Buyer Persona Jam Session

Curt Anderson  00:04

Okay, alright. So, hey, Julie is here, Chris is here, Joe is here. So alright, we’ll, we’re like, Hey Joe, Roy, Mr. Mr. I’m retiring this month. Oh,

Joe Roy  00:15

yep, Joe. I miss you.

00:19

Yep. Six more days. Wow,

Allison DeFord  00:21

man. Loving the glasses. Dude. Thanks.

Curt Anderson  00:28

What’s it like to like, I, you know, I’m like, 30 years away. What’s it like to be on the verge of retirement?

Joe Roy  00:36

It’s a little scary. It’s also a little freeing, too. There’s a, you know, there’s different, there’s good and bad to it, yeah, but, well, not more good than bad. But, I mean, you just, you know, it’s an unknown, so it’s, it’s something new.

Curt Anderson  00:53

What on earth could be bad, right? Right? So, alright, well, hey, we had, we had a decent sign up. So I know we’re a little light right now. I’ll just let people as we get going. I’d like to be for the folks that get here on time. I’d like to start on time. So I know Chris is still connecting to her audio. Julie, how are you doing? Happy Thursday to you. And Allison dropped her LinkedIn in the chat box. I encourage everybody grab your LinkedIn, drop in the chat it’s a great opportunity. Make some new friends, make some new connections. And if we were at a network event, man, we’d be handing out business cards, right? High fiving, hugging, all that stuff. So we’ll get things going. Um, I think you know what, let’s just get. Let’s just get I’m recording, and let’s just get the thing rolling, right? So how about you know what I’m gonna I’m gonna work my way east. I’m gonna work my way east. So my name is Curt Anderson, of B2Btail. Honor, privilege to be with you today. I’m in I’m in snow country, so it’s a little chilly where I’m at, so I’m gonna move. Wesleyan Whittaker is in house in the great city of Houston. Houston. We don’t have any problems. Wesleyan, how are you today?

Wesleyne Whittaker  01:57

I’m good. There’s snow on the ground here today. There’s no crowd, but I know,

Curt Anderson  02:01

like, New Orleans, Houston, the Panhandle floor, like, like, what is happening, right? I

Wesleyne Whittaker  02:07

know. Yes, I am Wesleyne Whittaker in Houston, Texas. I am so excited to be here with you guys today.

Curt Anderson  02:13

Awesome. Wesleyne, so hey, founder and extraordinary transformation Chief, Chief transformation Officer of Transformed Sales and just a dynamic sales leader, we have, my dear friend, we’re moving west. We’re going out to Southern California. Lot of stuff going on in South, Southern California. So Allison, thoughts and prayers to your community. I know it’s been very, very rough. Allison DeFord, how are you? What’s happening with you today? Well, I’m

Allison DeFord  02:39

excited to be here anytime that I get to hang out with you guys is, is a treat. And our manufacturing audience, and my buddy Joe, I’m I’m so excited. And yes, we have had quite a last couple of weeks. I’m in Southern California, and the fires are about an hour from me, and it’s, yeah, it’s been gut wrenching. So I would just say, no matter what you hear in the news or this is affecting people of all walks of life, just rich people, and it is wiped out entire communities, like not just someone’s home, but where their kids go to school, their place of worship, their grocery store, like everything is gone. So I just wanted to throw that out there, that if you could find it in your heart to make a donation, please do that. It’ll make a big difference. This is going to take probably a decade for for this to rebuild and recover so but on a positive note, it’s very warm here. It’s not cold and and I’m grateful for that. So excited to be here. We’ve got a lot of good stuff for everybody,

Curt Anderson  03:56

yeah, and thank you, Elsa and so for those of you that know, we have our little LinkedIn live show, and our guest on Monday, lost her house two weeks ago. She lives in Malibu, and she hasn’t been back to her home. Can’t go back to her community. She’s not allowed to even go see her house, and so she they, they lost family, five they lost everything, and it’s just absolutely devastating. So okay, so thoughts, prayers with everybody there. So we’ll turn into a we’re going to spin things on a positive note. So let’s start here. Allison, I want to start with you. Okay, dive into a little bit of we’re talking about that buyer persona. Why? Understanding who that buyer is from your perspective, why is it just so critical? It’s for every business, but especially for our manufacturers. Why is it so important?

Allison DeFord  04:43

Well, great question, and I run into this with every single client that I work with in marketing and manufacturing. So what I find, and I’m looking forward to hearing Wesleyan thoughts and yours as well. I. Uh, nine out of 10 manufacturers that we work with, they know who their customers are, their ideal customers, but they don’t have anything in writing. It’s all up here. And when you say, when was the last time that you asked them what’s keeping you up at night. You know what’s going on in your world today, I get a blank stare. I have been guilty of this myself, so I’m never pointing fingers. There’s always three pointing back at me. I’m the guinea pig, I always say. So what I’ve learned from this is that it’s very helpful if you get it out of your head and onto a document that you actually hang up, and when people say, Okay, well, our defining the your ideal customer is it’s easier than you think, but what I recommend is that you go about it dig a little deeper. So when people say, well, our ideal customer is an engineer, we say, Great. Is it all engineers everywhere? And they said, absolutely. So think about that, all engineers. Whoo, that’s a lot of people to try to attract and talk to. So then we say, Okay, is it a specific kind of engineer? So I encourage them, let’s get a little more granular. Well, yeah, they start looking around the room. It’s an electrical engineer for the most part. Okay, great. So an electrical engineer. So we’ve narrowed it a bit like think if you’re doing a search. Curt taught me this if with SEO, if you’re doing a search and you search for engineers, you’re going to get millions, millions of results. That’s overwhelming. Now, if we get more specific and we say, electrical engineers, fewer, this is what we want, this is a good thing. So then we say, well, what level are they like, what’s their well, they’re mostly senior level. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. So senior level electrical engineers, are they focused on a specific field? They all look at each other and go, Well, yeah, the PCB market. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. So now we’re going like this. So now we’ve got this pool, and then we say senior level electrical engineers focused on the PCB market that are primarily in the west and southwest United States. Oh my gosh. Well, now we’re talking to several, let’s just say several 1000 versus millions. So think about how much easier that is to craft content and messaging for this very specific group. So I highly recommend really zooming in and and and getting very granular on who this person is. And then, before I go on about any kind of, you know, building the persona or what’s next, I think we should hear from Wesleyan, because I guarantee she’s got some ideas and thoughts and experiences to share too.

