Latest / Stronger Business Together / E30 Fix Mid-Funnel Drop Off with James Weaver
Transcript
- Granger Forson: So is the Stronger Business Together podcast where business owners learn from other business owners. No theory, no gurus, just real journeys and overcoming real hurdles. Today I'm joined by James Weaver who runs Slimbridge Health and like every owner he's in that middle of building things, fixing things and growing something that really matters to him. So James, welcome. James Weaver: Hi Grainger, how you doing? Granger Forson: Excellent! James Weaver: you Granger Forson: We've a hot day to be recording this but off we go. Act one, your business. So James in plain English what does your business do? James Weaver: Yeah, so I am a health insurance expert, suppose. I put people in hospital is what I always say at my networking groups, which always sounds a bit sinister. But essentially, I represent a company called WPA Healthcare Practice. I'm their appointed representative. I bought a franchise about six years ago and I help people to arrange private health insurance for themselves, their families and their businesses to protect them against. Getting stuck in an HS waiting list essentially and taking control of their health journey. Granger Forson: Excellent. Yeah, really, really important thing. Lots of changes. The NHS goes up and down like a yo-yo. So having that ability for people to do it quickly and get the cover that they need. So who do you love helping then, James? And what do they typically dealing with? James Weaver: Well, I've found a few demographics that I enjoy working with. One is families. So people that have got children, spouse or whatever, and they want to basically look after themselves and look after their family. So that's a great one for me. I typically work with business owners, but I've worked with a few employees. solicitors who don't get health insurance through their company. I've also helped a few medium-sized businesses recently with 50 plus staff where they're looking to just provide some cash benefits for their team. I suppose my sweet spot really is the smaller businesses around about 10 staff is a good one, directors and families. the reason I like helping them is because I can implement something that they value straight away, that they get benefit from. And then as I get to know them over the years through renewals, I can see how it's affecting them positively in their lives. Granger Forson: Fantastic. I love that. That's really interesting. You build that relationship over time and help that long term impact, not just that where we are now. you said you started the business six years ago. You bought a franchise. So what was the original spark? Why did you do that? James Weaver: I was in corporate sales for about 40 years, suppose, on and off. And I wanted to start my own business. I tried a couple of ideas which didn't quite work out for me. They worked out commercially. was earning good money, but I couldn't find something which would give me the... I needed the backing of a big company so that I could grow my business without having to... grow my business, if you know what mean. I didn't want to take on lots and lots of stuff, but I wanted to be able to deliver to more clients. And I found an opportunity with WPA who ran a really great franchise program where I can just act as the introducer and they run all of the back office for me, manage all the claims and a lot of the client relationship. They're great at that. And it means that I can work hard at what I enjoy doing, which is talking to people, finding out where their problems are and helping them to find solutions. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Yeah, I love that. And you and I knew each other in the corporate world. We were buying products from you. James Weaver: We did. Granger Forson: yes, yeah, we go back quite a way. So what does your business look like today in terms of size and shape? James Weaver: So I started off with no clients at all. I'm up to 750 clients now or lives undercover on my patch. My area is of the postcodes that I've got is around Cheltenham and the Cotswolds. But I can advise anybody anywhere in the UK on their health insurance. But I'm really only allowed to market myself in those postcoded areas. I've just taken on an account manager recently who's been a really good addition to my team. So she's managing a lot of the renewals as the business grows and the customer base grows then. So the renewal conversations have to take place and there's just more of them. in order to help me to manage that I'll take on an account manager and she's also going to be doing some new business as well and she's already started and she's been really active around that. I suppose to come what I really want to do is I want to just increase the size of the portfolio and maybe take on another couple of staff but I don't really want to overgrow but we'll see how things go. I'm taking it a year at a time at the moment. Granger Forson: Wow, that's really exciting. Yeah, that steady growth, building that huge client base, but now you're taking on staff to grow more. So, you know, tell us about a customer success that you're proud of. James Weaver: Okay, so there's a few different types of success. So when you think about health insurance, health insurance is a bit like a parachute. You only really see the benefit of a parachute when the plane's falling out of the sky and you need to the rip cord. That's when you know how good it is. I've got some good examples about where people have pulled the rip cord. I've got other examples of where we've helped put in some really good staff benefits that