384: The Honorable Business Journey- with Matt Nettleton

[00:00:36] Lori Highby: Hey, everybody, Lori Highby here. Welcome to the Social Capital podcast. Our show notes are found at socialcapitalpodcast. com. To you, the listener, I want you to know that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for another episode. If there's ever anything that I can do to support you, please reach out.

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Social Capital Podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you have to first understand your customer. Learn more at KeystoneClick. com. The topic of relationships ties in very closely With sales and marketing, that's why I'm bringing on a number of experts with a variety of backgrounds for you to learn and grow from. Today's guest is Matt Nettleton. Since 2003 Matt has coached more than 175 companies and a wide variety of industries. He has helped multiple companies grow from 1 million dollars to more than 10 million dollars in annual revenue, and has helped clients close more than 3. 2 billion in new sales. Wow. That's amazing. Matt, welcome to the show.

[00:02:15] Matt Nettleton: Well, thanks for having me, Lori. This, this I'm looking forward to this.

[00:02:18] Lori Highby: 3. 2 billion. That is an impressive number to have have as in your track record there. Nice job.

[00:02:25] Matt Nettleton: Well, thank you. But I didn't do the work.

[00:02:28] Lori Highby: You taught someone how to do the work though.

[00:02:30] Matt Nettleton: I kind of helped other people do it, but I didn't do it.

[00:02:33] Lori Highby: So why do you believe sales is an honorable profession?

[00:02:38] Matt Nettleton: Well, it's, you know, it's funny. People have this idea about, about sales and sales people and you know, what, what sales people do and how, but they forget that there is not a company that has ever existed without revenue. And that revenue never shows up magically. And those those people that create the relationships and manage the relationships that generate revenue, They're they're salespeople who are probably the most honest traders out there Because the salesperson tells people up front. Hey, listen I'm I'm here to see if I can get you to buy something from me You give me money and I give you a product or service And the more honest they are, and the more they do the right thing, the more likely they are to succeed.

[00:03:23] Lori Highby: I love that. I love how you opened with the reality is, I mean, every company has some sort of sales. And I also believe that everybody does sales. They just don't realize it.

[00:03:32] Matt Nettleton: Well, that's the, that's the other thing, you know, is we always are using our influence abilities to get people to act in a way that complies with what our goals are.

And, and, you know, we do it in our personal lives. You know, yesterday was my 25th wedding anniversary. I could not have been with my wife for 25 years if I was manipulating her and misleading her as a key tenant of our relationship.

[00:03:59] Lori Highby: Sure. Yep. So why do you believe business is honorable?

[00:04:02] Matt Nettleton: So this is kind of a, an extension of why sales is honorable, but a lot of my clients are family owned businesses, you know, two to 50 million in revenue. And when I talk to them, you know, whether they're first generation, second generation, third generation, one of the things that they'll talk about is the people's lives that they've impacted.

So, you know, one of my clients was talking about how they hired, I think it was their third employee right when he graduated from college and here they are 25 years later, they just celebrated that employee's son graduating from college. Well, that, you know, that business is not just, they don't just provide that service that they provide.

They actually provide meaning and livelihood for their employees. They provide sustenance for their families. They allow kids to grow up in great homes. They create a fabric and a tapestry of a community. And so I, I think, you know, we, we lose sight of the fact that salespeople are doing good work and that companies And and business owners are really on almost what I like to think about is an almost heroic mission to impact their employees, their customers and their communities.

[00:05:10] Lori Highby: Yeah, yeah, I agree 100 percent with that. And I think a lot of people tend to lose sight of that. And I would say the majority of small business in, in the U. S. in our country here is focused on the betterment of the community that they reside in and the people that work for them and all of that.

[00:05:28] Matt Nettleton: I mean, it's great. Like, I'm, I don't mean to put down big companies, but big companies don't sponsor little league teams and they don't sponsor soccer leagues and they don't, you know, all the things that make little towns in, in, in middle America work, you know, small business does it.

Yeah, love that. Is there a value in a long term network?

I, see that's the, the amazing thing is the most successful people have the best long term networks. And, and so there's, there's two ways to look at being in a network. And the first way is I'm going to go network to see what I can get out of my network today. And if you've ever been to a A bad networking lunch and been surrounded by three MLM sellers and somebody who's doing essential oils, you've experienced this. I mean, it's terrible. It, it, there's not a lot of value in that type of event because you have people that are trying to accomplish something for themselves first without any consideration of others. But if you look at the most successful people, what you'll find is that they build networks by finding ways to help other people first, and the more value they pour into their network, the more value they get over time out of their network.

And if they play the long game in their patient and they do the right thing, then the the network actually becomes a self-sustaining kind of resource.

