Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Standing Out is a show created to help individuals and companies improve their sales & marketing outcomes, as well as their leadership development. Each episode we have an expert who has a unique perspective on sales, marketing and/or leadership providing insights from his or her experiences. And we throw in a few laughs from time to time. Be sure to hit Subscribe wherever you listen to our podcasts.
Standing Out: A Podcast About Sales, Marketing and Leadership
Standing Out: David Klasser's Guide to Modern Marketing
David Klasser, founder of Exploding Leads and a man with a surprising talent for rap, joins us to share the joys of fatherhood and his vision for revolutionizing the sales world. David offers a unique blend of personal and professional insights to capture the essence of living a well-rounded life. They dissect the challenges businesses face with outdated sales tactics and explore how nurturing and educating prospects can engage the 97% of potential customers who aren't quite ready to buy. By drawing parallels to political campaigns, David emphasizes the need to adapt sales strategies to modern buyer behaviors, ensuring businesses connect with their audience effectively.
Thank you to our sponsor, Salesdash CRM – A CRM for Freight Logistics. Salesdash CRM is built for freight broker & agent sales teams. Manage your shipper prospecting and follow-ups. Organize your carriers and the lanes they run. Learn more at www.betaconsultinggroup.com/standing-out
Standing Out is a sales, marketing & leadership podcast powered by BETA Consulting Group, created to highlight best practices from industry leaders with incredible experience and insights! The goal is to entertain, educate & inspire individuals & companies to improve their sales, marketing & leadership development outcomes.
63 cents for a gallon of gas. What the heck? What's up everybody? Hey everybody, what's up everybody, and welcome to another episode of handing out. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Standing Out, a podcast about sales, marketing and leadership. I'm Trey Griggs, your host, so glad that you're with us today. As you can see, movember is coming in nicely here as we round out the month. It still looks pretty good and, by the way, happy Thanksgiving. Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving out there, with a lot of turkey, maybe some stuffing, some gravy and good times with the family. So hope you had a great time with that as well.
Speaker 1:As we get the show started today, a couple of announcements to make as we get started. First of all, the broker carrier summit is in full effect. We've got the indie show coming up in our in april 28 through may 2nd in indian athletes. It's going to be phenomenal. You can sign up for that right now by going to broker carriersummitcom. But most importantly, it is coming to a city near you in 2025. We've got some local meetups, 12 of them to be exact. We're going to be coming to cities that don't normally get to have the summit in person because we want to meet you right where you're at. We got the first three cities announced. We got Las Vegas, nevada, palm Springs, california, and Louisville, kentucky. We'll have those dates locked in here in just a few weeks, if not already, so be on the lookout for that. That's going to be starting in mid to late January. It's going to be a lot of fun to meet some brokers and carriers out there and get to know who they are. If you're in that ballpark, keep your eyes open. We'll be out there shortly.
Speaker 1:Also, before we get started, today got to give a shout out to our sponsor, sales-crm, my buddy Josh Lyles, building a great product. Listen, not all CRMs are created equal, folks, especially when most of them were not created with your freight brokerage in mind. If you're a freight broker, you got to check this out. Sales-crm built by freight brokers, exclusively for freight brokers. So be sure to visit sales-crmcom, get a demo sign up. You can also learn about it from our website, betaconsultinggroupcom. Forward slash standing dash out. You can request a demo right there and be sure to give Josh a little bit of love. Phenomenal product over there. The freight brokers that are using it right now nothing but love man. They absolutely love what he's building because it's built for them. Josh is a former freight broker. He knows exactly how it works. So make sure that if you're a freight broker and you need a CRM, that you check out Josh over at sales-crm.
Speaker 1:All right, it is time to bring our guest onto the show today. For quite a while now, on LinkedIn and specifically working with and partnering with him on some opportunities over the past year, year and a half, something like that and just a really great dude. So please give it up. My good friend, the founder of Exploding Leads, david Klasser. All right, so we got to let this play just a little bit, my friend, just a little. We got to play okay for people who are listening right now that song. You may not have heard it before. Possibly maybe you have.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but this is david classer.
Speaker 1:This is david classer rapping his own song. You got a whole album. I did not album. I did not know this, I did not know this. How have you kept this from me for so long?
