January 19, 2026 • 27 mins
Whitney Stowell, CEO of Cribworks, leads a DC-based strategic management consultancy firm that partners with leaders to transform organizational sales growth. With 15+ years in sales, business development, and partnership development, Whitney integrates strategic insights, data-driven processes, industry expertise, and AI to help businesses overcome their most critical challenges to optimize their avenues for growth. Whitney website: https://www.cribworks.co Show notes: https://successgrid.net/sg250/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello On, Welcome Success Gradination to this episode of the
Success Gred podcast with your hosts and Talib. In this episode,
I have with me Whitney's Towell to talk about how
to build your company's differentiators to en big in business.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is a very.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Important topic for every entrepreneurial business owner. Whitneys Towell see
of crap Works, a lead DC based strategic management consultancy
fair the partners with leaders to transform organ organizational sales growth.
With fifteen years plus years in sales, business development and
partnership development, Whitney integrates strategic insights that driven processes, industry
(00:38):
expertise and AI to help businesses overcome their most critical
challenges to optimize their avenues for growth. So Whitney, welcome
to this episode of the Success podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh Lucin, thank you very much for having me and
I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Awesome to have you. I'm glad to talk about this subject.
Is very important thing to talk about building the company
differentiators because I'm sure that every business on entrepreneur always
thinking how should I differentiate myself? Is it the pricing?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
This? Is it does? So this is a very important time,
especially now with a lot of competitiveness in the marketplace
whatever it goes, specifically especially online. So we are going
to deep We're gonna have a deep dive into that.
But first, because this is the Success a great podcast,
I want to know what is success to you? And
what do you think other people see or define success
(01:29):
as and you agree or disagree with.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So I think success everyone's going to measure success differently
to themselves, whether it's success personally, whether it can be
success professionally. And you know, are you always taking are
you always moving forward in how you measure? Are you growing?
Are you learning more? So? I think that's you're learning.
(01:51):
You know today you can learn something new tomorrow. So
I think that the way you learn to be successful,
you know, also down to are you winning projects? If
you're losing projects? Are you learning from your mistakes? I
think success can be measured many different ways. Is how
you interpret it as well? I think there's many different
ways I can you can look at it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So now J'm bring into a lot of subject matter
which is in business entrepreneurs always I'm sure only the
one that always thinking what is the thing that I
should be focusing on? How can I differentiate myself. There's
a lot of competitiveness. It's very like it's a brutal
it's a brutal I guess you could say, right, So,
first of all, what do we mean that a business
(02:36):
needs to be different? And does every business needs to
be different in a way from other businesses?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So I think company differentiators is it's very critical to
do you want to look at you know why you?
And I think that's probably one of the hardest questions
for a lot of company needs to answer. It's like
why you? Why would a company want to do business
with you? And that that not only applies to your marketing,
to your business, to development to you, to your internal conversations,
(03:04):
to your branding, but what makes you unique that people
actually want to have a conversation with you, build a
relationship with you, start to trust you. And it's not
because you've been in business for thirty years and you
know you're very strong in the market. But what makes
you unique? You know, and build metrics behind that as well.
(03:24):
So I think that's something people just need to sit
down and write down on a piece of paper, you know,
because if you do it in one market, there have
probably other companies that do it too, like really sit
down and be like why do people like us? And
have conversations with the customers about that as well, why
do they choose you? Because you know what, other potential
clients probably want to hear those success stories as well.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Also success and maybe failures, because like when we are
like going through business, I'm sure that there are multiple
probably failures going through that road. It's not like always
it's going to be roses. I guess throughout the journey
of that. I guess well as for example, the starting
(04:07):
point for any business or entrepreneur to start looking all
the points or to say, the elements or the framework
from putting differentiators because a lot of people in starting businesses,
they are always looking at the basic things in front
of them, which is like basically pricing. This is one
of the mostly talked about I think things that can
businesses differentiate themselves from other businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rack. Yeah, I wouldn't say looking at pricing because you
don't want to be driving down on pricing every single time.
One area I think is always great to look at
is you got to talk with your customers. Talk with
your existing customers, you know, is is it the relationship
that you're so strong. Is your customer service that you
have or is it your technical side, it's your engineering side.
(04:52):
What makes you so strong in your relationships? I think
that is always a great part to understand where you
baseline your activities. Right now, you know you have the
best pricing, Okay, great, Well someone else is going to
eventually figure that out and that's not going to be
a strong avenue for you. So look at what it
is from a relationship business. We are in the relationship business,
(05:16):
So like, what makes you stroke strong and really double
down and really put metrics behind it and be like, oh, okay,
we are so good at you know, we can get
back towards to the customer and you know thirty minutes
or whatever it might be. So put some strong meat
on the bone for that.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And the general example could be like, for example, I
think Domino Speedza may be like delivered within thirty minutes
or so if it's not thirty minutes, I guess it
was free or something like that. So this is the
kind of differentiator that are we are talking about. It's
not that simple or clear differentiators that are clear to everyone.
