Fractional Growth Strategies That Drive Revenue

00;00;02;16 – 00;00;27;17
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone, to the fractional operator. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from hourglass SaaS, the operations platform built for fractional by fractional. You know, we really built this program because we were so tired of spreadsheets. If you’re tired of spreadsheets, check out Hourglass at Hourglass as.com. Let’s get to the show though. Introducing Chris Ryan from six marketing. Chris, welcome to the fractional operator, sir.

00;00;27;20 – 00;00;34;11
Speaker 2
Mike, thanks for having me on board. I’m excited. This is another podcast of yours, so I’m excited to be part of it. Appreciate it.

00;00;34;13 – 00;00;53;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, podcasts are no old hat for me for sure. This is the third podcast that we do on a weekly basis. So, excited to be here. Excited to have you on. Chris. I, you know, I think sharing some of the the breadth of knowledge that you have over 20 years you’ve been doing this.

00;00;53;24 – 00;01;00;06
Speaker 2
I’ve owned a company for almost 60, but I’ve been, you know, locked in the war in this world. Much longer than that. Much longer.

00;01;00;06 – 00;01;11;00
Speaker 1
Than that. Yeah. So 16 years, man, that’s a, that’s a nice milestone. That’s a nice, piece of longevity there to be able to be in a have a company for that long.

00;01;11;03 – 00;01;12;09
Speaker 2
Different set of headaches. Yeah.

00;01;12;10 – 00;01;31;29
Speaker 1
Let’s go a different set of headaches. Yeah. So, you know, I want to get into that as far as, like, how things are changing for you, how they have changed over the years and how the headaches changed. But, first, you know, why don’t you kind of give our, our listening and viewing audience here just a, overview of who you are and what six marketing actually does.

00;01;32;01 – 00;01;57;15
Speaker 2
Sir. Yeah, absolutely. So I’m excited to be part of the fractional conversation in general. Really excited that you launched this podcast. Inadvertently. Maybe this is why you invited me on, but we started as any other company, right? We were trying to be a company, and then we started as a marketing agency. And then we soon, soon found out that people don’t just want marketing, they want sales, they want leadership, they want consulting, they want chronic advice.

00;01;57;22 – 00;02;19;19
Speaker 2
So we evolved this holistic, a holistic, brand where we help companies from all, all aspects of life and all aspects of the business. So through that journey, that’s where the fractional part comes in. I started to build this fractional network of different agencies, different firms, different solopreneurs that are fractional to just solve the problem of growth, like we’re coming in and we’re looking at revenue.

00;02;19;21 – 00;02;36;15
Speaker 2
How do we solve revenue? How do we design and get the right revenue in the business? How do we keep that revenue in the business? How do we expand that revenue? And then how do we find more of it? So it’s all a scaling methodology, but how we do it is through a fractional ecosystem of building all of these different partners together.

00;02;36;22 – 00;02;55;24
Speaker 2
And we’ve done that for years, you know, like a decade and a half plus. And that’s where we’ve seen a lot of success. We want to bring in the perfect person to do the job. We’re great at what we do, but we’re not perfect at everything. So we want to bring in the absolute best experts that we can trust that we could be with, and that they’ll provide the most amount of value for our clients.

00;02;55;24 – 00;02;58;03
Speaker 2
So hopefully that makes them.

00;02;58;05 – 00;03;30;07
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I want to dig into that because I have always viewed your model as, first and foremost, just very interesting on how you do it. Right. Like, and, and sometimes I feel like it’s hard to understand it and how you, you have a client, how do you work with them? Who and when you bring on, so can you, can you dig into that a little bit deeper as far as how you’re presenting yourself on the onset with clients, and then how it looks for you to bring in other organizations?

00;03;30;07 – 00;03;31;15
Speaker 1
Other people?

00;03;31;17 – 00;03;51;25
Speaker 2
Sure. Yeah. The model I don’t I don’t think by any means it’s incredibly unique, but I think it is rare. And I think we’ve developed something that’s that’s interesting. So at the end of the day, like a couple things happen. Companies hire us to grow. We started a marketing company because we’re marketers. Like that’s where we learn. And but marketing isn’t always the reason for growth.

00;03;51;28 – 00;04;08;06
Speaker 2
And if companies are hiring is to grow and scale and increase revenue and profit and all these, all these fun things, you need to look at a business holistically. So we say, let’s solve the real problem. The real problem is growth. And it could not be marketing and all marketing could be 1% of the problem. You know, there could be a litany of other problems.

00;04;08;08 – 00;04;27;20
Speaker 2
So having that conversation about we look at your business from a consultancy approach, we don’t just, you know, tell you what to do and not help you. We work with you the entire way through the journey. So when I say we design revenue, we’ll work with you. An ideal client profiles where we work with you on what are you selling to those people who are your best people that will come back and buy from you more?

00;04;27;26 – 00;04;45;26
Speaker 2
How do you find more of these people? And then we help you execute. So from the fractional play, you can plug and play anybody in our team based on the needs of the organization at that time. If you go through a different evolution of growth then we bring in different people like or different options. But most people still think we’re a marketing company.

00;04;45;26 – 00;05;03;03
Speaker 2
So again, yep. Of course we probably have branding issues. Of course, we probably should have renamed the company not six marketing years ago, but people come to us from leads and inevitably, how the conversation starts to answer your question is we say, that’s great. You need leads. Everybody wants leads. But let’s unpack that. Is that the.

00;05;03;03 – 00;05;04;03
Speaker 1
Real.

00;05;04;06 – 00;05;28;16
Speaker 2
Issue or is that just a symptom of the problem? Is there something else going on? And one of our hero stories of the last couple of years is we had a SaaS business come in, awesome product. Really cool thing in medtech. They were helping really like literally saving lives and it was just really cool. And they’re like doing the SaaS play, hiring dozens of SDRs, just trying to go through the old school SaaS model.

00;05;28;19 – 00;05;48;17
Speaker 2
And then we come in and we we give you on the door. They hired us for lead generation. As soon as we got in there, we looked into the diagnostic of the company. They were losing like 3000 customers a month. These guys were a $33 million company, skyrocketed to the 33 million in a couple of years. If we didn’t address that churn problem, they would have closed 100%.

00;05;48;24 – 00;06;05;20
Speaker 2
So we said, you do not need lead generation. What we again, we’re asking questions, not talent, but we’re like, what we think you need is let’s focus on the customer success. Like what’s going on in this world that’s causing you, causing the boat to leak more than you’re putting in through that journey. Again, it’s a hero story for a reason.

00;06;05;23 – 00;06;25;15
Speaker 2
Through that journey, we turn this company completely around to we generate 84.8 million in 8 months pipeline revenue for these guys by stopping churn and then building up lead generation of the right. So we’re doing ICP and all these other things does it doesn’t really matter what the point is. The problem wasn’t lead generation and that’s what they thought it was.

