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E16 Selling Tech Alongside Services with Matt Spry · Stronger Business Together

• Granger Forson: So this is the Stronger Business Together podcast where business owners learn from each other. No gurus, no theory, just journeys and overcoming real hurdles. Today I'm joined by Matt Spry who runs ⁓ Rhoda and like ⁓ any owner he's in middle of building things, fixing things and growing something that really matters to him. So Matt, welcome. Thanks for spending your time with us today. We're on a mission to make business owners stronger together. If this conversation has helped you, please like, comment and follow on whatever platform you're using. About 60 % of our audience hasn't done that yet and these small actions will help us reach more business owners just like you. If you'd to join in this conversation as a guest or if you have a hurdle question that you'd like us to discuss, Matt Spry: Hi Granger, great to be here. Granger Forson: Awesome. let's do Act 1, Your Business. ⁓ in plain English Matt, what does your business do? Matt Spry: Hi, yeah, so I'm co-founder of RODA and we are a hybrid advisory technology business and we work with ambitious organizations to design and deliver performance systems. So what that means in plain English is we help them to identify, map and measure the flywheels that really drive the outcomes they're looking to deliver. what that means is we help teams to really focus their energy and all their resources and their efforts on parts of organization that really make the biggest difference ⁓ to they're trying to go. Granger Forson: then do reach out to us at info at strongerbusinesstogether.com. Now, go make this week really successful and we'll see you next time. Cheers! fantastic. I like the idea of the flywheel but I'm sure lots of our haven't or maybe even I've come across it. So take me through it. What do you mean by flywheel? ⁓ Matt Spry: Yeah, so it's a concept that's been around for about 20 years in business, but not necessarily, it's not spread very widely. The concept comes from a book written about 20 odd years ago by an American researcher called Jim Collins in a book Good to Great. that book, he identifies certain characteristics of organizations that outperform the market over long periods of time. One the ⁓ key he discovers is that the organizations that really outperform over time really understand what are the flywheels within their organization that compound over time and build momentum and high performance. So a flywheel is in a business sense, it's the series of sequential repeating activities get easier and quicker and better over time that drive performance. a flywheel is in a business sense, it's the series of sequential repeating activities that get easier and quicker better over time that drive performance. So a really good example, So if you're a growing business, a pretty simple flywheel would have kind of five or six steps that might look initially like driving awareness, building awareness of what it is that you do, however you choose to do that. Driving awareness will create hopefully opportunity. If you're able to convert those opportunities, you have the opportunity to go and deliver for your clients. The better you deliver, the more like you are to retain, more you retain and understand what your clients need, the more able you are to innovate and improve. if you're a growing business, a pretty simple flywheel would have kind of five or six steps that might look initially like driving awareness, building awareness of what it is that you do, however you choose to do that. Driving awareness will create hopefully opportunity. If you're able to convert those opportunities, you have the opportunity to go and deliver for your clients. The better you deliver, the more you are to retain, more you retain and understand what your clients need, the more able you are to innovate and improve. that gives you a better story to tell to drive awareness. that gives you a better story to tell to drive awareness. And that's a fairly common example of a flywheel in growing business. Where flywheels are really powerful is the connection between those steps. It's understanding how different teams, different processes, different systems work together to drive the outcome that you want. Yeah, a very, very powerful concept. Granger Forson: ⁓ Yeah. Fantastic. Yes. No, I love the idea of it. you know, we built, my partner and I built stronger business together around a principle called simplify your business. And I love the idea in June Collins book and not just the flywheel, but actually it's the simplification of the flywheel over time that helps to accelerate even faster. yeah, fantastic. So do you love helping and what are they typically dealing with? Matt Spry: so it's rather than a sector, it's more of a profile of leader that we tend to work with. ⁓ really ⁓ about ambition. So you find that across different sectors. That doesn't necessarily mean purely ambitious in terms of growth and profit, although we do work with scaling businesses. That might also mean a charity or third sector organisation that's ambitious about the level of impact they're trying to have. And we work with NHS organisations as well, who are looking to improve the way they deliver outcomes. for patients and