Ep 40: Your conversion funnel is getting in your customer's way

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So many B2B companies say they want to be customer-centric, but struggle to do that.
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They end up copying competitors, focusing on their own internal goals versus their customers, and really making it about themselves.
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In this episode, I am joined by Ashwin Balakrishnan to talk about customer centricity.
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We dive into what's not working for most B2B brands, why copywriting is the secret weapon to actually differentiating yourself and outperforming the entire market.
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Let's get into it.
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Hi Ashwin, thank you so much for joining me on this show.
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I am super excited to have you here today.
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Thanks, Sally.
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I'm just really happy we were able to make this work.
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Yeah, me too.
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Um to get started, why don't you tell everyone who's listening who you are, what you do?
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Um, yeah, let's get to know each other.
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Thanks.
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So I I run a solo consulting business called the Copy Trail.
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Uh I what I essentially do is help B2B companies, particularly SaaS companies, improve their conversion rates, uh, grow lead volume, anything that involves people going from one stage of awareness to the next stage, like going through the funnel.
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Um so conversion marketing is what I call it.
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Copywriting, messaging, positioning, uh conversion rate optimization, anything that helps them get more value from the budget they're already spending.
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I love that.
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Um I honestly think that copywriting, conversion copywriting, is the secret to growth and scale for every company.
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It is the secret source, and without it, you can throw anything at a website, but it's not going to convert.
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So um, my friend Joanna Weeb once says that you should treat your copywriter um as your salesperson.
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And I absolutely agree that your copywriter is your website's salesperson.
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So super cool.
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Um, but that's your focus.
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By the way, how did you get into that?
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Like, how did you get into conversion copywriting?
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I I mean, I've been a copywriter since 2011, like from my first job.
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So I started in uh publishing, uh, was a long-form copywriter.
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So a mix of feature stories, advertorials, so half copywriter, half journalist, and then I joined an agency um that worked on everything from mainline campaigns, so TBC, outdoor, all the way to digital.
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Um, I still I still remember the ascent of digital marketing, where suddenly you could see how many ads, how many clicks an ad got, how many people signed up from a particular ad, how many people bought from a particular ad.
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And that completely changed the way that I looked at marketing.
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But I think, as with everything, it's it's all a cycle.
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And I think we're now coming back to the creative angle, the the insight, and that's starting to lead a lot more customer research is becoming big again.
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So I've I've been through it all.
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And every time I have led a marketing team in-house or I've held an in-house role, my focus was always instead of like doubling our volume, tripling our volume, could we do something that converts what we have already?
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Like there's already a pipeline in progress.
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Is there something we could do to make that more efficient, to make more of that convert?
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Or at the very least, could we learn something?
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Like maybe we're bringing the wrong type of leads in.
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And so we don't spend on that quality of lead anymore.
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But that's always been where I've focused.
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So when I went out on my own last year, that just felt like the natural place to start.
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That and I'm extremely happy to hear what you're saying about research.
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So re obviously what we deal with at GetUplift is conversion optimization with a very big lens and focus on emotion, psychology, messaging, copywriting, and most importantly, research.
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And I was on a panel yesterday, um, and we were talking about the fact that we're all speeding towards just out, just putting output there, right?
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Because it feels like you're doing stuff, especially with AI now, you can essentially create a landing page in five minutes.
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You can ship five landing pages a day, you can do whatever you want.
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So we're still judging, unfortunately, um, results by output and not value.
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And research is the is so important.
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And if you build the foundation of your marketing on good research, that's where you can scale, that's where you can use AI to fast track stuff.
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But most companies are kind of staggering behind there.
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And I guess this leans this leads me to my first question for you, which is we work with a ton of B2B companies, uh, loads of SaaS, and almost every company says it wants to be customer-centric.
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So what's stopping them?
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Because they're not, right?
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Like let's let's say clearly they're not customer-centric.
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What's stopping them?
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Yeah.
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I think really it comes down to a couple of things.
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So the biggest, and and this is coming from the last couple of months, I've spoken to quite a few founders, marketing leaders, uh, like general marketing leaders, but also leaders in individual disciplines like product marketing, brand marketing.
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The big thing that it really comes back to is leadership teams are scared of taking a position that excludes one or more other segments of the market.
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But I think if you look at if you look at every company that's that's made it big, they all correlate with taking a position in the market.
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Um, just saying that we're a CRM or we're the cheapest CRM, like those are not defensible positions.
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But if you say that, hey, we're the CRM for people who just want to have a nice lifestyle business, who aren't looking for rapid growth and we make things super comfortable and we're going to build our product in a way that matches your specific priorities, then you can capture a large part of that segment, especially if there are no other competitors in that particular niche.
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And I think that that fear of saying that we are for this group of people and therefore implying that we're not for everybody else.
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I think there's a strong amount of fear there.
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The way I've seen it play out is when you take a position, you're saying, okay, if we get an opportunity to close a deal that fits the description of this ideal customer profile, we should be closing this eight, nine times out of ten.
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And anybody else who sees themselves in what we say, who identifies with our messaging, is more than welcome to join.
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We're not going to say no, but we aren't going to optimize, or we aren't going to build everything that we build with those people in mind.
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We're going to build it with this other profile in mind.
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And so I think that the exclusionary nature of this decision, I think, is a little manufactured.
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At the same time, with the way the market is, I understand why people hesitate.
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You know, it I totally agree.
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And I think I I understand why people hesitate because it's scary, right?
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It's scary to say this is who we're speaking to and no one else.
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Like that is a big thing.
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When we're when we're working with companies, it's always, as you were saying, like the number one platform for blah, blah, blah, we're powered by AI.
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We're kind of more generic because you don't want to miss out on people.
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So I understand that, but I actually don't really understand it.
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Because when you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one, right?
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And it's it's a scary, it's a risk.
