1274: Start Treating Case Studies Like Human Stories w/ Joel Klettke

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.830 Welcome back to the BB growth show. My name is James Carberry and I'm 2 00:00:07.830 --> 00:00:11.589 joined today by Joel clet key, the founder of case study buddy. Today 3 00:00:11.630 --> 00:00:15.230 we're going to be talking about case study best practices. I want to dive 4 00:00:15.269 --> 00:00:18.149 right into this job, but before we do, give us a little bit 5 00:00:18.190 --> 00:00:21.230 of Backstore, or it give us some context. Why are you so passionate 6 00:00:21.269 --> 00:00:24.660 about case studies to the point of building an entire business around it? Yeah, 7 00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:27.660 so it all kind of happened. It was like an offshoot of my 8 00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:31.820 core business. So in my own consulting and copyrriating and conversion work I do 9 00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:34.659 a lot of voice of customer, a lot of talking to people, a 10 00:00:34.780 --> 00:00:39.009 lot of digging into their problems, their challenges and the solutions that they get 11 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:42.090 and how they talk about those things. And so I've been wrapping up a 12 00:00:42.170 --> 00:00:46.090 project for an enterprise brand when I was asked by someone who sat on their 13 00:00:46.130 --> 00:00:50.320 board if I did Tay Studies, customer successor isn't the time? They weren't 14 00:00:50.359 --> 00:00:53.719 really on my radar. I mean I knew what they were, but I'd 15 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:58.079 never sat down to actually produce one. Testimonials. Sure, full blown case 16 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:00.880 studies? No. So thought all, how hard can it be? And 17 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:03.679 this was the kind of person you just don't say no to. I'm like 18 00:01:03.759 --> 00:01:06.950 sure, sure, I'll take it on. And in going through that process 19 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:11.150 and doing the research for it, a whole bunch of things came to light 20 00:01:11.230 --> 00:01:15.510 for me and I realized here is an asset that every company, every Bab 21 00:01:15.670 --> 00:01:21.180 company, can benefit from having. Nobody seems to have a really great process 22 00:01:21.299 --> 00:01:26.340 for putting together and when those two things kind of collide it creates an opportunity. 23 00:01:26.420 --> 00:01:27.260 And then the more that I looked at it, the more that I 24 00:01:27.379 --> 00:01:33.329 realized other blind spots in people's processes. I saw people aren't really even coming 25 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:36.769 close to using this to their full potential. I mean, I mentioned when 26 00:01:36.769 --> 00:01:38.969 I started talking here that I do a lot of voice of customer research. 27 00:01:40.010 --> 00:01:42.609 I do a lot of work on helping people convert better. From that angle 28 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:46.689 I've seen the power of social proof to drive a conversion. But through the 29 00:01:46.810 --> 00:01:49.200 research process of that, I've seen how that can be used to inform messaging 30 00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:53.040 actually building the product the way that you think about that. So it was 31 00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:57.480 this kind of Aha moment of okay, massively valuable asset, few people have 32 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:01.549 a process for it. Massively under appreciated impact that it can have. And 33 00:02:01.629 --> 00:02:06.150 then the seiler on it was when I looked on to say surely somebody's planted 34 00:02:06.189 --> 00:02:08.430 the flag and said this is all we do and we're the best at it. 35 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:12.669 It was the waste land. There was one woman, Casey Hibbert, 36 00:02:12.669 --> 00:02:15.099 who kind of wrote the book on these and was service in constant, kind 37 00:02:15.099 --> 00:02:19.219 of specialized, and it was just the smattering of like a service here, 38 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:23.180 a service there, and add on, and I really thought that's not doing 39 00:02:23.259 --> 00:02:27.500 this justice. There's so much potential here and and that got me fired up 40 00:02:27.500 --> 00:02:30.009 and I thought I can build the process, I can build the company, 41 00:02:30.050 --> 00:02:32.289 I can do this at scale in a way I haven't seen anybody do. 42 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:36.490 I love it. Joel, I first heard you speak, I think it 43 00:02:36.650 --> 00:02:39.650 was at a forget what conference it was. It was a conference in Vancouver 44 00:02:40.169 --> 00:02:45.560 and I was captivated by what you talked about there. Started following on Linkedin. 45 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:47.599 You're talking a lot about this. This is why I reached out to 46 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:52.000 you to talk about this today. It was because of the content you're putting 47 00:02:52.039 --> 00:02:54.199 out on linkedin around this stuff. So if you're not following Joel already on 48 00:02:54.280 --> 00:03:00.110 Linkedin, going following there before we dive into best practices. Y'All, I 49 00:03:00.189 --> 00:03:04.310 think we're going to camp out on this one question for a while because it's 50 00:03:04.389 --> 00:03:07.669 really a lot of your linkedin content is rooted in this. What are some 51 00:03:07.830 --> 00:03:10.550 common mistakes that you see a lot of companies making when it comes to their 52 00:03:10.629 --> 00:03:15.139 case studies? Yeah, I mean, you're seeing my content rooted in this 53 00:03:15.259 --> 00:03:19.379 because I'm trying to shake companies by the collar and get them to see the 54 00:03:19.460 --> 00:03:24.419 potential we are. So I think early stage with people recognizing the opportunity sitting 55 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:28.129 right in front of them, and that gets me fired up. And whether 56 00:03:28.449 --> 00:03:30.610 we're, you know, me and my company the ones to solve that, 57 00:03:30.689 --> 00:03:32.770 or people just start caring more about this, I consider that a win either 58 00:03:32.849 --> 00:03:38.009 way. So one of the biggest mistakes that I see starts way before fingers 59 00:03:38.050 --> 00:03:43.599 touch keyboards. Everybody kind of right now. This is a big mistake is 60 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:49.080 they treat customer success stories case studies like these happy accidents. They sit passively 61 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:53.759 waiting for someone to leave them a review or put up their hands and a 62 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:59.469 blowing email. They have no process, no system, no mechanism for making 63 00:03:59.550 --> 00:04:01.830 these stories come out in their business, or if they do, they're in 64 00:04:01.870 --> 00:04:06.349 these silos. So maybe a salesperson gets an email thanking them for their time 65 00:04:06.349 --> 00:04:11.740 and saying we've just had this great win. That never migrates its way over 66 00:04:11.819 --> 00:04:15.180 to the marketing team to become this asset, or never makes it to leadership 67 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:17.579 or never makes it to, you know, hr to become this training asset. 