populations. So it really is about that mindset and that leadership attitude. We're here to try and do great things. We're not settling for status quo. We're not standing still. We really want to keep doing the drive towards higher improvement, higher performance levels. Granger Forson: that's exciting. I like the idea of those ⁓ exist out there that want ⁓ help and that thinking. So brilliant. So how the business start? What was that original spark? Matt Spry: Yeah, so I'm a co-friend of Rhoda, my business partner Mark and I have known each other for eight or nine years and we both met when we work. We both set up our own consultancies independently, having left corporate life and we were introduced eight or nine years ago and we started working together across each other's consultancies on various projects. We got on really, really well. And then around kind of COVID, post COVID time. We started working together on a couple of projects and we got into more more conversations about what we wanted to do next and actually the frustrations we had with the clients that we worked with. And we realized there was a kind of a common point of frustration around that we did a lot of kind of strategy change type work. We're going and rewrite, redesign strategies, lots of work with leadership teams. And we both felt very frustrated that it was quite common that through all the great work and great thinking. things got stuck when it came to execution. And kept seeing this problem again and again that you'd expect organizations to go ⁓ fly and do brilliant things. And they were just kind of grinding ⁓ than compounding that we wanted them to see. And we to then explore how can we do that better? What can we do? How can we go and work with these organizations and help them to understand where they're getting stuck? And we trying different things. ⁓ And ⁓ we to use the flow concepts in workshops initially. So the very first time we did it was with a digital agency in Cardiff who had a real inconsistent quality on projects. They had one project that was a knock out of the park success and the next one would be a disaster and they'd lose a lot of money and the client would be very happy. And we worked with the whole operations team in a single workshop and we thought we'll try to flow. This is a good way of helping people to understand how would you make project two better than project one. And it was magic, to be honest with you. was as soon as we explained the concept, they got it very quickly. very quickly ⁓ the lead, which is what you want. And then they started mapping out ideas and talking to each other about how they could help each other to do things better. And workshop naturally evolved from, we can draw this on a board. So actually we can measure all these things. We can start to track whether we are really doing this better or not. And almost live in the workshop, it evolved from here's a concept to actually here's a framework, here's a system that you can use to measure whether or not you're improving over time. And we bought to it, I that was brilliant. It was really, that was better than we thought it was gonna be, that's great. So we tried it again, we did it with another agency around growth and that worked really well and we kept having this experience. But we were leaving people with a PowerPoint and some pretty pictures or a MyReboard and an Excel spreadsheet. And we thought, well, there's gotta be a better way better way doing this. And when we can both see the potential then for a digital platform, a digital toolkit to go alongside the work we did. so that's what we did at that point. thought, right, ⁓ want to do this together. ⁓ we closed down our businesses and formed Rota. And what we've been doing since. So we raised a little bit of money a couple of years ago. We worked a development agency to ⁓ build our platform. And we've been other tools. as well around the concept. So we use that to really kind of turbocharge the way that our advisory works. So we can not only help implement the idea and teach people how this works and how to identify where those firewalls are, but then also they can then be using a system that helps them track that and identify where things are either working or where they're not so they can respond more quickly and with more focus. Granger Forson: Mmm. Brilliant, I like that. I often say to my clients, the difference between knowledge and actual real understanding is action. you say that things get stuck in how I worked in corporate world, and my god, little actions take place is so hard. But actually it's really simple and my teams were very successful because I cracked that nut. I understood what it actually means to make those first steps, those first experiments and make that happen. So yeah, fantastic. I like what you're doing. business look like today in terms of shape and size. Matt Spry: So just the two of us in terms of co-founders, have associates we work with ⁓ various projects ⁓ we work with a range of organization types. So we still do some work in the NHS. We with ambitious tech We work with agencies as well. ⁓ And we work with some third sector organizations. we've got a fairly, because our ⁓ background, neither us are young, we've got fairly well established networks. We've got contacts in ⁓ quite lot different spaces. Granger