June 14, 2025 • 37 mins
Episode 111 How to Grow Smarter: Laura Patterson on Strategic, Customer-Centric Growth Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
We dive deep into customer-centricity with Laura Patterson, a true powerhouse in growth strategy and the brains behind VisionEdge Marketing. Laura’s got over 30 years of experience and a no-nonsense approach to helping businesses accelerate growth and drive performance. In our chat, she emphasizes that businesses need to put their customers at the heart of everything they do, from strategies to daily operations.
We discuss how understanding customer value and creating strong relationships can transform clients into superfans, ultimately driving referrals and loyalty. So, if you’re looking to level up your business game and build a community of advocates, you won't want to miss this insightful conversation!
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://bit.ly/4n2oNlD
Kindly Consider Supporting Our Show: Support Business Superfans
In this episode of the Business Superfans® Podcast, host Freddy D sits down with Laura Patterson, founder of VisionEdge Marketing and a pioneer in customer-centric growth strategy. Laura shares how she helped transform a struggling startup division at Motorola into a billion-dollar business, and what it truly takes to build alignment, measure what matters, and eliminate "random acts" in your sales and marketing efforts.
From nostalgic stories about fishing with her grandfather to real-world B2B growth wins, Laura delivers an inspiring, no-fluff masterclass in how to scale with purpose and precision.
What you'll learn:
- How to create alignment and accountability across your team
- The "random acts" test every leader should apply to their strategy
- Why customer-centricity is more than a buzzword—and how to live it
- The power of being specific in everything from metrics to messaging
Whether you're leading a small team or a growing enterprise, this episode will equip you with practical frameworks to drive smarter, more sustainable growth.
This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Takeaways:
- Laura Patterson emphasizes the significance of being customer-centric in business operations and strategies, which is essential for long-term success.
- The podcast discusses how understanding customer needs and success metrics can greatly improve marketing and sales effectiveness, ultimately leading to growth.
- It's highlighted that eliminating random acts of marketing and selling can streamline operations, making efforts more coherent and focused on customer value.
- The conversation reveals that building strong, lasting relationships with clients transforms them into advocates or superfans, fostering long-term loyalty and referrals.
- Patterson shares practical examples of how data-driven insights can lead to substantial increases in customer engagement and conversion rates across various industries.
- The importance of aligning team objectives and efforts towards customer-centric outcomes is stressed as a key factor in achieving business success.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:56):
Hey Superfan superstar FreddieD. Here in this episode 111 we're
joined by Laura Patterson, apowerhouse and customer centric growth
strategy and a driving forcebehind Vision Edge marketing. With
over 30 years of experience inspanning sales, marketing, analytics
and operations, Laura brings aproven, no nonsense approach to accelerating
(01:19):
growth and drivingperformance. She is a widely recognized
thought leader, speaker andauthor. With four books and hundreds
of white papers to her name,Laura has helped over 300 companies
worldwide harness analytics,accountability and alignment to deliver
measurable business results.She has also been honored by the
(01:42):
top 30 marketing influencer,Ngadi, top 200 thought leaders, Pigtail's
top 100 influencers, and oneof the 20 women to watch in Business
by the Sales Lead ManagementAssociation. Get ready for an inspiring
and insight packedconversation that blends strategic
wisdom with practical,immediately applicable advice. Welcome
(02:06):
Laura to the BusinessSuperfans podcast.
We're super excited to haveyou here from Vision Edge Marketing.
Thank you for having me,Freddie. I'm very excited to be here
with you and your community.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe backstory. We were talking before
you started recording. Itturns out that we kind of started
in a SaaS space roughly aboutthe same time. And ironically, my
(02:28):
office was in Schaumburg forthe company that I work for and you
work for Motorola, which wasvirtually almost across the street
from us. We're at Plum Groveand Algonquin Road is where the office
was.
Yeah, you know, it's such asmall world. It's amazing. We're
only a few degrees ofseparation, getting smaller and smaller
all the time. And every time Imeet with someone I'm like, oh wow.
(02:50):
We were right there next toeach other. We just didn't know because
there were so many otherpeople right next to us too. But
yes, I started my careeractually in financial services and
way back when with my jobbeing around, find, keep and grow
the value of customers. Sowhen I talk about customer centricity,
it's not a new fad for me.I've been doing it a very, very long
(03:12):
time and I eventually made myway into a technology company that
had an application softwareproduct that ran on a Wang 2200.
I didn't even realize that Iwas at the forefront of all the things
that were exciting andhappening. You don't know it until
you look back and you say, oh,I was part of that and it was so
(03:32):
cool. But that enabled me togo from that role, which I was responsible
for sales, marketing, customersupport, implementation, all of that,
to an opportunity at A littlestartup here in Austin, Texas that
was part of Motorola and itwas a microcontroller operation.
It was very small business,kind of hemorrhaging. I didn't know
(03:55):
that when I joined them, butwe grew that business into a billion
dollar entity in about sevenyears. And then I stayed another
seven years at Motor. Oh yes,what a ride, right? I know your listeners
can probably imagine what thatmust have been like. It was buckle
up, put your trade tables up,get ready for the ride. But it was
(04:15):
so amazing. And then I ran thebrand strategy customer marketing
initiative at Motorola foranother seven years. When I left
there, I left to go architecta customer loyalty product. So we're
going to talk about superfans,we're talking about advocates and
loyalty. I architected aproduct for the banking industry
(04:35):
and that led to anotherstartup that had an enterprise software
application for the financialservices. And in 1999, if you could
spell marketing, you could geta job. I used that as a launchpad
for founding VisionEdgeMarketing. So we've been around a
little over 25 years and we'reall about helping our customers find,
(04:56):
keep and grow the value ofcustomers to, to be successful and
accelerate their growth bybeing more customer centric, using
insights from data, putting inoperational excellence and knowing
what to measure. So basicallytrying to get our customers to eliminate
random acts, random acts ofselling and random acts of marketing.
And I imagine you can relateto the random acts. I'm sure you've
(05:19):
been been there and seen that,so that's just great.
Oh absolutely. I mean, what astory. We have similar backgrounds
in. You bring up Wang. I mean,I remember we were using Wang for
our word processing when theadmins would be putting together
proposals and stuff like thatthat we would be sending out. And
I used to have to makepresentations that we didn't have.
(05:39):
PowerPoint didn't exist backthen. So you used clear slides and
you had a Croix machine thatyou punched all the numbers or the
text on it and then you put iton an overhead projector. Man, those
were days.
Yes, they were.
People don't realize what wewent through back then to get presentations
and things put together.
Well, I think we were a littlebit more deliberate because redoing
(06:01):
that was really a lot of worktoday. Like you said, we have PowerPoint.
Don't like that slide, it'sjust a couple of clicks. But back
then it was a pretty majorthing to have to completely redo
a slide. And we ran themthrough the printer, right, to heat
them up and have them comeOut. So yeah, a whole nother story.
I can't imagine how much money3 I must have made on all those overhead
(06:21):
projectors.
Oh, geez.
Must have been amazing. Yes,it must have been a really good product
line for them.
So let's talk, Laura, aboutwhat do you mean by customer centric?
I really want to kind of deepdive into that a little bit because
it's a unique term. I think Iknow what it is, but I want our listeners
to hear directly from you.