Curt Anderson  08:22

So just to, just to chime in real quick. So for those of you, again, strongly encouraged, let’s all connect on LinkedIn. Connect with Wesley and connect with Allison. When you connect with both of them, you’re just going to get wonderful feedback, incredible, brilliant posts. Wesleyan has a little hashtag called Wesleyne wisdom. And so Wesleyan you, and so Allison, you’re, you know, you. Thank you for the check out on SEO. Wesleyne, what you taught me is, when you try to be everything to everybody, what happens? Nothing

Wesleyne Whittaker  08:49

to no one, nothing to no one. And you know, this is, I can give you a very real example of this. So I have a friend, and he sent me this podcast, and we exchanged podcasts back and forth. And so I listened to the podcast. I was like, this is horrible. Like, I don’t like this at all. And so when we had our debrief later that day, I was like, so before I give you my feedback, tell me your feedback. He was like, he spoke directly to me. It was such a good podcast. He said this, this and this. And I was like, thank you. I was not his ideal client. So that very real example tells us how important it is to be very specific in who we’re speaking to. And so when I think about it, I always think about this from the sales side. So if I say, Oh, I sell to all engineers, kind of building on what Allison was saying, I sell to all engineers all over the world. And if they can be from brand new to in their position for 10 years, doesn’t really matter the specific area they work in or the industry. When you get into your sales conversations and you start adding. Asking discovery questions. They’re so broad and so overarching, your client doesn’t feel like you know who they are, and so that know like trust, it extends beyond just what we do on the marketing side, it goes into the sales side. The more laser focus you are on that ideal client, the more you know about them, the better. And it’s our job to know as much or more than our customer about their current environment, their economic environment, what’s happening in their industry, what’s happening within their companies. Like and if you are so out focused on everything, you get overwhelmed. But the goal is to be the biggest fish in the smallest pond.

Curt Anderson  10:44

Drop the mic right there, right? How was that, Allison, so, you know, a little tagline that we love to use is like, how do you niche down, but niche down till it hurts, right? And it does. It hurts when you’re like, you know, well, gee, what about this customer? What about that customer? Like, Allison, with your analogy, you know, like, Well, hey, what about if we’re in the northeast, or, what about the southeast? You know? Well, no, because, like, it puts us, you know, there’s transportation, there’s this that the other thing just talk a little bit about how, why it’s so important, is just stay in your lane and really focus on that niche.

Allison DeFord  11:13

Well, like Wesleyan said, when you are a big fish in a big pond, okay, you’re they, what? There’s books written about it, right, swimming in the Red Sea. So you are just, you’re trying to talk to everybody. You’re what, if we’re not talking to these folks, we could lose that sale. And I think what we’ve learned in working with so many manufacturers, right, everybody here is that you are making it harder for yourself by not niching down. I myself, was very afraid of that years ago, and it was very scary. And I thought, Well, gosh, if we only market to manufacturers, what about all those other people that might want to work with us. And what happened is, when you are speaking a very specific someone’s language, it’s so much easier to have that conversation than trying to shout and get everyone’s attention right and trying to talk. We’ll have this kind of conversation, well, maybe we have to tailor it to these people. Now you’re knocking yourself out and it’s exhausting. So what I have found is there is freedom in specializing, right? Are you a specialist or are you a generalist? Specialists make a lot more money, and they are sought after versus seeking so that’s a great place to be. And so most manufacturers ask us, Well, where do we start? How do we how do we find out? Are we just looking for demographics about our ideal customer? And I think that was probably the case back in the day. You know, it’s a senior level manager who’s, you know, 40 to 65 and, you know, he primarily lives in the southwest, has a college degree. Well, I think what we’ve learned is that that’s all fine and dandy, but that doesn’t help you understand to connect with that person on an emotional level. So how do we do that? We ask them. So I encourage manufacturers, when was the last time that you picked up the phone and you called your top five customers, your top 10 customers, and I’m speaking to this is mostly for small to mid sized manufacturers, because that’s mostly who we work with and and I know their pain points, and it’s like, well, I don’t want to bother them. I don’t want to I don’t want to seem needy. Let me tell you what. People love to talk about themselves, and they love to be seen and heard and felt so when you reach out and you say, Hey, we’re on a mission to really understand what it’s like to be you today, they’re going to go, Whoa. Okay. Well, why? Well, because we want to be of service to you at a whole new level. We want to make life easier for you in in any way we can when it comes to XYZ, right, this experience that you have with us, and we want to make it easier and better for any future manufacturers like yourself. And then I say, get specific. You know, you can we’ve surveyed people before. It’s challenging. I think it can work, but I think it’s a lot more challenging to send out a survey, versus you pick up the phone and you ask and say, what’s what keeps you up at night? You know, when it comes to this industry, and it comes to your. Role. Do you feel alone, or do you feel really supported like so I don’t, you know, I want to pass the baton here, but that’s my suggestion is. Is ask them. You’ll find out a lot more than you ever realized.

