 My name's Shane Bader. I am the VP of Sales and Marketing at Iceberg Web Design. I've been working with Iceberg for eight years. We're a full-service agency. I've been in sales for 18 plus years. I almost didn't make it here today because, well, fortunately enough, I didn't win the lottery on Wednesday. So I'm here. I'm going to continue doing sales and not playing the lottery with sales. So we're going to learn a little bit about that today. Here's my family, my wife, Britta, my daughter, Adalyn, not pictured, is my dog, Lenny. She just had her first day of school. I thought that was important. Okay, so let's talk about sales. First, I want to talk about what I've learned not to do with sales. So typical sales process, a lot of people do this. I've seen a lot of my competition do this. I probably started out doing a lot of this stuff and it did not work. You get a lead. Great. You have some level of correspondence. Email, phone call, whatever it may be. You get them on the phone. You find out a little bit about what they're looking for and then you send out a proposal. Hoping that you win the lottery. I've never won the lottery. I've never won mega-millions. Not even a scratch off. So that did not work for me. Endless follow-ups and you're sitting there hoping that the deal will close on its own. Reasons why the deal typically doesn't close. Number one, the customer was not qualified, right? So you couldn't even really help them. They weren't on the same page with the budget. Tons of red flags, but you're pushing through and putting a ton of time into this. It's important that you qualify your leads and we'll talk about that here. Number two, the customer doesn't understand the value of what you're doing. You haven't explained the process. They don't understand their path to success. So you're just giving them a proposal. You're talking about the product and you're hoping for the best. You never hear back from the customer. It's just who knows what happened, right? If the sale closes, because you weren't up front with them about your process, they think that they're the one that's in charge, that they're going to be dictating the process on their end. You do not want to have a customer that you sign up because even worse than not landing the sale is signing up a customer that is going to take your time, push the project out of budget and feel like they're in control of every step of the process. So don't chase hopes. We want finality. We want a process. We want to put our best foot forward. And so sitting there and hoping is not going to land a deal for you either. Other reasons, lack of responsiveness. You don't respond to that lead for a week. I mean, they're probably going to move on, right? If they were, like I said, unqualified to begin with, your process doesn't capture the value of your product or solve their problem. And there's no urgency. I mean, that's a tough one. Some clients don't have urgency. They're just like, hey, I'm just getting a bunch of quotes. That's great. That's fun. Let's just put a bunch of work into it and hope that happens someday. If they're qualified, though, I will still do that because there's a chance that down the line, you'll be talking with them again. And then a lack of personal touch. Be yourself. Let them understand the core values of your company and the process. So that's some stuff that doesn't work. Let's talk about what does work and let's talk about how to close deals. Respond quickly. At iceberg, one of our core values is being committed. I will freak clients out by calling them within two minutes if I'm available. And they'll be like, oh my gosh, you're calling me so fast. And I'll be like, well, that's one of our core values, right? We respond quickly at iceberg web design. We answer our phone. There's not every day that I can respond within two minutes, but I like to freak the client out that way. Pick up the phone and have a conversation. Never in the history of sales have I landed an original deal by just emailing with the client. We've done stuff when they're a client later on, right? They've already got trust in us, but just emailing things, it's not going to get the deal done. Can't get them on the phone. The first email sent should be to schedule that phone call. If they're not willing to talk with you, it's not going to move forward. Pick up the phone. Talk with them. It can be a Zoom call, whatever it is. It's important to build that relationship. So you're building that trust with the client. So when I get a lead on the phone, my first questions are, you know, how can we help you essentially? You know, they'll tell us a little bit about it. It's typically scattered. Well, we needed a website. You know, I don't really know why we needed a website. I was tasked to come out and, you know, get quotes, right? Well, I need to figure out what the actual goal is. What problem are we going to solve if they're not qualified? They're not going to be qualified unless we have a problem that we can solve through our process and the end result. So what is the main goal of your website? And then when we get into production, we think about that goal on every step of the process in each section of the website. They want to generate leads. That's a big one, right? Maybe they just want to brochure a website because they need a professional appearance and their website's 15 years old and, you know, they've grown as a company. But really, at that point, you want to focus on actually a return on investment, not just the pretty website. So how can we help you make things more efficient? You're getting a bunch of phone calls because your website's incorrect, right? And so you want to have the correct information about your services, your process, your processes and things like that. And so I will come with ideas that