February 4, 2025 • 36 mins
Join Bruce Scheer as he dives into creating uncopyable buying experiences with sales expert Kay Miller. Learn how to stand out in sales by offering more than just products—offer memorable buying experiences.
- Explore why conventional sales tactics are falling short with today's buyers.
- Understand the significance of building trust and engaging naturally with customers.
- Discover the concept of personal branding and its impact on sales.
- Learn from real-world examples like Katie RV O'Neil's customer-centric selling.
- Gain insights on how to create a personal brand that sets you apart from the competition.
00:00 "Uncopyable Moose Branding Strategy"
03:19 "B2B Buying Experience Index"
07:26 Human Touch in Sales Transactions
12:18 "Katie O'Neil: Sales Mastery"
14:25 Luxury RV Sales Strategies
18:57 Personal Branding: The Key to Uniqueness
19:43 Building Trust Through Honest Branding
23:34 Personal Stories in Business Success
29:39 Personal Branding Insights with Kaye
30:25 "Defining Your Personal Brand"
34:17 "Ask Customers Why They Choose You"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the ValuePro Show, where value pros get value
ready.
My name is Bruce Shearer, the host of the ValuePro Show. In this episode,
we're talking with Kay Miller, a sales expert, speaker,
and coauthor of a book I just love called Uncopyable
You. Kay is known for helping professionals build personal
(00:24):
brands that stand out and more importantly, create memorable and
high value buying experiences that keep customers coming back.
Kaye will share how you can build trust, engage buyers in a
way that feels natural, not salesy, and create an uncopyable
buying experience that turns prospects into lifelong customers.
Let's get into it. Okay. Thanks so much for joining
(00:47):
the ValuePro Show. I'm so happy to have you here.
And I must admit, I I bought your book a few months ago, read it,
loved it. And then over this last weekend, I was just
reading it pretty much the whole weekend just getting ready for this
interview. I didn't wanna blow it because I've got the uncopyable
k here with me and just wanted to make sure this thing
(01:08):
rocks. So, anyways, because of that, I
literally started redoing my whole personal brand statement.
What what a wonderful thing. So for everybody tuning
in, Kay Miller and her husband, Steve Miller, wrote this
book called uncopyable you. I
absolutely love it. Just the title of it. Uncopyable.
(01:30):
What a big idea. How do you stand apart from
the pack, but in a way that's uncopyable? You
know, again, lovely, lovely theme, and and the book's
just a dream. Really well written. Not their first rodeo. Speaking of
rodeos, you can see me on Vashon Island this morning wearing a
cowboy hat. I was out moose hunting a little bit, and that's one
(01:53):
of the metaphors that they use in their book, which I absolutely
love, hunting that moose and building your personal brand and
and probably even more importantly, your personal brand strategy, how you're
gonna take action around that and really landing
with with your moose. You know, I'd, you know, I e your ideal
customer profile. So I I really love that.
(02:15):
K. Before we jump in and get your point of view, I wanted to highlight
for the audience 3 key statistics that just
kind of blow me away. If anybody's seen the movie Apollo
13, Houston, we do have a problem. And,
the first stat is 75%. 75%
of b to b buyers, according to Gartner, a big survey they
(02:37):
did, prefer to have a sales free experience.
Wow. That sales free. That that's no good.
That means not a good buying experience. 88%
of those, buyers this is in a Salesforce dotcomstateofsalessurvey,
an annual survey with thousands of buyers. 88%
(02:58):
of b to b buyers will only buy from
someone they deem to be a trusted adviser, meaning
they gain trust and they bring advice as part of
that buying experience. Really, really important. And
and very few kinda are at that bar. Again, that nasty 75
percent is kinda hard to run from that. And then the 3rd
(03:20):
stat is and this one was, done, with a
study by SBI, another super credible source.
But what they determined, through their survey was
59% of the buying influence on the buying decision comes from the
buying experience, not from the offering itself.
So buying experience is key. That's the leading
(03:43):
indicator, you know, to, you know, your win rate, your
deal cycles, everything going well, getting bonus checks, commissions,
etcetera. The the whole party really begins
with creating this amazing buying experience. And right now,
it's broken. So, my firm, we've invested a lot of
time, energy, and money in figuring out, hey. What do we do to right size
(04:06):
this buying experience? We created the first of its kind, a b to
b buying experience index. And in that, we're
looking across the buying journey. What are the causal
factors that you need to influence to drive an
enhanced buying experience? You know, 1, to use case
phrase, uncopyable buying experience. How do you do that? How
(04:28):
do you create a high value buying experience? And, Kaye, thanks for
your patience, but, I wanna turn the floor to you.
You know, what do we do here? 1st, why do you wanna create
an uncopyable buying experience, and then how do we do it? So so over
to you, Kaye. Sorry to be this one way train. Let's shine
(04:48):
the spotlight on you. That's right. I love the
spotlight, actually. And, Bruce, first of all, I wanna say thank you
for having me on the podcast. I have to say it's been really fun
to get to know you. It turns out that we have some
things in common. We live in the Seattle area, and
both of us got snow this morning, which is pretty unusual,
(05:11):
so that's kinda cool. I know a lot of people
that you know because my husband, Steve, has been involved in
NSA, National Speakers Association. Shep Hyken, a friend of
ours, you're also, inviting to speak. So I'm gonna say thank you
for inviting me. I'm gonna give your book a little plug too,
which I have. If you can see this, inspire
(05:34):
your buyers. And one thing I like about this
book before I jump into the uncopyable philosophy is
that people don't like to be sold. In fact,
in my sales book, I have a sales book, I tell a story of
my niece. And when she was about 3, my mom
would take care of her every every Wednesday, I think it
(05:56):
was. Every Wednesday, she was, you know, just
helping my sister-in-law out. And one time she
told Shauna, my niece Shauna, you need to pick up
your toys because we're gonna go to the store. And Shauna
crossed her arms and said, I don't like to be told.
(06:16):
And I love that because we don't like to be sold. So the
fact that you frame your book around the buyer,
getting them to buy, not feeling like they've been sold,
that is so critical. I did take a few notes
while you were speaking. You were dominating the conversation.
(06:36):
Of course. Just kidding. Just kidding. But, you have in
your book a go to market narrative. And one thing
that I like you that you said is deceptively
simple. And that's the thing about sales. I
think we make it way too complicated. This is a
human to human interaction, and, really, it's
(06:58):
pretty shocking about the statistic about how many
buyers don't even wanna deal with a salesperson. That
One one thing you didn't include there, Kaye, on that one. Deceptively
simple, but in that book, I do highlight after that
one more phrase, but mastered by few.
I rarely see that happen in the wilds.
(07:21):
But but, anyways, I'll I'll leave this on that cliffhanger back over to
you. No. That's okay. Because, you know, I just pulled that
little excerpt. And yes, you have an entire framework in the book and
that's, you know, maybe it doesn't seem quite so simple, but
at its core, it, you know, it's a human to human
interaction. So when buyers say, I don't wanna
(07:43):
deal with a salesperson, well, where are they getting their information?
