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hit the button. So I mean, that's what the show is about. It's about vision and purpose

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and personal stuff too. So we'll have some fun with it. We'll see how it goes.

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And we were talking right there just about LinkedIn and the profile and all that. And

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before that, you were on a train of thought. You remember what your train of thought was?

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MQLs and how to get around them. That's right. MQLs and how to get around that. What do you

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mean by that? Can I be completely blunt? I hope so. I mean, that's, that's the, can you?

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Yeah, I can. They're BS. They're, they're the legacy. They're the bus. Yeah. I believe

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that I don't hear talked about often. So well, the whole concept of waterfall sales, the

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whole concept of opportunity, MQL, SQL, 20%, 40%, whatever is still widely used. Literally

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like 95% of companies are still sticking to that model. They just call it a different

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name. They're trying to modernize the form without modernizing the substance. What do

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they call it now? Leads. Okay. Yeah. Very simple. Same thing. Absolutely. It's one of

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the, one of the, those probably hundreds of cold emails and LinkedIn messages. Hey, we'll

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help you join businesses. Yep. Yeah. What's the secret sauce, man? Make yourself. All

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right. Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host. We'll

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be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic

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visions out there.

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Hey, what's up and welcome to another episode of vision pros live. I'm your host, Jackson

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Calame, founder and CEO of first-class business. I'm excited to have Nikola Korac on today.

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Nicola is based out of Dallas, Texas. I need to go visit him and say, hi, I like that area.

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And I don't know if you'll notice I'm in San Antonio, Texas. If you're ever in town, don't

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hesitate to hit me up and see if I'm available for a game of pool or something. So before

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I bring Nicola on stage though, I want to make sure to talk about some of these sponsors.

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Cold click is an assistant that we use for LinkedIn automation. It's all about businesses

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is in large part about distributing your voice, getting in front of people. It's very important.

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How you do that is what determines whether you're successful, your laughed off stage,

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people hate you, et cetera. Your messaging matters a lot, but cold click is the mechanical

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system that helps us with our LinkedIn automation and protects us as well from the algorithm

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changes that occur on LinkedIn. What's your threshold of people you can contact per day,

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for instance? You want to stay within the bounds. And honestly, if your messaging is

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good enough, then you shouldn't need to maximize it beyond what that system's capable of doing.

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That means you have to know what's attractive to your market and understand that you're

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reaching out to people who are likely strangers to who you are and what you do. Stranger danger

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is a very real thing. I think Nikola and I will talk a lot about that later in our conversation.

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And there's Simply Fast websites, which I don't use, but because I don't need it. If

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you want to get a new website, this is a platform where you can invest 179 bucks to get started.

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I wish I had known a web developer, web designer. I'm sure they existed, but I interviewed at

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least 15 different agencies. And beyond that, I did research on probably a hundred different

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agencies in addition to playing with Wix, Squarespace, Weebly back in the day, all sorts

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of stuff to get my websites established. The modern world's a beautiful thing. If you don't

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know how to tell chat GBT, hey, just create me a website real fast, perfectly. Then it

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might be a good idea to reach out to a company like this. But I just know that if you're

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starting out brand new, you have so many things you need to be spending your budget on and

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you have so many things you need to be spending your time on that having a solution like this

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on your radar is certainly something that I would have loved to have if I were just starting

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out today.

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Before we dive in again, the cause that I want to talk about is the water project. The

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water project is an awesome opportunity to help people in the world who don't even have

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access to this, something we take for granted every single day. I find myself getting a

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glass of water. I don't think about it. I'm sure most of you don't either. And that's

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okay. But what if we took a moment to think about the people who just don't have access

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to that? And what if we had a cause or we could see the communities that are affected,

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contribute to it, and then see the posts of them receiving their water well or their sand

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dam that they create. I think it's a really cool opportunity to give back and know, be

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updated on what's happening and how your money is being put to good use. And if you have

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another cause that you'd rather see us promote or give to, just drop it in the comments.

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I'm happy to check it out. We've got 8 billion people in the world who need a lot of help.

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Most of them need a whole lot more help than I do in life. And so it's important for me

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to take the opportunity and I think for you to take the opportunity to give back. So with

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that said, Nicola has a LinkedIn page. I'm going to reference just for a minute here.

