Connect with Erika Warfield on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/erikawarfield

Connect with Russ Johns on LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext

Also check out Russ’ other websites:

• russjohns.com/  

• thepiratesyndicate.com/  

• nextstepnext.com/  

​Russ Johns 0:00
#Kindnessiscool and #smiles are free. Let's get this party started.

It's a fabulous Friday and a wonderful week. Looking forward to anything that falls in front of the weekend. Erica, How are you this Friday?

Erika Warfield 0:22
I am doing well. I'm doing very, very well. I'm very excited for the weekend. I'm not sure why because I'll be working. But you know, life is good.

Russ Johns 0:31
Life is good. Life is good. Hey, what I want to talk to you about today is we've known each other for a little while and there's a lot of things we're going to talk about. However, today we're in a transition period in our environment and things that are going on. One of the things that I think and I'm more passionate about than anything is getting out there and putting yourself in place in front of your community, so you can actually help people out and produce results. One of the things that a lot of people shy away from in this environment is the sales process.

Erika Warfield 1:11
Yeah.

Russ Johns 1:14
It's tragic, because there's a way that you can actually be useful and helpful and still provide revenue in the sales process and you you're working with metagross and you guys have a formula that actually allows business owners and founders to really turn out some results in a unique way. I wanted to kind of dive into that a little bit and then let's see what else we can pull from that thread.

Erika Warfield 1:48
Okay

Russ Johns 1:48
Talk a little bit about meta growth and what that entails in terms of the sales process and how you assist people.

Erika Warfield 1:56
Yeah, I'm metagross Gosh, If I wanted to start all the way from the beginning, and I'm trying to like, do about three different things at once, and I think my brains about to explode. None of us ventures started about two years ago officially, we were concept Long, long before that. I mean years before that with our CEO, Josh Hirsch. He was basically a VP of growth. And he was tasked with growing companies from like nine employees to 155 employees and 800,000 ARR in revenue to 10 million ARR in revenue in under two years. How do you do that without breaking your existing system. I think that kind of blows the minds of many founders and startups because they're just trying to get the next prospect or trying to work the Rolodex or trying to do networking events and to hear somebody can grow them that quickly without breaking the system, I think is a very, very new concept. Two years ago, he went off on his own he started meta growth ventures and basically starting in November Last year, I need to take this back. We were doing full lifecycle sales consulting, like inbound leads, outbound sales team. About November of last year, our clients were coming to us and saying, we will pay you everything that we're paying you, please just focus on this last 30%. We need the outbound sales teams. We would literally source the top candidates, hire them, screen them, weed them out, figure out who had the 10 to 20 years in the vertical who understood 100% commission sales, who wanted a performance coach that could get them to six figures by the end of the year.We were really getting some top quality candidates and then we would just performance coach them to success and so our clients loved that because now they could focus on higher leverage activities, rather than holding their teams accountable, even in a remote situation. We're kind of seeing business explode because everything went remote and we didn't think the question Ever candidates can get any higher. We're basically hiring companies, 1099 contractors for them, but acting as their VP of growth. It's almost like outsourcing a VP of growth, that would be the best way to say it.

Russ Johns 4:13
Yeah. I've had a discussion with you earlier about this in the fact that, the trigger for myself is, you know, I know a lot of founders get involved in, they insert their selves in the business, because they're the ones solving their own problem a lot of times, and then they're also producing the results, because they're the ones that are very passionate about the product or the service that they're offering. What happens is, as you scale to a certain size, and then you start hitting the boundaries and the limitations of what the founder, an individual can do, and then it as far as scaling a company, it's really a limitation rather than an advantage. You have this champion of the product and service. However, the change And then becomes the limitation. I think with Josh's formula and the the meta growth ventures, it's really part of the process of getting beyond that, and allowing other people to be the champions and the cheerleaders of the product and service.

