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
From Broadway to Business: Kara Smith-Brown's Journey to Success
Join us for a special episode with the one and only, Kara Smith-Brown! From maximizing trade show experiences to celebrating female entrepreneurial success, this episode is packed with practical advice and inspiring stories. Trey Griggs and Kara emphasize the importance of strategic post-show follow-ups and highlight the success of LeadCoverage's international expansion, even without external funding. Kara's journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and community support, offering a wealth of knowledge and inspiration for anyone aiming to achieve significant milestones in business.
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.
What's up everybody, we are back. Good to see you. I hope you enjoyed the recent episode of Coleman Ruff and taking the driver's seat with Eric Kruger. That was a fun episode. I hope you enjoyed that. It was all about customer advocacy. And listen, if you're not using your customers in your sales process, boy, are you missing out. So make sure you watch that episode and if you need help with that, reach out to Coleman. Your customers are your best salespeople. You can put them in a position to help you out.
Speaker 1:All right, listen, we've got a great show today. We're going to have a lot of fun today, but before we do that, we've got to say thank you to our friends over at Reads Across America. Listen, if you are not a part of Reads Across America, you need to definitely check them out. They are phenomenal in terms of highlighting highlighting the past, the sacrifice veterans have made for us, and really educating the future generations on the price of freedom. You can get involved by donating a truck or donating a load if you're a broker. This December and late November, when they have the Wreaths Across America annual event to lay wreaths at the tombstones of our veteran soldiers, you can also sponsor a wreath by going to wreathsacrossamericaorg. Forward slash standing out, partner with us and, finally, you can get involved by actually placing the wreaths on the tombstones. You can do it with your team, your family, by yourself. It's a phenomenal experience and you can sign up for that this fall. But again, we're so thankful to be a part of their Trucking Tuesday lineup on Wreaths Across America Radio. I know there are going to be a lot of events out there. If you're going to be broadcasting live, Make sure you go up and say hi to the crew there Jeff Courtney, all of them, they're phenomenal and get involved with Reefs Across America. Also, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Sales-CRM. Our good buddy Josh Liles over there building a great product for freight brokers exclusively. Listen, not all CRMs are created equal, especially when most CRMs are not built with your freight brokerage in mind. Sales-crm is built by freight brokers, exclusively for freight brokers, so be sure to visit them at sales-crmcom or you can learn more about them on our website, paytoconsultinggroupcom.
Speaker 1:Forward slash standing dash out. You request a demo right there. Man, Josh is one of the best in the business. You're going to love working with him. Just a good dude over there. So we appreciate their support sponsoring the show. All right, everybody. It is time to bring on our phenomenal guest today. I'm so excited about this. She's been on the show before she's returning. Everybody, please welcome the founder of lead coverage, Carol Smith Brown. What's?
Speaker 2:up. My friend, how are you? I'm living a dream. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:It's so good to have you back on the program. It's been too long. You've had a few things going on. It's understandable, but we had to get you back on the show. How's everything going for you?
Speaker 2:Awesome Things are great. I launched a book, which was super fun. It's now officially an Amazon bestseller, which is great, and then we officially announced that we are going global. So we have an office and hey you have a copy, I have a copy I do Listen.
Speaker 1:Hey, you're kind of you're kind of you're. You're ruining the thunder I was going to. I was going to talk about the book, but look, you signed it for me.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that it means a lot. We're going to talk about that book here in just a minute. Which about you? I didn't know about you. I didn't know that you are a classically trained opera singer and that you were on Broadway and you love musicals. Listen, I just have to tell you, kara, karaoke is a big thing for me at these events and now that I know that you can sing, I'm going to be inviting you to come karaoke. Listen, we'll do something together. We'll do a duet, we'll do a broadway musical duet together. Yeah, that'll that'll be fun. Do you have, do you have, a like go-to karaoke song? It's like somebody said you have to karaoke. Is there one that you would just write for?
Speaker 2:I would nail. No, if I'm super honest about this, my husband has heard me sing exactly twice, like really sing like really yeah, it's just. It was a thing I did as a kid. Like I can still carry a tune and I sing with the kids and I think my lullabies when they were babies were probably pretty epic. But no, it's just something that I have given up. Maybe I'll get back to it one day. When I get older. I'll be like a church singing lady. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I am roping you back in, my friend. We are doing this thing. We're going to get Kara Smith Brown on the microphone on tape. Somehow. We got to make it happen. It's going to be phenomenal. So you were. You were on Broadway as a kid, which is crazy. You were Joseph and amazing Technicolor dream coat, correct?
Speaker 2:With Donny Osmond. I was yellow. With Donny Osmond. I was yellow child, number 12.
