Jonny Adams
Appearances
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Mike, what you shared there is something that we could all resonate with. And we all have the ability to, I can see the pictures being formed as you're describing them. So thank you for doing that. And as we spoke about earlier, the importance of that. And Matt, I really enjoyed your question there. I was doing a lot of nodding and smiling because it's just so, so relatable.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
I guess the question for me is just going a bit back towards what you said about NPS versus, you know, employee satisfaction as well. If you're looking at a business and you're leading a team, what are some of the three things that you could deploy that would drive employee satisfaction up?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Knowing that you're probably measured off MPS, but actually you know the input is good employee satisfaction. So what are three things that you know of that could work? Again, in the service industry, it's not a problem because they could be transferable to other industries, but any off the top of your head that you could deploy as a manager? Will Barron
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Yeah, yeah. I think this is so helpful just to try and get some of these amazing tips out. And I can hear already a few that I'm thinking of is when you structure a business, you need to think about what type of person you're going to be recruiting, you know, task oriented versus relationship oriented.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
I'm thinking actually to your point, you know, what do you wrap around that to keep people and retain people, you know, that relationship opportunity to create space for people to build relationships. Is there anything else that you would say for when, well, not managers, but when anyone is building relationships from the tier to a tier, is there anything that they should be doing?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Any ideas, you know, meetings, how they should structure meetings one-to-one, how they should structure that? Anything like that, Mike, would be helpful.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Or they don't know it. The leaders don't know it themselves. And they're just running around doing things without any vision, purpose, mission together that's tying them all into one direction. I think we were listening to someone else, Matt, recently. It's like, why do armies march? That's a great question. And even someone who was in the army didn't know the answer.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
But it shows conformity, right? It shows that you're all in one direction, that you're all marching in that direction in unity.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
I feel that it's actually going to possibly align to what Mike knows loads about and is clearly an expert. So I was in Porto in Portugal for a few days recently. It was an amazing trip. If you've ever been, great. If not, then as long as you can drink wine, then you're completely qualified to go. We stayed at a five-star hotel and it was pretty special. We overlooked Porto City.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
I'm reflecting on what Mike said, something that struck me. We all said, would you pay for this hotel if you knew it was the star rating it was? Because the point being is actually the quality of service wasn't up to the level. It was actually below par. And I said to my wife, I perceive this as a four star hotel.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
And in fact, you know, limited urgency and really different types of services that we were getting provided during breakfast time. Just simple stuff like how attentive a staff member should be, possibly a five star hotel when you kind of get it, a four star hotel or a three star hotel. But this was a five star hotel. So I think it looked like the hotel was living off the back of the view.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Over Porto versus actually training and supporting their people. And the sad thing is that when we were checking out that this other couple were pretty much berating and challenging the staff member at the reception because the quality of service wasn't up to standard. And my colleague also who traveled with us said, I'm very keen to write a review. So it was just two people independently.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
So there was something going wrong there, Mike, that I'm looking forward to unpacking. Because if they got it right, I actually think the experience would have gone up by a huge amount. And we would have left with us feeling like, wow. So I don't know. I just thought I'd throw that out there. That's what I've been up to.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
And I think the question was, we all said, you know, how much would you pay for this? We wouldn't have paid as much as when we went on to Booking.com and looked at the cost and all of us went... was that really the cost of the... Like, wow. So yeah, it wasn't aligned. The value was not aligned to the investment. Matt, what's been going up in your world?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Hey, guys. Lovely to see you. Thanks so much, Matt.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
But what's the answer then, Mike? I know we're sort of moving on, but that's an interesting perspective. So is there something that we can do about the language that we use? Or is there something that we can do from a corporate perspective? Have you got an idea?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Oh, my gosh. I love that. I love this point because in our world, business development and when you're, as you alluded to earlier, you took a call because you're a good guy and you wanted to basically let that person down gently and professionally. But in fact, actually, you supported them. So a bit of business development there. We typically see a boom and bust or a feast and famine approach.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
And what we see is, you know, lots of work. loads of work, loads of activity. And then all of a sudden, you know, this rollercoaster motion where, oh no, and then you hit the bottom trough and you go, ah, I need to do it. That's fine. But what about, I recall episodes in my own life over the last 10 years where I haven't been able to see what's going to approach.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
