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How Most Businesses Waste Their Best Network with Nathan Klug

Exploring Growth · 2026-06-12 · 33 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

35 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density7 / 20
Originality5 / 20
Guest Caliber7 / 20
Specificity & Evidence9 / 20
Conversational Craft7 / 20

This episode tackles the counterintuitive reality that most businesses prioritize expensive new customer acquisition over mining their existing networks - despite data showing new customers cost five to 25 times more to acquire and existing customers convert at 60-70% versus 5-20% for strangers. Nathan Klug identifies three key barriers: the psychological allure of shiny new tactics over unsexy relationship nurturing, lack of structured follow-up systems for existing contacts, and poor data management that makes accessing prospect information painful. The conversation addresses practical solutions: implementing automated follow-up workflows triggered by specific events (adding a contact, tagging, form submission), documenting manual processes before automating them, and ruthlessly pruning CRM fields to only what you'll actually use - typically 10-15 fields rather than 162. The host shares his own implementation of a LinkedIn-based client introduction system that surfaces warm introductions in minutes. B2B operators, particularly those in agencies and service businesses, will recognize themselves in this discussion of choosing conference attendance and ad spending over systematic relationship leverage.

Key takeaways

  • →Stop spending money to acquire new customers until you've exhausted your existing network of contacts, referrals, and prospects that cost $0 to work with.
  • →Build a documented follow-up system with clear triggers, manual workflows mapped out before automation, and consistency through CRM-based automation rather than spreadsheets.
  • →Audit your CRM data ruthlessly - most companies use only 10-15 of 162+ fields; collect only data you'll actively use in sales, automations, or customer communications.
  • →The psychological block isn't knowledge but execution: businesses know they should leverage networks and ask for referrals but choose the sexier activity of chasing strangers instead.
  • →Clean data management and easy contact lookup are prerequisites to actually using your network; if accessing one prospect's information takes too long, you won't do the work.

Guests

Nathan Klug

Topics in this episode

Marketing automation platformsReferral systemsCRM automation and workflowsLead follow-up systemsExisting customer retention versus new customer acquisitionData management and CRM field optimizationContact database organizationTrigger-based email sequencesLinkedIn prospecting and network scrapingCustomer introduction systems

Questions this episode answers

How much more expensive is it to acquire a new customer versus keeping an existing one?

According to Harvest Business Review research cited in the episode, acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one, and you have a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer versus only 5-20% for a brand new prospect.

What are the three steps to building an automated follow-up system?

Pick your trigger (the event that starts the workflow, like adding a contact or filling out a form), document your manual process on paper to understand each step before automating, and then implement the automation in your CRM so it runs consistently without manual intervention.

How many CRM data fields does an average small business actually use?

The episode describes a company with 162 CRM fields that, when audited, actually used only about 15 fields regularly; the recommendation is to collect only data you have a specific plan to use in sales, automations, or communications.

Why don't companies ask their existing clients for referrals?

Businesses face a psychological bias toward 'the new thing' - marketing messaging emphasizes finding new strangers over nurturing existing networks, and referrals aren't as exciting as conferences or ads, even though they're free and highly effective.

What should you do before automating a follow-up workflow?

Write down your current manual process on paper, mapping out each action step, what triggers the next step, and what output (email, text, task reminder) should happen - this reveals whether you actually need all the steps you think you do.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

7 / 20

The episode carries a few actionable ideas - the three-step automation framework and the 'only collect data you'll use' principle - but the insight-to-filler ratio is poor. Large stretches are personal anecdotes, mutual commiseration, and platitudes rather than usable operator knowledge.

don't worry about creating a five part series or a 10 part series. Just three messages. And I would do two emails and if you have their uh, their phone number then do one uh, SMS as well
only the data that you're actually going to use in some way, shape or form, um, either for your sales reps, for yourself, in an automation, in an email

