John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome business developers to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. I'm John, and as always, I'm joined by my trustee, co-host, Mark Wayne Wright.

Mark Wainwright: 0:28

Hello, John. How are you today?

John Tyreman: 0:31

I'm doing well, doing well. and we've got a, a topic that I think firms understand the importance of, but sometimes get tripped up over.

Mark Wainwright: 0:43

This is a tricky one. some firms will succeed at this, others just get flummoxed. Let's use that term, right. It's just, it's crossed i's, we have this in, we have this relationship with our client. It's this particular thing. How the heck do we change that? Right. Sometimes it's, we don't wanna change it. We like how it is, but you know, it's, yeah. So this one, right, this is about this whole sort of cross sell up sell opportunity slash challenge, right? That's, that's really what this one's about.

John Tyreman: 1:23

That's exactly right and, and folks, some folks call this account expansion is another word that's used out there in the sales and marketing world. But we're, we're talking about how can we add more value to clients? How can we expand the work that we're doing with clients and ultimately grow revenue from client accounts?

Mark Wainwright: 1:43

Right. Yeah. Most organizations will, will proudly, and frankly predictably say that the vast majority of their annual revenue comes from the same group of clients. It. Three quarters, plus or minus, if a firm is operating at that level, I'd say that they're, they're pretty average, but probably still doing okay. It's not a it's, people will have red flags when you have three quarters of your revenue for one client. That's a problem. But we're talking about the same recurring group of, of client accounts that are the source of the majority of your revenue, and that's totally fine. And it's, and that's kind of the. That's kind of the way it, it it should be. And you know why this is so critical, so let's, let's dig into that right up front. Right. Let's talk about why this is so, why this is so important.

John Tyreman: 2:36

let's do it. And you know what, what's the, the old adage, the second check is easier than the first. Easier to get than the first. And I think that just kind of like, holds true here where we're talking about, why does upsell cross sell matter? Why does account expansion matter? Well, it's a faster sales cycle, right? Your clients are, you're already working with them. There's lower acquisition costs to costs, much less to expand an existing account than it does to acquire a new logo. And then you've got higher margins on it. Expanding this revenue too. So I think those are three big reasons why this matters.

Mark Wainwright: 3:13

Yeah. And, and, and the higher margins thing I think comes from sort of just operational stuff. It's like you just know how each other work, you've been there before. You don't have to spend all those startup costs on accounting and getting the invoicing and billing all set up and, so that makes total sense. And your team. That is working with this client just gets them right. They, you've, you've created this, this communication cadence. You kind of know how to do it so you know what to expect, and you're hopefully able to, to make that a, a more profitable arrangement. But yeah, but yet a lot of firms think they're doing this well, but lo and behold, they're, they're not John.

John Tyreman: 3:56

They're, they're not. And I, I've seen it, the, watch do as I say, not as I do. Right? And so you, you hear this a lot, we're client-centric. Client-centric, but then you see sales and marketing resources trying to go after this shiny object, right? The, the new logo that would look so great on their slide deck.

Mark Wainwright: 4:16

Right, right.

John Tyreman: 4:17

And so that, that, just that. And then a lack of empathy with their current clients. Treating them as a transactional relationship. We just did a whole episode on, adopting a client success mindset, and I think that kinda shows here as well.

Mark Wainwright: 4:30

Yeah. The, the you should be spending, your marketing and selling dollars and hours in research, chasing new clients, you absolutely should because you need to be turning, you're gonna have some client churn and you need to be replacing those clients and you need to be growing the, growing the organization. But you don't want to do that at the expense of great clients who you know might leave because you didn't reduce the. Spend or the investment and time and energy and focus, you eliminated it, right? You just assumed that those clients were gonna be there forever, so you invested nothing in that relationship and lo and behold they headed elsewhere. So yeah, you reducing that client acquisition, client sales and marketing costs, that's a good thing. But eliminating a completely through sort of, just lack of attention is not, not the way to achieve what we're talking about here.