68 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:21.819 So I think one of the big mistakes is not having a systematized way 69 00:04:23.259 --> 00:04:27.889 of collecting this feedback, not being intentional about getting these stories in the first 70 00:04:27.970 --> 00:04:32.089 place. But before even that it's the total lack of a strategy. So 71 00:04:32.730 --> 00:04:40.079 there's this prevailing myth I think that all social proof is made equal, right 72 00:04:40.319 --> 00:04:44.240 one great testimonial is just as good as another testimonial. My work on the 73 00:04:44.279 --> 00:04:48.920 conversion side is shown me that's patently not true. Just having a platitude someone 74 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:53.910 saying this is great is nice. It's a warm fuzzy thing that a lot 75 00:04:53.910 --> 00:04:55.829 of people clap their hands and say, Yay, we got it, we're 76 00:04:55.870 --> 00:05:00.230 done. But having, for example, a testimonial that talks about a particular 77 00:05:00.269 --> 00:05:05.149 pain or a particular solution or particular aspect of your service that can be used 78 00:05:05.149 --> 00:05:10.019 in a whole different way to break down objections or let's say you're a company 79 00:05:10.100 --> 00:05:14.579 and you're thinking K, we want to be reaching CMOS or we want to 80 00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:19.740 be reaching small business owners. The role of the person giving that feedback, 81 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:24.529 but also how you tell the story to that person, it makes a huge 82 00:05:24.610 --> 00:05:29.329 difference in how to be received or ignored. So having a strategy is a 83 00:05:29.529 --> 00:05:33.009 best practice that I think isn't even on the radar of like ninety nine percent 84 00:05:33.089 --> 00:05:36.800 of companies. They're not sitting down to document. Okay, listen, what 85 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:41.279 stories do we need to tell? And that's rooted in your business goals. 86 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:45.079 Right. What are our business goals? What stories do we need to arm 87 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:48.240 ourselves with to help get there? Right, if we're trying to penetrate this 88 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:51.910 market, what stories do we have that show we can solve that prompt for 89 00:05:51.949 --> 00:05:57.189 that market, for trying to improve our you know, lower our churn rate 90 00:05:57.189 --> 00:06:00.189 or improve our conversion rate? On the nurturing sequences, what stories do we 91 00:06:00.310 --> 00:06:04.379 have that show the impact of what we're doing? So a strategy starts with 92 00:06:04.819 --> 00:06:10.420 what our business goals? What stories do we need to tell those business goals, 93 00:06:10.779 --> 00:06:14.899 and then how are we going to use these stories? So this is 94 00:06:14.939 --> 00:06:18.610 another big gap that's tied into the strategy. Thing is usage of these guests 95 00:06:18.769 --> 00:06:23.209 relegated to like will pop them on a resource section of the site, like 96 00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:27.529 to get for us. We've got our little PDF formats on the resources section. 97 00:06:27.649 --> 00:06:31.089 We're done. But people aren't considering, they're not having a strategy for 98 00:06:31.250 --> 00:06:35.560 how do we deploy these things to generate leads? How do we deploy these 99 00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:40.720 two nurtural leads? How do we deploy these to upsell leads? So no 100 00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:44.360 thought is being put into the end use case and because no thoughts being put 101 00:06:44.399 --> 00:06:46.750 into the end use case, no real thoughts being put into the format either. 102 00:06:46.790 --> 00:06:49.189 Yeah, yeah, so you you would. Yeah, so you. 103 00:06:49.389 --> 00:06:54.029 You'd mentioned that earlier before we hit record, that a big mistake that people 104 00:06:54.029 --> 00:06:57.790 are making is they're not they get it created and they're like, Yay, 105 00:06:58.189 --> 00:07:01.100 it's on the resources page and then nothing comes after that. Right. Is 106 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:04.860 your suggestion to them, or what's the best practice around what they should be 107 00:07:05.139 --> 00:07:11.660 doing once they have this epic story ready to share? Yeah, so let's 108 00:07:11.699 --> 00:07:15.649 walk it back to what were your business goals in the first place and where's 109 00:07:15.649 --> 00:07:19.170 your point of need, and that should influence what you do if this. 110 00:07:19.290 --> 00:07:23.769 So here's my recommendation. You've got this great story right and at the heart, 111 00:07:23.810 --> 00:07:25.649 and we'll talk about this, I'm sure later, at the heart of 112 00:07:25.689 --> 00:07:29.490 the great story is a great customer interview. So you've got these sound bites, 113 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:32.360 you've got this narrative. Now you need to sit back and think. 114 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:39.240 Okay, how do we deploy this across the entire funnel, not just at 115 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.720 the end? How do we turn this into a lead Jenasset? How do 116 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:46.470 we turn it into a nursing asset? So literally for yourself, draw out, 117 00:07:46.670 --> 00:07:48.149 you know whatever framework you want to use from, but have get a 118 00:07:48.189 --> 00:07:51.829 piece of paper and drought top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of 119 00:07:51.910 --> 00:07:56.870 funnel and think for yourself about Kay. What do we have already as a 120 00:07:56.990 --> 00:08:00.540 company that occupies this space for top of funnel? Maybe you're running ads. 121 00:08:00.939 --> 00:08:03.060 Just drop that down secure, running adds. How could we use case studies 122 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:07.139 in adds? And there's lots of ways that you can use it in remarketing 123 00:08:07.139 --> 00:08:09.740 or you can do there's a kind of ours named Cart Hook, and what 124 00:08:09.819 --> 00:08:13.889 they do is they just drive leads from adds straight in the case studies with 125 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:16.810 no opt in and then they remark it to them later on to pull them 126 00:08:16.850 --> 00:08:20.730 back in. It works amazing the book. So, Kate, top of 127 00:08:20.769 --> 00:08:22.850 funnel, adds. Top of funnel. Maybe it's SEO content, right, 128 00:08:22.970 --> 00:08:26.319 blog content, maybe it's guest post content. You've got this great story. 129 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:30.000 How can you use it there? For middle of funnel, if you're a 130 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:33.639 service based business, maybe it's in your nurturer sequence. Okay, what snags 131 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:37.919 are people hitting in our onboarding or what questions do we know they need answered 132 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:43.070 before they'll become a full fledged raving fan? And how can we bake that 133 00:08:43.149 --> 00:08:46.070 into sair email sequence? Or perhaps let's say that you are you know you've 134 00:08:46.110 --> 00:08:48.789 got a product or a suite of products, and you've got one that's like 135 00:08:48.870 --> 00:08:52.309 an up cell. It's an upgrade. Okay, what kind of stories could 136 00:08:52.549 --> 00:08:54.860 could you tell? Or How do you get a story that talks about something 137 00:08:54.860 --> 00:08:58.779 who made the choice to upgrade or go to the superior product? How can 138 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.019 you bake that into the middle phone? And then when you get to the 139 00:09:01.019 --> 00:09:03.100 bottom of the funnel, this one's easy because everybody's already thinking about it, 140 00:09:03.179 --> 00:09:07.659 usually in these terms. But okay, where can we use this at the 141 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:09.850 bottom of the funnel? Should we be breaking out the testimonials from these to 142 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:15.009 put on landing pages? Should we be giving the sales seem PDFs? Should 143 00:09:15.009 --> 00:09:18.889 we be, you know, turning them into other assets? So my suggestion 144 00:09:18.049 --> 00:09:22.769 is sit down, map out your funnel and whatever framework works for you and 145 00:09:22.889 --> 00:09:26.879 think about, okay, not just the resources section. How do we bake 146 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:31.879 this into this great story? How do we bake it in everywhere and look 147 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:35.639 for opportunities through that Lens? I love it. So you you mentioned a 148 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:39.509 few things there. I want to I want to go back to and a 149 00:09:39.710 --> 00:09:43.149 how do you go about choosing? You alluded to this also