Latest / Business Roundtable / Your Revenue Problem Isn't a Leads Problem
Transcript
- 0:13Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I'm your host,
- 0:17Speaker 1: David Carr, founder of Steward Your Business, where we help
- 0:20Speaker 1: leaders build healthier businesses through stronger communication, leadership alignment, and
- 0:24Speaker 1: intentional organizational growth. And today's conversation is going to be
- 0:28Speaker 1: one that maybe challenges you how about how you think
- 0:31Speaker 1: about growth, because oftentimes when revenue slows down, most companies
- 0:36Speaker 1: immediately assume it's hey, we got to get more leads,
- 0:40Speaker 1: we got to work on our marketing, more activity, more
- 0:43Speaker 1: sales pressure. I see this in teams, and it doesn't
- 0:45Speaker 1: always solve the problem. In fact, maybe that even isn't
- 0:49Speaker 1: The issue isn't activity, But it's really more about alignment.
- 0:53Speaker 1: And that's where I'm excited to have my brand new
- 0:56Speaker 1: guests to the podcast. Alan Smoco, founder of Foresight Performance
- 1:00Speaker 1: and creator of this revenue alignment model that I think
- 1:03Speaker 1: we're excited to unpack with you all to day. Ellen
- 1:05Speaker 1: has worked with founder led businesses and and really I
- 1:08Speaker 1: like the term that Ellen, I don't know if you
- 1:10Speaker 1: coined this, Ellen, but revenue friction. We're going to break
- 1:13Speaker 1: this down about the miss misalignments that you may be
- 1:17Speaker 1: finding in your company and all of that with it.
- 1:20Speaker 1: So Ellen, I'm just excited to have you here on
- 1:22Speaker 1: the podcast to share your insights and background. You You've
- 1:26Speaker 1: just wowed me in your in our pre podcast calls,
- 1:29Speaker 1: and I'm so happy to have you here.
- 1:31Speaker 2: I'm delighted to be here, and I really am looking
- 1:34Speaker 2: forward to helping your audience lead better.
- 1:39Speaker 1: Absolutely.
- 1:39Speaker 2: No.
- 1:40Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing I've learned, Ellen, and I
- 1:43Speaker 1: why I love having guests like you on the podcast
- 1:45Speaker 1: is that sometimes we're just we don't have the awareness
- 1:48Speaker 1: or the understanding, and it's it's for various reasons. And
- 1:51Speaker 1: to have somebody like yourself come in and diagnosed. I
- 1:53Speaker 1: deal with people, but you're looking at the revenue of
- 1:55Speaker 1: the of the company and sometimes you know, you think
- 1:57Speaker 1: I should figure this out. I should just know this.
- 2:00Speaker 1: For there's various reasons why you don't, and and and
- 2:03Speaker 1: and why having somebody like yourself come in and really
- 2:06Speaker 1: stop help businesses stop being you know, reactive, but really
- 2:12Speaker 1: start building systems and scale with intention. And it's okay.
- 2:16Speaker 1: I mean, I think the first thing is understanding of
- 2:18Speaker 1: a problem and then figuring out how to get help.
- 2:20Speaker 1: And I think that one of the problems we see
- 2:23Speaker 1: most businesses at some point have revenue U car revenue friction,
- 2:28Speaker 1: they're not getting the revenue in that they once had,
- 2:31Speaker 1: or a breakdown. So can you just break that I mean, Littal,
- 2:34Speaker 1: I want you to break that down. But what do
- 2:36Speaker 1: you mean when you say revenue friction? And and and
- 2:39Speaker 1: what is that pointing to in the organization the company?
- 2:42Speaker 2: Okay, when I'm talking about revenue friction, it's anything that
- 2:46Speaker 2: slows or stalls the growth revenue growth of the company.
- 2:52Speaker 2: It could be something internally, or it can be something externally.
- 2:57Speaker 2: And my focus is of course on the market peace,
- 3:01Speaker 2: but it could also exist at the intersection of your
- 3:06Speaker 2: team and the market.
- 3:10Speaker 1: So anything that's going to cause you to lose steam.
- 3:14Speaker 1: The way it shows up is you're chugging along.
- 3:18Speaker 2: You've got this nice growth curve that you're looking at,
- 3:21Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you hit a plateau or
- 3:23Speaker 2: worse yet, you're looking at peaks and.
- 3:26Speaker 1: Valleys or revenue. And a lot of people have.
- 3:31Speaker 2: Come to believe that peaks and valleys is natural, normal
- 3:35Speaker 2: and should be expected. It's none of those things.
- 3:40Speaker 1: Mmmm, well, how do you how do you founders or
- 3:43Speaker 1: business leaders, owners, how do they misdiagnose this problem. Just
- 3:46Speaker 1: to your point. Okay, well, this is just be how
- 3:49Speaker 1: they're they're they're misdiagnosing it, they're not seeing it. How
- 3:51Speaker 1: have you seen that show up, Allen.
- 3:54Speaker 3: I've seen them assume that when revenue declines plateaus, their
- 4:03Speaker 3: first instinct is that they don't have enough leads, so
- 4:07Speaker 3: they'll look at their pipeline.
- 4:10Speaker 1: They may see a healthy pipeline.
- 4:12Speaker 2: Then the next step is they're not closing well enough,
- 4:16Speaker 2: and they'll look at their sales team. And if the
- 4:20Speaker 2: sales team looks like they're good and the pipeline looks
- 4:23Speaker 2: like it's good, then the very next thing they turn
- 4:26Speaker 2: to is we need a new website, we need to
- 4:28Speaker 2: up the budget on pay per click, you know things
- 4:31Speaker 2: that are band aids. It's their first instinct is to
- 4:37Speaker 2: do yes something, not just diagnos And when I come
- 4:44Speaker 2: in and work with folks, just as when you work
- 4:47Speaker 2: with them.
- 4:47Speaker 1: It's not one diagnosing yes. That's so important. I'm so
- 4:51Speaker 1: glad you said that. We've had a number of different
- 4:54Speaker 1: folks on the podcast. They're AI consultants or specialists, and
- 4:57Speaker 1: one of the things they tell me, Allen, it's your
- 4:59Speaker 1: point is like, we're not going to bring in any
- 5:01Speaker 1: AI tool or anything into your organization until we diagnose
- 5:04Speaker 1: where you're at, what problem you're trying to solve. Where
- 5:07Speaker 1: are you're trying to go here? But why is it?
- 5:09Speaker 1: The business owners and leave sometimes are just going that
- 5:11Speaker 1: they're just going too fast right, and they're like, you're
- 5:14Speaker 1: with what is that tenancy there? I've noticed that some of.
