From Property Manager to Sales Leader: Ben Smith on Building Winning Sales Teams

A Podcast | Ben Smith 

Pete Neubig: Welcome, everybody, to the NARPM podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We have a special guest, Ben Smith, founder of BrightReach Sales. Ben's 13 plus years in sales and he's actually been director of sales. His last two positions for providers that service the PM industry. Ben has been in the industry almost as long as I have been, but he's like 20 years younger, but he's almost as long as I've been. Ben and I have known each other since I think it was around 16, 17-ish, maybe, Ben?

Ben Smith: I think 2018. That was when I came into the industry and I used to work for them, yeah.

Pete Neubig: 2018, yep. And so if you don't know Ben, he's been around for quite some time. He was, I don't know if I'm allowed to say it, but you were Second Nature for many years. And I do have a quick story about Ben though, real quick. Ben left sales for a hot minute and became a property manager for a hot minute, about a year. And then he's like, you know what...

Ben Smith: It was about two.

Pete Neubig: It was about two. It was about two years?

Ben Smith: Yeah.

Pete Neubig: I think I like servicing property managers more so than being a property manager. So you got a quick exit, right? Got it, built it up and quick exit, and now you're starting BrightRoot Sales.

Ben Smith: Yeah, that's right. I had the bright idea during COVID that I wanted to become a property manager. And so I got licensed here in Raleigh and partnered up with a brokerage and yeah, did the work of a property manager for about two years and ultimately decided one, trying to have a side hustle while you're still working your day job. Not super easy, especially when you've got young kids and a family that you're also taking care of. But also just that, hey, just because you know a lot about property management doesn't mean you're necessarily cut out to be one. And I pretty quickly learned that for myself. Yeah.

Pete Neubig: So this is actually a true vendor who has actually stood in our shoes. So Ben, welcome to the NARPM podcast. Thanks so much for meeting here, brother.

Ben Smith: Yeah, thanks for having me on, Pete.

Pete Neubig: So I got to ask, because I'm a founder, two-time founder now, you could be some big wig right now at a stable organization. Why did you start BrightRoot Sales instead of just becoming some big wig?

Ben Smith: Yeah, great, great question. Well, I mean, over the course of my time in sales, which in total started basically right out of college, so 13, 14 years ago, I've always been pretty entrepreneurial, right? I'm very self-motivated. And so I think just by nature of being in sales, kind of always had that gear. And I actually wanted to land it on the idea of starting BrightReach a few years ago, because what I saw in the property management space was just a gap of knowledge around leading and managing salespeople, lead generation, that sort of thing. Outbound, in particular, being one of those things that I saw as a big gap. And so I kicked around the idea for a couple of years and ultimately got to the place where I decided it's time to go do this, time to go build this. Really excited about the idea of creating something from the ground up and ultimately building a company. So yeah, that was kind of what went through my head. And yeah, back in March of this year, so a little more than six months ago, I finally took that leap and it's been really cool.

Pete Neubig: All right. So you have a five-step approach to when it comes to building your sales department, and I want to hit on that. But before that, the question I have is what do most PM firms get wrong when it comes to sales? I'm sure it's a long list, but just give me like two or three kind of like what you've seen out there.

Ben Smith: Yeah, I think in general, a lot of people approach sales and property management from a very transactional point of view. And what I mean by that is the industry is very accustomed to growing through getting inbound leads, right? So people come to your website, they've done a little bit of research on you. And when they call you up, they're comparing you against your competitors based on what? Well, typically it's Google reviews, right? And pricing, right? Those are the main two things. And then once they get that from you, once they kind of talk to you, ask you a couple of questions, they're ready to make a decision. But the reality is, this is still extremely so a relationship business. And at the end of the day, it's about the value that you provide, not the pricing that you offer. So I think for a lot of folks, they get caught up in this game of, well, you know, my pricing is good, my reviews are good, then I should be able to grow. And I don't think that's necessarily the case. So that's kind of the first thing, Pete. The other thing I would add too, is that, you know, for a lot of folks in the industry, they tend to be very operational minded, operationally minded. You are one of those folks, right? And so there's this belief, I think that people have that, oh, I just need to go hire a good salesperson. And I'll grow, right? I'll just let them loose in my market, and they're going to go gangbusters and really grow my property management company. And the reality is, is, you know, in my experience, the success of a salesperson, a lot of ways comes down to the leadership and the environment that they're in. And so those are, that's kind of my big thing that I really like to talk to folks about is, how can you create an environment where salespeople can be successful long term, and ultimately stick around long term and meet your goals, but also the goals that they have for themselves.

