1
0,00:00,000 --> 0,00:41,000
Welcome back to the Never Been Promoted, podcast. This is, Thomas Helfrich, your host. I'm gonna say YouTube channel too. Our YouTube channel's taken off a bit. So if you didn't know and you're listening to podcast, we we have, as of March 5th, passed 350,000 subscribers, and that's because of listeners and people like yourself. So if this is your first time here, thanks for coming. If you've been here before, you rock. I occasionally give out dad points. You both get 10 today. Spend them however you like. If If you can figure how to figure out how to spend them, share that with all the kids in the world. Today, I'm, still on my mission to create more entrepreneurs in this world, make them better at entrepreneurship in life. And today, I'm meeting with Andrew Deutsch. Andrew, how are you? I'm doing great.
2
0,00:41,000 --> 0,00:43,000
I just got
3
0,00:43,000 --> 0,01:12,000
promoted, so I think we have to cancel the 5th. No. That's okay. You could be promoted. You just can't join the cool guy club. So Oh, okay. Could I promote A Google you know, I'm sorry. Does that count? Cool person club, men and women are allowed. Just don't get in there. You're the CEO of a cool company, business growth, consulting, marketing experts, Fangled Group. That's correct. That's right. You wanna tell me about it? Introduce yourself, by the way. Thank you for coming. We've we've talked off camera before, so I I have to catch everyone up with our rapport. So,
4
0,01:12,000 --> 0,01:46,000
if you could professionally introduce yourself, that'd be great at this moment. So I don't need to pretend that we just met? Right. Okay. Good. So I'm I'm, I'm Andrew Deutsch. Our our company, the Fangled Group, is is an oddity in the in the marketing space. People come to us and say, hey. Can you build us a a website? And we respond why. Because at at the core of what we do, we wanna convert everyone you touch into voracious advocate for your brand. And the way that we do that is is through first building a true strategy before you start going to all those tactical expensive things that may or may not be appropriate for the growth of your company.
5
0,01:46,000 --> 0,01:54,000
Are you telling me that my me buying and redoing a website 4 or 5 times was a mistake?
6
0,01:54,000 --> 0,01:57,000
No comment.
7
0,01:57,000 --> 0,02:23,000
We've done that. So I I for those, entrepreneurs listening, if you're in that cycle where you have a website and you're about to redo it, you're about to do a website, you're just starting. I will tell you, don't overthink it if you're going to go down that route because you're going to redo it. I think Andrew's going to talk to you about a little bit is there's probably there might be some different ways to think about that. So before we get into kinda what you guys do for entrepreneurs and just businesses, though, so, Amy, you wanna give a little bit on your background and and how you got to that point?
8
0,02:23,000 --> 0,04:03,000
Sure. For the first the first half of my career was in global trade. So I spent spent more than 20 years overseas and and working, helping American companies, grow their footprint globally, whether it was finding markets for their products, revamping their their marketing understanding so that that other countries besides just translating a brochure that doesn't work, being able to penetrate those market joint ventures, and we do some sourcing work. But, our goal is really to grow the American economy, not grow theirs. So it was mostly finding markets for Americans. And then in the in the years of doing that, I I I grew very tired. I, at one point in time, I was about 7 years in a row. I was flying 300,000 miles a year. I was in 45 countries every year. I weighed about 360 £5. Decided decided it was time to get my health back. So so I made a shift and really took all that I learned in working all of these diverse markets and this network that I built in over over a 100 countries, to then really focus on helping companies use those skills to to grow here in the market. And you gain a completely different view of where those strategic advantages are within companies, and and we we started to do this consulting side of the work where private equity groups will reach out to us to help fix issues they have with companies that they bought. Maybe they they didn't know what they were getting into or haven't followed the proper path. We work with very small entrepreneurs. We've done extensive product development work based on the strategy, not based on, I think this thing is cool, and and really, really dug into the market in lots of different ways.
9
0,04:03,000 --> 0,05:22,000
You know, you're you have a I think this is cool. It's it's it's interesting, you say that because just like a nuance of marketing. Right? So YouTube, social media, whatever else. I find sometimes the videos that we create just like this, like a nuance, like microcosm of this. They're so I think they're really good. They're cool. They, like, they they keep my entertain my, you know, attention, and then they do the and then you create something that is is more it's aligned to some kind of like what's actually what people want to see. But you look at it like this is terrible. Like, it might be like a point of view. It might be you just talking to the camera. And I look at it like, this is just terrible. Why? And it does great. And I think that and it still rocks my brain when I see this because I'm like, I I think about that extract scrapulated from, you know, your company itself of you're doing what you think is good, but you don't realize that maybe it's not the right strategy in in it. And so you're like, that that repeats itself almost everything down into your business. Yeah. You have your right perception of the world, and you and it might be right or may have been right. But in today's world, it is not. So is is that a fair thing you see all the time? Well, first of all, you're not your market. You everybody thinks that they're the market. They're not. It's their customers into their market. I use an analogy that that makes me look old, but there was a
10
0,05:22,000 --> 0,06:04,000
time when you wanted to listen to music, you didn't stream it. You actually had to buy these discs that are now cut sort of playback in style. Have have you had a they scratched. So I would go to the record store, and there was a bunch of stuff in there that I would never buy. Well, if I was gonna open a record store, I would have to have those items because it turns out that my taste in music music is mine alone. And there are a few people that come along for the ride, but the majority of the world has their own value in what they like to listen to, what what gets them going, what gets them excited. So if you're building your business based on based on that anecdotal data of just yourself, chances are you you've eliminated 90% of the potential market that would be excited about what you do.