Curt Anderson  15:13

Wesleyne, your thoughts,

Wesleyne Whittaker  15:15

yeah, the key thing that I want to ensure that everybody understands is in manufacturing, we typically have a buying committee, and so oftentimes we’re speaking to the wrong person. A lot of times when I sit down and I speak to manufacturers, I’m like, Okay, so who is a person that you want to target within this organization? And they say, oh, purchasing or procurement. I’m like, no, no, no, no. Purchasing agents, buyers, they don’t really care about you. They are focused on saving money for the company. They’re focused on getting whatever widget the technical team needs at the lowest cost. And so if that is who you’re targeting, your rate of conversion is going to be really, really, really low, and you can’t go deep within an organization if you’re only speaking to a purchasing agent, because they don’t have the power to do what you need to do. So even, as Allison mentioned, when you’re having these conversations with your clients, you want to ask them on a so if you sell something that’s $20,000 or $100,000 or $5,000 whatever the average cost is, so typically, when a purchase is made of $20,000 who needs to be involved in that decision? And they will say, Oh, yeah. So for anything that’s over $15,000 we have to have approval from the plant manager, or we need the VP of Operations, or, well, if we’re buying a new piece of equipment, then we typically want technicians to try it out to make sure that they like it. So that information is important for you, because as you’re creating your content, as you’re having conversations with people, you are speaking to that person who is the ultimate one who’s going to say, yes, we want to bring you into our organizations, but you can’t forget about the ancillary people. You can’t forget about those lurkers, right? The people who are just looking at your content and they’ll never like it or comment on it, but they’re just consuming and consuming,

Curt Anderson  17:20

yeah, and I think hitting them where they’re at. So, Elsa, I’m going to show, I’m going to show a little fun example. You and I take team of clients several years ago, and so I want to talk about how important it is to Wesley, you hit it like not only understand their customer, but their customer’s customer. Just talk a little bit about understanding the customer, you know, understanding that chain of the customer’s customer, and then I’m going to show a little example when you’re

Wesleyne Whittaker  17:45

done. Is that for me, I’m

Curt Anderson  17:47

sorry for Allison, for Allison. Oh,

Allison DeFord  17:48

understanding the customer’s customer. Yeah, the customer’s

Curt Anderson  17:51

customer. And you know what, if I don’t put you on the spot? So let me, I’ll show a quick I’m going to show a quick example, real quick. And so let’s, let me share my screen. Can you guys see my screen and let me share? Let me go slide show. So Allison, this was a client that you and I work together, and they manufacture a baby changing tables, baby changing tables and like, what is much, what’s more pressures, more precious cargo than a baby. So just talk and because what I want to do, if the buyer persona is new to folks, you did an amazing job. I just wanted to show a couple examples of like, hey, you know, I kind of hear you. I you know, you’re niching down electrical engineer, but you know, here we’re showing a couple examples. We’ve got Taylor and Mario Allison. Do you want to talk a little bit about who these buyer personas, how they were created, and, like, just kind of help folks get in that mindset,

Allison DeFord  18:42

yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m a fan of putting a face with a name and a name to a persona. So this is really effective. I have had so many manufacturers come back to us as we work together to develop content and marketing strategies and whatnot. And they say, this really works. And I said, Well, what do you mean? And they said, Well, we’re, we’re sitting in the conference room and we’re like, we’re having a meeting. We’re talking about, you know, what are we going to do coming up this year, before we meet with you and we hash it out, and we say, well, what would be good for Taylor the architect? What would Mario respond to this? Would he even care? And I was like, yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do. Is I think so many times we plan marketing and sales communication and we leave the customer out, right? We forget who they really are and what they really care about. And sometimes we go into the weeds and we then we start speaking our speak. And as Wesleyan mentioned, that isn’t going to. To that ain’t going to speak to everybody. Okay, they they aren’t going to care, and they’re going to tune you out. So the fun thing when we put together a persona is we name them, and we also find a picture that it could be a current picture of a current customer, if you like, but a lot of times we’ll find a stock image that we feel like represents that group. And a lot of times, you know, I think it makes a difference, are they primarily male? Are they primarily female? Because that can have some different nuances as to how you speak to them and what they care about. And then we really like to hone in on, well, what are their frustrations? What are their motivations, what are their challenges, and what are their goals? And I think one of the most important things you can do is uncover what is their hero state. What does that look like? Because when you sit down to plan marketing and sales messaging, and if your sole intent is we’re going to help we’re on a mission to help Taylor reach her hero state. And that is what, what does that look like? Well, so is this stuff that we’re talking about today? Do we think this campaign and this language, is that going to help her get there? And if the answer is no, then you need to tweak it. Because I think, and I’ve seen from experience, that when you’re speaking to and creating content for people and to solve problems that they have and help their life be better. You’re going to be way more effective and much faster, and like we say, you’re going to make sales easier. And that’s a double entendre, and I think it’s it’s important,

Curt Anderson  22:01

well, saying your thoughts, as far as, like diving in, creating that buyer persona, really understanding the person. This is like your jam. What are your thoughts?