Pete Neubig: So I'll summarize from what I hear is mistake number one is that I'm going to compete on price. And mistake number two is I'm going to hire somebody and abdicate instead of delegate, train, and all that good stuff. Just hire a salesperson.

Ben Smith: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I like it.

Pete Neubig: All right. I like that. I think I made both of those mistakes, actually. All right. So we're going to talk about, go ahead. Sorry.

Ben Smith: I was going to say, you're doing something right, Pete. So yeah, we all make mistakes, and we learn from them, and we keep going, right?

Pete Neubig: Well, I had a business coach tell me a long time ago, business doesn't get easier, you get better. And so I got the gray hairs, I'm long in the tooth now. So if I was still making the same mistakes I was 20 years ago, that wouldn't be good. You got to learn from other people's mistakes, learn from your own mistakes. But obviously, the more knowledge you get, that's why I love NARPM. That's why I'm doing the podcast and talking to great people like you, because every time I have a conversation with somebody, I learn something. And every time I go to a conference, I learn something, whether I was from a PM's perspective or a vendor perspective, and no one could take that knowledge away.

Ben Smith: Absolutely, man.

Pete Neubig: So let's talk about your five-step phase approach, what it comes to. I call building your sales department. Is that right? Or is it kind of like your sales systems? Do I have it right? Five-step?

Ben Smith: Yeah. I think you could call it both of those things, right? It's your approach. It's the foundation that allows you to go out and ultimately be successful.

Pete Neubig: We didn't talk in the green room about this. So I don't know, is this secret sauce or can we talk a little bit about this to the listeners?

Ben Smith: No, let's talk about it, man. I've got it right there on the website, so nothing secret about it.

Pete Neubig: All right. So let's talk about, so the first phase one is now, phase one is strategy. So let's talk a little bit about that and then also talk how long it typically takes to get out of phase one.

Ben Smith: Yeah. Great question. Yeah. So strategy, I think comes down to some really foundational questions around what you're trying to accomplish as a business owner, right? And that includes things like how much do you want to grow, right? You and I have worked with a lot of folks in this industry who run companies that maybe have 150, 200 doors, 250 doors, right? Not, not-huge, but very, very- Very, very successful and really, really profitably. So there are certainly folks out there who say, hey, I want to grow to a thousand doors. Okay, well then the goal and the money you spend and the resources you invest is going to be different than if you're just looking for small growth year over year.

Maybe you're just above replacing the clients that you're churning and that's perfectly okay. But you got to be clear on that, right? Because that's ultimately going to drive what you decide to do. The second piece of that, Pete, is who are the types of clients and properties that you want to bring on, right? And I would hope that the answer for most people is not, well, if it's a rental property and these zip codes, then I want them, right? The reality is that not only are you taking on a property, but you're taking on a person, right? And there are some owners that may not be a fit for the way that you do business, right? They may not fit in well to the systems that you have built on the operational side. And ultimately it's going to create a lot of headache for your team over time. So I really want people, right, regardless of whether or not they work with me, to get as specific as possible on who that ideal client is down to like personality type approach and mindset around how they want their property managed. I really take the time to walk through that with people because ultimately what that allows us to do is have a lot of clarity around who we are looking for. So we're not bringing on bad fit clients, right? The third piece of that strategy, I would say too, is what's your unique value proposition, right? How do you solve problems for people? If the answer to that is I collect the rent and I deploy maintenance when needed, I want you to be more specific, right?

Because at the end of the day, anybody can do those things, right? Those are kind of the basics. But the reality is you're providing peace of mind for people. You're providing freedom. You're helping them build long-term wealth. And so I really want the management companies that I work with to have a clear sense of what those things are, because it only allows you to better message what it is that you're saying when you do talk to a prospect or you do put out marketing and that sort of thing.