11
0,06:04,000 --> 0,07:03,000
Well, that that's a great so that's so here's a good reflection point for entrepreneurs listening. So there is a starting point. My my company is an example. So my company, Vincent Lee Relevant, we focused on solving a problem. Like, I started it to fix a problem that I had with finding leads and stuff through social media because the marketing departments and sales departments, the companies I work for couldn't do it. And my you know, your job is in line if you don't perform and everyone's pointing fingers at each other and you're like, I'm just gonna go solve it. And we started there because it solved my problem where I saw the world and I saw other people having it. But you certainly have to evolve it past your own problem. And so tell me about that step because, you know, when do you guys jump in? Because usually it's the founder has experienced the problem, at least the ones I've seen, and they they solve this. But where where do you guys jump in, and how do they maybe just describe that motion of moving from, you know, self centered problem to market problem? Sure. You know, and it's the first question is, you
12
0,07:03,000 --> 0,09:14,000
know, what what do you guys do? And rarely do we get that answer, you know, and that that tells us what they actually do. Who is your customer, and what is your market? So we we end up getting involved at the moment that somebody says, you know, what? We're really stuck. We we believe that there's so much more business out there. We don't know where it is. We don't know why it is that we're losing deals. We don't know why it is people don't wanna talk to us. Or the most common is, hey. You know, people see us as a commodity. We make a widget. Everybody makes that widget, and we're competing in in a race to the bottom for the lowest price. How do we get That's no. And it and it's usually solvable. I I can give you an example of of a company that I I did work for years ago. They make steel drums, and I've used this analogy a 1000000 times, but they would go to market talking about the fact that they made their steel drums out of, you know what, steel. And they made it in house and they painted it and they could pass testing. And all of the things that they were bragging about going to the hill saying, we're the we're the top of the hill because we do this we do this is what they call in poker table stakes, which you just have to have to play. So we did the deep deep analysis. We asked their top customers who were loyal to them. Why do you do business with these guys? And a bunch of other proprietary sort of questions that we do. We look to people who use them as a second source. In other words, we buy from you because if our good supplier falls apart, we can't go out of business. We'll get the rest from you and the people who stop doing business. And at the end of the day, what the research showed us was people didn't do business with them because they made it out of steel and whatever. They did business because when they called, somebody picked up the phone. When they had an issue, they didn't have to learn some complex RMA return system to get help 6 months later. We we learned that that there was manufacturing flexibility that they could switch lead times around in a in a crisis and help a buyer be a be a hero. And when we started to talk about that in the market, it completely changed from that strategic concept of that personal special touch, many of those second second source suppliers became the first, and the business grew in two and a half years from from about $38,000,000 to $85,000,000 in sales.
13
0,09:14,000 --> 0,09:33,000
They They were right in their assumption. There was more business out there. I mean, they Yep. And so what do you do in the in the other case when you get in there, and they don't they don't know? And there isn't. Like, if like, you know, like, the flip side. Like, I don't like, sometimes there isn't more market to get.
14
0,09:33,000 --> 0,10:12,000
Well, that's that's part of the research that we do. Alright. There we had a client not long ago through we were we participated with another group, with a large industrial concern that that had pretty much maxed out what they could do in the domestic market with the product that they've been making for years years. And that particular case was looking at all of their manufacturing capabilities. We did a deep dive into what else could they be making with the same equipment without it much additional investment to enhance the line that they produce. And we found several segments that they could dig into that had nothing to do with their core product product, but but added to what they were able to do as a company.