John Tyreman: 5:28

Yep. Don't take your clients for granted. so we, we may mention cross sell and upsell. So these are two different things, and I think it's worth explaining this distinction before we get too deep into this episode. When we say cross sell, what we mean is we're selling a new service to the same client. You might think about this as horizontal growth. Upsell on the other hand is where you're selling a deeper engagement. Maybe it's a higher tier offering of yours to that same client. Some call this vertical growth. So that's the distinction. When we say cross sell versus upsell, that's what we're talking about.

Mark Wainwright: 6:09

I think you and I can picture at least a little bit, hopefully others can picture some of what they do as an upsell or a cross sell. Did you have examples of, from, from your sort of world, John?

John Tyreman: 6:23

Yeah, I can, I can share some examples. So, when I'm working with my clients, there's a, there's a scenario that happens quite often actually, where I. I, I, I wanna commit to a podcast, but I don't wanna commit to a weekly cadence. And I know that consistency is important to growing the show. And a monthly cadence is just too slow. So we will start out with a twice monthly cadence, and then it reaches a point where I. The podcast is working. Let's switch to a weekly cadence if we wanna hit the accelerator. And so that would be an example of an upsell going from twice monthly to weekly because the client has realized the impact of the podcast and they see that this can accelerate the track to achieving the outcomes that they want.

Mark Wainwright: 7:09

Yeah, makes sense.

John Tyreman: 7:11

Then a cross sell. It would be taking that podcast and then adding on email marketing support or social media support, or creating a community around the podcast, kinda expanding from the podcast as a core marketing engine, and then the derivative content and ancillary conversations that happen as a part of that, that becomes that ecosystem around it.

Mark Wainwright: 7:35

Good, good hyper-specific examples to your practice, but makes, makes total sense. I can see how both the upsell and the cross-sell translate into, growing your business with known existing clients. Makes sense.

John Tyreman: 7:50

So what about you, mark, on the sales coaching side of things?

Mark Wainwright: 7:54

Yeah, the, the, I had to reach a little bit for this. I, I, I think, but I, I, I can recall some examples in the past where, from an upsell standpoint'cause my work happens over a long period of time, but inevitably things can change. So things can change from, as initially sort of designed. Client goals, client desired outcomes can change. So that invariably affects my level of involvement. So we can consider that kind of an upsell. Once you're in, you start understanding that, oh, there's this thing and then this thing, it's just, it just gets bigger, right? You can kind of see how that, how that. How that plays out. And then from a cross sell standpoint I generally will work with my clients in kind of a fixed timeframe, 10 to 12 months. That kind of a, that kind of a, a, a timeframe. And then my, the cross sell opportunity for me with the clients that I work with is an example, is maybe bringing in a new cohort of individuals that I will work with. I've worked with a, let's say. 10 people, eight people or something over a period of time. Lo and behold, there's some other sort of up and coming firm leaders that haven't ascended to the the, the top of the organization and can use some help with this whole selling thing. I'll shift to that group and. Start, start at it again to help them get prepared to be more comfortable and confident with, with selling. So those are from our two examples from our own world, and hopefully other people can start to paint pictures of what this would look like in their business.

John Tyreman: 9:34

I see that as. Being tied to your client's outcomes because of a lot of the reasons we've talked about on this show and where if you are, if there's more people within the organization who adopt more of a business development mindset, then it, it becomes easier for the firm to generate more sales.

Mark Wainwright: 9:55

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 9:56

So your cross-sell example of working with other people within the organization, to me that's a leading indicator, like a behavioral indicator that the firm is heading in the right direction.

Mark Wainwright: 10:07

you know, a lot of firms will expect that, okay, we've got this top group of, people who have revenue responsibility. I'm gonna come alongside those folks. Lo and behold, they're doing pretty well. Maybe we're not in a complete alignment with how they go about doing things. But we uncover the fact that the opportunity for growth exists with maybe a second tier, a second generation, where those people really aren't leading the charge with new business. The opportunity is there if they can just gain some additional skills. So yeah, that's a, that's a good one. So this next segment in the, the episode, John, is, where firms run into problems, what, what mistakes that they make when they're thinking about and then trying to, or not trying to do this cross-sell upsell.

John Tyreman: 11:01

So we're gonna, we're gonna climb up on the corner pole and we're gonna take our elbow here and we're just gonna come right down on cross sell, upsell.