Originality

5 / 20

The core thesis - referrals and existing networks are underutilised - is one of the most recycled takes in B2B marketing. No contrarian reframe, no first-principles challenge, and the frameworks (CRM hygiene, automation triggers) are entirely standard. Nothing here would surprise a seasoned operator.

stop spending money to find strangers. Like that philosophy doesn't make sense
acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one

Guest Caliber

7 / 20

Nathan is a genuine practitioner who builds CRM automations and AI outreach agents for small businesses - not a career thought-leader - but the scale of his work is modest and his examples are from small/mid-market clients. Credible but not a senior operator who has done this at meaningful scale.

one of the businesses I worked with literally had, uh, when they first came in, they already, they were coming from another CRM. They had 162 fields
one of the main things that we do is we build AI agents that will do the outreach and qualify, uh, clients and things like that. That's our main product. We call it the Authentic Engagement Agent

Specificity & Evidence

9 / 20

There are genuine concrete data points - the 162-to-15-field example, the 14-15 warm introductions from a LinkedIn scrape, and the quoted CRM obsolescence statistics - which anchor the conversation. However, source attribution is garbled ('Harvest Business Review,' 'Land Based') and most numbers are borrowed research rather than proprietary data.

they had 162 fields M& they had information on all of them... when we boiled it down, it was about 15 fields
it yielded about 14 or 15 new introductions, like warm introductions from my client to their network

Conversational Craft

7 / 20

The host asks decent clarifying questions and draws out the three-step framework, and one redirect ('what triggered you wanting to do that?') produces the episode's most honest moment. However, there is no meaningful pushback, and extended passages devolve into mutual self-deprecation and shared anecdotes that go unchallenged and add little substance.

out of curiosity, what triggered you wanting to do that? Like, what was. Well, what made you be. All of a sudden I'm going to allocate an hour a day to that activity
do you have any practical tips on, you know, better, more healthier data management

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker A53%
  • Speaker B47%

Most-used words

data29network15back13leads12follow12clients11system11number11existing10process10doesn9asking9plan9stop8current8simple8

Episode notes

In this episode of Exploring Growth, host Lee Murray sits down with Nathan Klug, Founder of LIFT Growth System, to challenge one of the biggest assumptions in modern marketing: the constant obsession with finding new leads. Nathan shares why businesses often overlook the value already sitting inside their existing network and how simple follow-up systems can unlock significant growth opportunities. Tune in to learn how focusing on your current network, refining your systems, and creating intentional follow-up can drive more sustainable and profitable growth. Nathan’s Data Management Courses: data.liftgrowthsystems.com aea.liftgrowthsystems.com Want to connect or recommend a guest? harvardmurray.com/exploring-growth-podcast Connect on LinkedIn: Lee - Nathan -

Full transcript

33 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: Stop spending money to find strangers. That philosophy doesn't make sense. Harvest Business Review did, uh, a study, and acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one. And then you have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer rather than 5 to 20% on a brand new person.

Speaker B: Nathan I work with a lot of companies and I see them spending money like crazy on ads and, you know, God knows what. But they don't focus on their current network. They're, uh, not utilizing the current network that they've worked so hard to build all of these years. Why? Why?

Speaker A: Is it because it's not as exciting? Everyone likes the new thing. And finding new leads for a business is the message that every marketing agency and everything that says out there is what you should do. And so that's why they don't do the simple thing, which is going back to their node network, the context that they've already had. And that's one mindset thing shift that has to change for them to be able to utilize their network the right way.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And I think, like, Legion in some ways is like a cult. You know, everybody gets inundated and brainwashed that you should go after new strangers. Go after new strangers. Now there's, there's some validity, like, there's some truth in every lie kind of thing. There's some validity to that. You know, at some point you do need outbound or inbound tactics that will drive new eyeballs. But there, you know, from my experience, there's so much rich, uh, you know, meat on the bone to go after in your current network. And so that's what I want to talk to you about. Um, you know, this is what you do. You help clients with this. So let's unpack this. Um, let's talk about why companies don't utilize their current network. Um, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Speaker A: First thing is, uh, just the priority to find new lead acquisition is that, um, it's also part of their old strategy, like as a new business. That's what they did to get business. So they've never shifted away to say, oh, maybe we should look at something different. So that's one of the first things that I see, is that they just haven't adapted that mindset to be like, oh, um, we need a new strategy to get to the people that we've already talked to.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Um, and so it's a mindset thing, is what you're saying.