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But when you actually, and I'm sure you've seen this in your results with your clients, when you actually go all in on one ICP and say, This is who I serve, and you make everything about them, you call out their specific pains and their challenges, and you talk about what they've specifically tried.
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That's where real growth comes from, right?
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Yeah.
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And I I don't want to call this a playbook or a strategy.
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It's not universally applicable, but the guiding framework that seems to be winning in today's market is you choose one particular segment of your market and you say, okay, I'm going to focus on that.
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And then you build uh what Brandon Hufford calls content IP, which is essentially naming the problem that they have.
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And then the the part I layer on top of his content IP is naming the solution as well.
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Right.
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So if you're naming the problem, and uh I put a post about this, put a post out about this the other day.
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Uh, when you name the problem and you talk about the problem, it becomes very visceral.
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And it's almost like pressing on their wound, but just lightly enough to remind them that they have this problem.
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Because yeah, you got 50 other priorities.
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It's easy to forget about this if it's not one of those super urgent things.
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But when you talk about the problem, people are like, oh yeah, that is a thing.
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And you say it over and over and it starts to embed and permeate the market.
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And now when people start using that phrase, talking about this concept, it it leads back to you.
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Like it's it's a trail of breadcrumbs and it comes back to you.
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Um, when I was the head of marketing at Optimizer, we took the CEO, Fred Valleys, we took his um concept of how paid marketing agencies should work, what roles they should fulfill, and we packaged it up into a content IP and we called it PPC insurance.
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And more than telling people that you've got to learn how to use AI because Google Ads is introducing a ton of AI and machine learning, talking about this idea of having insurance for your PPC accounts is really what captured the market and made people say, Oh, let's let's see what this is about.
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And it doesn't happen in like a week or a month.
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You're talking about a time frame of six months, 12 months plus, in order for this to seed in the market, capture people's imaginations, for them to engage with it, for you to refine it, and then actually like do those bigger, bigger pieces that bring things together, like what Ramp does with their recent ads with Tony Hawk.
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When you get to that level, then it starts becoming a conversation piece and it kind of transcends the funnel.
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Yeah.
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I guess what's hard is that as marketers, we're kind of conditioned to optimize for what's measurable.
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So, but we're not necessarily measuring what matters and we're tracking the stuff that really doesn't always matter.
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So it's kind of hard, right?
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Like, how do you know if you're making this mistake, if you're not actually making it about the customer, if you're not really optimized to be customer-centric, are there any kind of tells where you can like clearly see?
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I have been optimizing our funnel for what's what can be measured for what our internal team believes versus what you know your who your customer is.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, there's a few things.
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And what I typically point to is the the biggest one, I think, is uh when you make people go down a linear path, or when you expect them to go through certain points of friction so that your dashboard can look better.
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Usually what I like to ask myself is okay, is this part of the funnel necessary?
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If I'm the buyer, do I see this as something that is an obstacle, an obstruction rather than, you know, going through the actual process of evaluating a product?
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I think some friction is good.
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You want to use friction to disqualify people that you don't want to do business with.
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It could be somebody who might not have the budget to work with you.
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It might be too big of a company because you're not ready to service that kind of demand.
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Uh, if you, you know, you're just getting finding your feet, you may not want to take on enterprise accounts because they require a completely different approach.
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There's a number of different reasons you want to disqualify certain people.
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And I think friction should aim to disqualify people.
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But when you say things like, you, if you want to understand what our pricing structure is, you have to go through a discovery call.
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You have to go through a demo.
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I understand, okay, there's different go-to-market models, but in today's market, the way people are buying, I think you're artificially limiting yourself.
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And if that's an act of choice, if you're going to say we only want the really big companies that have the budget to go through this process and the people to go through this process, that's fine.
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But if you really want fast growth and you say, Oh, we're not going to show our pricing publicly, I understand your pricing might be complex, convoluted, whatever it is.
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If you're not going to at least say it starts from X amount or, you know, these are our different tiers, whatever it is, a lot of people just won't consider you.
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So when I look at something, particularly a point of friction in the funnel, the first thing I ask myself is, is this actual like healthy friction or is this obstructive friction?
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Is this something where that ideal segment that we're hanging our hat on, is this something that that group would say, oh yeah, it's okay.
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This is this is something I have to do, but because I understand this product understands me and I have to go see what it's about.
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Or is it something that they're going to say, I can find somebody who does the same thing?
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And it comes back to what you said, right?
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If you don't choose that one segment, if you don't speak in a way that that makes them feel understood, and if you try to be everything to everybody, uh, you'll never get to the point where you can reliably put healthy friction in front of people and have them self-disqualify unless they belong to this one one segment.
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So it's kind of it it one feeds the other.
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Where if you don't do this, it's very difficult to figure out if your funnel is optimized for yourself or for the buyer.
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Um once you say, okay, this is who we're for, then then that becomes your measuring point.
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Um and everything that you do can come back to.
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Is this right for them or is it right for us?
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You know, on the pricing, uh we used to work with a really great client uh in the data security, so in the in kind of data security, and we were working on optimizing their pricing page and they didn't want to show their pricing because no one else, no one else in their industry was showing pricing.
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So when you looked at the competitors, it was all like, you know, contact us or book a demo.
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But um, my colleague Claire from my team, she shared her screen and she said, Let me show you what happens when your prospect goes into ChatGPT or Claude and writes, what's the pricing for this brand?
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And it comes up with an actual list of the pricing of everyone, our client, all the competitors.
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And she said to them, is this pricing correct?
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And they were like, Well, no, actually, it isn't.
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And I loved that moment because it was in this moment that you can understand that with AI, you cannot just hide anymore behind stuff.
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And if you want, yes, I mean, pricing can be complicated, very complicated, but either you tell that story and explain the complexity, or someone else tells it for you and you don't own that conversation.