have helped a client with their retention and their ability to attract good staff. So I'll start with the latter. So I won't mention the name of the company, but they're a technology company in Tewkesbury and they're one of the first clients that I took on board and they were a startup. They've gone several rounds of finance and funding and they've done really, really well. They're doing cyber security. to the defence and government sectors and they're also in gambling space as well. Around Cheltenham we've got the GCHQ area so there's a lot of tech brains around the Cheltenham area and they wanted to try and attract some of those so they looked around for a health insurance policy to deliver to their staff. and they wanted the best one. they went on the which report they went on the trust pilot reviews and they went on a couple of other I think it was many factors while they looked at and they discovered that WPA was the highest rated for customer service and also is the highest rated for customer satisfaction. So they chose WPA. I had several meetings with them set that policy up and we've had some really, really good. successes with them helping them to manage the staff that they've got. They've gone through a few different challenges but they kept with WPA all the way through and yeah we've really helped and supported each other through that journey. I've enjoyed it you know it's been they've had some good relationships with not only the the scheme members where they've been phoning up and asking for advice about underwriting and about how to make claims and stuff. but also with the scheme of administrators and the C level contacts that I've got there. So that was that side Granger Forson: Fantastic. James Weaver: of things. And I can say on the other side of things, somebody that made a claim. somebody, another one of my first clients, he came on board, never had health insurance before. We had a long conversation about it. He was just approaching 60, decided he wanted to get some for him and his wife. He took it out. And since then, know, he's had a diagnosis which took him through an oncology journey, a cancer journey, which he would have, as he says, the NHS would not have supported the treatment that he required because it was too expensive, but he was able to get that treatment through WPA and he's alive and well. And he's now just had a new claim authorised to have a new hit put in, which again, he would have been on a two year waiting list with the NHS. he's getting that done so as a guy that you know a he's alive but B he's going to be able to live a comfortable life stress-free able to get the treatment that he needs when he needs it so that's I can that as a bigger success really because he's such a nice guy Granger Forson: Wow, what lovely two examples and that second one being really important, it? That ability to enjoy life when things go wrong, but can help us and you're there to help that happen. Fantastic. Thank you, James. So every business we need leads, those leads and we turn into sales. So how do you go about generating your leads? James Weaver: So, I mean, all of my business pretty much that I've generated myself has come through business networking. It was strange actually, my new account manager, she's starting to go to some networking events. And she said to me the other day, said, James, I'm yet to go to one of these events where everybody doesn't already know you. So, which I thought, yeah, I'm doing this right. You know, people know me. I think that's the main thing, I think, is to be known as being the guy that does what you do. You know, if you can be, if somebody says to you, who's the health insurance guy around Cheltenham and somebody doesn't say your name, my name, then I'm not doing it right. So I need to be moving in the right circle. So I joined BNI. I joined the Four Business Network. top network. There's a bunch of different networks like FSB. I've done all sorts of networking events and been a member of quite a few different organizations and networking organizations and business to business networking. From what I do has been absolutely critical. I've just started to get some really great leads though through the WPA website. They're doing a lot of social media and they've started to up their YouTube channel as well and some of their video content has been quite compelling and that's driven some additional leads through to me which I've closed really quickly so I'm definitely going to be taking more note of that and know trying to try I try to try and push people towards those channels because it's an easy sell once they've seen the videos. Granger Forson: fantastic, love that. Yeah that's really really important being known for your expertise in the area. Doing that through networking, networking, networking. So yeah and you and I re-met again through networking a number of years James Weaver: Absolutely. Granger Forson: ago. So fantastic. So let's go on to act two now James, on to the journey of your business. Describe over the last few years maybe some of the highs and lows of running your business. James Weaver: I think the high has been just being able to manage my own calendar and be in control of my life. I've got in the last few years, you know, I lost my mother. had Alzheimer's and was an energy she passed away and being able to support my dad and family through that. was it was tough. But, you know, I was able to do it as a business owner. It would have been tough as an employee I think which is what I was before. Also my wife's son is poorly as well, he needs some support. I live on a boat as well which is a bit a bizarre sort of life choice that we made, my wife