we can solve for them and kind of set that table that way. Same with their current problems. What's the main problem that we can solve or a set of problems? Okay, qualification is a very important part because you do not want to waste your time. I've wasted endless hours before the beginning of working with iceberg, talking with unqualified clients, going down a rabbit hole with people that weren't qualified to begin with. So number one, are they a business that generates revenue? Yes, we've done some startups before. Never been a real smooth process. They're not having a big budget. And so typically they need to have some level of revenue so they can invest in marketing. That's our ideal client. Do they have a problem that can be solved that we can solve? Right? Like we're not going to build an app. We're not an app development company. I can refer them to somebody for that. But I don't want to sit there and try to sell to somebody that has a problem that we can't solve. Can their solutions even be solved? And are they this is a big one? Are they reasonable to work with? Okay, so we want to actually pick out the red flags and talk about it. If I get a client that calls me and they're like, my current company, you know, they just build by the hour and yada, yada, and I'm like, Well, hey, we do too. So you're looking for a unicorn out there and good luck. But sometimes they're like, Okay, there could be another reason if they're if they're bad mouthing their current company that they're with. That's typically a big, big red flag. There may be a reason and we may be able to solve that reason. And typically, it's a communication issue. And that's what we thrive on at iceberg, not just building awesome websites, but we've got a support process, we get back to emails, things like that. So are they reasonable to work with if they come in all hotheaded, like you've got this isn't a transactional sale, right? You're going to be working with him for hopefully years to come. And you're going to work with him through that initial process. And so I don't just land a deal and take off, like they've got my personal phone number. And I don't want to get yelled at at 5pm at night, because they didn't understand our process, or they just weren't reasonable to work with. So be careful with that. And in actually identify those red flags and talk through it with the client before moving forward. Okay, so at iceberg, we have a plan, we have a path to success. The clients qualified. How are we going to solve their problem? And what's the process that we go through? It's not going to be the proposal, you know, that's not fun stuff to read. You're going to go through that proposal. But you know, on the initial call, oftentimes I'll have a high level overview of our process. We'll talk about our team and the expertise that we have, and who you're going to be working with, and explain the journey, just an overview, explain the process so that they don't get sticker shock, because there's a lot that goes into this, there's a lot of communication, a lot, a lot of a lot of that. So from there, clients qualified. What do I do? We're a local based business. So probably 70% is local, which is awesome. I want to set a face to face meeting if that's possible. But Zoom works too. And, and you know, in this day and age, people are really comfortable with virtual meetings. But if I can get them into our office, or if I can travel to their office, and to me, that's kind of fun. I've been all over the Twin Cities of Minnesota meeting with clients, and I get to go in there and see their operation, then you really get a feel for who you're working with. Sometimes it's a messy situation, and you're like, well, I don't know about this one, but at least you were there. Okay, so the proposal. So, you know, we have a pricing system. Our scopes of work are made up of like pre made versions that we've all came together with the project manager, our team, and a pricing structure. Anything that's outside of that pricing structure, we roll into consulting and strategy. So your clients going to have this unicorn they want you to build, they're going to have this complex thing often. And so I can't give you a price on that until we do some research and come back with a scope of work, find out what technology we're going to use. You know, I have to get an understanding if it's a problem we're going to solve. It's going to be a huge e-commerce project. So if it doesn't fall into our pricing list and our pre made scope, then we rolled into consulting and strategy. When I present the proposal to the client, it's our proposal is a laid out similar to what our process is. And so I cover each section of that. It also gives the client a little bit of control. So, you know, I've got on the proposal a 15 person team section. Well, if you want to like if they get in a negotiation and they want a cheaper price that happens often, well, let's take that section off. But we're not going to bend on our pricing, right? Because we know what it costs for us to be profitable and to solve their problem. And so when I when I set this meeting and I go through it, I always give it to them one day before I do want them to take a look through it if they got a minute. But I'm going to go through it in person. