Latest / Stronger Business Together / E7 Stop Quoting and Start Selling with Austin Hilton-Ball
Transcript
- Granger Forson: This is the Stronger Business Together podcast where business owners learn from each other. No theory, no gurus, just real journeys and real hurdles to overcome. Today I'm joined by Austin Hilton Ball, the of Payroll Manager. Like every owner, he's in that middle of building, fixing, growing, ⁓ and making something that really matters. And Austin is a client. one of my roundtables. So, Austin, welcome. So let's with act one. In plain English, what does your business do? Austin Hilton Ball: in plain English, that's a very interesting one. So we help accountants build ⁓ accountancy practices and ultimately help them grow their accountancy practices. Now, we do in real terms is we are payroll outsourcers. So we on large portfolios of payroll for accountants, which gives them the time and the capacity to build better and stronger. Granger Forson: Thanks for spending your time with us today. We're on a mission to make business owners stronger together. If this conversation helped you, please like, comment and follow on whatever platform you're using. About 60 % of our audience hasn't done yet and these small actions will help us reach more business owners just like you. Excellent. So you're taking some of that pain away. So you've already mentioned accountants. who do you love helping and what are they typically dealing with? If you'd like to join the conversation as a guest, or if you have a hurdle question for us to tackle, reach out to us at info at strongerbusinesstogether.com. Now, go make it a really successful week, and we'll see you next time. Austin Hilton Ball: Well, we started the business back in 2018 and we didn't really have any direction. We knew payroll, that was pretty much it. We wanted to run payroll. And so we kind of developed our niche, which was managing payroll for accountants. what we is that they had a couple of pain points, either capacity, they simply couldn't manage the skill, they couldn't recruit. Granger Forson: Cheers. Austin Hilton Ball: or a combination of both. And ultimately in the size of businesses we deal with from kind of small owner led, of single director up kind of around maybe a leadership team of four or five, they all have those same problems. ⁓ And it stops them from ⁓ taking on bigger work, stops them from growing. And that's what aim to solve by what we do. And offer a nice collaborative approach. So it's very much more of a... a collaborative consultative partnership as opposed to just a kind of just a one and done, you know, high volume process model. Granger Forson: Excellent. I can, I from your story that you've done a number of pivots and changes as you've been ⁓ building payroll manager. So let's go back to beginning then. ⁓ What was that original Austin Hilton Ball: So was working in another kind of around 2014. I of saw the people were getting lost from the process. It was becoming more about systems, more about volume, more about churning out pay slips. And ultimately that was affecting clients. The clients wanted people to speak to, they wanted kind of real human contact. And that's what we built. We've got three guiding principles as such to combat the issues that we saw, which were highly right people. So make sure we've got people who are curious and they're willing to help and they're driven to generally go that extra mile. And we've also what we call ⁓ pod payroll teams. teams of two or three people that look after a subset of clients. And that means they can build that familiarity and ultimately they can that kind of... familiar almost in-house service the clients and really add value for money and also which helps with, as we found, helps with retention. Granger Forson: that was two, what was the third thing that's... Austin Hilton Ball: outsourced the job. So we know that a lot of our competitors outsource their outsourcing. Now I find this principle very, very interesting. You why would you, why would you, you are an outsourcer, why would you outsource the outsource? They're also offshore I have nothing against offshoring principle. However, if you really want to understand mechanics, Granger Forson: Yeah. Austin Hilton Ball: know that having a high level point of contact, but that person who doesn't actually deliver on a daily basis, they can't get under the bonnet. They can't help you when things go wrong. And that's typically what happens with the kind of outsourcing about sourcing models. So that's why are committed to never outsourcing ⁓ the outsourcing and using the teams to deliver that familiarity and that quality. Granger Forson: Brilliant, so you get in that real customer-centric approach, that real thinking about you delight your customers as you're going along. Because actually, that's my next question. How you delight them? So you've intimated there of that. So take us through that thinking. ⁓ Austin Hilton Ball: I think you can learn a lot from the data, so to speak. You can learn a lot from the queries, the way people do things, the way people send information in, the queries that pop up. And we've six kind of guiding values that aren't just written on a wall. We actually live and breathe them every single day. ⁓ And they share knowledge, be dependable, create well moments, keep it human, our team, our family, and live custom curiously. And now how implement these to make the client's journey better is for the team to report back to me every single week how they have delivered on one of these for the clients