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The Best, Worst Vendor Response to a Prospect Inquiry I’ve Ever Heard · Uphoff on Media Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there, it's Tony.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into today's podcast, I want to share a bit of background.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: This one wasn't supposed to be a podcast or frankly a post at all.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: It started as a story that I've now told over multiple dinner parties and
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: to several business colleagues about the worst voicemail I have ever received from
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: a business trying to win my family's work.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: My wife laughed so hard she had tears running down her face.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: The friend who made the referral was laughing too and had to run and call his wife
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: to tell her the story.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've written a lot this year about how AI is changing B2B buying with survey data,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: buyer behavior, the usual operator's eye view stuff.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: This one's different.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is what that shift actually looks like when it happens to you on
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: a random Thursday afternoon while following up on a referral for a new accountant.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I almost didn't break this one up.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It felt too small, maybe too personal, not enough of a framework post.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then I realized the smallness was the point.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: The big trend in this silly little story are the same story.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So here it is, dinner table version with the business case attached.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get to work.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is called The Best Worst Vendor Response to a Prospect Inquiry I've Ever Heard.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: A personal experience brought home the reality
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: of how dramatically AI has changed discoverability and customer choice.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I have been looking for a new accountant.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our previous tax advisor and accountant had sold their business,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: and we were also looking for a service with additional capabilities.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Given what we needed, we relied on word of mouth, asking friends for referrals.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We got several names, and I reached out to three of them.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first firm demanded that all inquiries go through email.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I filled out the form, hit submit, and didn't hear back.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: After a week went by, I tried again, no response.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: The second firm funneled you to voicemail.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: After two messages and no response, I moved on to the third firm.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I did hear back and received the single best worst response to
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: an inquiry I've ever heard.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I left a voicemail with details about who had referred to me,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: our tax planning and accounting needs, and asked for a callback.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: 72 hours later, I got one.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is it verbatim.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Tony, this is named to be withheld.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Look, my partner and I are firing clients and giving you a referral.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to have to fire you too.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're only looking for clients that can bill at least X.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So good luck with your search.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the punchline.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've left the dollar figure out,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: but the number he named is significantly less than what we've spent annually with
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: an accountant for more than 30 years.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: By this point,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: my wife listening in and the friend who made the referral were in hysterics,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: repeating the I don't want to have to fire you too line.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: My wife simply turned to ChatGPT with a prompt laying out exactly what we needed.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: We got a highly curated list with a detailed analysis of each firm,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: why it was selected,
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: and which partner to ask for by name, all mapped to our specific requirements.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: None of the word of mouth firms made that list.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The referral is still human to human.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: The vetting just went machine.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So why tell a story about one rude voicemail?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd already written the data.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't expect to become one of the data points.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Referrals still built our long list.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: They stopped being the thing that got anyone chosen.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Word of mouth isn't dead.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's been demoted to a scouting job.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: A friend's name used to do two things at once,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: get you on the list and earn enough trust that you stopped looking any further.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: AI split that job in half.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: The referral still gets you the introduction.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The vetting,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: the actual choosing,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: runs on a machine that has never met your friend,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: doesn't owe him a favor,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: and does not care whose name it is or how good of a golfer he claims to be.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a metaphor.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: In AI has changed the way B2B buyers buy,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I used a survey of 226 B2B buyers
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: to show third-party sources gaining ground everywhere,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: vendor-produced content losing it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote the piece.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did not expect to become part of a case study.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out I was the textbook example.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: That same survey found buyers newest to a category trust AI's answer
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: without checking it at four times the rate of buyers who know the category cold,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: 56% versus 14%.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But my wife and I were newcomers,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: not certainly to accountants,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: but to this specific mix of needs,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: a broader set of capabilities than our last advisor covered.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were exactly the buyer most likely to take the machine's list and start dialing
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: without a second opinion.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: We did.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The list was good enough that I'd do it again.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you run a business that sells on relationship,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: referral,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: or reputation, you're the accountant in this story, whether you know it yet or not.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: A warm introduction still opens a door.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It no longer predicts who walks through it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The firm's landing on a curated AI shortlist aren't the ones with the deepest referral network.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones whose actual differentiation,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: who you're built for,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: what you charge,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: what you're genuinely good at is stated somewhere clearly enough for a machine
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: to match it against a buyer's specific requirements.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Visibility in these tools is table stakes now.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And like most table stakes, having it doesn't win you the hand.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not having it just means you never get dealt in.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: The old failure model was a bad referral.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Someone vouches for you.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't deliver.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Word gets around.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The new failure mode is quieter.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody calls to tell you they're firing you.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You just stop getting the call.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Say what you will about the accountant who fired us before he'd even hired us.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: At least you have the nerve to say it to our voicemail.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Word of mouth isn't over.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just stopped being the last word.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's it for this episode.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this useful, please do one thing.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the Uphoff on Media podcast on Apple or Spotify, and please leave a rating.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the single best way to help another operator find this.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tony Uphoff, back at it next week.