necessarily be warm and fuzzy and like, hold your hand.
They pretty much are like, Hey, send me your information. I'll look it over and I will do your books. And then all of a sudden you feel like they've ghosted you and you're like, okay, well, what happened to the accountant that I just sent my information to? And then like three weeks later, they're like, okay, all your books are done.
And you're like, this is
Steve Wallace: so true. [00:35:00]
Leighann Lovely: I thought you like completely ghosted me. I, I'm glad that you're still up because I was afraid that I was going to have to get a new one of you because you just disappeared. They're not exactly the warm and fuzzy make you feel happy. Usually they just grab your information and disappear.
Steve Wallace: The work. Yeah. Yeah.
But, but they're necessary.
It's funny because it's such a good example. Like what you just described is, is so true, right?
Leighann Lovely: I'm an entrepreneur. I've been through this before.
Steve Wallace: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I
Leighann Lovely: always feel just think if all of the sudden they were like, they checked in with you all of the time.
Think about how good that would make you feel like, Oh my God, my accountant is checking in with me to make sure I'm, I'm happy. Like I would, I would probably recommend that accountants to everybody. I know.
Steve Wallace: Yeah. Simply just a message like, hey, hey, LeeAnne, haven't forgotten about you, send, you know what I mean?
Like,
oh, it's like, [00:36:00] oh, thank you, accountant. I know. so
Leighann Lovely: much. I'm so glad that you're still there and you haven't ghosted me. I thought I did something wrong.
Steve Wallace: Oh, that's amazing.
Leighann Lovely: I know. It's, I know. I, I love my accountants. I absolutely love her, but, and she always responds immediately, but I'm one of those people who are like kind of a micromanager when it comes to that stuff. Like, okay, what's, what's happening? Like, are you working on stuff? And she's like, Oh, you mean you've poured
Steve Wallace: your, you mean you've poured everything into growing a business and now you just want to know the numbers make sense.
Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Sounds right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. But there are other systems out there too, that like, is there, is there a customer service on the other end of this? Like how do you stay in business? You're not even responding to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that as a small business owner, when my clients email me, I'm like, okay, got to email them.
Got to make sure they're [00:37:00] happy. It's, it's not even a question.
Steve Wallace: Right.
Leighann Lovely: , because it all comes down to, do they feel taken care of?
Steve Wallace: Right. Right. That's all that matters.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Sometimes I wish I, you know, had the accountant's ability to just do
Steve Wallace: the Disconnect.
Leighann Lovely: Just, okay, I'll get back to you in three weeks.
It'll be taken care of.
Steve Wallace: I agree. I agree. I wish I had that too. I care too much. Right? But
Leighann Lovely: Well, and they have, they have something that all of us don't. They have the ability to do Numbers. And, and again, I'm just not, that is not my personality. I am a through and through sales minded person. So I'm lost. If I didn't have an accountant, I would go, I would, I would be lost.
Sorry. This has been an amazing conversation and it's gotten away from me. We are coming to time. Steve, it is your opportunity to do your, your, [00:38:00] your shameless 30 seconds.
Steve Wallace: Cool. Okay. Let's do it. I, uh, for anybody listening,
Marker
Steve Wallace: I would love for you to put yourself in the first day of your business without referral partners, without phone numbers, without cash, nothing.
And think to yourself, how am I going to grow this business without those? And the answer is it's going to be really hard and really time consuming. Well, it turns out there's a platform that automates the stuff that you need to do in order to grow your business called Maverick app. We automate prospecting.
We automate cold email outreach, and we automate some LinkedIn work as well. And we can solve a lot of the problems that you have in growing your business without asking you to learn a whole new skill set and spending a whole bunch of time. If we can't set at least 10 new meetings a month for you, we'll give you your money back.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Thank you so much, Steve. This has been an amazing conversation. Um, where can people reach out to you if they are interested in learning more [00:39:00] about you and what you do?
Steve Wallace: Yeah. So I'm, I'm all over LinkedIn. That's the best way to reach me, Steve Wallace. And I think I just changed the, the, the name after the hyphen.
So I forget what it is now, but look up Steve Wallace on LinkedIn Maverick app. You can also reach me at Steve at Maverick app dot B I Z those are the two best ways to reach me.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And that information will be in the show notes. So if somebody wants to reach out to Steve, you can also check the show notes.
But again, Steve, thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation.
Steve Wallace: Yeah, thanks, Leighann. We can always chum it up. I think this is great.
 

Mastering Sales: Efficiency, Mentorship, and Lighting the Path to Success

In this episode of the "Love Your Sales" podcast, Leighann Lovely hosts Ryan Jaso, the Founder of Lighting Boss, one of the largest independent suppliers of outdoor lighting in the U.S. Their engaging conversation delves into the art of sales, the importance of continuous learning, and leveraging technology like AI and sales programs to build lasting customer relationships. Ryan passionately shares his journey and provides valuable insights on finding sales efficiencies, the significance of mentorship, and navigating the ever-evolving sales landscape. Leighann and Ryan also discuss the critical role of emotional intelligence and adapting to change in achieving long-term success. Tune in for an inspiring discussion packed with practical tips for both seasoned sales professionals and budding entrepreneurs.
 
Contact Ryan
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/64743211
Website - https://www.lighting-boss.shop/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales.
I am joined today by Ryan Jayso, founder of Lighting Boss, which is one of the largest independent suppliers of outdoor lighting in the country with locations in both Ohio and Florida. He also created LB Pro, which is a mobile design and.
Proposal software meant specifically for lighting professionals. Ryan has spent 15 years in the outdoor lighting industry. He currently spends most of [00:02:00] his time either overseeing his team of 20 plus employees serving on the board of the association of outdoor lighting , professionals, or teaching his two children to be little entrepreneurs.
I absolutely love that. And. It's one of the best things to do, right, is to, to, to raise our children properly to, um, you know, go out there in the world and be little entrepreneurs themselves. So, Ryan, welcome so much to the show. I am excited to chat with you today.
Ryan Jaso: I'm excited to be here. And honestly, I want to, I'm more intrigued with you and what you're building than I want to talk about myself here.
So expect some fire back questions and it may just came, come right off the shoot because you know what you're doing. I'm so fascinated with people who build, build their careers in sales. Cause that was something I never envisioned. Um, and something that I'm still learning [00:03:00] and talking to true sales professionals is, it's always so cool for me.
The one thing that I've always been good at is finding efficiencies and. You through efficiency, you find a way to generate sales. Cause there's no sense in making a hundred phone calls. If I know I'm only going to close one or two, you know, unless I'm selling. 100, 000 product, which, which we're not, you know, we're selling, we're selling fixtures anywhere from that 30 to a hundred dollars.
Um, you know, you gotta sell a lot of those to, to make a good living. So we've found efficient ways to reach out to prospects and close leads, but, you know, being good at sales is not something that. I never envisioned I was terrified of it. I'm still, you know, I still hate rejection. I don't like rejection.
So I've kind of tailored my approach so that I feel much less rejected [00:04:00] when, when people say no, and you're, and you're always going to get nose, right? So this is, this is a cool program to be a part of. I'm looking forward to hearing a bit, a bit of your journey to the end.
Leighann Lovely: Well, first, the way that I have built my career is reminding myself that they are not rejecting me.
They are simply saying, I don't want to buy your product right now. And that is, as long as you have a mindset of they're not rejecting you, Ryan, they're just simply saying, I'm not interested right now, unless they're literally saying, F you leave me alone.
Ryan Jaso: Which happens.
Leighann Lovely: And it does. It does. Absolutely. But, um, you just, I mean, that just comes down to, you know, you got to have a tough skin.
You got to, you got to eventually go, okay, they're having a bad day. Understand that maybe they hit their mailbox on their way out of the, on the way out of the [00:05:00] driveway, um, that morning. And, um, Hey, so they're having a bad day. And so that's why they reacted that way to you. But sales is literally just having a conversation like you and I are having today to figure out what it is that you can assist them with and if it matches with the product that you are offering.
Being able to say, well, great, I have a solution for you. Let's talk about it. And if it matches your price point and it matches exactly what you're looking for, then we have a mutual understanding that you're going to buy from me. I'm going to deliver for you. Um, and as long as you look at it that way, you're servicing your client with honesty.
You're doing a service for them, and you're moving forward, and that, you know, you being in the industry that you're in, people are coming, well, I mean, you have people who are utilizing an app in which they're literally saying, yep, I, I'm here to [00:06:00] purchase lighting, right, fixtures. And they're just signing up for, or it's not that simple.
Let's I'm not gonna, but I'm boiling this down to a very simplistic thing.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah. I like keeping things simple,
Leighann Lovely: right? So I'm, you know, you're, you're, the people who utilize your program are literally just plugging in like, yep, I need this, I need this, I need this, and I need this. And as long as you on the backend are making sure that they're getting everything that they.
That they want in a timely manner in a nice flow, they're going to be happy. And ultimately sales, that's all it is. Sales is one person saying, I need this. Make me happy.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah. And that's what we focus on, right? Is, is what you and I focus on is that user experience. So how do you allow your, your clients, your prospects to just move through that wheel as seamlessly as possible.
[00:07:00] So I always just focus on, on the efficiencies behind it. And I find with, with the efficiencies, then sales will come. I was listening to, um, your podcast with a friend of mine, Mike Long. Um, yesterday, actually, and I thought there was a lot of. Cool stuff there. And there, there was one thing that he talked about.
You guys talked about specifically, you talked about, um, the, the entrepreneur having the sales aptitude, like starting that person who starts the company, typically when those companies are successful, um, it's typically pretty good at sales. Then they typically run with that because, because what is, what does every company need?
Right. Sales. That's the one thing that you can't get around unless you created Facebook, in which case, apparently you can go three years without selling a thing, um, and just [00:08:00] building, you know, that brand and that user experience, which is, which is like the exception that. rule.
Leighann Lovely: Um,
Ryan Jaso: but I thought that was a cool conversation with Mike, me getting to know him a little bit better, learning about your background a little bit more.
And there was, there was a bunch of stuff there. I took some notes and I have no idea where the notes are, but there was a bunch of, there was a bunch of stuff there that I wanted to hit on. I remember one thing you said, you were talking about fake it till you make it. Um, you know, we, we equate that to, if you're going to say it wrong, say it strong.
Um, so, uh, in order to be an expert, remember, what does it take, Leanne? What does it take to be an expert?
Leighann Lovely: Wow. Um,
Ryan Jaso: tell me what it takes to be an expert.
Leighann Lovely: Well, in my own product or in somebody else's product, because it's very, it's very different. You know, you have to. Fully and completely understand, you know, your product, but you don't have to be an expert in your [00:09:00] product or in somebody else's product to sell them on that in the beginning.
You, it, it ultimately, especially if I'm scheduling an appointment for somebody, so this is a, this is a, a multi layered question here. I, if I'm going to sell your product, Ryan, I don't have to be an expert on it. I just have to be, I just have to understand the pain points of what problem I am solving for them.
Mm hmm. And understand why. It makes sense for them to potentially look into your product, right? The next person who's going to be doing a demo or that's where the expertise come in. That's where, you know, you have to understand the other person and what problem they have. and what your solution solves.
What problem your solution solves.
Ryan Jaso: That was, so that was [00:10:00] perfectly, perfectly said. You're wrong. The right answer is, in order to be an expert, you only have to know a little bit more than the person you're talking to. But, but, like you nailed it. It's all about finding pain points. What are the pain points?
And putting pressure on those pain points. I found that early on in my sales career, I didn't put enough pressure on those pain points. I was like, Oh, we'll solve that. No problem. That's not, that's not even a problem rather than saying, Oh, that I could see how that could be a real problem. We, we, we need to do something about that.
Like that was just one of the things because like Mike, I started out not knowing anything. about anything and it's such an interesting place to start and I was at, uh, USF, so University of South Florida, um, yesterday. Did you know they now [00:11:00] have sales programs in school? Like I, I'm just learning this, which is so awesome.
Leighann Lovely: Yes. I, I recently learned that through a, podcast,
Ryan Jaso: which is,
Leighann Lovely: it's brilliant, right? Because up until this point. You go to school for something and you walk out and you go, what do I want to do with my life? And then you fall into sales and you're like, wait, but I don't even know. I don't even know what I'm doing.
Ryan Jaso: The first thing about sales. And it was so cool, you know, learning that, that these kids are learning how to talk to people, how to draw those questions out. Um, what's my tonality. What is my cadence depending on the person I'm talking to? Am I talking fast? Am I talking slow? And, you know, these, all of these kids are now going to have a 10 year leg up on me, maybe, maybe longer.
Cause you know, I didn't really start understanding any of this until, until very recent, but you know, all, all of them. [00:12:00] Of course, all of them throughout this process are asking, you know, what would you do if you could go back to when you were our age? Um, what advice would you give? And, and I said, find, find mentors, stick close to mentors because You know, when, when you and Mike were talking about, you know, just not knowing anything before we started and you make a whole bunch of mistakes, like you can avoid that, like there are ways to avoid it.
Leighann Lovely: But Ryan, when you say find mentors, how many people have you offered? Like, hey, I'll, I'll be a mentor to you in the younger generation. I'm not talking, you know, I've, I've have, you know, I have people who I've mentored of, of a variety of different ages, and they've gone. You know, great. And I will tell you that the older people will call me and ask me [00:13:00] questions and they will take me up on that.
The younger generation, I will say, anytime you have a question, I am here for you. I want to help you through this. I would love to mentor you. I will never hear from them again. And it's, and it's wildly, and it is wildly interesting that either they Are fearful of it? Or they're, they don't understand the value of somebody saying, Hey, I, but then again, I look at my younger self and I think, I thought I knew everything.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, would I have taken you up on that advice? And hopefully, you know, hearing it from me, hearing it from somebody who has nothing to gain in this situation, um, and impressing upon that. Hopefully it will open their eyes. I certainly [00:14:00] do believe, um, that with the right guidance, the right push that the younger generation, whatever we think of the current generation, They all want to learn.
They want to be successful. So looking at people who do have some, I don't necessarily consider myself successful. I don't necessarily consider myself not successful, but people who have more than they have and are living a lifestyle that they want to live. What better way than to, uh, pick that person's brain and try to attach yourself to that person.
Now, now I did throw a little caveat in that and that caveat was if you want to find a good mentor, you also have to have some value that you're bringing to that person. Like, I'm not just going to sit next to you for eight hours and just. the whole playbook unless there's something that I'm getting in return [00:15:00] and that what I'm getting in return could be, you know, a hundred different things, but you got to figure out as a young person, how am I bringing some value to the relationship?
Even if it's just me being a. fun individual that, um, that sort of improve somebody's mood, you know, being young life is life. Life is a young person's game on person's game. So there are so many different things that a young person with energy and enthusiasm can bring to that type of mentor mentee relationship.
But I think I think a number of them may just expect that it's handed to them on a silver platter like Leanne. You're going to, you're going to call me and you're just going to start telling me stuff. No, that's not quite how it's going to work.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Well, no, and every relationship, and I've talked to people, and I reference a book here, um, that a friend of mine wrote, um, there are vampires out there that [00:16:00] will just suck.
the life out of you. And those are the people that you need to eliminate from your life. You don't have the time. I don't have the energy. I don't have the ability to continue to allow people in my life who are literally just takers who are just sucking the life out of me. Um, and again, the book I'm referencing is, is change your circle, change your life written by Jamar Jones.
He, um, he talks about that, that. You, you need to constantly be shifting and moving in the circles that you are in order to continue to level up also to change your emotional intelligence. You need to be at the same time, the, the younger, and I shouldn't say younger in this point, the other people in that room, just because they may not, and I'm referencing, you know, never be the smartest person in the room.
Otherwise you are in the wrong room. It's time to move on. That does not mean that you can't help the other people in that room while you are there as long as they are not [00:17:00] takers. But they should be filling your cup in some way, whether that be through just an amazing relationship and watching them grow and having them give something back.
Every relationship should be a give and take in one way or another. And as a. Again, knowing that, you know, when I was in my younger days, I, I constantly had that, you know, chip on my shoulder of like, I know best. It wasn't until I really started to grow in my emotional intelligence to realize that, wow, I don't, I do not know best.
I'm making a ton of mistakes and there are a ton of people around me that are saying, hey, come along with me and I will, I'll, I'll help you. I'll show you. And I remember the first time I ever did a sales pitch. I, it was, I was so nervous. I walked in, I had all my, my proposals. This is the day when, you know, everybody had these like 10 page proposals and let's walk through it.
And it was just a [00:18:00] horrifying, boring, you know, presentation. And I, right out of the gate. I started talking so fast and with like a high pitched voice to the point where that my mentor who was sitting next to me like looked over at me like, Who are you? Like, what just happened? And the person in front of me was kind of like, What?
And I immediately went, Oh, my God, what's happening? And I brought it down. I slowed down. The presentation went You know, eventually went, well, I did not sell the person probably thought I was insane. I did not close that sale, but I learned so much because I got in the car with my mentor and he looked at me, he goes, how do you think that went?
And I went, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed.
Ryan Jaso: And that's so key in that type of environment is having somebody who will give you honest feedback.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely.
Ryan Jaso: Because I get we can record ourselves now, you know, you guys were talking about how we [00:19:00] have all these zoom meetings and now I can record and review, which is great.
