Deep Specialization Podcast_Sam Shepler_EP 61_Podcast_Interview
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Specialization Podcast. The show where we blend focus, strategy, and client intimacy in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show. Today, I'm joined again by the CEO of Testimonial Hero, Sam Shepler. Welcome, Sam. Thanks, Cory.
It's great to be here. I really appreciate you having me back on for round two. Yes, you're the first guest on this show who's been invited back, so you must have done something well the first time. Truly, truly an honor and a long time listener as well. So yeah, really appreciate it. That's awesome. So kind of jumping into where we left off.
Well, actually, before we do that, uh, let's, let's give the listeners a little bit of context about you and Testimonial Hero, the work you do. So what could you share about that? Yeah, so Testimonial Hero, my agency, you know, we are a tech enabled marketing firm focused on all [00:01:00] things customer stories. So, essentially, we help B2B companies easily create video testimonials, written case studies, and, you know, all other essential customer collateral, so they can generate more leads, accelerate their sales cycle, and, you know, Hopefully drive revenue faster.
So very much living that, you know, that deep specialization, you know, life that I think, you know, we talk about so much on this show, right. Is, is that, you know, we're specializing in a specific problem that we want to solve as well as, you know, a vertical too. We actually do, you know, we have, we have verticals, but I would say we're most deeply entrenched in B2B software and technology.
Yeah. And I love that. I love that you have become dedicated to solving this problem of customer stories for businesses. How long have you been, how long has the business been around? What could you share about the number of employees or clients or [00:02:00] revenue or anything that you're comfortable sharing?
Absolutely. So I started the company in 2018, beginning of 2018. Before that, I also ran a generalist video agency for about four years. So like, it's kind of like a continuation of everything I've learned in. Yeah. Running agencies. It wasn't my first agency, but today, this year we should do, you know, four, maybe 5 million in revenue top line.
And yeah, that's probably a safe to share. Yeah. Beautiful. And that's awesome. By the way, for listeners who are curious and going deeper into that backstory and the sort of the founder story behind Testimonial Hero, you could definitely tune in to the first episode. As you were describing the company, you kind of, I noticed you, you just Just change the, the tone or not the tone, but let's say the, the scope of the problems you solve.
And I'd love to dig into that. I know you had just [00:03:00] announced an acquisition of a company called Case Study Buddy. Tell us about the acquisition and why that made sense for your vision for your company. So with Testimonial Hero, we originally really thought of ourselves, you know, as a video testimonial agency.
And cause that was my background was. You know, video, right? But over the course of the past couple of years, we've realized, you know, at the end of the day, our customers are hiring us to solve a problem. And, you know, that problem is essentially getting customer stories to get that credibility they need to.
You know, build trust and close deals faster. And there's varying ways to solve that problem. So we basically realized like we, we really shouldn't be precious about, you know, our solution, right? Just cause I'm a video guy. Like I don't want to be precious about video, even though I love video. I just started to get more excited [00:04:00] to attack the problem in a way that most benefited our customers and there's undeniably there is a written component to that.
So that was really our goal with the acquisition of Case Study Buddy was to be able to skip years of You know, building up a new, you know, written business unit and be able to, uh, solve that problem for our customers, you know, kind of medium or format agnostic. Sure. And at what point in the, let's say five or six years of Testimonial to the Hero where I imagine at the beginning of the early days and the early years was focused exclusively on video testimonials as sort of that, that was the main focus as far as solving that problem of customer stories.
When did you begin to open up or what changed in you or in the business to help you to realize that, Hey, you know, we're, we're not just a video testimonial company, we're a customer story company. Like what, what, what, what was the thing that caused you to that, that [00:05:00] realization to click? Yeah, it's a really good question.
I think it's at least two things. One is that we saw companies like Case Study Buddy having success and, you know, driving revenue with that, with, with written content and, and written customer stories, so I think in the beginning, me being, coming from a video background, I kind of always like wrote off, you know, written content a little bit.
And I was like, Oh, you know, no one reads anymore, you know, which is a kind of nice trite thing to say, but it's, it's not exactly true. It's way more nuanced than that in reality. And the fact is like, I realized I was like, I need to get over myself and you know, I need to get over my preconceived notions.