before we started 150 00:09:43.190 --> 00:09:48.070 recording, that companies don't have a process for doing these things on a regular 151 00:09:48.110 --> 00:09:52.419 basis and having they don't have a feedback loop. They don't there's no mechanism 152 00:09:52.539 --> 00:09:58.659 to collect these great stories that can then be repurposed and and used all throughout 153 00:09:58.659 --> 00:10:03.100 the funnel. How can companies think like what are some stories that you've seen 154 00:10:03.139 --> 00:10:07.019 or some examples that you've seen? You, maybe it's cart hooker, some 155 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:09.809 of your other clients, what are the processes that they've built to be able 156 00:10:09.850 --> 00:10:15.809 to consistently collect these kind of stories? So, as a theme, you 157 00:10:15.850 --> 00:10:22.039 want to make conversations with your customer a normal feeling occurrence. This is a 158 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:26.759 huge plague in places like software as a service, where the mentality for years 159 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:30.519 has been self, serve self, serve self, serve as little contact as 160 00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:33.559 possible. I think a lot of companies view conversations with them as a last 161 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:39.110 resort or getting in the way, as opposed to customer service, which I 162 00:10:39.149 --> 00:10:43.429 think is wrong. So the companies that are doing this really well are systematizing 163 00:10:43.470 --> 00:10:46.230 the way they interact their customers. And let me make that tangible. For 164 00:10:46.470 --> 00:10:48.549 example, one of the big problems with customer success stories. Okay, you 165 00:10:48.669 --> 00:10:52.700 get a big win, but it happened three years ago. That customer is 166 00:10:52.779 --> 00:10:56.779 so far away from when that happened that if you go to interview them, 167 00:10:56.820 --> 00:10:58.340 they're not going to remember all the details. You're not going to remember what 168 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.179 brought them to you. They're not going to feel that acutely. How do 169 00:11:01.259 --> 00:11:05.769 we get past that? How are smart companies dealing with this? The mentality 170 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:11.490 that we want to encourage companies to have is consistency and escalating commitment, the 171 00:11:11.610 --> 00:11:15.210 goal being you don't want your request for a customer success story. I feel 172 00:11:15.210 --> 00:11:18.529 like a stranger's like you're just swinging out of the blue being like hey, 173 00:11:18.529 --> 00:11:20.559 you got to win I'm a person with this company and could you talk about 174 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:24.279 it? That's why so many people hit no so hard, know as a 175 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:28.240 response, because it's like, why would I do you a favor? I've 176 00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:31.440 never heard of you. So some practical ways to make this real? I 177 00:11:31.559 --> 00:11:35.789 firmly believe every single company on the planet, especially in the services world, 178 00:11:35.990 --> 00:11:41.429 should be asking a one question survey after the purchase, and that's simply what 179 00:11:41.629 --> 00:11:43.190 was going on in your business or in your life. That sint you looking 180 00:11:43.190 --> 00:11:46.700 for our solution today. Right. What were or, put another way, 181 00:11:46.740 --> 00:11:50.580 what are your goals with the product? So, for example, fresh books 182 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:52.379 does this really well. There's different companies that do this in roll, but 183 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:58.139 they ask objective base questions so that they can track and they have this record 184 00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:01.929 that they can go back to say hey, when you join, this is 185 00:12:01.009 --> 00:12:05.809 what you told us was important to you, this is what you identify to 186 00:12:05.889 --> 00:12:07.649 put up your hand and said this is my struggle, and now you've got 187 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:11.529 this kind of common framework to work from where you can ask them, how 188 00:12:11.649 --> 00:12:13.450 have we solved that problem? Or have we solved that problem? What of 189 00:12:13.529 --> 00:12:16.879 your results look like? So asking a question at the point of on boarding 190 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:20.879 best practice mission critical. Another thing I'll say. You know, the NPS 191 00:12:20.919 --> 00:12:24.639 score sertly gets a bad rap in a lot of places and I'm not going 192 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:26.360 to sit here and argue that it's like a great metric. I'll leave that 193 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:31.190 debate to people who like having those kinds of debates. I don't really care 194 00:12:31.230 --> 00:12:35.070 about the MPs score as a metric so much as I love it as a 195 00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:39.230 way to frequently and with low friction, stay in touch with people and get 196 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:41.110 a barometer from where your winds might be. So if you, as a 197 00:12:41.149 --> 00:12:48.179 company don't have some formalized, scheduled way of checking in repeatedly in a frictionless 198 00:12:48.179 --> 00:12:52.820 way to see how you're doing with customers, it's a missed opportunity because, 199 00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:54.860 no, you don't want to send this every month, but to find what 200 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:58.570 makes makes sense for your sales cycle or your customer relationship cycle or whatever. 201 00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:03.169 And when you when you send something with low friction like an MPs score, 202 00:13:03.250 --> 00:13:07.090 what that does helps you quickly identify wins in your customer base, helps you 203 00:13:07.090 --> 00:13:11.409 quickly identify advocates within your customer base, but it also shows you who's willing 204 00:13:11.450 --> 00:13:16.159 to respond, who's willing to engage, and then from there you have the 205 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:18.639 opportunity to escalate. Hey, we saw that you gave us a really good 206 00:13:18.679 --> 00:13:22.360 score here. Would you be interested in chatting or can we? Can we 207 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:24.960 talk to you about the experience that you've had? And now maybe that looks 208 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.309 like a survey, maybe it's a quick call. All of this to say, 209 00:13:28.309 --> 00:13:33.190 though, to bring back to my original point, normalize conversations with your 210 00:13:33.230 --> 00:13:37.389 customers and give that a face and a name and a relationship, a person 211 00:13:39.029 --> 00:13:41.220 having those conversations, and that way, when you make the ask, you've 212 00:13:41.259 --> 00:13:46.379 got this historical record of what's actually happened and it doesn't feel like it came 213 00:13:46.419 --> 00:13:50.779 from a stranger. So they're not going to go, oh no, I'm 214 00:13:50.779 --> 00:13:54.379 not going to take part. Yeah, so I love that at normalizing the 215 00:13:54.460 --> 00:14:00.129 process of normalizing the idea that you need to have more conversations with your customers. 