(05:54):
You need to think of an angle and you do that,
like you talked about, you're building some kind of your
relationship with your customers because they are probably they might
give you the solution or the differentiator that you are
looking for if you cannot find it yourself or the
people that you're working with, your customer might give you
the solution or the differentiator to build that. Right, this
(06:15):
is very important.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No, that's exactly what it is. But you also want
to be able to be building long term relationships with them.
So it's not just transactional you know, selling onesies and twosies.
You're building long term, deep relationships with them. So you
want to understand where their weak points are, where they're
strong points are, so you can also really be able
to build be like, oh, I understand how I can
(06:37):
consistently be able to help you achieve that pain point.
I can actually I can do that for you, and
so the customer will always be able to you know,
they'll want to call you. You want to make sure
where if there's a problem, the customer is always calling
you because you have a differentiator that they need. But
you you just need to start understanding it where it
(06:58):
is and you be able to write it down. But
you also need to be able to market it, market
it on your website, talk about it through social selling,
but also having your sales team talk about it in
the field as well. So that's just some points that
you can actually focus on.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, definitely. It's also about this thing like it could
we could have some kind of a differentiator, but it
could be a bad one. So how do we know
and differentiate the bads from the goods? Ones like do
what do you think about this?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That is? That's a that's a that's a really good one. Uh.
One way is just to challenge it. It's like, oh
we have you know, we've been business for thirty years. Uh,
and you know where a women owned small business or
a minority owned business that focuses on we're a general contractor.
And you can always ask the question, so what who
(07:46):
else does it? You can do a quick Google search
to see who else does it? You know, there's probably
a lot in the same area that do the exact
same thing and probably doing just as much and more
not more business. All Right, why would they Why are
they going to call you versus calling them? Another way
I always like to do it is I actually like
to go to a trade show, go to a convention
(08:07):
or a conference and walk up and down the roads
and see are they all selling the same thing? If
they're very si much to your business, what makes them different?
To do a competitive assessment. I always think competitive assessments
are very good to see what separates you from everyone
else and how if they have a differentiator, what would
(08:28):
yours be so people would actually see the difference between
that company and your company.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Now do you think that certain things in differentiation, Like
we know there is for example, operations, marketing, sales, people
working in the business. So for example, is it different
from a solopreneur in general, from a business that has
a certain amount of people or a team working in it.
And like you talked about a little bit, and if
you can expand on it, because you talked about it
(08:55):
should be all across the board within the business. It's operations, marketing, sales,
all of these people that are in the business, they
should basically be on the same page for the business
differentiators and visions.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, it's definitely going to vary. It's definitely going to vary.
If you're a solopreneur, you're not going to have the
depth or the bench I would say compared to a
medium sized company or a large business, so it's definitely
going to be a lot different. But if you're a startup,
small business solopreneur, you need to really look at why
they are investing in you. I mean, it is emotional sale,
(09:31):
but what makes you different? What can you provide that
someone else might not be able to? What is your
subject matter expertise and really hone in on that, Like
what do you know about the market that you can
provide that is very that is very tailored and very
tailored to the client that they need. If you're a
medium sized business, you're going to have a lot more
(09:51):
competition with other competitors out there. You know, what is
it that is different? But if you're a large business,
what do you provide that other company might need? You know,
is it anything from in the construction world, you have
the bonding capacity, you know, you might be able to
have other things from you can you have subcontractors they
can help you, you know, be able to get projects
(10:14):
to the end client. There's there's different different ways to
look at them as all tailored to who you are
and what the client needs. And it all comes down
to talking to the client. So what you think what
might be a differentiator might be different than what the
client actually sees. So it's a communication. It's that we well,
we all have to have communications with the the end client,
(10:35):
the ones who's actually cutting the check to us paying
the bills.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Definitely, so here we are talking about I might think
you are talking about, for example, the business of the
story or the business of the owner. And also the
messaging they kind of they might be put them in
the same bucket. Let's say, so the messaging and the
story to be aligned with each other, right, thinks that's
(11:00):
a could be an element.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, there's definitely there definitely needs to be some alignment.
And sometimes the end customer doesn't always know your full
story because they've naturally never been they've never listened or
heard the whole story. So sometimes it's a communication. Are
more of a transparent communication just to get to know
them a little bit more. So sometimes you just need
(11:24):
to hear it, be like, oh, I didn't know your
company does all X, Y and Z. Oh we do
have a gap in that area, So sometimes it just
takes a little bit longer to be able to address it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Cool, So, can you give us an example of a
self instituation that happened with you.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Let's see, I would say one of the ones that
we were talking sat my last company. It was a
we were a lighting company and we were talking about
it was in We're in the Midwest, and the company
didn't have the end client and have any money and
(12:02):
but you know, there were clients that were leaving the
town and leaving the area mainly because there's a security problem.
So we talked about how lighting can really help you
bring you know, bring safety and security back because you
don't walk down a road unless the lights are on.
(12:23):
You know, you won't don't go into a parking garage
unless the lights are on, because there's a sense of
safety and sense of security. It's like, well, the lighting
can actually help bring you know, potential clients back into town,
and it can actually help boost economic development. And but
the way we can do it through a you know,
basically a performance type contract called performance contracting, so we
(12:45):
can actually pay back through it's called through the utility savings.