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Let me dive over. There we are. Hey, look at that. We're live. I've never seen this

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before. That's cool. What's up, Nicola? Good to see you. I don't know if he did that or

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if that's the live. That's cool. That's a fun feature. Way to lead me speechless when

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I'm not supposed to be LinkedIn. So anyway, he's got a marketing background and we were

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just talking about his current opportunity to work with Texas young professionals and

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being on the phone with Geekdom. Geekdom is the local startup community and rent an office

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space or the ability to go to this office and be part of the greater startup community

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of San Antonio. I absolutely love it. And when I found out he's working with them and

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Texas young professionals, I got all the more excited about our conversation, which is going

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to be about making your marketing the quarterback of your sales team and how to go about doing

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that. Why you should even consider doing that. And it's going to be an awesome discussion.

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So without further ado, Nicola, thank you so much for joining us in Vision Pros Live.

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Hey, Jackson. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you and thank you for the

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great intro. Yeah, absolutely, man. You kind of blew my mind there talking about the Texas

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young professionals and what they're up to. I've been around it a few times, gotten to

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go to a couple of small events, never really got fully integrated. Partially excuses and

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partially because I'm a dad of four children. And that keeps me pretty busy and outside

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of the city. But how did you get involved with Texas young professionals? I met like

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a year ago, I met the current sitting president of the network, Ms. Sarah Dowd here in Dallas.

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I met her as a startup founder. And she's a top 40 under 40, correct? Yes, she is in

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the on the private bankers. I will definitely make that introduction. I'm pretty sure you

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will have a chance to talk with her. Yeah, but that's how I that's how I met her. Then

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we started talking, then we switched to Texas young professionals and what are they doing

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and how are they doing? And yeah, I kind of got pulled in. That's awesome, man. That's

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really cool. So to quantify for the audience, the visionaries that are listening in, who

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do you feel should be listening in will benefit the most and why why should they listen to

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you? Okay, that's a good one. That's a really good one. Who should listen? Primarily this

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kind of conversation is a lot better and a lot easier to be applied in a small business

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and in the entrepreneurship world in general with the startup founders, with the small

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business owners. Yes, a lot of medium sized companies can also benefit from it more in

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the indirect way they're doing, but they're a lot slower in introducing the change. That's

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exactly the reason why we will be talking about what we will be talking within next

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45 minutes or so. The any anyone who wants to understand why and how marketing has changed

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and why the old fashion of marketing that or 90% of companies are still doing just simply

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doesn't work. I mean, I would say 96% at least because that's the that's the failure rate

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of businesses over a 10 year period. And so you've got this concept of that I love. I

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was like, that's a brilliant idea that marketing, making the marketing the quarterback of yourself

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seems a good analogy because I often see sales team over here, marketing way over here, a

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wall in between, you know, and every once in a while notes are thrown back and forth

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across the way that or bombs are thrown back and forth. You got to bring someone for something.

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Yeah, absolutely. And the you know, in order to to avoid the politics and the conflict,

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you know, the leaders think they're supposed to keep those separate. And that's such a

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weird concept once you know how marketing works. So let's let's talk about your vision

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for those that you serve. What that said, like, Mitch, tee up with that. What what's

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your vision for those that you serve, knowing that that's the reality most of them face?

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Well, the the general problem when people start their own business, when people start

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their their small business, their entrepreneurship, their entrepreneurship journey, they know

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something, they're doing something and they're doing it great. And they want to do that for

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other people. Right. That's how you usually start. You don't just come up with the idea,

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wake up one morning and say, Oh, I'm going to do this. You do something, you become really

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good at something, then you want to start your own company. And you want to do that

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for the others and make your living from that. One of the biggest challenges is how to build

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authority and how to realize and understand if there is a product market fit, how to get

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your product or service or whatever it is to the people in a way where they will say,

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Okay, I want this. And not just I want this, I want this from that person, that company,

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that whatever it is. That's the challenge, the the the results, the revenue that we're

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generating, the revenue companies generating has to be a result, not the cause of doing

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business. Once we make it about a cause, we are changing the game completely. We're marketing

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differently, we're selling differently. And when you see a split between those 96% of

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businesses that fail, or amazing statistical data, it is expected in this year that over

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70% of salespeople will miss their target quotas. That's amazing. That's crazy. And

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they were not some of those people were in sales for 10, 15, 20 years. So I don't think

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it's up to them. What changed what really changed is the way how people want to buy