and ultimately what that leads to is those it might be one percent tweaks but ultimately things that we can feed back to the client to help their journey be simpler them save time ultimately help them save money help them become more stress-free and then we almost become that That go-to, we also slightly think outside the box. So we don't just do payroll. We've got HR partners, we've got finance partners, we've got business coaches, we've got marketing partners. So if we see a client has a need, we'll try and plug that gap because ultimately we want to be the go-to for that client because building that relationship strengthens our relationship with them and allows for a... very long and more prosperous relationship for all of us. Granger Forson: that's brilliant. I really love that. I enjoy working with you and seeing how you've been implementing these ideas and making it really work in the business. That's fantastic. tell me a customer that you're really proud of. Austin Hilton Ball: So probably our second client, so they are a county practice who had some kind of big ambitions. We took them on from, I believe around 15 payrolls. They've been with us for around four years and they're now over 100 plus. And these vary widely from kind of single director up to kind of 150 employees on a payroll. Now we very much are a collaborative partner and what our values are meant do there. So we consultancy with their clients. They give us free rein to be able to add that value. And that relationship is one that we cherish because we know that works. allows us to, it allows my team to deliver on that passion get that good feeling. and allows their clients do more. So are doing consultancy with them, helping them the time and attendance systems, helping their bigger support them with of internal processes. So really, really, really a massive difference, but that all starts with the right client who is allowing you to, putting a lot of trust in you with their own clients. But we've proved ourselves over the years and one of their quotes is that we've helped them grow their business. doing just we're to do though. Granger Forson: Brilliant, fantastic, I really love that. Austin, what does your business look like today in terms of size and shape? Austin Hilton Ball: So we went from, suppose if we look at the kind of customer profile, so we are probably about 75 % accountancy payroll, 25 % standalone payroll. So our standalone clients are kind of hospitality, manufacturing, and care, whereas the accountancy side is a bit of everything. Now, when we first started all those years ago, our first client was 12 pound 95 a month. They are still with us today. They pay a little bit more than £12.95 a month. at the time, very naively, I said, I'm going to take over the world at £12.95 a month. Turns when you start digging into your numbers, actually, you know what? You need a lot of those to make it work. So we now deals in the 5k a 6k a month mark, which is a grand old achievement from that smaller client all those years We've a team of, ⁓ are a team of six and So we are currently recruiting three, one or positions at the moment. We're just working out what the next kind ⁓ client influx like to fill that. ⁓ But I'm by the end of, well in 2026, will hopefully be team eight, maybe nine. Granger Forson: brilliant, fantastic growth, really most important thing is which turn into sales. So how do you generate leads? Austin Hilton Ball: the age old question. know you and I have spoken about lots. So you know, because you and I met all those years ago through a lovely little networking group, BNR is where all started for me. And that very One gave the direction of the business, because it me realize we had to focus on something, we had to focus on some kind of niche. But also kind of honed in the sales skills, I suppose, and the marketing skills along the way. And we've tried so many different approaches. And what always comes back to us is relationships. Building those relationships with those leads once they're in, that is vital. I think you have to be a people person. but not necessarily a salesperson convert those clients. I think it is genuinely about listening and genuinely just being human, going back to our value about keeping human, just being a genuinely good egg. Because you can tell when you're being sold to and you tell when someone genuinely wants to help. think that's where do that right. In terms of the incoming leads, we get a fair few web inquiries, we get lots of referrals from current clients and through networking. also launched a book about months ago now and we're getting a lot of inbound leads from that book, which is, that's really nice to see. kind of multiple funnels as such there. As you know, we spent a lot of money on playing around with social marketing. And I suppose my only thoughts on that is, yeah, we spent a lot to realize what we were doing wrong, but we had the money to spend. That does deliver us, but maybe not as well as it should. But yeah, trial and error over the years, but ultimately it all comes down to being human ⁓ and going out talking to people, building these relationships. Granger Forson: Excellent. always liked that, your journey, your enthusiasm to try and to fail and to learn and to grow. You've developed a really clever approach that brings in leads. Fantastic. So Austin, what are aiming for in the next 12 months of the business and why? Austin Hilton Ball: That's an interesting one because I think it's changed. view of this has changed as the years have gone on and I probably don't have