Episode Transcript
Adam O'Leary (00:00.985)
If you're a business owner struggling to build strong client relations and drive sales without relying on cold outreach, then our guest, Robert, is about to give you a simple win you can implement today. Robert Menacer is a global entrepreneur with experience in over 178 international startups and over 200 growth stage companies, 400 commercialization products, services, and numerous acceleration.
commercialization campaigns with a filmmaker storytelling ability coupled with a customer discover mindset in process. Robert builds a loyalty member client and organizational strategic Alliance that last and execute and is always learning Robert so excited to have you here.
Robert Manasier (00:49.336)
Thank you, Adam. Likewise. It'll be a good conversation if we get into the Boston, New York battle that we had before this started.
Adam O'Leary (00:51.223)
Absolutely, so.
Absolutely, 100%. If you guys missed it, but what we were doing before this is we were throwing beer mugs at one another right before this. no.
Robert Manasier (01:07.724)
and showing our scars from visiting the competitor city.
Adam O'Leary (01:12.425)
Absolutely, no, super funny. as we're looking into this, I'm curious your approach on this because I think this gets so overlooked. How is focusing on relationships over transactions? How does that actually transform into sales and why is relationships so effective for business owners?
Robert Manasier (01:32.462)
Well, one is people buy for the same reasons. One is all humans do not buy logically. They buy emotionally, right? We're irrational creatures. But I think from studies from 70 years ago, the way people conceptualize sales are the same thing. They have to like and trust you first before they even consider the product. Like and trust is the beginning of a relationship. Why not start the relationship from the beginning? It also sets your brand.
and a communication style, right? If you just come out at people and start selling them, I'll just speak for myself, I'm gonna shut down. I'm gonna glaze over and walk away. Or I won't answer emails, your texts, I won't look at your posts, right? Cause I know you're just trying to sell me something. We start always with a relationship and a relationship gets us to know you better so we can give value at every step. Cause if I just keep coming at you with a product, I don't know anything about what you're doing in business or your life, it doesn't help us.
So we are always trying to fit our solutions to their needs, not just try to blanket sell. The spray and pray model of ad buying is a real waste of money. And that's one of the first things we do when we come into company, we look at their spends, because they're usually just throwing it away.
Adam O'Leary (02:49.495)
Absolutely. And when you talk about value here, what sort of value are you are you sending during this follow up?
Robert Manasier (02:56.962)
It's always about the benefit to the client. Clients needs, clients problems, how we're gonna get them either more effective, more growth, right? A stronger client base, a better team. A lot of times we come into a company and they're always worried about the client, but they haven't figured out their own team yet. So relationships are not just company to client, it's internal too. If you really want a high performing team, you better build the right relationship with the people that are executing.
every day for you or with you.
Adam O'Leary (03:28.317)
Absolutely. 100%. And one thing I want to talk about here, and I think this is going to be interesting for the listeners. So there's a difference obviously between a client and a prospect, like somebody who we just met versus somebody who we already know. Most of the times when you're talking with a prospect, you might only get a few minutes with that person. I mean, it could literally just be two minutes. So could be in passing at a coffee shop. could be at a conference, right? How do you actually identify that client's needs and so that way you can send them that proper value.
Robert Manasier (03:55.362)
Well, one is that sometimes you're not trying to get there. You're just trying to create the environment so you can have a longer, more involved conversation later. So a lot of times, you know, they use elevator pitches, especially if you're going to networking events or expos or conferences. Your job isn't to get in front of them and try to figure out the world in one minute. It's trying to see if there's any kind of fit to have a longer conversation. Is there mutual agreeance to that? Like, you know, listen,
We live in an age now where I can just disconnect from everybody. We get thousands of emails because it's AI and they just keep rolling out and no one's paying attention to them. Or we can take a few extra minutes to just try to get one connective tissue so that we can have another meeting. And then in that meeting, it's the conversation, right? But you've already set the stage and set expectations. If you want to take the next meeting, we'll talk about your needs, my company. Like that's a real intro meeting. Those first...
few seconds of introduction is really just to see if there's any kind of fit or an agreeance to have a bigger conversation. Because sometimes you meet people like they don't care, right? I have no value to them or they see no value in me. I'm not going to chase people like that. I think most people chase too long instead of finding the fit.
Adam O'Leary (05:07.074)
Absolutely.
Adam O'Leary (05:11.737)
Hmm. 100%. And how can we use this type of logic, I guess, to attract warmer leads? So you're talking about here, trying to identify if there is that product market fit, which is great, but obviously we want warmer leads to start being attracted to us. Do you have any ways to make that happen?