and I. So we've got a barge at Frampton on Severn, we've got another barge now down in Salford Marina as well. So we manage those two areas so that we can I can support my business up this side and the Frampton on 7 location and Jane and I can help to support her family in the sort of the more Bristol Bath based area. So I think, you know, my journey into running a business has enabled me to live the life that I want to live. I think the area that a lot of people struggle with is sales. I've got 40 years sales experience, that's not the area that I've struggled with at all. I've always found it very easy to, and I think it's a natural thing, but it's not. It's a learnt skill over Granger Forson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. James Weaver: many, many years. If you spend that amount of time selling, you're it. That's what you do. That's my skill set, I suppose. The area that Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: I've always found difficult really is on the on the admin side and I have to refocus on that. And that is why I'm growing my team in that area so that I can support. think, you you have to, one of the things I've learned is that, you know, I can't do everything. I need to really try and direct my energy into the place where I'm gonna be the maximum effectiveness and efficiency. And then Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: look at the areas. So I've got an accountant that manages all of my finance stuff. I've got my account manager that's managing all of the renewal and the customer relationship side of things. And I can really just focus on that new business and those those those sort of really important business decisions. So so yeah, management of life, but also, you know, being having some control over my my role in the business has been been a fantastic revelation to me, which I did. That wasn't what I got into it for at all, to be fair. I got into buying a business and being that because I I was just fed up of paying so much PAYE and National Insurance. Granger Forson: Hahaha James Weaver: Every time I looked at my pay packet when I was an employee, Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: just couldn't believe how much tax I was paying. I thought, OK, well, I can run a business and I didn't have to work so hard and I could earn the same amount of money. But it's Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: developed from there. Granger Forson: Fantastic. I mean... That's beautiful. know the fact that to you managing diary you can deal with those life situations. Yeah, I've got two boats Fantastic. Yeah to be able to manage that but I I also totally agree You know the stronger business together one of the things that we really focus on with our clients is as the business owner You have to sell you have to know how to sell first. It's not the product. It's not the service It's the ability to sell that product or service because once you know how to do that You can then do marketing to bring in those opportunities but you have to learn to sell first and so many business owners I think we get so hung up on the thing that we do that actually we forget the most important thing is the ability to sell the thing that we do and once you've got that solved and you come in with that skill set already there to be able to help that happen so fantastic well done well done you awesome so you know it's got hard at times hasn't it running business on your own yeah trying to think about what you've got to do and put it all together What have you learned about yourself from running the business up to now? James Weaver: time. I've learned that I like playing golf. Granger Forson: We know that James, we know that. James Weaver: I didn't, you see, I went through a phase where I just, yeah, so yeah, it's a good question. What do I learn about myself? I think I've learned that I am self-sufficient in so much as, know, I first started my business and first you know, it was a case of in theory, you know, I had a belief that I could do it, but belief turns into faith. when you've actually done it, you know. And I was sat there today, actually. I've I've I've signed a few deals recently and they haven't come through. And I get my, my commission statements come through from WPA and I looked at today's one and it wasn't a particularly good commission statement. In fact, was, was dire. was hardly any, know, hardly got paid any money. But when I, when I evened it out over the, over the last few weeks, I was able to, to look at it and think, and sit down with my wife and say, we're going to be OK and we are going to be OK. And I've got a lot a lot in the pipeline coming through as well. A few years ago, I would have looked at that commission statement and I would have been apoplectic with worry and anxiety and thinking, my God, the whole world is crashing around. But it's not. think it's it's you you learn the process and you trust the process and you keep repeating the things that work. And if you keep repeating the things that work, then then you're going to be OK. and you know worry doesn't solve anything, worry just makes you look more and more uncredible to other people Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: and I think you need to have that confidence and it's not as I say it's not just about belief it's about faith you know it's having a faith that And I know that if I keep doing the right thing and the other great thing that I've got as well, which a lot of companies don't have, you know, new startups is I've got a great company behind me. So WPA been around for 125 years. You know, they got half a million clients coming up to, know, and they've got the they're winning all the awards for being the best health insurance provider in the UK at the moment, which is fantastic. Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: You know, so I know that. All I've got to do is just keep doing the right thing one day at a time and it'll be all right. Granger Forson: Yeah, fantastic. I love that. That's so true. It's that realization that actually I mean, one of expressions I love is business is boring. Yeah, but it's not boring because it's dull. It's boring because you just have to keep doing the same right things. So once you work out what's right, you just keep doing them. And that's actually what a business is about. And you've just articulated that. fantastic. So that's Stronger Business Together. We believe in simplifying our businesses and getting rid of all that rubbish that accumulates in our processes and our systems and our ways of working. Give us some examples. that's made your business life simpler. James Weaver: Okay, so I was a member of quite a few different networking organizations and I looked at my my activity rate and what I was doing, what my activity was around and I think I was just doing too much activity focused on networking. So what I've done is I've rationalized that and I've tried to just focus on a few channels that I know are going to be effective and I'll continue to do that for three months and I'll review it again and I'll keep reviewing and rationalizing that side of things. As I said, I've taken on an account manager to help me to do some stuff. I've outsourcing admin a few times and I've also tried outsourcing some marketing and I'll keep trying that as well. I mean, I've had some successes and some failures and some meh sort of neither, neither, sort of thing. But I'm going to keep I'm going to keep persevering with that because I think it's good to keep just testing. and trying things. But yeah, it all seems to be going well at the moment. And, for me, as I say, the products that I sell aren't my own products. They're through another company. and we keep feeding back to WPA as well. So the great thing is, as well as, you know, I'm part of a group of other franchise owners. We're all talking to our clients. And then we feed that information back to WPA so that they can improve and broaden and narrow down whatever it is they're trying to do, what we see in the market. And we're trying to just put products in front of people that are going to be valuable and of interest. I'm not sure if that answers your question there, but I gave it. Granger Forson: Excellent. Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. It's actually simplification. We did the same. We rationalized our networking, but we've got the numbers to understand it. And that's one of the most important things. You can't rationalize if you're not tracking leads, if you're not tracking interactions, you're not tracking sales and where they come from. You need those numbers to be able to make that those important decisions. So, yeah, very good. Yeah, totally agree with that. So You've talked about sometimes the admin stuff is difficult or frustrating or whatever but where do things still go wrong then in your business when you come under pressure probably in both personal life and business life all the same time? James Weaver: Okay, so I guess with health insurance. It can be quite tricky sometimes. It doesn't matter how transparent and how. So when we take you on a new client and you go through and you do some questions and answers and you really try and get expectations to a level that are very, very realistic. Every now and again, know, somebody will say, you know, I'm trying to make a claim for something and I've been told that I can't claim for it, you know, for whatever reason. And we look at it and we realize the fact that, you know, sometimes they might have had a medical condition which pre-existed their insurance start date and it wasn't disclosed correctly. So we're always looking at ways to make sure that we do that onboarding piece right. And we don't. I think I think we, you know, we are really trying to to to beef that up at the moment, or I am anyway, because I don't want it to get to that situation. I want to make sure that people, you know, we're disclosing everything that we have to disclose and those expectations are based on, you know, fundamental reality rather than a laundry list of what I'd like to happen. You can't just take out a car insurance after you've crashed the car and expect to have your car repaired. You have to take out the insurance before the car crash. my job is to... Sometimes you've got to be quite probing with your questioning to get that right. And it can be uncomfortable sometimes. And I'm quite an affable guy most of the time and I don't... I don't necessarily like to put people under that kind of scrutiny, but if you don't, you can find a nasty surprise. It's better to put them under bit of scrutiny and to make people think a bit. Granger Forson: Yeah so getting the right policy, getting people to understand the implications of where they are in life and what that means to that policy and what they need to do. James Weaver: Yeah, it's managing expectations. managing expectations because, know, unrealistic expectations are resentments under construction. So it's better to... Granger Forson: Yeah, well, yes, very good. Very James Weaver: try to get those expectations correct with some uncomfortable questions. Granger Forson: Yeah, excellent. James Weaver: How's it been done? Granger Forson: Let's move on now to Act 3, the hurdle round. So you've picked a question from a listener. our hurdle from our listener. So