a that looks like what I thought it would be the before. I would like to... Do an extra. I want to say 200 % in turnover over the next kind of three years to kind of bring us up to a nice healthy profit. Sorry, yeah, nice healthy profit. we could get to kind of... dare I say it, to 800k turnover, that would fantastic for me. And it would allow us to build an even robust team than we've built now. But I think beyond turnover, our kind objectives are much let's build, let's build a team, ⁓ build on what we've got, we've a really, really strong team. But let's... play to people's strengths, let's maybe move them around in new roles, kind of, they understand the culture of the business, so let's work what positions they can fill, that they can help deliver the future of the business and they can be my future leaders. And you know, that obviously the growth plans such in terms of the finances fall into that. Granger Forson: Yeah, fantastic. And know you've gone on a massive journey of understanding and developing their skill sets and their capabilities. So that's fantastic to hear ⁓ Austin. let's move to Act Two now, your journey, okay? So ⁓ you've in now for many years. Describe some of the and lows for us. Austin Hilton Ball: So I suppose the highs are the highs really Finding finding our niche, you know finding what finding what we want to do I think it is ⁓ it's important to kind of to anchor down and ⁓ you Be specific and what you want and yes that does go back to the networking roots, but it's it's so true You know, we could be a payroll provider for the many And we could cast on that really wide or we could really niche down we could niche down more we do payroll for accountants, but we could niche down more and do payroll for accountants in a, I don't know, the hospitality sector. That could be our only niche. ⁓ It the pool smaller, but what it also does is means that we can market better. think finding that was one of the real highs that helped us to focus. As well as the kind of clients we taking on now, the caliber of clients. Now, when I look back all those years ago, was in my wildest dreams. didn't think that was possible at time. I suppose in terms of the lows... It took us a couple of years just to actually get going. So I was running this as a side hustle actually working for somebody else for first couple of years and just finding my feet. while that's allowed, such, growth was very, very slow. I'm looking back, not I didn't have the time. I definitely had the time because I just didn't know. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was bedding myself in and that took a little while. Just think of more loads. It's been a pretty journey and I tried to, we all have loads and I tried to reframe them because we need to learn from all of those. We to learn from them. It happens to all of us. No matter you are, you will have a bad day, you will have a bad week, you will have a bad year. You'll have a night and that's okay. But it's reframing that going, okay, what did I learn from that? One of those recently, I looking at my calendar. for one day last week, I looked at it and went, this isn't achievable, what have you done? Now, the learning from that was to go, okay, well let's put blocks in so you only have a certain amount of meetings every day, so you can really deliver on that quality. Again, that was a higher search note from a low, so yeah, not many lows, but the lows we have, we try where possible to rethink them positively. Granger Forson: Mmm and that leads right into my next question really you know running business at times just gets hard you know it really hard you know so it's got hard you what have you learned about yourself and your business? Austin Hilton Ball: So I had, many us have had COVID, and know, in COVID times, maybe towards the end when we thought it was kind of going away, I had really bad COVID. And I never, I've never left the business before. But it forced me, I had no, I had no, no control over that. And the team picked up, they picked up, they got stuff done. they delivered in my absence. think a real kind powerful one for me is, you know, realising we have hired the right people and they have got your back. Granger Forson: So decision probably changed the trajectory of your business? Austin Hilton Ball: as I said took me a couple of years to kind of find the niche And I think it was definitely that niche that going into the accountancy kind of payroll industry as such that actually changed the direction and made us. We to kind of give you an idea of kind of volume. If we were to kind of turn over, if we were to get a large accountant to fill that same volume of a standalone client, that client would probably have to be turning over, they probably have to have maybe a thousand staff, a thousand employees. Whereas with accountants ⁓ get but we also almost fill our marketing funnel because if they are going for growth, we benefit from that growth. Granger Forson: Excellent. Austin Hilton Ball: And yeah, that all started from that decision to niche down. Granger Forson: Yeah brilliant brilliant talked about your people quite a lot so what you learned about growing people that maybe you wish you'd known earlier? Austin Hilton Ball: old adage of hire slow, fire fast. I think there is a lot in that. Although I am still probably way too nice when it to making these decisions. But we have burnt over the years. We have had staff We have let people go. And when I look back, that came down to that hiring process. didn't really keep up with the needs of the business and