Social media has long been the place where we've been trained to share the little moments, large moments, aspirational moments, and fake moments of our lives and businesses, but have we had too much of a good thing?
They come from one of Steve's LinkedIn contact, Jessamyn Hayden McLachlan from Felt Brand Stories, in the wake of the Adelaide Hills Winter Reds festival.
In the Perspicacity segment, we continue our focus on David Sandler's Sales Submarine, this time the fourth compartment of Budget.
In Problems, we share a question from long time client, Donald Kay, about getting momentum for an item that's been on the To Do list too long.
But first, we go back to the days when social networking took place face to face, with our last visit from Oscar Wilde and his "At Home" afternoons.
Get ready to take notes!
Talking About Marketing podcast episode notes with timecodes
01:22 Person This segment focusses on you, the person, because we believe business is personal.
At Home With Oscar Wilde
Matthew Sturgis's biography of Oscar Wilde yields one more tidbit worthy of discussion and it relates to the practice of "At Homes".
"At Homes" were invitiations to visit people for conversation at appointed hours. In Oscar's life, his first experience was with his mother, Lady Wilde’s, Saturday afternoon "At Homes" in the 1870s and 1880s.
Later, when Oscar and his wife, Constance, set up their married life at their place in Tite Street, Constance’s biography shows she set up on the "at home" circuit, where WB Yeats was a regular guest. It's been noted that these functions were more like a public performance than chatting with friends.
And that's why it's a good discussion point in the Person segment. Do we, as business owners or leaders, dedicate enough time to social interaction?
12:10 Principles This segment focusses principles you can apply in your business today.
Social Media Not Working Well? Maybe It's Digital Fatigue
Just after the Adelaide Hills Winter Reds weekend, earlier this year, Jessamyn Hayden McLachlan, from Felt Brand Stories, opined publicly on LinkedIn about her observations about the performance of social media marketing for the event, after eight years at the helm.
Firstly, she noted it had been "much tougher to cut through than previous years with reach down (although started to observe this trend in 2022), Facebooks Ads a necessary part of the mix and the more reels in the content mix, the better! (Read fun, but extremely time intensive, content to create. Probably more time intensive than those not doing this job realise). #videofirst"
This prompted her to note that digital fatigue is not only real, but increasing across social media, with people less likely to engage because they're tired.
Secondly, she argued that marketers should understand that we need to be as active as we can but not to "sell". Instead, she said social media has become a place "for reference and research ... to book mark and remind ... to answer questions and pique curiosity."
David and Steve pick up the conversation and shared their thoughts.
David made some points about the storytelling of Winter Reds, prompting Steve to link the conversation to some insights from neuromarketing experts, Prince Ghuman and Matt Johnson.
On episode 225 of the podcast, You Are Not So Smart, which had been recommended by client and friend, Lisa Kennewell, the authors argued that we don't focus on the specific elements of a product, service, or event, but rather on their "hidden soul".
The guys go into some of their stories about the story behind a Pinot Noir and the surprising value of a piece of Banksy art which was shredded immediately after being auctioned, surprisingly increasing in value.
Enjoy the conversation.
24:39 Problems This segment answers questions we've received from clients or listeners.
How Do You Budge Things Off Your To Do List
When Steve emailed friend and client, Donald Kay from Donalan, recently, he was enquiring about whether or not Donald was stuck on something regarding his new website.
The Talked About Marketing team created a new, draft website in February, and Donald was going to go through the information to check if it was all relevant and add/suggest any changes. It was now September.
Donald wrote back: "The website may be the topic of a future podcast if you have the answer or you can find some one with the answer. How can something be on the top of the to do list for so long but still not get done?"
David and Steve discuss this and come up with a few answers, including an upcoming change to our own internal processes.
29:38 Perspicacity This segment is designed to sharpen our thinking by reflecting on a case study from the past.
Sandler Sales Submarine Part Four: Budget
Each Perspicacity segment this series, will focus on one part of the Sandler Selling System, this time it's Budget.
David Sandler argues understanding the budget your client has to work with is crucial for a successful sales process (or strategic moving on to other prospects).
David and Steve discuss some of the tactics David Sandler crafted.
Monkey paw, anybody?
Our conversation is being guided by David Sandler's excellent book, You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar, Second Edition.