So we provided them a very unique way for them
to actually be able to do a contract with us
that other people weren't looking at. But we had to
build a relationship with the end client to understand how
to actually do the business with them. So we understood
(13:07):
the real pain points that they're the cities. Uh the
city was leaving, they were losing clients. But we really
had to get down to, you know, how can we
actually help them solve their lighting needs? How can we
actually help bring people in? And so I think we
ultimately were able to get to uh to a contract
which was which was which was great, but it was
(13:27):
came down to security and we revitalized in the city
for economic development.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
That's a great example.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It's amazing how many people just take lighting for granted,
but they realized like they wouldn't walk down the street
without it being lit, well.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
It could be the scary street to figure out the
fifth nights back up, So that's important. Yeah, So across
your career, did someone give you some kind of advice
that was and that's so good advice. That was the
worst advice that someone ever told you.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The worst advice that I've probably been told that I'm
not going to be able to do it and you
should never think that you can do it. And that
was by a former boss who he was trying to
use it as a reverse psychology to try to motivate me.
But the way that was coming off was he was
just trying to use that advice just to push me down,
(14:31):
and the way that he said that was probably the
worst advice I've ever been given. So, yeah, that's probably
the worst that I've been getting.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So do you think that advice has impacted you to
actually propelled you to succeed at what you are doing
right now?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I would say I look back at it, and it
definitely hit me pretty hard. I'll admit that when you're
given bad advice from someone at a more senior level,
you're usually like, all right, well, they must know what
they're doing. They're they're getting paid more, they have a
bigger budget. You should listen. But looking back, I had
(15:09):
to take a second to realize that there are, unfortunately,
there are bosses that don't know what they're doing all
the time, and it's good to get proper mentorship and
proper career coaching to actually be able to help you
start to thrive. So I think that's one of the
ways I had to mitigate and get myself out of
(15:30):
it out of there, like.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Because business generally it's stuff, as we mentioned, and you
have to find these differentiators that we are talking about.
So now, in speaking and differentiators, do you think there
is some kind of broad differentiators or can we like
separate them on put or put them a category like
(15:52):
abroad and they're not all differentiators or are there just
one type of differentiators.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I look at and I'm actually speaking on myself and
and a team on this and at a conference in May,
but it's really there. I think there's company differentiators, but
there's also differentiators. When you're submitting a like a bid
or a proposal, you know you have your company differentiators
that are that are what makes you unique. But then
(16:20):
when you're submitting a proposal or a bid, you know
what makes you unique to the customer in that in
that bid? You know? So I think there's two different
avenues that you can look at because that bid is
very unique in tailor. Both of them are tailors and
you need to make them tear. There's no I wouldn't
(16:40):
go generic because that can also tell me that you
didn't spend much time really diving down to what makes
your company unique. Doesn't matter what market you're in, SaaS construction, retail,
like PUT, some effort behind it. That would be my recommendation.
But if you're going after a bid, how did you
(17:00):
tailor you to the end customer? How do you how
well do you know the end customer? And the end
customers probably want to know how well they know you both.
So you're you're you're very you're very unique, and so
that's what I recommend spending a lot of time on.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So what do you think are the best ways or
communications to interact with the customers and know about their
pins so they might, as we talked about, they might
give you your differentiator as a business and as a
person in the business or the owners in the business.
Because a lot of people talk about email, marketing, social
media and you mentioned those, but what in euro opinion
is the best way to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I say, the best of the human is the human communication,
the human interaction, and it's if you have a sales
team or account team, a technical team that deals with
the customer on a day to day basis, ask them
about the clients, say hey, tell me about the client,
Tell me about Mary, you know, ask or or Steve, like,
(17:58):
tell me tell me about you know what they do
and they can give you a lot more information about
you know, hey, this is why we like your company.
You know, you're there, you're responsive, you're open, you treat
me like a like a like a human and it's like
but you can get some good concrete information that is
that is, nothing will replace the human connection, you know,
(18:19):
so much as we want to deal with the AI
to help you help us, nothing will replace the human connection.
And then you could build on that and you can
work with that information you get from the face to
face time. They all right, we're very good on these
accounts because you know, we're responsive, we're there, and here
the metrics that we provided and you can leverage that
(18:41):
to help you with with other accounts like and so
I think work as much as you can on the
human connections upfront.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Cool. So, so for example, if we are going to
take this deal, but it's very important, you know, not
just for example, as in general, what happens in the
online world business around on the online business type of
businesses that collect emails and names, that's it. So, so
do you think that there is a better way for example,
online business to do that for example, collecting maybe birth
(19:12):
dates for example, if there is like a certain client
that might buy from you and you at distant send
them like a happy birthday email or something like that.
This is the type of connection that we are talking
about here, like a deeper connection beyond the basic the basic.