Erika Warfield 5:16
Well, I think, no, that's dead on. I mean, what ends up happening, founders don't understand it really is possible to have a 100% commission sales team working for them. The powerful thing about that is they've got this whole team that can leverage themselves to source the b2b C suite executives, the decision maker to get around the gatekeeper, and then close that deal for the founder. There's a very pivotal moment in a founders life and that is when he looks at his calendar and there's a sales appointment on there for him that wasn't scheduled by him. Then there's a magical moment in a founders life when he starts receiving checks from clients. He's never even met yet.

Russ Johns 6:01
Yeah.

Erika Warfield 6:02
That allows him to other things. If he wants to be an influencer, if he wants to go on a national speaking circuit to build other business, there's other things he could be doing. Part of what metagross ventures does, in addition to building the 100% Commission sales team, and then coaching them to success is we can also step back and coach the founder, who may not be in that mindset of how do I step away from this and what what other thing can I focus on?

Russ Johns 6:29
Right!

Erika Warfield 6:31
Because they don't know where to go. Josh has experience in that is huge. I mean, before a client even comes on, they have a whole onboarding month where Josh kind of holds their hand and walks them through and does a Vulcan mind meld on you've got to tell me everything relevant about your business. We got to do a SWOT analysis. We're going to look at your scripts. We're going to look at your cadences. He's got such a growth hacker brain, he could literally look at somebody's scripts and say we need to change like these five words or this sentence will shorten your sales cycle by a couple of weeks. I mean, it's insane what he can do to grow a business and not break the system.

Russ Johns 7:08
I think take full advantage of it. Business has to have at least some systems because it wouldn't be there's a lot of processes that need to go into a business in order for,especially a service business where there's a process involved and steps and tasks that need to be developed and a lot of things that need to be in place. One of the epiphanies that I had as a business owner was document and delegate. As soon as I could document and delegate, it was like, Oh, I don't have to do it all myself. I can assign it to somebody, I can have somebody else do this. I don't have to, and then I can continue to work on the stuff that I enjoy.

Erika Warfield 7:57
Mm hmm.

Russ Johns 7:57
I think if founders actually Realize that they could do that with their sales process, it would be so advantageous for them to actually adopt this behavior. If you're not connected to Erica, go connect with her, she's on LinkedIn, and she's willing and able to have a conversation with. It's very simple process, I'll send you a link, you can book a call. It's like, super simple stuff. That's how I went through the process in advance of this call, so we could actually kind of go through and because I was curious. I'm curious on and I'm a perfect example of an opportunity that is emerging. I'm getting to this point where #thepiratesyndicate is, it's got a few things going on and it's not to the point where it's taken off and I got some more things I'm building out and I know that as soon as this thing takes off, it's gonna grow because it's right now everybody's on video and staying Top of Mind is important just like the #PirateBroadcast you can communicate this and you can actually share brilliant people like Erica. Like yourself and just put it out there right?

Erika Warfield 9:19
I wish I thank you I wish I could receive all that you know compliment but I really have to give it up for my team because they are amazing. I will give this one example you know if anybody is interested in especially if you're in the b2b sphere, especially if you're in digital marketing or anything that has to do with it if you're sassy Passy Massey, MSP cloud computing you know, anything like that.

Russ Johns 9:43
Acronyms, acronyms city.

Erika Warfield 9:45
Yeah, you're an alphabet soup. I will say this. I just got this news yesterday and I was almost doing backflips, one of our clients who just started literally, by day three of having her team. They have Book nine sales appointments. They have five proposals out. Like That has never happened in the history of our entire business. One of the deals closed yesterday for $25,000

Russ Johns 10:12
That's awesome.

Erika Warfield 10:14
Yeah, we were I mean it The proof is in the pudding. It works and we're back to the guarantee. So if you're interested shoot me a DM.

Russ Johns 10:21
Yeah, you just have to love it. You know who else loves it?

Erika Warfield 10:25
Who?

Russ Johns 10:26
Ira Bowman.

