Client Case Study - Therapy Practice Accelerator's Sales Overhaul | Ep 41

Josh Long

00:00:00.720 - 00:01:17.390

This is episode 41 and on it I interview Matt Kaufman, owner of Therapy Practice Accelerator, about the results he's experienced from having me upgrade their sales process and recruit three new sales reps in 2024. This is the Bottleneck Breakthrough podcast.

I'm Josh Long and this is all about helping you find and fix the biggest challenges in your business to unlock growth and profits that last foreign. Hey. Hey. I'm excited to dig in today with my good buddy Matt Kaufman.

He's got a great company called Therapy Practice Accelerator and we work together this past year and I'm excited to dig in to talk about the results and let you hear from his mouth what changes went through in his business, what things he tried before we worked together, what worked and what didn't work.

And I think to have this success in 2024 in a agency type service that he provides for mental health professionals is a huge win because there are a lot of companies I know over the last couple years in that space that have not done so well. So I'm excited to dig in. And Matt, thanks for being here.

Matt Kaufman

00:01:17.690 - 00:01:18.642

My pleasure.

Josh Long

00:01:18.786 - 00:01:33.590

Give us a little bit of a thumbnail over overview of TPA and how you found your way into essentially marketing and systems services for mental health professionals, because that is quite the niche.

Matt Kaufman

00:01:33.930 - 00:04:10.298

Yep. So, you know, it was 2012, I was doing freelance sort of web and IT and marketing consulting just locally here in Nashville.

And so I worked with several different businesses and two of them were therapists at that time. And one in particular reached out to me thinking that his website had been hacked.

And so he was getting these auto registrations from bots on his WordPress site. Pretty normal at that time. But if you get these notifications, you don't know what they are. It looks scary. And so he thought something was wrong.

And I was happy to tell him in about three seconds like, hey, there's no problem. I can just lock this down and it'll never happen again. But let me ask you a question. Is this working? Is your website working?

Is your caseload where you want it to be? Because I could kind of tell that it was not optimized. And he said, I definitely would love more clients for sure.

And so that opened up the opportunity to work with him, help him with making some more direct marketing sort of moves on his website, invest in some advertising, design things so that it made sense from start to finish for the kinds of clients that he wanted to attract into his practice. And he had a great experience. It really helped. And we also just really enjoyed working Together. He's a great guy.

And so after that completed, he said, you know, I have a friend. You have to speak with my friend Katherine. She needs everything you do.

And so Kathryn was working for the state here, driving around, doing assessments for people on mental disability. But she really wanted to grow her practice and she had no idea how to do it.

She didn't know the first thing about technology writing or marketing or anything in the marketing space.

And I was able to just sit down with her and over the course of about six months, every Friday afternoon, build out a website, build out a marketing strategy, execute it. And her practice went from three or four clients to 15 to 20. And she was able to leave the state job and it totally changed her life.

She went to a four day a week schedule. She wasn't able to retire due to the 2008 crash and everything that she'd sort of dealt with through that.

So this was kind of created for her sort of a retirement experience where she could work three or four days a week and have a great lifestyle and feel finally like she's getting ahead instead of sort of scraping by. And then she referred me to friend after friend after friend after friend.

And it was two or three years later, I was standing around in her salon in her living room and she threw a spring party and I looked around and I worked with like 15 therapists in that room. And I thought to myself, you know, there may be an opportunity to productize, to take this broader to market, you know, beyond Nashville.

And so that's where TPA started.

Josh Long

00:04:10.434 - 00:05:12.520

That's fantastic. And I think that's kind of the beauty of services businesses, right, is you can just help some, some person in some industry.

And once, once you find a track, you're able to spread pretty rapidly because it works and you get results.

And I think that's one of my favorite things about TPA is the results and the case studies and the testimonials you have of your clients that you've transformed their practices. And so fast forward a number of years, you've got a whole team, you've got a partner. We meet in 2021.

You were in Perry Marshall's roundtable and I was helping out a little bit there.

And we looked at just your pricing because when I sat down with you and your partner at the time, it was so obvious that you guys were way, way over delivering and undercharging for what you were giving. But I'm sure you've had plenty of people say, raise your prices, right?

And it's One thing to say, you'll do it, but then the exercise of actually going through and testing it. Talk a little bit about that process.