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And it's the same with everything, not just pricing, like when you look at websites, they're so carefully polished, the number one software for project management or accounting or whatever.
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And then you go on Reddit and it's all like so expensive, it's terrible.
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They don't give in, you know, they don't help you on time.
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I had this problem, no one ever answered me.
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There's a huge emotional gap between what we're kind of our carefully polished website and what everyone else on the internet is saying.
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And AI is not just looking at your website, it's looking at everything.
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And it's gonna tell your customer, you know, your prospect if they should buy from you or not.
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So I just think it's one of the the few positive things that I do like about AI is that as a marketer and as a brand, you do have to now take that into consideration.
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And you can't just say, well, we're not doing that, or just, you know, say whatever you want on the website and completely ignore the entire conversation that's happening right now about you in in a YouTube comment section on some video or Discord or Facebook groups?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, no, it's absolutely right.
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So one other thing that I'll say on the back of what you brought up is a really good way to tell if you're optimized more internally than for the buyer is do your revenue teams are they all working toward the same thing?
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Do they have the same priorities?
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Or is sales optimizing for one thing versus marketing optimizing for something else?
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Because, you know, let's go back to the example of pricing.
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If marketing wants to show pricing, but sales doesn't want to show pricing, then there's conflict internally.
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And now you're starting to say, okay, can we can we set this up in a way that sales and marketing won't argue anymore?
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But if you're if you're optimizing for that instead of is this going to make the buyer's experience better, then you're you're headed in the wrong direction.
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But I'll also say counterpoint to my my own argument is sometimes even an incremental change or increase in being helpful to your buyer, especially compared to the rest of your category, can be very outsized.
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I worked with a uh a product in the HR tech space uh recently, and they they serve a regional market outside of your major North America, Europe hubs.
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Nobody in their category in that region was forget pricing.
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Nobody puts pricing out in public.
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Nobody was even explaining what the different tiers of subscription or the plans were.
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And so all we did was add plans page.
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And instead of book demo and get a get a quote, both of which were gated behind the sales team.
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Uh, this would let you see, okay, these are the different tiers, and this is what you get in each tier, and here's what the enterprise plan includes.
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And I mean, it was like maybe three, four, five weeks tops for us to see that the percentage of demos proceeding to sales qualified stage went up by about an absolute value of 3% or 4%.
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And it was it was noticeable.
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It was the only thing that we changed, and it had such a noticeable impact on people showing up who were ready to buy, actively in market, and a good fit for the product.
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Yeah.
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So just being more helpful, you don't have to be, you don't have to like throw yourselves at the uh the customer's feet, but just being more helpful than the the average of the market can have such a good impact.
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I guess I find it quite sad that marketing advice is be helpful.
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Like that where you you get on a podcast, and these are my conversations all the time.
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Like trust matters.
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Trust I say trust is the new conversion rate, but we actually have to actively tell companies to be helpful.
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Um, we were showing um one of our clients last week we did a a a workshop for them uh in the office.
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It was so fun.
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Uh, and when I and I was showing them that when a prospect was searching for does this company do X, AI basically spat out very kind of technical, it does do this, but it doesn't have these features and it does this and it doesn't do that.
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But actually, what the customer was actually asking is something very different.
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They were asking about does it do this?
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But the real question was, this is something really painful for me and I need someone to take over.
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And I want to know how hard it's gonna be to actually train this or do this or get this outcome.
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But because our websites are so focused on talking about features and pricing and technology, we're not actually answering questions.
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We're not being helpful to our customers.
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So then the output when it's just pulling from your own website is so clinical and not helpful.
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And I find it kind of, I don't know, uh, just a little funny that at the end, like being helpful is what it's in what's increasing conversions.
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And unfortunately, this is the drive that companies need in order to help customers.
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You increase conversions.
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Don't do it, you know, just to help your customers.
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Do it because you may actually get results.
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:19.119
So I'm I'm gonna say something that'll potentially get me in trouble with prospects a little bit down the line, but I think B2B and B2B tech in particular, uh, it approaches nearly everything.
00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:22.799
And I'm speaking from like a business operations and leadership perspective.
00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:29.680
The industry approaches almost everything from an engineering perspective, an analytical perspective, a logical perspective.
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:31.440
And people don't buy on logic.
00:20:31.519 --> 00:20:32.799
People buy on emotions.
00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:48.799
People buy because, you know, your creative said something that, you know, they it it triggered a memory from their childhood, or it made them feel better about themselves, or it validated what they're going through and the way they're doing stuff while still giving them advice.
00:20:49.440 --> 00:21:04.400
And there's a correlation between teams that run marketing very methodically and analytically and logically, with teams that have a disproportionate focus on the product rather than the customer and what they're going through.
00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:11.599
And I think product marketing has, for better or worse, become kind of like the focal point of B2B marketing.
00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:12.000
Yeah.
00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:15.599
But there's so much that people go through beforehand.
00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:26.880
The way I like to think about marketing's job, be it in tech, B2B, e-commerce, whatever it is, you are the concierge and your job is to help this person make the right decision for them.
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:40.400
Because if you make the right, if they you help them make the right decision in favor of your business and they're happy with the product and they love the packaging and it works the way you said it would, and it does the things that you promised it would do, it's not gonna be difficult to retain them.
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:40.799
Right.
00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:43.200
And if it's a product based thing, they're gonna buy from you again.
00:21:43.279 --> 00:21:48.319
If it's a subscription thing, they're gonna give you more money for a longer period of time.
00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:53.359
But if you make promises that you can't keep, people are gonna find out and then people are gonna talk.
00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:59.759
And then that is going to not only cost you churn, but it's also gonna make it more difficult for you to acquire customers in the future.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.880
Exactly like you pointed out because it's a perpetuating cycle.
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:03.359
Yeah.
00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:17.279
I mean, if you look at if you look at a lot of opinion or editorial content or thought leadership content from let's rewind to even eight or nine years ago, like everybody was writing the same what is product marketing blog and saying the same stuff.