Erika Warfield 10:29
Ira Bowman Is amazeballs and awesomesauce!

Russ Johns 10:31
Yeah, love my friends, Erica Warfield and Russ Johns Thank you so much, Ira. Thank you for being here. It's really amazing. In fact, I know that the social media concierge has been doing something and I've been busy so I know that you guys are working on some other stuff. And so I wanted to also kind of mention the fact that there's some things going on. Right now, and this is what I believe in fact, I talked about this with David Brier yesterday is the people that are actually taking action on the creative method in space to think about how they can evolve in this environment.

Erika Warfield 11:18
Mm hmm.

Russ Johns 11:19
One of the comments that David suggested yesterday is like, a, this is the new normal, imagine that it's going to be like this for the next 10 years. Then position, your creativity in that mindset, and then start moving forward.

Erika Warfield 11:33
Mm hmm.

Russ Johns 11:35
If it changes next year, or six months from now, or whenever it changes or whatever it evolves to, you'll be prepared because you have the creative mindset to actually position your business in a way that you're flexible. You can adapt, you can actually move to the environment, you can move to the circumstance that you're in right now. You there's always opportunities in that area. I want to talk to you about that. Because I mean, you and I, you've been in sales for a while you and I share the thread that we were in both in radio, it's at some point in time doing shows and things like that. So talk about being adaptable, and in the flexibility space in terms of going out there and doing business,

Erika Warfield 12:21
Well from a sales perspective, or just kind of in this environment that we're in perspective?

Russ Johns 12:26
Well, a little, I want to start with one and then migrate into the other.

Erika Warfield 12:32
Well, I think I think in anything, it doesn't even matter if you're in sales, but especially if you're in sales, I do think you need to be nimble. I think you have to be able to pivot. A lot of the people that I speak with who are interested in what we do, they're having to make the pivot. And then there's a lot of people I speak with where they've got that paralysis of analysis.

Russ Johns 12:55
Yeah

Erika Warfield 12:56
I have to literally remind them, remember, 2008? We had the most millionaires ever created in the history of this company out of 2008? It's because they stayed nimble. They didn't get scared. They moved through the quicksand. They didn't just stop and freeze and say, Okay, here's where I have to make the cuts. And it's like, you bet to go under if you don't start moving.

Russ Johns 13:22
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Erika Warfield 13:22
I do. I think that's going to be in any industry. And you and I, I mean, my TV background. I was doing a national pilot once on a cable show. And the guys in the back, I could hear them not. I mean, things were falling and all of a sudden, my teleprompter went out and I was ad libbing. And you've got to be prepared, no matter what your industry to start ad libbing going off your bullet points in your head and just being super nimble. And you may not know what to do at that exact moment, but improvise.

Russ Johns 13:57
I think that if you're nimble In flexible and you can actually see the opportunity rather than the obstacle to focus on the opportunity, not the obstacle, then you'll be so much better off. It's a better mindset, it's a better attitude to have. If all the chaos in the world is happening around you, the one thing you have control over is your attitude, right?

Erika Warfield 14:20
It is, absolutely, and it's a lot like riding a bike. I was helping a young woman who had never really ridden a bike,, kind of wobbling, and I finally just had to say, okay, wherever your eyes go, that's what the bikes gonna go. So if there's you see that thing, don't look at that thing. Look around the thing. That's where the bike is gonna go. And so that's how she was getting around. Some of the things that we were coming across was she had to remember if something darts out, look around it, don't look at it, or you're gonna end up with a squirrel in your spokes.

Russ Johns 14:54
I wish I had that information before I hit that tree,

Erika Warfield 14:57
Right? I don't want the dream Wavertree

Russ Johns 15:01
Hey, Joe, Joseph's here. Hey, another pirate. Thank you.

Erika Warfield 15:11
Joe!!

Russ Johns 15:11
Iris says, keep adjusting as needed, you can stay in front of the changing economic conditions this world throws at us.

