Today Steven unpacks all of these questions, and more, to help you and your business navigate through this minefield.

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Today, learn more about the man behind The Art Of Sales Academy, Steven Perchikov.

Listen to how Steven cut his teeth in B2B sales, his journey to launching AOSA, and what drives him forward.

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How to rest.

Every once in awhile, I need to take a long weekend in nature.

No emails. No checking my computer.

It’s hard. It took time to get used to it.

But I kept getting that itch to check-in.

I was sure my business would implode if I weren’t working 24/7.

But I slowly let go of that worry.

Because every time I allowed myself to take a break and disconnect, I felt refreshed, more energized, and more focused.

The business was still standing every time I came back, and I felt more excited about my work than before.

Are you trying to figure out your next strategy to get more clients and sales?

Are you working through hiring new staff?

Issues you see appearing you need to fix as you scale?

An ever overwhelming to-do list?

If you are, then you’re probably starting to feel stress or anxiety.

But instead of pushing right through with your work...

Stop whatever you’re doing right now and take a break.

Do some yoga. Go for a run. Do some exercise. Stretch. Take a full day this weekend to unwind.

It may surprise you, but what you’ll find on the other side is a renewed focus on your goals, less stress, more focus, and greater clarity.

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One strategic partner can be worth ten new clients because they're constantly a source of new opportunity.

Partnering with entrepreneurs like Shay ☀️ Rowbottom, Mark Firth and Justin Knott / Kelley Knott created opportunities for my business that went above and beyond garnering a single new client.

But how do you find the right strategic partners?

And how do you engage them to work with you?

That's a big question and one I touch upon in the video below.

The TLDR versions:

+ Understand who compliments your services.

+ Create a campaign within Sales Navigator to find them.

+ Connect with 40-60+ a day

+ Reach out with a relationship first msg to explore the partnership.

+ And once on a call, figure out an easy way to test each others skills and build trust without risk (i.e. swap services and advise on your own account or a client who doesn't mind experimentation).

Take baby steps towards building trust and letting the relationship blossom.

Once it does it could be one of your strongest sources of opportunity going forward!

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You're at your desk.

Having a good day.

When all of a sudden you get hit with an email from an angry client.

Or perhaps, a client you THINK is angry but you are really just imaging it.

And suddenly you start spiraling with anger, pain and shame.

As much as I hate to admit it, it still happens to me.

Dealing with what comes up when things don't go my way, especially with paying clients, has been one of the biggest challenge and growth experiences of my life.

It's forced me to take a look at WHY those triggers are coming up in the first place.

And little by little, begin to unwind them.

So that I can live a more peaceful life,

With a grander vision,

Without CONSTANTLY being snagged by personal baggage.

Want a productivity hack? A sales hack? A growth hack?

Figure out what's getting in your way emotionally and resolve it.

So many doors will open up for you once you do.

I go into a bit more detail in the audio below.

Take a listen, and let me know what you think!

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The more relevant the contacts ...

the more valuable your network.

Additionally, if you can create a SUPER TIGHT and RELEVANT audience, then you can send messaging out that SOUNDS personal and relevant at scale.

This is the key to SEMI-PERSONALIZED OUTREACH.

Personalized messaging at scale.

Find the right strategy to make this work is the difference between generating 20+ appointments a month with 3 hours of work VS. generating 3 appointments with 20 hours of work.

This video below will give you one of the KEY hacks to make semi-personalization work for you.

Listen and enjoy.

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They were innovative. They had a killer product. And they'd raised a good amount of investment.

Despite all that they had trouble getting clients outside of their network.

The problem was their product was TOO robust.

And the complexity of what they did diluted the power of their messaging.

In short, they didn't have a hook.

A sentence and strategy in their messaging that would light up their prospects and get them to respond to their outreach.

When they brought us on the first thing we did was spend several hours deep diving into what they did.

And after quite a lot of digging we found an angle that blew up their pipeline with dozens of Fortune 1000 banks and consulting companies (their target market).

In the video below I break down EXACTLY how we found that hook and why it worked for them.

I hope it helps you find and refine your own too.

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It's not, and here's why.

The simplest and fastest way to do this is leveraging LinkedIn.

But to do so you have to implement the "right" type of direct outreach strategy.

No crazy canned and spam messages.

No blank profile with poor positioning.

Do this wrong and you start off with an immediate handicap.

Then you have to know how to find the right audience within Sales Navigator.

There are thousands of little tricks to find your perfect audience.

If you use those tricks properly, you can uncover the perfect starving market for your outreach.

Then comes the direct outreach strategy.

Most people feel this is spammy.

But that simply isn't true.

You can make an offer that adds value to your prospects life and doesn't come across as spammy if you have the right hook.

That hook is vital to your success. It's the difference between being intriguing and being part of the noise.

You want the hook to be personalized, to intrigue and resonate with the right audience, so it's a no-brainer "yes" to speak with you.

If you do this process the right way...

You'll find that little sliver in the market where your message resonates.

Once you find that hungry audience, you can hit those targets.

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It's insidious because it's viewed by so many as a "positive" addiction

When In reality, it's taking you away from being happy and whole like any other addiction would.

While growing the business I would start feeling the stress creep in.

Working harder was my body's way of coping with stress (and ultimately feeding into it).

Eventually I learned to stop doing the opposite of what my body and mind told me to do.

What did I do instead?

I stepped away from the addiction and did what energized me instead.

I became more productive, far less burned out, and less stressed than ever before.

And because of that, my business grew like never before.

Now, I still get that creeping feeling some days.

The itch to grind. To work harder than my body wants. But most of the time, I don't succumb.

I know that I want to prioritize being well and centered. Because if I do that, everything else will fall into place.

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How to say what you do in a simple and intriguing way in just a couple of sentences.

Unfortunately, most companies create jargon-filled or complex sales messages, whether it’s email, LinkedIn, or cold calls.

And then they have to force themselves to be understood.

Selling becomes an uphill battle.

But what happens when your message is simple and smooth?

When you get it in front of the right people, you’ll find yourself with a full pipeline for weeks.

All without being pushy or sales-y.

Why?

Because there’s clarity for your prospects about what you do, they can see if they’re a fit for the value you deliver.

You leave little bread crumbs for your ideal client to decide if they want to keep learning more instead of forcing them on their plate.

Get the messaging right, and the rest is easy in your selling.

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But people who advise you to only serve real estate agents, social workers or dog walkers ...

Are missing a big piece of the puzzle.

What about the risk that comes with committing all of your marketing to a niche only to realize later that it's not the niche you want?

I know somoene who did an entire website redesign and invested $10,000s in branding only to realize they needed to pivot.

Ouch.

Or what about the systemic risk that exists when choosing one niche?

Any agency that focused on targeting ONLY restaurants learned this the hard way during COVID.

Of course there's a ton of value that comes from committing to a niche (like highly targeted messaging, easier to scale, less variability) but there's also RISK that no one talks about.

So can you have your cake and eat it too?

My answer is YES.

And the strategy to pull it off is called the WEB and THE LANCE.

Watch the video below to discover how to execute it and make it work for yourself!

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