Speaker 2:Any way I can get another white dude out there in the world to rap semi-good is my goal. I like to keep it under wraps because I'm somewhat embarrassed of it, but I'm also really proud of it at the same time Embarrassed.
Speaker 1:I actually think that song is a banger. I actually like that song a lot and I don't know if you know this or not, but I secretly want to be a rapper as well. I mean, you probably don't know this, but my karaoke go-to song is Humpty Dates by Digital Underground from the 90s, because I still have all the lyrics in my head. I still know them all from the 90s. So I love rap music as well. Well, man, I'm with you. We should have, we should collaborate is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:I don't know you know, maybe we could do a little rap battle or something like that.
Speaker 1:I could teach you some stuff and then we could do one of those fun rap battles rap battle, maybe some collab piece, you know, like we could, we could have fun with this, my friend. This could, this could be a good time. We have absolutely, absolutely for sure. So, all right, man, good to have you on the show. It's been a long time coming. I've known you for quite a while on LinkedIn. We really connected. I think what a year and a half ago, started talking a little bit more and started to learn about what you were working on, what you're doing with Exploding Leads, and before we get into that, we have to also mention you're a new dad, I mean relatively new. You're six months in and that's pretty exciting. So love to hear that. Your little daughter, blue look at this oh, so cute. I just love that. That's awesome, man, and I mean the look on your face there, I think, is like the inner joy that every parent feels when they have a child, especially for the first time. What's it been like?
Speaker 2:being a dad man.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, I'm in love again, dude. I didn't think I'd find love again. You know I met my wife head over heels for her and then have a daughter. I think all the girl dads know out there what it's like whenever you you'll do anything for your little girl. You know I was talking with my wife and you know she was like, hey, you know, what type of dad are you going to be? And I said, well, if she wants, you know, Stanley mugs, or 20 of them, I'm going to buy 20 of them, like it's just going to happen. So I think a lot of girl dads out there will will vibe with me in that. So I'm just in love again and I'm so thankful to God that he brought this little girl to our life, it changes everything.
Speaker 1:And you're absolutely right, man, you'll do anything, like I. Think about my kids. You know they want to ride horses, like okay, I'll figure that out. You know they want to dance, I'll figure that out. Uh, my daughter just turned 16 and uh, you know she, uh, she has a car now. It's my old car, but it's like I wanted.
Speaker 1:It's funny when I, when when I own the car and I drove the car, I'd go to the mechanic and they'd say, hey, you need a new this or new that, I'm like, ah, I think I'm okay. But when I went to the mechanic for my daughter to get the car ready for her, I said I need to know everything that's wrong with this car and, whatever it is, we're fixing it. And I think I dropped like $1,500 fixing stuff that I never would have fixed if it was just me driving it. But when you have a daughter or son, when you love somebody that much, it really will do anything, sometimes even crazy stuff, because it's just, you know, it's so wonderful, so congratulations my friend girl, dad in the house, let's go grow that.
Speaker 2:Are you guys planning on having more? Lord willing, if God gives us some, we're going to stay chill, stay, you know, calm right now, just for a couple of months, maybe a year or two, and then we'll see where it, where it, goes from. Now we're still getting back to the whole sleep routine, so once that happens we'll probably forget about all the hard times and then say let's do it again, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right. We were at 13 months and we're like let's have another one. So we I know exactly the feeling with that. Well, you know, girl dad is special. I had a friend of mine tell me that real men have daughters. So congratulations, my friend, you qualify. We're all, we're in the group together. Whether you have sons or daughters in the future, you are now what my friend would call a real man, because you got daughters. So, anyways, all good stuff, my friend. All right, let's talk about your career a little bit. Let's get into this. You're currently a founder of Exploding Leads. We're going to get into that in a little bit. Tell me about your career arc. How did this all begin? Did you think you'd be in this place and what led to you starting Exploding Leads?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So a quick little summary. It all started back when I started my own lawn business the typical entrepreneurial like feel and vibe Thanks to my mom. My mom is a saleswoman, really great saleswoman. She she's sold anything from furniture to candles to cleaning supplies and actually throughout her career she's amassed $4.5 million in sales from her cleaning supplies business with a team of 30. And so throughout my high school career I really learned from her. On the flip side, my dad is a professor. He teaches Old Testament Hebrew. He's an author Not super big as far as nationally goes, but he's done some really cool things.