As Bruce, as you know, I'm suffering from some
vertigo, which is making it difficult to do everything from
skiing to walking around my house. So what did
I do? I go online. I asked AI,
(08:03):
and I was pretty convinced that I had a brain tumor.
Because we can all get information online, but
is it accurate? Does it apply to us? You know, is
it just making us scared? So what
you can get online is so incomplete that a
buyer is really doing themselves a disservice by
(08:27):
not dealing with a salesperson. I'll tell you. True.
Yep. Hey. Just a quick one on that. I was doing,
some work building a story that sizzles, like, what's in
that book for eBay enterprise. And they, k, they
had a whole huge automotive division selling cars online.
And I asked them because I wanna you know, normally, when I start a project,
(08:50):
I wanna talk with who's doing things right. I mean, how how can we learn
from that and repeat that and have more consistent results?
So they said, Bruce, you know, our number one seller of of
automobiles on eBay is out in Lex or out in
Atlanta. They're called Lexus of Atlanta. I go, oh, man. I wanna
talk to those guys. You know? And they're like, oh, yeah. We'll set it up.
(09:12):
So I talked to the principals of that. 3 of those guys, you know, I
just called in. They were in their office. I'm not going, guys, I need to
understand, you know, what's the magic here? What are you guys doing?
And, one thing I did ask them
was, you know, of the people that show up
after purchasing their car, how many people drive away
(09:33):
with the same car that they purchased online?
And, Kaye, these guys buy the car on
eBay. They book a flight. They fly all the way to
Atlanta. Lexus of Atlanta happens to be right on the train line from
the airport. There's a train. So they take the train to there
to pick up the keys to their car so they can drive it home.
(09:56):
That's it. They've already bought the car. Contract signed, blah blah blah. It's
already done. How many people do you think drive away from
with the car that they purchased? That
exact model? I'm guessing not
all of them for sure. That'll be my first guess. Not all of them. I
don't know what the percentage is, but I also have a related story.
(10:19):
And I would say in the example, that comes to mind,
maybe 50% k. Great gas.
Great gas. Yeah. The statistic they gave me was 80%. So
roughly 4 out of 5 people drive away with what they paid for.
Contracts already signed. They just need the key. It's done,
and it's ready for them to go. But, one out of 5,
(10:42):
when the sellers talk to them, they flip them. And
and why is that? You know? You know, they'll always go, hey. Wow. That's a
sweet looking sports car that you bought. Congratulations.
Tell me a little bit more about your your world. And they're like, oh, well,
I got the kids and everything. I wanted this for fun. Oh, but
what about those soccer matches you need to take kids with and and their friends?
(11:04):
Hey. Guess what? You know, there's actually a minivan that we have here, but it's
got the sports package. So you could still look cool and take your kids
to the soccer game. What do you think? Damn. I think my wife would
be happy with that. Boom. They're driving away with a sports package with a
minivan versus the sports car that came to to to drive away.
But, you know, that that that's the magic I have in a beautiful seller. They
(11:26):
can see things that you don't see, highlight the obvious or the unobvious,
and and and help get that right fit. You know, there's a role in
place for sellers. I'll I'll promise you that. But, sadly,
you know, 75% of buyers don't wanna be dealing with them.
Right. And it's because they've had bad experiences, and we've all
(11:46):
had bad experiences. Interesting that you bring up
automobiles, cars because the phrase used car sales
man. They usually, they say used car salesman, but now it's
really used car salesperson. Person. Yeah. And
and so since we're talking vehicles, I tell a story in the
book about a woman named Katie O'Neil. Now
(12:09):
she brands herself as Katie r v O'Neil.
She has claimed that. You remember that? Yep. I do remember that
story. Right. So if you search for Katie r
v O'Neil, she will come up. There are so many things that
she does right that I can't get into all of it, but I'm going
to address what you said, and that is that people
(12:32):
don't know what they want. They think they know what they
want, but they're not the expert. And
she was I was just listening to my podcast interview with
her. I don't unfortunately remember the episode, but look her up on
the podcast. That is a master course in sales.
So she, first of all, talks about her moose.
(12:55):
Now her, moose as we say in
the framework, and I have if you're looking, I have a big picture of a
moose. That's what we call your And I want moose hunting, just
FYI. Yep. In the snow.
In the snow. So the moose,
or avatar ideal target
(13:18):
really determines who you're wanting to
impress so that they will want to buy. Well, one thing that
was very interesting is that she said her
first job is to sell the husband. So this is kinda
sexist, but, you know, a lot of purchases, home
purchases, a lot of decisions to buy are made by the women
(13:39):
in a couple's situation. I don't know about you, Bruce.
Does your wife make the decisions a lot of time? Oh,
sadly. Yeah. Or, I mean, sadly, it's probably me.
But, yeah, I I don't know. We we do a good job of sharing decisions.
Yeah. Yes. So so her job, a lot of times, she
does videos, and she's got hundreds of videos
(14:02):
online. She walks through these RVs. Now I should
clarify that these are RVs that go from half a
$1,000,000 to maybe $1,520,000.
So these aren't your, you know, the RV that you see on
the road that you can rent that say, we're having fun. Call this number so
(14:23):
you can rent this RV. Yeah. No. These are luxury
automobiles. So a lot of times, she said, the men will
watch these videos and really study them.
But then the true moose, the one that she has to to,
convince, persuade is often the woman.
(14:43):
So they come into the dealership, for example, and like you said,
they've watched videos online. They think that they want this
type of RV. But Katie does a great job as
you alluded to, you know, about asking
not just what you like and not telling about the fuel
capacity or, you know, how the sewage works, none of
(15:06):
that. She talks about the RV from the inside
out, and all her questions are just what you said.
What's your lifestyle? Who's gonna be in this RV? Do you like
to play board games, or do you like to
go, hunt venison? And you want a place to
store your half of venison or or whatever.
(15:29):
Do you want to know where your curling iron is? You know, what
kind of music do you like? Just everything. What
how are you using this RV? So she asks
questions, a lot of questions that they haven't thought of. And
oftentimes, to your point, they say they want
this RV. And when she really talks to them, she said, I never
(15:51):
take them out to the lot till I have this very in-depth
conversation. And then they go out to the
lot, and she shows them the models that they are
interested in. And one thing she does
is she watches their reaction. You
know? What do you what do you think when you see these dark cabinets or
(16:13):
or, you know, whatever the layout. So Yeah. She is
she calls it exposure sales. So she watches and
studies their reactions Mhmm. Because, again, the buyer
doesn't have the information. They are not the expert. They
need a guide. I love it. I
absolutely love it. You know, back to our buying experience index.
(16:36):
Oh my gosh. You know, she's really hitting on a number of these
things, but gaining trust by being a great listener and and
discussing what they what they desire, etcetera. I love that exposure,
Telling, that you talked about. That really gets into for really
clarifying requirements. And, again, she just sounds like a
fabulous listener, both eyes and ears, if you would, in terms of what
(16:58):
what's lighting somebody up and what's gonna bring them joy in their life.
