Growing Your B2B Small Business with Robert Poole

Selling the Meeting

The most important concept for getting a meeting with the right decision-maker, is convincing them that it’s in their best interest to take time to meet with you – you need to demonstrate that you’re either going to save them money, make them more money, make life easier, improve their image, or solve a particular business problem. There are four parts to this: credibility, a script, the follow-up, and using simple terms. To improve your credibility, Robert suggests getting someone else to...

More New Year’s Goal Setting? Ugh. Please, No.

Raise Your Prices

Combat Force Multiplier

Scope - A Danger or a Stress Reliever

Highlights “Without clearly defined rules, parameters, and expectations, we can easily get ourselves in a bind when we don’t deliver what the customer expects.” “It goes the other way too – if the customers are not given specific expectations as to their responsibilities, you’re going to find yourself upset with them and will have a hard time serving them if you feel taken advantage of.” “Even if you don’t have a need for an attorney at the moment, always be on the lookout for a referral ...

Selling to the Wrong Customers

Highlights We need to find ways to take on clients that fit our business culture and expectations, and someone who we enjoy working with. “Life is too short to spend around people you don’t like.” “Money is great, but at the end of the day, if you’re not getting the satisfaction of knowing your business is making a difference in people’s lives, you’re never going to be satisfied and fulfilled by what you do.” “If you’re trying to sell customers a specific service or product that they don...

The Most Noble Profession

There is a common misconception that sales people are sleazy, unethical, and greedy. Sales is seen as a sort of low-end profession. Robert reminds us that without salespeople, there would be no functioning economy – so we should be thanking them for the conveniences we have every day. Robert tells us that every person is a salesperson in some way, and that as salespeople we need to be helping people make decisions to use our product or service, because most people have a hard time making de...

Be a Hero

In this episode, Robert talks about the importance of your role as a business owner – this could apply whether you’re in B2B or in B2C. Robert reminds us that small businesses make up the vast majority of all existing businesses – the Fortune 500 or major corporations account for a very small percentage of businesses. We hear the stats regarding the contribution that small businesses make to the bigger picture, but also the rate at which small businesses tend to fail. While the pandemic ha...

Your Customers Are Confused

In this episode, Robert talks about how we tend to confuse customers and how we can remedy that. Consumers nowadays are overwhelmed with choices – we see this in shopping centers where we can choose between 15 different kinds of soaps, or on Netflix where there are thousands of shows. This means a company has to be aggressive in their marketing just to stand out. Robert tells us that besides being aggressive with our marketing, we should be telling our prospects what they should be doing. ...

The Most Powerful Force in Your Life

In this episode, Robert talks about the power of influence that the people you surround yourself with have on you – whether physically or virtually. Robert tells us about his experience in the army and his experience with the concept that “we become like those around us.” We learn about the 3 social groups that we may find ourselves in and how they influence our business and behaviors. Robert challenges us to look at our lives, identify the influences we have around us, and determine which ...

Brutal. Honest. Totally Necessary.

In this episode, Robert talks about evaluating your business risk and looking at the potential upside – getting it wrong really hurts. Robert reminds us that as entrepreneurs, it’s critical that we have vision, excitement, and forward positive thinking. If we don’t have that, we won’t be able to achieve what we set out to do. On the flipside of that, Robert tells us that if we look at everything with a positive attitude, we’re eventually going to get blindsided by a problem that could be c...

Freebies - A Curse or a Blessing

In this episode, Robert talks about the temptation to take an easy influx of cash. This is a temptation that most entrepreneurs face, and today Robert tells us how to resist it. There’s a different mentality when you’re dealing with millions of dollars versus living paycheck-to-paycheck, and Robert shares some examples of how being unprepared can lead to bigger problems. Robert reminds us to be weary of anything that comes quickly or easily if it’s out of the ordinary. If we aren’t in the ...

Everyone Is a Rifleman

In this episode, Robert talks about the importance of a consistent sales message throughout your whole company. This can either kill your client retention or take it to new heights. People tend to have a negative connotation of sales – this is mostly due to the unscrupulous,  unprofessional people who call themselves salespeople. Robert reminds us that, as entrepreneurs, we need to acquire the skills needed to sell – if we look at the companies that dominate their industries, it’s usually ...

Money Is Good

In this episode, Robert talks about one of the greatest roadblocks we face as entrepreneurs and salespeople – the belief that monetary success and wealth are evil and bad. Robert encourages you to keep an open mind in this episode, as he will be saying some controversial things. Robert looks at how success is portrayed in the Western world – in movies, the antagonist is usually an evil corporation looking to get more money by stepping on the average person. “Demonizing the rich is almost a ...