Speaker A: That is One. And doesn't it usually come down to a mindset for a lot of things? Like, yeah, we all know the thing that we should like coaching and marketing in a lot of different ways is not usually saying something that uh, is new. It's saying something that's old just at the right time.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's funny, I was at a marketing conference last year and the front of room raised his hand is all marketing directors. And he said, uh, who in the room is, um, asking for referrals? And no one's hand went up, including mine. And I felt so, just, I just felt so bad. Like, why am I not asking for referrals? That's the easiest, like simplest, dumbest thing I should be doing. I should have that system in my business. And then he raised his hand too. Uh, he raised his hand and said, well, funny enough, I'm not actually doing it either. And I just think that there's some kind of weird psychology trick that's been played on us as business owners, leaders and growth oriented people that our natural inclination is to go to the new strangers and try to spend money and time and effort on that and not our current network. When there's so much to be found just talking to our current client and saying, hey, who do you know?

Speaker A: I mean 100%. And actually that phrase that you just use is one of the things that I talk about a lot is stop spending money to find strangers. Like that philosophy doesn't make sense. And just from a. So we can throw some statistics like we actually know what we're talking about on this side. You know, Harvest Business Review did, uh, a study and acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one. And then on existing customers or existing networks, you have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer rather than 5 to 20% on a brand new person. Like from a statistics standpoint, we're already looking at that. That doesn't make sense of the activity that we're trying to do. But that's not the statistic that everyone's thrown at us and that we see out in the business world.

Speaker B: Yeah, right. And yet here we are still doing. It's like the knowledge is there. Everyone knows. Like everybody in that room at the conference knew they should be asking for referrals. But why are we uh, sitting at a conference learning new ideas when we haven't even done the one thing? It's like raising kids and it's like, I want to go do this thing. Well, you know, you haven't even made your bed. Your room is a complete wreck. Let's start there. You know, that's how I feel. I feel like a kid, literally.

Speaker A: That was my discussion with my kids yesterday. We created an app for value chores. And uh, they're like, they instantly went to those things so they can make some money. Uh, and I'm like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. You can't even do that until you've done the stuff that you have to do just to live in this household.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so your first, uh, kind of piece of advice is to stop prioritizing new leads over existing business. Anything more to say about that, and

Speaker A: I'll kind of transition over to the second phase of that. But I would say prior, uh, don't prioritize new lead acquisition until you have a structured follow up system for the leads that you already have.

Speaker B: Yes. Okay.

Speaker A: Because as you mentioned, it's not, we're not telling everyone, oh, don't go find new leads like, stop that activity, stop advertising, stop doing those things. It's. Yeah, we're not being, uh, uh, as direct on that side. Those are still good strategies, but they don't make any sense to do unless you've exhausted the current network of leads and prospects and clients and referral opportunities and things like that that you already have that literally cost $0 to be able to implement.

Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. Um, I think going back to your kind of your first point of, or your answer of everything being more sexy. You know, it's like, it's more sexy to go to a conference and like waste three days of your time to maybe meet a couple people that might turn into something. Um, and again, not most people, not having a structure or system around that either. Um, versus doing the thing that you're saying here and maybe taking, you know, a few hours to sit and build a structure around this activity and this behavior. Um, I think it's so funny. I mean, and I'm included in that crowd. I mean, I feel like I'm the cobbler's son who has no shoes, you know, or I'm the cobbler and my son is walking around with no shoes. Um, because, you know, I'm sitting there at the conference and looking around the room thinking I should have this together. Because it's kind of part of what we do for our clients. We help our CEOs run podcasts and um, and part of what we're doing is getting them access to guests that are high value relationships or partners, prospects and that kind of thing. And we have systems around all that because if we didn't, then we wouldn't be able to do this every single day for our clients. But here I am not doing it for myself. What's up with that?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, I, I mean, guilty as charged. I mean I'm not uh, it's, it's not like I'm going to pretend like we do that so well for other people. And then we're looking at our business and why aren't we growing the way that we should? Or why are, why are the businesses that we're working with growing, growing faster than the one than our own? And just because that we're prioritizing the same mindset of it's much more exciting for us to help somebody else grow than to turn inward and be like, you know what? We need to spend the time on our business to make sure that we're growing and creating those same follow up systems and things like that.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's deep. Uh, uh, that's pretty deep right there.

Speaker A: I mean we could spend literally hours just uh, unpacking that philosophy and the idea. But I think for, for everyone that's listening, if you're hearing that and you feel convicted that, that like, oh, that's me too. Just allocate an hour the next day to say what do I need to do in my business to set up my own follow up system on existing leads and run it by chat, GPT or whatever your favorite LLM is and start making a plan for that. Because you'll realize it's not hard to make a plan for that to build your follow up. Yeah, and I mean, um, I'll lead into that. At end we'll, we'll show a simple three step process.

Speaker B: Well, that's what I'll ask you. Like let's take a little side step for a second. Do you have an, any like practical advice to get them started?

Speaker A: Yes. So there are literally three steps to building a good follow up system. Let's not over complicate this. So number one is pick your trigger. What we mean by trigger because to take a step back, the end goal of what we're trying to accomplish is yes, we can set up a manual follow up process but we're really, what we're talking about here is setting up an automated follow up process because if we keep it manual, we're not going to stay consistent with it. We'll do it really well for a little while and then we'll drop off. I mean I'm guilty, I've done that. Like, I can literally look through my career and be like, oh, this is when everything worked and this is when it didn't.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Um, and so number. What we're trying to create is an automation that will continue to follow up. So number one is pick your trigger, which is the event that is going to happen. Uh, that will put the contact into the series of actions that you want to see next.

Speaker B: Okay. So that would be like, I met someone at a conference and, you know, we exchanged information, we had a great connection and we thought there's some opportunity there. Then I take the next step.

Speaker A: Yep. And in this case, we're thinking of from the triggers of what's going to happen in our automation platform or our CRM. For the record, this doesn't work if you're still using a spreadsheet. Okay.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Unless you're a Rolodex, for that matter. Yes. Um, so the trigger in this case would be when I add the contact to the system or when I add a tag to that contact, or when the contact fills out a form, things like that, that would trigger that event to happen so that then they get put into the next workflow so that you don't have to do that manually.

Speaker B: Yeah. Now, okay, well, let me ask you this then. Um.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: I think, knowing myself, I've tried to do that and it's, it's, it's a big step to go from thinking I know what the process is to automating it. So would you recommend. And, um, I'm asking this because I'm trying to work on this myself. Maybe taking a baby step in between and either outlining it or actually working through it manually and then automating that 100%.

Speaker A: So you're absolutely. We're jumping to the conclusion that we're already talking about automation. We're getting to the end goal. But, but you're so literally in. I did a live Q and A yesterday. Um, I do it every single week. And one of the things that was asked was someone building an autom, like they wanted to build a simple automation and, but they didn't have the exact steps in mind of what they wanted to do. I said, so let's pause before we even discuss. I want you to go on a sheet of paper, write down your process of what are you currently doing manually that you want to automate. And then you box that out and you figure out again, this is the action that's happening that's going to cause this next thing. So that's the trigger and then I want this email to go out, this text to go out, this phone call to go out, I want this person to be reminded about something and then you map out all that and then you can go in and automate that process.

