Martinka Consulting's Getting the Deal Done Podcast
Martinka Consulting's Getting the Deal Done Podcast
Nick Anderson with OneAccord and John on Their Monthly Chat
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Another in the continuing series of business discussions with John and Nick Anderson, CEO of OneAccord. We discuss:
- The challenges of making money
- Revenue generation
- Margin discipline so revenue makes it to the bottom line
John Martinka
Jessica Martinka
Contact us via either website or give us a call and be sure to check out our blog pages with new posts weekly.
https://nokomisadvisory.com/
https://www.martinkaconsulting.com/
https://www.gddpodcast.buzzsprout.com
https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnAMartinka/videos
425-515-4903
Hey, welcome Nick Anderson. Once again, our regular uh monthly feature. Nick and I talk every other month on my podcast and the other months on his podcast. So again, this is the Getting the Deal Done podcast. And Nick is with One Accord. He's the CEO. Welcome.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, John. Really good to really excited to do this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So before we get into our uh our discussion and topics, and by the way, this is pretty unscripted. It's a general, general conversation about business and strategies and ways to improve. I'm going to tell you a little story. And that is talked the other day to a friend of mine. He's got a nice uh distribution company, does well, well into uh eight figures. And he told me, he said, look, first four months of the year we did 15 million in sales. We were behind last year. In May, we did 15 million in sales. And I said, uh, let me guess. The tariffs went off for a while. He said, Yep, they went off, and now we're ahead of pace for the year, but and it's very uh unnerving. And that's you know, I know one accord works with a lot of situations. Uh revenue on margin improvement.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just getting operations in line.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the I would say what you've just touched on is a top the list of why our phone rings are proverbial phone rings, or we get you know emails or inquiries from uh prospective, you know, folks looking to engage with us or referrals our way. Um the conversation starting with revenue. Uh there's there's always more to it than that, but that's where the conversation's starting. Um tariffs have been uh impactful. That's I mean, that just goes without saying, but there's also more to it than that. We're seeing a shift in in demand, shift in buying habits. Uh and I look at an a subscription-based e-commerce business that that I've been working with for a couple of years, and there's there's been a real fall-off in subscription-based revenue renewal. There's, you know, in the SaaS space, software as a service, uh, lots of people like to throw around MRR and ARR, monthly recurring revenue and annual recurring revenue. Uh, and I'm I'm starting to believe that for many, many SaaS companies out there, that's uh that is not what they think it is. That just because someone signed up for a year and there's an automatic renewal of their service, that does not mean that it's annually recurring. Um there's there's some there's some smoke, and where there's smoke, there might be fire.
SPEAKER_00So well, I agree because I uh uh last last weekend I just canceled one subscription we had, and we're looking at them closely, both business and personal, and how much do we use them? Is it worth it? Because they I mean, like the commercials for uh is it Rocket, you know, money or something, and they talk about how many how many subscriptions you have. Well, I got three or four. No, you have 15.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, people are starting to look at that stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'd say, you know, there's there's two sides of this conversation. I I'm we'll have more fun talking about uh how to generate the revenue, but I think we can go a little deeper here. As an example, um, consumer buying habits evolve, and consumers get wise to the ingenuity of entrepreneurs and marketing companies. So let's say three years ago, five years ago, seven years ago, let's set people up on monthly memberships. Well, today, the consumer, you know, from their app, they're going to their phone, they're downloading their app, they're paying for the one-year subscription, and they're immediately canceling. And so they they're blocking that automatic renewal. They've bought the service for a year, um, but they don't want to be forced into or or have that renewal turn over automatically without control. So, what do firms need to do? We we have to respond to the consumer. Uh, and so in the case of this particular client, we looked at a couple of their customer segments, and we actually introduced uh a new product that um a new level, uh a new level on their value ladder. So a freemium offer that has reduced value, it's commensurate with its price. So they get a little bit of the subscription service for free. They've never offered this before. And then we made very clear that additional value would be on the other side of the paywall, and we immediately increased their monthly average users by um the the number is up to 70,000 today, but there was an immediate bump, and we are adding now within this company somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight hundred users, new users every month that now have exposure to some of the products and some of the offers that are inside of the app that they wouldn't have had previously. And we're watching, because the you know, the tech allows us to do this very easily, we're watching where those free users are encountering some bit of content inside the app and then electing to buy because it's on the other side of the paywall.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So we're now collecting data on who are the folks that are coming in that didn't want to pay up front, but want the free experience, and then what is that asset within the app that is encouraging them to buy? Well, then we take those data and we begin highlighting those assets more publicly on the front end to get people to subscribe in the beginning. I'd say the other thing that we're shifting to do is um you know, we're we're exploring a lifetime membership. If somebody doesn't want to renew, but they want access into this, um, perhaps we offer a you know higher up the value ladder, and we're experimenting with price, and all of these things are are having an incremental effect on revenue to the to the positive as we kind of figure out what's happening with people who don't want to automatically renew.