Speaker 2:And so that was my upbringing and from that I really learned the entrepreneurship journey from my mom, which I'm very thankful for and how to sell and how to market. So I took on an early interest in marketing throughout high school, started doing some side business websites, marketing, copywriting, worked for a lot of different businesses, did videography, photography, anything I can get my hands on and so throughout college I started doing that more along with getting my marketing degree, and after college I really just knew my path, which was to get a marketing job, to grow as fast as possible, to rise in the ranks as much as I could, and then to finally start my own business after that. So I've always known what I've wanted to do. I've had the pleasure to work for a $400 million company, for a $52 million company, for a $92 million company, being their marketing director, leading those charges, working with multiple salespeople and leading sales teams, and then that led me to create Exploding Leads a couple of years after I had that wonderful experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that gosh. I want to go back. It was probably when you were at Linco Supply Chain that we probably first connected. I remember that was a company that I was calling on back in the day for some different products I was selling throughout the industry. But it's neat to see your journey arc. I think it was about a year and a half ago that you reached out and said, hey, I'm working on something, what do you think? And we had a conversation, and that conversation led us talking about email marketing and, specifically exploding leads. So talk for a moment about exploding leads and let's jump in a little bit and spend our time talking about email marketing. Sure.
Speaker 2:So let me explain to you why they call me the pipeline poppy. I am a poppy that's what my daughter calls me, even though she can't talk yet because she's six months old but my wife calls me poppy and so other people call me pipeline poppy. So what I love to do is build pipeline for businesses and, matter of fact, it's the number one thing that businesses should focus on is their pipeline, their pipeline health. If they don't have top of funnel pipeline, nothing's going to come downstream right, and so most businesses for some reason actually really struggle to focus on pipeline and prioritize it and actually build it. So I think the reason why most struggle with this over working with 62 businesses I've done work with so far, over 20 years, 21 industries and I've helped generate 25 million in sales for those businesses the number one reason I found why they can't build pipeline is businesses don't know how to sell and, in fact, they're selling the wrong thing and it's burning leads and it's costing them sales. They typically sell the wrong thing to the wrong people, relying on outdated tactics that treat every lead like they're ready to buy right.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you can relate, or most of the people listening here. We've been sold to before and we don't like it. And even when we're ready to buy, possibly sometimes we still don't like being sold to in the way that most salespeople are selling, and I call that pushy Pete mode. Most businesses are pushy Pete in people, which is old fashioned sales tactics like hey, you know, a firm handshake, close at any cost mentality, hey can I have 15 minutes of your time? Right, really like a commission breath type of style. And this type of sales is costing them because only 3%, max 5%, of any given audience that we sell to that includes myself, you and anyone listening here only 3% to 5% are ready to buy right now. That's statistically proven and it might be 10%, but still that's only 10% less of people who are ready to buy right now. So that means 90 to 97% are not ready to buy.
Speaker 2:They're in different stages and so when they get a sales cold call, cold email, when they have a pushy salesman trying to close them, that's off-putting immediately. And so most buyers 97%, I say don't want to be pushed. They want to be sold to in the way that they want to be sold, which is they explore, they research, they decide on their own time how to move up what I call the buyer readiness pyramid right, and so a brand needs to guide them through that buyer readiness pyramid, the different stages. And I talk about that if you want the 97 percent and you have to nurture them, you have to educate them, you have to get their permission to reach out to them in the first place, right, educate, guide them on something, on topics that they want to hear about, Right. So at Exploding Leads we build systems that engage the 97 percent, which will 4X your pipeline in a matter of weeks or just a couple of months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and you've done a little bit of that work for my company as well, for some of the mutual clients who've done that work, and I think the key word there that you mentioned was nurture. It's nurturing, it's coaching people along. And the other part, too, is to think about the different tactics. I think about our recent presidential election as they about the different tactics. I think about our recent presidential election, as they dissected that over the past month of what happened. They noted that the Republicans changed their tactics. They didn't go knock on doors anymore, they used smartphones and they changed the devices. They went where people were to get the audience that they wanted to talk to. They were willing to do something completely different.