Automated Transcription
The transcript below has not been checked by humans; it has been generated automatically and is published here as a convenience option for reference.
Caitlin Davis: [00:00:00] Talking about marketing is a podcast for business owners and leaders, produced by my dad, Steve Davis, and his colleague at Talked About Marketing, David Olney, in which they explore marketing through the lens of their own four Ps. Person, Principles, Problems, and Perspicacity. Yes, you heard that correctly.
Apart from their love of words, they really love helping people. So they hope this podcast will become a trusted companion on your journey in business.
Steve Davis: David, we're going to do the right thing in this episode. We both have throat fatigue, but we're not going to talk about that. We're going to focus on digital fatigue. Is that us taking the higher road?
David Olney: I think it's taking the more practical road because digital fatigue is every day, throat fatigue is only occasional.
Steve Davis: On that note, let's clear our throats and [00:01:00] get ready to start the storytelling.
Caitlin Davis: Our four P's. Number one, person. The aim of life is self development. To realise one's nature perfectly. That is what each of us is here for. Oscar Wilde.
Steve Davis: In the person segment for this episode, we have one last visit of Oscar Wilde. And it's from Matthew Sturges biography of Oscar Wilde, which was called Oscar. Amazing book. If you really want to lose yourself in Oscar Wilde's life, just leave a tray of breadcrumbs behind you because you'll probably want to get out at some point.
Amazing book. Thank you again, David, for introducing it to me. One of the things that popped up as I was reading it... that I thought would be relevant for this segment is the whole concept of at homes, which is a very [00:02:00] English thing to do in the 1800s in some circles. And at home is like it sounds. We will be at home on this Saturday afternoon, and you're invited to come and visit and have conversation with us, etc.
In Oscar's Yes, when he finally got a home in Tight Street with his wife Constance. Constance did set up her place on the at home circuit so people would visit, including, oh yeah, WB Yeats, for example, you know, guests like that just dropping in and having a chat, but I think If we go right back to the beginning, we can see the influence that ultimately came to bear on Oscar Wilde because Lady Wilde, she would have at homes on Saturday afternoons back when he was just a small boy, in fact, I've got a little quote here, a snippet from Matthew Sturgeson's biography of recounting those early influences.[00:03:00]
Matthew Sturgeson's biography of Oscar Wilde: The Merrion Square house was often filled with interesting people and interesting talk, and, as the Kramers noticed, the young, wild children were excluded from little of it. The social gatherings, shea wild, lit by the energy and charisma of the host and hostess, overflowed with intellectual merriment and wit.
There were regular Saturday dinner parties for what Jane described ten or twelve clever men. They would dine at half past six and part at eleven. Sometimes the meal would be followed by poetry or music. The company would include not only the brilliant genius of Ireland, the leading literary, scientific, and antiquarian lights of Dublin, but also celebrities of Europe and America.
The ease and humour of Merrion Square discourse was distinctly Irish. Even among men of science, facts were never allowed to dominate [00:04:00] diversion. Dr William Stokes, William Wilde's great friend and mentor who lived in the square at No. 5, pronounced it as the golden rule of conversation. To know nothing accurately.
Many things, though, were known with assumed inaccuracy. Conversation ranged across all the current topics and literature and science of the day. Ideas were taken up, played with, and discarded. Nothing was sacred. At the wild's table, every creed was both defended and demolished, and Oscar, while still a young boy, heard it all.
He came to consider that the best of his education in boyhood was obtained from this association with his father and mother and their remarkable friends.
Steve Davis: So there you are. You can see the makings, the DNA [00:05:00] of Oscar and all his aphorisms there, where you should hold the opinion that you don't have any opinion and everything's to be toyed with and played with. Ideas are like mice to the cats sitting around the table and tossing it around. On one level, David, I actually think...
At just this, this surface level, there's still some value and release that comes from that sort of gathering before we dive into whether or not there was depth. What do you think?
David Olney: I think it would have been remarkable. It really, you know, if we look at in Wilde's case, it comes out of the culture of Dublin.
And it was very much at home, whereas in Paris, it would have been in the salon. In London, it would have been in the coffee shop or the tea rooms. Different cultures put it in different places, but it was somewhere where, amongst friends, the formality could be notched down a little bit. But you knew people would still behave and they could [00:06:00] speak about perhaps slightly less comfortable topics.