Mark Wainwright: 11:11

I I love that. That was the, that was the, the, the WWF reference there. Fantastic. Good. I love that. Good. The

John Tyreman: 11:19

We're bringing it back

Mark Wainwright: 11:20

good. I love it. Good. All right. What's the, what's the first one you had here?

John Tyreman: 11:25

so yeah, the, what are the three big mistakes that most firms make? The first one, assuming the client knows everything that you do, so clients aren't gonna spend time going over every single page on your website. They're not gonna spend time reading every single one of your social media posts, right? They're, they're not gonna spend time reading every single one of your marketing emails. They may float in and out of your podcast or newsletter, but expecting them to remember every single one of your services that's just too high of an expectation to put on your clients.

Mark Wainwright: 12:00

Got it. Good, good, good. So are, are we, are we just gonna keep we're gonna keep hammering away here.

John Tyreman: 12:05

We, we, we can do that. Did you, did you have anything to add to that

Mark Wainwright: 12:09

No, I, no, I think that one, that one was that one was pretty clear, right? It's, it's, a lot of firms will look at you a particular way, and it's really hard for them to picture you differently. So, yeah, that's a, that's a. That's a challenge you need to o overcome. I'm gonna let you keep, keep hammering away here. What was the second one you had written down?

John Tyreman: 12:30

All right, so the, we're gonna just gonna beat it, but beat it up a little bit. So firms fail to empathize or contextualize their offerings. So what I mean by that is a lot of times firm personnel, people in sales and marketing seats. They don't take the time to understand what the client's value.

Mark Wainwright: 12:50

Hmm. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 12:50

And so it's, it's not just from a dollars and cents transactional point of view, but like, we talked about this on another episode about the client success mindset, where it's like, what are their career aspirations? What are their personal desires and goals? What's the relationship like between them and their manager? Right? And that can help shape and form what your point of contact. That client account, what they value as an individual.

Mark Wainwright: 13:18

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 13:18

'cause that's important not only to delivering value to the client organization as a whole, but to your immediate point of contact to help develop a champion.

Mark Wainwright: 13:26

Yeah, this is good. And, and, and I, I love the, the framing on this because it's, we're here talking about the cross on upsell, which means we're already in the client account, we're working with whoever inside that organization. We think, we think there's a, there, there, maybe we think there's some success. We run at'em hard with all of the stuff, all the other stuff. We failed to listen and truly understand what's important to them, what they, what they place value on. So that's the interim step that says, wait before you go running at'em with your 20 other services, you need to understand what's actually what, what they care about. And once you've understood what they care about, now you can revisit what you do and say, oh, these six things don't matter. But there's these two things that are perfect.

John Tyreman: 14:16

Then taking it a step further, contextualizing that offer in your next proposal to address the value that you understood or that you heard or gleaned. From the client. So for example, like is there another way that you could position your current offering? Like instead of project management services, is it the on-time build program or instead of client accounting services or cs, which is a big buzzword in the accounting industry, it's cash flow and decision support.

Mark Wainwright: 14:46

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 14:46

Very clear what the outcome is there.'cause clients don't know what client accounting services is. Accountants do, clients don't.

Mark Wainwright: 14:53

Gotcha. And in, in, interesting. Yeah, no, I, I, I love the, the, you can then take your services and contextualize them and make them personal for the clients so the clients can understand what they are. And you're already in there. I mean, you're already in the door. You're already working with them, you're seeing what's going on inside their business so you can really make this stuff personal for them. So yeah. Makes, makes sense. So that's the mistake. We fail to do that. Right. Alright, so what was your, what was your third one? What was

John Tyreman: 15:28

This one is, it's, it's not the, the elbow coming down that we're taking the chair right in the wrestling arena, and we're just bashing it over.

Mark Wainwright: 15:37

I love this like outta thin air. You pull this wrestler, this wrestling metaphor. It's good. All right,

John Tyreman: 15:41

It's spontaneity, right? So this is the fear of selling, right? So. People that are in a position to where they can have these conversations with clients there's this inherent fear of disrupting the relationship that's there. Right. I don't wanna rock the apple cart, right?

