Monthly Archives: November 2021

Cultivating The Lost Art Of Wonder In Your Life

Cultivating The Lost Art Of Wonder In Your Life written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Jeffrey Davis

Jeffrey DavisIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Jeffrey Davis. Jeffrey is an author, team culture consultant, educator, and CEO of Tracking Wonder Consultancy. For over 25 years, he’s inspired thousands of change-makers, leaders, and creatives to unlock their best ideas through the pursuit of curiosity, innovation, and wonder. He’s also the author of a new book launching Nov. 16, 2021 – Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity.

Key Takeaway:

Wonder is the one radical quality that has led people from all walks of life to make their deepest dreams and wildest endeavors come to life. Wonder has remarkable effects on our resilience, our thinking, and our capacity to connect with one another.

In this episode, I talk with Jeffrey Davis, author, and CEO of Tracking Wonder Consultancy, about how the lost art of wonder can help us cultivate creativity, sustain the motivation to pursue our big ideas, navigate uncertainty and crises, deepen our relationships, and more.

Questions I ask Jeffrey Davis:

  • [1:31] Define wonder.
  • [2:57] If we are born with wonder, how do we lose it as we grow older?
  • [3:58] Do daily habits and rituals that help us with productivity numb us to change or surprise?
  • [5:17] How do you get people to see the importance of wonder in the workplace with individuals who are professionals, executives, teams, and organizations?
  • [8:24] I think that bringing wonder in as an experience into people’s lives is probably going to take some work or practice  — can you give me an example of how to do that or how to be intentional about it?
  • [14:25] How would you encourage somebody to apply this in a customer service or even a sales role?
  • [16:27] How do you handle a situation where somebody is basically faking wonder for a while?
  • [20:27] What’s the impact that you want to have on the reader or the people that take even just a kernel of this to heart?
  • [23:19] Where can people connect with you and find out more about the book itself and the work that you’re doing around wonder?

More About Jeffrey Davis:

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John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Hey, I want to give a shout out to another member of the HubSpot network, the success story podcast, hosted by Scott de Clair. It’s one of the most useful podcasts in the world. Success story features Q and A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, conversations on sales marketing. Hey, and if you’re a freelancer, his episode on how to make seven figures freelancing on Fiverr is a must listen to the success story podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

John Jantsch (00:47): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Jeffrey Davis. He’s an author team culture consultant, educator, and CEO of tracking wonder consultancy for over 25 years. He’s inspired thousands of Changemakers leaders and creatives to unlock their best ideas through the pursuit of curiosity, innovation and wonder today, he’s got a new book coming out. We’re going to talk about it. It’s called tracking wonder reclaiming a life of meaning and possibility in a world, obsessed with productivity. So Jeffrey, welcome to the show.

Jeffrey Davis (01:24): Thanks. It’s always a pleasure to

John Jantsch (01:25): Hang out. Yeah. So, so I don’t know. I’ll ask a really direct question. Define wonder.

Jeffrey Davis (01:33): Yeah, that’s a good starting place, right? We think we know what it is, but then we’re like, oh, let’s wonder about wonder. Yeah. So through my research, I’ve come to a more clear understanding myself of what wonder is it is a heightened state of awareness that’s brought on by something unexpected that typically either delights us, disorients us or both. And I would say what the most remarkable things, qualities of wonder that it’s fleeting. Sometimes it happens just for a few seconds. I cite it, you know, a deer in the woods or, you know, a sunset sometimes, you know, you hear something that just catches you by surprise from a coworker, but it has long lasting effects. And the, um, the science of wonder is kind of caught up. I’ve been on this trail for over 15 years when there was very little science of wonder and it’s catching up really to show us the remarkable effects that has on our resilience, our thinking, and our capacity to connect with one another.

John Jantsch (02:31): So, and, and, and I’m sure you’ve talked about this before, and I’m certainly not the first one to bring this up, but you know, you go somewhere like, I don’t know, four or five-year-old child, I’ve got, one of my grandkids is about, is four and it’s so funny. We’ll go somewhere and I’m not paying much attention. I’ll hear go. Wow. And you look around, it’s like, what? Wow. Yeah. So we’re the point is we’re born with this in like large amounts. So how do we lose it?

