Made To Grow S03E07 Transcript

[0:00] Rich Dale: So welcome folks to the latest episode of Made to Grow and I’m delighted to welcome Fred Copestake who is founder of Brindis. Thanks very much for joining us Fred.
[0:11] Fred Copestake: No, it’s a pleasure. Thank you for asking me.
[0:13] Rich Dale: Not at all, it was great and we bumped into each other serendipitously on LinkedIn a few weeks ago and connected over all things sales and business development. So it was quite a lucky meeting. And I thought it’d be great. First of all, if you could share with the listeners a bit about yourself and your background, and then we’ll get into some interesting conversations about the state of sales and sales techniques in 2025, almost 2026.
[0:46] Fred Copestake: Yeah, I’ll do the fast version so we can get into the good stuff. But yeah, Fred Kopetsky, founder of Bryndis, which is a sales training consultancy. Last 25 years, I’ve been around the world 14 times. I calculated that one because I was bored one day. But I’ve worked in 38 different countries, trained over 10,000 salespeople, which is, I mean, it’s a real honor to do that, real privilege. But what it’s also helped me do is understand what challenges salespeople have and how we can deal with those. That’s my job to help them do that.
[1:23] Fred Copestake: But I’ve seen that first hand. That’s what led me to write my first book in 2020. So that’s selling through partnering skills. So here we get the first sort of where are we going with this? It’s to think more like a partner. But yeah, that came out in 2020.
[1:40] Fred Copestake: So yeah, I thought it would really change the world. Something else came out in 2020, which changed the world even more.
[1:49] Rich Dale: Exactly. Sucked all the oxygen out of the world for two years. Didn’t it?
[1:54] Fred Copestake: But It was funny though because, you.
[1:57] Fred Copestake: Know, so I was locked down same.
[1:58]Fred Copestake: As everybody else, watched all of Netflix same as everybody else, got to the.
[2:03] Fred Copestake: End of, I think I got to.
[2:04] Fred Copestake: The end of Tiger King and I thought, you know what, there’s probably better things to do with my life.
[2:12] Fred Copestake: But seriously, there was like the changes that were going to happen, were happening and others that are going to come down the line, they’re coming down the line quicker. So I actually wrote a second book then. Hybrid selling, which is around getting our heads around this speed of change stuff. And then constantly finger on the pulse as to where we’re going with this and what works best for customers. Last book came out end of 24, which is ethical selling. All about how we look for a win-win-win scenario.
[2:44] Fred Copestake: So win for customer, win for the company, but the salesperson, the individuals, you’ve got to have a win for their conscience. They’ve got to be able to look in the mirror and say, hey, you know, I’ve done a decent job here. I’m right.
[2:57] Rich Dale: Yeah. I know. I think the world needs more of that.
[3:02] Fred Copestake: I definitely think it does. But that’s why I wrote the stuff. You know, when you’re writing something, when you’re putting a model out, you’re helping people to get their head around doing something better. You know, you’ve got to be fairly, fairly convinced that it’s what the world needs otherwise. Yeah. What’s the point?
[3:18] Rich Dale: Yeah, well, I think not to go off on a complete tangent, but it’s that sort of you create the culture that you want through your actions. And if you’re not selling ethically, then it’s just a race to the bottom. It’s the opposite, it’s lose, lose, lose ultimately. And your reputation is the thing that’s going to take the biggest hit. And I think that’s the tragedy about the way some sales practices are going these days, particularly the kind of heavily PE backed sales on steroids kind of operations that you see assaulting our inboxes every day.
[3:56] Fred Copestake: They are assaulting it. They really are. But I question how effective that really is. I just spent loads of time deleting stuff. I don’t read it. Yeah, and I’m sure that’s very cleverly written. They’ve got AI mass personalizing it. But it’s not interesting. And you were talking about the changes, and I know you wanted to touch on this. That kind of, customers aren’t stupid.
[4:27] Fred Copestake: There’s that much information out there now that if we’re not picking up on the fact that they’re well informed and they can work stuff out for themselves, then they’re going to get quite picky and they kind of know the stuff that salespeople are doing. If we’re trying to be sneaky beaky and tricky about it, you know, all that good stuff that used to happen in the 80s, bad stuff, it’s just not smart.
[4:50] Fred Copestake: That’s why the ethical approach and because being very open, transparent, honest, taking people seriously, giving them space to decide and empathizing with what’s going on in their world and demonstrating you understand that, that that’s where we’re at. That’s where we’re at. And heading even more towards it.