Pete Neubig: When you say ideal client, you're talking about not just properties, but owner as well. And is that, I want to use a marketing word here. Is that your ICP?

Ben Smith: That's right.

Pete Neubig: Okay. So ideal client profile. And I love the unique value proposition. If you don't know what that is and you're not really familiar, obviously reach out to Ben for sure. Okay. So now you got about three or four steps here. It sounds simple, but this is not something that you can do in an hour a day. Does this take a little bit of time?

Ben Smith: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I would say in total hours spent on calls with folks, it's a few hours, right? And depending on how specific you are and how clear you are on these things, it could be longer. But ultimately what I like to do for folks is take everything that I hear from the business owner, but also the team, and then distill it down into something that is actually digestible. It can be handed to a new team member and say, Hey, here's our ideal client profile. Here's our unique value proposition. Here's how we message that. And here are our goals. So I think that sometimes people might hear that and say, do we really need to talk about all that stuff for a few hours? It seems a little overkill, but it really does drive everything that follows.

Pete Neubig: My guess is sometimes these questions you're asking might be the first time these folks are asking this question to themselves or been asked this question. I always tell the story when we first started Empire, it was like our business coach was trying to get us basically where you're trying to get these folks right now. And he kept asking us, like, who's your client? We'd be like, well, anybody who owns a house that they want to rent out in the city of Houston.

Ben Smith: Which is a big city. It takes a while to get to, you know, across town in Houston.

Pete Neubig: Which is a big city. Eventually over time, we really got that dialed in. It took us quite a while. It took us years to really understand that. So if you're with somebody, you can get that in hours or a couple of days that they're really, it's really thought provoking questions. So it's a great exercise to go through. Okay. So now you've got the right client. They're open to this, right? Right. Because some of them kind of push back and like, I want to take it. And so now they've gone through the strategy piece. Now your phase two is systems. So talk a little bit about that.

Ben Smith: Yeah. So it's really, to say it in probably a little bit more clear way, it's systems and process essentially. So, you know, when I think systems, I think things like, you know, CRM, so do we have something that we're using? If we do, are we using it? Well, right. Like I can tell you, I've seen a lot of sales processes built out within CRMs that are way too complicated. And if it's not, if it's not simple and it doesn't make sense, the team's not going to use it. Right. And the reality is.

Pete Neubig: Especially a sales person who's not known to be detailed, right? Like, so the more detailed you make it, the less effective it could be.

Ben Smith: Exactly. So we really want to identify, right. The correct tools that are going to help us reach our goals best. But also the process that we're going to take someone through in the life cycle of them being a prospect. Right. And hopefully a client and that gets into your operation side, onboarding, all that stuff. But, you know, I'll just maybe it'd be helpful if I give an example, Pete. So I'm working with a client right now who he's the business owner. He does not have a BDM. Does not intend to hire a BDM, but he has somebody on his team who has some, some sales history, right? She's, she's done well in the sales role before. And so what, what we ended up landing on as far as a process was when a lead comes in, you know, he's, he's doing a lot as the business owner. Right. So what he wants is for his sales operations person to actually do a screening call with the prospect first. Right.

He's very much focused on investors, not so much the accidental landlord. He'll take those as they, as they come. Right. But really, really focused on investors. And so what works best for him is for that screening call to happen where, you know, his team can gather more information, identify what the pain points are before it ultimately moves to a conversation with him and, you know, an onsite meeting at the property of that sort of thing. So I think in general, like there's, you want it to be simple. You don't want to over complicate it, but you also need to be really clear on what it is and what's the criteria at each stage for someone to move to the next. Right. If that sales ops person talks to the prospect and there's a bunch of red flags going off based on the questions that they're asking or the conversations that being, that's being had, we don't want to waste the business owner's time talking to a bad fit prospect that we know it's, you know, it's probably not someone that we want to work with. And so I think just being intentional and clear about what those things are, it's really helpful, not only, you know, for you as a business owner to know, you know, where, what the pipeline, what the funnel looks like, but for the team to know exactly what's expected at each step of the way.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. You brought two things that popped up in my head. One is, you know, because most founders, most property management company founders, they're from the real estate world and they're very process oriented, but they have processes for all their operations, no processes for marketing, sales, or hiring people. So this would help them create a sales position. The other thing you said is like, Hey, this client is focusing on investors, but he'll take the, what do you call landlords?