- 5:18Speaker 2: It is panic. M Okay. You know when you're when
- 5:23Speaker 2: you're experiencing steady growth and you don't understand how markets
- 5:28Speaker 2: could shift out from under you because of your growth. Okay,
- 5:34Speaker 2: sometimes the market outgrows you, but sometimes you outgrow the market.
- 5:39Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
- 5:41Speaker 2: And when you you experience your your sailing along and
- 5:44Speaker 2: things are great and then all of a sudden, you know,
- 5:47Speaker 2: you sort of turn your attention away. It really doesn't
- 5:50Speaker 2: happen as quickly as people think it.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Happens mm hmmm hmm.
- 5:54Speaker 2: It starts to show up slowly. There are cracks between
- 5:59Speaker 2: things they'll see. For example, companies may start to get
- 6:05Speaker 2: more pushback on pricing. Okay, they may get more pushback
- 6:11Speaker 2: on the offering that is being presented. No, that's not
- 6:15Speaker 2: quite right for us. Or they may get pushed back
- 6:19Speaker 2: even on the size of the company. You're you know,
- 6:23Speaker 2: we've grown, You're no longer big enough to services.
- 6:28Speaker 1: That may or may not be true, right.
- 6:31Speaker 2: But the first signs are super subtle, and it may
- 6:34Speaker 2: be one or two clients that are larger that leave,
- 6:39Speaker 2: or it might be that, you know, you have a
- 6:43Speaker 2: sudden plateau due to could.
- 6:46Speaker 1: Even be an economics thing, right, right, So they're not
- 6:53Speaker 1: tuned into the subtle things M because.
- 6:56Speaker 2: They're busy, Yes, they're flipping hats. They're busy, and something
- 7:04Speaker 2: changes and they see that something's changed, and the first
- 7:07Speaker 2: reaction is to say to the sales team, we need
- 7:11Speaker 2: to improve our numbers M, which then puts the sales
- 7:16Speaker 2: team into putting their back into it and really, you know,
- 7:19Speaker 2: giving it a good raw.
- 7:22Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 7:22Speaker 2: Yeah. And then when that's not good enough, the sales
- 7:25Speaker 2: team starts to go, well, we're doing everything we can.
- 7:28Speaker 1: It's marketing's problem, right, Okay, So.
- 7:31Speaker 2: Now you're distracted from diagnosing the issue because you initially
- 7:37Speaker 2: thought it was your sales team, so you may a
- 7:39Speaker 2: diagnosis on your own without realizing it. And then the
- 7:44Speaker 2: sales team said, not us, it's marketing. So now you're
- 7:48Speaker 2: stuck in and a non objective diagnostics cycle. Okay, you're
- 8:00Speaker 2: going back and forth and nothing's objective and nothing's based
- 8:05Speaker 2: and grounded in the market data. Let me give you
- 8:10Speaker 2: a quick example. If I meant I had a client
- 8:13Speaker 2: who was losing sales and they got a lot of
- 8:19Speaker 2: pushback on the pricing okay. And it was weird because
- 8:23Speaker 2: they didn't think that they should be getting pushback on
- 8:27Speaker 2: the pricing. They had their pricing set very reasonably okay,
- 8:32Speaker 2: and they thought, well, it's not where we're at, it's
- 8:35Speaker 2: what their budget is. Maybe they didn't get dive in.
- 8:40Speaker 2: The client actually meant, based on your pricing, we don't
- 8:44Speaker 2: think you're doing all the things we need you to do.
- 8:47Speaker 2: Therefore you may not be the right size company for
- 8:50Speaker 2: us anymore. They were looking for a higher price.
- 8:59Speaker 1: Yeah, so I.
- 9:03Speaker 2: Mean, and this is like, this is like a really
- 9:06Speaker 2: bad problem to have to have me come in and say,
- 9:09Speaker 2: guess what, guys, we'd have to increase our.
- 9:11Speaker 1: Price, right right, But this is exactly.
- 9:15Speaker 2: What had happened. And that's because when they first started
- 9:18Speaker 2: working with the the base clients the anchor clients, the
- 9:24Speaker 2: anchor clients were smaller and didn't understand all of the
- 9:28Speaker 2: nuances that might be going into the work now. In fairness,
- 9:33Speaker 2: my client was.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Doing all that work. Yep. They just want being adequately compensated.
- 9:38Speaker 2: So now the client gets bigger, they're attracting other consultants
- 9:45Speaker 2: who come in and say, we can do it better
- 9:47Speaker 2: for you. Here's the list of things we're going to do.
- 9:51Speaker 2: And the client company is looking at the list and saying,
- 9:54Speaker 2: I don't know if this company then i'm working with,
- 9:56Speaker 2: does any of this, And if all this rolls up
- 9:59Speaker 2: to this big price tag, then I don't think they're
- 10:03Speaker 2: doing all of this.
- 10:03Speaker 1: So what came across was not.
- 10:06Speaker 2: Your incompetent or I'm questioning your competence, right. What came
- 10:11Speaker 2: across is we have an issue with your pricing.
- 10:16Speaker 1: Mm hm.
- 10:17Speaker 2: Nobody asked what's that issue?
- 10:20Speaker 1: Wow? Wow, Well, and what you were saying earlier about
- 10:24Speaker 1: blaming each other, that's one thing I often see. It's
- 10:26Speaker 1: through your business as this internal communication and leadership friction,
- 10:30Speaker 1: then it becomes operational friction, and then, like you said,
- 10:33Speaker 1: like this eventually revenue friction. So you know, I think
- 10:37Speaker 1: many founders mistake movement, yes for progress. We're moving, we're doing,
- 10:43Speaker 1: but we're.
- 10:43Speaker 2: Not actually we've changed something, We've changed something, so we
- 10:46Speaker 2: should be good.
- 10:47Speaker 1: Right? What right? So what I appreciate about the way
- 10:51Speaker 1: you approach things and the framework is that really connects
- 10:55Speaker 1: directly to organizational health leadership alignment and what's a huge
- 10:59Speaker 1: part of what we do do And so talk more
- 11:01Speaker 1: about Okay, we've designated this problem, you've diagnosed this, but
- 11:05Speaker 1: how do we get that alignment that like that revenue alignment,
- 11:09Speaker 1: so now we can get this fixed. So we're not
- 11:11Speaker 1: talking bickering at each other or going a misunderstandings. Can
- 11:14Speaker 1: you break that down for like how you get them
- 11:16Speaker 1: in the line. I think of it like a chiropractor.