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. And quite frankly, if they look at the proposal and see the number and they're not willing to have a conversation and they say 10 minutes, Shane, you know, this isn't going to work for me. That's fine. No time wasted. I can work on the next deal. Remember that you're selling the relationship, right? You can make a website in two days. But when you're collaborating with a client, you have to have a clear communication. They know their business better than you do. And you know websites, wordpress, design, development, content better than them. So we need to work as a team together to accomplish these goals, reiterate the goals of the project first. So they understand what you're solving for them, right? What problems? What's the main goal? Discuss the scope of work in person or via zoom. I covered that and then dive deeper into your process. So I will go step by step through our process. And here's where it gets interesting because before somebody signs up with us, they're going to have a clear understanding of that process because if there's a miscommunication or they feel like, you know, things aren't going right, I can always go back and tell them, you know, we talked about this and this is why this works. Clients will oftentimes get you off of your process in your game, particularly in the sales process. So I will repeat this process five times, 10 times, 20 times until they're on board with us or they're not on board with us. Because again, more importantly than selling the sale, closing the deal is not pissing off your team. Because if they don't understand the process when you get into this and the team's like, this guy has no idea. Now I've got a mad client and more importantly, the people that I work with day in and day out, they're not happy with me. So make sure that you guys are all on the same page before moving forward. Go through the project milestones. So you know, we've got some basic project milestones for a basic website, content phase, design phase, development phase, kickoff. So make sure that they know that they're going to have feedback in each of these phases. We're not just going to sign on, build you a website and hope for the best. Provide options for how to sign up. So this is one where people have different preferences. We have an online proposal system, but oftentimes with bigger companies, they want me to go directly in there and have a, you know, a proposal for them to sign an invoice ready for them so that I can take the check or whatever it may be. Have that be prepared for the way that they're going to interact. Let's not hope that are just digitally they're going to sign up magically. And so that's this was something that I learned, you know, within the past couple of years and it's really helped with the close rate is, okay, in-person meeting, it's going well. Like have the contract ready for them to sign right now in case they don't want to do it digitally. Everybody, you know, especially these bigger companies have a different way of remitting payments. They have a different way of what they would call working with their vendors, right. And so be, you know, agile in that process. Ask where they're at. So I'm not a hard closer and never have been a hard closer. I think it's awkward in this day and age. That stuff doesn't work. Anybody that's hard closed, it's typically going to be a not good a good relationship. They're going to have buyer's remorse, that type of thing. So I always close with where are you at with this process, right. And so, you know, I feel like that's a it's easier for them to explain to me exactly what's going on. And then, you know, from there, I'm going to be guiding them through that process. Oh, it sounds good. Okay. Well, here's what we're going to do here are the next steps. Keep the conversation open, ended, make sure that we're identifying their concerns and getting that out of the way so that it's not happening while we're in production. So obstacles, hesitations, those are great talking points. And quite frankly, when they're getting to that point, it's a deal that's probably going to close, right, because they're getting serious, you know, they'll challenge you on the contract that you have a little bit or this back and forth. And, you know, you really don't want to bend on that stuff. Just explain, you know, why it is what it is. Set a level of urgency. This is something that is difficult to do in our industry. One of the best things that I can have as far as a qualified client, as far as somebody that is going to close is they're like, hey, I need this website up by August. All right, it's August 1st. So no, that's not going to work. But if it's June, I mean, if it's like May, now we're talking. If you want your website to be up by August 1st, we need to start now. So if they have urgency, that's great. Another kind of tip or trick to set urgency is talking about your production schedule, letting them know what your process is. We don't start the same week they sign up. You know, we have an internal meeting where we create a kickoff document and then schedule that kickoff meeting. But for them to accomplish their goals, here's what you need to do. And so assist them through signing up. Now, this could be on a zoom call where they can't figure out how to fill up the basic form that you have online. Sometimes I'm going into their office being, you know, half IT person, getting controls of count accounts, because I know that this client is hiring us because we're the technical people, right. And so that's really something like I'm not going to lower the price. That's not something I'm going to do for them, but I will help them in a system in any way that I can to help them sign up, whether or not it's local and I physically need to go there. Or, you know, like I said, we have to get on a zoom call and talk through this. So we want to set a next step every single time, right. So what's going to happen? So, you know, when are you going to get me if they're like, hey, you know, typically they're like, well, we got to talk about it. We got to look at the numbers, you got competition. Okay, when are you going to get back to me by and it's okay if you say no, so that I can essentially close out your file and move on. But they say yes more. So they signed