Matt Kaufman

00:05:13.700 - 00:06:03.944

Yeah. So you, you recommended a really simple protocol. It was basically, okay. What do you think you would raise your price to? We don't, we don't know.

I don't, you know, I have no idea. Obviously we are the ones with the issue. I don't. If I knew I should have raised my price, I would have. You're like, okay, here's what you do.

And you specified like, let's raise Your price by 2k, 3k, 4k from where you are right now. And then let's run a test. So have your salespeople, you know, just control for all other factors, just change the price.

Have your salespeople run through, you know, 10 to 20 offers at each of those levels. Track closely, and then let's just see what works out, what makes sense. So over the next like six weeks, we ran that test with our best salesperson.

So we had him try it first. We kept our other salesperson where he was.

And yeah, after we did that, it became real obvious that there was, we would actually made more sales by increasing our price by about 2000.

Josh Long

00:06:04.032 - 00:07:29.110

So isn't that interesting? Yes. You were at 5800, I remember. And so we tested getting up to 78 and then 98 at the time.

And I think the thing that so many people don't think through with just the off the cuff raise your price advice is what's the long term effect and retention complaints, whatever. Do people expect more when they're paying more? Do they become more critical? Do they become more finicky?

So I think that's why running it as a controlled experiment where your top salesperson could do it and you guys could see like what were those clients like that came through. And I think you guys had some of your other salespeople try selling it at 9800, but they really didn't have the ego, strength or the skills to do it.

And so 78 was kind of like that classic macroeconomic cross point right. Of pricing and demand and skill set. And I think that's what a lot of business owners don't realize is you got to have the talent on the team.

I mean, you and I can go close $100,000 deals. We've done it, like, we've talked to people at that, but it doesn't mean it's replicable from our sales teams and stuff.

So I think that was a cool experiment to. Because for you guys, it just dropped. What was that? 30% right to the bottom line with nothing else changing.

Matt Kaufman

00:07:29.610 - 00:07:33.218

And actually close rate went up for our team. That was the crazy thing.

Josh Long

00:07:33.274 - 00:07:36.226

Counterintuitive, right? It's actually such a surprise.

Matt Kaufman

00:07:36.338 - 00:08:08.596

Yeah, we went up by 30% and our increase in sales, it probably was a 35 to 38%, like, increase overall because the close rate went up with the price. And that was extremely interesting to just see the math and have the plan also, because, of course, like, we had emotions about that.

We didn't want to break what was working, you know, so the fact that we had a simple map, we were able to execute it, it was data driven. And then afterwards, we were able to just come back and be like, all right, here's what happened. And it was obvious. Yeah, it's just obvious.

You know, definitely increase from 58 to 78 and then stay there. We did that for a while and then we've increased subsequently as well.

Josh Long

00:08:08.748 - 00:08:33.040

Yeah. And so from there, then you realize, hey, I got a partner here. That we're not seeing eye to eye. I want to get out of that.

That took, what, a good year to navigate exiting and buying him out and structuring it and dealing with all the emotions and implications of all the parts of the business that he impacted. Right.

Matt Kaufman

00:08:34.000 - 00:10:13.778

Yeah. So that was. So we sort of upgraded into Perry Marshall's universe up to amn, which you are heavily involved in.

And whatever our plans were for that year, that first year in amn, it became the buyout process. That was really the content of that year. Yeah.

And this had been building for a long time, but I finally got to the point where I tried everything I knew to try and just had to accept that this just was not a situation I wanted to be in long term. So then became, you know, the journey of figuring that out, which I had no idea about, like, raising prices, like, I change our prices around.

That was, like, not totally foreign. This was completely. I had no idea how to execute a buyout. What were. How did it work? What were the options?

You know, all the scary possibilities involved. I had gotten to a point where I was willing to walk away. So at least I had that. I was very clear that this was going to change one way or the other.

But thanks to talking in, you know, extensively with. With you, with Perry, but really it was your support in sort of navigating, okay, how are the options that we could look at? What would they involve?

How would it work?

And then just step by step, going through one conversation at a time with My former business partner, and then ultimately coming to a resolution a few months later.

So the entire process in my mind took, you know, quite some time, but the actual journey was from, you know, November, December until the end of April, you know, 2022, about five months, something like that. And happy to report that it all went well. Happy conclusion. I was able to buy him out, and things have been good ever since, More or less.