This is what customers want. You know, we, and we want to help customers. We need to, you know, be in this space. Right. So that's kind of, you know, I would [00:06:00] say in, and that came from, you know, seeing, you know, the success of, of case study buddy that, and the traction that they had and, and also hearing from our customers too, we just got to the point where, you know, a lot of our customers were asking us like, Oh, like, do you do written case studies?
Or they would, you know, we'd see them taking. the transcript from our videos and, and doing it themselves internally. Right. So, you know, both from the perspective of just being able to capture more share of wallet from the, you know, from our client and capture more value and also just provide, you know, a better service to the customer.
Be able to take more off their plate, which they appreciate. That was what it really, um, drove the decision. Beautiful. And why not just start up, as you mentioned, like a division where you're basically building that muscle in house versus acquire an existing company? Yeah, it's a, it's a really good question.
I [00:07:00] think we, you know, built like we, we, yeah, we had this, this really, this question is like, do we want to, you know, start from scratch and figure this out on our own, or do we want to kind of hopefully skip some steps and. You know, go out there, acquire a company and just go ahead. I think for me, just the, the idea that to move quickly, move faster is very appealing and just kind of leapfrogged the years of trial and error that we probably would have, spinning up a new service.
So I think I had, hopefully had, I think it was both like me having a healthy respect for like, Not how hard for, you know, how hard a new medium frankly could be. Right. And then also it's just a little bit of luck and timing too, because it's very, actually, it's pretty hard to actually get any deals done.
You know, you have to have a willing seller and a willing buyer, which is [00:08:00] very, just like doesn't align often. And like, you know, it was something that, you know, the timing actually aligned for both us as a buyer and for the seller. And Actually, I had been, you know, off and on, you know, me and the founder of Case Study Buddy, there's two founders, Jen Enns and Joel Kletke, you know, we had, had a great relationship throughout the years, even though we were technically, you know, competitors in a lot of respects.
So like I had always, you know, caught up with them every year or so. And, you know, this con this topic had been discussed before, and it just so happened that like, it was finally. You know, good timing for both of us. Right. And I think that's like a interesting, like, you know, takeaway from, from the whole situation is that, you know, even though we were, you know, pretty much direct competitors, cause they, they started doing video as well, you know, the past couple of years.
So like we were the past couple [00:09:00] of years, we were technically speaking, directly competing with them. Both of us on both sides had a really, a good, you know, mutual respect for each other and that's really what kind of set up the whole conversation and facilitated the whole deal happening. And I think a good takeaway from that is, you know, for agency owners who want to do something like this is basically, you know, make sure you take a mindset of You know, co opetition as much as possible instead of competition, right?
Like, can you cooperate with your competitors? Can, you know, can you, I mean, obviously it's just like, you know, it's both doing the right thing and just being a good human to, you know, not be a dick to your competitors and just be respectful, but it's also, you know, good business, right? Because you never know, like, you know, when these opportunities will come up to either sell to a competitor.
And, you know, the more, the [00:10:00] earlier you can start those relationships, I think, I think the better, so I think it's really important and that's definitely something in hindsight that, you know, naturally, you know, both parties did correctly, right? But it isn't always the case, right? Like some times, uh, you know, people get really, there's sometimes there can be a lot of animosity between competitors, but given that like your competitors are often your best partners or your best acquirers or your best acquisition targets, I think it's like Really important to think about that.
Yeah. Did, did this, it sounds like based on how you're sharing this, it happened somewhat organically. It wasn't like a, you had some broker necessarily, or was it more of a formal process or what was the process like to get this process, get this acquisition in motion? Yeah, it's a, it's a great, great question.
So I had, it was, I mean, it was organic. We didn't, yeah, it was, we didn't use a, there was no broker involved. I had. Reached out, I had posited this idea to them, you know, multiple [00:11:00] times over the years, frankly, like back then it probably wasn't, you know, right for me either, right for Testimonial Hero and it wasn't right for them, but finally, you know, we were just doing our, our, you know, annual check in and, you know, it finally started to make sense for both parties and yeah, that's, that's kind of, so it's more like an organic thing.
And we were. We were there and, you know, met all their criteria, especially around being able to provide continuity and great continued service to their customers, which were very, which was very important to them. So, yeah, I think that that's really the, was the key that we just stayed in touch for years prior.
Yeah. As a result of this acquisition, is it, does it impact your, your vertical focus on B2B? I also know you have a concentration of clients in cybersecurity. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think it strengthens our vertical focus further in B2B, you know, and a lot of, you know, further. Yeah, for [00:12:00] sure. It's further market.