Jeffrey Davis (03:04): I’m so glad you said that I have a seven year old daughter and a 12 year old daughter. And they’re great wonder trackers, but there are instances I have to say, John, when I’m a bit more in wonder than they are. And so wonder is not just kid stuff. It’s pretty, pretty remarkable grownup stuff. So yeah. Wonder does Wayne and it wanes in part neurologically. So when we’re about my older daughter’s age, 12, 13 years old, our Synopsys start to prune in the brain and we don’t have all of those, you know, great connections going on in our brain culturally, without a doubt, particularly in United States culture and even the Scottish Irish, which is part of my heritage, but the hard work ethic, we have a cultural bias against wonder and it’s, it doesn’t seem productive. And yet the irony of wonders that it, it can help us become remarkably productive without burning out or, or burning bridges.

John Jantsch (03:58): You know, one of the things, since you mentioned productivity, and obviously it’s, it’s in the title or subtitle of the book as well is one of the ways we are more productive or at least I find myself more is, is through habits, through rituals, through things that I do every day. And, and, you know, I wonder while, while on one hand that makes us very productive or can make us feel productive. It certainly numbs us a bit, I suppose, to, to change or to surprise doesn’t it. Okay.

Jeffrey Davis (04:28): Oh, this is such a great question. Nobody’s really touched on this. So rituals, which I have them in the morning to make me very intentional, I have some specific to wonder, but the irony is just what you said is that the ritual can become routine. And then it just becomes this sort of default expectation. And we’re wired the neuroscientists call this, uh, re network of the brain, the default mode network we’re wired. And so to sort of categorize things, get in routine so we can move on with our life. But the challenge for us in these times is to disrupt our default routines. Our default ways of thinking are, are even our default rituals, right, is to kind of make your ritual spicy, so to speak every once in a while.

John Jantsch (05:18): So you ride a lot, you work with it’s an in, as I read your bio, you work with a lot of creatives and have for a long time. And I think certainly, uh, you know, a true creative has no problem with this idea of, of wonder that I have to get in my state where I can be creative and not just be in my kind of rat race state. So how do you first off, I know you’re not saying that that’s who needs this, that’s your that’s who it’s for, but, so how do you get people past that idea of saying, oh, well, that’s fine for those people that we don’t know what they’re doing over there anyway, you know, and bring it into the workplace

Jeffrey Davis (05:56): At such a great, because that is also a lot of my work with professionals and executives and teams and organizations. So I will say I was heartened to see that the Harvard business review recently published an article from a couple of researchers that seem to get at the premise of our body of work about why managers and leaders need to protect their sense of wonder and our times. So, one way to think about what wonder does and how it benefits us in this world of work that has just shifted for everybody, is that experiences of one. So what the science of wonder is showing us that is that if we can habitually recall share, and foster experiences of wonder that by doing that, even in the workplace, right, even with team leaders, recalling sharing and fostering experiences of wonder these experiences actually boost our capacity to focus in these times of rampant distraction, they actually build our resilience.

Jeffrey Davis (07:01): And I won’t go into all of the science of how it’s now demonstrated to do so, but it’s as good for us as good rest and good, good diet. It gives us resilience to keep working for the marathon, not just the sprint and wonder is remarkably pro social. So this is the beautiful part. I think of my research in our times is it’s not just for the solo creative, you know, getting inspired with their ideas and some studio it’s pro-social, it actually can make us more generous with one another. It can also let me see if I can put it in this context too. It helps us see each other again, in a new way. So you were talking about, you know, how rituals can become a habit. We can become habituated with one another. Can’t wait, right. People, you know, attend any team meeting. And you’re like, ah, there goes so-and-so again. Oh yeah. We’ve sort of box each other in wonder, has this remarkable ability to disrupt our biased ways of thinking about a problem of seeing each other and even if seeing ourselves.

John Jantsch (08:11): Yeah, it’s funny. I live on the edge of a national forest and, you know, a deer walks by and I’m like, oh, whatever, another deer. And so, so, so how, you know, how do we, so I’m sure there are a lot of people that say, okay, yeah, this is a nice concept, Jeffery. I don’t disagree with the concept. We need more wonder in our life, but, but I’m sure that there are a lot of pragmatic people that are saying, give me the example of, you know, how I bring, wonder as an experience or, you know, how, how do I, how am I intentional about this? Because I think that it’s probably one of those things that is going to take some work or some practice for people.