Forson: So that's quite a range of contacts that you've got, quite a range of different organizations that you've been working with. So how do you generate leads today then? Matt Spry: Yeah, it's a mix. I mean, it's mostly still through network referrals, kind of word of mouth, given most of the ⁓ you work on are not necessarily that small, that works pretty well. But now doing a lot more ⁓ on on LinkedIn, a lot more content led marketing. We'll to our own events as well to try and kind of just ⁓ grow out more get the name known. We've done some video which worked pretty well in the past as well. worked with a local chap in Bristol to create a set of interview videos. That was really good in terms of getting a name out there. So we're slowly getting there. But as everyone knows, it's not a quick game. Granger Forson: no, are certain of ⁓ marketing and generation that seem to take a long time sometimes, but yeah, ⁓ something to debate maybe one So ⁓ what are you aiming in next 12 months and why for the business? Matt Spry: That's a great question. think it's about for us really making this this move ⁓ and more people, more people on the platform, more people who know what flywheels are, who work with that as a ⁓ methodology a visual model of how the organization works. And we've some really interesting, fascinating, great conversations going on with companies we want to be working with. So it's getting some of those ⁓ those secured and ⁓ more who talk about flywheels. you know, on a daily weekly basis and are really using that as a way of analyzing and understanding how well their business is performing. Granger Forson: Mm-hmm and I came across it in the physical world the previous podcast I was running ⁓ one of the ⁓ guests about the flywheel and talked about how it took him about a couple of years to really ⁓ make work within his business ⁓ but absolutely rocking now to extent that he's now over in America setting up a separate agency over there so ⁓ you if you get it right it really does snowball your business. ⁓ Matt Spry: That's it. it's, um, I think with all these things, actually, one of the things really powerful about that whole the flywheel idea is that it's not a far and forget, you don't sell it once and walk away. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a brilliant learning tool because every time you're tracking, every time you're looking, you're learning more and more at what works and what doesn't. Um, and again, I think that comes back to, to the mindset and your previous guest sounds perfect. And if they're using that as right, this isn't working as well as I thought it was why. Where are we stuck? What will change? What happens if I do this differently? I think that any leader who can take that mindset into understanding what's going on in their organization is going to do well. Because so many don't. fact, I'll tell you a story. So ⁓ when started testing the platform, one of the key principles behind the platform we built is transparency. So it's built have multiple users on within an organization's fly wheel Granger Forson: yes Matt Spry: if you are one of the users of the flywheel, you can see everything. So you can see the whole flywheel for the organization. ⁓ had a group of beta testers and one of them said, this is great, except there's no way I would use it with my organization because I do not want my whole team to know all this. And we're like, brilliant. You're absolutely not the right profile for us. If not with your team seeing this kind of level of detail and this kind of level of ⁓ performance data, thank you. you're helping us understand who this is for because it's certainly not you. Yeah, that's quite fun. Granger Forson: Yes. Absolutely, yes. we are a strong business together. One of things we believe in, in growing people so they grow your business. have to ⁓ your people. You have to involve your people in all the activities that's going on ⁓ they will inspire you. They will be amazing. But so many of us ⁓ a habit of locking that all away and hiding that and not just in small businesses and big businesses as well. yeah, ⁓ Well, Matt. Let's move on to Act 2 now, the journey. the last few years, ⁓ on yourself and then building the business ⁓ with your co-partner, the has had highs and lows. What are some of those highs and lows for you? Matt Spry: think the high has always come back to client ⁓ It's when you see them doing something brilliant or getting something they didn't get before. So, you know, going right back to that first workshop, know, even that was a high looking back because you realize you have the spark of something that was quite special. I think first paying customer on the platform was great. You know, the first time people really recognized what it is you built ⁓ was pretty I think probably favorite client experience when we worked with a ⁓ company that built software for the travel sector. And was one of those kind of brilliant client conversations at the start of the coming out of COVID, they were coming back to some kind of mix of hybrid and in the office work and they worked and the MDs looked like things aren't right. Things don't feel right. We're not performing as well as we should. I've got some ideas where but I just want someone to come in arms length, you know, look up on all the stones, tell me what's