Are you making the most out of your lead generation and sales opportunities? Many entrepreneurs and business owners don't understand how to deliver their business's message effectively to the decision-maker, resulting in missed lead generation opportunities. But first, you need to define what a good prospect looks like and how your product or service solves their problem. On the Startup Hustle Podcast, Darrell Evans discusses entrepreneurship and lead generation.
Matt DeCoursey:
And we're back for another episode of Startup Hustle. Matt DeCoursey here to have another conversation that I hope helps your business grow. Now, for those of you that are longtime listeners, you know that I'm often found or heard saying that the best form of incoming capital is revenue, and in order to get revenue, we need sales. Sales validates everything you do. Sales cures ails, I can go on and on and on.
But one of the bigger questions and problems and needs to be solved is how do we make sales? How do we get in front of the people that we want to talk about or talk to about whatever it is that we do?
Now, the world of marketing teaches us that the more eyes we put our product or service in front of the better off we are, and often that marketing results in someone asking us about what we do. There's also an entirely different side to that and there you can go out and actually try to find business. So in an effort to make my own life and business better and to hopefully help yours do the same, we're going to talk about lead generation today.
Now, I promised we would have a guest today and much like we always do, that is the case. With me today. I've got Darrell Evans. Darrell is the CEO and co-founder of Yokel Local, he's also a growth coach and the host of The MindShift Podcast. Darrell does a little of that too. Now, you know, I like it when you're interactive. So as we learn more about Darrell, scroll down and click the darrellevans.net link. While you do that, welcome to Startup Hustle, Darrell.
Darrell:
Appreciate it, Matt. Thanks for having me on the show.
Matt:
Do you think we can solve this lead problem?
Darrell:
It's one of my favorite topics, man. Let's deliver a masterclass to your listening audience. I'll do my best.
Matt:
I'm looking forward to doing that and learning some stuff myself. Now, before we get too far into that, let's get a little bit about your backstory. so the listeners and myself, to some degree, can begin the master class on Darrell Evans.
Darrell:
I appreciate that, Matt. Thanks. So, you know, I got my beginnings, really in an odd way for entrepreneurship and in the startup world, but I got my first job when I was 16 at a little place in the United States called Taco Bell. Little did I know a few years later, I was the general manager for a Taco Bell restaurant while I was going to college. But at the same time, I think the entrepreneurial DNA had been in there since I started selling Now and Laters at the school lockers in high school — one of those candy flippers, if you will, back in the day to put some money in my pocket.
Then I started my first little commerce business out of the trunk of my car at a swap meet. I'm a sports fan. I played sports growing up so I got some sportswear so I would buy products from wholesale vendors in New York, LA, go out to the swapmeet, post up a table outside of my Honda Civic, and start selling shirts, hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts. Today, that's called e-commerce. We called it trunk commerce, looking back on those days.
Fast forward through college, got a degree in Finance. Thought I was going to go work on Wall Street. But that entrepreneurial bug was still there, so I jumped in full time. Jumped into the mortgage industry around 2000. Ended up growing a business off of the couch of my grandmother's house, because I had a little bit of a setback between ‘97 and ‘99, financially. And I found myself living on her couch, started the mortgage business, grew a business, ended up co-owning a mortgage company. I would close that firm down.
But I got involved in the digital marketing space around 2003-4 with that company, and we ended up successfully growing YouTube channels around 2007, LinkedIn on 2006, I mean, lead generation online 2005, started internet marketing division inside that company, and then just pivoted in the middle of the recession to start helping small business owners do the same. So, been a nice journey with Yokel Local for 10 years.
"Done a bit over $300 million in revenue with clients, and just excited to share some of those thoughts and insights over my 30 years of growing, starting up, starting again, falling, starting up, for the typical entrepreneurial thing."
Darrell Evans
Matt:
You know, one of the things that is true is that nothing happens in a business until something is sold. And I, and you know, I just to validate that, I mean, you don't need a loading dock in and out. You don't need a comptroller. You don't need anybody or anything, unless something is sold, and if you stop selling things, cash flow slows, everything sucks as it resulted out. And so much of that lies on your success and failure. It comes on your ability to sell stuff.
And one of the things about startups and being an entrepreneur is it doesn't come with an owner's manual. Now, you were a general manager — in college — manager at Taco Bell. That actually did have an owner's manual or at least some semblance of one. And we don't get that, you know, so businesses like what like the Bell, they got some built-in business and they do marketing and different stuff. Now as a startup, whether you sell a product software or something else, you're gonna have to try to figure that out.
And look, this is a real big challenge for a lot of businesses, because a lot of people, especially the tech space, they're good at tech, and they're not good at sales. And the two — if you can find someone that's great at tech and great at sales, that's almost like a different kind of unicorn. But you know, I think we should first start with maybe a quick discussion of why businesses fail to generate leads.
Darrell:
Yeah, you know, it's great, great points as you made it. Nothing, I think is your — and I know I've heard it two different ways by two different great, great entrepreneurs as Zig Ziglar was one, Mark Cuban's another that echoes what you just said, which is nothing happens until something gets sold and then sales cures all things. Like literally, I think it's Zig Ziglar made the first reference and then Mark Cuban on the second.
You know, when I think about sales, and I think one of the big hurdles with sales failure in my years of not only being a salesperson, as an entrepreneur — and don't get it twisted, if you're an entrepreneur, you're a salesperson, unless you have a co-founder and you're taking care of technical and then they're taking care of sales.
"If you're an entrepreneur, and you don't get a steady paycheck, you're in sales. The faster you accept that truth, the better you'll be. And so when I think about sales, I think the thing that has helped me the most is I've overcome and got past the idea that selling involved me convincing someone to purchase something that they didn't want, for my benefit."
Darrell Evans
That was an early lesson in my, in the ‘90s. So I'm dating myself, I turned 50 this year, so I've been selling for a little bit. But it was this distinction that I'm not selling anything to anyone, as a salesperson who really has a valuable product or service to offer. I'm assisting someone in need, who has a problem. And they'd like to solve the problem. Insert my product or service, if it's at the right price point, if it has the right value, benefits, features, and, let's not forget, in the world of professional services, if they actually like me.
Listen to the rest of the interview to learn more valuable tips regarding how to maximize your leads and increase sales.