216 00:14:00.250 --> 00:14:03.850 Normalizing customer conversations essentially, once you've got somebody, you've buy you, 217 00:14:03.929 --> 00:14:09.289 maybe you've sent the MPs score, you've noticed that man, this guy rated 218 00:14:09.289 --> 00:14:11.960 us off the charts. That is now a flag to say, okay, 219 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:15.320 let's go and have some conversations with these people so that we can start to 220 00:14:15.399 --> 00:14:18.159 form these stories. I want to talk about the interview itself. I know 221 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:20.960 that you and your team, you've got specific roles on the case study buddy 222 00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:26.309 team that do these interviews. There's clearly some art and some nuance to drawing 223 00:14:26.470 --> 00:14:30.350 out the kind of information that you need to be able to create a really 224 00:14:30.429 --> 00:14:33.750 compelling case study. Can you talk to us about some best practices around the 225 00:14:33.870 --> 00:14:39.659 actual customer interview itself? Absolutely so. A lot of things that we've learned, 226 00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:43.539 some of them the hard way. The interview is the heart and soul. 227 00:14:43.700 --> 00:14:46.620 A great interview makes for a great case study. A bad interview and 228 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:52.179 the whole thing shot be because what gets missed is that these are not you 229 00:14:52.620 --> 00:14:58.049 success stories. It's not your perspective that's important, though your side can certainly 230 00:14:58.169 --> 00:15:01.649 fill in in terms of what you did for them and how you did that 231 00:15:01.850 --> 00:15:05.850 and why you did that, but these are human stories about the customer. 232 00:15:07.320 --> 00:15:11.039 And so if you blow the interview where you if you with on the interview, 233 00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:13.639 you don't get the detail you need out of the interview or you do 234 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.159 the interview the wrong way so it's yes, no questions and you get like 235 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:20.509 very basic insights your case study shot, you're gonna have a hard time recovering. 236 00:15:20.830 --> 00:15:28.110 So some simple best practices in terms of just logistics. We always prefer, 237 00:15:28.470 --> 00:15:31.870 oftentimes there's like multiple people involved in the success, and so that the 238 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:35.940 tendency is, let's be efficient to get them all on one call. Keep 239 00:15:37.019 --> 00:15:41.779 that call wherever possible, one to one, one person interviewing, one person 240 00:15:41.940 --> 00:15:46.620 responding, because then you avoid the cross talk, you avoid having one dominant 241 00:15:46.659 --> 00:15:52.129 voice versus own, who's perspective by might actually be more valuable to the story, 242 00:15:52.529 --> 00:15:56.450 even if the role is less senior or less significant. So one to 243 00:15:56.529 --> 00:16:00.730 one is a really critical one. Another best practice is, and this is 244 00:16:00.850 --> 00:16:03.840 something that you know, I've been I've been telling people, but it kills 245 00:16:03.879 --> 00:16:07.600 me a little bit every time I share it because it's just so good and 246 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:10.759 it makes such a big difference. It's not going to sound sexy, but 247 00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:14.799 it's one of the most important things you can do before the call happens. 248 00:16:15.559 --> 00:16:18.629 Give them some homework. If they come in and cold to this thing and 249 00:16:18.789 --> 00:16:25.309 you start asking them about results or metrics, I can promise you more often 250 00:16:25.350 --> 00:16:29.429 than not the response is going to be I don't have that information, I'm 251 00:16:29.470 --> 00:16:32.899 not sure what I can disclose there and and they'll say I'll get back to 252 00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:36.539 you on that and and they won't. You'll never get that information. So, 253 00:16:37.139 --> 00:16:38.940 as a best practice, you want to make sure that you are prepared 254 00:16:40.100 --> 00:16:42.379 going into the interview, not only with your question set in the details, 255 00:16:42.419 --> 00:16:45.620 in the background that you need, but that the person on the other side 256 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:51.889 is given the opportunity to feel equally prepared and to bring what they need with 257 00:16:52.090 --> 00:16:56.370 them to help you get get the best story that you can. So you've 258 00:16:56.370 --> 00:16:57.889 got to do your homework, but you want to make it easy for them 259 00:16:57.970 --> 00:17:02.240 to give you a great story, and that's what you have to be thinking 260 00:17:02.279 --> 00:17:06.039 about. I think, as a best practice, one of the big mistakes, 261 00:17:06.039 --> 00:17:07.279 if we're going back to mistakes that I mentioned at the beginning, the 262 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:11.200 classic mistake, and this is why people often don't think they need a service 263 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:15.109 like case. Anybody until they tried to to this part themselves. It's never 264 00:17:15.309 --> 00:17:19.750 going to be good enough to have a really good core question set. Everyone 265 00:17:19.910 --> 00:17:25.269 gets excited about what question should ask, what question should I ask? Almost 266 00:17:25.390 --> 00:17:30.299 nobody is thinking about how should I ask them and how is this conversation structure? 267 00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:33.019 A great question set is a good start. It's never going to be 268 00:17:33.140 --> 00:17:38.299 enough and that's why we have dedicated interviewers where all their only job is to 269 00:17:38.420 --> 00:17:45.849 get good at asking questions, following up and feeding the person with what they 270 00:17:45.970 --> 00:17:48.930 need to Telegra right story. As a rule, our goal is not to 271 00:17:49.930 --> 00:17:55.450 get this person to be a yes man or a fact recid in an interview. 272 00:17:55.809 --> 00:17:59.119 Our job is to turn this person into a story tone. So, 273 00:17:59.319 --> 00:18:03.400 as a best best practice, your question should reflect questions that are more like 274 00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:08.039 story prompts, less like was that a good experience or that sort of thing, 275 00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:14.390 and more these open ended questions that prompt them to start loosening, jarring 276 00:18:14.430 --> 00:18:18.430 things, lose about their experience. So I'm talking about questions that follow what 277 00:18:18.589 --> 00:18:22.029 we would call a BDA format. You see this in infommercials all the time. 278 00:18:22.430 --> 00:18:27.819 Before, during, after, so before questions talk about everything that was 279 00:18:27.859 --> 00:18:32.380 going on. So in the informercial this is the person holding the bowl whisking 280 00:18:32.420 --> 00:18:33.700 the eggs and the eggs are flying every like, oh, this is so 281 00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:37.339 hard, like my life is terrible, which is always always hilarious. But 282 00:18:37.420 --> 00:18:41.809 that's the before, right. You're pressing into with these questions, the history, 283 00:18:41.089 --> 00:18:45.329 the pain, the triggers. What sent them looking for a solution like 284 00:18:45.410 --> 00:18:48.329 yours, same question. You'll notice that I said you should be asking them 285 00:18:48.410 --> 00:18:52.170 as a company before this process ever happened. The during questions are questions that 286 00:18:52.210 --> 00:18:57.880 ask about not only what was done but how it felt and what surprised them 287 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:03.359 and what the impact of that was. And then the results questions. A 288 00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:06.640 lot of people love to just leave this out of a very like play and 289 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:10.230 face like what results have you seen through working with us? And that's like, 290 00:19:10.309 --> 00:19:12.670 again, a great start, but it's not enough. You know, 291 00:19:12.789 --> 00:19:15.990 like the sexy metric gets so much, such attention. Everyone wants to have 292 00:19:17.150 --> 00:19:22.269 like the ten percent lift for the five thousand, five hundred thousand dollar increase 293 00:19:22.390 --> 00:19:26.900 or whatever. That's sexy. That gets the readers, but what cells leads 294 00:19:26.579 --> 00:19:30.940 is the impact of the result. What did that make possible for them? 295 00:19:32.059 --> 00:19:34.900 How did that tension be change things? I mean, yeah, let's say 296 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:37.769 we're doing an seok study and it's like, oh, they got a five 297 00:19:37.809 --> 00:19:41.250 hundred percent increase in traffic. That's a great story. Okay, a five 298 00:19:41.250 --> 00:19:45.650 hundred percent increase in traffic is great. A five hundred percent increase in traffic 299 00:19:45.170 --> 00:19:51.529 that enables them to avoid having to hire another person. That's another layer to 300 00:19:51.609 --> 00:19:55.519 the story and so you know, that's why we kind of structure your goal 301 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:59.720 with the interviews to ask these questions before, during, aftertype questions in that 302 00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.400 order, with open ended questions and good follow up, because you're trying to 303 00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:07.190 elicit these stories. You're not trying to read off things like a robot. 