(06:41):
Sure. So when we talk aboutit, we really talk about are you
putting your customers at thecenter of your business and how you
run your business? So do yourprocesses, your strategies, the questions
that you're asking about forinnovation, the measures that you're
tracking, are they customeroriented or something else? Because
we can be very insular in ourcompanies and we look at a lot of
(07:04):
measures and many of them areabout us. So here's a test I often
use to helps me give it someinsight into a company. When I ask
them, well, what will successlook for, like for you at the end,
whatever the time horizon? Andthey give me a revenue number. And
then when I ask them, ohgreat, how many existing customers
does that revenue numberreflect? How many new customers will
(07:25):
you have to acquire? Which ofthe customers do you have today will
you have to grow? And if it'sdeer in the headlights, they're probably
not a customer centric companybecause they haven't really thought
about the customer in, in. Interms of. That's really what we're
here to do. You know, PeterDrucker said it, well, the purpose
of businesses is to create acustomer. And Phil Kotler on the
(07:46):
heels of that said, there'sonly one function that we have to
work on and that is find, keepand grow the value of customers.
Everything we do should bewith that in mind. So that's the
philosophy of customer centricity.
Wow, that's a very excellentdescription of it because you're
absolutely correct. It'sreally all about the customers. We're
(08:07):
now selling a lot of differentsoftware packages. Whether it was
manufacturing, softwareengineering, or even construction
management software. It wasalways about where did a customer
see themselves in a coupleyears and what was their objectives.
And the differentiator that Iwould do was I would talk about business
strategy and then say, hey,our product, the guys down the street's
(08:31):
product and the other product,we all do the same stuff. Otherwise
we wouldn't be in business.Okay, theirs turns left, ours turns
right, whatever gets the jobdone. But let's have the conversation,
where do you want to be in 2years, 4 years, 6 years, 10 years?
What's the challenges you'vegot and everything else? And it got
the conversation out of thewidget and really focused on business
(08:54):
growth. And that wouldbasically blow away my competitors
because they were busy talkingabout all the functionalities and
the features and everythingelse and how cool this thing is.
And I'm talking. Yeah, it doesthe job. Let's talk about how we
can help you grow and how thiswill help you achieve your growth.
To change the strategy.
Exactly. I always say to ourcustomers, do you know the answer
(09:18):
to these three questions? Andif you don't, you need to get the
answer to these threequestions. What is success for your
customers in very measurable,concrete terms? And in what time
frame? So what is theirsuccess? Because that's why we're
here, to help them besuccessful. Second, what is it they
value? You know, what is theproblem they solve? They're trying
to solve? What is it theyvalue? And then what is it they value
(09:41):
from you? Because to yourpoint, oftentimes it's got nothing
to do with whatever is you'reselling, Because a lot of people
are selling very similarthings. So what is the value you're
bringing to the table? That'sreally an important differentiator.
In the old days in thesemiconductor world, we used to say,
you know, parts is parts.
Yeah, yeah, same thing.
Parts is parts. What is thevalue that we're bringing to the
(10:02):
table?
And when you help yourcustomer accomplish the goals of
how they deal with theircustomers, they really become super
fans of you because they'relooking good in front of their customers.
And so now they startreferring you to other people. My
(10:22):
fastest sales was I would geta phone call and so. And so says,
I need to buy this stuff. Howmuch is it? And how fast can you
get it in here? And that was asale. The time was just me putting
together the paperwork. And alot of times I'd be at their facility
and I'd use their fax machineto fax it the corporate the order.
And my time was filling outthe order form. There was no selling.
(10:43):
Yes, exactly. And I think youbring up a really good point about
if you are solving yourcustomer's problem or helping them
achieve their aspiration,right. Then they're more likely to
be a great referral for you.And. And referral rate is a great
measure. It's a greatindicator of whether or not you have
any super fans and also helpsyou reduce cost of Acquisition, cost
(11:04):
of sale, all kinds of things.So it's really important to be able
to have fans or advocates orambassadors, whatever you want to
call them.
Yeah. And you've got to getyourself out of your own way and
really focus on them because alot of people, I think in today's
world, we've become much moretransactional, especially with all
(11:25):
the online stuff. You can go,you can go try a product and put
in a 10 day free trial,whatever it is. Most of the time
you don't hear from anybodyand you sit there and say, you know,
I can't figure this out, itlooks too complicated. Bam, I'm gone.
I think we've got away frombuilding those relationships and
helping people through theonboarding process because I believe
(11:48):
that the sale is just thepaperwork. Everything else that happens
after the sale is really, inmy mind, the sale, that whole experience
from the onboarding throughthe delivery. So if you're helping
your customer be successfulwith their customers, you want to
help them be able to delivertheir stuff better, to ensure that
(12:09):
their customers are going tobe appreciative of the efforts that
they're doing. And thatchanges the whole game.
Jess, do we have time for aquick story to illustrate what you're
saying?
Yes, that's just where I wasgoing to go with yes.
Well, this is a part, then wecan talk about customers. Way back
when, long, long time ago, Iwas a salesperson for an office supply
company. You have tounderstand that today aren't salespeople
(12:31):
in office supply companies,but back then they were mom and pop
shops, maybe regional. Wedidn't have Office Depot, Office
Max, Staples. We didn't havethose big boxes that we have today.
And so people actually wouldgo and go to offices and meet with
the office manager or thebusiness manager in order to sell
whatever it was, papers, pens,staples, whatever it might be. And
(12:54):
I remember when I was firsttaking that job, the person I was
learning from was a greatsalesperson, said, just remember,
people buy from people theyknow and people they know that they
like, and then people theyknow they like and they trust and
people they know they like andtrust who can solve their problem.
If you can keep that in mindin the conversation, you'll be a
(13:16):
great salesperson. So I thinkthat we have to remember it's still
about people. And I know we'vegotten away from that because we
text and we email, we doeverything online, but still, they've
got to know you like you,trust you, and you have to solve
their problem.
Absolutely correct.Absolutely. Correct. Because it's
really about the relationship.Years ago, there's times where I
(13:38):
would deal with my customers,whether it was a distributor in Germany
or distributor in Australia orwherever, and I would sit and listen
to their challenges and wewould just brainstorm. And sometimes
it wasn't anything aboutselling. We'd be out at dinner. I
remember being in Australia onDY beach with my distributor and
(14:00):
going, what am I doing wrongwith getting the Japanese market?
And so we'd be brainstorming.He was helping me figure out my challenges.
And then really it was. I wasbeing too much of a sales guy and
not focusing on. For thatculture, on really building that
relationship. But had I nothad a friend to be able to brainstorm
with, and that's therelationship I had built with the
(14:23):
guy. I ended up cracking theJapanese market for the company because
I changed my whole approach.
It's pretty wonderful whenyou. The people you start to work
with actually evolve frompeople you're working with to people
that are friends. Right. Is avery nice evolution.
Yeah. I still have friendsfrom those days in different parts
(14:45):
of the world.
Some of my customers are. Theyweren't friends when we started,
but they're friends today. AndI think that it says a lot.
Yeah, it does. Says a lot. Andthat's the game changer, really,
because competition's got zerochance. So talk about a story of
how you worked with a customerand then you really transformed that
(15:05):
company to where today they'rea super fan of what you've done for.
Yeah, I'd love to share somestories. We've got a couple in different
industries, I think, becauseyou've got members of your community
are in different industries.We predominantly serve B2B companies,
so our customers typicallyhave complex products, a consultative
sell, multiple people in thebuying journey and buying process.
(15:28):
So it's not like buying achocolate candy bar. And when they
make a decision to buysomething from one of our customers,
they don't want to havebuyer's remorse. It's one thing drop
some money on a candy bar andbe unhappy and never buy it again.
But you really can't do thatwith our customers products. So an
example is a help desk companythat we work with. They have a lot
of customers and they reallywanted to figure out how to expand
(15:50):
what they do. They had managedto get into a couple of good markets,
but they wanted to get intomore markets. So we really just did
a lot of digging into thedata. Who were their customers? Where
were their opportunities? Whatwas the competition doing? So really
answering some questions aboutthe market and getting some real
insights around the market,their own customers. And as a result
(16:11):
of that, we built out a plan,we executed that plan and they were
able to increase engagement intheir own customers by about 30%
each, a conversion for byabout 25%, all in about a six month
time frame. So beingdeliberate, being intentional, being
data driven can make a realdifference. So that's one example.
