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E26 Systemise Your Selling with Andy Coghlan · Stronger Business Together

• 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 comment, like and follow on whatever platform you're using. About 60 % of our audience haven't done that yet and these small actions will help us reach more business owners just like you. So this is the Stronger Business Together podcast, where business owners learn from other owners. No theory, no gurus, just real journey and overcoming real hurdles. If you'd like to join in this conversation as a guest, or if you have a hurdle question for us to use in a future episode, 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! So today I'm joined by Andy Coughlin, who runs CX Strategy. And like any owner, he's in that middle of building things, fixing things and growing something that really matters. So Andy, welcome. Andy Coghlan: Thank you Granger. Granger Forson: Brilliant, let's go on to Act 1, Your Business. So in plain English, Andy, what does your business do? Andy Coghlan: So my business at the CX Strategy is customer experience consultancy, really focusing on the digital customer experience how it can help organizations drive growth into their customer journey through the use of design, data, AI and marketing technology. And it's kind of based on my experience of 30 plus years in data-driven marketing, management consulting, digital transformation for various organisations. But part of where my passion lies moving forward is off the back of my 15 years as a trustee to a charity, off the back of doing some non-executive advisory work and my mentorship on the government's Help to Grow scheme. I've got much more of a passion for helping small businesses. So the business is beginning to kind of migrate from dealing with enterprise global clients to how can I better serve local clients with simple marketing and technology and data led solutions that can really help to make a difference in their business. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Okay. I love that. And you and I have worked together in the past, so I know some of the that you do, but you so you've talked about that evolution of change. So who do you love helping and what are they typically dealing with? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. So I love helping local businesses. I've now got into the kind of the local networking scene and meet so many ⁓ people with interesting backgrounds and ⁓ of them are really dealing with the many ⁓ of running, growing, scaling their own ⁓ businesses. in particular, something which is kind of dear to my heart based on some ⁓ work I before where I saw ⁓ impact of kind of online reputation for businesses. Started something for a major business like Cirque du Soleil who ⁓ had feedback from where from her but ⁓ were their scores online where people were going to look at what to do ⁓ in Vegas in other resorts were actually very poor and when we digged into it it was People commenting on the parking, the merchandise, the bar queues, the venues, nothing to do with the shows themselves. And as soon as they started to have a proactive customer review strategy to enhance that online reputation, saw a significant uptick in ticket sales. So ⁓ when I talked about, you know, leveraging kind of marketing tools, technology, I've created a a sub business within CX Strategy called Reputation Autopilot, which is a collection of tools that help people to stand out and grow their visibility in local search and AI recommendations, and then have a sort of stellar reputation when people find them because they've got loads and loads of beautiful reviews at 4.95 really make them an obvious choice to do business with. kind of where my growth ⁓ that side of the business is starting and we'll see what happens next. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Reputation autopilot. I love that idea and you do to make that happen. I've seen that and experienced it myself. How did the business start? What was that original spark then, Andy? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. I think the original spark with starting my own business was a kind of a guess a series of burnouts working for major global enterprises. You know, one of those organizations with 250,000 employees, know, multi-billion organization. ⁓ And you of get to a stage where you realize that ⁓ it's very like pushing treacle uphill, you're dealing with red tape, you're dealing with internal politics and where you're dealing with clients, you're dealing with major clients who can't get over themselves for the same red tape politics, legacy systems, et cetera. And so all the bright things and great things that I saw as being able to achieve with digital data, AI, these organizations just can't get over themselves to actually do it. And it's when I started working with some smaller businesses who were more agile, more on decision making. I there was a big opportunity, especially as the technology now has really converged so that small businesses can really tap into ⁓ really, powerful but cost effective solutions that used to be the purveyors of people spending millions of pounds a year on technology. Granger Forson: Wow, fantastic, yes. Making things simpler for your clients, which is one of the principles of the stronger business together. We're using technology to leverage that and getting those, I like the technology that used to be available to only the big businesses, now available to small local businesses. So typically, why do your customers pick you? How do you delight them? And maybe give us a success story that you're proud of as well. Andy Coghlan: I think that customers pick