Um, but if we don't, if we don't review our process, how are we really going to know, and most people aren't looking back when, when they miss and miss an opportunity. Um, you know, how many are looking back and saying, what, what did I do wrong as opposed to just kind of pointing the finger that, eh, that, that wasn't my client.
Okay. Well, you know, so you just wasted four hours or whatever on somebody who wasn't your client. Um, yeah, you did something wrong along the way. Either your qualification process stunk or you misread them. Um, you didn't give them options. You gave them too many options. What'd you do right? What'd you do wrong?
And that's how we should, we should be looking at every sale and it's so helpful because I remember one of my first bombs too and thankfully somebody, you know, who I really respected said that was terrible. Um, I'm [00:20:00] like, it was? I didn't, I didn't realize. I didn't even know. I was like, this is why that other guy is going to get the job and you're not and, and he was exactly right.
So, um, it's cool to have people who will be honest with you and just. Reviewing the process, but I'll tell you what I was. Um, I was really impressed with, you know, the, the 2021 22 year olds who were at this event yesterday. It gave me a lot of hope. Cool to see a couple of them experience and door to door, which is that whole other, you know, I.
I, I was just asking them questions because I've never done door to door. I don't know about you. I've never, that's why
Leighann Lovely: I've, I've actually sat in, I've never done it, but I've sat in on other people doing door to door and I'm like, and I purposely, and this is the geek in me. So, you know, you walk through a mall and there are people who are like approaching you [00:21:00] and I will specifically walk up to them and go, okay, do your pitch because I want to, I want to understand.
All the different type of sales out there. I mean, I'm a sales, I run a sales and marketing company. I need to also stay up in tune on what people are doing differently. So, when somebody comes to my door, my husband, it drives my husband insane. He's like, don't answer the door. They're going to try to sell you something.
I'm like, yeah, I know. That's
Ryan Jaso: the point. That's the point.
Leighann Lovely: I want to know what their pitch is. I want to see them do it. And I've gone out. And, and just shadowed people to watch them do it so that I can stay up to speed on what is happening and how people and how successful like it actually is, depending on what they say.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, not only do I want to hear what their angle is. Um, I [00:22:00] also want to know if this person's a potential hire.
Leighann Lovely: That's also why I sometimes take sales phone calls. I have a, I have a call center. I've actually tried to recruit some of them and been like, you know, I have a call center. Are you, uh, are you a 1099 or are you actual employee of this company?
And they're like, what, what are you talking about?
Ryan Jaso: I'm going to turn this, I'm going to turn this on its head. You didn't know what you're getting yourself into.
Leighann Lovely: And I've actually interviewed. Some of them are like, well, yeah, I'm, I'm actually looking for a job. I only do this part time. And I'm like, great.
Send me your resume. I mean, it's one of the best ways. Hey, if you do what I do, it's one of the best ways to find sales people.
Ryan Jaso: So Leanne, give me an example of how sales have changed. And take Zoom off the table because we all know, we all know Zoom has changed it. Give me another example of how sales have changed.
Let's say in the last five years, or if you want to go back, say 10 years, whatever date you want to [00:23:00] pick where there was like an obvious shift. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Leighann Lovely: If I were to say in the last five years, my God, that one's, that one's simple. Um, I mean, we're taking zoom off the table, but just because of the way the world is, um, it's so unbelievably hard to get people on the phone nowadays.
I mean, we all went, we all went virtual. Okay. And now, even though we are all going back into the office, um, In order to get ahold of people nowadays, because they've gotten so used to, Oh, I don't have to answer the phone. I can still run my business with not answering my phone. I can.
Ryan Jaso: Such an interesting mindset.
I mean, I don't answer my phone, but I have people who do that for me. So got to answer our phones.
Leighann Lovely: Right. But everybody nowadays, because of the amount of robocalls that exist, because of the amount of like, and, and again, this also has to do with the [00:24:00] push in technology. So we go back, you know, we go back to COVID and obviously technology AI has become like I mean, exponentially just has blown up.
And so it's the rise of all of these new marketing tools that have become AI driven. We've not only got, you know, the robocalls that are happening, we've got AI tools that are actually going out and, and Sending the messages or replying to messages via Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all of those different platforms that are actually scheduling appointments before you even know that you, your AI, is time you responding to these people.
Um, so there's been a huge shift in the way that a lot of sales are actually, um, engaging and we're able to, if you are utilizing this, you're able to reach even more people as these things are happening and get [00:25:00] things into your inbox. Um, what has not shifted is that there are industries that are Kind of protected from that and that you still need the human element.
You still have to eventually bring yourself in to meet that person face to face because people don't buy companies. People buy people. Ultimately it comes down to that. It comes down to, okay Ryan, I really like you, but I've got three different products right now on the table. And it comes down for me, if I'm going to make an investment in a product, I want to know that I'm working with a company that has a real boy, excuse the expression, I use this one all the time, or a real girl, that an AI isn't running the company, that there is an intelligent human behind it that I like, because if something breaks, I want to be able to pick up the phone and actually talk to a real [00:26:00] human being who cares.
And that I like, and that is the one element that you cannot remove.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, you know, we, we talk every conversation we have now seems to be talking about AI. Um, and having said that AI hasn't run a single thing for me that I didn't have to touch. Um, it can help get things started. Which is great. And maybe, and I'm sure at some point in time, it's going to be able to run, we'll say 80 percent of operations.
But right now, I mean, we're still a ways away from that. And even when we get to that point, somebody is going to have to understand how to leverage it, how to use it. It's going to take real experts in artificial intelligence to, to maximize it. Um, so it's not taking anyone's jobs quite yet.
Leighann Lovely: [00:27:00] No.
Ryan Jaso: Um.
Leighann Lovely: It, it never will.
Yeah. It's just going to
Ryan Jaso: shift. We're
Leighann Lovely: going to shift. It's, if you go back to the days when everybody was coming, you know, like when I was a kid and everybody was all, and I can't tell you how they were feeling because I was a child, but I do remember all of this anger around the robots are going to be building the cars now.
The robots are taking over our job, blah, blah, blah. They didn't take over anybody's jobs. They just replaced the repetitive jobs and then more advanced, and I talk with my hands, more advanced positions came available, um, and, and because they still needed somebody to build the robot, they needed, still need somebody to program the robot.
Ryan Jaso: To fix the robot when it breaks.
Leighann Lovely: Fix the robot to get all of, it's going to be the same thing. with AI, it's just on a different level. It's now we need somebody to program [00:28:00] the AI. We need somebody to, and AI does, it doesn't just get intelligent on its own. You have to sit and teach it like, okay, here's my personality.
Now I'm going to type in like, this is how I would respond to this algorithm. This is how I would respond to this algorithm. This is how I, it takes time to teach it to be me. It's not just like, Oh, I'm going to plug in this stuff. This is who I am. You're going to go out and look at. No, it, it doesn't know my tone.
It doesn't know it. There is a huge process that that goes into, I guess, artificial intelligence is only as intelligent as the people who are programming it. And it's only as right as the information out there, but it's as confident as hell.
Ryan Jaso: I mean, Right? Say it
Leighann Lovely: wrong, say it strong. It's, it is, it is, and this is, somebody said this, it is confidently [00:29:00] inaccurate if the information that it is grabbing is inaccurate.
And so the human element and again, Ryan, how Inaccurate right now is social. How much fake media exists out there?
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, um, is it all of it? I, I have to figure that out. It's somewhere in between all of it and 50 percent of it. Somewhere in
Leighann Lovely: Right. So remember where AI is pulling, it's
Ryan Jaso: Gathering its information.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. So the more false information that exists The more false information that AI is going to go, Oh, wait, but this is on the web. You know, I just heard on somebody just posted so and so died. Okay, great. But is that real? Was that, did that come? I mean, I could, I could go on, on the internet right now and say, Wisconsin, the entire state just had a flash [00:30:00] fire and we all burnt.
But, you know, all the way up to the state lines, no other state was affected. I mean,
Ryan Jaso: I hope that knock on wood, that doesn't happen.
Leighann Lovely: No, no, you know, again, I could post that somewhere and people would go, really? Let me check and see if that's real. Of course it's not. But if I put it out there and then some AI jumps on that and goes, oh, yeah, did you hear?
Ryan Jaso: Doesn't realize that again, like we said, somewhere between 50 percent and 100 percent of the information that's being put put out there is false. And now we're building out, um, a platform through LB pro, um, where, where I can take over, uh, some, some processes and like, okay, well, this is only going to take about, uh, 2000 pictures.
And, you know, yeah. 100, 000 hours. Oh, all right. Um, we'll get right on that. So much. There's so much work [00:31:00] into making sure that it gets it right. So it's, it's really cool where things are going. And I, I know it's going to help if we leverage it, right. It's going to help us all bringing it back to sales in our sales processes and our general processes.
But ultimately, as you said, We as the consumer want to make sure that we're dealing with a person and dealing with a person who Is confident laying their head down on the pillow and can sleep at night where it comes back to what you said today, ethics, what you and Mike were talking about ethics. Um, and I know that that gets in our way of, of sales sometimes, but I know that ethics is just a huge portion of what I stand by.
Obviously it's what you stand by. Ultimately, I don't care how much money I make. It's all about how I make it, um, have to make it the right way. You know, it's a, someone always gives the [00:32:00] example, you know, if someone just gave you 10 million to do something like totally gross and totally. embarrassing.
Would you do it? I wouldn't because it's not about the money for me. It's about the journey and, and how I built that, how I made the money. Yes. Um, I'm, I'm pretty money hungry and pretty money motivated. Um, but not as motivated as I am to, to be able to look myself in the mirror.
Leighann Lovely: And that's, and that's what it comes down to is, um, and most entrepreneurs start out on the journey of saying, I wanna do this right?
I wanna do this ethically and morally. And I think that, I mean, that is the, the intent. Unfortunately, sometimes the intent gets swallowed up somewhere along that journey. Um, for some, but. I want to work with people who have that [00:33:00] same vision and, and I want to change, you know, when people hear that, oh, you're a sales professional, ugh, I'm like, what, what does that mean?
I'm like, how about if I said, I am a connector. I help people sell and make money for their business because ultimately all entrepreneurs should. They should be money hungry. If you're going into a business and you're like, I don't really need to make money. Well, sorry, you're going to fail.
Ryan Jaso: We have to make money.
We want to grow this business. We have no choice if we want to be able to pay employees. And that's what's cool. Um, being able to give our team members better lives and their families, better lives. Um, yeah, it's, uh, I am, I'm curious. I want to ask you, and I don't know how much time, much time we have left, but who are.
Who are the people that you're working with and want to work with? I want to hear that [00:34:00] clientele.
Leighann Lovely: You know, um, I, I love to work with small to midsize businesses that are looking to grow that want their ultimate plan is Leanne. I want to work with you right now for the long haul because we have the ability.
To plug them into some of the most amazing tools at a ridiculously low price in the beginning that will scale with their business. For to the point where they could be a billion dollar company and the tool that we offer them grows with them and they
Ryan Jaso: almost on day one. Yeah, that's that's wild. Right,
Leighann Lovely: right.
On day one, they get set up the proper way in a system that can just right now can just. How's their contacts and then in the next stage, they can roll in all of [00:35:00] their different systems. It connects.
Ryan Jaso: That's not, that's Liam, that's not just QuickBooks desktop.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, it's just, yeah, we just run everything on QuickBooks desktops and you know, we pretty much sell that.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. That's probably what, you know, 80 percent of our clientele is still doing.
Leighann Lovely: And, and that's, we've, we've created this model so that. It can plug into almost every other system. We have an open API, we have Zapier that plugs into it. There are some systems that, you know, we can't necessarily just literally plug in.
There has to be a build out, but it's possible. It's possible with almost any other system. And that's, that's the point. Is that, okay, well down the line I might buy this software. And we have the capabilities, as long as that other software has the capabilities to plug into it. And that's, that's the point, [00:36:00] is that they're not going to in 10 years go, oh, or in 5 years go, well now I need to change my, my main, you know, CRM, my CRE system, because it doesn't talk with this other software that I need to buy in order to run my business.
Ryan Jaso: Yeah, Zapier's a pretty powerful tool. That's pretty, it's pretty cool what's happening. And, and obviously you have all in one solutions out there, but there's never going to be an all in one solution. Um, like I just got a, I got a flyer from Zoho and I'd like seen Zoho. I never had any idea what they did.
You know, they've got like five, apparently pretty robust platforms, which is cool.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Ryan Jaso: But you're still going to have to connect others specific to your industry. So
Leighann Lovely: I
Ryan Jaso: think, you know, that connection, what, what Zapier has been building and how that thing has grown in the past five, five, six years, when I first got introduced to it compared to where it is now is, is why it, um, I it's, it's amazing.
We've never [00:37:00] seen a curve like this on the technology side of things. And if. All of us who own companies or are in sales are not taking advantage and pushing the technology envelope at every turn. We are missing out. We're missing out.
Leighann Lovely: Well, we're not only missing out, but we will be, um, we will be obsolete because there are companies popping up all the time who are pushing that envelope.
And eventually if you're not. You're going to be the blockbuster of the world that just didn't shift enough. So you have to continue to move with the times. So with that being
Ryan Jaso: like you and Mike, we're talking about, I mean, the only constant is change.
Leighann Lovely: Oh, absolutely. The only, and, and I got, I have a funny story about that.
Um, early on in my career, and this will be really [00:38:00] quick. Um, I could not deal with change. I was really, so I told my boss one day, I'm going to just glue my desk or my, my chair to the floor so that you can't the next day I came in and she had completely moved my desk to a total different cube. And I was like, Oh my god.
And over the next six months, she would do this to me every, like, six weeks. And that is how I got out of this, like, I, I mean, I, I got to the point where I would tape my stuff down when I knew the cleaning company was coming, because they would move stuff, and I was so, like, but I had a boss who was like, no, you, you have to learn, like, that, and that job, that boss.
literally got me to a point where I was like, I, okay, I'm good. I can deal with change now. Okay. Sorry. I digress. No, that's
Ryan Jaso: so good that you had somebody there to get you out of your comfort zone. [00:39:00] And push you to this whole other level and get to the mentorship. Like that's what you got to find. Find that person who's going to push you.
Um, I think that's just a really, really cool story and, and just a great one. You know, I, I realized we didn't exactly get to landscape lighting sale. Maybe that's another, maybe that's a conversation for another time, but like, I'm so intrigued. With what you're, you're building, um, I want to make sure that you got to pump your own tires too, because you probably don't, don't get to do that very often.
Leighann Lovely: No, I don't typically have somebody take over the interview and pretty much just, uh, you know, ask me questions, but Ryan, this is the opportunity where you get your shameless 30 second pitch. So please.
Ryan Jaso: I get a shameless pitch.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah.
Ryan Jaso: So, you know, my first initial reaction to that is I'm going to take the, the Bernie Madoff approach.
Have you ever, have you seen the, the H, I think it's the HBO special where Richard Dreyfuss played Bernie Madoff. [00:40:00] And they're, they're in a conversation, um, at a country club with this big hedge fund provider. And he's staring this guy in the eye. And the provider's like waiting for Bernie to, to give him his pitch.
And Bernie's just staring at him. He goes, I don't pitch. Like, you, you know, I just, that's, I don't pitch. You got to talk first. Um, that was that was my initial reaction to the to the 32nd shameless pitch. The one you know, the one thing I'll say about about my company, um, is that there's not there's not anybody who installs landscape lighting or designs landscape lighting that we can't help.
And that's not just confidence on my part. It's understanding All of the things that we provide all of the solutions that we provide, whether it be products, whether it be programs, whether it be expertise, [00:41:00] I've got almost 300 years of combined expertise on my little team of 20, um, whether it just be the pricing availability of something, finding this, this part, um, there's, there's nothing that we can't help with.
It doesn't mean that it. We're necessarily going to be valuable for every single thing that you need, but there's something there's something that lighting boss can provide that's going to help you grow your business. That's what you do. That's what I do. I try to help people grow their businesses, even if that's just sort of seamless transactions so that they can move on.
and focus on other things. So, like, I would highly recommend if putting landscape lighting in the ground is something that you do, give us a call and let my team prove that.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, and, and I'm going to add to this, um, because I now know two of your clients. Um, [00:42:00] I may know a third, well, I might, I might know a third.
Anyways, um, the The way that your clients speak about you and talk about your product is just, I mean, they basically say like, this is the greatest thing that I've ever had. You can literally plug in, take pictures. It, it helps design. It shows what products are available. The inventory that's available creates a proposal.
I mean, it, it sounds like it personally, I haven't used it cause I'm not in the lighting industry, but from, from what. I hear you, it sounds like your product is absolutely brilliant for the industry. So,
Ryan Jaso: and that's just one of the dozen ways that particular product is just, you know, one of many ways that we can be helpful to people.
But yeah, I appreciate you saying that because that, that particular product is my baby. Um, [00:43:00] and I, because I said, I focus on efficiencies.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Ryan Jaso: That's what that program is about, allowing these people to be efficient with their time and close sales quickly and install the jobs quickly. And it's, it's, it's cool to hear, uh, other people see that vision.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's a rarity when you have You know, something that is that efficient, that quick, that, you know, you hear from multiple people that like, yeah, hey, this is, this is the major player in my industry, and I went, okay, well, when you say major player, I, I want to, I want to know the person, I want to meet the person.
So. All right. Well, Ryan, hey, thank you so very, very much for joining me today. This has been an awesome conversation. And yes, let's maybe schedule another time where we can actually talk, you know, the A to Z sales process for outdoor lighting professionals. Um, you know, again, and, uh, again, thank you.
Ryan Jaso: I'd [00:44:00] love that.
Thanks, Leighann. I had fun.