Jeffrey Davis (08:47): It will. Exactly. So tracking wonder is a skillset and a set of practices that we all can learn and, and sorta reclaim that birthright as you alluded to earlier, right? We’re all born wide-eyed with wonder, and we can actually practice, right. Just this, you know, leaders want to practice becoming compassionate. We can practice, uh, fostering and tracking wonder. So yeah, in the book, I lay out what I call six facets of wonder six sides of wonder. So we can really start to identify, identify them in our lives and, and figure out how to foster more of them. So there’s openness and curiosity are two really important facets that we can develop the skill set for more actively and regularly to approach any challenges, more creatively instead of reactively, say for instance, a challenge comes up for you. The natural response might be fight or flight, right?

Jeffrey Davis (09:47): Very reactive is this part of how we’re wired, but instead if we can practice pausing that reactivity and get curious and ask really intentionally curious questions like what’s going on here and this challenge, this problem, how could we think about this differently? That’s just one activity, right? The next pair of facets are bewilderment and hope. These are really important facets of wonder that demonstrably build our resilience and our fortitude to navigate adversity and challenge, which I think the whole globe needs right now. So sometimes just to when, when we’re feeling down or like in a dark place, whether as a team or as an individual, we can catch that natural darkness. We don’t need to bypass it, but we can do things like stepping outdoors, taking a five minute walk, taking a breather, looking up at the sky. So to speak wherever you live, there is sky.

Jeffrey Davis (10:51): And you’re probably going to come away with a slightly different perspective than, than you did five minutes before the second, the third pair of facets are connection and admiration. And these are really central. And at the heart of your brilliance, which is marketing connection and admiration are the facets of wonder that are very pro-social and allow us really to see one another in a new way. So when we come in conflict, which is very common, whether we’re remote working remotely or in the workplace, we, when we come in conflict, there are a number of things you could do. Just pause in the moment of conflict, detach yourself from the situation and actually practice seeing the person in front of you or the person you’re in conflict with differently, new, like recognizing this person should probably not intentionally harming you or trying to make your life miserable.

Jeffrey Davis (11:45): So let me just pause here for a moment to John DOE and say for the teams that I work with, we just start first, we start with wonder at work assessment, just to kind of see where each team member is and those different facets and other areas. And then sometimes we’ll start with just a few wonder interventions that we figure out together. So what w what can we do at the beginning of the day or the beginning of a meeting differently? So for instance, team managers now simply sometimes start off a meeting with, okay, everyone share, just share a small highlight from the past week, or share something with us that kind of blew your mind, that forces you to actually not just focus on the negative or the problems, but actually see these beautiful moments that were actually quite meaningful and can really bond us.

Jeffrey Davis (12:37): The next set of interventions would be in the middle of the day. This is really, really important that all the research bears out is how to break better in order to work well. So sometimes it requires timing. Sometimes it requires a team agreeing at a certain time of day to break together, better step out doors, step away from the screen. I know remote teams, you’re like, okay, we all have to go outdoors and prove it to get away from the screen. And then finally, at the end of the day, or the end of the week, a certain, I guess you could call them rituals. We call them wonder interventions, where you come together and reflect what was the most meaningful for you in this past week. And so those beginning, middle and end wonder interventions are usually just a starting place for starting, you know, for really shaking up the default ways of working and working together. This

John Jantsch (13:33): So did the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by Sendinblue and all in one digital marketing platform, empowering small businesses to build stronger customer relationships through end to end digital marketing campaigns. They support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships, send him blue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, sign up forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more, and best of all, duct tape marketing listeners can click on sendinblue.com/ducttapemarketing to sign up for a free trial. And if you use the promo code on that page, duct tape, you’ll get 50% off for your first three months, either on a light or premium account.

