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Today on episode #22 of The Sage Executive Podcast, join our host Fernando Corona and his guest, Milan Batinich, as they talk about the importance of constantly pivoting and adapting in the business world. Milan Batinich is the Director of Business Development for the A.W. Companies, a Contract Center Recruitment and Consulting firm with a 100% work from home model. A.W. Companies help their clients by providing them with the right candidates for every role needed. There’s a lot to unpack, be sure to watch the episode!
Pivoting and Adapting
Many huge businesses have shut down because of their inability to pivot and adapt to the fast-changing world of business. New companies and innovative competitors are slowly dominating them. Keeping up with the trends and needs is vital in the enterprises’ fierce competition.
If, despite the extreme amount of effort and time you’re exerting, your work results are ineffective, you might want to consider pivoting. Pivoting can create new opportunities and increase your revenue. Always have a sharp eye for opportunities!
Milan Batinich explained the importance of learning to change strategies to succeed in today’s reality. A.W. Companies, Inc. – the company he works for – learned to adapt when it comes to searching for new clients. Instead of making 100 dial calls every day, they switched to social selling! Without their openness to new strategies and opportunities, they wouldn’t be able to find success in looking for clients.
Milan said, as a leader, it is essential to have a flexible philosophy. If you tried a strategy and it didn’t work, you should go ahead and try something else. It is all part of learning and adapting. Some of the best outputs come from trying new strategies.
Listen to your customers, try new strategies, create new goals, and pivot your way to growth!
Transitioning to a New Job Position
Learning and obtaining new skills is part of growing. Every career change comes with different emotions and opportunities. Having a great leader and example for you to learn from will be a great help for you to transition smoothly. Start taking down notes and stay positive! In this episode with Milan Batinich, he shared his story of how he successfully helped his employee transition to a new job position.
About Milan Batinich:
My experience entails 12 years of contact center management, BPO, and staffing experience, including Senior Manager for a Fortune 100 Company contact center. My Contact Center experience includes the Insurance, Financial Services, Government, Retail, and Healthcare industries.
With my strong operational experience, recruiting background, and contact center experience, I can motivate and mentor my team to find the best and more committed agents for my clients.
I have received numerous awards for customer care, retention, recruiting, and sales throughout my career.
Ask why they call me the Weather Man!
Outline of the Episode:
- [00:22] What does Milan Batinich do?
- [01:32] How Milan’s excellent leadership skills were able to help his employee successfully transition to another job position.
- [02:57] What is social selling? Does it work?
- [04:29] Leaders should have a flexible philosophy.
- [06:11] The importance of having to pivot and adapt constantly.
- [07:21] Who are Allan Brown and Charles Minton?
- [08:31] Celebrating a win with music and dinner!
Resources:
- Milan Batinich’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milan-batinich
- Website: https://www.awcompaniesinc.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/milan_batinich
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milanbatinich/
- Allan Brown
- Charles Minton
Connect with Fernando Corona!
- Fernando Corona’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-corona/
- Website: https://www.flyingvgroup.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flyingvgroup
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/flyingvgroup
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flying-v-group/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flyingvgroup/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/
Fernando Corona: 0:08: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Sage Executive Podcast! We have an amazing guest today from Serbia. And I’d like to present him, so without further ado, question number one really quick. Can you say who you are and what your clients say you do?
Milan Batinich: 0:22: Yeah, so my name is Milan Batinich. I’m the Director of Business Development for A.W. Companies based in the Minneapolis area. And what I would say what my clients say is that we do a few different things. Some clients say that we help them solve their people problems through a software that we sell and service that we provide with that software. And then I would say some clients help us with their customer experience because we also help clients with their contact centers. And call centers help them improve their customer experience and overall employee experience.
Fernando Corona: 0:58: And just to solidify that, you guys have an outsource. You guys provide an outsourced team like call centers. For people to help other companies out, right?
Milan Batinich: 1:08: Yeah, yeah. So we are an outsource Contact Center, and we’re 100% work from home all the time, even before COVID. We were working from home.
Fernando Corona: 1:17: That’s a pretty smooth transition then.
Milan Batinich: 1:20: It was a smooth transition. That’s right.
Fernando Corona: 1:22: All right. Question number two, can you share a time when one of your team members and either, you know, in any department really respected your leadership?
Milan Batinich: 1:32: Sure, yeah. Actually, I had one of my employees recently, who was kind of transitioning from being more of an account manager, you know, farming accounts, maintaining accounts, and moving into more of a cold call hunter type of role. Lead gen. and actually cold calling people versus talking to the same customers every day or every week. And, you know, being able to speak to her, her needs as she transitions and the types of beat behaviors that she exhibits, being able to help her make that transition smoothly, really, without any hiccups. She reached out and was thankful and was happy that I recognized that this isn’t a role she would be a natural fit for and that I was able to guide her. And help her move into that role successfully.
Fernando Corona: 2:21: That’s for sure if somebody would need to be molded. I mean, you’re going to step into a new role, a new position, a new person, new behaviors, new patterns that she’ll have to learn. So having leadership like yourself, to be able to guide her through that and make her feel comfortable, probably in making mistakes, especially like the first few times, right?
Milan Batinich: 2:39: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Fernando Corona: 2:40: I can resonate with that. Okay, so question number 3. I hear from other Execs that acquiring clients and you just mentioned a few strategies here, that there are different strategies out there. What have you found to be working in your team and what can you share with others? What are your thoughts?