Yeah. Great, great story. Perfect. It it
is great. And and, again, I encourage you listening to get that book because
Yeah. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
She, before she owns RVs, and that's one
thing that she recommends. She recommends that if you're gonna sell RVs,
(17:20):
you should have an RV. So she's very, very knowledgeable.
She knows her stuff. And when she dealt with
someone, she found videos online. She called him. He
never called back. And trust
to me is being brilliant at the basics.
And I'm sure you've experienced this, Bruce. You call someone back and they
(17:42):
say, hey. Thanks for calling me back.
And you're like, are you kidding? Is that how low the bar is?
Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Establishing trust? I'm trying
to buy from a seller right now, and, yeah, it's
weeks apart when we talk. It's most bizarre thing in
in my life. I'm talking to his
(18:05):
his CEO more than him at at this point in
time. Yeah. But, yeah, the bar's low. And, yeah, and and there's some
serious reasons, you know, like we talked about to
be uncopyable, you know, in relation to improving
that buying experience. So I love this this vein that we got
ourselves into. Kaye, this this is absolutely perfect.
(18:27):
So I think we've probably hit on, you know, some of the why. You know,
it's your opportunity to stand apart and offering an an awesome buying
experience. If you do that, you're gonna sell more and sell more often, you know,
obviously, and probably have more joy and better relationships with the buyers
who buy from you. If we could, Kaye, let's turn the corner a little
bit and just get into some of the how, how to think about this. If
(18:49):
you wanna, you know, create this uncopyable buying experience, you
know, what what advice would you give to our audience?
Well, one of the things that we like to say, my husband Steve and
I, and Steve cowrote this book with me, is that
oftentimes, almost all the time, a product
or service can be copied. Unless it's patented
(19:11):
or unless it's, you know, so brilliant that no one
can replicate it. Most of what we're selling is copyable.
So first of all, I really recommend that you clarify
what your personal branding promise
is. Now Yeah. Katie, I'm gonna bring her back into the
picture because she tells people her personal branding
(19:35):
statement. I do that as well. Her branding statement
is I want everyone who walks through through these
doors. I want everyone who walks through these doors
to be better for the experience. So when
you tell someone, I promise you that
this is what I want to do for you. I will not
(19:57):
sell you the wrong product. I don't want you to be unhappy.
So one of the branding, strategies
is to define and and the book takes you through that whole process
of thinking about what's important to you, what are your values,
what who are your moose, who are the buyers, And
how can you focus on them? Again, with a $1,000,000
(20:21):
RV, you know, we do we often say we don't wanna start with the price.
We don't wanna lead with price, but you also have to use that price
to disqualify, qualify. You know, are you prepared
for a $5,000 a month payment? Things like that.
So being honest and transparent,
is huge in building building trust. Yeah. For her, I'd say
(20:44):
the word integrity as well, you know, based on what you said, just
that high integrity part of her personal brand.
So yes. So you listening define your personal
brand. How do you communicate that to the customer?
You talk a lot about story. I believe in
story because people learn through stories,
(21:07):
you know, everything from the bible to, you know, any
presentation that you go to, 3 days later,
what do you remember? I'll guarantee you remember the stories
better than the points. So so tell
stories and I encourage you listening, look at your
history. What stories do you have? I have a
(21:30):
very famous story that goes back many years
ago. I was one of the only women working for Walker exhaust.
I was selling a very glamorous product line,
automotive mufflers and catalytic converters.
So I'm obviously being sarcastic. But back
in that, period of time, here I am selling
(21:53):
a product I don't know anything about. So I was selling
to distributors, I asked the distributor who's a
really great customer of yours, maybe a muffler
shop, that I can contact and go in and
ask to spend the day learning from their perspective
what it's like to deal with our product. That has been
(22:16):
gold through my career. I still use that story.
I have the nickname muffler mama, which hopefully was
an affectionate nickname. That set
me apart. No other sales rep, male or
female, and there were only just a few women, no one had
ever done that. So what does that story represent?
(22:39):
Obviously, I'm committed to learning about the product from
the customer's perspective, and then I tell them,
okay. With what I've learned, I wanna share my knowledge
with you and and, you know, mesh the 2 together so that we can come
up with something that will help you. So those are are
2 of the specific branding promises. Now you might not
(23:02):
have a story. Well, go make one. Yeah. I've worked with sales
people and I say have you ever been to the factory? Have you gone out
in the factory floor? Well, no. I haven't really done that.
Hey. Create a story. Use a
success story with a customer like like we talked about.
If you can come up with dollars and cents. Okay. This machine
(23:25):
saved them on labor, on materials, on
time. Here's a little chart explaining
what that is. So And I'd also mention, Kaye, another
another thing to add is, I had the CRO from
Tableau, former CRO, excuse me, on on the show just,
oh, a little over a month ago. And, there's an episode
(23:47):
on that. And then she became president of Gong dot io,
valued about $7,000,000,000 now. But we
were talking about the importance of that personal story as well. And I know
you've you know, your book around uncapable you and personal branding, you
know, I'd encourage, you know, I'm sure Katie's got a really incredible
personal story. I think yeah. Yeah. In your book, you do highlight that, how
(24:10):
she was shopping for automobiles when one day, etcetera.
But, we were talking about just encouraging the development of your
personal story, which should have the why that relates
back to the buying experience that you're trying to create, you know, where where your
buyer would see the relevance in that personal story.
(24:31):
Right. Yeah. That's a good point that the story isn't just,
you know, oh, I did this and that and this is what happened. The story
has to tie into what you want to do for the
customer. So it's fine. Figuring out your values, what's important to
you. It's having a story whether it's yours or
not, and then it's, you know, I we
(24:53):
talked a little bit beforehand, the know, like, and trust factor.
We've talked about trust because if you don't trust someone,
then you're not gonna buy from them, and that to me is pretty
simple. It's just following up on what you say
you will do. Being transparent. Bad news
first is something that I talk with my clients about. There's never
(25:16):
an advantage for staying silent because you're afraid. You don't
wanna tell them the truth. So I look at personal branding really
as a recipe and there are so many components. Those are 3.
And I'm gonna say one more thing then I wanna hand it back to you.
But we all have a personal brand.
And if you think of the brand, I've heard several people
(25:37):
say this, so I'm not gonna attribute it to anyone. It's
kind of a comment saying, your personal brand is what people
say about you when you're not in the room.
So you can even ask people that know you. How
would you describe my personal brand? That's a
great way to take an inventory or whatever, get an
(26:00):
objective opinion on what you stand for, how people
see you. K. I'm just showing you on the screen right now.
Could you highlight even just from a a visual personal
branding perspective what you've done? That that's really
impressed me. I interview so many different people as
part of this show, but you show up, you
(26:22):
know, your your personal brand visually is
is just stunning. Can you talk about that and how people could think
about, you know, just upping their game visually as part of their
personal brand? I totally
can. That's a great question. And, yes, if you're watching
this, you notice one thing. Everything is
(26:44):
orange. Our products are orange. Our books are
orange. I'm wearing orange even though one of my
good friends told me that I don't look that great in orange.