Mark Wainwright: 16:00

Tip, I think it's a tip. The apple cart. Rock the boat. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 16:04

I, I, I'm, I'm guilty of

Mark Wainwright: 16:06

No, you, you, you still have that wrestling thing kind of going on in your, in your head. You're gonna, you're, yeah. So we're tipping carts, we're rocking boats. Right

John Tyreman: 16:15

Rocking the ring. There we go.

Mark Wainwright: 16:17

point.

John Tyreman: 16:18

Or the octagon.

Mark Wainwright: 16:19

Well taken though, right? You don't wanna seem salesy, right? So you're in the organization, you don't wanna do anything that would, tarnish the relationship at all. Which generally to me says we've got, again, sort of the order of operations kind of mixed up in that, if you just assume you're gonna. Be in the client accounts, doing work with them, see an opportunity for an upsell or cross sell. You're gonna go and, whip out the pitch deck, right? That's not, that's not what you do, right? You actually go to them and say, Hey, these are the things that I'm observing. This is what I under understand. I've been with you long enough this, these are the things that I understand to be your situation and potential needs. Here you go. Did I get that right? That's the first step, right? So, instead of being salesy, you just lay it out for'em and, and then they, and then hopefully they say, oh yeah, you're absolutely right. Well, what do you think about that? Then you can start talking to'em about solutions. But there you go. I like that.

John Tyreman: 17:20

It's, it's leading with a pla from a place of empathy and curiosity and inquiry, which is, we've talked about that ad, ad nauseum on this podcast. And then like, waiting for that absolute perfect moment in time to make the ask. Two. And I love that. I'm, I'm curious, mark, from your point of view, because you are working with a lot of people that do sales or are in a sales seat, which of these do you see kind of crop up most frequently?

Mark Wainwright: 17:49

Yeah, probably the third one, because I, I tend to work with a, a, a bunch of, doers, sellers, as we call them. These are the experts inside the organization who have some revenue responsibility and they are totally fearful of coming off as salesy. So, they will completely miss the conversation and they'll miss the conversation. For a number of reasons, not the least of which is that last one you mentioned is that they're waiting for the perfect moment, right? They're waiting for a particular milestone. They're waiting till some previous work or current work is wrapped up and that's the, that's the terrible time to be doing it. You need to be doing it well in advance of that. I mean his, historically, like thinking about my own. Practice, I will start having conversations with clients about sort of, Hey, so what, here's, here's some things I'm, I, I'm, I'm seeing, here's some opportunities I think for a part two, phase two, whatever else. So we start having those conversations well in advance of actually finishing things up. So, and that's totally appropriate'cause it takes decision making on that sort of stuff. Takes time. So, yeah, that third one is the one I see the most. How about you?

John Tyreman: 18:56

I can only speak from my experience working in a sales seat myself and working alongside other sales folks. I don't really consult with my clients in a sales capacity very much. But from a marketing perspective, the first one really kind of resonates with me. Assuming the client knows everything you do, you know that that's something that is marketing's responsibility to making sure that the client understands. What it is that you wanna do. So let's, let's talk about how firms can approach upsell, cross sell without feeling sleazy, without feeling gross, without feeling salesy.

Mark Wainwright: 19:35

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 19:37

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 19:51

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 20:01

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 20:06

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman: 20:10

You alluded to it a little bit mark in term in terms of like having these conversations and building up to th that next contract or expanding the scope of

Mark Wainwright: 20:21

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 20:22

So let's, let's wade into that.

Mark Wainwright: 20:24

Yeah. Well, the, the, the first thing that you mentioned here is one of the things that's. Sort of top of mind for me on our sort of list of things we want to touch on here is that you gotta find the right person. It's entirely possible that the person that you've been working with to date is your main contact is not gonna be the right person to talk to about some cross-sell or upsell opportunities. So yeah, you need to make sure you're having the right conversation with the right person. You could have the right conversation with the wrong person, and you're not gonna. Nothing will, nothing will advance there. So you have to talk to the right people, no doubt about it. And that's the advantage you have of working with a, an account. You're in there, you're already working with them, and you need to identify who the right people are and very quickly make sure that. Not just, you know who they are, that you connect with them in some way, and that they have some level of visibility on the work that you're doing, and the outcomes you're trying to achieve. Is that, yeah, there's some layers to that. You gotta know who they are, you gotta know them. Oh, and by the way, they actually have to have a little bit of a perspective on what you're doing. So.

