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Hey, Advanced Selling Podcast friends.
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Hey, are there episodes that you wish you would have bookmarked or episodes in the past that you just quite can t remember what we said?
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Well, hey, you asked for it and we listened.
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This is the best of the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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Let s do it.
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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill plays a snippet from his favorite South Park episode.
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We talk about the concept of screaming infidelities.
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Pay attention, you Dashboard fans.
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And we interview John Leffler, sales director for Cards Direct, about how to stand out the old way and what some might say is the best way.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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My name is Bill Kasky.
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My name is Brian Neal.
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And we are part of the longest running sales training podcast in American history.
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We ve been at it for 13 years, Brian.
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13, I say.
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Amazing.
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Started in September.
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We were going to do a 13th anniversary, and we didn t.
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Oh, we did start in September, didn t we?
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Started on September 13.
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So we ve had 600 and some episodes.
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And I think you heard last week, Brian did a little research about where we were ranking.
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And you are listening to one of the top few podcasts.
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So we thank you, because this would not be possible without you, of course.
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So you got anything before I tell my little story?
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Well, no, you said you know I m ready.
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OK.
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You ve got your computer all set up?
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You re going to play a little something for me?
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Do you ever?
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I can t wait.
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I remember we did a, when we had a radio show here in Indianapolis years ago, eons ago, we did a.
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We did a show on what really bothers you about humans, the way they communicate, the way they talk, just, you know, just, what do you call them?
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Pet peeves?
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Pet peeves, yeah.
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Do you have any that people do that
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Maybe there s a trend of this, or where people are speaking in a slightly different way, or little ticks in the language.
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There is.
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You share one with me, and then I ll share mine with you.
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I think it s crazy when people in sentences write.
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Right?
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I know, right?
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I hate that.
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Oh my gosh.
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And it was fun for a while, you know?
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It was cute.
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It was kind of cute for a while.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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It was cute in the 14s, but now that it s 18, I m like, no, thank y all.
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So that s one of mine, right?
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I know, right?
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Right?
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That s the one I don t like is, I know right.
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I know right.
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It s like, what am I supposed to do with that?
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There was one that I have here that there was a comedy show on TV that made this popular.
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Now, this was happening before the comedy show.
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You ll recognize some of the voices.
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But this was happening.
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And it s still happening.
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And I just laugh every time I see this skit.
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So here s the skit.
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And see if you know who it is.
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What I m talking about might save your life someday, m kay?
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Okay, Mr. Mackey, m kay?
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M kay.
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M kay?
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M kay.
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M kay.
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M kay.
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I don t know what that is.
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South Park?
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Oh, that s on South Park.
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Yeah, I m not a watcher.
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No, you re not.
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It was the teacher.
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Mr. Gerritsen is the teacher.
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Oh, that s great.
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And he used to end all of his sentences with, m kay?
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m kay?
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And I think I hear people do that, and I m guilty of that, too.
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I will pose the question, OK, at the end of a sentence, when really it s not something that demands a response.
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So why even say it?
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There s so many of those things.
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OK?
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OK.
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OK.
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OK.
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Recently, we had a chance to sit down and speak with John Leffler, who is the sales manager at Cards Direct, one of our new sponsors here.
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And he has a very unique background that I know, Brian, you are extremely impressed with.
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He does.
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Yeah.
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I mean, you got a grin on your face ear to ear when you said, well, my gosh, who is this guy?
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I know him.
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We are music buffs here at the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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Our listeners know that.
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And we ve been talking about, as Bill and I age, some of our music knowledge misses a generation.
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And as I m looking at this guy s LinkedIn profile, I look down the scroll a little bit by where he went to high school, and it says he was a musician.
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And I look underneath it, it says, lead guitarist for Dashboard Confessional.
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And Dashboard Confessional, if you are between the ages of 30 or 28,
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And 38, Dashboard Confessional was probably right in your wheelhouse when you were in high school.
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So our younger listeners will know that the guy that we interviewed is actually the guitar player for them.
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And then he knows the guitar player he s really good friends with, a guy named Rhett Miller, who s the lead singer of the old 97s, one of my favorite bands.
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Beyond that, I didn t hear anything you said.