And I said, too late. I'm all in on orange. It doesn't matter.
But our new book, Uncopyable You, is how
(27:05):
to create a personal brand that gets people to know you, to
like you, to trust you. And this last word is
so important. This last word,
be memorable. You want to be Remember. Yeah. You.
Yes. I've heard so yes. You wanna speak to
that? Oh, no. No. I I no. I just completely
(27:28):
agree that, being memorable is just just
so absolutely critical. That's why that, you know, that that's the that's the
ultimate. Right. Because they might know,
like, and trust someone else. And to to
be known and liked, I just go back to the Dale Carnegie
book. If you think you can't be liked, all you have to do
(27:51):
is read that book. That's all. And what it is is
instead of being interesting, be interested.
So you do that. You compliment someone's children.
You you, you know, you listen. What else are you interested
in? Tell me I wanna understand more about your
business. And then what sales people are so bad about
(28:14):
shutting their mouths, being quiet, and just listening.
So anyway, I I as far as the orange, the
orange is an anchor. The orange means that
people will remember us. In fact, we've gotten
clients because someone has go gone to, I think
it was an Astros game that their uniforms are orange. I can't remember,
(28:36):
but we got a client who said, you know, I saw that orange and I
thought of you. So I have three
things about me that if you look them up
online, I'm the only person that shows up.
So one is the word uncopyable. We've got that. That's our
brand. We own it. I think there's some rock group or something
(28:58):
that's very small time that has uncopyable.com, so we couldn't
get it. But that word uncopyable, if you type that into Amazon,
we're the only thing that comes up. I wear orange. I also
have the nickname muffler mama. So
I challenge you listening. What are three
things that people can say about you that they can't say
(29:21):
about anyone else? And so that is really the
memorable part. And there are other things that you can do to be
memorable, but I would start there because you want
people to remember you and you wanna separate yourself from
all the other choices that they have. That's
perfect. Well, Kaye, you did give us just some ideas on on how
(29:43):
to get rolling here, and it is kinda coming up with those descriptive
words and also thinking about your values that you talked about as
well. And that's what I was doing over the weekend, which
fostered me to work on my personal branding statement again. And,
I I must confess in my opinion and Chat GPTs
and Claude's. I think we upped the game a little bit on,
(30:05):
on on my personal branding, but thanks to your you and Steve's provocations
from the book. As part of next steps, you know, I I'd
love to recommend to the audience, definitely grab a copy of your book
and and use it, you know, cuddle up with it on a weekend like I
did. What else would you say, Kaye, that people could think
about? Well, one thing as far as
(30:27):
determining your your personal brand, I like the idea of
asking other people how do you see me. Yes.
So that is, you know, really when it comes
to right down to it. At the end of the day, which is such
an overused phrase, I hate to use it, but at the end of
the day, you know, you need to be the package that
(30:49):
they will choose. And I have so many examples and you
mentioned this too that people won't always buy the
cheapest product. They'll pay a premium. They
won't even maybe buy the very best product. In the book in
my first book, Uncopyable Sales Secrets, I quote a
distributor sales person, he's a man, but he
(31:12):
says to his customers, what is a lower price
gonna help do for you? What's a lower price gonna do for you? How will
that help you if you run out of product? Or if you have to
carry so much inventory that your money is tied up
in that. So I think it's really
analyzing your customers and again the moves where they're coming
(31:34):
from. One of our clients was, selling to a
market where several of the people he was working
with, they wanted to retire. They wanted to sell the business.
So how do you sell them on the value of buying new machinery?
Well, what's the business gonna be worth when you sell it?
It's gonna be worth more if you have updated equipment
(31:56):
and, you know, you have something that's sufficient and will be, you
know, irresistible to someone who wants to buy it.
So so as far as next steps, I know there's a fairly nebulous
and and a lot of things that you, need to think about. But
it really that part of it comes down to getting to know
the customer and not asking what do you need.
(32:19):
You know, you can ask them, what does the win look like to you?
And, you know, you can talk about, you know, cost
versus value. Okay. Mine will
you know, the price is higher, but what will
a, you know, an inferior product do for
you value wise over the long term?
(32:41):
Absolutely. Yeah. Too true. Too true. And and the great the greatest
name of my firm, Kaye, is ValuePros. The greatest ValuePros will connect
those value dots and and really help see more than
just the the, you know, kind of the base price of something. What's
the value associated with that? One of our affiliates, he's,
(33:01):
former head of global value for SKF selling ball
bearings into manufacturing. And those ball bearings, you know, at
a at a minimum or 1.5 times the price
of the next best alternative ball bearing for those manufacturing use
cases. But, believe me, they've gotten really good
at showcasing, hey. It's not about price. You know, it's
(33:23):
about cost, and what's it really costing you, the lifetime of a
machine, and and what's a good ball bearing doing for you, and all the services
around that, etcetera. So, yeah, you really got you know, again, that's
part of that, you know, driving that wonderful uncopyable
buying experience. Okay. Let's, let's wrap up
here. I just wanna encourage everybody. Grab a copy of the book. It's
(33:46):
just really well written. These guys write well. I
promise you that. So, you can grab it on
Amazon. You know, it's there, and
connect with Kaye on LinkedIn as well. Kaye
does write on LinkedIn and posts, and and you'll wanna be part
of a just, her her her stream and making
(34:07):
sure you're you're keeping up with her because she's one of the thought leaders in
in the industry. So, Kaye, thanks so much for being on the show.
Anything else you wanna say before we part? Yeah. I have
one closing thought, and you're you're asking what can the listeners do
right now? One exercise that I really like is
to say, go to one of your customers, a customer that
(34:29):
that you work well with, that really values, has an acknowledged need
for what you're selling, relates to you and understands
what your your value is, and say, why do you buy from
me? I'd like to know because I'm not the cheapest. I'm
not the you know, maybe byproduct is good enough.
Why do you buy from me in particular? And that's
(34:52):
gonna give you such great ammo to
present your solution to other prospects in a way
that they're gonna say, yeah. Those are valid points.
I wanna look at it like that too. Yeah. I strongly
encourage that outside in is what I call it, outside in insight. But,
yeah, invaluable. And and, Kaye, I did do that as well, went through
(35:14):
what people had said about me to to on on the personal brand per
your provocation in the book over the weekend. So anyways,
Kaye, thanks so much for being part of the show for, what a blessing. Thanks
so much. I really appreciate it, Bruce. Thank
you. That was an incredible conversation with Kaye Miller on creating
an uncopyable buying experience. One of my biggest
(35:36):
takeaways, people don't wanna be sold to, but
they do want help buying. And as Kay pointed out,
the best sellers aren't just offering products. They're creating
experiences that build trust and make buying easy.
