Practical Ideas for Growth Podcast

00:00:34 TY HENDRICKSON:

Well, I'm so excited to get into this. For those that don't know my previous life, I was actually in sales at a couple different technology companies and that's where Brian and I met and he is now a a Rockstar business developer at Eisner and Burt. And so just bringing him in to talk a little bit about how he made that. Transition. You know what his biggest fear was from selling and to get some tips and tricks on how you can do what he does. So to get this started, I'll ask the $1,000,000 question that we ask everybody. So Brian? What is the was your biggest fear when it comes to selling?

00:01:16 Brian Friedman

Well, I think I'm going to. I'm going to relate that to making a switch for me because I spend about 15 years in software sales and then I made a decision to go from a leadership role back into an individual contributor role. And that was a scary thing for me. And then not only that, but moving from software back into the accounting. Where all those two combined were kind of like a thing that made me nervous. Like, is this really the right decision for me? And you know, three years later, what I can say is that it absolutely was something that I had to adjust to and change. But it it's something that took time and it was something I was able to get around and be successful with. So whether someone is as an individual individual contributor and wants to get into leadership. Or the reverse. Or someone wants to get into the accounting field and is not. Of course, anything's possible. I tell my kids you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. So anyone that's listening to this, I think they could do the same thing.

00:02:16 TY HENDRICKSON:

I love it. So your big fear was was translating that making the jump, right? Yeah, so, so tell me a little bit more about your role at ice rapper and kind of how you got there because you know you came from a sales background before you went into this. So tell me the history and what you do now.

00:02:35 Brian Friedman

Yeah, Bob was. I'm a director within the Business Development group at Eisner Advisory Group LLC. Because about a year ago, we created a partnership with Tower Brook private equity firm. And so I am tasked with bringing new revenue into the firm and that spans across all the different service lines that that Eisner offers. And you know, we could save that for another conversation, but I. Forgot the question.

00:03:06 TY HENDRICKSON:

Yeah, I asked him what you do. Kind of how you got here. So so go. Back a little bit.

00:03:10 Brian Friedman

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, I, you know, like I said, I spent 15 years with Wolters Kluwer, CCH, in a number of different capacities from a technical salesperson to a sales Rep to leadership. Roles and like I mentioned before I I was just kind of thinking about making a switch back to being an individual contributor. I have, you know, younger kids at home, and I wanted to be available and around and I thought that would be, you know, a wise decision for me just from a family perspective. And so I started looking and I really in my mind. I was thinking I was gonna end up probably at like a big four accounting firm and although I was in the process of interviewing with a. Few of them. I Wisner reached out to me on LinkedIn and I never even occurred to me to think about some of the larger national firms. And I was like, oh, you know what? I'll meet with them. I'll see what their story is. And honestly, I never really took it that seriously. And I mean, Long story short, three years later, it's an unbelievable firm. They treat their people so, so great. It's really quite refreshing to see what. They do here.

00:04:16 TY HENDRICKSON:

I love that I love. So tell me when you made that transition right there, there's kind of two things there. One going back to an individual contributor role. Is, a big scary step. From a leadership role, but. Selling professional services is definitely different from selling software or a tangible item. So how did you make that transition?

00:04:40 Brian Friedman

Yeah, that was that was not easy in the beginning for sure. And there was definitely moments where I was second guessing. Did I make the right decision? And that was me. There was nothing that the firm was doing wrong. It was just me as I was kind of getting adjusted to making the adjustments. It was frankly, it was. It was just diving in and I spent a lot of time going around to different partners and directors and even managers within the firm and just sitting down and talking with them and understanding, like, what do they do? What are their services that they offer and what are things that I should be listening? Board questions that I should be asking to help me uncover where there's opportunities where if I didn't know the questions to ask, I would just completely miss them. And so I just started kind of understanding the different service lines that the firm offered and by no means am I an expert in any of them. But I created a way that I could be dangerous enough so that I can sort of seem like I know what I'm talking about, but also I I know the right time to bring in the.

Experts within the firm.

00:05:47 TY HENDRICKSON:

And I love that. So we talk a lot about this with everybody that it's really hard to be an expert in everything. I talked to somebody the other day that said, you know, we've got 2 Swiss army knives in our big firm, you know, and they're about the only two that I. Feel like really know everything and and can be that person. And so I think one of the biggest challenges people have when they start in any type of sales is being able to say I don't know, right or you know feel comfortable with that. So how did that? How do you embrace that? You know, in your role, when do you bring in an expert and? How do you balance that?