not working. And then we can fix it. then we're looking towards an exit. And that kind of perfect because we could go in, ⁓ speak lots of people, know, look at the data, you know, ask all the awkward questions, look under all the stones, no one really wants to look at, map things out. And then back in ⁓ and again, come back to kind of leadership, the reason that was such a great... project is we have a chance to go back in with the exact team and be direct and open about the stuff that was good and the stuff that was bad. they kind of took it at face value and accepted what we've found. ⁓ little bit pushed back as you'd hope, but there was really good dialogue ⁓ really good engagement. And then what happened off was they then picked that up, ⁓ that as a roadmap and really in a very honest way, kind of dealt with it, dealt with the problems, worked with their teams where they understood there was a barrier, got it out of the way and seeing that happen and then seeing the performance tick up over time. then, know, then speaking to MD again recently in reals and they completed the exit for what they wanted. It's like, yeah, that's great to know that you've been part of that journey for someone else. it's that's always rewarding seeing them make the progress you think they should and that capable of is brilliant. Granger Forson: Yes. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, totally agree. I can see that and I can see the passion in you when you talk about it. we have to make key decisions sometimes. Maybe at the time we don't realise that they're quite key or pivotal. But what one or two decisions has changed the trajectory of your business? Matt Spry: Yeah. So initially, this is quite a big one. I think when we first had the idea for the platform, we thought, oh, this is going to be a SaaS product on its own. We're just going to be selling software. This is going to be great. We can walk away. away, it's the wrong word. Step back from the advisory work, but that way. And actually, what became very clear was that isn't what customers wanted. It's not what people needed. It's not what they wanted. It's not what we wanted from us either. So actually we're now in a place where we bring those things together. We do the advisory work, we've got the software tools support that, which us to do more actually and to have a bigger impact. That's been a really big decision because I think we, I said initially we had such a view on what it was going to be and that was very quickly taken away moved into a different place and that ⁓ was really actually we say, oh actually, no, no, this is how we can help them make the biggest difference. Let's do this. And that's a space we feel much more comfortable in terms of what we're doing. And know our clients are as well. So that's been a really big decision for us in terms of the shape of the business model. Granger Forson: And businesses around processes and then ⁓ habits, as I like to call them. What's a habit that you've put in place with your business partner that actually keeps you stronger together? Matt Spry: always had a very open, honest direct relationship, is right when first met actually, which has been great. We're not afraid to call each other out if we're getting a bit carried away in either direction, which is powerful. We've both done that with each other multiple times over the past few years, which has been really good. ⁓ We have very regular drumbeat ⁓ of meetings the two us ⁓ in person and virtually. You know, kind of three times every week, nine o'clock, we are on the phone. We're running through the list of what's going on, what the priorities are. Because I think staying aligned as a pair of founders is absolutely critical. We need to know what are we doing, who we're doing it for, what are the priorities at the moment, how is that taking us in the right direction? Are we being pulled off piece? Are we taking in a different direction? What do we need to get it back? So it's that rhythm that's really important for us. ⁓ And as I said, just think that almost brutal honesty at times is so important, I think, to keep each other honest. Granger Forson: Hmm, yeah. Yeah, fantastic. totally agree. A really good rhythm. lot of people go, meetings? Well, no, they're not meetings. They're actually a business rhythm. They keep us alive. They keep the pulse going in the business. If you do them right, if you're doing them wrong, they're just meetings. If you're doing them right, then actually they drive energy. They bring the business forwards and then they make you achieve. Yeah, totally, totally agree. Now, you know... Matt Spry: you Granger Forson: consultancy, we do business coaching at Stronger Business together. is coming along and everyone is talking about the world of AI and everything else, but what's your thought on ⁓ to help you in your business ⁓ to move forward and to grow? ⁓ Matt Spry: Yeah, been a huge question for us actually because when we started building the first software tool, AI was just appearing. So back, been a very different journey than we would have had if we started it now. So there's quite lot safe and from a very practical point of view, ⁓ we use the quite widely. We've both kind of how to build prototypes of other digital products as So we really are. ⁓ trying to make sure we understand how this