SPEAKER_00So that's um well, you talk about automatic renewal. It's been a thing with uh streaming services for 10, 15 years that people would oh, I'll sign up for a streaming service, I'll binge wash a show, and then I'll cancel it and wait till the next season comes out. Uh but not everyone, most businesses don't have that recurring revenue. I just got done talking recently with a uh sales and marketing guy who you know he calls it re-occurring revenue. In other words, you have a customer. And let's think of someone who provides to Boeing. Yeah, they don't have recurring revenue, but Boeing orders parts and services through their different tiers every day, every week. And it's they don't want a supply chain disruption. So while it's not recurring with a contract, it's part after part after part.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yeah, that was, you know, as as you know, I spent 25 years in the financial institution, financial services industry. Um, I was a banker, and looking at uh consistency and uh durability uh of revenues, so for that manufacturer, uh how uh how long, for how long has Boeing been buying whatever it is that they manufacture? Has it been 10 years, 15 years? So that that has value. And I think in the kind of our current state, uh firms have tried to replicate that which is, like you said, just having a customer, a customer that sticks around by then kind of manipulating uh automatic renewal into subscription services that becomes, you know, we put a label on it, monthly recurring revenue or annual recurring inside of our firm, one accord, we just say, you know, how many of our clients are expected to be uh a client a year from now? Some of our engagements are short term, they might be six months or three months or nine months, and others could be 18 months or two years or three years. So we definitely uh you know track these metrics internally as we look at revenue concentrations and revenue mix um, you know, as we manage our business. We encourage our clients to do the same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, let's let's talk about the revenue and generation. You mentioned it before, you're gonna generate revenue. It's there's more than just getting subscriptions. Most businesses don't have that recurring element to what they do. So let's talk about uh revenue. First of all, generate your how how do your people help companies generate more revenue?
SPEAKER_01Um that's the that's the best question, and it's the one that you know we might get not the first, second, but it could be the third, fourth, or fifth. Uh, I am fill-in-the-blank kind of business. I have a fill-in-the-blank business. Uh, what should I do to make more revenue? And there there are people that that might have an off-the-cuff answer, um, but often it's not the right one. Uh two businesses that offer the same service or the same product don't necessarily generate revenues the same way. Uh, so we have to understand. We have to understand who is the ideal client, what is the product or service, and why is it different from its competition in the marketplace. Um, for example, here's a a great example that that we would use uh property and casualty insurance. You and I could go buy auto insurance from pick a brand, and we can Google insurance agent near me or auto insurance pricing, and we can pick, you know, based on some element of commoditization, whether it's price or you know, other kind of differentiators that uh that don't drive additional value, right? So, how does a property and casualty insurance company differentiate themselves with their commoditized product in a particular market? And the answer here is marketing, advertising and marketing. Um now I might look at uh a completely different industry, and that would be self-storage. How does a self-storage facility increase revenues? Um the answer is not necessarily marketing or advertising, because while self-storage is a commodity, I can go to um SureGuard or you know, here again, pick another brand, might be location based on on some level. Um there is a fixed amount of storage units in any given geography. And so the way to drive revenues in self-storage might actually be through pricing. And depending on the amount of inventory or how full the occupancy in the buildings are, um, nearing 95%, 90% and above, there might be a strategy actually to raise price to create more inventory and get that gap down to call it 85%. Whereas if inventories and self-storage might be below 80%, then we've got to look at maybe lowering price or offering some specials to entice some folks in. Uh, and I wouldn't necessarily call that uh an advertising play like I would with property and casualty insurance. So, two different examples of how two different industries would potentially address a problem. And even within that self-storage, given you know what are the challenges and what are the makeups of the particular facility, you know, in one case we might say raise pricing, and in another case, we might say lower pricing.