Ben Smith: The accidental landlords.

Pete Neubig: The accidental landlords. And one of the things that people get caught up in is if I create my ICP, they feel like they're pigeonholed. And I'm like, no, like that's where you're going to spend your marketing messaging and maybe dollars. But if you cast a net and you can't, you know, if I'm looking for carp and I catch a catfish, I'm still going to eat the catfish. So I just want people to understand like the ICP doesn't mean that's all you take. It just means that's really what you're focusing your investing dollars on.

Ben Smith: Well, and it's a great, I'm really glad you called that out, Pete. And I think the way that having that clarity practically speaking presents itself is, you know, let's say you are investor focused and somebody calls you, they're an accidental landlord. Well, you ask the right questions, get an understanding of, okay, is this a long-term hold? Or is it, you know, are they really just going to rent it for a year or two? Do they have cashflow constraints, right? Like you want to keep it out for those flags. But if everything looks good and they seem like they're going to be a good fit, you know, Hey, here's kind of our boiler plate pricing. We're going to charge a 10% management fee, a 50% lease up fee. And I think as a company, you can make it a policy to say that kind of is what it is, right? Like our pricing is our pricing because we're not necessarily seeking out single door owners who are only going to hold for a couple of years. We'll work with them if it seems like a good fit, but on the investor side, you know, Hey, if somebody comes to me with 24 units, I'm happy to work on a pricing proposal that's going to fit and win the deal because that's your ICP, right? Like you're more willing to be flexible with some of those things. If somebody fits the right profile. So again, just having clarity around it.

Pete Neubig: I think with the pricing model we put in that strategy, that's phase one, you kind of talk about pricing and in that phase, or is that later on?

Ben Smith: Yeah, no, I think there's a conversation to be had around pricing in the strategy phase. And you know, I don't necessarily go in and advocate that your pricing structure needs to be different than what it is unless you want to have that discussion. But you know, it kind of goes to this idea of Hey, are you, if you have really big growth goals, like adding a lot of doors is really important to you, then your pricing probably needs to be right in line with what everyone in your market's doing or just, just below it. Whereas if you, if you pride yourself on being something like a more boutique management firm, it's okay that your pricing is higher. You just have to be able to explain why you just have to be able to articulate the value that you provide that justifies, Hey, here's why. Yeah. Here's why everyone here in Raleigh charges 8% and we charge 10.

Pete Neubig: Yep. I'll give you a great example of that. When I started Empire, we were the lowest of the low 50 bucks a month was our deal. Right. And, and we look like it, a website look like it, our office space look like it. And we didn't want to be that anymore. We didn't want to compete on price anymore because we weren't making any money. And so we went to the highest and we changed our marketing plan. We changed our messaging. We changed our, almost our team. We changed where we office out of, and it all matters. It's, it's really, if you want to, if you want to charge more, you have to, you know, give them the Cadillac service, so to speak. And so, all right, so now phase one, I got my ICP. I got some pain points. I got the unique proposition. I have my target. Now phase two, systems. I'm revisiting or building the CRM system and you're, and you're building a sales process. I'm assuming that could, that could be a couple of months.

Ben Smith: Yeah, it can be, especially if we're building from scratch, right. If we're, if we're starting from zero it is, it's definitely going to take a little bit more time than just kind of making tweaks or changes.

Pete Neubig: I'll throw, I'm going to put you on the, on the spot here. Do you have a CRM system that you like, that you recommend?

Ben Smith: Yeah, the one I've most commonly worked in, and obviously most people in the industry work with is, is LeadSimple. But I've also heard a lot of good things about Aptly. I have clients that have gone to HubSpot, right. And I've, and I've used HubSpot a number of stops in my journey too. So I think, I think it just depends on what, how complex, what you're trying to build is, right. Like if you're, if you want to do a lot of marketing out of your CRM, I would say something like HubSpot is going to be more powerful than LeadSimple.