Unraveling Sales Mysteries with AI

In this engaging episode of Love Your Sales, Leighann Lovely interviews Gillian Utesch, the founder of Broken Glass Ceiling Marketing. They delve into the transformative power of AI in modern business, exploring its role in automating mundane tasks and enhancing human connections. Gillian shares her journey from a traditional marketing career to becoming an accidental AI enthusiast, emphasizing how AI has allowed her to focus on what she loves and connect more deeply with clients. Leighann and Gillian also discuss the common fears surrounding AI and how it can actually free up time for more meaningful interactions. This episode is a compelling exploration of how embracing AI can lead to greater efficiency, innovation, and personal fulfillment in business.
 
Contact Gillian
Email - gillian@brokenglassceilingmarketing.com
Website – www.brokenglassceilingmarketing.com 
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gumoney/
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 
Leighann Lovely: This podcast is presented by Genhead. Genhead leverages AI so small and medium sized businesses can find their ideal clients to make more sales. Other companies talk about AI, but we are using it every day to drive down marketing costs and increase revenue. Learn more at genhead. com. That's genhead. com. 
Another episode of love yoUr sales today.
Leighann Lovely: I am joined by Jillian Utesh. Jillian is the owner and founder, of Broken Glass Ceiling Marketing. I'm thrilled to have her. Jillian is an entrepreneur, accidental AI enthusiast, and a visionary behind Broken Glass Ceiling Marketing.
With a career spanning two decades in marketing, she built a reputation for her innovation. Innovative approach to [00:02:00] create connections in a digital world. Her story is one of reinvention and resilience. After realizing the traditional rules of business didn't work for her, Jillian built a company that tackles the tasks most of us dread.
Oh yes. Most of us dread, uh, data mining, outreach, and engagement. So entrepreneurs can focus on what they love. Her work combines. Cutting edge AI technology with the timeless power of human storytelling, providing that the future of marketing is both innovative and deeply personal. And I absolutely love that.
Obviously, as you know, me and my company also are very into that. So I'm excited to have this conversation, Gillian, about, you know, your story and, uh, you know, your career. So welcome to the show.
Gillian Utesch: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to share my journey along with the destination I've accidentally arrived at and hopefully it resonates and helps someone else.
Leighann Lovely: [00:03:00] Yeah, absolutely. And so tell me where, you know, I, the first question I always want to ask an entrepreneur is why, what made you, drove you, led you into starting, you know, this journey.
Gillian Utesch: It was kind of multifaceted. I did not sit down and say, what do I want to do? I want to be an entrepreneur and I want to do that.
Via a software as a service company, there was not that much linear thought put into it at all. I simply followed my heart that was driving me away from things I didn't want to do. I wanted to focus my day and that's, that's as, as detailed as the original business plan was. My heart is drawing me away from things I don't want to do.
And so then as time went on, I realized what those tasks were, and that was kind of phase one. And then phase two was, oh golly gee, I don't [00:04:00] want to do these tasks. And then phase three was, how can I do them differently?
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And you know, when we're driven by our heart's desire, I think that we, we go in full blown passionate about it.
And there's no stopping us. Absolutely. I mean, passion drives the true success, you know, of, of entrepreneurs. You know, I couldn't run a business, that I did not truly believe in and nobody can run a business. I don't think that they truly don't believe in. And when you find that sweet spot of like, wow, now I'm, now I'm doing something I'm passionate about and it's helping somebody.
Gillian Utesch: Wow. That feels good, right?
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. That feels really good. Yeah. When I get that call or that text or that email from a client, that's like, Oh my gosh, do you know what just happened? Like I, and I remember the first time that one of my clients text me and said, I've [00:05:00] increased my sales or I'm getting, I'm actually getting.
leads from my marketing. Like I'm, I have, I had somebody from New York buy my product and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's, that's amazing. And I'm like, so it's, it's working the way that we wanted it to work, you know? And for me, I'm like, well, that's, that's what it's supposed to do. And, but for them, they're like, how are they finding me?
What is, what are we doing? And it's like, well, this is, this is. What it's supposed to be doing, but you, I mean, the first time that that happened, I kind of went, Oh my gosh, why was I ever afraid to do this? Because of course it works if you do it, right? So let's talk about you. Let's talk about your business.
Let's talk about after you figured out what you wanted to do. Where, where did you start? Where did it go from there?
Gillian Utesch: I still struggle to [00:06:00] identify as a software as a service company because I never consciously set out on that plan. My conscious plan. Once I realized the 3 things I kind of shared at the beginning, I thought, okay, how can I do these to get to where I want to go, which in that moment it was.
Rebuilding my marketing company. I had a great career, a great opportunity with marketing, loved my, loved my clients, loved my interactions. But what was most beautiful about it was I got to spend my days actually doing the work of the work because over time I had. Accumulated referrals, I'd accumulated longstanding clients, so I didn't have to datamine.
I didn't have to cold call. I didn't have to send seven emails to get a conversation. All I had to do was pick up the phone and go, Hey girl, how's it been? How's your baby doing? Oh, I know your dog was in the vet. Now let's talk about your project and your timeline for next month. That's how I like doing business and so realizing that there was a big gap between [00:07:00] where I was in 2021 and where I'd been in 2020, realizing that gap and then realizing that I don't want to do these tasks because it just, it felt visceral is the only word I can think of.
I realized, okay. My clients have scattered to the four corners of the earth. They're working from a hammock in Haiti. I can't just meet them at Starbucks to network. I can't just, I can't rebuild how I rebuilt after oh eight. And it took me a while to come to that realization. Then it took me a while to come to the realization that I don't want to do what I.
Now need to do that's different. And then it was golly, gee, what do I do? Because AI wasn't really a thing. Then we didn't have chat GPT. We didn't have open AI. It was essentially a fidget spinner that we couldn't see. And that's exactly the amount of credibility I gave it. Why would I ever use technology or this fidget spinner to do this kind of work?
It's not going to have a human touch. It's not going to be creative [00:08:00] storytelling. It's going to feel icky. It's just not going to work. And it wasn't a moment. Of absolute just desperation back against a wall. I had nowhere to go, but down. So I was like, well, you know, let's give it a go and see if it'll work.
And then fast forward about 18 months. Our latest tool has been online over the last 9 months has been open for public subscription. Hearing your story, talk about how your services, your products, your business can change people's lives. I never thought building something like this beyond just business development, but we've had folks use it to get jobs.
We've had them because they were sending in 3000 resumes that were all getting kicked back from AI. And they were using this to reach out, engage and network. With people at businesses that they actually wanted to work at. And so when a job came up, it's, Oh, Hey buddy, go, go ask Kevin. He's got the rec on that.
So that has been a very unexpected benefit of a very unexpected journey.
Leighann Lovely: That's [00:09:00] amazing. So, you know, and it's, and it's funny, your, your bio that I, you know, just read to introduce you accidental AI enthusiast. So now you're, you're in it, you're discovering what AI has the ability to do. And, and in many, in some circles, This is a very controversial topic, like, Oh, AI is going to take over the world, you know, it's going to take my job.
We've all, we've heard all of this before. You know, back in, in the days that, you know, my dad was working and I'm growing up and you hear that, oh, they're, they're creating robots to do our jobs. Which now, you know, we have robots. All over in manufacturing that are doing, you know, the mundane tasks, and it never eliminated people's jobs.
It just created more jobs of people who had to design the robots and better paying jobs. And so we hear the same thing now happening today is, Oh, my God, AI is going to [00:10:00] take over the world's going to take my job. I'm no longer. It's not true, in my opinion, because AI is only as smart as the person who's programming it and telling it to you.
You know, what to do, how to do it, what algorithms to look at, you know, what information, how to read that information, you know, until somebody actually plugs in a real brain that allows it to think for itself. I'm not afraid of it. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not one of those doomsdayers with like, well, one day it's going to learn how to think for it.
Every single thing that it does, somebody has to program behind the scenes in order for it to work, right? Yeah. So let's I love talking about AI. I think a lot of people out there like talking about AI on the other side of the fence of who aren't afraid of it yet or aren't not yet who aren't afraid of it.
But so let's talk a little bit more about specifics in what, you know, why And how you [00:11:00] accidentally fell in love with this through your journey and how it specifically is able to help in BizDev.
Gillian Utesch: I love that you start with fear because that is the number one, if I am talking to someone in line at Starbucks, my aunt Sally, or even a business, a fellow business owner, fear is always the first word I hear when they think about AI.
And I think that's for a couple reasons. It's. Invisible to us. It's zeros and ones that are floating around around us. So that alone makes it okay. Fear of the unknown. I can't physically see this. I can't physically put it in a cage if it gets crazy. So I think there's that just human fundamental, um, interaction part of it.
But then there is also, yes. The fear of it's going to take my job. It's going to take over the world. And I love the analogy that you use bringing it back to robotics because that's a that's a big kind of line is is [00:12:00] I think there's a big line between AI and robotics. Those are 2 very separate. We could go on, but you really did a great job blending them and saying that we're not trying to take people's jobs.
We're trying to allow people the time and bandwidth to do what is unique to them. Now, I'm not saying that putting a car tire, putting a tire on a car on the assembly line is not a unique thing, but I do hold in my heart that that person is given the chance and opportunity could give a bigger gift to the world.
And it's very similar to that with AI and not to, not to say it in a, in a weird way, but
Gillian Utesch: I have realized I've been able to give a lot more to the world because I was historically coming home from work, exhausted, and I felt satisfied with that exhaustion because I had worked all day, I'd eaten lunch at my desk, I'd cut my bathroom breaks down to 90 seconds.
I had truly worked everything I had, Not realizing I hadn't worked everything I [00:13:00] had because 20 percent of what I had done, I didn't need to do. It wasn't unique to my, to my human talent. So what could I have done with that 20 percent capacity if I wasn't using it for essential but repetitive mundane tasks?
So once I realized, and that was never the agenda. When I was kind of making my pros and cons list of, okay, how do I move forward from here? How do I, how do I rebuild after COVID? Never once did I put on my paper, I want to have more mental bandwidth so that I can be an even better version of myself. And it seems a little odd to say in one sentence, we're going to use technology.
Especially an invisible technology that in my situation acts as a digital version, a digital replica of ourselves. I'm going to use this to be a better human. It just, that part really has a disconnect for people, but it's 100 percent true.
Leighann Lovely: Well, it is. And here's, here's a perfect. So I have an Alexa. I don't want to [00:14:00] say that too loud.
She'll start talking to me, but I have, you know, I have that in my house, right? And here's just a simple example of how much more efficient we are as a family with having that in my house. Now, some people are diehard against that. They're like, Oh, you know what? She's listening to everything we say. She knows everything.
You know, every time we talk about, Okay. X, Y, Z, then I get an advertise on my phone. Okay, well, yes, so there is, there's that, and it's creepy and I don't like it, but it is, it's the way of the world. You know, if I search on my phone for a bicycle, all of a sudden I get advertisements for bicycles. Yes, that's a real thing.
It's an algorithm that once you've searched something, all of a sudden it's picked up somewhere. And now I'm getting ads for Can I, can I overcome that? Sure. I can look on incognito every time I look on my phone. Right. But I do have in my house. So when I, when my husband and I are flitting around the kitchen, I don't have a grocery list that I write things down.
I tell Alexa, I'm saying that quietly so [00:15:00] that she doesn't start talking to me. I tell her to put something on the grocery list. Right. And then I If my husband needs to stop at the store, he can look up on that app really quick of all of the other things that we need and pick them up. He doesn't have to go, can you take a picture of the grocery list so that I know what else we have.
It is, it makes my life so much easier. That is technology that is being used all, like, all the time. If I tell her to turn on the lights, she can turn on the lights that are connected to her in my house. That's just a small piece of technology that's making people's lives more efficient and easier.
Now, I know people on the other side of the, of, you know, the fence who are like, Absolutely, never have it in my house, won't. We've all seen the horror movies now that are coming out with, you know, the AI people or the AI technology. Yes, there's always a worst case scenario and the truth somewhere in the middle.
On how more efficient [00:16:00] we can become as a society and we have seen this coming on from the day that I got my first cell phone and I'll date myself and age myself now because I was like 19 19 years old when I got my first and it was like a brick, you know, the big huge phone where you're like, yeah, I got my cell.
I have to buy a bigger purse in order to carry it. But that the technology is just yeah. It's ever evolving, and that's the way it's supposed to be. As a society, this is just the next step. And by the time my children, my child, I don't have, I have one. By the time my child is my age, I mean, I'm gonna guess that her entire house is going to be Walk into a room and the lights will go on.
That already exists. It's just not for the general. We now have electrical cars. There's going to come a time where those electrical cars you just literally get into and they're going to be smart to who's in the car based on the smell, weight, what, I don't know. The [00:17:00] point being is that in a world where we're constantly running from one end to the next all the time, And we created this world, by the way, efficiencies are a gift.
They're absolutely a gift that we can, if we can give it to somebody to say, Hey, this will cut down two hours of having to type up an email because you can now just say, Hey, whatever that tool is called, please compose an email to so and so based on our previous communication. And that can look at that and see the style of communication we have, the tone of communication we've had in the past, and it can appropriately do that in a matter of the snap of a finger.
How much more efficient would we be?
Gillian Utesch: When you talk about efficiency, that makes me think about time.
Leighann Lovely: Yes.
Gillian Utesch: And when we come back to, and I [00:18:00] say come back to because, Oddly, through my AI journey, I have come back to so many basic things. Come back to basic as in your network, and it's all in who you know. It's not about how many times you post, and do you post at the exact magical times for each platform, and does your content have this exact set of magical words that tickle the left brain of this person, the right brain of this person.
That's not it at all.
Gillian Utesch: It is completely back to basics and with the efficiency comes time. If someone said, Hey, you can have a million dollars, but you have a week to live. Wow, no one's going to pick the money because it life is so much more than that. And that just resonates back to as driven as we are as a society, especially here in the U.
Everyone would still pick time. So starting from that very basic, that very basic feeling. It makes sense that we would choose time in our day over the fear of [00:19:00] something that we don't understand or that we can't see. And so I have loved embracing the journey and learning just from the examples that you gave.
But then on the AI side, how can these take, how can AI take tasks off my plate that give me time to either spend with my family? Right. Or time to simply think, and these weren't luxuries that we had before. The luxury of taking time to, I would never have blocked off time on my calendar time to think, you just don't do that.
And like you would've, I would. You would've chased me with a butterfly net if I'd done that. And so, but now it has naturally progressed to that. And with that has been the very. unexpected results of, wow, what can I do as a human? What greater impact can I have by utilizing these tools that aren't super scary?
Leighann Lovely: Right, right. And, and time has become, we've, to your point, time has become such a finite thing these days that, and you're [00:20:00] right, if any, we're trying to, even employers are trying to shove more work down people's throats in less time. That's not the way to live, but being more efficient in the time is.
And the more stuff, and again, being a company who is again, all about creating processes for automation of what can we eliminate from the daily tasks that are mundane, that are repeatable, that you literally can just automate and be like, yeah, we, that process is no longer has to be manually done, gives somebody back their time.
Now. The human element of this is take that time to yourself. Don't try to shove another task in there.
Gillian Utesch: What I think too, I'm so glad you brought that up. That enters the second fear that people have with AI. The first fear is, Oh, I can't see it. I can't [00:21:00] feel it. It's going to take over the world, take over my job.
The second fear is. An expansion on the first one. Oh, gosh, is it going to take over my job? And now I'm going to have to do something better. I'm going to have to rise to the occasion to come up with truly unique ideas. And I think that realization scares people more than the fear of AI taking over.
Leighann Lovely: But the right people, the people who truly want to embrace this, that fear, that's, that's not even a fear that would enter my mind is thinking, Oh my gosh, like this can help trigger so many more brilliant ideas. If utilized in the proper way, but I agree with you, those who like to sit and I like to put people in the in different buckets, you have the people who just they go to work to make a paycheck, they don't have any interest whatsoever in what [00:22:00] they do.
It's just a job. They show up. They do their job, don't care necessarily about how well, it's literally the paycheck, right? They're punching in, they're punching out, they're going home. Then you have the people who, you know, they're, they're early usually in their career. They want to suck up all of the information.
They're still navigating and they're, they're interested. And then you have the, that, that, those people who rise to the top. And those are the, you know, the one percenters, the few, the few, you know, I usually, you see them. very quickly climb up that ladder. Usually at some point start talking about like the entrepreneurial journey, the, those are the ones who are like, are embracing.
Any and every change, rolling with it, learning, the life learners, the ones who really, those are the ones who, that fear doesn't exist within them, because they're like, what's next? [00:23:00] I can't wait to take it on. I, I really am excited about this. You know, those, the people in the middle are like, yeah, I'm excited about it, but you know, what, what, what ifs?
And they question it. We need every single one of those people. Absolutely, positively, we need them all. We need the skeptics. We didn't have the skeptics. They would be like, Oh, we're just going to run with everything. Okay. Well, we, we, we need, we need to balance this out a little bit because it would be chaos if everybody was just like, yeah, let's just jump in, you know, every single time, but those, we have those groups of people who are like, yeah, let's absolutely take on.
And I forgot the point of this, but, Yeah. The lifelong learners, there, there isn't, there's not the fee, because they take the time to educate themselves. And when there is an unknown, they try to discover all there is about that unknown, and then they'll try it. And they'll continue to try [00:24:00] and continue to learn.
And that's why I don't, I don't have that fear
because I educate myself.
Gillian Utesch: I'm glad you mentioned educate because there is so much knowledge and misknowledge, we'll say, about AI, what it can do, where it's going, and it changes very quickly. Even though I'm in the field and I try to stay hip on it, there's a lot changing. And it's so, I am not, I did not build my software.
I built the idea of my software and I designed it in Canva and I then gave it to someone and said, make this picture a sandcastle so I can see how that, how that can kind of correspond. But I forgot where I was going now, my ADD kicked in. I used to keep a whiteboard on my computer so I could quickly jot stuff down to keep my, to keep my thought process in.
Oh, I, I have, I have lists.
Leighann Lovely: You should see this desk. There's there's it's covered. [00:25:00] It's absolutely covered with lists upon lists upon lists. But you create, you created the idea. And that's all it takes, Jillian, is that there's somebody out there who has that sparked with the idea of what could be. And then somebody smart enough to build it.
But now I have the question here. You, you built it. You've
Gillian Utesch: accidentally,
Leighann Lovely: accidentally. You built it based on what you didn't want to have to do anymore.
Gillian Utesch: There were tasks. I knew were necessary, but I did not, did not, could not make myself do them. And as I drug my heels along month after month, my business just continued to just spiral down, spiral down until it was finally at the bottom.
And I started looking at AI was, was very, very new. It was very kind of underground at the time. I felt like it was the [00:26:00] verge of the floppy disk. Like, Oh, you can save something and take it to another computer. Like it was that alien to me. And. All this, all the offerings I found, they just did not feel like me.
They felt cringey. It didn't feel authentic to how I would do that task as a human, and I would, that then left me still at the same impasse. I didn't wanna do it myself, and I didn't wanna use these tools to do it either. Well, now what? Now? Now, where do you go? Okay, if I had a wand and I could fix this, what would it look like?
 I can't. Take my phone and stream to my apple TV. I am not techie, but I knew the problems I had. I knew how I wanted to construct the solution. I then just needed a partner who could build that. And that kind of comes back to the human connection. It took both of us to work together with our individual human uniqueness to build this software to do this task.
It wasn't something that I just did. All by myself.
Leighann Lovely: Right. And [00:27:00] that's where it, this all ties back to the human, the human condition, this thing that we're seeing all desperately trying to grasp onto, right? Is that I can sit in this room that I'm sitting in right now in my home office. I'm completely alone in my home office, but I can connect to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world if I wanted to, not all at one time, but I can connect my desperate desires to connect with humans is to be.
And because of the world after COVID, after all of that, we were so separated. And, you know, the human condition is that we need other humans. But there's a lot of stuff that we don't necessarily need, and that's what we get through these tools.
Gillian Utesch: There's a lot of steps in between connecting. Right. It is [00:28:00] not just walking into the Starbucks anymore.
There's a lot of steps from Raleigh, North Carolina to Haiti, or to, you know, South Africa. I thought I had a very strong network because I could fit, it goes back to the seen and unseen. I could physically see them. I could meet them at conferences. I had a strong network. If I was going to play Red Rover, I could see who was on my team and I knew we were going to win.
Translate that to a virtual network. It's a little bit difficult to know exactly. Okay, who is here? What is their skill set? How can we go together? But that's where the connection comes and having the free time in your schedule and the mental bandwidth to really and truly invest in those relationships versus using your time to invest in scrolling for hours or cutting and pasting for hours.
It is. It remains this. I live in. I find myself kind of in awe that utilizing technology and technology as polarizing as AI can [00:29:00] actually create such a stronger human to human interaction.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, and you said something that everybody else right now is going, well, how does AI do that? How do I have a , stronger human connection with AI?
Gillian Utesch: It takes out the noise, and it reduces the timeline.
Gillian Utesch: So in a relationship, there's both people. And even if there was no AI, and you were a person who was number one top on your game, which none of us are, at least not every day, then you're also depending on the person you're trying to connect with to be 100 percent on their game.
That's an even stronger stretch. Now we want an even larger number of folks to kind of be these A plus humans, which is exhausting. So in that timeline, yeah, I may not check my email. for three or four days because I'm just tired, or, oh, I may not respond to that LinkedIn message. I just don't want to. When you multiply that over your life, how much time was lost in those transactions?
Whereas utilizing avatars to do the logical next step in a very [00:30:00] sequential and efficient order leads us to the part no human would put off the opportunity to talk face to face with someone. They, you want, that's what we crave to do. We are supposed to live in packs. We're supposed to engage with each other.
This isn't a task that you want to procrastinate, but golly gee, if you tell me, okay, it's the numbers game, which we know it is. If you said, okay, Jillian, you need to reach out to a thousand people on LinkedIn if you want 10 of them to respond to you. Oh, but if you said you have 10 people every month that are new, that want to talk to you, that sounds super exciting because the noise is out of that statement and the time it took a month to get there, not three months to get there.
Leighann Lovely: That's the exact explanation that I was hoping to hear is that, you know, this isn't a, Hey, I'm going to send my avatar out there and just spam everybody. No, it's going to go out there and identify the right people to have the right conversations with in order to, and it's going to remove that part [00:31:00] where I'm trying to figure out who is the right person.
Who is the. But it's going to lead me to eventually having that real interaction with the right person at the right time for both of us.
Gillian Utesch: Yeah. And I'm glad you said both that has been when I was going through COVID was a very, I didn't realize it, but it was a very transformative time for me and kind of like growing my business.
I didn't know I was going through the transformation as it was happening. I just knew when I arrived at the end, Oh, wow, I'm a different butterfly than I went in. Same thing with my business. Oh, I'm a different business than, than what I started out to be. And so that's kind of been interesting, but I realized in COVID that I'm really an introvert.
Which was shocking to me and everyone, because I lived this persona. I said, okay, I'm in sales and marketing. I have to put myself out there. I have to go to every wine and cheese night. I have to do this. Even though it was just emotionally. Now I like people, but it was still emotionally draining for me.
Right? And so having that [00:32:00] detox with Covid, I. And many other very similar things like that. I realized who I was because I could be myself with no outside influence, no outside judgment. I just organically became the shape of clay I wanted to be versus the shape of clay that the pressure of the world around me was pushing me into.
And so with that came purpose. I didn't know to what capacity that purpose would be, but I knew I wanted all of my choices to be. Um, and so I wanted to be able to have purpose in them and to be something that really reflected my heart and what I wanted to do. And so kind of using those as my drivers, I wanted to have connection with people.
I wanted to connect people together. That is another thing I love. I love being the person who, Oh, I got a guy. Oh, I know somebody. Oh, I've got the best. I love off. I love. That's like my honest, unofficial role in the world. I'm sorry, my unofficial role in the world. I love to provide that, but not having a virtual network, I wasn't able to do that.
So that was a part of my love cup, my personal love cup, [00:33:00] that wasn't filled because I wasn't able to do that for others. So utilizing AI and our AI avatars to help me get back in that arena, that has been huge in fulfilling my human, my human love cup in connecting and connecting people.
Leighann Lovely: That's that's so I love when I hear you know that those types of stories like it's just it's amazing and and and I agree like I my digital network has and understand that I started on LinkedIn from.
Like the days of like, Oh my God, LinkedIn is brand new when, when you actually, this is, this is hilarious. We used to have parties called LinkedIn parties. And the whole purpose of this was to go to introduce yourself to people. And then at the end, you'd be like, all right, so we should connect on LinkedIn.
Right. And that was like, so you had to meet people in person and then it was, so let's connect on LinkedIn. So we didn't just randomly reach out to people on LinkedIn. We met [00:34:00] them first, then connected. It seems kind of backwards now, doesn't it? But this was the day, yes, right. But this was like LinkedIn was brand, brand, brand, brand, brand new.
So my network. I have a very large, you know, network on LinkedIn and, you know, some of those connections go back to like day one of like when LinkedIn just, and I'm still in contact with them and it's, it's funny to think like, Oh my God, we've met in person, but that was like, so again, I'm dating myself anyways, that, but I love, I love, you know, what you just said that was just so well, Put and we are coming to time.
Leighann Lovely: So I, I do want to offer you the opportunity for your 32nd shameless pitch. Because I do with everybody, but Jillian, this has been such an awesome conversation. I can see the passion. I can hear the passion in your voice and, um, yeah, so 32nd. [00:35:00]
Gillian Utesch: I first thank you for letting me come on and share this journey because I, I live, I'm realizing I'm not unique.
I'm not special. If I've gone on this journey or someone else is maybe thinking about going on this journey, I'm glad that I could share this to maybe motivate and inspire them to say, it's okay. Come on over to the AI side. The water's not cold. There's no sharks. It'll be okay. The music's playing. I just, I love that.
I also want to invite anyone to check out our YouTube channel, brokenglassceilingmarketing. com. I like, I'm nosy because I'm a southern girl and I like to know how things work, how they go together. So I do a lot of loom videos showing how we construct our avatars, how our avatars interact as your digital footprint so that folks can see that and kind of get a better, because it's, it's, it's interesting.
I say, okay, we're going to build an invisible, an invisible version of you. Put them out on the internet and let them go make friends for you. That sounds absolutely silly beans. So I like folks to see that so [00:36:00] they can feel confident. And also my personal website, JillianUtash. com, I talk about all kinds of crazy things, recipes, organizing things that I like, stories that I've met because we are a comp, we are a total of our connections.
So stories I've heard from my girlfriends and friends along the way that have helped shape me into the human. I like to feature those and talk about those as well.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. Again, Jillian, thank you so very, very, very much. I will have where you can reach out to Jillian on your show notes. So please don't hesitate to check the show notes for that information.
And again, this has been an amazing conversation.
Gillian Utesch: I loved it. Thank you.
 

