Greg's Right FIT #502–This Week: Leads, Motion, Blowers
Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . starting next week.
In this issue:
- Thoughts on Lead Generation
- Being Human
- Random Stuff
Thoughts on Lead Generation
- Research tells us sales teams spend 80% of their marketing budget on producing leads, and much less on following-up with leads. Buyer research, on the other hand, shows most buyers will make a buying decision, "eventually." Next week, think about increasing your investment in lead follow-up.
- Referrals are great. The best referrals are unsolicited peer-to-peer introductions, but being allowed to use a trusted person's name is great too. When doing this, if it's not a peer-to-peer intro, look for the flow of money. A customer referring you to their supplier tends to go better than the opposite.
- Pruning stimulates growth. This applies to prospect lists too. Removing prospects frees you up to grow more opportunities. Split your list in three. Top, middle, and unknown. Prune the last group with gusto.
- Even with AI LLMs assisting your sales team, be data informed vs data driven when it comes to forecasting. A buying decision is far more complex than the data we give the bots to work with. (until the singularity of course)
Being Human – Staying in motion
"If a fool persists in his folly, he can become wise. And this is making him a wise man." – William Blake
When I finished my book on Momentum, I started making some supporting materials for the book. I finished a companion booklet, but have some unfinished projects. A workbook and a sales momentum builder tool come to mind. The tool is the hardest to commit to finishing because while I think it may be useful, in the book I recommend against adding new tools. They are usually unnecessary and often become another obstacle in the way of momentum.
The tool I may never get to helps you build momentum by asking yourself a simple question for 28 days: Did I do my best to [insert thing you're trying to build momentum in]? It works because it's a yes or no answer. You only have to commit to asking the question every day. A simple calendar like you have in your phone can do that. Or you might track your responses in a visual format. In the documentary "Jerry Before Seinfeld" he shows us thousands and thousands of pages of jokes he's written by committing to write a joke a day. He tracks each day with a big red X on a wall calendar (he's kept those too) and doesn't want to break the chain. (Continuation Motivation)
And then there's this guy: "Dale Webster, surfer who rode waves for 14,642 consecutive days, dies aged 77" It sounds like, besides keeping his old surfboards, his old wetsuits, and a big ball of his old surf wax, he and his very understanding wife kept journals and diaries and asked people to witness every ride. That's momentum.
Stay in motion, my friends, stay in motion.
Random Stuff
". . .anyone who discounts serendipity and luck is an idiot." – Barry Diller to Anderson Cooper, 92Y Talks
I'm listening to Barry Diller, 83-year-old billionaire businessman, and he's asked if he has some extraordinary vision or how does he explain his success. Was it just luck? He says you'd be an idiot to discount serendipity and luck, but you have to be willful and trust your instinct.
It got me thinking about serendipity.
I purchased a blower for yard waste, it's my second one so I knew I wanted it be a small mulcher plus blower, but instead of a plastic mulching blade, I wanted it to be an alloy. I found one, but once I started using it didn't become a raving fan. I found it did more than I expected the fall, but in spring it was a pain. All this sucking and mulching power didn't translate into blowing power. It didn't make sense, but the mulching was most important to me, so I kept on keeping on. Many pulverized leaves and twigs, but lots of debris left on the driveway.
A week ago we decided to make pizzas on the kamado grill I inherited from Bob. (a Big Green Egg) To do the pizzas right, I need to get the grill up to 600+ degrees. It usually heats right up but something was off this day. It wasn't going past 450. Knowing what I know about fires from watching others, I leaned down and started blowing air through the bottom vent. It worked. I kept blowing but then stood up to take a break, got light headed, and almost fainted. This wasn't great.
Wait! What about the blower? I grabbed it and stoked the fire. At one point sitting it down and sucking some patio gravel into the machine. No worries, I thought, I'll find the offending gravel another day.
The another day came when child #1 came for a visit last weekend and I needed to clear the patio. I work on the machine but can't figure out where the gravel rattle is coming from. Eventually I put a flashlight in the nozzle and find the rocks. They are stuck in a series of narrower plastic things deep inside the main nozzle. It's like a hard plastic wind sock inside there. Terrible design.
I use screwdrivers to pry the plastic apart and use a pliers to free the plastic things which turn out to be 2 smaller nozzles. This sparks a vague memory of looking for some extra attachments I saw on the box but didn't get shipped to me when I bought it.
Found 'em.
Turns out the blower works like a charm once you take the wind socks out. Like it really blows, man. As I send debris flying into my neighbor's yard I feel bad for telling a few people not to get this model if they want to blow things around.
That's about as serendipity as I get. Pizza, blower, gravel, better blower.
It's not quite like accepting a job to be assistant to a television studio executive, only to have that executive promoted to CEO before you start, making you right hand man to the boss, but it's something.
Random Extra
I'm out and about and talking again. I can do small group talks, workshops, breakout sessions, and more. This week I talked at a local business association about lead generation. Next month I will talk to some lawyers and accountants about using momentum in business development.
link to my talk in Salt Lake City, UT next month
Let me know about events and conferences you're planning to attend this fall or in 2026. Maybe I'll join you!
Have slides, will travel.