00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:26.480
Nobody had any perspective, nobody had any actual input beyond the same rehashed definitions and the same rehashed concepts.
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:30.880
Like, why would I trust you to help me through this decision?
00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:40.240
Like you're just, you're just it's it's like putting a proposal in front of a prospect, like an 80-page proposal, and just letting them do whatever they want with it.
00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:49.920
Like if you go, if you go buy an expensive product like a car or a house, your realtor, your car salesman is going to be with you every step of the journey.
00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:55.920
And I mean, okay, let's let's pretend it's an ideal world and help you make the right choice.
00:22:56.079 --> 00:22:57.279
Uh yeah.
00:22:57.599 --> 00:22:59.039
But we don't do that, do we?
00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.839
Like, we just like pick us and pick us now.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:03.440
And you give them no incentive.
00:23:03.599 --> 00:23:05.839
Don't add any layer of urgency to your messaging.
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:07.839
There's no incentive for them to do it today.
00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:09.920
So, like, oh yeah, okay, it's nice to have.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:11.440
Maybe we'll look at it next quarter.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:14.400
And then next quarter rolls around and the budget goes to something else.
00:23:14.559 --> 00:23:17.680
Like, you have to make a case for why it should be you.
00:23:17.839 --> 00:23:22.640
And you also have to make a case for why they might be a good fit for you.
00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:32.000
I will say that my book, Emotional Targeting, is all about the fact that people buy from emotion and there's like an entire framework that you can use.
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:44.880
Now, we when I talk about emotion, everyone's like, of course, if I'm buying a car or a watch, that's emotional, but not if I'm buying HR software, not if I'm buying AI software.
00:23:45.039 --> 00:24:01.279
Um, which is why all the examples in my book are B2B and they're all in like identity orchestration or very kind of the quote unquote, like, you know, the boring stuff because people don't think that those are emotional products.
00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:09.200
But when someone's buying something for themselves or for the significant other, there's not a lot of people you have to work with on the decision.
00:24:09.359 --> 00:24:13.759
When you are buying for a company, you're worried you're going to lose a job.
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:21.920
You are gunning for, you know, that promotion that you've always wanted, or you want to be seen as the go-to person in the office.
00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:30.480
Or something might happen and all of your emails, all your email lists will get deleted in a freak accident, and you're gonna be blamed.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:34.319
And there's so many emotions when you're buying a product for B2B.
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:41.039
And yet, as you said, you go on a website and they're like, here's our features, here's our technology, here's what we do, and that's it.
00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:50.720
And I, you know, you you started this by saying this might be bad for you, saying this, like for your prospects, but I don't agree.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:25:02.559
I mean, everything that we've done has proven time and time again that when you use emotion, when you meet people on the emotional level where they already are, you can quadruple conversions for them.
00:25:02.640 --> 00:25:06.400
And it's because most of the market and your competitors aren't doing this.
00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:15.440
So if you're the first one in your in your industry to literally give a damn about people, you would make more money.
00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:16.480
It's crazy.
00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:27.519
So I'm I'm like, yeah, anyway, I think this kind of leads me to talking maybe a bit about differentiation because I feel like we're kind of we're talking around it, right?
00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:32.799
But everyone knows that you need to be different if you want to stand out in the market.
00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:35.920
But most brands really, really struggle with this.
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.319
Um, what do you think is the challenge?
00:25:38.559 --> 00:25:46.160
Why are they having a hard time actually committing to being different or finding the angle for being different?
00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:51.440
Um, I honestly believe that copywriters are the best at doing this and finding that right thing.
00:25:51.599 --> 00:25:52.880
So, what what do you think?
00:25:53.039 --> 00:26:00.079
I mean, you spent a lot of time kind of talking to founders and marketing leaders about their struggles to differentiate.
00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:02.079
So, what do you think is the biggest problem?
00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:03.279
What why is it so hard?
00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:11.200
One thing I've seen pretty consistently is a lot of founders will start a company to fix a problem that they had personally.
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:22.559
And when you have a problem, particularly a professional problem, there's a good chance if you have that that there are thousands of other people with your job who have that same challenge, that same problem, that same frustration.
00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:31.279
And zero to one million is really just built on that singularity of purpose.
00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:33.440
Like this is a problem that I had.
00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:34.960
I built this to fix it.
00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:39.359
Like you can get to a million ARR just by fixing one thing.
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:40.480
It's not difficult.
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:41.119
Yeah.
00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:46.000
I won't say it's not difficult, but it's not it's not out of reach to achieve that.
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:53.279
When you want to go from one to five, five to ten, ten to fifteen, you have to open up a little bit.
00:26:53.599 --> 00:26:57.440
You have to broaden your messaging, you have to broaden your product capabilities.
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:00.079
And I think two things tend to happen.
00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:16.960
Uh founders see things working for others in the segment that they now enter, or if they're creating their own segment, then they take inspiration from adjacent segments and they kind of want to replicate what's already been done.
00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:22.640
But the reason those big bets worked for those companies is because they were original big bets.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:29.200
And you replicate it, you might get like 30% of their success, 40% of your success of their success if you're lucky.
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:35.279
But if you really want to do something different, you can't lose that thing that brought you from zero to one.
00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:44.559
As you go from one to five, you expand a bit, but you still hold on to that desire to make life better for this particular group of people.
00:27:44.720 --> 00:27:47.200
And I think they they lose sight of the people.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:53.200
They lose sight of how people feel, how people think, and then decisions start to get made internally.
00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:54.799
Assumptions are drawn up.
00:27:54.880 --> 00:28:03.759
And rather than sitting down and talking to their customers about, you know, what was the problem you had when you were just weighing up needing a tool like this?
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:09.680
What was the problem that actually drove you to market and say, okay, we've got to do something about this?