- 11:18Speaker 1: I'm out of whack. I need to get put back
- 11:20Speaker 1: into order here. And and I loved how when you
- 11:24Speaker 1: talk to me about this, it just jumped out at
- 11:26Speaker 1: me and it's like, oh man, I it's it's not complex,
- 11:30Speaker 1: but it's like boom, just having somebody walk you through,
- 11:32Speaker 1: walk you through this now.
- 11:35Speaker 2: One of the first things I do, David, and why
- 11:38Speaker 2: I'm glad to have an alliance with you, is one
- 11:41Speaker 2: of the first things I do when I hear marketing
- 11:44Speaker 2: and sales pointing at each other and saying not to us,
- 11:47Speaker 2: it's them.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Kay.
- 11:49Speaker 2: The first question I ask of the leaders is how
- 11:54Speaker 2: often does this happen that they're pointing at each other?
- 11:57Speaker 1: And what happens to.
- 11:58Speaker 2: Them if they don't hit their numbers? So I'm looking
- 12:02Speaker 2: to see is there a reason they might be pointing
- 12:04Speaker 2: at each other to deflect blame or fault finding. If
- 12:10Speaker 2: that's not my job, right, let's see it. So if
- 12:15Speaker 2: I uncover something that is a leadership skill, like you're
- 12:20Speaker 2: not leading the way your team needs to be led,
- 12:25Speaker 2: I'm going to immediately.
- 12:27Speaker 1: Bring in someone like you, David, to look.
- 12:30Speaker 2: At the leadership because then I can turn my attention
- 12:34Speaker 2: to validating the pieces of the market. So does your
- 12:40Speaker 2: ideal client profile definition still match who really wants to
- 12:47Speaker 2: be working with you? Have you changed the client profile?
- 12:53Speaker 2: Did you ever validate? A lot of companies when they
- 12:55Speaker 2: start out don't validate their ICP against market data, and
- 13:01Speaker 2: they get some anchor clients and that's great, but they
- 13:05Speaker 2: get anchor clients for reasons other than what's.
- 13:08Speaker 1: Defined in the ICP.
- 13:10Speaker 2: MM Yeah, and a lot of times this will show up.
- 13:14Speaker 2: As you know, I get to a certain level of
- 13:17Speaker 2: growth and then boom, I'm at a plateau and nothing
- 13:20Speaker 2: I do gets me through it M So the first
- 13:25Speaker 2: thing I look at is you know who is in
- 13:27Speaker 2: the market. Has it shifted? Has your competitive landscape changed?
- 13:32Speaker 2: Is there somebody new on the block who's got this
- 13:36Speaker 2: great pitch that AI.
- 13:38Speaker 1: Wrote for them.
- 13:39Speaker 2: I'm sure, but they've got this great pitch and everything
- 13:45Speaker 2: seems so wonderful, and you're being displaced by a competitor
- 13:50Speaker 2: you didn't even know exists, or are you displacing yourself
- 13:55Speaker 2: because the competitors.
- 13:57Speaker 1: Have advanced their pricing faster than you.
- 14:01Speaker 2: Or your competitors have advanced their product development, their offerings,
- 14:08Speaker 2: They've enriched them, they added value to their offerings at
- 14:13Speaker 2: every single level, and you've just been assuming that what
- 14:17Speaker 2: you offered.
- 14:18Speaker 1: Was good enough.
- 14:19Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, these are all places that I'm looking, and
- 14:23Speaker 2: I'm looking at what the company has relative to the market.
- 14:30Speaker 1: Once I look in that.
- 14:31Speaker 2: Down, then we go to work where David comes back
- 14:34Speaker 2: into the picture. Even if you were not needed initially,
- 14:38Speaker 2: because while I'm aligning the company's revenue generation system, which
- 14:45Speaker 2: is what I create, against the market, I need the
- 14:51Speaker 2: leadership to be aligning the people to the new system,
- 14:58Speaker 2: or you get salesman for example. One thing that I
- 15:02Speaker 2: try to put an end to is the need to
- 15:05Speaker 2: discount to close a sale?
- 15:08Speaker 1: Yes, yes, absolutely, yeah, yeah.
- 15:11Speaker 2: I can work on the pricing so that you don't
- 15:14Speaker 2: need to do that. Okay, And maybe your pricing wasn't
- 15:18Speaker 2: too high to begin with.
- 15:20Speaker 1: It could have just been you weren't talking to the
- 15:22Speaker 1: right people.
- 15:24Speaker 2: Yeah, but if I align you to the market and
- 15:29Speaker 2: your sales team is stuck in the habit of discounting
- 15:32Speaker 2: to close, you're still not going to achieve the revenue
- 15:38Speaker 2: you're capable of. And again, not my job job, that's
- 15:45Speaker 2: David's job. That's the job for David to help the
- 15:49Speaker 2: leaders understand. Now, what we've discovered about your market is
- 15:56Speaker 2: you know that it's changed a little bit, so your
- 15:59Speaker 2: people need to make a change. I'm going to give
- 16:01Speaker 2: you a stilly example. I have an accounting firm that's
- 16:05Speaker 2: a client of my long standing client. When we started
- 16:09Speaker 2: working together, I felt compelled to wear a business suit
- 16:14Speaker 2: to their office because everyone in the office was in
- 16:19Speaker 2: a business suit and the men looked so uncomfortable with
- 16:22Speaker 2: those ties on, but their clients expected them. Fast forward
- 16:31Speaker 2: to post COVID and they're still showing up at the
- 16:36Speaker 2: client sites in suits, professional attire and increasingly seeing the
- 16:44Speaker 2: clients are less and less formal than their attire, and
- 16:51Speaker 2: they started losing clients because the clients thought, my prices
- 16:56Speaker 2: are probably going to go up because these guys are
- 16:59Speaker 2: still wearing these expensive suits.
- 17:01Speaker 1: Mm hmmmm.
- 17:03Speaker 2: So and it's not even a conscious thing, yeah, subconscious thing.
- 17:08Speaker 2: So basically I went back after actually speaking to some
- 17:13Speaker 2: of the clients and they said, you know, we just
- 17:15Speaker 2: wish they weren't so uptight.
- 17:16Speaker 1: And I said, what do you mean by that?
- 17:18Speaker 2: What do you mean you don't you know, you don't
- 17:20Speaker 2: want your finance advisors to be upsid about your finance, right?
- 17:25Speaker 2: He said, no, no, no.
- 17:26Speaker 1: No, we wish they'd be a little more relaxed.
- 17:28Speaker 2: Show up in you know, business casual, take your tie off,
- 17:32Speaker 2: let's get.