Speaker B: I uh, like that because in the process of doing it you might find that you don't need the text or you need two texts or, you know, you gotta really like live that out so you can feel it happening in real time.

Speaker A: Yes, 100%. And there's two ways to go about doing that is what I tell everyone is one, when you're actually doing the thing, because there's things that you're doing on a regular basis manually that you're like, I could probably automate. This is M. Huh. Just taking a moment during that time to pause and say, okay, let me write that down. Like what is my actual process of what I'm doing right now?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: And then the second one is to be, you know, if you're intimate and you know that intimately, uh, aware of your process, then is to just take like 10 minutes and then piece of paper and a pencil and write that down and say, I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this.

Speaker B: My guess is most people don't have a process. They do it different every time. Just, just a guess. Uh, knowing myself that I'm not much different than most of everyone listening. Um, okay, that's great. So let's go back. You, you said stop prioritizing new leads over existing business. You need to create a follow up structure which is we just kind of outlined, which is great. What else do you have for us?

Speaker A: Yeah. So then the third thing, and this kind of underlies everything, um, for all those other things to work, I probably should put it as almost number one. But without the mindset then it doesn't matter. But is poor data management and disorganized contacts.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: That's the third reason why uh, businesses don't go back to their existing clients. Because it takes them so long just to look at one contact and figure out what's going on with them.

Speaker B: I have a theory that, you know, a lot of the shift that's happening with AI and all of the valuations of these software companies dropping in the market, I think it's not because specifically that AI is taking over the software. I think there is some of that, it's automating some stuff and moving, shifting that away. But I think it's that for so long these SaaS companies, they sold all these user seats and um, all the features and Everything. And I think one, these companies that bought these platforms aren't fully utilizing them and all their data is completely disorganized. And so they're not getting. It's more of a chore to use it. You know, it's become more of a chore than um, it should be. And so I think, I think most people are in that seat of like bad data management.

Speaker A: Yeah. And to throw us again, just from a research standpoint, so Land Based did a study so 40% of CRM data becomes obsolete every single year. And then 80% of companies report their CRM data is accurate and 70% of revenue leaders lack confidence in their own customer data. Like that is the vast majority of every business out there. And then the only other thing that I'll throw out there, because we have this conversation a lot because you and I were a lot of times we're dealing with smaller businesses, um, and things like that sometimes. And they underestimate how much time and energy and effort it takes to do even decent data management.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Like they're like, oh, I can handle it on my own. And then they start getting into it and like, oh my gosh, this is taking all my time. Or they try to hire someone but they can't really give good directions because they don't have any good structure to it. And it gets even messier and messier and more frustrating for them.

Speaker B: Now, do you have any practical tips on, you know, better, more healthier data management?

Speaker A: Yes. So I'm actually, I'm not done with it, uh, yet. I have my basic course and my intermediate, uh, course uh, complete for data management. But, um, that's one area and I'll give a couple tips from that. But one thing I'll say if you don't mind is, and if anyone, anyone that's listening to this wants free access to the course, I'll throw out a form affording them to have because I plan on making a paid course down the road. But right now I want to get it out to quite a few people to go through it and be like, I actually now understand at least some basics about data management. But in a couple of pieces of advice that are simple from that standpoint, um, is one, the biggest thing is determining what the technical term is fields that you want, but what information you are actually going to do something with. So for example, everyone we know we need their name, we know we need, uh, some way to communicate with them, their email, their phone number, um, but things like if you're in the insurance space, well, Collecting policy information and putting it into the CRM. If you don't have a plan to use that in any capacity is a waste of time of collecting and making sure you put it into the CRM. If you're not going to go into your data and be like, okay, here's their policy number, or I'm going to send out an email that has their policy number or anything like that, then that is a wasted activity that you think is important. Because knowing their policy numbers is important. You shouldn't be doing that. Uh, you shouldn't be adding that information and bogging down the system. So think of only the things that you need, only the data that you're actually going to use in some way, shape or form, um, either for your sales reps, for yourself, in an automation, in an email. You're going to send out whatever it is and only put that information. That's one big thing that I would tell everyone.