Josh Long

00:10:13.914 - 00:12:32.030

Yeah. Yeah. And I think the difficult part for so many people in the confrontation.

Like, I wrote a whole chapter about this in my book on how to confront as a leader, as a business owner. And I don't talk about it with partners because I hadn't experienced it yet when I wrote the book.

But at the end of the day, confrontation exists, in my opinion, in relationships to resolve a dysfunction. Right. We think that, well, we're getting screwed by this vendor. Okay, well, there's a dysfunction. It's an imbalance.

Let's go confront that situation in this case with a partner, there was a dysfunction. No blame to either of you. There was just a dysfunction in the relationship that you weren't happy or wanted to continue.

And so with all confrontations, the only way to get the ultimate healthy result is to be willing to completely walk away from it, because that ends the dysfunction. And it's just very clinical, very practical.

Again, there's a lot of emotion and a lot of implications for business owners, especially when it comes to their livelihood and their ability to make money and their identity and all that stuff. So I think when you got to that point, I remember those conversations when you were like, I'm okay if I just walk away, and we shut this down.

I knew that that was the point, that you had the highest likelihood of success. I had a mentor growing up. I'm still really great friends with him to this day. He's a great, great man.

He was a kind of a horse trader kind of guy who just had a broker's license and was. Would flip boats and properties and do all sorts of things. And he always said, whoever needs the deal least is always has the most control.

And so once you got to that point, then I knew our negotiations could be way more flexible. And the scope of what was possible to find terms that were worthwhile for both of you was really worthwhile or really possible.

So that was fun to get through. But when you. When you took over, your partner had managed most of the sales and the marketing. Right.

And you were a lot of the fulfillment, and you knew how to do the marketing for the clients, and you had built out such a great fulfillment team. But talk me through like your journey wading into the sales end of the pool.

Matt Kaufman

00:12:32.530 - 00:14:28.436

Yeah, so when we got started, I did the sales and the marketing in the beginning. So it was sort of like going back to where we started a few years prior.

That was a big part of the buyout, was that I had a hypothesis that those particular functions in the business were not being run in alignment with how we delivered internally with the fulfillment and that they were not optimized. So the marketing, that became completely obvious very quickly.

And we went from, you know, an ongoing series of marketing struggles to within three or four months, we doubled or tripled our volume of our opportunity, lowered all our costs per lead and you know, for qualified applications and calls and so forth. And just, you know, that was very quick. That just took a few months.

So the sales process was a longer term process, you know, and that was a place I had more insecurity, more felt like I needed to learn. Like, it's not, I don't feel like a native, natural born salesperson.

It's not something that I jump out of bed excited to learn about or do I done it because I had to do it. And I can listen to people and I can have good conversations. But it took me a while to realize that that is actually that's what it is.

So I was convinced that it was something else. It was some other complicated kung fu of this or that thing you said or whatever. So it took me a while.

The sales process, the marketing process, quick, the sales process, it took me a couple of years and it was hard to find the right team, the culture to get a team performing consistently together. That was harder.

And I particularly felt like our basically like everything about our approach was misaligned, you know, so from the way we communicated, the moment someone decided they wanted to have a conversation with us all the way through to the follow up process to the actual conversation. Like, everything about it felt to me like it needed to be updated. And that was just a longer and harder process than I expected.

Josh Long

00:14:28.588 - 00:14:43.670

And you had found some other trainers or sales gurus out there that had you tried out and talk a little bit about that journey, that experience, Because I think there's some really good learnings that we can pull out of that for anybody listening to this right now.

Matt Kaufman

00:14:44.290 - 00:15:36.216

Yeah, so I was. This was my bleeding neck. I mean it was like my bleeding gushing, like, I need this fixed yesterday problem.

And so I invested in a couple different, you know, sort of consulting arrangements and two in a row Very much did not work. And at the time I was confused because I'm like, look, I don't know anything about sales.

And so I'm just gonna follow what was being laid out in front of me. And then it was delivered with such confidence because it was being sold to me by a salesperson to do this and it's gonna work. And it just didn't.

And so we kept trying things and making our sales process different or more complicated or whatever. And it took me a while to really realize that our market is unique. And our market and the way that we speak to them just is. It doesn't match.

Sort of like a tough nose business, you know? You know, sort of sales people.

