Onward Nation

Get to know your clients better to understand their problem and provide them with an ideal solution. This is what our guests, Allison and Scott, will be talking about in this episode. After graduating from Clemson University, Scott Fogleman began his career in advertising sales at The Wall Street Journal, followed most recently by a successful sales career with SYNNEX Corporation managing the Google Brand inclusive of Chrome Education.

Scott's passion for higher education began during his time with Clemson's Undergraduate Student Government and as a member of President's Cabinet. At Up&Up, he leads the East Sales Region with a mission to impact change by bringing strong, positive, executable campaigns to his clients and their constituents.

Allison Lanier's curiosity for the sales process began as a teenager while working in the retail environment. Years later, she graduated cum laude from the University of South Carolina, Aiken Campus and quickly realized her excitement for sales had developed into a true passion.

As a Business Development Manager for Up&Up, Allison brings her experience in sales leadership and execution from past employers such as Verizon Wireless and PepsiCo. At Up&Up, she uses her passion for people to create a positive, effective, and rewarding campaign experience for the West Sales Region.

• How to get to know your clients and have a better understanding of their needs
• Why defining and focusing on a niche is far more important than serving everybody and how doing so can help your agency find the right clients
• How society is changing the value of education and how that affects messaging to prospective students
• How asking the tough questions and challenging your clients can uncover the real issues and real solutions
• What a client's "authentic self" is, how to discover it and why learning it can improve marketing efforts for the long term
• What Allison and Scott think are the most relevant skills for business owners to develop and grow their businesses
• Scott's best advice for transparency and personal growth for business owners
• How to cope with hearing "no" and use it to empower you
• Why it is important to get to know your clients and why you need to change your process

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.upandup.agency/
• Facebook: @upandupagency
• Twitter: @upandupagency
• Learn more about the approach on how to get to know your clients

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Check out this podcast on how to get to know your clients from Predictive ROI

Get client referrals and more by listening to this podcast episode with our guest, Bill Cates. While trekking through the Himalayas, the Andes and the Alps; while camping in the Arctic Circle and living on a houseboat in Kashmir, India, Bill Cates built and sold two successful publishing companies. For the past 25 years, his mission has been helping professional service companies grow through referrals, introductions, and other relationship marketing strategies. Bill Cates has spoken to over 350,000 professionals worldwide and has trained over 70,000 in his system. You will gain a proven process to enhance client engagement and leverage that engagement into quality introductions that result in new clients.

• Why Bill believes having satisfied clients isn't enough to get client referrals and how reinforcing your value can grow your client base
• The importance of creating a strong, precise message to attract more people to your business, rather than casting a wide net
• What a "right fit client" is, how to spot them and how to attract them to create joy and profit for you and your business
• The neuroscience of relevance and how to apply its principles to interactions with all kinds of clients
• How marketing your company in a "compelevant" way keeps clients interested and engaged
• The most crucial emotional skills required to connect with your new clients and keep them coming back
• Balancing the use of analysis and emotional connection to cover a variety of clients across industries
• One of the keys to switching referral growth for your business from incremental to exponential
• Recognizing what Bill says is one of the biggest obstacles to growing your business
• Learn additional secrets on how to get client referrals and win those new clients

• Websites:
  • www.referralcoach.com
  • www.billcates.com
• Twitter: @Bill_Cates
• Facebook: Bill Cates – Referral Coach (@ReferralCoach)
• Become an expert on how to get client referrals by checking out this blog

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Learn how to get client referrals by cultivating relationships with people

Learn from Clate on how to follow your vision and see your company grow towards success. Clate Mask is the CEO and co-founder of Infusionsoft, the leading all-in-one sales, and marketing software built for small businesses and eight-time Inc. 500 or Inc. 5000 winner. Clate was named an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, a Top 100 Small Business Influencer by Small Business Trends, and one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2013 by Goldman Sachs. Clate is a national speaker on entrepreneurship and small business success, and he is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book, "Conquer the Chaos: How to Grow a Successful Small Business Without Going Crazy."

