Sean Boyce

In this episode, the Founder and CEO of Alter New Media Nadya Rousseau talks about how she transitioned from freelance writer to marketing strategist, how scaling up affects the nature of work you take on, and how ChatGPT and AI is disrupting the marketing world.

This episode, runZero’s VP of Worldwide Sales Jay Wallace talks about how to approach complex sales cycles with long lead times, the techniques for relationship-based selling, and how to build credibility in your relationships.Jay Wallace has been working in sales for almost a decade and has built successful sales teams from the ground up.Jay is currently the VP of Worldwide Sales for runZero where he leads all things revenue creation and retention. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Consulting Trap:The benefits of working as one of the first employees for a startup.How to approach sales cycles with long lead times.The danger of being too reliant on one employee.How to start a relationship-based selling model.Ways to build credibility in relationships.How to warm up your leads.Resources:runZeroPodcast ChefConnecting with Jay Wallace:LinkedInConnecting with the host:Brian Mattocks on LinkedInBrian Mattocks by emailQuotables:3:30 – “I love cyber security I think that it’s a community, for me it’s a calling I love being involved, I love hearing all the crazy stories you hear out in the world about people doing crazy things on the internet and that’s always drawn me into the cyber security space.”5:10 – “It wasn’t so much sales that caught my attention it was business and I was really interested in the inner workings in how businesses work and what they care about but I think if you’re really truly interested in business you’ve got to be interested in sales because that’s the lifeblood of any business that’s what makes the operations run keeps the lights on.”5:49 – “You’re cold calling my first fully commissioned gig had no base salary really putting it all on the line, knocking in doors asking strangers can I refinance your mortgage that was the short of it or selling financial products like life insurance or financial plans not to mention not the easiest thing to do in a global recession so 2008 2009 were not my best years in terms of earnings but they were certainly my best year in terms of learnings, I learned a lot about myself and how much I loved sales and I loved meeting somebody completely brand new they don’t have any idea about what you have most of the time their standoffish and they don’t want to talk to you anyway so there’s something masterful and artful about being able to get someone to warm up to you have them open their eyes to the solution that your selling and eventually say yes this will actually help me out.”9:02 – “The worst thing that can happen to you as a seller is you’ve got a mid 6 figure or low seven-figure deal on the line and you’re single-threaded, so your champion decides to leave the company, your champion decides to take a 3-week vacation, we sell to about 50 countries today so varying degrees of everybodys not like Americans where we live to work and it’s like hey I’m going on vacation but here’s my cell here’s a hair follicle in case you need to trace me by DNA, here’s how you can find me at any waking moment don’t worry a lot of people actually take vacation out there in the world.

In this episode, the Founder of NxtStep Consulting Sean Boyce talks about the rise of digital shorts, how digital short performance differs across different platforms, and the best ways to use shorts to develop your business.