So it was the best of all worlds, good behavior and open minds and the potential to connect with people more deeply.
Steve Davis: We've been thinking about and talking about and practicing community this year in particular and one of the things that Matthew Sturges hones in on is that These gatherings were largely performative.
You carried your mask, which our next episode will touch base on in relation to Noel Coward. But here we've got The performance, you're there to dress up, to be whoever you're, not your full public persona, but your next step back public persona. In fact, I was talking to someone today who's her name's Kelly.
She's she listens to our podcast. She's been recruiting in a medical field. And she commented how some candidates, when they have the Zoom meeting, [00:07:00] they just move a little bit and she can see they're wearing pajama pants. And she's thinking, hang on a minute, which I concur with, that, that's actually not good practice.
And it's not good practice, firstly , because, well, it's, it's not. Showing that sort of respect for the moment and what you're going for, but secondly, I actually think there's value when you put on the costume of work clothes to help tell, signal to your, your head that you're now in your work persona. Play with that for a bit, david.
David Olney: I think there's probably two things going on at least and it's that if you take it seriously, You're going to do a better job. If you show to other people you take it seriously, you're going to be given more charity to have a go and do a decent, you know, job of what you're trying to do. So, it's that thing of a little bit of an investment is good for yourself and good for others because you're showing it [00:08:00] matters to you.
And by showing that to other people, you start mattering to them. So, you know, the whole idea of fake it till it makes it fits very well with kind of this at home idea. These were people that either wanted to succeed intellectually, artistically, politically. And the way you tested your language skills, your storytelling skills, your persuasive skills, was on other people who were open minded and committed to growth.
But if you didn't take it seriously and commit to doing it properly, there was always 20 other people out and at home they could go and talk to. So the idea in medical recruiting of the person sitting there in pajamas, they want the job because they want it, well, big deal. Why would the company want the person that doesn't want to connect and add value?
Steve Davis: Yeah, well that's, that's an extra lens to throw upon it. And I suppose to round this off from a personal perspective, I did like, it's worth making our notes about this, I did ask the question, because I'd like, [00:09:00] I'd like us, in fact, I'd like to experiment with running some at homes myself. I actually really love the concept.
And I asked the question, do we get to drop our guard? I went traveling with another mentor from the Adelaide Business Hub program and Hayden and I got to share a room together one night in separate rooms, I should say. It was an apartment, David. I can see that look on your eyes.
David Olney: I've got no problem with it, but I'm going to go, how are you going to add this to your Tinder feed?
There's going to be a Tinder feed angle.
Steve Davis: But we actually had a very frank, relaxed conversation about all things to do with business and... I relished that moment for that because I really did drop my guard. Had my pyjamas on I would say, but I dropped my guard. And I think, I think there's importance, especially for blokes, we're worse at it than women, of having that clutch of people around us [00:10:00] with whom we do drop our guards.
Any, any final... Parting thoughts on that. I think if you
David Olney: have come up with some basic rules about how you want to behave in the world so that your behavior is always reasonable you can drop your guard because what you default to is what you've trained yourself to and that is incredibly relaxing. I think what we want to make sure people are clear about is we're not defaulting to dropping your guard means you get to essentially have verbal diarrhea.
That really doesn't serve anyone.
Steve Davis: Well, that takes us back to, I don't know what episode it was, where we talked about puzzles, problems, and messes. Exactly. You don't just go down and melt and share everything.
David Olney: You give people a mess, because they don't know why, and it's not their role.
Steve Davis: No, but you might toss around a problem or two that you've been in the right company.
But also, I wonder if some people are listening this going, what do you want about Steve? We get together. all the time and have this. But I could be an odd [00:11:00] one out. I think I share this with other business owners who run their own businesses. You do tend to work or have your mind in the workspace seven days a week.
And so it is odd for me to be charting this territory. And I'm implementing at the moment, I'm graduating towards siphoning off some days for this sort of downtime. I think it's that important.
David Olney: Absolutely. Like, the more we remember that we are a bigger combination of things than just doing the job or just growing the business, the better it is for us because when we get nourishment for interacting with other people talking about other things, all the positivity that comes from that goes into every part of our day in life.