Erika Warfield 15:20
Yeah

Russ Johns 15:21
It's absolutely true and I totally believe it because I mean, I survived 2008 and then it ended in 2010 for me, and that's when the ejection seat kicked in. So it's like, Okay, do something else now.

Erika Warfield 15:42
Yeah, yeah. Do you know what helped me in 2008? Honestly, are you ready for this? We were talking about our radio experience.

Russ Johns 15:49
Yes.

Erika Warfield 15:50
I was in real estate just starting out in 2008 when all

Russ Johns 15:55
Oh my gosh

Erika Warfield 15:58
I was like, I got a pivot. I need a back up plan and that's when radio opened up for me.

Russ Johns 16:05
Wow.

Erika Warfield 16:06
It's crazy, right?

Russ Johns 16:09
It's crazy.

Erika Warfield 16:09
So I was doing both.

Russ Johns 16:11
Yeah,

Erika Warfield 16:11
I was paddling like you would not believe

Russ Johns 16:14
It was challenging. It was a challenging few moments there. So let's talk about radio and broadcast because we were talking about this earlier and, and this, I mean, I'm passionate about this kind of platform because as a pirate, you don't need FCC approval, you don't need permission. We don't need a tower out in a farm field out in there in the middle of nowhere to broadcast. You know our signal here.

Erika Warfield 16:43
You can say whatever you want and be whatever we want

Russ Johns 16:44
we say whatever we want. The reality is that we have an opportunity here to share our voice and share our message and share our gifts and actually share other people's gifts that's what I find joy in highlights people like yourself, Erica, I mean it's like, Okay, I get to find out what Eric is doing. It's like, and it's fun. It's interesting to me. Hopefully there's a niche for everyone, right?

Erika Warfield 17:16
There is a niche for everyone. God has blessed me with having several niches that would open up whenever I needed to make the pivot and stay nimble. I think there's a lot of people right now that are doing it beautifully, absolutely beautifully, and they are striving and understanding that this is a time of being in the chrysalis. We're all about to pop out and be these magnificent, glorious creatures, these butterflies and I there are blessings that will come out of this. I know.

Russ Johns 17:53
Absolutely. I want to give a shout out to some of the people in the social Community concierge group.

Erika Warfield 18:01
Yeah.

Russ Johns 18:02
Why don't you go down the list and let everybody know what what's going on with the social media concierge group. Let's speak it out, because we can't leave on a Friday without talking about this. I know that you guys got some things happening soon. I want to give you a spotlight.

Erika Warfield 18:24
First of all, they are the greatest group, I have never learned so much so fast about all things that are online and social media. As I hadn't met this group. This group, I started this group. It was to kind of enhance all of our skill sets as we were learning from each other and helping nonprofit agencies with pro bono work because they didn't know how to do social media, or if they did, it was very nascent in where they were starting, or maybe they were really great at this one thing, but then they didn't have any video. That's kind of how we started and the members of the group or IRA Bowman, Virginia ternovskiy. Then Russ Step Four of excuse me, Rob Depp, Bert sorry Rob. Joe, Steffi and Joe's like don't forget me.

Russ Johns 19:20
Batman's in the house.

Erika Warfield 19:22
Yeah, Batman and his Manny. Alfred. So anyway, we we're now at a place where we're putting on the BYOB summit and that is the build your online business summit is happening at the end of May. I think the dates are may 28 through May 30. It's going to be a series of online courses. These are courses birthed out of our own each individual's experience and we're hoping what we can do is save people a lot of opportunity costs and mistakes and give them a way to have a backup plan. Maybe Pam and HR has already called them to say you're laid off or For Pam and HR calls them to say you're going to be laid off to give them this opportunity to create a game plan for themselves. Maybe they want to leave the vertical that they hate so much. Maybe they want to leave the job they hate so much, and are the co workers that well, y'all can show a little bit more grace to those co workers, but maybe they want to leave them too. We wanted to provide this opportunity of giving them the power to spark join their life every single day by owning their own business.