[5:10] Rich Dale: Absolutely. Because I think, yeah, people are time poor. They’re even more risk averse. There’s so many more opportunities to be ripped off or at least be sold the wrong thing. So sales has probably got an even worse name than it had for particularly for naive buyers. So that opportunity to partner with customers and really, as you say, understand their world and then if you can deliver a solution, offer your best proposal. If you can’t walk away. One of the things I wanted to ask, in terms of that shift from 2020, I find it incredible.
[5:53] Rich Dale: There’s what used to be something that was reasonably consistent in terms of a sales cycle. And also a pattern across the year has gone completely haywire and hasn’t really settled down ever since. And that’s coming from a software in selling into manufacturing world. Do you see that within the engineering manufacturing community itself, that sort of certainty and patterns have changed?
[6:21] Fred Copestake: Yeah, it used to be very predictable, didn’t it? August, put your feet up.
[6:26] Fred Copestake: Yeah, I mean, even to the point.
[6:28] Fred Copestake: Of being predictable for the week, I mean, manufacturing, You don’t really do anything on a Friday afternoon. In fact, factory shut. I remember when my first job was out of factory at Litchfield and they knocked off at half 12. We stayed till half one, I think. Then kind of went, you know, so I don’t know if it’s because the world is getting smaller, people are more used to kind of using technology to communicate. You know, we’re always on. People want stuff faster. They’re trying to respond to things quicker.
[7:03] Fred Copestake: WhatsApp, that seems to be the latest thing. Moving to email, everything had to happen faster, didn’t it? But now people want things even faster. They’re shoving you into WhatsApp. That’s set up a WhatsApp group. No, it’s not. Customers, yes, absolutely. I’ll set up a WhatsApp group for you if you listen.
[7:20] PFred Copestake: But everyone seems to be on to the WhatsApp group, so you’re at their beck and call.
[7:25] Fred Copestake: I think probably that’s why time and perceptions of time and this immediacy that we need to do things has probably changed a little bit.
[7:35] Rich Dale: And what hasn’t changed? What are the fundamentals of selling and building relationships that are constant?
[7:45] Fred Copestake: Yeah, I mean, it’s funny, we’ve got a little bit of time, haven’t we? So, I mean, if I sort of look through, in the book, in the first book, I actually did this little sort of journey through the decades as to kind of how sales have shifted. What’s still the same. And you kind of go back to the 50s and you’ll sort of see that sales was all about process. It was, you know, it was rebuilding here or wasn’t it’s about being effective, being efficient. And that’s what we still want to be.
[8:07] Fred Copestake: So we’re gonna still use process. But there are some slightly modern twists on that that there are in process. I’ll talk about structure and framework and templates and things. They weren’t bothered how to make videos in the 50s or write social media posts or things like that. Whereas we are now. But that’s still about using process 60s psychology. Yeah, look, we want to understand people’s thinking styles and adapt to them and help them think because we are we’re presenting information that’s easier for them 70s. And that’s the same. That’s absolutely the same.
[8:42] Fred Copestake: Modern twist is you can find someone’s personality before you meet them by plugging something into LinkedIn and Humantic or Crystal Knows and 70s benefit selling and what’s in it for somebody? Same, you know, feature advantage benefit. People don’t buy the drill, they buy the hole or actually buy the hole to put the hook in to put the picture on with the wedding anniversary date on it.
[9:06] Fred Copestake: So they don’t forget.
[9:08] Fred Copestake: And I think we understand that stuff better now. And so again, where there used to be a hell of a lot of product training and a lot of your listeners will be like, product training, product training, product training. You encourage people to talk too much about product and not the problem. And it’s that problem that I keep forgetting my wedding anniversary that I want to solve rather than have a hole in the wall or rather have a really spangly drill.
[9:30] Fred Copestake: So again, there’s these little shifts on the stuff that was the same, but how we’re upgrading it.
[9:35] Rich Dale: Yeah.
[9:36] Fred Copestake: 80S was that close, close, close era, wasn’t it? And like manipulating customers and fighting them and objection handling and Some of that stuff we’ve been, it’s not useful anymore. It stills hang around, people still think it’s clever. But let’s take that sales is still stepping through a process and moving on to the next step. And so then in the 90s, that was where we had this big change, this sea change of consultative selling.