Wesleyne Whittaker  22:08

So the when you have a document like this, it’s even if more of the the subtleties, right? So if I’m looking at Taylor, um, one of them, her motivations are environment and sustainability. So if I’m taking a hike and I snap a picture of myself, or I do a video as I’m outside in nature and Taylor scrolling on her feed, that’s going to stop her, because she’s like, Oh, what’s happening there. Now let me read this post so it’s really stepping into their world and understanding where they receive their information. If we figure out that Mario is a member of the National Association of facility managers, maybe we want to put an ad on their website. Maybe we want to go to that conference. Maybe we want to find the local association where we are and do a speaking event there or sponsor it. So really stepping into the world of your your buyer is really, really key, and then taking it a step further, you mentioned Curt like the customer of your customer. So oftentimes I work with CEOs or sales leaders and their customer are the sales people. Their customer are the people who they’re actually thinking about. If I’m working directly with a salesperson, their customer is who they’re selling to. So we have to not only think about that person, but we have to think about that next level, because they’re thinking about who they serve and how they help them and the challenges that they’re having, they’re not necessarily thinking about what they have going on. They’re focused on, how do I help this person that I am trying to serve? How do I get them to achieve their goals? So even having content that’s not only focused on your actual customer, but things that may help them personally professionally, I had a note, a LinkedIn note, just this morning, from someone I’ve been connected to for a while. So saw they viewed my profile, I reached out to them and say, Hey, why did you stumble upon my profile? He said, Well, you wrote about your son being dyslexic, and you were also talking about figuring out what success looks like at the end of this year, he is my ideal client, right? My ideal client is usually a VP director of HR that is very focused on developing their people. But those aren’t the posts that I write. A lot of content about that. But what resonated with him was me talking about my kid, because he has a young child. So you have to think about it’s not only why we’re so great, why we’re so amazing, all the amazing things we do, it’s really stepping into your customers world and understanding the things that impact them as human beings, because they’re humans, just like we are. Oh, you’re on mute. Curt,

25:05

see, I got,

Curt Anderson  25:07

I, I wanted to cover a couple things that you guys just covered right here. So as we look at this, I do buyer persona, so like an Allison’s example, Mario and Taylor. And this is funny, so exactly what you just said. Wesleyan, so you look down here, we look at their social like, where are they hanging out? How can we connect with them? What messaging can we put out there? What are her challenges, frustrations, goals, that type of thing. So, you know, this is a company they manufacture baby changing tables. So when you think of, you know, like, though the company, like, here’s their soulmate, their buyer, but who they targeting this guy right here, right? Like, that’s the customer’s customer, the parents, the more that I’m protecting that child, the better I’m going to hit it off with Mario or in in Taylor now Allison, if you remember, we this was a wonderful team of folks that we were working with in Miami. They called me uncle Curt. And I was like, just hitting the LinkedIn drum over and over and over. And they’re like, Uncle Curt, you know, you’re an old guy. LinkedIn is not for us. You know, that’s for older people trying to find a job. And I’m like, I’m telling you, just listen to me, right? So we kept preaching LinkedIn. And so what they started doing, kicking and screaming, they started posting on LinkedIn. And what they did is this team would go out in the community Miami, and once a month they would do give back to the community. Here it was Earth Day, and the wonderful team here, they’re out cleaning up the beach. Another day, another month, they’re at the homeless shelter, and all they would do is just like, Po, they start posting us stuff on LinkedIn. Well, fun. One day I open up LinkedIn, uncle. Curt, you’re a right. LinkedIn works. And guess what? Like this is, this is like, tailor to a T Hi, Jennifer, I’m working on a three restroom renovation for the college bam. Like, who like these guys, this was their soul mate, right? Can you advise the latest and greatest designs and trends and products? Thank you. Here’s my number. Here’s my contact information. So Allison, weird thoughts on, like, why is it just so important? It’s not important, like, where we want to hang out. It’s where our soul mates are hanging out. Your thoughts there?

Allison DeFord  27:05

Yes, you know, I liken it to dating. I’m not the first person to say that, right? And an important question that was posed to me recently, and I am forever going to adopt this I get together every year with my Super Friends, well, every week for the over a decade, and every December we get together and we plan goals for the next year. And so we all figured out our goals. And one of the Super Friends said, Okay, now we need to figure out, who do we need to become? And we, all the three of us, just sat there and she we, we say she throws a glass at her head. It’s a long story in a joke, but she does regularly. And it was kind of like, Oh, wow. So what I mean here is this, it’s important to figure out, to understand who your ideal customer is, who they are. And then, like Wesleyan said, you do need to figure out well, and I would say, ask them, Where do you get your information? Where do you go for education? Where do you go for funny stuff about the industry. What publications do you read? What blogs do you love to read? Are there any influencers that like you? Just you love their like ask these questions, figure out where they are, and then I think it’s really important to then look inward, right? I always say the best marketing and sales happens from the inside out. So who do you need to become as a sales rep to attract this sort of person? Who do you need to become as a company, as a brand, and I think that’s really important. For example, when I say dating, let’s say that you are now in the dating pool, and you think, Okay, I’m looking for I really want to find a guy who’s like, really fit, who’s really smart, who’s very successful, who’s funny, who’s emotionally intelligent, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank, and yet you don’t take care of yourself. So you’re not in good shape. You’re a little low on the Emotional Intelligence Scale, because you’re not working on yourself. You are. You know you’re not traveling or and sharing that, but you’re looking for someone who travels and is adventurous, see where there’s a disconnect. So in effect, you’re not going to be attractive inside. Outside to the person that you’re trying to that you want. So this is something that’s been a big brick to my head lately, and I I’m excited to share this thought and see what you guys think about this awesome

Curt Anderson  30:20

Wesleyne, what do you want to piggyback on that?