on. Great. We've got a good client. They're qualified. They understand the process. We've got a solution that we can solve. We've got a problem that we can solve. And they're happy. I'm happy. We really need to keep the momentum going, right. We don't want to like say, okay, let's start in three months, right. We want to start as soon as you can or you have time on your production schedule and keep the momentum. So we schedule the kickoff meeting after the kickoff meeting. We're going to schedule the content meeting or consulting a strategy and keep that momentum going. Keep the client engaged because they're busy doing other stuff as well. But you really need to like I said keep that momentum. So I don't just take off, you know, we've got a project manager that's going to continue to communicate with him. But I'm always here for questions, you know, the client's having a bad time with something they can call me and, you know, part of sales is conflict resolution, right. And so hearing them out, having a cool head, staying calm, keeping your team calm. That's one thing that you have to learn in this business is that sometimes it's not even you, the client could just be having a bad day. So being somewhat of a psychologist helps. I didn't go to school for it, but I've learned it on the internet and in person, be available to answer questions is listed twice. All right, tips for success. Again, sell the process, not the product. What's the path to success, right? You've got a plan. Your competition may not have a plan. They may just say, Hey, here's a proposal, sign up and we'll build you a website. Right. We've got a plan. We've got a problem you can solve. We've got a path to success. Find their pain point. And if they don't have a pain point, then you're doing research before these meetings to say, Yeah, you do. Okay, this is how you look on Google when somebody Googles you. You don't have your phone number easily. You don't have a call to action like you want to generate leads. I can't even figure out what's going on with your business. And so really point that out to them. You don't have you've got it. You've got something that you're doing complicated, but you don't have an R process page. So what is your process? What is your plan to communicate with your clients similar to us? Recognize the urgency, solve their problem and put the plan in place for them to accomplish those goals. Always be setting the next step. So if I'm on the phone with somebody and they're qualified. And so this is where the process can can differ a little bit, right? So if it's a big company, I know this is going to be a big deal. It's looking it's looking well. I'll set the initial before the proposal in person meeting, right? So if it's, you know, a big deal, I want to have a couple meetings with them so that we can put our best foot forward. I would have up to, you know, three or four need be depending on the size of the project. If it's a smaller deal, it's it's going to be okay, here's the meeting, here's what we do. You're on board or not, or, you know, which is fine. It's the same process, but sometimes you don't need to go in as in depth or put as much as time into smaller deals as opposed to large clients. And so that gets into the next step. So here's what we're going to do. We have another meeting scheduled. I met with them in person. And so the next meeting is going to be the proposal. And then after that, you're either going to sign on or we're going to talk about the next steps for you signing up or getting me a decision. Be responsive. You know, that's one of our core values, like I said, committed. I respond to emails with clients. I freak them out how fast it is often, you know, I know it's not the healthiest thing, but they go to my phone, you know, and I'll be responding to them when I can, which is as soon as possible. People can hear your tone inflection on zoom calls and phone calls better than emails. I keep my email straight, direct to the point with a positive tone, but I don't know about you. When you get a text message, I read things in a negative manner often. When I get an email, I'm like, why is this person so angry when they're not? They're just being clear with me, you know, be a human, be yourself, you know, find correlations with the client. Like I'm an avid fisherman. We are up in Minnesota, quite often our clients are fishermen. So we're talking about catching fish before we even get into it. Because there's always kind of that icebreaker mode. You got to build that trust. You want to be yourself. You want to be human. And then remember, you're not going to win them all. We're just putting our best foot forward. And then we're moving on to the next one. You always want to have a rookie mindset when you go into a call, right? I've done this for a long time. But some people that I thought there's no way this person is going to sign up. There's some of our best customers. Or this person is really taking me to task going through this process. And they're covering every little aspect of the proposal or our MSA, all this stuff that typically turn and we get through all that they turn into be really good clients because we're all on the same page. It's exhausting but they can be really good clients. But you're not going to win them all. Move on to the next one. If it's not going to be the right fit. All right. So questions. What have you guys experienced? Yes. I had a question for slide six and we were talking about how it moves from a package that you have into more consulting and strategy phase. So my web agency, we've been struggling on whether or not we charge for the strategy call when it moves out of that what we already offer as like a technical package. What are your thoughts on charging for an in-depth discovery phase? Yes, we've done that