Another example is we work andhalf work in the cybersecurity space
(16:34):
for a very long time since2001. Data security, IT security,
cybersecurity, I love thatspace. And I've, we've had a number
of customers over the years,many customers over the years in
that space. And one of thosecustomers was an early stage company.
So they already had customersof their own and they were again
trying to increase traction.As you know. That's one of those
(16:55):
ways, right Freddie, thatcybersecurity is one of those. At
the time we got startedbeginning to be a wave, just like
what you and I were in thatwave. One of the things that ends
up happening is you end upwith a lot of competitors. So they
all begin to sound a lotalike. So really coming up with the
right value proposition, theright differentiation, the right
messaging, the right processesfor how to go get new customers,
(17:20):
because that was reallyimportant to them. It is kind of
a land grab, or was a landgrab when we were working with this
particular customer. And sowe, we had a really inefficient marketing
and sales process. So a lot ofthe work we did was around process
mapping, operationalexcellence. We were able to reduce
the inefficiencies by about40% which allowed them to have their
salespeople get more focusedon engaging with and building relationships.
(17:45):
Because in the cybersecurityspace that's really important. And
we got about a 20% increase inqualified leads also in about six
months. So again throughprocess improvements. So that's a
couple of examples. I can giveyou more if you're interested. But
that might give people somethoughts about whether they might
want to put some energy.
And really how important isstudy metrics? Because a lot of businesses
(18:10):
don't take the time to reallystudy what they're doing and what's
going on with their metrics oftheir marketing efforts, their sales
efforts, their retentionefforts. They go by the seat of their
pants. I mean, I'm sure you'verun into that many times over the
years. It still goes on allthe time.
(18:31):
We talk about.
It still goes on all the time.
What we talk about every dayis eliminating random acts. Because
there's random acts ofselling, random acts of marketing,
random acts of analysis, justdelivering random acts. And that's
really important. We givepeople sort of a little test on whether
or not what you're doing is arandom act. If you were to put your
(18:54):
plan on a board and you hadyour whatever it is you're trying
to achieve in terms of youroutcomes, right? And you think about
the strategy and theobjectives, whatever that group is,
the sales team, the marketingteam, the product team, the customer
support team, whatever it is.So thinking about their objectives
and their tactics and theiractivities, can you draw a straight
(19:16):
line from that outcome all theway down to the activity? And if
the answer is no, thatwhatever you're working on is not
on the line, you probably havea random act, how to get people to
eliminate those random acts,because that's what allows them to
have the energy, the time andthe money to focus on the things
that are going to make adifference. If those things are not
(19:38):
on the line or the things thatare going to make a difference, then
you probably need to revisitwhat are your outcomes, what are
your strategies, things like that.
Well, the other part I'm goingto add to that is I use the example
of a racing rowing team, okay?You've got eight people in a boat.
I love that.
And they have a single. Or youcan develop the world's greatest
(20:00):
marketing plan and thestrategy and all the metrics and
KPIs and all that stuff up thewazoo. But the reality is you gotta
take it further than all thatstuff, and you gotta get everybody
in that rowboat in sync, inthe mission, in a direction. Because
if you're not, that boat's notgoing anyplace. It's not even going
(20:22):
in a circle. If everybody'sdoing their own thing, that boat's
just kind of going like this.And you've got to get everybody into
the mission. And so that's howyou get that straight line, is everybody's
got to know what theobjectives are, the company, what's
expected out of them. And thenyou got to work together to get there,
because it doesn't flip aswitch and it's there. It's going
(20:44):
to take some time, it's goingto take some implementation. There's
going to be mistakes, there'sgoing to be errors, and you can't
chastise people because you'rechanging the whole process. You've
got to really elevate peopleand encourage people. And that's
transformative.
We use that metaphor all thetime. You've got to get people rowing
in the same direction. Right.It's about mobilizing your team,
(21:05):
getting them all aligned. Andone of the things that helps them
get aligned is, yes, beingagainst the same outcomes, but also
really understanding what arethe key measures that everyone is
going to be measured against.Right. Everyone is mobilized around
the same direction, the sameoutcomes and the same measures. And
the more you can make those becustomer centric, the better, because.
(21:27):
And everybody is mobilizedaround delivering value to the customer.
So.
Yeah. And everybody has theright expectations because now you
know what's expected of you.And the other thing that I wrote
in my book is people willcrawl through broken glass for appreciation
and recognition. So now thatyou've got that implemented, you've
got to energize that team andcreate that culture in that company
(21:50):
so that your team can becustomer centric with your customers.
And then that transcends toeverybody else. And it really begins
at the leadership and how theyempower their team.
Agree. We're on the same page.
And that's where I think a lotof managers sometimes need some training
themselves because they have atendency to be directive versus empowerment.
(22:20):
You need to be doing thisversus hey, let's work together to
make this happen. Wholedifferent approach.
Good point. I think it's anexcellent point. It does start with
your team. I believe thatpeople come to work every day wanting
to make a difference. Theywant to do a good job. Most people,
maybe not 100%, but maybe 98%.Right. And if we don't give them
(22:43):
guidance about what it is wewant them to do to move the ball
down the field, so to speak.If we can go back to our sort of
football metaphor for notreally clear about what winning looks
like and they understand whattheir job is to move the ball down
the field, then they're goingto do something. And so you're back
to random acts. So the more wecan communicate and have alignment
and everyone has clarityaround what we're trying to accomplish.
(23:07):
And there's a playbook that isthe strategic plan, the operational
plans. Those are theplaybooks. Might be some new place
called depending on changes, anew competitor or a competitive shift
or a new product or a newcustomer segment, whatever it might
be, sometimes you do have tomake new plays, but for the most
(23:27):
part, you want to executeagainst the playbook for that game.
Yeah, that's really important.One of the things I've learned over
the years is my job is to makesure you do your job as best as you
can and get the heck out ofthe way. That's it.
Well, and they need tounderstand what success is going
to look like for people tounderstand what is success in this
(23:49):
role? What is success for you?What is success for our team? What
is success for our company?What is success for our customers?
In very measurable, concreteterms. It can't be ambiguous and
vague. It has to be veryclear. A lot of people don't understand
when you say, well, we justwant to drive revenue or we just
want to grow our revenue or wewant to increase in. I just got this
just yesterday.
(24:11):
That's ambiguous. It's all ambiguous.
Yesterday in a conversation.We want new customers. We want to
acquire new customers. Great.Love that you want to acquire new
customers. How many do youwant to acquire? How many in what
segments, what part of theworld, what industries, what, what,
what does that look like forwhich of your products are you wanting
to acquire new customers?Right. So lots of questions. And
(24:34):
that goes back to reallyhaving good insights into the market,
into the data, where youexcel, where the market is going,
where customers are going, allof those kinds of questions. Once
we started talking, theydidn't know the answers to those
questions. I'm like, well, wekind of need to know those answers
to those questions becausethat's going to determine everything
else. And so if you. My adviceto people in your community is know
(24:57):
the answers to those kind ofquestions. Quick, quick story. If
we have time for another one,a little bit different. But when
I was young, my grandfatherwould, who had five grandchildren,
in the summer, some of uswould get an opportunity to spend
the weekend with him. And oneof his favorite things to do was
to go fishing. And so you knewif you were going to stay over the
(25:21):
weekend for the summer, thatfishing was on the agenda. And you
know, if you're five years oldand I've told this story before,
so this is not a new story,maybe for some of your listeners,
but you may be five years oldand Papa and you are talking, it's
Saturday afternoon, aboutgoing fishing on Sunday morning,
and he asks you a questionabout fishing. And I always ask the
(25:43):
audience when I'm telling thestory, what is Papa's first question?
