Business Innovators Radio - Abigail Tiefenthaler Shares How to Turn Connections into Clients with Savvy Sales Strategy

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

In this episode, Dr. Tami Patzer talks with Abigail Tiefenthaler, a seasoned marketing and sales strategy expert with more than 40 years of experience in the field. Raised by marketing and sales geniuses, Abigail has dedicated her career to turning connections into clients, building strong relationships through marketing, and creating simple yet effective paths to client acquisition.Abigail is the founder of Savvy Sales Strategy, where she helps entrepreneurs and business owners develop robust marketing and sales strategies. She’s here to share insights on the importance of relationship building, the shortcomings of most marketing courses, and the transformative role of automation and AI in today’s marketing landscape. We’ll dive into Abigail’s expertise and hear fascinating stories from her career, including the creation of the first starter kit for a lifestyle drug in the OC market and her innovative Collaborators Kickstart membership program. We’ll also explore how she repositioned multiple clients’ marketing messages, helping them gain the courage and confidence to succeed.If you’re interested in enhancing your marketing efforts and learning how to turn your connections into clients, you’ll want to listen to this episode. Abigail’s unique perspective and real-world experiences will provide valuable insights for any entrepreneur or business owner looking to take their marketing and sales strategies to the next level.Who should listen to this episode? Anyone who wants to improve their marketing and sales efforts, build stronger relationships with their clients, and leverage the power of automation and AI to streamline their business processes. Abigail’s expertise in turning connections into clients and her insights on the evolving marketing landscape make this a must-listen for anyone looking to grow their business.To learn more about Abigail Tiefenthaler and her Savvy Sales Strategy, visit her website at SavvySalesStrategy.com or connect with her on Facebook and LinkedIn. Get ready to be inspired and empowered to take your marketing and sales efforts to new heights!Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/abigail-tiefenthaler-shares-how-to-turn-connections-into-clients-with-savvy-sales-strategy

Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tammy Panser, and today we have a very special guest joining us, Abigail Tiefenthaler. Abigail is a seasoned marketing and sales strategy expert with more than 40 years of experience in the field, raised by our marketing and sales geniuses, Abigail has dedicated her career to turning connections into clients, building strong relationships through marketing and creating simple yet effective paths to client acquisition. Abigail is the founder of Savvy Sales Strategy, where she helps entrepreneurs and business owners develop robust marketing and sales strategies. She's here to share her insights on the importance of relationship building, the shortcomings of most marketing courses,

and the transformative role of automation and AI in today's marketing landscape. We're going to be diving into Abigail's expertise and hear some fascinating stories from her career, including the creation of the first starter kit for a lifestyle drug in the OC market and her innovative collaborators' Kickstart membership program. We're going to also explore how she repositioned multiple clients' marketing messages, helping them to gain the courage and confidence to succeed. So, listen up. If you're interested in enhancing your marketing efforts and how to turn your clients,

or connections, and the clients, you want to listen to this episode. episode. So welcome Abigail. How are you today? Tammy, I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to get this conversation going. I'm excited too because I've known you for a few years now and I've interviewed you in the past, but it's always good with all the changes that are happening in the world today, especially with marketing. It's time to catch up. So, just for the audience, just tell me a little bit about your background and how you got into sales and marketing. So I spent the first 15 years after I got my bachelor's degree in New York working at ad agencies and on the client's side in product management. I learned how to work lifestyle

drug like an oral contraceptive. I learned how to market cash cows like X-lax, which controlled at the time 5% of the market. I've been involved in starters programs, you know, brand new things coming out. I worked for Mrs. Smith's eyes in new product development. And, you know, I am the daughter of, I call him a madman because he was a Madison Avenue, 1960s, an ad guy. And, And he was always creating marketing that drove sales, more so than marketing that drove visibility. And I learned a lot, you know, wanting to be, you know, a mini dad, right? That was always my goal.