before, right? It's you know, typically a client's going to want to know your general pricing. So I will go in with because again, we've got pre-made scopes of work. We know how much time a custom website takes. We know how much time a filter roll gallery takes. And so we can build that in. But say you've got something more complex that isn't easily scoped out. Well, that's our first step is they'll pay for time to talk directly with our developer and project manager. And then that time is used to actually create the scope of work that they have. So these complex e-commerce projects, I can't just give you a number on how many it depends on how many products you have. It depends on the variations of the products you have. There's a lot of things that go into it. So here's our general scope of work for e-commerce, but we need to have a meeting in between that to really find out what the total costs. Now the client's going to be like, well, I don't want it to be a million dollars, you know, right? But you're like, okay, I've done this before and I'll give them an anecdotal piece of evidence. That's another thing that I don't think I covered too. So, you know, in eight years with iceberg, we've done a lot of different projects, a lot of different websites, and I've got a lot of case studies up in my head. And so I put them at ease by saying, hey, we've done this before for this client. And this is how it worked out. And, you know, they can call that client as a referral if they want to. And that puts them at ease a little bit. Every once in a while, the client's like, well, hey, if I don't have that answer, well, okay, then we can just start with consulting and strategy. More often than not, we don't do it. We've played around with it. But I didn't win a ton of those deals and it wasn't really fulfilling. I will say 100% of the deals that we've closed, that we've had consulting and strategy, they have not quit after the consulting and strategy phase. And so that's being clear with them up front. And then what you'll find in those meetings, which I don't attend those meetings, I always attend the kickoff meeting, is that they're really appreciating the fact that they're able to talk and bounce ideas off with it, with the development team. Then the development team is going to come back and give them options. Our project manager the other day gave a great example of this. When a client, it was, you know, it pushed way out of scope when we got there. I was a little nervous, right? I'm like, did I do something wrong because we had their existing website and she likened it to remodeling a house, right? So here's the different pieces of what we have to offer. But if your budget doesn't fit into that, then, you know, we can take that piece off or, hey, maybe we just build that section for you and you build out the remainder of the case studies yourself because you have the template, you know, this client already had a little experience with WordPress. They're not going to code or design and things like that. But maybe that's an option. And so they we got out of that meeting and they're like, hey, you know, we actually had a scope creep in the budget. But thank you for giving me these options in collaborating with them as a team player. OK, so it is it can be terrifying for the client because they're like, hey, this person gave me a price. There's always going to be somebody that's process isn't as educated as that. But then what they'll do is they'll talk to me and they'll come back and find out with the other company that they don't really have a plan for that. And then they'll come back to me and be like, OK, you have a plan, you have a process. I'm going to work with you. And it doesn't it doesn't happen all the time. I mean, you're going to have clients that just want the cheapest website. They're not an ideal. They're not qualified for us. But yes, you can go that route. We haven't had a ton of success for that. I know other companies do. I typically give them the general pricing and then it's going to change and then give them examples of how this changed. Hey, how's it going, everyone? So I have questions. One was like, where do you how do you go about like finding qualified leads or, you know, generating leads? You use like like typing the zip code and then use like a scraper or something like that or is it more. So this has been in our issue list since I started at Iceberg Web Design. And and so we're still trying to figure that one out, right? I always want more leads. I would like to we want to scale the company. We get our leads, number one, because we've been in business for 18 years, right? We've got a really good rankings in the city of Minneapolis. And then we're local to Inoka. So we get a lot organically. We get some through referrals, right? Because we've done a lot of good work. We get some existing ones from we've done six websites for a client that has different six different sides of the business. So once you do good work, it breeds more business. But we generate online and we have not found that magical tool to get the best leads. One thing that I found is that the close rate is much higher if they're local, right? Unless they've got a referral from somebody, you know, in New York, a dog trainer we worked with. And they're like, these guys are awesome. I've worked with people work with them. And so that can sometimes, you know, help us with that national business. But we try different things. We do a lot of networking. We're in the Chamber of Commerce. I go and speak at other places. And so it's just putting your your best foot forward, handed out a pizza cutter five years ago. She came back five years later saying, you know, I work for this company now we need a website, you know, swag, stuff like that. Just get your word out there. You've