SPEAKER_00Well, and then let's talk about where that revenue goes. Uh, I'll go back many years and was had a company, and uh they were in a position of paying, well, their their salespeople all got a base salary. And the way it was set up is they got commission on top of that or bonus, whatever you want to call it, before the company was in profit from on their base salary. So if they were making five grand a month and they had a 50% margin, and you say five grand plus benefits and taxes, you're at six grand a month, means they'd have to sell twelve thousand dollars worth of business to get six thousand dollars to cut to break even on them and company profit, but they were getting bonus before they got to that twelve thousand. Yeah. And it looked like we will be polite, it just looked bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Listen, uh, you know, you're you're using you you're using some some good analysis there uh when you talk margins. And you know, it's my experience that uh gross margin is what you're referring to, that uh that is a lesser known data point in businesses than than I would feel comfortable with. So one of the first things that I want to understand in consulting with an owner or um entrepreneur founder that doesn't have uh an existing head of sales, VP of you know, marketing or sales, or chief revenue officer. So this is kind of the first time they're in that space. Just want to know what's what's your gross margin and how do you calculate that? Because there's there is some art in calculating gross margin as compared to pure science. So let's understand that. And let's understand if your sales team is selling three different offers, three different services or three different widgets, um, which of those are the most profitable? And does your operations team behind that uh can they deliver on those most profitable, or does the sales team like water follow the path of least resistance and sell the thing that they know they can get sold, uh, even though it may have a lesser margin? These are some some questions we might get into. Um and then how is your sales team compensated? So we use I use uh a revenue share. And some might say, well, that's crazy. Why would you incent people on revenue versus um net income? Why not a profit share? Uh well, revenue share in when I write a revenue share agreement for folks that I'm working with, it is above a certain threshold, right? So just addressing exactly what you said. Uh, you know, I might enter into a Rev share agreement with a uh marketing, advertising, or sales firm and say, listen, our our base monthly revenue number is two and a half million. So I will offer you a rev Rev share incentive for every dollar over two and a half million, but if we don't, if we don't get above that number, then I'll only pay whatever retainer we we agree to, right? Um so understanding that understanding the math and the margins and how that affects the bottom line, because not every revenue dollar is the same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're right, because and uh and some salespeople will not worry about margin and they'll just go out and sell, sell, sell, and it never makes it to the bottom line.
SPEAKER_01Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it does. And understanding that concept, it's a bit of a bit of a head trip. Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results that it does. Not the results that we want, but the results that it does. So if we're incentivizing salespeople on revenue and we don't have criteria in profitability or we've not set a minimum, then that system is perfectly designed to generate revenue that's unprofitable and to continue to do that because the sales team's gonna do what they need to do to make money. And this project might take you know nine, twelve, fifteen months to complete, is um we'll do a holdback on incentive compensation. So we'll pay out, let's say, 75% of whatever that bonus comp is along the way, but hold back 25% to the end of the project. Um, and it's subject to the project being completed kind of on time, on budget with the right profit margins. Um, and those margins are within the control of the salesperson. So we're not gonna penalize them for something they don't have control over, but you know, if they're if they're writing bids and if they're managing the work throughout, uh, so we don't end up um overpaying for for unprofitable work or less profitable work. So there's there's a lot of nuance that goes into kind of sales incentives programs.
SPEAKER_00There is.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And I've I've written uh dozens of sales incentive programs and sales management plans. Uh, and what I'll tell you is not a single one of them was perfect. Uh, but every one of them tried to get as close to perfect as we could. But somebody always finds a way through. I mean, always.
SPEAKER_00You mean someone finds a way to gain the system?
SPEAKER_01Um whether it's intentional or unintentional, the answer is yes. Uh somebody always finds a way to earn more incentive compensation than economically makes sense. So I don't want to say then then they should have, or was fair, because all it's all fair. If I wrote the rules and they played by the rules and they win the game, good on them. Um but not every yeah, they're they're just there's no such thing as a perfect plan, I don't think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we talk about revenue and we talk about margins.
SPEAKER_01And let's talk about advertising for just a second.