• Why Infusionsoft created their Mars Mission to help guide them through the transition to working with more small businesses through a new, simpler platform
• Why you should follow your vision and how will it benefit your company in the end
• Why developing a simpler platform scaled for broader use created new challenges for the company, including splitting their focus and renaming their brand Keap
• How the company began to split their focus starting in 2017, and how their long-term focus was key to navigating the complexity of their two different offerings
• Why developing the simpler platform for small businesses has been a part of the Clate's long term vision for years, and why that matters to the success of the company
• Why the goal of Keap's Mars Mission is to simplify growth for 5 million small businesses, and why that specific metric was chosen
• How Clate's company is inventing a small business solution from scratch, rather than offering a watered-down enterprise solution like their competitors
• Why Clate believes that purpose, mission, and values are the keys to growth, and why leaders must clearly communicate those key aspects to their teams
• What advice Clate has for business owners looking to improve their ability to mentor others
• Clate shares the brand story of his company and of his personal entrepreneurial journey and the many strains and struggles he faced in his company's early days

• Website: www.keap.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/clatemask/
• Onward Nation episode 735 with Clate Mask:
  • https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/clate-mask/
• Onward Nation episode 834 with Brett Gilliland:
  • https://predictiveroi.com/podcasts/brett-gilliland-encore/
• Be inspired and follow your vision with the help of this blog from Keap

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Learn from Scott Beebe on how to follow your vision and write it as a story

Robbie Kellman Baxter has been advising entrepreneurs on business strategy for 20 years, which includes teaching them how to implement a subscription model. Her clients have included solopreneurs and venture-backed startups as well as industry leaders such as ASICS, Netflix, Electronic Arts, and The Wall Street Journal. She has worked with nearly 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth initiatives.

A sought-after writer and keynote speaker, Robbie has presented at top universities, associations and corporations, as well as to corporate boards and leadership teams around the world. Robbie has created and starred in 10 video courses in collaboration with LinkedIn Learning on business topics ranging from innovation to customer success and membership.

As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 5 Marketing Book of the Year by Inc.com, Robbie coined the popular business term "Membership Economy". Robbie's expertise with companies in the emerging Membership Economy extends to include SaaS, media, consumer products and community organizations.

Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer. Robbie received her MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors from Harvard College.

• How Robbie found her way into business strategy and consulting work and has spent most of her career in this space
• Why Robbie believes that narrowing her focus and niching down has actually strengthened her brand and created new opportunities
• How Robbie worked as a consultant for Netflix very early in their business, and why their subscription model appealed to Robbie
• How to implement a subscription model with an appealing price, and why being customer-focused to justify subscription pricing is key
• What "subscription fatigue" is, why consumers are learning to game the subscription model system, and why having the right content to fit the model is crucial
• Why Robbie recommends you clarify what promise you need to make to your customers to make a subscription worthwhile
• How to implement a subscription model for certain businesses and how they can benefit from it
• Why being clear in knowing who your customer is and what their needs are is the best starting point for determining how you can best serve them
• Why not every customer is the right customer for you, and why bad customers distract you and can cause you to deviate from your model
• What important daily habit Robbie has developed that helps her maintain focus on her priorities

• Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robbiekellmanbaxter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/robbiebax
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MembershipEconomy/
• The Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter: https://amzn.to/2Gk3s4H
• Learn more from Robbie on how to implement a subscription model and make it a successful one

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Listen to a previous podcast from Robbie on how to implement a subscription model for additional revenue stream

Learn from John about how culture impacts business and you might learn some golden nuggets, which you can utilize for your own benefit as well. John Waid has thirty years of sales and sales leadership experience in Fortune 500 companies and twelve years of senior consulting experience in the learning and development field. John earned his MBA in International Business from a top program and is fluent in three languages which has allowed him to work in Europe, North, Central and South America. He started his own firm, C3—Corporate Culture Consulting, to work with leaders and their companies on their cultures.

• Why the key to growing a business lies in paying attention to both your people and your business and how John's parents taught him this lesson early on
• How Chick-Fil-A has built a powerful employee-focused culture that has helped them become a dominant force in the fast-food market
• Why "culture" is defined by your employees and behaviors, and why the success of Delta Airlines is a great example of how culture impacts business
• How a great culture raises employee enthusiasm, which in turn can create brand loyalty and increase profits
• How a Harvard study revealed that a focus on culture offers 3x more profit per employee, 4x faster growth, and 50% better retention
• Key lessons from John's book, Reinventing Ralph: A Little Story For Salespeople About Culture-Driven Selling, about having a noble purpose, a clear vision, and three values
• Why Southwest Airlines is an excellent example of a company that has developed unique values
• How clear, strong values can help you more effectively hire and onboard new team members and why it is important to train your team on your values
• Why company leadership needs to live their culture and values and why employees will emulate leadership

• Website: www.c3culture.com
• Reinventing Ralph by John Waid: https://amzn.to/2Llj3oN
• Learn more about how culture impacts business by getting in touch with Corporate Culture Consulting

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Listen to this podcast with Paul Spiegelman about how culture impacts business and how to measure its ROI

Prentice Howe has always believed in underdogs, especially when they start adopting a growth mindset. As Owner and Chief Creative Officer of Door Number 3, a full-service advertising agency based in Austin, Texas, his passion is helping brands embrace their challenger-ability and topple their giants. Prentice has been featured in The New York Times, AdWeek, Inc., and Communication Arts and authored the Amazon best-selling book "The Empowered Challenger Playbook," which describes his strategies in detail and backs them up with case studies.

