Send us a text

Are you struggling to connect with potential clients? The answer might be hiding in your understanding of customer personas. In this illuminating episode, sales coach Evan Polin and marketing expert Craig Andrews reveal how developing detailed customer personas can transform your sales approach from scattershot to laser-focused.

"Personas are only important for salespeople and companies that want to close sales," declares Evan, setting the tone for a conversation brimming with practical wisdom. This isn't just theory – it's battle-tested advice from professionals with decades of experience. They reveal how to identify your ideal prospects by analyzing past successful clients, understanding what made those relationships work, and finding more opportunities with similar characteristics.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Evan introduces the 70-30 rule – the prospect should speak 70% of the time while you speak just 30%. This simple principle unlocks the power of active listening, allowing salespeople to identify pain points and determine qualification. "If you are talking, you are not learning anything about what your prospects' issues are," Evan emphasizes, highlighting how excessive talking prevents discovering whether you can actually help them.

Perhaps most importantly, Evan and Craig stress the critical alignment between sales and marketing. When your messaging is inconsistent, you confuse potential clients and damage credibility. Their three key takeaways provide a roadmap for success: develop clear personas, do your homework before meetings, and ensure sales and marketing are telling the same story. Whether you're new to sales or looking to refine your approach, this episode delivers actionable insights that will help you close more deals with less wasted effort. Subscribe now to transform your sales strategy!

Send us a text

Have you ever felt like your marketing dollars are disappearing into thin air? Or wondered why your sales team struggles to convert seemingly good leads? The answer might lie in how well you understand who you're actually selling to.

In this enlightening episode, Craig Andrews and Evan Polin tackle the often misunderstood concept of customer personas and why they're fundamental to business success. As Evan aptly puts it, "If you don't know what a good prospect looks like, you're never going to find them." They reveal how properly defined personas serve as your business compass, guiding every marketing decision and sales conversation toward greater profitability.

The hosts share practical strategies for developing detailed personas, from conducting client interviews and analyzing historical data to exploring psychographic elements like communication preferences and lifestyle choices. Their baseball analogy brilliantly illustrates the problem many businesses face: being a pitcher with twenty catchers behind the plate means you might eventually hit one, but that's not an efficient strategy. Instead, they show how focusing on specific, profitable personas creates that "sweet spot" where marketing and sales align perfectly.

Craig and Evan don't just theorize—they provide real-world examples from their own businesses. Evan explains how he markets differently to attorneys versus commission-based salespeople, while Craig shares insights about targeting home service professionals. Their examples demonstrate that effective personas go far beyond basic demographics to include how prospects think, where they spend time, and what language resonates with them.

Whether you're struggling with unfocused marketing efforts or frustrated by low conversion rates, this episode offers concrete steps to transform your approach. Listen now to discover how well-crafted customer personas can turn your business from throwing "spaghetti at the wall" to precisely targeting the prospects who will become your most profitable clients.

Send us a text

What if everything you thought about your ideal customer was wrong? In this eye-opening conversation with Kevin O'Connor, Vice President of Strategic Coaching and Consulting for Align5 and scaling up business coach, we uncover the crucial difference between high-revenue customers and truly profitable core customers that can transform your entire business strategy.

Kevin challenges conventional thinking by defining core customers as those who not only generate maximum profit but are also genuinely passionate about your product or service. This distinction proves revolutionary for businesses struggling to grow efficiently. "Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is monarch," Kevin explains, highlighting why chasing revenue alone can lead businesses astray.

The episode takes a fascinating turn when Kevin discusses applying "Moneyball" principles to business metrics. Just as the Oakland A's discovered that traditional baseball statistics weren't predictive of wins, your business may be focusing on the wrong indicators of success. Through compelling examples from his experience with call centers, Kevin demonstrates how conventional wisdom about quality scores completely inverted reality—the centers with the highest internal quality scores actually had the worst customer retention.

Perhaps most valuable are Kevin's actionable takeaways: calculate customer-level profitability, correlate your KPIs with actual outcomes, and align sales and marketing based on real customer feedback and data. For entrepreneurs looking toward an eventual exit, implementing these systems can dramatically increase business valuation, potentially transforming standard industry multiples of 3-5× into premium valuations of 10-15×.

Ready to revolutionize how you identify, serve, and profit from your core customers? Listen now and discover the data-driven approach that might just transform your business growth trajectory forever.