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is the way how people interact with the vendors, how people interact with the companies, how

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they're looking for products. And that's exactly what brings us a great, a great foundation

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for the conversation further on. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I like we're trying. I said

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that's the good that's that makes us that makes us a great, great foundation for the

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continuing this conversation, why the way most companies are marketing their product

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doesn't work. Yeah, absolutely. I believe that too. I will, I'll push back on the sales

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data aspect just a little bit to provide, you know, a couple different perspectives

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on that for both of us. Over 70% of salespeople will miss their target quota. You know, in

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marketing, the devil's always in the details, as are the answers. And usually there isn't

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one usually have to go with the intuition on top of that. But, you know, one, I don't

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trust the quotas that most companies set. And why will you got you got people who set

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be had goals, big hairy audacious goals that are very unlikely to be hit. You also have

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people who set smart goals, the specific measurable action will relevant and timely. And yet people

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who have no idea how to set a goal. So they just throw a number on the board. And so I

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think that regardless of the percent that exists there, you know, I would rather have

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somebody, I'd rather have a 70% success rate than a 100% success rate with a crappy goal.

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Right? So there's, there's some nuances there to dive into. We can do it. We can dive into

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those or we can just sum up with an overgeneralized statement that when it comes to tracking performance

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metrics, businesses are notorious for, for not having great systems for figuring out

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what the heck they're aiming for. Is that fair to say?

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Absolutely. That's one of the core problems we were talking, we started, you mentioned

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silo since, and that will just quote an amazing person I had, I had an honor to work with

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long time. That was in 2005. I was, I just started working for Microsoft office back

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in Belgrade in Serbia. And I, by literally by chance, I started working in Microsoft

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Belgrade on the same day when the founder of Microsoft development center, Mr. Bodin

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Drescevich started working at the same office and we're having tables across each other.

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I mean, that guy's sitting in Redmond right now and taking his helicopter to work. He's

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amazing. He is a doctor of physics. He had over 20 patents implemented in, in Microsoft

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and so on and so forth. But the thing is they started, he was started building a Microsoft

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development center team and they were bringing people from all over the world on the interview

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and the selection process. And they were giving them, so we're talking 2005, 2006, they were

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giving them pen and paper. And I think it was three mathematical assignments to do over

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the course of four hours. And when they were preparing, I was sitting at the backstage

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when they were getting ready, the, the assignments and when they were evaluating the assignments

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and they realized they're pulling assignments from the Mathematica mathematics Olympics

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in like seventies and eighties. So those were literally problems that were not meant to

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be solved. Yeah. And I was like, okay, why do you do that? Why do you give them a task?

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Why do you give them an assignment that you know, dang well, it's absolutely impossible

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to solve. They were never solved. It's like, well, those people are sitting there, have

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their master's degree, their PhD in math, in physics. They were talking at that time,

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they were talking about handwriting recognition and math formula recognition for the PDAs

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and tablet devices. And he said, I don't want to have out of 50 people in that room. I don't

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want to give them easy assignments where I will have 50 people that have a 100% score.

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I want to see how they think. And I want to see the direction they will take and how far

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along can they take. Yeah. The only way that I can actually fairly grade their efforts

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and their thinking, that's how I can make and really select the best out of it. Well,

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that was a great lesson for me. And that applies. We started talking about for the companies

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and how we set the metrics. I repeat this all the time. Hope is not a strategy.

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I saw that on the site too. That was a very well, it's not a strategy. It's an important

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virtue, but it's not a strategy. Exactly. Hope is super important, but it's not a strategy.

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When you're founding your small business, when you're founding your startup, you're

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pushed and that's a whole different game. But by the VC and the angel networks, you're

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pushed into the expectations that say, Oh, you got to make 5 million revenue within so

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many months or so many years in order to get there. So they, what they do, what the founder

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does. Okay. I'm a founder. I'm not a sales guy. I don't really know that I never really

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worked on the quota, but I know I got to make 2 million. Okay. So I will do the calculation

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or that will say I need a hundred thousand users for that. I have some money there on

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the, for the sales. I'll hire one sales guy and the sales team and I'll say, okay, guys,

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these are your quotas. One or two or three of you have to make 2 million next year. There

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you go. This is the marketing agency that will assist you with that. You get the retainer

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agreement or two, three, 4,000 a month with the marketing agency and you think your problem

