Mark: 0:00

most firms obsess over how to explain themselves better. They spend a ton of time on it, but the best ones, the best firms out there, they obsess over understanding their clients better. That shift from, let me tell you what we do and what we're all about. Two, me what's going on with you. Changes everything. Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking Biz Dev. I'm Mark. He's John. We are here to have some fun today. John, how are you today?

John: 0:55

mark, I'm doing pretty good. I like this, uh, recording time. It's a little bit later in the afternoon for me. It's a little bit later in the morning for you, so this is fun.

Mark: 1:04

this is good. And, and, and, and I, um, I'm probably gonna say this like, like 10 times, but I have been thinking recently, particularly leading up to this episode, that, you know, there's a little delay between when we record these things and do our editing and stuff, and when we actually, you know, release them out there. So I can't remember the exact date time, you know, I don't have it. I don't have a tattoo that tells me, you know, when we started doing this whole thing, but we're. We're bumping up on two years pretty darn close. So it goes without saying that. I am both excited and thankful for, you know, all of that

John: 1:39

think that this, this episode might be in the, upper fifties or early sixties in terms of the number of episodes. Yeah, it is pretty crazy. We've been doing this for a while.

Mark: 1:49

that's cool. So, and, and it's super fun and, and it goes without saying, right? I don't want to gloss over any of this, that, we are thankful for everybody who has joined us along this journey. If people have listened to episodes on whatever platform. remember, and please, you know, you can do a rating, you can put a comment, you can, you know, tell a friend or a colleague to, you know, have a listen to an episode or two. You know, we've got, uh, I know John, you love the YouTube thing. We've got the YouTube thing going. we are thankful for all of that. So please, if you've enjoyed this, you know, share it with someone who you believe would enjoy it as well. that said. Let's dig into this whole thing about understanding your clients. I'm excited about this one.

John: 2:41

Oh, yes. This is gonna be so much fun. I do like YouTube, mark. It's definitely a, uh, a fun discovery channel. And we can play around with like B roll, like, like this guy. Um, but yeah, today we, it's all about understanding your clients better than they understand you. And we talked about that important distinction today, and we're gonna run through, the empathy gap and the empathy map in professional services. we're gonna talk about why understanding your clients is a competitive advantage, so you can actually kinda differentiate yourself from your competitors this way. And then how to actually learn what matters to your clients so that you can understand them better, and then turn that empathy into action so that you can win more business.

Mark: 3:27

love it. E empathy is a, is a good word. We use it often. Uh, I think they, they, you know, go sort of hand in glove, this whole understanding and thing. So I, I, I think those are, good things to talk about. So first up, we're gonna talk about, you mentioned the empathy gap and you know, you, you came up with this original outline I threw in there. There's a thing called the empathy map that we will get to. But you know, me hear your initial thoughts on sort of this empathy gap and why you came up with that particular idea.

John: 3:58

Yeah. So, in thinking about this from kind of like the two extremes, on one side there is a 100% focus on your clients, right? Understanding them, understanding their pain points, What gets them up outta bed in the morning, what they care about, their career aspirations, all the things that we're gonna get into. And on the other extreme, there's this tendency of firms to talk about how much experience they have and the services. It's all about them. And so that's this gap that, you know, I noticed and you know, we're taking these two extremes and I think that firms, when they. Go through positioning exercises and marketing exercises. They kind of default to that extreme talking about themselves rather than talking about their clients. And so I think that's the empathy gap.