Josh Long

00:15:36.288 - 00:15:38.060

1 call close. High pressure.

Matt Kaufman

00:15:38.400 - 00:16:09.022

Yeah. Where the salespeople is. Yeah, yeah. Like that did not work. And I got a little bit gaslit that it should work and it was my fault for it not working.

And I mean it was a journey to develop my own confidence of like, no, this just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. There's no, there's no getting through this valley over into the next peak where it's going to work. It just doesn't work.

That's why we're in the valley and we need to back up out of it and try something else. And that was a very expensive lesson. That was very hard because it's not.

Josh Long

00:16:09.046 - 00:17:35.810

Just the cost of paying these people, but it's the opportunity cost of. And I don't mean to rub the salt in the wound, it's just.

But the opportunity cost of the wasted leads and the time and the delay of not getting the revenue growth that you knew you should be getting and that you deserved because you knock it out of the park for your clients.

So there's this mismatch, right, of oh well, I've got a lot of leads coming in, but there's a gap of we're not getting them over the hump to be able to serve and deliver on the promise of our marketing.

So yeah, I think that's the part that so many of these providers out there, they say, oh well, we'll guarantee a sales rep or we'll keep replacing them until they work and you just end up burning time until you just tap out out of fatigue and the, the biz op of developing sales reps and finding new sales unproven salespeople and taking them through a training and putting them on a bench waiting for a place like TPA to go be a mercenary in. I just, I haven't found that Work with a lot of businesses.

It may work with the info space, where somebody finds an offer that is the offer of the day, that's really fancy and people are getting interested in it, but it's not sustainable. And I think that's the journey you went through, right?

Matt Kaufman

00:17:36.350 - 00:17:49.124

Yeah. And it was very much rooted in my own insecurity of, like, not appreciating what we had.

Like, we're about to hit our ninth anniversary as tpa and in the online space, I've seen everyone come and go.

Josh Long

00:17:49.212 - 00:17:51.652

Dog years. I mean, yeah, it's crazy.

Matt Kaufman

00:17:51.796 - 00:18:41.116

And instead of valuing what we had is like, dude, this is a stable, proven. Every day getting better.

You know, we're working on this thing around the clock, constantly updating our strategies and helping our clients more, building out more support, building out more, you know, strategies and thinking and tools. This was actually amazing opportunity for a salesperson who could come in with skill and integrity and ethics and do amazingly well.

So I came at it more from, I need somebody who can fog a mirror. Do you have one?

And so the recruiting offers worked on me because I just didn't know what I didn't know, which was that, no, we deserve and need pros, like, really good, proven, experienced salespeople.

Not someone who decided they wanted to do sales two months ago, took an online course, and now they're being placed in my business and, wow, they can't sell. That's crazy. You know, what a shocker. Yeah.

Josh Long

00:18:41.228 - 00:19:20.430

And so when we. When we connected in April, you just lost one of your. One of your sales reps had quit that had been with you for a bit.

You're kind of just, like you said, a bleeding neck. And I just was like, hey, I'm happy to help. And one of the first things we did was we just got in and started looking at your sales process.

And I remember recommending spin selling. It's just my. Go to 1988, Neil Rackham, like, old school stuff.

And you would come into the call and you'd be like, this is the exact opposite of everything all these gurus are saying we need to do. Right. So talk a little bit about that journey.

Matt Kaufman

00:19:21.570 - 00:20:42.024

Yeah, Spin selling is fantastic. Obviously, recommend it. It's a consultative approach. It's really approaching.

There's a part of your book that it's basically our internal primary framework for how we talk about the selling process, which is that we're the surgeon in the surgical suite.

We're conducting the intake with someone and just making sure we can help them and then explaining how it's going to go the sales call, the conversation, the first call and all subsequent calls is happening inside the operating room. And that gives us a certain framework of, you know, we're here to diagnose and we're here to prescribe a solution.

And we can't force the person to do anything and we kind of shouldn't. And it's not going to work if we do then.

Because what we do is help them run their business well, they're not going to be able to have one foot in and do that. They need to be fully committed, decide this is for them and do it.

And so for us to have the kinds of clients that we know we can help best, we need to actually have the conversation like with another adult, with a trained mental health professional.

And in the same way that if we went into their room we would defer to their expertise, we approach that with the same confidence that we have expertise to deliver.