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Yeah, that s right.
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So anyway, here s our interview with John Leffler.
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And we re going to be talking not just about Cars Direct, but about some ideas on how you can use greeting card marketing in your world.
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As we ve said in the past couple episodes, we have a brand new partner on the podcast, Cards Direct, and we have the pleasure today of speaking with Mr. John Leffler, who is the outbound sales manager at Cards Direct.
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They re out of Dallas, Texas.
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CardsDirect.com.
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John, welcome to the show.
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Hello, Bill and Brian.
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How are you doing today?
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Thanks for having us.
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We re doing great.
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So Brian, I know, is anxious to ask you a question, because we did a little pre-show conversation, and something came up there.
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So why don t you take it and rest for a moment?
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Yeah, so any time we have a guest on, obviously, we re looking at their background and that sort of thing.
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And I m looking at John s background from a business standpoint.
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I m on the LinkedIn profile.
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And I scroll.
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I usually don t scroll down to the end, because you get into high school stuff.
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And I see that before becoming an excellent sales manager at Google,
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one of our sponsors.
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I m telling you, you were the guitar player, lead guitar player for a band called Dashboard Confessional, which is one of my girlfriend s favorite bands of all time.
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And I m like now starstruck.
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And you know, I don t know if you know this, John, I referee in the NFL, so I don t get starstruck too easy, but I m like, this is really cool.
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I do, yeah.
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So we had a famous guy, a famous musician on here.
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So I got a question for you just about that.
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And I m putting you on the spot here a bit.
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Being a musician and being in a band like that is, obviously, it s an art.
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It s also a sales job.
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Whether you re selling merch or you re selling
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you know, albums or CDs or shows.
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What did you learn from being on the road as part of what I would consider a very successful touring band to what you re doing now from a sales standpoint?
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What did you learn from that that you take into what you do now?
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Well, if there s a common thread, it might be, you know,
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learning that you re a part representing a whole and which which could tie into to both jobs but also just trying not trying but just I think being in the band got me used to
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being on, so to speak, all day.
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You re just, I come in here whistling, I leave whistling, and that s probably just from being in that band environment where you re literally, you re just always on the job in some ways.
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And so there s
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Some some parallels that way and just to seeing like oh, you ll band Branding and and how that kind of ties into what we do now and that sort of thing.
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But so, you know, they re very different Different jobs, but you know, obviously but it was quite a 180 switch and the biggest difference might just be the being in one place, you know, I I
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When I first started here, it was like, I don t know if I could sit in the same chair for eight hours.
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So I would pretend I was on a flight to Hawaii, which is about the same length.
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But hopefully our band assisted you in any of your romantic endeavors.
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They go it the other way, actually, but it s great stuff.
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So good.
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Well, John, we re glad to have you on today.
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Tell us a little bit about Cards Direct.
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Give us a couple of minutes on this and then we ll get into we want to share with our audience some ideas on how they can use greeting cards, physical cards, customized cards, whether they come from Cards Direct or whomever as tools, instruments of connection with human beings and other and prospects and people like that.
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So first off, give us a couple of minutes on Cards Direct.
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Well cards are essentially you know just just advertising basically you know there could be personal advertising or corporate advertising depending upon the size of the business it doesn t matter it s just one way to get your one to stay in touch with or to reach out to your customers in a way that stands out from the herd as far as the emails and the e-cards and that sort of thing this is just something that s maybe a little more personal touch something that
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if someone likes the design of it, likes what you send them, they might put up in their office somewhere.
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And then it s something that hopefully lasts a little bit longer than the length of time it takes to read an email.
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And so that s kind of the basis of it, where you can order all kinds of cards, that sort of thing, just all different price levels.
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And just you can order
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$25,000 you can order $25,000 if you wanted to.
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There s a lot of personal customers and then just big law firms and big hospitals and that sort of thing that work with us.
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It s just an outreach, a way to kind of send a personal outreach.
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A lot of nonprofits thank their donors with our cards, that sort of thing, and it s just kind of a
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nice, more personal touch.
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I think our owners started us maybe, gosh, I would say almost 20 years ago.
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And just kind of the dawn of the cyber age.