John Tyreman: 21:33

Do you typically shepherd your clients through like an account mapping exercise or is this something that just kind of naturally comes out?

Mark Wainwright: 21:39

Well, it's, I, I'm, I'm fortunate that the, the, the work that I do enters at the top of the organization, so I'm, I I'm not, I'm not necessarily working with people lower in the organization. Sometimes people lower in the organizations will introduce me to others, but typically, we use that example of an, of a, an engagement meeting that we have as regular sort of. Check-ins where we're, working on the engagement, not in the engagement is that that is always, that is always held with the person or people who can say yes or no to a next phase. Right? So note to self folks out there. Yeah,

John Tyreman: 22:12

sorry, didn't mean to

Mark Wainwright: 22:13

No, no, no. It's fine. It's, it, it's, it's fine. I just wanted to put a fine point on that is that, yeah, you should be adopting the practice of regularly interacting with people who you know are the decision makers.

John Tyreman: 22:25

How about your clients though, when they're selling or expanding services are, are they finding that challenge of finding the right person?

Mark Wainwright: 22:33

huge. Huge.

John Tyreman: 22:35

And then what does that process look like for uncovering who, who that right person is?

Mark Wainwright: 22:39

Yeah. Well, it's, it's the, it's the layers of the onion. It's Right. They have to figure out who they are, and then they have to figure out routes to get to them. And, and that's a challenge, particularly in some client organizations that are quite large. I work with some clients who have municipal clients who. Hun, hundreds, hundreds or thousands of people, kind of involved with it and they think it's an impossible climb. They're looking at Mount Everest and they're like, there's no way I'm gonna be able to get to those folks. But I think it's totally possible, particularly if you're able to, we talked about this in a previous episode. If you are able to establish and maintain a really client-centric. Sort of message and approach and sort of mindset is that guess what the people higher and higher up in, in your client organization. Love to hear that. Love to hear sort of these client focused results focused stories, or information is that the people oftentimes you're working with directly are the ones who love the bullet points. Right. Their boss and their boss's boss are people who love the client-centric stories. They're those folks. So yeah, that's a

John Tyreman: 23:45

visionaries. Yep. That's, yeah, that's so true. So, all right. I, I, I think we've, we've covered. Finding the right people, talking to the right people and how you know, there are layers to that onion to understanding who those are within the organization. So the other bullet point that we have here is looking for triggers. So this is another way to identify those opportunities without feeling really gross or sleazy, is looking for those triggers. Mark, what are some of the triggers that you look for, that you advise your clients to look for?

Mark Wainwright: 24:20

Yeah, and these are so critical because these can present opportunities. But from what I've seen, John, more often than not, these can be problematic. So things like new leadership comes into the organization or big str strategic shifts. Organizational direction. We're not gonna do this anymore, we're going to do this. Or sort of any, any initiatives or any projects or whatever else that are moving ahead full steam. Others may be less so, so that's related to kind of shifting direction, but it's, they're doing things that either things are working well or other things aren't working, working well. So these are, from my perspective, John, these are. These are triggers and red flags. These are, these are a, a big deal.'cause if you're in the organization right, and you're seeing some of these things happen, new leadership and everything else, you have to be well out in front of that. Or you're just gonna get sort of caught up in the, in the, in the wake of, of all of this, which is, which is a bit of. It's a bit of a challenge. Most people will look at this kind of, with some fear. They're like, oh, all these big changes have have happened. It's like, how do I, what do I what do I do what? And all of a sudden the wave crashes over them and here we are. That metaphors again, the, and they're gone. And that's it. Right? So yeah, this is a huge one.