And I hear all kinds ofthings, so I'll just tell you what
his question was. His questionwas, what kind of fish are we going
fishing for? Right. This tellsyou everything you need to know.
It's only to tell you whereyou're going to go when you're going
to go and what kind of baityou're going to need. It tells you
(26:04):
everything you need to know.And it's just the same question I'm
asking our customers. Whatkind of fish are you fishing for?
I always say to them, when Iwas 5 years old and I'd been asked
this question a couple oftimes already, and I thought I was
kind of smart, I had this sortof smart answer from my grandfather
and I would say somethinglike, blue ones. And he would then
interpret that in a way. Hewould say, oh, that's bluegill. Go
(26:27):
tell grandma we need bait forbluegill. Right? And so you get up
and you head out to the lakewhere the bluegill are going to be,
and you get out all your gearand you're heading to go fishing
when papa turns and asked youa second question about fishing,
right? And so I know you canrelate to this, Freddie, because
being a salesperson, and Ihope all the people in your community,
(26:50):
even if they don't fish,they'll understand this question.
And usually, again, I justsort of leave it open and see what
kind of people, what questionspeople ask. And you'd be surprised
what people say. But thequestion was, where should we put
our pole? Right? Because he'dbe looking around like, where's the
competition? And he'd bethinking about the fish. He was looking
(27:12):
at me, goes, do you think thefish likes it sunny or shady? Do
you think the fish likes it indeep water or shallow? Do you think
the fish likes it in clearwater or reedy? Same questions about
the fish, right? I'm fiveyears old. I haven't got a clue.
But the point I'm trying tomake is you need to know that those
kinds of answers for aboutyour customer, right? What is they
(27:35):
like?
Absolutely correct.
And so I'm just sharing thisstory because it's an easy one for
all of us to relate to. And ifyou're community doesn't know the
answers to those kinds ofquestions, that's where they need
to start, right? Instead ofdoing things. Because we feel like
if we're just standing still,we're not doing anything, we're not
making progress. But sometimeswe need to take a moment to pause
(27:59):
and answer those kinds ofquestions so we can do the right
things instead of just do things.
Yeah, absolutely correct.Great story. I'm going to use that
story a little bit, but I'vecame up with my own phraseology for
that, and that is to beterrific, you need to be specific.
And if you're specific, you'llbe terrific.
(28:20):
I love that. I love that. Youcan borrow my story and I might borrow
your phrase.
There you go. Yeah, just don'tsay it fast because you messed it
up.
I can see that.
But it's true. If you want tobe terrific, you need to be specific.
And if you're specific, you'llbe terrific. And that's exactly what
you just outlined there. Whattype of fish, what type of food that
(28:44):
you need to get for the fish,where are you going to go, the location
where they're going to be at,what's the competition? There's a
lot of factors in fish. Yes,it's a good story that you shared
because it's relatable.Everybody can figure that out. So
as we kind of get closer tothe end here, tell me a little bit
more about the differentservices that you guys offer. And
(29:06):
so that our listeners canknow, what is it that you do that
differentiates you from a lotof other agencies?
So we're a consulting firm andwe do have a variety of different
ways people can leverage ourcapabilities. So for the do it yourselfers
or the people who maybe are onreally tight budgets, we have workbooks,
interactive workbooks thatthey can use for getting their positioning
(29:29):
right, their message mapsbuilt, building out a plan that has,
that will create that directline of sight for creating better
measures and metrics for doingbetter segmentation, all of those
kinds of things. We have asoftware that will help you create
a plan and build outmeasurable outcomes and will help
you create what we calloutcome based budgets. One of the
(29:52):
things that I think is reallychallenging for a lot of companies
is they work through subaccounts. I'll use marketing as the
example since that'softentimes where a lot of sub accounts
are found. You know, they gota PR sub account and they got an
event subaccount and they'vegot a email sub account and a website
or content sub account,whatever they've got. But they're
not connected to any outcomeso they don't really know which things
(30:14):
are actually moving the balldown the field for the result. So
we actually help them createoutcome based budgeting so they can
really see where their moneyis being allocated against an outcome.
And it also allows them tocreate an outcome based calendar
and then build out the firstphase of a dashboard. And for smaller
companies, that's all theyreally need. Mid sized companies
(30:36):
as well, you know, when you'regetting to be an enterprise company,
you're investing in somepretty heavy lifting technology.
But for mid sized and Smallercompanies. That doesn't make them
necessarily a lot of sense. Wehave advisory services. So you have
a question, we've got ananswer. They can purchase that online
with a credit card. So it'svery again, designed to be something
that is easy, fast, affordableand where you can get some access
(31:01):
to expertise very quickly. Andthen of course we do consulting engagements
where people will come to usand say, can you help us execute
a customer experience study orcreate a customer advisory board
or implement a voice ofcustomer? Can you help us build out
a segmentation model? Can youhelp us build out a strategic plan
or an operational plan or amarketing plan or a growth plan?
(31:24):
Can you help us map thecustomer journey? Can you help us
use data and build out ourPersonas? Those are heavy lifting
kinds of projects and we dothose and we enjoy doing those. And
so those are all the thingsand ways that we can help in terms
of actual tasks or activities.But ultimately our process mapping
is another big thing that wehelp people do. Ultimately our goal
(31:44):
is to help our customers growand whatever we can do to help them
do that.
And you brought up a couplegood things here that I want to reiterate
is that most businesses reallydon't take the time to identify what
their customer Persona is. Andthat really needs to start there.
And then the second thing isreally the customer journey. I don't
(32:06):
think enough SMBs, small tomid sized businesses really take
the time to really lay outwhat that customer journey looks
like. And more importantly,I'm going to add another part to
that is what happens afterthey become a customer. Because if
you look at some of theindustries out there, I'm not going
(32:27):
to name them, but you know,they do a great job, they come into
your house, they do whateverneeds to be done and you never hear
from them again. And then ayear, year and a half later you need
something else done. And whowas that? I don't know. You get somebody
brand new and so there's morethan just that. Customer journey
(32:49):
needs to be not only gettingthem on board and getting them successful,
but how do you maintain them acustomer and how do you transform
them into what I call asuperfan? That in turn becomes your
sales force promoting yourbusiness and the services that you
did because you did a greatjob, but then you disappear.
Exactly. And it's great toleave a review and get reviews, but
(33:09):
if you don't continue therelationship, it is about the relationship
that you're building. And itdoesn't matter whether that's a service
that you're using in your homeor a company that you're using for
your business. It all reallycomes to the same. They've got to
have an ongoing relationshipwith you if you want to grow the
share of wallet, grow thefootprint inside a company, get referrals,
(33:29):
all of that.
Yeah. And it doesn't matterwhether it's a B2C or B2B. The fundamentals
are fundamentals. Right. Andso I think that that's important
for our listeners to reallyunderstand that it goes beyond just
what we've talked about. It'sto transform them into a salesforce.
(33:52):
And there's different thingsthat you need to do.
Yes. And for mid, for me,that's even more important because
typically they don't havelarge sales forces.
Right. And so how can peoplefind you?
Well, we would love for themto Visit us@visionedgemarketing.com
We have all kinds of freeresources, free blogs, which almost
always give you very specificthings you can do. We have free worksheets,
(34:17):
free white papers, all kindsof things that are free. So for people
who are just trying to gettheir arms around something and then
they can always reach outeither on LinkedIn or email@laurapisionedgemarketing.com
we're pretty good aboutkeeping up to date with people who
reach out to us because we dotry to drink our own champagne. I
think that's really important.So would love to hear from you.