Navigating Success and Setbacks in Business

In this episode of "Love Your Sales," host Leighann Lovely sits down with Mike Long, founder and lead designer of LightQuest, an outdoor illumination company. Mike shares his entrepreneurial journey, recalling the evolution of his businesses from lawn care to lighting, emphasizing the importance of a strong work ethic, adaptability, and passion. They discuss the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, such as constant change and the necessity of hiring smarter to grow effectively. Mike offers valuable advice on forging ahead despite difficulties and underscores the need for continuous learning and improvement. Tune in for an inspiring conversation packed with practical insights for budding entrepreneurs and seasoned business owners alike.
Contact Mike –
Website - https://calllightquest.com/
Email - mike@calllightquest.com
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-long-cold-clvlt-659b6959/
 
-Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com
-Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
-The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
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-Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. Today, I am joined by Mike Long. He is the founder and lead designer of LightQuest, an outdoor illumination company. Mike Long grew up in Southeastern Wisconsin and has been an entrepreneur most of his life. He started his first business in 1994 and has never looked back.
From 1997 to 2017, he was the founder and partner in a very [00:02:00] successful landscaping and lawn care company. And in 1998, one of his lawn care clients asked about landscape lighting. Mike has never. Looked back ever since he was hooked on that. And I am extremely excited because Mike, you have owned four successful businesses over the years and, and maybe more in there, as a serial entrepreneur, but, you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Mike Long: All right. Yeah. My name is Mike Long. So I started in lawn care. We actually started mowing in 1994. We started a mowing company, small landscape jobs, stuff like that. Built it up. Big enough that we could sell it and we did. Um, we wanted to learn the lawn care side of it, the spraying, the chemicals and all that stuff.
So we sold the company. We actually went to work for TruGreen for 2 seasons, learned that business, left, started our own company, and that's, that's, in 1997, that's the company we started, was, our first company was called Green Masters. [00:03:00] We built that up, you know. And in 2001, so literally 4 years, we had a national company wanting to buy us out.
So we sold to the Scott's Fertilizer Company in 2001. That's when Scott, you know, the big Scott's Fertilizer Company, they used to be in lawn care. They got started in this area, in Southeast Wisconsin, by buying our company. So then, the next day, they literally left with a floppy disk. That's all. They left with a floppy disk and they transferred a whole bunch of money to our account.
And we're like, hey, what are we So they left us in business, we went back to work the next day, and we started this professional lawn service. And we went to fertilizing commercial properties only because they didn't buy a commercial business. We built that up huge. We're doing a couple million dollars a year and just commercial business.
 Doing realizing, uh, stuff like that. We also started a landscaping company at the time because we had a 3 or 9 compete. Let's start a couple of different businesses and keep going.
Great journey, we brought some partners in. Um, [00:04:00] we've sold the landscaping company to 1 of our employees. A month before the 1st bank collapsed in 2009, so when the whole big economy, we literally lucked out timing wise, and we sold it a month before that., because a lot of those, a lot of those builders that we're doing work for actually went out of business.
Then once the solely focused on, uh, long care again. Built that up huge again and true green big national competitor was after us for a couple of years. It was no, we're not ready to sell and I'm ready to sell. So we ended up in South result was sold in August of 2017. And then I was full time in lighting the next day.
I started the lighting company a couple of years before that, just part time on the side while doing the lawn care. So I had some business already lined up, but, you know, I just, I just set little goals. So we sold August of 2017. I said, all right, I want to do 125, of work before the year. Guess what? We hit on 20, hours of work before the end of the year, then just kept building and building and building.
And now we're probably [00:05:00] 1 of the largest outdoor lighting companies in the area within a matter of. What was it? 7 years. There's a bunch of other stuff in the journey. We started the trucking company for a while that didn't work. We ended up just selling all the trucks because it was just so so we had a great thing going.
We had, we had 1st and 2nd shift drivers running and then. I'm going to point to Ocean Spray because our office is still over where we were, but Ocean Spray came in there and a new trucking company came in and took over that Ocean Spray contract. And within 1 day, he took all of our drivers to go to this huge national trucking company and we couldn't do anything about it.
So, that was the start of our downturn of what happened there and then you're fighting trying to find drivers and we're like, we're done. So, yeah, we lost all of our drivers, except for 1 in a matter of 24
Leighann Lovely: Oh, my God, that's bad luck.
Mike Long: That's just, it just, you only have more to offer as a bigger company and, you know, it is what it is.
It just, I get it. I wasn't happy about it, but I get it. It was, he saw an [00:06:00] opportunity that recruiter did and he took all of our drivers to make it. That hurts. That hurts. So
Leighann Lovely: that's the
Mike Long: joys of owning a business. You can figure out ways around it. And, um, that one, we just decided to not try to figure out a way around.
And we said, you know what, this is taking more time than we wanted to put into it anyways, but just shut it down. So we did. We shut it down and we sold. So that's one of the unsuccessful, things that we had throughout our successful career. So, yeah. Um, but that's that's a snapshot of what I've what I've gone through and what we built throughout the years.
 When I was going to going to college, I worked for a, a small towing company, learned a lot from that guy. Um, it was a company, a small towing company down in Zion. And he taught me a lot about small business, how to how to how to run employees. I was, I was running a whole bunch of towing operators during that time going to college.
He put me, he put me, he put me in charge of the, of the tow truck. He called me the towing supervisor. I knew nothing about it, but I was, he saw something in me. So, so he taught [00:07:00] me how to do this and we figured it out. That's what kind of gave me my entrepreneurial bug, I guess you could say.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, and you know, there's one thing that's consistent, , that I have found with people who become entrepreneurials or an entrepreneur.
 Once you get the bug, you can't, you, you don't really turn back. And if you do, it's,
it's very difficult for those, entrepreneurs. you know, that, that have no choice, I should say that, you know, they, but there are a lot of, um, there are a lot of people out there that once, once you step over that threshold, it's, it's hard to turn back, especially if you're good at it. And with somebody who's run now multiple businesses, sold businesses, I mean, it's, you're a lifer, you're, you're never going to, um, work for somebody else.
And that's awesome. That's so, are you also the salesperson within these businesses?
Mike Long: Yeah, in every business [00:08:00] I've started on this. Selling and you figure it out, um, and then you hire other people to sell and you help them figure it out. And, so now in the lighting company, I have 1 salesperson. I'm gonna bring another 1 on this, this, uh, probably next month.
Marker
Mike Long: To get me out of the sales operations, because we're big enough that I need to be just focusing on the vision and moving this beast forward. So I need to step away from that, which. I love sales. I love talking to customers. I love learning about customers and learning what they do and how they're successful.
That's going to hurt. I'll still be to go out with those 2 guys and still still kind of show them what to do. And so I'll still be involved in that by teaching and expanding that way. But I won't miss it when I have to get out of sales completely because I love being out there and. And really just feeling what's going on in the economy by talking to people and, you know, that helps you drive your business that way, too, by being out in the middle of it as well.
 He's got to get KPIs in place to be able to look at that from the [00:09:00] inside instead of being on the outside. So, but yeah, so we're in that process now in this company as well. So. Yeah. I've always thought.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. You know, and that's, I've seen plenty of people start businesses who are not salespeople and be successful at it, but people who are sales minded and start businesses, man, do they just really being able to have that business mindset and then start a business and be able to sell the product?
And. Understand the product and run the business to man, they just, they really skyrocket when you have both the operational mindset and the sales mindset, putting those two together is just a very powerful, powerful way to be able to enter in as a brand new business. Um, not saying that, not saying that you can't do that if you're not, you know, and depending on the product as well, but man, that's, that's a powerful.
It's a powerful force to be reckoned with when you have both that operational, ability and the sales ability. So [00:10:00] what do you think made you successful in your first business?
Mike Long: It's a work ethic. I, my dad taught me how to work and you work until you figure it out. Things aren't going to go well at all. Remember we, so let me explain our first year business in lawn care in 19, 1997. Of course, we started out in the springtime. We're doing great, selling all kinds of stuff, bought a couple new trucks.
Also, you know, what happens in Wisconsin in the wintertime, you can't fertilize any lawns. You can't, you can't. Well, you could try, but it's not going to go well. Oh, so we didn't make much money our first year at all. And then all of a sudden, you know, we have no revenue coming in at all. Like how are we going to pay our bills?
We have two, two wheel drive trucks. You can't plow it, but guess what? We figured out a way to plow them. We bought these big blocks of concrete, put them on the back of the truck. We bought eight, eight and a half foot plows for the front of them. So we had one ton duallys. And guess what? We figured out how to plow [00:11:00] and we got hired out by a couple of big landscapers that we worked for.
And guess what? We were able to pay our bills. He's figured out, you know, you just, you always, you always, you think you have things figured out until you don't have it figured out and you have to change and keep moving from there. Um, just again, that 1st year we're, we're, we thought we're going to sell.
And do all the applications and do all the bookkeeping and do all this stuff. Also, we're in the middle of springtime. We're trying to sell. We're trying to get the work done. We're like, we can't do all this. We're there's not enough hours in a day. So we had to hire our 1st technician to do lawn applications right away.
Our 1st spring. We weren't planning on doing that. So we had some payroll. We had to deal with. And so you just, you figure it out. That's and you, you, you just work. Remember over the winter time when snow wasn't happening guess what I was out delivering papers in the middle of the night just to be able to make our mortgage payment you do what you have to do.
So I'm up, [00:12:00] you know, four o'clock in the morning delivering newspapers and I go to work at seven o'clock in the morning to sell lawn care and you just figure things out. So, it's not. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. You have to, you have to work.
Leighann Lovely: It's, you know, I used to, when I, early on in my sales career, somebody told me, they're just like, you just fake it until you make it.
And I'm like, yeah, but, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. When you go on your first sales call, if you make an error, Don't stop in the middle of your sales pitch and tell everybody you've made an error. They don't know. And I'm like, yeah, but, and they're like, no, they don't know. You just keep plowing through.
And then after the fact, if you know, they're like, well, what about this? You can simply say, I misspoke. Let me explain, but you don't call yourself out right then and there and it's like, [00:13:00] Oh, okay, okay. And, and that was so powerful when somebody explained it to me, you fake it till you make it like continue to push through.
And if you made it, make a mistake, don't stop, then fix it after the fact, because they don't know any different. And if they decide to say, no, I'm not interested. Okay, well, then, you know, as long as it's not a big error, like, oh, this is 49. 99, wait, no, I meant 499, okay, that might be an error in which you want to call, but the point being is that the majority of the time that we make little blips or we make a little tiny mistake, those are things that we can fix and we can move on.
But you don't necessarily have to call yourself out right in front of the prospect at that moment. When you're making cold calls, if you accidentally say the wrong thing, the majority of the time it's gone way over their head anyways. You just keep plowing through until you figure it out. You, and once [00:14:00] I learned that, oh gee, I'm human just like everybody else.
I make mistakes just like everybody else. Don't be so darn hard on yourself. Fake it till you make it, figure it out. And that's when all of a sudden my ability to sell went through the roof. Now I'm an ethical person, just like you. I'm a moral person, just like you. I'm not talking about like faking it and outright lie to people.
That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we are all human. We all make mistakes. And sometimes those are. tiny little things that, and if you just keep doing it over and over and over again, one day, all of the pieces will fall into place. And I will tell you as an entrepreneur or myself, I have made a billion and 10 mistakes.
I fixed them and I move on. And, and that's, I guess, a life lesson of somebody who's also, you know, recovering [00:15:00] perfectionist. It was difficult, it was difficult to learn that, but yeah, I mean, that's extremely, extremely good advice to, to, you know, somebody who is going to venture, I had to pay my accountant through the nose last year to fix my books.
I was like, what do you mean this isn't right? She's like, I have no idea what you did here, but like, okay, all right, I'll get better. So I don't end up having to pay you half of my wages next time to fix my accounting errors. But that is part of being human. It's part of being an entrepreneur.
Mike Long: And that's the key to always want, always willing to learn because there's, there's We first started our business, we had no idea about systems and processes and stuff like we didn't know that was such a thing.
And now I live by systems and processes. I don't even know how I even made it through those 1st couple years without having them in. You [00:16:00] learn, you keep, I'm always, I'm always listening to books, listening to podcasts, listening, you know, listening to this, you know, going to this seminar, that seminar, you have to continue to learn and improve.
If you want to continue to grow your business, because the same Mike that started, we were actually Mike's landscape lighting. We started 7 years ago. The same Mike that started Mike's landscape lighting is not the same Mike that is running Mike plus now. There's no possible way. We have. Way too many people in place and have systems in place in order to continue to grow and continue to do that.
Yes,
Leighann Lovely: my dad, my dad once said to me, um, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. You have to be this smart enough to hire somebody who is smarter than you to do the job. And I went, Oh, then I can do anything. Well, if you have enough money to do that, right? It that's true. You, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room.
You just have to be smart enough to know. That you don't know how to do something. It's like, Oh, [00:17:00] okay. So I don't have to be able to do everything myself, but I have to be self aware enough and smart enough to know that I can't do something or I will fail 10 times out of 10.
Mike Long: Yep. And give people the tools to have ownership of their position.
And to have, you know, key performance indicators, I talk about KPIs, have KPIs in place, you make sure you can see what they're doing and, and, and monetize what they're doing. And yeah, that's something that I'm still learning.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and we all are, we, we absolutely all are because if you. If your sales person is out there saying, I'm working 40 hours a week, but they're bringing absolutely no business in, um, how long do you allow that to go on before you say, wait, what are you doing 40 hours a week?
Mike Long: Mm-hmm . You have to know what everybody's doing. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. Same [00:18:00] thing with your accountant. If your accountant's saying, oh, I'm working, I'm working, I'm working, but your books are never getting fixed. You're, it goes for any, it goes for any role in a business. And that's, I mean, that's what it comes down to, is what does your bottom look like, bottom line look like, and what are the people around you doing in order to make sure that that all of those numbers are equaling each other, and at the end of the day, you are better off than you were.
you know, a month ago.
Mike Long: Yeah, I listened to a book. I think it's how to buy back your time. And he's been one thing that this author says, forgive me, you've got some order. He talks about having 80 percent done by somebody else is 100 percent better than you doing. Even if somebody else does it at 80 percent of what you could do, it's still 100 percent better than you doing it.
Yeah. Understand that it's not going to be perfect.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. If you're the person at the head, and, and I hate using that terminology because anyways, but I completely agree. [00:19:00] Like, and that's where I struggle. I'm like, I can do this in 10 minutes, whereas if I have to go train somebody and it takes them a half an hour, I'm like, Oh man, that's, that's, I struggle with that.
But you get to a point where it's like, yeah, but 10 minutes of my time doing all of these things eventually doesn't equal 40 hours a week. It's 80 hours a week and it's not, that's not sustainable
Mike Long: and
Leighann Lovely: you can't grow that way. And yeah, I know that I can do almost every job at my company. That's just, how do I grow if I'm trying to do every job at my company? And nobody will ever be as good at doing what I do because it's me, because I, because I have to learn how to let go of the reins and say, okay,
I have to accept Other people's work. And now just let me let me say this. [00:20:00] Yes, other people can do a wildly better job at certain things that I can. Absolutely. I'm not saying that I'm perfect. I just think, well, if I do it, it's going to be the best. That's that little tiny arrogance that I think that every entrepreneur has.
Like, Oh, I can do it better. However, there's been plenty of times where I've done something that I've handed it over to my marketing team and it comes back and I go, Whoa, that is so much better than what I could have done. And that's the learning curve of wow. And those are the aha moments of going. I should have, I should have let go of these reigns a long time ago.
Mike Long: And that's one thing I remember, Dan, Dan Sullivan's the author of this book, Buy Back Your Time. And he, he tells you to hire to buy back your time, but instead of hiring for an open position, no. What, how much more time do you need to keep up or more free up so you can run your business and hire somebody to [00:21:00] buy back your time?
I love that book. It's a great book. I love listening to this stuff. It's awesome.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, and and it makes complete sense because you are buying back your time if I can go in and that was the hardest thing For me even for this podcast for instance for for many years. I had been Recording the podcast I had been editing the podcast producing the podcast and eventually I went okay.
I can't I can't I can't do this and run my business. So I actually have now hired somebody to do my podcast and I went, wow, this is so much more fun. I, I absolutely, you know, love doing it way more now when I just get to record it and have conversations. Okay.
Mike Long: You probably found somebody that's way faster and way better at you for editing and stuff.
Leighann Lovely: Right, right. But, you know, in your head you think, well, I'm the only one that can do it. So, if you had advice to give to You know what? Somebody who's considering [00:22:00] or somebody who's in their 1st or 2nd year of, of entrepreneurship. What, what advice would you give to them?
Mike Long: Well, that's 2 different things. Somebody that's thinking about getting in and
Leighann Lovely: somebody that's already in
Mike Long: it. Yes. So, but find something you're passionate about 1st. You know, if so, if you're not in it yet, find something that you really love to do, and that will help you, that will help you continue to push through when things get tough.
Somebody's already in it, and it's something that they truly don't love to do, then, why are you in it? Why, what, what makes you, what made you start this company? What, goals do you have for your family? What goals do you have for the future or stuff like that? Um, I think, I think goals are very, very important.
I just, I just spent the day yesterday. Finalizing my goals for the year, you got to have personal goals, you got to have business goals, you know, and personally, you got to have, you know, keep your, keep yourself healthy, keep working out, you know, keep yourself spiritually, you're, you know, uh, you're mind fresh with books.
 There's all kinds of stuff you do there. [00:23:00] So, what's one, what's one big piece of advice? That's a hard one. There's so many pieces of advice. Yes. There's so many things you have to do, but. Don't be afraid of change. You have to change all the time. Like last year, our marketing just stopped working, which I talked to people all over the country and their marketing stopped working.
So it wasn't just our news. I think it was just part of the economy too, but just because you've been doing something a certain way forever and ever, ever doesn't mean you shouldn't, shouldn't look at a different option to do something different, you know, find a different way to market, find a different way to just wording in your market.
You know, I can be pretty stubborn, but. I changed everything with my marketing last year. So, be, um, be flexible and, and don't be afraid of change or a couple big ones right there. But yeah, having a passion for what you do will help you push through some of the times when they get. How many knows can you take in a day before you go?
This is stupid. You know, you have to [00:24:00] push through those. You go through those 10 no's and there's gonna be a big yes on the other side of that. So you have to keep pushing through it. So, that's one piece of
Leighann Lovely: advice. Those are great. Everything that you said is an amazing advice because one, um, change, the only, the only thing that is constant is change.
A change is, I mean, look at the last four years, look at the last, you know, five, so much has changed and because the world with the pandemic, everything has changed. And this goes to your marketing. The way that we now, you know, consume information is so drastically changing. I mean, we went from, you know, avid networking constantly, constantly to being literally shut into our homes where everything went technology and technology is changing faster than we can marketing.
Faster than, you know, we can possibly keep up there was a [00:25:00] time when the only way that I could really, really sell the services that I was selling at the time was to go and knock on company doors. Most companies now they lock their front door unless you have an appointment. You don't even get past the front door, you know, a lot of these businesses, some of them now are become much more lax now that we're entered into what this to 20, 2025, and then the way that younger people are consuming their information, they're not on, you know, they're not on Facebook.
Younger generation is on, and I don't even honestly know what the youngest generation is on, but it's like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever it might be, but businesses are slow to adopt those new platforms because we'll, the older generation are still on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and then for many years.
depending on the industry you were in, they weren't on LinkedIn. Now, more business owners across [00:26:00] the industry, you know, across all industries are finally catching up to being on LinkedIn, but you go into automotive industry and where are they hanging out? So it's, it's extremely difficult with all of the new platforms, all of the new social media sites.
Where do you spend your dollars when it comes to marketing? You have to be willing to change, yet you go into certain industries and they're like, we've done it this way and we're, we're going to continue to do it this way because it's always worked well. What always has worked doesn't necessarily work in today's drastically evolving industry.
Technology world.
Mike Long: Well, the system that we're on right now, zoom, zoom wasn't even around five years ago.
Leighann Lovely: So are we going to meet? And I'm like, sure. How exactly are we meeting? Well, I'll send you a zoom meeting. And I'm like, wait, zoom or what was the one before that? Um, it was, What was [00:27:00] before Zoom? Yeah. I can't even remember the name of it off the top of my head.
Yes, there was one before Zoom that, yes. And what was it?
Mike Long: teams wasn't around either, so I, what was I, I remember. I know what you're talking about. I don't remember the name of it though. Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: yeah. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head. And I'm like, okay, let's meet via Zoom. And then I was like, wait, this is just like that other one, except the other one.
Never really. took off. It was more of like a minor, you know, I'm like, okay, let's meet via zoom. And then, you know, teams internal for business, it was all teams. And so it's so Google meets is the other one that popped up that became extremely popular. And, you know, so now I, I can sit literally in my pajama pants and, you know, sweatshirt and have meetings.
And now people are like, you want to get coffee? I'm like, Oh, It's too cold outside. Do I have to drive?
I've become lazy.[00:28:00]
Whereas right. Whereas back, you know, four or five, six years ago, I put on, you know, four, 5, 000 miles in a year. with the amount that I would drive to meet clients. My, you know, I was, my territory was, you know, Wisconsin and Illinois. So I mean, I, I literally had an office in my car. I stocked my car with snacks.
And so when I was ready to get up in the morning, I just had to grab my cup of coffee. I had my breakfast ready for me in the car. Cause I knew I had a two hour drive to a client and was, so. I'm sorry. I digress. Get off my soapbox now. Um, so the advice that you gave, yeah, change, constant change that's, and it's evolving to at a speed I don't think you and I might have ever seen in our careers.
So yeah, it's, it is always, it's always moving and [00:29:00] shaking and, and I get more marketing emails today than I have ever received. in my career.
Mike Long: Yeah. And now marketing, you know, the text marketing and just all kinds of different marketing going on right now.
Leighann Lovely: So, yeah, I mean, I think that's, and you said one other thing, constant change.
And what was the other thing that you said?
Mike Long: Have a, have a passion for what you're doing.
Leighann Lovely: Passion for what you're doing. Yes. You can, you cannot sell something that you do not believe in. And I'm, I'm a true believer in that. Yes. You could, if you're a telemarketer, fine, but. You're reading a script.
 So, yeah, I totally agree. Great. Great advice. So we are coming to time. This is the point in which you get your 30 seconds. Shameless pitch
Mike Long: was pitch.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. Absolutely. You're 30. If you need to take a moment, please 30 seconds. Shameless pitch. All
Mike Long: right. So, white class outdoor illumination.
We service, [00:30:00] the Chicagoland market and the Milwaukee market. We are, um, anything that you need in outdoor lighting. I am a certified outdoor lighting designer. I'm a certified low voltage lighting technician. So I spent a lot of time going to school and learning the best ways of designing. I graduated from the International Landscape Lighting Institute.
 I was actually a mentor at the Landscape Lighting Institute. I actually taught at the COLE program too, the Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer program. So I'm probably 1 of the most, most versed outdoor lighting designer in the area. Um, there's a lot of other outdoor lighting designers, so, you know, some actually worked for me as well, started their own company, which is fine.
I love that. But yeah, so anything you need for outdoor lighting, uh, design and installation, LightQuest Outdoor Illumination is the company and, and we'd be happy to help you with anything you need. That is
Leighann Lovely: that is awesome. And if somebody needed to reach out to you and wanted to talk with you about that, how would they go about doing that?
Mike Long: So, our phone number here at the [00:31:00] office is 262 358 9100, or they can email me, Mike, at call like quest. com.
Leighann Lovely: Perfect. And those will be in the show notes. So if you are interested in reaching out to Mike or like quest, um, please go ahead and do that or find the, find the information in the show notes and Mike, this has been such an amazing conversation.
I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your journey with us and, advice.
Mike Long: Well, thank you for having me on. And I know, I know you're after me for a while. And so I'm pretty, this is perfect time to set this up and do this. So thank you for, thank you for inviting me on your show.
Leighann Lovely: Yes, I enjoyed it.
Katherine Bruess: This podcast is presented by Accelerate Growth 45, your one stop shop for business growth. Stop running your business like an operator, delaying wealth creation and sacrificing your time. Instead, focus on building a valuable business asset, creating lasting wealth and reclaiming the time you deserve.
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Robb Conlon: Thanks for joining us for Love Your Sales. For More, connect with Leanne on LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating in review. We'd love to hear what you think, looking for a way to take your sales process to the next level. Visit us@loveyoursales.com to find out more about how Leanne can take your organization to new Revenue Heights.
And be sure to join us next time for more great ways to love your customers so they love your [00:33:00] sales.

Transforming Sales Through Effective Communication

In this engaging episode of "Love Your Sales," Leighann Lovely chats with Eric Forrestal, a master communicator and founder of Workforce Renegades. They dive deep into the intricacies of effective communication, focusing particularly on the DISC behavioral assessment and its impact on sales and team dynamics. Eric shares insightful anecdotes about understanding and adapting to different personality types, offering practical tips for improving interactions in both professional and personal settings. Listeners will find valuable strategies for enhancing their communication skills and building stronger relationships with clients and colleagues. This episode is a must-listen for sales professionals looking to refine their approach and achieve greater success. Tune in now to discover how to better connect, understand, and communicate with those around you!
Contact Eric -
Email - eric@workforcerenegades.com
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericforrestal/
Website - www.workforcerenegades.com
 