Wesleyne Whittaker  30:22

I just I think that last piece is, do your insides match your outsides? Are you trying to go and ask for 50 $100,000 purchase orders, and when your prospective buyer goes on your website that hasn’t been updated in 10 years, you have zero social media presence. You are not investing any money at any kind of trade shows, like you’re just in your own little bubble, but you’re expecting the cream of the crop clients, and you have to remember before a person will pick up the phone book a meeting say yes to a cold email, they’re going to do a bunch of research online. Today’s buyers come to us 80% ready to make a decision. They have done all of the searching. They have looked they’ve been lurking, they’ve been in the background, just out there, seeing what’s happening. And when they submit an inquiry, they’re ready to go. And so if you’re doing any kind of cold outreach, or you’re cold calling, emailing, sending LinkedIn or social media messages, they’re going to check you out before they say yes. So if they go to your website and it’s outdated, if they go to your social media profile, both for the company as well as your you personally, and there’s not any content on there, then that’s not going to compel them to buy. And in that vein, a lot of times people don’t like to they’re like, oh, I don’t want to use my personal LinkedIn, or I don’t want to use my personal social media, because I want people to buy from the company. People buy from people. Period. Doesn’t matter what you think about people’s politics or who they are, whatnot. But when we think about Tesla, we think about Elon Musk, right? Who do you think about? When you think about Apple, I still think about Steve Jobs. That’s my own own thing, right? But it’s like, literally, you think about the person that is the face of the company. When I was a salesperson, my customers knew Wesleyan, and so when I left my company and I called them up and said, Hey, so I had moved on, I’m doing this now, they’re like, Okay, Greg, what are you selling? Okay, yeah, just come in and let’s talk, because they really built that connection. So you have to remember people buy from people. So whether you’re the business owner or you are a salesperson or a marketing person within an organization, you do have to put the face on the brand or you’re not going to move your conversion metrics.

Allison DeFord  32:57

Mic drop. Curt, right?

Curt Anderson  32:59

We’re taking a moment of silence right there, just like, let that sink in and resonate. And so for everybody listening, I if you guys have questions, please chime in. You want to have a comment? You’re like, this is a great opportunity. You’ve got two high level folks here, so let’s we want to deliver as much value to you as possible. So if you have any questions, we want to roll up our sleeves. You know, we’ve got plenty time for for a Q and A Allison. You wanted to dive in a little bit further, and, or, if you’re comfortable, you were just on our LinkedIn live show recently, and you were talking about, like, how you actually made a transformation for yourself, on how different clients that you were working with, and then you really zeroed in, do you want to share, like, your own journey, your own transformation? Sure,

Allison DeFord  33:42

this was a major break to the head. I want to say about 10 years ago, I was working with a business coach, and he suggested that we specialize instead. He’s like, Well, do you want you know you’re acting like a commodity, which I say this to clients all the time in manufacturing, you’re acting like a commodity, but you’re really offering a specialty. So which one is more appealing to buy from? If you’re a commodity, you’re just like everybody else, right? And I use the example of coffee, you’re you’re just like everybody else, until you decide to become Starbucks, water, you’re just like everybody else, until you decide to be Fiji or Evian or arrowhead or fill in the blank, right, Creating meaning to the people who will care if I can quote Seth Godin. So what we figured out is that we were trying to be too much to too many people. So we realized our specialty was manufacturing. And then what we realized is. And doing this work that I’m encouraging you to do or to do with, you know, someone like like one of us is we had the epiphany that we were talking over our customers, we were speaking our language, and we were coming in, acting like we were all smart and bad ass and great at marketing, and that they weren’t. And it was this, like, whoa, this moment of realization. And when I say this to manufacturers, I encourage them, we want to approach our ideal customer as their guide and their champion, and realize the value right that they bring to this. It’s massive. We’re just here to support. And I think that when you stop, and again, this is from my own experience, when you stop trying to come in as the know it all. So if you’re the manufacturer, and you’re trying to help your your customers, or potential customers, and you’re talking about yourself, Curt, you know, I had to go here, the we, we syndrome is something that I talk about all the time. So

Curt Anderson  36:26

Russell, I’m sorry, Allison, what is the wee wee syndrome? I might ask.

Allison DeFord  36:30

Well, if you’re covered in we, we not a good thing. First of all. Secondly, you are so busy focused on your own navel, right? Oh, look, I can make it talk. It’s a long story. I had cousins when we were kids, and they ran around with no shirts on because they were boys, and I just thought this was the strangest thing. And then I found this picture a long time ago, and it was this little boy staring at his own navel, fascinated. And I was like, that’s what we’re doing. We are so focused on our own self, and so if you’ll notice, and this goes back to what Wesleyan was talking about a minute ago, when you’re speaking your language versus their language, your social posts are going to be a lot like this. We are so excited about this award that we just one we are going to be at this next trade show. We, you know, stop by booth 242, and we’ll show you there’s so much we everywhere. It’s on your website too. You’re leading with yourself. If you flip the script and lead with you, right? Because that’s this is what you’re doing this for. It’s for them and their customers and their customers customers. So I encourage people to flip the script, and that’s what we did in in going back to my example that Curt asked me to share, is we stopped talking about ourselves, and we realized the value and the importance of leading with them and of also connecting with heart. And I got a lot of pushback on that from my own team and from people around me. They were like, you’re going to talk to manufacturers about heart. That’s never going to work. And I thought, but I just knew, right? I knew we had to be ourselves and we had to lead with this is going to sound weird, but love and creativity and with passion and and really speak our truth and speak their truth. And so by doing that, I think that was how internally we flipped the script and became more attractive to the people who would care. And that’s what you know, that’s what we help manufacturers do. And I see it work. Day after day, year after year, you become more attractive,

38:58

Joe, you have a question.