304 00:20:07.269 --> 00:20:11.789 That's the big mistake I was alluding to. You get a great question set, 305 00:20:11.829 --> 00:20:15.109 you get all excited about the call, you get on and you're so 306 00:20:15.309 --> 00:20:18.750 focused on your question set that all you do is run off these questions instead 307 00:20:18.750 --> 00:20:22.859 of having a conversation. And so that's that's where so many companies fall down, 308 00:20:22.940 --> 00:20:25.380 is the focus on the questions, not the conversation. So they ask 309 00:20:25.460 --> 00:20:29.259 great questions, they get awful for see, what can people be expecting, 310 00:20:29.299 --> 00:20:32.859 Joel, in terms of timing? Should they be blocking an hour for these 311 00:20:32.980 --> 00:20:36.769 conversations? Can have a good conversation in thirty minutes, like what? What? 312 00:20:36.970 --> 00:20:40.089 How do you think about that? So you have to keep in mind, 313 00:20:40.130 --> 00:20:42.490 and this is why so much of my time with case, so anybody 314 00:20:42.609 --> 00:20:48.130 is engineering and re engineering and working on our process over and over and over 315 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:52.279 to make it that you know he's fine tuning little pieces. You're asking for 316 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:56.319 a favor. And so if I come to you and I say I want 317 00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:59.880 two hours of your time, or I say I want one hour of your 318 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:03.319 time, or I say I want half hour. My yes, ratio is 319 00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:07.430 going to improve the less time that takes. So you have to capture as 320 00:21:07.630 --> 00:21:11.509 much as humanly possible in a shorter time period as possible, while not reading 321 00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:15.910 questions like a robot and having a real human conversation. That's the art of 322 00:21:15.990 --> 00:21:21.019 the interview. That's why we have people whose only job is getting that right. 323 00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:25.180 And so our target is thirty minutes to forty five minutes. Are All 324 00:21:25.339 --> 00:21:29.579 in target, including reviewing the draft. Is We want to be able to 325 00:21:29.660 --> 00:21:32.779 make the promise that the entire process is going to take less than an hour 326 00:21:32.859 --> 00:21:36.849 of their time. Most people can't make that that promise because they don't have 327 00:21:36.890 --> 00:21:40.410 a process to support it. Yeah, but that is the goal and it's 328 00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:45.250 very possible to get everything you need, all the detail you need, if 329 00:21:45.289 --> 00:21:48.759 you have a plan going into the call in forty five minutes, thirty minutes. 330 00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:52.960 That that sort of window. I'd say if you're having ten minute conversations, 331 00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:56.279 you're not exploring it to the depth that you need to. That's a 332 00:21:56.400 --> 00:22:00.599 sound bite. That's not a story, but you can usually get the core 333 00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:07.230 of what you need and the juicy meaty stuff in under an hour. Hey, 334 00:22:07.269 --> 00:22:11.750 everybody logan with sweet fishing here. You probably already know that we think 335 00:22:11.829 --> 00:22:15.109 you should start a podcast if you haven't already. But what if you have 336 00:22:15.349 --> 00:22:19.180 and you're asking these kinds of questions? How much has our podcast impacted revenue 337 00:22:19.259 --> 00:22:23.819 this year? How is our sales team actually leveraging the PODCAST content? If 338 00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:27.980 you can't answer these questions, you're actually not alone. This is why I 339 00:22:29.099 --> 00:22:33.849 cast it created the very first content marketing platform made specifically for be tob podcasting. 340 00:22:34.369 --> 00:22:40.450 Now you can more easily search and share your audio content while getting greater 341 00:22:40.569 --> 00:22:45.200 visibility into the impact of your podcast. The marketing teams at drift terminus and 342 00:22:45.480 --> 00:22:49.599 here at sweet fish have started using casted to get more value out of our 343 00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:53.599 podcasts, and you probably can to. You can check out the product in 344 00:22:53.759 --> 00:23:03.829 action and casted dot US growth. That's sea steed dot US growth. All 345 00:23:03.829 --> 00:23:11.710 right, let's get back to the show. So once you you've done the 346 00:23:11.750 --> 00:23:15.779 interview. Now you followed that before during the after. I love that framework 347 00:23:15.819 --> 00:23:18.940 of really pressing into what was happening before. What was the problem? They 348 00:23:18.980 --> 00:23:23.099 are experiencing before they found your solution, what happened during them implementing your solution 349 00:23:23.259 --> 00:23:26.170 and starting to get value from the solution, and what was the impact of 350 00:23:27.089 --> 00:23:32.529 what they got as as a result of the result your product or service help 351 00:23:32.650 --> 00:23:36.769 them drive? Now you go on too. There's a reason you have interviewers 352 00:23:36.809 --> 00:23:38.690 and then you have writers on your team. I'd love for you to dive 353 00:23:38.730 --> 00:23:44.279 into some best practices around. Okay, you've taken this interview. Now how 354 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:48.880 do you write these stories in a way that are going to be compelling and 355 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.160 are actually going to work to drive the goals that you wanted to drive in 356 00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:56.069 the first place? Yeah, I think the big mistake here is that people 357 00:23:56.069 --> 00:23:59.990 again in the same way. Everyone wants a formula for the interview. Everyone 358 00:24:00.069 --> 00:24:03.430 wants like an exact paint by numbers. This is what I do, instead 359 00:24:03.470 --> 00:24:07.750 of treating these like human stories and conversations. And when it comes to the 360 00:24:07.869 --> 00:24:12.500 written piece, yes, I don't think. I have a hard time imagining 361 00:24:12.539 --> 00:24:18.819 a future where challenge solution results. Is Not that the standard flow of these? 362 00:24:18.940 --> 00:24:22.539 Now there are great case studies that go beyond this and they have offshoots 363 00:24:22.619 --> 00:24:26.329 and and you know, but you have to come in it with the mentality 364 00:24:26.450 --> 00:24:33.809 of more of a journalist reporting on an intriguing development in the world versus someone 365 00:24:33.890 --> 00:24:37.569 writing a white paper. And the problem is we got way too many white 366 00:24:37.569 --> 00:24:41.720 paper people, way too many paint by numbers people, and not enough storytellers. 367 00:24:41.799 --> 00:24:45.880 And what's the difference? Right? A white paper conveys facts. It's 368 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.359 like here's what happened, here's you know, here's what you're can expect. 369 00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:53.630 It like. It's very metric driven, staunch cold, and that's fine. 370 00:24:53.750 --> 00:24:57.109 There's a time and place for those types of things, right, for things 371 00:24:57.150 --> 00:25:02.869 to be instructive and prescriptive, and not everything has to be this emotional communication. 