It's really the benefits are like a lot, even more market share in where we're trying to already be, essentially. And, and then, You know, that, that expanded service capability. And we actually did one other acquisition this year as well. I can't talk about it as specifically due to the terms of the acquisition, because without going into too much detail, we basically acquired the company.
You know, which was another written case study company. We acquired it from a private equity company and you know, basically like they, it was more like a little bit more like behind the scenes. They, they understandably didn't want to like make too big a deal of it on their end. So, so, so that I can't, I probably, that's probably all I can say for now, except for, yeah, we did, we did two acquisitions this year of written case study companies to really push further into, uh, you know, what we're doing.
That, you know, solving that [00:13:00] customer story problem and enabling that new service for our clients. Back when I was at Scorpion, we went through a period where we were acquiring companies. That was part of our growth strategy. And the, the thesis was because we had a very operationally sound company, very streamlined, very process driven.
We were able to acquire companies that had maybe specialization in a vertical market, but didn't maybe have the back office kind of optimization that we had built. And so we would take these companies, bring them in. In any event, the strategy was always, we would acquire them. And then bring them into our ecosystem as well as change the brand to Scorpions.
We would, we would basically sunset the legacy brand and rebrand them as, you know, part of Scorpion. Is, are you now going to be managing three separate brands or is the, is the plan to, to have them all fall underneath the Testimonial Hero or maybe a, a rebrand in your, [00:14:00] In your future as well. The plan is to have them all fall under testimonial hero for sure.
We're not in a rush. Well, we're moving as fast as reasonable to do that. Yeah. And it's not, it wasn't like a day one thing. So for example, the case study buddy site is still, still up and still I was just on it. I just checked. Yep. So it will be for, you know, uh, at least a couple of months probably. Maybe a little less, maybe we'll get around to it in the next 30 days or so.
But for sure, yeah, because, you know, we do want to put everything together into one brand because at the end of the day, they're all focused on that same customer story niche. So there's no really reason to have, like the messaging is all cohesive. So there's no reason to keep the brand separate, right?
Versus if we acquired a company that did a completely different thing, It might make sense to make it standalone, but it just [00:15:00] makes so much sense to fold them all together because everything dovetails, you know, and then that's just less complexity. That makes sense. Um, so under the umbrella of customer stories, you now have video testimonials as well as written case studies.
Yeah. What else exists underneath the customer story umbrella besides these two sort of channels? Yeah, yeah. Great question. So I think it's, it's a lot sub nested under both of those things. So within, you know, video testimonials, Broadly, we have a number of different methodologies and, you know, qualities and ways to capture video testimonials.
So we have our premium remote video testimonials, which are high, very high quality remote testimonials. Testimonials that, you know, we have a live person interviewing and we have our in person onsite video testimonials where we're sending videographers that we've, [00:16:00] you know, to actual offices, you know, filming B roll and all of that.
And we're actually, we do those everywhere in the world with no travel fees. So that's pretty unique and differentiated there on the onsites. Yeah. And then we have, you know, event video testimonials. Asynchronous video testimonials. So like that's, and then we have, you know, employee testimonials, which is like a, for recruitment marketing.
So there's like at least five, you know, Subcategories of video testimonials between the different use cases, the different qualities, the different prices and the different kind of capture styles. And then on the written side, you know, we have first person customer stories, which are more like a ghost written thought leadership article around, you know, here's how I.
Here's how I use Gong to, you know, drive more results for, you know, my sales team, and here's how you can learn from that. And by the way, [00:17:00] like, it's not all about Gong, but by the way, I use Gong and, you know, so it's like implicit social proof on written first person with more of like a thought leadership angle.
And, you know, we do do that for Gong, thanks to one of the acquisitions. So, and then there's of course the traditional third person case studies. Where it's more of that like challenge solution results, you know, designed, you know, one pager or, you know, website thing where it's third person with some pull quotes and then, you know, also sales slides, social quote cards, you know, so, so really runs the gamut and then audiograms.
As well is, is something that we're doing more of. So yeah, it's, it's, there's just so many and we did, that doesn't even scratch the surface of different types of edits. So for every video testimonial, you know, we're talking, you know, that traditional kind of full story 90 second edit, but then there might be.