Steve Davis: Hmm. In which case, David, I'll wait out by the letterbox for our invitations to our listeners at homes.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps. Number two, Principles. You can never be overdressed or [00:12:00] overeducated. Oscar Wilde.
Steve Davis: For the principles segment, I want to read some quotes from a post I saw earlier this year, it was in the middle of winter, by a person I know here in Adelaide, Jessamyn Hayden McLaughlin. She Well, she runs Felt and describes herself as the chief brand storyteller. And she's been doing the social media marketing for the Winter Reds campaigns, which is a, I suppose it's an event to get people to the Adelaide Hills in winter to enjoy wine and do those sorts of things.
And it was her eighth Winter Reds campaign this year. And she reflected openly in LinkedIn and publicly saying how it was much tougher. to cut through than previous years. Overall, reach of the social media activity was down, although she had started to know [00:13:00] that the year before in 2022. Facebook ads, a necessary part of the mix, and more reels in the content mix the better, so reels did well.
And she also makes a note, well, if you suddenly think you're going to make reels, those short Video pieces. Well, that's fantastic. They are fun. They take a lot more work. They're very time intensive to get right So if you're going to do it, you've really got to make sure you've got resources for that But she said this and this is what caught my eye.
In my experience, digital fatigue is a real and increasing part of the social media landscape. People see your content But are less likely to comment, like, and engage. They're tired, and so am I. So I 100 percent get it. And I think you're fully on board with that too, David.
David Olney: Oh, absolutely. Even during my Master's when I did the social media subject.
And Saira Ali was trying to get us to all believe about the wonders of social media and its [00:14:00] effectiveness for getting your message out. My skepticism was pretty high then. It only gets higher because at the end of the day, If we are having to work hard to construct the message, people aren't going to work hard to absorb it.
They've got no reason to, unless our message resonates with them. And even just the name, the Winter Reds Festival, like the fact that that name lasted eight years is an indication that, really, they're not ever connected with what makes people get excited about going to the hills.
Steve Davis: What would you get excited by in going to the hills?
David Olney: I probably would actually give up with a name until I got some good photos out of bottles of wine from the hills on tables with food. There's all local produce in front of open fireplaces.
Steve Davis: There is a lot of that material in all of their campaign, which possibly explains why that name has had its longevity, because it is ticking those boxes.
David Olney: Because the photos [00:15:00] work. Yeah. The name could be anything.
Steve Davis: Well, it could be. It could be Samorian.
David Olney: But again, it was about connecting with what people would actually, with limited energy, engage with. What people love to engage with is warm, cozy, nice place, yummy things, friends.
Steve Davis: Yeah. Well, she goes on actually in this article and she says her take out of this is more and more the role of social media is for visibility, to get top of mind in a busy world.
And noting that a strategic approach is vital. One post won't sell an event. It needs to be delivered again and again in as many creative ways as you can come up with. She also notes that she thinks accounts now should be largely considered as a place for reference and research, to bookmark, to remind, to answer questions, to pique curiosity.
And so she's saying, let go a bit. of the numbers as the main metric and, and start to understand that being [00:16:00] active at the level that suits the business, having that present, being in a place that people can corroborate what you're on about and why is key. And, you know, the occasional breathtaking picture is still very magical, which I think alludes to what you're saying.
I think what she's really saying there is sort of... Sharing the stuff that we talk about, that when you're talking about a persona, I've been doing some work with some more clients this week. We're trying to understand within a buyer persona, what is the triggering event? What is the thing that makes them go looking?
And what is the thing they're trying to solve? I think what she's saying there is if you've got the content that scratches that itch. that is there, you've got a better way of connecting with them because they can have a ah, aha moment and come back and they can share that with other ones, but not so much a place where you say, hey, book your table now.
David Olney: Really, in the case of the Winter Reds thing, the perfect example is, if you can't build the persona for who is the person who is going to arrange to [00:17:00] load seven friends on a minivan, Yeah. And spend the weekend bouncing around the Adelaide Hills. If you can't clearly articulate who that person is, what makes them excited and interested, don't post until you can.
Steve Davis: Because it is those people who are the linchpin. Because if
David Olney: they bring seven friends, then seven friends might pay some attention to the social media. But the only person that really mattered was that one who's going to organize their friends.
Steve Davis: Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. There's something else that, Rowan, from this, because from our chat a while ago, you were on about.