00;06;25;17 – 00;06;42;14
Speaker 2
The problem was churn and customer success. So we can help with that. We brought in the right teams to facilitate that. That’s how we come in and look at a company like, what is the real issue that’s preventing growth? What are the issues coming on the roads that you haven’t addressed yet? And let’s solve the real problem, guys, not the symptoms of the problem as interesting.

00;06;42;14 – 00;06;46;22
Speaker 1
And that those are some pretty, pretty good numbers.

00;06;46;25 – 00;06;49;19
Speaker 2
It’s a lifetime case study. Well, we’ll note that forever.

00;06;49;19 – 00;07;02;15
Speaker 1
But it was really get you get some miles out of that one for sure. You know, I’m just curious, what was was there one underlying issue for that client that was really causing the churn?

00;07;02;18 – 00;07;22;03
Speaker 2
There were several issues. So again, what’s because there are there were a larger company, and this the speed of growth was one of the problems, right? Yeah. They were bringing in the wrong customer, which was one of the problems where they were churning because they weren’t seeing value. Another thing is, you know, the good old AI world, they were using AI collars, and this is a medtech company.

00;07;22;06 – 00;07;41;13
Speaker 2
So you have like their Cros, they tried to adopt AI very early on with good for them. Kudos. Right. But surprise didn’t go through the, you know, the governance and all the regulations that that that they should have. And then people are getting phone calls from AI and it caused like a huge bucket of problem, because we’re trying to close anything that was happening.

00;07;41;13 – 00;07;58;09
Speaker 2
There were some other management issues, happening there. So it was it was a combination of multiple factors. But once we addressed of like, let’s bring the right people on the boat and let’s serve the customer in the way that that you can serve them best. Because at the end of the day, they legitimately are saving lives with their product.

00;07;58;10 – 00;08;25;02
Speaker 2
And it was really cool to be part of that. This since been acquired. So good job. See you later. So it was really good, but, but that’s what I mean. You have a great product, you have a great service, and then you just had downstream problems that were actually an upstream root issue, like that was the cause of like they just didn’t have the planning they were doesn’t grow into fast, doing everything they could to just, you know, stay above water because money was coming in the door.

00;08;25;04 – 00;08;40;07
Speaker 2
No. Oh, let’s get more money. Let’s get lead generation in here. And we’re like, no. Like we added, if we just focus on lead generation, which most marketing companies probably would have done, that would have just added fuel to the fire that would have sank the ship way faster than you know it, like they didn’t.

00;08;40;11 – 00;09;04;18
Speaker 1
So yeah, yeah, it’s interesting you say that because I know that over the years I’ve had many conversations, and typically this is with smaller businesses that come to me and they say, like, I need more clients, right? I need more revenue, I need more leads. And one of the conversations I always have with them, especially with the smaller, younger businesses, is like, let’s pretend I send you 100 leads this month.

00;09;04;20 – 00;09;26;00
Speaker 1
Can you handle that amount of work? Right. And, you know, and a lot of the times the conversation is like, well, no, actually no, I can’t. And then it’s like, okay, so really and we don’t get into that portion of things, but I’m like, okay, we got to fix that problem first because if when we’re successful doing what you want us to do, you’re going to implode because of the weight of all those leads.

00;09;26;00 – 00;09;34;05
Speaker 1
And you got to fix that. And that’s it sounds like that’s what your model is, is if that’s the issue, you guys work on that and then you work on the leads.

00;09;34;08 – 00;09;55;01
Speaker 2
No, your model is the same as ours. It’s about being strategic and intentional for what you’re doing. So you’re working with them to bring in the right, not only the right number of leads, but the right leads. You don’t need thousands and thousands of leads. If you’re a startup, you need ten, right? Go out and go hunting for 1010 new leads that are good prospects because you took the time, not because you just do something.

00;09;55;01 – 00;10;10;01
Speaker 2
And I know because you know, everybody is telling me that you need to have billions of connections. Take the time because you need to put food on the table. Right. So like at the end of the day, if I can go out and pick a different couple companies, stop by their operational gold school, you know, whatever it is.

00;10;10;03 – 00;10;20;04
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, food for thought. And trust me, I love I love technology, I love this entire world. I just think a lot of people are are circumventing what it actually takes to get business base.

00;10;20;07 – 00;10;40;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. AI is an interesting piece of things right now. And it’s funny because this morning I was thinking about God. It must have been 2 or 3 years ago when, you, myself and Howard sat down and we’re talking about AI, and this is when ChatGPT was really, starting to become known publicly, I guess is the best way to put it right.

00;10;40;15 – 00;11;01;25
Speaker 1
And, I mean, I wasn’t touching it at all at that point, and, and I just how much it’s changed are changing the industries. I’m curious because, you know, there’s a lot of chatter out there that I essentially is going to, you know, kill the marketing landscape and put every marketing company out of business that. Do you subscribe to that?

00;11;01;28 – 00;11;04;10
Speaker 1
Not really, because I think especially in the.

00;11;04;10 – 00;11;22;00
Speaker 2
Fractional world, you’re an expert and you have the acumen to be that expert. There’s still the human in the loop. So yes, AI is a distraction at this point, and it’s easy to do, and it’s seemingly putting really good outputs if you do it right, it’s the best thing ever. But it’s still a tool. It’s still a tool to help the human brain.

00;11;22;00 – 00;11;42;05
Speaker 2
Like, certainly there’s, you know, a lots of conversations about when it surpasses human intelligence, but it’s you still need a human in the loop. So having multiple agents and multiple humans all working together is the best case scenario. Just putting something into any of the, you know, the LMS that you like and having it just trust that that’s your output.

00;11;42;08 – 00;12;01;22
Speaker 2
It’s not good. We were talking to a, entrepreneur, organization. You know, we’re like, you know what we should do? We should do an AI versus human. And despite whatever AI is going to put it into a strategy document, you are going to see something. I’m going to see something. You know, anybody that’s been doing this for a while, we’ll see something slightly different that I didn’t consider.

00;12;01;24 – 00;12;29;22
Speaker 2
Now, I will say, if you ran that same scenario where you were and I were in the background working with AI, the output would probably be even better because we’re leveraging the tools. So is it going to replace jobs? It’ll replace some jobs, but make yourself, you know, an indispensable. And I think the fractional market is the perfect market to work with AI because you have the experts there and you’re the knowledge that it needs to work appropriately.

00;12;29;24 – 00;12;52;15
Speaker 1
Well, I know, you know, for me specifically, I and I, I when I’m talking to my team about, I and we use quad primarily and I’ll be like, yeah, I was fighting with Claude this morning. You know, I feel like I’m constantly fighting with Claude because I’ll. I’ll have Claude pressure test something that I’ve created from a strategy standpoint, and it just comes up with nonsense.