And I think about a bit about mental health. And I think about the polarities between leisure and work and when I've worked too much and I haven't done enough I actually got to a point of being so compressed that I wasn't feeling great, but I couldn't see it coming.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
So to your point, I love the idea around writing something down or observing, but sometimes you're so in it and being driven so hard by management that you just get to a point and it all breaks apart. I don't know. Any thoughts on that there, Mike, at all?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
I resonate you know and you had your own episodes and you know I had to turn around to my dad and say is this what it's like and you know I just want to clarify like where I'm at and I remember laying on the sofa not being able to move which felt like for three weeks because I couldn't cook I didn't know how to do that anymore and But now the ownership actually comes back to me and my friends.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 7 - Connections Before Content: Mike Hohnen’s Leadership Advice for Managing Managers
Like Matt, you're a massive friend in this circumstances and support my family. But knowing those signs now is really vital. And Matt, I know we've sort of deviated away from topic.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
First of all, do you have data? Do you have quantitative data that can give you some insight? And we live in the world of overindulgence in information. That information needs to be valid. So let's check the validity of that. That is just one story. That's the important part of what we're saying here is people versus metrics.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Once you look at the metrics, then what you want to be able to do is overlay the people, the quantitative stuff that you can see, right?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
What operational rigor means to me, quite simple, is about discipline. You've got to be aware if you're a middle manager or a leader that some of the work that we do is monotonous. So be conscious around how you deal with monotony because every day, every week, every month, it's the same thing. Check the stats, check your people, check your process.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
If your operational rigor is successful, your employee net promoter score should be fantastic. Your attrition in terms of the people being regrettable should reduce and ultimately productivity, i.e. revenue, should improve.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
What we're talking about here is how do we align all key functions together? And the quote that you talked about there is actually one of my favorite books. And if you've never read it or ever been on a training course, it's from Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry in any market against any competition at any time.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
I see this coaching culture principle as, again, a universal principle, but it wraps around the other four principles we've spoken about today. If that is a really great culture within your organization, that not only is the sales coaching the sales, but marketing is coaching sales, sales is coaching marketing. Marketing is coaching finance. Now we're starting to align the commercial piece.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Operational rigor. Again, a half a culture talks about it. It's living and breathing. It's in your ecosystem. Therefore, operationally, it will be living and breathing in the processes that you do. I would say that's the piece there, Matt.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 Review - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Really like this first principle. When we're thinking about leadership, who are you recruiting into that role? And do they have the capacity and the capability to be successful? Also thinking about that ability to role model. So that is leadership is everything is principle one.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Yeah. Yeah. And not just to stop there, but HR and finance, right? If finance don't buy into the compliance, if HR don't buy into the competency frameworks, my gosh, what do we get? Is, oh, just a tick box exercise or no, why are we paying sales that much?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Funnily enough, if we pay them in the right behaviors, then ultimately we might get towards that 10% growth that we were speaking about on operational rigor. Commercial alignment, it's a great topic at the moment. It is a hard Bit of graft. And also it's going to require a whole bunch of things.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
But that alignment, I do truly feel can make that marginal gain improvement to enable you to reach your goals. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
A direct report to some of the leaders that I've had or been fortunate or unfortunate enough to work with. And also from our position of seeing it, what happens with our clients. The point being here is I see this coaching culture principle as, again, a universal principle, but it wraps around the other four principles we've spoken about today.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
When I talk about wraparound is that we're really focusing on if that is a really great culture within your organization, that not only is the sales coaching the sales, but marketing is coaching sales, sales is coaching marketing, marketing is coaching finance. Now we're starting to align the commercial piece. Operational rigor, again, a half a culture talks about it's living and breathing.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
It's in your ecosystem. Therefore, operationally, it will be living and breathing in the processes that you do. The important part is that when we're thinking about coaching culture, there's lots of data to suggest that you need to coach people between three to five hours per person per month. Yeah, that's optimum.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