Speaker 1:That's such a great role. Like I'm in, I'm child number 12. This is so great. Yellow child.
Speaker 2:Cause it was a rainbow, so it was yellow. Child number 12. There's a. There's actually a song called O Canaan days and six of us were chosen out of the entire children's choir to hold these vultures and be able to hold a vulture and like sing on the side of the, so it was a big deal that I was a vulture kid. That was literally. I don't know why we're talking about this. This is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed. I see this is great. This is awesome. I love this. This is so much more enjoyable.
Speaker 2:I was in sixth grade. It was the highlight of my, of my 12 years. So so, musically, you peaked early. You peaked super early. I didn't doubt it, I've been. Just I peaked really early.
Speaker 1:It's really disappointing to be honest, kara, that's awesome. Well, we share an affinity for musicals. I just got to be in a musical with my daughter, newsies. I got to be in the newspaper editor sites, and so I'm a late bloomer when it comes to this, because prior to that, I'm 46. Prior to that, my last musical was eighth grade. I played a nerd in the musical Luann. That was it. That was my last appearance, so I took a 30-year hiatus and here I am back at it. I love it. That's how it goes. All right, let's sideband.
Speaker 1:You wrote a book. This is not a common occurrence, my friend. I have a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends I don't know that many that have actually written a book, and certainly not a New York times bestselling book. So, first of all, congratulations on pulling off that massive feat. Like you don't have other things going on, so really incredible.
Speaker 1:What I love about this book. Let me tell you what I love about this book. This is genius. This is so genius. Okay, you wrote a book that educates CEOs and CROs on what to look for in a marketing company. So they don't they don't become like naive or oblivious to what to really ask, what to look for Genius. Number two you've written a book that is a playbook for marketers to actually do better, so you're improving the overall output of marketers in our industry. And three, this has to be the best business card ever, and I'm just I'm guessing that you know this is the best one that you could. Are you using it as a business card? Are you giving out? Obviously, you send out a lot of copies to friends and I'm very privileged to have one, but that's awesome.
Speaker 2:You know I follow two guys, blair Enns and David C Baker, that do a podcast called Two Bobs, which has absolutely nothing to do with freight. No one who listens to your podcast should ever listen to these guys, because it has nothing to do. But it is very specific to what they call the selling expertise, right? So the idea of being a consultant and selling your expertise, which is what we do every day, all day, right, you and I probably, and so I kind of fell in love. I became kind of a disciple of the Two Pops podcast, and David C Baker and Blair Anz both do this. They say, like give it all away. Right, give away all of the things you know. Write as much as you can write a book, get on stage. So, write as much as you can write a book, get on stage, share it all, and then when the clients come into you, they are pre-qualified.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I have to tell you it is 100% working. So the most expensive marketing you can do in any way, shape or form is education. If you have to educate the marketplace before someone becomes a customer, it's just really, really expensive. Like the book was not cheap to do, right, but like you are constantly sort of thinking that you're changing the name of the game or you're going to not use the same language other people use because you're going to come up with something new, it's just expensive to have people learn your like weird nomenclature. And so David C Baker says put it all out there and when they come back in they're pre-qualified. And it was wild. I was on a pitch call and someone literally read a paragraph of my book out loud back to me and he said can you do that? And I kind of was like, am I in the Twilight Zone? Like I literally wrote the book.
Speaker 1:Yes, I can do that, Like I literally wrote the book on it.
Speaker 2:Yes, like this is what we do every day, all day, and so it's worked. It's working right. People are buying it. It's an Amazon bestseller. Like more than 3,000 people have physically procured a copy of this book. That is a bananas number of people. And I've given away like 2000 copies, so like there's way more copies of this book out there than there really should be.
Speaker 1:And it's a great and it's a great cover. Let's just talk about this. It's a great cover. It's got the pink and I think that's purple. I'm a little colorblind, but I think it's pink and purple. Pink and purple kind of a hot pink, look there. But it's cool because this triple infinity sign we're going to talk about that in a minute that's actually a really cool thing. It's very unique and we're going to talk about the book in just a minute. But I want to ask you, before we dig into this, at what point? Well, before I say that, let me say this I was telling somebody about your book recently and they said oh, that's awesome, are you going to write a book someday?
Speaker 1:And, first of all, I was honored that they asked. But I said to that person I said I am not, I do not know enough to write a book about this Right Cause I'm writing a book right now. But it's not about marketing, it's not about sales. I still like I'm. I'm still in that learning phase, making mistakes phase, which you talk about in your book, about going through the challenges, making mistakes and learning. You've been doing this 15 plus years years, I think. Summer, fifth round there.