SPEAKER_00Well, I was gonna get to what happens after the gross margin, so let's talk advertising.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, so advertising is an is one of those expenses, right? S S GNA. Um So I was I was talking with uh with someone whom you and I know. It was uh one of our fellow uh executives from Seattle Execs, and we were having you know, sitting around the lunch table, and and he said, How's business? And I said, or no, he said, How's your summer, actually? And I said, I don't know, it looks nice out the window. I've had my head down. Um, and he picked up, like, oh, you know, you must be busy, and and we are actually. Um within our firm, we're on uh quarter four of sequential quarter over quarter growth and revenue. We're up 40% year over year. And I share this with him, and he's he says, Wow, that's not what I'm hearing from my peers. That's not what I'm hearing from the people that I'm talking to in the services space. And I thought, wow, okay, well, tell me what's going on. And he said, It's been really slow. Uh, some other firms are looking at, you know, uh taking PTO and taking some time off and enjoying the summer. And so here was the question that I asked. I said, How many of those how many of those guys that that you're talking about are spending $10,000 or more a month on advertising? And he said, I don't I don't think any of them are. And you know, these are companies in the two to five million dollar annual revenue range. Now, ad spend, we can look at peer groups and we can we can pull data that says, you know, in different industries and different spaces, uh, there are different levels of ad spend. Um you know, a million dollar a year company spending 10% of revenues on advertising, that's that's a heavy ad spend. Um that would make sense if they were intending to go up and to the right in a growth trajectory. Um so my my contention, my my thought right now, John, is that uh there are a lot of entrepreneurs, businesses that want to grow. And would spend dollars on advertising if they knew those dollars were going to be successful in generating leads and revenue. The trouble is nobody knows if those ad dollars are going to be successful in generating leads and revenue. And often the first ad dollars that are spent don't generate leads and revenue. And so firms just they just don't do it. They just don't do it. And I think that's I think that's actually costing a lot of opportunity.
SPEAKER_00But you don't know going in, will it work? You can track that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's some really clever ways through uh direct mail with a QR code that takes somebody to a web page and you can track that. Once you digitize the experience, you can track it. Um I've had really hit and miss uh I've had an on-off relationship with Meta and advertising with clients to trust the integrity of the data that they're presenting. Google's the same way. Uh they'll tell us that leads come through advertising. And I don't know if it's real or fake or bots, but there are data that come through. We can just we can just attribute. So, you know, we we ran a a weekend um meta ad campaign for a client. Uh we kind of tested something that hadn't been done in this company for a while. Um, and we saw what what appears to be an eight to one ROAS. And I break that down, R O A S, the return on ad spend, in this same period that we ran the advertising, we can look at um, you know, let's call it $500 in advertising and $4,000 in revenue.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh so then the question is, well, why don't we just do that every day? Right. Um, so we we then we're we're right now writing the the next campaign to see can we duplicate those results, right? That was good, let's do it again. Same company, we've run two prior ad campaigns with different offers, different services, and we haven't seen uh even a one-to-one return on ad spend. So if in that first campaign, you know, we ran it for 90 days and we didn't see the results that we wanted, if we had given up on advertising altogether, um that would have made sense. Next one, uh, we tried a totally different offer, different price point, something that had been successful in the past, and we didn't see the results that we thought. So there's two. You know, you get you take the jab and the left hook. Are you ready, ready for the next one? Um so let's let's give it a go. And boom, we we got one. We got one. So now we gotta see if we can duplicate it, right? Um, so I'm I'm just watching, I'll give you one more, one more anecdotal. This is totally anecdotal, but I'm I'm listening to uh an interview, podcast interview, and the discussion is around um the the younger generation today, so let's say 21 and older, I'm presuming, is consuming 25% less alcohol. That was the number that was shared in this conversation. I can't substantiate it, but um my observation anecdotally is yeah, that's accurate. There's less alcohol being consumed um today. My my my thought bubble, if you could see what was going on in my head, was that that yeah, kids kids these days, myself even, I don't I don't watch television where there are Budweiser commercials, uh Coors Light commercials, like there used to be. I don't have as many impressions, digital impressions, visual impressions, uh, that are promoting alcohol like like maybe I did 15 years ago, 10 years ago. Uh furthermore, you're not gonna open up a a magazine these days and see a full-page ad of a doctor uh endorsing camel cigarettes for your health, like may have been done. So here's my point. Is there a correlation between the number of ad impressions of consumer alcohol products and the reduction in consumer spending or consumer interest in in alcohol? I don't know, but that stands to reason. Conversely, um I'm also not exposed to as many Fruit Loops commercials as I used to be when I was watching Saturday morning cartoons.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well and as our clients wonder, well, how much how much is too much advertising? I just I I don't know that that the uh I don't know that the human being has changed so much that we shouldn't just continue to stay in front of our clients with our offer, um with our um with our brand promise on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that's always been something in sales is stay in touch, whether you know, whether it's on the phone or in person or these days on something like Zoom or Teams. But I'll throw another variable into your uh alcohol discussion. There are competing products that are legal now.