00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:12.319
A lot of times you'll find that the pressure didn't come from them.
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:17.519
Like they don't care if they do this or not, but they've been pressured from the level above to get it done.
00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:24.799
Uh sometimes you'll find that it has nothing to do with the job and it's just optics and we want to look good, and this is going to help us look good.
00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:27.599
People have the most frivolous reasons for buying software.
00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:30.799
Like a CRM is infrastructure level.
00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:35.519
Um, something like data enrichment these days is infrastructure level.
00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:39.599
Uh, productivity, attendance, HR software, that's infrastructure level.
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:48.480
Unless you're your category is operating at that foundational level, like HR and stuff, you are always going to be a nice-to-have.
00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:54.799
But there are plenty of nice-to-have segments that do, you know, seven, eight, nine figures ARR.
00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:58.240
It's not because they have the best SEO.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:00.960
It's not because they have the best site optimization.
00:29:01.039 --> 00:29:03.279
It's because they still focus on people.
00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:08.799
And the reason that you snowball and get bigger is just focusing on the people.
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:16.799
And whenever I've spoken to founders over the last six months, I find that I have to bring the conversation back to okay, but what is it that customers are dealing with?
00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:26.160
And and one big thing that's happening these days is a lot of people don't consider the context of the market has changed where you're not just competing against your competitors in the segment.
00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:29.359
You're competing against AI, against vibe coding.
00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:35.519
Um, frequently, even if if they're not direct competitors, just something like a spreadsheet.
00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:40.400
A spreadsheet, or even people on your team using AI, but everybody's using it differently.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:42.880
So there's no consistency in how it's applied.
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:47.680
So the logic is not consistent, the context isn't consistent, that can be a problem.
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:53.839
And instead of attacking that as an issue or an objection, you're just talking about something that isn't really important to people.
00:29:54.079 --> 00:29:56.720
So, like, yeah, the context of the market changes.
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:00.079
I think people kind of forget that you have to adapt your messaging.
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:04.640
Uh, but the big thing is people come back to why aren't people buying our product?
00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:07.440
rather than what are we missing?
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:09.839
How does our product fit into people's lives today?
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:10.240
Yeah.
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:17.759
Most optimization uh starts with, okay, what metric are we trying to increase?
00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:20.640
What page isn't working for us?
00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:24.319
And then, okay, what are best practices for fixing that page?
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:29.119
When I think about optimization, I think about it a bit differently.
00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:32.000
I'm thinking, okay, yes, we have a metric that we need to optimize.
00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:42.160
Hopefully that is something that that metric or what we're trying to measure is something that we can really understand beyond just like quick acquisition.
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:46.880
But what we want to understand is what's stopping people from converting.
00:30:47.119 --> 00:30:49.279
And it's usually something more strategic.
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:53.200
It's not that your call to action button isn't in the right place.
00:30:53.359 --> 00:31:01.599
And it's not because if you just added Apple Pay, it would be easier, or Gmail login is gonna help you.
00:31:01.839 --> 00:31:04.480
It's usually something more foundational than that.
00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:17.920
And what we like to do is really, once we've done our customer research, is to then put on the customer's lens and then audit the page to ask ourselves, you know, are we actually making it about the customer?
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:21.119
Are we highlighting the pains that they are really feeling?
00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:23.279
Or are we promising things they don't even care about?
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:26.160
Are we using testimonials they don't relate to?
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:35.599
So when working with clients, a lot of the time when they're suggesting tests or anything, the first thing we'll ask them to answer is, what are you trying to solve?
00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:36.960
Not for the company.
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:38.640
What pain are you trying to solve?
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:42.000
So I really love you talking about that.
00:31:42.160 --> 00:31:56.960
Um, this I guess brings me back to copy, because again, like I opened, obviously, I opened this our talk together about the fact that I really am a believer that like copywriting can change everything.
00:31:57.039 --> 00:31:58.880
It's like your secret weapon.
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:04.960
Um and and yes, you can change design and you can make it better.
00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:12.240
Of course, you need a frictionless, as frictionless as possible, uh, UI and UX and colors and visuals.
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:23.839
But I wanted to get your take on copywriting because for a while, for a while, I think it's changing finally, but for a while, a lot of companies thought they could just use AI to write copy.
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:26.720
And they were like, bam, bam, gone copywriters.
00:32:26.799 --> 00:32:27.759
I don't need you guys.
00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:28.880
You're done.
00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:36.240
Um now when we when we get leads, one of the first questions they ask us is, but you don't use AI, right?
00:32:36.319 --> 00:32:38.720
Like we don't want you writing copy with AI.
00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:43.440
Um what what do you think has changed?
00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:50.799
Um and and I guess I'll also add another question is what parts do you think we could outsource to AI?
00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:56.079
Or are you like, are you in the field of like, no, copywriting should always be human?
00:32:56.240 --> 00:32:58.720
Like, what is what is your take on copywriting?
00:32:58.880 --> 00:32:59.680
That's a lot of questions.
00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:01.039
What is your take on copywriting?
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:10.480
Why what do you think is changing right now that people are finally like that it's clicking that like, okay, no, my AI cannot write my copy in?
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:13.920
What would you, if at all, outsource to AI and copywriting?
00:33:14.240 --> 00:33:16.160
I'd probably do like an hour just on this subject.
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:16.720
I know.
00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:19.279
Um I'm like, we've only got 15 minutes.
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:19.920
Shit.
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:20.960
Okay.
00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:28.240
So I do CRO and I do messaging, but like in my heart of hearts, I I think of myself as a copywriter.
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:30.319
And I know it's a bit of a dirty word these days.
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:37.680
Um, a good friend of mine, I won't name him a good friend of mine, um, who's a fairly well-known copywriter in B2B.
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.599
Uh he's actively distanced himself from that label because he's like, I did I don't want to be associated with that anymore.