Speaker 1:I think that when we talk about email marketing and strategies that work for businesses, there's this idea that there's kind of like the old school mentality might still work, when I think it's opposite. Email marketing can still be very effective, but most people just stink at it. They're just not very good at doing that. And it starts with great copywriting, but it also starts with structure and organization, which is what you bring to the table both the copywriting, the structure, the organization, as well as mulling that, together with what a website experience is like as well. Talk a little bit about kind of you know as much secret sauce as you want to give away in terms of how all those things work together to move that 97% through that buyer's journey like you talked about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. A lot of nurturing is sending really good emails and sending emails, permission-based emails, building your email list. I'm surprised many businesses don't focus on it right. They often send unsolicited emails and you can send unsolicited cold emails in a way that pisses less people off and actually builds your pipeline. It's still a very applicable way to do it, but sending these emails weekly at the least is really important. It's the key to the core four which I talk about. So let me actually do something. Let me pull this over.
Speaker 1:Whiteboard time. Whiteboard time. Baby David, listen, this is the first whiteboard experience we've had on Standing Out. This is big. This is big. Let's see it, my friend, let's go. First whiteboard experience we've had on standing out.
Speaker 2:This is big. This is big. Let's see it, my friend, let's go All right. So here's the buyer readiness pyramid. Okay, this is what I call the buyer readiness pyramid. Okay, and this is really important, this is your at any given audience that you sell to. This is what the makeup is. So at the top, you have the 3%. These people are ready to buy in any given market. Okay, what I talked about a lot of people and most every business is going after this 3% and it's more like a big lake, okay, and so everyone's fishing in this lake and you can make millions of dollars in this lake, but where the billions and the millions and millions and millions are made, is this 97%. This is the 97% I'm talking about. So you might be asking well, I'm doing decent here, but when I'm doing cold outreach, when I'm going to events, I'm trying to find these people who are ready to buy. Right now, you only get so many opportunities when you go after those people and you send emails to those people, whenever you talk to those people. So how do I engage the 97% In any given market?
Speaker 2:9% are product aware, product aware. They understand your solution, like you are a product with a couple other products, right? So when you think of marketing software, you've got MailChimp, hubspot, wix, squarespace, like. You understand that there's products to solve XYZ problems. So you're in that stage. You understand that there's specific names of products that will help you solve your problem. Another example is most people feel like they are tired and I have a little belly or like little fat and they're like I need to go work out. A certain product is a certain CrossFit gym local to you, meaning it's CrossFit, but it's unique to how they do CrossFit, right, maybe they mix it up a little bit. Okay, the next stage is 23%. This is solution aware. Solution aware would be CrossFit, like the category of CrossFit or jujitsu or the traditional gym, right, it's a solution. It's a category of how to. So this would be email marketing.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a. It's not the product, it's not the you know kit dot com. It's the solution, and around 23 percent give or take is in that solution aware. The vast majority of people that you need to market to and this is really important are in problem aware. Okay, they understand that they have a problem. It's just not important enough to do anything right now. Right, and that's why you hear marketers and salespeople say agitate the problem. Agitate the problem because that will get people to move up to find a solution or, quickly, a product that will solve that problem. And so most of your audience 40% give or take is right here. So this is the key. And then you have around 25%, something like that, who are on in unaware Okay, they just have no like that. Who are in unaware Okay, they just have no idea that their hair is on fire. They have no flipping idea. All right. So what I tell brands is, in order to sell to the 97%, focus on the 40% and agitate the problem. Talk about the problem. Sell the problem over and over and over again.
Speaker 2:Where the mistake most brands do is they go right to their product and they talk about how great it is, the features and the benefits. That's right, yeah. And it's like, no, that's not how it works, right, I got sold at my house door to door solar panels, right, and that's how they came off, right, like, hey, we're helping people save money by installing, you know, solar panels. And they went right for their solution why they're different. And they didn't even know if I had a problem. Yet, like, am I overpaying? Is it a big deal? Do I even care if I'm overpaying? They didn't know, they didn't care to ask, and so they're leading with these cold call scripts, these door-to-door cold email. That is just completely wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, and you're so right about that. I've seen way too many salespeople start demos by just talking about their product right away, not even asking questions, not even trying to figure out what the problem is or highlighting it. And this is why you and I are story brand. You know people, because that's the big part of story brand is you talk about the problem. The moment you stop talking about the problem, you lose the audience, you lose them. You know, it's the reason why cable news is so popular and news in general, because you don't turn on the news to find out what went well that day. You turn on the news to find out what blew up. You know, and that's what people want to see and want to hear. So I think you're right. I mean, that is so spot on.