[10:02] Fred Copestake: So this is a real solid foundation for what we’re doing now, is that we consult, we help people understand what’s going on in their world, in their life. And that’s why we use that kind of questioning tool, spin or something to where they are now, where they want to be, further apart. Again, I think a change, a shift into the modern is that we used to do that for ourselves, salespeople, so we could present a solution. Now we’re all about helping people to think.
[10:28] Fred Copestake: And then this is a kind of a theme which we see getting stronger and stronger moving forward. So when we talk about the noughties was value based selling. Values like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So we’re bringing perspectives, insights, things which can trigger thinking and help people think about stuff for them. And then it helps us understand so we work on it together. Tens, I talked about sales stature. I didn’t know any other word for this.
[10:55] Fred Copestake: It was like how you position yourself as being the go-to person, you know, having the right reputation. You said earlier, didn’t you? Yeah. That’s the person I want to deal with because of how they are. And I know that that’s what they do. But we can use tools to do that, LinkedIn and things like that. You deliberately position yourself. And then in the 20s, which is obviously why I wrote the book, that’s why I wrote the book. It’s all about this collaborative approach. So that’s what I think this has taken us, that we’re more collaborative.
[11:23] Fred Copestake: We think like a partner. There’s ways to do that. So that we are alongside customers and we’re working with them towards common goals to help them do stuff. And there’s a distinction in how we have that conversation than even a consultative one where we talk out them or sorry, not talk out them. We’re asking them questions so that we can then put our solution together. We’re building the solution together.
[11:49] Rich Dale: So what does good look like? How do you know what sort of characteristics do you need to be exhibiting today to know that you’re doing that collaborative partnership selling well?
[12:05] Fred Copestake: I think curiosity has always been something that good salespeople have and being genuinely curious as to what’s going in the other party’s world. And that for me starts before the sale. It’s not just rocking up and asking a few questions. It’s really researching them well and thinking, okay, this person, this role that I’m going to go and speak to, these are probably the things that they would be struggling with. Yeah, these are the problems that they have. So if I’ve got my head around those problems, I can actually lead with that.
[12:41] Fred Copestake: I probably use it to get the appointment anyway. It’s rather saying, Hey, look, we’re bloody brilliant. We’re the best company in the world at doing all these things that we do. Which is what everyone says, to be fair, don’t they? Nobody says they’re second best.
[12:54] Participant 3: Pop from was it Hertz?
[12:55] Fred Copestake: Hertz or Avis did that?
[12:57] Participant 3: So we’re the second best, so we try harder. Which actually was dead.
[13:01] Fred Copestake: Everyone says the same thing, particularly engineering space. Yeah, all the websites look similar. Sorry if you’re listening, but go and have a look at your website. And if you’ve got a picture of a wind turbine, a jet fighter, a racing car.
[13:16] Participant 3: Probably same as everyone else’s.
[13:18] Fred Copestake: But if you start calling out people’s problems, this is what you will be struggling with. Then you’re more likely to enter into a discussion at a better place. So the curiosity starts earlier and we have to assume actually, you know that whole ask you me thing and don’t assume, no you do assume. But it’s an intelligent assumption around this is what is likely to be getting in your way.
[13:48] Fred Copestake: That is more likely to get you yes come in, the only person to be speaking about that Everyone else is boring the whatever off me about how ace they are. You’ve talked about my favorite subject, which is me. So in your come, let’s have a chat. That’ll be a big shift.
[14:06] Rich Dale: Yeah, yeah. Don’t kill them with features. I think that it’s interesting because there’s similarities in the software world where we can anticipate the kind of problems that that people are having. And we’re asking those questions when we’re in a discovery call, for example, to qualify, has the person actually thought about this enough? Because in our world of selling manufacturing software, it’s really not just a new piece of software, it’s a whole system change in a way of thinking.
[14:47] Rich Dale: And bringing that authority and that experience through that kind of qualified assumption is a good way obviously to relate to their world and maybe qualify them out if they haven’t thought about it hard enough.
[15:04] Fred Copestake: Or help them to shine the light on it. But one of the things I’ve seen that a lot of people do in, in particular the engine, I mean, you’re selling software, it’s about software, but it is into this engineering space and it’s likely to be quite technical people doing it. One of the things I’ve seen people do is, well first is this entitled approach, I call it, where it’s like, well we’re so brilliant, it’s just obvious that you buy our stuff. The product sells itself. Well if it really did, why are you there?