00;12;52;15 – 00;13;17;14
Speaker 1
And then I have to, like, push back on it, and and it’s telling, you know, it’s the conversation sometimes. To your point is, if you just said, hey, Claude, create me a marketing program, it’s going to spit something out that probably looks like a marketing plan, but at the end of the day, it’s it doesn’t have the I don’t know how to even phrase it like, it just doesn’t have the ability to reason through some of the things that it’s giving you.

00;13;17;14 – 00;13;25;24
Speaker 1
And then you push back and it’s like, oh, that’s you know, oh, you’re right, Michael, that’s a great point. I should have considered that. And like yeah man.

00;13;25;26 – 00;13;43;20
Speaker 2
Right. Exactly. And I it’s funny because I think you said the same thing three years ago in the I podcast. You were very anti I at that point. You’re right. I was I’m never using this. And I said well we’ll see it at eight a but honestly like you said it back then you’re like you’re like it’s not going to replace strategy.

00;13;43;22 – 00;14;00;14
Speaker 2
It’ll put out a great marketing plan. It will inform marketers to create a better marketing plan. Like, don’t get me wrong, like we leverage it all the time for ideation. We just don’t trust it all the time. We have to build agents to to fact check and do all these things in the background to make sure that, like, it’s not just telling us what we want it here.

00;14;00;21 – 00;14;16;10
Speaker 2
And unfortunately, the large percentage of people are just looking for an edge so fast that they’re just they’re moving too quickly. Or if you take the time to build AI right, then, you know, I’m a broken record here, then that’s the output that you’re going to have. But it’s just it’s just phenomenal when you do it the right way.

00;14;16;10 – 00;14;20;02
Speaker 2
Just take that. Yeah an expert two weeks.

00;14;20;04 – 00;14;43;29
Speaker 1
So you know to to get back to six marketing. And I know one of the things that I’ve really liked over the years is how you guys build yourself as a growth agency, right? Which is kind of encapsulated with what you were saying earlier. Like, we’re not marketing maybe a part of it, but really we’re we’re trying to grow your business and figuring out what that looks like.

00;14;44;02 – 00;14;51;28
Speaker 1
It was that a pivot that you made based on feedback from the marketplace, or just from a gap that you saw.

00;14;52;01 – 00;14;55;18
Speaker 2
Where the gap? So because again, I don’t I, I never thought.

00;14;55;18 – 00;14;56;25
Speaker 1
We were serving.

00;14;56;25 – 00;15;14;15
Speaker 2
Our customers to the best possible just doing marketing, for instance. And I’m not like not picking up markers because I’ve been a marketer. You know, I was just CMO. It’s just the world I knew when I started out. Yeah. So I mean, to answer your question, like we just said, let’s solve the real problem and let’s put the people in the room.

00;15;14;15 – 00;15;32;04
Speaker 2
And I think a lot of consultants do this right. A lot of consultants will come in and solve one piece of the puzzle. You know, I think the gap there is that they don’t do the execution or they don’t follow it all the way through, or there’s like this other engagements happen. It’s always like this. There’s always a disconnect between strategy and execution.

00;15;32;07 – 00;15;48;19
Speaker 2
From just just being a consultant, only not picking on consultants. We work with them all the time. I’m just saying that like, we’re trying to connect the dots from strategy to go to market to execution. So you have this closed loop process so you can scale a business, you know, profitably.

00;15;48;21 – 00;15;59;13
Speaker 1
And so do you basically are you the conductor that is conducting the orchestra at this point for whatever problems you’re trying to solve for your for your clients?

00;15;59;16 – 00;16;19;05
Speaker 2
Yes and no. So we’re not. So I think maybe the big difference is that we’re advising more. So like when I say things like, we’re going to work on your ideal client profile, hey, everybody thinks they have it dialed in big. They don’t. And, you know, so it just it takes some level of analysis. But we’ll come in and we will get the information out of you.

00;16;19;05 – 00;16;36;02
Speaker 2
So we’re go to marker. Go to markers. We’re big on the GTM operating system. But so there’s all these frameworks and frameworks. But we will work with you to get the knowledge out of your brain. So let’s just use case in point. If we’re looking at ideal client, we’re not just asking the marketing department or the sales department or leadership.

00;16;36;09 – 00;16;54;22
Speaker 2
We’re asking product and service. We’re asking customer success. What are you guys hearing on the ground? Because everybody has a piece of the puzzle who the true ideal customer is not the last sale, which maybe something sales would do, not the person to fill out a lead form. That would be what marketing would be focused on, not the happy customer that doesn’t pay their bill.

00;16;54;28 – 00;17;12;28
Speaker 2
You know, in time, like everybody has these different nuances. And then so we’re advising and we’re working with teams to understand who is really the ideal customer. And then the beauty of that is all of a sudden teams that were had a different perception of like where we’re going and what we’re going. They’re now building that together. Right?

00;17;12;28 – 00;17;31;09
Speaker 2
So they come together and they have, like I said, the different pieces of the puzzle, and they’re now all on board. They’re all super excited. Like, this is exactly who we should work with. Because I’ll tell you what, if I walk into X company now, I hear this in their boardroom or this in the break room. I know that’s our client because for all of these reasons we talk about, it’s exciting.

00;17;31;09 – 00;17;35;15
Speaker 2
If, you know, if you do it like the right way. So.

00;17;35;18 – 00;18;02;01
Speaker 1
So, I’m curious about if you’re comfortable talking with us, and you can tell me to go scratch Chris, but I’m curious about the the revenue model. Right. Because I know that there are fractional operators that sometimes worry about, especially when they’re smaller and they’re fighting for every dollar, and they’re worried about bringing in other organizations that are going to be pulling revenue out of their pocket.

00;18;02;04 – 00;18;19;29
Speaker 1
And so and to be fair, I’ve definitely fallen into this where you’re just afraid of giving up revenue. How do you manage that and balance it so that you you’re running a company, but you’re also bringing in the best experts you can to help your clients. And then but still, you’re running a business at the end of the day, right?

00;18;19;29 – 00;18;25;22
Speaker 1
So you’ve got a PNL that you got to watch and, you know, you’ve got to move things forward. How does that all work for you?

00;18;25;25 – 00;18;44;15
Speaker 2
There’s nothing wrong with functional special organizations, but I would argue that if you’re if you’re out, if you’re fighting for all the market share or all the wallet share, like if you want all of the services, then you’re you’re a master of not you’re not going to be able to do that. So let’s pretend you’re, you know, epic marketers and you’re coming in and you’re solving the marketing problem.