15
0,10:12,000 --> 0,11:01,000
It's amazing. And, you know, in your own journey, so you've built this company. You know, you came back. Let me take a small different angle here. You know, one of the chapters in my book is, you know, health is wealth. Right? Health matters most. And, you know, I don't know who said the quote, I don't actually attribute to anybody in the book. I see, you know, a man with his health has a 1000 dreams. A man without has only but one. And you made a conscious decision. Tell me about that, because there's a lot of a lot of guys in that spot and women, too, that they they've hit the road. COVID shove it shove it down their throat that they're not gonna hit the road anymore. But but how talk me through that stage because that from an entrepreneur perspective, that's sometimes how you become one. You change your perspective on things. So how did you what happened? So I was in the most intense part of my travels. I was I was and this sounds insane,
16
0,11:01,000 --> 0,12:48,000
but there were weeks where I was in as many as 8 countries in the same week. Oh, wow. And I was on a trip. I was huge. I was my my my my waist was about a it was a 48. Although later in the story, that'll that'll there's a reason I'm telling you that. I had been on the road almost nonstop that year out of the I think I was 280 days that year would have been my my travel schedule. The people in the office were being jerks. There was a guy that I worked for that that was bipolar and downright nasty. And I'm on a flight from Mumbai to New York New York. It's setting was 15 hour, 16 hour flight. It had been canceled the day before, so I'm exhausted. On that flight, I bent over to pick up my headphones that fell. Pants pants, 48 inch waist split from crotch to crotch to to belt to belt. All the people on the plane pointing and laughing and making noises, and I said, this is my moment. Screw this. I spent the rest of the flight on my computer, put my resume together, and said I'm gonna I'm gonna get a job. I'm gonna do something because I was working as an employee for a company at that time, not not in consulting. And when I got back, the the cruel person in the office had nasty things to say, although we had made made major sales during the time that, that I was involved. And I I said, you know, I came home, talked to my wife, and said, I need to be home. The kids miss me. I'm not being a good dad. And if I go on another flight, I don't know that I'm making home. I would walk up a flight of stairs, and it was, I mean, just exhausted. So I I that day, changed my eating, got my resume on the street, started interviewing, talked to to some recruiters, and within a couple of months, I had already dropped quite a bit of weight and, shifted gears. I ended up losing about a £160, and never looked back.
17
0,12:48,000 --> 0,13:14,000
Man. And and and off air, he told me he's actually a a a 5 a 4 foot 9 inch, Chinese woman. So he he's, Yeah. This is AI. He's tiny. This is just AI if you're looking at no. That is truly I mean, I mean, funny because you're like, it's amazing what we can do with AI. So that was a kind of a tangent. And me also deflecting a very serious moment. That's my also personality trait that I struggle with and get in trouble with my wife. Come good with that. But, you you did an amazing £160. You lost a human
18
0,13:14,000 --> 0,13:19,000
out of you. Yeah. I didn't lose it as much as I deposited it into the waste system.
19
0,13:19,000 --> 0,13:29,000
Right. But that's fine. Yeah. That's only, like, 6%. But what so so your health you you took your health seriously, and, like and how many how long, you know, you how long ago was that?
20
0,13:29,000 --> 0,13:30,000
About 10 years.
21
0,13:30,000 --> 0,13:40,000
So in in, like, in the last you know, you you you you keep it going. You create its new habits, new eating styles. You you got I bet you feel younger, more vibrant, and
22
0,13:40,000 --> 0,13:47,000
fulfilled now, I'd have to guess, than you did even 10 years ago. Yeah. Now when my nurse crushes my meds into the pudding, she doesn't put as many.
23
0,13:47,000 --> 0,14:03,000
Right. Do you see what he's doing there? He doesn't have a nurse. And if she is a nurse, it's it's in other context. So the, so so you you made that change, and you got a job. And then when did you decide then to say, you know what? I I think I'm gonna take it another step further and go do it for myself.
24
0,14:03,000 --> 0,14:42,000
Yeah. I I I stuck around there for about a year and a half and then moved on and and and had some client work, things that came up that that made sense to do. And I've done it's interesting because as as a consultant, I've done multiple clients at a time, and I've also done embedded projects where I became part of a company Mhmm. For a period of time to get to next level. For example, a private equity group buys a company, and they they need to sell sell. And they need someone to come in and straighten out the marketing sales and operational part of the business, I would go in with a title and and run that part of the business while I'm still doing some side consulting. And then once that project's completed, move on to the next.
25
0,14:42,000 --> 0,15:40,000
So Yeah. That's, I mean, that's that's great work. And you're, you're you're, you're drawing a lot of base. I like to find these reflection points. The reason you did this and got to that as opportunities is during your career. So if you're I mean, it depends on where you are. It doesn't matter. You can always start what I'm about to say. But, you built a network of trust and people that trusted you, and you had capabilities that weren't just BS. And and I think if you're out there, you know, and you're in a job or you're you're trying to figure it out, if you've done this, you're in a good spot to be able to call upon that network because people are gonna respect what you didn't trust. If you haven't done this, you gotta be honest with yourself. You know you got some kind of an obstacle coming your way that you're gonna have a tough time or you've overvalued your network really. So you know if you're kinda self centered. You you you do. Mhmm. Just know that people know that too, and they've tolerated it or they've done it. So what's your kind of take on that from an advice standpoint? The career started with the, oh, yeah. I know how to do that, and then I had to prove it.