If you wanna take your personal brand and buying experience to the next level,
grab Kaye's book, Uncopyable You. And for a hands
(35:59):
on approach, check out her free 5 day email series
on personal branding at be
uncopyable.comforward/5hyphen
emails. You can also connect with Kaye on LinkedIn at
linkedin.comforward/ inforward/millerk,
(36:21):
and check out her uncopyable women in business podcast
at uncopyablesales.comforward/podcast.
Have questions? Reach out to Kay directly at
k@beuncopyable.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to the ValuePro
Show. And if you're feeling kind, please leave us a review so
(36:45):
others can find and enjoy it too. Thanks for
tuning in.
Welcome to the ValuePro Show, where value pros get value
ready.
My name is Bruce Shearer, the host of the ValuePro Show. In this episode,
we're talking with Kay Miller, a sales expert, speaker,
and coauthor of a book I just love called Uncopyable
You. Kay is known for helping professionals build personal
(00:24):
brands that stand out and more importantly, create memorable and
high value buying experiences that keep customers coming back.
Kaye will share how you can build trust, engage buyers in a
way that feels natural, not salesy, and create an uncopyable
buying experience that turns prospects into lifelong customers.
Let's get into it. Okay. Thanks so much for joining
(00:47):
the ValuePro Show. I'm so happy to have you here.
And I must admit, I I bought your book a few months ago, read it,
loved it. And then over this last weekend, I was just
reading it pretty much the whole weekend just getting ready for this
interview. I didn't wanna blow it because I've got the uncopyable
k here with me and just wanted to make sure this thing
(01:08):
rocks. So, anyways, because of that, I
literally started redoing my whole personal brand statement.
What what a wonderful thing. So for everybody tuning
in, Kay Miller and her husband, Steve Miller, wrote this
book called uncopyable you. I
absolutely love it. Just the title of it. Uncopyable.
(01:30):
What a big idea. How do you stand apart from
the pack, but in a way that's uncopyable? You
know, again, lovely, lovely theme, and and the book's
just a dream. Really well written. Not their first rodeo. Speaking of
rodeos, you can see me on Vashon Island this morning wearing a
cowboy hat. I was out moose hunting a little bit, and that's one
(01:53):
of the metaphors that they use in their book, which I absolutely
love, hunting that moose and building your personal brand and
and probably even more importantly, your personal brand strategy, how you're
gonna take action around that and really landing
with with your moose. You know, I'd, you know, I e your ideal
customer profile. So I I really love that.
(02:15):
K. Before we jump in and get your point of view, I wanted to highlight
for the audience 3 key statistics that just
kind of blow me away. If anybody's seen the movie Apollo
13, Houston, we do have a problem. And,
the first stat is 75%. 75%
of b to b buyers, according to Gartner, a big survey they
(02:37):
did, prefer to have a sales free experience.
Wow. That sales free. That that's no good.
That means not a good buying experience. 88%
of those, buyers this is in a Salesforce dotcomstateofsalessurvey,
an annual survey with thousands of buyers. 88%
(02:58):
of b to b buyers will only buy from
someone they deem to be a trusted adviser, meaning
they gain trust and they bring advice as part of
that buying experience. Really, really important. And
and very few kinda are at that bar. Again, that nasty 75
percent is kinda hard to run from that. And then the 3rd
(03:20):
stat is and this one was, done, with a
study by SBI, another super credible source.
But what they determined, through their survey was
59% of the buying influence on the buying decision comes from the
buying experience, not from the offering itself.
So buying experience is key. That's the leading
(03:43):
indicator, you know, to, you know, your win rate, your
deal cycles, everything going well, getting bonus checks, commissions,
etcetera. The the whole party really begins
with creating this amazing buying experience. And right now,
it's broken. So, my firm, we've invested a lot of
time, energy, and money in figuring out, hey. What do we do to right size
(04:06):
this buying experience? We created the first of its kind, a b to
b buying experience index. And in that, we're
looking across the buying journey. What are the causal
factors that you need to influence to drive an
enhanced buying experience? You know, 1, to use case
phrase, uncopyable buying experience. How do you do that? How
(04:28):
do you create a high value buying experience? And, Kaye, thanks for
your patience, but, I wanna turn the floor to you.
You know, what do we do here? 1st, why do you wanna create
an uncopyable buying experience, and then how do we do it? So so over
to you, Kaye. Sorry to be this one way train. Let's shine
(04:48):
the spotlight on you. That's right. I love the
spotlight, actually. And, Bruce, first of all, I wanna say thank you
for having me on the podcast. I have to say it's been really fun
to get to know you. It turns out that we have some
things in common. We live in the Seattle area, and
both of us got snow this morning, which is pretty unusual,
(05:11):
so that's kinda cool. I know a lot of people
that you know because my husband, Steve, has been involved in
NSA, National Speakers Association. Shep Hyken, a friend of
ours, you're also, inviting to speak. So I'm gonna say thank you
for inviting me. I'm gonna give your book a little plug too,
which I have. If you can see this, inspire
(05:34):
your buyers. And one thing I like about this
book before I jump into the uncopyable philosophy is
that people don't like to be sold. In fact,
in my sales book, I have a sales book, I tell a story of
my niece. And when she was about 3, my mom
would take care of her every every Wednesday, I think it
(05:56):
was. Every Wednesday, she was, you know, just
helping my sister-in-law out. And one time she
told Shauna, my niece Shauna, you need to pick up
your toys because we're gonna go to the store. And Shauna
crossed her arms and said, I don't like to be told.
(06:16):
And I love that because we don't like to be sold. So the
fact that you frame your book around the buyer,
getting them to buy, not feeling like they've been sold,
that is so critical. I did take a few notes
while you were speaking. You were dominating the conversation.
(06:36):
Of course. Just kidding. Just kidding. But, you have in
your book a go to market narrative. And one thing
that I like you that you said is deceptively
simple. And that's the thing about sales. I
think we make it way too complicated. This is a
human to human interaction, and, really, it's
(06:58):
pretty shocking about the statistic about how many
buyers don't even wanna deal with a salesperson. That
One one thing you didn't include there, Kaye, on that one. Deceptively
simple, but in that book, I do highlight after that
one more phrase, but mastered by few.
I rarely see that happen in the wilds.
(07:21):
But but, anyways, I'll I'll leave this on that cliffhanger back over to
you. No. That's okay. Because, you know, I just pulled that
little excerpt. And yes, you have an entire framework in the book and
that's, you know, maybe it doesn't seem quite so simple, but
at its core, it, you know, it's a human to human
interaction. So when buyers say, I don't wanna
(07:43):
deal with a salesperson, well, where are they getting their information?
As Bruce, as you know, I'm suffering from some
vertigo, which is making it difficult to do everything from
skiing to walking around my house. So what did
I do? I go online. I asked AI,
(08:03):
and I was pretty convinced that I had a brain tumor.
Because we can all get information online, but
is it accurate? Does it apply to us? You know, is
it just making us scared? So what
you can get online is so incomplete that a
buyer is really doing themselves a disservice by
(08:27):
not dealing with a salesperson. I'll tell you. True.