Pete Neubig: Based on your, based on what sales system you're creating, you might want to determine, can my CRM handle it, or do I need to update my CRM, or do I need to change my sales system based on my CRM, based on the limitations?

Ben Smith: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Pete Neubig: And I got strategy, I got systems in place. Let's talk about phase three, people.

Ben Smith: Yeah. Yeah. So this, this can look a number of different ways within a property management company, right. I've seen people be obviously successful with, you know, you go out, you hire BDM, right. Or you as a business owner decide, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to be the person that handles, you know, talking to prospects because it's my company. I, you know, I built this. I want to make sure the people that we're working with are the right fit. But I think more and more, and this is something you and I have talked about, right? Like it's worth considering, are there other folks that could be a part of the team that it's not just the sales person or the business owner. And that could be something like a sales operations role, like a remote team member, somebody who's helping with a little bit more of the tactical administrative tasks, right. As you've, as you've noted already, not all salespeople are great with the details. Some of the best salespeople that I've ever worked with, in fact, are terrible at getting stuff into the CRM and doing the right followup that they're supposed to do. And so that's not necessarily to say like, Hey, you know, Oh, that person's not a good fit for our organization because they're not good with the details. I think the question just becomes, how can we better support them? If their gift is out talking to people, then we want them to do more of that.

We don't want them doing all this other stuff that is just taking time away from generating new business and talking to prospects. So I think it's a matter of looking at, all right, what, what do we have? Is there something we don't have that we need? But also getting really clear on the roles and responsibilities within the organization. Who's going to do what? Some people like to bring in operations into the sales side of things. If it's, you know, let's say like we were talking about before an investor that's got a portfolio, you might want somebody on operations to be involved in those conversations, that sort of thing. So I think just having clarity around who those people are on the team that are going to be involved, you know, if there's handoffs that are happening during the, during pre-sale or into onboarding, you want to be really clear on that stuff. So everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and what their, what their role is.

Pete Neubig: I think part of the challenge that property managers have is that, you know, they're, let's say I'm very operational. I know I need to hire a salesperson, but I really don't know what to ask. I don't know enough about sales to ask, like, do you have some, like some tidbits? I mean, obviously in your, your company would help with it. I know rent, rent scale helps, you know, and so does BizDev, Mastermind, they help. And I do recommend those. Is your company kind of helped as well with that? Or is that kind of really not in your purview?

Ben Smith: Yeah. Yeah. So at this point I haven't done any active searches for folks. My role has been more advisory, right. And thinking through what it like, what is the job description? Because I think back to one of the questions you asked earlier, Pete, about what do people get wrong or maybe misconceptions people have, like saying I'm looking for a salesperson is way too broad of a category, right?

Pete Neubig: It's kind of like, I'll take any house in Houston, right?

Ben Smith: That's right. Yeah, exactly, man. And so like, I think it comes down to what are, you have to get clear on what your expectations for the role is. If you want somebody who is just going to work the inbound leads that come in, they're going to pick up the phone. They're going to be Johnny on the spot. They're good at having the conversations and moving the ball forward. That's one thing. If you're looking for someone that's also going to generate opportunities, and this is getting into the world of outbound, you want them cold calling, you want them going to networking events, you want them building referral relationships, right? Those two things do not always mesh, right? And so if you're just looking at a resume and saying, oh, sales experience check, then you could potentially be putting yourself in a really bad position where you think you're hiring the hunter when actually what you got is the gatherer, the person that's just taking what's coming to them. So that's something that I would say my role is to help people get really clear on that stuff. And like you mentioned that there are folks in the industry that are actively out hiring. I think Dylan Scroggins with Calmar Group really think a lot of what Dylan does, which is actual recruiting, right? It's not just getting the job posting out. He's out looking for you. So I think there's a number of ways to handle it, but where I come in is mostly helping people get clear on what it is we are actually looking for.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. This topic alone could be a full- I'm super passionate about it now, especially now I'm in the recruitment world myself. For the interest of time, let's kind of move on. So now I got my strategy, my systems. I understand the type of person I want with the job description, the mindset, right? Core values. Now we talk about accountability, right? So in this phase of people, am I just setting everything up or am I hiring somebody at this point? Or am I just kind of getting everything ready and laying the found work and then I go to accountability and optimization or do I hire somebody, then I go to accountability in the phase in the approach?