My mom also ran a business out of her house, out of our house growing up. So she and my dad continued to have conversations, you know, while. while we were growing up, I had a place to work to understand marketing at a more basic level. And I, you know, remember talking to my guidance counselor in 10th grade and him asking me, are you going to college? And I said, yeah. And he goes, what are you going to go to college for? And I said, marketing. Like, what else was there? Because that was just so much a part of my, you know, my 9.2, right? Like, everything revolved around marketing. So I did that for the first 15 years, worked in corporate, did what he told me to do, got my master's.

I have an emphasis in strategic marketing. So I've always been involved in that foundational part of how do you go from point A to point B and how do you do it authentically, disruptively, and in a compelling way that brings people to you. So. So he grew up with these marketing genius parents. And so that gave you. kind of a head start. Like most people in the 10th grade, they go in to see the counselor,

and they probably might throw out several potential career opportunities. So what do you think is the missing piece that most entrepreneurs are missing in the landscape today? Today, I think what's happening is that there are a lot of skill set experts. So you're learning how to create social media marketing by social media experts. You're looking to create email marketing by email experts. But there are very few subject matter experts, people who really understand that bigger landscape. And the, you know, a little strategy goes a long way. But strategy doesn't have a result, right? If you put a Facebook post up and you you get 100 likes on it or 10 comments on it, you know you're kind of on the right path.

If you put up another Facebook post and you get, you know, crickets, you know, maybe that's not the type of message. The strategy, though, is what creates all the thinking part of your marketing. It's your audience, your message, your offer. It's all of that in conjunction. How are you going to bring people in? Lead gen. How are you going to nurture them to develop that authority?

know like and trust. And then what are you doing to convert them into clients? And there's a path, but most people are buying bricks one by one versus buying a brick layer who's going to lay the whole path. Well, that makes a lot of sense. So I do want you to talk more about that. But first, let's talk a little bit about relationships and how important relationship building is in this path that you're going to be creating. Well, I mean, let's take our relationship as an example. Our relationship has, you know, gone, has survived numbers of years, right? We met each other networking. We had a one on one. We got to know each other. you presented an offer to me when I had an opportunity to be a subject matter expert on a morning show. So we've worked together to develop a relationship where there's a no like and trust, right? There's that belief that if you and I are going to work together, we're going to get a good result.

And in the marketing world today, that relationship is often, people are trying to short-shed. change it as much as possible. They, you know, what I think is one of the biggest myths that are out there is that you have a brand new coach who's getting ready to launch a, you know, a fitness offer, right? She wants to launch a fitness offer. And she's following the 1% marketing experts out there who have hundreds of thousands of people in their community and have relationships with people who have hundreds of thousands of people. But this simple coach has maybe 200 people that she has a relationship with through a Facebook

group, through a Facebook community, LinkedIn community, Insta community, it doesn't matter. Maybe she's done a freebie and created an email list. So she now thinks, well, I can just go and start selling a low end offer or a high end offer. It doesn't really matter. But she hasn't, she doesn't have enough volume to create any type of meaningful traction in the sales of it. And she's focusing on trying to follow their path when their path was forged 15 years ago. So, you know, you're trying to skip steps and jumpstart, right? It's kind of like the 22-year-old kid that wants to move out of his parents' house.

but he wants to go live in a three-bedroom, three-bath house because that's what he was raised in. He doesn't want to live in a little 800-square-foot condo, right, or apartment, right? We have that expectation that, well, I've been doing this for 20 years. I'm an expert. People will come and see me. And that's not what happens in today's world. It's one thing to work in a warm market, right? It's one thing to really kind of develop the relationships of those 200 people.

But now to actually grow a business, you need to develop relationships with hundreds of people to start getting tens and 20s of them buying a program at a time. And we don't really understand that path. So that's where the relationship building is so critical because it develops that no like and trust. and it really does position you as that go-to expert in that field. That makes a lot of sense, and you're right. Everyone is wanting to jump from point A to point Z, and they're forgetting about all those baby steps in between. So I know that you have your savvy sales strategy.

Can you tell me more, you said, that you started the first starter kit for the lifestyle drug, but then you have a lot of other different programs. Can you just talk about the different possibilities that you have created for people who might want to work with you? Yeah, I think, you know, here's the answer, the short answer to that question is everything that I consider a career highlight. came because we were solving a problem for a client. In the case of the, in the case of the starter kit, I mean, that's an interesting story.