The Adelaide Hills itself, like all regions, could do with giving some attention to what its core story is. And you said that, and within a day, I was listening to a podcast, You Are Not So Smart, which Lisa Kennewell one of our friends and clients and member of the, the High Table recommended to us.
And there was an episode. Called number 225, Blindsight and Neuromarketing. And a couple of neuromarketing [00:18:00] experts were talking about some surprising insights about story or not so much insights, but other sides of the coin. And I think we'll have a listen to them now. It's Prince Gubin and Matt Johnson.
Let's hear what they're saying.
Podcast: You Are Not So Smart: I can give you a glass of wine, like, hey, this is a really nice Pinot, check it out, you know, taste it, whatever. And then I can say, hey, this is a really nice Pinot, it's called Samantha. It's called Samantha because the winemaker's oldest daughter hated Pinots. He could not get her to like Pinot Noir at all.
So, for her wedding, he created this Pinot, and he was so convinced that she was going to love it, and lo and behold, on the wedding day, she loved the Pinot. And that's why this one's called Samantha. Now have a sip of it. There's no way you're not going to like that one more, right? Unless you have a bad history with people named Samantha.
That is one aspect. The storytelling aspect, right? So that's one. Matt, did you want to add another one? We essentially see a hidden... soul in the objects [00:19:00] that we interact with so it's, it's a little bit of a, you know, a strange thing, but when we build attachments, when there's a, a history, when there's an origin story behind it, it ceases to just be the physical objects.
We see this with a range of items outside of. of food and restaurants. So this was, you know, the example we brought in was the Banksy piece. When if you remember a couple years ago, David Banksy had that you know, that performance art where he, you know, auctioned this piece of art off at Sotheby's and then it immediately shredded.
And what was really interesting about it is the value of the piece actually went up. So the piece was actually physically destroyed, but as I mentioned earlier, we see the hidden soul in things. So, and that hidden soul transcends the sort of physical qualities, the physical iteration of it. And so, since we see these, these sort of hidden essence in what we interact with when this is applied to food one way to enhance the essence...
is to give it an origin story. So Prince just gave the example [00:20:00] of Samantha's cab. There's been studies of it where you, you know, present a menu item and then the waiter comes around and says, well, this was the, you know, it was a dish inspired by, you know, the waiter's to fend off pirates from this and, you know, whatever story it is it gives it this, this background that then influences the mental model in a positive way.
Steve Davis: So that's Prince Guman and Matt. Johnson, their book is called Blind Sight, and so the two main things that stick out for me there is how yes, you've got wines, but now here's a wine that's got a particular story that the winemaker was on a quest to make sure his daughter would like this wine. That does grab my attention.
It's still just a bottle of wine in the glass and, but there it is. And the other one is the Banksy piece of art with, you know, they pay X amount for it. The moment it's sold, it gets shredded. You could [00:21:00] argue that's the art wasted. They're looking at it in terms that, well, there's almost like a soul, a hidden soul that is in all things, but story brings that to the fore, so it becomes worth more because this is you being connected to Banksy and Banksy's product in some way.
So yeah. Hidden way. And of course, along there, of course, that other reference in that little quote was about you know, finding a way that the waiter comes once you've been looking at the menu and says, I'll draw your attention to this because this menu, this item, the chef was inspired while rowing a boat between Australia and Indonesia and being attacked by pirates.
And this is, you know, blah, blah. And suddenly, You're drawn in. So, well, let's, let's reflect on a couple of these things from a, a marketing principles perspective about storytelling and how it just, it's like a, a pea in the cup trick when you shake, you move those, it shifts to where we're thinking of.
We're not so much assigning or what's the dollar value. [00:22:00] We're either caught up in a story or we're not.
David Olney: It really is a way to get feeling mind involved in what's going on rather than thinking mind. Thinking mind is going to go, Oh, is there status in drinking this bottle? Well, there's not much status in drinking the bottle that someone made so their daughter would like it.
If I chug through my brain and go, is it from the right winery? If I have the label facing out at my table, is that signaling that I know what I'm doing? There's a lot of different ways. that we assess things and we really need to think things through in those terms. Who's the story going to resonate with?