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of love your sales.
I am so thrilled. I am joined by Eric forestal master communicator, original renegade from workforce renegades, Eric. Welcome to the show. I am so excited to have this conversation.
Eric Forrestal: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
Leighann Lovely: So what is workforce renegades and what do you, what do you do with your time?
Eric Forrestal: Oh, well, uh, workforce renegades.
So I create renegades in the workforce. I feel like every company needs a workforce renegade, [00:02:00] uh, someone that knows their sales, they can recruit, they can train what they do, and then they can lead a team. So, what I try to do is, is make other master communicators and all those kind of pillars of a business.
And, uh, and, and yeah, like I said, create workforce renegades.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. Because one of the most important things to any business is being, well, in my personal opinion, an over communicator, but a good communicator and understanding how to appropriately communicate to different personalities. Right.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. Yeah. To, you know, different strokes for different folks. Uh, there's, there's different ways to communicate with different people. You know, the, the golden rule is treat everyone the way that you want to be treated, but I think it's a little bit more, you gotta, you gotta treat them the way that they want to be treated.
So I try to instill that a little bit more and, um, and really show people how they can, you know, if they have a message to deliver, how they may have to adapt their message to deliver it.
Leighann Lovely: [00:03:00] That's So well said, because I used to do the, we'll treat everybody the way that I want to be treated. And I realized really quickly that does not always work.
 You know, I am, I'm very much, I'm a very bold personality. Sure. I'm, I'm one of those people who's, you know, just get to the details and what you, what you need, um, what you want. And I came to realize that there are people out there who really need the, hello, how are you today? And, uh, got myself in a little bit of trouble early on with not doing the niceties before the demands or.
Yeah. They weren't so much the demand, but I find myself saying, Hey, and then spilling out what I need and then going, I'm sorry, how you doing?
Eric Forrestal: Sure thing. Sure thing.
Leighann Lovely: So it used to be, you know, treat people as you, you know, want to be treated, but at the same time, not everybody is like me.
Eric Forrestal: [00:04:00] You
Leighann Lovely: know, my brother used to say like, Oh, Monday, niceties. I hate it. I don't want to work in an office anymore. And I'm like, a lot of people need that. Like they, other people, they don't.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: How do you, you know, start getting people to understand? Cause it's not that easy. It's how do you start to understand or help other people understand?
the nuances of other people's personalities.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's really tricky. And I've been in sales and team building and, and kind of this world of communication for, you know, going on 20 years now. So, um, I think it was a lot harder to explain before I felt like I felt like I used to just tell people, Oh, you just got to know, you know, you just got to read them.
You got to get a, you know, a feel for the room. Know your know your crowd, everything like that. I realized I had a really good knack for that. Uh, you know, I grew up in a big family. I had, [00:05:00] uh, you know, three older brothers, an older sister, a step mom, a step dad, you know, to, you know, kind of doing both sides.
Sometimes I met mom, sometimes I met dads and I was the youngest. And so I always had to kind of figure out people's mannerisms and, you know, what brother who, what brother I'm talking to and what I'm asking for. Cause they all communicated differently. Uh, so, you know, growing up through that and then just through kind of early on in my career, I just got good at it.
But what I found was it was the hardest thing to train.
Marker
Eric Forrestal: You know, you can train scripts, you can train, you know, objection handling and all those things. But it was really hard to train how to read people. And it was a few years ago that I got reintroduced to DISC. Now, I'll, I'll explain what DISC is for anyone that doesn't know in a little bit, but basically it's a behavioral assessment.
And I used to think behavioral assessments were the dumbest things. I would always say, you know, and if, and if you've ever worked in sales or any sort of, Communication, you were probably forced to take some sort of behavioral assessment.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Eric Forrestal: [00:06:00] So for years, I thought they were dumb because I don't need an assessment to tell me that I'm loud and obnoxious.
Right. So. It's, it's kind of one of those things where any, any assessment I was taking, I'd say, well, what's the loud obnoxious one? Okay. Yes. I'm an Enneagram seven. I'm a high D high. I, I'm a, you know, I'm a, I'm a squiggly line. I'm whatever it is. It's like, okay, I get it. And so I always used to read those thinking it was, you know, all about me, me, me.
 It wasn't until, you know, I was doing real estate at the time and this lady came in and she gave a great presentation and, you know, It was a two hour presentation. And as soon as she started talking, I do what most real estate agents do is I got in the back, I opened up my computer and I started answering emails, right?
Cause that's what, that's what a lot of us do. And there was about 10 minutes within this presentation where she said, this is how you identify it on in others. And this is how you can adapt your communication style. And it was a great 10 minutes. And I walked up to her afterwards. I was like, that was a [00:07:00] great presentation.
This 10 minutes was my favorite part. You should do an entire presentation on just that 10 minutes. Like that would be worth it, you know? And I didn't know, like, I, I didn't realize what I said. Cause then she just kind of put her hand on my shoulder and goes, well, what did you think about the other hour and 50 minutes?
And I was like, yeah, you know, and, uh, and she was, you know, she was so nice and she got, you know, she, she kind of looked at me and she said, well, maybe you should, if you're. You know, if you have a direction that you want to take it, maybe you should. And so she kind of started my journey on, on looking at disc and behavioral assessments in a, in a completely different way.
And so she's actually the one that kind of bridged the gap for me to get certified in it and, and go through it. And for me, disc was a really good vehicle to explain. What I was trying to explain over the years, you know, um, not everyone's going to come up and hand you an assessment and say, Hey, this is how I communicate.
Can you communicate with me like this? So I started looking at, you know, I started looking [00:08:00] at these profiles and then I also started looking at how you can identify those profiles and how you can adapt your communication style.
Leighann Lovely: And, it's real. So I've actually had people where I'm in a, on a sales call or, and they've walked in the room, sat down and go, just so you know, I'm a Heidi
Eric Forrestal: and I'm like, Heidi would say that.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. That is perfect. Because now I know how to present this information to you. Like if we all just walked around and go, I'm a hot eye, that's great. Okay, now I know how to communicate with like, or I know how better to communicate with you. Like, you don't want to get lost in the details. You don't care how.
It like the nuances of how it works. You just want to know what the outcome is going to be of that. Maybe or, or maybe you are somebody who needs to know the details of how it's going to work, depending on what your. You know, where [00:09:00] you fall on that scale, it, it absolutely will help me now. Obviously, if you're walking into a, you know, doing a, a group presentation, you're probably going to end up with a couple of, you know, variety of different people in that room, a high C, a high D, you know, a high I, and then you have to be able to adapt and cater to the questions or, you know, the blah, blah, blah, but having an understanding and knowing.
Somebody's, you know, where their interests lie, where they, where they're, you know, get the most out of that conversation can change the outcome of a conversation a hundred percent. Like, and same goes for when you are a high I, and you're meeting with somebody who's Let me tell you, I am, I am energy, energy, energy.
If I walk into an accounting firm, [00:10:00]
Eric Forrestal: Yep.
Leighann Lovely: It's, if I was to let that energy constantly be coming out, they'd be like, she needs to leave. Right. Like, it just, I don't fit in.
Eric Forrestal: They just, well, that's why it's, you know, it's and those of you for, uh, you know, just so I can kind of maybe for anyone that's listening that doesn't know what disk is.
 Yes.
Marker
Eric Forrestal: The best way I can describe DISC is if you, if you remember the last time you went to a restaurant and you went out to eat with a group of people and the way that you can watch someone order off the menu and, and talk to the waiter is the way that they behave and they communicate. Right? And so it's so funny because the waiter will come up and say, you know, what can I get you guys?
And she might be just starting with drinks. And right away. A high D is going to go, you know, they know exactly what they're going to get because they get the same thing every time because they know what they like to eat and they know they're hungry. So if they got burgers on the menu or they're going to go right in [00:11:00] right away and they'll be the first to order and they'll say, I'll get a burger, medium, rare fries on the side, right?
It's because they know they like burgers and they know they're hungry. So they're very direct and they, they don't need, they don't need anyone's. They don't need anyone else's opinion or anything like that. And then the waiter looks at the next person and that person's just talking to everyone at the table.
This person hasn't even looked at the menu. Yeah. They haven't even looked at the menu and you know, the quick look at the menu, the maybe, Oh, can you come back around to me? Or they'll just make a quick panic decision and be like, you know what, what did you get? You know, I'll take that because they really don't care about what they're getting.
They care that. They care who they're there with. They care who they're talking to, who's at the table, and they don't want to miss out on any of the conversation. But I'm
Leighann Lovely: also a high D.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. And, and so, and that's fine, but you'll, you'll be talking to everyone and then, and then what'll happen is they'll say, what do you want?
And they'll be like, I'll, a burger. I'm good. You'll be very direct in it. But the point of it is those 2, both of those 2 types are both both extroverted. So [00:12:00] they're, they have no problem looking at the waiter and talking and saying what they want. And then also they have no problem talking to everyone that's at the table.
And then you have that 3rd type. That's just a little bit more indecisive where they want to make sure everyone else knows what they're getting. Right? So they might start asking questions like, hey, What did you see that they have not? Are you getting the nachos or what are you getting there? They're more focused on the table and making sure that everyone's happy.
Everyone's satisfied. Hey, did you get that drink that you wanted, but they're really indecisive. The last thing that they want to do is make an opinion or they is make an actual order. They might even ask the waiter. What what's good. They might even, you know, just take what's special. Oh, what does the cook want to make?
What do you have a lot of, right? They don't want to, they don't really want to, like, ruffle any feathers, and they just want everyone to have a good time. And then you have that last type, that, that high C type, where as soon as they found out where they were going out to eat, they looked up the menu online and sat in the parking lot for 45 minutes, looking at the menu, to make sure That they know [00:13:00] all of their options and, you know, they might come with questions or they know exactly what they're getting before they get in there because they, they did the time to analyze it and calculate what's the best option for them.
 And so that, I mean, whenever I'm explaining disks to someone, that's the best way I can explain it because everyone's been out to eat with a group of people and then also. Everyone, when I talk about those things, everyone's like, yeah, you know what? I know someone that orders that way. Or I order every time, you know, you raise your hand as soon as the second time you're like, yup, that's me right there.
So we can all identify that. And that's just. eating, ordering off a menu. Just think about if we were to look at all the other mannerisms that people do in meetings, in the office, on phone calls, through emails, text messages, you know, you name it. It's, it's kind of one of those things that you can start to put votes in the right letter for, and then kind of understand how to adapt your communication.
Leighann Lovely: And as you were saying that I'm thinking, oh my God, you know, I'm that person who like literally just shows up and I'm [00:14:00] like, Oh, what, you know, I know what I like. And I'm like, do you have something like this on the menu? Great. That's what I want. Like, whereas where, you know, like, I, I, you know, I know what I like to eat because we all know what we like, but I don't, I'm not present until I'm there.
Once I'm there, I'm present, I am, I am where I am when I'm there, but until I'm there, I'm, I'm still where I was, which drives, which drives, I think my husband insane because he's the guy who's looking up the menu, looking at the reviews, making sure it's, you know, and then talking about what our daughter is going to be able to eat when she goes there, she's six.
So, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, and I'm like, I don't, I don't care. Like, I don't know, does that make me a bad mom? I'm not leaving, I'm not thinking, like, I show up when I show up, and then I'm present, and maybe that is a personality flaw, but it's like, I just, I'm not one of those [00:15:00] people who has the capacity to plan until it's happening.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. And I mean,
Leighann Lovely: vacation really hard
Eric Forrestal: or really fun for you, you know, I mean, come on. But some people, if you think about it, you know, there's some people that really enjoy the planning of the vacation where it's like, you know, I like to be surprised and there's some people that like to know what they have to look forward to.
And I asked my son that all the time where it's like, Hey, do you want to know what we're doing? Or do you just want to do it? And he's a much more of a, you know, I just want to go do it, you know, don't question me on it. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think it's bad because you got to look at it in the sense of, if you look at disc, there's, there's There's two, there's four types of orientations.
So you're either people oriented or you're task oriented and you're either extroverted or you're introverted. And so if you look at those two orientations of, of people oriented or task oriented, the person that is planning the vacation is way more task oriented. They're [00:16:00] way more, okay. I want to know where we're going.
I'm going to look at, you know, the best deal for the hotel room, the flights, all that I'm going to make sure it's going to be planned to the bone and I'm going to get. A little bit annoyed. If, if it goes, if it doesn't go to plan, you know, and I'm like, what city are we going to? We just got to figure out how to get there.
Right. I don't know why there's all these plans. We just have to get, you know, we just have to get there safely. Right. Okay. And then when we get there, let's just figure it out. And so.
Leighann Lovely: Now it planes, trains and automobiles is just popping into my head as you have the picture. We just have to get there.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And it's, it's kind of funny. Cause like the reason I love that is there's, those are both sales guys, right?
Marker
Eric Forrestal: So there's two sales. And one character is, you know, in a nice tie, a suit, he has everything planned. And then, you know, the other one's John Candy. So it's just, and they're both successful salesmen.
You know, that's the thing is they're both good at what they do. It doesn't take anything away. It's just, you do it different [00:17:00] ways. And I think it's such a, an approach where, you know, I, I, I've, I've trained so many salespeople and everyone thinks that a good salesperson has to be an extrovert. A good salesman has to be, you know, this, this loud, obnoxious guy.
And that's just not the case at all. And some of the best salespeople I've ever met or trained have been complete task driven introverts where it's like they have the best relationships because if you get, you know, if they're, they have to build a relationship for them to talk. So they build, they, they make sure to build the relationship.
And then. They have a, they're so organized in their tasks and making sure that they're doing everything. They're following up. They're doing all those things. And so, um, so, yeah, so it's, it's interesting. It's interesting. And I think the biggest thing that I like to do is show people their bright spots and their blind spots.
So not only show them how they communicate, but go, Hey, this is where you may have to Take a deep breath and do a little bit more work when you're communicating with this type of person, [00:18:00]
Leighann Lovely: right? And see when you say a task orientated person, I I am a hundred percent a task orientated person However, if you look at my disc results, you'd go she's not at all.
Yeah, but I come from an HR background So there's process that, you know, in place, like, and the reason I say I'm a task oriented person, and this is just something that, you know, I grew up with two parents who are in real estate.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And so I grew up in a sales family, just a hundred percent through and through sales.
That is, you can't get any more sales than. Real estate agents who are on commission making their own. Right. I mean, it's just one of those things that my father managed, you know, 60 plus agents at any given time, he managed one of the largest offices that they had there and continued, you know, and he started with a very small office, continued to move up in the company and, you know, [00:19:00] And then his wife was just a producer, not just a producer, was one of the top producers for the company for many years running.
And, he had always referred to, he's like, well, I'm a task oriented person. Like I, something, you know, something comes in front of me. And I get it done, move it off my plate, so I know that I can move on to the next thing. Otherwise, you're just constantly having explosions happening, and that's when things fall through the cracks.
That's how you lose clients. That's how you lose prospects. That's how you lose relationships. It's when you're not following up properly, or you're not nurturing those relationships and doing what you promised. And that's why, uh, I don't promise something if I don't plan to deliver that and so I, I create every or I treat every relationship as the next task, the next, and I'm, sounds like I'm minimizing that to something, but it really, it's, it's not, it's making it bite [00:20:00] sized pieces of something that you can take on in a way.
That is process. And most people don't, they're not built to do that. But I was, you know, I went to school for computer programming at one time. I went to school and I graduated with my bachelor's in HR. So that's, you know, there's a process. And if you follow that, even being a complete spaz half the time, because I am a salesperson.
You know, if something's broken at my house, I go and fix it, right? It's done. It's done. And then I don't have to think about it. And it doesn't create lists upon lists, upon lists of stuff that I'm like, Oh my God, I have to get to that list. And oh my gosh, I have to get, which just causes stress, especially for somebody who's an extrovert, who just wants to be out there around people.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I always, you know, when I, whenever I coach sales or teach people with sales, I always say, lean on what you're good at first, like understand what you're good at first. Right. And so I always [00:21:00] laugh at people that go to a networking event because they know that they need to because everyone else is doing it in real estate agents and loan officers do this the most.
I personally love networking events. You know, it's funny because. People always talk about the introvert that needs to be alone in order to go out, right? You ever hear that where it's like, Oh, my God, I need my alone time. I have a, I have a thing tonight. I need to be alone before I go out. And it's just the opposite for an extrovert where I need those networking events.
And I need to be around people in order for me to go back and work in my office. Like, I need to go if I'm working in an office with other people, I need to go to the break room and go. Chat it up with some people and say, hi, if I have an hour task that I need to do back in my office or whatever it is.
 But I always laugh at networking events because you can tell the people that don't want to be there. Like it's almost like they hang out together and don't talk together because they're like, Hey, I'll stand here. If you stand there and I won't talk to you, if you don't talk to me, it's like they have this like secret [00:22:00] understanding, you know, but I always tell people to lean in what they're good at.
And so if you're good at those networking events, Go to those networking events. Look, if you're good at building really, really good relationships and getting referrals based off of your past clients, lean into that. You know, and, and it's just, it's kind of like, that's why I love desk because right away it rips off the band aid of going.
Okay, let's talk, you know, take your desk. This is based off of an assessment that you took. Let's talk about it. And the first thing I do is I'll break it down and talk about what they feel is accurate, what they feel is inaccurate.
Marker
Eric Forrestal: All I do is ask questions. I don't tell them anything. I just ask questions.
And it's funny because they'll go along with this. They'll look at their assessment and be like, Oh, it's so accurate here. It's so accurate here. This is absolutely 100 percent me. The only part that is inaccurate is this negative thing that I don't like. Right? Two negative things that are on the assessment that says that I'm bad at.
That's inaccurate. And it's [00:23:00] like, okay, all right. So let's talk about that, you know, and, and it's funny because you talked about those lists and all those things. It's just finding a way to do it where I'm not a list guy either. Uh, I used to be really good at waking up in the morning and making a list of everything that I had to do today.
Right. And then after about the second thing, it was like, drink coffee, go, you know, drink coffee and eat breakfast. Cool. And then after that, I didn't do anything else that was on the list. Right. You know, and I felt like a lot of people struggle with that. But what I started doing is I'd realize, okay, what What am I doing for the next half hour?
Okay, I need to do these three things in the next half hour.
Leighann Lovely: Right.
Eric Forrestal: Otherwise, I'll get distracted. I'll go somewhere else.
Leighann Lovely: Like,
Eric Forrestal: otherwise, I'm over here. But what it allows me to do is it gives me a deadline of like, that's pretty quick, because if you give me all day to clean my house, it's going to take me all day to clean my house.
But if you give me an hour to clean my house, it'll be, it'll be clean in an hour. And there's some people that can absolutely write an entire list. And then [00:24:00] they are the ones that like, love. Going through it all day and then at the end of their day, they're like, when they're crossing off that last thing, it's the happiest thing for them, you know, so
Leighann Lovely: right.
And I just, when I have a list of things to do, I get anxiety over that because I'm, I'm one of those people who are like, no, it needs to be done right now. I do it. And now I don't have a compiling list. It's like, just done, done, done, done, done.
Eric Forrestal: I could think, I think. The bad thing with me is I could think of a hundred things that need to get done right now.
Like, if you were to ask me, give me a hundred things that need to get done, I could list them all. But, but that's, that's my problem is, is like, what needs to get done? Well, there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done. What can I do right now? You know, like that's that.
Leighann Lovely: And ultimately it comes down to what has to be done today.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: What, what, you know, what is their time? You know, I, yeah, I'd love to redo my website. I'd love to re, you know, [00:25:00] I'd love to reorganize all the files in my entire drive, but that doesn't need to be done today.
Eric Forrestal: Right.
Leighann Lovely: It's, you know, for me, it's a matter of what keeps business moving forward right now. So what needs to get done today?
And I refer to these as revenue generating tasks. What are my revenue generating tasks that need to be done today in order to keep my business moving forward in order to keep my clients? businesses moving forward. And that's ultimately what that comes down to because you're right. Everybody has a million and 10 things that they could do today and including, you know, feeding my child, my dog, all of the other, you know, but those don't go on, those don't go on the list.
Those are things that you sit in the back, you know, that they, In the back of your head, when all of a sudden you're like, wow, I have two hours of time,
Eric Forrestal: right?
Leighann Lovely: I could actually get some of this other stuff done. [00:26:00]
Eric Forrestal: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. No, that's so that's wildly wildly. It's so interesting and not only disc, but I also, have you, have you ever heard of the working genius?
Oh, yeah.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. I think that's a very relatable thing. And I think a lot of that's derived from disc.
Leighann Lovely: Got mad when I saw my results, but they're correct.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: They are a hundred percent correct.
Eric Forrestal: Well, I think there's a difference between two, like another part of what I do is what's called
Marker
Eric Forrestal: key motivators.
Cause I think there's one thing in the way that we behave and communicate, but then there's another way of what we're motivated by doing. Right. So there's kind of like, there's, you're talking about two different things there. And the way we communicate, behave is always interesting to me because it can change.
It can intentionally change or it can unintentionally change. Whereas what I noticed with a lot of people, you know, when they have kids there, the way they behave and communicate can change. Sometimes they're D all of a sudden they didn't have, they were very low on the D and they were never dominant.
Well, [00:27:00] now they got to be yelling at kid, you know, they got to yell at their kid all the time, depending on what age their kid is. Or it's the complete opposite where if they didn't have, you know, if they were very low on the high S where they weren't patient at all. And all of a sudden they have a kid and they take their disc, you know, 6 months after all of a sudden they're way more patient and they care about different things and they communicate differently and all those things.
 I always tell a story between 2022 and 2023. You know, I had my natural and adaptive, uh, scores, where my natural score, you know, I was a high D, a high I, and a moderate S, always, always, always, always a low C, where I'm, if I send you an email, you're probably going to have a, you know, a spelling error, unless someone Someone checked it for me.
But, uh, so I realized that in my adaptive, my ID was going even higher and my s was sinking really low. And so I noticed, I was like, okay, so in my adaptive state, meaning if there's an issue with a client, if there's something different, all of a sudden my patients was going down and my high [00:28:00] D was going up, and I was like, whoa, okay, gotta look at this.
So basically I was becoming an asshole. Like, I don't know, there's no other way to put it. Like I was, I remember looking at that and being like, oh man, it was. So whenever you get stressed, you just act out of pocket like that. And uh, and I remember it was a, it was a, a thing that I could look back on and be like, okay, where did things go wrong with this client?
Where did things go wrong with this person that I'm working with? Or however it went. I was like, well dude, this is it. It's clear as day. So I literally started using green notepads and green post-Its just to remember to keep my patients. So I'd be on the phone and all of a sudden I'd look at a green post-it and I'd be like, oh, all right.
Musab or whatever, you know, whatever I would say to right. Myself down. And that was an intention. Yeah. And that was an intentional change where it was like, Hey, like, at least be consistent. So now I'm at least just an asshole all the time, right? Like my natural adaptive are the same. Like overall, my ass went down a little bit, but now my natural and adaptive are the same where I started to notice those times where I'd get stressed or, you know, act a little bit differently.
 [00:29:00] Now fast forward from 20. Okay. 23 to 2024 earlier this year when I took it, you know, I, I had started workforce renegades, you know, a year or two ago. Well, I'm, I'm it like, I'm here at workforce renegades. So there's no one looking over my shoulder checking my budgets. There's no one doing any of these things.
Right? Well, my analytical skills were always low. Like, they just, they were always below a five. I just felt like there was always an, an occasional An accountant somewhere that could look over my stuff for me. Well, just inherently, because I have to, I have to look at my calendar. I have to look at the spell check on my emails.
I have to do those things. Not saying it went up a crazy amount, but my analytical skills got better just because I got thrown into a position where I had to do it a lot more. So my C in 2024 was the highest it's ever been. It's only, it's still only at a 16, but that's pretty good, right? I mean. Compared to what it was, so the interesting thing about disc for me is always that you can intentionally change or if you're like, you know what, I'm in a [00:30:00] leadership position and I need to be more direct.
Like, I beat around the bush too much and people walk over me. I need to be more direct. That's an intentional change that you could make. It's an uncomfortable one, but.
Leighann Lovely: And, and I've, because of how direct I know that I have been,
Eric Forrestal: it's
Leighann Lovely: certain, I, I've had to peel that back and find that empathetic side with certain people.
Because I know that I can come off as, as kind of a bitch. Like you walk up to somebody and you're like, here, I need you to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, and there have been times where I'm like, Oh, I need to correct. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. How was your weekend?
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. But there's,
Leighann Lovely: it's okay.
I know that you can do that. And I'm like, no, but it's rude. Like I should at least like ask you and they're like, well, I appreciate that you're trying to make the effort. And I'm like, I know, I know, but I can be really overwhelming at times. And, and I, and I'll, I'll call myself [00:31:00] out because it's like, and I tell my people too, like, it's okay to do it in an appropriate manner.
If I'm being too If I'm, if I'm being too direct, if I'm being inappropriate, like you, in an appropriate manner, in an appropriate situation, you, you need to tell me, because I don't know if, if I am, and I've had some, I've had some of them be like, okay, that, like, that was a little, That was a little much and I'm like, okay, then I'm, I'm going to apologize.
And I want to thank you for, for telling me because, and again, because I've, I've learned from my person, my
Eric Forrestal: own. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I think it goes both ways. And I, I'm going to say a couple of things there because I think it all depends on
Marker
Eric Forrestal: what message you're trying to deliver to deliver and who you're Trying to deliver it to, right?
So if you have a team and you're just trying to get in, you're trying to give orders. Like, I think a big thing is [00:32:00] for them more to understand that you're direct. So if this is the way you communicate, and this is the way that, that you. Are I think it's them understanding it and saying, Hey, I'm not abrasive.
I'm not being a bitch. This is just like on a daily, I shouldn't, I shouldn't have to adapt to everyone right away. Now here's another thing. If you're coaching someone that's different. So it's like one thing, if you're directing an order or if you're, you know, running a meeting, like you have to, you have to communicate in your exact way.
Now, if me and you are doing a one on one and you're coaching me on what I'm doing, then you kind of have to understand my communication style that that point. That's where you go. Okay. All right. Well, Eric, how was your weekend? Tell me everything. All right. Right. And so I think that there's that difference because if you're just caught in an adaptive space all the time, you're going to end up hating you.
You're going to hate the leadership position. If you have to be soft and, you know, like be a little bit easy on everyone. Now with sales, it's interesting because you know, I'll give workshops [00:33:00] and presentations. And I always ask, like, you know, I always raise a show of hands. How many of us. Uh, have a favorite client, you know, and, and, and I'll hear stories of people's favorite clients and my favorite ones are the ones, Oh, the ones that buy cash and whatever.
And it's like, no, what I, what I mean by like, do you find yourself with the same type of client again and again and again, like, and there you do typically people gravitate towards the people they communicate best with. So if I'm very direct, I'm going to get along with very direct people. If I'm very, you know, if you ask me about my day and I actually tell you about my entire day, I'm going to get along with people that tell me about their entire day, you know, and, and go back and forth and we can sit here and bullshit for 20 minutes before we actually get into the meat of it.
 I'm not a numbers guy. So my hardest clients, the clients that I didn't like were the numbers guys. Right. Cause we all have clients where it's like, you look at them and you're like, why are you the way that you are? Like, why are you asking me that question right now? You know, and, and it would happen all the time in real [00:34:00] estate.
It would be like, I'd show someone the perfect house. I knew the numbers made sense because, you know, I've been looking at the numbers for the past couple of days. And then I'd say, all right, you know, this seems like the perfect house. You guys don't have any objections. And it was that always that higher C that would be like, well, we want to sleep on it.
And it, you know, me knowing that there's already two offers on the house and they're making a decision at 8 PM and it's five. I'm like, so are you going to like go home and take a quick nap or, cause this house isn't going to be here tomorrow, you know, and then I would rub them the wrong way. Because here I was trying to pressure them where at the end of the day, they just needed, they needed more numbers and time to think so I kind of switched it up where, you know, I'd be a little bit more direct with them, but I'd, I'd make sure, hey, what numbers are you going to need?
What numbers are important to you? Let me get you this before we even go to the showing. Hey, I just want to let you know in this market. There's a good chance that there might be an offer on the house and we might need to make a decision after the showing. So I just want you to be prepared for that, you know?
Now, Hi I, if I show a [00:35:00] Hi I a shit ton of numbers before the showing, they're gonna be like, I can't afford it! Or like, We're going to, it's going to be a waste of both of our times. Cause they're just going to want to fall in love with the house and then figure out how to make it work afterwards. You know what I mean?
Leighann Lovely: Oh yeah. That's how I bought my house. And because my parents were real estate agents, I literally walked in and looked at my dad and I said, can I afford this? And he goes, no, but you can make it work.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Love the honesty.
Leighann Lovely: And we bought it and we've made it work. We've lived here now for five years.
So
Eric Forrestal: that's funny.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. It's great. When you have your parents who are real estate agents, they can really, you know, themselves. Pretty easy conversation. Hey, dad, you know, my finances, can I buy this? Right. But anyways, anyways, we are coming to time, but this is, it's such an interesting dynamic. Like again, you know, like I'm going to, I'm going to flash back here for a second to 20 years ago when, you know, we, yes, you know, I've taken, [00:36:00] when did disc start?
Like when?
Eric Forrestal: Yeah, the 1920s actually.
Leighann Lovely: Okay. So it's been around by
Eric Forrestal: a psychologist that actually invented Wonder Woman. Believe it or not.
Leighann Lovely: Wow.
Eric Forrestal: Very
Leighann Lovely: random facts. Okay. So, you know, I've taken desk, you know, over the years, a million. Times and as I've evolved as a person, my results have evolved, you know, over time consistently, I've always been a high I, always had that high D, but they've shifted a little bit over as I've, you know, I've, I have always, however, found it interesting.
And I now find it even more interesting how we're able to use that to not understand ourselves. As much as we're using it to understand other people. And I love, I love people. I absolutely, I'm the person who, if I go to a networking meeting, if I stay too late, [00:37:00] then I come home and I'm like all wound up and my husband's like, aren't you tired?
And I'm like, I could go three rounds in a ring with Mike Tyson right now.
No, that's where I get my energy. I'm like, Oh my God. You know, it's like, give me a shot of. You know, something so I can calm down. But I, I just, I love, I love the study of humans. So this conversation has been really, really fun. So I am going to give you your 30 second pitch before we wrap up. Shameless pitch.
There you go.
Eric Forrestal: Yeah, sure. So I do a one on one coaching. I do consulting and I do workshops. So, uh, everything is based around your disc assessment. And what I really like to show people is what they're already doing, how to build intention behind it, and should really show you your bright spots and then also your blind spots.
So, been in sales for over 20 years. I do Sales, recruiting, training, and leadership for, for more service industry and blue collar companies, uh, companies in the trades is kind of, you know, my wheelhouse. [00:38:00] So that's
Leighann Lovely: where can they reach out to you?
Eric Forrestal: Yeah, they can either fight, you know, you can look up workforce renegades online.
 Www. workforcerenegades. com is going to be the easiest way. Otherwise we're on all the social media platforms as well.
Leighann Lovely: And your website, , information will be on the show notes. So if somebody wants to reach out to Eric, you can find that information there. Eric, this has been such an awesome conversation.
I really do appreciate it.
Eric Forrestal: Awesome. Thank you for having me.
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Robb Conlon: Thanks for joining us for Love Your Sales. [00:39:00] For More, connect with Leanne on LinkedIn and be sure to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating in review. We'd love to hear what you think, looking for a way to take your sales process to the next level. Visit us@loveyoursales.com to find out more about how Leanne can take your organization to new Revenue Heights.
And be sure to join us next time for more great ways to love your customers so they love your [00:40:00] sales.

Building Trust and Relationships in Commercial Lending

In this episode of Love Your Sales, Leighann sits down with Dan Hanson, a commercial lending officer with Kohler Credit Union. They dive deep into the intricacies of building successful relationships in sales and the importance of authenticity when dealing with clients. Dan shares insights from his 21-year career, discussing the value of networking, the role of mentorship, and how to balance professional goals with personal integrity. The conversation emphasizes the significance of giving back to the community and the shared mission of helping small businesses thrive. Additionally, Dan offers practical tips for young sales professionals on how to harness their people skills for career success. Don't miss this enriching dialogue that combines practical advice with inspiring stories from the field.
 