It's basically kind of like one side the connection.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I guess yeah, I always pay Yeah. I always say
relationship with two a streets personally and professionally, and it's
it's you get in, what you get into it, what
you what you put out of it. So on the
professional side, you say happy birthday, absolutely, you know, if
you're looking at it from LinkedIn, it's you know, if
someone makes a makes a post, put a comment on
(19:58):
there and say, and it's not just hey, great posts,
but put a little a little effort into it and
respond and engage because after maybe one post or three
or ten, they're gonna respond back and you're gonna build
and you're actually going to start to build an authentic relationship.
(20:18):
But you've got to invest. I always say go deep,
go deep with your accounts, go deep with your relationships
instead of trying to spray everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
So from your experience, what do you think some of
the best maybe tools, resources, or maybe even books that
have helped you along the way to develop as a
as an owner and with you within your business.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So I would definitely say the top two or three
out of my mind is engaging in professional associations. I say,
find a couple of professional associations, one in your market.
So if you're in marketing, find a professional association with
marketing so you can always stay on top of the
(21:01):
latest trends and the latest tools. Usually that is where
you're going to get executives from across your your industry
to be a part of. And then find a professional
association in your respected niche because then you can really
niche down. Say you're in the architecture, you really focus
on architecture, find a professional association in the architecture because
(21:24):
then you can really start to niche down, be like,
all right, if I focus on digital media, digital marketing
and architecture, you'll meet all the decision makers in there.
So I think that's one. The other one is, you know,
the small business administration offers mentorship. I think getting senior
level executives in mentorship can really help you. They've been
(21:46):
around the block. I recommend getting mentors to really be
able to help you. It's definitely helped me a lot.
I think that's that is that is great. So I
think those are probably the top two. And then I
always I'm always reading articles. I'm trying to find the book.
There is a book that I read, it's not coming
(22:06):
to the top of my head. I always read, you know,
magazines like the Harvard Business Review. I'm usually on that
on the regular basis. There's a couple of followers I
watch LinkedIn, like just Justin Welsh. I think he does
a great job. So there's those are the ones I
usually uh will recommend just to be able to stay
(22:27):
on top of my game.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what do you think is the would be the
final takeaway for businesses to differentiate themselves in like, let's
see some kind of steps one, two, three, as as
as a quick as a kick cook.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So the first I mean, that's a that's a great
that's a great actionable set. The first three steps is
to sit down with the with your team, definitely with
your sales team if you have a sales team, if
that yourself, is to write down on a whiteboard on
a piece of paper YU and try to figure out
(23:02):
like why do companies want to work with us? You
have your sales team, you have sales engineering team or
account team, write down YU and put metrics to it.
You know, we have a response rate faster than thirty
percent of the rest of the team. Great, let people
know that and really be able to because companies are
probably coming to your website. They want to see those
(23:23):
types of metrics numbers sell, so the put that out there.
So I say, start to really be able to push
on that and be able to have deeper conversation with
your existing clients. And that's how you can also build
to referrals. You know, because other your clients probably talk
to other clients because they were interested. Hey, you know
(23:45):
anybody else that might be interested and the type of
work we currently do, you could refer out because your
differentiators will speak volumes from people who are already buying
from you as well.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, definitely, that's very important because no, well in the
time and age, especially online, that people are bombarded with
everything with social media posts and with emails. So we
need as a business or entrepreneurs, we need to find
a way to have a deeper connection with other people
(24:18):
and personal one, I guess because this is the way
to go beyond and grow and.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Scale a business exactly and I was. I was talking
to a friend of mine, she was a former Coastguard executive,
and I asked her, I said, if somebody emailed you
or set you a post on LinkedIn, what you picked up?
(24:45):
She goes, absolutely, not, like I get bombarded with them.
I'm sec of them. Doesn't matter if they brought up
my page or whatever. She goes, and a lot of
executives won't. It's like, but if it was refer it
was a referral. She goes, yes, I will pick up,
but I gotta know why why I'm picking up. What's
going to make them different? Okay, and that is usually,
(25:09):
but if you have a differentiator, that's going to help
you get over the hurdle. Same thing with the big business.
Same thing with somebody who's got a budget. They want
to know why you Why am I going to spend
time talking to this person? You know, you know it's
you're gonna make me money, You're gonna save me money. Yeah,
So that's like, build those differentiators. You can pack that punch.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Diffinitely, because it's just a very competitive out there, and
it is to me, it's to me, it's strange me personally.
Why does it say cold calling or cold emailing or
cold whatever still works. Like I am the type of
that that in general get a few of those, but
(25:52):
I don't really respond that rarely respond unless I see
maybe a benefit for me. So it's it's time now
to actually do a deeper connection and a deeper work
with other businesses and people because eventually, what certain business
since as a cold email or cold call, you can't
(26:13):
find that yourself if you need it, So I don't know,
so that's the case. Maybe, So with me work there,
people learn more about you and get in touch with
you and see what you do.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sure, So you can reach out to me on my
website It's called Cribwards c r ib wo Rkscribwards dot
co and then I'm on there. I also publish a
weekly newsletter comes out every Monday. It's all about sales
and business development advice. So I publish that every Monday
(26:47):
as well, So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Well, Whittany, thank you very much for being here with you.