26
0,15:40,000 --> 0,16:59,000
You know? Yeah. I have done that before, you know, back back when I was in my twenties. But now I'm very honest, always transparent with a client. I've not worked in your industry, but the parallels to what I've done in the past are these. So, you know, it's it's I've worked the the the most recent project that I worked on, I spent a year in Maryland with a a brilliant CEO, a brilliant owner of a of a home services company that we we work to restructure the business. I've never once, worked for it was a they do power washing and junk removal and holiday lighting. I've never been involved in in that field. But all of the core learning, the parallels to to what I've learned from other businesses were ideal, implement within that to really bring him the growth and separate him away from what they call in their industry, Chuck and a truck, you know, the guy the guy the guy with the with the sleeveless t shirt who shows up to power wash your house and and destroys it and or and a legitimate company. So how, you know, how we we we use these skills about not discounting about how how to really value who you are, build your brand, be be the most trusted source, all of those things, in a way that now he lets those guys get the cheap, you know, $100 house washes that you don't make any money on money on and and changed his business to go after commercial and the high dollar tickets. But Yep. All of that was very similar to what I've done in other industries.
27
0,16:59,000 --> 0,17:51,000
Yeah. And your your, you know, you've set yourself up well-to-do lots of stuff. If you were, if you were giving advice to somebody out there, let's say, that's like you that was in sales, There are sales you know, you you probably had the the depends on the company's workforce. Sales marketing sometimes is blurred. But, you know, what do you what kind of advice do you give to that kind of professional who's just sick of it? Who's got I mean, I do funny videos about asshole bosses, and just ridiculous situations, but they're based in reality. And it's and it's a big reason why people leave. You described it like the bipolar boss. Actually, you know what? My next video is gonna probably be the bipolar boss. I think that's a good one. I'll take well, you know, I'll have to come up with a script with that. That'd be fun. Yeah. You're like, oh, I got content. What do you what advice you wanna give specifically to that sales professional, that person who's just, like, on the road? They're just they're just done with it. Like, where where do and they're like, where do I go with this?
28
0,17:51,000 --> 0,19:02,000
Well, first of all, the the one of the challenges that most salespeople have is they think, well, if I get off the road, I can become a salesman. And if they're a successful salesperson in the field, everything that they've learned on how to be that that hunter, growth oriented, you know, sales is everything that you need to forget to be a sales manager. So that sometimes isn't an option. There's a great book. I think it's Goldman wrote, what what got you here won't get you there, which talks about that that that all the all the skill set that you learned doesn't take you to the next level because it's a different thing. So either either either take a step back from at a process level, because most guys in sales like, I worked in the strapping industry, plastic strapping, and I've seen resumes as a plastic strapping res salesperson. Take a step back from from at a process level, you're not a strapping salesperson. You're an end of line packaging salesperson or you're industrial a b to b salesperson. And through that, you can find other areas where you can go to the market to sell that may be less travel intensive, less, with in a better better environment, a company that actually doesn't treat you like like the help
29
0,19:02,000 --> 0,19:10,000
as opposed to part of the team. But what if they wanna become an entrepreneur? Like, what what kind of skill sets do you think transfer over to to their own Yep.
30
0,19:10,000 --> 0,20:34,000
There's a lot there's a lot that you have to learn because going out there and selling selling, you're not involved in the product. You're not involved in the development. You're not involved in the bureaucratic stuff. You probably have very limited understanding of a p and l, balance sheet. So you really need to train up. What I always tell people is don't quit until you're ready, and that being ready means take some courses, learn, get involved in groups, dig in and understand better so that you've got a basic thing. And then also think about what is it that you're passionate about? On the other hand, don't turn your hobby into a profession as most people who do that do that, unless they're an artist artist, find find grief find grief in in destroying what it was that they used to love. Mhmm. But there's you know, it really and at some point, you have to be ready ready to take the plunge, make sure that you've got enough reserves because nobody everybody sort of does their their silly math. You'll hear it all the time. Well, there's a market of a $100,000,000,000 in this space. And if I can just get 1% of it percent of it, really, what's your plan to get the 1%? Right. What what can you do differently than all the other people? What's what does the market look like? You know, there's there's there's always a niche in a in a commodity style market where you can thrive. You know, every You're up. Has that supermarket where everything costs double, and they're always full because the service level level makes them wanna go there.
31
0,20:34,000 --> 0,21:32,000
You're you're really hitting on something there. Don't make your hobby your next business unless I would say this way. There are some times that make sense. Mhmm. Mhmm. But if you're gonna have to depend on it for your income, you gotta treat it like a business still. Yep. What that'll give you is the fire and the passion and the which will drive the resilience you're going to need in moments of reflection. And when things aren't going well or you're that but but, you know, you're risking and it's other risk. You're risking hating that at the other side of it, like like really resenting that you did it. And and then there's these bigger career things like, oh, I've just stayed there. If I just done, you know, as an entrepreneur, get that out of your head and just because you're gonna be if you have a boat anchor, you're gonna, oh, you know, oh, I'm gonna just go get drop them all. Just unsever the ties. Like, you know, I I I joke with my cut the tie, but that's the whole idea. Cut the tie to all of it so you can go fast and you can go where you need to go. Otherwise, you're not going anywhere.