Contact Dan –
LinkedIn – Linkedin.com\danjameshanson
Email - dhanson@kohlercu.com
 
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am joined today by Dan Hanson. He is a commercial lending officer with Kohler Credit Union with vast experience in cash flow management, merchant services, treasury management, and commercial lending. He can originate SBA loans, both in 405 and 7a products, as well as in commercial and investment, real estate, equipment, [00:02:00] and vehicle financing.
I am so thrilled to have Dan join me today because I'm excited to talk about the nuances specifically in the business that he's in. So welcome Dan.
Dan Hanson: Thank you, Leanne. Great to be here. And I appreciate the conversation today.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. So you have what, five years in your current industry, but you're no, spring chicken when it comes to sales 20 years.
Dan Hanson: Yeah. Just over 21 years, going back to 2003 and I graduated with my undergrad.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. So let's, let's dive in and, uh, let's talk about sales because, well, that's the topic I love to talk about. First, Why don't you, you know, kind of introduce yourself anything that I missed on that short little brief introduction?
 You know, let's, chat. Let's.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, yeah, you pretty much nailed it. It is the it's the 504 product on the SBA, not 405. Yeah. Oh, minute detail, but, [00:03:00] um. Yes, as a commercial lending officer, you know, I've worked with businesses and investor groups specifically in my role currently, just in the real estate transactions.
Mostly I should say mostly, you know, I've done work with previous FIs where I have. Worked with businesses on their treasury management, you know, the fraud protection mitigation side of things, as well as, uh, payments and also merchant services and, you know, credit cards and everything. So I've got a, and the reason why I think that's important is because in my current role, while I'm just focusing on lending, I'm able to talk to business owners about their overall business and what I can do to either introduce them to people in my network, such as yourself.
Or give my own advice on things or opinions and, mostly introductions. So, uh, it's really served me well. Again, I focus primarily right now just on lending, which is my favorite side of the business. Most of the transactions I do a real estate and the reason why I love that is everybody understands it right?
There's an appraisal value that everybody understands. This is what we [00:04:00] need and this is how the, uh, this is how the cash flow supports the property. But I, you know, as you mentioned in the bio, I can do equipment, financing vehicle, all that fun stuff. I can do lines of credit. I can do a B rock on an investment property and then the SBA catches kind of everything else.
Leighann Lovely: Very interesting. And something that we were talking about prior to jumping on here was that, you know, Hey, I'm a business owner. I need a loan. I'm just going to walk into the bank and, um, I'm going to talk with this person, but you kind of mentioned that, you know, that's, that's not really how your industry works.
So let's, let's talk about that.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, I think, you know, when people think about banking, they don't really think about sales necessarily, uh, especially in my role. It's different on the retail side, right? You know, if you're going to get a car loan, you know, oftentimes, if you're a member of a credit union, you're going to call them 1st, you've got a relationship with them.
You know, somebody at the branch, you know, that's just kind of, how it goes on the commercial side. It that's that's not it entirely. Uh, you know, I don't [00:05:00] get anybody calling into my office, you know, asking to buy a 1Million dollar car loan. Property, so it's really about forging those relationships, both with networkers and referral sources and also just with the business owners themselves.
So I have a very tall order and I've set a lot of lofty expectations for myself about getting out and meeting new people and I will meet anyone. I don't care if you've got a muffler business, or you're a personal trainer that goes into people's homes, you have value. And I would love to help in any way that I can.
It's all about helping small business owners specifically, but you never know what that's going to lead to. So, it has served me well by never saying no to a meeting, because I oftentimes. We'll have that introduction and nothing will happen for 18 months to 2 years, but it's being there at that right moment when they are ready to purchase something and they think of you and that's where, you know, kind of the rubber hits the road.
So, you know, I've networked with a lot of [00:06:00] people on your show. You know, Ben Zhang comes to mind. He's an absolute serial networker. He's just wonderful. Great referral partner. And he's out there. Forging new relationships and bringing me along, which is great. And vice versa. So I think the, the, the notion that, you know, we just sit in our big offices and, and count beans is kind of a misnomer.
Uh, in my role, we're out there, you know, killing what we eat.
Leighann Lovely: Amazing. So, you know, the, the common theme, um, of every single person practically that has ever, that I've ever spoken with on, You know, my, my podcast here is that networking, communication. Talking with people, putting yourself out there is one of the most important aspects to being successful in sales, right?
I mean, it's, it really comes down to who, you know, but your industry is niche. It's not like, I [00:07:00] mean, it's not like I'm, even considering right now going and buying a property or a vehicle or, you know, my business. And in fact, As it stands right now, I'm like, well, I'm just going to stay remote forever.
No overhead. So you're really looking at the long game, the people who may not even know that one day they need you.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, and it's been on the lips of the mouths of the people that are talking to those business owners like you, know, you're constantly talking to business owners or sales executives.
And at that moment, when they say, you know, we had a really good year and our accountants recommended, we buy a building to offset some, you know, whatever. Then you're like, oh, I've got a guy for that. That happens all the time. And to be honest, I think back to how you and I met. I don't know if you remember this, but, I, I just joined the.
Brookfield chamber, which, you know, I think we were both very fond of and still are, and you, it was like, 1 of the 1st meetings I had attended and you were named a new member of the [00:08:00] year, uh, and your 1st year. And I was super impressed by that. And then just hearing how many things you attended in that 1st year, how many 1 on 1s you had, how many relationships you built that was like.
I need to meet this woman. And so I gave you my card and I cornered you for lunch very shortly after the pandemic. Not sure if you remember, it's a Bravo at Brookfield Square. But yeah, I mean, being with like minded people like you, understanding that, Yes. It's a numbers game where you just need to meet a broad, very group of people, but having, you know, meaningful connections with a, with a good, small group of people is so key.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. Wow. I, do remember the first time that we, we met, but I did not hear the story as to why, but you're, you're absolutely right. The more people that know you that, and that follows you. And because when we first met. I'm trying to think of the job that I was at at that time. That was a couple of [00:09:00] jobs ago.
Dan Hanson: Right, right. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: And, and those networks, those relationships, and I doubt that you remember the job that I was, and maybe you do, but, it, that job has been long gone. You're not going to call the company I used to work at. If you need help with something related to, you're going to call me and that's the beauty of building basically a sales force of people out there who literally are just referring business because they like you.
I mean, I'm, assuming here at this point, Dan, that you like me.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, I'm a big fan.
Leighann Lovely: It's an entire sales force of people out there who basically are saying, Oh, Hey, I, and you brought up Ben Zhang. And even when, when I interviewed him, he made the comment, I want to be the guy that knows the guy. [00:10:00] That knows the guy that knows the guy like that is my entire purpose. I want to be that guy that knows the guy and I want to be the person that knows the person that can help no matter what the problem is.
And that's that the beauty of that. of when you surround yourself with people who are all saying, yeah, I want to be that person too. Like if you need something, I have a Rolodex. But here's the part that could hurt is if all of the sudden you drop off, you disappear, somebody is very likely to be able to slot themselves in and become that person.
So how do you make sure that you continue to remain the person that knows the person and stay. On top and top of that list of the people that.
Dan Hanson: It's such a good question, man. It's such a good question. And, um, it takes work. [00:11:00] And I often liken this to relationships with friends. It's not, it's not unlike each other.
So I'm a very social person, very outgoing. I thrive on being with people. It's my, you know, I don't golf alone. I don't go to the movies alone. I don't eat alone. I have to be with people. So, uh, as a result, I've met a lot of friends, thankfully, and kept in touch with almost all of them because it takes work.
And what I mean by that is whenever I think of somebody that I haven't talked to in a while, I will immediately send them a message. And, you know, and again, I'm speaking strictly with friends, but, um, you know, I'll just say, Hey, how's it going? You know, how's your mom or how's the thing or where have you been lately?
You know, whatever it is. And I'll try to make plans. I'll try to hey, you know, let's golf. Let's get lunch. Let's do something And and it's the same with businesses and networking partners when I think of them I will I will drop a line and it's just in different forms then so oftentimes i'll send them something on linkedin Say, hey, I thought of you read this, check this out, [00:12:00] or I'll actually do personal cards, which I love and I typically do that 1 or 2 times a year.
Just do a mass mailer of personal cards while write out individual notes to people and send them a thought of you. Let's keep in touch. You know, here's my number. You know, we haven't talked to whatever it is. And with the advent of all the social media, you can reach people any number of ways and not be too invasive.
So, I just think it takes a little work. But I think you're right. The other the other side of it is, and what serves me so well. So, I was a member, I still am a member of 5 chambers and I've done the BNI. I've done, you know, uh, different, you know, I've done Rotary. I've done all the things, right?
All the networking things. And I've taken what I liked and emulated those. Things and formed a group of my own. And so right now we're 11 people. We, we meet once a month, the first Tuesday of every month that we met yesterday and your name came up, uh, actually outside of this podcast, somebody in my group said, Hey, I'm talking with Leanne, you know, [00:13:00] what do you guys know about her?
And I was the first to say, she's delightful. I'm going to be on a podcast tomorrow. And then another of the group members said really glowing things about you that I can say, I'll say off camera. So the name's not out there. But anyway, we took the things that we liked and I, and I brought Ben and Nate fair with me and we started with 3 simple rules.
We have to like, you as a person. Uh, that's the 1st 1 I want to hang out with you socially 1st, you know, no matter what, when you join the chamber, there's a, you know, we used to get 75 people at breakfast in Brookfield and no matter how amazing the chamber is. You know, oftentimes there's like 1 person you're just like, not jiving with.
You're like, I'm never going to refer to that person. So we had to start there. And then the second thing is you have to be open to both give and receive referrals. You know, I, I brought somebody into the organization early on and then they were like, okay, I don't have any capacity to take any new clients.
And I said, okay, I'm sorry. You got to leave. We need to be able to send you stuff. It was very good.
Leighann Lovely: You gotta leave.
Dan Hanson: I took them to lunch and it was a [00:14:00] nice breakup, but you know, I'm paraphrasing, uh, for time's sake, but you know, we had, that's, we're all in the network to give people business. And then the last thing is we had to primarily work.
 And for the most part, all 11 of us almost work exclusively with business owners. So those 3 things have served us really well. And also bringing people in 1st, we don't we back into the person, not the industry. Okay, so I love this person. What they do, does that work with us? And that has also served well to invite people in.
And so that's the work, right? And surrounding yourself with the people that want to be, like you said, those mass networkers. And it's been amazing.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And I like how you kind of broke that down, that analysis of, like, it doesn't make sense to have somebody there And I guess the other thing is why are you there if you can't take on more business?
That's the time where you're, you should have your head down focusing on what you can do [00:15:00] or focusing on executing on the business that you have and figuring out how you can take on more business. As a business owner, that's what I'm going to be doing. Like if I'm at capacity, I need to figure out how I can scale to, unless, and again, let me, let me back up.
If you're happy, At that capacity, you're not, you have no desire to scale. Then why are you out there? But if you do want to scale to be bigger, then you should be figuring out how to do that before you're back out there networking, because then it's, I feel like it's, I shouldn't say it's a waste of time.
I was about to say it's a waste of time. It's never a waste of time to create relationships. It's never a waste of time to continue to nurture that network and stay in front of people. But if the sole goal of a group that you're part of is to take on new, you know, new business and pass [00:16:00] new business.
Yeah, you're right. It's not beneficial to the people in that other group. So I commend you for making sure, you know, Hey, these are the boxes that everybody needs to check to be here. Let's make sure that we're staying on point.
Dan Hanson: Yeah. And, uh, we've had, we had, you know, a really good conversation and, and it was basically, made aware that the group was so good.
He just didn't want to say no. You know, it was, um, it's been amazing. Honestly, I can't tell you enough. Like it's been one of the things that, that buoys me because my industry is subject to a lot of different economic factors and there's ups and downs and, you know, real estate bubbles and all of that. So, being with a group of, uh, like minded individuals that have your back.
Has been the best part of my working career. And so it's, you know, we've got a, we've got a mission statement. We've got officers. We track absences. Uh, we've done, guest speaking events. So, you know, we brought in Derek debris. I think I introduced you to him a while ago. And he did a free seminar for, you know, [00:17:00] business owners.
We ended up bringing 50 business owners and I catered lunch. You know, they all got swag and they got a free 1 hour seminar. It's amazing. We've done charity events. We're actually going to do a guest bartending event for the Wisconsin division of Oprah, which is the ovarian cancer research alliance.
So part of our mission statement is that we're dedicated to steward the business owners in the communities in which we live and work. And all of that comes back to giving back. So I've got a tattoo on my arm in Irish that says, To those much is given, much is expected. I feel like I've been given a tremendous amount in my life, you know, started with, I think, the great foundations that allowed me to be successful.
And so I want to give back, you know, and here's the time to do it. And now I have the means and the energy. And so all of us are very good about giving of our time, especially amongst the group members in our various fields of expertise, both to each other and their clients.
Leighann Lovely: I am a huge believer that what you put out into the world, [00:18:00] what you give to the world comes back to you.
And I see it in those who are so generous in giving. The people who are so unbelievably generous, so, I mean, the, the kind of people who you look at and you talk with, and you're like, wow, this person would literally give me the shirt off their back if I needed it, are the ones who rise to the top.
 It's not something you can teach. It's something that is just in them it and it's, um, and they really truly are the ones who, and I'm not talking about rising to the top and they're millionaires and they're, but they're the people in the community that their names are the ones who are being thrown around constantly.
The Ben Zangs of the world who, if I called him today and said, Hey, I need this. He'd be like, yeah, I can. And it's not like he's, he's my best friend in the world. He is truly a [00:19:00] business associate that I have met who has become a friend. And it's, it's the people like you who are giving your time, your energy, because you're capable of doing that.
And it's, and, and the success follows. And it's amazing to see and watch that. And then you see those who are just getting by that you can tell just a little bit that their intent is Much more selfish. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that in sales. We have to be a little selfish.
Our intent is to sell, make the company money. That's the goal, but as salespeople, we need to remember that our product is not for everybody. And that selling them, selling on, you know, selling somebody on [00:20:00] something that may not be perfect for them, in my opinion, is, is not ethical. I don't think it's moral.
 And that if we as salespeople are willing to explain that to somebody, Like, Hey, this product is probably not right for you as much as it hurts the first time. And it did the first time I had to go, Oh my gosh, my product is not right. And they are ready to say yes, but like, this isn't right. It's they're not going to be happy.
They're going to leave. It was so liberating and it felt good at the end of the day. I mean, not for my, my pocketbook. But it felt good at the end of the day to know that I did the right thing. And guess what? Another sale came along that was right. And I was thoroughly happy, thoroughly thrilled that the match was made.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, oftentimes the best thing you do is just open another door for somebody, right? You [00:21:00] know, I, what I say to people is it's not a no, it's just a not me. Uh, I can't do this for you, but here are two other people that I want to introduce you to that might be able to help. You know, I don't want to ever over promise, but, you know, the commercial lending world on the underwriting side is, uh, pretty foreign to most people.
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Dan Hanson: I would say, you know, if you go out and buy a house, right, they're going to look at your DTI. They're going to look at your credit score. They're going to spit out a rate and there you go. You kind of pre qualified. It's so much different on the commercial side. You know, we put together. 5060 page what we call LPs or presentations basically for each credit that we look at and we get in and in my specific shop, we're credit experts.
We dive in and we understand everything about the industry 1st. You know? All right. This is, uh, you know, let's just say it's a manufacturing business in Waukesha County, right? We're going to do all the research on those specific things in the, in the county and the industry itself and what the trends are.
Obviously, we understand everything about the borrower. And then we just kind of, you know, work into the numbers just to see if it makes sense because [00:22:00] ultimately, you know, what our concerns are as a lender should be the concerns of the, you know, the borrower. Right? Um, you know, just because you're putting your money on the line, so are we, and, you know, and we're slapping a lien on your property.
So we want to make sure that it's a good investment for both of us. And that's the hardest thing for people to understand is they just have it in their minds that they want to buy this building. You know, at any cost, seemingly, and I'll make it work and I got this asset and it has to be good for me.
And what I have to tell them, and this is similar to what you were saying when you have to say no to somebody is you say, this is why right? Give them the why behind what for these 4 reasons. It doesn't make sense for you or I to enter into this transaction.
Leighann Lovely: And absolutely. And that builds your, your know, like, and trust the trust factor in that right there is that all of the sudden you've just made them trust you that much more. And even though you aren't going to be doing business with them right now, you've just become a trusted [00:23:00] ally in their network. And.
When somebody comes to them and they, you know, and they say, well, where did you get this loan done? They're very much more likely to say, well, you know, I originally went to Dan Hanson and we couldn't do business together, but. Here's this gentleman. I, I got mine from XYZ, but the reason I, you know, went to them is because I had this situation, blah, blah, blah.
You now become a trusted ally despite the fact that you're not even doing business with them.
Dan Hanson: Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: That's powerful. That is really, really powerful.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, I, uh, I firmly believe like what you said, you know, what you put out. If you do the, do the right thing, First, like you said, the money will follow, ultimately for me, it's also just sleeping well at night.
You know, I have two young kids, a wife that I adore, you know, my life is really good. And I know that, um, if I do the right things during the day, that they'll be proud of me, no matter [00:24:00] what. I also, I have to say, because I think this is so important, you know, you, this is, I'm sure geared towards sales executives and salespeople, you know, kind of in the, in the bullpen, uh, alike.
I have the best boss in the world. He is not only is he a credit wizard. So I can bring him the most complicated deals and he can see through it. He understands what it's like to be a human and understands what it's like to be in my role and doing what I'm doing. And he affords me the luxury of autonomy, which is great.
Because, you know, I said to them. If I don't make my numbers, feel free to come down on me as hard as you want, but I'm going to hit that number. You know, last year I hit my goal by June 1st. This year I hit my yearly goal by August 1st. Um, last year I hit the team goal by myself by October 1st and then they raised my goal 50 percent and I still hit it by August 1st.
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Dan Hanson: I want to win and I do think sales is a competition, right? And it is a, it's a game and we got to win. But I can't. Reach as far as I can if I didn't have the [00:25:00] amazing boss that I do. And I think that goes true for teachers, for mentors. And for parents, I was able to reach as far as I can because of my parents.
They set me up for success in so many different ways. Not the least of which is education. You know, I got my MBA back in 2015 when I kind of pivoted and changed careers. You know, and I was able to do that. Because I already had my undergrad that they helped me with and obviously student loans and all that fun stuff, but it's just so key that I think, you know, for salespeople, young salespeople, especially, you know, listening to the podcast, just find the manager that that allows you to be who you are, but also coaches you and teaches you in the right way.
Leighann Lovely: And that's, and I just want to make a comment to what you just said, that coaches you and mentors you in the right way, which is, is. Has been a rarity in so many, so many situations that there are, there are managers out there, sales managers out there who [00:26:00] have never been sales people. And here's the strange thing is that when you, if you have a great sales person and then you put them in a management role, Often they struggle because they are true through and through sales people.
 But if you have somebody who understands sales and let me tell you, my, my father was a, mediocre sales guy, but he was a amazing sales manager. Just like that is when he rose up and because he understood how to sell. But he was a strategic thinker and liked to put all the pieces together and support people versus going out and selling himself.
 It's a hard, it's a hard thing to do when you're, when you're young, moving into a sales position, ask questions. It is okay to [00:27:00] ask, and if you're asking questions and getting pushback, you're in the wrong place. If you're asking questions and you're getting a leader who is engaged with you and coaching you and teaching you, you're in the right spot.
And Matrix, yes. They exist. They exist so that we are able to gamify it, make it about beating yourself, not the company, not, you know, if you make it about winning against yourself. It is way more fun because we have to figure out how to track a salesperson and everybody's like, Oh, I've got a, I have these matrix that my company's holding me.
I have to make so many phone calls. You know what? Yeah. In the beginning, that's what it's going to be about. But once you start hitting every one of your goals, your manager is going to stop looking at those. They're not gonna care. They're gonna go. Okay. Okay. Wow. Um, you're you're [00:28:00] meeting all your go They will stop looking at those numbers and they're literally gonna go.
Okay, you know what you can do whatever you want I'm here to support you in any way I can and that manager will start just removing roadblocks if they're a good manager That's what they'll do. They'll sit back and go Dan you go and do your job You call me if there's something that's in your way If you have a problem, you call me and I will make sure to remove that obstacle for you.
If they have the power to do it, there are certain industries where there's roadblocks and there's red tape for reasons to regulate and blah, blah, blah. But the greatest sales managers sit back and wait for their salespeople. Well, not all the time they check into, but for their salespeople to call them and go, Hey boss, man, I got a, I got an issue.
And that's when that manager goes, let me figure out how to fix it for you. Quick and now so that your job is as easy as it possibly can be to sell and make money for the [00:29:00] company.
Dan Hanson: Mm hmm.
 
Dan Hanson: Yeah, you said something that I say all the time and I've seen it so often that the best salespeople are automatically promoted to sales leaders or managers and that is so deserving, you know, oftentimes it's expected, you know, you earn this and that's what we should do.
 But the best salespeople oftentimes can't teach what they do. Correct? And then,
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Dan Hanson: 1 of the things I really wanted to talk about is, you know, for young people, maybe tuning in getting into sales and why, for me, it was. You know, I love talking to people and I love meeting new people and making relationships.
That's really what, you know, kind of turns my butter. I also realized early on I didn't have any hard skills coming out of undergrad. I wasn't an engineer. I wasn't an architect. I wasn't in the content getting my CPA. I call those kind of hard skills. Those are things you go specifically to school for. I had people skills, which is again, something you can't teach.
So I knew that very early on if it was something I was passionate about, and the [00:30:00] coaching and the training was adequate, if not excellent, that I could be successful because I have my own internal barometer. Nobody's going to be harder on me than me. Right, I'm going to, you know, if they tell me to make 10 phone calls, I'm making 20 all the things right that that's an internal engine that, you know, again, just just you have or you don't.
So, I think, you know, for people coming out of school, not knowing. What to do if you've got people skills, if you're not afraid to meet people, to make phone calls, um, you know, if you're not afraid to learn, especially it is such a great career and it can spurn you into so many different directions. Right.
I've run businesses before, you know, I've been in charge of P and L's, you know, north of 3 million in revenue. You know, I, like I said, I got me MBA back in 2015. So I understood finance. You know, and so I think banking was an easy transition for me, but I started in sales, you know, and I've, you know, straight sales, product sales, whatever, you know, service sales.
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Dan Hanson: So for me, it's about also knowing that you can reinvent yourself, you know, so many times. Uh, usually [00:31:00] every year I go and speak at a middle school and I say that exact same thing. I think one of the worst things we do is ask kids, you know, when they're 17 years old to try to pick. What they want to do with the rest of their life, right?
Just, you know, try it. Uh, there's a book called ready, aim, fire. Or ready, fire, aim, excuse me, where, you know, have a bias for action and try things. And then figure out what you liked, what you didn't like, and then kind of refocus and recalibrate. And I think that's so key for young people and especially young salespeople.
You can reinvent yourself so many times.
Leighann Lovely: Absolutely. What I wanted to be when I was 17 versus what I am today, I mean, I wanted to go, I wanted to be a police officer.
Dan Hanson: I can see that.
Leighann Lovely: I mean, very not at all, like not even close to what I was originally planning. And then I was going to be a computer programmer. Then I was going to be an accountant. No, it was an accountant, then a computer programmer. Then I went to school for business emphasis in human resource management. And now [00:32:00] I run a sales company.
Like how many careers can one person have in their lifetime? And in the reality of it, that's not really. Abnormal.
Dan Hanson: No, I think it's the norm.
Leighann Lovely: It is the norm at this point. I mean, I'm a, I'm a highly educated woman that just didn't have a straight path to where I'm at, but I do not regret a moment of the path I took because it's brought me to where I am.
And, every moment of my path, I learned something simple as that.
Dan Hanson: Absolutely.
Leighann Lovely: So I'm, hey, I'm, I'm glad I'm not a police officer.
Dan Hanson: I think we all are.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah.
 