[15:35] Fred Copestake: That’s kind of weird. But there’s also this engineering super ego that can kick into play, which is the way we do it is best. Do it our way, we can sort your stuff out. You’re stupid. Yeah, you need me. Yeah. That’s not the smartest way to go about kicking off a discussion with somebody, is it? Basically say you’re better than them.
[15:59] Participant 3: I’ve seen it and I was chatting to an engineering company about this.
[16:01] Fred Copestake: I said, it can really kind of, I can annoy it can frustrate customers.
[16:06] Participant 3: And they said to me, oh, our customers hate us.
[16:10] Fred Copestake: I said, what? All of them?
[16:11] Participant 3: Because they’re not all of them, but some of them. We do exactly what you said there, Fred. We come across, we’re better than you, always what you’ve got to do, how can you you work this out, let us save you. And it’s not so smart, is it? Rather, they’ve got to be empathetic around.
[16:27] Fred Copestake: The problem that they have and exploring that to help them get these realizations by bringing insight to the party.
[16:36] Rich Dale: How do you help teams like that who probably are really good and they’re rightfully proud of what they do, but completely patronizing when it comes to the customer? How do you help them over a series of sessions or weeks evolve their thinking and more empathetic.
[16:57] Fred Copestake: Well, the first is call it out.
[17:01] Participant 3: So say it to them that if they want to fight me back, it’s.
[17:04] Fred Copestake: Like we’re probably not going to get anywhere, are we?
[17:06] Participant 3: But like this group, when I put.
[17:08] Fred Copestake: Up this thing, I put entitled approach, engineering super ego and train step perception, which is the other thing, which is Lofthouse and engineers will dive in to try and solve the problem really quickly, rather than just step back and actually let’s really understand the problem together. It’s a call it out so they recognize it. I’ll say this group where they said, oh yeah, that’s us.
[17:27] Participant 3: I haven’t explained it yet. And they went, no, no, but it will be. That’s what they said, oh yes, we wind them up so much.
[17:35] Fred Copestake: It’s helped them to realize that and that it’s not helpful and then kind of provide the antidotes to it. Which is actually, but more often not to do with process, it is to do with problem solving. It’s just the way you go about it. So the engineering brain is really good for selling. It’s just that there are some things which are a bit counterintuitive and you have to learn how to do that actually, you don’t try to impress somebody with how ace you are so they want to talk to you. That’s the one that backfires.
[18:06] Fred Copestake: It’s impressive by how much you know about them. Then they’ll be, hey, come in, you get us. And you probably do because you’ve solved a ton of problems like this. So there’s a couple of little things which just seem a bit weird until people understand it. And then it’s kind of put in a process which helps people basically do five things. Sales is quite simple. So we’ve got to find the right opportunities so that people who we can really work with. Where we’ve identified what the problems are and that we can do something about that.
[18:38] Fred Copestake: We then do that research on them so that we can go deeper and we really do understand what’s going on in their world. That sets us up to have the right conversation. And this is a conversation where we’re taking this mindset of being the sense maker, helping them get their head around something, which means that then we can start to work together on the right solution. Which is all about then delivering the right outcomes. They’re the five parts of selling really.
[19:07] Fred Copestake: Now you could argue that what I finished on there, the right outcomes, is where we start because people buy outcomes, they buy results, don’t they? So it’s like well if this is the kind of outcome we’re delivering for people, that’s who informs the ICP, the right opportunity that we should be looking for. So it’s just giving people that kind of structured way of looking at this stuff so that They can do it time and time again a lot more effectively. It’s a process.
[19:37] Rich Dale: Bedside manners for engineers.
[19:41] Fred Copestake: Well, this process first, yes. So follow the process and then we can start to tweak some of the attractions and some of the bedside manners, as you say, the interpersonal stuff.
[19:53] Rich Dale: There’s an awful lot we could cover. I’m curious about the hybrid working piece because that was obviously born out of COVID as you said. How has that rebounded any? Or how has hybrid selling… Sorry, how is that looking today versus even two years ago? Yeah.
[20:18] Fred Copestake: Do you know what? I don’t know. I think we’re going through another change. I’ve really got my finger on the pulse of this one because I think we’ve kind of gone, hey, this is awesome. We can save so much time and effort. We can do a ton in the day. We don’t have to spend a load of time sat in the car, visiting people and doing whatever. Though to be fair, a lot of engineers would still do that because it is a hands-on job and I think they find it a lot easier.