[00:18:00] You know, probably a social media cut, you know, an objection crusher edit focusing on one of the most common questions, fears or doubts that the prospects have, maybe there's a competitive replacement edit around, like someone who switched to that client's solution from another solution. So. So it's crazy to, to the point that you always talk about, you know, it's like people think like, Oh, like if I specialize, there's not gonna be that much to do, but it's like that you just keep peeling back the onion and there gets to be more and you can just go so deep on the, on the area.
I think, yeah. I mean, the road that you're going down based on our discussion here and previous discussions is that you're, you're on a mission to be the best in the world at solving the problem of capturing and communicating customer stories. And that's a great, great thing to own. It's a great, it's a great real estate to own.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. We're, we sometimes joke that like, uh, you know, customer story, world domination is like kind of like our, our, our [00:19:00] unofficial mission. It's not our official mission, but, uh, maybe our unofficial mission. Yeah. There's, there's a, there's a ton of need out there, which is beautiful.
And so I love it. I think it's a great, great, um, perspective. You also, in addition to now kind of being the CEO of your company, you've made these acquisitions, I know you also spend time helping founders. You do some one on one coaching, and I think that that's beautiful. I'm a big fan of coaching. What is your perspective on when a founder should reach out and, you know, really seek out coaching with a mentor?
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think, you know, so I've had a lot of, uh, you know, coaches and, and, you know, mentors I, so that I've learned from, and actually let me roll back and kind of, uh, share some high level thoughts here. Like, I think like a lot of times, you know, in entrepreneurship, the advice [00:20:00] people get is like, Oh, you need like a mentor and then people, and then everyone's like, okay, got it.
Like, where do I find this mentor? You know, great, what's next? And like no one really knows And like there's Go to the mentor store. Exactly. Go to the mentor store. Like, and then kind of what, what I've seen is like the only people generally that are gonna like quote unquote mentor you for free are like retired people, you know, which is great.
But like, I don't actually think, or like people that are like at the kind of later in their career that are like, we're looking to give back or whatever. But like the thing is the most valuable. You know, in my experience, and I think frankly, just honestly, like the most valuable coaching and advising is from people who have done, you know, what you want to do.
Yeah. And been where you want to go. Like in, you know, 3, 5, 6, like years. Like you're, like, you're like three to six years behind them, maybe, you [00:21:00] know, give or take a couple years. Right. Like, you know, and, and if someone's at the end of their career, like, like, or like so far ahead of you. Like, it's, it's like almost like not helpful.
Like Jeff Bezos, you know, like if I went to Jeff Bezos, like he's so far ahead of me and like, I'm, you know, it's just like not even helpful. Right. So like, I think the sweet spot is like getting advice from people whose footsteps you want to follow in that are in that like three to five, you know, three to seven years ahead of you, but not so far ahead of you that they don't remember Being in your shoes and like the problems that, that, you know, you run into, because the reality is like, once you get much further ahead of that, I think it's just like, there's so much hindsight bias and people were humans.
Like we kind of forget like exactly what happened. Right. But like, if you can get a mentor, that's in that sweet spot of like, Several years ahead of you, but not like decades ahead of you, you know, you [00:22:00] get the real answers and they remember what you're going through and they can just be like, yep, I reran into that.
Here's exactly what we did. Yeah. You know, we can solve that. So like I I've, and then, so basically, yeah, I think like, you know, and obviously it's like, I think you in what you're doing are a great example of this, right? Like you two years ago were practicing, you know, living, living the life, like doing the damn thing.
And now. You know, an agency owner has the opportunity to learn from you in, you know, what you did at Scorpion. It's like, that is an opportunity that they like, you know, obviously like I've done some, you know, coaching with you and like, that's why I just like, didn't even think twice. I was like, all right, I want to go where Corey's been.
I'm just going to like, Learn from him. And so, yeah, I think I'm a big fan of, of that. And, uh, yeah, I think it's just like, I like learning from people who haven't been coaches for decades or have like kind of recent experience. [00:23:00] Not that there aren't, especially on certain things, like there are, it depends what you're trying to learn.
Right. Like, but I do think, especially for like the Tactical execution. Like, how do we make this work? How do we make, make this make money? Like, there's nothing that you can, there's nothing that compares to learning from people who are like deep in the trenches or recently, you know, deep in the trenches, you can't get it from a book.