I'm, I'm in a networking group that I've been in for a couple of years now. And one of the things that that recently happened is at four o'clock on a Saturday one of the guys that is in the networking group.

sent out a message that said, Hey my water heater just ruptured. The guy that I usually use as a plumber is unavailable. Does anybody else know a good plumber? And within 20 minutes, he had seven recommendations. From people who are not plumbers, but people who he's in a group with, we share knowledge, we, and, and so just having that resource where I'm not sure how to handle this, can you guys help me?

He, he, you know, he had seven people to call and they were all personal recommendations. They weren't like, Oh, well, according to Yelp, I mean, it was really like, I know this guy, you should call this guy right now. And that's the value of a network because it's not just plumbers. It's, it's everything that happens to you. It's good to have resources.

[00:07:55] Lori Highby: A hundred percent. One of the things that really stood out to me that you said was about giving first and you know over over time i've interviewed close to 400 people on this podcast, heavily focused on networking And I've identified kind of three core principles that I live by that were, you know, common themes that I continue to hear over all these interviews.

And my first one is to be your true, authentic self, because I very much believe that people can smell fake is the way I like to say it. And, and two, if you are your self, you're going to attract like-minded people. Yep. The second thing I very much believe in is to give first, because that is where you can expedite that trust . So the, the better that you can be, the first to be a giver the sooner you're gonna have that stronger bond with, with the individual you're trying to create a relationship. And the third thing is to actually follow through. So if you make a promise to someone even if it's as little as Hey, i've got a book recommendation. I'll email it to you You know actually do the thing that you said you're gonna do.

[00:08:59] Matt Nettleton: Those are those are all really really solid pieces of advice. If people just did that They would be ahead in 95 of the world.

[00:09:08] Lori Highby: 100 percent. Took me a while to, to learn about the, the being my true authentic self component, because I think when I started out in the business space, I felt that I was trying to be something that I wasn't, but I was, I didn't know how to like position myself as a professional, you know, it's like, here's the definition of being a professional.

It's like, no, have some personality professional personality or completely different.

[00:09:34] Matt Nettleton: Yep, that's, that is, that's good. And I think a lot of people when they're younger that, that idea of being their authentic self, they get confused by what that means.

[00:09:44] Lori Highby: How do you stay in front of and best nurture your network?

[00:09:47] Matt Nettleton: So there's, there's a couple of things, one you've got to show up to stuff. I mean, it helps to be physically present in, in places that your network exists. So, you know, I do a lot of business with tech companies and marketing companies, and when they have marketing events or networking events I'll go and, you know, I'll, I'll watch other people speak and I'll.

I'll listen to other people presentations and I'll, and I'll just be at events. So, you know, one of the things that certainly over the last couple of years has been tough to watch is as people come into the, to the market as adults, you know, I've got two kids that recently graduated from college. They're not developing the habit of going to live events. But live events are a great way to establish and nurture actual relationships.

[00:10:35] Lori Highby: 100%. Yeah, there's so many times that I've been hesitant to attend an event just because I've got so many other things going on. But as soon as I attend, I'm Four times and not extremely satisfied and like it exceeded expectations. I met amazing people and, you know, or re engage with individuals I haven't seen in a while. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. The in person stuff is so much more powerful in my opinion than the virtual stuff.

[00:11:01] Matt Nettleton: And the other, and so if you can't do events, the other thing is have lunch. Meet for breakfast. Right? So, you know, show up and, and have a conversation. And so that, that would be the second step. The third step is, you know, you can make a phone call and you can actually have a conversation with somebody and just find out what's going on if you haven't talked for a while. So.

[00:11:22] Lori Highby: Yeah, it's funny how I'd say this newer generation doesn't really like to pick up the phone.

[00:11:27] Matt Nettleton: No, they don't. So my, my daughter is 22 and when she was, she was probably a junior in high school, so probably 16, 17 years old, we were driving somewhere and my phone beeped and she was in the backseat and she had texted me. I said, you know, I'm sitting right here. You can just say it out loud. What do you need? And she's like, just read the text and respond. And it was like, you know, there's, there is an element of that, that I understand the efficiency, but there's also like. You got to talk to people every once in a while. That tonality matters.

[00:11:59] Lori Highby: Yep. 100%. Matt, if you could go back to your 20 year old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of, less of, or differently with regards to your professional career?

[00:12:07] Matt Nettleton: So the, the thing that I would tell myself to do more of is really a lesson that, that gets pounded home to me pretty much every day, which is Hey, 20 year old Matt, you can't know everything.