The Difference Between Sales and Marketing - Why It Matters

In this episode, Robert talks about the difference between marketing and sales. If you don’t understand the difference, it’s tough to do either one of them effectively. Robert tells us about the “hook-story-close” concept, and the importance of breaking down beliefs in the marketing phase in order to get to the sales phase. How do you do that? Robert elaborates on the three phases: getting their attention, storytelling, and selling. We also get to hear how he structures his stories, and ho...

Everything Should Be Directed Toward an Exit

In this episode, Robert talks about developing an exit strategy and focusing on developing your company into an asset and not a job. Robert elaborates on 2 scenarios, and shares his personal experience losing his business partner of 20 years. People tend to shy away from thinking about death, but Robert emphasizes the importance of responsible planning in business. We’re reminded that systemization is critical, and that if the company can’t function on its own without major input from us, ...

Scale-An Accelerant or Killer In Your Business

In this episode, Robert talks about the concept of Scale. It can be one of the biggest roadblocks or accelerators for your business, depending on how you use it. Robert tells us that in order to avoid multi-level consequences, we should consider scale. We hear his philosophy on evaluating downside versus upside risk, and he tells us how to determine whether an activity is scalable or not. When we spend time thinking about scalability, we are more able to see the long-term potential of a st...

How to Avoid Wasting Time and Money Pursuing Prospects With the Wrong Sales Message

In this episode, Robert talks about how to avoid spending tons of money and time going after prospects with the wrong sales message. If we don’t know in which stage of the buying process our prospects and customers are, it’s difficult to market and sell to them effectively. Marketing to people with messaging that doesn’t fit them will most likely cost you the deal. Robert reminds us that we need to know who our “dream customer” is, and we learn how to identify the 3 different stages of buy...

Are You Paying Yourself Enough?

In this episode, Robert talks about giving yourself a raise in your business, regardless of what stage your business is in. The focus today is on what you spend your time working on, and what you don’t. In surveys, Robert found that his clients spend less than 40% of their time doing revenue-generating activities. What are revenue-generating activities? These are things like sales, marketing, and conversations with prospects, to name a few. These are not to be confused with administrative a...

A Daily Habit That Will Change Your Business

In this episode, Robert talks about Owner Time. Have you ever been at a point in your business where you realize one day that you’ve been mostly reacting to events over the past 6 months and not made a lot of progress towards the goals you’ve set? Business owners aren’t a lazy bunch, but Robert reminds us that they often get caught up in momentum and don’t realize when they’re not focusing on the right things. Although it is true that action is ultimately better for progress than just think...

Ignore This and Your Business Won't Grow

You won’t ever come close to the full potential or your company if you don’t intentionally focus on understanding your numbers, what they mean, and what to do about them. When I say “numbers,” I am talking about your lead generation numbers, the cost per unit of your product or produce, labor cost per hour, cost per customer acquisition, number of new customers needed to grow, etc.  Let’s say you do know your numbers. You’ve tracked them and put them into some meaningful format. The next sk...

The Difference Between Cost, Price, and Value - and Why It Matters

Cost is the actual hard cost in dollars of physical materials and labor it takes to get a product or service out the door. Price, on the other hand, is what your company chooses to tell prospects they can purchase your product or service for in dollars or even other forms of payments. Finally, value is what your customers and prospects think of your product’s utility in solving their problem. In B2B, this usually means how much money it will make them or save them. If the cost is too high c...

Coronavirus - The Best Thing That Could Have Happened to Me

The Coronavirus has been a huge tragedy in almost all of our lives. However, the question becomes, how can you take this bad situation and turn it into a positive?  When the Coronavirus panic hit in mid-March, the financial markets collapsed and most of the country went home. It would have been very easy to get severely depressed and feel helpless. However, something in me told me that I needed to take this as an opportunity to grow myself and our company. I really started changing my thoug...

How To Keep From Losing Your Most Valuable Asset

Let’s say you have 10 employees and do a million a year in revenue. You sell high ticket B2B, so maybe you have less than 100 customers, and a handful that make up a lionshare of your business. If you came into work one day to find that your biggest client that accounts for 25% of your revenue is pulling all of his company’s business, you are out $250K overnight. Quite a hit. It would still seem customers would be the most valuable. Maybe so in the short term and in the financial sense shor...

No Lead Left Behind

From my experience in dealing with our clients and other business owners, too many entrepreneurs and salespeople leave money on the table by discarding a prospect because they aren’t ready to buy now. I have personally prejudged leads to my own detriment, but I think it’s important enough to remind everyone that it’s easy to fall into that trap. If you are managing leads yourself, you have to watch out for this, and if you have a sales team that is handling leads for you, you definitely have...

Painful, Time Consuming, and Costly If You Don't Do This Right

Your attitude and commitment to hiring right is the start to doing it right. It wasn’t until almost a decade of hiring that I started putting more time and energy into the recruiting process. If you are in the position of just starting out in business and don’t have any employees yet, you should plan on dedicating substantial time to this because your employees are your business. If you have employees and have been in business for any period of time, you should sit down and think about the ...