Speaker B: Okay. I think most people approach it like, you know, more data is better because we might use it.

Speaker A: Yes. But if you're, if you're a small business and you're the one that has to collect that data and organize it, time versus effort time, uh, and what it produces is not, it's not worthwhile. I mean.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: One of the businesses I worked with literally had, uh, when they first came in, they already, they were coming from another CRM. They had 162 fields M& they had information on all of them. And I literally asked them like, okay, before we import all this information out of this, which do you use on a, like, what are you looking up on a regular basis?

Speaker B: Question, what did they say?

Speaker A: Oh, they said, I mean, when we boiled it down, it was about 15 fields.

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. I see. That proves my theory that these companies, you know, it's like all these bells and whistles and features and all these things and it's like, yeah, this is great, we could do all this stuff, but we're not even doing, you know, a fraction of what we should be doing, like going back to the network thing in various parts of our business. So it's a pipe dream to think that we're ever going to get to this point of strategically utilizing this data. So why have it all?

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: I mean, what do you need? Name, address, phone number, maybe mailing address, LinkedIn profile, and maybe a couple other things. Some notes.

Speaker A: Yep. So like as an example, like, if you're going, if your plan is to use your CRM to send out birthday reminders, make sure you Grab their date of birth. If you're going to use.

Speaker B: If, uh, if that's uh, your plan.

Speaker A: Exactly. But if it's not your plan and you don't have a design behind it

Speaker B: unless you've done it before. Because if you've done it before, then it actually is a good plan.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Not just saying you're going to do it.

Speaker A: And the same thing of what like we talked about with lead, new leads and things like that. It's uh, we're taught that big data is important. Data is the new oil, like it's talked about so often. So we think, oh, more is better in that case. But that's, that's only if you're the. If that's only if you're one of the big companies that have people that literally it is their job to manage that data.

Speaker B: Which I think, yeah, the title is data scientist. It's like a rocket scientist. But they are doing data. Something like that.

Speaker A: Yes, 100%.

Speaker B: That's where you can say at a party and say this is not data science. You know, it's not as hard as data science.

Speaker A: There we go, sipping my tea and I've got my pinky up. I'll, I'll make sure I use that phrase.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Oh, you're only a rocket scientist. Try data scientist.

Speaker A: Uh, I mean in some occasions it's actually pretty, I mean it is crazy.

Speaker B: For real. I've met some of them and they're very smart. Um, okay, stop prioritizing. New leads. Have a follow up structure that you actually understand, is documented and you are using it and get better at managing your data which translates to get rid of most of your data. You probably don't need it.

Speaker A: You, you probably don't.

Speaker B: You know, um, Elon has a principle. He works by basically like delete everything or delete as m. You know, as much as you can stand to delete until it hurts, you know, until you have a failure and then add back. And I think that applies here with uh, with the data like you probably don't, you probably only need 10 fields, not 15. So just get rid of everything. It's actually pretty easy to get it back. You know, for the size companies that we're talking about. Small to mid market.

Speaker A: Yep, yeah, 100%. And that's the um, simplest advice is usually the best advice. In this case we're going to use Occam's razor here.

