Watch this interview to learn how he did it.

Mike Schmidt: Hey, what's up everybody. Mike Schmidt here, I'm really excited to bring in one of my good friends Tom Lickliter. Tom is a web strategist for my agency, and I have him here because he just reached his biggest month ever in the agency. Yes, Tom is an all star, but he also uses the playbook to do all the sales that he does. And I'd love for him to share his story with you guys. So Tom, welcome and thanks for joining me.

Tom Lickliter: Thank you very much, Mike. I'm pretty excited. Thank you.

Mike Schmidt: Awesome. Well, Tom, take me all the way back to the time before you started working and as you're coming on to work for Anchor Wave, what was going on and what was life like?

Tom Lickliter: Well, so, before Anchor Wave, obviously I had sales experience, but I lived in the payroll and HR world for 20 years prior to coming to Anchor Wave. So, I mean, I had sales experience, but I had zero experience in selling marketing or digital marketing or web anything. And, I'm a little bit of an old school guy, so it was an adjustment to say the least. So that was a little bit of my history prior to Anchor Wave.

Mike Schmidt: Right. So what breakthroughs, or epiphanies did you have along the way, those aha moments as you started to sell and come up to speed of selling web and digital marketing services and working for Anchor Wave.

Tom Lickliter: So the biggest thing was obviously the training about the different aspects of what digital marketing is, and the types of results that digital marketing produces for companies. It made a big difference because that way I could learn to apply that to my presentation. And of course we didn't have the playbook when I started.

Tom Lickliter: And so it was a bit of a struggle, I'll be honest. And it was a lot of training from Anthony, from AJ, of course, and yourself to walk me through a lot of the pieces that I needed to know, but it wasn't until the playbook came, that it really, really started clicking for me.

Mike Schmidt: That's awesome. So one of the things you touched on is that, it's important for a client to understand how it is that the services that you offer actually influence customer activity, right? And when they're super clear about that, it leads to a much different conversation with that client. What would you say about that?

Tom Lickliter: Absolutely. And identifying where they're at, how much they've done in digital marketing, how much they've done in any type of marketing, what results that they've seen, and clearly identifying their level of understanding of digital marketing helps.

Tom Lickliter: So then when you do the presentation you know where you're at and speaking with them and presenting to them, and what experience that they've had in the past, and how it went and why, that makes a big difference.

Mike Schmidt: Yeah. Talking to a client and if they feel like there's a lot of jargon and things they don't understand, it becomes a lot more difficult for them to really get on board with moving forward.

Tom Lickliter: Yeah, no question. And clearly, I don't have that problem with clients because I don't have that type of tech knowledge, but you're absolutely right. If you start getting into the weeds too much, you can see their head tilt and they don't get it. So making it easy, clear, and giving them a really clearly define roadmap is what, in my opinion makes the playbook so incredibly powerful.

Mike Schmidt: Yeah. If you're going to go somewhere, you pull up Google Maps, Google Maps basically needs two pieces of information for you to be successful, right? Number one, we need to know where you're going, right?

Tom Lickliter: Right.

Mike Schmidt: And number two, we need to know where you're starting. And the mistake I see a lot of people make there, I've seen you fix in your presentations that, in leveraging the playbook is that, you're not only outlining where they're going, but you're also really helping them clarify and understand where they're at. And that's the piece that I think a lot of people are selling these types of services absolutely miss out on.

Tom Lickliter: Yeah. I don't know if this was going to be part of our subject to speak about today, but the initial discussion to me is just critically important. I think that that is just as important as the presentation itself.

Tom Lickliter: If you just blow right into a presentation, you haven't identified any needs, you haven't identified anything that they've done in the past. Like you just said, you haven't identified where you're at now, and where you want to be. And that bridge that we're going to get there is the playbook. So the idea is critically important also.

Mike Schmidt: All right. So for those that are not familiar with the ID, could you share what that is?

Tom Lickliter: There it is, right here. The initial discussion is a question and answer. It's a step by step pre playbook, if you will, that helps you to identify, where they're at, what they do, what customers they want, what target market they're trying to get to, what areas that they've explored in digital marketing, and how did it work?

Tom Lickliter: You have to know these things in advance. We used to say all the time, you got to start filling up your gun with bullets long before you pull it out. And so the initial discussion will help you to identify those needs. And what I like to do is leading questions that I know are going to lead right into the playbook when I do the playbook.

Tom Lickliter: So asking those questions in advance and getting them to shake their head. Yep. I need that. Yep. That's an issue. Yep. That's an area. Then when I'm building up all these, then when I do the playbook, I'm just knocking them all down.

Mike Schmidt: So a big reason people are watching this right now is, they want to know how much did you sell so far in this month?