Fall in love with your clients, not your service.

The old philosophy of mine that we should focus on building a great service rather than focus on what our clients actually need and wanted kind of permeated our whole organization. We were more focused on the fact that we offered a great service but didn’t take into consideration that what we offered wasn’t hitting the spot on what our clients needed. Or, that we weren’t targeting the right clients for what we were offering. I was obsessed with the service we provided when I should have been...

Breaking the Growth Ceiling in Your Business

Your business needs a good system in place in order to run efficiently. The first thing you have to do is start documenting all the tasks your business has on a daily basis. Larger, successful businesses have operation manuals or knowledge bases, or some kind of training resources. This is not just corporate fluff. Without systems in place that are documented, they would have never gotten as big as they are.  If you don’t have things documented yet, I would start out with the most important...

Me, Myself, and I

I isolated myself for three days in a hotel on the border of California and Nevada in order to disrupt my normal mental routine. This helped me to focus and zone in on the task at hand – setting goals for my business. After my business partner passed away, I was force to take over all of his duties and be the sole face of the company. I was overwhelmed with work and fell into a routine of working in my business rather than on my business, so I finally isolated myself away from the business a...

Maximizing Your Performance as the Leader of Your Company

How do you control your state of mind? Start the day off right and keep momentum through the day. To paraphrase Tony Robbins, “You can’t be grateful and depressed at the same time.” Being in a state of gratefulness for all the good things in my life automatically puts me in a better state. No matter your situation, I guarantee there are millions of people who wish they have what you have in your life.  Different approaches work for different people, so I encourage you to find a routine that...

I'm Not That Smart - And Neither Are You

No matter how high your IQ test shows, you cannot run everything in your business on your own. Maybe your ego is saying that only you should handle x, only you could deal with y, and only you can possibly work on z. That’s just not the case. In fact, IQ does not necessarily determine a business’s success. It helps, but where does expertise in one area get you if your business is still struggling financially because you are not able to complete certain duties the way they need to be completed...

Smooth Out Your Revenue Stream

Take a look at what your business offers. Are you selling high-ticket items or are you selling some kind of service? Then, think to yourself: am I relying on my customers to make a one-time purchase and am I struggling to get new or recurring business in the door?  Once you’ve identified what your company already offers, think about ways to extend this offer that will reel them back in; what kind of recurring, subscription-type service can your business give to them after the initial transa...

Episode-16-No Excuse Sir

At West Point, I was a plebe (freshman cadet) where I underwent various drills, one of which was “The 4 responses.” For all questions asked, I could only answer with “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” “sir, I do not understand,” and today’s topic – “no excuse, sir.”  The “no excuse, sir” answer was meant to teach new cadets about taking responsibility and the importance of leadership by being accountable for the actions you did, did not, or will take. It created the mindfulness in me that ther...

No Excuse Sir

At West Point, I was a plebe (freshman cadet) where I underwent various drills, one of which was “The 4 responses.” For all questions asked, I could only answer with “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” “sir, I do not understand,” and today’s topic – “no excuse, sir.”  The “no excuse, sir” answer was meant to teach new cadets about taking responsibility and the importance of leadership by being accountable for the actions you did, did not, or will take. It created the mindfulness in me that there are no ...

Everything Works Sometimes

Like a lot of young salespeople and marketers, I have tried several different approaches which seemed like good ideas at the time. A mentor once reminded me of something he used to say often which was, “everything works sometimes”. What he meant by that was that no matter what marketing technique you use, you are likely to have some level of success. The real question that you should be asking at that point is, is that repeatable consistently, and does the cost justify the investment, what k...

Life's (and Business's) Most Important Skill

I want to talk about a skill that has helped me immensely over the years in business selling B2B and in my personal life with family and friends. That skill is understanding people, where they are coming from, and how best to influence them in a positive way. This may seem basic in nature, but over and over again throughout my career in business I have seen people ignore this facet of communication and the consequence of not having this skill. I don’t remember where I picked it up, but I l...

Becoming

I want to talk about an uncomfortable topic for me personally, but all entrepreneurs, salespeople, and anyone with success in their life faces it on a daily basis. That topic is becoming the person you need to be to achieve your goals. When I say this is an uncomfortable topic for me, I mean it has been quite a journey, and I’m not proud of my lack of growth over periods in my life.  I went to the Tony Robbins Business Mastery a few years ago - which I believe every business owner should a...

If You Build It, They Won't Come

Have you ever had a salesperson pitch you on a product or service for your business that they claimed was going to have people knocking down your doors wanting to do business with you? There is a myth in business that if you brand yourself well, have a fantastic product or service that no one else has, that customers will come to you in droves begging to buy from you.  We fell in the trap of falling for passive marketing techniques I talked about in Episode 1 when we should have been focusi...