John Tyreman: 25:43

All I can think of is our wrestling metaphor. You think you've got'em knocked out and they just come up right behind you,

Mark Wainwright: 25:49

Yeah. Th th this, yes, this is a total blindside is, and it doesn't have to be because you're in the organization, you're seeing these things happen. What the, what, what the problem is, is you're, you're not, you're not legitimizing it enough or you're not putting enough weight on it. It's like, trust me, any time you have a new organizational leader that was hired from within, or brought from outside, or whatever else, they're, it's like,

John Tyreman: 26:12

They wanna put their stamp on it. They wanna make changes.

Mark Wainwright: 26:15

Totally, totally. Do you think that new leadership individual or the new leadership team, or whoever they are, do you think they have other people that do what you do that they want to bring in? They do, so, yeah.

John Tyreman: 26:28

That's that, that, that's a critical one looking and then, yeah. So what are, what are some other ones? So you've got this, we talked about this, a little bit. We touched on this. You've got used check-in calls and delivery reviews to uncover needs.

Mark Wainwright: 26:42

Yeah, totally. That's, that was, that's something I discovered early on. And I recommend to clients, and some folks have this built into their practice and others do not. Is that just using regularly scheduled meetings with the decision maker makers to engage and talk about how things are going. Right. It's less about. Doing consulting work with them. It's about, Hey, how are, how are we doing? Checking the temperature, making sure that we're working towards, and hopefully achieving what we want to achieve. And those conversations should always be really outcome focused. So yeah, that's, these are, these are, I, I, I don't know how. I don't know any other way to do it. Just coming in, just doing your thing and then leaving and not really engaging regularly with the senior team to make sure that everybody is not just happy with what's going on, but making sure that everyone's focused in an alignment where you're headed. That's, it's, it's a non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned. If you really want to. Embed yourself in the, in the organization. I, I, I, so this, this reminds me, I saw this, I'm gonna do a shout out to David Brock. This is, I don't know, this is probably germane. I think this is germane. It could be a bit of a digression, but he had this, he wrote an article, I think it was fantastic, and it was, he used a term called customer entanglement, and I just loved it. Right. It's like getting yourself entangled with your clients. Right. Just where, where

John Tyreman: 28:21

Now, is this a good thing or a bad

Mark Wainwright: 28:22

it's a good thing. It's a good thing. And entanglement sounds like a weird term, but I think it's a, it, it's, it's a, where your, where your client looks at, the lack of you walking alongside them as sort of unimaginable, right? that's, I mean, for some clients out, for some folks out there listening to this podcast, that might be a reality, but others not. But just the term of entanglement in a good sense was just such a, such a a powerful visual for me as like having, having yourself so entwined and entangled with your client that they could, you not being there would be unimaginable. So Cool. I love that.

John Tyreman: 29:00

that it, it does create quite a visual. I love that.

Mark Wainwright: 29:03

does. So the, the la There's last one we one, one more, I think, right? Yeah, a

John Tyreman: 29:09

then, yeah. Yeah. One, I think one

Mark Wainwright: 29:11

Yeah. So that one was invite curiosity. Yeah. Don't pitch a catalog. Oh yeah. This is, this is right up, right up my alley. Yeah. What do you think about that one, John?

John Tyreman: 29:21

Well, I mean, I, I think that this is a common theme that we've talked about a, a lot in, un uncovering, especially as it relates to identifying opportunities. If you're not curious about. What's going on inside your client's organization? What's going on inside their, their life, their personal life? Then you're not gonna be able to put yourself in a position to add additional value.

Mark Wainwright: 29:44

Yeah. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 29:45

So you gotta look for those

Mark Wainwright: 29:47

Yeah, it's good. I, I, in my one-on-ones, I with the clients that I work with, I have one-on-one conversations with individuals. And, I gotta tell you this, selling stuff is hard, but it's even harder if someone's having a bad day, so just a, just a little bit of time, in my one-on-ones I set aside just to make sure that, people are on track and focused and everything else. And if there's something going on big in their life that's just so distracting, there is no way. I'm gonna get them all riled up to go do a bunch of, speculative sales work. So yeah, good luck there.