Speaker B: Well, you've done a great job like breaking down my question of why people don't use their current network. Um, and it's glaringly obvious and it applies to me as well. You know, it's like we want to go for the new sexy thing. We want to be, you know, soaking up as much, you know, AI whatever on these reels and think that we're behind when really all we have to do is shut all that down, get rid of all our data and go talk to our clients, go talk to, you know, the people on our network that we know, our friends and family. And how funny is that that you could really build something? I'll tell you a quick story. So, and I think the timing on this is pretty interesting because, uh, over the last, I don't know, month or so, I made it a priority to spend an hour and ended up being like an hour and a half a day working on building, intentionally building, like a documented and utilized, uh, client introduction system. Okay. And this is like, not referrals, even though it's kind of what it is. But it's like I want to ask my clients because, you know, our clients love us, but, you know, we don't want to put a burden on them of any kind. We just want to do really good work for them, you know, and all of that. So. And I can get why agencies don't do this because they're service oriented and all that, but I said, okay, I'm going to do this and I want to see what result comes from it. So I built this system out where basically we go scrape the network of our clients on LinkedIn and we, um, we parse the data different ways and then we boil it all down to maybe like 15 to 20 leads. Leads for us. These are people that they know potentially that they can introduce us to. I did this with one client and it took them, um, seven minutes or so to go through the list. And after that time, not only was it valuable to them to see, to have these leads surfaced from their network to say, oh, yeah, I haven't talked to them in a while, I need to reach out to them this, that and the other. So it was good for them, funny enough, but it yielded about 14 or 15 new introductions, like warm introductions from my client to their network of people that they think knowing what we do could use our service. And I'm just, I'm just. I left the meeting thinking, why is it taking me so long? You know, because that took me maybe two weeks of just methodically working on what I thought was a good system that can now be almost fully automated, except for that client interaction. Um, why did it take me however many years to spend the two. What? You know, two weeks of one hour. You know, we're talking 10 hours of, like, actual work. And now I have 14 new introductions on my desk.

Speaker A: Um, out of curiosity, what triggered you wanting to do that? Like, what was. Well, what made you be. All of a sudden I'm going to allocate an hour a day to that activity.

Speaker B: Well, funny enough, and this just shows you how weird I am. The example I gave you at the beginning about, um, this conference I went to and how no one said that they were asking for referrals or introductions. I thought that was absurd, and I was one of them. And so I thought to myself, okay, this is the dumbest thing. Like, all of us are sitting around trying to get new ideas. Boy, and the best idea is right in front of us, but we're not using it. You know, it's, um. It's like, if you want to lose weight, well, just put your shoes on and go for a walk. That's a great start. You know, maybe you do more. Maybe you end up kettlebell swings and you're doing all this stuff, like, but go for a walk. It's like, I just felt so dumb. So then I said, okay, I'm going to resolve this for myself, and I want to. The conference is coming around in October, and I'm going to go back and I know he's going to ask the question again. And I want to be one of the people, or maybe the only person that says I am actually asking referrals. I asked for referrals. I got referrals. That is solved for me. Because I don't want to feel like I'm out here chasing this mysterious lead generation monkey when I have, you know, the golden goose sitting right here. Because if you take what I did with that one client, you start to extrapolate it over other clients and other partnerships and people in my network. Back to your point. I would be supremely overwhelmed by the amount of new conversations. It would be hard to. I couldn't handle it all, like, because, you know, we're a pretty small agency. So it convinced me that I could almost delete everything else I'm doing, like, campaign wise, and just focus on the center point.

Speaker A: Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's crazy talk there, Lee.

Speaker B: It is. It's heresy. It's heresy. What marketer would ever want to not do that?

Speaker A: Yep. No, no, no. You need multiple strategies and multiple things happening once. And to your point, though, that's. That's why the human interaction piece is so Important going to conferences, meeting people.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Uh, watching, watching and listening to a podcast like this. There is probably something that if you're listening to this and there's one actionable item. Don't, don't try to do everything. Like if you one thing, take one actionable item and uh, implement it as soon as possible and you'll see a shift in your business happen. Like that's 100%, that's all it takes, 100%.