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Yeah.
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So when you re talking to, this is an interesting sales lesson, I think, for our listeners.
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You say, so what do you, so in these days of technology, you re down in Dallas, there s loads of technology there, you re right down the road a bit from Austin, there s a huge technology hub there, everything is digital, there s an app for everything, and you sell cards on paper.
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It s like the opposite of what everyone wants to do, so how do you talk about that and make something that seems to be archaic, that I think is a lost art, sound new and cool and fun and fresh?
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Basically, a lot of the internet is turning into just what you can hold in your hand.
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If you re sending an e-card or any kind of greeting to somebody, I m 43 years old and I have trouble reading the text on my phone.
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Not everything is geared towards immediacy and the fast pace.
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all the handheld devices are geared towards.
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That s definitely a great thing, but you re looking for something more permanent.
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It s not complete permanent, obviously, but it s more permanent than sending an email or a Skype or a Facebook post or that sort of thing.
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There s something that
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Well, it s a strange that we live in a world now where holding something in your hand that s printed, it stands out.
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I strongly believe there s still a very, there s still a use for that such thing.
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It s important.
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And I don t see it going away anytime soon.
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Yeah, there s something tactile, tactile, tactile about about holding something in your hand.
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And we ve seen some of these cards.
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In fact, you were nice enough to print a few for us samples, and they are really well designed.
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So this is these aren t just everyday greeting cards you would get at the at the local.
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What s the
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What s the store?
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Hallmark.
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Hallmark, or any of those specialty stores.
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These are really cool.
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These are really well designed, and they re really heavy, heavy stock, heavy coated.
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So what are some of the unique applications?
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I mean, the normal applications are you send a card thanking somebody if they buy something.
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But what are some unique things that you ve seen people use custom cards for?
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Well, when people think of greeting cards, initially you re thinking of like you re writing a holiday card to your grandmother or something like that.
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This is, it is that, but it s also a much, much different thing where you re sending out, you re speaking on behalf of a company.
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For instance, we do a lot of work with the Salvation Army and they want to have their branded outreach to donors and people that they work with.
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And so we have a whole design team here that will just make,
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Cards for them, you know using their colors their logo what the imagery they want to do or anything that they want to employ And so they ll have a very little custom product, you know, which will completely stand out So it s something that looks like it was designed by them for them and what we can take that on for you now That s for a large most customers.
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Don t do that with us, but a lot of them do most of you know There s so many designs online.
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You re gonna find one that works whether it s just
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putting your logo on that or your company name or your accounting firm name, that sort of thing.
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I think that it s, you know, it s important.
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It s, it s, there s a, it s a great way to kind of stay in touch and thank you for, and it doesn t have to be as heavy handed as, you know, we thank you for being our customer.
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It s just a thank you.
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And with anything, you know, the holiday season is a way, is a time to do that.
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It s a common time to say thank you to people.
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We re just all tied into that.
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There is a great return on a lot of this stuff.
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Buying essentially what s cardboard, designed cardboard, is a small investment.
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It only takes
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It takes a smaller group of people to return on that investment, people to give back to you.
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The outreach is just whatever you want it to be.
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If you have someone s address or name, we can send that, we can send it for you if you like.
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I think it s just like when you get your mail, something that looks like it s from a credit card company that seems very official, like a form, you re probably not going to open it.
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something like a card even that s we even do hand addressing you re more likely to open it yeah yeah for starters and that just gets you in the in the door right there and then you know it s something that s maybe nice and seasonal to have in your office whether it s holiday or birthday we have all kinds of occasions like that
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It s something that you know, like I said some people on the desk and a lot of our cards can have your branding and so it s just a way to kind of like just be for instance a one thing that a lot of people do is we have those kind of z-fold calendars and they ll send those out to their clients and customers whether they re a dentist a lawyer or whatnot and so all year long you have their name and phone number on someone s wall or office wall and it s just and people just like the convenience of that and
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Yeah, that s good.
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We re speaking with John Leffler today, who s sales manager at Cards Direct, a new partner of ours.
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You can find out more at cardsdirect.com.
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Go to the website, check it out, play around with some designs.
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And they re fine people.
