Charlotte Smith
Appearances
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
It doesn't connect even right back before that. If I said to half of the leadership teams within the square mile of bank where my trilogy offices are based, have you and your sales leader sat down and mapped the target profile of the person that you want to hire into your team formally again?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
minimal to none right so that's an easy thing that you could apply to your leadership team to go okay we know what we want to do we know phase one of how we want to achieve that okay how and who are we going to hire to deliver that and what are our non-negotiables around that because again within any sales professional there is high turnover right yeah
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Is that the fault of the person that got offered the job or is that the fault of the business that didn't take the time to ensure that they were hiring the right people for the job?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Yeah, so I really encourage a lot of involvement at all client touch stages. So to ensure that the next generation of biller leader that's coming through the ranks actually is really owning that and going through that process with the leadership team. I also think...
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
The key component there is you're giving the leader, the said leader, the opportunity to see where their current consultant is from a skills perspective to ensure that they're delivering the right type of communication, a value proposition and question deck and coming away with the right outcomes from those meetings.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
I know that sounds very, very simple, but that is customer centric because we're just ensuring that every time we touch a customer, we're doing it to the best of our ability. But the reason why I put a people spin on that is we're ensuring that we're showing and we're leading rather than telling. So I think that's really, really key.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
That's a very simple thing is just always be there for those touch points. No matter how small, there is something that you can pick out on that. And I'm really blessed with a fantastic team at Trilogy. They're so hands on with their customers. So they're very involved and as a result are able to scale customers on a global setting, win whole programs of work, etc.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
I think in the recruitment sector, that's been another really fantastic change of mindset. which I've learned by being part of the leadership team at Trilogy, which is we really adopt our statement of work models. And the reason that has that kind of leader customer-centric approach is because we're not just going in and saying, can we help you with a couple of program managers? We're going...
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Let's own it together. Let's deliver this whole program together and actually really go on that journey. We'll take some of the reporting away for you. So we've actually made the decision to hire some PMOs into our business whose skill set is completely aligned to that. And that is an exact example of being customer centric in our approach. There is something to gain from both parties, of course.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
But if you're dealing with the typical CTO, or if you're dealing with the typical director of change or digital transformation director, do they want to deal with multiple contingent agents? Or do they want to actually invest in a midway? So we're not a consultancy. We're not going to win your £30 million projects because, quite frankly, you don't have them either.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
You just want to deliver a couple of key things. We can partner on that. There'll be more touch. There'll be more respect and responsibility in mutual spades. And as such, we win as a business and we drive those numbers up by winning the whole project and the customers much happier as a result of it.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Well, firstly, it hasn't worked because the leadership have driven a quick result rather than a meaningful long-term result. So they've pushed a number, they've pushed a meeting, they've pushed a deal, they've pushed the rates up too much in the deal and they haven't thought about the long-term client relationship that they can have by that.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
So that haste, that speed, that impatience and therefore naivety has lost customers and results. That then creates that blame culture.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
It's like that Spider-Man meme that you see where they're all pointing and blaming each other. And then what happens is leadership panic. Then what happens is they start looking at KPIs. Then what happens is they start looking at working from home versus coming into the office, blaming the hiring. Blaming the people person because I train them.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
So if they're not all A grade consultants... It's Charlotte's fault. It's absolutely always my fault. It's the same at home. So the reality is it creates... I think that the biggest thing that I can see is where people then try and island off their own strategies. So I remember the biggest red flags that I've had with, you know, just interviewing other businesses is we do it our way.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
We don't do it the same as them. Or it's different for us. Come on now. You know, you're not driving each other forward. And then that actually doesn't mean if you're protecting what you perceive to be the right way over another team in your business, you're not a succinct business. And I very much doubt you have a customer-centric leadership team as a result of that.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Yeah, 100%. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that it's an easy journey. And so if I think back over the last 12 months, because I've only been part of the leadership team with Trilogy for 12 months, and it's been fantastic. And this business is absolutely home for me. The stage one is because you are talking data, people just get triggered. Data means KPIs. KPIs means KPI management. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
go, God, this bloody bird has joined our business and she's making us look at all these data points. We're losing what we were. We weren't this data-driven 100%.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
I know, right? We're not that business. We're not that business. So I spoke about the hearts and minds. It does take a minute. And these are the most open-minded professionals I've worked with in a long time, right? They're really open to it. They really wanted it. But then when you ask somebody to change, they're like, oh, no, that's not for us. It did take a minute.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
So you do have to start in the trenches a little bit, but you have to really commit and own it. With any change methodology, right, you've kind of got those combative months where it's like, can't see it, can't see it, can't see it. What we really work together with is a leadership team, though. And we're a smaller business, right? So it is a bit easier for us to do.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
We're sort of between 60, 70 heads based across kind of three different locations.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
we're european we're uk we're us so they're the kind of cultural aspects with that to deal with as well but we really really shouted about the small stuff because we we've got some people in our business that achieve incredible stuff like i've never worked with a business that's got so many million pound dollar euro a year bill is right and i think that's testament to the method
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
So when I dissected what was the trilogy way, it was customer centric. It was we work incredibly hard. We don't treat people as a client and we don't treat people as a candidate. We work incredibly hard to network with key figureheads in our market. So we stay in our lane. We're contract recruiters. the exception of the US, right? We're contract recruiters. We don't touch perm.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
So we have boundaries and we won't go out of that. You know, we have customers that we work with that spend millions of pounds a year in perm hiring. It could be so easy to go, we'll do that. No, we are the contract recruiters. That's what people come to us for. And as a result, we deliver what we say we can deliver.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
And I think if you're sat here as a leader putting together your strategy and you think diversifying your offering with your current leadership team, because of course you can hire in a great person that can help you branch off. But if you're trying to diversify your offering and your value to your customers and you have no weight behind that, That's a not customer centric decision.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Well, the how piece, again, if we talk about scaling something back, right? So what you just discussed is, you know, all businesses pain points. We want to go from A to B and move ourselves forward. How, which we've touched on some of the methods and the data-driven behaviors and ensuring that the training is really strong behind that. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
That's greedy. You will fail. Your customers won't enjoy that. And you'll lose what you were good at in the first place. Right. So I've really enjoyed that. But I've had to demonstrate that. So, yes, all of these incredible people that have been here since you were running it out of a shoebox.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
And I fully appreciate we now have a CRM and I'm showing you data and dashboards and I'm sending around league charts and you hate it. But now we're at a point where we're like, well, we've built the base level funnel. We've got everybody really aligned to their markets. We've worked on the basics and we've really pushed that.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
And I used key people in our business to help me support those messages. I found my business champions to help me with that. I took extra time to dissect the rationale, the reasoning and the why so they knew where I was coming from.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
I then got them to do a bit of training with me to add weight so I wasn't just this person that joined the business and they were like, who's this dizzy bird with the red lip telling us to do more calls because it's going to achieve this. And then now we're at the end of funnel stuff.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
You know, we're really driving at the moment, you know, how many people we're meeting, how many times it takes for you to meet somebody for you to then gain business, and then how we can work on ensuring that the level of business that we're bringing in is accurate to our wheelhouse and do our talent pools match that so we can deliver that with great speed to hire. Mic drop.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
No worries. Thank you very much for having me.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Cut.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 12, Part 2 - Driving Business Growth Through Customer-Centric Leadership, with Charlotte Smith
Even one step before that with your how is, well, what's the profile of the person that we need to hire to ensure that we can actually deliver that? No one does that. No one sits there and blueprints that this is, okay, this is the type of experience, competence. and key traits that we are therefore going to interview to ensure that we can deliver this strategy.