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:44.960
And I'm like, all right, fair enough.
00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:54.400
But I embrace it because for me, copywriting, yeah, for me, copywriting has always been at the least conversion copywriting.
00:33:54.559 --> 00:33:56.559
I'll leave brand copywriting to decide for now.
00:33:56.720 --> 00:34:03.039
Conversion copy has for me been a very protracted experiment.
00:34:03.839 --> 00:34:08.000
It's it is the wrong way to think about copywriting to say, oh, we've nailed it.
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:08.880
This is perfect.
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:23.920
Everything you do until you actually put that copy on a page and add a website and you distribute it and you get reactions from the market, feedback from the market, engagement from the market, that's all presumptions.
00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:26.480
And I like to build everything on a hypothesis.
00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:35.840
So every test that I run, every uh experiment that I oversee, every change that we make, like you, has to be founded on a hypothesis.
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:37.519
What do we believe is gonna change?
00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:40.400
What do we believe is wrong with the current approach?
00:34:40.559 --> 00:34:42.559
What do we want to adjust it to?
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:45.199
And what do we think it's gonna do for the business?
00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:57.519
And I think the big mistake with copywriting is when you when you give it to AI, it just focuses on this output and it ignores everything that happens before and after that really makes copywriting good.
00:34:57.679 --> 00:35:01.440
Because it doesn't, it doesn't sit down and talk to customers.
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:12.639
I don't know why we decided that we don't need the focus group in B2B, but you know, just sitting down with your customers in a group and figuring out what's wrong, or even one-on-one, putting an ad in front of them.
00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:13.760
How does this make you feel?
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:14.800
How do you react to this?
00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:15.920
What's wrong with this?
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:16.960
Pull this apart.
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:24.880
Just getting that natural feedback from somebody who has a vested interest in what you're selling, I think, is something that AI doesn't do.
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:40.719
And it is also the great copywriting for me has always been taking something that people already know and feel and finding the words to articulate it in a way that makes them think about it a little deeper.
00:35:40.960 --> 00:35:41.360
Right.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:51.840
So if if I have a if I'm a sales rep and I have a problem with uh finding new leads, like if you talk to me about just the fact that I need more leads, like I already know this.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:02.239
But if you then talk to me about how you can help me find more leads and how you can make me better in my job and how I'm gonna be like in the president's club in the next three years, whatever it is, this is very high level.
00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:06.079
Now you're talking to me on an emotional level, but you don't get that from AI.
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:18.079
Like AI can't do that research, AI can't give you the little specific phrases that people have that really make them feel like, okay, if I if I read this in copy, it would make me feel like that brand understands me.
00:36:18.239 --> 00:36:21.840
And so if I had to sum all of this up, there's no nuance.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:24.079
Like AI will produce copy.
00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:28.400
And I think there are some use cases.
00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:33.440
I personally don't use it for for writing, but I can see some use cases.
00:36:33.519 --> 00:36:40.880
Like if you're in a if you're doing text ads, Google text ads for an emergency plumber, you don't have to get super creative.
00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:45.440
Like people have an emergency, they're they're just looking to know that you're available, right?
00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:49.280
So for things like that, okay, I I understand the application of AI.
00:36:49.440 --> 00:37:01.679
But when you're asking people to buy something big ticket, when you're asking people to buy something that gets bought in a committee where they have to put their reputation on the line to recommend something or stand by something, the stakes are higher.
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:09.519
And you've got to show up with something much better than number one CRM for businesses making 4.2 million a year.
00:37:09.679 --> 00:37:11.920
It has to be far more specific than that.
00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:22.559
I'm personally not a fan of the school of thought that basically says your H1 should just be what your category is and state what the product does.
00:37:22.800 --> 00:37:26.880
I I don't agree with it and I don't do that for my clients.
00:37:27.119 --> 00:37:34.000
Um, what I like to do is think of it as the middle part of a bigger funnel, right?
00:37:34.159 --> 00:37:39.039
So if it's a landing page and I'm writing the headline, I have to understand that somebody clicked on an ad.
00:37:39.199 --> 00:37:40.400
Okay, what did the ad say?
00:37:40.559 --> 00:37:44.400
Now that what I said in the ad has to transition into what's on the page.
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:46.719
What do I want people to do after they're on this page?
00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:48.400
Do I want them to then go to another page?
00:37:48.480 --> 00:37:50.480
Do I want them to take an action from this page?
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:50.960
Okay.
00:37:51.519 --> 00:37:54.880
What I want them to do has to flow from what I write on this page.
00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:57.440
So it's not, it's not something you're creating in isolation.
00:37:57.519 --> 00:37:59.679
You're creating it as part of a bigger experience.
00:37:59.840 --> 00:38:01.599
And AI doesn't account for that.
00:38:01.840 --> 00:38:07.679
What I do outsource AI is all the tedium and admin that I've I've always hated with copywriting.
00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:16.719
So like um, I I frequently take notes by hand when I'm interviewing people or if I'm doing like drafts or whatever, I'll do headlines by hand.
00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:19.280
I don't have to transcribe everything manually.
00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:21.920
I can take a photo, give it to AI, and have AI transcribe it.
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:24.400
Those kinds of things I I outsource it.
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:32.559
So it's almost like having a copywriter's assistant who doesn't complain about the boredom of the work or the volume of the work, stuff like that.
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:34.800
But I'll use it to synthesize research.
00:38:34.880 --> 00:38:37.599
I won't use it to interpret that synthesis.
00:38:37.679 --> 00:38:41.280
Um, I won't use it to make decisions, creative or otherwise.
00:38:41.440 --> 00:38:46.159
Um anything anything that puts accountability back on me has to come from me.
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:47.840
That's the the best way that I could put it.
00:38:48.159 --> 00:38:48.400
Thank you.