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is solved. You sit back and wait after a couple of months, there is no results. You start

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getting onto the marketing team, getting onto the sales team. Sales team says, well, we

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don't have leads. So what do you do? You hire the lead gen agency, right? Right. They start

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throwing some meetings. You realize that the average closure on those opportunities, so

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called leads, quote unquote, that you get is like 0.01%. And you realize it's just a

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waste of time. That's, and usually those silences we were talking about between marketing and

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sales. That's where the problem is. That's why the quotas are not realistic. I'm coming

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from the sales background. I have spent most of my career as a salesperson, as a sales

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director, sales and marketing director later on in the corporate world in my previous career

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as a CEO of the company. I've learned that the hardly I was setting my team's target

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based on the board expectation to grow 20% next year. So you just go with the flow and

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you hope that you will figure it out somehow throughout the year.

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That's right. So Nicola, what's your vision for you? I like the educational part of what

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I'm doing. What personally drives me is to change, to help people understand and implement

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the knowledge in their businesses and then run along with it. I like to see the result.

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The reason why I stepped out from corporate world into the consultancy agency, however

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you want to call it right now, is exactly that. That's what I love doing. I love talking

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with business owners. I love talking with sales and marketing directors and I love to

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see how what we're doing changes the landscape and makes those businesses grow.

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Absolutely. I would call that the E-myth approach. Sounds like you're familiar with it and that's

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important to me. That's one of my favorite business books. He's actually showcasing something

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that many entrepreneurs then want. They want to stop delegating by abdication. They want

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to stop giving out assignments irresponsibly without thinking about it. But I still don't

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see enough entrepreneurs making the shift to spend quality time with the executives

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who are supposed to be guiding them. They spend a little time saying, hey, Nicola, I

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want you to do this and I want you to do it this way and I want you to just shut your

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mouth and go do what I asked you to do and I know we will win. That is not how you win

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with working with executives. Let's shift gears a little bit further too. Maybe on that

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same token, maybe not. You're welcome to take this either direction, but what's your worst

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leadership experience? Where I was in the role of a leader. Your call. It can be what

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you did or it can be something you experienced or watched. There is plenty of those. I've

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been in sales and marketing business for nearly 20 years. So there is a ton of that. But usually

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it's coming from, I'm not going to put names out of the companies out there, but it's one

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of my last experiences in Belgrade before I moved permanently to the US where the ownership

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was so misaligned and that was largely my fault. I was the CEO of a small business, small business

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system integration company and I just couldn't and I was experienced enough and I would say

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I learned a valuable lesson of when is the time to walk away and to cut the cord. Say

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nope, it's not working. Misalignment between board and the ownership of the company with

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the actual direction and strategy is not something you can correct on the go. It brings me, it

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brought me a great experience and a great lesson that I'm applying since then. I'm applying

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it nowadays. Not every client that wants to work with me is the right client. Product

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market fit goes in opposite directions too. There is a market product fit or a market

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service fit and that is the first thing since then in every leadership or consulting, which

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is kind of like extended leadership position. I do a lot of coaching and CEO advisory and

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consulting. That is one of the things I always pay a lot of attention to. How is the CEO

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of the company reacting to what we're talking about? Is there the willingness to change

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things and is there support from the board or from the owner or whatever to implement

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that change? That's huge. That's why it's a lot easier to do this business with small

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business owners and entrepreneurs because you have the responsible person and the owner

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and the board all in one person. You just sparked some incredible passion within me.

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If you don't mind, I've got to get this. Have you read the five dysfunctions of a team?

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Have you ever read that? It's a very rare book. It's again, right up there. I was very

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fortunate. I read it right after the E-Myth. Listen to it on audio because it's way easier

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to listen to. It is so good, but this executive comes in and she comes in with the intent

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of listening for several weeks. Everybody's kind of antsy and kind of judging her. Does

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she really know what she's doing? She hasn't done anything yet. She's just sitting there

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and watching all this stuff play out, not making any moves. It's the best leadership

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thing that you can do. You have to be empowered though by a board too that respects that.