me because probably to my detriment I give a lot of advice and information to them. I help them to start by giving them some free advice they can do for themselves. Very much educational. You know, I'm very aware that those people start with doing it themselves, but then it becomes a little bit down their priorities, even though it's getting results. And so that's where the kind of the tools that I can use for automation to do things on autopilot start to really step in. And they kind of pick me because especially where people are looking essentially to win more customers, to get more leads, they're frustrated because They're better than their competitors, but their competitors stand out better ⁓ like Google and now AI search. ⁓ they seem to have loads of great reviews. ⁓ why is that? Because, you know, they know that those competitors are kind of winning a lot of that business that they should be having. And They have a kind of a little bit of a bitty flow of leads coming through. The only time they can improve that maybe is if they get out and do more networking. know, they really have to be visible or they spend more money on advertising. So they're more visible that way. And so there is a simple and obvious solution that ⁓ is more less plug and play and can run on autopilot with a little bit of guidance and proper setup and getting the right process in place upfront and monitoring progress. that, it becomes something which is kind of working in the backgrounds like what I call like it's it's lights out marketing. You know, when lights go out and you're sleeping, it's still actually working for you. So I think it's the kind of the simplicity and some of the results that they start to see. Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: There's partners I work with, we've got many, many success stories. We've working with larger organisations with multiple locations where what we do works really, really strong. But I think, you know, I'm of where I've taken somebody. like I mentioned before, you know, I've started working with them. I've given them some free hints and tips and they've come back within two weeks and said, do you know what? I've had calls running off off the phone. where I wasn't getting any before, I'm starting to get them. They're coming straight from my Google business profile. They're mentioning the fact that when they found me, they saw them and read the great reviews. So it's great what you're doing. Now, I already want to go to the next step and say, how can we amplify this and how can we move forward? And so we then put the software in place, which does heavy lifting and accelerates that for them. So, you know, again, I keep getting the feedback about how they're, you know, when they ask their customers why they're working with them, it's, you know, all around the fact that when they look for the business, they saw that they were well respected and had great reputation. And then when they read into it, that's, you know, what customers were saying about them. So ⁓ yeah, it works. Granger Forson: Yeah. Brilliant, yes, it works, definitely, definitely. You talked about generating leads for your clients, how do you go about generating leads? Andy Coghlan: A little bit of the same. I have that technology that works for me and does, you I've noticed that my ⁓ local search, ⁓ business profile got a lot better and stronger. So it's about my local reputation. I probably made mistake because I deal nationally. And so ⁓ I wasn't really looking at optimizing the local business side of things, the local visibility. And I think that even when you're national, when you start to look at how you appear in Google, you will still appear more locally because of the way Google works. And so you need to kind of leverage your search engine optimization, your content and everything for national, but for local, you very much have to focus on your Google business profile, your other directory listings, and importantly, the reviews that you have across everywhere. Because AI now prioritizes all recommendations for organizations that have a lot ⁓ healthy, good reviews. And they tell customers that are searching for that type of business, they as part of those recommendations are using what customers say about those businesses in that recommendation. So more and more as AI comes on board as Google uses AI, Google is still going to be 90 percent of search this year and will move to its own AI model. You won't be seen unless you have ⁓ a active and a steady stream ⁓ of Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: regular stream of reviews. itself is even looking across other platforms like like Facebook, any source where customers are talking about you rather than you talking about yourself is where it goes for its reference and information. Granger Forson: Yeah, and that's been a significant change with ⁓ AI coming out and they started doing AI searching. People were saying, well, Google search is going to be replaced. But actually over the last year, it's all sort of flowed back really to Google and people are still using Google search. Yes, they get the AI results, but the AI needs something else to link to because it can't just trust what you've written on your website. So yeah, those trusted reviews becomes really powerful for that search engine. Andy Coghlan: in terms of my own marketing, know, I think it is, you know, the networking and having to get to build those relationships of no like and trust. mean, it took me a long time to begin to understand the value of those relationships, the referrals, the recommendations in the offline world and replicate those in the online world as well, because, I came from that corporate background, which is just a totally different animal. So it took me a lot of time to adjust. And I and I would say I still probably haven't nailed it myself But I'm confident with the things that I'm doing that I will begin to start to get there and and scale that. But I've I've kind of done a lot of the things that I advise my major clients not to do. I've fallen into the trap of doing and I think, you know, as later on we discuss about hurdles, there's plenty of those self-inflicted hurdles about. Granger Forson: Yes, we definitely do that to ourselves. We have a habit of copying the herd rather than actually thinking and becoming and even just practicing what we preach or do ourselves. So very, very true. So, Andy, let's move on to Act Two now, your journey as a business owner. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: We know, and you and I have worked together, there are some real highs and lows in building your business. What have been some of the highs and some of the lows for you? Andy Coghlan: I think some of the highs for myself, I mentioned before, it's working with nice people who are generally passionate about growing their own business or the business that they belong to, having more pride and passion about that. Because I think often in the corporate world, you just have people taking the salary and actually, as long as they meet some probably misaligned objective targets, they're happy enough. So I think working with passionate people, seeing the collaboration, seeing the collective willingness of local businesses to support each other has been a high. For me personally, being able to test and learn and kind of try different marketing techniques to implement some of these technologies and to see what starts to work, what doesn't start to work is something that's kind of really, you know, I've really enjoyed and kind of more, as I mentioned, seeing some of the success coming through from the educational marketing and use of educational tools, assets, ⁓ auditing, ⁓ streamlined webinars, things like that, I think has been really, really really positive. And so ⁓ a path where I can begin to gradually move from, you the kind of the enterprise consulting into more and more shift into smaller business, business support is, is, you where I want to get to. Granger Forson: Yeah, some of the lows, know, the highs, when's it become hard for you? ⁓ Andy Coghlan: ⁓ Some of the lows is my absolute inability to multitask. if I do have, yeah, I've had some work where I've been on consulting with larger clients, the ⁓ other side the business has just fallen by the wayside. And I think of the biggest lows was ⁓ to Granger Forson: Along with us all, I think. Andy Coghlan: To compensate for that, I used the cash flow I was getting in from consulting to and test a whole load of different marketing initiatives from cold email to ⁓ content to the use LinkedIn. And I basically a whole lot of money. I got some learning from it, but because I wasn't hands on doing it myself. wasted money and think it was because I wasn't close enough to it. And, you know, as I mentioned before, I even a VA on board because my ⁓ view of how scale my business is maybe not through growing employees, but through the use of third parties ⁓ and ⁓ VA resource. you know, I ⁓ Before you do that, you have to have your processes, procedures, content, tools in place. And how those ⁓ integrate with your business. Otherwise, you're just feeding a kind of a leaky bucket, as it were. ⁓ ⁓ think I wasted a lot of money for not too much learning. And that's a particular kind of low me coming out of that and realizing that, you know, that Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: wastage essentially. Granger Forson: Yes, some of it's definitely wasted to a lot of money. Some of it, as you say, is learning, which is learning what does and doesn't work for you and the way that you progress moving forward. So, mean, The Stronger Business together, we believe simplifying a business, making things simpler everything you do. What's something you've maybe done that's simplified made things easier for you? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. my own dog food. I a consulting called Customer Journey Value Creation, which was really looking at the customer journey or the buying process and understanding the metrics behind it and where the points with that for potential customers. what the potential value to me would be if I could fix those pain points at various stages and my whole my whole recommendations to major clients was out of these hundred things you're doing just pick five of them start with the top one and get that done and then go on to the rest of them because it just becomes a distraction otherwise and it it is the ultimate pareto or it's not 80-20 it's normally kind of know, 10 % of what you do, it's 90 % of the business or has the potential to because by trying to do the other 90 you create so much noise that you don't do the 10 important things very well. So simplification just in terms of my business strategy and kind of when I worked with you about realizing those top things to do and to focus on and to get done is pretty critical. I'm now some of my kind of marketing activities and automating through the tools like Go High Level, but making sure that I'm not to Boil the ocean in one go. I do it kind of an automation at a time or an initiative at a time. And that I'm hyper focused on what is the high value initiative that I need to focus on now. It's kind of Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: mix of high value and easy to do and just get stuff done that's going to be relatively easy and quick to do and that's relatively high value. doesn't have to be the highest value but you start to see the traction then and you start to get momentum and I think that's the critically important bit. Granger Forson: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Focusing on those few things, that's why Stronger Business Together, we brought together our four principles and one of those is simplification of your business. But there's also growth through challenge. And challenge isn't the challenge of all the new things. The challenge is saying, this works. It works for other people, this one thing. I've got to make it work for me. And that may take a while, understanding, but you will do that if you challenge yourself to really push and go through. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yeah. Granger Forson: You've talked about leads quite a bit. would you do in the next 30 days if you had lost all your leads in your pipeline right away? Andy Coghlan: Good question. no, I mean, know, something ⁓ I do very well enough is look kind the ⁓ advocacy and referrals can get from current customers and from potential business Granger Forson: testing your thinking of marketing. Andy Coghlan: something I'm already looking at is how can I enable those customers to help to market for me? And for me, that's part of the kind of the educational marketing that I'm doing where I can offer to customers that, you know, people they know will get free strategy and advice. And here's the testimonials from people who've had that to show that it works so that they can can have something which is kind of a free offer that they can take to people, which comes as a bit of a present from them because it's actually something that they've arranged for free. that becomes, you know, where I do work with, you know, consultancies, coaches, accountancy practices that want their customers to grow. That can be a useful tactic as well. But it's probably a case of then getting back into a whole number of people that I've met through networking over a period of time and looking to rekindle, regenerate those relationships as well. yes, I've got the kind of, hopefully the sales whereby I'm going by various channels through LinkedIn, LinkedIn connections using kind of ⁓ what Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: I don't like the word lead magnet type tools, but you know, where there's a free AI Google business profile audit that I can give, start to push that out, generate leads and push through to ultimately where I'm getting traction through will be through the webinars and content that I give that then leads on to people wanting to take the next step. Granger Forson: simplification is also about simplification of our products, our services, because we can end up doing too much. I you have had this conversation a number of times. So what you done to sort of really focus in and simplify what you deliver to your clients? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. I mean, this is where I've kind of packaged it up as reputation autopilot, which is essentially a curation of three four different bits of software that can cater for needs of audiences depending where they are in kind of the maturity curve. in their reputation journey. So something that can just get them started collecting and displaying Google reviews, which is the most important search. Something which can then help them to automatically generate Google posts, Google updates, remind them to upload photographs, things like that. All the things that are going to help with their local visibility. And then there's kind of the ultimate review management to aggregate all their reviews, to feed them into search, onto their website, into engines, ⁓ social, etc. And so ⁓ what done is I've kind of created what I've called the reputation growth system. And that is then can understand where people are on the maturity of that and apply the relevant tools at the relevant cost points to help them do that. And there's a migration from one to the next. Should that be needed? But but packaging it up as kind of suite. And expertise is helping them to navigate the best tools for them at that particular time. But all geared around doing the autopilot bit, the automation as much as possible. Because I think that I confused people. Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: And before we came on, you referred to me as customer reviews expert. I think reason I've gone away from that is because it positions me as a consultant advisor, which comes with a cost. And I'm about how I can service people with and education and training support around that, rather than people ⁓ paying for my because you know, becomes a difficult thing to sell in a niche, which am. Granger Forson: Yes, yeah, no, fantastic. I love to change. love the journey you've been on and experiencing and what you're building. I mean, get really busy today, know, going on. What's one thing that you do to keep yourself ⁓ healthy, business healthy ⁓ when gets really busy? Andy Coghlan: I make sure that have some dedicated time for myself. That I do make sure that I ⁓ either get the gym in the morning or I go for a walk. think, you know, that I say that's personal but that's for business reasons as well because ⁓ I used be, you know, I would literally be at my desk working from home at eight o'clock in the morning and then o'clock at night I would get to go out and maybe put something in the recycling bin and realize that I hadn't unlocked my door all day. I hadn't been out, hadn't got fresh air. I'd just been sat at my desk and from a business point of view you can't maintain that. You have to have your brakes clear the mind. Get your kind of your little break there. I make sure I set aside time to kind of work on the business as well that I have that set of things that I want to get done for example in my marketing funnel and that I can set aside some time to do that. to be honest when been incredibly busy ⁓ is I'm really, really conscious of not spending 60 hours a week working, but actually extra 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week that we might do on top is how much value is really going to be from that. Chasing all these leads down that actually aren't in your right wheelhouse, target audience. When times aren't so busy, then Granger Forson: Yeah. Andy Coghlan: it makes sense to nurture them because they could turn out to be something in the longer term. But in the short term, you just need to find more efficient ways of keeping them informed and active than, you know, chasing absolutely everything. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Thank you for that great share. And I totally agree with those elements. going out for a walk, my partner, my co-partner and I, we go out every morning before we start work. And we also go for a walk at lunchtime, 90 % of the time as well. Because you just need that. Get out there, see the world, and get that fresh air. when it's rubbish outside it's still important to do. So thank you, brilliant share. So let's move on to Act 3 now, ⁓ hurdle. So Andy, what's the hurdle that you've brought with us to discuss today? Andy Coghlan: I kind of mentioned it ⁓ a little bit before. would say my expertise is around kind of end-to-end marketing, final and personalization and mapping out customer journeys. And it's not something that I do for myself properly. ⁓ map it out, but then I don't get to fill in the gaps. So I think the biggest gap has always been ⁓ kind of sales conversion process. felt I need to get more leads in the business but actually recognizing that I really need to kind of, I used way back when I ran the account at an agency, we had the model which was the the funnel in the bucket and you know of got a little bit of a leaky funnel but that bucket of leads is very leaky because I just don't have the right tools and processes in place to people from being interested or even verbally committed to ⁓ them over the line and then ⁓ I mentioned before even when they become customers make sure they become good customers and sure they become advocates. Granger Forson: Okay. Yep. Yep. So. Andy Coghlan: ⁓ And that's really the first thing, first thing we really need to get into place. Granger Forson: Okay, so around this idea of ⁓ the ⁓ a bit more nailed down maybe, ⁓ is the sales system, the pipeline as I call it. So ⁓ marketing brings in the leads, but it's the conversion of those leads ⁓ opportunities for the sale. Okay, ⁓ right. ⁓ let's explore the background of where you are today. So we ⁓ ⁓ we're trying to look at. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: What was your starting condition? Where are you today? how many? What is your conversion percentage from leads to sales? Andy Coghlan: Again, it depend on what you say, ⁓ how determine a ⁓ Granger Forson: Okay, so define lead. Define a lead to me for you then. ⁓ What's lead? Andy Coghlan: So for me, a lead, I really say a lead is somebody who I've probably had a conversation with, be it online, offline, that is in the target market has a need for my service ⁓ has expressed an interest in some form. Granger Forson: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Andy Coghlan: interest be that they've downloaded a piece of collateral that is, ⁓ for example, I have collateral about how to 5x your five reviews, which is just some simple hints tips around getting more reviews from DAW. I have a AI driven audit of current Granger Forson: Okay. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Andy Coghlan: visibility within Google and AI search. I have scorecards around what you're doing for your managing your reputation. So anything like that, but also, you know, face to face where there's there's meetings and somebody said, ⁓ that's interesting. Let's have a discussion or I've had a one to one with them. And I've know I felt that actually, although there might not be ⁓ an interest now, there definitely is a need and there is budget there. So Granger Forson: Okay. Andy Coghlan: The qualification kind of depends a little bit on how it comes through, but I'm trying to get that consistent. Granger Forson: Right. And this is probably where we're sort of starting condition that we may need to talk about is this qualification of what is a lead. Because somebody who's downloaded a set of materials isn't to me a qualified lead because they haven't put their hand up and said, I'd like to have a conversation. But someone who said, that's really interesting, let's set up a meeting or let me go to a video sales letter. Yes, you're sending them a video sales letter that sort of starts that. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yeah. Granger Forson: buyer's journey with them. It's more what I would call a lead, to call it a qualified lead. So today, what do you do to sort do that qualification and understanding of where they are at the beginning of your sales journey? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. So obviously face to face in conversation, in dialogue, there is or ⁓ a Zoom meeting, there's discovery. There's really understanding, you know, mapping pains and needs to ⁓ what can deliver and also being able to ask some questions around what they spend on marketing. Granger Forson: Okay. Andy Coghlan: for instance, and what sort of things they do in marketing. Granger Forson: So do you have a standard checklist for that first meeting? Andy Coghlan: So I don't, but it's something that I together. So ⁓ is kind of what I'm doing now. And then, ⁓ you mentioned video sales messages. I've got with before giving some of the next collateral, I've got processes, some of them which are asking like a tripwire question again, in terms of their willingness to a certain amount a month ⁓ on solutions. ⁓ Granger Forson: Okay. Yeah. Yes, yes. Andy Coghlan: just to try and pre-qualify some of those. So it. Granger Forson: And it's important in the beginning to do that qualification. So you've talked about automation and you talked about face-to-face. Yes, within your automation processes, that qualification steps or steps in there ⁓ an important action. ⁓ initially, face-to-face conversations allows you to practice ⁓ does and doesn't work ⁓ what we can be very good at is automating our ideas rather than automating something that Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: works and you know my co-partner and I we spend a lot of time doing stuff, manually sending emails, manually having conversations with people ⁓ recording what that was, giving to each other and saying did that work? No. Did it work? No. Did it work? Yes. Okay. How can we simplify it? How can we make it better? ⁓ Then automate. We don't automate at the beginning. So you're having these conversations with people. You haven't got a checklist ⁓ but the end of the sort of conversation one Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: Okay. Are you going straight into the cell? What's the end of conversation one and the face to face? We'll come to the automation in a moment. Andy Coghlan: No, well I guess it depends what that face-to-face is because as you know from networking there's kind of one-to-ones where you get to know about their business. Granger Forson: Absolutely, but that's probably part of lead gen though, isn't it? I always see that that's more as lead gen rather than someone said, yes, Andy, let's let's talk about this. Let's spend a bit of time. That might be the end of the one to one you're having with them or it could be that you set up a separate meeting for them. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. So that, ⁓ this is where I've kind of tested different approaches to kind of being very, very sales focused to be more discovery and listening to a blend of the two. are things that I really need to ⁓ those nailed ⁓ questions that are not only qualification, but actually better sales tools, if you know what I mean, kind of the commitment type questions and the commitment to the and next meeting. ⁓ And I'm particularly bad at is kind of gathering the of the hurdles ⁓ and addressing hurdles. So that's where I'm doing some work at the moment. Granger Forson: Yeah. Yeah. So having a checklist, having some answers that you write down against those that checklist, even giving them, I just thought of it on top of my head, giving them the checklist, because I know you like scorecard app, don't you? They could almost do that there and then in front of you. suddenly thought that was quite an interesting idea, whether it would work, don't know, but getting to fill in that checklist, you chill in that checklist, it's an important thing to go through. But at the end of that, ⁓ what... Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Granger Forson: what you need is to gauge with them, where are they in this journey? ⁓ like the question when I've got all those buyer signals, okay? If they're not, then ⁓ wrap up the conversation. fantastic. I can do this connection with you. I can do this with you. ⁓ you very much. Come back to me when you're ready. But if ⁓ think the checklist has shown me that people are in that buying potential, then it's a question. Between one and 10, where are you? 10 being let's move forward and buy now, 8 or 9 being I'd like to more information, 7 being 7 or 1 to 1 is being you know not really met know you know where are you from 1 to 10 and getting that commitment without having to say this is the sale yeah is a good way then of trying to get them to understand they are. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it's it. Granger Forson: And at that. Andy Coghlan: It's something that I've kind of used in more of roundabout way, but I do need myself to be more direct. So I have kind of, know, gauged on a one to 10, how closely does this meet your needs? But it's not quite the same question. Granger Forson: Yes, yes, you sort of phrase it in a way that it's, you where are you buying or needing this? ⁓ the other thing that we do, the thing about, like about sales, this is the bit that I've learned over time, is the purpose of the sales conversation is to get a decision. Yeah. And that decision could be no, that could be yes, that could be let's have another meeting, but we need an outcome at the meeting. It's not a, well, Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: I follow up with that person? What's going on? ⁓ having a ⁓ way of saying, right, between one and 10, where are you now? Yeah, ⁓ I'm a two. Brilliant, fantastic. Okay, well, ⁓ know the stuff you need to do. You can do this on your own. Here's further materials. I'd love this type of connection if you know anybody. Had a great meeting. Thank you very much. Yeah, it could be a seven. You go, okay, what would make it a 10? because seven tells me that you need to fix this problem, but you're not quite sure about something at the moment. 