Tom Lickliter: At this month? Now I'm at $84,000 in change, in the month before.

Mike Schmidt: That's incredible. And so when we hear a number like that that is super, people aspire to do what you've done. We just want to know the details, man. And so tell us about the progress and the types of clients that you… How did you find them? What are the types of businesses that you're working with? Give us the dirt man.

Tom Lickliter: Clearly, I'm involved in a lot of different networking associations, and I've leveled up my networking to not just the… Obviously, [inaudible 00:06:50] are great and [Chambers 00:06:52] are great. And I go to those networking associations. Those are great, but now I've leveled up into more of an executive level marketing. And so that's been very, very helpful.

Tom Lickliter: Anchor Wave gives me leads. I just got to say. Anchor wave's awesome about providing some leads for me. And then also I do a lot of follow up. We use HubSpot, and HubSpot is a really great tool for me to identify prospects that I've talked to in the past and just keep them on my tickler. And so it's tasks that come up and say, “Hey, it's time to call this guy time to call this guy.” And so I'm constantly doing that. So I do a lot of different types of prospecting and networking.

Tom Lickliter: I also do a lot of what we call strategic alliances, so I have tech companies, I have copier companies, I have phone companies, all these business to business type companies that I network with. I take them out to lunch. I give them referrals, they give me referrals. So I do a lot of that too. So multiple, multiple avenues of getting business.

Mike Schmidt: That's incredible. So Tom, what does the future look like for you here? You've just come on your top month here, are you feeling strong and what is the next couple months and over the next year look like for you?

Tom Lickliter: Oh, I have. I'm just beginning. You know what? $84,000 is my biggest month I've ever had at Anchor Wave. And I'm looking at trying to get to that $100,000 a month. So I'm excited, but it's behind me. I'm moving forward, even stronger. And I have some huge prospects.

Tom Lickliter: I have a couple of law firms that have 15 lawyers in each of these law firms that I'm going after, for website and for digital marketing. I got three other marketing hubs websites that I have lined up for proposals in the next couple of weeks, week and a half, so it's only starting.

Mike Schmidt: Well, you set your flag a couple months ago and you told AJ… What did you tell him you were doing?

Tom Lickliter: I told him that I'm going to exceed Anchor Waves biggest month and biggest year ever. That's my goals.

Mike Schmidt: And you're on your way to it, man. So well done. For those of you guys watching this and want to know about the playbook, you want to know how an agency, like you heard Tom describe, is providing him leads consistently, you want to know how Tom is leveraging strategic alliances and strategies to help build his sales pipeline.

Mike Schmidt: And then making sure that each of the sales that come in have the biggest opportunity, the best opportunity to close and for a dollar amount that actually makes your agencies and your life change.

Mike Schmidt: That's what agency coach is all about. I'd love to invite you into a coaching call with our director of coaching, where we can explore where you're at right now, take a look at your business and identify specifically what are the action and items you can specifically dive into to make these changes in your agency, so you also can be, just like Tom here, who is having one of the biggest months ever, and by the looks of it, Tom, really, really happy about it.

Tom Lickliter: Yeah. I'm very happy about it. I was just joking with Mike, even clearly, I'm a mountain biker, I just bought a new bike and I'm paying it off in one payment.

Mike Schmidt: Beautiful. That's incredible. Tom, any parting words for the agencies that are watching here?

Tom Lickliter: Yeah, I would say, I've been in sales for a long, long time. And I've worked for national fortune 300 corporations, I own my own business for 10 years. I've never had such an easy systematic way of presenting and closing business than the playbook.

Tom Lickliter: I had a presentation earlier this week and they're probably going to spend $2500, 3 grand a month. And when we were done, she said, this was perfect, Tom, you identified exactly what I needed, you walked me through from the beginning all the way up the steps of the pyramid of the playbook. And it made it really, really easy for me to make a decision.

Tom Lickliter: So it works, it really works. The one thing I love about Anchor Wave is, we're very systematic in how we work with our clients. We're not going to sell you something you're already doing, we're not going to sell you something that's not going to be effective.

Tom Lickliter: We identify where your needs are, what's going to be the most effective way to use your investment in digital marketing and get your return on. So I love it. I think the playbook is phenomenal. And everybody I present it to thinks it's phenomenal.

Mike Schmidt: Well, Tom, congratulations on $84,000 in a month. And by my watch at the time of this recording, month ain't over.

Tom Lickliter: Month ain't over baby. I have a few more days.

Mike Schmidt: And for those of you guys who would love to take us up on that coaching opportunity with our director of coaching, go ahead and click on the link around this video, and we'll see you on the call.