But for every single business, you might need to just do one hour, really quality hour, or maybe it's eight hours. It really does depend on the business. And what are the lag indicators suggesting? Because all of that input is going to drive the output. I guess lastly, from a coaching culture is that I talk about the wraparound or the barrier.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
fundamentally, a great culture will make sure that you drive to succeed your strategy. Now, if you have a really stinky culture, then you're less likely to achieve that strategy and the overall outcomes. And that will only be at detriment of your own goals and what you want to achieve as an individual contributor, sales manager, or a professional. So I would say that's the piece there, Matt.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And Matt, just to add on that. And again, when we're talking to leaders, which we do week in, week out, and we deliver the course we do at SBR, I typically ask a question that I don't want a response from people. But just to think about is that as a leader or when you think about your leader, are you looking forward to having that session with them?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And the question I asked there is that they normally go, and what that does is then it asks the question is, are you having a great relationship with the person that's leading you? So you get to think, oh, is that valuable? Equally, most leaders are then looking down and think about their team and go, crikey, these sessions that I'm doing probably aren't adding as much impact.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
I don't set a purpose. So that coaching culture isn't being laid out. It's a tick box exercise for many. And actually many don't even tick the box. They actually delete the one-to-one in the diary because they're They don't feel confident or capable of delivering a great session. I'll get off my soapbox, but I'm hugely passionate about these five principles.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
I think it would add value to both individuals and businesses achieving.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Yeah. And Matt, is it fair to say that these principles are from our understanding over the last sort of 20 years, the thousand clients or so that we've worked with, and there are many principles out there, which is the debate that we're stoking here.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And these are just some of the principles that we've created, the five that we have concluded in most recent times that are valuable for that leadership role. So I think that's really critical that we want people to also critically analyze these principles and think about their own.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Yeah, and great question. Really like this first principle. And these principles are definitely universal, not uniform. So when we have a look at that, I recently delivered a keynote at a global leadership conference to one of our longstanding clients. The client said, is in and around the 100 million EBITDA number, just to give you an idea, around about 75 leaders across the globe.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And this principle is what I shared to them in that 25 minutes. And I aligned a narrative. Now, I know it's contentious talking about politics, so please do forgive me. But the crucial part here is that when we're thinking about leadership, who are you recruiting into that role? And do they have the capacity and the capability to be successful? Also thinking about that ability to role model.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And I made an alignment towards Boris Johnson. Now, if you think about Boris Johnson, 2016, the best sales professional in the whole of the United Kingdom. What did he do? He sold the dream. He took us on a journey, helped us think about Brexit, then continued to become the prime minister. And again, sold the dream about how great of a leader he would be. We all bought into that.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Let's not talk about the pandemic. My point being is that not all great salespeople are great leaders. So the first principle is that leadership is everything, but making sure you've got the right leader in the right position. And recently, as I stated in Toronto, they have, this client have actually gone out and not bought product specialists.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
How are you doing? Very good, thank you, Matt. Lovely to see you again. We've rolled on a bit more time since our last conversation, which is great. Doing very well, thank you. How are you? Good, yeah, very well, thanks. So what's been happening in your week this week? I do like this part of our conversation.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
They've bought leadership specialism in, and that has been a profound change in terms of their performance. So that is leadership is everything is principle one. Great.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And the reason for us together probably selecting this as a principle is that, first of all, do you have data? Do you have quantitative data that can give you some insight? And we live in the world of overindulgence in information. That information needs to be valid. So let's check the validity of that information. And then let's set up appropriate dashboards.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
A colleague of ours this week, we were building out a maturity model which highlighted the right appropriate dashboards at the appropriate level. So within that, what you've got then is the metrics that you're currently tracking, inputs and those outputs. That is just one story. That's the important part of what we're saying here is people versus metrics.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Once you look at the metrics, then what you want to be able to do is overlay the people, the quantitative stuff that you can see, right? And that is where I see time and time again at the moment, Matt, and I'd love to hear your thoughts because I'm super passionate about this, is that people look at a dashboard, they make a judgment, they go and then try and change the course, right?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Okay, so the question is, how often are you spending shadowing, spending time observing, looking at the right behaviors and measuring against the competency framework? Time and time again, at the moment, I'm hearing, oh, I don't have time. I would imagine if you overlaid some of the data metrics that you've got to some of the observations, you'd have a fantastic story.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
