What's your vision?
I'll get it then.
Yeah, yeah.
What's my vision?
Yeah, it's something that formed over a long time.
So I've been in sales for a long time, 25 years or so.
But we moved down to New York City 10 years ago.
And there's a longer story here.
But essentially I took this job, I took the job that I have right now, almost eight years
ago, and there's no marketing, no cold calling.
You're going to go out, you're going to network, and people will refer you.
I was like, great.
Now I had some experience networking, but had never been my full time role.
So I was like, all right, let's see what happens.
And yeah, I got into it.
I built a good community.
And it's been very successful for me and the team that I work with.
We have 40 employees and I'm driving enough business to keep them all very busy.
We continue to grow.
But in that time, I did come across some people in the networking space that really struggled.
They didn't, they don't have the experience.
They never worked in sales.
They didn't have sales leadership to help them hone their messaging or practice how
to create a more compelling way to communicate things.
And that was really, that was really the catalyst for it was how can I help some of these folks?
Because the reality is a lot of the people that I saw struggling, they're often the most
technical people, right?
There are certain forms of attorneys, they were engineers, they were finance people.
And what I really think is that American business, for the most part, needs those people, like
the most technical of us, really can drive a lot of improvement.
So I wanted to create a space where those folks could come and start to sharpen their
networking skills primarily, but also help them develop early sales skills, sales process,
CRM, right?
All the things that you would need to do to drive leads, close deals and build a client
base.
So that that's really where it came from.
Interesting.
Now, and the only reason I said it because I'm a chemical engineer.
So I write to that character, and I am actually the probably I do not consider myself good
at sales at all.
I really am not.
Because that's I mean, I, I'm an IT consultant, you know, I do I do the I do the computer
stuff, I deal with my customers, for the most part, our manufacturers.
And so, but to your point, exactly what you're saying, I'm curious to know then, okay, so
based on that, so what, and I'm going to shift my banner a little bit.
So what is your vision for those you serve, you kind of said a little bit, but just, you
know, restate what it was that you're looking to do and how you're helping the community
of people that maybe are not as good at sales as somebody who's actually done a lot more
research or study.
Yeah, I mean, look, the thing that I want to try to deliver to people is twofold, right?
One it's a lot of these folks are in corporate America, they're doing something potentially
value for some big company.
But maybe they want to get out of that.
And they don't necessarily they know they have a skill set that is valuable to a group
of people.
But if you've never been in a sales role, that can be a huge hump to get over, right?
So I want to help them get over that hump, so that they can build the client base and
build a business.
I think people, you know, are better off doing something that they love for their own reasons
for themselves.
And if I can help somebody leave a job that's maybe not fulfilling and do something that's
very meaningful to them, and be financially successful at it, that's a huge win.
And then the second the second fold is, I'm also then helping a very talented person access
small business, I happen to think that small businesses at risk in this country, I think
there's a lot of obstacles to being an entrepreneur, I think those obstacles are becoming more
numerous and more challenging.
And you have to become more competitive to be successful, you have to have better advisors
to be successful.
So if I can help these super talented, technical people become better at sales, they're going
to have a better time finding clients in that small business community that can really use
them.
And I think together they can become more successful, right?
So that's, that's what I want to see.
That's the end result.
But the way that I want to do it is I want to do it in a learning community.
I've been lucky enough to find my way into a couple different business development mastermind
groups here in New York City.
And I see the value of having a close community that you trust that you can where it's okay
to say, I don't know, what should I do here, and then have people who actually are accomplished,
give you the direction that you need to move yourself forward.
Right.
And that's what Troupe is meant to be is a safe kind of a safe space, I don't love that
term, but a safe space for people to not know, and to get some direction.
So, all right, so one of the questions pops in my mind, just thinking about what you're
saying is, so what are the tools that you use to provide those, you know, because obviously
me walking in, I'm going to say, you know, what is it?
Well, you know, what's up?
And so obviously, you have to have something that you're able to say, this is how we go
about doing this.
So explain to me a little bit about that.
So there's, there's two things that we're offering.
One is basically a real time learning community, we're hosting it on Discord.
And it's vetted people, right, who are looking to join the group, we have two levels that
people can join at it, there's a very affordable option where they can ask general questions
in a forum setting.
And it'll be moderated by me and other members of the group.
And then there's a higher level where there's actually networking groups, there's workshops,
and webinars where I'll be bringing in people that I know from my community to share, you
know, maybe we'll definitely be networking, that's a big thing for me, but lead generation
sales in general, so that people can start to put these pieces together.
And then obviously, we we offer one on one coaching as well.
It's a little bit more of an investment.
But if you want to work one on one with somebody, that would be me.