38:59

Well, I have more of a comment than a question, but I agree. I mean, that’s one of the problems we have societally, is we get into our tribes and everybody is alike. We don’t get people who are not like us into our circle. We’re uncomfortable with that. I mean, I’ve seen that big time in the manufacturing world in the eight plus years I’ve been in here on the MEP side, we build our staffs. They’re all the exact same person. I mean, you could throw the cards up in the air, and wouldn’t matter which one of those persons came down, they’re all the same people. They don’t have anybody in there. And they say, Well, how do we get women involved? Well, I don’t know. Let’s ask the women in the organization. Oh, we don’t have any or how do we get people from this area involved? Oh, I don’t know. Let’s ask them. Well, there’s nobody from that area. We don’t have anybody, you know? We just don’t do it. And it’s crazy. Allison came out to Nebraska and worked with one of our customers, and she redesigned everything for them, and they’ve had a one. Full success run since then, out there, out here, because they got a leader finally, who said, I need to find different things. You know, and I get accused a lot in my role. I have been accused a lot in my role, like, like, can’t you stay focused on any one thing? No, I can’t, because there’s always something more new. There’s something to want. Yes, I can focus. I want to have some focus, but I also want to be open to learning

Curt Anderson  40:30

excellent Joe’s with the Nebraska MEP, even though he’s retiring. What how many days Joe is it today’s the 23rd is it next Thursday? It’s a week from tomorrow. It’s a week from tomorrow. God bless you, dude. So how about a round of applause for Joe for dedicating his career to doing a

40:44

great job. And I’m retiring, but I’m not going away. I’m not going away. We’re probably going to show up to these webinars, just because I need to stay informed as to what’s happening, things like that, and people want to ask me questions. I’m open to having questions asked to me too. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  40:59

keep them coming. And Joe’s a manufacturing expert. So Joe, thank you for your your love, your support. Big baseball fan, by the way, but Allison, I love your point. So just last night, late last night, I was working with a client. He had a couple proposals, and he said, Hey, could you go through it? And I said, You know what? I’m going to give you my honest feedback, right? You’re asking me, I’m telling you. So this, it was a $60,000 proposal from another, from a vendor, and I’m going through it. And it was all about our accomplishments, all about our current clients, all about everything that we’ve done. Here’s a bunch of the tasks that were a copy and paste the client, Mike, my client was not mentioned once in the entire proposal, not one time. And it was, it was a anyway, I’m gonna stop in that. But I’m like, if this was me, and you’re asking me, in my opinion, I’m in your shoes, this person’s looking to extract a significant amount of money from you. Not one time did they say, Hey John, hey Joe. Hey, Wesleyan, I’m going to do you know, like you’re the rock star. Let’s make this about you. It was just full of we Allison, you would have been appalled. Wesleyne, you and I have done tons of workshops together. We’ve talked, we’ve we’ve shamelessly thrown else and got it. She got a she should have gotten a commission from us every time we talked about the wee wee syndrome. But Wesleyan, just share a little bit of your perspective on how do we help conquer how do we help our folks here conquer this dreaded we be syndrome.

Wesleyne Whittaker  42:25

So you mentioned proposals, and that’s a really great place for me to kind of pick up, because oftentimes when we are delivering proposals, we are walking through a sales process that works for us. So a sales process that works for us as the sales people or the consultants is we have a call, you get all the information, and you email the proposal over. You let the customer figure out on their own, kind of like you did with your prospect, what things mean, which is a please stop emailing proposals. Never email your proposal. That is like one of the things that can decrease your chance of winning a very, very traumatic tremendously. And so when you think about, how do you deliver a proposal, because you should have a meeting, is you really want to make sure that you understand what that person’s problems are. So this is the problem. This is a challenge. It’s the issue that you’re having, and this is the solution that I have to fix that specific issue. And they feel like, you get them, you will see their face like, oh my goodness, that’s exactly what’s happening. Oh, wow, you got that. You get it. And so it’s an easy, yes, it’s not a fight. It’s not a negotiate, trying to shake you down on price, because you have stepped into their world. And so stepping into their world. And as Allison said, not using your own terminology, I push clients on this often when I’m asking them, okay, so who do you serve? How do you serve them? What are your solutions? What makes you better than your competitors? I’m like, nobody understand what are you talking about? Like, I don’t. I don’t know what that means. I’m not a mechanical engineer. I’m not a chemical engineer. I don’t know what this fancy thing is. And we get so much in our heads we don’t realize that is a huge barrier to entry for our prospects, for our clients, because they feel dumb. They feel like I should know this, but I don’t know this, so let me go find another company that isn’t using big words and isn’t using big terminology, and then I’m going to be able to work with them. So we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by not speaking. And I call it customer centric. Problem focused language customer centric being laser focused on what that customer needs problem focus what are the problems that they’re having, and understanding them that those are the words, those are the terminology, those are the conversations that we should be having, because we’re stepping out of our world and we’re putting our goals, our thoughts, on the back burner, as it should be in the sales conversation. So.