It actually gives me a great opportunity to reflect on some of the things that's been going on with our clients just in the world in general as well. I had a fantastic trip to Toronto where we've worked with one of our longstanding clients for many years.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
So that principle is all about balancing the difference between spending time with the people, but also using data that is valid. What's your thoughts on that, Matt? And what's your view on the principle? Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
I think that's fantastic. It's so integral.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Really interesting about sort of leadership, focusing on some key leadership principles and people really recognizing the value of developing others and also developing themselves. So that was a great takeaway. Come back. Over the red-eye flight, landed, bit of jet lag, but now I'm glad that we're coming up towards the weekend. What about you, Matt? Yeah, nice.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
You shouldn't have told me that. That is that sticking. That is that's going to go across our global consultancy team. Very quickly. Great thing about Teams is you can just pump it in there. News to all. Awesome, Matt. Thank you for raising this point. And working with you, you have a fantastic approach towards the operational side of the job that you do.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
But not only that, you support clients with the account management and the customer success process. So I can see that within you as a consultant. What operational rigor means to me, quite simple, is about discipline. And you've got to be aware if you're a middle manager or a leader that some of the work that we do is monotonous.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
So be conscious around how you deal with monotony because every day, every week, every month, it's the same thing. Check the stats, check your people, check your process. use your tools and technology to help you. And every single week, what we want to be able to see is that you're doing your one-to-ones, you're doing your activities, and it should be all about inputs drive the outputs.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And importantly, if your operational rigor is successful, your employee net promoter score should be fantastic. Your attrition in terms of the people being regrettable should reduce and ultimately productivity, i.e. revenue should improve. Those three clear metrics should be the basis of all of that great operational rigor and discipline. What about you, Matt? best efficiency?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And Matt, just conscious around it, because you're absolutely right. And thank you for keeping me in check because obviously I've got to be in my bonnet about that. And I've used maybe some of those particular words. We work in, we live in the world of growth. Okay. So you're thinking about,
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
If targets are being set for businesses for 2024 at the moment, they're likely to be an elevation of growth. Targets increase, but we know that comes with that is some of the key principles like operational rigor. If the target's going to increase in a business by 10% each year, why is operational rigor so important for you to continue to hit those 10% growth goals each year?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I think the white paper you're talking about is the Roots and Shoots paper, if I'm not mistaken. Something actually that we work with a great marketing partner. And funnily enough, when we're talking about the alignment between sales and marketing, the first instance, they're hugely passionate about that is that everyone owns the number.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
So how do you drive the awareness of marketing producing the number as well as sales rather than this sort of finger pointing motion approach? I think for the last 10 years, that's been thought of, but businesses have tried to deal with that with the evolution of CROs. But I guess what we're talking about here is commercial alignment. How do we align all key functions together?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
And the quote that you talked about there is actually from one of my favorite books. And if you've never read it or ever been on a training course, it's from Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And this was also shared in the keynote as I was talking about before. So I shared to the audience, if you could get
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 9 - The 5 Principles of Successful Leadership
All the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry in any market against any competition at any time. As I said, that was by Patrick Lencion. That's a pretty profound, pretty punchy statement. What's your thoughts on that, Matt?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
And I'd say that I've been quite fortunate because every business I've worked with has has had some relationship to SBR and the DNA that we work with. So I've been fortunate on that aspect. And at SBR, we constantly think about buying atmosphere and having conversations around integrity. So For me, that's a really strong word that she shared with us.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
It gave me an opportunity to reflect back on my own experience in sales to go, do I sell with integrity? I really do think I do, but I must carry on doing that because that's key to customer centricity. So that's my key, key takeaway, Matt. I only had one thanks to that, but what's your one takeaway? Okay.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Well, it's so tough. One takeaway. That's all I'm allowed, Matt. I'm afraid so. Oh, come on. Well, let me just prefix it with the fact that I came off that conversation with Leslie. She's a person that just gives you so much energy. She's someone that...