Mark: 4:47

makes total sense. right here, and the, the quick example that you wrote down is, right, so, you know the first words out of someone's mouth when you talk to someone in one of these expert firms is, Hey, we're a full service firm. We do this with 40 years of experience doing these things and we've won awards and whatever else. Rather than, you know, here's the issue, we help. Solve for our clients or, you know, people or organizations like you, right? there's a flip what's the first thing outta their mouth, right? 90% of the time, it's unfortunately about them. And so that leads to, well, why the heck does this? happen? And I know that I've talked about this in the past, even going before you and I sat down and started recording episodes, I've ruminated about this and, and I was like, why is this happening? Why is this pervasive? And believe me, it is per pervasive. You know, I've been hanging out with people in expert firms for, you know, over two decades now, John, both working inside firms and working with them as a consultant. So I reflect on this and I thought, how did we, how did this happen? And I think, well, it happened from the, from the get go, right? It happened from like almost at the moment they started to walk, you know, like as children, you know, I mean, that's absurd. But it started really early on, you know, when we were even growing up, kind of just looking around the world and wonder is that we were drawn to these people who just talked about themselves, right? These experts who pontificated. We were drawn to that. And then in your education, you know, particularly in some of these expert firms and, you know, the examples I gravitate to a whole lot are, you know, engineering firms and architecture firms and people who are landscape architects and other folks like that. creative professionals, you know, that have to stand up in front of a room and sort of rationalize and defend, and take criticism on their. work, right? So they need to get up in front of the room and sort of like prove their metal. Um, and then when they get into practices, they're hired in firms and, you know, they're like, Hey, you're a young professional person. We want you to come in and help us write a proposal or go talk to a client, or whatever else. And the first thing that pops to their mind is that, Ooh, what are we gonna show'em? What are we gonna talk about? Ooh, let's show'em that picture of that building or that park, or, you know, let's do that. And then. Throughout their career. It's just constantly reinforced. So how's this start? Well, it starts from way back, you know, and it's like kind of, it's sort of like just part of who they are.

John: 7:20

that's really interesting. and so I guess there's kind of like this, uh, not just an empathy gap, but like a, like a training gap that happens with early career professionals and coming in and being kind of thrown into the. The fires of business development and like you said, what are we gonna show them? I mean, and yeah, and I, I suppose it's also like through, you know, we're talking about firms and in a lot of these firms you have to be credentialed in order to practice, right? So architects, engineers, certain legal consultants, so, or lawyers I should say. And, um. Going through that, you know, after getting those credentials and those, those letters after your name, there comes this, you know, certain, well, I'm, I'm credentialed as an expert. And so there's a lot of, I guess narcissistic, for lack of a better term, like te tendencies,

Mark: 8:11

yeah. There's there, there's also the prove it thing. It's like, Hey, you've got those certificates on the wall. Okay, prove it. Right. So we think we get in, you know, our hackles are up, you know, we get sort of, you know, on our toes and we're like, all right, I'm ready to prove it. All right. Look at this, look at this, look at this. You know? So, yeah. So we're, in that position, kind of in that defense position. And you know, you had another note here that totally rings true for me is that, you know, this is the, why does this happen thing? It's like most of these, most of these firms, most of these experts, most of these people are super busy. They are completely consumed with their profession, their practice, and their. So overwhelmed with just the complexity of things is that they're way too busy or maybe distracted or whatever else, to, to prioritize or take time or just to, you know, recognize the importance of, getting to know their clients. Right. Look, I'm way too busy with what I'm doing, so I don't have the time, the energy, the resources to go figure out what my client's up to. So

John: 9:14

in. The paradox of that is that spending more time with your clients and understanding them will help you focus on the 20% of the activities that drive 80% of the

Mark: 9:23

Oh, such a good point. Such a good point. so there's some, there's some big issues with this sort of empathy gap thing here, right? There's the, oh, at the end of the day, what's the big deal with the gap? And you wrote some, some, you know, things here.

John: 9:40

Yeah, so the impact of this gap is, like we, like we talked about marketing and business development materials, proposals, they seem kind of like self-serving and self-important. Look at us chest thumping, you know, look at all, all of the, the good things that we've done and why we, how many years of experience we have and, It just becomes a little bit, cringey. I wanna

Mark: 10:02

yeah, yeah. It's sure it's cringey, it's generic. It's, it's, yeah. It's not personalizing that. Sure. Exactly. They can't, you know, they can't see themselves in all that stuff,

John: 10:13

and that's exactly it is empathy is, or tactical empathy as, as we've talked about on this podcast a few times, is the art of having, you know, your counterpart, feel like they're heard or feel like they're seen. And marketing that is all self-serving. We lots of first person, you know, it doesn't help your clients feel seen or heard, so. That's kind of like another icky part about all of this. and then of course, you know, as a result of all of that, your referrals start to stagnate because, you know, even happy clients, they're, maybe they're put off by your lack of understanding of them. Right. You know, maybe they don't feel like they're heard, so why would they go out and refer you business?