32
0,21:32,000 --> 0,22:24,000
Yeah. And and really mean into your creativity and and and and your gut. If you've been successful at what you're doing and now you're gonna be an entrepreneur, recognize that you do know how to be successful, and you also recognize the pitfalls. And the other thing is to learn learn from is you you say you you about bad bosses that you write. Learn from the worst bosses you ever had so that you know how not to be. I mean, I've I've worked I worked once with very early in my career with a guy who was an absolute pervert, and it was the greatest thing ever because I really saw the effect of people who do the kinds of things that he did, and I'm extra cautious to not behave that way. I guys that yell and scream, I I know how that works. And by the way, if you're gonna yell and scream, make it a one off and watch how it impacts people as opposed to it every every other minute.
33
0,22:24,000 --> 0,24:16,000
Yeah. You so with the pervert, I had a Colorado College professionals consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers. They're a director partner over this thing. Our our team dinners, this is like dotcom phase, we're at a strip club, and we had one female member who apparently didn't care or whatever else. But the point being is, I'm thinking that is probably not the most appropriate place even you know, it was great when you're 22, 23. You're, like, thinking I'm thinking, like, that is that is not the right example. And how can you get fired? I have no idea. But you're you're you make a good point. The little nuance things you might thought would be okay, which might be like, oh, it's fun to get drinks, but if you get smashed, if you're flirty but become perverted, you you see the small stuff being like, I don't think I really wanna drink there. I don't think I should even make a comment of any type that might have been funny. But if you don't have the awareness to do this and you're around people doing this, you're probably doing it. You're probably you're participating to some degree, and it's really hurting you. So I think that's a really good observation is learn learn from the mistakes of others. And when you go on your own, apply it. Let me pivot to your business just a bit. Sure. Sure. You know? And and and I don't not not to sound a shameless plug, but I'm curious. Like, how do you know, who do you target size company and why? Because I think this is sometimes a a part you're helping companies with this, but I want you to talk about how you did it and thought through it because this is a big problem for a lot of entrepreneurs is they sell to too many, even if they've niched down. And maybe in my own example, So I know like we do a lot of individual work with our company, Instant and Relevant. I know I need to just put a little more effort and time into that mid market marketing companies because they it's budget versus people's money. Right? So so I know, like, I know we need an issue now, but how do you think about it, and how did you think about it for yourself? It's it's a it's a it's an interesting question because it's changed over the years.
34
0,24:16,000 --> 0,25:48,000
At the very minimum, I have on my my scheduling system what I call the pick my brain session session, which is something that I do that I don't even charge for. Usually, 3 a week at the most. Someone can get 30 minutes of my time at no cost to flesh out an idea, share a grief, deal with with something that they need help with as an entrepreneur. Because eventually, those people own businesses, and they're gonna need bigger help. And then and I also get a kick out of doing it because I get to practice what I do with ideas I've never even heard of before. I've had some of the weirdest product ideas there. At the top end, we've worked with Fortune 100 companies. So in terms of the mix, the trick is for us to balance between not having too many large clients at a time because then we don't provide that service. But so, you know, we may the ratio is typically, we have one larger client client, 2 or 3 medium sized clients and several smalls smalls. And mediums clients are that sort of up to, like, a1000000 to 10,000,000 in revenue, and then everything else is sort of that below. But I've also gotten to the point to where I'm more interested in the connection with the with the client, whether it's a right fit for us both ways. Because it doesn't it doesn't matter how good a work you think you can do with somebody who's looking for a consultant to prove that, they can't win. And that Well, you you you're for one more reason. It's like it's like I've always said that the the number one cause of obesity in America is diet books because people read too many of them. If you pick 1, you'll be fine.