Dan Hanson: I don't know. I certainly know. I didn't sit back when I was 17 and think, well, I want to be a commercial banker someday. That was not the sexy dream I had.
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Dan Hanson: I'll tell you this. I've never been happier in my professional life than I am right now. And that's been for the last few years. Number 1, the job that I [00:33:00] do in helping business owners. Number 2, my boss, who's incredible, as I mentioned, and number 3, working for an organization that I do that, you know, really means what they say.
I've worked for big, you know, financial institutions. Uh, and the message is lost, but, you know, being with a smaller institution than I am with today, it is a stark contrast, and it's such a fresh, amazing outlook. And I couldn't be happier. And I think that shows when I'm working with clients, right? When I'm more than happy to, to engage with them and bring them in and understand that they're going to get the service that I think is what they should get.
So anyway, super happy.
Leighann Lovely: Well, this leads into us wrapping up where you get your 30 second shameless pitch. So please.
Dan Hanson: Yes, she's a, you know, I should like to talk about myself more given my profession. Ultimately, I just want to be what Ben said, the guy that knows the guy. But with respect to what I do on a daily basis, know that I'm going to get in and understand everything about your credit request so that I'm the best advocate that I [00:34:00] can be for you.
 Not only am I going to, you know, work on the actual. Uh, request itself. I'm going to try to understand your industry, what you're paying points are, you know, what, what's the trends, what's the future outlook? I have, you know, countless, tools at my, uh, disposal that I can, you know, kind of look at to understand where the industry is headed.
And primarily real estate is the easiest thing that people can understand. And so I love working on real estate transactions. I work with a lot of investor groups. That, you know, have multiple projects that we work on together, because ultimately I'm not transactional. Right? I do want to have repeat customers and work on different things.
And for instance, tonight, I'm going out with 2 clients. They invited my wife and I out to dinner. You know, there were, we just closed on a property a couple of months ago, and they're bringing their wives and we're all getting together. Right? They become friends. So, I hate to say that I'm a generalist, but, you know, as my bio pointed out, I can do everything.
You know, if you're a business owner and you want to buy, uh, you know, a [00:35:00] giant piece of equipment for your manufacturer, I can do that. I can get you, you know, vehicle. Uh, I can do he locks or B lock, excuse me, and lines of credit, you know, the real estate, obviously, and the SBA side allows me. To work with acquisitions, you know, I've done franchise acquisitions.
 I've, you know, what, what, what's unique about the 8 together is that it allows you to do a real estate transaction with what we call blue sky or kind of, you know, that uncollateralized, you know, business startup costs. So it's been, uh, it's been amazing. I'm super happy what I do. I have a huge engine and passion for learning, learning.
 I have a personal motto. You know, that, um, that I will always stand by is that, I'm constantly learning, to just brought in my, my reach and what I can understand. So ultimately I just want to be the best partner I can be.
Leighann Lovely: If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?
Dan Hanson: Yeah, so my email is pretty easy. It's D. Hanson at Kohler. C u [00:36:00] dot com, which is the letter D. Hanson is H. A. N. S. O. N. At Kohler. K. O. H. L. E. R. The letter C. The letter you dot com. I do also give out my personal cell, which some people might think is strange, but it's the best way to get a hold of me. Text and Email and calls are fine.
It's 414 526 3565.
Leighann Lovely: Amazing. And those will be in the show notes. And Dan, I really appreciate you coming on today. This has been an awesome conversation.
Dan Hanson: Yeah, it shouldn't have taken us this long because I'm a huge fan of yours and you know, we go back years and I'm really a big fan of what you guys are doing.
So thanks for having me on.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah.
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Elevate Your Brand: Sales Strategies for Success

Love Your Sales Podcast welcomes Ryan Chute, the Wizard of Ads, to discuss the critical elements of sales and marketing success. Leighann and Ryan dive into the concepts of brand culture, the importance of simplicity, and how to create authentic connections with customers. Ryan shares insights on how companies can stand out by aligning their internal cultures with their external branding and marketing efforts. The conversation highlights the significance of being "sales ready" and the impact of a unified, consistent presence across all channels. Tune in to learn how to make your sales process effortless and elevate your business to new heights.
Contact Ryan Chute
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wizardryanchute/
Website - linktr.ee/ryanchute
Email - ryanchute@wizardofads.com
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
 Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1
 
Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am so excited today.
I am joined by Ryan Chute, the wizard of ads, a visionary in entrepreneurship. Welcome Ryan. Thank you so much. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. So, Ryan, why don't you, you know, ex kind of expand a little bit on, um, what the Wizard of Ads is.
Ryan Chute: I'm a, I'm a partner within the [00:02:00] Wizard of Ads that, basically helps businesses, uh, build their brands and take them from, unknown names or, or name recognition through to.
Being, becoming a household name. And really what we're trying to do is elevate the, the brand presence within a Particular company, but equally as much try to elevate the inside of the business to be able to deliver on those brand promises.
Leighann Lovely: What does that mean?
Ryan Chute: Well, it all boils down to a thing that I learned back in 2015, from my partner, Ray Segrin, uh, who's also a wizard of ads partner.
And he, said, look, there's, there's three big buckets here. There's the brand, there's the culture, and then there's the experience. And. Your brand is a representation of your culture and your experiences. Your culture is all of the things that your employees experience in your business, from your salespeople to your CSRs, to your, uh, your, HR department or your accounting team straight through to the buying experience.
Now, [00:03:00] when we care for those people at the right level in our culture, the buying experience is going to be elevated because they're the ones actually doing all the work. Right. And those buying experiences and those buyer experiences and those employee experiences are the things that we are able to represent in the brand through our advertising, our websites, our policies, and all of the things that bring it all together.
So in short, your brand really is your culture and your culture really is your brand. And that's what's going to deliver the buying experience.
Leighann Lovely: I love that. I, I absolutely, and I don't think that we put enough emphasis, um, on, you know, we, we, as businesses are constantly talking about, oh, how do we look from the outside?
But if we're not focusing on how we act. on the inside, how we are on the inside, how it won't translate no matter how hard we try, you know, [00:04:00] from the outside view, right? If we're not teaching that, if we're not constantly making sure that we're looking at that. And, and I remember somebody, I asked somebody one day, I said, well, how do you, how do you create a culture?
And they're like, well, As you grow, no matter what that culture will exist, no matter what it create, it starts to create itself. If you are not 100 percent diligent on staying on top of that, you will have a culture that exists. No matter what, so you have to make sure that you are like actively making sure that that's a positive, happy, good feeling or experience is being created.
Ryan Chute: I think, think of it like a, like a Petri dish, right? There's three different, uh, there's three different terms for culture, you know, and, and if we were just to take the biological [00:05:00] chemical. You know, version of that for a moment. And we had a little Petri dish and we threw in a bunch of, you know, positive little biomes and, organisms and whatnot, we're going to have a healthy little Petri dish full of things.
But if we throw in a whole bunch of negative things and bad things that we're going to get mold and darkness and, gloom and, poison, and it's no different in your culture, right? When we start to recognize and relate the true laws of. The universe, be it the chemical or biological or physics of the universe.
What we realize is that the same thing happens in our business and your friend is right that, no matter what, there's a culture there. The question is, are you steering that culture or are you a victim of that culture? It's also important to recognize that you don't just have one culture in your business.
You have neighborhoods in your business. You have many cultures in your business. Your CSR is all kind of come together in a click your, your, uh, install department, [00:06:00] your retail sales floor department, your, different groups of, birds of a feather flock together and, and tend to have a perspective.
Of us against them. A lot of the times, if you don't find ways to bridge those gaps and, and create a holistic solution that makes everyone feel a part of the team and able to communicate in a healthy ways.
Leighann Lovely: That's so interesting. Like, I, I love I'm such a nerd because this gets, this really gets back into, you know, a podcast that I had.
Years ago, which is the HR, you know, aspect of things, but, and we forget that, we forget that this piece of it directly correlates with the way that the individuals in your organization represent your company from the outside world. So if you, if you're sitting, if one of your salespeople, your CSRs, one of your [00:07:00] anybody at that company is sitting in earshot of somebody who is considering buying or is even in the market for a product that you have and you are disgruntled and you are talking negative, Oh God, you're working at this company, that person is not going to become your client.
Ryan Chute: That's right.
Leighann Lovely: But if that person is talking about how great it is to work at that company, all of the sudden that person who needs plumbing services and I refer to plumbing constantly, I don't know why, but, um, cause I, I always have a plumbing job at my house,
 
Leighann Lovely: That person all of the sudden may pull up their phone and go, Oh, what company is this?
And look it up.
Ryan Chute: Right.
Leighann Lovely: And that person then may become a client.
Ryan Chute: Well, and if we were to just extrapolate exactly that, Leanne, to, instead of it just being the person who's sitting next to you in the restaurant, to that exact same kind of thing happening on the [00:08:00] radio, where 50 percent of the population of any city in America can hear your ad and that ad sounds not so much like an ad, but a glimpse into what you stand for and what you stand against in your business and how you represent that, be it Funny or endearing or maybe even sad or frustrating and exacerbating that pain and then resolving that pain in a in a 30 or 60 second ad that has a person going, Huh?
I mean, I don't need plumbing right now. I mean, Leanne always needs plumbing, but I don't need plumbing right now. But when I do need plumbing, if I had to choose between a random faceless group of people on Facebook or, Google search, or, uh, you know, looking at the Google map pack or the LSA local service ads and going, I guess I could just pick one of these random people like a roulette table, or I could pick the one that I.
Kind of already have a feeling [00:09:00] about, and then the feelings kind of good. And when you, when you are known, liked, and trusted before they need your thing, you're winning the game before the game plays is even started.
Leighann Lovely: That's yes, that's what, yeah, yes, you are. And, I constantly. You know, the no like and trust is a constant conversation that comes up.
 Obviously on, you know, this is a sales podcast. We constantly talk about the no like and trust factor and when people feel when you invoke a feeling negative, positive. Like you said, you know, if it's when it's a feeling people remember
Ryan Chute: no matter what you say, but everyone will remember how you made them feel
Leighann Lovely: right?
And if you make them feel like they've connected with you in some way in a positive way. [00:10:00] You've just triggered something in them that will go, Oh, I remember. And that's how you've gotten them to look you up when they do have a, you know, a need for whatever service.
Ryan Chute: It's going to be one of two. It's they're either going to look you up direct.
 Because you've, been around long enough doing your branding that people go, Oh, I know those, that name, right? We're past name recognition. Name recognition means I know your name, but I just don't care. Being a household name is. I care about your brand and you're my chosen brand of choice.
This extrapolates into the sales process. It extrapolates into the, into the buying process. All of this starts to interconnect. Heck this is true when you're trying to find a mate, uh, when you're trying to connect with your child, when you're, uh, connecting with other people in other communities with that, that you are a part of, be it your church or your community center or whatever.
 All communication is all communication and [00:11:00] people really like to make it complicated and, um, while it is complicated, there's first principles that we can trust on that, that we can rely on first and, and lean into. So know, like, and trust is super important. Do you want to make your sales job easier?
Have them know, like, and trust you before they come to you. Uh, have you step into their house, you step into their house, or they step into your retail shop, or they call you on the phone for their insurance or, legal services, your average ticket's going to go up, your conversion is going to probably happen first or second sit, it's going to, it's going to happen faster, and your profitability is going to go up, and our measures show that it's somewhere between 30 and 100 percent depending on the product in the market, and that's a lot of money.
Right. And that's how you grow your business. But that's how you make it easier for your salespeople to sell as leaders. We have a responsibility to serve our salespeople at a higher level than we traditionally serve them.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Right. So let's talk a little bit more [00:12:00] about how you engage your clients to assist them with doing this.
 You had mentioned that you work with some, you know, some of the trades and some of the Yeah. So let's, let's talk about, you know, not only the cultural piece, but where do you know if, if I were to come to you and say, Hey, Ryan, you know, I, I'd like to hire you to, to assist me. Where do you, yeah, where do you start?
Ryan Chute: Well, you know. It all starts right with our core service at Wizard of ads. We write advertising that stands out, stands 600 feet above the crowd. We have national buying power, so we're able to buy basically mass media like TV, radio billboards at about 27 cents on the dollar. So we pay for ourselves basically a four times return basically day one.
Which, which means two things. One, we can't serve as everyone. So we handpick the people that we want to work with and, and look for the people who are aggressively looking to grow their businesses four times to 10 times their [00:13:00] business out of the gate. And some cases, thousands of times of growth, depending on where they are and what the opportunity is.
So first thing first is we're looking for right people with the right disposition and, and, and looking to care for their people at the right level, both as a customer, as an employee. When we see good operators. Operators that are looking to efficiently deliver, um, the solutions that they provide, then we're going to go to work telling their story.
So it really comes all from the marketing aspect. We're going to figure out that that's the conduit in for everyone. Everyone's struggling with their marketing right now. Everyone's paying 30 percent more for their Google ads. Uh, these days, everyone's Facebook isn't working the way it was working before.
 Those are channels, right? Those aren't actual marketing. Those are just, um, tactics within marketing, right? Marketing is all of the things, branding, sales, activation, policy, how we answer the phone, the words [00:14:00] that we use to name our business, the colors we choose, the shapes that we choose, uh, all of these things have to do with marketing.
And we look at it in a very holistic way because we're not associated or attached to any channel where we're what like I like to call media agnostic, we were not fussed about the channel. In fact, the channel is the last thing we need to worry about. The first thing that we need to do is go. What are you trying to achieve?
Are you trying to? Or X, your business, are you trying to, stand out in a, in a marketplace that has a similar named or similar, uh, services as you, or, or products as you, and once we figure out what the. The goal is then we can reverse engineer strategically how we're going to stand 600 feet above that goal and the competition within that goal.
Once we do that, all of that is going to inform exactly what the creative is going to be. And all of that creative is going to [00:15:00] inform how we're best going to be able to deliver it most efficiently on the different channels. So as you see, the channels end up being the last one. And let's not forget that channels include salespeople, CSRs, trucks, storefronts, uh, Phone numbers, websites, all of those are channels and we have to be, ready to, to align all of those channels to speak and feel the same way so that it doesn't get weird along the way as, as people are investigating it.
Right.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Right. You know, and it's, it's funny that you say all of those channels cause you know the way that I explain this to people, cause again, you know, we work in very similar ways. Right. Very, very similar roles or what we do for people is, you know, and when a client comes to me and says, you know, we need help in our sales and marketing front.
And one of the first things that I always do, especially when they come in, they say, we want you to, you know, do appointment setting. The first thing [00:16:00] that. Anybody does Ryan first thing, right? As we go on social media and say, okay, what does this company look like? What do you as a salesperson look like?
And there has been plenty of times that I've had to go back and say, you're really not sales ready. And that's, and I just said it one day to a client and she goes, well, what do you mean? And I'm like, you know, your LinkedIn says X, Y, Z. Your Facebook, which is also tied to your business and you advertise, you know, that's, yeah, I can see it on your website where you have that link says that you're still working at this company, you know, then you have this, that doesn't have a link that goes anywhere.
It's just a dead end. I'm like, you, you just, you're not sales ready. Like I could go out and set appointments for you, but if people are looking you up all of your social, it's not swimming in the same direction. It looks, it's broken. And she's like, Oh, Oh, I didn't, I didn't even realize. And I'm like, it's important.
And people go, [00:17:00] Oh, come on. It's not that, you know, they can find me on LinkedIn and I'm like, yeah, they can. But if they're not a LinkedIn person, they're going to go to Facebook.
Ryan Chute: They're
Leighann Lovely: going to go to Tik TOK. They're going to go to Instagram. They're going to go to their preferred platform. And if you're not on it, that's okay.
It's better to not be on it than have that be broken. And they're like, uh, okay. And so I dropped that, like, you're not sales ready one day. And that's become now the, like, are you sales ready? And it's literally become the terminology that I use because it's really simple and dumbed down to people. They get it.
Are you sales? Right. And it's the exact same thing that you're saying, which is. It is better to shut down a platform than to have it and, and I'm sure you see this for me to go on to a platform and look and say, Oh, this is going to [00:18:00] their previous job. Oh, this phone number is dead. Oh, this email bounces because they're no longer at that company.
If you're a business owner or a salesperson, and I consider every salesperson, you're running your own little mini business. Like, even if you're working for a company, you represent that company and you need to brand yourself as the expert. And therefore, you're becoming like a little mini business.
That's how you're going to become the great. If you want to be a great salesperson,
Ryan Chute: salespeople, I've always 100 percent supported being a sales guy my whole life. We are entrepreneurs. We are risk, centric. We are, um, performance oriented and we are a business and have to think like entrepreneurs, not employees.
And, and that does mean. Getting those all, all those ducks lined up.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Yeah. And [00:19:00] so, I mean, people just don't understand how, how impactful your social can be positively or negatively. Same thing. I mean, we just, obviously, um, you know, this nation just went through the most crazy election ever with, you know, and I'm not going to get into, but people don't realize like, Oh, I'm going to go put my political views out on Facebook.
You very well may be alienating a large population of people. Now, if you want to.
Ryan Chute: About half every time. Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Right. Right. Same with other topics. Now, if you're okay with that, that's absolutely fine. But understand the ramifications of doing that. And some people are like, well, I didn't understand. [00:20:00]
Ryan Chute: There is a consequence to, to everything.
And, and some people, uh, perceive themselves as, you know, That's the virtuous one that needs to, stand for something, but there's, there's time and place to stand for things. And there's, you know, I, I think that if we all just orient back to, first principles rather than the negotiables in life, right, political parties are negotiables, uh, religion has negotiables in it.
That's why there's many thousands of, of religions. And, there's, there's core things that are non negotiables.
Ryan Chute: In life, and if we just to orient to that and some of those non negotiables being kindness, empathy, confidence, duty of care, honor, you know, which is lost in this world right now, then we're going to have an awful lot more success because look, people don't follow people who aren't going anywhere.
And you can't go anywhere if you don't have a North star and a North star doesn't move. Right? So if, a person is trying to say, I stand for [00:21:00] something, you have to stand for it when it's inconvenient to you as much as you, you stand for it when it's convenient for you. And that's fundamentally the difference between beliefs and values.
When you believe something, you can believe the equally opposite thing to also be true. Right? So I believe, as an example, that, uh, freedom and responsibility are equally valuable things. And depending on which side of the table you sit on, that will matter more or less at any given time. I believe that justice and mercy are equally true, but if I'm the accused murderer, I want mercy.
And if I'm the victim's family, I want justice. But what happens? What happens? When the victim's family murders, the murderer now, what do they want? Right. Right. This is the difference between values [00:22:00] and beliefs. And when we, when we really start to self explore that as leaders and then stand for something in our businesses, even if we're just the salesperson, because there's no such thing as just a salesperson, that's a business.
Right. And when we do stand for that, people are attracted to that. They will follow that values. Are the true value that people see when you're trying to build value. So if you want to be valuable to people, stand for something when it's inconvenient for you.
Leighann Lovely: That was really eloquently put. Thank
Ryan Chute: you.
Leighann Lovely: I really liked the way that you explain that.
And, because you're right. You, that very, very well explained. And, and yes, it's. People need to, and I'm not saying that you have to put a stake in the ground, but people want authenticity. [00:23:00] They want somebody Who's going to show that value. They want somebody who's going to resignate with them. And, and they can't find that if you're not willing to give a little.
Ryan Chute: I like to call it the flinch. Right. When customers see you flinch, they know that you've done something that hurts a little. That's inconveniencing you a little bit. So what can we do to show the flinch?
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. And how do you work with your clients on
Ryan Chute: that? Everyone's custom. Everyone's in a unique situation with a unique set of skills that we have to figure out what matters to both the customer. And what the company is, is ready to stand for and ready to stand against and willing to do operationally, because this all costs [00:24:00] money and time and energy and they have to choose what they're going to do.
A lot of the companies that we start with, frankly, don't do anything special. We're making interesting by making them interesting. Our standout clients, the ones that are truly exceptional. They're all doing something that makes them exceptional. One of my clients, they have less than a hundred products in their price list.
But sell at the same volume as their competitors who have many thousands of items in their price list. They are so good and efficient and simplified at selling that they can absolutely obliterate their competition through their operational excellence, through the true efficiency, the elegance, the curation of their inventory, their products, their protections, their price, and their payments, that they're able to quickly deliver a solution that makes the customer go, Oh, yeah, it's just.
That one. I have [00:25:00] another client that is, uh, got eight locations across the Carolinas that's branded around the dad figure. And what does dad say when the kid calls up at three o'clock in the morning with whatever problem it is? I'm on my way. And that's our brand promise, and that's exactly what we promote in our marketing.
But that's also what they do operationally. They've set up their system, their operation, to be very efficient, but very efficient to do the one thing that we promise consistently. We don't need to talk about 24 hour service and always somebody. And we don't do on call for our plumbers, but like all, no, none of that stuff.
Like that's all just nonsense. Most of the time it's about saying less. But meaning it more
Leighann Lovely: right and having that true core value built in [00:26:00] and marketing that as, as being what they deliver. And that's, that's, you know, we get sometimes and as an entrepreneur myself and working with entrepreneurs, we're so close to what we do that we over complicate everything.
And sometimes the answer Is the simplest thing that's sitting literally on the tip of our nose, but because it's, we can't see it.
Ryan Chute: It's true. And look, Leonardo da Vinci said the, the ultimate sophistication is simplicity. And we see that, uh, hold true, hold true in, in products like apple, who, uh, Not everyone loves, but the majority of the planet loves.
And at the end of the day have far exceeded the expectations in Amazon's approach to ordering process and keeping it very easy to, make the final order, um, [00:27:00] to taking your price book down from thousands of items to under a hundred items, all of these things are what get out of the way of growth and scale,
Leighann Lovely: right?
Right. Simplicity. People, we, we live in a, um, in a instant gratification world and Sometimes the extra details that we think everybody wants the, Oh, here's, you know, here's a complete list of our catalog. That's got the 1000 products. Really? You know what? Sometimes I just want to go on there and be given 2 options.
This 1 or this 1. Yep, I like that one. And I've learned this as being a mom. It's funny, when you become a parent, you learn really quickly. Don't give a four year old or a six year old or even a ten year old a [00:28:00] ton of options. You give them two. A banana or an apple and they go a banana. Okay. But if you give them banana, apple, strawberries, blueberries, they'll sit there and stare at you and go, I don't know.
And it's like, really? Like what? I don't get it. What do you want? And they're, I don't know. But all of a sudden, if you go banana, apple, uh, banana. Great. Like simple. And you give them the option because then they feel like they're getting to choose. And so you eliminate the, I didn't want that. Okay.
Well, I gave you the option now. Okay. Now you chose it. But if you give too many, well, then they're like star struck. And again, these are the, like, these are simple things in life that translate directly into what we as human beings need. Like it's just at our core, this goes back to.
Ryan Chute: Whether you're four years old [00:29:00] or 40 years old, frankly.
The 40 year old person really just wants to say, Hey, do I get the blue car or the red car? That's, that's all I need to know. Like, like the blue one, please. Yeah,
Leighann Lovely: correct. Like, is this keyless entry or is this, like, I, I don't, When it gets too complex, and this is why I don't like dealing with the government, right?
This is why I don't have to, this is why I hire an accountant for all of the complex things. This is why we have doctors and, you know, to, to fix us. So this is why we have people who go to school for the really hard stuff, because we don't want to deal with it.
Ryan Chute: There's a, uh, there's a, there's a concept in physics called the third gravitating body.
When you have two gravitating bodies that tug on each other, like the Earth and the Moon. The, the predictable path is, is pretty straightforward. You can calculate that with, with a fair amount of ease. When you introduce a third, uh, gravitating body like a [00:30:00] comet, the predictability of that comet is incredibly difficult to calculate, mathematically speaking.
Now there's, there's two roads that we can walk down with that. One is how it tugs on us, uh, emotionally, but it also applies to The variability of options when I start giving you so many choices that the 4th and 5th and 6th option could end up breaking the 1st and 2nd place, I start to lose confidence as a consumer that this is the best choice.
So creating and curating your inventory and your pricing is absolutely crucial to serve your salespeople at the highest level. And as salespeople, the most successful people are the ones who do. Distill it down into a. A journey up, a progressive, uh, set of buckets. I, like to call it the, uh, four great walks in home services.
Now in New Zealand, there's the nine great walks in New Zealand, and there's just these beautiful things where [00:31:00] you start off the day at the base camp and you, you walk all through these beautiful areas and you get up to this gorgeous, stunning Vista and you see the magical big thing that you're going to see.
And then on the way back, it's just as beautiful and just as stunning and just as an, beautiful wonderful of experience down to the very place that you started at the base camp. Well, what I do with that is the exact same thing in home services when I'm looking at, um, five different HVAC systems.
I'm gonna start off with the most simplest of systems and I'm gonna walk them up through progressively more complicated systems into the best system. The, Lamborghini of systems, right? Not because I'm expecting them to buy anything, but they deserve to know that they're free to buy a Lamborghini of systems.
As a consumer, whether they choose to buy a Lamborghini or not, right? And then walk them back down. Now, I walk them up in the product and protection of those systems. And then I walk them down in the price and the payment of those [00:32:00] systems. So I start small and I end small. So I'm empathetic in the way that I'm approaching it, but I'm also making it astoundingly simple for them to see all the important things along the way and choose what their favorite Vista was along the way, option one through option five.
When you make it that easy for the customer to go, I like option three, the most. For whatever the reasons are service, uh, dependability, economy, performance, appearance, whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is what matters to the customer and that's the platinum rule. It's not the golden rule anymore.
The golden rule is do unto others as we want to be done unto. The platinum rule is do unto others as others want to be done unto.
Leighann Lovely: Interesting.
Ryan Chute: Right?
Leighann Lovely: Yeah.
Ryan Chute: And at least half the planet doesn't want to be treated like an extrovert. Pfft. Because they're introverts, right?
Leighann Lovely: And
Ryan Chute: it goes on and on and on. But those are the things that we can cut through all of the clutter of trying to solve the [00:33:00] six things that they care about in a product and just let them choose what's important by showing them an obvious set of solutions.
Leighann Lovely: Very interesting. And yes, that is absolutely what it Comes down to, and I have lost deals because I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to show them some of the add on services. And then they get so overwhelmed with, wait, wait, wait. Um, do I, I don't, I don't think I need any of this. And then it's okay.
We're going to review this. And then I'm going, okay. But you know, you said you were ready to move forward and like, yeah, but there's so much other stuff that I want to look at. And it's like, Oh crap. Like, that's right. You just, you just lost them because you're trying to upsell when in an inappropriate time.
They don't, they don't need it.
Ryan Chute: That's the magic right there, Leanne, is, exactly that. I call it tantric selling. I just waited for you to drink to say that, [00:34:00] see if I get a spit take, uh, tantric selling is the notion of delaying your gratification, your dopaministic urge to get the big whopper home run sale every time out of the gate to sell the priority purchase, sell the thing they need, get them to say yes, get it over the curb and then go back.
To get the rest of the sale, wherever the rest of that sale might make sense based on serving the customer at the highest level, not you, the customer. You should never be selling anything that you, the customer doesn't need. That's unethical. But for example, in air conditioning, if you were to look at a whole air conditioning system, you've got the, uh, all of the bits and pieces.
You can sell it in different configurations. I'm not going to get all complicated here. If we bought the air conditioner and they chose option three. Great. Job is done. Now the install is going on and the old air conditioner has just been [00:35:00] ripped out and the new air conditioner is being put in. The box is kind of just making its way into place.
Well, that's a great time for somebody to come in and look at the ductwork and the air handlers. And how, what's going on. The air cleaning, the air quality, uh, elements, how frequently the person changes their filter could factor into this and, and solving their problem with a superior filter, be it electrostatic or a, or a larger size filter, they could be looking at, um, heck, maybe even a, a, a duct cleaning because the, the old ducts are really quite dirty and we don't want all that dirt going into this brand new system.
And, and finishing the sale. Now we can do this incredibly ethically because now's the time to do it because we can lump it all into the financing right now and just make it infinitely more convenient for the customer. One of the things that we don't pay attention to very often when we're selling the old systems, which were often gas based into these new heat pump systems that the government is, [00:36:00] Putting rebates on and encouraging people to do requires new electric panels.
Well, we should be considering those. If we're in California, we should also be considering whole home generation because the grid is so archaic that there is a dramatic chance of you having your life support system, which is your air conditioner, go down because of your Of your electrical system, which is your life support systems like support system, because it's, it's no longer a luxury to have air conditioning and heating.
It's, it's absolutely a thing that people die from. I've been in offices listening to people who have said their wives just died. It's a real thing and it matters to me to represent ourselves in this industry. Certainly home services as essential service providers. Plumbers have saved more lives than any doctor will ever save in the history of saving lives.
Plumbers water, because if your water is not good, right? [00:37:00] You die.
Leighann Lovely: Correct. Right. If you're not, if you're drinking poisoned water
Ryan Chute: bad in so many different ways, you know, that's Flint, Michigan, perfect example of a most recent time for Americans, you know, but people overseas who are dealing with this and all of the disease that comes from that every single day, you know, so it's a big deal.
 Enough that we need to recognize what matters in this world is home services, which is why I really enjoy them the most. Now, our organization, wizard of ads, we, we serve as all kinds of different companies, retailers and professional services and all those things. But, um, my energy tends to focus on service based businesses that are providing services.
Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: So I'm going to wind down because we're coming to time. This conversation has just been so unbelievably amazing at your, a wealth of, of knowledge. But before we do, I want to give [00:38:00] you your 32nd shameless pitch. So Ryan, There you go, your 30 second shameless pitch.
Ryan Chute: You know, we're really just here to help people.
We start with the marketing. We focus on that. If you have a company that's looking to four to 10 X growth, we can come out of the gate saving you a heap of money, but also create an environment where you do become the household name where people actually care about you and you win the game before the game has even begun.
Leighann Lovely: That's awesome. And if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how do they go about doing that?
Ryan Chute: Three, three simplest conduits for me are on all socials. I'm wizard Ryan shoots. You can find me pretty much on any, on any platform under that handle. My, services based, marketing side of the business is wizard of ads dot services.
That's the URL. And uh, my personal page is Ryan shoot. com and you can, you can find me at any one of those spots and interact with me and talk with me. Look into my brain with all of our blog posts and all the other weird stuff that we [00:39:00] put out there in the universe.
Leighann Lovely: Awesome. And I will put those on the show notes.
So if you are looking to reach out to Ryan, you will be able to find those right on the show notes. Thank you, Ryan, again, so much for joining me today. This has been an awesome conversation.
Ryan Chute: That's a treat. Thank you so much. I'm really grateful.