So really selling like a surgeon operate, you know, consulting with them, explaining very clearly and then just throwing out all of the moves, you know, after.

Josh Long

00:20:42.112 - 00:23:07.840

Right, right. The judo. I mean, I just it sales judo that so many people train of. Well, how do you handle the objection of they need to talk to their spouse?

It's like, well, that is an objection. That is not an objection. Let's like normal, reasonable people do that.

And so yeah, to me, the selling and for those that haven't read the book, it's not a very. It's maybe a couple pages. But I go through the different sales profiles and the most common that I see today are golden retrievers.

And we have like the used car salesman, which is like what a lot of these online guys try to do of like the objection wrangling and the pressure and. But then you get into golden retrievers and it's. The golden retriever is the number one dog in America.

They're friendly, they're trustworthy, they're reliable. But in a sales role, they don't transfer confidence.

And that's so much of what selling is, especially at a high level, especially with professional services or manufacturing or things that there's a lot of decision making and a lot of implications of the purchase is you have to transfer confidence, that and certainty that you understand what they need and that you're putting your reputation on the line that your company can deliver that.

And so I saw that living in the er, working in the ER for a couple years and wanting to be a surgeon in a prior life, I saw how the best surgeons and the best docs diagnose and then prescribe and never cajole, never arm wrestle, never pressure anybody. And they, they close confidently.

And so the fact that we were able to start putting that into your company, because I just really, at the end of the day, I just needed to build you up and say, look, Matt, you've got a great company, you deliver fantastic services, you're a completely ethical player and a great leader. So here's how I recommend it. And thankfully it worked out.

But then on the back end of that, I needed to go find experienced professionals that bought into that ethos that could step in and talk a little bit about that, because I know we ended up placing a few people with you and they've worked out well. And I think that combination is what has been so fun to see it work for you this year.

Matt Kaufman

00:23:08.700 - 00:23:54.110

Yeah.

So, yeah, as far as the sales process, when it was more just trusting the years of experience and the thousands of calls and conversations we'd had, at that point there was no major like, aha, this is broken. Oh, you didn't do the secret judo move with the back kick and the whatever. It was nothing like that.

It was really just, hey, if you guys operate from this frame of being a surgeon and having that confidence and that clarity and that frame of like, this is my operating room. So I'm going to explain how it's going to go. And I'm doing it because it's important. It's life and death for a lot of these clients of ours.

So we're going to treat it with the respect it needs and we're going to walk you through the conversation. So after we did that and just that automatically helped and it wasn't anything more than trusting our own instincts, trusting what we had.

And then just a few little tweaks.

Josh Long

00:23:54.270 - 00:24:21.620

Yeah, like one of the tweaks I think was you guys were burying the price until the very, very end.

And I felt like that was a gimmick and it creates a lot of uncertainty in the back of the prospect's mind when they're already through the decision making journey of like, oh, yeah, yeah, I need this. Why can't I get the price? What are they hiding from me? What's. And it creates this tension that builds up.

So I think that was one of the only, like, technical changes we made.

Matt Kaufman

00:24:21.920 - 00:26:59.032

Totally. But then it became clear, hey, you know what you really need is just some awesome salespeople that's like pros. That's what's going on.

And that was the big aha. Where I think both of us Got there almost instantaneously.

It was like, after working, you know, we were looking at everything for a month or two, six weeks, I don't know. And it was finally like, you know what? I really think we just need better people. We just need to recruit better people. Can you do that?

He's like, yeah, absolutely. So Josh is like, that's a huge strength of mine. I'm like, oh, good. Because I don't know the first thing about that.

Honestly, the best luck we ever had was going to our past customers, and we found one of my favorite and best salespeople of all time that way. But otherwise, the great unknown, like the Internet or where did you walk around? I don't know. And so Josh was like, yeah, absolutely.

So he then went and ran his recruiting process, which, from the outside, I didn't know what to expect. And all of a sudden, out pop, like, the best candidates I've ever seen for our sales jobs. It was uncanny. It was just like, boing, boing.

Hey, I'd like you to talk to these four or five people.

And every single one of them was better than everyone that I practice, you know, like, top 5% of anyone that we talked to, and certainly better than anyone coming through recruiting pipeline that we'd had. And, yeah, so we hired Juan, and then it was like, josh, I really enjoyed that. Can we do it again? Yes, Josh, that was awesome. Can we do it again? Yes.