I keep thinking, as you're talking about this, like I went and saw one of my favorite authors, uh, John C. Maxwell, who writes these amazing books, but it's all about principles. It's all about strategy. That's different than the CEO or the, the coach who, as you said, just went through that and had a great result, but struggled along the way.
It can give you both the sort of the, the principles as well as the tactics on specifically what, you know, what they did and, and relate that to your situation. So I think that's, that's a great. That's a great perspective for sure. And so to your question around like why I do it, I mean, why do I do it?
It's [00:24:00] because I have a big golf habit and, and, you know, this helps me justify like, you know, buying another club or, you know, another, no, that's, that's what I tell my wife. I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm buying some golf clubs. Don't worry. I'm doing a coaching call. It all offsets, you know, no, in all seriousness.
Besides that, you know, it's fun and I, and I like it and I think it makes me sharper too for my, my own business too. Cause it just, yeah, like hearing, seeing other people's situations, like gives you some time to reflect. And I think it kind of makes me like a bit of a, even better operator. For my own business.
Um, and I, I usually coach like one or two people at a time for like a couple hours a month. It's, it's more of like a thing I do on the side of my desk because I like it. So, but yeah, if anyone's interested or, you know, and they're doing, you know, less than 3 million in revenue, cause I don't want to coach.
People that are, you know, ahead of me like that, that wouldn't make any sense. So yeah, if someone's likes my perspective, you know, and they're doing less than [00:25:00] 3 million in revenue, they can reach me on Twitter and shoot me a DM. And, you know, we can chat, but that, yeah, that's basically how that works.
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And so It's funny you mentioned Twitter. Does it still, is it still called Twitter? You know, it's definitely called X, but I will continue to refer to it on Twitter. I just, I just, I just can't make myself say X. I didn't know if it was, see if we got to switch back. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always Twitter in my heart, you know?
Yeah. So speaking of, you know, your experience, obviously you're, you're very accomplished and you've, you've built an amazing business and, you know, the acquisitions really reinforced that, that growth. For you, what, looking back now, five, [00:27:00] six years into this business specifically, what were some of the big sort of 10X jumps in the business itself?
And what, you know, what were those and how did that happen? So thinking about the, the big, you know, jumps or inflection points, I think. You know, one of them, you know, in, in 2019 was bringing on, you know, my first, you know, full time employee, essentially, first full time team member. And hired a fantastic person, kind of got lucky, I think, although like there were, I was interviewing a few different people and I chose the right person at the end.
And also, you know, it's like thankful that they also applied, but, and that really allowed me to get out of the fulfillment. Of, of work essentially, like have someone I could trust. To it's like, all right, I will, I'll make the promises and you like, as in the sales situation, like I'll make the promises and like you fulfill on them.
Right. I think that's like a big, you know, step [00:28:00] for, for all agencies is to have someone you can trust to fulfill on the promises that you're making on the sales seat. Cause it's really hard to have, you know, grow your agency, let alone have any quality of life. If you are having to ultimately be responsible for making the promises, AKA doing the sales and making sure the work is good.
So, you know, that was, that was big. I think shortly after that, I was able to not be involved in like a sales call or not, not be involved in a sale that closed or like, You know, got out basically, actually I went away on my honeymoon with my wife to Thailand and early 2020 right before, yeah, right, right before, uh, the whole just before C 19 situation.
So yeah, just very close before, but yeah, I mean, I was out and like, I just hired a salesperson. I was like, Hey, I'm out. Like, just figure it out. Basically like close these deals if you can. And he did a good job. So that was, that was great. I think coming back from like two [00:29:00] weeks. And this was when, you know, we were still very small then.
So like just two weeks, no issues, like no one was texting me on my honeymoon. So that was good. Another big, I don't know when this was, but I remember at some point there was a situation where we obviously closed the, closed the sale without me, delivered the project without me, got a video testimonial from the happy customer without me.
So to me, that was like a big milestone because that's like. Really the whole kind of customer journey loop. It's like the customer, you know, was brought in, the customer was delivered value, the customer was so happy, they would, you know, give a video testimonial for us and the customer has no idea who I am really.
So I think just from a pure, being able to. Build the team and, you know, you know, just proud of the team that, you know, they were able to do that. That was a big, I think that was probably like sometime in 2020. Another [00:30:00] big milestone was launching our remote video testimonial service line in 2020, which we had to do because of COVID.