- 17:33Speaker 1: Down to feel relatable. Yeah, feel more relatable to them
- 17:38Speaker 1: right to the client. They've they've pivoted or they've shifted
- 17:41Speaker 1: in the way that they're showing up. So you got
- 17:42Speaker 1: to meet them where they're at right exactly.
- 17:45Speaker 2: So now I have to turn to the leaders and
- 17:48Speaker 2: tell them, hey, you guys got to lose the suits.
- 17:52Speaker 2: And trust me, I was not the one that wanted
- 17:56Speaker 2: to work with the leadership. I worked with the managing partner.
- 18:00Speaker 2: I explained what I had seen and then said, you
- 18:02Speaker 2: know what, it's on you. Now, m's on you to
- 18:06Speaker 2: get them to loose the tie, lose the jacket at
- 18:10Speaker 2: times being shirt sleeves, just relax a little bit, and
- 18:16Speaker 2: sure enough, their retention rate, their client retention rate settled
- 18:20Speaker 2: back in m HM, and they reconnected with some of
- 18:24Speaker 2: the clients that they had lost before I came on board,
- 18:28Speaker 2: who signed back up and paced. They lost the suits
- 18:33Speaker 2: and raised their prices.
- 18:34Speaker 1: There you go, there you go. That's amazing, Ellen, So
- 18:38Speaker 1: you diagnosed the issue. You came in there and said, hey,
- 18:40Speaker 1: make this adjustment, and boom, there you go.
- 18:44Speaker 2: But again, when it came time for the leaders to
- 18:47Speaker 2: explain to their people, and this was a silly example
- 18:51Speaker 2: because the people were really happy to lose the.
- 18:53Speaker 1: Suits, they're like, all right, thank you, Ellen, all right,
- 18:58Speaker 1: But I mean.
- 18:59Speaker 2: If you were, you know, it doesn't matter how easy
- 19:02Speaker 2: or how difficult it is if there's any friction between
- 19:07Speaker 2: the leadership and the team. There's friction in all types
- 19:10Speaker 2: of business. So where the new friction. Yes, it's a
- 19:13Speaker 2: termite coined because it's the friction the heat that actually
- 19:19Speaker 2: slows you down, doesn't you up right?
- 19:23Speaker 1: Right? Yeah?
- 19:26Speaker 2: If it's friction between the leadership and the team, not my.
- 19:30Speaker 1: Job, yeah right, not my job. Yeah right? Well, so
- 19:36Speaker 1: tell me so when we you know, one of the
- 19:38Speaker 1: things you I liked how this is on your website
- 19:41Speaker 1: as well. But in this you broke down a number
- 19:44Speaker 1: of core areas of that we should be looking at
- 19:46Speaker 1: in the in the company. So you know, maybe this
- 19:48Speaker 1: would be maybe folks that will know this, but I
- 19:50Speaker 1: think it's still worthwhile to break it down, Ellen, of
- 19:53Speaker 1: like why slow down and like evaluate these different areas
- 20:00Speaker 1: so that way you can diagnose to your point that's
- 20:02Speaker 1: where you're coming in. But like talk about what companies
- 20:05Speaker 1: should when you work with companies, what are those what
- 20:08Speaker 1: are those areas that you're looking at, Ellen to get
- 20:11Speaker 1: that alignment? So why use a revenue alignment framework? Okay?
- 20:16Speaker 2: And the way the framework functions it looks at the
- 20:21Speaker 2: interplay between your positioning in the market, which also involves
- 20:27Speaker 2: defining your ideal client profile okay, and how that positioning
- 20:35Speaker 2: an ICP feeds into your offerings and one with your offerings.
- 20:43Speaker 2: I make sure that you know a lot of people
- 20:46Speaker 2: don't know how to structure offerings because it's.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Not their thing. Yep, yep. Yeah. The way I look
- 20:55Speaker 1: at offerings is to productize.
- 20:57Speaker 2: You. Now, the difference between productization in tiered or bundled services,
- 21:04Speaker 2: if you're not really sitting in my chair, they seem
- 21:09Speaker 2: like the same thing.
- 21:10Speaker 1: They're not.
- 21:11Speaker 2: Here's how to know the difference. When you're dealing with
- 21:14Speaker 2: tiers or bundles of services, you have a base like
- 21:20Speaker 2: a floor service. This is the service in every package
- 21:25Speaker 2: you roll out.
- 21:28Speaker 1: No difference.
- 21:30Speaker 2: So using the accounting from okay, their base package was
- 21:38Speaker 2: that they did bookkeeping. Everything had bookkeeping in it.
- 21:42Speaker 1: Okay.
- 21:44Speaker 2: The next package put together bookkeeping with some accounting services.
- 21:50Speaker 2: The next package put the bookkeeping and accounting services together
- 21:56Speaker 2: with financial advisory service.
- 21:59Speaker 1: Yep.
- 22:01Speaker 2: But the base value was still predicated on bookkeeping, okay,
- 22:11Speaker 2: instead of the focus remaining on bookkeeping. What we did
- 22:16Speaker 2: to productize them is we change the value chain. So
- 22:21Speaker 2: now at step one, yes, one hundred percent of the
- 22:25Speaker 2: value was coming from bookkeeping. At step two, your value
- 22:32Speaker 2: was coming from a combination of bookkeeping and the accounting services.
- 22:38Speaker 2: And it wasn't just will do quarterly reviews of your
- 22:43Speaker 2: finances that was the tier. This was, We're going to
- 22:49Speaker 2: do reviews of your finances. We're going to make sure
- 22:53Speaker 2: that your books are reconciled properly. We're going to look
- 22:57Speaker 2: at the projections for next quarter and the following quarters
- 23:02Speaker 2: revenue to make sure we hit our annual goals.
- 23:07Speaker 1: We are going to.
- 23:08Speaker 2: Give you a total financial picture. See how the value
- 23:14Speaker 2: of that is different.
- 23:15Speaker 1: It's not just oh.
- 23:16Speaker 2: And we stuck something else on, so we're going to incrementally.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Increase the cost. Yes, yes.
- 23:25Speaker 2: And then at the highest level it was the advisory,
- 23:28Speaker 2: the controller and CFO services that were also They became
- 23:34Speaker 2: the focus of the value. So the value sat with
- 23:38Speaker 2: that top level and pushed down to the work the
- 23:43Speaker 2: others on the team were doing. So TEARS is kind
- 23:48Speaker 2: of like bottom up productization is kind of like the
- 23:53Speaker 2: highest value down.
- 23:55Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's an interesting would you say. I'm just
- 23:58Speaker 1: for our listeners and folks that are even knew this.