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
I think if I was 10 years younger and she was leading the workforce and there was an opportunity to work at one of the institutes that she worked at, I'd snap it up. I think there's two things for that. One, she's just tireless in her motivation, her energy. I don't think you get away with just chilling on a day.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Secondly, clearly with her expertise and knowledge of sales, it comes across differently. And one of the things that she said, and my key takeaway is the word that she said many time over. I wonder how many times she said Gong would probably be able to pick it up, is integrity. And I go back to my career and think about the sales roles I've had. And I think there's a bad name about selling.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 6 Review - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
And the bad name comes from where people have been missold. Or when they've been sold or purchased, the actual benefit has not been seen and the value outweighs that. So, you know, there's been a cost issue. And I think the word integrity is really important because that makes it much more value based as that has given me the insight of going, well, 10 years ago, did I sell with integrity?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
You know, one of the things is the trust equation and you talk about trust there. And when we think about the trust equation, we've got trustworthiness equals credibility plus reliability plus intimacy divided by self-orientation. And I wonder when we're thinking about trust there, which will drive referrals. So I agree with you.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
You need to have a trusted relationship for someone to feel like one, they can refer you to others and two, you're comfortable to refer them. What area of that trust equation do you two think is important to really index on when using referrals? Because we're talking about trust.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
That's important to reference. If we're looking at trust, the reason why I anchor back towards the trust equation, just to talk about that, is that I had a really good conversation with a founder this week, and we're a partner of theirs, they're a partner of ours, and we're looking to win a collective trust. deal together.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
There needs to be trust there, but there needs to be trust to refer one another to each business. And I wonder if we look at the top three areas, credibility, reliability, and intimacy, I think everyone that's being referred or you're willing to refer someone else, there must be some element of credibility in that relationship.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
You must have some type of possible brand equity, or there must be some type of
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
proven experience in the past that you could demonstrate possible outcome or at the simplest form if you meet them at a networking event as long as you're showing credibility around what you deliver i think the other thing is reliability having that consistency to always be on time be punctual and be consistent in the relationship you've got with that person And the final one is intimacy.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
I don't know about you guys, but building and forming that relationship that goes a little bit deeper than just surface level questions and thinking about those questions. So I think to answer one of the questions that we've sort of alluded to, which is why do people not do referrals, which is what we're getting to.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
I wonder if the trust equation is something that we could as professionals anchor against in those three areas that might be valuable.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
I'm in that networking event now. You've just put, you've teleported me in there and I can feel myself in there. What I hear is ask for referral. I don't feel comfortable when saying, you know, I'm talking about other people here. I still don't feel comfortable in going. So, Can I have a referral? Is there a technique that you recommend that you could use to soften that? Can I have a referral?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Is there any sort of advice, Thomas, you've got in that environment of a networking event? Because I think most people would go to a networking event rather than possibly being on stage. So maybe that's the environment that we could tackle.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
And just to continue, we have worked with a number of behavioral scientists. And I'm a firm believer that to manage my own mindset, I use science, you know, material information that's proven by research to put myself in the right mindset. And one thing I do know is that when we ask for advice, not help, of human beings, people are more willing to provide advice than not.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
We are inherently there to help as human beings, which I found really interesting. And equally, when we ask for advice, the person who is asking for the advice to the individual feels like we're actually taking something away from them. So that's why we don't ask for referrals a lot of time, because we think that there's an economic disadvantage.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
reduction in that other individual but actually in fact the person who's receiving the request for advice or a referral actually sees that there is a social obligation to respond which is again really interesting so what's some of those other tips that you could share with the listeners that would sort of make people sort of stand up and go right i'm gonna ask for some advice or some referrals
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
I think that's awesome. You know, even having this conversation with two wonderful consultants like yourself, business winners, you know, business owners and people have done so well in your own careers. It's really sort of prompted that point of bringing it to the surface again. I might just have to get a tattoo to make sure that I see it every day. But this has been really helpful.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Thank you, Thomas.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Fantastic. Just being married for one year, Thomas, I'm taking notes. So thank you very much for that.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Yeah, no, I just think it's fascinating hearing those statistics. And how did you stumble across that statistic, Thomas? Was there some sort of a trigger that made you look for that piece of information to sort of maybe prove a business case or a proof point?
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
And when you said passion to me, I was listening intently thinking, how does passion fit within that? And I understood sometimes we hear the word curiosity as well. You're curious about this topic. It creates interest for you as an individual. And you've probably seen some benefit as well.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Yeah, that's a really interesting last point that you mentioned about culture. I wonder if by the end of the conversation we could probably dig a little bit deeper on that. I was with a client on Tuesday this week and we had a very eclectic mix of individuals across geography and we debated a lot about cultural alignment whether it works in different cultures and how that works.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
And we had behavioral scientists in the room that were helping shape the thought process, how humans work. So interesting how that cultural piece can affect referrals as well. Sorry, back to you, Matt.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
It is interesting you referenced that point and just on the reference of culture. I think the important part that you referenced there is that you're signaling your intent and you're signaling your direction and therefore that is globally known.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
The other thing that is interesting and we learned this week from the behavioral scientists was around if you split the world into sort of three core areas, you know, you can look at it as sort of an Asia area, a North America area and a European area. There is a distinct difference around how people work together in business across Asia and America.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
The fact that friendships, liking of your friends is seen as a much stronger driver towards business in Asia versus actually America. You first of all see people as professionals and then friends. So I wonder how...