So before COVID, we were only doing onsite video testimonials. And then, you know, we kind of had to do a pivot and just, you know, that ended up driving a lot of growth. So it was one of those situations where we, it seemed like a terrible thing for the business and it was definitely like our revenue definitely like hit a wall for like two months and we're just like trying to figure it out.
But, you know, without that, we wouldn't be where we would, we're today. So it was definitely like a necessity is the mother of invention situation with remote video testimonials and hindsight. And then I'll say last but not least, probably like big milestone is I have two kids and I've taken, Well, for both 2021 and 2023, 2022 and 2023, [00:31:00] when I took paternity leave for 45 days, everything went great.
My team didn't even text me, wasn't needed. So that was probably the most recent, like happy milestone. I was like, wow, like I feel so good about, and I'm so proud of like the team and the culture that we built and, uh, It's hard to not be needed, but it's also feels great. And, uh, it's kind of like a huge relief too, to know that, you know, we have the right team in place and have a great general manager, a great executive team.
Shout out to Dustin on VP of Revenue and Kevin, our general manager. And then, you know, the whole leadership team, the whole company. So I think, yeah, I mean, honestly, with agencies, like it's all about the team. Like your people are your product and the biggest inflection points. have always been related to like the right people on the team.
You know, 90, 99 percent of the big inflection points are like team related. Hiring your first sales person. I like to zoom in there because it's always a milestone for any agency owner to sort of [00:32:00] officially step back from sales, at least not be 100 percent required to be in sales. So in hindsight, looking back on that first salesperson, it sounds like they were able to really fulfill the expectations that you had.
You were on your honeymoon. They took care of business, you came back, they closed some deals. It sounds like, what about that hire made it successful? Like how did you, like, what, through the, through the lens of speaking to the listeners, agency owners who are thinking about hiring their first salesperson, like what do they look for?
Yeah, it's a, it's a really good question. So in our situation, I think one of the, you know, besides just having the right person in general, like what, one thing that really helped. In our situation was how specific and, you know, frankly productized our offering was at, especially at the time, like we've become slightly less productized over [00:33:00] time, but in 2020, 2019, 2020, it was like, here's what you can buy.
And like, here's what it costs. And, you know, very simple. You know, so I think, you know, and I realized that not all agencies are that productized nor should they be necessarily, but I do think it's worth recognizing that like these, there are some trade offs and there's like a continuum that you may want to balance.
Like if you want to get out of sales, you know, faster, you may need to at least temporarily, you know, be more productized. And like, also that, that, that can mean like leaving money on the table. Cause like some agencies for sure, you know, change their pricing based on like, Oh, this is like a big lead. Like, well, we'll, we'll, we'll charge them more.
Like, you know, they can afford it. And like, you know, there's, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but it, like, if you don't want to be involved in like the quoting process, like, It's [00:34:00] like, you know, sometimes you have, like, we basically were like, all right, this is what it costs.
Doesn't matter if we're talking to Google or if we're talking to like, you know, a small business, like this is what it's going to cost. And like, you know, those are like simplifying the process and productizing things are trade offs that you, that we, you know, made to, you know, had not have me getting text on, on my honeymoon around, like, Oh, what, what should I quote this?
Right. It's like all laid out. The other thing I would say is like. Well, to that point, firstly, it's like, you know, I think, you know, and like an ounce of, of productization and good positioning is, is worth like a pound of cure. So, you know, it's just like having that clear positioning, like having that productization also like social proof, right.
You know, and that's obviously, you know, where we, from the beginning, we've always. We just drank our own champagne and had great video testimonials. And, you know, a lot of times I think agencies don't have [00:35:00] like hardly any social proof or they don't, you know, and a lot of the, the transference of trust, cause sales is really just a transference of trust, right?
But a lot of that, the transference of trust rest on the founder showing up in the video. You know, charismatically, you know, winning people over with FounderMagic. And if you don't have that, you know, social proof in other forms becomes way more important. So I think, you know, the more social proof and customer evidence that you have, the, the lower the bar for like the quality of the sale kind of becomes a little bit.
Like you don't have to nail everything perfectly. Great. And, and yeah, so I think that that's really important to think about, you know, all of those, those things like, you know, clear positioning, you know, prioritization, you know, making it simple for the customer and having, you know, a lot of, a lot of good social proof.