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You have to be empowered by a team. As I'm thinking about what you're talking about,

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which reminds me, I can tell that you learned that lesson as a CEO. You said, we can't just

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jump in and do it on the fly. There's a lot of thought process and there's a whole lot

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that goes into that that we oversimplify. Where that led me to, Nicola was remembering,

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wait a second, I talk about the 96% of businesses that fail often, but the assumption I think

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some people make is that on the 4%, the 4% are ultra successful. No, they're not. 4%

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survive. They survive. The percentage of ones who are actually successful and awesome out

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of that is far smaller. We as owners, CEOs, like you talk, we got to take ownership of

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what we don't understand and don't know, move into that territory of the unknown and seek

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counsel from people who have found success in their different departments. That's again

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why I'm excited to have, but you just sparked that in me and I was like, wow, I need to

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be more vocal about that. What are your thoughts on that? Before we go into the best leadership

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experience ever that you've had, what? That's the thing about the business owners in general.

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Is that the readiness for change and to learn? You cannot. And that is literally, that's

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one of my key questions when I'm talking with the prospective client. The CEO, the owner

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of the company has to understand their sales process and their marketing process. Yes.

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It's non-negotiable. If he doesn't want to understand that there is no way his marketing

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team is going to perform well or his sales results are going to be the way they're supposed

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to be. I will say, unless you choose to take the silent investor role, but shut your mouth

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and get out of the way. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fine. But if you are in the actual execution,

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if you're running the company, you are doing that. You have to understand how people freaking

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buy from you because it doesn't affect only your revenue. It affects your product development.

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It affects your customer care. Who are the people in the company? One of the breakthroughs

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for me, how many CEOs absolutely ignore the people who know the most about their client

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problems? Oh geez. That's such a sad, hard question. Who is the best client expert in

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your company in any company, customer care, customer success. They don't read brochures.

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They hear problems. They know what's actually bothering your clients. Why marketing fails

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when in silos? Again, just common sense, just pure logic because marketing never talks with

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the client. How often do you see marketing manager reaching out to a sales executive

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and saying, okay, I want to go on one of your sales meetings? Simple. It's super simple.

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So even if they want to though, even if they want to, and I think this is part of the problem,

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right? Absolutely. What does that salesperson, how would they react to that? Yeah, I don't

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want to take you with me. You're just some office guy. You're some nerd who's sitting,

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designing some brochures, designing some, I don't know, graphics, whatever, posting something

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on social media. You're going to tell the boss, I suck at selling and I'm going to lose

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my job. And like, no, the political self-driven motivations, right? I mean, they're there.

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They're natural if you don't incubate and foster, you know, cultivate. How about, but

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that's the thing. How about if you empower your marketing person to actually support

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that salesperson on that sales meeting? Yeah. The marketing people, that's one of the reasons

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why marketing usually sucks. Marketing people are disconnected from the market. Sounds crazy,

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but it's a fact. Marketing agencies that work with the clients, in most cases, they just

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provide some random generic content. They provide social media posts. They provide SEO

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strategy based on the internet research without ever really meeting the end user. Yeah. Get

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down in the trenches. Get out. Marketing is not a passive geeky role of designer behind

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the computer screen. Absolutely. And here's another point. To validate what you're talking

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about, I am so bought into this idea of the marketing being the quarterback of the sales

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team in 99, I shouldn't say 99, in a lot of environments. And here's why. Again, most

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companies aren't paying attention to their org board. They don't have a great chain of

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command of who's in charge of what. And that isolation means that they're not acturating

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as a fundamental department. I believe that typically the sales team belongs either in

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the chief marketing officer's department or they belong in the chief operating officer's

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department. Those are the two most common scenarios because if you have a system and

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a company built primarily around operations, then usually the sales team needs to be super

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close to the guidance of the operations team. On the flip side, if you're a marketing agency,

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for instance, your sales team needs to be interacting with your chief marketing officer

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at all times because they're trying to sell marketing and it should be very in line with

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what you do, not fragmented. But when you talk about this quarterback example and the

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marketing being the quarterback of the sales team, what do you mean by that? Talk us through

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that. I mean, the sales team is the sales guy, the sales executive is your wide receiver.