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
referrals play into that whether people are sharing referrals amongst the friendship group first and foremost in asia and then probably in the professional group in north america i just think it's an interesting approach well i'll respond to that by saying firstly that i don't actually see any difference in the results you get across cultures and therefore i guess i'm saying don't worry about it
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
And that's exactly what we should be tackling today, is that question that you ask, which is the why. And there's so many obstacles that people face, which I know we're going to have to tackle today in this conversation to get your advice and expertise, Thomas. I think it's important that we... talk a little bit more about going into a little bit more about these referrals and some examples.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
And then let's tackle that topic of, I think we're all building a business case here, which is great that they work. And I'm sure we could pull in loads of examples. It's just why do people not do it, which I'm really interested, intrigued about tackling throughout today's conversation.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
There is a prime example of success that we've found and where through driving, using intimacy with another organization that we've worked with for seven years, the story behind it, to your point there, Thomas, is this individual that we'd built a strong relationship with. He actually never procured from SBR, so never actually bought our services, but we built and formed a strong relationship.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
So they saw us as a trusted advisor. Another client that we've recently won, a net new logo, a large global program that's going to go across three core regions, 150 sales professionals to revolutionize the way that they deliver consultative selling. And that came from an individual messaging out to her peers saying, do you know any business that's interested in sales transformation?
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Interestingly, nine months before, I'd asked that individual that shared to her SBR, Have you got anyone in your network that might be valuable for us to talk to asking specifically for referrals? So to your point, that individual never went on the internet to look. They actually had asked their network, who would you recommend?
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
Oh, Matt, you've set the standards high there. So a personal sort of achievement, I achieved the management consultancy chartered status, which puts me in the top 1,000.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
So that element of asking for referrals and then being that business at the front of the queue, I'm sure, was something that you're alluding to there.
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Episode 5 - How To Ask For Referrals with Thomas Coles: Your Network Is Your Net Worth
management consultants in the uk it effectively means that as a business and as an individual running programs with our clients i uphold certain standards and ethics when delivering transformation projects so that was a really sort of personal achievement over to you matt what's going on your world brilliant i think in my week this week has been a chance i came off the back of a really um
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
I'm going to challenge, you know, the notion businesses use different platforms and they may or may not be aware of Planhat. They may or may not be aware of it.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
platforms that they could use i'm trying to understand the value if i'm sitting in my business now and i'm running at 10 million arr or i want to grow to 100 million do i need a certain model that would then constitute to look at the customer first do i need to be a certain growth level to look at the you know the starting point because when we talk and advise our clients now there's a lot of noise in the market at the moment of rip out salesforce implement hubspot
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
And I'm like, well, why? Well, it's Vogue. So I'm just curious, because if I'm a user of another platform, how do I know when the flip happens? How do I know where I'm going to get the value as someone that might use that moving forward?
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
And I really like that explanation. Inevitably, you know, there's a lower cost of retaining customers. There's a greater return of growing customers as well, right? And, you know, we work so hard to acquire. Well, what platforms are we really prioritizing to enable customers I'm a user of one of those platforms as referenced from pre-sale. And I agree, the functionality is dreadful.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
And I think sometimes my cynical self goes, hmm, do they just not develop that just to really infuriate me and keep me sort of level locked in their platform? Because I always want more. Like, it's just, I don't know, maybe that's just my crazy mind thinking there. But it's great to hear about how PlanHack can help with one of the most important aspects and being client centric.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
I completely agree with you. Coming from a pre-sales, sales era and sales directorship, customer service was the term that was heard. Then I came into this world of customer success. But in professional services, it's called client partners. And what I'm curious about, Chris, is partnerships is a mutually beneficial end goal, right? It has to be a win-win. We talk about that in a lot of worlds.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
It's not about win-lose or lose-win. So if you had a choice, you've referenced CS, customer success, probably not being, or come from a certain origin, but what would you call it if you had a choice, if you don't want me to ask you?
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
So the solution to that challenge then from your expertise, what is the answer to that? And so there's a lot of work that goes on for this use case. So not only is a platform required to help with that transition of decline to growth, but there's also a people and cultural shift that's required. There's also a capability and skills element. There's a hiring FTE future plan.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
And this is where it gets super complex, but plan hack can inform an organization of the metrics, right? Yeah.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
I mean, I love that. Golden nuggets coming out of that. And one of the things that when Matt and I were planning this session, we thought would be valuable is if you could touch upon that sort of customer centricity and how to build that strategy into your business. And I feel that you've touched upon a real sort of important factor that I wanted to amplify for the listeners. It was around...