got to work at it and try. And business will breed business. And then how do you like guarantee value without guaranteeing it? If you go on where it's like your basically, hey, you know, we can help you get clients, but then you're also not like making a false metrics claim. You know, like, yeah, I don't get in the false metrics claim, right? We've got a plan and process to improve that. And here's our track record. So case studies. Here's what we did for this client. Here's what we did for this client. There are companies that do that you get to their homepage and they're like, we guarantee 350% increase in sales. I'm immediately like, I'm a pragmatist. I'm like, that's BS. You know what I mean? Like, come on, you're lying to me on your website. You know, I don't even know how you're going to do that. So I guarantee that we can follow our process and solve the problem that you have. Also, like, you can generate the best leads for somebody if their sales process is sucks, you know, and they can't close the leads or they're not answering their phone or they're not getting. So there's only so much you can do. I just got back from a talk on analytics. And so we use analytics quite often. Sometimes the client will give me analytics first or sometimes a year or two later, you know, they'll come back to me and say, OK, I want to talk about things. And I'll say it's the internet. Everything is recorded through analytics. Here's what we're doing and just consult with the client. But I don't make baseless claims because again, we take an educated approach to solving their problems. Yeah. The last question I had was refunding and tricky clients wanting to back out after you kind of went through your cycle. I don't, you know, yeah. And then it's like, do you like break up? OK, this is 30 percent of the project that you unlock the payment and after you receive the payment, it would be the other 12, 30 percent, you know. So this is a problem we have solved. And so that's in the contract and in the MSA. We are not a bank. We don't hold money. We typically start with 50 percent down. It can be a little less if it's a really ginormous project, right? But we we don't provide refunds. It's on any invoice that we send. And it's in it's our process. And quite frankly, you know, I want every client to be happy, but they're usually being a little unreasonable at times. And so we kind of shut that down pretty quickly. Because again, I was clear with you up front on the process. I've covered all these bases. We're fulfilling the contract. And, you know, there's not really a leg to stand on. So we don't refund money. We're not a bank. So I have a bottle of question to his last one. So when you take that approach, because what I typically do is I do everything in phases, right? Once we cross a certain threshold or phase that money is locked, even if you cancel back out the project after the design, whatever you spent, we spent on design and you can't get any of that back. So what is you guys approach? But whatever reason, the project gets canceled in the middle of a phase? Do you just do you still say no refund or whatever? Or we will build you up until the work that we have done right now? Yeah, so we're always going to have money on the books for our team to be able to work with clients, right? So you pay us and then we do said work. Once that money runs out, I mean, typically, like this doesn't really happen to us anymore, because we button up our process and things like that. And the client will know. And so typically, it's like, I mean, according to our contract, we could call the whole contract with them, but we're going to just cut ties and move on. And typically, when things go awry, that's another thing. It's not usually because it's usually because we're working with one project manager on their side. And that person decides that they want to go to another job. And then somebody else comes in and you're halfway through the project. And they're like, well, I want to redo everything. And I'm like, well, it's going to cost you know, because we're this is the process. And this is what you signed on for. You know, oftentimes I can explain that to them and we can continue on. But pretty much the only time it happens is when some change within that organization happens unexpectedly. So that last component that you just mentioned, because I actually just recently faced that on a project that I was working on. With that, we understand that risks happen, right? And let's say they're developing a technology for whatever reason, I don't know, FCC said they can't do it or they're getting to whatever. So they back out of that thing that you guys were working on. And they pivot to something different, right? So in that case, they cancel that project, that original one. Do you just do you charge them for that whole project and then start a new process? Or you just cut off what you've already taken in? That's an internal business process they made that we had no effect on. We're going to stop there. And then if they want to continue to contract us on a new project, we'd probably have to start from scratch. But we're not going to say, hey, you've got to pay us for the rest of the, you know, we got made it through design. And now, you know, like we're not that type of company, right? We've got really good reviews. We want our customers to be happy. And so that's why it's really important that they know what they're getting into before I hand them off to development, right? I have two questions. That's the first question. Our internal process is we have a discovery version first that they fill out, give us the three points that you mentioned. You mentioned before that you kind of give them a price structure prior to any of that discovery, like you give them a range and then say, this