SPEAKER_01That was a part of the conversation too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um and I'm I don't know uh at all what the data would show as to if we if we took the total number of dollars that was spent on alcohol, if you now take the number of dollars that are spent on alcohol and call it substitute recreational, um, is it the same? Is the pie the same size and we've just divvied it up differently? Or has that that pie gotten smaller because we're just not exposed to these things um as regularly as we once were?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's one thing I don't know if we we really will know an answer. But it's an it's an interesting point. Uh, you know, and you're again you're talking about uh about sales and how do you increase sales, and maybe the traditional way of advertising things, marketing things isn't the same. But then that's a discussion that's going on for centuries. Is how do we how do you reach your customer, whether it's B2B or B2C, uh whether it's a low-end product, a high-end product, uh, and how do you more importantly, how do you keep customers?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You'll keep keep being a customer.
SPEAKER_01You know, human beings, we we haven't changed much in uh in a few thousand years that I that I'm aware of. Uh whether it's the the kid in the classroom that was always raising their hand and getting the attention of the teacher, or the the child amongst siblings that is the loudest and the most vocal about you know getting seconds at dinner or getting mom and dad's attention. When when you're in a crowd of people, the the person who gets the most attention is number one receiving the attention, but number two, often you know, thought of by many or talked about by many as being, you know, uh, for lack of a better word, annoying. Well, commercials on Saturday morning cartoons or Monday night football were annoying. But they were putting the brand impressions in front of us on a regular basis. Social media, there's you know, the the Metas and the Googles and the Twitters and the YouTubes, they're trying to figure out that right balance of allowing enough advertising in without people going off their platform. But the folks that produce content that shows up in feeds regularly, they're they're getting the attention of the people that are interested in buying what they what they're selling. And so, you know, I just think for every business that's selling, and here's the thing we don't sell to consumers. One accord, we don't sell to consumers. We're a B2B. Um, but my our buyers are people, and nobody is going to hire one accord because they read a LinkedIn post that I made. It's just not gonna happen. But I can walk into a room locally full of business people, CPAs, attorneys, bankers, and I will be recognized today because I show up in their social media feed. So I have you know some familiarity, some credibility, and then I can have that relational conversation with that person that will lead to business. So I would say advertising is is even more important for relational businesses, where some might say, well, you know, we get all our business through referrals, uh, so I don't need to advertise. And you know, I just think you're I think you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, you brought up an interesting point, Nick, that you mentioned Monday Night Football. There's a reason that all the major sports from uh college through pros are the are the most valuable properties for the content providers, whether it's cable, over-the-air networks, uh, streaming services like Hulu, uh, because those are the things people watch live. Everything else, Netflix, uh Prime, Apple TV, Paramount, you can watch it when you want. You're paying, so you don't have as many commercials. And you you can record a show off a network and fast forward to the commercials, but you can't be watching a game and it's an exciting game and they break for a commercial. You are not gonna say, Oh, stop it and I'll fast forward in two minutes. No, you don't want to miss anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's that's a great point. I mean, any uh any sports competition, take the Olympics, like that makes an even narrower window of you know viewing opportunity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, even a pay-per-view, a boxing event, or mixed martial arts where there really aren't commercials, there are brands who will pay lots of money to be printed on the the mat of the the ring because their you know their brand is is making an impression on those millions of eyeballs that are watched. So, anyhow, uh the just the idea of generating revenue, people need to know who you are, who your business is. Uh, and they need to know you know what you do, and eventually they need to know why you're different and why you're better. Um, those are difficult things to convey in advertising. Um hopefully we're getting folks farther down the sales funnel or the the buyer journey when they're actually considering whatever it is that that we're selling, that they want to lean in to understand, you know, why we're a better alternative. So then we're gonna shift from marketing into sales uh and that value proposition and you know closing sales. Um but I'm just I'm just of the belief that right now for many firms that aren't seeing um you know revenue growth that isn't directly connected, let's say, to you know tariff concerns. Um I think that advertising is is likely the opportunity that uh that they're missing.
SPEAKER_00And we're I'm not an advertising expert, you're not an ad agency. There are many different types of advertising, and from very expensive to very low cost, you can you know you can do your Facebook things for a consumer product. Now, you and I put something on Facebook isn't going to do anything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. That's such a good disclosure. I'm not an ad guy.