Speaker 2:Let me add to this so one way to like, practical way to sell to the 40% okay, or the 97% is offering what StoryBrand and Donald Miller communicates well, which is a lead magnet or a lead generator Okay. And again, this is something that most businesses do not do it's offering them something of value in exchange for someone's contact information. So a way that this plays out a lot of times is someone goes to your website, right, the only thing for them to do is to buy something. Most of the time, right To learn it's a sales page, Great.
Speaker 2:But if we take this proven number in effect, 97%, even if it's 80%, like, even if it's wrong a lot of people coming to your website are not ready to buy right now, but they do want something solved or they want to be educated, they want to have be enlightened about something. They have many problems, and so what you can do is have a pop-up or something on the homepage where it's like hey, here's something that we want to give you a template, a checklist, an assessment that helps you understand where you're at, or whatever a buyer's guide, even in exchange for your contact information. A lot of brands don't do that, and so they don't know how to engage leads that are coming to their website and most are just bouncing and never returning. This. That's money that you're spending, wasting dollars that are coming to your website and just leaving, Whereas if you just were to do something really simple AB test some things have a pop-up. I know most people don't like pop-ups, but Newsflash it works if you do it right.
Speaker 2:And if you do that, you could get an extra 20 to 100 leads a month that say, raise their hand and say, yes, I want to hear from you, but also, yes, I want this free resources, something that's actually going to help me, Not some silly sales, stupid sales pitch, a white paper or something like that, something of true value. And so that's what I do. Part of what I do is I help you build your email list that way, get qualified leads and then nurture them through email and make sure that you're reaching out to your audience weekly so you stay in touch. And as they go up the buyer pyramid, buyer readiness pyramid, you're always there. Whether you manufacture it yourself, like you push them towards that right Buying now, because you can. You can like hypnotize, ethically hypnotize them to move up the pyramid, or whenever they're ready you'll always be there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm one of those persons I hate pop-ups Like I hate pop-ups. I don't like them at all, but if it's a good pop-up, meaning it has a good message, a quick message that speaks to a problem that I have, if it touches a nerve on a problem I have. Those are the ones that I'll at least consider, and I think that's also part of it too is you can do all of these things, David, but if you don't have good messaging, then a lot of it falls on deaf ears. You have to be in tune with what your customers not only are feeling, but how they're talking about it, how they're thinking about it, the words that they use, the messaging. It's critical. I always say that great sales and marketing starts with great messaging, and without that, a lot of times it falls on deaf ears. Talk a little bit about that from not only you've got the structure, you've got the system in place we just talked about that but the messaging has to meet as well. Talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're a messaging guy too, right? So I'm preaching to the choir here, but messaging is the foundation. I always I have the saying if you communicate the right message to the right audience through quality content, you'll win every time. So the right message to the right audience through quality content, you'll win every time. Meaning content could be literally anything cold call scripts, you know it doesn't have to be like, you know, social posts or something weird like that. So whenever you communicate the right message in a simple way, it does wonders. Let me give you an example of a great message that resonates and stands out, because a lot of times messaging and positioning I just lump it together. You want a great positioning book, by the way, should read Sales Pitch by April Dunford, and then, of course, a good messaging book Story the way should read Sales Pitch by April Dumford and then, of course, a good messaging book Story Brand by Donald Miller. But what messaging and positioning does is it makes a certain audience realize how important you are in their minds and how differentiated you are in the market. It like positions you from your competitors and from the buyer standpoint. They're different options. So I'm a buyer. I have different options to get XYZ job done. Right, I need a job done, and a lot of times I'm in problem where, like, I understand it's a problem and so maybe I just don't even do the job right, I don't even fix the problem. But sometimes when I when something big happens, you know, then I'm like, ok, I need to fix this problem, so I need, I have a job to be done and so I need to understand the lay of the land. Ok, so messaging and positioning helps the buyer, your buyers, understand where you are in the in the market landscape. I call it the battlefront, right, I'm exploding leads. I have a battle plan that I create strategy for my clients, very, you know, military thing. But it's the battlefront. Like, where are you in the scope and the landscape for the buyer? Like, so they can.