00:38:48.559 --> 00:38:52.159
I um obviously I I foolheartedly agree.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:56.079
So I think we've established that you and I are on the same page.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:11.039
Um it is uh inspiring to see that brands understand the importance of copy right now and how how big of a difference it can have.
00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:22.480
Um similar to you, when I'm writing copy, the way I use AI is more like uh jotting down my my thoughts.
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:30.880
So I use whisper flow, or you know, just basically talking to my AI of like, here's what I'm thinking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:40.079
I've done interviews, or my team has done interviews, and we're I'm looking at all the raw data, and I'm just kind of like, and here's what I'm seeing, here's everything, and it will transcribe it for me.
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:43.440
Um so I definitely agree.
00:39:43.599 --> 00:39:53.199
I think at the end of the day, there is no like that is the best way to differentiate yourself from everyone else.
00:39:53.440 --> 00:40:02.800
Because you even like the example that you gave was very specific, you know, about the CRM being for was it businesses that make I can't remember.
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:04.000
4.2 million a year.
00:40:04.239 --> 00:40:04.400
Yeah.
00:40:04.559 --> 00:40:08.159
It's like that that's very specific, and it's still very technical, right?
00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:15.599
Like you it sounds to the to the naked eye, I guess, like it would look like, oh, this this is very specific, but it isn't.
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:23.119
Um it's it's just it's technical and it's not focusing on the real pains um that people have.
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:26.639
And I think we also tend to have assumptions.
00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:35.360
And one thing that I think AI is very good is kind of building on our previous like biases and assumptions and stuff we've written before.
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:40.880
And it just kind of builds the case that feels like it's kind of it's confirmation bias, right?
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:50.159
It's you're basically just saying, Oh, I've I was thinking this and now AI is making me feel better about it, but it's not actually helping you make decisions or write better copy.
00:40:50.960 --> 00:41:10.000
Um and I think there's there's a lot of different uh steps we need to put in when we're using AI to actually check ourselves and make sure that we're not not being persuaded that we're not in a in a loop with AI, but just echoing us.
00:41:10.960 --> 00:41:18.320
Um I uh another thing with AI is like you have to give it these very rigid fence posts.
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:22.000
Like, don't make this assumption, don't do this, don't do that.
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:28.159
AI won't ask you those questions back unless one of your fence posts is, hey, if you're not clear, make sure you ask me questions.
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:33.599
Um I find that that's very different from when I write a brief for a human writer.
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:39.679
They will naturally have their perceptions, their ideas, their biases, and they'll show up with questions based on those.
00:41:40.159 --> 00:41:41.760
And there's a back and forth.
00:41:41.840 --> 00:41:46.639
There's an exchange of ideas, and there's that that give and take makes the brief better.
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:47.039
Right.
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:51.599
So you write version one of the brief, and then somebody else shows up with knowledge that you didn't have.
00:41:51.679 --> 00:41:54.800
And now you're going back and you're writing a tighter version of that brief.
00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:58.800
That fence posting becomes very inflexible with AI.
00:41:58.960 --> 00:42:06.800
Because it will either not do the things that you tell it to most of the time, and it'll still do it anyway, some of the time, or it will just completely ignore what you have to say.
00:42:06.880 --> 00:42:10.079
But it will never just say, oh, hey, by the way, that doesn't make sense.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:12.800
You told me this other thing, and I've seen this other thing happen.
00:42:12.960 --> 00:42:14.400
There's no experience from AI.
00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:17.119
And so it can't actually add anything of value.
00:42:17.360 --> 00:42:19.679
It's just mechanical, it's mathematical.
00:42:19.840 --> 00:42:27.760
And coming back to what I said about B2B trying to be too methodical with everything, I think AI is just the personification of that.
00:42:27.840 --> 00:42:38.239
You're trying to take emotion and desire and aspiration given shape as creative as words on a page, and you're trying to formulize it.
00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:40.559
Like you're trying to make it mathematical.
00:42:40.719 --> 00:42:47.199
It's not something you can like you can't be mathematical about somebody's desire to give their kids a better life than they had.
00:42:47.519 --> 00:42:49.760
That's a very raw, visceral thing.
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:54.559
And you can tap into it and you can make people feel it, but you can't math your way into it.
00:42:54.800 --> 00:43:01.360
And you can't measure it, which I guess is a great time to call out our mutual friend Amanda Natividad for zero-click marketing.
00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:05.840
Where I think I I know this, I see this, it's hard.
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:11.199
It's hard to make these kind of decisions to go all in on stuff that is probably gonna be a little hard to measure.
00:43:11.360 --> 00:43:13.119
Because how do you measure trust, right?
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:20.000
I mean, there's the different ways we can get into maybe on a different episode, but it's it's it's a big risk and it's hard.
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:26.320
And a lot of this stuff isn't measurable anymore because people see 15 touch points before they even come to your website.
00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:32.800
They've seen a video, they've read a Reddit comment, they have gotten an email about you.
00:43:33.039 --> 00:43:40.239
They have seen social posts, they are coming in with their own thoughts and feelings and conceptions.
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:49.679
And now they're landing on your website, and you have to grab them with a message that really says, like, hey, I know you, this is for people like you.
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:54.079
And that's it's that's hard to to go for and measure.
00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:59.760
Um I guess my final question for you is if you were just getting stuck.
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:10.000
Started and I don't know, maybe you this is your own business and you've got a product and you're like, okay, what's the I I now have to start marketing it.
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:12.079
What's the number one thing you'd focus on right now?
00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:13.519
The number one thing you'd do first.
00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:14.239
Customer.
00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:15.920
I always start with the customer.
00:44:16.239 --> 00:44:26.320
And I know some people will hedge that answer and say, well, it would really depend on the size of the business, but I don't think there's ever a bad decision that started with what's right for the customer.
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:27.519
Yeah.