Speaker 2:Um, at what point did you look in the mirror and go I think I can write. I think I can write a book about this. I didn't think I could do that until like forbes was like you have to publish, like it's time to go. You know you're always making changes. I will tell you. I went to harvard. I'm a huge fan of education. I did not go to harvard for school, I went to harvard for five days, right? So I went to harvard five days and what I learned.
Speaker 1:You don't have to add that detail.
Speaker 2:You can I don't want people to think that I'm like you know, I went for five days and it was always a great five days and when I came out of Harvard, learning was that everything at Harvard is a framework.
Speaker 2:And so I thought, okay, if I can put a framework together around the work that we do, then I can take that framework to the marketplace around the work that we do. Then I can take that framework to the marketplace. So we've been talking about share good news, track, interest, follow up for like 10 years. This has been something that's been like Will, my partner, will Haraway, and I use this language all the time, and then we thought like how do we put a real framework around the work we do? So then we have the funnel, so we have the prospect nurture and customer funnel and then we measure volume, velocity and value. So it's a nine-step framework. And once we had the framework, then the book kind of wrote itself right, because it's nine chapters plus Forbes said like you have to have one on AI and then we have one on ABM, so now it's like 12 chapters, three pretty funny stories, and like it kind of if you have a framework, it's easier to fill it in than kind of starting from scratch yeah, but you also have the experience.
Speaker 1:You've got the lived experience of, like I said, you included three stories and there's probably many more that you didn't include, but there had to be that one point where, like, you just believed in yourself enough to do it because that's a that's a big task. Like you said, it wasn't, it wasn't cheap, it took a lot of time, but I'll tell you it's a phenomenal read. I've really enjoyed it so far. I'm going to confess I'm not finished yet, I'm a slow reader, but it's been really enjoyable to read that. You have the three by three matrix. You talked about, uh, the different aspects of that. The last time you were on the show you only gave me the last three. You only talked about velocity and volume and moving in that direction. We didn't go the others. So let's just kind of break those down just a little bit in this three by three matrix and talk about just if you could recap five to seven minutes what is this matrix and how does it really work in real applications?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the matrix is pretty simple. We think about the methodology. So this is the triple infinity that you see on the cover. So this is you are constantly sharing good news, tracking the interest of that good news and following up with the individuals who are looking for the good news. There you go. There's a methodology.
Speaker 1:I actually have it right there, right there. It's at the beginning. You actually lay it out at the beginning and then you get into more details. The book goes on. It's phenomenal. Yeah, thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is kind of like the framework idea is hey, let's introduce this, and then we're going to go through each one of these in detail. So when you are sharing good news, which to us, like marketers like to put a lot of words throughout this inbound, outbound content, flywheel, whatever you want to call it we just call it good news. You're just you're sharing good news with the marketplace. That's one. Two is then you have to track the interest of that good news. This, for us, is all about your CRM. So in our world, hubspot is our preferred CRM. It is what it is. I love Josh, a sales dash, but we haven't connected Josh to a TMS yet. So we do a lot of HubSpot to TMS implementations, where we connect them, et cetera, and so everything that happens inside of the marketing ecosystem lives inside of HubSpot and we can track it. And then none of this works. All of this is total horse. You know what? It's all garbage if no one makes a phone call. And so the last piece of the book is follow up. So it's share good news, track interest, follow up.
Speaker 2:Then we talk about three funnels. So a lot of times marketers like to use this bow tie or they like to talk about one whole like long funnel. So you think about your sales funnel. We like to separate them. So the prospect funnel are strangers. They do not know who you are. There is no reason for them to contact you. This is just a list of email addresses and you have no idea if they're real people or not. This is your prospect funnel. Your nurture funnel is when you know people actually are real and you have no idea if they're real people or not. This is your prospect funnel. Your nurture funnel is when you know people actually are real and you know that they know who you are. It doesn't mean that there's actually an opportunity there. It doesn't mean that you're spending a lot of time like talking to them. They're just kind of aware of who you are and then by the time they get to the bottom of the nurture funnel, there's dollars attached to that deal. Then we have the customer funnel, and this is where most marketers don't spend a lot of their time right, which is cross-sell and upsell opportunities inside the existing customer funnel. So those are the three funnels and then in lead coverage, my business.