Yep. Hey. Just a quick one on that. I was doing,
some work building a story that sizzles, like, what's in
that book for eBay enterprise. And they, k, they
had a whole huge automotive division selling cars online.
And I asked them because I wanna you know, normally, when I start a project,
(08:50):
I wanna talk with who's doing things right. I mean, how how can we learn
from that and repeat that and have more consistent results?
So they said, Bruce, you know, our number one seller of of
automobiles on eBay is out in Lex or out in
Atlanta. They're called Lexus of Atlanta. I go, oh, man. I wanna
talk to those guys. You know? And they're like, oh, yeah. We'll set it up.
(09:12):
So I talked to the principals of that. 3 of those guys, you know, I
just called in. They were in their office. I'm not going, guys, I need to
understand, you know, what's the magic here? What are you guys doing?
And, one thing I did ask them
was, you know, of the people that show up
after purchasing their car, how many people drive away
(09:33):
with the same car that they purchased online?
And, Kaye, these guys buy the car on
eBay. They book a flight. They fly all the way to
Atlanta. Lexus of Atlanta happens to be right on the train line from
the airport. There's a train. So they take the train to there
to pick up the keys to their car so they can drive it home.
(09:56):
That's it. They've already bought the car. Contract signed, blah blah blah. It's
already done. How many people do you think drive away from
with the car that they purchased? That
exact model? I'm guessing not
all of them for sure. That'll be my first guess. Not all of them. I
don't know what the percentage is, but I also have a related story.
(10:19):
And I would say in the example, that comes to mind,
maybe 50% k. Great gas.
Great gas. Yeah. The statistic they gave me was 80%. So
roughly 4 out of 5 people drive away with what they paid for.
Contracts already signed. They just need the key. It's done,
and it's ready for them to go. But, one out of 5,
(10:42):
when the sellers talk to them, they flip them. And
and why is that? You know? You know, they'll always go, hey. Wow. That's a
sweet looking sports car that you bought. Congratulations.
Tell me a little bit more about your your world. And they're like, oh, well,
I got the kids and everything. I wanted this for fun. Oh, but
what about those soccer matches you need to take kids with and and their friends?
(11:04):
Hey. Guess what? You know, there's actually a minivan that we have here, but it's
got the sports package. So you could still look cool and take your kids
to the soccer game. What do you think? Damn. I think my wife would
be happy with that. Boom. They're driving away with a sports package with a
minivan versus the sports car that came to to to drive away.
But, you know, that that that's the magic I have in a beautiful seller. They
(11:26):
can see things that you don't see, highlight the obvious or the unobvious,
and and and help get that right fit. You know, there's a role in
place for sellers. I'll I'll promise you that. But, sadly,
you know, 75% of buyers don't wanna be dealing with them.
Right. And it's because they've had bad experiences, and we've all
(11:46):
had bad experiences. Interesting that you bring up
automobiles, cars because the phrase used car sales
man. They usually, they say used car salesman, but now it's
really used car salesperson. Person. Yeah. And
and so since we're talking vehicles, I tell a story in the
book about a woman named Katie O'Neil. Now
(12:09):
she brands herself as Katie r v O'Neil.
She has claimed that. You remember that? Yep. I do remember that
story. Right. So if you search for Katie r
v O'Neil, she will come up. There are so many things that
she does right that I can't get into all of it, but I'm going
to address what you said, and that is that people
(12:32):
don't know what they want. They think they know what they
want, but they're not the expert. And
she was I was just listening to my podcast interview with
her. I don't unfortunately remember the episode, but look her up on
the podcast. That is a master course in sales.
So she, first of all, talks about her moose.
(12:55):
Now her, moose as we say in
the framework, and I have if you're looking, I have a big picture of a
moose. That's what we call your And I want moose hunting, just
FYI. Yep. In the snow.
In the snow. So the moose,
or avatar ideal target
(13:18):
really determines who you're wanting to
impress so that they will want to buy. Well, one thing that
was very interesting is that she said her
first job is to sell the husband. So this is kinda
sexist, but, you know, a lot of purchases, home
purchases, a lot of decisions to buy are made by the women
(13:39):
in a couple's situation. I don't know about you, Bruce.
Does your wife make the decisions a lot of time? Oh,
sadly. Yeah. Or, I mean, sadly, it's probably me.
But, yeah, I I don't know. We we do a good job of sharing decisions.
Yeah. Yes. So so her job, a lot of times, she
does videos, and she's got hundreds of videos
(14:02):
online. She walks through these RVs. Now I should
clarify that these are RVs that go from half a
$1,000,000 to maybe $1,520,000.
So these aren't your, you know, the RV that you see on
the road that you can rent that say, we're having fun. Call this number so
(14:23):
you can rent this RV. Yeah. No. These are luxury
automobiles. So a lot of times, she said, the men will
watch these videos and really study them.
But then the true moose, the one that she has to to,
convince, persuade is often the woman.
(14:43):
So they come into the dealership, for example, and like you said,
they've watched videos online. They think that they want this
type of RV. But Katie does a great job as
you alluded to, you know, about asking
not just what you like and not telling about the fuel
capacity or, you know, how the sewage works, none of
(15:06):
that. She talks about the RV from the inside
out, and all her questions are just what you said.
What's your lifestyle? Who's gonna be in this RV? Do you like
to play board games, or do you like to
go, hunt venison? And you want a place to
store your half of venison or or whatever.
(15:29):
Do you want to know where your curling iron is? You know, what
kind of music do you like? Just everything. What
how are you using this RV? So she asks
questions, a lot of questions that they haven't thought of. And
oftentimes, to your point, they say they want
this RV. And when she really talks to them, she said, I never
(15:51):
take them out to the lot till I have this very in-depth
conversation. And then they go out to the
lot, and she shows them the models that they are
interested in. And one thing she does
is she watches their reaction. You
know? What do you what do you think when you see these dark cabinets or
(16:13):
or, you know, whatever the layout. So Yeah. She is
she calls it exposure sales. So she watches and
studies their reactions Mhmm. Because, again, the buyer
doesn't have the information. They are not the expert. They
need a guide. I love it. I
absolutely love it. You know, back to our buying experience index.
(16:36):
Oh my gosh. You know, she's really hitting on a number of these
things, but gaining trust by being a great listener and and
discussing what they what they desire, etcetera. I love that exposure,
Telling, that you talked about. That really gets into for really
clarifying requirements. And, again, she just sounds like a
fabulous listener, both eyes and ears, if you would, in terms of what
(16:58):
what's lighting somebody up and what's gonna bring them joy in their life.
Yeah. Great, great story. Perfect. It it
is great. And and, again, I encourage you listening to get that book because
Yeah. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
She, before she owns RVs, and that's one
thing that she recommends. She recommends that if you're gonna sell RVs,
(17:20):
you should have an RV. So she's very, very knowledgeable.
She knows her stuff. And when she dealt with
someone, she found videos online. She called him. He
never called back. And trust
to me is being brilliant at the basics.