is a range and then, you know, depending on what we're solving for you, it could be more or less. Is that correct? Is that what I heard earlier? Yeah, and even our CSR that answers the phone, because that's typically the first question is, how much does the website cost? Okay, well, you know, it depends. It's like building a house, right? You're building the mansion or you're building the tiny home. And so, you know, we have preset packages, you know, we even have a monthly package. And she often will even cover that a little bit because before she even hands it off to me, they need to understand this isn't tens of dollars that we're talking about thousands, right? And so, well, I'll cover some base pricing. If it's a company and it's going well, and I know they're qualified, we don't really need to get into that, you know, yet unless they ask, because, you know, they're talking to me and either two other companies or oftentimes it gets pushed down to another company. And getting back to the, and this made me think of something else. So RFPs, right? That's like playing the lottery. We win RFPs from time to time, but it's only when I've built a relationship with the client. We don't submit RFPs. I don't win the lottery. I didn't on Wednesday. I'm not going to tomorrow. I'm going to show up to work on Monday and continue to sell. So that's another thing. You know, I mean, there's other companies that have probably been successful with government organizations in that, that route, but you're typically going to have to build a relationship with the person that's submitting that RFP and having them understand the process. And then as far as the worksheet, I really ask the questions and write them down. I find it's hard to get clients before they work with us or just in general to do things, you know what I mean, unless they've already contracted us. And then the second question, along with the sale process, I really obviously presentation is probably number two. The software we use to do our proposals called better proposals. They're awesome. They have automation behind it. I'm curious to know if you guys can share some knowledge on some of the proposal tools that you have. One of the advantages to better proposals is we can see when they sign it, we can see when they read it, how far they read it, how long they stayed in the section. So that helps us during the sales cycle. But I'm just wondering if there's other tools out there that you would recommend or No, that's cool. I wish I had that. But, you know, we've got a custom-made proposal system that we built. It also helped us with our knowledge base, right? So we built it, our developers learned how to do it. It was a pain in the ass. But we got it up and it works. And I, you know, those type of metrics would be helpful. But, you know, we roll with what we have that we custom-built. I'll have to check that out. It's very interesting on an earlier slide when you talk about calling them. Recently, there have been a lot of articles on how to really communicate nowadays because it's hard to get people to read emails, you know, messengers, whether it be regular SMS message or Facebook messenger or whoever. I'm going to say Twitter. Twitter, messaging a company by Twitter, they say, as a very last resort, make that phone call because people don't like phone calls unless it's an emergency. So I'd like you to speak to that because, okay, I'm a boomer, get over it. I like the phone, but I understand I'm having to deal with the modern world and people after our generation more often than not like receiving text messages as an intro and then you can call. So how do you really connect when you're dealing with people that are, I'll say it, much younger than you and they don't like to talk on the phone because they feel like it's mom or dad or granddad calling. Right? Well, yeah, number one, our ideal clients going to probably typically be my generation or older. Number two, I completely disagree with the phone. I have to build that relationship right away. Personality helps a lot with that and icebreaker making them feel comfortable. This is somebody that's reached out to us 90% of the time, right? 95% of the time. So they're filling out a contact form because they don't want to call, right? But then I'm going to call within two minutes and then I'm going to be like, I saw that you submitted your form through our website. Just wanted to give you a ring and see how we might be able to help you. You reached out to me. How can we help you? What's going on? And even if they're taken aback by it and every once in a while I get that, don't let it shake you. Just, you know, make a joke, talk about the weather, whatever the Vikings suck, like anything that that you can. And then they'll be like, OK, I feel comfortable talking to this guy. But like there you are right on the different forms of communication. So some people are more email after you have that phone call. And that's fine. Writing well word emails. I've got clients that just text. You know, I got Google Voice. I can type it up on mine. But it always starts with a phone call in my experience. Thank you for coming here. Can you talk a little bit about the time it takes to go from prospect to client and some of the crazy moves you have to go? Yeah, anywhere from two to eight years of two days to eight years. And, you know, and so I'm not going to endlessly follow up. I'm not that that type of guy. We've got finality. And so oftentimes at the end of the conversation, they're like, we've got a board. We've got to do this. OK, my expectation is, well, OK, what's the expectation? You're going to follow up with me when you talk with that. And then I'm going to move on, right? I will follow up eventually. You know, if they say, hey, we've got a board date after this, I'll