- 24:01Speaker 1: I've heard other models say in that this is like
- 24:04Speaker 1: do it yourself model versus a kind of a done
- 24:06Speaker 1: for you model. Ellen, Like, how would you correlate that?
- 24:11Speaker 1: How is that similar? I mean, I'm just trying to
- 24:14Speaker 1: understand understand. It is like when you talk about some
- 24:17Speaker 1: services are like, I'll just give you the baseline you
- 24:19Speaker 1: kind of do it yourself or done with you or
- 24:21Speaker 1: done for you. That's one way I've heard of there.
- 24:24Speaker 1: So let me let me tell you why that would be.
- 24:28Speaker 4: What would make that the value based productization versus just
- 24:36Speaker 4: setting something on the basis of price, because a lot.
- 24:39Speaker 2: Of folks say, well, if you do it yourself, I'll
- 24:41Speaker 2: reduce the price. No, you're still not centering the offer
- 24:48Speaker 2: on the value. Do it yourself is it's being done
- 24:51Speaker 2: by someone who probably doesn't do this as a primary
- 24:55Speaker 2: responsibility there may not have the training to wreck recognize
- 25:00Speaker 2: those small cracks that will open up. Done for you
- 25:05Speaker 2: is we're going to bring the value of an experienced team. Okay,
- 25:11Speaker 2: But then done for you can have other levels of
- 25:15Speaker 2: product so that, for example, in the world of marketing,
- 25:22Speaker 2: I have agencies that work with me and they do
- 25:25Speaker 2: have done do it yourself and done for you, And
- 25:28Speaker 2: within the do it yourself you can add on the tiers. Okay,
- 25:36Speaker 2: but also in the done for you you can.
- 25:39Speaker 1: Add on additional services. But here's the trick.
- 25:44Speaker 2: In the done for you, the guy who's doing your
- 25:47Speaker 2: pay per click advertising management is not the same guy
- 25:52Speaker 2: that's doing your website build, that's a website specialist. So
- 25:57Speaker 2: we're bringing specialist value every level of additional service, so
- 26:05Speaker 2: it's not just that base value that we stick some
- 26:08Speaker 2: things onto.
- 26:10Speaker 1: Yeah, it totally makes sense. Ellen, coming from an environmental
- 26:13Speaker 1: consulting background myself is you're coming. Well, just to what
- 26:17Speaker 1: you're saying is we would come in and a client
- 26:19Speaker 1: would come to us and say, hey, I need to
- 26:21Speaker 1: develop this property. Okay, great, Well that involves a biological
- 26:26Speaker 1: resources survey, that involves a cultural resources survey that it
- 26:29Speaker 1: calls project management GIS. So you're to your point, these
- 26:32Speaker 1: are all different specialists that we're putting on, which's not
- 26:36Speaker 1: just tiered, it is actual different service sites. And that's
- 26:39Speaker 1: where I feel like, Ellen, your expertise comes in is like, well,
- 26:44Speaker 1: what are the where's the market and what are the
- 26:46Speaker 1: different services that we can bring to the market. And
- 26:50Speaker 1: to your point, I had a small company. I was
- 26:52Speaker 1: with a small company about one hundred and twenty people,
- 26:54Speaker 1: and I would ask my team regularly, do you understand
- 26:56Speaker 1: all the services that we do? Well, we know our service,
- 26:59Speaker 1: but we need to know are other ones and we
- 27:00Speaker 1: didn't know how to cross sell those so they were
- 27:03Speaker 1: almost highload, and I was think, like, wow, there's a
- 27:05Speaker 1: revenue friction right there. I was like, right, because I'm like,
- 27:09Speaker 1: if I'm a biologist, let's use that as an example,
- 27:11Speaker 1: and I'm I only do biologists. I'm like, but they're like, well,
- 27:14Speaker 1: by the way, we have to deal with Native American tribe.
- 27:17Speaker 1: Why I am talking to my archaeologists and my team
- 27:20Speaker 1: said that they can coordinate with that. It's a missed
- 27:23Speaker 1: opportunity revenue friction. And then the cut client to your
- 27:25Speaker 1: point that you said, Earlin might go to another firm
- 27:28Speaker 1: that says, oh, well they do this service, and like,
- 27:30Speaker 1: we do this service. Well, I didn't know that. I
- 27:32Speaker 1: wasn't even aware of it. Missed opportunity.
- 27:36Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And there are certainly some times whe're all
- 27:40Speaker 2: run into a client that has, whether intentionally or not,
- 27:44Speaker 2: actually productized their business. But here's where the difference for
- 27:49Speaker 2: them comes in. It's the next step in the framework,
- 27:52Speaker 2: which is your pricing strategy. And pricing strategy isn't just
- 27:57Speaker 2: how much we charge, it's value based pricing, which is
- 28:02Speaker 2: how much we charge. In addition to when is it
- 28:06Speaker 2: okay to discount, when is it not okay? To discount, right, Okay,
- 28:12Speaker 2: what happens if we have, for example, I have a
- 28:15Speaker 2: client that has an annual service contract. Okay, and if
- 28:21Speaker 2: you buy the service contract for one year, the prices
- 28:26Speaker 2: for argument's sake, let's say it's one hundred dollars if
- 28:30Speaker 2: you buy it for two years. It's only one hundred
- 28:33Speaker 2: and ninety dollars if you buy it for three years.
- 28:37Speaker 2: So essentially there is a slight discount because there is
- 28:43Speaker 2: money coming in. But then there's also the added piece
- 28:47Speaker 2: of will we break up our payments?
- 28:51Speaker 1: Will we break up that totally cost?
- 28:56Speaker 2: How do we bill you? How do we invoice you?
- 29:00Speaker 2: If you give you multiple invoices? And by the way,
- 29:03Speaker 2: you're paying by credit card, who's eating the credit card cost?
- 29:08Speaker 2: Where is that price? The cost of your goods sold
- 29:12Speaker 2: has to be factored.
- 29:13Speaker 1: Into your pricing strategy. Yes, so you know, when.
- 29:16Speaker 2: I do a lot of people say, wait a minute,
- 29:18Speaker 2: I thought you were doing value based pricing.
- 29:20Speaker 1: You're talking to me about my costs. I'm like, well, yeah,
- 29:24Speaker 1: because I have to know how not how far not
- 29:27Speaker 1: to go down right right, Not that I'm going.
- 29:30Speaker 2: Down to the bottom, but if the lowest level of
- 29:35Speaker 2: service doesn't provide the value, and value is in the
- 29:39Speaker 2: eyes of the market, it's not in the eyes of
- 29:43Speaker 2: the provider. So if I think something is worth a
- 29:47Speaker 2: million dollars but the market think it thinks it's worth
- 29:52Speaker 2: a buck ninety eight, I'm.