works and what it could mean. So we've got other tools we built that we built ourselves, which is, for someone like me who has loads of ideas and could never build anything, is amazing. I think for consultancies, mean, they are a threat. Absolutely, they're a threat. think a lot of the mundane tasks will disappear because you can just build something to do it for you or the models can as they stand now. But I think there's also a massive opportunity to kind of to do more for people. So is that almost AI empowered consultancy? Because you know, whether it's in terms of data analysis or in terms of research or in terms of how you are building tools for clients, there's so much you can now do. So I think I think it's really important that consultancies embrace it. And I was like, I think the ones that don't will really start to struggle. And I think that the nature of consultancy and kind of agency work will possibly start to combine. I think you're going to see a world of very niche, very bespoke products built for organizations, very specific needs, because that suddenly has become affordable. The barriers to these things being built has just dropped so far. So yeah, I think it's going to very, very different landscape. We're all learning the impacts of this and it does feel like it's changing every couple of weeks. But we're determined not to be left too far behind. Granger Forson: Yes. With all that taking place, do you your partner, how do you focus on keeping the business doing the right things and staying as a healthy business going forward? What are you up to? ⁓ Matt Spry: Yeah, mean, it sounds like a real cliche, but we start with the clients and work back from there. You know, we work to where we're in service to the organizations that we work with. So if we know what they need and we are doing the things that help take them forward, then that's the first thing we have to do. And we both kind of have the view that if we're doing that right, then the rest of it will follow behind. So and that varies, daily speaking to NHS team about AI and data, you're getting a very different answer than when you're to a pair of of a health tech business. Very objectives, very levels of understanding. ⁓ And that's of the fun for us actually is hearing those different perspectives and trying to make sure that ⁓ we are positioned help people at different stages their journey. Granger Forson: Yeah, And listen to the customers, helping customers. That's how you develop and grow ⁓ your and what you need to do. we spun into our own business ⁓ specifically from because ⁓ the way we were helping our clients were different to the way that was being ⁓ recommended and So it was time to actually take the real hurdle and ⁓ do it by helping our clients achieve what they want through the way that we could see that was working. So, that creates lovely pivots and changes. So let's move on to ⁓ hurdle round, Act 3. So ⁓ what the hurdle that you've picked for us today to have a conversation about? ⁓ Matt Spry: Yeah, so as I said, we both my K-Friend and I started from consultancy background and we left corporate life, started our own consultancies in similar scopes to work, but in different markets, which is kind of how we come together really, really well. So we're very confident, very kind of familiar with that market. And then we've started, we had this idea for digital platform, initially thought that'll be SaaS, that's fine, we know what that can look like. realised that's not really where we want to be. And actually, it's more powerful to have a combination of the two. So the journey we're on at the moment is how we integrate kind of our own suite of software products that are all built around this flywheel concept and help companies that have combined a compound and not grind out for growth. How do we bring that together into a business model that is not only delivering what clients need? but also helping us to build that resilient, growing business model we're looking forward to. Granger Forson: Okay, so it's about how do you bring more technology into the consulting activity to deliver more value to your clients, thereby reducing the amount of consultancy time or is the aim to not totally replace, I get that, but is it to replace some of it? Matt Spry: Probably, yeah, I think so. mean, think it's, it may be, it's either a place where it's substitute. It's because what you can do obviously is to use these platforms to take away some of the work and some of the time that actually you could be spending with that client doing other things or that the client could be using to do other things. yeah, possibly that's one of the, one of the questions. Granger Forson: Yeah. Yeah. Okay so let's just sort of pitch our minds forward for a moment. would better look like in a sentence in a few years time? Matt Spry: for a client or for us. Granger Forson: for yourselves. Matt Spry: Yeah, so I think for us, we both get more satisfaction for working more deeply with organizations than on a shallow basis. So I think for us, it was no success and that model that we're looking for would be we've got a core of organizations we work with consistently. We've probably got a group of pretty deeply embedded associates or employees that work with us. But we are a, I suppose, a key support or advisor. kind of independent, arm's