We did it in, it was 1991. I was still working on the agency. I had not gone into becoming an entrepreneur yet or partnering with Tammy. And it was a oral contraceptive. It was a female health group of a pharmaceutical, company who was, you know, had detail reps who were going in and talking to docs, except they had no new thing to talk to the docs about. And one of their competitors was coming out with a brand new oral contraceptive. So our team, it was a team of us, we put together five different ways that

they could go in and still have a conversation with a doctor and, you know, have something that was a value in that conversation. And the client bought the starter kit. And the starter kit was really a very interesting thing because in the past, when a girl was prescribed to neural contraceptive, she was often given a calendar. She was given a couple of samples. She was given a few things. And all we did was package it. All we did was take a step back and go, let's put these into a case. and let's, you know, give the, it's the nurse who actually pulled the samples from the sample closet. So what we wanted to do was we wanted to take up as much shelf space in the sample closet, so the eye would naturally go to that offer. And it worked, right? Another thing that we did,

that again, talk about, you know, relationships, and this was, again, before my entrepreneurial journey, was I had called on Hershey Foods for four years, and I brought them together for an Easter promotion with Kodak. And it was a great in-store success, the sales team's success, more sales success. So it was, again, how do we do something a little different? On the entrepreneurial side, we have the, you know, we got into two different collaborations last year. One was with a mindset coach who was a very successful collaboration, and it created the collaborators' Kickstart, which is a membership program that's launching this year. Another never went anywhere. So again, it came through developing the relationships, turning those connections into conversations, and then

developing something from that. I mean, I've worked with clients before where I've helped them really kind of hone in on what their unique selling proposition is because, again, if you're a life coach, there's hundreds or thousands of life coaches out there. So what do you focus on? Do you focus on relationships, on anxiety, on grief, on divorce, on sexual pleasure, you know, on happiness? Like what, right, getting them to really step in again to that courage and confidence that says, you know what, if I had 100 people standing behind a closed door, I would want them to all look like this. I would want them to all have this problem. I would want them to all be seeking this type of solution because that's my jam.

So that's what I would say. Because you mentioned that about the different, what is it that you're going to be, for example, as a coach. And I noticed that I had two different. people who want to talk about imposter syndrome because that is something that a lot of people seem to face. So you have connection to collaboration and then you have the collaborators kickstart membership program. So what do those are involved in those if somebody were to participate in them? Right. So what happened? So what happens? happened after the first collaboration that we did with Jackie, the mindset coach,

people started coming up to us and go, well, how do you do this? And we actually are in collaboration with a couple of tech platforms right now. We are, you know, we're offering our strategy to their clients and they're offering their platform to our clients, right? So we've created more partnerships than collaborations. Because I define a collaboration as two people coming together to create one unique offer event, something to that effect. So again, the difference between collaborations, partnerships, referrals, you know, quid pro quo, there's a whole hierarchy of different ways you can market your business. But what we were experienced were a lot of people were coming up to us and go, we want to collaborate

with you. We would love to do an offer with you. We would love to program with you. And so we realized that there were really three pillars. to creating a successful collaboration. That first pillar is getting collaboration ready. You really have to know who you are, what you do, who you do it. You have to have some success. You have to have an idea of who you're doing it for, why they need it and why they're willing to pay for it, right? You have to get those strategic questions answered and you have to have a little bit of success under your belt because you have a validated offer.

then the question is how do you find the right collaboration partner? Because let's face it, it's kind of a little bit like finding a good relationship with a girlfriend or, you know, a significant other. You have to be able to know what you need, who you are, you know, how you play, right? How you, how you tick. So you've got to understand that. And then the third is actually navigating the logistics of putting together an offer, creating a logo, deciding on pricing, who's taking the money, who owns the delivery of, you know, who owns the offer, who's delivering the offer, right? You know, how do you uncouple? So it's really important to understand that. And so that created the Collaborators' Kickstart. I have a Facebook group called the Collaborators'

collective. But the, the Kickstarter is really a membership program where we want to match make people. We want to help them come together. It's not unlike, you know, JV. Directory, right? Or, you know, some of the other types of communities where people are coming together looking for that right fit partner, that right fit program for to team up with, not necessarily by. So that's why this exists. That's really interesting because I find that that is one of the, a lot of people want to work with me, but a lot of times it never comes to fruition because they don't really understand what it is that the value that I truly am bringing to the table and why someone needs it because I think you, have talked about that where visibility is one thing.