We would basically start from the beginning.
And we'd ask some of the questions you asked today.
Who are you trying to serve?
What is the skills that you have?
What is the niche that you're going to start with?
How are we going to present that to the networking community?
And with someone like you, you're a chemical engineer, right?
You have a member, there are members of your community who are very technical as well.
And you should be able to speak to them as as equals and on similar ground because you
have the same vocabulary, right?
But the larger portion of your networking community is not going to be technical.
So how do we make that?
How do we make that chemical engineering skill set something they can understand?
And more importantly, how are they going to recognize opportunities for you when they're
working with their clients?
Right.
So it's a little bit of role playing and some workshopping around that.
And then from there, get you out, get you start to building that network.
When you start to receive referrals, how are we going to handle that first sales call?
What do we need to get from the prospect to estimate the work?
We're going to do that.
How we present our estimate.
What is the process of closing that deal from a receipt or referral to cool their client
now?
Right.
So it's really beginning to end.
So do you offer some sort of like training courses as well?
Or is it more just is more hands on, you know, open discussion type of thing with, you know,
so what's the structure you use to maintain that?
So in the online form, it's structured by it's structured by a series of channels.
Right.
So it's literally, we can use a sales process is the easiest way to break it down.
But it's like, hey, I just received a referral.
What's my next step?
I have a call set up with a prospect.
How do I approach that conversation?
Okay.
I had that call.
I'm not getting good response from them.
How should I follow up?
What are some good follow up techniques?
Right.
That transcends the entire process.
But we're breaking it down right through that series of you meet somebody new.
How do you build that networking relationship?
How do you become top of mind with them?
How do you how to manage a referral?
How to manage an initial call?
A proposal presentation, whatever, right?
Everybody may have a little bit of a different sales process, but we would help them develop
their own and then really do role playing.
It is very hands on.
I absolutely want to create digital product products, but I don't want to do it based
based on my idea of what people need.
I want to have those.
The reason I'm doing it the way I'm doing it is I want to have more of a hands on approach
that I can understand how people are thinking about these challenges so I can build a product
that has real value.
So we'll get to it.
So what's your OK, I'm glad you say that because I'm in product development.
That's really my job.
I'm a product lifecycle manager and I deal with that concept and pretty much a product
is anything that provides added benefits than the original.
So it could be a service product, could be a physical, tangible product, could be several
things or a concept, even just a process to be a product.
So in your case, when you're talking about this, I really like that because it meets
my interest because I'm thinking if you were to have a.
Obviously, you're going to get feedback from people as they start to go through this process,
which is maybe a little more open at the beginning, but hopefully you're beginning to see certain
trends and certain concepts that are going to help you to say this is where a company
built on a technical company, let's say like me, for somebody in IT, how they're going
to approach their sales pitch or their way of garnering customers or building their client
base is going to be a lot different than somebody, let's say, in the like a lawyer or someone
in the medical field or something like that.
So obviously it has to be tailored specifically to certain industries, right?
Absolutely.
The well, so Troupe is really focused on B2B services, people offering fractional outsourced
business B2B services.
So attorneys are definitely in that space.
You would be in that space too, but you would have a very specific niche, right?
Whereas a marketing firm could work theoretically for any business, right?
You cannot, right?
As a chemical engineer, you need companies that are playing with chemicals, right?
And we can go in and we can do some stuff.
I know you're in IT.
I'm just using that as an example.
That's all right.
So an element here is, yes, there will be digital resources, but they will be very general
in nature, right?
I think for the most part, my community is made up of newer salespeople or, you know,
I spoke with someone yesterday who was in financial advisory many years ago and he was
a very successful salesperson in that space.
And now he's in the accounting world and he's having trouble navigating the sales process,
right?
So I'm learning through, that's what I mean by having these conversations.
I'm learning through people that even a transition for a successful, formerly successful salesperson
can be challenging because it's a different sale, right?
So how do we reimagine our skillset?
So there are resources that are very general.
Like, you know, here's what a sales process looks like.
Here are some, maybe the seven critical sets of messages you need to have in the networking
space just to help people understand what you do, to give them a framework to work from.
But the goal is to have them ask the questions in the forum and create a culture of peer
to peer coaching, right?
This is going to be my challenge to create, but what I am excited by is the idea of helping
people learn to dig into a person's problem versus immediately diagnosing the solution,
right?
So I'm in the forum and I say, you know, I'm having trouble with whatever, closing this
deal and you might be tempted to say, well, you should try this.
Instead, what I would like to help my community learn to do is say, what have you tried?
Right?
And kind of dig into that a little bit and sort of create it because I know that that
act, what have you tried is a sales technique, right?