Mark: 10:57

Yeah. And there's tons of, there's tons of other stuff related. There's, there's a lot of bad stuff that kind of comes of this. Those are, those are definitely a few. I mentioned, uh, just a, a minute ago about this. We mentioned about the empathy gap, but when you said that when we were, when we were prepping for this, it, that immediately brought back this memory of this thing called the empathy map. And I'll give a, a shout out. I came across this a long. Time ago. So the Empathy Map was created by a firm called xplan. Pretty sure they're the AU authors of it. I could be wrong. I'm gonna attribute them anyways because they're such a smart. Crowd. and, Xplain was founded way back by a guy named Dave Gray, who is a, fantastic human being. And Xplain does a whole bunch of stuff. They're, they're a fantastic creative agency, and, and, and they, they really play in this world of, information design and, you know, visual communication. you know, there's Sure visual note taking, but there's also this, you know, I think Dave Gray was an author of a book called Game Gamestorming, which is a great book. So there's just huge shout out to them. So the Empathy Map is really a completely client, customer focused exercise. We'll have a link to it somewhere, or you can just, you know, Google away. Um,

John: 12:18

It's in the show notes.

Mark: 12:20

Yeah. Show notes. Show notes. It's right there. So it's, just a fantastic tool to obsess. On them. You know, it's has a nice little sort of like visual template, visual diagram that you can use to explore the client. And, you know, I've used it in the past and my hope would be if people. Grabbed a hold of it, messed around with it a little bit, even used it in some exercise talking about their clients. Their takeaway would be, wow, that was a deeper exploration that we've ever taken into any of our clients. Just because it's so hard to empathize it, you know, to this degree. Like, you know, who are they? What do they care about? What do they want to do? What are their plans? What are they seeing? Right. they're in a situation. What are they? Right? This, the part of this empathy map thing is all about what are they seeing, what are they saying? How are they behaving? What are they doing? You know, what are they hearing? Like all that stuff is like, wow, this is an obsessive sort of, we're gonna, you know, walk a mile in their shoes, and try to really understand everything that's kind of coming at them and everything. They're perceiving and thinking. So super cool.

John: 13:24

What I love about this empathy map, and for those that are watching on YouTube, we're gonna overlay it on the screen so you can see. but what I love about this is we're kind of walking through each one of their senses, you know, what do they see, what do they hear? But then it differentiates, what do they say versus what do they do? As someone who has studied, behavioral economics to some, to some extent, a little bit of market research background, that is a very, very significant difference, what people say. And then what people do are often completely different. So this is a very, very worthwhile exercise, is not taking clients from their word, but also combining that and, you know, kind of trust but verify, right? See that and then look at what they do.

Mark: 14:10

Yeah, totally. And, and, and, and in the show notes also, we will link to the 4,000 episodes that we have done to date on, you know, the importance of synchronous interaction and synchronous communication with your clients so that you're actually seeing them and you're seeing their reactions, their body language. They're, they're nonverbal communication, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, we won't go too, we won't go too deep into that.

Mark Wainwright: 14:36

You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 14:38

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: 14:52

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

John Tyreman: 15:02

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

Mark Wainwright: 15:07

and now back to the show.

Mark: 15:11

we've got this, this next little thing here is like, why is, why is understanding your clients a competitive advantage? So we're not just like saying it's important. We're actually going a step further and saying, actually, it's a competitive advantage in the marketplace, so let's, let's go there.

John: 15:30

Yeah. So I, I want to, um, not to beat up the accounting industry too much, but the, those account, our friends, the accountants, they love to position their firms as trusted advisors. Right? Well, in order to become that trusted advisor, you need to really build a relationship with your clients and building that relationship. It needs to come from. Uh, an understanding of where they are, what their goals are, what their aspirations are. and so if you can do that and deepen that relationship, then you won't be looked at as a vendor. You'll be looked at as that trusted advisor. You can't just say you're a trusted advisor and become one. So I think that changes everything for a firm. If you can achieve that level of understanding and that relationship level with your clients.

Mark: 16:21

Yeah, totally, totally. So, so a a along those lines, right? So the bullet points of why this is a competitive advantage thing right? from a, from a sales standpoint, right? So, you know, trust is the, you know, the fuel of a, you know, great sales process. You know, a a a good sales effort is underscored by trust and understanding. So it's easier, it's faster the clients feel seen and heard. They feel you understand them, so they, readily accept your recommendations and they, bring a, a higher perceived value. to the, you know, buying and selling process so that when it's time to, you know, kind of talk about dollars and cents and stuff is, they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I see the value here. This is, this is great. You understood us. You made some recommendations. It's pretty clear that you guys completely get us, you know, the, the price seems, you know, you know, kind of in line with what our expectations are and what sort of the value that we're gonna get outta this. So yep.