372 00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:07.019 But stories are because stories have tension and emotion, they have stakes, 373 00:25:07.059 --> 00:25:11.819 there's things that happen and go wrong, there's things that develop up and there 374 00:25:11.859 --> 00:25:15.660 should be elements of surprise or delight or those types of things. So when 375 00:25:15.660 --> 00:25:18.140 you sit down to write these best practice is still going to be yes, 376 00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:25.049 challenge, solution, results. We lean away from calling it a problem because 377 00:25:25.490 --> 00:25:27.329 companies don't like to think that they have problems. They like to think they 378 00:25:27.329 --> 00:25:32.650 had a challenge. So the verbage matters too. But when you're thinking if 379 00:25:32.730 --> 00:25:34.609 we break it down section by section. Right when we're talking about headlines, 380 00:25:34.650 --> 00:25:38.319 your headline has one job to get people to read the study those headlines. 381 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.839 I think some of the big mistakes people make as they make it all about 382 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:45.759 their company and not the client. So it's like how we did this, 383 00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:51.109 while that's still a valid headline format that will use, it's more about the 384 00:25:51.190 --> 00:25:55.470 impact of the client and that headline should reflect the awareness level or stage of 385 00:25:55.470 --> 00:25:57.910 the funnel that you're trying to cater to. So, for example, let's 386 00:25:57.910 --> 00:26:02.069 say your top of the funnel and you're dealing with leads who are paining aware. 387 00:26:02.549 --> 00:26:06.259 So all your leads know you're running ads and you're targeting people who know 388 00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:10.380 I've got a challenge, I've got a problem, right, and that's where 389 00:26:10.380 --> 00:26:14.140 their mindset is at, then your headline should probably be something related to the 390 00:26:14.259 --> 00:26:18.769 problem and the alleviation of that pain. So if I'm if I'm an accounting 391 00:26:18.130 --> 00:26:23.009 software company and it's tax season, instead of having a headline that's like, 392 00:26:23.650 --> 00:26:29.289 you know, how how this person I know has had a profitable ten year 393 00:26:29.329 --> 00:26:32.730 relationship with their accountant. Terrible. anyways, my pain is, okay, 394 00:26:32.769 --> 00:26:36.240 I need to get my taxes done quickly or I hate doing taxes or I 395 00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:38.359 want to get the biggest return possible. That's the pain I have. That 396 00:26:38.759 --> 00:26:41.759 is our know came, I see from myself. So you want your headline 397 00:26:41.799 --> 00:26:44.720 to reflect that. I think another big mistake, that you see this all 398 00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:49.230 the time still, is structurally. oftentimes we like to plunge into just because 399 00:26:49.269 --> 00:26:55.029 it's the convention, right away we start describing who the the company is. 400 00:26:55.190 --> 00:26:59.069 Right it's like X is a company from my place. That's not how stories 401 00:26:59.190 --> 00:27:03.579 start. Can you imagine if Cinderella, but again with like Cinderella is a 402 00:27:03.819 --> 00:27:06.940 young woman who lives in this part of this you know, like that's that's 403 00:27:06.980 --> 00:27:11.299 not a story. Stories plunge you into the narrative. They start with tension 404 00:27:11.420 --> 00:27:15.299 and steak. Something's gone wrong, justice needs to be served. So we 405 00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:18.210 prefer not to omit that information, but we might put it off in a 406 00:27:18.369 --> 00:27:22.329 sidebar or at the end of the story, because that's not the sexy part 407 00:27:22.410 --> 00:27:29.009 people came for. We you want to use your challenge section to immediately introduce 408 00:27:29.130 --> 00:27:33.200 tension and give it a human face. Yes, there's a company, but 409 00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:37.079 who was the person involved? What did that look like for them? What 410 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:41.880 would be the impact of not solving this problem. So actually telling a real 411 00:27:41.079 --> 00:27:45.670 story. Then, in terms of best practices for solution sections, I think 412 00:27:45.750 --> 00:27:49.269 where people get hung up is they want to talk about the what's so bad 413 00:27:49.470 --> 00:27:53.589 they forget about the why. So I'll use SEO agencies, is they're kind 414 00:27:53.589 --> 00:27:56.910 of my whipping boys for these things, because somebody do so much for this 415 00:27:57.029 --> 00:28:00.500 wrong. But but for an agency that tendencies to want to have this bullet 416 00:28:00.539 --> 00:28:03.619 point list of like we did this thing and this thing, I'm this thing, 417 00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:07.299 I'm this thing, and they treat it like this list of capabilities, 418 00:28:07.339 --> 00:28:11.220 which like. Again, that has its place if you're dealing with someone who 419 00:28:11.339 --> 00:28:15.930 just needs the facts. But I don't hire agencies or individuals because of what 420 00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:19.769 they can do. More often than I'm hiring them because of why they do 421 00:28:19.930 --> 00:28:25.089 it that way or how they think about it. So solution sections should communicate 422 00:28:25.210 --> 00:28:26.720 not only what was done, but why did you do it that way? 423 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:30.319 Why was that the approach? Taking it back to the challenge, okay, 424 00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:36.039 we've established there is a problem. There was something painful. Why this rope 425 00:28:36.079 --> 00:28:38.359 dissolved it and not another one? What was the thinking? But that piece 426 00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:41.150 gets admitted. So you want to make sure that's baked in and then we've 427 00:28:41.190 --> 00:28:45.109 touched on this already, but results sections. Too often they're just like trophy 428 00:28:45.190 --> 00:28:49.869 cases where it's like Tut, like here's the big metric the end, and 429 00:28:51.029 --> 00:28:53.509 they don't get into that impact right. One of my favorite examples of this 430 00:28:53.589 --> 00:28:57.299 comes from one of our stories where we were dealing it was an efficiency thing. 431 00:28:57.460 --> 00:29:03.779 So automated a part of the administrative the office administrator's life and saved a 432 00:29:03.859 --> 00:29:07.539 bunch of time. But instead of just stopping at they save this many hours 433 00:29:07.579 --> 00:29:10.930 per week. Because we ran a great interview and we asked what that meant 434 00:29:11.009 --> 00:29:14.049 for the individual. She was able to tell us I don't have to run 435 00:29:14.089 --> 00:29:18.289 around the office chasing people for paychecks anymore. That's a sexy, specific example 436 00:29:18.450 --> 00:29:22.250 that someone in that role is going to sit and read and go, Holy 437 00:29:22.329 --> 00:29:25.720 Crap, I'm running around the office right. People don't tend to think in 438 00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:27.720 terms of, like, I wish my job was fifty percent more efficient. 