Is it going to resonate in a sort of positive way that we find fun? And hey, here's a entry sort of level Pinot that you can have a go at if maybe you don't like Pinot. Is that interesting to people who know what they're drinking? Well, who's our audience today? What story are they going to engage with most?
A parent caring about their child. That's a great story, but it's not a great story for wine snobs. [00:23:00]
Steve Davis: Well, it's all pinot swabs. Exactly.
David Olney: And being an ex pinot snob, I can be as snobby as the best pinot snob.
Steve Davis: I actually think, for me, this story has more value being a pinot, because I might actually give that a try.
I try to avoid pinots with great passion.
David Olney: Alright, I am going to be forced now to go on the hunt for affordable quality pinot, which is the reason I don't drink it anymore, because all the quality stuff is now stupidly dear. And all the cheap stuff is bad.
Steve Davis: Okay, well I did trapes all over the South Island of New Zealand hunting amazing pinots, which we were told was a place to get them from.
They all tasted like water that dirty socks had been washed in.
David Olney: Yeah, that's not good. We might have to kind of extend your palate toward pinot.
Steve Davis: Well, there we go. On that note dear listener, in applying this sort of principle to your marketing, the question is, what is the [00:24:00] story behind it? We've talked about storytelling a lot, but this is a different angle. This is about giving feeling mind a chance to connect and come along for the ride.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps number three, problems. I asked the question for the best reason possible. Simple curiosity. Oscar Wilde.
In the mailbag
Steve Davis: this week I had a wonderful email exchange with Donald from Don Allen. He's a long term friend and client and earlier this year we helped him put together a draft new website and to help it we try to be frugal wherever possible and Donald was happy to do some hard yards himself and work through it and make some changes and that's fine that's how we like to to roll.
But a couple of weeks ago, I emailed him and said, just double checking, Donald, are you having any trouble? Because I hadn't heard from him. [00:25:00] And he just said, look, you know what? This should be a segment for your podcast because the website has been at the top of his to do list since February, and it just has not moved despite his best intentions, he said, does David have any tips?
I'm going to throw that on your table this time, because I normally do the problem segment, David.
David Olney: That is fine, and I'm happy to. And it's good, because as you were saying, I was actually immediately thinking, the problem is with something like Review Website. That makes sense to you and I, because we look at websites every day from the perspective of building them.
But most people only look from the perspective of, I get a new one occasionally. Oh wow, this is daunting, what do I look for? So the first thing I would say is anytime you've got a task like this that's been at the top of your to do list for a while that you haven't got to, you probably haven't got to it because you haven't defined what the task is specifically.
And in the case of the website, it could [00:26:00] be multiple things specifically. Do I generally like the content? Do I like the layout? Are there any missing pieces? What page is most important and should I start there? What page is second most important? So really, with your to do list, anything that looks too big, break those big things down into manageable pieces that you can define comfortably and go, I know exactly what I need to do to complete.
This piece, and when I complete this piece, I will genuinely be closer to completing this task, because it's not a single task on the to do list. It's actually a heading for multiple tasks, and the sooner you acknowledge that a lot of the things on the to do list are heading for multiple tasks, and list those tasks out, the more confident you feel.
That you can chip away at it, one per day or one per week, and get on top of it rather than start hiding from it.
Steve Davis: Great. This is meant to be a segment where we teach people things they should do themselves, but what you're saying here, David, if I read between the lines, [00:27:00] is yes, you're partly saying that, but you're also saying, Steve, when you did the handover email to Donald, why didn't you give him a broken down list to guide him? Because there was some old material brought across that he needed to go through and just double check. There were some gaps that were identified that had to be filled. Steve, why didn't you actually specify that and give Donald a ready made broken down to do list?
Really, that's what you're saying, isn't it?
David Olney: I wasn't thinking that specifically, because again, I don't know how much... Experience Donald's God of New Websites. Donald, you could have been working with Donald for 20 years and he could have so much experience that actually writing that list for him is underestimating his capacity.
Steve Davis: Well, this is where hindsight is 20 20 vision. Yeah, exactly. He's smart. He's an engineer in his DNA. And the reason why I thought the one line would be fine is because It's typically well within his wheelhouse. However, [00:28:00] as you say, this is what we do all the time. And it would have been a great gift from me, and I'm going to make a note to go ahead and do this.
Actually give him my list of the key areas where I know there is attention needed.