Speaker 2:Everything we do is measured and we measure three things the volume, or how many, the velocity or how fast and the value or how much. And so we basically at the end of the book, we take all this cool stuff we've talked about content, flywheels and all the things and tracking the interest in HubSpot, following up as fast as you can and putting these things through the funnel. But what does it look like when you are measuring against all of these KPIs in a meaningful and effective way? And how do you hand this to a marketer and say, hey, start here. And we, literally in the back of the book, we give you this little PowerPoint like slide. It's like start here, like this is where you should start. So I'm so grateful that you have appreciated it so far, because it's sometimes I wish I would have written it backwards. But you really can't start with measurement. You have to start with the triple Infinity and then it moves into how do you measure that triple Infinity and then deliver the revenue back to the sales team yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:That's a great synopsis and I think you know we talked about this before. It all really leads to what's become a little bit of a buzzword in marketing, but it it's really true, and that is getting high intent buyers like the high intent data. That's yeah, I saw your eyes just go. Oh, I love intent data. You know I love it so much so intent data is a little bit different.
Speaker 2:So I want you to think about the book like a 101. So the book is a 101. This is where you have to start. Once you are finished, you have a CRM that's working, you actually know your ideal customer profile. You are tracking volume, velocity and value inside your existing funnel.
Speaker 2:Then you can add on intent data. Intent data is actually. There's four flavors of intent data, with a fifth that's coming soon. So the first flavor is primary intent data. This lives in your CRM. This is why we love HubSpot more than any other tool. If you, trey, come to my website because you exist inside my HubSpot, I can see your activity on my website. This is primary intent. If I put a press release out and I have it go to a landing page that's connected to my HubSpot. You see that on LinkedIn go to a landing page that's connected to my HubSpot. You see that on LinkedIn, go to my landing page. I can see that you hit my landing page and you were cruising on my LinkedIn right so I can see all of that activity.
Speaker 2:And that's primary intent. Secondary intent is what people are getting from Bombora and ZoomInfo.
Speaker 2:So my favorite is when I get on a call with someone and they're like oh, we have ZoomInfo intent and I'm like, cool, you have basic Google cookies and clickagy data. That is not like you're stepping in the right direction, but there's more right. The third level of intent is true ABM, or programmatic media buying, which means that I'm buying advertisements only around Trey, only after Trey shows a very specific buying signal based on my keywords that I want you to see. Super creepy. And then, lastly, is predictive intent. Predictive intent only comes from Sixth Sense.
Speaker 2:It's really really sexy, it's very expensive, but the ROI we can see on this fourth version of intent is incredible. But the ROI we can see on this like fourth version of intent is incredible. So we just are going to share this actually at Manifest, this journey of intent data from primary, secondary ABM to predictive intent and sort of like. Where do you land on this scale? And then, how much should it cost? Like how much should it cost and what should the ROI be against intent data? How much did it cost and what should the ROI be against intent data? So it's hard. I do need to separate it for people, because intent and AI seem to be coming out at the same time and so people are confusing these two things. Intent data is very much about your customer and what your customer is interested in, or your prospect, and AI is very much about like chat, gpt and LLF two very different things, but I'm so bullish on intent data.
Speaker 2:I think it is the sexiest.
Speaker 1:I know you are. Yeah, it's so sexy. Is there going to be another book that's going to go into that?
Speaker 2:I really hope, not. I really hope I don't have to write another one. Writing a book I give zero stars to the process. I writing a book, I give zero stars to the process. I'm really glad with the results. I'm super happy and proud of the product that we have. But no, it was, it was really hard right, it was like a whole nother job. I have a big job, like I run a big run a company with like 50 people. Like I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1:I've been working on a book for a year and a half. It's just not easy. It's hard to. It's hard to finish Cause you know you never really finished in your mind, but at some point you have to publish, you have to get it out there. But I have heard this I actually enjoy the process of writing right now. I've heard from other writers before that you either absolutely just like hate it Please don't let me have me do it again or, Like I, I'm excited for the next one. I didn't hate the writing process.
Speaker 2:I think I hated kind of the just the number of times I had to read my own words because when you have an editor, you write it and then you read it like two weeks later, like this is garbage. And then you write it again.
Speaker 2:Someone else reads it, an editor reads it which is the most important part of writing a book is the editor, and then they want you to change it. So, just, I think I must have read it 12 times by the time we published, and I was so tired of my own words by the time I published it so that when people were reading it. Andrew Silver was the first one actually to read.
Speaker 2:I sent him my very first copy before he had made his podcast and I was like you're the first person to have read this like fresh, since we like like, since I read it like 12 times and I was so grateful actual consumer.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh good, because I read it so and then I read it out loud on the audiobook and you're just like I'm so tired of hearing myself talk about it. So oh nice, you did the audiobook I did the audio. I love that thank you for doing that. I hate it when somebody who's not connected emotionally to the book, like when the author, reads it, it is significantly better. So kudos to you for doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that there's four. There's three or four funny stories, three really funny stories in the book, and I I couldn't give it to some like voiceover actor. No, I tell the story about how I trapped my husband into marrying me and how dating in Chicago in your 20s is like a sales funnel, and I just couldn't have some like actor.