Speaker 2:One awesome example is a company has NASA inspired bed sheets. Okay, nasa inspired bed sheets, okay, and it's, it's, it's a brand called miracle brand, and so that's a unique angle, a differentiator that makes them stand out. And you might be, might be like, what is NASA inspired bed sheets? Well, it's, they're sheets made with antibacterial silver that present, prevents 99 percent of bacteria growth, right, so that's a unique angle they've taken to build bed sheets of positioning messaging materials and it's really simple and it goes with the product. But it makes you think, huh, that's fantastic. Their founder actually was NASA employees. They worked on all these different spaceships and they brought that mythology to how they do bedsheets.
Speaker 2:I think it's very. It's a great case study for positioning and messaging and it's something as simple as that. You know you don't have to do necessarily all this big massive audit strategy audit, but even if it's just something simple like that, that's unique. It makes you stand out in the market of me, a buyer looking for bed sheets. So do I go to Kohl's? Do I go to, you know, amazon or do I try these guys? And just the clarity is refreshing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, and great messaging can really make a brand stand out very quickly. I remember when Dollar Shave Club came on the scene and they put out a 45 second video. But the message was so right on that man, aren't you tired of paying 20 bucks for razor blades? And I'm like, yes, I am tired of paying 20 bucks for razor blades. And they had this really cool commercial at the end of it. You wanted to, you want to sign up? It was super, super easy to do that.
Speaker 1:And I even think about I mean not to harp on this again, but I even think go back to like this election. What, what are the? What are the analysts do after a presidential election? They talk about the effectiveness of the messaging. They say this message resonated, this message did not resonate this is what we found to be true and they look at exit polls to see what do voters say resonated. And it comes back to that. And so messaging works in politics, it works in business, it works everywhere. Great messaging gets people to move, gets people to do things, and I think it's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll say something to that. Yeah, I mean, love him or hate him, donald Trump has a great message Make America great again. Right and simple. Over and over again. These other candidates that have come come through. They don't have as clear of a message. Right, I'm with her or she's got this. I don't know if that's as effective, right, and I'm not just saying that, I'm just objectively saying what the Donald Trump campaign and team has done putting them on podcasts like Joe Rogan. They know their audience and when you pair that audience with a very clear message, it does wonders and it shows and brands can be doing the same thing. I think a lot of times brands get too scared of offending some people. They get too scared of having something polarizing or powerful, and it doesn't have to be something where you're just out there like trashing someone else. It can be really simple and make you differentiated in your market if you're just willing to take that first step.
Speaker 1:Well, in some of the keynotes and workshops that I've done in the last couple of years, I've used that example of Donald Trump from the 2016 primary. You think about this? He went up against, I think, 10 other Republicans, most of them establishment Republicans or old school Republicans and if you were to say, hey, what was Jeb Bush's message? You can't remember it. What was Marco Rubio's message? You go through the list of candidates. If you say what was Donald Trump's message? Everybody knows make America great. Again.
Speaker 1:I mean, that was just such a great marketing ploy because it hit home, it resonated with people, it was simple, it was easy to understand that. That matters, and it matters in business as well. I think of great brands out there like Nike just do it. What does that mean? I mean, it's all about becoming an athlete and doing it and trying just being the best athlete you can possibly be. It's simple, but everybody understands what that means. Just do it. Don't sit around anymore, don't wait, don't procrastinate. Go out and do something.
Speaker 1:Great brands have simple messaging that resonates and works and, again, it's just incredibly powerful. But you're right, I think people get a little bit afraid of offending and maybe not being as edgy as they could be, and it's tough to do, and I'm guilty of that too, because I'm not really. I'm kind of a peacemaker myself by nature. I tend to want peace everywhere and you have to be willing to be a little daring, a little bold, maybe even a little offensive sometimes, a little divisive sometimes, to have a message that really stands out and resonates. It's really powerful in that regard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just look at our audiences right. Who we're selling to?