John Jantsch (14:25): All right. So as I hear you talk about this, I want to break it into two ways that I think that I think most people will, will logically jump as a, just listening to you to describe that this is culture. This is stuff we’re going to work on in our organization. And I think a lot of people are open to that idea. I mean, I think everybody realizes the value that how would you apply this? Or how would you encourage somebody to apply this in a say, customer service or even sales role? So not to an internal team, but, but to actually bring this level of empathy out into the external world,

Jeffrey Davis (15:00): I love that you asked that in, in marketing and, and in sales. So let’s just start with openness and curiosity because you and I both know that we all can get into our default habits of sales and marketing. Like we learn best practices and, and we have certain biases, right. That are laid out in psychology. That if it worked one time, well, it should work a second, the third time. Right? So by just practicing some openness and curiosity, getting really curious and saying, Hmm, how could I approach the sales call just a little differently? And then let’s jump to connection. How could I actually attune to this person, ask some curious questions, genuine, curious questions, right? Because you know, the heart of marketing quite often is listening. Yeah. And really getting some resonance with what’s happening with the person on the other side of your sales call and then establishing some genuine, some genuine connection. It has to be, it has to be genuine really for it, for it to work.

John Jantsch (16:10): Right. And I think that’s sometimes one of the dangers when people, people are out there expressing this idea of, we have to bring more curiosity and we have to listen. I mean, these, these are concepts that people in some cases get shoved down their throat. That that’s what we need to be doing here. But I mean, how do you, how do you, how do you handle a situation where somebody is basically faking wonder for a while?

Jeffrey Davis (16:36): Um, that requires, that requires some self knowledge. So there is, there is a sort of untapped or in the book, that’s at the heart of this body of work. And it can start to sound like a little woo. But I grounded in classical philosophy from the Greek thinkers, the Greek thinker said that suggested that I’m talking Aristotle Plato, Socrates, not to get too wonky on your audience, but that we’re each born with this sort of force of character. That’s unique to each of us, that’s distinct to each of us. And they called it your on your, your genius as it, as it were. And it’s unique to each of us, but we were born forgetting it. But if we remember it at certain times and bring it to our word, bring it to our sales calls, it will guide us toward our best work in the world at whatever stage in our life.

Jeffrey Davis (17:31): So we do a lot of work with that. So one thing that the salesperson has to do their own self work and just like really acknowledge who they are at heart and what makes them come alive in sales. My father was a brilliant salesperson in the Dallas media world. And I asked him one time, like first ad, what do you do? And he said, well, I sell air because it was radio advertising. And then I said, why are you so good at what you do? And I always deliver what I promise and I really care about people. And so I’ve always remembered that. So, you know, the sales person who’s trying to fake, it has to really do the self knowledge to say, okay, really? What is the genius part of me that makes me come alive in sales? Why do I care about sales in the first place? And can I see the genius in the person on the other side of the sales call? That’s a really, now that can sound a little woo, but it’s a really important practice that probably any leader or manager who’s successful knows they have to do. They have to practice seeing the person on the other side differently.

John Jantsch (18:37): You talk about this, this idea of admiration, and there’s a line, uh, to quote, is the experience a surprising love for someone else’s excellence? I think that’s probably one of the, we, I think anyone who has done that has experienced the value of doing that, but it’s also seems to be in our, in our obsession to climb whatever it is. We’re climbing seems to be one of the hardest things to do.

Jeffrey Davis (19:01): Wow. I’m so glad you, that is the admiration chapter I have to say is my favorite chapter in the book. And I feel like it’s one of the most important, and I agree. I, and that’s why it’s the sixth. I think it is the hardest in our culture. We seem to admire big celebrities and heroes from afar, but we seem hard pressed to admire the person we work with to see them differently for the leaders to see the employees differently and admire their grit and their, you know, their character, but right. It is admiration is a surprising love for someone else’s excellence and character or craft. And so again, that this is that practice of really actively practicing, seeing the other person differently. This is a big game changer in culture, but also even for the small business owner who gets irritated with their customers. So I’ve worked with small businesses before and I’ve listened to how they described their customers. And I’m like, okay, we need to do just a little subtle admiration work.

John Jantsch (20:07): You’ve been working on this idea tracking, wonder for quite some time, you know, obviously you’ve, you’ve brought it together through, you’ve referred to it as body of work, your body of work of research and experience in doing this work. So if, and this answer, I assume, will change in a year from now, but right now, right, this is a book is coming out. What’s the impact that you want to have on, on the, on the reader or the people that, that take even a, just a kernel of this.

Jeffrey Davis (20:35): Yeah, thanks for that question. I really want this book to be the antidote to quitting. And we’re in this season of quitting nationally in the United States, but I also mean quitting the antidote to quitting on our dreams and the antidote to quitting on our ideals. We have some big challenges ahead individually and collectively, and I really want this book to serve, to catalyze us, to keep reaching for possibilities.