John Tyreman: 30:19

Sometimes I've, I've run into that a couple times where you. There's one client that stands out in particular, and sometimes he can get in really bad moods, mostly because he's just overwhelmed with work, which can be a good problem to have. But, at, at those times, I always kind of default to, okay, this is what's most important. How can I help? It sounds like that's like, what can I do to help make this our engagement easier, kind of alleviate stress on you,

Mark Wainwright: 30:45

Yeah,

John Tyreman: 30:45

and you just kind of gotta go into that mode where you're, you're helping your client out of a tough spot.

Mark Wainwright: 30:51

It is. It is so true. So this was about identifying the opportunity, John, and this, this, this. We didn't talk once about, identifying the perfect moment in time to strike. We didn't say that, right? We didn't

John Tyreman: 31:02

surfacing information

Mark Wainwright: 31:03

yeah, we talked about like just, making sure that over time you're understanding who the right person or people are, setting up opportunities with to engage hopefully with those people on a regular basis, looking for sign, like not ignoring these signals and signs that are coming at you, when you're working with that client and you know what, just. Constantly saying, just staying in touch with the organization and the individuals that you're working with, and, and so then it almost seems like you don't have to come up with the perfect moment and the perfect time to strike. Right. It's just, it's, it's just gonna, it's gonna present it, it's gonna present itself.

John Tyreman: 31:42

Well, because you've been, you've been kinda warming up to this idea. You've been planting seeds in the client's mind of how we can achieve the outcomes beyond the work that we're doing currently. So I think this puts you in a, a, a perfect position to make that ask whenever that time is right.

Mark Wainwright: 32:02

yeah, yeah. It's good. Yeah. So, so there is that moment, that moment comes and, and hopefully, hopefully it's, it's done well. You, you had it written here, like, framing that conversation, like a, like a trusted advisor, which totally resonates.

John Tyreman: 32:18

Yeah. I think a lot of. Experts, A lot of firms want to achieve that trusted advisor level. I mean, I, I think that term can be overused a little bit, but I, I think like the spirit of what we're trying to say rings true in that you want to be a, a guide for your clients. You don't, you're not just a vendor. You're not just a service provider. You are a, an advisor. So. Everything that we've talked about leading up to the moment to where you ask, make that ask or, or put a proposal in front of the client all of those steps you're leading up to this moment. And so I think like the big thing is because you've been having all those conversations, you're positioning your services to help achieve that outcome, to help solve those problems. You're not just. Pitching the next part of your service offering. So that, that, I think that's kinda like the biggest thing is this is something that's not just one moment in time and you're pitching this is, these are, this is the, the outcome of many small conversations that have led to this moment,

Mark Wainwright: 33:24

Yeah. Yeah. And, and you, you have a, you have another note here that it's, you can pres, you have the opportunity,'cause you know them to present it in their language to, to reframe it. It doesn't sound like you, it sounds like them. Right. So it's in their language. There's no salesy jargony stuff. It's just, it's, it's written how they would write it. It said how they would say it. So it's, it's perfect. So that, that's a, that's a great. That's a great point, and the the last one you had here is that, we are, we've done all this stuff leading up to this time where it's, it's easy to say yes, right? It's easy. It's, it's, it's super, super easy for them to say. Of course. You're, yeah, absolutely.

John Tyreman: 34:07

You, you've been in alignment this whole time with them. You've been calibrating your, your recommendations with all of these small little conversations along the way, and therefore you're in lockstep and key with your clients all the way up to this point. You know they're gonna say yes before we even talk to them because you've already had all these conversations.

Mark Wainwright: 34:29

Right. Yeah. So this, we'll, we'll, we'll wrap up here in, in, in a sec here. But this all leads to like, and we've touched on it again and again and again. And this is that. And this is only going to happen, if you habitualize this, if you ritualize it, if you make it kind of a regular.

John Tyreman: 34:48

that's fine.