David Olney: And probably the priority order for him. So if he could only do two or three, which two or three do we need most to be able to help him most effectively?
Steve Davis: Gee, now you're setting a higher bar for everything and I think that's good, David.
I think that's good. I think we should. We can, we're partners with our clients. We should be doing whatever we can without over doing it and becoming paternalistic. Maybe we should ask. Here's what needs to be done.
David Olney: Would you like a checklist or are you good to go?
Steve Davis: Yes. Okay.
David Olney: Nothing more complicated than that.
Because again, we want people to be empowered and have their autonomy and agency. But if you need a hand, let's offer to give it. Yep. And if people want it, well, we've already offered, so there's no shame in them asking.
Steve Davis: Very good. And that's what I love about doing this podcast, is it's an open book, [00:29:00] you can peep in through the window as we think things up.
This will now become part of how we flow, how we roll. Thanks, David. You're welcome. Perspicacity.
Caitlin Davis: Our four Ps, number four, Perspicacity. The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. Oscar Wilde.
We're now heading
Steve Davis: to the halfway mark of David Sandler's Sandler Sales Submarine. You might recall we're dedicating this last segment of every episode during Series 3 to working through the amazing book, the fantastic sales book by David Sandler, which is called You Can't Teach a Kid to ride a bike at a seminar.
And in his sail submarine, you'll pick up on the other sections earlier. Let me see if I can remember them. I don't actually have them written in front of [00:30:00] me. So at the beginning, there is rapport. Then there's pain. We need to understand the custom. No? Upfront contract. Ah, yes. Okay. See, this is my revision.
So, rapport. Upfront contract. Then, try to identify and understand the pain they're feeling. And now that we all agree with that and they're feeling, Ooh, okay, yes, he understands it. Budget. What's the different way that Sandler equips us to tackle this question? One that people can feel squeamish about in the realm of sales or marketing.
David Olney: I really love the fact that David Sandler comes out, you know, straight ahead and says, I'm uncomfortable about talking about money with people. My family were always uncomfortable talking about money. I've had no practice at this, but we need to talk about the budget might be for you to get the outcomes you want in your business.
And I'm going to feel uncomfortable about this and be awkward. I [00:31:00] apologize, but I hope we can move forward anyway. Like that kind of honesty. I think it's just amazing from someone as capable as David Sandler.
Steve Davis: And it goes with everything that we try to practice as far as naming that 900 pound gorilla in the room.
Don't, don't avoid anything. Don't, don't pretend something is not there when it is. Just name it. Name it earnestly. Name it humbly. But, name it with the fact that you are going to see it through, that it has to be done. And, you know what, you get bitten a few times, you realize when you don't. and you try to dodge it, it will come back to bite you.
David Olney: Any of these sections of the Sandler Submarine, if you don't do them fully before you move on, you will destabilize or wreck the next step and have to go back anyway. So you may as well just do them properly first. So this is where we're at with the submarine is bringing that. So [00:32:00] one hand is, you can say, look, as David just said, I'm uncomfortable about this.
Steve Davis: So he talks about some other things that he uses there as well. There's different ways of approaching price to try and understand because his thesis. is that buyers are not necessarily trying to be mean and nasty, but they've been raised to be suspicious of people selling. And so they will try to withhold as much information as possible so as not to give you a free kick.
And they might feel that if they tell you you've got a budget of 950, then suddenly the price will be 950. And especially that's going to happen if you haven't built. Rapport. So, but he knows you need to know what that number is. And there was one approach he talked about where he says, look he was talking to someone, let's call her Meg.
Meg, I'm, I hear that you, you want to go forward and find something here, but I need to understand to some [00:33:00] degree what sort of budget we have here, because that will shift. what I can offer and how I structure what I do. Are you thinking that this is something that will fall between the 3, 000 and 7, 000 mark?
Or are you thinking this is something that will fall between the 7, 000 and 15, 000 mark? And depending on what Meg comes back with, you can have a conversation and he particularly likes it when she says, well, I was fearing it was going to be around the 14, 000 mark. He said, well, the thing is, this is 6, 500 job.
And so you've just made her day, but you know that you can go through and deliver what you need to deliver and you understand what the parameters are. Have I got that right?