On this eliside of the success Gred podcast, we talked
about differentiators and business and it is very important especially nowadays,
because this is the way to grow a business because
eventually people in business with other people I guess, not
material things. So this is how it's done. This is
(27:10):
how it works because people work with people. Thank you
very much for joining me for this one.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Hey, I really appreciate the time. Thank you very much.
Hello On, Welcome Success Gradination to this episode of the
Success Gred podcast with your hosts and Talib. In this episode,
I have with me Whitney's Towell to talk about how
to build your company's differentiators to en big in business.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is a very.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Important topic for every entrepreneurial business owner. Whitneys Towell see
of crap Works, a lead DC based strategic management consultancy
fair the partners with leaders to transform organ organizational sales growth.
With fifteen years plus years in sales, business development and
partnership development, Whitney integrates strategic insights that driven processes, industry
(00:38):
expertise and AI to help businesses overcome their most critical
challenges to optimize their avenues for growth. So Whitney, welcome
to this episode of the Success podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh Lucin, thank you very much for having me and
I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Awesome to have you. I'm glad to talk about this subject.
Is very important thing to talk about building the company
differentiators because I'm sure that every business on entrepreneur always
thinking how should I differentiate myself? Is it the pricing?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
This? Is it does? So this is a very important time,
especially now with a lot of competitiveness in the marketplace
whatever it goes, specifically especially online. So we are going
to deep We're gonna have a deep dive into that.
But first, because this is the Success a great podcast,
I want to know what is success to you? And
what do you think other people see or define success
(01:29):
as and you agree or disagree with.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So I think success everyone's going to measure success differently
to themselves, whether it's success personally, whether it can be
success professionally. And you know, are you always taking are
you always moving forward in how you measure? Are you growing?
Are you learning more? So? I think that's you're learning.
(01:51):
You know today you can learn something new tomorrow. So
I think that the way you learn to be successful,
you know, also down to are you winning projects? If
you're losing projects? Are you learning from your mistakes? I
think success can be measured many different ways. Is how
you interpret it as well? I think there's many different
ways I can you can look at it.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So now J'm bring into a lot of subject matter
which is in business entrepreneurs always I'm sure only the
one that always thinking what is the thing that I
should be focusing on? How can I differentiate myself. There's
a lot of competitiveness. It's very like it's a brutal
it's a brutal I guess you could say, right, So,
first of all, what do we mean that a business
(02:36):
needs to be different? And does every business needs to
be different in a way from other businesses?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So I think company differentiators is it's very critical to
do you want to look at you know why you?
And I think that's probably one of the hardest questions
for a lot of company needs to answer. It's like
why you? Why would a company want to do business
with you? And that that not only applies to your marketing,
to your business, to development to you, to your internal conversations,
(03:04):
to your branding, but what makes you unique that people
actually want to have a conversation with you, build a
relationship with you, start to trust you. And it's not
because you've been in business for thirty years and you
know you're very strong in the market. But what makes
you unique? You know, and build metrics behind that as well.
(03:24):
So I think that's something people just need to sit
down and write down on a piece of paper, you know,
because if you do it in one market, there have
probably other companies that do it too, like really sit
down and be like why do people like us? And
have conversations with the customers about that as well, why
do they choose you? Because you know what, other potential
clients probably want to hear those success stories as well.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Also success and maybe failures, because like when we are
like going through business, I'm sure that there are multiple
probably failures going through that road. It's not like always
it's going to be roses. I guess throughout the journey
of that. I guess well as for example, the starting
(04:07):
point for any business or entrepreneur to start looking all
the points or to say, the elements or the framework
from putting differentiators because a lot of people in starting businesses,
they are always looking at the basic things in front
of them, which is like basically pricing. This is one
of the mostly talked about I think things that can
businesses differentiate themselves from other businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rack. Yeah, I wouldn't say looking at pricing because you
don't want to be driving down on pricing every single time.
One area I think is always great to look at
is you got to talk with your customers. Talk with
your existing customers, you know, is is it the relationship
that you're so strong. Is your customer service that you
have or is it your technical side, it's your engineering side.
(04:52):
What makes you so strong in your relationships? I think
that is always a great part to understand where you
baseline your activities. Right now, you know you have the
best pricing, Okay, great, Well someone else is going to
eventually figure that out and that's not going to be
a strong avenue for you. So look at what it
is from a relationship business. We are in the relationship business,
(05:16):
So like, what makes you stroke strong and really double
down and really put metrics behind it and be like, oh, okay,
we are so good at you know, we can get
back towards to the customer and you know thirty minutes
or whatever it might be. So put some strong meat
on the bone for that.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And the general example could be like, for example, I
think Domino Speedza may be like delivered within thirty minutes
or so if it's not thirty minutes, I guess it
was free or something like that. So this is the
kind of differentiator that are we are talking about. It's
not that simple or clear differentiators that are clear to everyone.
(05:54):
You need to think of an angle and you do that,
like you talked about, you're building some kind of your
relationship with your customers because they are probably they might
give you the solution or the differentiator that you are
looking for if you cannot find it yourself or the
people that you're working with, your customer might give you
the solution or the differentiator to build that. Right, this
(06:15):
is very important.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No, that's exactly what it is. But you also want
to be able to be building long term relationships with them.
