Digital Game Plan: Understanding Your Soulmate’s Goals Matter… A lot!
Digital Game Plan Soulmate Goals help manufacturers look beyond what customers want to buy and understand what they truly want to achieve. In this Digital Game Plan LIVE discussion, Curt Anderson and Damon Pistulka explore the Soulmate Success Path and why customer success should guide your marketing strategy. Discover how manufacturers can understand buyer questions, become fierce educators, create helpful content, and make the buying journey easier. Curt and Damon also share examples from Grind Lap and Falconer Electronics that show how manufacturers can support customers during the search, evaluation, and buying process. The goal is simple: stop focusing only on making the sale and start helping your Soulmate Customer win.
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Transcription
Curt Anderson 00:02
Hey guys, hey, how are you? Welcome, and my dear friend Damon. My name is Curt Anderson, my partner in crime, Damon. Damon, how are you, dude?
Damon Pistulka 00:10
I’m doing great, Curt. Ready to roll? Gonna have some fun today.
Curt Anderson 00:13
That’s we are gonna have some fun, and so this week we’ve been diving into a bunch of fun, different topics. Today we’re going to talk about how important it is to understand your customer’s customer, understanding that customer’s customer under their challenges or pain points. I know I’m being a little bit cliche and cliche and mr. Captain Obvious, if you will. But we’re going to show a couple examples. And hey, Damon, let’s dive into the digital game plan. How’s that sound?
Damon Pistulka 00:40
Let’s take a look at
Curt Anderson 00:41
Okay, so the cool thing here is when we’ve been sharing this new software tool that we have, the digital game plan. One of the first steps is really getting a clear, concise focus on your strengths and your opportunities. Now, Damon, I’m going to talk about the opportunities here, and then I’m going to show a customer, a client example that we have. One of the taglines that we love to use working with manufacturers to try, you know, that are new to this whole marketing strategy concept, is how do you unapologetically outteach the competition? How do you become a fierce educator? What are your thoughts with that concept?
Damon Pistulka 01:21
Well, it’s just if you are the one that is helping your your customers better understand the industry, the processes, how you work, how to do business with you, you are going to be a more natural choice for them. And in the current AI world, that also helps you because you will show up in AI search as because if you’re not teaching, not showing how to do some things, AI is not going to show you nearly as much.
Curt Anderson 01:53
Yeah, and and what a great way to take advantage of this on social or on video or as Damon’s saying, you know, just being that first of of mind, if your ideal customer has a problem, a challenge, and what are they doing? They’re going to their favorite AI tool, and they’re typing in that question. And so, what the digital game plan does? So you take a look here, Damon, right in that middle column, and we’re going to go down and we’re looking like you know, hey, how about provide training for navigating complex digital platforms, you know, and this is for us, right? Creating creating pure community platforms for manufacturers, expand into adjacent industry niches, you know. So really, you know, right here, build industry-specific marketing persona libraries. So right off the bat, it’s it’s consistently talking about like how to be that educator? How to go out into you know build that community, earn that trust, and so you know what, Damon? Let’s dive into a a wonderful client that we’ve worked closely with for the past few years. These guys are in Chicago. It’s Grindlap, my dear friend Frank. Big shout out to Frank and Nelly and the entire team at Grindlap. They do a wonderful job providing grinding services all throughout Chicagoland and throughout the Midwest. They do grinding, lapping, honing. They’ve been on our live show before. I’m actually going to go see them. I’m going to be on site with them next week, and they are fierce educators, putting out all sorts of wonderful content, kind of understanding that process. Right now, if you’re a CNC shop and maybe you need something a little bit more precise, or you need some grinding services, what are you going to do? Where are you going to turn? What are your thoughts
Damon Pistulka 03:30
there? Yeah, you know, you’re going to turn to the people that are out there. You see what’s going on, and they’re showing you how their services really help. What application, you know, all the kinds of things that a buyer needs to know because buyers probably got something handed and say, hey, we need a grinder to take care of this. Exactly. And at that point, if you’re the one to say, hey, here’s here’s what you need to do based on the information they can find on your company, you’re just that much better of a choice for them.
Curt Anderson 03:59
That much better of a choice, and here’s what you know. Working with a team here at Grindlab, one thing that I really admire and love, and I’ve shamelessly like just really kind of preached to other folks, they are deeply committed. You know, when you think about in the process, like they’re they’re not OEM, they don’t have a finished product or you know a preparatory product or a finished good. They’re part of a process, right? Yeah. And what’s common is they are part of the quoting process. So it’s not necessarily, oh, I have a part and I’m not getting quite precise. I have a part. I’ve been. I’ve received an RFQ, and I know I need some grinding services. What would your quote be? And so what these guys do, what I love is they work closely with their partners, people that reach out to them, to help them not only provide that grinding. You know, it’s not like oh well, here’s the price, good luck. I hope you close it. Like they hold their hand and nurture them through that process and really try to help them win that deal. So it’s not just about the grinding services; it’s about their dedication. To helping them earn the business and to improve and profit on their business, on you know to close that relationship, and that’s you know not. I think it’s common to not think at that next level. What are your thoughts?
Damon Pistulka 05:14
Yeah, it’s really we talk about a lot helping your customers’ customer or be successful with your customers, customer because in this case we’re trying to help that customer be successful so that we can be successful if they are.