Mark Wainwright: 34:49

Thing. So, yeah, so unfortunately it means that if you're listening to this and you've got your big sort of phase two pitch tomorrow and you haven't laid the groundwork, then you're, yeah, you're in a tough spot. You're gonna have a, a, a very steep hill to climb and. You might wanna rethink your timing on that. So, yeah, so in, we we're summing some of this stuff up here, so it's, we have to, habitualize, systematize these client interactions, reviews feedback, client engagement meetings like I call them, making sure that you're prepared for these types of interactions. That's, that's super, super else. What else did you have kind of

John Tyreman: 35:30

Yeah, I, I think, part of like what goes into that is, what are, what are the questions that you have that would help you and, have those questions top of mind. And then also like what are the questions that you could ask that could help kind of like uncover. What the client's not saying. You know what I mean? Like there's, there's usually something behind the scenes that clients don't tell you or that they're holding back. And how can you kind of help tap into that and give them a, a safe place to be able to express themselves and there that there's a lot of trust that goes into

Mark Wainwright: 36:08

Yeah, no, it, sorry, I didn't mean to jump on you there, but that, that's it. It's such a fantastic point. Because now that you know them, you've been in the organization for a while, when you start asking them these really challenging questions, they're gonna be able to answer them, or at least they're going to want to be able to answer them with you. They're gonna, rather than holding their cards close to their vest, you've been with them, you've been walking alongside them, they're gonna be more, more forthcoming with information. So yeah. I love that one. That's a great point.

John Tyreman: 36:35

Yeah, and so that's, that's why trust is so important in building that trust with your existing.

Mark Wainwright: 36:39

Yeah. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 36:40

I think another part of making this a habit is you mentioned earlier like using stories and using little vignettes when you're selling, like pulling out client examples and weaving them into the, the conversations that you're having. Same thing on the marketing side of things. Making this more about, telling the client stories and then. Map and then using those in conversations with your existing clients to show the art of the possible, right. Here's how we did it with another client. And is it, is that a path that you see your firm wanting to go down, you

Mark Wainwright: 37:21

Right, right, right. So, so to ask a, a, a, a rhetorical and screamingly obvious question, who should own this? Right. Who owns upselling and cross-selling? John who?

John Tyreman: 37:32

Well, I think we talked about this in another episode around the client success mindset. This is something that shouldn't be owned by one individual department. This is something that needs to be embraced. It's a mindset, a cultural mindset that should be embraced across the organization.

Mark Wainwright: 37:49

Yeah, and, and, and, and I would say this, this topic, this cross-selling upselling thing puts even more of an emphasis on the people that we call the doer sellers, because those are the folks that after the contract is signed, they're continuing to work. So they need to be cognizant and aware of all these things. It's like, if you are. If you have these different functional areas at all, if you have different people doing different things, you have some marketing people, maybe you have some business development people and you have delivery people. Maybe if your organization is set up that way, delivering the work and you're selling and marketing folks aren't necessarily as close to as, as in touch with the, the client organization. So your, your, your doers, your people who are with the client organization need to be able to see this stuff. So yeah, it's everybody. It's sales, it's marketing. It's client delivery. It's, it's all of it. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 38:45

And it's, and it's leadership and partners being able to give the teams the support they need to be able to invest in this level of understanding.

Mark Wainwright: 38:53

Good. Good. Yeah. So to to to, to wrap it up here. Right, right. Just to hit the, hit the nail in the head, an nth time. You don't need, you don't need a whole host of new clients all the time, John. You just need to be having great conversations with your existing clients to uncover new opportunities to discuss. Emerging challenges to explore new things that you can do together.

John Tyreman: 39:20

That's exactly right. It's always easier to get the second check than the first.

Mark Wainwright: 39:23

Yeah, that's a, that's a, that, that's, I love that one. So, so, yeah. So this is, what problem do you guys have that we haven't fixed yet? So that's a, that's a good one, John. I, this is good. This is not an easy, this is not an easy thing for a, a lot of organizations because. Like we said earlier, the vast majority are like, look, all right, we got our, we got our thing. We have, we're doing this thing, we're not gonna ask for more. Right. We're not, it's

John Tyreman: 39:45

don't, yeah, we don't wanna rock the boat.

Mark Wainwright: 39:48

don't wanna, don't wanna rock the apple cart or tip the tip the boat. Yeah. One of those. Great. So I've really enjoyed this, John until next time.

John Tyreman: 39:57

This has been fun. Mark. Until next time.