But of course, you want that visibility to turn into impact, influence, and income, specifically more income. And if you don't have all the pieces in place, your visibility, you're out there. But where is that leading for that success? So I think that is really important. I wanted to ask you about AI and automation because it sounds like automation plays a big part in some of your marketing strategies and tactics. Can you talk about that and where you see AI moving into the future? Because chat, GEO, has been around a year and everybody's worried.

Yeah. Well, I would tell everybody not to worry. I mean, we've been a part of an AI world for a lot of years. Just go see some adventure movie and you will see, you know, pieces of AI that are incorporated into it. I think the beautiful thing about AI is that it allows us to accomplish more things more quickly. And again, in this immediate gratification world, you know, where it might have taken me a day to create a 10-part email sequence, maybe not. You know, I can now do it in a quarter of the time. I mean, the true strength of E.I. comes from it can be a great source of inspiration. It can be a great source of trends. It can be a great source of, you know, understanding what else is going on in the industry because it's getting smarter and smarter. So to me, I think AI is helping us create, right, be more creative because it's allowing us to expand our thinking a little bit. Automation, on the other hand, allows us to do things that we just can't physically do in the time frame.

So when I first started my career in advertising, and I was always good at business. development because I never stopped calling, right? Four years I called on Hershey. 52 weeks I called on that female health group of the pharmaceutical company. So, you know, people would say to me, because they would be on my prospect list, Abigail, take them off, you know, like, you know, after three times you're hounding. And I was like, no, after three times, they're just learning my name. And so that automation allows us to do that follow-up, it allows us to do that relationship building. I mean, nothing's going to replace one-on-one contact. However, that automation can certainly do a stopgap for those times in between those one-on-one contacts, right? And it can help reinforce that we are truly experts, that we do

understand what's going on, that we feel their pain, that we understand they need a solution. So that's where I think automation can be so helpful. It'll allow us to aggregate, you know, different types of people so we can truly segment out how we talk to people at the beginning of a relationship in the middle of a relationship when we think they're ready to start, you know, thinking yes, no, maybe, right? conversion. So it gives us more more depth of communication that we didn't have before. In the old days, I get to roll a decks and I would call people. Every couple of weeks, there was a tickler like call Tammy,

call Sue, called Joe, right? I would have ticklers in my calendar and I would write down what we had discussed before and I would maybe write down, oh, they were celebrating an anniversary or, you know, kids' birthday or whatever. So we could start developing that relationship. Well, today you don't have to do that because through CRMs, you can put notes in. You know, you don't have to have a Rolodex. And then you could say, you know what?

Generate a three-part email that's talking about whatever that pain was. And you can send specific emails. I mean, it's really a very, like, you know, I embrace technology. as a stubborn embracer, for the most part, which is why Tammy, my business partner, is such a phenomenal asset. We really do play off each other in terms of me being more the kite, big picture thinking and, you know,

oh, can we do this? And her being more the anchor, which is, you know, she's got her hands in all of this tech and AI and automation, right? So, but yeah, we're finding out that we can do more and more things, that we can get down to deeper and deeper levels, that they're more sophisticated, and that, again, you need human guidance around it. You can't just put into chat, GPT,

create a six-part email sequence, oh, copy and paste and send it out. You've got to make it your own. You've got to look at it. You've got to say, well, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. This is really what I'm trying to say. It's a conversation almost with,

chat GBT to kind of get the outcome you want to get. And I think that's exactly what is happening with chat GPT. They're up to 4-0 or something. And that's what they're saying, is they're trying to get it so that it's pulling for more of what your personality is or what your thoughts are based on the conversations that you do have with it. So I think you're right because AI certainly can help you speed up whatever you're doing. And especially if you're doing something that's very repetitious, you can do that.