00;18;44;18 – 00;19;03;09
Speaker 2
What happens when you solve that? Good. No. Like what happens when you hit an metric that the boards like, you know, well, okay, we’re good now. We’re you know, we have a sustainable business. We’re good on our, you know, our recurring revenue. We’re good there. Like, you’re probably one of the first people to get caught out, you know, as opposed to saying, why don’t we solve all the problems that are going to continue?

00;19;03;11 – 00;19;20;12
Speaker 2
I’m not saying that marketing is going to go in and you can magically solve a problem, but what I’m saying is like solving revenue is not the responsibility of one function of the business. It’s a responsibility of all functions of business. You certainly have to pay your bills. You have your pay. You know, you got to put food on the table.

00;19;20;14 – 00;19;52;12
Speaker 2
But if you’re a specialist in that organization and you’re working with other specialists or specialized teams and big organizations, the value of working together continually is exponentially better, and the value to those organizations is exponentially better. So going back to I need to put food on the table, do I do I want to increase wallet share that may work in the very, very short term, but I would argue that the union economics and the lifetime value of having a client for ten years, as opposed to ten months, is a different model.

00;19;52;12 – 00;20;17;08
Speaker 2
Now. Again, if you need ten months of money because you’re starting out, you know, then go for the project based work, right? Go for the go for I’m just going to go in and I’m going to focus on lead generation because there’s value to that. But what I’m saying is, if you want a sustainable relationship with a client or or a several clients, then build a system that’s repeatable, that you can go in there and not have to go and replace and keep putting more people in the boat on project based level.

00;20;17;11 – 00;20;19;00
Speaker 2
Does that make sense, or is that, like, creepy?

00;20;19;01 – 00;20;55;10
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, I think it does. It’s, it’s, you know, as when you’re at tier point, right? Like when you’re smaller or not even smaller, but maybe just younger is a business. You want to say yes and you want to take everything in. And I know I’ve talked about this recently on another show where I think over time you have to you really do have to decide, like what you’re great at and do that thing right and start to leverage other people’s resources through partnerships and things like that to say, like, you know what, I suck at this and just have that honest conversation with yourself.

00;20;55;13 – 00;21;14;14
Speaker 1
And, you know, I know we’ve been doing that as an organization. The last couple of years have really been like, what? What do we really do that we’re great at? And all this other stuff like, you know, we did obviously, you know, we did photo video services for years and we started scaling that back because it was just hard for us to do it.

00;21;14;14 – 00;21;30;04
Speaker 1
And to be fair, like we were mediocre at it at best. Right? But people ask us like, you know, we’re building the website, we’re doing social media, whatever we’re doing for them. And they’re like, can you do photo and video? Oh yeah, we can totally do that. And we could, but we’re mediocre at it, mediocre at it. Right?

00;21;30;04 – 00;22;05;00
Speaker 1
And so it was like trying to say like, all right, we’re we’re not going to do this in-house anymore. We’re going to bring in a strategic partner. We’re going to have people like, buyer creative, I think who you guys, connected with years ago and, Todd Bailey’s, was just on the show and we use him pretty often, and, it just really was better for the client and better for us, but we had to, like, say, like, okay, that part of, how you phrased it, the wallet share was just something that we’re going to just not factor in and focus on increasing revenue in the categories that we’re really great at,

00;22;05;00 – 00;22;10;15
Speaker 1
if that’s I think I think that’s in line with what you’re saying now.

00;22;10;15 – 00;22;21;05
Speaker 2
It is. And I think you and I talk similar languages. So and obviously we’ve known each other for a while. But you a first like you were phenomenal in producing viral videos. So I wouldn’t I wouldn’t sell yourself short there.

00;22;21;08 – 00;22;24;12
Speaker 1
But suit when you get into business you.

00;22;24;12 – 00;22;44;25
Speaker 2
Just have to work with clients you don’t want to work with. Like again, I can tell you ICP and work all these perfect things, but if you have a family to feed, that doesn’t matter, right? Like, you know, you have to put it. But as you evolve as a business, there’s tipping points where you need to know when to fire clients, or you need to know when you’ve outgrown your staff or they’ve outgrown you, you know, similar situations.

00;22;44;27 – 00;23;01;21
Speaker 2
But understanding those evolutions, trying to get there faster is is probably mistake that most of us make, right? Like we do it too slowly, you know, like we’re like, oh, well, you know there you know, you start making excuses and you have bias, but we’re doing really, really good work for them. Well, yeah, but they’re.

00;23;01;24 – 00;23;02;15
Speaker 1
Toxic.

00;23;02;17 – 00;23;20;15
Speaker 2
Right? There could be a toxic that’s just draining your stabbing. You don’t understand the problems, you know. Or you have a team member that’s causing, you know, causing rifts. But I think in general, like being able to just, you know, start to look at these things and like, how can I expedite, how can I avoid pitfalls, which is by like fractional.

00;23;20;15 – 00;23;28;20
Speaker 2
It’s like, this is why I like consultants because you and I even with I like we’re going to see things because of our experience that.

00;23;28;23 – 00;23;29;08
Speaker 1
Newer.

00;23;29;14 – 00;23;32;19
Speaker 2
Customers or I’m sorry newer professionals haven’t seen it.

00;23;32;21 – 00;23;33;27
Speaker 1
So we work with.

00;23;33;27 – 00;23;53;28
Speaker 2
Lots of go to market for actual. I know tons of these guys and these people are like echoes from like the biggest organizations on the planet. And when they are starting out, you know, the same. They’re going through the same like, well, I know everything there is to know about X industry and X, and these guys are like, next level genius when it comes to like their experience.

00;23;54;01 – 00;24;16;28
Speaker 2
But they’ve never run sales or they’ve never delegate. You’re the nerve delegated like customer service or invoicing. Like the simple things when it happens, when you get into the fractional market that you have to relearn again, you’re like, oh my God, like, I know everything there is to know about marketing, but I really am having a hard time being able to invoice somebody or being able to, you know, to being able to have a sales conversation.

00;24;17;01 – 00;24;32;26
Speaker 2
Like that’s usually the hard part for the job with fractional. So I would still recommend starting to build partnerships, and I would still recommend to go that route. It just takes a while to find the right partners. You got to put food on the table, do what you do best and see wherever you can. You know, work, you hunt and yeah.

00;24;32;29 – 00;25;00;29
Speaker 1
I you, I think really hit, a big nail on the head there with the I’m the best marketer in the world, but I still need to be able to sell and find clients, and I, I, I think I just talked about this with maybe it was Todd Bailey, or maybe it was Lisa Belcher, but the one of the biggest things that I see for people in any business, whether it’s you’re a contractor who’s created building decks, right?