We're not trying to be the expert.
We're trying to get details.
So I want to actually take a good sales mindset and just, I don't know, saturate the community
with that because I know that people will quickly learn to help each other and through
that they will learn to help themselves and be better salespeople.
I know it's very high minded a little bit, but that's what I'm trying to do.
Hey, you have to start somewhere.
And I appreciate that.
And so Michael, something I'm thinking about a little bit here is just more or less a comment
than really anything is that I love the way that you're taking this thing and saying,
I want to be fluid about this and not try to be so structured initially because it really
is, you know, as with, as with like my job is the same thing.
I never walk into a customer and tell them you have to do this, this, this, this, because
I know your business.
I don't.
And I can say, look, industry standards or best practices may be this, but it may be
not quite so applicable to their particular situation.
And I'm sure the sales cycle is exactly the same in that concept because everybody has
their own way of doing things.
Everybody has a, and you never want to try to force people into this box if they're not
going to fit there.
And I'm sure that that's really what you're trying to describe to me is obviously you're
saying that this is what you're going to do as well.
I think that this is really just, it's a segue to what you're excited to catch up over there,
but I think this is really where you might be interested in talking a little more with
this first class business to understand the business model here as well for marketing,
which I think would be very similar in your concept of being able to say, can I apply
this to a sales perspective of marketing, taking marketing and say, okay, this is, this
is the way we do things, obviously to promote, but let's take it back and say, can we apply
that to something that's more along land, you know, landing customers and being able
to generate revenue and things like that.
I suspect that's really what we're looking for.
This might be something like that.
And I say, I'm not really trying to promote necessarily for myself because again, this
is, but this is what I have seen from what Jackson Calamities has provided through a
first class business is really designed to get to know the customer first before you
ever try to do anything.
Because if you, if I come in, it's called the power launches, the power launch is the
process where he's checking us to see, okay, what's your business about?
Because obviously my business is very niche as you're saying, it's very, it's very specific,
very focused, but that doesn't mean that it cannot apply.
It just means that he has to learn the vernacular.
He has to learn the concepts.
He has to learn the customers that I think would be potential customers and take it from
there and say, okay, based on this, we can apply certain concepts to give you what you
need when you're going out to the field to dangle the carrots, to get the people coming
to you, then you going out to try to find people.
I think that's really what you're trying to say, right?
That really is the case.
Although I will say that there is a, you do have to sometimes bridge a gap between conceptual
and literal.
What I find is that even in my own sales process, conceptual is where you begin.
It's how you get to know somebody, start to know their pain points, how those pain points
are affecting them and their business, their teammates, right?
It's usually very big picture, but then you drill down into those specific pain points
to specific details and you're ultimately solving those specific details, but then you're
able to tie it back to something more emotional, maybe more conceptual, right?
So there is a relationship there, but absolutely concept first, then the specifics because
it has to be repeatable.
I just created a top to bottom sales process today, actually, from the moment you receive
a referral, the entire sales process, the interplay between operations and sales, everything.
And it does begin conceptual.
It is just what it is.
What's going on in your business right now that this is a critical for you.
Well, Michael, this is what's going on.
And hopefully it's emotional because if it is, great.
You have a great shot at helping them overcome.
It's harder when people are very dispassionate, cold.
They're like, well, you can do it, but it's a different kind of sale and you should be
ready for both.
But anyway, I think you hit the nail on the head.
There is a combination of conceptual coaching and tactical hard nose.
This is how you're going to do it.
But it's unique to each person and even within an industry, right?
You used a marketing firm.
Well, you might be a boutique marketing firm doing everything on a one off or very unique
special businesses that need your help that way.
Or maybe you're like, you know what?
I got a business starter pack.
It's 2500 bucks.
I'm going to give you a one page website.
I'm going to set you up with one social media channel and I'm going to give you a couple
of content pillars so you can create.
But it's very specific.
It's this or nothing.
And those are two different sales processes.
Awesome.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
That's a good point.
And strangely enough, what you just said, the way I translated to my speak would be
somebody does what's called engineer to order, which basically says a customer comes to me
and says, I want to build something that's very unique.
Nobody's ever done before.
And I'd be like, all right, let's work on the design where the design is the most important
piece of the whole aspect.
Because if you don't do that piece, then of course, whatever comes out the door is not
going to be good enough for you.
But at the same time, you have commodity products where you could care less.
You're just you're rubber stamping and just getting it.
It's high volume, low usually, high volume, low revenue.
And it's just like get them out the door.
It's kind of what you're saying.
There's some of these really the same concept.
It's amazing how you can translate so many concepts in the industry to so many different
types of businesses.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.