And I'm sure you've experienced this, Bruce. You call someone back and they
(17:42):
say, hey. Thanks for calling me back.
And you're like, are you kidding? Is that how low the bar is?
Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Establishing trust? I'm trying
to buy from a seller right now, and, yeah, it's
weeks apart when we talk. It's most bizarre thing in
in my life. I'm talking to his
(18:05):
his CEO more than him at at this point in
time. Yeah. But, yeah, the bar's low. And, yeah, and and there's some
serious reasons, you know, like we talked about to
be uncopyable, you know, in relation to improving
that buying experience. So I love this this vein that we got
ourselves into. Kaye, this this is absolutely perfect.
(18:27):
So I think we've probably hit on, you know, some of the why. You know,
it's your opportunity to stand apart and offering an an awesome buying
experience. If you do that, you're gonna sell more and sell more often, you know,
obviously, and probably have more joy and better relationships with the buyers
who buy from you. If we could, Kaye, let's turn the corner a little
bit and just get into some of the how, how to think about this. If
(18:49):
you wanna, you know, create this uncopyable buying experience, you
know, what what advice would you give to our audience?
Well, one of the things that we like to say, my husband Steve and
I, and Steve cowrote this book with me, is that
oftentimes, almost all the time, a product
or service can be copied. Unless it's patented
(19:11):
or unless it's, you know, so brilliant that no one
can replicate it. Most of what we're selling is copyable.
So first of all, I really recommend that you clarify
what your personal branding promise
is. Now Yeah. Katie, I'm gonna bring her back into the
picture because she tells people her personal branding
(19:35):
statement. I do that as well. Her branding statement
is I want everyone who walks through through these
doors. I want everyone who walks through these doors
to be better for the experience. So when
you tell someone, I promise you that
this is what I want to do for you. I will not
(19:57):
sell you the wrong product. I don't want you to be unhappy.
So one of the branding, strategies
is to define and and the book takes you through that whole process
of thinking about what's important to you, what are your values,
what who are your moose, who are the buyers, And
how can you focus on them? Again, with a $1,000,000
(20:21):
RV, you know, we do we often say we don't wanna start with the price.
We don't wanna lead with price, but you also have to use that price
to disqualify, qualify. You know, are you prepared
for a $5,000 a month payment? Things like that.
So being honest and transparent,
is huge in building building trust. Yeah. For her, I'd say
(20:44):
the word integrity as well, you know, based on what you said, just
that high integrity part of her personal brand.
So yes. So you listening define your personal
brand. How do you communicate that to the customer?
You talk a lot about story. I believe in
story because people learn through stories,
(21:07):
you know, everything from the bible to, you know, any
presentation that you go to, 3 days later,
what do you remember? I'll guarantee you remember the stories
better than the points. So so tell
stories and I encourage you listening, look at your
history. What stories do you have? I have a
(21:30):
very famous story that goes back many years
ago. I was one of the only women working for Walker exhaust.
I was selling a very glamorous product line,
automotive mufflers and catalytic converters.
So I'm obviously being sarcastic. But back
in that, period of time, here I am selling
(21:53):
a product I don't know anything about. So I was selling
to distributors, I asked the distributor who's a
really great customer of yours, maybe a muffler
shop, that I can contact and go in and
ask to spend the day learning from their perspective
what it's like to deal with our product. That has been
(22:16):
gold through my career. I still use that story.
I have the nickname muffler mama, which hopefully was
an affectionate nickname. That set
me apart. No other sales rep, male or
female, and there were only just a few women, no one had
ever done that. So what does that story represent?
(22:39):
Obviously, I'm committed to learning about the product from
the customer's perspective, and then I tell them,
okay. With what I've learned, I wanna share my knowledge
with you and and, you know, mesh the 2 together so that we can come
up with something that will help you. So those are are
2 of the specific branding promises. Now you might not
(23:02):
have a story. Well, go make one. Yeah. I've worked with sales
people and I say have you ever been to the factory? Have you gone out
in the factory floor? Well, no. I haven't really done that.
Hey. Create a story. Use a
success story with a customer like like we talked about.
If you can come up with dollars and cents. Okay. This machine
(23:25):
saved them on labor, on materials, on
time. Here's a little chart explaining
what that is. So And I'd also mention, Kaye, another
another thing to add is, I had the CRO from
Tableau, former CRO, excuse me, on on the show just,
oh, a little over a month ago. And, there's an episode
(23:47):
on that. And then she became president of Gong dot io,
valued about $7,000,000,000 now. But we
were talking about the importance of that personal story as well. And I know
you've you know, your book around uncapable you and personal branding, you
know, I'd encourage, you know, I'm sure Katie's got a really incredible
personal story. I think yeah. Yeah. In your book, you do highlight that, how
(24:10):
she was shopping for automobiles when one day, etcetera.
But, we were talking about just encouraging the development of your
personal story, which should have the why that relates
back to the buying experience that you're trying to create, you know, where where your
buyer would see the relevance in that personal story.
(24:31):
Right. Yeah. That's a good point that the story isn't just,
you know, oh, I did this and that and this is what happened. The story
has to tie into what you want to do for the
customer. So it's fine. Figuring out your values, what's important to
you. It's having a story whether it's yours or
not, and then it's, you know, I we
(24:53):
talked a little bit beforehand, the know, like, and trust factor.
We've talked about trust because if you don't trust someone,
then you're not gonna buy from them, and that to me is pretty
simple. It's just following up on what you say
you will do. Being transparent. Bad news
first is something that I talk with my clients about. There's never
(25:16):
an advantage for staying silent because you're afraid. You don't
wanna tell them the truth. So I look at personal branding really
as a recipe and there are so many components. Those are 3.
And I'm gonna say one more thing then I wanna hand it back to you.
But we all have a personal brand.
And if you think of the brand, I've heard several people
(25:37):
say this, so I'm not gonna attribute it to anyone. It's
kind of a comment saying, your personal brand is what people
say about you when you're not in the room.
So you can even ask people that know you. How
would you describe my personal brand? That's a
great way to take an inventory or whatever, get an
(26:00):
objective opinion on what you stand for, how people
see you. K. I'm just showing you on the screen right now.
Could you highlight even just from a a visual personal
branding perspective what you've done? That that's really
impressed me. I interview so many different people as
part of this show, but you show up, you
(26:22):
know, your your personal brand visually is
is just stunning. Can you talk about that and how people could think
about, you know, just upping their game visually as part of their
personal brand? I totally
can. That's a great question. And, yes, if you're watching
this, you notice one thing. Everything is
(26:44):
orange. Our products are orange. Our books are
orange. I'm wearing orange even though one of my
good friends told me that I don't look that great in orange.
And I said, too late. I'm all in on orange. It doesn't matter.
But our new book, Uncopyable You, is how
(27:05):
to create a personal brand that gets people to know you, to
like you, to trust you. And this last word is
so important. This last word,
be memorable. You want to be Remember. Yeah. You.