John: 17:26

Totally. And then on the marketing side of things, it strengthens the power of your magnet. And so if, if you want to attract more. Leads more qualified opportunities than messaging that's rooted in your customer's pain points and understanding what those are, and speaking to that as opposed to speaking to how you solve problems or what your approach or methodology is. That reframe makes that magnet a much, much more powerful in attracting

Mark: 17:57

like that. I like that. I like the magnet thing. Um, so the, the, the, you know, flowing from all that stuff, you know, fantastic marketing kind of kicks it off, and then obviously you're hopefully selling to them and that goes really well. And it's a trust-based sale, you know, so the relationships deepen, right? Your, your relationship, inevitably, as we all know, if you're an expert, it carries into the sold service, service delivery, end of things, market, you know, then you have to eventually. Deliver these services. So your relationship is fantastic coming outta these initial sort of pre-contract steps, we're really excited about it. we're really aligned. You know, proposals are great, great o off we go and, and running. And then as you're delivering the services, you're able to stay focused on the client and, just deliver great services and they're really excited and, you know, here comes the next contract and here comes the next contract. So awesome.

John: 18:51

And on top of that, you know, if you, you're demonstrating that. That understanding of, of your client, you're deepening that relationship and you're winning new business, the next contract, and then the next contract that ultimately will lead to more referrals for your business as well. So, hey, we've been working with this firm for so long. we love the work they do. They totally get us. And I thought that you being in this position, they would be a great fit for you too.

Mark: 19:19

Yep. makes total sense. That last bullet point here is worth noting'cause I think it's such a fantastic one. Use the term competitive insulation. that's such a great, such a great term.

John: 19:28

Yeah, so I think like a competitor might be able to offer a similar service as what you provide, but they can't replicate the relationship that you've built with your clients, and so that becomes an insulator to other firms that are out there.

Mark: 19:42

Yeah, totally. I'm totally with you on that one. All right, so clearly competitive advantage. We get that some people really don't understand why it's actually, you know, a competitive advantage. IE also a differentiator, right? So let's make sure everybody, let's underscore and highlight that, right? This is a differentiator if you're trying to figure out how to be different in a crowded marketplace. Yeah. Uh, this is an opportunity to do that.

John: 20:07

And, to a point we made earlier to underscore this. This is one of those things that, we, we talked about that empathy map and looking at what clients say versus what they do. This is a clear example of what firms need to do versus say. You can't just say, we understand you and therefore you are different. You have to walk this path. You have to go through these exercises and take the time and make it a priority to understand your clients in order for this to be a differentiator.

Mark: 20:36

Yeah, so true. So true. All right, so the next, next part in this whole thing, fantastic segue by the way. So this next chunk is so the go and do part. Okay. How, how do we actually learn what matters to them, right? So, we have to go and practice this and right, how, how does it, how, how do we actually go and learn what matters? And the, the first one's, so screamingly obvious and I just love it, needs to be a. Billboard on this whole thing. It says, you know, start by shutting up. Right? Right. Good one. I like that. So that's, you know, that means ask better questions and then, you know, let them do the talking and listen. Right. The easiest go and do metric in this whole thing is look, if you have a 30 minute conversation with someone who's a client or a prospective client or whatever else, and you set the timer and you're trying to figure out, you know, you're looking at your timer and you're like, alright. I need to only talk for five minutes and they're gonna talk for the other 25. Right? Like, that's what you should be shooting for, right? Shut up, ask great questions and let them talk because it's more important that you learn about them than they learn about you, which is counterintuitive for some people. But yeah, start by shutting up. Fantastic first bullet point, John.

John: 21:50

Yeah. Well, just a real quick aside, mark. So I had a podcast conversation, maybe it was a year ago or so, with a fellow named Steve Ramona. And Steve hosts a podcast called, doing Business with a Servant's Heart. So it's very kind of applicable to this topic that we're talking about today. And for those folks out there who like frameworks, he has the ASLA principle, a SLA, and I think I've brought this up before, but it's stands for ask, shut up, listen and ask again.

Mark: 22:21

Ah,

John: 22:22

So if you, if you're looking for a framework to use to learn how to shut up, that could be one.

Mark: 22:28

Yeah. and by the way, all my, all my wonderful dear friends out there who are listening, who are landscape architects are like, wait, a SLA is actually the American Society of Landscape Architects.