(34:42):
We'll make sure that that'sinto the show notes for our listeners
and thank you so much for yourtime. It's been a great conversation
and we definitely would loveto have you on the show down the
road again because you and Icould probably talk about this for
hours.
Yes, I would love that. Andthank you for having me. And I hope
everyone took away at leastone good idea.
Thank you so much, Laura.
(35:02):
My pleasure.
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here again. Before we
wrap, here's your three aplaybook power move to attract ideal
clients, turn them intoadvocates, and accelerate your business
success. So here's the topinsight from this if your team can't
draw a straight line fromdaily actions to customer impact,
(35:24):
you're not aligned, you'readrift. So here's your business growth
action step. Audit onedepartment's activities this week
and eliminate any that don'tdirectly drive measurable customer
value. If today's conversationsparked an idea for you, or if you
know of a fellow businessleader who could benefit, share it
with them. Support the showwith the donation and grab the full
(35:48):
breakdown in the show notes.Let's accelerate together and start
creating business superfanswho champion your brand.
Hey Superfan superstar FreddieD. Here in this episode 111 we're
joined by Laura Patterson, apowerhouse and customer centric growth
strategy and a driving forcebehind Vision Edge marketing. With
over 30 years of experience inspanning sales, marketing, analytics
and operations, Laura brings aproven, no nonsense approach to accelerating
(01:19):
growth and drivingperformance. She is a widely recognized
thought leader, speaker andauthor. With four books and hundreds
of white papers to her name,Laura has helped over 300 companies
worldwide harness analytics,accountability and alignment to deliver
measurable business results.She has also been honored by the
(01:42):
top 30 marketing influencer,Ngadi, top 200 thought leaders, Pigtail's
top 100 influencers, and oneof the 20 women to watch in Business
by the Sales Lead ManagementAssociation. Get ready for an inspiring
and insight packedconversation that blends strategic
wisdom with practical,immediately applicable advice. Welcome
(02:06):
Laura to the BusinessSuperfans podcast.
We're super excited to haveyou here from Vision Edge Marketing.
Thank you for having me,Freddie. I'm very excited to be here
with you and your community.
So tell us a little bit aboutthe backstory. We were talking before
you started recording. Itturns out that we kind of started
in a SaaS space roughly aboutthe same time. And ironically, my
(02:28):
office was in Schaumburg forthe company that I work for and you
work for Motorola, which wasvirtually almost across the street
from us. We're at Plum Groveand Algonquin Road is where the office
was.
Yeah, you know, it's such asmall world. It's amazing. We're
only a few degrees ofseparation, getting smaller and smaller
all the time. And every time Imeet with someone I'm like, oh wow.
(02:50):
We were right there next toeach other. We just didn't know because
there were so many otherpeople right next to us too. But
yes, I started my careeractually in financial services and
way back when with my jobbeing around, find, keep and grow
the value of customers. Sowhen I talk about customer centricity,
it's not a new fad for me.I've been doing it a very, very long
(03:12):
time and I eventually made myway into a technology company that
had an application softwareproduct that ran on a Wang 2200.
I didn't even realize that Iwas at the forefront of all the things
that were exciting andhappening. You don't know it until
you look back and you say, oh,I was part of that and it was so
(03:32):
cool. But that enabled me togo from that role, which I was responsible
for sales, marketing, customersupport, implementation, all of that,
to an opportunity at A littlestartup here in Austin, Texas that
was part of Motorola and itwas a microcontroller operation.
It was very small business,kind of hemorrhaging. I didn't know
(03:55):
that when I joined them, butwe grew that business into a billion
dollar entity in about sevenyears. And then I stayed another
seven years at Motor. Oh yes,what a ride, right? I know your listeners
can probably imagine what thatmust have been like. It was buckle
up, put your trade tables up,get ready for the ride. But it was
(04:15):
so amazing. And then I ran thebrand strategy customer marketing
initiative at Motorola foranother seven years. When I left
there, I left to go architecta customer loyalty product. So we're
going to talk about superfans,we're talking about advocates and
loyalty. I architected aproduct for the banking industry
(04:35):
and that led to anotherstartup that had an enterprise software
application for the financialservices. And in 1999, if you could
spell marketing, you could geta job. I used that as a launchpad
for founding VisionEdgeMarketing. So we've been around a
little over 25 years and we'reall about helping our customers find,
(04:56):
keep and grow the value ofcustomers to, to be successful and
accelerate their growth bybeing more customer centric, using
insights from data, putting inoperational excellence and knowing
what to measure. So basicallytrying to get our customers to eliminate
random acts, random acts ofselling and random acts of marketing.
And I imagine you can relateto the random acts. I'm sure you've
(05:19):
been been there and seen that,so that's just great.
Oh absolutely. I mean, what astory. We have similar backgrounds
in. You bring up Wang. I mean,I remember we were using Wang for
our word processing when theadmins would be putting together
proposals and stuff like thatthat we would be sending out. And
I used to have to makepresentations that we didn't have.
(05:39):
PowerPoint didn't exist backthen. So you used clear slides and
you had a Croix machine thatyou punched all the numbers or the
text on it and then you put iton an overhead projector. Man, those
were days.
Yes, they were.
People don't realize what wewent through back then to get presentations
and things put together.
Well, I think we were a littlebit more deliberate because redoing
(06:01):
that was really a lot of worktoday. Like you said, we have PowerPoint.
Don't like that slide, it'sjust a couple of clicks. But back
then it was a pretty majorthing to have to completely redo
a slide. And we ran themthrough the printer, right, to heat
them up and have them comeOut. So yeah, a whole nother story.
I can't imagine how much money3 I must have made on all those overhead
(06:21):
projectors.
Oh, geez.
Must have been amazing. Yes,it must have been a really good product
line for them.
So let's talk, Laura, aboutwhat do you mean by customer centric?
I really want to kind of deepdive into that a little bit because
it's a unique term. I think Iknow what it is, but I want our listeners
to hear directly from you.
(06:41):
Sure. So when we talk aboutit, we really talk about are you
putting your customers at thecenter of your business and how you
run your business? So do yourprocesses, your strategies, the questions
that you're asking about forinnovation, the measures that you're
tracking, are they customeroriented or something else? Because
we can be very insular in ourcompanies and we look at a lot of
(07:04):
measures and many of them areabout us. So here's a test I often
use to helps me give it someinsight into a company. When I ask
them, well, what will successlook for, like for you at the end,
whatever the time horizon? Andthey give me a revenue number. And
then when I ask them, ohgreat, how many existing customers
does that revenue numberreflect? How many new customers will
(07:25):
you have to acquire? Which ofthe customers do you have today will
you have to grow? And if it'sdeer in the headlights, they're probably
not a customer centric companybecause they haven't really thought
about the customer in, in. Interms of. That's really what we're
here to do. You know, PeterDrucker said it, well, the purpose
of businesses is to create acustomer. And Phil Kotler on the
(07:46):
heels of that said, there'sonly one function that we have to
work on and that is find, keepand grow the value of customers.
Everything we do should bewith that in mind. So that's the
philosophy of customer centricity.
Wow, that's a very excellentdescription of it because you're
absolutely correct. It'sreally all about the customers. We're
(08:07):
now selling a lot of differentsoftware packages. Whether it was
manufacturing, softwareengineering, or even construction
management software. It wasalways about where did a customer
see themselves in a coupleyears and what was their objectives.