John Jantsch (21:01): Yeah. I th I feel like there’s a, you know, we went through a 10, I want to rehash the pandemic on every show, but I seem to get, get there one way or another. We, uh, went through the spirit where everybody was like, I almost felt like there was an energy around, how do we have to change? How do we have to shift? How do we have to help each other? And now we’re 18 months in and the slog has just kind of become, you know, something nobody’s talking about anymore, but we’re all still experiencing that, that, you know, that is, you know, you talk about this great resignation, you know, that people talk about. I think that, I think that’s why we’re coming to a head in that

Jeffrey Davis (21:34): I do too. I appreciate your saying that too. I remember that that spring of 2020 and my girls were home and I was actually quite ecstatic that they were, we were camping in the backyard and, you know, I don’t want to make light of the situation because there was real suffering on our part and on so many people’s parts, but there was this sort of awakening, so to speak. And that facet of wonder called bewilderment. I think the whole globe was experiencing it, but you’re right. All of a sudden then we have to sustain hope, right? That we are going to continue to learn. What’s been really exposed, right? That’s been broken in so many ways in our institutions and our, our old habits personally, and collectively that I really do want this book and what ripples out of this book to serve for us to really stay open and keep questioning the status quo, whether that’s the status quo in our own lives or the status quo in our workplaces, really questioning our own assumptions.

Jeffrey Davis (22:32): I’ll just say I had, I was talking with a client, who’s a president of a company and he was in bewilderment. Betty said, you know, what is our new metrics for productivity? We never had a good metric. And so how am I going to measure like the 250 employees coming back where I have to, you know, say, give him credit. When the pandemic came blocked down and so forth, he was like, okay, we need to take care of home first for our people. And then we’ll take care of work. But now that people are coming back into the workplace, I just love that question because he’s staying open. John, he’s staying open to the questions as opposed to go into the default answers and, and immediate closure.

John Jantsch (23:19): So Jennifer tell people where they can connect with you and obviously find out more about the book itself and the work that you’re doing around wonder.

Jeffrey Davis (23:26): Yeah. Thanks. This has been a real pleasure. They can go to tracking wonder.com. They can also go to tracking wonder dot.com/podcast bonus. And we’ll let, we’ll have a wonder at work assessment they can take and maybe a couple of other bonuses for your listeners.

John Jantsch (23:40): Awesome. Well, I appreciate it is obviously a great having to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we can run into each other one of these days soon out there on the road. I hope so too. John take care.

John Jantsch (23:52): All right. That wraps up another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. I want to thank you so much for tuning in, feel free to share this show. Feel free to give us reviews. You know, we love those things. Also, did you know that we had created training, marketing training for your team? If you’ve got employees, if you’ve got a staff member that wants to learn a marketing system, how to install that marketing system in your business, check it out. It’s called the certified marketing manager program from duct tape marketing. You can find it at duct tape, marketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that tab that says training for your team.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network and Sendinblue.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.

 

 

 

 

sendinblueSendinblue, an all-in-one digital marketing platform empowering small businesses to build stronger customer relationships through end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships

Sendinblue allows you to create captivating and personalized email campaigns, custom landing pages, signup forms, automated workflows, transactional messaging, CRM, and more. Duct Tape Marketing fans can click here to learn more about Sendinblue and sign up for a free trial!  You can also use this promo code to get 50% off your first three months on either our lite or premium account!

Making Your Business Sellable

Making Your Business Sellable written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About the episode:

In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara interviews Alison Hulsof. Alison founded Obok Consulting in 2020 after two years in private equity where she was responsible for getting businesses ready for purchasing and helping them through the acquisition process. Prior to her PE experience she founded and grew Behavior Care Specialists (BCS) in 2006. After growing BCS from a single client to 14 locations and over 100 employees, she successfully exited that business in 2018 with a 8 figure sale. In 2016 she was awarded the South Dakota Woman Owned Business of the Year. She has been featured at the Autism Investors Summit as well as the CASP Conference.