Curt Anderson  45:00

We’re just, we’re just going to let that say. We’re going to savor that. Wesleyan, we’re just going to that was Wesleyne wisdom, right there. So again, Wesleyne, Transformed Sales. Allison, DeFord, FELT Marketing. Allison, I feel compelled. I have to show an example you were talking about. You know, how do you un commoditize your business? And I’m a big fan of this book right here. How I built this guy, Raz he has a wonderful podcast. I listen to him religiously. He’s so if you’re an entrepreneur, you want to listen to a good podcast. I strongly now Wesley, like you’re saying somebody might listen to it might not be for you. So I want to be mindful of that. But he gave he interviews the most fascinating entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial stories. There’s a company check, I don’t know. It’s called Liquid death. Are you guys familiar with death? And it’s they, it’s hysterical. So the sky is that, like, some type of, like, a punk rock concert, it was, like, sweltering hot, and everybody’s, like, too cool to drink bottled water. So everybody’s like, they’re eat, they’re drinking the power drinks. And so they’re all dehydrated, you know, because I get the these, uh, the power drinks are making your, your your thirst worse, right? So he’s like, Well, these guys are too cool, this punk rock, you know, the summer punk rock concert, and they won’t drink water. So he decides to can his water and call it liquid death. Like, if, if you were event, like, if somebody can’t, family member said, Hey, would you invest in my company? I’m going to can water and go against, you know, every major water player, you’d be like, I’m not giving you $5 right? This guy’s built 100 million. It’s a nine figure company because he discovered the blue ocean, like you said earlier. Allison, right, you’ve got the red ocean where it gets real bloody. Other sharks are swimming. This guy went to the blue ocean, and he and he finds a market that didn’t want to drink bottled water, but, boy, they’ll drink Canned Water. And it’s, it’s like the skateboard world, right? 18 year olds that that love drinking liquid death. So this, I think, was a brilliant and Allison, I want you to love for you to share. You have both you guys put out newsletters. Please connect with these guys on LinkedIn. Sign up for both of their newsletters. Allison, I think your newsletter is off the charts. I read it religiously talk and like it’s, it’s, it’s, I want to, I want you to hit on a few points, how you came up with it, who you’re targeting, who you’re speaking to, and like, just, just what for folks out there. Cassie is out here today, my friend Chris, and these guys, like, you know, if they’re like, where do I get started? Talk a little bit about your newsletter and how it resonates with your soulmate. And maybe that would be applicable for them.

Allison DeFord  47:36

Absolutely. Um, my our newsletter has been, we’ve put it out for, I think we’re on year four, and we decided to call it Wt MFG, kind of like what the is happening in manufacturing, right and and just right to the heart of of what’s happening. And then it says it’s the manufacturer’s newsletter with heart. So I went against the grain of everybody else who said, Oh, that’s too soft. That’s, you know, that’s never going to work. And I thought, No, this is who we are. We help people connect on an emotional level. Thus, that’s why we’re helping them be felt. So I said, this just makes sense, so I went against the grain, called it something weird, and decided to make it more about the letter than the news. And what I mean by that is I got this from my hero, Ann Handley, who has a massively amazing following blog, total anarchy. And I was inspired by her newsletter, and I thought that’s what I’m going to do. We’re going to make this more about the news, sorry, the letter, than the news. So when we send this out, it comes from me. It’s very personal, and all roads lead back to manufacturing and marketing every single time. That’s the point so but people say, Gosh, when I get that, I It’s like, I can hear you talking. I laugh like Curt always says, I laugh out loud. That’s the point, because I’m the face of this company, of this brand, and we’re all about emotional connection. So if we’re sending out a newsletter that doesn’t make you laugh, that doesn’t make you cry, that doesn’t make you feel anything, how are we becoming the person we want to attract, the company that we want to attract. So same with our client in Nebraska, right? They were named something else since the 70s, and the CEO. New CEO came to me after he saw connected with me on a webinar through Nebraska MEP, you guys rock, by the way. And he said, We’ve got to change our name. And I said, Are you sure that’s a big deal? It’s a big step. Like, why do you think you need to do that? And he said, because we are confusing people, we no longer even make the thing that our name is so. Long story short, we rebranded them, we renamed them. Now they are more in line with the type of people that they are trying to be of service to. It’s not confusing anymore, and we help them create a newsletter. And we call it shop talk, because it’s Gary the CEO leads with a letter. It’s short, it’s brief, and it’s very friendly, and it’s very you can feel something when you get this from him, and then the rest of it is like, this is, you know, this is what’s new for you over at the blog. It’s not read our latest thing. It’s, this is what’s new for you. Every single blog post that we help them create is very specific and very in tune with what their audience cares about. It’s something that will be of service to them. And then below that, we might have something fun or interesting about what’s happening on the shop floor, just to give you a little insight, so that you can know us, like us, trust us before you ever reach out that first time to buy.

Curt Anderson  51:46

Yeah, I love that, and I couldn’t encourage everybody here enough to sign up for Allison’s newsletter. And what made me think of like liquid death is like you pull out these companies and just like this company did this and uncommonized, you know, I think like a knife company, or like these companies, you know the Yeti. You know every teenager. You know, I heard somebody say, like this generation, there’s never been a generation that’s been so hydrated than like teenagers, because all they walk around with their Yeti water bottles. And you gave a nice newsletter, and I find it informational. I You You’re, it’s funny, and I will give a there is a warning when you are when you are reading Allison’s newsletter, please do not have any liquids in your mouth, because you will spit them out on the keyboard, because it is absolutely hysterical. Wesleyan, you have a wonderful newsletter, sales, tips, and now I want to cite in here. We’re mainly all about LinkedIn. You put out just phenomenal LinkedIn content. Just talk a little bit about how your your intention with putting out content. You’re deep in faith, just like talk a little bit about how you your messaging to connect with your ideal soul mates.