35
0,25:48,000 --> 0,26:35,000
That's a really that's a good point. And coming back to your revenue strategy, so I don't know if it's the right term, but I think having a conscious revenue strategy of where you want I agree. You know, I've been in the spot we've had and you don't say no to it. You get a couple of large clients. It's awesome. But I know I was like personally like, oh, man, if we lose either one of these, we're, you know, we're in trouble. So making sure you have the right offering to come downstream to have volume. So when the pebbles fall off the mountain, it's not half the mountain. Right? It's it's like small ones are going in and out. So you have to balance that kind of how you build your your kind of, you know, your wash away because of what it'll be. And I think that's a really good point. Now, if you can have lots of big clients and you can manage your costs correctly, good for you. Go do it. That's usually not the reality of most
36
0,26:35,000 --> 0,27:42,000
entrepreneurs, smaller businesses. I I could. The question is whether they would get the attention that they're looking for. Because at the end of the day, the center of the brand is myself. I've got great people that we bring in. I mean, the reason the business is called the Fangled Group isn't that I have hundreds of employees. We group together the right freelance people specific to the market of the project that we get. I always say most marketing agencies don't have the staff for their next client, and they didn't have the staff for the client they have who's now being served. So imagine, you know, we we focused on this this home services business for the last year, and a guy comes to me with a solar cell manufacturing company. Those people that were involved in in building that home service market don't have the skill set or the background of the understanding in their careers to be dealing with solar cells. So instead, I will go back to the pool of all the freelancers that I know all over the place and put the team together, a group specific to that project. And if I don't have those people in the pool, I'm transparent with the client and say, hey. We're gonna need time to to to build the right team for it, or we can't take you on as a client because we're not interested in helping you fail.
37
0,27:42,000 --> 0,28:23,000
That's a good point. And I think the takeaway I would always and I and I we do the same thing with our marketing company. We have staff for a specific our tipisphere. So we help people with LinkedIn. You come to us. We know LinkedIn. It's us. We do it. Those are our resources. We don't ever take a customer actually, as of this point unless we've met with them on LinkedIn first because if they need websites, they need email, let's say they need something else, we're using partners, the network we have. Mhmm. And and and the reason is and I and and you just explained something that was important there. Be transparent about it. You're paying us to solve problems and be thought leadership to find the right group so you don't have to and get it done. That's the margin. That's your that's why you get paid.
38
0,28:23,000 --> 0,29:10,000
And in the discovery phase, this is something I've I've I've for me, and many disagree with this statement. So if you wanna disagree with me, I'll I'll be happy to I disagree. You haven't made it yet. Okay. Then we're good. But a lot of times when I'm dealing with an area in the market that I've never dealt with before, the discovery part, we're we're better at because the inquisitive part of discovery in an area that I don't understand, all of my bias from that market is gone. Mhmm. So if somebody comes to me with an end of line packaging, I have a very strong background in in strapping and boxing and palletized, all that kind of stuff. So those biases sometimes come into the into the discovery process. Whereas if somebody comes to me with some technology I've never heard, the inquisitive part of that to really understand it allows us to dig deeper than we would otherwise.
39
0,29:10,000 --> 0,29:53,000
It doesn't mean that we can take on the project, but we certainly can give a preliminary discovery report that they could take to another agency that would that would help. Well, you're also describing a a sales model where you know, I got 20 years or so consulting in me. So if you win the assessment, you have the best shot to win the next part of the deal. Mhmm. And if you can and if you have a good assessment theory and you have a good way of presenting next steps, road map, strategies, and identifying where you fit and where they just need to go outside Yep. You're gonna get a lot more work around it, or they're gonna come to you first to be like, hey. Do you know a guy, or do you know somebody who does this? Yeah. And you and I think that part of business, a lot of people tend to skip sometimes. They go in presuming the answer before just taking even a small business, just taking a moment to understand the problem and the context fully.
40
0,29:53,000 --> 0,30:43,000
Yep. And sounds like you do that really well. Let's go back to what I said originally. We would help you convert every touch into a voracious advocate for your brand. Not every customer, not every, it's any touch. Because many times we've done these discovery calls where where we recognize that that's not a fit, that we're not the right people. But most of those lead to referrals because they go, wow. This guy could have taken my money, and he chose not to because it would have been dishonest, which means he's honest. So so they'll they'll they'll talk about it, and they'll the next thing I know, someone from a different industry will be calling me and saying, hey. This this person, recommended you, and and it becomes it becomes a client. It's you know, every every time you answer the phone, and you're rude to someone because you're busy and they're not potentially a customer, that's a lost opportunity to make an advocate for your brand. Yep.
41
0,30:43,000 --> 0,31:27,000
What it I I've subscribed the model fully, so part of the systems that we've created for networking and social media Mhmm. You, you know, if you can take a 15 minute networking call so I think it's probably how you and I came in connected potentially originally. I know it's been a while. But you do it with the idea of, I just wanna hear about what you do. And if I think I I can jive your personality, I'll definitely put more time and invest in getting to know your business and and and referring the right people to you if the situation comes along. Like, you know, I might might not be actively out there, you know, working for you, but if you meet the company that's supply chain that really needs help with their strategy or go to market, like, I got a guy, you know, to meet him. And that's how it happens. And and that I think that's what you're talking about. Like, just make an impression. I'll give you a crazy example. This one I always thought was hilarious.