Speaker 2:We have an audience of high skeptics these days right skeptical, very skeptical, and so one strategy to uh combat that skeptics is to stand out, to be funny, to, to, to know where humanity is at, where it come, where you know. Where are we at in humor? Where are we at in professionalism, like all these old-fashioned pushy P sales tactics are dead, and and you'll start to you start to see all these brands using humor in the right way but also being professional at the same time. You can do both. It doesn't have to be either or, but I think a lot of brands just don't understand human nature anymore.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And the brands that are making a laugh. You know standing out, you know going to a specific audience and saying I am for you. The moment you do that, you have to say I'm against this other specific type of audience and that's fine, because they'll never buy from you anyways. The deeper you dig your hole and plant your flag, the more money you will make and you will build a tribe and it's going to make you a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much more we can talk about this. My friend, we'll have to have you back on, but before, cause we're going to have to. We got to. We got to move on to our next thing, which is we got to play a fun game. All right, and we like to have fun on the show from time to time.
Speaker 1:So today we're playing a game called Wavelength. All right, david, listen, this is a team game. We're on the same team here. Here's what we got to do we're going to get a category and a letter from our producer up on the screen and we have to try to come up with the same word based upon that information. So it could be like food z, and then we have to come up with a food that starts with the letter Z and see if it's the same word. We've got to be on the same wavelength here. We'll see how we can do. Listen, most of us. Most of the time, three out of five is a winning score, all right. So if we get at least three, man, we're in good shape. We get four, like we're superstars, all right. So here we go. Animals that start with the letter t an animal that starts with the letter t. Oh man, I tend to blank from times. I can hear you, hear you writing um. Okay, all right, here we go. Three, two, one turtle. Oh man, okay, so that.
Speaker 2:What does that tell us about our spiritual animal?
Speaker 1:Whatever, Well, I find that sometimes when these come up, I blank. I kind of like I mean, there's a lot of tortoise, tiger. I can name them now, but at first I'm like, which one is it? Tiger was definitely a better one. I don't know why I went turtle.
Speaker 1:All right here we go. Number two we're 0 for 1. Number two US cities that start with A. Us cities that start with A. Oh man, only one comes to mind right away. Okay, all right. Okay, all right. I don't know about this, got it? I'm pretty sure I didn't spell it correctly. Here we go. Three, two, one Albuquerquelanta, atlanta. See what am I thinking? What am I? What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? Thinks of albuquerque.
Speaker 1:It thinks of albuquerque but, atlanta didn't pop up in my head. This is what this is a tough game. All right, okay, so we're over two. We got to get the next three. Here we go. A pop artist that starts with s oh gosh, this is terrible. I mean, I think of some, but I know these are not what you're thinking of. I know these are not right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we were born in different times lately.
Speaker 1:But even that doesn't even matter. I'm thinking just weird ones that just don't even matter. Okay, all right, here we go, who knows, maybe we'll get one of this one, right all right, I doubt you hold on. So think about who I'm married to okay, all right, I think we might actually be on the same page here.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't know all right, three, two, one Shakura, let's go, let's go, we did it. You say Shakakira, shakira. Yeah, I spelled it with a u, but that's okay, saying hey, that one counts my god okay one for three, let's go.
Speaker 1:We can't get a city with the start with an a, but we got pop stars, all right. Things found at the beach that starts with a k oh, came right into my head. Okay, here we go. Things found at the beach that start with a K oh, it came right into my head.
Speaker 2:Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1:Things found at the beach that start with a K. Think of the beach, think of what happens, think of what the weather's like, think of it's sometimes windy. Okay, got it All right, here we go Ready. Three, two, one Kite, let's go, let's go all right that's two for four. Here we go. That's two or four, we're gonna count that one. All right, last one. Here we go. Last one, let's see if we can do this. Dave, we get superheroes that start with a w. Okay, all right got it that one was easy.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll see if it's easy here we go three, two, one wonder woman yes, let's go let's go.