It's not that you don't know everything. It's that even if it was possible, you know, to say that, Hey, I know everything it's just not there. You know, there are, there are people that know more than you about accounting or that know more than you about marketing or that know more than you about how finance is run or that know more about business structure or, you know, and even in the world that I live in there sales, there are people that I learned from about sales. You know, when you're 20, you're pretty sure you're fireproof and indestructible and all knowing. It's just not true.

[00:12:52] Lori Highby: Yeah. I love that. All right, Matt, I'm going to give you the opportunity to interview me. What's something that you'd like to ask me?

[00:12:57] Matt Nettleton: So when you started your company what was it that made you start your company rather than working for somebody else?

[00:13:04] Lori Highby: Well that's a fun question. Thank you for that. I was actually working at an agency, a marketing agency at the time. And the agency, Was doing more traditional marketing and I was really interested in, in web development and online marketing.

I mean, today it's called, you know, referred to as digital marketing, but internet marketing, whatever it was back then. And so I was looking for a new job. It was 2008. It was a terrible job market. And then I just decided I would give it a try and do it on my own. And see what happened. And here we are 15 years later and I have a team and clients all across the country and it's fun and exciting and it's been a roller coaster ride.

[00:13:45] Matt Nettleton: So when you look back at the times that your business has struggled, what's the lesson that you would share with other business people or, or other people who are thinking about starting their own business about the times that they would struggle?

[00:13:59] Lori Highby: Honestly, it is, That's pretty much what you just said about reflecting back in that you, one, you, you don't have to do it alone, really, it's, it's aligning yourselves with the people that have the right skills to help you get things done the right way but also making sure that you have your network, your circle, people who are your advocates and your cheerleaders, and they're there to, you know, lift you up when you're down and cheer you when you're up and you know, celebrate your wins. I think it's finding that, that group of peers, that, that mentor group, that mastermind group, whatever it is that can be extremely beneficial to lean on when you are in a tough time, but then you're reciprocating and helping someone You know lift their spirits and get them out of whatever their roles are when when they're in a tough time.

[00:14:49] Matt Nettleton: Yeah, it's that's probably because no matter what cycle the business world is in your business can be up or down but the people that you're closest to their business is going to be the opposite and so Knowing how to lift other people up and knowing how to get lifted up That is a great lesson.

[00:15:06] Lori Highby: Yeah, that's huge. So I hear you've got a list an offer for our listeners. You want to talk about that?

[00:15:11] Matt Nettleton: Sure. You know, I'm, I'm in part of the Sandler training network. We do sales and sales leadership training. I've, I've done this since 2003 and we do have an online learning platform called Sandler online.

And we, we have a guide of essential resources available and that you can get a one year subscription to go in and just kind of see how we think about selling and how we think about knowing when it's time to do the right thing. You go to DTB dot Sandler. com slash sell S E L L. And you can sign up there.

You just have to register and you log on and it'll give you access to. to basically frameworks for thinking about sales. And regardless of what industry you're in, you're going to have to generate revenue from people that are not paying you money currently. And we refer to that as sales. And, and the way that you structure and prepare for that really determines your effectiveness.

[00:16:04] Lori Highby: So these are tools that will allow you to prepare for that. So no, there's no sale. There's no back end, like, Oh, give me money. There's no sign up to an upgraded course. It's just a pretty good collection of essential resources that'll give you a foundation to build a sales process from.

Love that. And we will include that information in our show notes. Any final word of wisdom that you'd like to leave with our listeners?

[00:16:26] Matt Nettleton: If you're young, the most valuable thing you can invest in is people who are either headed in the same direction as you towards success. Or slightly ahead of you and willing to help and finding that network and building it and nurturing it over time.

Is an incredibly valuable skill that creates an incredibly valuable asset, but it all it takes to start is a willingness to learn.

[00:16:50] Lori Highby: Love that. Great piece of advice there. If anyone is interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way that they can reach you?

[00:16:57] Matt Nettleton: Well, you can find me on LinkedIn at Matt Nettleton. You just my LinkedIn profile header is get Matt. You can see me on Twitter. I've Sandler DTB Indy also Instagram. And if you follow, if you search, if you just type Sandler DTB Indy in Google, you will find a variety of resources specific to me.

[00:17:18] Lori Highby: Cool. Awesome. We'll include all that information in our show notes.

Thank you so much for being on the show today, Matt.

[00:17:25] Matt Nettleton: And thanks for having me.

[00:17:26] Lori Highby: All right, this wraps up our episode of Social Capital. A huge thank you to Matt for taking the time to connect with us. . If you have a burning marketing or relationship question, just reach out. I'd love to answer it on this show.

And as mentioned before, let's connect on LinkedIn, reach out to me, reach out to Matt. We both love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed today's show and I encourage you to go out there and get noticed.