[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Big Ticket Pros, the podcast for agencies, coaches and high end service providers who know what it takes to thrive in competitive markets. I'm your host Ana Gonzalez and you can find me on social media at anabotprime.
Our guests share insider tips, strategies and sometimes cautionary tales to help you close bigger deals and scale your business faster.
Big Ticket Pros is sponsored by Conversational Funnels, the new way to close deals in 2025 that does not rely on any of the old traditional methods everyone hates.
We use this method to book 121 qualified sales calls in 10 days without any ad spend, outreach or endless social posting.
Download the free step by step blueprint that shows exactly how we did it@conversational funnels.com that's conversational funnels.com Today's guest is Cluette Zager. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, Zanger Sagar.
I got it right. I'm so good at it and I didn't even know.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: No.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Anyways, today's guest is Chloe Zager. She is an entrepreneur, author, musician and chocolate enthusiast with a passion for helping local businesses grow. She is a founder and CEO of Frank Guardian, the first and only company that specializes in business continuity, plans and emergency management.
So, Chloe, welcome to Chloet. Welcome to Big Ticket Pros.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: I'm so happy you're here. So tell me, what is the best piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out in your industry?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: For someone just starting out, the advice I would give to them is first of all, be a regular.
Don't just show up once to a networking group and leave. Make sure you're a repeated face because that's how people learn who you are and get to know you and get comfortable with you.
The second piece of advice I would have is when, when you get to know someone, especially a business owner, don't ask how can I help you?
Because a lot of business owners, they may not want to be upfront with that. They may not want to ask for help. So I found a better question to ask is what are some concerns on your mind right now? I feel like that's a much better question to ask versus what can I help you with?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: That I think is a really good.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Question.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Because it's not like what can I help?
Is kind of very, I think broad.
And with what are some concerns in your. Right, in your mind right now you're just narrowing it down and I think that's a very smart question to ask.
And with the other thing that you mentioned it reminded me of.
So English is not my mother language, and in Spanish we say santo que nos visto nosorados. So I would maybe translate it to.
If you're religious or.
Because people over there in my hometown are religious.
If there's like. If a saint that is not seen is not adored would be the translation that I would give.
So, yeah, be a regular is, I think, a really great advice. How do you stay on top of it? How. How are you a regular?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah, so I am very intentional with the circles I decide to be in. So you may try out something for a week, but then you got to make a decision pretty quickly because you can only be a regular in so many places.
So for me, I have a particular set of networking groups locally that I really love going to.
So I stick with those three groups and then I may try out ones occasionally I may be invited to other circles, but I consistently make myself a regular at those three. So people know where to find me.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: So do you keep yourself okay? You just mentioned that you are in three groups that are local. Do you do anything on social media?
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Yes. So LinkedIn is a really great tool, especially in the entrepreneurial space, for connecting with business owners.
So I highly recommend LinkedIn.
There is alignable as well. Alignable is becoming a really good resource for growing businesses, and that's also intentionally designed for people that focus on networking. So anyone you're connecting with on Alignable, they already have that mindset of wanting to grow, which is a great place to start.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: You know what? I've seen Alignable and I think I'm in there, but I, I think I've been there once. I might check it out more.
And you mentioned LinkedIn.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: And I know people who praise LinkedIn and I also know people who have thrown thousands of dollars in LinkedIn and got no results. Do you have a secret for LinkedIn?
[00:04:59] Speaker B: I would be very hesitant to spend money because ultimately the. You're going to have the most powerful conversations if it's you the one that's responding to them instead of a bot or some other outsourced sales agent, you're going to have the best success rate if you just do it yourself. And there's only so many conversations you can realistically keep up with. So I would not, I would not pay for a subscription. I would just focus on being very intentional about who you talk to and being very intentional about asking, who else can that person connect you to?
Because that's how you. You grow from one to five hundred to a Thousand and so forth. It's through that personal connection because it's only as powerful as the relationship you have.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: That makes total sense. I think that being intentional in everything that we do in our lives gives us a very. A better result.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Going back to your local networks, how are you intentional? How do you work them? Do you have like, like a tactical tip that you can give the audience?
[00:06:11] Speaker B: I really love events that have an attendee list.
So I, I'm not a very social person. I'm not very extroverted. But I will look at that list and I will say, okay, I know that I have really good synergy with these industries. So for me, that's life insurance, that's financial advisors, and there's always someone in those categories at every networking event.
So I circle their name and I seek them out.
And then I make sure I have in depth conversations with just those few people. Because I know it's great to meet other people too. But like, that gives me a goal to move towards.
And then I will make sure I'll keep that piece of paper. I'll keep it on my desk. It will remind me to follow up with them.
I do have some automated email reminders as well, but I also personalize each of those. So I reach out at least three to four times for every new contact I meet.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Okay, so you reach three to four times for every contact you meet. Do you have like a. Like a time schedule to do that? Like, do you wait two days a week? Like, how, how do you please that?
[00:07:19] Speaker B: It will depend on my. My work demands of the week. But I tried to get to it the same day, if possible, not the next day.
Right. When it's really fresh on people's mind. I'll just say, hey, great seeing you here.
And then let's connect again in a week or two. And I can learn more in depth about what you do, and you can learn more about what I do.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Great technique. So, Floette, tell us about who you serve and how people can reach out to you.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So we serve small business owners that have less than 15 employees.
We are open to all industries, but we work best with home services, senior care, and child care facilities.
I like to say it. If care is part of your DNA as a company and reliability is a must, then you should be talking to us.
So we provide a lot of resiliency to a company's operations.
We're not just emergency managers that can step in, but we also help cover for the owner during vacation, sickness, all kinds of things that may come up. So we are really an important function to keeping your business running smoothly so that no one gets missed and every customer, every patient gets treated with care.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Awesome. So where can people find you?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: You can find us at friendguardiancorp.com
[email protected] so we operate by both names. Break free from your business is a little more geared towards the solopreneurs and very small companies with maybe three to five employees.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Great.
So we're going to wrap it up here. Thank you to Clare Zager for joining us and sharing some wisdom about thriving in a competitive industry.
You can learn more about what she does by visiting friendguardian4.com or break free from your business dot com. Did I get it right?
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Yay.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Just in case.
Great.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Thank you.
If you are an agency coach, professional services provider, or otherwise sell expensive stuff, we'd love to have you in a future episode. You can
[email protected] and once again, if you want to learn about the new way we're booking dozens of qualified calls per week with no ad spend, download our free
[email protected] that's all for now. Go get that big ticket punched. See you later.