Questions Sara asks Alison Hulsof:

  • Tell me a little about your background and story?
  • What should one consider when first establishing a new business if the ultimate goal is to sell the business?
  • Should you use your name in your business name?
  • What are some processes or systems business owners should put in place in order to take a step back from their business and not need to be involved in the day-to-day?
  • What advice do you have for business owners looking to delegate and outsource more of their role?
  • How do you help people determine if their business is sellable?
  • What are some examples of core systems that every business owner should have documented?
  • What insights do you have when trying to determine the value of your business?
  • Where can people access some of your trainings?

Show notes:

 

Like this show? Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts here!

 

This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Termageddon, a Privacy Policy Generator. Any website collecting as little as an email address on a contact form should not only have a Privacy Policy but also have a strategy to keep it up to date when the laws change. Click here to learn more about how Termageddon can help protect your business and get 30% off your first year payment by using code DUCTTAPE at checkout.

Weekend Favs November 6

Weekend Favs November 6 written by Karen Cutler read more at Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.

  • Engage Bay –  a single solution tool for all of your customer relationship management activities
  • Creator Scout – the best way to discover people to follow on Twitter
  • Jetoctopus – a tool to make technical SEO simple, visualized and doable

These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape

7 Approaches To Help You Generate More Referrals

7 Approaches To Help You Generate More Referrals written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with John Jantsch

john-jantschIn this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I’m doing part one of a solo show series on where I’m going to be covering one of my favorite topics: referrals.

Key Takeaway:

In a recent Texas Tech Survey, out of 2000 consumers, 89% of them claimed they had a business that they loved enough that they would gladly recommend — only 29% of them actually did it. Why is there such a gap? One of the main reasons is that they just aren’t being asked to.

In this series, I’m presenting what I’m calling the seven grades of referral fuel. I’m unpacking the first of seven specific tactics or approaches that are sure to help you generate more referrals for your business.

Topics I cover:

  • [1:22] The seven grades of referral fuel
  • [3:59] Why people don’t refer businesses they love
  • [5:23] Referrals remove decision-making risk
  • [6:54] How getting referrals affects the lifetime value of that newly acquired customer
  • [8:53] Introduce the idea of referrals in the sales process
  • [9:58] Figuring out your customer success quotient
  • [12:42] Focusing on every customer interaction

Resources I mention:

More About The Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network:

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Hey, I want to give a shout out to another member of the HubSpot network, the success story podcast, hosted by Scott de Clair. It’s one of the most useful podcasts in the world. Success story features Q and a sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, conversations on sales marketing. Hey, and if you’re a freelancer, his episode on how to make seven figures freelancing on Fiverr is a must listen to the success story podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

John Jantsch (00:45): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. I’m doing a solo show. It’s been a while. I’m going to talk about one of my favorite subjects referrals. And in fact, I’m going to do a three or four part series on this. So this is part one to tune in to we’ll have them all hooked together in the show notes, but tune into the rest ones, rest of the episodes coming up. So let’s, uh, let’s dive into this topic of referrals. I’m actually in this series going to present what I’m calling the seven grades of referral fuel. So I’m going to unpack seven specific tactics or approaches to generating more referrals. I’m going to start with talking about kind of offers for all of your clients. You should just have a standard kind of anybody who’s a client of yours should get a referral offer three, four times a year or an invitation, I should say three or four times a year to make referrals.

John Jantsch (01:50): But then there’s those folks that are already making referrals. They’re what I call your referral champions. And you need to treat them, uh, even differently. Then I want to talk about something that is a fairly new concept. Uh, actually you can read more about it in my book, the ultimate marketing engine, but it’s something I call it ecosystem balancing. And the idea behind that is to take your existing client and think about everybody else who serves them and find ways to actually create relationships with those folks in an effort to kind of add even more value to your client. That’ll make more sense when I get into it, let’s face it internal referrals, not enough businesses take advantage of the fact that their employees could be generating referrals for customers. And today increasingly for new hires, uh, some of your best new hires will come from referrals from your existing employees.

John Jantsch (02:47): I talk a lot about strategic partnership networks. And so in that tactic, I’m really going to unpack kind of a very formal way to do it. And then the last two are something I call an expert club, uh, networking, we all know is a great way to generate referrals. So why not own your own networking club? Why not create your own approach to, uh, to bringing folks together. And then finally, I think most businesses, particularly in the B2B world, uh, can and should create what I call a referral mastermind. And this is Ruth. Essentially, you bringing your clients together, teaching them how to generate referrals and, and creating that get together. And that teaching, regardless of your industry, you don’t have to be in marketing to do that. I think the financial planner who teaches his B2B clients, how to generate a business is going to actually be the recipient of a ton of referrals.