Robert Manasier (05:27.502)
Yep. Absolutely. We believe in inbound marketing. We don't do a lot of ad spends. A lot of times we're turning our clients off of ad spends and not completely, but we're kind of creating the balance. You need to put stuff out into the universe and see who responds to it. Right? You can call it the alpha market. You can call it the beachhead. Whatever you're saying is going to create reaction.
in everyone, right? They're gonna love it, they're gonna hate it. That's what we're looking for. We want that bifurcated reaction. We don't want people to say, that's nice. Because then they're just sitting in neutral. We want to take a stand, say something we believe in, and see who lines up for us and who's against us. Every great brand on the planet has lovers and haters all the time. That makes a great brand. So for us, we're putting a lot of content out talking about what we believe in, what we see every day.
and seeing who responds to that first. And usually if they come back to you asking you a question or to have a meeting, obviously there might be a fit. You still don't know that, but they've already taken the action to you instead of us knocking on their door every day or cold calling them or cold emailing them or running ads to everybody to hopefully get one. Right? I'd rather have people more aligned at the beginning because it's a faster closed process, but it also is a more engaged conversation where you're learning
Right, everything we do is about learning to add to our experience and to add to whatever we're gonna offer in the future.
Adam O'Leary (06:58.061)
So let's talk about that content. What type of content are you putting out there?
Robert Manasier (07:02.286)
Obviously, know, case studies, sometimes we just do user cases, like this is the way this process works. We put a lot of like from the field, like if you're doing this, here's a better way to do it. We talk a lot about mindset and action over talking, because we are really focused on the execution. Because listen, we all have great ideas. Ideas don't make us any money. It's the operations and the execution and anybody who runs a business knows that.
They can sit in their office and have the greatest ideas in the world. They're not engaging with more clients. They're not getting more revenue from that idea yet. They need to make it actionable. So we focus a lot of turning everything you're doing into something that has to be measured, an activity that has to be measured. And once you start measuring it, you can be really strategic, fine tuning your business so you're not wasting a lot of effort, money, time on things that aren't returning value. Like numbers don't lie, right?
If I keep doing this, I know it's, we've talked about this already, eight years ago, I took down all my private websites, all my websites for my companies, not my clients, not my partners' websites, my direct companies that I run. I took them all down because nobody was coming from a website. We were getting them from introductions, from other work we were doing. I looked at the numbers and I convinced my staff, my investors, my board of directors, you I still put my
title on the line and on my ego, but you know, that's what entrepreneurs do every day. But I looked at the numbers and said, nobody's finding us from a website. And we weren't doing a great, to be brutally honest, we weren't doing a great job because it's not our focus, our focus is on our clients. We just put it up there to kind of be placeholder. But I never saw anybody come through a website and buy from us. That's very specific to my business. Other people need websites.
Adam O'Leary (08:53.081)
Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. So for your
Robert Manasier (08:56.578)
You're saying because I get a lot of hate DMs like you don't have a website, but you know companies do. Yes, I know that.
Adam O'Leary (09:03.993)
So how are you then attracting clients if the website's not that important?
Robert Manasier (09:12.13)
We already have a fairly vast network and we also have in our portfolio of VC funds. So we do a lot of shared project work. We have a lot of pieces already in place where a lot of different companies kind of use us when they need us. I built a portfolio of services that every business needs like money, marketing, distribution, operations, strategy, tactics. So.
You know, we've just, we've been doing this a long time and our network, and I say this to everybody I ever meet, keep building your network till the day you're done in business because your network just makes you really powerful and it makes a lot of the issues easier. Not that you're always selling your network, right? But you can lean on them, right? That's a support structure. And I know we'll get to talk about building teams because that's kind of one of my mantras is I only want great teams. I don't want.
half-assed teams, I don't want teams that don't work well together. But if you have a team, they're gonna pick you up when you make mistakes. And our network helps us when things get a little dry.
Adam O'Leary (10:19.363)
For sure. And do you view your network as a team?
Robert Manasier (10:22.848)
Absolutely. They're a resource, right? I treat them as a resource. I give back when I need to or when they need me. And, you know, it's complimentary. think sometimes people don't look at a network as give and take. They just look as I'm going to take from it. Right? Like a CRM, like we have policies in place in all of our companies where we'll reach out to our clients just to talk to them. We're not selling them anything. We might not have worked with them in a number of months or years. We're just reaching out to TouchBase to keep the relationship.
authentic and relevant, right? Sometimes that's all it takes to build a true team, those open dialogues and communications and conversations.
Adam O'Leary (11:04.217)
for sure. And let's say if somebody is not an ideal client for you, do you basically just throw them away like, okay, great, not gonna not gonna reach out to them or do you actually have another process? Either way is totally okay. I'm just curious.