00:06:22 Brian Friedman

So I think it really depends on the situation and the prospect that I'm dealing with. I also will sometimes handle inbound leads that we get, which is fantastic that we do get a lot of leads inbound. And so I will qualify the leads before I will bring in experts because that what I've learned. Over the three years that I've been here, is that of of the leads that we get, maybe 50% of them are actually qualified leads that will lead to potential business with us. So I feel like it's my responsibility to sort of filter out those that are the good leads from the bad leads, because I don't want to waste the the experts within my firm. I don't want to waste their time, right? I want them to know and think that when Brian puts a meeting on my calendar. I want to show up because it's potentially a new, you know, a new piece of business that I can put onto onto my individual box. And so you know, that's what I think about every case is a little bit different. So I will sort of try to uncover as much as I can to make sure I can qualify it before we get on the phone. Sometimes I will get on the phone with them myself and I would just sort of uncover and ask lots of different questions. I'll tell them probably a little bit about the firm. If they don't know. And then I'll sort of tee up the next step call and I'll now have a better idea of which experts I want to bring. Into the next call.

00:07:52 TY HENDRICKSON:

So you know, it's interesting the way you guys handle this because every firm does it a little different, right? You know, some firms, the the partners, are responsible for start to finish bringing in new business in some firms they have an inside sales team or a sales team that you know brings in new business start to. Finish. How do you guys? Break up the sales process you know within your firm and how do you work?

00:08:18 Brian Friedman

And you talking about with like the the business development team and like the partners?

00:08:23 TY HENDRICKSON:

The partners marketing all of it.

00:08:25 Brian Friedman

Yeah, I mean, we have a really robust marketing team and they're out there driving within our service lines. They're driving lots of content. So we're constantly putting out tremendous amounts of content, articles, blogs. Bugs, podcasts, webinars all the time. And so we're just always staying really relevant. I'll give you a quick example we have about probably about when I started about three years ago, we identified an opportunity within Puerto Rico. So for folks that lots of different. Qualifications to make it work. But for folks that qualify, they move to Puerto Rico. They can reduce their tax rate down from the US federal tax rate down to potentially 4%. And so we saw it as an opportunity. We put out literally one article about the topic and to this day, three years later, we get probably it's the number one article for generating leads on our website and we, I don't know the exact number that we get, but we probably get we probably get 50 to 100. Every year, just from that one. So kudos to the marketing team, right for driving content and for pushing our experts to drive that content. And so they, that's what marketing team handles, right? I'm sure they handle lots more than I just mentioned. And you know, there are lots of partners that will will drive business, but there are of course going to be the partners that that don't. And and so just figuring out the ones that are interested in in being in the sales process and there are others that you know really want to be more focused on the delivery side of it.

00:10:08 TY HENDRICKSON:

Yeah, so how do? You define selling.

00:10:16 Brian Friedman

Define selling? You know the the word selling right. I sometimes don't love that word selling because it feels like when we are, quote UN quote, selling a prospect that I'm trying to pull like a fast one on. On the prospective buyer. And so I like to look at it as I like to bring as much information and knowledge as I and my team possibly can. To put the buyer in a position to want to buy from us, right versus US trying to sell to them. And so that's honestly how I always think about it. And you know, just as it relates to the accounting space by bringing in the right experts at the right time to sell them or to help them buy. The services that are gonna make the most sense for, for whatever their business or their situation is.

00:11:12 TY HENDRICKSON:

I I love getting everybody's perspective on that question because that's the whole thing is I I feel like everybody thinks selling is icky, right? Selling is, you know, is is scary. It's something that we're doing to someone. And so kind of breaking that down to helping or serving or finding a solution. And like you said, bringing in the right people at the right time. Just kind of helps get past that mindset block. Now another question that you know comes up a lot is people. When they start to get into business development, whether it's actually in a business development role or whether they're early on in their career and they want to become partner, you know, they look at Someone Like You or rain makers in firms or. People that bring in business consistently and they think, Oh my gosh, I'll never be able. To do that right? Like. That just seems so far away. And and there's a there's a big block that prevents people from embracing it because they're like, I'll never get there. That's just too far. Away and I. Think one of the big things is understanding. That it is a long term process and there is there are a lot of steps along the way. So what would you kind of say to somebody about those steps or how to get started or you know what that process looks like in a more realistic way?

00:12:34 Brian Friedman

So two things come to mind for me as relates to that question, number one is time and and what I mean by that is to give it time. When I first came here. I didn't know anything right and and learning all the different service lines, learning the right people learning, you know who to bring, who's the best person to bring in for a prospect for this topic and that topic that makes a huge difference. And so that just takes time and frankly. It's still changing for me, so you know, in accounting firms, unfortunately there is turnover and so you may get really used to working with one or two specific people and you know they might go, they might leave and go somewhere else. And so you have to replace that so you know it's something that's constantly evolving and changing. So I think you have to give it time. When I first got here, let's just say, you know, I sold X and and you know, of course I wanted more and in year two I doubled X in my second year. And then in my third year I grew by 5050% over the year before. So. It takes time and for someone especially that's not coming in with either the experience or the relationships, and maybe you're starting fresh. You know, it does take time and if anyone tells you otherwise, they're not giving you the full story. Yeah, that, that's one. And the second thing, I'm sorry. You're no, I was just thinking the second question, the second part of that for me is and I sort of referred to this is. Just when you think about like relationship building and of course you want to do that, you know outside of the firm with networking and and thinking about who can you partner with attorneys, insurance brokers and lots of other bankers et cetera. But I also think about it with regards to networking. Internally, within the firm as well, and so. Putting COVID aside, one of the techniques that I had before COVID started was was once a day once or once a week. I was spending the day in the office and I would spend a good portion of that day sort of just walking around and just seeing who is there and just chit chatting with people and seeing what they're up to and. Just again networking internally within the firm right to figure out, you know, am I bringing the right people in? Are there new people I can be bringing in and it's just amazing what happens when you just get in front of people and you just chitchat with them. So just think about networking, not just externally, but also internally as well.