And the differentiator that Iwould do was I would talk about business
strategy and then say, hey,our product, the guys down the street's
(08:31):
product and the other product,we all do the same stuff. Otherwise
we wouldn't be in business.Okay, theirs turns left, ours turns
right, whatever gets the jobdone. But let's have the conversation,
where do you want to be in 2years, 4 years, 6 years, 10 years?
What's the challenges you'vegot and everything else? And it got
the conversation out of thewidget and really focused on business
(08:54):
growth. And that wouldbasically blow away my competitors
because they were busy talkingabout all the functionalities and
the features and everythingelse and how cool this thing is.
And I'm talking. Yeah, it doesthe job. Let's talk about how we
can help you grow and how thiswill help you achieve your growth.
To change the strategy.
Exactly. I always say to ourcustomers, do you know the answer
(09:18):
to these three questions? Andif you don't, you need to get the
answer to these threequestions. What is success for your
customers in very measurable,concrete terms? And in what time
frame? So what is theirsuccess? Because that's why we're
here, to help them besuccessful. Second, what is it they
value? You know, what is theproblem they solve? They're trying
to solve? What is it theyvalue? And then what is it they value
(09:41):
from you? Because to yourpoint, oftentimes it's got nothing
to do with whatever is you'reselling, Because a lot of people
are selling very similarthings. So what is the value you're
bringing to the table? That'sreally an important differentiator.
In the old days in thesemiconductor world, we used to say,
you know, parts is parts.
Yeah, yeah, same thing.
Parts is parts. What is thevalue that we're bringing to the
(10:02):
table?
And when you help yourcustomer accomplish the goals of
how they deal with theircustomers, they really become super
fans of you because they'relooking good in front of their customers.
And so now they startreferring you to other people. My
(10:22):
fastest sales was I would geta phone call and so. And so says,
I need to buy this stuff. Howmuch is it? And how fast can you
get it in here? And that was asale. The time was just me putting
together the paperwork. And alot of times I'd be at their facility
and I'd use their fax machineto fax it the corporate the order.
And my time was filling outthe order form. There was no selling.
(10:43):
Yes, exactly. And I think youbring up a really good point about
if you are solving yourcustomer's problem or helping them
achieve their aspiration,right. Then they're more likely to
be a great referral for you.And. And referral rate is a great
measure. It's a greatindicator of whether or not you have
any super fans and also helpsyou reduce cost of Acquisition, cost
(11:04):
of sale, all kinds of things.So it's really important to be able
to have fans or advocates orambassadors, whatever you want to
call them.
Yeah. And you've got to getyourself out of your own way and
really focus on them because alot of people, I think in today's
world, we've become much moretransactional, especially with all
(11:25):
the online stuff. You can go,you can go try a product and put
in a 10 day free trial,whatever it is. Most of the time
you don't hear from anybodyand you sit there and say, you know,
I can't figure this out, itlooks too complicated. Bam, I'm gone.
I think we've got away frombuilding those relationships and
helping people through theonboarding process because I believe
(11:48):
that the sale is just thepaperwork. Everything else that happens
after the sale is really, inmy mind, the sale, that whole experience
from the onboarding throughthe delivery. So if you're helping
your customer be successfulwith their customers, you want to
help them be able to delivertheir stuff better, to ensure that
(12:09):
their customers are going tobe appreciative of the efforts that
they're doing. And thatchanges the whole game.
Jess, do we have time for aquick story to illustrate what you're
saying?
Yes, that's just where I wasgoing to go with yes.
Well, this is a part, then wecan talk about customers. Way back
when, long, long time ago, Iwas a salesperson for an office supply
company. You have tounderstand that today aren't salespeople
(12:31):
in office supply companies,but back then they were mom and pop
shops, maybe regional. Wedidn't have Office Depot, Office
Max, Staples. We didn't havethose big boxes that we have today.
And so people actually wouldgo and go to offices and meet with
the office manager or thebusiness manager in order to sell
whatever it was, papers, pens,staples, whatever it might be. And
(12:54):
I remember when I was firsttaking that job, the person I was
learning from was a greatsalesperson, said, just remember,
people buy from people theyknow and people they know that they
like, and then people theyknow they like and they trust and
people they know they like andtrust who can solve their problem.
If you can keep that in mindin the conversation, you'll be a
(13:16):
great salesperson. So I thinkthat we have to remember it's still
about people. And I know we'vegotten away from that because we
text and we email, we doeverything online, but still, they've
got to know you like you,trust you, and you have to solve
their problem.
Absolutely correct.Absolutely. Correct. Because it's
really about the relationship.Years ago, there's times where I
(13:38):
would deal with my customers,whether it was a distributor in Germany
or distributor in Australia orwherever, and I would sit and listen
to their challenges and wewould just brainstorm. And sometimes
it wasn't anything aboutselling. We'd be out at dinner. I
remember being in Australia onDY beach with my distributor and
(14:00):
going, what am I doing wrongwith getting the Japanese market?
And so we'd be brainstorming.He was helping me figure out my challenges.
And then really it was. I wasbeing too much of a sales guy and
not focusing on. For thatculture, on really building that
relationship. But had I nothad a friend to be able to brainstorm
with, and that's therelationship I had built with the
(14:23):
guy. I ended up cracking theJapanese market for the company because
I changed my whole approach.
It's pretty wonderful whenyou. The people you start to work
with actually evolve frompeople you're working with to people
that are friends. Right. Is avery nice evolution.
Yeah. I still have friendsfrom those days in different parts
(14:45):
of the world.
Some of my customers are. Theyweren't friends when we started,
but they're friends today. AndI think that it says a lot.
Yeah, it does. Says a lot. Andthat's the game changer, really,
because competition's got zerochance. So talk about a story of
how you worked with a customerand then you really transformed that
(15:05):
company to where today they'rea super fan of what you've done for.
Yeah, I'd love to share somestories. We've got a couple in different
industries, I think, becauseyou've got members of your community
are in different industries.We predominantly serve B2B companies,
so our customers typicallyhave complex products, a consultative
sell, multiple people in thebuying journey and buying process.
(15:28):
So it's not like buying achocolate candy bar. And when they
make a decision to buysomething from one of our customers,
they don't want to havebuyer's remorse. It's one thing drop
some money on a candy bar andbe unhappy and never buy it again.
But you really can't do thatwith our customers products. So an
example is a help desk companythat we work with. They have a lot
of customers and they reallywanted to figure out how to expand
(15:50):
what they do. They had managedto get into a couple of good markets,
but they wanted to get intomore markets. So we really just did
a lot of digging into thedata. Who were their customers? Where
were their opportunities? Whatwas the competition doing? So really
answering some questions aboutthe market and getting some real
insights around the market,their own customers. And as a result
(16:11):
of that, we built out a plan,we executed that plan and they were
able to increase engagement intheir own customers by about 30%
each, a conversion for byabout 25%, all in about a six month
time frame. So beingdeliberate, being intentional, being
data driven can make a realdifference. So that's one example.
Another example is we work andhalf work in the cybersecurity space
(16:34):
for a very long time since2001. Data security, IT security,
cybersecurity, I love thatspace. And I've, we've had a number
of customers over the years,many customers over the years in
that space. And one of thosecustomers was an early stage company.
So they already had customersof their own and they were again
trying to increase traction.As you know. That's one of those
(16:55):
ways, right Freddie, thatcybersecurity is one of those. At
the time we got startedbeginning to be a wave, just like
what you and I were in thatwave. One of the things that ends
up happening is you end upwith a lot of competitors. So they
all begin to sound a lotalike. So really coming up with the
right value proposition, theright differentiation, the right
messaging, the right processesfor how to go get new customers,
(17:20):
because that was reallyimportant to them. It is kind of
a land grab, or was a landgrab when we were working with this
particular customer. And sowe, we had a really inefficient marketing
and sales process. So a lot ofthe work we did was around process
mapping, operationalexcellence. We were able to reduce
the inefficiencies by about40% which allowed them to have their
salespeople get more focusedon engaging with and building relationships.