And then, but lastly, I, I will actually say, I think it's really hard [00:36:00] for a, just a, like, sales person to show up and sell like an agency product or an agency service. It often does not work. The failure rate is extremely high for a lot of reasons. I think, you know, I'm sure Corey, when your book comes out, you know, anyone who reads that is gonna, you know, be able to do it a lot better, but I think one of the, the things that I've seen work, this isn't what we did, but I've seen this work at other agencies.
It's like basically making the salesperson. Not like an outside, like account executive hire, but a subject matter expert from internal team. Right. Cause it's actually relatively easier to, to train someone to sell than it is to actually train them to be a subject matter expert. So if I was doing it over again, or if I was in an agency that, you know, if an agency owners listen to this and they're saying, well, that's great, Sam, but like, I'm not [00:37:00] productized.
Like I sell like very. You know, technical, you know, premium, you know, ultra premium stuff. I, you know, my sort of question to them would be like, is there a subject matter expert on your team that isn't you, that, you know, is relatively good at talking with people and enjoys talking with people and can you teach them sales while maintaining their subject matter expertise?
If that's the case, that's almost certainly your best option for the salesperson to help you. Because again, that teaching someone how to sell is not hard. Most of sales is just asking good questions and then shutting up and letting the buyer talk. But actually having true subject matter expertise is the hard part in many agencies.
Yeah, I love that advice. Yeah. And just thinking through to your point about sales. Typically, when you're training a new salesperson, someone who's new to sales, you have [00:38:00] a very structured approach. You have sort of like at the, the bowling lane lines, where you have the bumpers down the sides, like you give them a very specific path to walk down and they'll, once they get some competency, they can go outside of that, but that's how, that's how you set them up for success.
So yeah, it's a very teachable skill. The subject matter expertise is not, I would probably add to this. I'm, I, uh, I, I have a lens on, you know, this idea of specialization. So you mentioned how productized you are as a way to, you know, help streamline, you know, bring a salesperson in, as well as having the social proof, make the friction in the, in the buying process, you know, disappear as much as possible, but also having, having expertise in a, in, you know, I talk a lot about a vertical market.
are a, if you only do video testimonials for B2B SaaS businesses and you can speak to that at a very great depth, I think you're, you're, you're positioned differently in the market [00:39:00] than a generalist who's, you know, just a video company or a marketing company who doesn't have that same level of specialization.
So I think that, that piece helps as well. 100%. And The other thing that I would say on this sales thing is, you know, I, there were a couple of calls that I did with our sales representative, like, where he like shattered me and we did stair step it out. Like I wasn't just like, you know, he started in mid November and I went away on honeymoon in end of January.
Right. So he, you know, he had some experience and I do think that is a good thing. And that's what I've sort of advocated to other agency founders is like, first think about, you know, removing some of the low value, lower value things of the sales process, like map out your entire sales process. And then, you know, start to work to the point where you as the founder are still involved, but only at your highest and best use.
[00:40:00] Yes. And that's always, you know, going to be actually showing up on the call and, you know, having that conversation with the prospect, which frankly is like the best part of So like the worst part for founders is like when you do four sales calls and then you have to do four proposals and you have to do four followups and you have to log it in the CRM and all of that stuff.
And then it compounds cause you do for the next day and then you're underwater. Like for me, like I still choose to go on sales calls all the time with big accounts or, you know, so, but when I, but I, I don't like I'm a nose in. Like, I don't, I do not take like sales homework away from calls, like in general, like, and so I'll like, I'll show up, like, I'll do my thing.
But as soon as I leave the call, like my, you know, whoever else, one of our sales people who was on the call is going to run with that from there. They're going to do the proposal. They're going to do the follow ups. They're going to log in the CRM. So I think like, I do [00:41:00] think like I am very much like pro founders getting involved in sales.
I just think they should have the option, not necessarily like the requirement. And it should be, you know, obviously something that they get to like do on their own terms, right, instead of being just like slammed in underwater. So you mentioned some of the big jumps in your business where your first team member, the fulfillment side, bringing in the salesperson.
Getting the client video testimonial of your client without you being involved in the sales and the fulfillment, everything, love that. Bringing on remote video testimonials as well as being able to separate and be present for your paternity leave. What would you say looking back now as far as, you know, the Sam five, six years ago from a like, how have you evolved personally and as a leader over these last six years?