• Why Prentice thinks that betting on yourself is the best thing you can do for your professional career
• Why you need to start adopting a growth mindset, what it means for your future, and how to instill that mindset in your employees
• Prentice's advice for creating a roadmap and acquiring the tools needed to advance your business and achieve your professional goals
• Strategies for "challengers" to shift their focus, make sacrifices, and pursue their goals of competing against market leaders
• The five pertinent personal traits needed to be an empowered challenger
• Finding your niches to diversify your client base and avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket
• What Prentice thinks are the most critical skills for "business masters" and how they could start influencing in adopting a growth mindset
• Why your business should serve YOU and not just your clients
• The life-changing effects of having a mentor and why success leaves clues

• Website: https://www.dn3austin.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dn3austin
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doornumber3/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prentice-howe-54163b4/
• Prentice's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Empowered-Challenger-Playbook-Brands-Change-ebook/dp/B06WLLLVT8
• Learn more about adopting a growth mindset by listening to this podcast with Jason Bronstad

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• You can start your journey in adopting a growth mindset by signing-up for our 3 step action plan for FREE

Sharon Spano, Ph.D., is an expert in identifying leaders and she helps them transform how they think, adapt, and respond in complex business environments. As a business strategist, author, and Professional Integral Coach, she leads her clients through specific research-based practices that empower them to realign their business strategy with a life of meaning, accelerated performance, and increased profitability.

Sharon is also the author of The Pursuit of Time and Money: Step Into Radical Abundance and Discover the Secret to a Meaningful Prosperous Life.

She is also a scholar-practitioner who enjoys researching and understanding some of the hard stuff of life so you don't have to. There's nothing like helping people move through challenges such that they come out more passionate and fulfilled on the other side.

Whether you're a person in the midst of change, an entrepreneur, or an organizational leader, Sharon would love to help you discover a more meaningful and prosperous life.

• How you can start identifying leaders, where it comes from, the benefits, and the drawbacks
• Why the systemic mapping process allows us to see hidden patterns and subconscious dynamics in a concrete way
• How to look at systems from a quantum physics perspective
• How the aforementioned systems transcend generations and affect the unconscious minds of business leaders
• Why bringing the unconscious to the conscious mind allows leaders to make better decisions with more efficiency and less stress
• How to recognize hidden loyalties and use them as an agent for positive change
• What inspires Sharon Spano to bring this methodology to her clients
• How genetics play a prominent role in who you are as a leader

• Website: sharonspano.com
• Book: thetimemoneybook.com
• Events: sharonspano.com/workshops
• Contact: [email protected]
• Twitter: @SharonSpano
• Enhance your ability of identifying leaders by learning this method from John Murphy

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Listen to this related podcast about identifying leaders with our guest, Ken Pasch

Adam Honig (HOE-nig) is the founder and CEO of Spiro (SPEAR-oh) Technologies, a CRM company focused on breathing new life into sales technology to help salespeople reach new heights. Adam has worked in the tech industry for over 25 years, building companies that deliver enterprise software and solutions, as well as developing award-winning teams across the globe. Together with Spiros founding team, Adam has developed tech solutions for over 300,000 salespeople in the past 10 years.

He's learned invaluable lessons throughout his career, and today he shares his expertise on how to manage a sales team across the globe, empowering them to achieve success through targeted relationship-building, proven sales tactics, and inspired technologies.