(17:45):
Because in the cybersecurityspace that's really important. And
we got about a 20% increase inqualified leads also in about six
months. So again throughprocess improvements. So that's a
couple of examples. I can giveyou more if you're interested. But
that might give people somethoughts about whether they might
want to put some energy.
And really how important isstudy metrics? Because a lot of businesses
(18:10):
don't take the time to reallystudy what they're doing and what's
going on with their metrics oftheir marketing efforts, their sales
efforts, their retentionefforts. They go by the seat of their
pants. I mean, I'm sure you'verun into that many times over the
years. It still goes on allthe time.
(18:31):
We talk about.
It still goes on all the time.
What we talk about every dayis eliminating random acts. Because
there's random acts ofselling, random acts of marketing,
random acts of analysis, justdelivering random acts. And that's
really important. We givepeople sort of a little test on whether
or not what you're doing is arandom act. If you were to put your
(18:54):
plan on a board and you hadyour whatever it is you're trying
to achieve in terms of youroutcomes, right? And you think about
the strategy and theobjectives, whatever that group is,
the sales team, the marketingteam, the product team, the customer
support team, whatever it is.So thinking about their objectives
and their tactics and theiractivities, can you draw a straight
(19:16):
line from that outcome all theway down to the activity? And if
the answer is no, thatwhatever you're working on is not
on the line, you probably havea random act, how to get people to
eliminate those random acts,because that's what allows them to
have the energy, the time andthe money to focus on the things
that are going to make adifference. If those things are not
(19:38):
on the line or the things thatare going to make a difference, then
you probably need to revisitwhat are your outcomes, what are
your strategies, things like that.
Well, the other part I'm goingto add to that is I use the example
of a racing rowing team, okay?You've got eight people in a boat.
I love that.
And they have a single. Or youcan develop the world's greatest
(20:00):
marketing plan and thestrategy and all the metrics and
KPIs and all that stuff up thewazoo. But the reality is you gotta
take it further than all thatstuff, and you gotta get everybody
in that rowboat in sync, inthe mission, in a direction. Because
if you're not, that boat's notgoing anyplace. It's not even going
(20:22):
in a circle. If everybody'sdoing their own thing, that boat's
just kind of going like this.And you've got to get everybody into
the mission. And so that's howyou get that straight line, is everybody's
got to know what theobjectives are, the company, what's
expected out of them. And thenyou got to work together to get there,
because it doesn't flip aswitch and it's there. It's going
(20:44):
to take some time, it's goingto take some implementation. There's
going to be mistakes, there'sgoing to be errors, and you can't
chastise people because you'rechanging the whole process. You've
got to really elevate peopleand encourage people. And that's
transformative.
We use that metaphor all thetime. You've got to get people rowing
in the same direction. Right.It's about mobilizing your team,
(21:05):
getting them all aligned. Andone of the things that helps them
get aligned is, yes, beingagainst the same outcomes, but also
really understanding what arethe key measures that everyone is
going to be measured against.Right. Everyone is mobilized around
the same direction, the sameoutcomes and the same measures. And
the more you can make those becustomer centric, the better, because.
(21:27):
And everybody is mobilizedaround delivering value to the customer.
So.
Yeah. And everybody has theright expectations because now you
know what's expected of you.And the other thing that I wrote
in my book is people willcrawl through broken glass for appreciation
and recognition. So now thatyou've got that implemented, you've
got to energize that team andcreate that culture in that company
(21:50):
so that your team can becustomer centric with your customers.
And then that transcends toeverybody else. And it really begins
at the leadership and how theyempower their team.
Agree. We're on the same page.
And that's where I think a lotof managers sometimes need some training
themselves because they have atendency to be directive versus empowerment.
(22:20):
You need to be doing thisversus hey, let's work together to
make this happen. Wholedifferent approach.
Good point. I think it's anexcellent point. It does start with
your team. I believe thatpeople come to work every day wanting
to make a difference. Theywant to do a good job. Most people,
maybe not 100%, but maybe 98%.Right. And if we don't give them
(22:43):
guidance about what it is wewant them to do to move the ball
down the field, so to speak.If we can go back to our sort of
football metaphor for notreally clear about what winning looks
like and they understand whattheir job is to move the ball down
the field, then they're goingto do something. And so you're back
to random acts. So the more wecan communicate and have alignment
and everyone has clarityaround what we're trying to accomplish.
(23:07):
And there's a playbook that isthe strategic plan, the operational
plans. Those are theplaybooks. Might be some new place
called depending on changes, anew competitor or a competitive shift
or a new product or a newcustomer segment, whatever it might
be, sometimes you do have tomake new plays, but for the most
(23:27):
part, you want to executeagainst the playbook for that game.
Yeah, that's really important.One of the things I've learned over
the years is my job is to makesure you do your job as best as you
can and get the heck out ofthe way. That's it.
Well, and they need tounderstand what success is going
to look like for people tounderstand what is success in this
(23:49):
role? What is success for you?What is success for our team? What
is success for our company?What is success for our customers?
In very measurable, concreteterms. It can't be ambiguous and
vague. It has to be veryclear. A lot of people don't understand
when you say, well, we justwant to drive revenue or we just
want to grow our revenue or wewant to increase in. I just got this
just yesterday.
(24:11):
That's ambiguous. It's all ambiguous.
Yesterday in a conversation.We want new customers. We want to
acquire new customers. Great.Love that you want to acquire new
customers. How many do youwant to acquire? How many in what
segments, what part of theworld, what industries, what, what,
what does that look like forwhich of your products are you wanting
to acquire new customers?Right. So lots of questions. And
(24:34):
that goes back to reallyhaving good insights into the market,
into the data, where youexcel, where the market is going,
where customers are going, allof those kinds of questions. Once
we started talking, theydidn't know the answers to those
questions. I'm like, well, wekind of need to know those answers
to those questions becausethat's going to determine everything
else. And so if you. My adviceto people in your community is know
(24:57):
the answers to those kind ofquestions. Quick, quick story. If
we have time for another one,a little bit different. But when
I was young, my grandfatherwould, who had five grandchildren,
in the summer, some of uswould get an opportunity to spend
the weekend with him. And oneof his favorite things to do was
to go fishing. And so you knewif you were going to stay over the
(25:21):
weekend for the summer, thatfishing was on the agenda. And you
know, if you're five years oldand I've told this story before,
so this is not a new story,maybe for some of your listeners,
but you may be five years oldand Papa and you are talking, it's
Saturday afternoon, aboutgoing fishing on Sunday morning,
and he asks you a questionabout fishing. And I always ask the
(25:43):
audience when I'm telling thestory, what is Papa's first question?
And I hear all kinds ofthings, so I'll just tell you what
his question was. His questionwas, what kind of fish are we going
fishing for? Right. This tellsyou everything you need to know.
It's only to tell you whereyou're going to go when you're going
to go and what kind of baityou're going to need. It tells you
(26:04):
everything you need to know.And it's just the same question I'm
asking our customers. Whatkind of fish are you fishing for?
I always say to them, when Iwas 5 years old and I'd been asked
this question a couple oftimes already, and I thought I was
kind of smart, I had this sortof smart answer from my grandfather
and I would say somethinglike, blue ones. And he would then
interpret that in a way. Hewould say, oh, that's bluegill. Go
(26:27):
tell grandma we need bait forbluegill. Right? And so you get up
and you head out to the lakewhere the bluegill are going to be,
and you get out all your gearand you're heading to go fishing
when papa turns and asked youa second question about fishing,
right? And so I know you canrelate to this, Freddie, because
being a salesperson, and Ihope all the people in your community,
(26:50):
even if they don't fish,they'll understand this question.