Yes. I've heard so yes. You wanna speak to
that? Oh, no. No. I I no. I just completely
(27:28):
agree that, being memorable is just just
so absolutely critical. That's why that, you know, that that's the that's the
ultimate. Right. Because they might know,
like, and trust someone else. And to to
be known and liked, I just go back to the Dale Carnegie
book. If you think you can't be liked, all you have to do
(27:51):
is read that book. That's all. And what it is is
instead of being interesting, be interested.
So you do that. You compliment someone's children.
You you, you know, you listen. What else are you interested
in? Tell me I wanna understand more about your
business. And then what sales people are so bad about
(28:14):
shutting their mouths, being quiet, and just listening.
So anyway, I I as far as the orange, the
orange is an anchor. The orange means that
people will remember us. In fact, we've gotten
clients because someone has go gone to, I think
it was an Astros game that their uniforms are orange. I can't remember,
(28:36):
but we got a client who said, you know, I saw that orange and I
thought of you. So I have three
things about me that if you look them up
online, I'm the only person that shows up.
So one is the word uncopyable. We've got that. That's our
brand. We own it. I think there's some rock group or something
(28:58):
that's very small time that has uncopyable.com, so we couldn't
get it. But that word uncopyable, if you type that into Amazon,
we're the only thing that comes up. I wear orange. I also
have the nickname muffler mama. So
I challenge you listening. What are three
things that people can say about you that they can't say
(29:21):
about anyone else? And so that is really the
memorable part. And there are other things that you can do to be
memorable, but I would start there because you want
people to remember you and you wanna separate yourself from
all the other choices that they have. That's
perfect. Well, Kaye, you did give us just some ideas on on how
(29:43):
to get rolling here, and it is kinda coming up with those descriptive
words and also thinking about your values that you talked about as
well. And that's what I was doing over the weekend, which
fostered me to work on my personal branding statement again. And,
I I must confess in my opinion and Chat GPTs
and Claude's. I think we upped the game a little bit on,
(30:05):
on on my personal branding, but thanks to your you and Steve's provocations
from the book. As part of next steps, you know, I I'd
love to recommend to the audience, definitely grab a copy of your book
and and use it, you know, cuddle up with it on a weekend like I
did. What else would you say, Kaye, that people could think
about? Well, one thing as far as
(30:27):
determining your your personal brand, I like the idea of
asking other people how do you see me. Yes.
So that is, you know, really when it comes
to right down to it. At the end of the day, which is such
an overused phrase, I hate to use it, but at the end of
the day, you know, you need to be the package that
(30:49):
they will choose. And I have so many examples and you
mentioned this too that people won't always buy the
cheapest product. They'll pay a premium. They
won't even maybe buy the very best product. In the book in
my first book, Uncopyable Sales Secrets, I quote a
distributor sales person, he's a man, but he
(31:12):
says to his customers, what is a lower price
gonna help do for you? What's a lower price gonna do for you? How will
that help you if you run out of product? Or if you have to
carry so much inventory that your money is tied up
in that. So I think it's really
analyzing your customers and again the moves where they're coming
(31:34):
from. One of our clients was, selling to a
market where several of the people he was working
with, they wanted to retire. They wanted to sell the business.
So how do you sell them on the value of buying new machinery?
Well, what's the business gonna be worth when you sell it?
It's gonna be worth more if you have updated equipment
(31:56):
and, you know, you have something that's sufficient and will be, you
know, irresistible to someone who wants to buy it.
So so as far as next steps, I know there's a fairly nebulous
and and a lot of things that you, need to think about. But
it really that part of it comes down to getting to know
the customer and not asking what do you need.
(32:19):
You know, you can ask them, what does the win look like to you?
And, you know, you can talk about, you know, cost
versus value. Okay. Mine will
you know, the price is higher, but what will
a, you know, an inferior product do for
you value wise over the long term?
(32:41):
Absolutely. Yeah. Too true. Too true. And and the great the greatest
name of my firm, Kaye, is ValuePros. The greatest ValuePros will connect
those value dots and and really help see more than
just the the, you know, kind of the base price of something. What's
the value associated with that? One of our affiliates, he's,
(33:01):
former head of global value for SKF selling ball
bearings into manufacturing. And those ball bearings, you know, at
a at a minimum or 1.5 times the price
of the next best alternative ball bearing for those manufacturing use
cases. But, believe me, they've gotten really good
at showcasing, hey. It's not about price. You know, it's
(33:23):
about cost, and what's it really costing you, the lifetime of a
machine, and and what's a good ball bearing doing for you, and all the services
around that, etcetera. So, yeah, you really got you know, again, that's
part of that, you know, driving that wonderful uncopyable
buying experience. Okay. Let's, let's wrap up
here. I just wanna encourage everybody. Grab a copy of the book. It's
(33:46):
just really well written. These guys write well. I
promise you that. So, you can grab it on
Amazon. You know, it's there, and
connect with Kaye on LinkedIn as well. Kaye
does write on LinkedIn and posts, and and you'll wanna be part
of a just, her her her stream and making
(34:07):
sure you're you're keeping up with her because she's one of the thought leaders in
in the industry. So, Kaye, thanks so much for being on the show.
Anything else you wanna say before we part? Yeah. I have
one closing thought, and you're you're asking what can the listeners do
right now? One exercise that I really like is
to say, go to one of your customers, a customer that
(34:29):
that you work well with, that really values, has an acknowledged need
for what you're selling, relates to you and understands
what your your value is, and say, why do you buy from
me? I'd like to know because I'm not the cheapest. I'm
not the you know, maybe byproduct is good enough.
Why do you buy from me in particular? And that's
(34:52):
gonna give you such great ammo to
present your solution to other prospects in a way
that they're gonna say, yeah. Those are valid points.
I wanna look at it like that too. Yeah. I strongly
encourage that outside in is what I call it, outside in insight. But,
yeah, invaluable. And and, Kaye, I did do that as well, went through
(35:14):
what people had said about me to to on on the personal brand per
your provocation in the book over the weekend. So anyways,
Kaye, thanks so much for being part of the show for, what a blessing. Thanks
so much. I really appreciate it, Bruce. Thank
you. That was an incredible conversation with Kaye Miller on creating
an uncopyable buying experience. One of my biggest
(35:36):
takeaways, people don't wanna be sold to, but
they do want help buying. And as Kay pointed out,
the best sellers aren't just offering products. They're creating
experiences that build trust and make buying easy.
If you wanna take your personal brand and buying experience to the next level,
grab Kaye's book, Uncopyable You. And for a hands
(35:59):
on approach, check out her free 5 day email series
on personal branding at be
uncopyable.comforward/5hyphen
emails. You can also connect with Kaye on LinkedIn at
linkedin.comforward/ inforward/millerk,
(36:21):
and check out her uncopyable women in business podcast
at uncopyablesales.comforward/podcast.
Have questions? Reach out to Kay directly at
k@beuncopyable.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to the ValuePro
Show. And if you're feeling kind, please leave us a review so
(36:45):
others can find and enjoy it too. Thanks for
tuning in.
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