In this episode, the CEO of Agency Bell Jordan Bell talks about which metrics matter the most in digital marketing, how to identify the right metrics to measure, and how much time you should spend crafting a story around metrics.Jordan Bell is regularly sought as an advisor, consultant, speaker, educator, and expert contributor in the areas of digital marketing, technology, automation, and startup management.Jordan is the CEO of Agency Bell, a Digital Advertising Agency that leverages Machine Learning to build competitive advantages for high-budget digital brands.He has founded and launched several successful companies, consulted or advised startups in numerous industries, and managed hundreds of millions of dollars in digital campaigns for Fortune-level companies. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Consulting Trap:How to get started in digital advertising.Ways to calculate a lead’s value.The importance of metrics in digital marketing.How to identify the right metrics to measure.The metrics that matter the most in digital marketing.How much time you should spend crafting a story around metrics.Resources:Agency BellPodcast ChefConnecting with Jordan Bell:LinkedInEmailConnecting with the host:Brian Mattocks on LinkedInBrian Mattocks by emailQuotables12:10 – “If I could wave a magic wand I would want the metrics to be cost per new customer, customer acquisition cost, CPAs, the cost per acquisition however we say the conversion cost or CPA in advertising firms, so in the case of a law firm I’ll use that example that’s their signed CPA because they have to send a retainer agreement in plaintiff law and then the person has to sign that agreement and that becomes when we can associate a dollar amount with that so their signed CPA or signed acquisition cost, they might have a target of 2000 dollars on a case that they might make 10 to 20 thousand dollars on but they have to take that case the next 2 years and all the operation cost of all that, so the first thing that matters, the only metric perhaps that matters is first going to be the profitability metric which is cost per signed case, cost per customer.”21:51 – “We want to draw the connections, we want to believe that the answers will draw connections that aren’t there because we’re so obsessed with getting the win, especially agencies and freelance marketers and all that we want the win so there’s a level of responsibility there it’s like a scientist who thinks they’ve discovered this amazing cure to something but the more they dig the more it’s going to fall apart those situations that moral compass scientists in medicine all that stuff is generally really good here, still has peer-reviewed stuff but the temptation is there to get the win and advertising doesn’t have a peer review regulation system, and so that’s if I were to say that’s the biggest dangers, understanding how to look at data and how it connects to business metrics is one of the biggest opportunities but we’re so far behind as an industry on that.”24:08 – “Be absolutely unafraid of being wrong as often as possible, I have to not give any care about being wrong so that the moment that I discover that I don’t know what I thought I knew or there’s an opportunity where someone is speaking and I realize that I can learn a lot from them that I shut up and I just sponge, keep talking what can I do for you I don’t care how far I get in business or in life there is always going to be someone or many people who as soon as I’m in the room with them I realize this person I admire them I want to learn from them and I don’t need to prove that I’m right I don’t need my ego in the equation I’m going straight down into the humblest spot because that is how we learn the fastest.”27:12 – “Working on ourselves is over any skill is the best investment, I didn’t always have the opportunity to I was flat out broke when I moved to California and struggled for a long time but when I was able to I found ways to get coaching or read things about coaching that were professional personal, understanding ourselves, I’m neurodiverse so the more I understood myself through things like Myers-Brigs, Strengths finder and also worked with coaches being not afraid of working with a therapist, guys should find a great therapist. Those create massive foundation as we’re adults especially to heal trauma, unpack the things that are difficult, and set a foundation for us to have that capacity to reach potential whatever that is for us because the weight from the things we struggle with and don’t realize we struggle with prevents us from achieving and living the way that we want to live.“

In this episode, the Founder of NxtStep Consulting Sean Boyce talks about the benefits of relationship selling, why you should always lead with value and the common sales tricks that just don’t work.Sean Boyce has run his consultancy firm NxtStep Consulting for over 10 years but found he wasn’t able to grow his network effectively and efficiently through in-person marketing or lead generation services. To solve this Sean founded Podcast Chef, a full-service podcast management platform that helped him grow his network while making awesome content at the same time.Seeing the effectiveness of podcasting at reaching new people, Sean opened it up to others, helping people to start a podcast and delegating the management from post-production to booking guests. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Consulting Trap:The problems with cold outreach on LinkedIn.Why some marketing techniques can have a negative impact on a business.The problems with taking a ‘hard sell’ marketing approach.Why you should always lead with value.What you can offer prospects before giving them the purchasing pitch.The benefits of relationship selling.Sales tricks that don’t work.How long your sales messages should be.Resources:CalendlyPodcast ChefConnecting with Sean Boyce:LinkedInConnecting with the host:Brian Mattocks on LinkedInBrian Mattocks by emailQuotables01:17 – “A lot of data points to people with kind of personalities that are good at listening as opposed to just speaking or talking or vomiting stuff all over people do a lot better in sales than those that are just trying to push some type of an agenda so I think the approach that most people take is wrong and I’ve got plenty examples of that.”03:02 – “You know those guys when you’re walking around the city any major metro you’re walking around and there is dudes handing out the little flyer thing for the local mattress place and you’re like no man I was on my way to get coffee but now that I’ve got this flyer in my hands I’m carrying a mattress home like this is the answer, on my back. I think this is where a lot of folks get it wrong and we’ve talked about random acts of marketing in the past or random acts of salesmanship and the short answer is people choose to do business with people they like know or trust and the moment you start doing stuff like this you erode your trust factor immediately.”06:55 – “Teslas they were trying to innovate in the dealership space and how the representatives for their brand at the actual retail locations the so-called dealerships how they were responding to people who came in versus how a typical car dealership would respond and instead of immediately trying to push what it is that they wanted to sell at that given moment to whoever walked in the doors their response was along the lines of what brings you in today, how can I help? Are you just browsing or whatever I’m here to help if you need my help great, if you don’t have fun, enjoy the cars experience it, whatever just immediately lowers the pressure for everyone involved.”12:11 – “As a sales professional you have to move past the features and benefits conversation, they tell you in marketing 101 it’s all features and benefits and frankly features and benefits are the last thing that’s important if you’re talking about features, and benefits you’re talking about the wrong part of the horse, and this is the old story of Ford. Ford started really taking off when they stopped selling cars and started selling freedom, the same thing is true.”18:27 – “In a world where digital shorts are the thing that is blown up, what are you missing about the keyword in that phrase, short. What you think that a longer message is going to get me a higher response rate, it’s really not necessary we live in a bite-sized world, attention spans are measured in nanoseconds everybody’s busy all the time, especially after the pandemic, so for the love of everything condense it, shorten it up, keep it short and sweet, saves you time, saves them time, get right to the point.”