And so we got three great people, basically, June, July, August, and, you know, here we are six months later, and they're all still on the team. And I can definitely say this is the best sales team we've ever had. This is the most professional sales team we've ever had.

This is the highest performing sales team we've ever had. So it's been absolute win and fun to look back now, you know, thinking back to last April through and now it's, you know, practically the new year.

And, yeah, it really was.

Make some light tweaks, operate, you know, from this, like, surgical surgeon, you know, operating room kind of perspective, and then get the right people in. And it just so happened that Josh is a fantastic recruiter.

And it was fun to watch his process there, where he was able to get in really good rapport with people very quickly. He was able to position our, you know, sales jobs in a way that attracted great talent.

And then he was able to filter because he took the time to get to know me and what, you know, how we operate. He was able to filter for, you know, there probably were many great people you talked to who just wouldn't have been a fit for us.

And so the people that you sent my way, you know, I would say most of them would have been good and the ones that we picked were great, you know, really good fits. So that whole process, I have to say was just an absolute victory. And yeah, I can't, I couldn't. I cannot be happier with how that went.

Josh Long

00:26:59.136 - 00:29:28.830

No, it's awesome and I'm so glad.

And, and I think the combination of culture and talent is really it because I had early on I had done a recruiting job for another past client, a guy that you knew that I've got a case study, Tony De Quick with his radiator hot rod radiator business and he needed a sales guy and I got down to two and he chose the right one and the second one I was like man, I got this guy, let's and let's. I want to see if I can find him a spot because he's really talented.

Come to find out in his vertical, right, because we placed him on your team just as a plug in in April because you were, you need, you had a hole to fill.

And I think we learned something really good was he was a really friendly guy, tried really hard, couldn't close very well in your environment and it had great success in automotive was his space which was a fit for my other client who was selling automotive equipment. And I think this is the part that so many business owners either don't, they're not sure or they don't know.

They don't even think about transferable industries, transferable skills. But I know that the recruiting space in that build a bench plug anybody in kind of thing. Sales is sales is sales in their mind.

But I think there's so much that comes down to industry culture and experience that, that the three that we did end up placing with you long term all had that background, right? And we weren't looking for the diamonds in the rough.

We weren't looking for those to be acquired at a discount and built up over time and try to make the arbitrage on a rookie contract with them, so to speak. It was like you've got leads, you've got a stable business, you need pros.

And as I keep refining my recruiting process, all I want to do is recruit A plus players that are proven. I'm not in the talent development business and I don't want to risk my clients capital in developing talent.

That's a completely different beast for a different stage of business. So I think when we look back on that first kind of misstep of just, hey, got somebody. Let's plop them in there and see if it can work.

Was really good in education for both of us. That all three pieces need to be there. Right. The experience, the industry, and the culture fit.

Matt Kaufman

00:29:29.970 - 00:29:30.394

Totally.

Josh Long

00:29:30.442 - 00:29:38.150

Yeah. That was fun. And so now you've got three. And what were the numbers like once we did start plugging them in?

Matt Kaufman

00:29:40.360 - 00:30:45.202

Yeah. So we sort of placed June, July, August.

And, you know, anyone who's had salespeople knows it takes a little while for them to get their, you know, get going, get their pipeline. So their initial results, you want them to be good, but those are just the beginning of what ultimately can happen.

And even with that caveat, like, August was our best month ever. September was our best month after that, and October was our best month after that.

And then November, which is with Thanksgiving, it's always a weird month. 30 days. It was still our best November of all time.

So we had four months in a row, and those were our best four months, of course, in a row and year over year.

So if I Look at, like, July 1 to December 31, 2023 to 2024, it was a 33% increase getting the right salespeople in, which that's, to me, from where we're at.

That was fantastic because I was ready to serve those extra clients we were able to bring in, and I was carrying the overhead, hoping that the sales team would figure it out. And the fact that we were able to do that, bring the clients in and then had the team to support them, it was the perfect growth for us.

Like, I wouldn't have really wanted to do too much more than that. Yeah.

Josh Long

00:30:45.346 - 00:31:22.060

Yeah. And I think the fun part was that those record months of new clients also came at. You were at 9800 and not 5800 or 7800 like in the past.