SPEAKER_00You're trying to reach new mothers. Facebook is probably one of the best things there is. And you just have, you just have there's no one you you started out, and what we can sort of wrap up here, going into there's no one size fits all. And what it comes down to is for you or me or others that help businesses is not to have your process, your methodology, but to ask questions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's I mean, it's the most frustrating. As an entrepreneur, if I'm looking to to somebody who's supposed to be an expert in an area, and I'm like, you know, hey, hey, Bob, you know, tell me what I need to do. And Bob's like, well, I don't know. I need to spend some time with you. I'm like, oh man, just just tell me what you know. Um, but I I respect I respect that, so long as he can actually deliver something after we talk for a little bit. Um But then there are some there there are some really fundamental questions to ask. And the first one is, are you advertising at all? And if the answer is yes, uh, are you advertising enough? And is your message going to the right people? I'd say getting your message in front of the right people is more important than getting your message right. And then getting your message right. So are you getting the right message to the right people? Um, and if that's if that's the case, then leads and opportunities are going to come your way unless you don't have your product or your offer priced right. So I could be talking to the right people with the right message, but my price might be too high.
SPEAKER_00So too low.
SPEAKER_01Or too low.
SPEAKER_00I mean, too low could mean people don't see value in it.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Right. So, so then there's there's a pricing question. And, you know, I can give the examples of the uh uh property and casualty insurance. They just needed to get their brand in front of the right people to get phone calls because they could close those, they could turn those leads into sales. They had a great sales organization. Then we have the the storage facility that really it was a question of uh of pricing. They needed to raise price to create more inventory because there was you know high enough demand. Um, or we look at the offer, and with our e-commerce business, we had to actually create um uh a low-ticket offer, a freemium offer that we could then upsell to because people were kind of hitting a barrier to entry into uh you know, seeing seeing what was there. And all of these took us time to figure out, but once we figured them out, we got the the foot squarely on the gas pedal, and and I'd like to say here here we grow.
SPEAKER_00You know, you what you're talking about, you know, the the person who says, well, just tell me what I need to do. Well, of course, it's yeah, I can tell you what you need to do, but it'll probably be wrong because if I give you a one size fits all, but I get the same thing. Well, what do you think my business is worth? Well, I don't know. Why don't we talk about it? Because if you have one customer that's 50%, and the guy down the street, same size, same industry, has top customer at 5%, that person's business is worth more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And yeah, yeah, I like I like to just say, you know, if somebody says, What what should I do? Uh I like to say, let's figure it out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do do you but but do you know what I should do? Well, I will. Let's let's figure it out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just like a doctor. What should I do, doc? Well, I don't know. What what's bothering you?
SPEAKER_01Yep. I mean we'll we'll get there. We'll we'll find we'll find the ache and the pain and and we'll get the you know, usually it's you know, get more sleep and have a better diet and get some exercise.
SPEAKER_00So any final thoughts, Nick?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, I I would I would say um for anyone interested in sales and revenue, growing their top line, take a look at advertising first. How many people in the world get to see your product, your company, your brand on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis? And is that enough for you to meet your goals? And if it's not, uh, that's probably the first thing to look at. And if you're getting your product, your service, and your brand in front of enough eyeballs, um, well, then there's some other there's some other things to figure out. But I would surmise that um better than 50% of folks that are listening that are you know really wanting to grow revenues uh are gonna stop at question number one and and have some work to do.
SPEAKER_00And then, but it's also knowing who who is on the other end of that because you know I started off this podcast with the story of my friend, and he's in the he supplies a product to the construction industry, very high-end products. Yes, his end user is the uh is the homeowner. The homeowner isn't the homeowner's gonna go to their architect or designer, and that's his marketing, or his marketing is typically aimed. Who's gonna recommend this product?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, great point. I mean, the the homeowner right might might write the check, but it is the architect or builder that's gonna spec the product. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when I had our house painted a year and a half ago, and you know, it's uh go to Sherwin Williams and pick out your paint colors. Okay. I mean, Sherwin Williams wasn't selling to me, but they sure sold to the painting company.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yeah. Really good point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So Nick Anderson, CEO of One Accord, our monthly chat. Uh it's been a pleasure, Nick, and again, we will talk next month at uh on your platform.
SPEAKER_01Looking forward to it, John.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay. This is the Getting Deal the Deal Done podcast. John Martinka with Nick Anderson. Bye.