00;25;00;29 – 00;25;24;19
Speaker 1
But you, you suck at the people side or you’re not good at, at finding new clients. And and same thing with fractional, right. Like one of the most skills, one of the most important skills that you have to develop, especially when you’re new into being your own person. And being a solopreneur or fractional is the your ability to sell.

00;25;24;21 – 00;25;30;03
Speaker 1
Can you touch on, I mean, you’ve probably always been great at sales, right?

00;25;30;05 – 00;25;33;16
Speaker 2
Arabella sailed across Europe and. But we’re good. Yeah.

00;25;33;18 – 00;25;51;08
Speaker 1
So, Well, so what was that journey like for you early on with, like, you know, I, I know your backstory a little bit about how you ended up starting your company, but like when you were doing this, like, what was it like for you to start saying yourself, like, okay, I know marketing, but I need to go find new clients?

00;25;51;10 – 00;26;09;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. Good point, because I think that’s incredibly relevant for any fractional is my journey. Specifically, I, I don’t want to say I had an edge, but I was always an entrepreneur. So before I got into marketing, I’ve always owned like random businesses ever since I was like six selling blackberries to Farmer God. But, long story long Vermont story.

00;26;09;20 – 00;26;30;13
Speaker 2
But in general, like, you know, being an entrepreneur, you have to learn sales even if you aren’t good at them. You know, aren’t good at acquiring clients. You still have to learn building or in qualifying and figuring out what to do. Through my journey, I realized that I was stuck at a certain point, and then what I did, lo and behold, is I brought in consultants.

00;26;30;13 – 00;26;42;07
Speaker 2
I brought in, mascot Kelly, who, you know, you know, I’ve worked with sales consultants, and then they come in and they refine their and build a process for us. Like, you know what? I used to think sales was a dirty word, right? And I was like.

00;26;42;07 – 00;26;42;28
Speaker 1
I really hate.

00;26;42;28 – 00;26;59;06
Speaker 2
Selling stuff. And then, like, changing your mindset and the framework around, like, you’re helping people and there’s a cost to your services in what you do. And guess what? They’re going to make even more money when they bring you in. Sandler’s not cheap. I brought them in and I’ll tell you what I had, like, like a perfect example.

00;26;59;06 – 00;27;17;02
Speaker 2
I had the hardest time bringing up budget. I was like, oh, you know, what’s what’s your budget to to, you know, invest in, solve this $10 million problem? Well, I don’t know. You tell us this. You know, I don’t know. Are you okay with, you know, ten grand a month? You know, like, you just it’s this, like, weird void of, like, narrow that you don’t want to be in.

00;27;17;05 – 00;27;32;09
Speaker 2
And I’m like, well, we have a $10 million problem. It’s all like it’s going to take, you know, a million to, to, to solve that problem. That’s going to give you, you know, a 5 to 10 x return. Is that something that’s feasible? And they’ll say, no, that’s crazy. It’s going to knock me up. The chairman okay, perfect.

00;27;32;15 – 00;27;53;13
Speaker 2
I know that like they’re not ready for us or we’re not ready for them. But on the other hand, we’re actually setting parameters that saying, hey, look, this is the budget’s going to take her success. We’re not just throwing out an arbitrary number. So I just think when you get into an area of, sales specifically, like do all the research you can, you’re starting out, figure out the nuances.

00;27;53;13 – 00;28;18;08
Speaker 2
But when you can bring an expert in or adopt some system and doesn’t have to be saddled with any selling system, there’s a billion of them, you know, really start to get into that process because that’s going to expedite the mistakes that you have made in sales. I have made a billion mistakes, and I still make mistakes in sales because either I know what to do now, I just may not follow the process because I want to work with this company.

00;28;18;08 – 00;28;33;09
Speaker 2
Or there’s something I see that I’m making an excuse to not qualify that or to not, you know, not go through the right foot wholesale process. But yeah, I don’t know if that’s if that’s what you were asking for specifically. But you know, I.

00;28;33;09 – 00;29;00;24
Speaker 1
Definitely think it’s, you know, really any kind of need what’s the word any kind of glimmer of, information as far as sales go and recognizing that number one, it’s hard. Number two, it’s one of the most important things, especially in the beginning for fractional operators, is that you need to be able to sell. And how you define that, I think is important.

00;29;00;24 – 00;29;12;17
Speaker 1
You know, you brought up Sandler training. A big shout out to Sandler. Obviously, I’m I’m a fan, and and still a practitioner of the Sandler method. It’s.

00;29;12;19 – 00;29;32;01
Speaker 1
At so you would you place a high importance on training for the young fractions for people that are, you know, that maybe they were a CEO or an HR specialist and they’re going to start their own fractional business. And but now they’ve got to figure out how to sell.

00;29;32;03 – 00;29;50;20
Speaker 2
Right? I think training in general, it doesn’t matter what your expertise are in Unit, you certainly need to train on the deficiencies that you don’t have. So if I’m not good at invoicing, suck it up, learn invoicing into it. You can afford to, you know, get a bookkeeper to come in, know if you’re not good at sales, go on YouTube going out the building sales sources.

00;29;50;22 – 00;30;04;17
Speaker 2
You know, but I think you have to level yourself up and, like, you may be an expert here, but, you know, down here for the rest of the business, you have to learn as much as possible just to be able to get to a level of revenue where you could start to bring in people, you know what, like I can learn sales up to X.

00;30;04;18 – 00;30;21;13
Speaker 2
I hate doing sales. I need to bring in a salesperson. Like, let’s make sure that processes are in place and we have enough money to do so. But you still when you’re fractional, you got to do the graded work. The one mistake I see fractional is make all the time. And as they tend to lean into their expertise, let’s take fractional marketers.

00;30;21;16 – 00;30;36;02
Speaker 2
They’re going to go out and they’re going to try to build like an endowed machine. They’re going to spend so much time on I and so much time crafting content and worried about like, all of these, you know, all of these pretty things to be able to get people to convert. Fun fact you’re brand new to the market.

00;30;36;02 – 00;30;55;09
Speaker 2
Nobody knows who you are. Yes, you have experience through, you know, through the wars you fought with your with your resume, but you need to hide. And that’s something that they’re not used to. I was like, you don’t need content for lead generation. You need content for credibility. So them you drove 84.8 million. Show them who you were that you worked with.

00;30;55;09 – 00;31;11;20
Speaker 2
Apple showed them that you did all these things, just as part of your content. So when you’re out being like, hey, Mike, you know, I let’s have a conversation. I think that as soon as you go and check me out, like that stuff is going to resonate. Not like, hey, here’s a lead form on this beautiful, lovable, you know, download thing I just made for you.

00;31;11;23 – 00;31;25;13
Speaker 2
You know, it’s just and again, you go where you go with what? You know, because you’re very good at that. But I’m just saying, like, if you need to put food on the table, you are a hunter and you are going outbound, and you need to get very specific about what you’re doing on a day to day basis.