42
0,31:27,000 --> 0,32:43,000
I'm working for a company at the time, that had the same name as a few other companies. And one of the other companies that that had the same name was in the sewage treatment business, and we were in the plastics business. So the phone rings and a guy starts talking to me about his backed up sewage system and needing parts or whatever. And I had to stop him and say, well, you've called the wrong wrong of that company company. That isn't what we do. He said, well, I don't, you know, I don't know how to reach them how to reach them. And I said, well, the last time this happened, I wrote down the phone number. Give me a second. I went to my desk and pulled out my my little file. I said their actual phone number is this. This is their location. And if I'm if I'm not mistaken, the person in sales you wanna talk to is so and so. He's, well, you're really helpful. I said, well, I I I understand. You've you're frustrated. You tried to call. You got the wrong company. You're dealing with shit. I would hope they I would hope that they would do that for us for us. So he said, okay. Whatever. 2 days later, the guy from the sewage treatment company that he was trying to reach reached out to me to say thank you. I gave him our information. Nextdoor was a a customer that we needed needed, that we wanted and and had never been able to sell. He has lunch with the the head of purchasing. We ended up picking up an account because I had given a guy a phone number.
43
0,32:43,000 --> 0,32:46,000
So That's crazy. That Every touch
44
0,32:46,000 --> 0,32:49,000
every touch can lead to to something great great.
45
0,32:49,000 --> 0,33:41,000
Well and you you did it. And so here here's the takeaway. You did it with authenticity, without expectation of reward. So it wasn't like, you know, charity philanthropy for profit or, you know, I'm getting to know this guy, so he'll introduce you to product. You could be you could be that strategic with it. That's great. But at the end of the day, if you truly help people and you they know your value and you're it's not a waste of time. And, actually, the truth is it's just a good way to be a human. So entrepreneurs out there, be good people, help people. Good help. Actually, I I tell you this. I don't like working with, I'll meet I'll do a lot of networking. I can I'll meet people that just seem incredibly arrogant and fool themselves, who have just no desire to help anyone else but themselves. I I exclusively don't put them on the podcast or work with them. I just because I just don't like that brand and that type of person. Of course. At that at that same company, I was the only one who spoke other languages.
46
0,33:41,000 --> 0,33:57,000
Whenever somebody would call speaking a foreign language and come to my desk, and it turned out our eight hundred number was 1 digit away from the I lost my credit card line at 1 of the Visa companies. So I would get people from speaking Spanish. You can give me their credit card numbers all day before I could tell them they got the wrong number.
47
0,33:57,000 --> 0,34:14,000
It's no. Listen. You know, conscious of time, right, I I I I wanna hear maybe on your own journey, what are some, like, you know, things you've done, books you've read, podcasts you listened to, you know, mentors you've like to tell me kind of about your journey of how you've improved yourself.
48
0,34:14,000 --> 0,36:45,000
Yeah. I I in terms of of self improvement stuff, I've done quite a bit of of reading a a variety of different different sales technique books to show me how not to sell sell because I'm I'm really tired of the the strong-arm, background stuff. But I think the biggest learning for me was my my undergrad is in international trade, but my master's is actually in in counseling psychology. And through that, I became, way back in the early days of it, very strong in in the study of neurolinguistic programming and and, basically, purchasing strategies. So instead of getting focused on every every sales books out there is another version of of, you know, the art of war or that kind of crazy stuff. So most of the stuff that I do is sort of offbeat from from the the main. I read a lot about philosophy. I I read a lot about about psychological issues, human human stories to to help understand people better. Because at the end of the day, it's it it is about the people. There there aren't many podcasts out there that I spend a lot of time on. I do pick up and watch and and look at different things off and on, but I I'm I'm tired of the, what, the ego path the ego cast, which is basically someone comes on and tells you how wonderful they are, and here's a guest who's also wonderful. Listen to his wonderfulness. And there's no real meat. There's no there's no learning to come from it because it's the same story you've heard again and again. Recently, I'm trying to think the the the most recent podcast that I listened to I listened to because it was someone who I really find offensive in the way that they do business. And I really wanted to dig in and understand what what it is that created the cult around this individual and and how can we start to inform people that that that joining these cults only only line the pockets of the guy with the podcast, but don't benefit you as a business person. You know, if You're not referring into any political candidates for 2024 right now, are you? No. I'm not. I'm talking about I won't I won't talk politics on a on a business podcast. But, know, if you you go to us you go to a a seminar, and the entire seminar is about selling you the next seminar with promises, and each one is escalating more and more expensive. And you start talking in the cult mentality of I'm the only one that can help your business. And if you follow only my technique and they get people as as followers, it's no different than indoctrination in a cult.
49
0,36:45,000 --> 0,36:48,000
I think you're describing the Grant Cardone.
50
0,36:48,000 --> 0,36:51,000
Scope covers.