Some of the classes that are going to be taught are things that have to do with digital marketing and you know, sales, cold calling scripts, creating content scheduling of content. One of the things that I think is going to be fascinating that Virginia will be teaching on is like the the ideation of a product or a service or whatever it might be, and then how do you get it to the reality of existing and then how do you market it? Robin, I will be teaching Rob mostly, but I think one of the classes on I get to help out with his on camera personality. Then I'll be teaching a class on copywriting, which not that I'm biased. But really, I think the copywriting could form the basis for all the other classes and optimizing the other classes. Because if you don't know how to write something that's compelling, that will convert to dollars for you. What are you going to put on your website when you do your website design? An hour and a lot of people think I know how to write. Well, content writing is not copywriting. Regular writing is not copywriting. I mean, there's like six different awareness levels a prospect has and you have to know which one it is. I mean, one of them is do they even know they have a problem? They may not even know they have a problem.

Russ Johns 21:42
Awareness.

Erika Warfield 21:43
Yeah,

Russ Johns 21:44
Acknowledgement. I do have a problem.

Erika Warfield 21:47
I've got a problem. They may not know that.

Russ Johns 21:49
I didn't have hair.

Erika Warfield 21:53
Nobody told me I didn't have a face for radio.

Russ Johns 21:58
I have a face for radio while on video.

Erika Warfield 22:01
I heard that all the time. Where are you on radio, you don't have a face for radio. A lot of people don't realize if there's six different awareness levels, that means there's six different ways to write. And everybody kind of takes this one attack. And it's like, that's not the awareness level that they're at. And that's not why it's not working. And you got to know the trigger words.

Russ Johns 22:24
Yeah.

Erika Warfield 22:25
I mean, you can hop up and down on pain points all day long. But the trigger words,

Russ Johns 22:29
I think it's the whole mental journey that people have to go on and they really have to, they have to kind of own the fact that, okay I understand what they're even, I mean, as long as I've been on the online world in email marketing online marketing, I love signing up for a newsletter, just to see their process it's like, okay, that's going to the scrape file. It's my swipe file now,

Erika Warfield 23:03
you know I get a lot of all of us do get a lot of spam on LinkedIn. And it's usually the typical template. And I don't think people understand the best email writers were the ones that understood the direct response marketing and the direct mail pieces of the 40s 50s 60s. And when you study those copywriters, your email campaigns go through the roof and they go through the roof.

Russ Johns 23:34
I know that you and I are both fans have the other the other part. part of the process is video.

Erika Warfield 23:41
Oh my gosh,

Russ Johns 23:42
I mean video, I have to tell you, the entire month of May is booked out and part of June is booked out for the #piratebroadcast because I have an opportunity to extend a piece of video to someone and say, Hey, I'd love to have you on our broadcast or And it works. I promise you.

Erika Warfield 24:07
video does work what is it that rob always saying that video increases their sales by like 49%?

Russ Johns 24:13
Yeah.

Erika Warfield 24:15
He's teaching a class on that not just on camera personality because you may not feel comfortable with being on camera, but there's so many

Russ Johns 24:24
other ways of doing video though you don't have to be on camera.

Erika Warfield 24:28
Exactly. But if you were, we can give you the tips and tricks. Case in point, I was an introvert who didn't want to be on camera. I don't even like speaking to people. So it's like, what am I gonna do on camera? So there's some tricks to tap into that to kind of get you over that hump. There's going to be a podcasting class. Rob is going to be teaching on the technical aspects of camera and video and it's going to be huge. It's gonna be that is so sweet and

Russ Johns 24:58
so nice.

Erika Warfield 25:00
That is so sweet

Russ Johns 25:02
copywriting

Erika Warfield 25:04
Don't make me cry. I know Don't make me cry I actually put makeup on.