00:15:12 TY HENDRICKSON:

Yeah, I I think that's super important. And I think there's so many missed opportunities. You know, for those that are in a firm missing opportunities to cross sell or provide additional services or expand services because you get so involved in the day-to-day of what you're doing even as a practitioner, you don't necessarily know what else the firm can do for somebody. So your tip on you know what questions should I be answering? What questions should I be listening for? You know, that goes across the board for. Matter what type of role. You're in, right?

00:15:42 Brian Friedman

And that's a great point. I mean, there's many calls that I've been on where maybe the discussion is initially geared around like our cloud accounting services group, our outsourced accounting group and and we get into the discussion and I quickly identify that there is additional maybe tax opportunities that are on. That are at this prospect. But I don't have someone from the tax side on the call. And the reality is, is that you know folks that are in their serve. Clients may not know all the different offerings that we have or not up to speed. And so for me as a business development person, I feel like that's my responsibility to, to be able to identify those situations. And I mean that that happens quite a bit where you're not expecting you know opportunity be your C to arise. On a call and so as a business development person, by knowing the service lines that your firm can bring to the table and being able to talk about it is really important.

00:16:41 TY HENDRICKSON:

So let me ask you on that. Being able to talk about it piece, I think a lot of people get tied up back into that whole expert thing and they feel like, well, if I can't answer all the questions and I can't really go in detail on that service line, I'm not even going to bring it up, but I would assume. You know, you said I know enough to be dangerous. So you know, what is that balance to being able to talk about it and having the confidence to to bring something up that maybe. You don't know fully.

00:17:12 Brian Friedman

So I'm pretty confident in asking some relevant questions to get the the cursory information out, but of course I'm not an expert and. I will tell. The prospect once I sense that it's going in the direction where maybe they think that I am the expert, I will very quickly. You know self call that out. So they are aware that you know I'm on the business development side. I usually will tell them that at some point and that I am a facilitator, right and I bring in all the different experts along the way. So it depends on when and how I make that comment and bring that up, but I typically will bring that up pretty often. I have no, there's no shame in that. And it's something that, that and everyone should feel comfortable doing.

00:18:03 TY HENDRICKSON:

Yeah, I love the word facilitator, so I think that's a big take away on this that you're facilitating all the conversations and getting the right people at. The table, yeah. I think that's also. So another question along the lines of fear. So knowing that selling has a lot of ups and downs, right? And it can seem personal, even when it isn't. You know, the fear probably never fully goes away. So how do you what do you do to kind of manage your fears or or that emotional side of selling? I know you're definitely an emotional guy, Brian, but. You know, probably. But it's an it's an up and down process, so how? Do you mean it?

00:18:45 Brian Friedman

Yeah, being in sales is a roller coaster of emotions, right? You have your, your unbelievable highs and then you have your lows where you start saying to. I don't think I can do this. I'm terrible, right? And so the highest like I just, I mean everyone's heard this before, right? But when you get that super high, it's it's never as good as that feeling. Of how high you might be and when you're low. It's never as bad as the low moment that you're in, right? And so you just remind that remind yourself of that, think about how do I stay is even keeled? And you know it is a numbers game, so staying focused on driving whatever activity looks like and should look like for the roles that you know the listeners are in staying focused on on that your numbers right, because numbers don't lie. So just figuring out what those numbers need to be and staying relentless. To driving towards that activity.

00:19:40 TY HENDRICKSON:

Yeah, I I still remember going back to when I was telling you control what you can control, right? You can't control in the very end whether someone buys or not. But you can control how much activity you have. You can control how much outreach you do. You can control the conversations. Alright, so one final question. So what is the one thing you wish someone would have told you? Or maybe they did and you just didn't listen when you started. That would have helped.

00:20:08 Brian Friedman

I think probably what I referred to before, patients have patients in these in these type of roles because typically now of course there's going to be exceptions. Someones gonna listen to this and they just start their. First week and they're. Going to blow it out of the water. But that's probably the exception and not the norm, so being patient, understanding that it's not going to happen. Overnight and to your point, like being relentless to the activity, controlling the things that you can control and staying focused on, you know what you're.

00:20:42 TY HENDRICKSON:

Well, love it. Well, thank you so much. This has been a a great conversation. I appreciate you taking the time and I'm excited to see where things go in year four or five. And beyond for you?

00:20:52 Brian Friedman

Appreciate you having me.