John Jantsch (03:44): All right. So before we get into today’s first one now offer for all clients. I want to set the table kind of the framework for referrals. And I’m going to start by citing a, a recent Texas tech survey of 2000 consumers. 89% of them claimed that they had a business that they loved enough, that they would, that they would gladly refer gladly recommend and only 29% of them actually did it. And so that gap to me suggests that there are many, many businesses out there who have raving fans who have like satisfied, happy customers who are not necessarily telling their friends, neighbors, and colleagues. And I think mostly because they’re just not being asked to do so. I think there are some things that, that business owners who are reluctant to ask need to understand, I think at its most basic level, we need to refer in order to survive.

John Jantsch (04:47): You think about, uh, about, uh, as crazy as this might sound, uh, back to caveman times, you know, if we, if we didn’t, weren’t able to, uh, help each other out, we’re unable to tell people where water was, where the saber tooth tiger was hiding out. Um, it was certain depth. And so, uh, there, there is a sense of, of really, you know, I’m going to need some help at some point. So I’m going to, you know, I’m going to make sure that I’m helpful. I think some level we crave kind of the social currency of, oh, so-and-so, you know, always has good answers. You know, let’s go find out who they would recommend or what they would do. And I think that’s a level of social currency that, uh, at least some of us really enjoy. And then of course, we want to receive referrals as well as give referrals because our referrals remove risk.

John Jantsch (05:37): If I’m trying to make a decision about hiring a company and all I’m doing is looking at their brochure or talking to a salesperson or looking at their website, I might be able to make an assessment. But if a friend of mine says, oh no, they do exactly what they said. It’s amazing. You’ll enjoy the experience. I mean, that removes a lot of the decision-making risk from a business standpoint. I think Riverdale’s matter so much because it actually makes it easy for you to attract ideal customers. Your ideal customers will probably refer somebody who is more likely at least to be in an ideal customer as well. And certainly shortens the sales cycle. I mean, regardless of what you’re selling, if somebody can, somebody can go to somebody to say, oh yeah, no, they do this, they do this, they do this. You can trust them.

John Jantsch (06:26): I mean that in many cases allows somebody to say, I’m going to do it. I’m all in. I think when somebody refers a quite often, not only does price go down the list, I think in some ways, some cases they expect to pay a premium or at least at the very least, they’re less likely to handle their friends. Sent me. My friend sent me, you know, to you, you’ve got a great result for them. You know, the last, at least the first thing I’m not going to ask for is, is a cheaper deal or a better deal. So it really pays a impact on pricing. And then, you know, the concept of lifetime value is something I don’t think gets talked about enough, but if you have a customer and you acquire that customer and you’re able to retain that customer for years, I mean, that means that the lifetime value of acquiring that customer is 10 times maybe what that first sale would be.

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John Jantsch (08:31): So I think that that, that kind of math is something that, you know, hopefully will give you the, the, you know, the real, um, posture, uh, to, uh, necessarily go out there and say, yeah, I, I, I should be talking about referrals. And if you are having a challenge with that, here’s a couple of things I suggest first off, just start expecting referrals, start about it in the sales process. So there’s not this awkward conversation, somewhere down the road where you come to them and say, Hey, I want to know if you know anybody who needs what we do. I mean, just start talking about it in the very beginning, we know you’re going to be so thrilled. That was what we agreed to today, that in 90 days, we’re going to come back and I’m going to make sure you’re thrilled. And then I’m going to invite you to, uh, to tell me about a couple other people that you know, who need to get this result as well.

John Jantsch (09:24): It just makes the whole conversation so much easier. So talk about it, put it in your newsletter, you know, talk about the people that refer that did send you referrals. Thank them publicly. I mean, that’s, that’s how you, you kind of just started to get this posture. And really, if you, if you know what you do gets people amazing results. I think you almost owe it to the world to, to help, you know, people, you know, find you. Um, so one of the things that, that exercises that I have a lot of people go through is, is something that I call your customer success quotient, figuring out your customer success quotient. It’s not really a hard math problem. Don’t worry about it. Those of you that remember basic, basic math, you know, quotion is essentially the, you know, something divided by something. So if you think about the average results, and I know this is harder, if you sell a, a static product and you know, you’re not really plugged into like, did somebody get a result, but certainly if you get testimonials, if you get reviews of your products, I mean that in some ways gives an implication of somebody getting the result or getting, you know, being satisfied with what they got, but certainly in service businesses, I mean, I, I sell marketing consulting.