So it's not just transactional you know, selling onesies and twosies.
You're building long term, deep relationships with them. So you
want to understand where their weak points are, where they're
strong points are, so you can also really be able
to build be like, oh, I understand how I can
(06:37):
consistently be able to help you achieve that pain point.
I can actually I can do that for you, and
so the customer will always be able to you know,
they'll want to call you. You want to make sure
where if there's a problem, the customer is always calling
you because you have a differentiator that they need. But
you you just need to start understanding it where it
(06:58):
is and you be able to write it down. But
you also need to be able to market it, market
it on your website, talk about it through social selling,
but also having your sales team talk about it in
the field as well. So that's just some points that
you can actually focus on.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, definitely. It's also about this thing like it could
we could have some kind of a differentiator, but it
could be a bad one. So how do we know
and differentiate the bads from the goods? Ones like do
what do you think about this?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That is? That's a that's a that's a really good one. Uh.
One way is just to challenge it. It's like, oh
we have you know, we've been business for thirty years. Uh,
and you know where a women owned small business or
a minority owned business that focuses on we're a general contractor.
And you can always ask the question, so what who
(07:46):
else does it? You can do a quick Google search
to see who else does it? You know, there's probably
a lot in the same area that do the exact
same thing and probably doing just as much and more
not more business. All Right, why would they Why are
they going to call you versus calling them? Another way
I always like to do it is I actually like
to go to a trade show, go to a convention
(08:07):
or a conference and walk up and down the roads
and see are they all selling the same thing? If
they're very si much to your business, what makes them different?
To do a competitive assessment. I always think competitive assessments
are very good to see what separates you from everyone
else and how if they have a differentiator, what would
(08:28):
yours be so people would actually see the difference between
that company and your company.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Now do you think that certain things in differentiation, Like
we know there is for example, operations, marketing, sales, people
working in the business. So for example, is it different
from a solopreneur in general, from a business that has
a certain amount of people or a team working in it.
And like you talked about a little bit, and if
you can expand on it, because you talked about it
(08:55):
should be all across the board within the business. It's operations, marketing, sales,
all of these people that are in the business, they
should basically be on the same page for the business
differentiators and visions.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, it's definitely going to vary. It's definitely going to vary.
If you're a solopreneur, you're not going to have the
depth or the bench I would say compared to a
medium sized company or a large business, so it's definitely
going to be a lot different. But if you're a startup,
small business solopreneur, you need to really look at why
they are investing in you. I mean, it is emotional sale,
(09:31):
but what makes you different? What can you provide that
someone else might not be able to? What is your
subject matter expertise and really hone in on that, Like
what do you know about the market that you can
provide that is very that is very tailored and very
tailored to the client that they need. If you're a
medium sized business, you're going to have a lot more
(09:51):
competition with other competitors out there. You know, what is
it that is different? But if you're a large business,
what do you provide that other company might need? You know,
is it anything from in the construction world, you have
the bonding capacity, you know, you might be able to
have other things from you can you have subcontractors they
can help you, you know, be able to get projects
(10:14):
to the end client. There's there's different different ways to
look at them as all tailored to who you are
and what the client needs. And it all comes down
to talking to the client. So what you think what
might be a differentiator might be different than what the
client actually sees. So it's a communication. It's that we well,
we all have to have communications with the the end client,
(10:35):
the ones who's actually cutting the check to us paying
the bills.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Definitely, so here we are talking about I might think
you are talking about, for example, the business of the
story or the business of the owner. And also the
messaging they kind of they might be put them in
the same bucket. Let's say, so the messaging and the
story to be aligned with each other, right, thinks that's
(11:00):
a could be an element.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, there's definitely there definitely needs to be some alignment.
And sometimes the end customer doesn't always know your full
story because they've naturally never been they've never listened or
heard the whole story. So sometimes it's a communication. Are
more of a transparent communication just to get to know
them a little bit more. So sometimes you just need
(11:24):
to hear it, be like, oh, I didn't know your
company does all X, Y and Z. Oh we do
have a gap in that area, So sometimes it just
takes a little bit longer to be able to address it.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Cool, So, can you give us an example of a
self instituation that happened with you.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Let's see, I would say one of the ones that
we were talking sat my last company. It was a
we were a lighting company and we were talking about
it was in We're in the Midwest, and the company
didn't have the end client and have any money and
(12:02):
but you know, there were clients that were leaving the
town and leaving the area mainly because there's a security problem.
So we talked about how lighting can really help you
bring you know, bring safety and security back because you
don't walk down a road unless the lights are on.
(12:23):
You know, you won't don't go into a parking garage
unless the lights are on, because there's a sense of
safety and sense of security. It's like, well, the lighting
can actually help bring you know, potential clients back into town,
and it can actually help boost economic development. And but
the way we can do it through a you know,
basically a performance type contract called performance contracting, so we
(12:45):
can actually pay back through it's called through the utility savings.