Robert Manasier (11:16.622)
No, we're, listen, most of my original team is all New York City born and bred. So we don't have a lot of filters and we're fairly direct or very direct. We'll tell people we don't think we can help them, but we always point them in somebody that we think can. Like that's how you use a network. Like I can't really help you. And here's why, and we're always very honest. Here's why we don't think we're a good fit, but you should talk to X, Y, or Z.
who we're gonna vouch for. Like I'm not just handing you off to somebody I don't know. Like I can't stand people who do that. They just give you random people to talk to. Like that's useless. And I never take those meetings. Like, I want you to talk to, know, this company. How do you know them? I don't.
Adam O'Leary (12:08.889)
Amen. I totally agree with that. And it's one of the things, it's something I work with my clients on too, is that people talk about competition and stuff. And the reality is that you could be in the exact same market as other people, but there's always at least two competitors that you want on your team. And those are the people who are higher market than you and lower market than you. Because if you don't work with a client who you can send down to like...
Robert Manasier (12:11.79)
Okay.
Adam O'Leary (12:36.131)
they don't fit your profile that you need, you can send them to that competitor. And the thing is, they're gonna have people who they're gonna send to you as well. So I totally agree with that and 100 % when you're talking about that.
Robert Manasier (12:47.63)
Yeah, I mean, we, and I know you don't view business as a zero sum game. I have to win or I'm losing, right? Like it doesn't, it's not zero sum. It's collaboration, it's friendly, listen, some of my best friends are competitors in some of our industries. And you know, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's the sports analogy that started this conversation before we started rolling, right? You can have a lot of fun with it.
You know you have to compete certain times, but sometimes it's just competing on a fair playing field. And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But we're not treating anybody as a competitor at first unless they prove to be negative, right? If they become an adversary, then they know it. I don't want it to be that way. We don't meet people that way in our world, but sometimes it defaults to that.
Adam O'Leary (13:42.361)
For sure, absolutely. And how do you kind of instill this philosophy inside of your own team as well?
Robert Manasier (13:47.938)
Yeah, I'm brutal on the development and training of staff. I always have been. And I wasn't all, should say I always have been, no. I made so many mistakes early on hiring the wrong people that I was like, that is such a waste of my time. I'm hiring people and they're just leaving or they're not good and they're not doing anything and then I have to get rid of them. So I created a system over a number of years where we test them, but they also test us. And we call it the Executive Development Program. It's a way to get fit.
way before skills. Like I can, I or somebody much smarter than I can train you in almost any skill. I can't make you be something that fits our culture. And our culture is very specific. We are highly friendly, competitive. We are very sarcastic and we're brutally blunt all the time, even with each other. And I'll share this. When out...
side or new clients come into one of our meetings, if they didn't know who I was, they do not know I'm in charge, because that is not the way we run it. Anybody has the ability to say whatever they want, all they have to do is prove it. And the big thing we always say is, we're looking to be right. No, we're looking to get it right, not be right. Right? I don't need to be right in this conversation. I'm going to learn from you. My goal is to get it right. And that mindset is sometimes very hard to find in people.
because people come in with the ego and vanity and they want to be the smartest person in the room. That doesn't work for us because we'll chew you up pretty quickly. I have faith in my people.
Adam O'Leary (15:23.251)
I'm smoking like a true New Yorker. Absolutely. And what sort of result do you typically get for clients?
Robert Manasier (15:32.43)
We will fight to the bitter end. We haven't always won, but we will fight to the bitter end. And we have no problem admitting that something's not working and pivoting or iterating off of it very quickly. And going back to what I said earlier, we measure everything. And sometimes clients want to hang on longer to a campaign or a project or a company longer than we do because we're like, the numbers aren't here. We got to figure something else out. So we're always looking for that. We want the validation from the marketplace and from the clients.
We don't need to be right. We need to figure out what the market's hearing and perceiving and matching it so that we can drive sales. And sometimes clients get in the way of themselves. All humans, we all get in the way of ourselves at times.
Adam O'Leary (16:16.441)
Absolutely, and where can people go to learn more about you?
Robert Manasier (16:19.246)
Let's see, we have two new websites up. Going back to the small business one we just launched is the ownersreality.com. That is for small business owners. We've all lived it. We've all operated businesses for many years, everybody in our organization. So we're starting to turn that back out to the people that need it the most. So we've created some packages and workshops and ways of engaging with us. You can find me or all my companies on LinkedIn. Probably the easiest place to find me is LinkedIn.
And the other one is CamelotSolutions.com, which is our larger consulting firm, which are all new this year.
Adam O'Leary (16:54.65)
Amazing! Well, Robert, thank you so much for your time. This was such a fantastic episode. Awesome! Well, thank you all for listening and I will see you on the next episode.
Robert Manasier (17:00.514)
Thank you, Adam.