This episode, the Founder of Rogue Wave Marketing Sarah Feldmann talks about the importance of analytics in marketing, which metrics you should be looking for, and why expectation-setting should always be front of mind.Sarah Feldmann worked in journalism before transitioning to marketing and starting her agency Rogue Wave Marketing.Here she worked in every role imaginable from graphic design and website development to copywriting, before hiring others to fill those roles and taking a more managerial role. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of The Consulting Trap:How to help business owners understand their marketing needs.The key differences between a coach and a consultant.The importance of analytics in marketing.How to work with business owners that have a poor product market fit.The value of having contracts with your clients.The metrics to look at in marketing.The importance of expectation setting.Resources:Rogue Wave MarketingPodcast ChefConnecting with Sarah Feldmann:LinkedInEmailConnecting with the host:Brian Mattocks on LinkedInBrian Mattocks by emailQuotables:03:59 – “Someone can have a gut feeling about a certain type of marketing they should be doing but you can’t change what you don’t measure so I actually just ran a workshop for some people a couple of weeks ago building their 2023 plans and part of which was sales and marketing and it was funny because the deeper we got into it they’re trying to set sales goals and things like that and that starts with understanding not only your target market but what’s your conversion rate to figure out how many leads you need to talk to or how many people you need to get to raise their hand so when you go through those types of factual analytical questions then you can map out a plan that really isn’t as arbitrary and isn’t as gut instinct related, it’s actually backed by fact.”10:22 – “It’s expectation setting so any engagement that I have with any client at the very beginning it’s establishing how do we want to measure success because for everybody it’s different you take a tangible example like building a website how do you know you did it right because there’s so many companies that do it differently so I literally have one client that’s like I don’t need more leads this isn’t about that their whole thing is their site is so old that they just want to make sure that their own clients or existing client base can they just can pull up their site find what they need and keep moving, so that’s an example of someone who doesn’t really care about lead gen they’re doing it more as a brand reputation management tool so success for that is user experience whereas another client, it might be lead gen.”12:51 – “From the very beginning making it clear to the client this is a two-way relationship we have to work together on this because I’m not an employee for a certain company where I’m fully 100 percent all tied in with this company I’m not in their business every single day my role is to help the company outside which adds a lot of value because I’m not numb to the things in front of me that can sometimes happen when you’re in the same situation all the time.”15:30 – “A lot of people I meet a lot of entrepreneurs don’t even want to try for rewards, don’t even want to do things like that because they’re like it’s not for you it’s for your team and it’s amazing how your team will change when they’re part of winning something like that and how much that can help elevate your company.”16:12 – “It’s ok if you don’t know your why. I read so many posts and see so many videos and all these people talking about their why and it’s great if you have it figured out, but sometimes we don’t have it all figured out and we don’t necessarily know our why and we’re still in the process of uncovering that and that’s ok to be in the process.

This episode, the Founder of NxtStep Consulting Sean Boyce talks about how to grow a podcast’s audience, the effectiveness of short-form content, and the key to creating great podcasting content.

In this episode, the Founder and CEO of Radical Ryan Alford talk about the difference between short-term marketing and long-term marketing, the unending nature of brand development, and how to build a personal brand.