And usually, again, I justsort of leave it open and see what
kind of people, what questionspeople ask. And you'd be surprised
what people say. But thequestion was, where should we put
our pole? Right? Because he'dbe looking around like, where's the
competition? And he'd bethinking about the fish. He was looking
(27:12):
at me, goes, do you think thefish likes it sunny or shady? Do
you think the fish likes it indeep water or shallow? Do you think
the fish likes it in clearwater or reedy? Same questions about
the fish, right? I'm fiveyears old. I haven't got a clue.
But the point I'm trying tomake is you need to know that those
kinds of answers for aboutyour customer, right? What is they
(27:35):
like?
Absolutely correct.
And so I'm just sharing thisstory because it's an easy one for
all of us to relate to. And ifyou're community doesn't know the
answers to those kinds ofquestions, that's where they need
to start, right? Instead ofdoing things. Because we feel like
if we're just standing still,we're not doing anything, we're not
making progress. But sometimeswe need to take a moment to pause
(27:59):
and answer those kinds ofquestions so we can do the right
things instead of just do things.
Yeah, absolutely correct.Great story. I'm going to use that
story a little bit, but I'vecame up with my own phraseology for
that, and that is to beterrific, you need to be specific.
And if you're specific, you'llbe terrific.
(28:20):
I love that. I love that. Youcan borrow my story and I might borrow
your phrase.
There you go. Yeah, just don'tsay it fast because you messed it
up.
I can see that.
But it's true. If you want tobe terrific, you need to be specific.
And if you're specific, you'llbe terrific. And that's exactly what
you just outlined there. Whattype of fish, what type of food that
(28:44):
you need to get for the fish,where are you going to go, the location
where they're going to be at,what's the competition? There's a
lot of factors in fish. Yes,it's a good story that you shared
because it's relatable.Everybody can figure that out. So
as we kind of get closer tothe end here, tell me a little bit
more about the differentservices that you guys offer. And
(29:06):
so that our listeners canknow, what is it that you do that
differentiates you from a lotof other agencies?
So we're a consulting firm andwe do have a variety of different
ways people can leverage ourcapabilities. So for the do it yourselfers
or the people who maybe are onreally tight budgets, we have workbooks,
interactive workbooks thatthey can use for getting their positioning
(29:29):
right, their message mapsbuilt, building out a plan that has,
that will create that directline of sight for creating better
measures and metrics for doingbetter segmentation, all of those
kinds of things. We have asoftware that will help you create
a plan and build outmeasurable outcomes and will help
you create what we calloutcome based budgets. One of the
(29:52):
things that I think is reallychallenging for a lot of companies
is they work through subaccounts. I'll use marketing as the
example since that'softentimes where a lot of sub accounts
are found. You know, they gota PR sub account and they got an
event subaccount and they'vegot a email sub account and a website
or content sub account,whatever they've got. But they're
not connected to any outcomeso they don't really know which things
(30:14):
are actually moving the balldown the field for the result. So
we actually help them createoutcome based budgeting so they can
really see where their moneyis being allocated against an outcome.
And it also allows them tocreate an outcome based calendar
and then build out the firstphase of a dashboard. And for smaller
companies, that's all theyreally need. Mid sized companies
(30:36):
as well, you know, when you'regetting to be an enterprise company,
you're investing in somepretty heavy lifting technology.
But for mid sized and Smallercompanies. That doesn't make them
necessarily a lot of sense. Wehave advisory services. So you have
a question, we've got ananswer. They can purchase that online
with a credit card. So it'svery again, designed to be something
that is easy, fast, affordableand where you can get some access
(31:01):
to expertise very quickly. Andthen of course we do consulting engagements
where people will come to usand say, can you help us execute
a customer experience study orcreate a customer advisory board
or implement a voice ofcustomer? Can you help us build out
a segmentation model? Can youhelp us build out a strategic plan
or an operational plan or amarketing plan or a growth plan?
(31:24):
Can you help us map thecustomer journey? Can you help us
use data and build out ourPersonas? Those are heavy lifting
kinds of projects and we dothose and we enjoy doing those. And
so those are all the thingsand ways that we can help in terms
of actual tasks or activities.But ultimately our process mapping
is another big thing that wehelp people do. Ultimately our goal
(31:44):
is to help our customers growand whatever we can do to help them
do that.
And you brought up a couplegood things here that I want to reiterate
is that most businesses reallydon't take the time to identify what
their customer Persona is. Andthat really needs to start there.
And then the second thing isreally the customer journey. I don't
(32:06):
think enough SMBs, small tomid sized businesses really take
the time to really lay outwhat that customer journey looks
like. And more importantly,I'm going to add another part to
that is what happens afterthey become a customer. Because if
you look at some of theindustries out there, I'm not going
(32:27):
to name them, but you know,they do a great job, they come into
your house, they do whateverneeds to be done and you never hear
from them again. And then ayear, year and a half later you need
something else done. And whowas that? I don't know. You get somebody
brand new and so there's morethan just that. Customer journey
(32:49):
needs to be not only gettingthem on board and getting them successful,
but how do you maintain them acustomer and how do you transform
them into what I call asuperfan? That in turn becomes your
sales force promoting yourbusiness and the services that you
did because you did a greatjob, but then you disappear.
Exactly. And it's great toleave a review and get reviews, but
(33:09):
if you don't continue therelationship, it is about the relationship
that you're building. And itdoesn't matter whether that's a service
that you're using in your homeor a company that you're using for
your business. It all reallycomes to the same. They've got to
have an ongoing relationshipwith you if you want to grow the
share of wallet, grow thefootprint inside a company, get referrals,
(33:29):
all of that.
Yeah. And it doesn't matterwhether it's a B2C or B2B. The fundamentals
are fundamentals. Right. Andso I think that that's important
for our listeners to reallyunderstand that it goes beyond just
what we've talked about. It'sto transform them into a salesforce.
(33:52):
And there's different thingsthat you need to do.
Yes. And for mid, for me,that's even more important because
typically they don't havelarge sales forces.
Right. And so how can peoplefind you?
Well, we would love for themto Visit us@visionedgemarketing.com
We have all kinds of freeresources, free blogs, which almost
always give you very specificthings you can do. We have free worksheets,
(34:17):
free white papers, all kindsof things that are free. So for people
who are just trying to gettheir arms around something and then
they can always reach outeither on LinkedIn or email@laurapisionedgemarketing.com
we're pretty good aboutkeeping up to date with people who
reach out to us because we dotry to drink our own champagne. I
think that's really important.So would love to hear from you.
(34:42):
We'll make sure that that'sinto the show notes for our listeners
and thank you so much for yourtime. It's been a great conversation
and we definitely would loveto have you on the show down the
road again because you and Icould probably talk about this for
hours.
Yes, I would love that. Andthank you for having me. And I hope
everyone took away at leastone good idea.
Thank you so much, Laura.
(35:02):
My pleasure.
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here again. Before we
wrap, here's your three aplaybook power move to attract ideal
clients, turn them intoadvocates, and accelerate your business
success. So here's the topinsight from this if your team can't
draw a straight line fromdaily actions to customer impact,
(35:24):
you're not aligned, you'readrift. So here's your business growth
action step. Audit onedepartment's activities this week
and eliminate any that don'tdirectly drive measurable customer
value. If today's conversationsparked an idea for you, or if you
know of a fellow businessleader who could benefit, share it
with them. Support the showwith the donation and grab the full
(35:48):
breakdown in the show notes.Let's accelerate together and start
creating business superfanswho champion your brand.
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