00;31;25;13 – 00;31;49;26
Speaker 2
And it’s not rocket science. I want to work with X company who works there. What do I know about them? Know as much as humanly possible. Like their stuff? Comment. Call them. Stop in. Send them a handwritten letter. You know, there’s all of these, like, old school things that are coming back into play. But you don’t need to talk to 2000 companies you don’t like, don’t care about how many people viewed your profile, care about that.

00;31;49;26 – 00;32;04;26
Speaker 2
That’s credibility. That’s going to help you in the sales process. But it’s just you’re not a farmer anymore. You’re a hunter. And like you have to get that hunting mentality when you start any business, but especially if you’re not coming from sales and you’re trying to be a fractional operator.

00;32;04;29 – 00;32;09;08
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Hunting is, hunting is hard.

00;32;09;10 – 00;32;27;13
Speaker 2
It’s. Yeah, it’s not fun by any means. Like, you lose you. You lose more than you win, but still you win enough to build a really good business, you know? So as long as you can get around that, like ego of, like, oh, they didn’t connect with me on LinkedIn or they didn’t answer my phone call or whatever, say, okay, they have other stuff going on.

00;32;27;13 – 00;32;38;28
Speaker 2
Like I don’t, you know, I kind of dust that up. But that took me years to get over that ego part. So what do you mean you don’t want to do business with me? What do you mean you don’t want to take my call? I can help you so much. Now I’m just like, whatever. Like there’s this morning.

00;32;38;28 – 00;32;41;15
Speaker 2
No fish in the ocean. We’ll just keep racing.

00;32;41;17 – 00;33;05;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. I got to be honest with you, a little confession here it is only just recently that I’ve been able to adopt that mentality. Like, legit. Maybe the last year, maybe two years, where previous to that, man, I took everything personally. Chris. You know, like, I, like, worked so hard to get a meeting. You get a meeting, you think it goes great.

00;33;05;29 – 00;33;23;13
Speaker 1
And then you put a proposal in front of them and then they ghost you, you know, and then you’re, you’re or you put a proposal in front of them and they turn it down flat. Right. And it’s just like, I did I took it, so it was so hard. And it’s only just the last, maybe two years that I’ve been able to say, like, all right.

00;33;23;15 – 00;33;44;17
Speaker 1
And it’s funny because back when I was at Sandler Fifth, I don’t even know, almost 20 years ago now, I guess. But like, that was one of our things was like, so what some will, some want, someone else will kind of thing. And, it’s such a hard thing to really internalize and accept that it’s.

00;33;44;17 – 00;34;00;02
Speaker 2
Really hard 100, but especially when you’re the business owner, because it feels like it’s a slap in the face, like on what you do and how you operate. You know, again, we may or may not know that they just don’t have the funds to work. Like hopefully we fish that out during the sales process. You know, there’s a billion other criteria.

00;34;00;02 – 00;34;23;02
Speaker 2
Some people are just, you know, unhappy people. You know, there’s there’s other scenarios there. But I’m with you. I mean, again, it’s it’s really hard to get over that, that, you know, that ego hit. But I think with the older you get, you know, the more experienced, you know, the less you give about this stuff. You know, like, you look at my LinkedIn, I’d like I’ll post stuff that I like and there’s some stuff that’s tactical.

00;34;23;02 – 00;34;32;29
Speaker 2
But at the end of the day I’m like, I’m not using it for inbound. I’m not using for lead generation, I’m using for credibility. I’m like, do you like me? Do you like that? I post this I song that I thought was cool about Vikings.

00;34;33;02 – 00;34;36;04
Speaker 1
Cool. Like like if you know that.

00;34;36;06 – 00;34;42;00
Speaker 2
If you know, that’s my you know that was a Saturday post. So that would be intentional and do it on a Saturday, ladies and gentlemen. But still.

00;34;42;05 – 00;34;43;17
Speaker 1
All right. That’s you know, that’s.

00;34;43;17 – 00;34;57;16
Speaker 2
Who I am. But I’m like at the end of the day, your ideal clients should be the people that like you and respect you. And back to Sandler. You’re on equitable playing fields. You’re not a vendor to them. You’re an asset and you’re a resource. We’re going to be part of your team and we’re gonna help you grow.

00;34;57;18 – 00;35;04;05
Speaker 2
It’s going to be Kumbaya. Yeah, let’s all do this together. You know, so yeah. Anyway, I digress with the Vikings so you can get that part.

00;35;04;05 – 00;35;10;03
Speaker 1
Out of the larger. No, I’m leaving it as a reminder so I can go back and listen to this I Viking song. I’m I’m really.

00;35;10;03 – 00;35;10;15
Speaker 2
Good.

00;35;10;15 – 00;35;44;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. I’m interested. So let’s I know we’re getting short on time, Chris, but I, you know, a couple other questions I want to ask. And, and really, I’m thinking about the fractional operator that is either just starting just about to start or maybe they’re in their first year. What are some things that you saw early on that if you had fixed them or hadn’t done them or avoided them completely, would have been very helpful in the growth for you and your company.

00;35;44;07 – 00;36;07;20
Speaker 2
I think less is probably the biggest lesson. So when you start out again, I just said that you have to level up and learn all this stuff and training, you know, so this is going to be kind of contradictory to Larry said, but do less. Don’t feel like you having it. No, no offense to chambers, but don’t feel like you have to go join every chamber or get it done in brasserie number or go to every networking event like go where?

00;36;07;21 – 00;36;27;14
Speaker 2
Like think about things like, where are your clients going to be? Like, maybe that’s on TikTok. Maybe they don’t ever listen to TikTok. Like who cares? But but be very intentional with your efforts and what your with your motions to grow your business like. Focus on the bare minimum vertical thing so your time is about the best possible.

00;36;27;14 – 00;36;46;12
Speaker 2
And I’ll give you an example. Like our company today, when we attract business and work with clients, we do two things. We have two motions and that’s it. One is outbound. We’re hunting all the time and two is events. So we have we do a lot of events. We’ll do a lot of online events. You know we have podcasting like all these other things like you do.

00;36;46;15 – 00;37;10;23
Speaker 2
But it’s it’s about building credibility for the outbound. That’s all we’re doing. And there’s a lot involved in there. But when you reduce the amount you’re doing, when you’re going to market, you can quadruple down on what you’re doing. If I was doing inbound and SEO and building a community and networking and trying to develop a product and doing all these other things, I’m spread way too thin, which is a mistake I totally made back in the day.

00;37;10;23 – 00;37;28;25
Speaker 2
I’m like, I’m going to do everything. I’m gonna learn everything. I’m gonna figure everything out. So get to the bare minimum critical level, but do less. And that will absolutely, give you exponential results. I just had a call with our sales sales team before this, and I was like, don’t. I’m like, here’s the only thing you need to focus on for this week.