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He's the one who's catching the ball, scoring that touchdown. Right? So now imagine in a

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world where marketing works disconnected from the sales is in silo. It's some random agency

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that is just doing what they're supposed to do and taking care of, I don't know, tradeshow

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booths. Oh, dude, that's the worst. So as a sales guy, you show up to the tradeshow booth

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to help out and you got no collateral materials because marketing didn't help and now you

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don't know what to do. So translated into football example. Now imagine your wide receiver

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going all the way back to get the ball and then he needs to score the touchdown. What

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does he need to do to score the touchdown? He needs to run across the whole freaking

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field. That's not going to happen. I mean, that's not going to happen. He will get blocked

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somewhere on that way. Some amazing, great or just a lucky one will made it and score

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the goal. But when you have disconnected sales and marketing teams, you're literally, it's

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literally like playing a football game where you're forcing your wide receivers to go all

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the way back to get the ball and then score. Right. They act like the running back. I love

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the analogy because, and I hadn't thought about it that in depth. I was just thinking

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in terms of making the decisions on the field, but you're right. I love the analogy further

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when you say that the sales team is the wide receiver because you can accomplish more further,

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but you have to be given the ball and you have to be given the right object in order

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to take it to that particular end zone. So it's a very good analogy that entrepreneurs

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should be paying attention to and thinking, okay, in my business, how does it supply?

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What is the ball that the salesperson needs and how do we get it to them effectively so

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that they have the easiest path possible to score the touchdown? Well, guess what's the

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first step in every consulting, marketing, whatever the first step in every client's

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journey when we start working together. What's that rolling backwards? Who are their best,

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best clients? Who are the people that love absolutely love to buy from them, excluding

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friends and family smart. And then why the heck do they like buying from that company?

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Why are they buying your service? Why are they buying your product? What do they want?

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Who are the competitors? How did, why would they pick out your product? Yeah. That's the

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thing. Talking about marketing research. We guided the research and I refer to that as

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a slingshot effect. Right? You go back before you let go and you go further. So what would

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you say your best leadership experience is? Shifting gears a little bit. We'll come back

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to that though. Oh, yeah. Here I will definitely call names. There is a company in Belgrade

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called Algotech, one of the biggest system integrators in the customer care and contact

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center world in Southeast Europe. I worked there for two times. I worked in 2008 and

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I came back in at the beginning of 2017 as a sales and marketing director. The best coordinated

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sales and marketing team I ever had. The energy, the way how we build that team that reflected

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into results within a short period of time, like literally we had a 20% revenue growth

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in the first year and we maintained when we were talking about that, Algotech is like

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60-ish people business. So not a, definitely not a small business for Southeast Europe.

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Having a 20% growth was pretty dang good. The energy of the team, the team buildings,

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the way how we interacted with clients that we literally had and we're mostly working

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with the mid-market and enterprise companies. We literally get to the point that clients,

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IT directors, customer care directors wanted to work with us because of the energy and

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experience. Experience not as an experience team, experience as how we handle the projects,

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the implementations, the client results. That's ultimately the best one. That's awesome. Like

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number one on top of that list. Okay. What made that leader, what made him stand out

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beyond the result? What were some of the attributes that led to that type of result?

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The team cohesion, the team energy. You know, when you have, it literally felt like, I don't

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know, Chicago Bulls in the nineties with Jordan. Yeah. That was the feeling. You know, you're

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getting in the game and you know, you're winning that game. And that brings a huge moral boost.

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That brings you, you develop young people who step into that team. And I still, I'm

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still in touch with a couple of people who started there as interns. They developed amazing

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careers now, 10 years, six, seven years later, they grew, they developed. It was the team

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cohesion. It was, I can say it was a little bit on the luck side. Sure. Who were the people

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in that team, but the way, how we clicked all together, me as a manager of that team,

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as a coach of that team, that's how I would use it against sports analogy. And the players

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that were on that team, that was, that was literal. I was there for like two and a half,

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three years, something like that. That was amazing. Awesome. That's all. That's a good

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thing. Really, really a life changing, really a life. That's one of those experiences where

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you say, I want to create this again. I want to do this again. I want to make it happen.

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That's awesome, man. Let's say that this was your last, your last chance to share something

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of super value with us, you know, with an audience. What powerful lesson can other visionaries

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learn from your experience? Use common sense. Think about your buyers.