John: 22:37

Oh, there you go. So not to be

Mark: 22:38

so, but not to be confused, but very easy for them to remember. So no excuses. Uh, there are my, friends in landscape architecture. So the next, next. Thing is right. Part of the go and do is we need to be asking questions that elicit sort of emotional, or behavioral signals rather than just sort of like the details of the work to be done, the technical needs, the functional needs, everything. Else, and those questions are like, you know, there's the obvious sort of, Hey, what's keeping you up at night, kind of thing. Those are Yeah, true. Along those lines. You don't have to say that one. I, I think that one sometimes is a little bit played, but, we have to understand what's at stake and understanding what is at stake is like, look, that's the implications, right? It's like, look what's at stake if you succeed in this whole thing. Like what does it look like? And then conversely. What does it look like if this whole thing blows up or if you never do anything to begin with, right? What if you're the next action is a no action? You know what? If the decision is a. is a nothing. What are the implications of that? How are you impacted? How are other people impacted? How's the, you know, what is that? and then you had another one in here is like, how, how are you stuck? Like what are the barriers? What are the stumbling blocks? What are the speed bumps? you know, what are the different, issues that stand in the way and what can we clear out of the way in order to get you from where you are now to where you wanna be? Right? Those are the, those are some fantastic questions.

John: 24:00

and I liken this to, Symptoms versus root causes.'cause a lot of times clients, they, they know the symptoms, they feel them but sometimes they don't know the root cause and that's why they're reaching out to an expert to help them understand what that is and help them figure it out. but those symptoms and understanding that you're kind of going through this exercise and asking them about these symptoms and how those symptoms make them feel. I think that that's a powerful way to not only get the information for yourself, but to kind of like touch on it a little bit. I don't wanna say twist the knife a little bit, but really kind of shine a light on that. This is a pain point for you in, in understanding that. Yeah.

Mark: 24:40

I think that, you know, that's a, that, right, that's a, that's the whole twist The knife thing is, is is a funny term, but I absolutely believe that uncovering implications is a twist the knife thing. It's like, okay, so what are all the bad things that can happen if this doesn't play out? If you do nothing, what, what are the bad things? Because we always talk about the good things. You know, we always talk about the, oh, the wonderful, the vision of success, the pretty picture and everything else is like, what does the dark picture look like if you don't do this, like, what's that look like? They're like, oh, do we wanna talk? Yes, we wanna talk about that. Let's talk about the bad stuff. Yeah. So that's a, that's a good one. So there's a, a few others here. This going like we're capturing the client's languages. Another sort of bullet point had that was like. there's a little mirroring that's going on there. uh, it's like, mirroring posture, mirroring language, you know, all that kind of stuff. with the, the end goal being that they're relating, they're connecting to what you're saying, what you're doing, all that sort of stuff. So there's that, there's that connection.

John: 25:40

that, across that sales and marketing continuum. So that's using their client's language, in your marketing materials, in your proposals, in the sales conversations, in delivery conversations. So that's something that you kind of need to rewire your brain and, and like vocabulary to be in sync with your clients.

Mark: 25:59

totally, totally. another one is get closer to the client's world and I, and, and talked to you a little bit about this one before, and this is thi this is fine. I, I think, you know, I think that, being aware of certain things in your client's industry world, that sort of thing is good. This, just to clarify, everybody, this episode is not about, you need to go out and understand your client's business and their industry more than them. That's not what. This episode is about right. So, you know, if you're an engineer and you're, you know, working with a municipality and you do infrastructure, you know, you don't need to understand, everything about their entire world, right? That you're suddenly an expert in municipal infrastructure, right?

John: 26:43

You need to know enough to be able to have, you know, have context and conversations and

Mark: 26:48

Yeah, you need to know, you need to know enough about it, but obviously we're not talking about you need to be an a more of an expert than your client in their business we're talking about. You need to just simply understand them and their situation, their needs, you know, very deeply. More so that they understand sort of your bullet points of services and da, da, da and all that other kind of stuff. That's what we're talking about here, right? So get closer to the client's world. Absolutely. You need to kind of understand what they're going through. And not just hearing it from them, but also sort of, pulling in whatever information that you have access to. And the last bullet point, the go and do thing here, John. I like really like this one. And this is creating, feedback loops, which is, big picture for me is just keeping the door open. You know, it's like establishing from early on. It's like, look. we're gonna be, in this thing e either, throughout the pre-contract, sort of sales interactions, communication process, and then hopefully post-contract. We're in this together, so we need to keep this nice feedback thing flowing, right? You need to tell me what's on your mind. I need to tell you what's on my mind. So we need to just constantly be seeking understanding of each other. So I think that's great.