Speaker 1:Right, it wouldn't. Well, I feel like now I need to. I need to listen to audiobook just to hear you tell the story, because that's so much better. I love it. So, before we go any further, this book can be found on amazoncom, both audio, uh, as well on amazon, or wherever amazon, I'll send you a free copy.
Speaker 2:If you send me an email, you don't buy it.
Speaker 1:We have so many copies manifest.
Speaker 2:We've got copies of manifest, copies of tia, copies of tpm, like yeah, it's like I said you know, like you said, it's the business card.
Speaker 2:It's a 250 page business card. I'm so, so proud of it, and the team is involved too. So, a 250 page business card. I'm so, so proud of it, and the team is involved too. So Wilhelm Haraway, my partner, wrote a whole chapter on AR and PR. Courtney Hurta, our head of paid media, wrote a chapter on paid, and then Crawford McCarty, our VP of marketing, wrote a chapter on ABM. So while it is my name on the cover, lots of folks actually were involved in it too.
Speaker 1:My good team, that's awesome did you have any pressure or thoughts about putting your face on the book? And the reason I ask is that sometimes, especially people in your shoes, they want their face on the book for branding. So people when you're walking down, people go oh that's kidding, you're like. I know there's several others uh authors like uh dave ramsey does that. He puts his face on the cover of the book. Did you have any thoughts doing that or was that never even?
Speaker 2:Literally never crossed my mind.
Speaker 1:Never crossed your mind.
Speaker 2:Not in 1 million years would I ever feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like one of these right here where you're, just like you know, sitting like this. No.
Speaker 2:So when you do the marketing for the book, you have to like do those silly photo shoots right. So we did one like in my house and I'm standing like with this like jacket on, like who stands with their hands crossed in like a veronica beard suit jacket, just like hanging out in my kitchen, like it's in their own house so silly, right, I had to go get a whole bunch of blazers that match the color of the book because, like, you have to like coordinate, like it's all it's all like.
Speaker 2:So, as a marketer, it is also necessary, like you need that content for sure. But I'm also like a little eye roll kind of over it. Poor Will Haraway. So Will and I are partners and he goes to all the shows with me and, even though he very much was a part of this book coming to life, it's my name on the cover. So he's become like my Instagram husband when we go to these events and this poor man is like taking like an F3 and he's taking pictures of me and he has, like he has two daughters and a wife and I'm sure that he does not want to be spending his business time being Instagram husband for me.
Speaker 2:So shout out to Will Haraway. It's happening again. We've got three more shows coming up. It's gonna be like Instagram husband life for this poor man. Um, but yeah, like all of the kind of you know content creation that involves like video and or photo. Just I don't know, it's just kind of not my jam, but um, but the content in the book like getting the getting the word out about intent data, getting the word out about go to market, telling people that there's more to marketing and Freight than just the marketing girl, and like putting together tear sheets right like that message being well received, has been probably the biggest gift from this book yeah, it's wonderful and I don't want to give it a boy, but the opening story where you talk about your experience at Echo, where you had that meeting, that didn't quite go the way that you thought it would um.
Speaker 2:I was such a baby, I was like 25. I was so young, I thought that I could just like bring a meeting together of the leadership team and they would just listen to me. I don't know the confidence that I found in my 20s to do that and then also like the naivete, to think that I was that important like to this day still like, shocks me that I was that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what's crazy is, 15 years later however many years it's been since that time you have what I call justifiable confidence now because you've learned it. You've done, you've made the mistakes, you've fixed things. You've you've learned how to do things the right way, like it's. It's really impressive, my friend. I I'm so, I'm so excited you have the book. I'm so glad you did that and I'm so excited that you wrote the book. I'm so glad you did that and I'm so excited I get to see you Now. This is going to air right in the middle of Manifest, so when people are listening to this, we're going to be in Manifest on the floor, and I'm looking forward to that, because I always enjoy getting to see you on the floor. What other events are you going to be at and what's your best advice for people to maximize trade shows?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so year Will will be at TPM, I'll be at TIA, we'll be at Technovations, the list goes on. I'm not even sure what happens past April. I think my best advice is set as many meetings as you can, right. But my actual real advice for clients is post-show follow-up. So most people assume they can follow up with more prospects than they actually can, and so we like to give executives three. You get to keep three business cards and the rest has to come to marketing.
Speaker 2:And sales folks not executives that are there get five and the rest has to come back to marketing, because the idea that you can be on a show floor, get 200 business cards from three or four days and follow up on 200 people while you do your full time job and like be a human and a parent and all the other things we have to do is false, like it's just not going to happen. So instead we say you keep the five you think that you can close, that you can follow up with now, give the rest to marketing. We will nurture these people through marketing campaigns that look and feel like they're from you and if we get an active interest, if we get a buying signal from someone, we'll flip it over to you and then you can follow up. Yeah, so I think that's my biggest piece of advice is don't overcommit post show. Be realistic about what you can and cannot follow up with.