John Jantsch (10:38): I help people grow their businesses. I can very tangibly point to the exact results, uh, uh, you know, over time in terms of growth or, or customer acquisition that they are receiving. And I know what I charge for that. So if you think about my average results divided, by my average fee, I can come up with a number 10 to one, five to one. Um, and when you start doing that, you start realizing, Hey, for every $5,000 you give me, you know, that is going to be worth, you know, some significantly larger amount than I think it makes it much easier for you to say, Hey, here’s, here’s my feet. You know, here’s what I need to charge. One of the things that I th any even casual listener, uh, the show will realize is that I talk about this idea of the marketing hourglass all the time, the customer journey, having some, you know, seven stages, no, like trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer, notice that last stage refer.

John Jantsch (11:44): So the idea behind that is that that’s really the ultimate goal of any customer journey is that we are getting people to the stage where, you know, every single one to one of them, you know, once to refer us. So I think that’s a point of view that if you work backwards and think, okay, what would it take, uh, for every single one of our customers to want to refer us? The reason I bring this up is because, you know, a lot of times people, when they talk about referrals, they talk about some hack or some tactic. Um, and ultimately when I unpack all of the, in, in subsequent shows, when I unpack all of the approaches to generating referrals, they almost all, no. In fact, they all assume that you are referrable, that you have created an experience that people want to talk about that people want to refer.

John Jantsch (12:43): So if you think about that, hourglass know, like trust, try, buy, repeat, and refer, and you turn that around and say, okay, let’s start with referral. What would it take? So that every single person who comes to know about our business, or certainly who becomes a customer of our business would want to talk about us, would want to refer us, because what it would do is not only have you focus on the referral tactics themselves, but what about the experience that somebody has when they first buy? What about their orientation, their onboarding, the communication. What about, uh, the going back in and actually measuring and communicating the results that they get so that they stay a customer so that they buy again and again and again, um, having those processes built are really what leads to your referrability. It doesn’t matter how many times you ask somebody, if they know anybody who needs, what you do, if in fact, um, your customers, aren’t really getting a result, and it’s not just they’re getting what they paid for, you’re exceeding their expectations.

John Jantsch (13:52): You’re surprising them. So that has to be part of any conversation about referral generation than it is simply part of the customer journey. All right, I’m going to be back, um, in subsequent episodes and I’m going to unpack all seven of these, what I call grades of referral fuels. So make sure that you, uh, if you’re listening to this, uh, after the fact, uh, after all the shows will be recorded, you can come to the page, uh, the show notes page at duct tape, marketing.com and find links to the other shows. Otherwise, just make sure that you are queuing them up in your podcast, listening device. All right. Take care out there. Love your feedback. Send me email at John at duct tape, marketing.com. Let me know what you’re thinking of this series.

John Jantsch (14:46): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning in and, you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients, and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at duct tape, marketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your clients tab.

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

4 Key Client Management Lessons I Learned The Hard Way

4 Key Client Management Lessons I Learned The Hard Way written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing

The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode is designed to spark ideas you can put into practice for your agency today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here!

About the episode:

In this first solo episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks on her background and 4 key client management lessons learned over the past couple years. Sara Nay is the COO at Duct Tape Marketing and founder of Spark Lab Consulting with over 12 years of experience in the small business space. She oversees the day-to-day operations to support the growth of both businesses with a focus on strategic planning, consultant network coaching, and client success.

Core ideas:

  • Clearly define your ideal client.
  • Create your core packages.
  • Find your people to help support you.
  • Nail your tool stack and stick to it.

Show notes:

 

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This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Monday.com, a powerful project management platform. Monday.com helps teams easily build, run, and scale their dream workflows on one platform.  I personally am a user and big fan of Monday.com – I start my workday pulling up the platform and spend my day working within it for everything from task management to running client engagements. Learn more about Monday.com at ducttape.me/monday