John: 27:58

Yep. There's so many ways that you can do that too. There's so many different channels and tools out there. Communication, creating these communication loops. It's so easy these days that there's tons of ways to do that, including synchronous conversations.

Mark: 28:13

Yeah. Yeah. So, this next thing here is, I know we can kind of, we can kind of clip through these. What are some of the signals that you're getting this right, that you're doing? Right. When the client feels understood, they're starting to behave differently. So what are some of the signs that you'll see and'cause sometimes they're not being, you know, maybe they'll be explicit about it, but sometimes you just see things happening and you're like, oh, this is working.

John: 28:43

you gotta look for the signs, right? It's like the changing of the seasons. It's like those leaves that are just starting to turn red. so Mark, why don't we do this? Let's just ping pong back and forth and we can do these bullet points. So I'll, I'll, start. So, number one, they stop shopping around. they're not going out to other service providers. You've become the go-to consultant.

Mark: 29:02

Yeah. And in, in, in some industries they can do this easily. Others, they have to find creative ways to work with you because, hey, our municipality has some contracting restrictions that, if it's really expensive, we have to go put it out to like public. RFP or something like that. But hey, let's get creative. Let's take it and break it up into a bunch of different parts.'cause I just wanna give this to you'cause we really love you guys and you really get what's going on with us. So they stop shopping around. Exactly. So maybe they start saying things like, you guys, you guys just, just get it. Right. It's, you know, at the whole end of, maybe the sales process is like, you know, I, I don't, I dunno what it was, right? It's like you guys were like inside my head, right? Stuff like that. Or, you know, you say something and they're like, yeah, that's exactly how I wanted to, that's exactly, you took the words outta my mouth. Like that kind of a, you start hearing those kind of things and you're like, oh, I'm on the right track here.

John: 29:53

another signal that you could look for is that they start to open up about what's really going on either in their personal lives, inside their organizations. You know, this, this could also kind of be like you're on a Zoom call with the full team, and then a couple of people drop out and it's just you and your main point of contact, and they're like, okay, okay. I can now, now I can really tell you what's going on. Right. You know, those little like candid conversations, like those are, those are signals that you're starting to gain an understanding, gain trust enough to where your clients can be vulnerable.

Mark: 30:25

Yeah, totally. But just remember, by the way, caveat, little asterisk on that one. Make sure that the transcript tool,

John: 30:32

Oh yeah. It's turned off.

Mark: 30:33

is off. Right. So anyway, great point there. They tell you what's really going on. They start giving you access to more and more internal information. They start to, you know, and, and I, I kind of refer to this one, like they bring you. to their side of the table, right? You're not the consultant sitting on the other side of the table. They start to invite you to their side of the table. So, yep, and they, let you know who the important decision makers are. They keep you up to speed on their organizational chart, you know, all that kind of stuff.

John: 31:03

Yep. And they ask for your opinion and perspective on things. They don't just ask you for work or deliverables. They value your perspective on things. And I guess this is kind of similar to what you were saying, you're on their side of the table. You're not across from them.

Mark: 31:18

Yeah, no, this is, this is good. I mean, this is a fantastic point. It's like, look, they're, they're, they're not gonna tell you what they need. They're gonna say, Hey. we, we need some help with this one here. Yeah. What do you think? the next one here is like, referrals, you know, become sort of effortless. It's like, well, of course I'm gonna go ask them for some introductions, like, why would I not? And then the response you get when you say, Hey, what, can I have a, can I, you know, if you guys have followed me, you know, I'm like, you gotta go have the referral conversation where you actually talk, go talk to your client and talk them through, you know, referrals. And they're tapping their foot and they're like, well. We were waiting. Yeah, I was kind of, I was kind of expecting this to, to happen, so it, I'm surprised it took you so long, so, so thanks for asking. We would be happy to help that, that kind of thing.

John: 32:01

So I guess there's, there's a little nugget of wisdom there. You have to ask for referrals sometimes. You can't just sit there and wait.

Mark: 32:07

No, no, no, absolutely. Yeah.