- 29:53Speaker 1: Going to have a tough time selling, right right, Okay,
- 29:58Speaker 1: So what.
- 29:59Speaker 2: I what I do is I create that lowest level
- 30:04Speaker 2: offering so that a it covers your cost and gives
- 30:09Speaker 2: you a margin. Okay, some margin, so you're not at
- 30:13Speaker 2: a loss leader, which is what tiered pricing usually is,
- 30:17Speaker 2: right loss. But the other thing is that I said
- 30:21Speaker 2: it so that the value is clear and the price
- 30:26Speaker 2: the actual dollars are low enough that the client sees
- 30:35Speaker 2: it as risk free, so I can take a chance
- 30:40Speaker 2: if I'm not really sure you can deliver, I can
- 30:46Speaker 2: take a chance because the cost is not going to
- 30:50Speaker 2: damage my ability to move forward if you can't deliver,
- 30:56Speaker 2: and it gives you a shorter close time, so you know.
- 31:03Speaker 2: So this is all what goes into that third bucket,
- 31:06Speaker 2: which is the pricing. So I've taken the market filter
- 31:10Speaker 2: a fit through the offerings. Now I'm filtering the market
- 31:14Speaker 2: and the offerings through to your pricing. Then the last
- 31:18Speaker 2: piece is it has to be put together in a
- 31:21Speaker 2: nice package. I don't mean physical package. I mean a
- 31:27Speaker 2: story that goes to the market. Now, people will say,
- 31:32Speaker 2: so you write my tagline, my slogan, you'll do this.
- 31:35Speaker 2: I could, but that's not really what I deliver. It's
- 31:39Speaker 2: called the builder market Strategy, and it says, these are
- 31:42Speaker 2: the people we need to be talking to. These are
- 31:45Speaker 2: the words that you need to use with them. Beyond
- 31:50Speaker 2: these specific words and concepts, have that at it be creative.
- 31:55Speaker 1: That's not my job.
- 31:58Speaker 2: I can couch my job by pointing at other people
- 32:01Speaker 2: and saying it's David, or it's the marketing.
- 32:03Speaker 1: Team or so. Yeah.
- 32:05Speaker 2: So that last piece is to make sure that all
- 32:09Speaker 2: of the data that I've gathered and all of the
- 32:11Speaker 2: structure that I've put into what is a revenue generation
- 32:16Speaker 2: machine m H gets reflected in how your market hears you.
- 32:25Speaker 1: So important. Yeah, as you as you said, as I
- 32:28Speaker 1: can see how you're building this out, because I think
- 32:32Speaker 1: the pricing with one as you were talking about that
- 32:34Speaker 1: stood out to me too, because sometimes when we have
- 32:37Speaker 1: I've seen this happen with clients and I love to
- 32:38Speaker 1: speak just a little bit more so maybe they initially
- 32:41Speaker 1: they've gone through this. Now they've got through and they've
- 32:43Speaker 1: gotten their offer and they have a pricing. And what
- 32:45Speaker 1: I've seen is the market shifts like well you said
- 32:47Speaker 1: this earlier, but sometimes they chase the market down in
- 32:51Speaker 1: like or clients and like, well, like you said, we'll
- 32:54Speaker 1: discount it or we'll adjust it. And I think what
- 32:56Speaker 1: you said earlier of we got to figure out the
- 32:59Speaker 1: base of like where we don't want to go to
- 33:02Speaker 1: break it even are losing money, right, And it's like
- 33:05Speaker 1: sometimes there's this company, it's like, well, but there's such
- 33:07Speaker 1: a big client, or we're hoping we're going to get
- 33:10Speaker 1: something else out of it. And again I'll talk a
- 33:14Speaker 1: little bit about that all because I think sometimes they
- 33:16Speaker 1: go too long. Yes, of that.
- 33:20Speaker 2: I see all the time. I see people saying I'm
- 33:24Speaker 2: going to offer a free trial or I'm going to
- 33:27Speaker 2: offer a free whatever the service is. And if that
- 33:32Speaker 2: free thing takes an hour of time, okay, great, But
- 33:36Speaker 2: if it takes five, six, seven hours, you need to
- 33:39Speaker 2: be getting paid for that, okay. And a lot of people,
- 33:44Speaker 2: for example, will put together free webinars right okay, And
- 33:50Speaker 2: the webinar may only be forty five minutes to an hour.
- 33:54Speaker 2: How long did it take the presenter to put together
- 33:57Speaker 2: the webinar, to advertise the webinar, to get the work
- 34:00Speaker 2: out about the webinar, and to do the registrations and
- 34:03Speaker 2: all of the gyrations that need to go with it.
- 34:06Speaker 1: Right. A lot of people don't see that as granularly
- 34:10Speaker 1: as I do.
- 34:11Speaker 2: Yes, okay, and that is a source of revenue leak.
- 34:16Speaker 1: Yes, revenue. That's a great point.
- 34:18Speaker 2: Yes, because you're losing money on what essentially is a
- 34:24Speaker 2: marketing activity. And marketing is looked at the activities we
- 34:28Speaker 2: do for marketing or look, it's looked at as a
- 34:32Speaker 2: cost center. If you do it right, marketing should be
- 34:36Speaker 2: a revenue center.
- 34:38Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Yes, should be a revenue center.
- 34:41Speaker 2: So if you are treating it as a cost center,
- 34:44Speaker 2: then you've got to you need to realign with what
- 34:49Speaker 2: the market is saying now to the point of there's
- 34:53Speaker 2: a great company that we want to go after, or
- 34:57Speaker 2: maybe there's an a ajacent market. I work with accountants, okay,
- 35:05Speaker 2: that are semi regulated industry, m.
- 35:09Speaker 1: Ge.
- 35:11Speaker 2: Can I also work my magic with lawyers? Well, okay,
- 35:17Speaker 2: so I'm going to I'm new in the lawyers, you know,
- 35:21Speaker 2: in the legal industry. So I'm going to discount my price. Well,
- 35:25Speaker 2: wait till your accountant client finds one of your legal
- 35:31Speaker 2: clients and then turns around and says.
- 35:34Speaker 1: Hey, wait right, So there are.
- 35:38Speaker 2: Pricing strategies that people don't hear. They hear about cost plus,
- 35:43Speaker 2: they hear this thing called value based pricing, But beyond that,
- 35:47Speaker 2: there are actually methodologies. Cost plus is a methodology, but
- 35:52Speaker 2: there are other types of pricing strategy. One of them
- 35:58Speaker 2: is called penetration. Okay. That's where you want to go
- 36:03Speaker 2: deeply into a market and potentially displace competitors from people
- 36:09Speaker 2: that are that you want to serve. So maybe that
- 36:12Speaker 2: big fish client already has somebody that's doing what you're doing.