00;37;28;27 – 00;37;44;13
Speaker 2
Do these things. Three things. Three things, three, three. And that’s it. I was like, that’s going to take you, you know, probably two days. But those three things that you’re going to do are going to be the best three things. As opposed, if I told you to do that and then go do the other 20 things, you know, it would be kind of half assed, you know what I mean?

00;37;44;13 – 00;37;46;18
Speaker 2
So it’s just dive down and do less.

00;37;46;20 – 00;37;50;05
Speaker 1
So it’s that addition by subtraction.

00;37;50;07 – 00;38;05;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. Again, it’s hard to do when you think when you start out. And then again, hopefully I’m not over time here, but when you start out everything seems like a good idea. It seems like a good idea to get all these I subscriptions and I feel like I need it. I feel like I have to be part of this group.

00;38;05;27 – 00;38;29;00
Speaker 2
I feel like I have to be part of this network. I feel like I have to join the lead generation groups and then commit to these things, you know? So it’s just about slowing down and taking your time to analyze the market. But realistically, like where are your customers? Like that’s where you need to live and breathe, you know, as opposed to just the need of like, I’m starting a business, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I feel like I have to do all of these things because every single entrepreneur does that.

00;38;29;03 – 00;38;46;28
Speaker 2
We all kind of go through that, you know, those mistakes of just trying to be everything to everyone. So again, it’s not easy. It takes time. But there’s, you know, there’s plenty of people like you listen to your podcast, you hear it all the time, your podcast. So there’s, you know, there’s there’s good resources locally especially that will help you.

00;38;47;00 – 00;38;54;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. It’s really being more tactical about what you’re doing.

00;38;54;07 – 00;38;57;10
Speaker 1
So that you’re not got go ahead.

00;38;57;12 – 00;39;03;14
Speaker 2
Well it’s about being intentional. Yeah. Tactical 100%. But it’s about being intentional that you chose those tactics for reasons of.

00;39;03;15 – 00;39;28;04
Speaker 1
Yeah. So yeah, so many things to worry about. One more question for you. Obviously things are moving fast, right. We’ve got and that and I hate to continue to say the whole AI thing, but it it there is a lot of, downslope from AI right now. And the changes it’s producing across the board. Things are moving fast.

00;39;28;04 – 00;39;42;27
Speaker 1
Technology is changing. Businesses are changing. How do you, as a fractional stay in front of all of the changes that are happening and how they affect your business and the pivots you have to make, like, what does that look look like for six marketing?

00;39;42;29 – 00;39;59;09
Speaker 2
I think I think it’s really tough because AI is is amazing, but it is such a distraction at the same time because you feel like you have to learn all these different systems and like, wow, I was on Gemini and I have to learn Claude, and this is like, this is the new birth. It’s winning the race. It’s really hard.

00;39;59;09 – 00;40;17;29
Speaker 2
But again, it could be a distraction. I would almost say again, do less like pick, system, pick an area like stay up to speed. Don’t you know, don’t don’t be a hermit in the mountains. But understand what’s going on with the mark. But realistically, like, if your. We operate manufacturing all the time, the manufacturing conversations, we need to know.

00;40;17;29 – 00;40;45;24
Speaker 2
I up to a point that manufacturers know I what our manufacturers line with I job augmentation operational efficiency. Now our capabilities are way over here with I like we’re building agents who are building their own agents and doing all this crazy stuff, but who were serving or going in and you’re like, you know what? Let’s connect your let’s get make sure your meetings recorded and those notes are going to your CRM and that your sales team isn’t working on spreadsheets all the time.

00;40;45;24 – 00;41;02;18
Speaker 2
And like, you know, we’re doing like I’m going to save the minimum. But this is what where our ICP is in the market, they’re just getting up to speed on I so we we work with them there. So again you have to know this if you want to build out this a comprehensive model like our strategy is. But we also know our market.

00;41;02;18 – 00;41;20;08
Speaker 2
We know this is what is valuable to them now. Not like we’re going to build you this a generic system where agents are building agents and there’s not a human. They ages they that would like they would blow their mind, you know, would completely blow in a bad way for us if we said that, you know, for the market that we’re serving.

00;41;20;11 – 00;41;32;28
Speaker 1
So so is it like, do you worry that you are not moving as fast as the market like action? Let me rephrase that.

00;41;33;00 – 00;41;49;28
Speaker 1
For fractional operators that need to continue to evolve their businesses, things change. Like at some point do you have to say like you do not have to move as fast as things are changing? Or do you? Should that be an ongoing concern for people? I.

00;41;50;00 – 00;42;03;03
Speaker 2
I a it’s impossible to move as fast as things are moving like just with quantum and all these other things that are coming in, it is impossible to stay up to speed with what, you know, cloud, mythos and all these, all these other things that are coming out. So you’re never going to keep up. Like if you want to be.

00;42;03;03 – 00;42;22;26
Speaker 2
Even the AI experts can’t keep up at this point, but use it on no again and stay in the news like don’t be again, don’t be a hermit, be an up so so you can use it in your everyday business. So it’s valuable. But just diving in and trying to learn everything possible about this world is is not good.

00;42;22;28 – 00;42;42;08
Speaker 2
I just think that, like when you’re starting out, that’s a time waster. That can be a business ender if you’re trying to grab the perfect Asian to create the perfect landing page, to create the perfect copy, to create the perfect whatever, as opposed to be looking at Mike’s company and be like, yo, here’s here’s what I see. Like, use your brain like you’re a fractional.

00;42;42;08 – 00;43;01;01
Speaker 2
You’re an expert. You already know this world. It may not be as fast. Don’t get me wrong. Like I’m not saying that like you don’t. You don’t want to train the AI because you certainly want to do that. But what I’m saying is, what what problem are you trying to solve? If you’re trying to solve the put the food on the table, pick up a phone and do a cold call that none of us want to do.

00;43;01;02 – 00;43;20;06
Speaker 2
You know, send them a letter. You know, what I has done is it’s increased the opportunity not only to be efficient and to be, you know, augment your job and be awesome and all these other things. It’s also opened the door for traditional ways of doing that. So all of a sudden, direct mail like a thing again, all of a sudden boom, calls are back of the radar pattern interrupts.

00;43;20;06 – 00;43;44;10
Speaker 2
That’s all we talk about on a daily basis. Open your email. 90% of your email is I garbage. 999% of us don’t pay attention to that. And I think the one random thing that you do, or the one thing that’s completely different from anybody else, again, write a handwritten note to a CEO and you would be surprised at how much farther that’s going in today’s world because of AI.

00;43;44;10 – 00;43;50;15
Speaker 2
So do what everybody else isn’t doing, but don’t ignore it. Yep. You know.

