Welcome to Episode 8 of Casto's Close Up. We spoke with Annie Smith of Welcome
Wagon who told us that she has generated up to
90% of her business using our network,
and even better she gives us several
great tips you can use to have the same
success. So we really hope you enjoy this
episode of Casto's Close Up and be sure to sign up for our YouTube channel to see
the next one.
We're here with Annie Smith from Welcome
Wagon. Annie thank you so much for
joining us today. It's my pleasure. And
tell me a little bit about your business
and then we're gonna talk a little bit
about what you've been able to do on Alignable. Welcome Wagon is a company that's been around for 91 years. Wow 91 years? A well-established company in the USA.
We pride ourselves on, of course, our lineage and the fact that we help small
businesses meet new families moving into
their community and the way we do this
is by sending them information about
their business exclusively which is
another nice feature because we are the
only company out there that offer
exclusivity through our program and we
will work by category and normally what
we do is we just try to fill each area
with the most information about products
and services that a company would need,
I'm sorry, that a family would need going
forward in their new community. We are
very locally driven and we pride
ourselves on helping the community and
the local businesses. Basically that's it.
That's wonderful. And it's great because
it's again, Alignable and Welcome
Wagon kind of align very well because
you're all about local businesses. We are
all about getting local businesses new
families and new business into their
pipeline. Tell me a little bit more about
what your daily routine is with Alignable.
As soon as I wake up and as soon as I
get to my little desk here first thing I
do is go on my company
Spoke which I need to do, that's my
like Bible, and then right from there I
just go straight to Alignable. And I
just find out, you know, how many new
connections there are, how many people
messaged me. I just do my follow-up to
everybody that I did make a connection
with. I follow up with a phone call. So
it's kind of like my Bible of Welcome
Wagon, you know cold calling. And tell me what kind of success you've had at Alignable?
Well I ranked number 3 in the
country last year. Out of how many people
would you say? I would say at the time
probably 260 maybe 270 employees in the
country. Wow number 3. Yeah I was surprised I didn't even know that until like they
announced it. So I again equated it
to my follow-up which is very good, and
because it's so new a lot of businesses
just keep signing up and signing up and
signing up so I'm never in lack of getting
business. So what percentage of your
business would you say you get from
Alignable connections? I'm probably anywhere between
80, 90% percent this point. Tough
to beat. When I look back and I look at the
businesses that I closed and I just do
some back, you know, I just have to look
at my Spoke and see where they came from, more than likely it's in my book it says "Alignable", "Connection on Alignable." That's great. And tell me a little
bit about have you found local companies
on Alignable that, you know, we're right
down the street that you don't know
about? Talk to me about that. Yep, lots!
Again I mean I'm spread out so like I
have the Toms River area which is about a
good 20 minutes from me and I'm not the
best at like just stopping in businesses
and interrupting their day and say "Hey,
I'm from Welcome Wagon, do you have time to
meet with me?" If I'm in the area I will.
So I noticed that a lot of businesses
AFTER I go through Alignable, I will
notice them in my travels. I'm like "Oh
that's where that place is!", or "There's
that place that was on Alignable!" Ok give
me two or three tips for other people
working with Welcome Wagon or just in
general; other people
really you know trying to pound the
pavement generating ongoing income and
business. I think the first thing is most
important is to get on Alignable!
Familiarize, you know, familiarize yourself
with the way it's set up, just, you know
like just play with the buttons. That's
what I did
make sure that you put a good profile
because people do read it. Make sure you
ask people to recommend you because it
does put you on the top of the list.
Definitely join the Premium. I mean it's
great when you first get on when you're not
sure about it, you know you just want to
see how it goes and you get those, I
think, is it ten now? You get ten
connections I think when I started it was
five. It is so worth the membership fee.
I pay for mine every month. Is there a
story from you know all these
connections you've made that really
would stand out that you're just like
geez I just couldn't, I can't believe I
was able to land that through Alignable?
You know what there's, there's there's so many that I close that I would have never had
the possibility to even get to the
decision-maker. Because a lot of times it
is the decision-maker that's online Alignable. Like a lot of times it is the owner
of the company or it is the lawyer. I'm
not, a lot, I'm not talking to gatekeepers.
And again that just saves time for me
because you know, you know how hard it is
to get through a gatekeeper. Try to get
it information and try to find out who
do I need to speak with and get the
runaround within a company when you're
going. And a lot of times it says the
name "Owner" next to it so...and you could
always do your homework you go onto the website from there, you can you know look
them up on LinkedIn. And I always tell
everybody they always say "What's this
like?" I say "this is LinkedIn on a social...
on a social level on a local level.
Because LinkedIn you're connected to so many people in so many businesses you
get lost in the mixture. Here it's very
locally driven and if you have a
business that needs to be locally driven
this is the way to go. Fantastic. I was
about to ask you to compare to LinkedIn
but you already did so I think we...I do describe it to
people that way I say "You know...take
LinkedIn and make it very, very local and
very easy to navigate." So tell me a
little bit about the time you think
you've saved and how Alignable's helped expedite your sales
or your revenue? I find more people
will respond to a message on Alignable
above then they do on emails. Because if you think about it..you get a bazillion emails
a day you don't get that many Alignable messages a day when it comes across your
"Private message from Alignable." 
That hits my eyes and I go
right to it because it's probably somebody
that I contacted first so you know
people get inundated with bazillions of
emails a day so you just get lost in the
shuffle. A lot of times I find that when
I send a message in Alignable I get
a response fairly quickly, and if I don't
I can go back and just look at all my
messages and say "who did not message me back?" And then I could either call them
or I message them again and just say
"hey listen, you know you connected with
me I sent you a message are you interested in speaking with me?" So most of the time
they do get back to you. Would you say
that it's true that most of the
people on Alignable really mean business so that makes these connections much more valuable?
Yeah I do. I think the people that take
the time to set up their profile either
want to promote their business or want
to help market their business so that
puts the mindset to me that they're
interested in marketing their business
which I want to help them market. And even though a lot of people say to me oh
"I didn't even know what this was...I just
kind of signed up for it", after a while I
just say hey listen, if you need help, give me a call. I'll be more than
happy to you know walk you through it. It takes five minutes and again it's an
icebreaker. And they're like you know "that was so nice!" you know "that was nice of you to
take the time to do that!" And then I go
in for the "alright so when can we meet?"
You know I just helped you, now you help
me.
Thanks so much for joining us for this
episode of Casto's Close Up and be sure
to connect with Annie Smith through her
Alignable profile.
And if you've enjoyed this episode please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
to see future ones, and make it a great
day!