Designing Homes: Safety, Security, and Style

In this episode of "Love Your Sales," host Leighann Lovely interviews Angela Lingle, the owner of Design Go Lighting. Angela shares her journey of starting her outdoor lighting business and discusses the passion and expertise she brings to transforming outdoor spaces into beautifully illuminated environments. They explore the importance of strategic partnerships with other small businesses, the benefits of outdoor lighting for both security and aesthetics, and practical advice for entrepreneurs looking to follow a similar path. Angela also highlights her approach to personalized lighting designs and offers insights into how she collaborates with clients to enhance their property's appeal. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to reach out to Angela for their outdoor lighting needs and information on how to get in touch.
Contract Angela –
Website – www.designgolighting.com
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelalingle/
Email – angela@designgolighting.com
 
Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com
 
Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/
 
The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489
 
Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today  - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann
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Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. I am really excited today because I am joined by Angela Lingle, the lighting lady. She is the owner of Design Go Lighting with 15 years of outdoor lighting experience. You have lit everything from a flagpole to a tree. An entire village, bringing everything to what illumination I suppose would be the right word, but design go lighting is, out an outdoor lighting [00:02:00] company that offers truly personalized experiences that cater to, all levels of involvement.
And I'm really excited to talk to you about this today, Angela. So welcome to the show.
Angela Lingle : Thank you so much, Leanne. I really appreciate the opportunity to share information today.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. So, well, why don't we start first, you know, when I hear outdoor lighting, I think, oh, let's throw a couple of, you know, lights on my house and, you know, that I can see when I drive, you know, home.
 but you, bring outdoor lighting to a whole new adventure and experience. Um, and I'm really excited for people to kind of, you know, check out your website and, and some of your posts on LinkedIn, but explain the difference between just throwing a couple of outdoor lights and what you do.
Angela Lingle : You
Leighann Lovely: know, that is
Angela Lingle : such an excellent question.
Angela Lingle: What I do as a lighting designer is try to put together the most beautiful [00:03:00] with the fewest number of fixtures. I think we've all driven past that property where it's just lit up and it's, it's too much. We've also driven past that property where it is almost depressing at night because there's so much beauty in the architecture but it, has just the fixtures on the outside of the house and One is warm and one is cool, and, and it just doesn't present well.
Mm-hmm . So when you have an opportunity to work with me or an outdoor lighting designer, uh, what we do is we look at. The architecture of the home or the business, the beauty in the nature around us, meaning trees and things like that, the outdoor living space that they have, what do they see when they look out of their windows, you know, and how can we bring that, um, enjoyment to that space into the evening hours.
[00:04:00] And then finally, what. Security and safety concerns are there. Are there stairs? Are there dark spots in a wonderful neighborhood, but there's been a little bit of crime? You know, what can we do to make that home so much fun to come home to each night? But then also, what is the purpose behind each fixture and how do we bring that all together?
 So it looks absolutely beautiful as you go by, as you come home. But again, with the fewest number of fixtures, each one Uh, having a purpose and whether it be an up or a down light or a path light, what do we need in each situation to make it unique? So it doesn't look like somebody just rubber stamped some up lights on the house.
You know, how can we make it? Much more, welcoming and more thought out, [00:05:00] uh, I guess that's a long answer, but no, but that you, it's clear that you have passion for what you do because just in the way that you explain all of that, which, you know, for me, the mundane person, when it comes to lighting, you know, first of all, when you drive up to my house, it's, it's a nightmare.
Leighann Lovely: It's dark. It's, um, the first thing I do is I push my door. My, button for my garage door because you can't see my house. It's dark, it's dreary. It's, and that's, that's actually my entire neighborhood right now. You know, we don't have a lot of lights and you don't, I guess you don't think about the safety.
You don't think about it for all of the, but the beauty of it, the, to be able to see a house lit up, to be able to have a clear path for guests who are just walking up and right now during this time of the year, wow, wouldn't it be so much nicer to actually have proper lighting where I can [00:06:00] see where I'm walking when I'm taking the dog out.
You know, outside to do his business. You know, and you, we do so many other things in our house to create environment, but we forget that there's other pieces that we can do to create that ambience that we want so that when we're having a party, we can flip on some really cool lights that. Cater to that.
Angela Lingle : Yeah, I just had an appointment last night in Heartland and one of the things that I offer is an outdoor lighting demo, so I can show you exactly what it would look like at night, uh, before you make any decisions or as you make the decisions. But it is exactly as you described,
Marker
Angela Lingle : it is on a country road.
completely dark. And so unless they remember to turn their lights on, for their kids when they come home and things like that, uh, [00:07:00] it is a little bit scary. And she described they have a detached garage because it's an old farmhouse. And her daughter came home and called her and said, Can you turn on the lights?
Because she didn't want to walk from the detached garage to the house in the complete darkness. So we met last night. You know, the ground is getting ready to freeze, so we're limited on what we can do yet this year. But we put together a simple plan. It's five uplights on the house and then one downlight on their stairs because.
it safety. They have grandmother who will be c and it's always been a st have always been a strugg how the conversation star but then to just add
Beautiful. They can add to trees and things like that in the [00:08:00] spring. But right now for their immediate need every night at dusk, their house is going to be illuminated with the soft down like going on those stairs and it's going to stay on until dawn and it's going to go on every day automatically without any thought.
It's going to factor in daylight savings time. It's just beautiful. See,
Leighann Lovely: this, it's, these are the brilliant things that, you know, these busy, busy people, I was going to say business people, but it's not, that's not just related to just busy people. Like, I can't remember to flip on the lights before I leave when it's when it's light out, because I'm not thinking about, Oh, I'm, I'm leaving when it's light out, but we're coming home when it's dark.
Yeah.
Angela Lingle : You know, and just along those lines, I really pride myself in being a lighting Resource as well as a lighting designer. [00:09:00] So in that situation, and I just shared this with my favorite networking group. I recommend GE makes an amazing dusk until dawn bulb that you can buy on Amazon, that you just put it in the fixtures on the outside of your house.
And it will go on every night at dusk. It'll go off at dawn. Make sure you get the warm white because that's. The pleasing color. But it's a wonderful place to start. I know as an outdoor lighting designer, uh, sometimes, and then any up uplighting that we add to your, to your home is gonna match that same color usually.
Right. Or I can work really hard to make that work, but a lot of times we're in a tricky situation where we can't get wire. right by the front door. And so that's how I discovered these bulbs. But so we can bring that those fixtures on the outside of the home into the outdoor lighting plan and have everything work together.
You [00:10:00] know, it's just a wonderful place to start. You should negotiate a contract with GE for selling their bulbs here. Seriously, I've shared their link so many times and people have taken so many pictures of my bulb. I should, I should have. You can't take the sales
Leighann Lovely: out of the sales lady, right? Yeah. The sales out of the, I'm sorry, the lighting lady.
So let's talk about your entrepreneurial journey a little bit. You know, it's, it's never a straight line, but I'd love to learn a little bit about what drove you, you know, your, you had the launch of your business not too long ago, which is amazing. Congratulations. That's Awesome. Um, you know, let's what, what was the pivotal moment when you said, I'm going to, I'm going to do this on my own.
I'm going to open up my own business.
Angela Lingle : Well, you know, it's, it has been, you know, a journey [00:11:00] and it started well over 15 years ago, uh, with a beautiful outdoor installation at my home. And it was like. I became obsessed and I was like, well, what if we added like something in the trees and, and I could not stop and I just dove in And, it's so much fun to have my own business.
That is actually also my passion. Do you know what I mean? Like, I will do demos. all day long or all night long, I should say, where some outdoor lighting, um, designers will stay away from it because it is labor intensive. It does take up your time. I like absolutely enjoy it. I love showing people the options and having my vision come to life, in front of their eyes as they're.
Putting together their, their [00:12:00] lighting plan. Right. But fast forward to, you know, how did I find myself in this situation today? You know, you have highs and lows and everything. And last year about this time, actually it was this, a year ago today, uh, my husband had some health concerns and it ended up being.
serious. The good news is that's all behind us and he's 100%. Uh, with that though, I had to take a pause and I took what turned out to be six months off just to make sure that I was there for my family and being, you know, just, um, You know, just focusing on what's important, and then it came time to, okay, now that we're be that's behind us, you know, what does the future look like?
Do I go back? Do I start something new? And I realized when looking at [00:13:00] the industry at a whole, as a whole, that, my passion was designing. I really wanted to build something that was my own and that could grow. It sounds strange, but on my terms, so I could lean into like demos and things like that.
You know, I could speak. I spend my time, um, where I was, I always try to make a win win situation, you know, where we're just whether I'm meeting with the client for the first time or the fifth time, it's fun. And we're, you know, going down that lighting road together. So I have been able to do that. And then.
As I've put that together, I've also thought about all the home shows that I've been at, and all the builders and the landscapers that I've met with over the years, and I thought there [00:14:00] is really another opportunity there, which I believe, um, I don't see any outdoor lighting designers or companies really trying to be a resource in this area.
And that is kind of where the name came from design go lighting. But if you are a do it yourself or, or if you have a new home with just the foundation, meaning, you know, the beginning of the landscaping in place, there is not a need, to spend. a great deal of money on labor. I can help you put together a phenomenal design, get the fixtures in place that fit your installation.
Meaning, is it just the most cost effective solid brass fixtures that go on and off? Or is it perhaps the next step up where you've got some zoning and [00:15:00] dimming so you can control the different areas? Or is it full color changing from an app on your phone? You know, what are the fixtures that you need for your installation?
How does that work? That's, that's where I can be a wonderful resource. Right. And so,
Leighann Lovely: Yeah, I mean, so what is, you know, you've, been in this industry, you understand this industry. Um, from a sales standpoint, how are you, how are you coming in differently or are you coming in differently than you have in the past?
 
Angela Lingle : Yeah. No, I, I completely understand what you're saying and I think, uh, part of what I'm doing now.
Having, conversations about, uh, the opportunities, the possibilities, budgeting, a more, you know, I think in the past, I've always talked about when putting together a plan, you know, [00:16:00] uh, I always tried to present options, you know, so, you know, as I just mentioned, you know, is it just, The, the standard fixture zoning, zimming, zoning, dimming, or color changing, you know, so I could help the, uh, client make decisions, help it work around their budget.
But for the first time now, also having that conversation about the installation. Okay. What makes the most sense? You know, is there an opportunity here perhaps to cut the cost of outdoor lighting in half? Oh, wow. You know, and, and have the same final result, or on the other hand, working with a landscaper who is in the ground already.
Maybe is designing the hardscape lights because they built this beautiful outdoor kitchen, but they don't, um, illuminate the tree that is 10 feet [00:17:00] away. So, you know, working with them as their partner, helping build their business, offer outdoor lighting as part of their installation, and then doing the work behind the scenes to make sure it works flawlessly together.
Leighann Lovely: Well, and that's And Angela, that makes, that makes so much more sense because if you're already digging in the ground why have somebody then go back and dig in the ground and ruin the landscape to, to lay any wires or any, Anything that you would need for your lighting.
Angela Lingle : Exactly right. And by taking that approach to come working with the landscaper, going in at the same time, it does a couple of things.
It keeps the cost down for the homeowner. Like you said, you're going in once. The other thing it does is, boy, it makes that landscaper look good. Do you know what I mean? Well, it makes [00:18:00] everybody investing all this money. Right. Do you want to enjoy it at night? Do you know what I mean? Absolutely. at night?
Right. And even if they don't, you know, even if they're like, you know what, I appreciate that, but we're not going to do that at this time. You've opened up the door, you've made it an opportunity for them to perhaps consider in the future. I just think it makes you look, uh, the very best you can be. You know what I mean?
 
Leighann Lovely: This is new small business. We as small business owners are figuring out that, well, why aren't we working together? Why aren't we as small business owners working together to all different aspects and what businesses make sense as affiliated partners. To work together. So a landscaping company, an outdoor lighting company, even a, water [00:19:00] feature, a water feature.
I was just, I was just thinking, that's another
Angela Lingle : podcast because
Leighann Lovely: right. That's the whole thing.
Angela Lingle : Yeah.
Leighann Lovely: Because you had, you had a gentleman who does water, all water features at your party that he puts in. You know, different type of water features from very small to extremely large, you know, even natural swimming pools, which was insane, you know, so those, and, and let me tell you, if I'm going to put in a natural swimming pool or a pond, I I'm going to want to see it, you know?
So, I mean, that's, it's a brilliant, And a lot of businesses that exist today, today that have been going for a long period of time, in my opinion, this is not, this is not a fact of any, but they have trouble shifting. to create those new partnerships because [00:20:00] they're just been chugging along doing really well the way that they're doing it.
And I hate this old, you know, break it if it ain't, or don't fix it if it ain't broken, but business is shifting and the way that people do business. You know, is shifting and you, it sounds like you're, you're doing it right, right away.
Angela Lingle : You know, I appreciate that. And I think you're exactly right. It's rather than working as all these different or individual businesses, you know, the ones that really make sense to work together.
Form that strategic partnership, do those home shows together, you know, put the lighting next to the water feature, uh, with some beautiful information about lawn service. You know, I mean, it just makes sense. And then on the other side, you know, I believe,
Marker
Angela Lingle : I really believe, and maybe that's why it all works, is as [00:21:00] I meet with a homeowner and I say, Spend, you know, like an hour, an hour and a half with them walking around, taking notes, drawing their property.
 I can't help but notice, opportunities for them to enjoy their property even more. And it's such a win-win to be able to share. You know, I know somebody that could really, you know, be a resource in this area. After our meeting, I'm going to share, I'm going to follow up with an email introduction and, you know, I hope that's helpful kind of thing.
I got to get you out to my
Leighann Lovely: win win. I got to get you out to my property one of these days because you're going to be recommending a landscaper, the lighting, the water feature. You're going to be,
Angela Lingle : right? Cause that's going to be expensive. But, you know, but you mentioned it earlier,
Marker
Angela Lingle : we spend so much money on decorating the inside of our home.
It is amazing how much fun it is to spend some money on the [00:22:00] outside of your home. Because it really, it's fantastic in the summertime when you're out there and the sunset is going down and you're still enjoying all the lighting. But right now it is amazing because it gets dark. Well, we know, my goodness, 4 30 at night, it's almost dark.
So what do I see when I look at out? I don't see darkness. I see the most beautiful trees at a season that all the leaves are gone. So now the character of their branches comes out, you know, it, and I see my hardscape and my, it's just beautiful. So, and, and now I. What I do is I swap out color, uh, red and green bulbs in my, in my path lights and things like that.
And so it just, it's like instant Christmas, with just swapping out some bulbs, but I, I absolutely love it. So I guess the reason I mentioned it is it is year round, whether you're outside coming home to it or inside looking out.
Leighann Lovely: I completely agree. And, and you know, it just popped into my head when you [00:23:00] said, you know, the trees, the way the trees look, there was a night when the, we had a full moon, a complete full moon that was bright, bright, bright, and we had just had fresh fallen snow last year.
And obviously, you know, we all know when there's fresh, fresh snow and the moon is full. Even in the darkest place, you can get that reflection where it seems bright. And I have a picture of a tree in my backyard that is just illuminated by the moon and the snow. Um, and I remember thinking, wow, this is beautiful.
One of the most beautiful Natural looking well it is it was 100 percent natural and we had had a heavy snowfall So that like the snow was just hanging on the trees But to be able to look out and see that all the time to see and I and I have a lot of wooded You know trees Area in my backyard, but to be able to look at that and actually see it like is, it would be amazing.
And, and I can't, I can't see most of my tree. It's too dark. But yeah. [00:24:00] What is
Angela Lingle : nature's most beautiful things is an ice storm.
Leighann Lovely: Yeah. I, I, not when you're standing in it, but when you look at it, when you're inside looking out, it's gorgeous. It's so cool being able to see the snow, but you can't, if you don't have any light and it's.
It's pitch black. You know, you're standing at the glass going, Oh,
Angela Lingle : you know, two things I have to mention real quick along those lines. One is, cause I get this question all the time. Uh, when, you know, if, if there, if there's a blizzard or on snow, do the lights continue to go on? Do you know what I mean? Or does it, is that going to cover the lights and they're not going to work?
 Fortunately for us, even though they're led bulbs. Uh, burning very cost effectively, uh, they do burn warm enough that they're going to melt the snow. Usually, yeah, if it's falling, they're going to melt the snow if it falls. If it falls all day long, it's going to take a little bit of time once those lights go on at [00:25:00] dusk for that to burn through the snow, but then they're going to be working and it is a Beautiful to watch a blizzard, um, from inside,
Leighann Lovely: It's so awesome.
How passionate you are about that. I mean, if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. You know, it's, . And, and again, you're, you're speaking to somebody, you know, who loves what she does as well. So you and I are completely on the same page when it comes to that, you know, it's the passion just oozes out of you.
Angela Lingle : Yeah. And the other thing I just want to mention before we go any further is you mentioned the natural beauty of like, uh, the moonlight. And what that does to a tree. And it's, it's kind of like in the summer time or when the sun shines, you know, you get all these shadows of, of the branches and things like that.
Well, one of the things that we offer, and I just did an installation like that, is
Marker
Angela Lingle : coming down the driveway. You know, maybe typically they had trees on both sides, so they'd go up [00:26:00] like up late, up late. Yep. And you'd come down, you know, beautiful. But we took a different approach. We did downlight, downlight, downlight.
They are up in the trees, with branches in the way. And so as you come down the driveway, it feels like moonlight taking you down. It is so beautiful. So that's why You know, talking about as when we started the most beautiful effect with the fewest number of fixtures, it's just brilliant. Do you know what I mean?
One fixture up in the trees illuminates a large area. There's no maintenance as far as snow removal or anything like that because everything's up in the trees. Right. It just makes so much sense, but it's kind of sometimes out of the box thinking, you know, but, uh, I guess just circling back to beautiful lighting design takes advantage of like the beautiful trees and things like that.
And how can we [00:27:00] replicate, you know, the, the beauty of, you know, what nature would give us. So it does feel very natural and not, You know, real harsh or anything like that. Right.
Leighann Lovely: So we are coming to time, but I'm going to hit you with a hard question. So it's not that. And then I'll give you, you know, a 30 seconds, um, pitch where you can kind of, you know, pitch your company.
And, if you had. to reflect on this journey thus far. And you had to, you know, give advice to somebody who is considering going out on their own or, you know, a salesperson struggling, um, you know, to try to figure out, you know, how to level up. What advice would you give somebody from everything that you have learned and every, you know, over the course of your career, um, would you.
Still choose the [00:28:00] path you've chosen. What advice would you give to somebody?
Angela Lingle : Wow, that's a very interesting question. I guess I would because I have never been happier and more excited about my future. And as I meet with people, I just, I just have a passion now that has been elevated, because it's my own and because, um, and this is what I would recommend to people is whether I'm in, whether I'm meeting with a customer, whether I'm in a networking situation, whether I'm talking to my Kids, you know, it is, how can I help you today?
Do you know what I mean? Like what is going on? How can I be a resource? And so I think when you're always, [00:29:00] um, thinking about the future and thinking about the person that's across from you, you know, and how can I lift their day better or be a resour up coming back to you. An not even what's on your m up happening just about e So I guess I would say lo um, are closest to you, or that you think that you could be a real resource for and go ahead and go out there and do it and be the best you can be.
And I think you'd be surprised on how many people are, Going to take notice and, uh, kind of follow your journey as you go along. Uh, the other thing I would mention is, we talked about it earlier, strategic partners, you know, look for those people that have the same customer base, [00:30:00] form a relationship with those people.
So it's genuine and you believe in them and they believe in you. So when you get in front of your customers, you can talk about their companies like it was your own. Form those partnerships, see what you can do together, uh, marketing wise, you know, whether it be home shows, prints, advertisements, you know, whatever it is, uh, websites going back and forth together.
 You know, make the most of those relationships because then it just goes back to that win, win, win. All of a sudden now it's not just a win, win. It's a win, win, win your customer wins, you win. And you know, your strategic partner wins. So
Leighann Lovely: that's you, you have a true servant heart and that makes for a, an amazing human being and somebody who's going to truly succeed when it comes to, you know, making their clients happy and cultivating those relationships.
So that's amazing. Now you have a [00:31:00] 32nd pitch. If you would like to, you know, offer up how to reach out to you, if you are looking for lighting, you know, Take it away.
Angela Lingle : Well, thank you so much again. I appreciate this opportunity. I would welcome the opportunity to be an outdoor lighting resource for you, your home, your business.
 We talked a lot about, illuminating your home and making it fun to come home each night. Eliminating dark spots, uh, dangerous steps, um, at the same time as just increasing the beauty of your home. So love to be a resource. A lot of times that starts with a phone call talking about how I can help and then scheduling the best meeting time.
You know, is it an hour before dusk so we can talk about your needs and then go ahead and put up some fixtures and see what it looks like. I can do that all winter long. So I welcome the opportunity. The other thing I just wanted to mention is [00:32:00] I do help businesses. You know, I think a lot of times people drive past, uh, an established business and you do it a hundred times and all of a sudden it just, I call it, you know, it's almost like white noise, but it's light noise.
Mm-hmm . But anyway, so there's an opportunity there to add, uh, beautiful uplighting, color changing lighting, you know, just something that taps people on the shoulder that says, you know what, we are here, we serve the public. You know, whatever their message is, I can help with that. So, I would just love to be a resource.
Homes, businesses, landscapers, builders, you know, just about anybody who's looking to add a little sparkle. I'd love to be a resource. And how can somebody reach out to you? Oh, uh, I have a one, a wonderful website design, go lighting. com. I'm, on LinkedIn, uh, my email. is Angela at design, go lighting.
[00:33:00] com and feel free to call me and text me on my cell phone 262 893 6558.
Leighann Lovely: And all of that contact information will be in the show notes. So if you are looking to reach out to Angela, please refer to the show notes and you will be able to find that information. Angela, thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation.
I really appreciate your time today.
Angela Lingle : Right back at you, Leanne. Thank you.