Curt Anderson 05:30
You’re nailing it right on ahead, and that’s why in a digital game plan we have this one tab we call it the soulmate success path. Other folks are going to call it the buying journey, but what the difference is with our example with Grindlap, perfect example. They’re not trying to help you buy; they’re trying to help you earn business, and they want to be a partner. They want to be like locked in arms, like hey, we want to go through this process with you together. And I just think that’s a different language, and that can be a nice competitive advantage for you and your company to take on that mindset, and so that’s what this tool here does is it it helps you understand your soulmate customer, and like, hey, what is that buying process, that buying journey? But most importantly, how can we help them be successful? So, Damon, we’ll just take a look at a couple things right here. So, we talk about the trigger, you know, like in manufacturing, what you know, like, hey, I just received an RFQ. We need some grinding services. What do I do, right? And so they’re gonna, we’re looking at that search behavior. And as you mentioned before, you know, are they turning to LinkedIn? They turn into Google. They go into their favorite AI. Like, hey, who should I turn to for grinding services, right? What What are your thoughts?
Damon Pistulka 06:40
Yeah, you really. The more you know this buyer journey, the more you can create your information, whether it’s video, written, or however your your customers like to take it in, to the exact things they need to know to make an informed decision.
Curt Anderson 06:54
Yeah, and what I I love here, we’ve added, you know, hey, what’s the emotional state? You know, it’s typically like, hey, there’s a problem. I’m stressed. There’s a challenge. What does it look like? And down here at the bottom, you know, with the digital game plan tool, it gives polite suggestions on like, hey, what if you offer this to that so many customer? What about this piece of information? What about this piece of education? So there’s a lot of things that can take into consideration. You look at the exploration stage, the valuation stage. We can do go. You know what? How are we doing on time? We got time for one more example.
Damon Pistulka 07:27
One more example. What
Curt Anderson 07:30
are we doing on time here? Yeah, we got time for one more example. You know what? We showed these guys the other day. How about you know? Hey, you’re familiar with with configurators, right? What do you think? Yes,
Damon Pistulka 07:39
I’ve heard of them before,
Curt Anderson 07:42
so let’s take a look at our friends here. We displayed them the other day, but when you’re here, we’re looking at Falcon Electronics now. What I’m going to do is I want to come back to the digital game plan. Yeah, we’re looking at the exploration or the evaluation stage, right? So, say I’m the awareness. It’s like, hey, how can we get on somebody’s radar? But when we get into that exploration and evaluation, this is where like our friends at Falkland Electronics they’ve done an amazing job, and we we took this through a demo, you know, you know, for our friends that missed it the other day. What they’ve done, and this is a very easy thing to do to add to a manufacturer’s website, is they’re allowing that customer to stay on their website and build a product right here, and again, it just it takes a matter of seconds to build out this new product. They click, click, click. They come down here. It’s building this product right here on the side. We go here. I say no. I’m going to go here. I want 80, and I hit next, and I’m done. And so, again, coming back to the digital game plan, we’re talking about how to make that soulmate their journey just so much easier and get that their path onto success. Damon, let’s as we wind down, parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share as we’re discussing that soulmate success path.
Damon Pistulka 09:02
Well, you just showed a couple great examples, right? Of of how Grindlap is really trying to help their customers be more successful, and then how Falconer Electronics really got in the mind of the people that are in the exploration phase and made it super easy, super easy for someone to get. Okay, this is roughly what it’s going to be, and let’s go from there. You know those things. Just getting into the minds of your customer allows you to create those unique solutions that really connect with the people that you want to be buying from.
Curt Anderson 09:35
Yeah, that’s. I was at a my buddy Max. You know my buddy Max Krug. He does amazing work. If you’re having challenges on the floor with operational excellence, Max is your go-to guy. He talks about he was at a conference one time, and a guy, you know, he had them like, you know, turn to your right, and what do you see? And when you turn, you saw the back of the person’s head, you know, to the next next you, and you’re like, well, guess what? That’s the direction that your customer like they’re looking. Out ahead, and when you can kind of like peek your head around their shoulder and say, “Hey, customer, I’ve got your back. I kind of I’m looking, I’m seeing some things that maybe you’re not seeing, and I’ve I’m covering some blind spots, and I can help you whether it’s grinding or our friends at Falconer with a ground strap, or you make circuit boards, or whatever the product is that you make. The more that you show that dedicated success to your customer success, man, that’s a great formula. So
Damon Pistulka 10:26
yes, it is.
Curt Anderson 10:28
We’re going to close out on that, Damon. I appreciate you, my brother. Thank, thanks everyone. Thank you for joining us today, and we will be back for more. If
Damon Pistulka 10:35
we want to check, if you want to check out the digital game plan, Curt’s got the link in this post, so you can sign up for your digital game plan. It’s free. Go through it, see what you think, and let us know your thoughts.
Curt Anderson 10:46
Absolutely, connect with Damon on LinkedIn. I would love to connect you on LinkedIn. We have a jam session coming up in two weeks from today. Yeah, almost this time, but two weeks from today, we have a great jam session coming up. So thank you
Damon Pistulka 10:59
for that.
Curt Anderson 10:59
Appreciate you. Have a great day.