So we provided them a very unique way for them
to actually be able to do a contract with us
that other people weren't looking at. But we had to
build a relationship with the end client to understand how
to actually do the business with them. So we understood
(13:07):
the real pain points that they're the cities. Uh the
city was leaving, they were losing clients. But we really
had to get down to, you know, how can we
actually help them solve their lighting needs? How can we
actually help bring people in? And so I think we
ultimately were able to get to uh to a contract
which was which was which was great, but it was
(13:27):
came down to security and we revitalized in the city
for economic development.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
That's a great example.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It's amazing how many people just take lighting for granted,
but they realized like they wouldn't walk down the street
without it being lit, well.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
It could be the scary street to figure out the
fifth nights back up, So that's important. Yeah, So across
your career, did someone give you some kind of advice
that was and that's so good advice. That was the
worst advice that someone ever told you.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
The worst advice that I've probably been told that I'm
not going to be able to do it and you
should never think that you can do it. And that
was by a former boss who he was trying to
use it as a reverse psychology to try to motivate me.
But the way that was coming off was he was
just trying to use that advice just to push me down,
(14:31):
and the way that he said that was probably the
worst advice I've ever been given. So, yeah, that's probably
the worst that I've been getting.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So do you think that advice has impacted you to
actually propelled you to succeed at what you are doing
right now?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I would say I look back at it, and it
definitely hit me pretty hard. I'll admit that when you're
given bad advice from someone at a more senior level,
you're usually like, all right, well, they must know what
they're doing. They're they're getting paid more, they have a
bigger budget. You should listen. But looking back, I had
(15:09):
to take a second to realize that there are, unfortunately,
there are bosses that don't know what they're doing all
the time, and it's good to get proper mentorship and
proper career coaching to actually be able to help you
start to thrive. So I think that's one of the
ways I had to mitigate and get myself out of
(15:30):
it out of there, like.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Because business generally it's stuff, as we mentioned, and you
have to find these differentiators that we are talking about.
So now, in speaking and differentiators, do you think there
is some kind of broad differentiators or can we like
separate them on put or put them a category like
(15:52):
abroad and they're not all differentiators or are there just
one type of differentiators.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I look at and I'm actually speaking on myself and
and a team on this and at a conference in May,
but it's really there. I think there's company differentiators, but
there's also differentiators. When you're submitting a like a bid
or a proposal, you know you have your company differentiators
that are that are what makes you unique. But then
(16:20):
when you're submitting a proposal or a bid, you know
what makes you unique to the customer in that in
that bid? You know? So I think there's two different
avenues that you can look at because that bid is
very unique in tailor. Both of them are tailors and
you need to make them tear. There's no I wouldn't
(16:40):
go generic because that can also tell me that you
didn't spend much time really diving down to what makes
your company unique. Doesn't matter what market you're in, SaaS construction, retail,
like PUT, some effort behind it. That would be my recommendation.
But if you're going after a bid, how did you
(17:00):
tailor you to the end customer? How do you how
well do you know the end customer? And the end
customers probably want to know how well they know you both.
So you're you're you're very you're very unique, and so
that's what I recommend spending a lot of time on.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
So what do you think are the best ways or
communications to interact with the customers and know about their
pins so they might, as we talked about, they might
give you your differentiator as a business and as a
person in the business or the owners in the business.
Because a lot of people talk about email, marketing, social
media and you mentioned those, but what in euro opinion
is the best way to do that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I say, the best of the human is the human communication,
the human interaction, and it's if you have a sales
team or account team, a technical team that deals with
the customer on a day to day basis, ask them
about the clients, say hey, tell me about the client,
Tell me about Mary, you know, ask or or Steve, like,
(17:58):
tell me tell me about you know what they do
and they can give you a lot more information about
you know, hey, this is why we like your company.
You know, you're there, you're responsive, you're open, you treat
me like a like a like a human and it's like
but you can get some good concrete information that is
that is, nothing will replace the human connection, you know,
(18:19):
so much as we want to deal with the AI
to help you help us, nothing will replace the human connection.
And then you could build on that and you can
work with that information you get from the face to
face time. They all right, we're very good on these
accounts because you know, we're responsive, we're there, and here
the metrics that we provided and you can leverage that
(18:41):
to help you with with other accounts like and so
I think work as much as you can on the
human connections upfront.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Cool. So, so for example, if we are going to
take this deal, but it's very important, you know, not
just for example, as in general, what happens in the
online world business around on the online business type of
businesses that collect emails and names, that's it. So, so
do you think that there is a better way for example,
online business to do that for example, collecting maybe birth
(19:12):
dates for example, if there is like a certain client
that might buy from you and you at distant send
them like a happy birthday email or something like that.
This is the type of connection that we are talking
about here, like a deeper connection beyond the basic the basic.
It's basically kind of like one side the connection.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I guess yeah, I always pay Yeah. I always say
relationship with two a streets personally and professionally, and it's
it's you get in, what you get into it, what
you what you put out of it. So on the
professional side, you say happy birthday, absolutely, you know, if
you're looking at it from LinkedIn, it's you know, if
someone makes a makes a post, put a comment on
(19:58):
there and say, and it's not just hey, great posts,
but put a little a little effort into it and
respond and engage because after maybe one post or three
or ten, they're gonna respond back and you're gonna build
and you're actually going to start to build an authentic relationship.