Speaker B: I do think on the sort of psychological level it's some level having the courage on two points. Like one, asking because people like me, like I'm not good at asking people for things. I'm good at doing things for people but not asking people for things. So that's one uh, kind of mental hurdle for myself that I have to get over. And then I think just the courage of like, okay, I'm going to build something and when I start building it, okay, I actually have to do it because I'm working on and building it and it's not fun, it's boring and I don't want to work on it because it's boring. But I'm going to actually do this which means I have to commit to it. So I think those two things combined, it sets people back because they think, well, I'd rather just scroll on reels, you know, post on LinkedIn, uh, you know, do all this other stuff that doesn't really make money. Um, and I just was kind of tired of that. So you know, the answer's there.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Well and to, and I'm going to go way back. Um, real quick, let's just finish the three steps of building a quick follow up just so that everyone has that. But number one was the trigger. Number two is created. Don't make a comment, create three messages for your follow up.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: Don't worry about creating a five part series or a 10 part series. Just three messages. And I would do two emails and if you have their uh, their phone number then do one uh, SMS as well and create the messaging and keep it very simple. Like not don't. If you want to look up some good language, look up Jeremy Minor and his NEP Q strategies. Like he's really good within that philosophy. But yeah, um, you want to think of how you're going to add value to the conversation. So don't think of you, think of them. What would they want to hear? Um, and it could be as simple as, hey, I know you talked to me about ABC thing about six months ago. Is that still something That's a problem for you. Is that still something that you're looking to solve or did you get that solved? Like, it could be as simple as that. A text message. And that's a great message that can reactivate the conversation.

Speaker B: I love that.

Speaker A: Yep. And then the third piece is. Is then make sure once you have that, set it up, like actually, actually ship it, put it in your CRM, go to Zapier, go to your CRM, use high level. Whatever platform it is that you're most CRMs in this day and age have some type of automation platform built within it. All you have to do is create the trigger, put those three messages and put like a wait step in between each one of them and hit publish and start it and then it'll start working automatically. That's as simple as.

Speaker B: I love it. This is awesome. Yeah. Well, okay, so then now we're charged with doing this. So, um, I've actually feel really good because I've started and I have about, I don't know, maybe an hour or two left on finalizing that system because now that I put it in play, I have to go back and make some tweaks and.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Um, so I'm feeling pretty good actually leaving this, knowing that that's going to get completed. Um, but for everyone else who doesn't feel good right now because you're like, yeah, that's me. I need to do something. You need to listen to Nathan. Go get started. Take one thing. Take a step, put your shoes on, Go on a walk.

Speaker A: 100%. And to your point, take one from Lee's page of, uh, what he did. Is he allocated an hour a day?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Like, don't try. Don't try to be like, all right, I need to get this done. I'm going to take half of my day tomorrow because you're going to find things that's going to like, you just.

Speaker B: That's a good point.

Speaker A: I get bored. It's. First I got frustrated at it and then I went to do something else. A little bit of time each day. So it doesn't, like, take, uh, up most of your day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And commit to it for like seven days and then see what happens after that. Seven days and, uh, what movement you make. Like, that's. That'll help tremendously with that.

Speaker B: It's awesome. Great advice. Thank you, Nathan. This is amazing. Um, where do we send people if we want to send them your way?

Speaker A: Yep. So I'm going to give two things real quick. So one, if, because I mentioned the free course. I want to make sure that everyone gets access to it. So just go to data-t a.lift growth systems.com and lift is L I F T. And then growth systems.com, i'll, um. Yeah, we'll have that up and ready for everyone.

Speaker B: Yeah. And then.

Speaker A: Yeah, and then if anyone wants to know more about what I do and how I help, like, one of the main things that we do is we build AI agents that will do the outreach and qualify, uh, clients and things like that. That's our main product. We call it the Authentic Engagement Agent. Um, Love it. That is, uh, same thing. It's aea.liftgrowthsystems.com. um, and you can take a look at that and run it on yourself to see how it works.

Speaker B: It's awesome. Thanks again, Nathan Lee.

Speaker A: It has been a pleasure. And, uh, I'm really excited to hear what happens after you finish those next two hours.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'll let you know.

Speaker A: That sounds like a plan.

Speaker B: All right. Thanks, man.

Speaker A: All right. Make it a great day.

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