Speaker 2:And to my executives that are listening to your podcast like three you should take three. You will get back to your desk, there will still be things to do, you still have a life, you still have a business to run, so thinking that you can follow up with more than three is is a recipe for disaster see, what's great about this is that this is marketing and sales working together, because I've, you know, I've spent my my career pretty much in transportation at these trade shows.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've I've been at more booths than I care to ever remember again and I just remember getting that massive stack of business cards and trying to follow up on my own. It's. It is very difficult to do that. It's hard to remember some of the conversations. It's hard to really have something quality to say or to know how interested they really were, their situation. It it's also difficult. So if they said, hey, pick your five best as I'm going through the show, that would have been huge. That's a great piece of advice. Something that I did that did work well was when I had a really hot prospect. I had a great conversation, it went really well and there was a lot of intent and seemed like there was going to go somewhere. I would often follow up the night of the meeting.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't wait until I got back, I would.
Speaker 1:I would send an email out because there's a chance, but possibly for a second meeting at the event, especially if it was early on, and it also got it off my plate. So now it's like, okay, I've done that, it's in CRM, I got my task, follow up when I get home and they got their first response and, uh, and it seemed to work pretty well. So I like I love your suggestion of only five or only three marketing team taking the rest and doing the doing the air cover in that regard. And then, uh, you know, if you have somebody who's really interested, follow up quickly with them. Let them know how much you enjoyed that conversation. That really stood out to you and you had a chance to chat with 100 people today and I was really excited you're the one I'm following up with tonight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right now music. Some 80s music is coming to mind right now you're the one.
Speaker 2:You're the one, I think one. I think the other thing that I do this is just a care-abroad thing is I go to bed. So I believe that nothing really good happens after about 9.30.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's early.
Speaker 2:Okay, right there might be one or two conversations that I miss out on at the bar, but let's be honest, Anything about 9.30 or later is enough cocktails into the people at the bar that that meeting is probably not going to be super efficient. So I go to bed and Will Haraway, my partner. He does what we call the night shift, and so he does the 9.30 to midnight shift, and then I get up in the morning and.
Speaker 2:I'm there super early, I'm there for breakfast and I start networking first thing in the morning and then he can come down.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever he gets up, Dude Will's taking one for the team. He's taking Instagram pictures. He's staying up late at the bar man, like that guy, he's an excellent partner.
Speaker 2:We're a good duo, mostly because he likes to do the night shift and I'm such an early morning girl, so Vegas for us is really hard. It's also like West coast time or East coaster, so I'm up at like four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1:Right, that three hour time shift is rough. I remember when I lived in Portland and I'd have to go to Atlanta and that was rough making that trip. I totally remember what that was like. All right, we got to pause for a second. Listen, we got to have a little fun on the show. You know to have a good time. Today we are playing a game that you might not have played before. It's called what Movie? Emoji Edition. Okay, Kara, listen, here's how we can play this. We can be a team and see if we can get them together, or we can be competitive and see which one gets the most. How do you want to play it today?
Speaker 2:I mean, the competitive girl in me wants to go toe-to-toe with you, but I think I'm going to lose.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not saying listen, I'm not great with emojis, no, I did not. No, no, our producer, I haven't seen it. Now, this is all new to me as well. So we can go toe to toe or we can go team what?
Speaker 2:do you want to do? Let's go toe to toe, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Go to toe, all right. So first one to yell out the right answer. All right, and we'll keep track of this. Five of these I'm going to lose. There's five of these, so there's no ties.
Speaker 2:Ooh see, I'm going down.
Speaker 1:Nice work, nice work. Okay, I'm just going to say this I've never been shut out in the competitive aspect of this, but I'm not feeling good about this right now you have one point on the board.
Speaker 1:That was so quick. I'm not feeling good about this at all right now. All right, here we go. Next one, next one who rocket? What is that? Rocket boy? And then is that a girl? Oh space, oh stardust, no, interstellar. Okay, if we were just to time those two, all right, yours was probably half a second and mine was about six.
Speaker 2:I know that was okay, all right yours was probably half a second and mine was about six. All right, that was an alien on the emoji no, I know that was impressive.
Speaker 1:That was okay. All right, here we go. Next one number three here we go. Oh, robot car, uh, rope, uh I robot oh no, uh, that is definitely a robot in a car. Um, oh man, oh, oh gosh, this is. The only thing happening is if we can, we both strike out.