Russ Johns 25:11
That's the power and authority that people can have if they just say it's okay, I'm okay with it, and it's really and I've seen it happen so many times where somebody has actually taken steps to improve their own circumstance and they take action. It just makes a huge difference when you when you take action, and you have a plan, and this goes full cycle back to meta growth and the whole idea that you can move the needle with the right information. Once you identify that, that's something you can do, you can really make a difference, you can make it matter. I just want people to And that's what I'm all about is the idea that you can make a difference? Oh,

Erika Warfield 26:08
Yeah, I do. I think it's, I think it's leap, and the net will appear. Because if you don't leap, you're not going to be able to make that difference. When this is all said and done, what what are you going to be able to say?

Russ Johns 26:21
Yeah

Erika Warfield 26:21
I mean, that fear was there when there were lions chasing after us and mastodons and whatever else.

Russ Johns 26:26
Yeah

Erika Warfield 26:28
Just book a call make a business decision.

Russ Johns 26:31
Yeah just book a call.

Erika Warfield 26:32
Ass class.

Russ Johns 26:33
You're only one conversation away. I'm making a difference in your life. Right?

Erika Warfield 26:38
Yeah.

Russ Johns 26:39
That's where it goes. I want to see if this shows up. Ira Bowman in classes the BYOB target market research post. Creation website design creation, SEO optimization media personal profile social media business profile sales, cold calling copywriting sales words. That's a huge opportunity for anyone that has, even if you're thinking about doing something, even if you're thinking about the possibility of changing your careers or looking at even a side hustle, these are all skills that you can learn and grow, and profit from. This is all necessary skills that you have an opportunity to join in, and really produce results. I mean, every business needs these skills. Businesses are going to continue to be there. Life is gonna continue to go on the sun is going to continue to be there. So if you have an interest, here's the opportunity. So just saying,

Erika Warfield 27:47
It's gonna be fun.

Russ Johns 27:49
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Erika Warfield 27:51
Yes. There's definitely gonna be a lot of value. It's going to be a lot of fun. Like I said, it's not just learning what to do. It's going to be learning What not to do?

Russ Johns 28:01
Yeah.

Erika Warfield 28:02
Save those opportunity costs for sure.

Russ Johns 28:05
I mean, we're living in an amazing time. It's scary, because it's a lot of unknowns. And it's amazing because of the opportunities that it will present. As long as you see opportunities instead of obstacles. roadblocks

Erika Warfield 28:25
look around them, or you're crash in to a tree

Russ Johns 28:28
Don't run into that tree.

Erika Warfield 28:31
Don't be Georgia the jungle.

Russ Johns 28:33
No, no. So thank you so much, Eric. This has been fun. It's funny too, because a lot of people say, oh, that went really quick. That went really fast. It's necessary to actually get out and share some of the things that we're doing. Because there's so many things. It's like, you buy a red car, and you don't see a red car until you buy a red car, right? It's like, I didn't see that. And it's just opening your awareness up. And when #interestingpeople are doing #interestingthings, and people find out about it, it's like that sounds really fascinating. I'd like to learn more about it. Think of the lives you can change when you evolve like that. So any life changing events that you'd like to share with us any tips or little things or words of wisdom that you would like to share with?

Erika Warfield 29:35
I always think of myself as the least to the apostles and therefore the least wise, um, gosh, I don't know if I have any. Just you know what, God is economical. He uses all things for good. All things for good. And you may not know why or the what, but he'll always let you know. I think that and To have grace for yourself, and the end of the night, have grace for yourself.

Russ Johns 30:07
I wake up with gratitude and go to bed with grace.

Erika Warfield 30:10
Mm hmm. That's beautiful.

Russ Johns 30:13
Yeah. So with that, #kindnessiscool #smilesarefree. And you #enjoytheday.

Erika Warfield 30:25
Thank you, you too. That rocked

Russ Johns 30:28
Thank you for joining the #piratebroadcast. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. #Thepiratesyndicate is a platform where you show up we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about. Join #thepiratesyndicate today.



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