follow up the day after the board and say, like, where are we sitting type thing? But as you mentioned, the generation, people don't want to be hounded for this stuff, right? You put your best foot forward and then you move on to the next one, putting your best foot forward and good things will happen. But yes, if the client needs to go right away, urgency, I'm jumping on that, right? But, you know, sometimes they'll come back five, six years later and be like, I remember our conversation and I'm like, I don't really remember you. Let me look you up in the CRM. But cool, you know, and then sometimes those close. We have an email list. Yep. So that's for marketing purposes. We have a CRM, right? And so that tracks so I know what's going on with each client in each step of the process until they close. Quick question about sales technique. I recently, I'm also a mover, by the way, and most of my clients are very young. I had a potential client call me up and she wanted me to talk about her logo. And it was just an initial phone call. So while we were talking, I looked at her website and unfortunately, I've learned it out that her website was horrible and that a logo is not going to help her. And then she's a professional attorney and then she needs a new website and we should include that in our discussion. Well, I never heard from her down. But you kept it real and that's important. You know what I mean? Yes, it sucks. I just said, you know, logo is great, but your website is the hub of the wheel. So why don't we discuss both of those? Then I think I emailed her my little intake form, but that was it. Do you think, do people get scared? Do you have to curb yourself? How do you, there's a tact situation where something might be coming to you for something, but then you want to point out to them that like, guess what? That's not all you need. How do you handle that? She wasn't qualified. You didn't have a problem. You could solve and building, you know, designing a logo is great. Like, okay, here's what it costs. Yeah, exactly. And that doesn't make me passionate about working with somebody either. And so, you know, I'm trying to work with people that are trying to be successful. Yep. I'm ready to stand. So I think you can tell that we've touched some nerves with some of the things you spoke about today. So thank you. And it does include being part psychologists to do this business. I want to say there's, I think it started here and ended up here maybe over here, but the question about what you do when a client fails on you, I have recently had this happen. And I just want to tell you, oh, and the phone texting, all that. You want to communicate with your clients in a way that you can trace, track and prove should the project go bad and you're having to retrace all those steps. Yeah, that's what email. We do a lot of email. We just have to because I have a client who has paused the project, didn't hear from her for six weeks. She's developing a product. Turns out the product, the container, the product was going to go in. They know how to make the size container. We had already designed to that. And at some point you just have to say, hate it, but it's not my problem. And I had to, I don't do refunds. Not giving money back. People have worked on it, got paid. But you have to protect yourself as a business owner. And the sales process is often like, the dating, there you're getting to know each other and everything's great until it's not. And you have to protect yourself. And your question was a great one about how to communicate. Keep it in writing. That's my motto. That particular client texts me all the time. I'm like, no. I'm not. That's sort of visible at court. Yes, exactly. And unfortunately might be headed there. But I wanted to comment on that because you've really struck a nerve with some of the topics. And I think the questions have been great. So thank you. So we have about two minutes. So time for like one more question. I'll make this really quick. So I love your presentation. So my business is being a freelancer. But like I have an LLC every night. So basically I was just wondering how to, I guess a lot of your points had to do with like review who's best on the team and things like that. And I guess more specifically like a little anecdote this past week I had kind of a friend of another client. So we got a phone for like 20 minutes and conceptualized the design because I do graph design as well. And he said that he would send me an email with some content basically to get back to me the next day. And then that night the email team was like, hey, I found some of the greater praise or like a better praise. And like the good turnaround, blah, blah, blah. So what would your advice be? I guess if, would you say they weren't a qualified client or was there anything that I could have done in the 20 hours between talking to him and getting the email or was that just kind of... You know, it happens to me once a month. It happens to me all the time, right? And so if that client, well, number one, you need to explain the value of what you do and a lot of that's done through the work that you've done, right? If somebody is going to undercut you with price, I will tell you more often than not, they're going to have a bad experience with that person. And so you don't want to like revel in this, right? But there's clients I've talked to and they've came back years later and said like that was a total disaster, you know? And now our prices are even higher, right? And so it's just the way it goes and it's frustrating but if somebody is going to undercut your price and their main selling point is price, they probably aren't qualified. Yep, stick with your pricing, don't waver on that. Well, to you, President Obama, for Shane Baker to thank you. Thank you.