length, challenging, critical friend, whatever you want to call it, to the leadership team that kind of there to slightly challenge and hold to account. we can help them to identify going well, what's not, help keep them on right path they're looking to go down. Hopefully to generating insights that help them make better decisions. Granger Forson: so ⁓ start with where we are today. ⁓ with your technology platforms today, what percentage may be of time or percentage of effort that you're working with your clients? Is it currently supporting the activity with them? Matt Spry: That's a difficult question to answer, to be honest with you. The ones that use it use it a lot. So where it's in and then they bought into the idea, the concept and they can see the value, it's become a key part of what they do. In terms of that kind of management insight, reporting, communication, knowledge sharing. So I'd be hard. put a percentage on that in terms of their time but it's become a critical part of that process. Granger Forson: Okay, so how many, what sort of maybe a percentage of clients then date are actually using that level of sophistication with your software? ⁓ Matt Spry: Probably about a third. Granger Forson: Okay, so what are they doing in the journey of implementation through working with you that maybe the other two thirds are not doing? What's the difference? Matt Spry: And I think that probably comes back to the marketing point. It's whether they come to you directly as, I can see what you're doing and I love the idea of the flow and I want to know more, tell me. And that's the position you start from compared to the kind of network referral. I know you've got a problem, go and speak to these guys because they helped me. And often then they're coming with a different problem ⁓ which that might not be the answer. Granger Forson: Okay. Matt Spry: So it really depends how that comes through. So a good example would be, still work with a lot of NHS trusts, ⁓ lot of that work is around kind of business case type development or understanding benefits. They're not coming to ask about driving high performance, they're coming to ask about how can I secure this investment? How can I make the best use of this program that's coming up? So you're starting from a different place. So if a leadership team had come and say, I want to be, you know, high performance organization, want to grow, or if you're a charity saying we want to reach more people, whatever it might be, if that's the conversation and that's where it starts, then that's how you then move on to leveraging the flywheel for their organization. Granger Forson: and those organizations are using the software beyond then just the consultancy activity. Matt Spry: Yeah, it's both. So the model at the moment is it remains hybrid. So we got some that just use a software, but generally it's a software plus. Granger Forson: Yeah, okay. So they sound like the right type of clients for you, ⁓ it more important maybe then to focus on generating more of those type of clients than the ones that not using it? Because the other ones may be driving down your energy, they're driving down the ⁓ that you're doing, they're not actually delivering any real good case studies for you to be able to accelerate it. ⁓ Matt Spry: No, that's right. that is, that is absolutely where we're starting to move. Trying to just like you've asked that question, going to actually know who's right, who are they? What's the profile? What are they coming? What are the questions they're coming to you with? What's the profile? that's what we're trying to find is that that profile, that question, where are they? ⁓ can we start to really, really be focused in terms of how we communicate and how we go to market to to these people? Granger Forson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And where did those type of clients come from with your marketing? Why did they come knocking on your door? Matt Spry: So it's a mix ⁓ of introductions, some network, some events as well, met people at events that then heard about it and followed up. Yeah. And then one or two have come direct through ⁓ through content that we created on LinkedIn and followed up and said, sounds really interesting. I hear more? Yeah. it's been a ⁓ mix. Granger Forson: Yeah. And all marketing is about generating a lead and leads fall into our sales pipeline, which is just ⁓ a of ⁓ A by B followed by C that results in a sale and only a percentage anyway, and everyone gets that sale point. ⁓ But. Where within your process of sales do you actually validate those type of clients to say, look, these are the people we want to work with, these are the people we don't, you know, do you have a gatekeeping process in there? Matt Spry: Yeah, we do now. So we learned that fairly early on, think, to be totally open. I'm sure we won't be the first people to fall into this trap when you first get a new shiny piece of software, you kind of want to show it off. And I think we definitely did too much of that. now we've learned that people don't come to us because we've got a nice piece of software that to us because it will be something different. Granger Forson: Okay. Yep. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, and learned a great phrase a number of years ago, know, in the first year of a business, ⁓ work with anybody because you need the money. ⁓ ⁓ second year of the business, you work out who you don't want to work with. And then the third year, you finally find those people you really want to work with. Matt Spry: Absolutely. Granger Forson: does sort of naturally take that course. I found that over the time that I was doing. So if you've really got that method, next bit really to think about is what I call better, more, new. So the that the marketing that you're doing today, when you look at those set of clients that you love working with, ⁓ which did they come through from marketing? ⁓ And can you ⁓ improve marketing Matt Spry: if you just. Granger Forson: bit, make it slightly better, so putting iteration on it doing more, just doing more volume through that activity because it's volume that drives the opportunities. ⁓ we're very good at doing as business owners is we want to do new, ⁓ of it, new this, we want to go social media, we want to go to TikTok, we want to do this, we want to do this, ⁓ actually it's simplification of your marketing processes that supports one key ⁓ ⁓ the real powerhouse. So what would be something maybe thinking about better and what would be something just increase volume. Matt Spry: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think the two channels that we think are going to be most important for us, one is actually getting out, it's the networking, it's finding the right events, the right groups of people. putting on our first event actually in a couple of weeks time as well. So been quite powerful for us. ⁓ And then I think it's going to be the concept marketing just to get the brand known, the concepts known. I think that is ⁓ one that is... ⁓ Not a unique but a more more rarer challenge for what we're doing is that we've got a concept that people may not have heard of. You're fairly rare Granger that you've read the book that we learned this from. most people haven't and they may have heard the word flywheel but they've not heard it used in the context of organisational performance. we're slightly fighting that battle but that's a content marketing piece for us of just explaining what it is and Granger Forson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Spry: what it looks like in practice. So one of the things that I've built recently is an AI powered flywheel builder, which, which is a free thing on a website. Anyone can go and do it. You answer a few questions and it's got our playbooks in the background and it can create you. Well, actually this is what we think the flywheel you might need looks like. we found already that on conversations with, with, with clients and people were meeting on our network that people can see it and feeling it. that, ⁓ that's great. How can I use that? So even just show it is to show don't tell things, to show people what it looks like for them, I think is going to be a really powerful thing. Granger Forson: Yeah. So that's a bit of better, you're talking about more. One of questions I ask, and I ask all my clients in this, is could you tell me exactly which networking events each one of those clients came from? Matt Spry: Yes I could. Granger Forson: That's really good. ⁓ That's really important because tracking is one of the key things in marketing. A of people say, ⁓ I can't do that. Well, why not? Because actually the only way you can understand how to do better and do more ⁓ is really track it, know exactly where those leads come from. ⁓ And when you can then start saying, right, we just need to do more of this type of networking. In networkings, we just need to be better at maybe ⁓ not meeting one person, but meeting two people every single time. ⁓ to better at those one-to-one follow-up activities. We need to have a better way of your AI flywheel type idea. So find by using the data is really important to do it. You'd be surprised how many people don't have that data, so really well done ⁓ from ⁓ Matt Spry: I agree. And it's not what we expected. know, we, so we were based, I'm based just outside Bristol and for anyone who listens, who's around Bristol, you'll probably know that there's there's a very big kind of tech startup community ecosystem, loads of events. You can probably go to something every day of the week if you really wanted to. And while we've enjoyed going to a lot of that, we've met a lot of, a lot of really interesting people. Actually the type of events that work for us have been the much smaller. the round tables, the smaller groups where you get a chance to engage a bit more deeply. So that's the profile event that's worked for us and the ones where you have those deeper conversations. Granger Forson: Yes, good, good. So if you're going to do more and better, what would you do next week? Well, actually, we're Monday now, if we're recording this. What would you do this week as your first experiment to start thinking about that? Matt Spry: Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, actually we're running our first event next week, which is the kind of the new thing that we're trying. So we found those smaller events to be really valuable. So we're actually running our own kind of private little event next week, which we're hoping to become a regular thing, which we're calling the Roda plus one lunch. So we've invited a small number of people to a