Speaker 2:What's the movie where he's, where he says um, um negative ghost rider, no that's Top Gun, the pattern is full negative ghost rather than that's Top Gun.
Speaker 1:The pattern is full. That's a top gun quote. I don't think that's it.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Okay, neither of us got this. What is this one here? We're both out of this. Transformers All right. Okay, I see. Robot car, okay, yeah, that's a good one. That was a good one. Nice job, morgan. That and Fred Hunger Games Hunger Games, yes, let's go. Okay. So listen, I'm just saying I made a comeback here. You did you have to make this one. We'll make this one worth two points, so you got a shot to win. You get this one. One shot. Here we go, one shot. What are you going to do with it?
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:Oh the.
Speaker 2:Matrix.
Speaker 1:Oh, the Red Turb, blue Pill.
Speaker 2:I cannot believe I won that game. That's incredible.
Speaker 1:It was right here.
Speaker 2:No one on my team is going to believe that I won a game on top culture. No one.
Speaker 1:They're not. They're not. Hey, the kids are happy for you, so congratulations on that. That was fun, all right. Also, we got to do a random question today. This is a question that our producer comes up with every show question that our producer comes up with every every show. It could be a good question, it could be a dud, I don't know. It could be fun, could be serious, all right. So let's see what it is. A random question of the day today is what is your go-to fast food place and what is your order I have moved to georgia, so it is definitely chick-fil-a, like standard chick-fil-a sandwich with fries number one, number one standard number one with the Polynesian sauce.
Speaker 1:I've learned about the sauces since moving to Polynesian is good, srotches good as well. So you go for your number one fries, polynesian diet coke, sweet tea what do?
Speaker 1:you get Arnold Palmer oh yeah, that's good, that's good chest. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what mine is. And this one, I'm actually excited about it, cuz we're one of Vegas. I don't get this very much, so right now this is kind of my go-to and that is the double double at In-N-Out, with the fries, a Diet Coke and a chocolate shake. I have never been to In-N-Out, are you?
Speaker 2:Okay, I've never been to In-N-Out.
Speaker 1:I feel like I need to make it.
Speaker 2:I'm go get an out Cheapest dinner I'm going to pay for at the entire show.
Speaker 1:There's one right by the hotel. It's right there. It's so easy. We're going to have to do that. So we're going double, double In-N-Out burger and fries, diet Coke and a chocolate shake. It's terribly unhealthy for you, but it is so good, it is so good, so that's what we're going to have to do. All right, very good, that's. Those are. Those are two quality meals. You know, when I got a Chick-fil-A I don't know if you've tried this or not have you tried the Mac and cheese with Buffalo sauce mixed in?
Speaker 2:So I can't do cheese.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know that's not going to work. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:This is better than the fries.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. I mean, if you're a cheese person, I'm a, I'm a mac and cheese person. I mean, I am it, but man, I'm telling you like I'd rather have that than the fries. Hashtag worth it, we're worth the evening of pain Hashtag worth it, so good.
Speaker 2:All right, definitely not at home.
Speaker 1:All right, we got to bring this plane in for a landing here, so I know that you have now expanded internationally. Congrats, thank you. What's next for lead coverage? What, uh? What's on?
Speaker 2:the horizon. I gotta, I gotta finish all the things that we started. Um, yeah, I think that the international expansion was super exciting. We're so, so pumped to have dave emerson on our board. We have a board now which is like we're like moving into, like big company type stuff great yeah so dave emerson was on the um founding team of seiko uk.
Speaker 2:They had seiko uk, uk I think, south Africa and Singapore and they sold that business to Greenbrier about 18 months ago, maybe two years ago, and I am just so excited to have him as a partner. He and I worked together at Seco a million years ago when I was there for about a year and a half and we stayed in touch and just one of those magical moments where I was literally in London and he's like, let, stayed in touch, and just one of those like you know magical moments where I was literally in London and he's like, let's hang out. And so we did for five hours and it was like this, you know marathon catch up turned into him coming in as a board member and helping us spin up the UK office. So we've got three or four clients over there already and humans already working for us and our subsidiary office there and yeah, it's like real business stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's even like you know, like you're an entrepreneur, right. Like you, you start this little business and it's you. And then it's you and like one or two of your friends, and then it's you and all of a sudden you have like 10 friends and then, holy cow, now there's 50 of us on three different continents and we're managing time zones and clients in Europe and clients in Asia. And it's just such a dream, it's such a joy. We're having so much fun and I'm just so grateful every day because people like you have helped make this possible right.
Speaker 1:Our friends. It's not anything, are you kidding?