10 being fantastic, right, okay, I'm gonna give you the sales letter or the visual sales letter, I'm going to send you the contract, or we'll go into deeper detail of everything that you get to make sure that you're actually ready for this. So it's sort of asking those type of questions at the end that will then take that forwards. So when you say you haven't systemized it, Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yeah. Granger Forson: I think you've got lots of ideas in your head. You just need to maybe just, as you say, just sit down, start with an initial checklist and go from there building what's next. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: And if they would say, I'm a seven, would you ⁓ next, do you think, in the conversation? Andy Coghlan: So for me with a seven, it's then out like, as you mentioned, it's okay. What closes the gap between seven and 10? What are the areas that need more clarification or you need more information on to be able to help you to make that decision better, essentially? Granger Forson: Yeah, yeah. And it's asking them questions and letting them talk. it out from them, filling in the rest of ⁓ sheet. I've that of, I feel a bit salesy because I've got this checklist and I'm filling things out and I'm asking these questions. But actually, since I've started doing that, ⁓ it doesn't feel at all. It's a very structured thing. And even people ⁓ I'm talking to that's really interesting why are doing that and then I explain it to them and they're okay and they're building more relationship for you as they're understanding and doing so it really does sort of help that that conversation going forwards and and if they if they would say a 10 yeah we're ready what what what would be next so if they've come along to a meeting with you you've explained some bits and pieces to them you've you've gone through your checklist or they've got through the checklist well that's an interesting idea and Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: And they said, yeah, it's a 10. What would be next then in the journey? Andy Coghlan: Depending which parts of the product I have, one of them would be actually just immediately getting commitment with setting an onboarding call ⁓ and a direct debit mandate signed, which you can do there and then, and I have done there and then in the meeting. ⁓ Then next step would be sending out contract to be signed and signposting what onboarding steps would be. So being Granger Forson: But yeah. Andy Coghlan: ⁓ much more assumptive about that process. Granger Forson: Yeah, having that ready, ready to go on this the next steps, what those are and making those very clear. ⁓ if you can get them to sign there in, fantastic. Yeah, that's what we're trying to do. And what I love about the, I call it the manual process, ⁓ that allows us to experiment and really understand how we build that know, like and trust through our sales conversations. ⁓ can be converted then into visual sales letters. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Granger Forson: which then can then be used in a much more automated process beyond there. But you're building the automation based on your real experience rather than just using AI to invent some type of video sales letter and then wondering why it doesn't work. they say, oh, video sales letters don't work. They do, but they have been created based on real life interactions with people and understanding what works in the real world rather than just the virtual world. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Yep. Granger Forson: Okay, brilliant. So your thoughts? What's gonna be ⁓ first experiment that you would do next? Andy Coghlan: I my first experiment is probably off the back of this is having that having that sales sheet in front of me is pulling together and having it there and just making sure that I am going through and ⁓ ticking that need to take with that and just getting on and doing it. And as you say, over a number of meetings what seems to be working and what doesn't and I think some of works has to be kind of melded a little bit to your own ⁓ and way of doing things. So what works for one person won't work so much for another. So I think definitely that in mind. Granger Forson: Brilliant, super. really good. I can see exactly how that will work and those next steps. So I forward to it you and I also meet at some networking to see what progress is on this. Fantastic. So ⁓ move into our wrap up and close now. Andy, did you hear yourself say today that maybe surprised you? Andy Coghlan: Yeah. shouldn't have surprised me but I guess it is, I I've said this to you before is that just how I know what I should be doing and don't do. I've ⁓ it but even some of those just simple things that we've talked about that difficult to test. I ⁓ my digital stuff all based on experimentation, testing and learning. Feeding in what works and what what does and doesn't work and you know knowing that you know we have this these cliches about fail fast learn fast and is the stuff that you talk about about wherever possible doing stuff quickly manually seeing where it fails and then ditching it and amplifying the things that do do work so i think that that's the area i've got to start to just look at testing more i you mentioned with kind of the video sales letters I was potentially falling into the trap of something ⁓ having some real-world input. Granger Forson: Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. So thank you. Thank you for your honesty and sharing. ⁓ Andy, how people get hold of you and follow more of your journey? Andy Coghlan: I'm on LinkedIn under Andy Coughlin which is just starting to post some of the content there It's andy at cxstrategy.digital or send me a WhatsApp to connect on 07866 433144. Granger Forson: thank you so much for being open and honest. I know our listeners will get a lot from this conversation. It's been fantastic. Thank you. Andy Coghlan: Yeah. Thank you. It's been great for me as well.