- 36:18Speaker 2: In order to displace them, you may need to go
- 36:21Speaker 2: in at a slightly lower margin, but you should.
- 36:24Speaker 1: Not be going in at a loss, right, right. So
- 36:29Speaker 1: that's penetration pricing.
- 36:31Speaker 2: That's that's what you do to get you in deeply,
- 36:34Speaker 2: and then sort of once you're in, you can fan
- 36:39Speaker 2: out and open up in that market or that segment
- 36:43Speaker 2: of the market. Yes, if you find a market that
- 36:48Speaker 2: is either underrepresented, underserved, or what we call a blue ocean,
- 36:57Speaker 2: nobody's in it, got no competition now you have a
- 37:01Speaker 2: tough decision what do you want to do with the market,
- 37:05Speaker 2: Because within six months of finding a blue ocean, your
- 37:08Speaker 2: ocean won't be blue anymore. Others will have found your
- 37:13Speaker 2: market because you led.
- 37:17Speaker 1: Them to it. Yeah, they're like, oh, what's going on here.
- 37:20Speaker 1: It's like a fishing spot. He guts a lot of fish,
- 37:23Speaker 1: Let's go there.
- 37:24Speaker 2: You could use penetration pricing and just go in really
- 37:28Speaker 2: deep and then expand out and close out competitors from
- 37:33Speaker 2: coming in. Or Okay, you can use an approach like skimming,
- 37:39Speaker 2: where you literally know you're only going in to take
- 37:42Speaker 2: as much profit as you can in as short a
- 37:45Speaker 2: period of time as you can. If you get beyond that,
- 37:48Speaker 2: that's great, but you weren't planning it. Yeah, So you
- 37:53Speaker 2: go in with skimming and you charge the highest rate
- 37:57Speaker 2: because you can get it, and you don't care if
- 38:00Speaker 2: you're displaced from that market because you had that set
- 38:03Speaker 2: to generate a finite amount of income for your company.
- 38:10Speaker 1: Okay, and if.
- 38:11Speaker 2: You stay there longer, you stay there longer. And these
- 38:14Speaker 2: are the types of discussions I have with my larger clients.
- 38:18Speaker 2: Smaller clients don't tend to stray too far we're just
- 38:22Speaker 2: looking at adjacent markets, so they.
- 38:24Speaker 1: Don't need to get into this.
- 38:27Speaker 2: But it's always good to know that, you know, a
- 38:31Speaker 2: pricing strategy isn't just hm, how much should we charge?
- 38:36Speaker 1: When do we discount? When don't we?
- 38:38Speaker 2: It's are we using penetration pricing? Are we going to
- 38:42Speaker 2: hang out here? Are we gonna really roll up our sleeves,
- 38:45Speaker 2: put on the boxing gloves and go toe to toe
- 38:48Speaker 2: with everybody else that challenges us.
- 38:50Speaker 1: In this right right?
- 38:53Speaker 2: And there are certainly markets like, for example, the healthcare
- 38:56Speaker 2: space where for healthcare clients is extremely profitable, government contracting
- 39:08Speaker 2: extremely profitable. Guess what when you get in the elevator
- 39:12Speaker 2: on the way to the healthcare or the government sectors,
- 39:16Speaker 2: you're standing like as.
- 39:18Speaker 1: Tight shoulder to shoulder with all of your competitors. Yep, exactly.
- 39:23Speaker 2: You don't compete there, No, It means you've got to
- 39:27Speaker 2: have a strategy for how to do it and that
- 39:30Speaker 2: includes your pricing.
- 39:31Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And to your point, in my background of
- 39:35Speaker 1: twenty five plus years environmental consulting, sometimes my competitors would
- 39:39Speaker 1: actually be my collaborators too, depending on the opportunity that
- 39:41Speaker 1: we're looking at, right and who we're targeting because we
- 39:44Speaker 1: couldn't do it on our own. We didn't have the capacity,
- 39:46Speaker 1: we'd have enough people, And quite honestly, there's a whole
- 39:49Speaker 1: bunch of things we don't have time to get into,
- 39:50Speaker 1: whether it's small business set asides or local emphasis on
- 39:54Speaker 1: different things and the whole host of things in there,
- 39:57Speaker 1: local presence, region, do you have people, boosets on the ground,
- 40:00Speaker 1: all of these things. But I think what I'm hearing
- 40:02Speaker 1: lad and clear from you Ellen is like having somebody
- 40:04Speaker 1: like you come and unpack this with the company. Yes,
- 40:08Speaker 1: slow down enough, get somebody that's an outside perspective in
- 40:12Speaker 1: coming in and diagnosing this so that you can go
- 40:15Speaker 1: through all those things. Because maybe your pricing is good,
- 40:18Speaker 1: but you're your positioning is not right so that you're
- 40:21Speaker 1: not finding the right people or they're not qualified. But
- 40:24Speaker 1: if you could find them and get the get that
- 40:26Speaker 1: dialed in, they're like, boom, I would love to be
- 40:29Speaker 1: finding you and signing up and where have you been
- 40:31Speaker 1: all my life? Yeah, it's very offer. Like you said,
- 40:35Speaker 1: maybe there was something off and they just self selected that,
- 40:37Speaker 1: Oh this isn't for me, and you adjust that and
- 40:40Speaker 1: boom boom, You've opened up a gateway for them, and
- 40:44Speaker 1: the tools that I use tap into actual market data.
- 40:48Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
- 40:49Speaker 2: So, for example, I was able to tell a contractor
- 40:53Speaker 2: that I was working with that he is at the
- 40:57Speaker 2: absolute top of the market in terms of his pricing
- 41:03Speaker 2: for one of the services that he offers, right, And
- 41:07Speaker 2: he said, yeah, I've been losing a lot lately because
- 41:10Speaker 2: right now there's a little more price sensitivity in market.
- 41:14Speaker 2: And he's like, you know, I was thinking about this thing,
- 41:17Speaker 2: and my accountant was talking about price elasticity, and I'm like,
- 41:21Speaker 2: time out, that's an accounting term. Let's get rid of it.
- 41:26Speaker 1: But what ended up happening is.
- 41:30Speaker 2: We went in and we added some of the data
- 41:35Speaker 2: about his certifications, his experience and expertise, and his methodology
- 41:41Speaker 2: and his materials that then had his clients coming back
- 41:47Speaker 2: to him and paying the higher price because he was
- 41:52Speaker 2: think of it this way. If I told you I
- 41:56Speaker 2: sell cars and you sell cars, we sound like we're.