• How the movie "Her" inspired Adam to create Spiro
• How Spiro helps business owners as it relates to how to manage a sales team then let it become more helpful and effective
• The problem organizations encounter when it comes to having a sales team record all of the data for their leads and the process that leads to the sale
• Ways that Spiro's CRM eliminates the gaps in the sales team's work with data to make them more effective
• The gaps that Spiro has seen with the sales team's communication with prospects and how Spiro solves them
• What Adam believes is the best way that organizations can improve sales
• The importance of collecting data and seeing how it can be used to elevate the sales team's performance and achieve goals
• How collecting all the data within your sales team can help you make better predictions for your business
• Why it is important to make sure your customer service is a priority in your business and how it can create opportunities down the road
• The skills a business owner needs to become an expert on how to manage a sales team
• Why the tech industry has been leaning on creating specialized sales teams and how that is helping them grow their business
• Ways Spiro helps in creating alerts for communicating with leads
• Why connecting with leads on LinkedIn can be helping when creating and nurturing relationships with leads

• Website: spiro.ai
• Resource for listeners: spiro.ai/onwardnation
• Check out this advice from Spiro on how to manage a sales team

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Read more about how to manage a sales team and the 4 pillars that defines it

Eric Thurston has enabled many of the world's leading organizations to leverage technology solutions to drive business performance and taught them how to become a transformational leader. He is currently President and CEO of Personify, a market-leading technology platform that helps organizations to better engage their constituents, maximize revenue and optimize operations. In his role at Personify, Eric has led the company through a founder transition, successfully acquired three new technology solutions, executed a major product rewrite and positioned Personify to be sold from its private equity sponsor Rubicon Technology Partners to Pamlico Capital.

As host of the Planet Leadership podcast, Eric meets with leaders, influencers, and movers and shakers in the association and nonprofit market to explore the issues and topics keeping up executives up at night, such as how to drive efficiencies within an organization, leverage technology to be more effective, and stay on top of trends in a rapidly evolving market.

Eric has a wealth of experience in the software industry, serving in leadership roles at Mitratech, P2 Energy Solutions, Oracle and SAP. He lives in Austin and enjoys boating, hiking, and fishing with his family.

• Eric Thurston's journey to owning private equity-owned software companies
• Learn how to become a transformational leader with Eric's guidance
• Why Eric describes himself as a "Transformational CEO"
• How Eric transformed and grew Personify since 2013 when he became CEO
• The vital priorities Eric's leadership team planned and followed in order to grow Personify and why they plan over a five-year time frame
• How Eric build out his leadership team within Personify
• Two reasons why the topic of leadership is important to Eric
• The types of organizations that Personify serves
• Business owners can learn how to become a transformational leader by using these two ways
• Inside information about Eric's new podcast, Plant Leadership and his decision to start a podcast
• The reason why Eric chose the name 'Planet Leadership' for his podcast
• Eric's influential lessons that he learned from his mentors and how that lesson helped him become the leader he is today

• Website: personify.com
• Visit Eric's podcast and learn the advanced methods of how to become a transformational leader

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Listen to this podcast and learn how to become a transformational leader through values

Got advice from someone saying that you should narrow down your niche? Well, Craig Cody explains why that is and why you need to take that advice seriously, especially if you want to save money in the process.

Craig Cody is a Certified Tax Coach and the owner of the New York City based accounting firm, Craig Cody & Company. Craig belongs to a select group of tax practitioners who've undergone extensive training and continued education on various tax planning techniques and strategies. Craig is passionate about helping business owners understand the difference between tax planning — and tax paying — by helping them save significant money. Craig is also the co-author of the Amazon bestseller, "Secrets of a Tax Free Life."

• What has changed for Craig since his last appearance on Onward Nation in episode 530, including the launch of his Progressive Dentist Podcast
• Why Craig began guest starring on other podcasts, and what those experiences taught him about business development
• Why you should narrow down your niche the moment you see an opportunity
• How Craig began niching down to specializing in helping dentists better manage their practices and save and make more money
• What challenges Craig and his team had to face when niching down, and why focusing on an extremely narrow group caused a degree of fear
• Why Craig struggled with imposter syndrome after he decided to move from being a frequent podcast guest to hosting his own show
• Why the new tax laws have benefited business owners more than anyone else, and why people receiving W-2s were hardest hit by the changes
• How the new tax rules allow business owners to claim significant new tax deductions to reduce their tax liability
• How Craig helps his clients maximize their tax savings and reduce the amount of liability they carry
• Craig offers a specific example of the kinds of deductions a business owner can find in the new tax code, complete with examples
• Why things like pools and home gyms can now be tax-deducted, and why there are many more strategies beyond these that can be employed to save you money
• How you can narrow down your niche and start saving more money than what you normally would

• Free Course: www.craigcodyandcompany.com/course
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.theprogressivedentist.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/craigcodycpa
• Want to narrow down your niche? Listen to this podcast with Nicole Mahoney

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Learn more about how to narrow down your niche by listening to this advice from our guest, Parker Stevenson