they're a cyber security company, which is interesting because that was in your first clients. So their sales cycle is currently between 90 to 120 days and they feel like they're losing momentum halfway through, which is then resulting in loss of sales and opportunity. So it's that long distance cycle of sales activity. OK. James Weaver: Yeah, so yeah, my one of my previous roles, I was coaching a team of account managers around selling software solutions into complex, Granger Forson: Okay. James Weaver: complex business situations and. Granger Forson: Yeah okay so let's think about this business. So it's a cyber security company it's got about six staff is saying here. So it's a small business. What do we think is going on? How could we define the sort of current situation do we think that's happening that's making this long sales cycle? James Weaver: Well, you said that they were losing momentum. So my thought is potentially that they're that they're not talking to the right person or the right group of people from the outset. So sometimes you can you can try and sell up from from technical or from compliance or from IT and then go up to the C suite or you can go from the C suite down. So first of all, it depends on whether or not they're looking at an SME type business, which is if you are, then you need to be speaking to the business owner every single time. If you're not talking to the business owner and if you haven't got that executive buy in from the start, then it's going to be a it's going to be an uphill struggle from there. So ideally having that. Granger Forson: yeah so James Weaver: on, go on. Granger Forson: So speaking to the right person within the structure of the business is a key thing here that we need to identify. you're saying that that why would that then lead to a long sales cycle then if we weren't speaking to the right people? James Weaver: So ideally, okay, so speaking to the right people is important, but also building the value of your solution, doing a blue sky presentation to that person and saying, look, this is where you are at the moment. These are the potential implications of being hacked, of being ransomware or being whatever it might be that you're looking at. So the way that I would be doing this was I'll be opening those funnels. So talking about the various with the with the business owner and getting them to articulate what are the implications of getting it wrong. OK, because as soon as you start doing that, then you've got that opportunity to I use a process called based on spin, which is situation problem implication need payoff, which is where you're trying to get the business owner to articulate the problem. To actually say to me. what the cost of that problem is going to be. And then from there, you can then agree a timetable or a roadmap to say, right, this is where we are now. These are the stages that we're going to need to put in place in order for you to take this product and to mitigate those risks that you've told me are going to cost you a million pounds or whatever it is. And from that point, everything falls into place. Granger Forson: So, yeah, so if the like situation here is we're speaking to the wrong person and we're not articulating. That the value proposition in such a way that they are feeling the pain and understanding than the roadmap that we're going to go through Okay, right. So understand that's really good sales activity So why would they not be doing this what what what's you know from your experience? What what's probably going on in this business? And they're not allowing these two things to take place James Weaver: So one of the areas that we focus on a lot with our guys was to get the opportunity roadmap set up, but also get an implementation roadmap set up as well. And to be very clear from the work from the word go to say in order for this to go live. In six months time, we need this to happen this time and then reverse engineer it back and say, you know, you need to have placed the order by this date. And. And I think that the issue is that sometimes people will sort of allow the customer to dictate the buying cycle. Whereas when you're implementing a technological solution to a problem that they've, you know, it'd be like going to the doctors and telling them when you want the treatment to happen. The doctor is the one that's supposed to be giving you the diagnosis, the prescription, the treatment. That's what we're doing is when you're a consultative salesperson. It's you you need to dictate and orchestrate the sales cycle, not the customer. You Granger Forson: Yeah. James Weaver: can, of course, you can try and learn the customers, but they might have certain things in their buying process. They might have a board meeting that needs to happen, or they might need to have an executive sign off, or they might have to have a compliance or a red line conversation with solicitors or whatever it might be at some point. You need to be able to, you know, input those into your sales process. But essentially, the sales process the buying process need to be dictated by the the vendor rather than the client. That's my my my thought. Granger Forson: So. So most likely what's going on here is actually what we haven't built is a sales process. We've probably recruited somebody for sales and maybe as the business owner, I do the sales because that's my experience. We've only got sort of six people around us. We actually haven't actually sat down and realized that sales is a process. There's step A followed by step B. Who are you talking to? Why are we talking to them? When we're talking to them, what are the key questions that we need to uncover