Wesleyne Whittaker  52:52

So kind of piggybacking on what Allison said, When I create content, I’m thinking about my ideal client, but I’m thinking about them as a whole person, a whole a human that has many different complexities to them. So they have leadership challenges, they have sales challenges, they have personal challenges, they need roadmaps. And so I am very intentional about sitting down and thinking about, okay, what are some of the questions I’ve heard in the past week that my clients have asked me, and so probably about 80 or 90% of my posts come from questions that my clients have asked me about, emails that I’ve gotten, conversations I’ve had on the phone because I want to speak in the voice of the Customer, so my content isn’t about me promoting me, or me saying why I’m so great, or why these things are amazing. It’s really about what are the challenges that my ideal client is having, and how can I address those challenges? And what I found is it is beneficial for me to be vulnerable and authentic, and that’s just a part of my brand. I am who I am. And I had a client this week who contacted me, and he literally called me 10 minutes after he we sent out our newsletter. He was like, that newsletter was so good, and I want to forward it to all of these people. And I was like, go ahead and forward it. But why don’t you send me their emails, and I’ll put them on the list too. And so, and he kept talking, and he was like, Yeah, I read all your content on LinkedIn. I see all your newsletters. I don’t comment or like or anything. I just Just don’t do it. And I said, I’m okay with that. I don’t need vanity metrics. What I need is for you to keep paying my bills. So he just started laughing, because that’s what it’s about, right? Like, he can tell, and it is actually pretty, I don’t want to say scary, but it’s pretty crazy. He’s like, I mean, you just travel all over the world, Wesley, you’ve been to Dominican Republic, you’ve been to Costa Rica. I’m like, Oh, you’re really reading. Because as I’m going through and things are happening within my life, I’m just sharing, but I always. Connect back to the purpose, right? So I use this as this is something that you should be doing in your organization. This is how you can impact your sales. This is what you can do to become a better human time management, whatever those things are, I share the personal parts of me, the human parts of me, and I connect it back to a business purpose. And I think when you sit down to write content, whether it’s a newsletter, a blog, a post, you have to think about, how do I want to connect with the person that is going to read this? What is the emotion that I want to evoke when I get people writing back to me, saying, I printed out this email so I can share it with my wife. I put it on the fridge like that’s what I like. That tells me that I’m connecting with you, not just for the moment, but the content is sticky,

Curt Anderson  55:49

man, I’m like, I keep my mic is broke. So that was, that was phenomenal. Alright, I know we’re coming at a time I want to be respectful. I know everybody’s busy. We’re going to have last parting thoughts, any questions, comments that you guys have any questions, drop in the chat. Take yourself right off the mute. We would love to tackle any questions. Uh, bring those on Allison, as we wind down parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with people today.

Allison DeFord  56:16

Yes, one thing that I thought of that I will be remiss if I don’t mention this when Wesleyne was talking about when she sits down to write her newsletter, when I sit down to write the newsletter, how many people right now are saying, well, can’t I just use AI? Can I just phone it in? And my response to that is this, AI is merely a tool if you want to use it for subject line ideas and research, and you know, maybe it could make something sound a little bit better, but it’s something you’ve already written yourself. So I just encourage everybody, please don’t phone it in and think that you can put out artificially. The key word there is artificial, artificially produced content. People can spot it a mile away. And I have had publications talk to me and say, we will no longer work with this marketing agency. And I said, What are you talking about? Why? And they said, because they keep sending us crap that they created with AI, and that’s not the quality of content that we’re going to publish. So we will no longer accept anything from them. So this is a real thing and and if you say, if you’re the manufacturer, let’s say you’re very small, and you say, Okay, this all sounds great. I’m not a writer. Okay? I hear this all the time. I’ve got you. Okay, here’s what you can do. It’s okay to work with someone else and have them help you with the content. So one thing that we do with a client is I have a quick 20 minute call with him every month, 20 minutes. Sometimes it’s only 15 and I say, what’s on your mind this month? What do you think is on the mind of your customers? What do we want to share? What do what do we want to, you know, what would be interesting to them? And we just have a conversation and like, he just, like, it just comes out, and I take notes, and I say, okay, great. And then we come back and we say, here’s the newsletter. It’s created. It’s His words, it’s his voice, it’s his thoughts and ideas. We just articulated it for him and put it in a newsletter format, and then he approves it, or he makes changes, and then we put it we publish it for them. So that is how, as a small manufacturer, excuse me, you could accomplish that task. If you feel you’re not a writer, or you feel you don’t have time. But let me tell you, it’s so important to make that commitment, and I find it all the time, you know, I’ll think, wow, I have no idea what I’m going to write about. And I’ll tell you what, because I made the commitment and said, I’ll see you here in two weeks. Something magical comes out every single time, and it’s I feel. It’s not because of me, it’s because I put that customer persona right there in front of me, and I say, What will matter to Joe this month? What could I what could I help Joe with? So I just wanted to throw that out there about AI and

Curt Anderson  59:44

my goodness gracious, this was free, too. How good was this man, Joe, how good was this? Wesleyan, take us home, my friend. How about any parting thoughts Wesleyan wisdom that you want to share with folks again? Connect with Allison on LinkedIn. Please connect. With Wesleyne. Wesleyne, your parting thoughts? Yes,

Wesleyne Whittaker  1:00:02

I think I’ll just leave four words with you guys in everything that you’re when you’re creating content, when you’re sitting in front of customers, doing discovery calls, when you’re creating proposals, customer centric problem focused the customer is the center of all that you do and focus on the problems that they have,

1:00:25

that’s it. Amen.

Curt Anderson  1:00:26

Drop Amen. Amen. We’re dropping the mic right there for one more time. So alright, guys, I know we’re Hey, we hit it right top of the hour. So if there aren’t any questions, I can let everybody go, so you can get on with your busy day. Any questions. We’re good, we’re good, we’re good. Have fun. Have to run. Cassie, thank you, appreciate you. Joe, Julie, Chris was here. Guys, thank you, Allison, thank you. Thank you. Big round of applause for Allison to Ford. Big round of applause for Wesley Whitaker. Actually absolutely crushing it, hitting the ball out of the park today. So of the replay, we’ll send the replay out to everybody and and stay warm, everybody, stay safe, to our friends in California. Love you guys. Peace, peace. Thank you.

1:01:14

See you. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  1:01:16

See you guys. Yeah, Joe, congrats. But man, thanks, see ya.