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
connecting aggression. I thought it was an interesting word you chose, by the way, because that could be seen in a certain way. But as you then went on to describe it, it was really interesting about connecting the dots of the customer objectives, which I think is lost in so many businesses.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
You might think about what you do, what we do as a professional service firm is that I think it comes to the mindset shift of thinking about outcomes first, and then coming towards understanding how you can support that client And specifically, whether you're working at Planout or SBR, you do a similar thing, right? But understanding objectives and outcomes are really crucial.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
We need to understand those of our client base and then work towards those. If you're thinking about building a customer-centric strategy within an organization, one of those things would be understanding your customers' objectives. What would be some of the other facets that make up a really strong customer-centric strategy?
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
Chris, it's lovely to have you on. And even hearing the story there is fantastic. What was fascinating about your story there was around the journey that you've been on, you know, without putting you on the spot too much. What's the one standout thing that's enabled you to continue to grow, you know, from lessons learned?
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
If you think back to that time where you started, you know, what's that one thing that's really helped you to continue to grow? It's a hard one.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
so much passion it's fantastic wonderful johnny what about you can you live up to that high standard no um i can't because um it does draw me back to um the 2012 olympics in london i have to say when i was fortunate enough to go and i think one of the things that spun out for me is i i was fascinated by the weird and the wonderful events that went on in the olympics at that time um so yeah brilliant for you talking about that chris and thanks for sharing your story for me
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
You know, it's been a bit of a realization. We're about to have our first baby, slightly nervous, panicking. What we're trying to do is we're trying to train our one year old spaniel and he's a working carcass spaniel. So they have high levels of energy. And what I'm coming to realize after the third training session with this trainer is that it's not the dog that's being trained.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
It's definitely me. And then you can see the improvement from session one, session two, or the lack of improvement. And I feel that from the outcome of that, I'm about to go on a journey that's going to change my whole world from being a parent. I'm a dog parent at the moment. I'm going to be a human parent soon.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
And I've really got to recognize that a lot of this is going to be driven from good parental leadership, good awareness, good understanding. And I'm dreadful with the dogs, so I bet. pick up my quality with my new child that will be arriving. But I can't wait to be a dad.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
That's a great set of statements that have lots of value in them themselves. And I can make some assumptions on one of the points you made earlier around complexities from onboarding onwards. Just for the listeners, could you just describe a couple of examples of the complexities?
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
Thank you for that explanation. It resonates. You look at the buyer complexity, so the pre-sale piece and how... Those squiggly lines can sometimes not make that linear approach as well.
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Episode 8 - Client-Centric SaaS – How to Scale, with Chris Regester
But what you've just described there feels like if you were to draw that image out, as you described, it would be a really complex set of processes and lines all converging and moving away from each other at points. So that was really, really helpful.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
It's all about balancing life and work at the moment here at SBR as we're looking to grow and scale into one of the biggest and best sales consultancies in the world. I think there's those sort of things that you need to do. But equally, I managed to have some fantastic time over in Spain, ate loads, drank every single day, which was a bit unfortunate because my wife obviously couldn't drink much.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
But we had a wonderful time whilst balancing work and a lovely break together. So yeah, that's what's been going on in my life.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
What do you mean by that in your context, Lesley? Thanks for the congratulations.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Wow, that is just brilliant. The thing I love about that is you mentioned about drinking your own champagne and feeling drunk. I am absolutely legless at the moment because you clearly are drinking a bunch of your own champagne and you are role modeling some fantastic behavior as a VP and creating that from a bow tie to a diamond effect. You're creating those levels really nicely set.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
I absolutely love that, Leslie, how you're going out there. And it's a bit like the other types of tech stack out there at the moment. What are those use cases? And nothing stronger than with you demonstrating and walking the walk in front of your team to be customer centric. I love it.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
So interesting. Someone was bleating on LinkedIn, no offence to those that do that, but they were talking about a four-day week and how powerful it is. And my point was, well, you can do a four- or five-day week, but actually it's the flexy part. I think what you call harmony, I absolutely advocate that work-life harmony piece.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
I don't want to be too controversial, but I love this chat because it's raising the light of customer centricity. I advocate customer centricity. I think back to my careers and stuff, I really have literally waking up talking to customers is the thing that I've done in previous jobs and love it today. The people that I work with.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