Speaker 1:Three out of five. Congratulations, dude. That's big. That was a big comeback dude, because we were over two, we were down, we were down and out and that my friend is waveling. Thanks for playing. That's a good time, all right. Also, we like to have a little fun with a random question of the day. Now, david, listen, this is a question that our producer gets to come up with. I haven't seen it. It could be funny, it could be serious, it could be a good question. It ever tried, or it's a two parter. What is the most unusual food you would try? So what have you? What's the most unusual that you have or would try?
Speaker 2:You know, I, I uh my wife will laugh at me she loves food. I am like food is just kind of necessarily necessary evil. I'll just go like I. It distracts from the real thing that, no, I do love food, but I'm a little baby when it comes to I'm a white boy, I'm a baby. My stomach is like not so like it can't take food. Uh, I think the the the craziest food, which is not even that crazy, is alligator. That was uh very interesting. But if I, when I go down South again to Mexico, which we often go down to, uh, and then we're not just talking Cancun Like I, my wife is from Mexico. She was born and raised there, came here when she's 15 years old, learned, learned English and all that stuff Um, I want to try squid. I want to try squid. Uh, I would prefer that it's actually somewhat alive or like just raw.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay, all right, very good. Now I haven't. I'm with you, I don't try too many wild foods. I remember one time I went to a dinner with some people in Las Vegas, one time at a conference, and this meal was like food I'd never even heard of. It was so like all delicacies and stuff. I can't even tell you what it was, but that was weird. But the food that I remember, that I tried, that I was actually surprised, that I liked was when I was down in Columbia, down in South America, I tried fried octopus and that was phenomenal Like I was actually shocked because I'm not a lobster guy.
Speaker 1:Lobster to me is too chewy. I like shrimp but lobster to me is too chewy and octopus is really close to that and I thought I'm not going to like this. But it was less chewy than lobster and it had a crispy kind of outer shell, how it was, how it was cooked, and man, that was. I mean I would have that. I'd have that often if I could. It was really, really good. I never thought I would like octopus, but I do. I'm a big fan of fried octopus from Colombia, from Medellin.
Speaker 2:Squid octopus, kind of the same thing. Right, it is very similar. Yeah, I would like to try that. I'm a big Survivor fan. Survivor the show.
Speaker 1:They have squid eyeballs, or uh different yeah, yeah it's yeah, I like to try. I've never wanted to like, try like like cow tongue or even like liver or brain, some of these other things that people have, especially delicacies. I've never really wanted. Maybe I did try that in vegas when I was there, maybe that's what I had, I don't know. It was pretty bad, but, um, I've never been one to want to try some of that stuff. But but from a survivor perspective, you kind of. So you're an interesting place. So it's like in theory you like the idea of eating these crazy foods but in reality you're kind of like meat and potatoes. Keep it simple, kind of guy.
Speaker 2:Yes, but when I get opportunity I will do it Nice.
Speaker 1:We'll have to report back and let us know how that went. Hey David man, that went. Hey David man, so excited for you to be on the show. How can everybody find you, connect with you and get to know you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can follow me on LinkedIn, david Klasser, or explodingleadscom, and I'm actually releasing a book here in the next couple of months called Exploding Leads that teaches businesses how to sell to the 97% and fill their pipeline.
Speaker 1:Love it, dude. Well, hey, listen, you're doing a great job of building your own brand and what you're doing with that and the partnerships that we have with some of the clients we work with. It's a pleasure, my friend. I hope you'll come back and see us again real soon. Thank you, all right, see you, buddy. Hey, come back every Tuesday for a great guest like David Klaus right here on Standing Out. Also, a big thanks to our friends over at SupplyChainSwagcom.
Speaker 1:Listen, your swag matters. What you send out there with your swag indicates a lot about your company. Is it high quality? Is it well designed? Is it actually functional? Will somebody take it with them on vacation? We make it super easy for you to send swag conveniently to customers, whether it be a driver who moves a good load for you, a new employee that comes on board, a customer that hits a milestone. Super simple, super convenient to do that. So go to supplychainswagcom and look for that. Also swagcom and look for that Also. Shout out to our friends over at sales-crm. And until next time, my friends remember, stop standing still, start standing out. We'll see you soon. Thanks for watching, guys.