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Think about how your buyers want to buy. If you don't know how your buyers want to buy,

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put yourself in the role of a buyer. How are you buying every day? That's where your marketing

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journey starts. That's where your marketing strategies starts. If you're not accepting

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meetings through cold calls. Yeah, I don't think your prospects will. If you're not responding

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to cold emails, stop sending cold emails with the invitation to book a meeting. Right. What

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do you respond to? Start from yourself, start from your buyers and see how they want to

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think, how they want to buy things. Meet them where they are. Don't try to push them. We

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cannot convince anyone in anything. Well said. That is some very good self-awareness

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advice. What feels like common sense to you is what you're going to want to gravitate

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towards. And usually, Nicola, to back you up on that, the more polarizing, like if we

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go with an experience that we're not aligned with, that relationship is likely to become

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highly explosive down the road, even if it doesn't start there. So I think that's super

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wise. The rest of the time that we have together,

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we can dive deeper into marketing and sales. In fact, I'd like to. In fact, your business

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name is Downstream Consulting, correct? Yes. We'll pull that up a little bit while we talk.

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There's some pages that Cynthia will be helping us pull up while we discuss this. But tell

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me about your brand and what you do, how you go about driving results for businesses.

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It started with going downstream instead of upstream.

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Stop chasing leads. I love that opening line. Sorry. Go ahead. I know people are listening

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and they're not seeing, and that's a big statement, and it's an important one for most people

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to hear. Stop chasing leads. Go ahead. Yes. Stop chasing anyone. People don't like to

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be chased. No, don't.

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One of the reasons, and I always had a problem with that term. I'm an introvert myself. I'm

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not the type of person. I'm an engineer by trade. I have a master's degree in applied

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statistics. I'm not an extrovert salesperson. I'm not the guy who's going to go out there

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and meet 20 people and network everywhere with anyone. That's pretty much what drove

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me to this concept. I did not recognize and articulate it in a way I did until a couple

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years ago. But when I rolled back, that's how I came to this. That's why I said downstream.

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I never liked convincing people. I was never the type of a sales guy who can sell ice to

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Eskimos. If it's not a fit, it's not a fit. If it's not a good thing for a client, then

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it's not. No, it's not.

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That's how I came up. When I was going through the ideation stage for downstream, I came

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up with the name because I wanted people to understand that it has to flow, that it has

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to just go. You have to get into the stream and let your business flow and then guide

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it and steer it the way you want. If you're going upstream, you're trying to pedal, you're

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trying to push, the harder you push, the harder it gets. Nope, not a good way to go. That's

400
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where the stop chasing leads. Stop chasing anything. How often do you hear, even in the

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00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:28,120
job ads, people asking for a hunter type sales guy?

402
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:39,760
Okay, I had a post on LinkedIn recently about, if a sales guy is a hunter, does that mean

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that the client is a prey? Do you want to be the prey? Do you want to feel that someone

404
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,360
is hunting you? I don't.

405
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:58,240
I mean, okay, that goes. Why the heck are we trying to find someone and we are identifying

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00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:06,780
the role of a salesperson as a hunter if we don't want our prospects to feel like a prey?

407
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How about we build some authority on the market? How about we talk like me and you are talking

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now? Why is my product or service good? It's simple. There is a reason. What is the reason?

409
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Why you started doing? What are you doing? What is your motivator? How about use that

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as a sales strategy? As your revenue generating strategy?

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That's what we're all about.

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Get into one well-oiled engine that is led by a CEO, build a CEO authority, build a

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00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:52,880
personal brand, get your message out there. Don't just do a lot of brands, especially

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a lot of startups, are mostly focusing on their product marketing. My product is the

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best because the feature is this and this. My product is the best. And here is an example

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00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:08,360
of a consulting company that made 100,000 revenue, blah, blah, blah.

417
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:14,560
Even if they hit the benefit right though, Nicola, so did 100,000 other competitors.

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00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:21,840
So why you versus them? And that is the scariest thing to face for a lot of entrepreneurs.

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00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:27,880
And so I love that, you know, I mean, granted, that's why we call this vision pros, right?

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Because we understand the value and the importance of the vision in the front end. But I remember

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00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:37,560
I was working with a, and I won't name her, of course, but I was working with a therapist

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00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:45,680
and the unique selling proposition that they came up with was I change people's lives.

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And one of the most dramatic, scary realizations for her was when I said, how many other therapists

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in your city alone will say that their unique selling proposition is I change people's lives.

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00:44:00,820 --> 00:44:06,160
And the look of sheer horror and panic on this woman's face, I'll never forget. And

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the feeling of inadequacy, which was really sad because she wasn't, you know, but she

427
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:16,640
wasn't unique. It was an important aspect, but it was nothing unique about it.