what we wanted to deliver. I suppose what taught me is that one, hiring process needed to be more robust and kind of ⁓ look our values, look at what we wanted to see here, but look, we wanted to, not just the people we were recruiting could do the job, but actually they had those people skills, they had that drive to add value, to be custom curious. And once we that, That was where we started to build those processes around that. And I think we've got a really, really strong team that deliver on all those values. They are all different. They are distinctly different. I get my team to run to do the disk profile so we can see their different traits. And we have very, very different types of people, but ultimately they all work towards that goal. And if we had a lot of D types, let's say, Who are fairly I don't want to say fiery but um, know who are they know what they want They are very assertive. They will say what they want if we had a you know, 60 types we'd be We wouldn't be running a very business good business at all because everyone would be working against each other. We were trying to fill the All kind of four quadrants of that to make sure we've got a really robust team It's been a it's been a game changer and we are still working on that. We do have all of those quadrants filled. But we're very much still working on the best balance and the best mix. But yeah, everybody is different. That's main thing that I've taken away over the years and they need to be treated as such. Granger Forson: and what what's one process maybe that you've made really visual to reduce the friction internally and deal with problems immediately? Austin Hilton Ball: So so much a process, but maybe how, maybe my approach to mistakes and So ⁓ have called the recipe for success tracker. So some people might call it an error log, but we call the recipe for success tracker, and ultimately that is a more positive error So look, this is the this is what happened. Granger Forson: Words are important. Austin Hilton Ball: yeah, this is the problem. This is what happened. This who found it. You know, was it the client? Was it us? This is how we remedied it. This is what we're gonna put in place so it doesn't happen again. And very much back to the team that we are all human. And that doesn't excuse mistakes, but we are all human. We do make mistakes, but the next stage that happens that kind of defines us. You how we react to that situation. Do we own it? How do we communicate that back to the client if it impacted client? How do change a process? Because from that recipe for success we also have something called the ideas car park, which is if you don't like a process, it's broken, put it in the ideas car park. All the team have access to this every quarter. We look through that and work out what needs to change. So very much again, a approach. a bit of a democratic approach, maybe in some respects, which as business owner is sometimes hard. That's sometimes a hard thing to let go when you have the ideas. It's my I've done this for many, many years. But you have to trust your people. I have massive in them and giving them that leeway, giving them that kind autonomy. really really does it's helped us get to where we are. Now again that doesn't come without its challenges, mainly my side to be able to let go but you know once you've let go of certain things that's a know that's that's that's a win for me. Granger Forson: Excellent, Austin, that's really interesting and I love ⁓ that phrase used, the customer success tracker, and that's what you're trying to do, improvement tracker, brilliant. So what do you do to help business remain ⁓ focused on the right things and healthy even when it gets busy? Austin Hilton Ball: Good question because we have very busy month and peaks. said, think payroll is just at the end of the month. It's not. We have payrolls, four weekly payrolls, two weekly payrolls, monthly payrolls that on the fifth, the ⁓ 10th, the 15th, 30th, the 28th. So it is always busy, but there is definitely a bigger focus on the last week of the month. I think our business model again, our pod structure model really helps because we tried to build capacity in that way. So the team, the always have a, you they do always have capacity. Now it's probably more worthwhile talking about how our business is changing. We are moving one of the team up to from a kind a payroll manager role into more of a payroll operations role. And she will then be able to dip in and add capacity. if more is needed at certain times. As stands, I do still jump in if I need to. If it's busy, I will jump in and I will support. But the is that our pods are self-sufficient. They are mini payroll teams that can ⁓ always hold their Granger Forson: Excellent. Yeah, and I've loved the way that took a idea and have turned it into really practical use within your business. So yeah, those pods are amazing. Well done. So let's move on to Act 3, our hurdle. So what we chosen as our discussion topic for today? Austin Hilton Ball: about inquiries and kind of price, people shopping around for price, out of quotes for little, maybe for little Granger Forson: okay. So ⁓ get plenty of inquiries, but too many of them are what we call price shoppers and all doing is quoting for little return. Okay, excellent. That's a one. And we picked that from a listener's fed in one, you with you, so that helps us talk it through. So for your business, you know, maybe thinking about this other business, what do you think is happening today? What are the facts that we actually know? Austin Hilton