lunch and we've asked them to bring someone else that they think the rest of the group will find interesting. No, no kind of agenda, no sales pitch, just the kind of a chance to talk, to grow our networks and meet some new interesting people. hopefully that will kind of will spiral off and through that we will build a bigger network and the people that we've not met yet. And hear some more good stories. So that's we're looking to. So that's the new thing we're And ⁓ we do a to kind of to boost the concept marketing over the next week or two. just coming out of a busy Easter period for both of us, but that's the intention now is to really, now we've got the AI Flywheel Builder tool ready, is to really start using that, so to tell the story of what Flywheels can do and what they can look like, explore some stories of what it could look like for other organizations that you might be reading about in the news, what's really going on behind the scenes, just driving their success or all their failure. So we're quite excited about getting those things out. Granger Forson: Yeah. it's new, ⁓ just careful about new. As I sort of ratio should about 10 % of your time should be on new. 90 % should always be on the better and doing more and the better maybe only around the 20%. So that puts 70 % of more of our effort on more where we always get attracted by the new because current isn't working. Well, current might not just be working because A, it's not better enough or B, you're just not doing enough of it because volume negates luck. So really thinking about that. Fantastic. Great conversation. Yeah, that was really useful. You've sparked some ideas. Matt Spry: Thank Granger Forson: with me as we're thinking about this so thank you. So let's go up into our wrap up and close now. did you hear yourself say today that maybe surprised you? Matt Spry: probably the events, actually, I think thinking back, because we do track things like where we go and who's not who we speak to, but where met people that, know, they do fall into our pipeline or the network that we track. So actually reflecting back on that panel has been quite interesting. I think it's always, it's always powerful, I think, to, discuss and to voice where you want to go, what the priorities look like, who you want to work with and what you want the shape of the business to be. ⁓ think as a business owner, when you're in it day to day, you get distracted and stuck on the to day short term issues. I think it's always powerful to step back and really think, actually, where is it we're trying to go? What's the business model we're trying to build? Is that the right path that we're on? So yeah, there's a few things I've ⁓ got written that I wanna, ⁓ just wanna sure we're doing enough of ⁓ and remaining on. certainly, I think the one thing that we, got to be careful of and I say lots of consultants will be in the same position that it's often as important to say no to the right things as to say yes. Something that we've got to give ourselves space to step back from some of work that isn't necessarily taken as a direction we want to go to give space to go and do. The better the more of the right things to go in the direction that we do want to go. Granger Forson: Yeah. Yes, And one of the key things ⁓ we creating Stronger Business together is we created our four principles that we run our business by ⁓ and then design the business around that rather than designing the business and then thinking about what our values are, etc. We did it the other way around and that ⁓ simplified to the extent that we ⁓ left organization ⁓ that software in it and actually we discovered that most of our clients weren't actually using the software. yes we could have spent some time really working out why. We had some good understanding because I some great clients that actually transferred and moved with us. But it's really that understanding them as you said, yeah talking to your clients and really drilling down with those really successful clients and I spent time with those that I've been with over last four years as I said some of them moved with us and I got to know what they really needed and understood from them and hence Stronger Business Together was created. around exactly that. So that real focus energy that you have to do every now and then is just really important. So thank you for being honest and sharing that with us. So Matt, finally, how can people get hold of you, follow and follow more of your journey and learn more about flywheels? Matt Spry: Thank Yeah, no problem at all. So we've been very active on LinkedIn. you can search for myself, Matt Spry on LinkedIn, you can find us. you want to have a play with flywheels and try build one for yourself, you can to www.flywheelbuilder.io. And ⁓ a simple process, answer three or four questions and using our model, it'll suggest flywheel that you might want to start exploring. And if you like, look at and to talk more about what it can mean for your organisation, just please get in touch either through LinkedIn or via email or on the website. We'd be very happy to talk. But yeah, thank you for opportunity. It's been great to chat. Granger Forson: Pleasure. Well Matt, thank you so much for being so open and honest. Fantastic conversation today. I know our listeners will get a lot from it. Thank you.