439 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:30.599 They tend to think in terms of I wish I didn't have to chase people 440 00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:36.039 around the office for paychecks. So getting that level of specificity in all sections, 441 00:29:36.519 --> 00:29:38.990 that tells a much better story as well. Then the last one. 442 00:29:40.470 --> 00:29:42.630 Have a called action. Please have a call to action. There are situations 443 00:29:42.750 --> 00:29:48.589 where one isn't called for. I mentioned earlier carthub drives adds to landing pages 444 00:29:48.630 --> 00:29:51.789 without calls action, which is unheard of. But for them it's just trust 445 00:29:51.829 --> 00:29:53.500 building. They're not trying to make the sale right then and there. But 446 00:29:53.660 --> 00:29:57.380 depending on your application, you want to give the person a really easy way 447 00:29:57.500 --> 00:30:02.140 to stratch the edge that your study hopefully just made them aware of. So 448 00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:06.380 have a relevant, contextual call to action, not just a big contact US 449 00:30:06.420 --> 00:30:08.730 button. But Hey, do you want to solve a similar pain to what 450 00:30:08.849 --> 00:30:11.529 was just in this story your's? How To do it? Do you want 451 00:30:11.529 --> 00:30:14.930 the outcome to stust discussing the story of yours? How To do it? 452 00:30:15.049 --> 00:30:17.849 So that's a lot of me talking, but that that when it comes to 453 00:30:17.890 --> 00:30:19.529 running. That's what we're trying to encourage our writers to think about. It 454 00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:25.519 human stories, real outcomes, real states, as specific as possible, and 455 00:30:25.640 --> 00:30:30.000 I loved your focus on this. Is Not something you can do just following 456 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:33.119 a checklist like. You have to approach this as a journalist. You have 457 00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:37.349 to really approach this. Is trying to turn the person you're interviewing into a 458 00:30:37.390 --> 00:30:41.029 storyteller. And it's your job, is the interviewer, to elicit those stories 459 00:30:41.069 --> 00:30:44.430 and ask the questions that are going to bring those stories to bear. And 460 00:30:44.470 --> 00:30:48.029 so not thinking about it in this mechanical way like you dispelled a few minutes 461 00:30:48.069 --> 00:30:52.940 ago, but really pressing into understanding that this is a human telling a human 462 00:30:52.980 --> 00:30:56.900 story and it matters that the girl doesn't have to go around or the guy, 463 00:30:56.900 --> 00:30:59.779 I don't know what who who was in the story has doesn't have to 464 00:30:59.819 --> 00:31:03.779 go on the office trying to track down people's paychecks anymore. That matters and 465 00:31:03.940 --> 00:31:06.490 it's going to make the story more powerful. But if you don't ask the 466 00:31:06.529 --> 00:31:08.609 question to get there, you're never going to get that. So I love 467 00:31:08.730 --> 00:31:11.289 that you walked through this and in the level of detail that you did, 468 00:31:11.329 --> 00:31:15.410 Joe. Now I want to talk. I want to shift the conversation into 469 00:31:15.769 --> 00:31:19.240 so you've done the great interview, you've written it well. You follow these 470 00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:23.839 best practices now and you talked about this a little bit earlier in the year 471 00:31:23.960 --> 00:31:26.799 or are but I want to really die deep in here. is in it 472 00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.039 like enabling your sales team with these resources, not just slapping it up on 473 00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:34.269 your resource page, but really enabling your your sales team. We're talking to 474 00:31:34.349 --> 00:31:37.390 a lot of people that are. They've got, you know, a relatively 475 00:31:37.430 --> 00:31:42.470 large bb sales team of a's and SDRs. How do you enable your sales 476 00:31:42.470 --> 00:31:48.299 team with these resources? I liked what you said about running ad campaigns directly 477 00:31:48.500 --> 00:31:52.140 to, like what Carthook does, directly to the case study, but around 478 00:31:52.259 --> 00:31:57.420 sales enablement and really making sure your sellers or equipped the with these and trained 479 00:31:57.500 --> 00:32:00.259 on these stories. Like talk to us about what you've seen companies do the 480 00:32:00.339 --> 00:32:04.730 right way as it relates to that. So I think so much comes down 481 00:32:04.769 --> 00:32:08.410 to considering the situation that the salesperson is in. If I am doing cold 482 00:32:08.450 --> 00:32:14.170 outreach with a five thousand word asset, I don't have the right tool for 483 00:32:14.369 --> 00:32:16.640 the job, you know, or you're putting a lot of pressure on their 484 00:32:16.759 --> 00:32:21.440 pitch to get someone to open that case study in the first place to do 485 00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:23.759 the work. And so the first thing is thinking, okay, for our 486 00:32:23.839 --> 00:32:29.599 sales team, what level of awareness are the people that they're they're reaching out 487 00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:31.750 to or interacting with? Where they at in that process? You should have 488 00:32:31.829 --> 00:32:36.910 a different format for the different where in a as levels. The sales guy 489 00:32:36.990 --> 00:32:40.509 doing cold outreach needs a different asset. Same story, different way of presenting 490 00:32:40.549 --> 00:32:44.339 it. Maybe it's a slide deck, maybe it's a one page or maybe 491 00:32:44.339 --> 00:32:46.539 it's just the facts. To Open, no crack, open the door, 492 00:32:46.740 --> 00:32:50.819 to get permission to share the whole thing. The guy doing that or the 493 00:32:50.859 --> 00:32:53.660 Gal doing that needs a totally different type of format, even with the same 494 00:32:53.700 --> 00:32:58.849 story. Then you know the woman at the bottom of the funnel, who 495 00:32:59.210 --> 00:33:01.369 you know. She's trying to convert someone who's right, close, right. 496 00:33:01.930 --> 00:33:05.609 The other thing to think about, too, is like everybody, and this 497 00:33:05.769 --> 00:33:10.849 is something that we're working on now, everybody gravitates historically to the PDF format, 498 00:33:12.289 --> 00:33:14.759 and I honestly there's a lot of reasons for that. It's like a 499 00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:20.000 tangible thing. It can be printed, it can be designed without web resources. 500 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:22.279 So I think that it's become the default, not because it's the best, 501 00:33:22.759 --> 00:33:27.750 but because it's easy to do and to do quickly. But thinking about 502 00:33:27.750 --> 00:33:31.150 okay, for salespeople, like how do you make it easy for them to 503 00:33:31.269 --> 00:33:35.670 share? How do you make it easy for them to track whether or not 504 00:33:35.750 --> 00:33:37.589 someone has opened and looked at this thing? I mean there are tools like 505 00:33:37.750 --> 00:33:43.099 docs end and there are tools to send out PDFs, but the format of 506 00:33:43.180 --> 00:33:46.140 this thing not only in length, like we use the bite snack meal kind 507 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:50.500 of mentality. In terms of like, depending on the awareness level, will 508 00:33:50.500 --> 00:33:52.700 some them a very short, medium size for quite long asset, depending on 509 00:33:52.740 --> 00:33:55.890 what they're ready for. But can you do the same thing with an html 510 00:33:57.009 --> 00:34:00.369 format of that or a video? You know of that, and so it's 511 00:34:00.369 --> 00:34:04.049 about considering the format that's going to be most effective for the salesperson in the 512 00:34:04.130 --> 00:34:07.130 context through it. That's like a very wordy way of saying it, but 513 00:34:07.250 --> 00:34:09.800 that's kind of it is consider content for them. The other thing for companies 514 00:34:09.840 --> 00:34:14.960 that start to do this well is to arm sales teams to understand what they 515 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.440 have in their holster in terms of like what types of stories do we have? 516 00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:22.440 This is why, for example, increasingly, and I think the market 517 00:34:22.519 --> 00:34:27.110 hasn't caught up to it yet. So you know, the markets not already. 