And you can train it, like you said. It gets to know different things that you need and want. But I think they call it hallucinations when it just makes stuff up. So you do have to really watch for. that with any artificial intelligence. And then, of course, that automation does help people. So one of the things that you mentioned when I asked you some pre-questions was related to helping your clients with their marketing messages. And do you have any success stories where you can really show how

getting that marketing message can just really make a difference in someone's business or in their professional life. Yeah, we do a lot of pulled outreach. And so we're talking to people that you know, maybe in your universe, but

the fourth or fifth planet from the sun, right? Nowhere near us. And they, the conversation is getting people, and I call it the superwoman pose, you know, that pose that pose that people take where they're standing up and their hands are on their hips and getting them to stand in that, getting them to say, to talk the way they would talk, to approach the solution in their own voice unapologetically. You know, they're not trying to tow a line because they don't want to, you know,

upset somebody, they're okay with the nose. And so we've had a couple of clients that we've worked with to really hone in on their messaging so that when people come to them and respond, they go, I feel like I know you. Wow, I think the same way you think. Or that's an interesting perspective. I've never heard that before, but it makes so much sense. And so that's what we do on the daily, because if you don't know who you are and you don't know really the problem you're solving, because nobody's gone deep enough in that strategy part of their business, right? They really haven't delved deep, deep enough. Now we have the opportunity to say, well, why is this important?

Why do they care? Why you, you know, getting them to answer those questions? is what's been transformational. We worked with a grief coach to help her really kind of hone in on the fact that she was a life coach, yes, but she focused on grief. And she had the pedigree

and the experience to talk about grief because she worked for a funeral home for 20 years. So she saw grief at a lot of different levels by a lot of different people. And she was trained in, you know, and certified in grief counseling. So, but to be four, she was working with us, she was a life coach.

Right. So we got her to really focus in on that. Getting people to understand, we've worked with a money coach, doing the same thing. What is it that they're really getting besides, you know, an awareness of how they spend their money, how they make their money and how they lose their money, right? You know, where the money flows. So that's what we want to do with our, with the clients we work with. we help them. We really do take Tammy's 40 years of marketing experience and sales experience,

my 40 years of marketing and sales experience to say, well, Tammy, why are you doing it this way? Have you ever thought about doing it that way? And then the beautiful thing about cold outreach is that you learn pretty quickly what's working and what isn't. Because you're talking one to one to somebody who you think is your ideal client. So that's, and then we incorporate, you know, we revise the messaging, we modify the messaging, we work with our clients to help them respond appropriately, not just go, hey, I've got this six-week course. You can buy it for $49, right? But how do you start that one-on-one conversation so that you're not selling a $49 course? You're selling a $10,000 course because that's really where you want your client to go or, you know, the bigger consulting package or whatever, whatever it is you're doing.

That's really amazing. And I'm thinking about, you're right, because so often with our, who are we, most people start out with that big vision of, oh, I can do this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. But it's really when you hone it down to that area of expertise. that you really start to become successful. So if somebody wants to work with you, what is the best way for them to reach out to you? Well, is my name going to be in the title or somewhere in the open?

Okay, so here's the thing. There's only one Abigail Tiefenthaler on Facebook and on LinkedIn, and those are the two platforms that I use pretty regularly. But you can also reach out to us on our website, which is savvy sales strategy. Okay. Happy sales strategy.com or Abigail Tiefen-Poller. And I will make sure that I spell that correctly because the H is silent.

So everyone, thank you so much, Abigail. Before I let you go, is there a key takeaway that you want our listeners to leave with? I would say a little strategy goes a long way. Okay, so little strategy goes a long way. And if I were you, I would reach out to Abigail and really learn. We've covered a lot of different things today. But I think all of us could benefit from that messaging, making sure our messaging is correct. And then, like you said, having a strategy.

But again, that strategy is only a tiny part of the bigger pathway to success. So thanks a lot, Abigail. I really appreciate it. Oh, you're welcome, Tammy. Thanks for having me. This is Tammy Pitzer. Go make it a great day. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovatorsradio.com today.