What are the big, big jumps in that, do you think? That's a really good question. I mean, I can tell first and foremost, like, I [00:42:00] feel like the more I know about leadership, the more I realize, like, I'm just, I have so much to learn. But I do think, like, one thing that comes to mind is, like, I used to, like, whenever I get, like, an idea, I used to like tell my leadership team or tell my company, tell the company.
And I think that's like pretty like, and I'm a guy with a ton of ideas. Right. But like, that's actually not like nowadays, I very rarely share ideas unless like, it's like, we're going to act on them and like, it's finally time to like put them in motion because like, Otherwise, as founders, like that just becomes like distracting and like whipsawing to your team.
You're just like, and then people are just like, Oh, well, this is another one of these ideas. So I think I'm just, I'm more cognizant of like, of how the double edged sword of being that like, often like very excited, enthusiastic founder with a ton of ideas can be sort of disruptive, I guess. And I, I've in hindsight, you know, realize that like some of the ways that I like shared my ideas, like were a bit disruptive, [00:43:00] like earlier in my career.
And now I just try and, and not share them except for like, have, you know, more like, you know, be more intentional about it. Right. You know, for example, like I have a really good idea about like where our business model needs to go, but it's like. I'm not going to just going to like share it offhand, like in a, in a meeting and like confuse people.
Like I'm, I'm just, it's like, we can wait on that. So like, that's one thing I think the other thing I would say is, wow, this is such a good question. I mean, I think it's in general more, I like to like, This is something I've learned like over the past, you know, two or three years. But like, if someone asks me a question, you know, I like to flip it back to them and I'm like, well, what do you think we should do?
And then most of the time I'll just be like, all right, yeah, let's do that. So I think like a lot of times it, you know, in the net, that's very, I think that's just like a good, very simple thing to do because it's like one, the person who's asking you [00:44:00] usually has the best answer. They're usually closest to the problem.
Two, it's very empowering for your team to work in that capacity. So I think that's, that's good. And I encourage my entire leadership team and. Really everyone in the company to do that. And I think we've done a pretty good job adopting that. Another thing I would say, yeah, I, I don't know that there's just, there's so much, there's so much, I'm trying to think of just, there's one, any other, like other, like transformational ones.
So I think we've like, kind of, this is an interesting one, but like, we've kind of gotten over the course, I've gotten like less rigid around like meeting Stuff, but with the goal of having like more productive meetings, like, I think there's just really good, like. Jeff Bezos quote, where he's like, I like a crisp agenda, but like a messy meeting.
And we're still working on the crisp agenda part, but like, we've, we've definitely embraced like, you know, messy meetings, [00:45:00] you know, as long as they're like very productive, right. Right. Yeah. We're actually making decisions. Yeah. And it's like, I feel like in, you know, prior years or younger in my career, it's like very rigid on like, Oh, this is like, What the meeting agenda needs to be.
We have to always like follow these steps. We have 15 minute increments. We have to go through this agenda item. Exactly. You know, but sometimes in, in like, we actually have one meeting, we have, and there, it is important to have those meetings. Like there are, but I think it's, I think not a lot of people, not a lot of people have make room for there's like less unstructured meetings where it's like, all right, everyone put their.
Everyone put a bullet point in or like if you have something and we're just going to go through like these three or four bullet points that are like the most top of mind for everyone. Like some of our best decisions that come out of those, like pretty, you know, unstructured, but important meetings. Well, gosh, we're, we're ending another episode here and I'm like, you know, just feel like we're getting started.
So maybe [00:46:00] we'll have to do this again sometime. But, uh, Sam, where can people reach out to you to connect and learn more about how to, you know, work with you if they want to? Absolutely. So if you're interested in anything, customer stories, video testimonials, written case studies, testimonialhero. com. You can also follow me on Twitter at, or X as the kids call it, right?
It's at Sam Schepler. I share more like entrepreneurship and agency content on Twitter. And then I'm also on LinkedIn too, more sharing Testimonial Hero stuff, talking about customer stories and how to best use them to build trust and drive revenue. Beautiful. Sam, thanks again for coming on the show.
Thanks, Corey. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn, and I hope you join me again next time on the Deep Specialization Podcast. If you received value from this show, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Thanks, and we'll see you soon.