(20:18):
But you've got to invest. I always say go deep,
go deep with your accounts, go deep with your relationships
instead of trying to spray everywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
So from your experience, what do you think some of
the best maybe tools, resources, or maybe even books that
have helped you along the way to develop as a
as an owner and with you within your business.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So I would definitely say the top two or three
out of my mind is engaging in professional associations. I say,
find a couple of professional associations, one in your market.
So if you're in marketing, find a professional association with
marketing so you can always stay on top of the
(21:01):
latest trends and the latest tools. Usually that is where
you're going to get executives from across your your industry
to be a part of. And then find a professional
association in your respected niche because then you can really
niche down. Say you're in the architecture, you really focus
on architecture, find a professional association in the architecture because
(21:24):
then you can really start to niche down, be like,
all right, if I focus on digital media, digital marketing
and architecture, you'll meet all the decision makers in there.
So I think that's one. The other one is, you know,
the small business administration offers mentorship. I think getting senior
level executives in mentorship can really help you. They've been
(21:46):
around the block. I recommend getting mentors to really be
able to help you. It's definitely helped me a lot.
I think that's that is that is great. So I
think those are probably the top two. And then I
always I'm always reading articles. I'm trying to find the book.
There is a book that I read, it's not coming
(22:06):
to the top of my head. I always read, you know,
magazines like the Harvard Business Review. I'm usually on that
on the regular basis. There's a couple of followers I
watch LinkedIn, like just Justin Welsh. I think he does
a great job. So there's those are the ones I
usually uh will recommend just to be able to stay
(22:27):
on top of my game.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what do you think is the would be the
final takeaway for businesses to differentiate themselves in like, let's
see some kind of steps one, two, three, as as
as a quick as a kick cook.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So the first I mean, that's a that's a great
that's a great actionable set. The first three steps is
to sit down with the with your team, definitely with
your sales team if you have a sales team, if
that yourself, is to write down on a whiteboard on
a piece of paper YU and try to figure out
(23:02):
like why do companies want to work with us? You
have your sales team, you have sales engineering team or
account team, write down YU and put metrics to it.
You know, we have a response rate faster than thirty
percent of the rest of the team. Great, let people
know that and really be able to because companies are
probably coming to your website. They want to see those
(23:23):
types of metrics numbers sell, so the put that out there.
So I say, start to really be able to push
on that and be able to have deeper conversation with
your existing clients. And that's how you can also build
to referrals. You know, because other your clients probably talk
to other clients because they were interested. Hey, you know
(23:45):
anybody else that might be interested and the type of
work we currently do, you could refer out because your
differentiators will speak volumes from people who are already buying
from you as well.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, definitely, that's very important because no, well in the
time and age, especially online, that people are bombarded with
everything with social media posts and with emails. So we
need as a business or entrepreneurs, we need to find
a way to have a deeper connection with other people
(24:18):
and personal one, I guess because this is the way
to go beyond and grow and.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Scale a business exactly and I was. I was talking
to a friend of mine, she was a former Coastguard executive,
and I asked her, I said, if somebody emailed you
or set you a post on LinkedIn, what you picked up?
(24:45):
She goes, absolutely, not, like I get bombarded with them.
I'm sec of them. Doesn't matter if they brought up
my page or whatever. She goes, and a lot of
executives won't. It's like, but if it was refer it
was a referral. She goes, yes, I will pick up,
but I gotta know why why I'm picking up. What's
going to make them different? Okay, and that is usually,
(25:09):
but if you have a differentiator, that's going to help
you get over the hurdle. Same thing with the big business.
Same thing with somebody who's got a budget. They want
to know why you Why am I going to spend
time talking to this person? You know, you know it's
you're gonna make me money, You're gonna save me money. Yeah,
So that's like, build those differentiators. You can pack that punch.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Diffinitely, because it's just a very competitive out there, and
it is to me, it's to me, it's strange me personally.
Why does it say cold calling or cold emailing or
cold whatever still works. Like I am the type of
that that in general get a few of those, but
(25:52):
I don't really respond that rarely respond unless I see
maybe a benefit for me. So it's it's time now
to actually do a deeper connection and a deeper work
with other businesses and people because eventually, what certain business
since as a cold email or cold call, you can't
(26:13):
find that yourself if you need it, So I don't know,
so that's the case. Maybe, So with me work there,
people learn more about you and get in touch with
you and see what you do.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sure, So you can reach out to me on my
website It's called Cribwards c r ib wo Rkscribwards dot
co and then I'm on there. I also publish a
weekly newsletter comes out every Monday. It's all about sales
and business development advice. So I publish that every Monday
(26:47):
as well, So that's where you can find me.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Well, Whittany, thank you very much for being here with you.
On this eliside of the success Gred podcast, we talked
about differentiators and business and it is very important especially nowadays,
because this is the way to grow a business because
eventually people in business with other people I guess, not
material things. So this is how it's done. This is
(27:10):
how it works because people work with people. Thank you
very much for joining me for this one.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Hey, I really appreciate the time. Thank you very much.
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