David Olney: Absolutely, like, get people to give you a number if they're willing, just within a range, like, as a range, where does your budget fit?
And if they're really uncomfortable, give them some ranges and let them pick. And then, because if you've [00:34:00] done the pain step well enough, you can go, well, At that range, we could certainly work on the first thing you would like to achieve. That could definitely be achieved for that amount of money, and we may be able to make significant ground on the second thing you would like to achieve, but it most certainly wouldn't achieve the third thing you would like to do.
Now, that doesn't mean we can't come back and revisit that as a second project later when your budget, you know, is higher, or that next year you've got budget again and we do it as a second phase. So, there's so many ways to have the conversation where you aren't pushing anyone towards spending more money.
You're just having an honest conversation about what do they want to achieve versus what does it cost for you to deliver them the product or service they need to achieve it. Another thing you mentioned, which I've used a couple of times now, is where he says, look, off the record, what sort of budget are we talking about?
Steve Davis: And that little phrase, off the record, it does work. I mean, it works again, if you've got the [00:35:00] rapport built up in the early stage, and it's been quite disarming, and I've been able to move ahead, and you know, get some projects as a result of that. But the other thing which he shared, and this is probably the last thing for me from this, from the budget perspective that I really like, is he introduces the concept of a monkey paw.
I think it was at this stage of the book that he does this, David, correct me if I'm wrong.
David Olney: Yeah, no, no, it was.
Steve Davis: Where he was, he used the example of someone selling big commercial Air conditioning systems for buildings. We're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars.
And this guy was going in with a different company and getting upbeard and, and, and all sorts of trouble. And what he did was he came up with the idea of saying, look, I tell you, before we go ahead and we put through the whole quote. What if I do a complete audit and assessment for you, so you know exactly what you should be looking for, and that might cost you 10, 000.
It doesn't matter who you go ahead and buy with, but I'll do that. And this [00:36:00] gentleman won that contract. And sure enough, because he already had a much closer relationship, was able to win the bigger project. And he calls that a monkey paw, because the big chains that tie up those huge cruise liners and cargo ships, you can't throw them off and catch them on the, on the harbour.
So they attach this long sort of rope with a hook on it, or a ball, and that gets thrown off. That's easy to catch, but it's connected to the big chain. And then the people can pull that big chain over and tie up your boat. So the monkey paw is, have you got something you can offer that's small and valuable that gets you in, that gets you the chance to prove yourself, which puts you in the warm running for the bigger project. Very clever, David.
David Olney: Oh, it's very clever because, in a sense, the monkey paw is giving you another chance at rapport, future contract, pain, and budget. It's giving you a chance to revisit [00:37:00] all four first steps in a smaller project, where in the case of the air conditioner example, This person now knows you technically understand what you're doing so well, that you understand their situation, that you're applying no budget pressure, and you've worked out exactly what they need in terms of what do they want to achieve.
Because air conditioning a building is not a simple thing. Are you air conditioning it because it's a hospital and you need to not contaminate different areas with different air? Is it a hotel and different areas need to be different temperatures? What are you doing? By doing this report well on what it would cost to air conditioners building properly.
You are demonstrating that you've listened carefully, built rapport, understood the challenges, understood the potential budget questions, and you've done all that in a way where if they come back to you after, well now they get a discount of the cost of the report off the big job with a person they've already come to trust.
Steve Davis: There's some helpful things as we [00:38:00] seal the door now on stage four, part four of the Sandler Sales Submarine. The book is a great book, although even listening to the audiobook, the second edition narrated by Dave Mattson, who's the current CEO of Sandler Training, is the one we recommend. You can't teach your kids to ride a bike at a seminar.
David, thank you again for another Talking About Marketing. '
David Olney: Thank you, steve. Thank you, listener.
Steve Davis: I might see if I've got a bottle of pinot lying around.
I'll have to go find
David Olney: one for him.
Steve Davis: Oh, that's right. I was washing my socks in it last night.
Caitlin Davis: Thank you for listening to Talking About Marketing. If you enjoyed it, please leave a rating or a review in your favourite podcast app.
And if you found it helpful, please share it with others. Stephen David always welcome your comments and questions, so send them to podcast at talkedaboutmarketing. com. And finally, the last word to Oscar Wilde. There's only one thing worse than [00:39:00] being talked about, and that's not being talked about.