00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:38.480
I start with the customer, and especially if you're a smaller business, one that has seen financial results, but you haven't actually done any concerted marketing, the customer is the best place to begin.
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:50.079
And I mean if I'll I'll give you an example of a a product I worked with, they're uh CRM for for tradespeople and uh they only service the north of Europe.
00:44:50.239 --> 00:44:53.519
So like Germany, UK, Ireland, that region.
00:44:55.119 --> 00:45:03.760
Um they've been operational for about three years or four years with a very functional website.
00:45:03.920 --> 00:45:16.559
Uh there was no funnel, there was no thought behind why things were a certain way, why the form is like this, what the the button says and what the next steps should be after somebody fills out a form.
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:18.079
They didn't give any thought to that.
00:45:18.239 --> 00:45:26.079
But in that three-year period, they had still managed to get to a point where they were making about, you know, two to three and a half million pounds a year.
00:45:26.400 --> 00:45:28.800
That's fantastic, especially for a small business.
00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:32.480
And now they're like, okay, we're gonna take some of that money, we're gonna put it into marketing.
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:34.800
But we want it, we want to be methodical about it.
00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:43.519
And we want to actually like go through the steps, like not methodical in a uh analytical and rigid way, but methodic as in we want to do things properly.
00:45:43.679 --> 00:45:51.760
So they hired me to kind of come in, interview some of their customers, and I've realized like I don't need to talk to 50 customers.
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:56.159
I can just talk to the founder of the company because he's been on every single call.
00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:58.880
He's spoken to every single deal that they closed.
00:45:59.199 --> 00:46:03.840
No purchase order got approved unless he was part of that conversation, right?
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:04.639
It's his business.
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:06.800
He grew it from zero to what it was today.
00:46:06.960 --> 00:46:11.119
And it was like a, and we did like three or four sessions of 90 minutes each.
00:46:11.199 --> 00:46:13.679
And at the end of it, I had everything that I needed.
00:46:13.920 --> 00:46:22.880
And um, we started with with the customer, and then from that we naturally moved to what the customer wants and how they should go through.
00:46:22.960 --> 00:46:27.039
So essentially the the funnel of the conversion path and what puts buyers first.
00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:28.800
Okay, we had some back and forth.
00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:31.039
This is what you should do to reduce friction over here.
00:46:31.119 --> 00:46:35.440
This is what you do to introduce a little bit of friction over here, and we had that back and forth reset everything.
00:46:35.519 --> 00:46:36.639
And then I was like, okay, great.
00:46:36.800 --> 00:46:39.039
So when we go to market, how do you want people to see you?
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:41.119
The positioning was the last thing that we did.
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:41.440
Yeah.
00:46:41.599 --> 00:46:50.159
Like we started with the customers, we started with this, and it's like, okay, now that we know what everybody wants and what's important, the flavor of how we say it is just your positioning, right?
00:46:50.239 --> 00:46:52.159
So now let's bring your positioning into it.
00:46:52.320 --> 00:46:59.199
And he's like, listen, I I just want to, I just want these businesses to know uh that you know, we're there for them.
00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:12.320
So when they go out and they are signing purchase orders for plumbing and uh, you know, the landscaping or whatever else, whatever, whatever trade they're in, they should know that we are right behind them.
00:47:12.480 --> 00:47:18.320
And so we settled on this idea of being the friendly neighborhood CRM for the friendly neighborhood trading.
00:47:18.559 --> 00:47:26.079
And it was just, it was just his flavor because, like, I mean, coming back to the fact that he was on every sales call, he knew all of his customers by name.
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.280
He was on a first name basis with every single customer he had.
00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:30.800
And he was doing great.
00:47:31.039 --> 00:47:38.559
And I was like, okay, so you want to have that neighborhood plumber, neighborhood gardener, neighborhood landscaping person.
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:40.559
You want that vibe for your CRM.
00:47:40.719 --> 00:47:45.760
And I was like, yeah, that's something that people are gonna immediately recognize because that's what they try to be to other people.
00:47:45.920 --> 00:47:47.360
And it worked brilliantly.
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:52.480
Um, he got the growth that he wanted, he doubled his revenue in less than 18 months, and he was doing fantastic.
00:47:52.559 --> 00:47:55.280
And he didn't have to be on every single sales call after that.
00:47:55.360 --> 00:48:00.079
Uh and it was literally just taking all of this and putting it there, but it started with the customer.
00:48:00.239 --> 00:48:05.039
And the only reason that it worked is because even when we disagreed, we would just go back to what the customer said.
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:11.280
And it's like, okay, if this is what we're measuring against, like if we disagree, our decision has to be measured against what the customer wants.
00:48:11.360 --> 00:48:13.039
It's not about you, it's not about me, it's about them.
00:48:13.199 --> 00:48:15.519
And that's what I tell the businesses I work with as well.
00:48:15.679 --> 00:48:16.800
Like, we can disagree.
00:48:16.960 --> 00:48:26.239
Ultimately, I'm not going to advocate for a decision that I believe in or accept a decision that you are adamant about unless it's also something that's right for the customer.
00:48:26.480 --> 00:48:31.599
If the customer disagrees with us, then there's no point in either of us uh pushing our own agendas.
00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:34.480
Ashwin, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:40.079
Um, where can people follow you and learn more about what you do and maybe hire you to do stuff?
00:48:40.400 --> 00:48:49.360
Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, uh, search for the copy trail and uh uh same on Twitter, uh copytrail.com.
00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:54.000
And uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm on socials and just drop by, say hi.
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:54.719
I'd love to chat.
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:55.360
Perfect.
00:48:55.440 --> 00:48:58.239
Thank you so much uh for chatting to me today.
00:48:58.320 --> 00:48:59.199
It was an absolute pleasure.
00:48:59.519 --> 00:48:59.840
Absolutely.
00:48:59.920 --> 00:49:00.480
Thanks for having me.
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:01.360
I loved it.