Ben Smith: Yeah. I think if hiring is something that needs to be done, then that does still fall kind of within the people section. The accountability really comes once we're starting to execute, right? And so whether that's, we've decided, hey, we're going to go, we're going to push really hard on building referral relationships, right? Or we're going to make a certain amount of cold calls or we're going to run this sort of campaign. The accountability really comes in the form of like, okay, now that we're executing, like how are we measuring success, right? And not just results, but also activity, right? Because I think, I mean, you know this for sure, Pete, like sometimes the results don't come immediately, especially when you hire a new person, right? And they're getting ramped up and they're still learning the business, learning your company. But that doesn't mean that we just say, all right, well, 90 days from now we'll check in, see how you're doing, see how things are going, right? It's a constant feedback loop around what's the action that we're taking, right? And setting that expectation really early, whether it's a new hire or not, that these are the things that we want to look at even on a weekly basis. So what I really want people to get clear on is what are those things, what is the expectation, so that we can be accountable to those results. And that includes things like, you know, hey, how do you, if you're going to have a one-to-one with your BDM, how do you structure that, right? Like what's an agenda for that call look like? Is it, hopefully you're doing more than just looking at the spreadsheet with the numbers on it, but that is part of it. It has to be part of it.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. Ben, you bring up a good point. Early on in my career, my KPIs were end result. Yeah. And my bonus structure was on end result. And what we've learned since then is KPIs now are on activities. And I'm going to give a shout out to Tony Klein. He really broke this down really good in his Onyx Mastermind that he had earlier in 25. And he really broke it down and it was like really, wow. But what you said is so important. It does take a long time sometimes, right? I mean, what's the time like to, I think our time to sign was over 45 days. So I could get something in mid-October and it won't sign until, you know, November sometime. And then November looks great. October may not look so good because we, you know, we had some, you know, some starts there, but tracking the number of calls or the number of meetings set or the number of proposals that were sent out, like that was important. And we started doing some smaller bonuses for activities and then a bigger bonus if it hit is what we did.

Ben Smith: Well, and Pete, like you just, I think you just hit the nail on the head by tracking at each stage, right from lead gen down to the conversations you're having, down to the next steps, the contracts being sent, the contracts being signed. If you're not tracking that data and you're not growing the way that you want to grow, you are flying blind. You have no idea where you're losing deals.

Pete Neubig: Where in the process you're losing the deal, right?

Ben Smith: No clue. And so if people take nothing else away from this conversation, this is what I hope they take away. You have to be able to track at each stage of your sales process where you're losing people, right? Because it could be something as simple as we're not following up on our PMAs, right? We're sending, we're sending the email and then we forget about it for a week or two and we lose people because of it. Or it could be because we're not doing a good job on that first conversation, establishing clear next steps and getting them to that next step. Until you know that you're going to make a lot of guesses and probably try to fix problems that don't need to be fixed. It's really once you have clarity around that, that phasing, right? And the activity that's happening at each, at each stage, that you're able to really look critically at your sales process and what your salesperson is doing and say, okay, here's the problem. Let's fix it, right?

Pete Neubig: So Ben, what you're saying is in step two systems, as you're building that out, you literally need to build, okay, here's step one, step two, step three. And here's a number that we should be looking at. Or here is if we, if we're not achieving these, these milestones, that's where the break is. And then we can focus our energy on that, which makes it much easier than flying blind. I don't know. We're not getting, you know, we only got five signups this month and we will have more than 15.

Ben Smith: Yeah. Well, here's what your sales person will say. I can always get the leads, leads aren't good.

Pete Neubig: We're doing badly.