00;43;50;17 – 00;44;31;07
Speaker 1
It’s I feel like it’s a trap that you almost feel like you have to continually reinvent your business and change your plan based on all these emerging technologies where you should just continue to execute your plan, but be mindful of the things that are changing. And in case there is a pivot you need to make. But I almost feel like there could be the idea that people have to constantly make these new pivots based on emerging technologies, and what that does is how you phrased it multiple times in this conversation is it becomes a distraction and actually pulls you away from growing the business and executing on your plan.

00;44;31;09 – 00;44;31;27
Speaker 1
Well, if you’re.

00;44;31;27 – 00;44;48;16
Speaker 2
In that world and you need to leverage technology for whatever you’re doing and and certainly like but yeah, 100% it is it is a distraction and can be and it can be. I was on a podcast with someone recently and they said it could be a business ender, and I’ve never thought it. I was like, oh, it’s like I didn’t actually think about that.

00;44;48;18 – 00;45;05;16
Speaker 2
You know, so but at the end of the day, like, use the tool and have it augment what you do, but at the end of the day, still know what you do and focus on that area and whatever that is. If there’s no AI in bulk and who you’re trying to target, and it’s about putting a road sign because you’re a fractional lawn care guy or something.

00;45;05;22 – 00;45;08;12
Speaker 2
I don’t know what the scenario is, you know, do that.

00;45;08;15 – 00;45;10;17
Speaker 1
Don’t learn clod. Don’t put your sign.

00;45;10;17 – 00;45;19;07
Speaker 2
And then it might take a couple cloud courses or do something, you know, that begin to place the sign in a better area. I don’t know if I’m making this up, but.

00;45;19;09 – 00;45;30;15
Speaker 1
I, I, I know we got to wrap up, but I would be remiss if I didn’t dig into what you just said about it. Could be a business ender. Well, what do you mean because.

00;45;30;15 – 00;45;45;28
Speaker 2
Of because of people are so over engineering with AI at this point. They’re trying to master and they’re trying to have it do all the work. So a it’s killing human intelligence at some level. So the people that aren’t, you know, don’t have the acumen and haven’t had the years and years of experience. Again, you’re just starting out.

00;45;45;28 – 00;46;02;04
Speaker 2
You’re hustling, you’re you’re trying to do everything possible. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the problem is you’re not learning. You’re learning how to use the tool. You’re not learning the struggle of like failed sales. You’re not losing. You know, you’re not learning like you know how to do invoicing appropriately or how to build a landing page appropriately.

00;46;02;10 – 00;46;13;00
Speaker 2
You’re just using the tool. And then when it breaks, you’re like, oh no, what do I do? Because you never learned it the right way possible, and it feels like I’m the old guy being like, get off my lawn. Like, you know, like.

00;46;13;02 – 00;46;13;25
Speaker 1
But it’s not.

00;46;13;25 – 00;46;33;23
Speaker 2
That. It’s just a it’s like, take your time. But where it can end the business because people are so they’re so over engineering their business at this point that they’re focusing on scaling to what I said earlier to thousands of people when they need to talk to ten, you know, or I forget which company with a consultant.

00;46;33;25 – 00;46;51;10
Speaker 2
Last week it was like some enterprise level company. They spent 500 million in cloud credits in one month. And they didn’t know what they because they didn’t have the governance in place or the employees. Like there’s shadow AI and all these things that are happening, but they didn’t have the right things in place because the company is moving too quickly.

00;46;51;12 – 00;46;59;02
Speaker 2
And this is enterprise and enterprise businesses move deathly slow. We all know that. But they didn’t put the regulations in place to prevent that. And it cost them.

00;46;59;02 – 00;46;59;23
Speaker 1
A half.

00;46;59;23 – 00;47;00;25
Speaker 2
$1 billion.

00;47;00;29 – 00;47;01;08
Speaker 1
In.

00;47;01;08 – 00;47;08;01
Speaker 2
One month. Like, I don’t know how many companies that can sustain that. There’s not many in this planet, but apparently this is one of them.

00;47;08;03 – 00;47;17;09
Speaker 1
But yeah, I wonder what their I wonder what their gross revenue is on a, monthly, yearly basis, that they could lose 500,000,000 in 1 market.

00;47;17;11 – 00;47;25;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, I can’t imagine nobody line. But I feel like you have to have that level of money to be able to sustain a hit like that, but I don’t. That’s not my world. Yeah.

00;47;25;21 – 00;47;39;25
Speaker 1
All right, Chris, if people want to learn more about six marketing, about what you guys are doing, maybe they want to check out, becoming a strategic partner or just, connecting with you guys in general. How do they find six marketing good questions?

00;47;39;25 – 00;47;55;24
Speaker 2
So you can just go to our website, six dot marketing spelled out. As you can see on the screen pretty easily. LinkedIn is going to be your best, best play for me. You know, there’s lots of Christopher Ryan, Cisco, Christopher Ryan six marketing. And I’ll come up on LinkedIn, but I’m happy to meet with anybody, have any conversation.

00;47;55;24 – 00;48;15;26
Speaker 2
Happy to like, one of the things that I love to do is to help, new entrepreneurs in general or just people like, understand where to go. I’m not looking to do business with them. I’m looking to be open to help them. Part of, you know, because like, one of the most rewarding things to me is to see the people graduate and see the entrepreneurs or the new entrepreneurs get to different stages.

00;48;15;26 – 00;48;33;28
Speaker 2
And I just think, I wish it’s kind of like when you run a business and you have interns, I wish I was an intern back in the day, and I wish there was so much turnover that was like that helped me through these, these loopholes, because I just think it’s a much better life for everybody. So anyway, I’m open for any conversation anybody wants to have.

00;48;34;00 – 00;48;39;03
Speaker 2
And then you can find them on LinkedIn or, or on the website of.

00;48;39;05 – 00;48;46;06
Speaker 1
Thanks for coming on, sir, I appreciate you. I appreciate, the time that you spent with us today and the insight that you’re giving our audience. Amazing.

00;48;46;08 – 00;48;48;27
Speaker 2
I expect some Viking music, but. Yeah. Thank you.

00;48;48;29 – 00;49;14;21
Speaker 1
Yeah, I’ll see what. I’ll put that in a note for Taylor when she’s producing the podcast. Yeah. Viking music. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Of course. You know, you can find this episode, all episodes on our website at Hourglass sass. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which is for fractional operators. Each week, we’re sending out a curated list of content from around the internet that we think will be helpful for you and your fractional business.

00;49;14;23 – 00;49;24;07
Speaker 1
And, yeah, you can find us on Apple, Rumbold, Spotify, YouTube, all the places people typically get podcasts these days. And, thanks for listening and you’ll hear from us next week.