Milan Batinich: 2:57: Yeah, so I would say probably five to ten years ago, I would say pick up the phone and just make 100 dials a day and try to find new clients. But probably within the last couple years, I believe it’s all transition or a majority of its transition to social media. Now were strategies we use or places or avenues we find clients. Now, a lot on LinkedIn, of course, referrals, word of mouth, Twitter, we’ve actually found people on Instagram. So just using any type of social outlet to be able to, yeah, share what we do.
Fernando Corona: 3:32: Social selling! So I want to touch on that a little bit. So does that include, you know, you’re finding their profiles, and you’re actually commenting and liking their stuff, adding value where you can? Or is this like a cold message to them and these platform,
Milan Batinich: 3:47: Both where we found the most success, though, is where you’re actually commenting, right? You’re liking their posts, and you’re commenting on their posts, even providing recommendations. There’ve been a couple prospects where I actually tagged them in one of my you know, if I had a recommendation for an article or something like that, yeah. If I read one of their books.
Fernando Corona: 4:05: That’s so awesome.
Milan Batinich: 4:06: That’s how you make one of my posts and yeah, start your conversation that way.
Fernando Corona: 4:10: So I’m all in that social selling to the max. Okay, that next piece, what piece of sage advice would you like to give to other Execs? Or other directors, I mean, anybody that you have in your mind that you think you’d like to share some of your insights with?
Milan Batinich: 4:29: Yeah, I would say first and foremost, having a flexible philosophy. My philosophy is if I try something and it doesn’t work, let’s go ahead and try something else. Let’s be fluid. Let’s be flexible. I think so many Executives fall into a trap because they’re inflexible when it comes to their thoughts, ideas, their vision. Once they set their sights on one target, they focus all time, energy, and resources to that goal, which I agree that they should do to an extent. However, the target that they set their sights on, typically a moving target. And if what they’re doing isn’t working, they must be flexible and lose their pride to change and adapt to whatever it is the situation calls for. They must have the mindset that they’ll keep doing what they’re doing if it’s effective and successful. And have the wisdom to change, if what they’re doing becomes ineffective or unsuccessful.
Fernando Corona: 5:29: Yeah, absolutely. I’m trying to think on my end. And that’s, I feel like flexibility is like a no brainer, right? Where it’s like, you don’t have a choice. You have to adapt, and you have to figure out different ways of how things can work. And sometimes you trial three different strategies at the same time and see which one’s going to hit. Like, think about when you’re doing cold outreach, cold email, cold through DMS in social media, cold phone calls? I mean, you’re testing all these different pieces. And I think get on that I’ll just probably add that measuring. Like somehow, you have to measure all of those strategies to actually know what’s being effective. How are you guys measuring that right now?
Milan Batinich: 6:11: Right one it for us specifically, it depends on what area we’re selling. But if we’re selling our software as a service, or selling or BPO services, it’s having an understanding that selling the software is a much quicker, more transactional type of sale versus, getting a company to outsource their whole customer experience or part of it to an outsourcer. So the outsourcing sale is a much longer-term sales cycle. Specifically to that one, being able to identify, giving it a certain timeline, and being able to identify okay, of this strategy. If we don’t start seeing more meetings or more results using a specific strategy, after say, three months, it’s time to change. Yeah, in other parts of our business, if strategies are not working, maybe after 30 days or sooner, it’s time to change.
Fernando Corona: 7:04: Pivoting
Milan Batinich: 7:05: Yeah, exactly. It’s constantly pivoting and adapting.
Fernando Corona: 7:08: Cool. All right, moving on to question number five. What other top leaders like yourself within your network? Would you like to bring on to this podcast and whose insights we can absolutely share with our networks.
Milan Batinich: 7:21: Okay. Yeah, for sure. So, one individual, somebody that mentored me, over the years, and I’ve worked with him, you know, often for the past about seven years or so, is Allan Brown. And he’s somebody who has seen small companies, $10, $11, $12 million companies grow to exponentially grow ten times that size. Yeah, he was somebody that I learned under, especially in this business, and he would be a really good person. A second person I would recommend is Charles Minton. He’s a hotel, hospitality leader and a good person to connect with and a good speaker. He’s a good leader when it comes to how to manage employees and in that type of market brush.
Fernando Corona: 8:12: Right that scale and all of that, right?
Milan Batinich: 8:15: Yep, exactly.
Fernando Corona: 8:16: Okay, awesome. Thank you. Thanks, Mill and the last one, and this is a fun one we want to we want to get to know you and how you celebrate if you’re popping champagne in the Jacuzzi, or what you’re up to share it. So how do you celebrate a win?
Milan Batinich: 8:31: The way I celebrate a win, I’m not that excited. It’s pretty low key. So number one, I love blasting music, all kinds of music, doesn’t really matter. But then usually it’s a nice dinner for my wife, and I go out to nicer restaurants. And we really don’t get too wild beyond that.
Fernando Corona: 8:51: And nowadays, is that you? You actually cook something for her and set up your own little dinner date? Obviously yeah.
Milan Batinich: 8:57: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Here in Wisconsin and we’re slowly reopening, but the last couple months has been, you know, cook. Cook at home.
Fernando Corona: 9:06 Absolutely. Well, thank you, Milan, for being on.
Milan Batinich: 9:10: Thanks for having me.
Fernando Corona: 9:11: How can people find you or connect with you if they want to?
Milan Batinich: 9:14: Yeah, so they can find me on LinkedIn. You know, they can just search my name or they can go to our website, its awcompaniesinc.com. And all my contact information is on there as well. But yeah, I would love to connect, answer any questions people may have about sales or managing teams, anything like that, be open to that.
Fernando Corona: 9:36: Awesome. Okay, and thanks again for everybody joining my name is Fernando Corona with The Sage Executive Podcast. And we’ll see you guys next time.
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