and projects that we get at SBR where it's like, oh my God, I love working with that client. I flew over to Boston recently. I didn't want to leave, even to the point that I managed to get into check-in at the airport one hour before my international flight because I was having beers in Boston with the team. I just couldn't leave, right? And I was even debating staying.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
The other side of customer centricity is, look, we're customer centric because we have to, but are you really? And I think there's the sense of a really strong sales team
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
that's customer centric doesn't always provide the product that they have they don't push the product completely they might offer you know it's not us but actually you need to go and speak to this organization because you would achieve your goals with using this piece of technology or actually you don't even need technology why don't you go and talk to barry who can give you some insights
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
My interpretation of the aggressive SaaS industries is growth at all costs, in my opinion. Again, you can say no, Johnny. And that customer centricity gets challenged because the way we produce SDRs and AEs is quite rightly, this is your job role. We're going to let you do your job role and we're going to empower you to do it. But you're not going to do other job roles.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
You're just going to do this very SDR-based, AE-based job role, which actually sometimes suppresses their ability to be strategic sellers, which is Don't take this, actually do that. My challenge in SaaS is I think that we don't do a good job for the SDRs and AEs because we don't enable them to be strategic sellers.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
And actually that stops them being more customer centric because they will deliver or try and push their product to all costs. That's my opinion.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
My wife's Irish, as you know, Matt, and Leslie, you'd probably know this being Irish. Her point is, if I can't do it, then at least one of us has to do it. So she's all for me drinking beers.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
The first part of your answer is exactly what I've been trying to kick around in my head recently. And I also think the churn rate would be a great lag indicator, right, of this is that if Johnny has a high churn, then there's clearly going to be something that's going on.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Notwithstanding, I still think that there is this strategic element where in SaaS, a strategic account holder, what we see a lot in consultancy is that they sit on this pivot with the C-suite and they're just helping them achieve their 600 million revenue goal or their 5 billion revenue goal, whatever that may be.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
And they're able to position and move them around to different types of services and products. Do you think there's a role within a senior AE in SaaS for that at all? Yeah.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
I go back to saying thank yous. I know those points have helped me personally. I really appreciate it.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
So my perception is my reality through past experiences, not due to conditioning, I've experienced SaaS as a quite aggressive environment. And when working with products, because that's what we do as a job, I've seen this win at all costs, boxed up, just going crazy.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
head on, I'm going to win this deal and not having the ability to step back strategically and think, okay, let's think about the customer. And this comes back to customer centricity and why I challenged it is to go at this moment in time, they're looking to move this direction as a business. Gong should be coming in six months later. What they actually need is HubSpot.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
It reminds me of when I lied when I was, you know, back in the day and you lied to someone and you think it's always going to catch up, you know, down the line to tell the truth.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Oh, brilliant. I completely advocate the trust piece as the key pillar. It's a bit like Maslow's hierarchy. You need to support the bottom foundation before you can go to the next stage. But the way you've talked about that, how your CRO put you into a position to produce the trust, then the productive conflict, I think that's something that's missing.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
So thank you for sharing that you need a sort of environment to test case it. And how long was it in the States? How long were you together?
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
And this is why we love speaking to people like yourself and yourself, Leslie, because I think, you know, what are we? Do you mean it's into the conversation? You just dropped multiple golden nuggets for people to listen to. Even for me, I am taking that idea and we're going to have a go at that.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Reminds me of the, again, I'm being really unfair here, but you know, chap in IT turns up to the Christmas party, has a couple of drinks. My God, what are they doing on the dance floor? Shirt off, tie around the head. Crazy. Get back to work, sitting behind the desk. But no.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
Matt, lovely to see you. Leslie, it's fantastic to have you on today. Thank you so much for joining us. What's been going on? Two things. I've been on a nice vacation holiday over a number of days, which has been fantastic. I went away with my wife. It was our last trip before having a baby. So it was sort of one of those where we were really sort of planning the most important things of our life.
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Episode 6 - Centricity in SaaS: Lesley Ronaldson Keeps the Customer First
But I still managed, Matt, and you're going to roll your eyes and Leslie, sure, you might do too. But I still managed to actually come back for a day of work during that trip. And I think that sort of puts things into perspective that