518 00:34:27.429 --> 00:34:30.550 But sometimes, let's say you have one big win, maybe you should 519 00:34:30.550 --> 00:34:34.150 be capturing that story from different perspectives within the company. Because if I'm selling 520 00:34:34.190 --> 00:34:37.070 to a CTEO, he cares about or she cares about different things than, 521 00:34:37.579 --> 00:34:43.260 you know, selling to a CMO. So the individual that you're reaching out 522 00:34:43.340 --> 00:34:46.699 to, whether it's, you know, the CEO of the entire company or 523 00:34:46.739 --> 00:34:52.460 whether it's the CTEO or whether it's the practitioner on the ground or the cleaning 524 00:34:52.500 --> 00:34:54.610 guy or whatever it might be. You know, whoever you're reaching out to, 525 00:34:54.610 --> 00:34:59.090 you might have different levels of awareness, but they might also have different 526 00:34:59.090 --> 00:35:02.449 pain points or different desired outcomes. So you want to make sure that you're 527 00:35:02.449 --> 00:35:07.519 equipping sales people to give their right asset to the right person as well. 528 00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:10.800 Maybe you have role based studies based on the same story. So it's about 529 00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:15.639 considering that context, the type of role you're reaching out to, the awareness 530 00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:21.989 level and then putting together assets that make sense for that situation. I love 531 00:35:22.030 --> 00:35:24.070 it. I love that you touch on both of those things. One you 532 00:35:24.190 --> 00:35:29.510 need to be thinking about how you're going to repurpose the asset and that that 533 00:35:29.909 --> 00:35:32.869 can bite sized piece, the snackable piece and then the meal piece. I 534 00:35:32.989 --> 00:35:37.500 think is a great way to get your head around the fact that you need 535 00:35:37.579 --> 00:35:42.019 different formats because your sales people are talking to people at different stages in the 536 00:35:42.179 --> 00:35:45.500 in the buyers journey, and the person that's just getting to know who you 537 00:35:45.579 --> 00:35:49.460 are is probably not going to read the five thousand word piece of content. 538 00:35:49.619 --> 00:35:52.409 So I love that you test on that. But I also love that you 539 00:35:52.489 --> 00:35:54.969 then talked about the fact that you you need to know yourself. People need 540 00:35:55.010 --> 00:35:59.170 to know that they have these guns in the holster, like if they don't, 541 00:35:59.329 --> 00:36:01.809 they don't know that these things are there, then they can't use them, 542 00:36:01.929 --> 00:36:07.079 and so that education piece makes perfect sense to me. Why? Why 543 00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:10.719 that's something that it makes sense? Why companies aren't doing it? Because it's 544 00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:15.440 hard, like communication is hard and you never think that you're communicating. You 545 00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:19.309 always think you're communicating enough and there could always be more communication. So I 546 00:36:19.469 --> 00:36:22.150 love that you brought that up. I want to have some this whole thing 547 00:36:22.190 --> 00:36:25.349 up. Joel I, you've shared so many best practices. This is, 548 00:36:25.510 --> 00:36:30.030 in a been incredibly dial with piece of content. Let's go back to like 549 00:36:30.230 --> 00:36:36.820 Thirtyzero, Thirtyzero Square foot view. If there's one big idea that you like 550 00:36:36.980 --> 00:36:39.659 man for the be tob marketer listening to this around case studies, this is 551 00:36:39.739 --> 00:36:43.340 the thing I harp on the most, or this is the thing that I 552 00:36:43.579 --> 00:36:46.809 really want to be to be marketer listening to this to walk away with after 553 00:36:46.849 --> 00:36:51.409 hearing this episode, because if they get this, a lot of the other 554 00:36:51.449 --> 00:36:53.369 stuff is going to is going to come. What would you say that one 555 00:36:53.409 --> 00:36:58.170 thing is I mean there's there's lots of I want to say, but I 556 00:36:58.170 --> 00:37:01.960 would I would kind of a says like these are human story is they're not 557 00:37:02.199 --> 00:37:08.079 paid by numbers assets, they're not just the sales collateral. These have the 558 00:37:08.199 --> 00:37:15.519 power to be really persuasive stories when you give your team and your people and 559 00:37:15.639 --> 00:37:19.949 your process a chance to let them be. And to do that you need 560 00:37:20.110 --> 00:37:22.070 to to play well with humans. I mean, if you've got a great 561 00:37:22.070 --> 00:37:27.469 salesperson, ask her like what? What questions are you getting all the time? 562 00:37:27.750 --> 00:37:30.380 What roles are you interacting with? You need to have that in those 563 00:37:30.420 --> 00:37:36.820 internal human conversations surrounding you know how things are happening. But then when it 564 00:37:36.940 --> 00:37:39.420 comes time to actually tell the story or interview a person, when you stop 565 00:37:39.659 --> 00:37:45.130 seeing this end outcome as this like paint by numbers asset and more of like 566 00:37:45.250 --> 00:37:49.889 a human story, I promise it will influence the way you prep for calls, 567 00:37:50.050 --> 00:37:52.050 the way you run those calls, will you tell those stories, the 568 00:37:52.170 --> 00:37:57.849 way you think about promoting these. It sounds like a very pious guy who 569 00:37:57.969 --> 00:38:01.440 type of thing, but yes, these are human stories and that should inform 570 00:38:01.519 --> 00:38:05.480 the way that they're put together. I love it. Y'll, thank you 571 00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:08.239 so much for joining us. This is again been an incredible piece of content. 572 00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:12.989 I'm really excited to to repurpose this thing in a ton of different ways. 573 00:38:13.030 --> 00:38:15.230 Like you talked about repurposing case study. So if somebody listening to this, 574 00:38:15.269 --> 00:38:17.389 they want to connect with you, they want to learn more about case 575 00:38:17.389 --> 00:38:21.469 studyboddy, what's the best way for them to go about doing that? Yeah, 576 00:38:21.510 --> 00:38:23.750 so on the case study buddy front you can learn all about our process 577 00:38:23.750 --> 00:38:29.900 or pricing or formats. There's loads of samples a case study buddycom and we 578 00:38:30.139 --> 00:38:31.780 have a really you know, if you just want to dip your toes in 579 00:38:31.820 --> 00:38:36.059 the water and kind of try these R somef we've got a really efficient process. 580 00:38:36.099 --> 00:38:38.099 Our goal is to make these as fast and friendly and fun to be 581 00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:42.530 part of as possible. So you know, there's also a lot of blog 582 00:38:42.650 --> 00:38:45.489 posts and content there and we're working now on while we've got kind of some 583 00:38:46.170 --> 00:38:50.369 downtime with everything happening in the world, on ramping that up. So lots 584 00:38:50.409 --> 00:38:52.530 of more, you know, informational stuff and stuff that will help you do 585 00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:57.199 these better yourselves or adopt better men tell these as a coming towards them. 586 00:38:57.800 --> 00:39:00.840 I'm happy to have people connect with me on linkedin twitter. If you send 587 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:04.800 me a message, I can't promise I'll respond quickly, but I do always 588 00:39:04.800 --> 00:39:07.400 respawn, you know. So I'm always happy to chat with people, and 589 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:12.670 you know, not just about case studies but the whole conversion side of things 590 00:39:12.710 --> 00:39:15.829 and and all of it. You know, I think there's there's so much 591 00:39:15.869 --> 00:39:19.590 opportunity here. Wonderful, awesome, Joe. Will again thank you so much 592 00:39:19.590 --> 00:39:22.829 for your time and I'm really excited to see this thing go live. Yeah, 593 00:39:22.909 --> 00:39:30.099 cheers, thanks for having me. I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask 594 00:39:30.179 --> 00:39:32.619 their listeners for reviews, but I get why they do it, because reviews 595 00:39:32.659 --> 00:39:37.579 are enormously helpful when you're trying to grow podcast audience. So here's what we 596 00:39:37.619 --> 00:39:39.489 decided to do. If you leave a review for me to be growth in 597 00:39:39.530 --> 00:39:45.769 apple podcasts and email me a screenshot of the review to James At sweetfish Mediacom, 598 00:39:45.130 --> 00:39:49.449 I'll send you a signed copy of my new book, content based networking, 599 00:39:49.730 --> 00:39:52.769 how to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. We get a 600 00:39:52.849 --> 00:39:54.280 review, you get a free book. We both win.