Speaker 2:No, for real, Having access to individuals like you that are supportive, that are interested, are sending us interested humans that could talk to us, reading the book, giving us feedback. I was overwhelmed this year when we launched the book and the feedback on the book has been nothing but wonderful. I remember telling Andrew on his podcast there's going to be a troll, like someone's going to hate this thing, and they haven't shown up yet. So I don't know. Maybe it is actually that good or the troll is just waiting for me somewhere in 2025. But so far the response from the community has been so positive and I'm so grateful to the entire supply chain ecosystem for welcoming kind of what we do and our position and this book. It's just been wonderful.
Speaker 1:It's awesome and I will say I do love being your hype man on the road.
Speaker 2:You are the best hype man. I love it so much. Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm like Kara, get over here, come here, that's right. I'm like Patrick Mahomes, you know we get in the play. Kara, come here, come here. I got somebody for you right here. I love how you can talk. No, that's awesome. Is there a goal? Or at this point, you're just kind of like let's just see how far we can take this thing. How do you view growth and goals and scale?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really interesting, so it's kind of a it's a female thing. So less than 2% of all female founders will break $1 million in top line revenue. It's actually 1.7%. It's an American Express number and that's so. We broke that, obviously, a long time ago. The number of women that break $10 million top line revenue with no outside VC or PE support is so small. It's statistically irrelevant and it is literally a list Like they don't. There's no math, it's a list of women.
Speaker 1:It's a receipt, it's one. On one page of a legal pad, some guy just like Somebody wrote on their hand just like four names, it's just, that's it right there.
Speaker 2:It's basically kept by, like WPO and YPO, and they know exactly who we are, and so you know, 10 million has always been the goal, mostly because I have this giant chip on my shoulder that so few women ever do it that I am desperate to get it done. I'm super proud that we will do it this year. Like we took a, we breathed down nine million last year. We've been growing 40 percent year over year, so this year is the year we're going to do it and and that is just kind of a thing that I've always wanted to do and if you ask me what happens after 10, I will tell you I don't know, like it's always just kind of in the goal. So you know, I think going internationally be super, super fun. We're going to open up all new markets to do exactly what we do in in Europe and in Asia, in the UK, and just keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:You know when I talk to private equity guys because they're always, you know, sniffing around businesses like ours, and I occasionally will talk to them and they'll ask me when are you leaving logistics, Like, at what point do you diversify into something?
Speaker 1:else, expanding out, expanding out beyond logistics, not really leaving, but expanding out.
Speaker 2:Maybe you don't know logistics two trillion dollar market and we're in like a nine million dollar company.
Speaker 2:Like we're like there's so much more in front of us and we have so much more to learn and so much more to grow and I know I'm going to bring this all back and sound kind of silly, but the ability to apply intent data and these really strong go-to-market practices in our market and take the best of SaaS and bring it to supply chain, I feel like it's kind of a calling, like I just I'm obsessed with what these guys are doing in SaaS and I follow it religiously and to be able to bring that to our folks that are literally boots on the ground moving the economy Like no offense to my friends that are tech guys, but like we bring actual go-to-market strategies to companies that have human beings that drive trucks.
Speaker 2:Like we are the backbone of the American economy and being able to help those companies create jobs, keep jobs and grow is something that I feel like a real, real passion for, and so I get to do it through this very specific conduit of go-to-market consulting. But it helps the whole industry and specifically all the way down to the driver and the guy on the dock door, and so I think there's something really special about being a part of this community that I don't ever want to give up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love, I love the passion, I love hearing your passion for that and I know that you're currently climbing that mountain to get to 10 million. And then, when you get to it, you look in the distance and there's a higher one a little further away. I know there's always the next one, and little further away there's always the next one. You move on. So it's okay that you don't know who knows what that next one might be.
Speaker 2:There's always another one, and someone always makes more money than you, right?
Speaker 1:Well, that's always kind of the way it is. That's cool. Okay, listen, I'm so honored that you took the time to be a part of the show today and come and share your insights with us. Congrats on the book once again. I really do appreciate the signed copy.
Speaker 2:It means a ton.
Speaker 1:Your friendship has been, uh, just so helpful for me over the years and I just can't say thank you enough. Thank you so much for having me and I'll see you on the show floor in vegas. Yes, well, you know, just if you see this you know, come on over.
Speaker 1:You know what that means. Just come on over. All right, karen, we'll see you real soon. Thanks, all right. Everybody, make sure you come back every tuesday for an episode of standing out with great guests like kara Smith Brown and others. And you know, if you can, if you're a freight broker, make sure you do check out sales-crm. Go tell Josh, you heard about it right here on standing out. It's a great dude and if you're a golfer, he's also a pretty good golfer as well. And remember folks, until next time, stop standing. Still, start standing out. We'll see you soon.