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And I wouldn t think of them just as greeting cards, even though I know that s how we typically, that s the category we put cards in.
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I love them for note cards, just taking notes, sending them to somebody.
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We send out books occasionally.
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I ll just use them to put in a book.
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And I think they re great for a lot of different applications.
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I would say also, Bill, this is a lost art.
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This is something I don t personally.
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It s not my skill, my thing.
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And I think talking to John is firm.
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And just in general, when we re looking to stand out, we typically don t go down the digital route.
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We do that on the podcast, too.
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How do I brand myself on LinkedIn and do videos?
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What a great way to brand yourself differently with personalized, handwritten note, that sort of thing.
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It s just a different deal.
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And I think, too, you talked about it hard to throw away.
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You go to someone s office sometimes, and what do you see sitting around?
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You see cards and pictures.
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or in their workspace.
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You know what I mean?
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This is hard to throw away.
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So good stuff, John.
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I appreciate you.
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John, thanks for being on.
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And by the way, one of the best parts is if you go to CardsDirect.com slash ASP, you get 25% off your order plus free shipping.
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That s CardsDirect.com forward slash ASP.
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John, thanks for being on today.
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We appreciate it, man.
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Thanks for having me.
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My pleasure.
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Hey, before you go, so I just texted Stephanie here.
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So her favorite song, I mean, she said Screaming Infidelity.
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She said that s everyone s favorite song, so that s kind of lame.
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Well, I don t think it s lame.
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No, I m sure you don t.
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It s kind of lame.
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And then, again, I go unnoticed.
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And the places you have come to fear the most?
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What s your girlfriend s name?
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Her name is Stephanie.
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Stephanie.
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Yeah, I have heard of all of those songs.
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SPEAKER_00
That s funny.
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I know all those songs.
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I figured you did.
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May have written a couple of them, I don t know.
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Hey, John, we appreciate your time today and thanks for being an advertiser and we ll try to send you leads that will make this a valuable investment for you.
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So we appreciate it.
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All right, Bill and Brian, you guys have a great day.
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All right, see you.
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After talking to John, the things that are resonating for me, two things.
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One is sometimes the answer to being unique is counterintuitive.
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And I think I always tend to go down the path of the newie, flashy,
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cutting edge, everybody s doing it sort of thing, where this is a counterintuitive move to stand out.
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And it s absolutely, in my opinion, a move to stand out.
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There s no doubt when you get a handwritten card that s personalized from someone, it makes you feel good.
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Very few people open them like this.
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It s stupid, right?
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It doesn t make you feel the same way when you get a text or even an email.
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It just doesn t.
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So that s the first thing for me.
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The second thing for me is,
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The idea of effort.
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Remember he talked about always being on, or he mentioned that?
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You always have to be on.
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And I thought, that s an interesting thing.
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Writing cards takes effort.
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It takes more effort than sending a text or an email.
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Absolutely.
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And that s a good thing for me.
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If I m listening to this program, I m going, OK, what am I going to grab from this?
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Those are two things for me.
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Standing out can be counterintuitive, and effort always wins.
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You have to be on all the time.
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Yeah.
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The one thing I like about his cards, actually, is the value of just a note card.
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I don t know that we send greeting cards here at the company.
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I m just not into that.
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But note cards, where if you have something, you would just want to say, hey, I enjoyed our meeting.
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That was a great meeting we had.
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And send it off.
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You can have it customized.
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You can have your name, your logo, your company.
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It could have a quote.
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You could buy these with quotes, quotes that really mean something to you.
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Those are kind of cool.
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So you have to kind of expand your thinking from just a box of greeting cards that says Happy Thanksgiving on them to how can you
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Brand these in a way that like you said causes you to stand out be unique speaking of which I ve got to put that on my
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do list, send my Thanksgiving card.
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SPEAKER_01
That s great.
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SPEAKER_01
It d be more fun, right?
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SPEAKER_01
If you send a Thanksgiving card instead of a Christmas card.
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
That s funny.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
All right.
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SPEAKER_00
All right.
2
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed the John Leffler interview.
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SPEAKER_00
And once again, we appreciate their sponsorship and we ll see you next time.
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SPEAKER_00
Bye.