- 41:59Speaker 1: Selling the same thing.
- 42:01Speaker 2: But exactly Okay, he was selling the luxury vehicle, they
- 42:07Speaker 2: were selling the Hyundai, yes, right, But the market didn't
- 42:13Speaker 2: understand that because he was talking beyond the market's comprehension.
- 42:18Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
- 42:19Speaker 2: So it left them to the price. So again, there's
- 42:22Speaker 2: a whole lot of places where I look for friction.
- 42:25Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, full disclosure. I hate having arguments in
- 42:30Speaker 2: my personal life.
- 42:32Speaker 1: You know why. I deal with a lot of friction
- 42:34Speaker 1: every day. I don't need more more more there, you know, yes, absolutely, yeah.
- 42:44Speaker 1: I love that you're coming in the place of helping
- 42:46Speaker 1: reduce that friction. You want to help companies succeed. That's
- 42:49Speaker 1: why I had you on the podcast. Ellen. I know
- 42:51Speaker 1: we're getting to the end of the podcast here, but
- 42:52Speaker 1: you know, if you're listening to this and you're like,
- 42:55Speaker 1: oh my goodness, Ellen's hitting this, please connect. We're going
- 42:58Speaker 1: to put all in the show notes how you can
- 43:00Speaker 1: connect with Ellen. Were connected on LinkedIn, her website, UH
- 43:04Speaker 1: and resources, so we want you to reach out there
- 43:06Speaker 1: and also put comments here so that she can respond
- 43:09Speaker 1: back wherever you're finding us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts,
- 43:13Speaker 1: whatever that is. And if you guys are like, oh
- 43:16Speaker 1: my goodness, this is so good, share share with your
- 43:19Speaker 1: colleagues as well, because they're going to benefit UH with
- 43:22Speaker 1: you know, your other team leaders of like man, we
- 43:24Speaker 1: need to we need to bring together Ellen an organization
- 43:27Speaker 1: and and and Ellen that be your superpowers, will come
- 43:29Speaker 1: together and work together and help with the leadership as well.
- 43:32Speaker 1: Let's do your business. But Ellen, as we're wrapping up
- 43:35Speaker 1: the conversation today, what would you you know, we covered
- 43:39Speaker 1: a lot, but what would you encourage Whether you're the
- 43:43Speaker 1: business owner or a leader, you're responsible for hey, growing
- 43:47Speaker 1: and developing within the company, a service line, or whatever
- 43:51Speaker 1: the case might be in that, what would you encourage
- 43:54Speaker 1: them to do? Assess, look at themselves to say are
- 43:59Speaker 1: we looking at these thing effectively or maybe maybe I'm not?
- 44:03Speaker 1: What would you do to and and then, you know,
- 44:05Speaker 1: encourage them to take action today?
- 44:08Speaker 2: I would I would encourage them to sit very quietly
- 44:12Speaker 2: on a day when like they're not being pulled in
- 44:15Speaker 2: seventy five different directions and ask themselves, do I know
- 44:21Speaker 2: for sure? Then I'm talking to the right people that
- 44:26Speaker 2: I'm offering them the right products and services, the ones
- 44:32Speaker 2: that they want, the ones that they value, the ones
- 44:35Speaker 2: I can make the best profit on. And again I'm
- 44:40Speaker 2: not a profit first person. But if it's a win
- 44:43Speaker 2: for them and a win for you, no harm, no found?
- 44:49Speaker 1: Right?
- 44:49Speaker 2: Am I putting things out there? Am I discounting my
- 44:54Speaker 2: price when I shouldn't be does my sales team. Is
- 45:01Speaker 2: my sales team being encouraged to offer deals? I mean,
- 45:07Speaker 2: I hate when people say everybody loves a bargain. No,
- 45:10Speaker 2: well yeah they do, but you shouldn't give it away. Okay,
- 45:15Speaker 2: So literally just sit back and think about what it
- 45:18Speaker 2: is that you're doing. Are you certain you're talking to
- 45:22Speaker 2: the right people, giving them the right solutions to their
- 45:26Speaker 2: pain points, charging them the right amount, giving them an
- 45:32Speaker 2: opportunity to try out what your solution might look like
- 45:36Speaker 2: at a basically risk free level without losing money. Okay,
- 45:44Speaker 2: and if you're not sure, you know, hit me up
- 45:49Speaker 2: for a complimentary consultation. I actually am launching within a week,
- 45:56Speaker 2: which will be up there. It is a revenue diagnostic
- 46:02Speaker 2: that looks at each of the four pillars that I
- 46:05Speaker 2: talked about today. It's a self assessment. You go through
- 46:09Speaker 2: on a scale of one to five, from strongly disagree
- 46:12Speaker 2: at one to strongly agree at five, and it will
- 46:16Speaker 2: tell you not only.
- 46:18Speaker 1: Whether or not you likely have friction in.
- 46:22Speaker 2: Your business, it'll also tell you by pillar whether that's
- 46:26Speaker 2: the pillar where your friction.
- 46:29Speaker 1: That's awesome, Elan out there, we'll have that. We'll put
- 46:33Speaker 1: that in our show notes.
- 46:34Speaker 2: And just as an invitation to your clients, your clients,
- 46:40Speaker 2: your audience that aren't watching this if this was helpful,
- 46:44Speaker 2: and the only comment that you care to leave is hey,
- 46:48Speaker 2: thanks so much. You help me figure out what was wrong.
- 46:51Speaker 2: I'm going to be applauding that comment.
- 46:54Speaker 1: Yes, me too, Me too. Ellen. It's a real pleasure
- 46:57Speaker 1: to have you here, Ellen on the podcast. Thank you
- 46:59Speaker 1: for sharing your resources, your insights. I hope everybody listening
- 47:03Speaker 1: really got something out of this today. If you did,
- 47:05Speaker 1: please of course like and subscribe and follow along on
- 47:08Speaker 1: all of those good things. We truly appreciate it because
- 47:10Speaker 1: we really want to help you, the business owner, the leader,
- 47:13Speaker 1: be more effective, leading you yourself, leading organizations, and being
- 47:17Speaker 1: more effective in the world and the time that we
- 47:18Speaker 1: have here. So Ellen, thank you.
- 47:20Speaker 2: So much, and thank you David for having me on.
- 47:24Speaker 1: My pleasure, My pleasure. Until next time, everybody, be well,
- 47:28Speaker 1: take good care, and we'll see you Sam. Thanks everybody
- 47:30Speaker 1: for listening.