I Thought This Podcast Was About B2B?

I want to talk about the crossover between B2B and B2C and we can use the best techniques to get the best results. First of all, let’s define what we are talking about with B2B on this podcast. Although some of the same concepts apply, this podcast is directed at business owners and sales people for smaller B2B companies, generally with sales under $5mm in revenue and who sell to other small or medium sized companies.  There are very few resources for small companies selling to other small...

Curing Cancer in Your Business

This episode is about a problem that every business owner has who either has employees or plans to have them. This problem is the true cost of hiring the wrong employees, having the wrong people on your team, the toxic environment it creates, and how to deal with cutting out this cancer, while at the same time minimizing the stress it causes you a business owner and entrepreneur. First, please know that this is general theory and my opinion, not legal advice in any way shape or form, and yo...

Skyrocket Your Productivity

When you arrive at work every day, do you have a plan for what you are going to accomplish that day? When the day is over, do you feel like you got a lot done or do you think to yourself, what did I even do today?  For the first decade after starting our company I worked 60-80 hours a week, often 7 days a week. I’m sure a lot of you can relate. I spent time talking to clients, handling employee issues, messing around on Facebook, and just reacting to the day’s fires.  If we are spending m...

I Don’t Need Help - Part II

In part one of this topic of getting help outside of your own head, we focused on using the goldmine that is your internal team of employees. But what do you do if you don’t have employees? Are there any other ways to get feedback and insights into your business that will help you see things you aren’t seeing? Other than getting input from your team, you can get advice, feedback, and an outsider’s perspective by bringing in some kind of third party business coach or consultant One of the t...

I Don't Need Help - Part I

In the last episode, we talked about how to implement follow up systems in our businesses. Today I wanted to go a little different direction and talk about a subject that I think most of us are guilty of at one time or another - getting tunnel vision in our businesses. I mentioned in a previous episode that I had a great business partner for many years in building our company, SalesDouble. There is definitely a synergy you get from being able to bounce ideas off of a partner or partners in...

Follow the Rabbit Trail

In this episode, I want to talk about how you make sure you are avoiding the pitfalls many of us, including me, have fallen into, and how to implement an effective strategy for both prospecting, follow up, and growing your business. When we first started out as a company, as I mentioned in a previous episode, we did cold calling for our clients, and that was it. We’d take either their call list or generate one ourselves, and have our callers generate appointments or leads and email the info...

The Key to ALL Prospecting

In this episode, I want to talk about a subject that I actually love. Why do I love it? Because in my opinion, and most marketing stats will agree with me, it’s where the money is made in your business. Am I talking about bringing in more clients, getting more sales, spending less to acquire a client? Yes, all of the above in a roundabout way. What I want to talk about is follow up. I know you are thinking, ok Robert, that was quite a build up for such a basic principle. Everyone in sales o...

New Clients for Free

Last time I talked about outsourcing as a way of making both your traditional prospect over the phone and in person or online marketing effective. In about 2010-2011, we had given up on our online marketing efforts. In retrospect, it didn’t work because we didn’t do it right as I explained in the last episode.  Regardless, the country was still recovering from the 2008 crash as were most businesses. As I mentioned in an earlier episode, we have grown our company almost exclusively through ...

The Only Way to Market for B2B Online.

After the 2008 crash of the economy, our business took a hit like most other businesses. Due to our primary reliance on cold calling and active marketing, we survived the storm while many businesses went under. Even though we survived, this downturn forced us to do some soul searching on our business’s direction, and what methods we were using for marketing. In 2009, decided to take a different route in our marketing. We primarily started with the use of Google AdWords, which was the bigges...

The Most Effective Ways of Prospecting

Have you heard of the term call reluctance? Well, it is where salespeople are afraid of making a sales call. Cold calling is a nightmare to many people because of the fear of rejection. Even for the most seasoned salespeople, the fear of the phone is common.  The truth about prospecting via cold calling on the phone is that it requires a different skillset from selling. If you're a great salesperson, or even if you aren't, and have salespeople working for you, this is a great activity to ha...

2 Types of Marketing that will Grow or Kill your Business

As a business owner, how can you get new clients for your business? Well, you can do things like run ads and industry publications, run online ads that point your website, send out physical mailers and fliers, or email general information on your product or service to your email list. These methods belong to the passive marketing category. Active marketing involves proactively approaching very specific potential customers. This can be done in person, which is the best-case scenario for b2b,...

The Journey Begins

We're going gear this podcast to businesses who sell other businesses, and not to consumers. Again, it doesn't mean many lessons aren't relevant to B2C, but most interviews and topics will be geared toward b2b. So what are we going to be covering? My goal is to give you the best tips, strategies, resources, and tactics you can implement to grow your business quickly. This will come in the form of my personal experience and thoughts, bringing on subject area experts for interviews on specific...