first to understand first of all, do they have the pain? What's the sign-off process? Do they have the money? What's the urgency? So these elements that we have to understand are things that we need to ask at the beginning. So they probably haven't actually mapped out a sales process activity and that's why they're potentially then it's taking so long for their sales cycle because it's taking that time to do that. And then you said once you've got all that information the next end is the blue sky presentation but actually it's not just a wing it it's a map out the journey that they need to go through as a business to overcome the problems the pain they've got and how that's going to work and I love that expression you said and working it all the way back to and by date X you need to have signed up with us we need to have started that contract because it'll take Y amount of time in order for you to then get that benefit and that structure from it. Excellent. Okay so what advice would we give them if they're listening to this today what's the first few steps that they should do next James Weaver: Well, I think it would be to try and identify who they're selling to. So what is the actual target market that they're targeting, where they had success in the past. Granger Forson: Yes. James Weaver: Also, look at their current clients as well, because one of the areas that a lot of... potential clients will go through in their buying cycle will be a de-risking phase where they'll want to see a case study. So try and look at companies that you've already got deals with, you've got ongoing successes with that you can then use as a case study or use as a client visit or a testimonial or something which are going to be relevant. sell to who you can sell to is all I'm saying. Granger Forson: Yes. James Weaver: And the other thing is find a sales process that will enable you to use the client's words in your proposal. So you need a sales process which is going to get somebody to say, to get them to uncover and articulate their problems and their needs and what the implications of those are. So that when you're putting your proposal together, you're not just the salesman telling them something. You're actually saying, well, we asked you this and you told us that this was crucial and that this was going to cost you this. We didn't get it resolved and the potential loss of your revenue would be this. And so, you can be you could be a lot more. You can use words with a lot more effectiveness if it's the customer's words. Yeah, it's not sales process. Find a process that works. Granger Forson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think this goes back to the top of the podcast when you were talking about that repetitiveness. We somehow seem to think... I've met many a business owner that sales is something that just happened sales is actually a very formulaic process and an understanding mapping out that process and then learning by each time of Improving it until you find what works when you find what works guess what you can just repeat it multiple times You can ramp it up. You can double the number of salespeople you can you know disguise the limit But it's that understanding first of all that it is a defined set of processes. There's a there's a lot of great advice out there It's picking the right bit of advice that's right for you within your process that generates the results. It's that sitting down planning and thinking and making that happen. And I think you're right the first important thing is who do you love working with? With your customers that you have today who are the best customers? How can you find more of those type of customers with the language and the structure of your process through your marketing and then the sales to make that happen? So brilliant fantastic set of advice there James thank you so much. So let's go out in to our wrap up and close. What did you hear yourself say today that maybe surprised you? James Weaver: That's a question. I think at the moment where I'm out in my business, I'm very comfortable with what's going on with everything. Yeah, I think, at some point, I know that there's development that's going to happen in the future and there's going to be change and there's going to be growth and there's going to be shrinkage and what have you. But I think at the moment, I'm exactly where I need to be. So I suppose in a way that's that surprising. You know, I didn't think, I believed that I would be where I'm at, but I didn't know it. So yeah, I guess that's it really. Thanks. Granger Forson: Awesome. James, thank you. And finally, where can people find more about you if they want to follow more of your journey? James Weaver: Well, yeah, so I'm happy for people to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll put all my contact details in the description. That would be great. Or you can come to BNI, Cheltenham BNI on a Friday morning and I will be there enjoying the sumptuous breakfast at the Leonardo Hotel. Granger Forson: Excellent we will indeed. We will indeed. thank you so much for a great conversation. I've really enjoyed this one and I know our audience will have a lot to take from it. It's been fantastic. Thank you. James Weaver: That's great. Thank you so much for Grainger. Lovely to see you and I look forward to seeing you on Friday. Take care. Granger Forson: 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 owners just like you. If you want to join in the conversation as a guest, or if you have a hurdle question for us to discuss, reach out to us at info at strongerbusinesstogether.com. Now go make this week really successful and we'll see you next time. Cheers!