Ball: So. I suppose out there, in many industries, it challenging market. People want value for money. People price shop. That's But have to in mechanisms to work out who is client and what they look like before you take those steps of actually speaking to them reaching out on a call. Granger Forson: Yeah, how many do you think you get a day, a week, a month, for no sort of inquiries rather than genuine inquiries? Austin Hilton Ball: I'd say maybe 50 % of our inquiries are around kind of price shoppers. But we've built mechanisms to try and wean those out and get that, understand what they're... what my reason is for buying. Granger Forson: Yeah. do you find that's worse a specific sort of time or type of client? Is there any sort of trends or things you can see in that 50 % number? Austin Hilton Ball: So I think of looking at own business. don't understand why they're trying to do what they're trying to do so you know in our case why why do they actually want to outsource their payroll what is their actual pain point because don't understand the value of what that pain point is and yet prices price is just price you know but if you're to give give you an example client recently came us they were paying one pound 90 a payslip for their payroll I can't run payroll for not one pound 90 a pay slip and I wouldn't run payroll for one pound 90 a pay slip because it compromises all the other points, it compromises the quality. All of their problems were around quality. They were getting errors, weren't getting the quality, they weren't getting a good kind of turnaround time. to me it was trying to help them understand why they're here, what brought you to this point and then almost pull on those levers to help them understand that actually yeah, you are spending more money. but what we are going to do here is save you time and deliver better quality ultimately you are not going to have these problems. ⁓ you've got a good return on investment. Granger Forson: Yeah. But somebody's just looking for a price comparison because maybe they have to get three quotes because some businesses do these sort of strange things. If they're just turning up for they just need a price, they're not interested. What have you tried already then because you've already intimated, you've built some thinking around this. What have you tried already that is sort of showing some benefit for you? Austin Hilton Ball: So we put barriers in the way. if somebody calls up and they want a price over the phone, I will not give a price over the phone. We will get them on a discovery call. Now, yes, that is a barrier. Some may say, well, why wouldn't you just wake them on the phone? Well, I can't sell to them. I can't help delve into their pain points as easily over the phone. So our barrier was such as to say that we love to delve into your problems, to really understand your business. value the booking link book a ⁓ with me and we'll run through that together now is almost weaning out those kind of those clients would be all about price and I think for we don't want clients that are all about price we want clients that understand they why they are outsourcing and benefits and that's the kind of stage that helps to help to do that Granger Forson: So that's first barrier is to say, if you want a price, you have to come on a discovery call. Through the discovery call, you're then trying to build that relationship and understand their pain points, why they're struggling on your experience and knowledge. So do still give a price ⁓ at end of the discovery call or is there something else beyond that? So you're still slowing things down? Yeah. Austin Hilton Ball: That that age old question and I will I will share that until the past for the past until the past Maybe year. I was actually petrified of price I would never mention price of discovery cool I realized actually I was losing so many clients by not talking for price and then objection handling and Our discovery tools kind of the process goes through is we would do the discovery at the start. So we would say like first kind of 25 minutes or we just walk you through your business. I may ask you some odd questions that you think, well, your payroll, why are you asking me that? But things like looking into their HR, their systems, because that then helps us to kind of to refer in others that again, adds that value in terms of literally adding the value to the client. And then we kind of walk through the proposals and we get the proposal up on screen and we walk them through it step by step. So we show them, how we work, we show them what they would get, we show them how the onboarding process looks and how easy that is. And then once we've kind of shown all that value, we then talk through the price. And my question there is, what do you think about that? One thing I'm kind of careful not to do is say, how do you feel about that? Because they are two distinct questions. Your feelings and how you think are two very, very distant questions. So, know, what do you think about that? Granger Forson: it. Austin Hilton Ball: and by having them on that call, you can see their body language. And they're really gonna go, well, not sure or, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. ⁓ great, fantastic. know, can we, you can we talk next steps? ⁓ If they're kind thinking, no, that's too expensive. Okay, well, why? You know, tell me about that. Explain to me, explain to me, you know, what your thoughts are. Why do you feel it's, why do you feel it's too expensive? and they will come up with things like, I