So compounding returns for you. So, yeah, I think this is so fun, and I really appreciate you being willing to share your story. Any thoughts as we wrap up here on.

When you look at it from the perspective of a business owner, thinking about, gosh, I'm not sure what I need. I don't know exactly how to tackle what's next.

Matt Kaufman

00:31:24.680 - 00:31:25.232

And I don't.

Josh Long

00:31:25.256 - 00:31:40.670

I'm not looking for, like, an outright abject endorsement of just go hire Josh. But what are some of the surprises that came out of our time together that you didn't think you didn't expect at the end of the day?

Matt Kaufman

00:31:41.370 - 00:32:44.112

Well, the sales process was A riddle. And first up, it was a collaboration work, so we were sort of attacking this riddle, and then the riddle is solved.

It's no longer a confusion to me, like, how does it work and what is it?

And so I have to credit a lot of how you approached the process of working together, the questions you asked, and then the willingness to sort of follow threads until we really got to the root of like, oh, okay, yeah, I've vetted everything. I don't see any issues here. Like, a lot of good stuff. You know, tweak this, tweak that. But this is a.

This is a person in the seat needing to be an A plus player. That's. That's what's going on.

So the clarity of the diagnosis, which you did internally for us, and then actually solving the problem, getting, you know, getting the people. For me, it was like I didn't understand why. I didn't quite know what to do. I felt like I was. I'm starting to be trying everything, guy.

I've tried everything and nothing's worked. You know, it's like, maybe I'm cursed. I don't know.

And so to get through it to the other side with an answer and clarity, you know, and then results, and.

Josh Long

00:32:44.136 - 00:33:26.230

It not just being luck. Right. And it not just being well, worked, but we're not sure why. I think that's. I think that's so many people.

I mean, I've got a prospect I'm talking to right now, and he's like, yeah, 2024 was one of our best years ever, but we don't quite know why. And so it's going to be the process of diagnosing that and getting to the bottom of it.

Because without that certainty and without that playbook of knowing, okay, if we can build this little brick, then we can build the city. If you don't know the recipe to build the brick and you just happen to stumble upon, oh, we built a city.

But gosh, I don't know why that could also be just as anxiety inducing. Because you don't know what you don't know.

Matt Kaufman

00:33:27.410 - 00:34:04.216

Yeah.

So the fact that it was sort of a systematic, thorough, and the solution made sense, rational and clear, and then watching the correspondence of, okay, proposal, solution, result, all of that was great.

And it was based on actually walking in with respect and getting to know the business with respect, not just assuming, well, it's got to work like this because it works like this everywhere. That was really important.

Which I think is, again, back to, like, one of the main themes here, which was like, what we needed was very specific to our situation and you were able to understand fluently and then place, you know, the recruits that we needed.

Josh Long

00:34:04.408 - 00:34:04.856

Thanks.

Matt Kaufman

00:34:04.888 - 00:34:13.073

And then also, just if someone needs great salespeople, I would just say there's a lot of ways you could try to find one. I've tried a lot of them. I would recommend.

Josh Long

00:34:13.121 - 00:35:14.750

Josh, thanks. Yeah. And I think the. The respect for.

For your business is a big part of it, because I've had so many people say over the years, well, you could do this to. So you could work with so many more companies. If you productize it, turn it into a course, do whatever.

And I'm like, yeah, but you're only going to get, like 70% of the results.

And so often those big breakthroughs that drive the massive outcomes, the straw that breaks the camel's back or the piece that solves the riddle happens in that little 5% of the conversations at the end of a call or from wrestling with it for as I love Perry's line of twisting the Rubik's Cube. Like, we just keep wrestling with it, keeps working on it until we solve it.

And so I'm so stoked that it all paid off and worked out and can't wait to double your sales team in the next few years when you're ready for the growth and can handle more of it.

Matt Kaufman

00:35:15.850 - 00:35:16.706

Totally. Yeah.

Josh Long

00:35:16.738 - 00:35:17.042

Thanks, man.

Matt Kaufman

00:35:17.066 - 00:35:19.394

It's great to talk through this. Thanks for having me.

Josh Long

00:35:19.482 - 00:35:28.290

Yeah, my pleasure. Take care. This podcast theme music is an excerpt from triptych of snippets by Septah Helix. It's used under Creative Commons.