428
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:21,120
And she was thinking that she's coming up with something that is bolsy, that is bold,

429
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,920
that is provocative. Yes. And she's feeling the need to wear the

430
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:33,440
chief marketing officer hat, take the hat off, be a therapist, you know, allow people

431
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:38,280
to help you in the things you don't understand. It's not your job to understand it fully.

432
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:42,880
That's not your job to figure out how to do it. It should be what understand it.

433
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:47,920
Exactly. Don't try, don't try to wear the hat that doesn't fit you. People want to work

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00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:55,000
with you. People will hear your message if you're acting like a therapist. They don't

435
00:44:55,000 --> 00:45:01,920
want to work with someone who is wearing CMO hat and saying, I'm a therapist. Right. What

436
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:07,720
are you? You're not a CMO. And I have strong doubts that you're even a therapist.

437
00:45:07,720 --> 00:45:12,400
Right. And I mean, you bring up such great points with that. The leadership, you know,

438
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:16,840
when you're wearing all the hats, people can see it and they can feel it. And then they're

439
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:21,560
going to know that you don't have the capacity to help them at the same level as a therapist

440
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:26,960
who's actually built a structured organization where they don't need constant therapy for

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00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:31,320
their own challenges because they don't have any order in their life. Sorry. You know,

442
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,960
but that's, that's the case of. There is another thing. There is another thing that I would

443
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:42,720
challenge in that marketing concept of, uh, is do people really want their life changed?

444
00:45:42,720 --> 00:45:52,920
Depends on the person, I guess. Imagine exactly. But imagine putting that as your leading sales

445
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:59,520
pitch. I will change your life. Right. Imagine getting in a meeting. Now let's in a, in a

446
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:04,680
therapist role, it's kind of hard to relate, but let's put it in a corporate, a little

447
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:09,800
bit more safer, uh, surrounding. So let's say a corporate surrounding and we're selling

448
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:15,600
consulting services, which kind of can be, can relate to being a therapist. Uh, so you

449
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:23,320
get in front of the CEO, you come to the CEO and you're leading sales pitch. I will change

450
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:28,640
the way your company works. Right. Exactly. You're out of that office. Who are you to

451
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:34,640
do that? Right. Exactly. You know, most people, most people don't want Jesus to change their

452
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:40,900
life or Mohammed or anything. So when you're coming up with that type of phrase and idea,

453
00:46:40,900 --> 00:46:45,940
that is scary because I don't want to put my hands, my hands, I don't have my life into

454
00:46:45,940 --> 00:46:49,920
your hands. I don't know you well enough to make that type of commitment. I'm not even

455
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:55,040
gonna let my mom change my life. Um, you know, like it's my life to run. So well said, man,

456
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,820
this was so awesome. I look forward to having you back someday. Nicole, I think we could

457
00:46:58,820 --> 00:47:03,920
probably do some type of event on marketing, um, and really dive into some mechanical details

458
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,640
of like if, you know, structure, what, what can people do to apply these concepts even

459
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:12,560
further? But if people want to connect with you, what's the best way to connect with you?

460
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:18,560
Email LinkedIn phone. There is all possible, there is all possible networks and I'm, I'm,

461
00:47:18,560 --> 00:47:24,800
yeah, I'm active on LinkedIn. I'm, uh, I respond to my emails. I actually read my emails. Awesome.

462
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:30,240
Well, it's been great to have you today on the show. Vision pros. Those of you who are

463
00:47:30,240 --> 00:47:34,200
listening, if you would love to share your own vision, um, we started a debate, something

464
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:38,640
similar about vision, feel free to apply for the show. We'd, we'd be happy to consider

465
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:44,080
bringing you on. And, uh, if you want to connect with Nicola or myself, you can also drop a

466
00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:48,880
comment, um, a comment or a question. If you have feedback for us too, things that we can

467
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:53,160
be doing better, we would love the feedback. We're all about serving as many people as

468
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:57,040
possible with this, uh, making sure we're providing the right type of value, likes,

469
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:01,520
comments, subscribers, all that super helpful to help everybody has a fantastic day and

470
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,520
a wonderful Thanksgiving as well. Nicola, thank you for being my honored guest, man. Thank

471
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:09,720
you, Jackson. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into vision

472
00:48:09,720 --> 00:48:15,080
pros live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move

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forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as

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well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your

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time and attention.