can get it cheaper from another provider. Okay, but what are you actually getting from that provider? What are they delivering for you? Because what I've picked up in my discovery is that are fed up of doing everything yourself. So this payroll provider that you're going to go through, are you actually going to be getting this off your plate? Or is it just going to be a way of you giving them all the information and then them essentially having an easy ride? And that's the comparatives that we could then try to make. Doesn't always work, but yeah, that's where we sit. Granger Forson: about getting three quotes. even then they've on the discovery call. Is there anything you do at the beginning to try and sort of tease out these people? ⁓ Are they time wasting you? mean, they've got to make that action anyway, booking time on your call. that so that's a massive hurdle now you really can see how that works is there anything you do within that pre-qualifying when they first come on the call to think right this isn't ⁓ a is a waster type call Austin Hilton Ball: So the first question that I is, I'm getting my discovery course sheet up now. The first thing I ask is what do you want from the call? Why are you here? What do you want? And that gives us an indication on kind of, and it's quite an interesting question because it's not one that I don't think you normally ask, what do you want from this? People expect you to kind of to tell them what they want. And I think that's half of the problem is that actually, The first thing I ask is what do you want from the call? Why are you here? What do you want? And that gives us an indication on kind of, and it's quite an interesting question because it's not one that I don't think you normally ask, what do you want from this? People expect you to kind of to tell them what they want. And I think that's half of the problem is that actually, we shouldn't be telling them what we think they want. We want to find out what they actually want. we shouldn't be telling them what we think they want. We want to find out what they actually want. that question can open up those, costing kind of areas whereby they say that they may literally turn around and say, I am here because we are looking at two or three providers. And you know, I'm keen, I'm keen to get a price. ⁓ Now, if at that they mentioned price, that is then when we have to do a little bit more digging because nothing is ever just price. have worked with a sales coach as you very well know and to get over my aversion to mentioning kind of price I'm now firmly in the belief that nothing is ever just price. It is. There is always a lot more behind the price and if you think about when you go out and buy a product at the supermarket let's say you're greeted with two or three options. You're never going to go I'm going to buy the most expensive one, I'm going to buy the cheapest one, most likely you'll probably buy the one in the middle. But it's never about just price alone, it's about the quality, it's about the brand, it's about what it's going to do for you and ultimately it might all be washing up liquid but you're going to be sold to one of those that kind of connects with you better than the other. So think that's the first thing, it is never just about the price. Granger Forson: Yeah, absolutely. It's the trust. Yeah, it's also that trust. I trust this person, what they've said? Do I trust this brand? Do I trust the product that I'm seeing in front of me? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Austin Hilton Ball: which comes back to those relationships that we talked about in the beginning. ⁓ And really building that rapport. Granger Forson: So is there anything else that you're thinking next that you could give some further advice to our listener around? you've talked about hurdle, you talked about that fantastic great opening question. Is there anything else that maybe you're still experimenting with and playing to try and weed out those time waster that just want to price? Austin Hilton Ball: Yeah, so we're working if we can kind of build in a step the call. So whereby, now, as book that meeting, maybe they give us some more information about the business so we can, know, if they don't give us enough information, but they don't feel the format at all, maybe that's an indication that actually it is, you know, they are price hunting. But I Alongside that know your market what the market or offering do where you position yourself It's fairly straightforward nowadays You know it back and back in the when we first started we did set up a dummy email address We emailed around about 200 providers. We got their quotes Many of them like an ala carte Christmas menu Which is how we of simplified our pricing structure what it allowed us to do is understand the market, understand what people were offering for what price. And also the kind of win there is if in these discovery calls you can say, ⁓ I'm interested, are we against almost? ask that very question last because if you don't ask, you don't get. You then have an idea of where you're benchmarking. And if you understand what kind service they're delivering or, benefits to their products, then almost, you can ⁓ where you win them. And that's, I suppose, a distinct difference than ⁓ talking about how their product is rubbish. You are kind you are selling your benefits over there as such. But yeah, getting to know your market helps with that. And we will be doing more of that in the coming year the market's changed quite a lot over the past few years. Granger Forson: Mmm. Yeah, and there's a lot of discussion online in the sales community about this idea of a visual sales letter upfront, you know, so on the booking page is a video explaining. some details explaining why you may need that two little piece of information before they come to the first call again because it's all trying to out those people that are not really after anything apart from price and those people that would be more interested but also they're building that little bit more relationship with you and your face agreed ⁓ they come on that call. again even more pre-qualifying that you can do around ⁓ thinking that so ⁓ brilliant. we've this place with Austin Hilton Ball: Hahaha Granger Forson: improved then are pre-qualifying both digitally and at beginning of the call. sort of success are you seeing in the reduction of the number of people turning up wanting a quote or initially just a quote? Austin Hilton Ball: Yeah, so I think to me it's not necessarily a reduction in that happening, but more of how we handle that when that does happen. So say that the calls that we've taken on there decreased as such, but it allows us to maybe handle the calls in a slightly different way, to ask different to make sure we are really showing we are adding that value. It's almost, almost, give them what they weren't expecting. And for them to leave that call and go, wow, there is something more to why I'm doing this. Maybe it isn't just about the price. So you're of coaching them or you're helping them on that journey. So I'd say definitely not a but more ⁓ maybe a better from Granger Forson: Yeah. Mmm. what like about your answer ⁓ is start off with this idea of 50 % are time wasters. But actually, the people then turn up, even though they may still be wanting a price, they're not a time waster, they're now an opportunity. So you've turned it from ⁓ what is negative question to a positive question. How can I help this individual? How can I achieve better success for ⁓ And this is the price that we would do in order to help you achieve that. And that's what I like. So it's not a negative, they're time wasting. Austin Hilton Ball: Yeah. Granger Forson: people will but they just won't book then you can convert that next one using these structures that you've talked about to do that. That's brilliant thank you so much Austin that's great. ⁓ let's go into our close and wrap up now. So what you heard yourself say today that maybe surprised you? Austin Hilton Ball: Pleasure. So maybe less surprise me, more kind positivity I'm taking away is just looking back at our journey and where we are now and all the little increments we in to get I'm definitely not somebody that celebrates the wins personally myself as as I should do. So looking back at we've achieved and where we are, ⁓ that's a real big for me. looking back all those years that we have that very small tiny client and ⁓ are where we are now and that's through all of the processes you know people, sales, delivery yeah it's really really exciting to see where we are. Granger Forson: Brilliant. Austin, you've mentioned, I've said that ⁓ and I work together on our round table, but you that your sales coach, I think the journey you've been on with her, I think we ought to just say thank to her on this podcast and mention her name and her details. So please do say who she and how people can reach to her. ⁓ Austin Hilton Ball: Yes, no definitely. So her name is Helen T. and she is called the sales lady she changed my life from somebody thought he was selling and thought he was, know, thought I was doing an okay job to really delve into the deep dark depths my soul and the why, why am I scared to talk about price, why am scared to... try and convert. And that goes so much further than just having a sales conversation. That kind of delves into you as a person. I would say to any business owner, whether it's you on your own or whether you've got a small team, speak to Helen, speak to you. Come on a I know we haven't mentioned this directly so far. But the is something I value when it comes around single month. know, that trusted group of people, almost a little non-exec board to kind talk freely about your problems, kind of be open and, you know, share your vulnerabilities. You know, as business owners, I don't think we are good enough at sharing our vulnerabilities. As men, I don't think we're good enough at sharing our vulnerabilities. ⁓ So to be in that and to be able to do that is a real, real, real game changer. So yeah, thank you. Thank you you as well for everything you've. who kind of did the good for us and me over the years because yeah, without you I wouldn't be, I definitely wouldn't be sitting in this seat back being proud of what we've achieved. ⁓ Granger Forson: Awesome. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure pleasure working with you know your spirit and tenacity to try and to experiment and pick yourself up when you fail has been outstanding So ⁓ finally and how can people get hold of you if they want to explore more your business and your business journey? Austin Hilton Ball: So you can obviously visit the website, yourpayrollmanager.co.uk. You can add me on LinkedIn, Austin Hilton Hypenball. And you can drop me an email. Austin, not yourpayrollmanager.co.uk. I do a coffee with Austin Chat. If you are lucky, I very well may send you. very own tea bags and biscuits we have a good chat and yeah put world to right. Granger Forson: Awesome. thank you so much for fantastic conversation today. Austin Hilton Ball: Cheers, Granger. Roundtable? Roundtable?