John: 32:09

you, you know, this last bullet point that we have here in kind of like looking for these signals is that you spend less time trying to sell your services and more time solving problems for your clients.

Mark: 32:20

Yeah, right. You've got the whole sort of, you're not, you know, arm wrestling over price, uh, trying to get them to understand the value you offer. Everything else, it's just, they just get it. Totally,

John: 32:31

So let's turn to our last section of this podcast episode where we're gonna take, okay. You've gone, you, you understand the, the importance of understanding. We know what signals to look for. Now how? How can we put rubber to the road? How can we turn that empathy into action and apply what we've learned here to sales and marketing?

Mark: 32:53

Yeah. This is also kind of a go and do part here, right? So, yeah. Exactly. So, the first one you had there talks about messaging, reflect their situation, their reality, and your messaging.

John: 33:06

Yeah, so I guess this is kind of more on the, if we're thinking about our marketing and sales continuum, this is definitely more on the one end of that spectrum where it's definitely more marketing, marketing heavy. So this is like we talked about, swiping client language and using that in your website copy, using that on your social media. Posts or the blog content that you're putting out or webinar titles and things like that. So, you know, taking that, that natural language and turning that into, into marketing content, that's definitely an example of reflecting your client's reality in your messaging.

Mark: 33:44

Yeah, totally. And on the other end of that one to five marketing to sales continuum thing that that we've talked about, tailoring your sales process to how they. Buy, right? You know them, you understand them. You've become more and more familiar with them. Slow down if that's what they need, speed it up if that's important. You know, show them that you know, how they make decisions and who the decision makers are and what criteria are most important or least important to them. So, yeah, once you've understood someone, you can sell to them better. So that's a huge one.

John: 34:19

Yeah. This next one is a little bit more about like service design, but how and how you package your services and position your service offering to your clients. You know, adapt your offerings to fit the pain point that you're solving rather than the organization that you have internally. So, you know, instead of like being a matrixed organization and you know, everything cuts across, maybe you organize delivery pods around your clients. That's just kind of like one example, but that's how you know it can work internally.

Mark: 34:50

You know, that's such a fantastic point because there's so many organizations out there who are organized internally, IE, meaning they have all their expertise kind of bundled or siloed or whatever else, and, they may collaborate well, so it might not show up. You know, to the client as sort of this siloed, separate organization, but a lot of times it does. so rethinking your organization and, you know, you know, putting the client at the center and then building your expertise around the client is a fantastic point. So I, I love that one. So. That gets everyone on sort of that team to this next point here that gets everyone on the team thinking like consultants, not just a vendor or an order taker, right? It's, we are engaging in a, you know, potentially sort of multidisciplinary, multi, you know, expertise sort of fashion in order to address all the needs that our clients, have. So that's a, that's a good one.

John: 35:43

We talked about, you know, baking that client language into your marketing materials and, you know, baking that into your proposals as well. In this, in the, the contracts that you put in front of your clients and everything like that, that goes a long way to demonstrating understanding.

Mark: 35:58

Yeah. Yeah. And, and this, I think the, the, this last one puts a nice, nice kind of period or exclamation point on this whole thing. It's like, you know, just keep at it. Right? It's understanding. Your client is not sort of check the checkbox exercise. It's not alright. We get them, you know, it's, it's. Yeah. Right. But it's, it's'cause it's constantly evolving, right? I mean, you know, I even work with clients now who are constantly evolving all the time. And so I have to kind of understand and re understand them.'cause there's new dynamics, there's new team members, people leave, things shift around. so you know, all that, you know, markets, external factors are changing, all that sort of stuff. So, you know, we need to make this all a, a habit and a ritual, not just sort of a. You know, a one and done sort of. All right. Got did that. Understood. So great. Great last point. I love that one.

John: 36:48

Mark, I think we've broken this one down pretty sufficiently. I know that understanding has been kind of a decentralized theme throughout many, many of our episodes that we've talked about. but I thought that this was a great exercise in focusing in on that one singular. Kind of put, putting the spotlight on understanding. and I think we've done a pretty good job of like breaking down why it's important, you know, what are the signs to look for and then how to put it into action. So hopefully folks take something away from this and, they can kind of turn it around and start to use it right away.

Mark: 37:19

I love it, John, this has been a, a good episode. Thanks for wandering through it with me. Until next time.

John: 37:25

Until next time.