51
0,36:51,000 --> 0,37:16,000
I mean, so I have been to them to be full transparency, but I look at that with my marketing hat, which is what you have, and I it looks so egocentric. And then a friend of mine went to it, and he said, I spent 6 weeks prior fighting off salespeople and then 6 weeks after. And then the entire time there, talking about, I don't wanna upgrade my package. I don't wanna go do that. I just wanna and and you said the whole thing was so
52
0,37:16,000 --> 0,37:34,000
Yep. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. If someone were to tell you that they have a university, would you believe that it's actually an accredited affiliated, or is it just a scam to get you to believe that the the generic training they're doing has some higher level?
53
0,37:34,000 --> 0,38:12,000
I don't believe much of what I see in marketing. I think if, I I you know, that that's where, you know, I'm not saying that's you were describing, but I see those type of, like, hey. You know? And good for him. He's making tons of money. No. Not good for him. Like like like, that's what he I but teach their own is just not the way a business I would do. I would wanna add value. I I think I think, like, a Tony Robbins is a better I I know people who've gone to those. They feel like they got great value out of it. They felt inspired. They came back better people. The people that I know that have gone to those other ones, they learned some stuff. But what I heard was them spending more money, more money, more money, and I'm not sure, at the end of the day, they can execute it. Yeah. But, yeah, it's interesting. There there's
54
0,38:12,000 --> 0,38:35,000
there's just so much going on out there to to stick their hand in people's pockets, and they're all using the same same indoctrination techniques that the MLMs of the world do, that the radical cults, offbeat religions, all of them use to to get people to to reject their their reality and and and give up all their money.
55
0,38:35,000 --> 0,39:28,000
It's amazing. People are probably, oh, how do I do that? Exactly. The entrepreneur model that's not what we teach here, in Never Been Promoted. We teach you to be a good person and go build a real business that's sustainable, that helps the world. Those I think those things help in the an individual and does not help, I I I you know, oftentimes, it happens often is that you get sued, a class action for stuff like that. I think I think that's that that's the endgame that is now that I believe that's happening now to the person whose whose name you just mentioned. Yeah. I think that and that's often the case. When you you make it full of shit, eventually, the it goes away. So, you know, I just listen. Conscious of time too, and, I wanna make sure everyone knows how to get ahold of you and who should get ahold of you. And and I'm okay saying, hey. Listen. If you're this kind of person, don't get ahold of me too. But just tell me who or who not and how.
56
0,39:28,000 --> 0,40:37,000
Yeah. The the folks that we that we wanna talk to, if if you're feeling like your business is stuck in the space of a commodity, you're doing what a 100 other people, a 1000 other people do, and you're you're at the at the rocket to the bottom of price, we're probably the guys you wanna talk to. If you're making or selling something that is really, really difficult to explain to the consumer, one of the most common referrals we get are I talked to George, and he said he said your stuff is your your product is too complicated. You should talk to the guys over at Fangled. And and then the other is if you're developing a product and you really wanna go back and and understand. One of the most common projects that we do for clients these days is an attractiveness study, market attractiveness. So if you're really you've got 30 or 40 different places that you could go with your product and you're all over the place, we do the comprehensive study, the very low cost to find what are the top three markets that you should be going at and build the strategy to go after those markets before you you you continue to to move into a 1000000 different spaces. We we're basically the guys that get rid of the shiny object syndrome of of a business owner.
57
0,40:37,000 --> 0,40:38,000
So,
58
0,40:38,000 --> 0,41:06,000
size size isn't as important depending on where we are, in terms of our client mix at the time. And did did all you should just go to Fangled Group dot com? fangledgroup.com. It'll lead you to our website. I'm on LinkedIn, and I'm that guy named Andrew Deutsch that looks just like me. You'll see him on LinkedIn. Looks just like you too. It's crazy how how that works. He's he's very good. He's a very good looking guy, that dude, on LinkedIn. Really good. Slim down. You could tell that guy that guy really works out. No. It doesn't. No.
59
0,41:06,000 --> 0:41:8,000
Andrew, thank you for joining me today. I appreciate it. Thanks. I really I really had a great time. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you. And, guys, listen. Go to fangledgroup.com. That's Fangled group. I would if I was cooler, I would select, you know, Foxtrot, Apple, and then people couldn't win anyway. So fangledgroup.com. If this was your first time coming here, thanks for staying to this point. And if you've been here before, you know, I super appreciate that as well. They're coming back. You know, our mission, once again, we want more entrepreneurs. We want them to do good. We wanna create great businesses and be better at life, and have the right balances in in entrepreneurship to get there. You know, until we meet again, you know, thanks for listening to Never Been Been Promoted podcast and and visiting the YouTube channel. But get out there, really. Unleash your entrepreneur. Go go find somebody who's in entrepreneurship if you need to get mentored. If you're if you're an entrepreneur yourself, I don't care where you are in your journey. Go find somebody to help mentor because your story is valuable. It it really will help wherever someone is in their journey along your way. Thanks again for listening, and until next time, have a good night.