Ben Smith: We're not getting enough leads. It's like, okay, well where let's look at our conversion rate from step to step. And I think that'll, that'll give us clarity. Maybe the leads are bad. I'm not saying that they're great all the time, but that's where your sales person will immediately go to. 

Pete Neubig: It's funny. You were at my office in 2019. Then you saw all this. You knew this was happening, huh? I literally had the, I mean, I've been in the middle of those conversations between my marketing director, my sales director. I mean, we all have, right? It's just like sales and operations. I've been, you give me crappy doors. I'm giving you great doors.

Ben Smith: Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Pete Neubig: All right. So let's start the final phase. Cause we are coming up against it, but the final phase of optimization. So talk a little bit about that.

Ben Smith: Yeah. We just talked a little bit about it, which is being able to look at, at, at the numbers, at the results, those conversion rates throughout and being able to say, okay, where do we need to get better? Where's the low hanging fruit? What is really keeping us from getting our goals? So it goes anywhere from the sales process all the way to lead gen. Right. And so, you know, maybe you are, maybe let's just use like a realtor referral program as an example. And so you set a goal for yourself. It's day one. You don't really know what to expect. All right. I'm going to, I'm going to reach out to 10 realtors a week. Right. And try to get, try to get conversations scheduled with them or enroll them in a newsletter. Right. The reality is you do have to look at this stuff over time and probably more time than you think. Right. It's not, we're not talking about a couple of weeks. You know, any effort you're going to make from a lead gen perspective, you need to be consistent. You need to think long-term about it. But that doesn't mean that you just do it blindly and not look at the results.

Right. If there's something that you're doing that isn't producing a result in most cases, I wouldn't encourage people to start with tweaking what they're doing. Right. Hey, maybe you're, maybe you're talking to realtors, but they're not sending you anything. Okay. Well, let's try doing a handwritten note immediately after we meet with a realtor and send it to their, send it to their office. Or, hey, maybe, maybe the $250 referral feed, like that just, it doesn't really move the needle for most realtors. So let's, let's keep doing what we're doing, but let's try upping that to $400 and see if we get anything different. That's the kind of optimization I think you want to do over time. It tends to be incremental improvements, not let's blow up everything we just did for the last month or two, because we're not seeing much from it. Right. You got to move long term.

Pete Neubig: Ben, how long do you think, when you roll out a new program, how long should you let it bake in before you try to quote unquote optimize it? Because sometimes it just takes a little bit of time.

Ben Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I think it depends on what it is. If you are, like Outbound is a good example of this, right? If, if your efforts are targeted towards people that have no idea who you are, they're completely cold prospects, I would say like, you need to be thinking six months to a year in terms of an initiative like that. Maybe you have somebody on your team making cold calls, right? Or you're doing direct mail, right? It is a longer term deal because you might be reaching out to prospects at just the wrong time. Your message might be right, but the timing isn't good. So you're planting seeds for the future. So I would say with those cold efforts, reaching out to people that don't know who you are, it's definitely longer term. I think something like a realtor referral program or marketing to lost leads, like that's something that you could, you know, say, Hey, we're going to, we're going to set a three month target here. And then we're going to look at how it's going. Right. And reevaluate.

Pete Neubig: All right, Ben, if somebody is listening to this and their mind is blown and they're like, Oh my God, I have, I'm not doing any of this stuff. I need some help. How do I get in touch with you?

Ben Smith: Yeah, absolutely. So my website is brightreachsales.com. You can see some resources around what, what Pete and I just talked about here, as well as access to some other, you know, free stuff around, you know, getting started with outbound or I do a podcast with Kristen Lopez called, Outbound On Air. All that stuff you can find on my website as well as, you know, you're always welcome to shoot me an email. I love talking to people and hearing more about their business, what they're doing, where they're trying to get to. So you can reach out to me directly, ben@brightreachsales.com.

Pete Neubig: And if you are looking at maybe hiring a remote team member to be that assistant BDM or to be that cold caller, we call them SDRs. We have a job description, everything right on VPM Solutions. You can email me directly at pete@vpmsolutions.com or just go to our website, vpmsolutions.com. Ben, thanks so much for being here today.

Ben Smith: Hey, pleasure as always, Pete. Thanks buddy.