[20:46] Fred Copestake: And it is a lot easier, isn’t it, if you’re selling a tactile product? But when I say I’m just stopping and taking check is, I don’t know if we’re going a bit far and people are missing that human contact and are kind of actually liking getting back in the room together and sort of just enjoying having real people, having real conversations. I hear you.
[21:11] Participant 3: I don’t know.
[21:11] Fred Copestake: What have you seen? I know it’s your podcast, you’re asking questions, but I want to fire that one back at you.
[21:16] Rich Dale: Well, yeah, I mean, I was just going to say, I mean, Anecdotally, in terms of customers that I speak to, it’s that sort of rebound effect of the joys of being able to do seven or eight meetings on teams or whatever during the day and feeling really productive.
[21:36] Rich Dale: Soon suffered for the lack of that human contact and people getting out of the habit of visiting or not that I’m a huge fan of trade shows, but certain trade shows or trade body events are a good way to connect with people and having, you know, those habits having changed, you know, I hear a lot more people saying, yeah, I want to get out again, I want to see what’s happening out there.
[22:02] Rich Dale: But there’s still this sort of time pressure thing that you hit the nail on the head or you’re on with, you know, email is bad enough, but now there’s WhatsApp and this sort of nagging need to do a reply because you’re letting that person down. So you’re conditioned now to respond to the ping. But I’m not sure there’s an answer in this, but it’s just that people are defensive of their time, but they appreciate the human contact. So I think they’re more selective in the relationships.
[22:38] Rich Dale: And it sort of comes back to another question that I wanted to ask you.
[22:41] Fred Copestake: Well, just sorry to interrupt you just before you do that, but you said trade shows. I mean, trade shows, think about it, they’re brilliant for doing live teams calls.
[22:49] Participant 3: In other words, you get yourself there early, you find a place in the bar, and you’ve got a whole bunch of people that are meeting you every half hour.
[22:57] Rich Dale: Yeah, exactly.
[22:58] Participant 3: So it’s not a team score at all. It’s like just a ton of back-to-back.
[23:01] Fred Copestake: Meetings where you’re super effective, but you’re there live and the person is there and you’ve got all that kind of buzz going on around you. That’s a really good use of time of those.
[23:10] Rich Dale: Yeah, that’s true. I know it’s a lot cheaper than taking a 10 grand or 50 grand stand depending on the size of machine you want to put onto it.
[23:19] Fred Copestake: Dead right, yeah.
[23:21] Rich Dale: In terms of the deal origination, so, you know, inquiries, you know, how are you seeing that evolve and what element, I know this is probably less on the technical sales than the lead generation side of things. But again, it comes back to where we are today, where people are finding it. They know they’ve got a great solution. They know that they have maybe got a more relationship-based approach to their sales, but they can’t get the foot through the door because of this bunker mentality. What are your thoughts on that?
[24:01] Fred Copestake: Yeah, I mean, There are lots of email solutions being sold on though, which will be incredibly well positioned saying, you know, we said earlier we can mass personalize this so we can take information, we can wrap it up so it’s calling out the person’s problems. Oh, that’ll be better than a we are great email. But people just still get so many, still get so many emails so we’ve got to cut through the noise.
[24:26] Rich Dale: Yeah, they’re part of the problem. They’re not the answer.
[24:30] Fred Copestake: They are so it’s like, yes, what might appear very attractive, particularly if you haven’t really been doing it yourself before, it’s like, oh yeah, that sounds easy and that we can send out tons of stuff and it’s hyper personalizing that. But we’re getting loads. Yeah, we get loads. So for me, it’s about probably doing less, but better. And better is by standing out. So I’m a bit of a stuck record, aren’t I? And like back to what are the problems that people are experiencing? That you can deal with.
[25:00] Fred Copestake: Talk about that, that will get some kind of attention. But think about how do we get that message across? Yeah. I quite like video at the moment. I think that’s pretty cool. It’s sending people video. So sending a video in an email, that is probably different enough. What’s that? I will press that. So use something like video or whatever. You could send that in LinkedIn as well. Again, connect. And then everyone says, oh, we’re great. We’re like, can’t leave a little video. Just saying, hey, look, this.
[25:32] Fred Copestake: I’ve connected because we deal with these sort of things, which you probably have got. Oh, you understood me. Nothing about yourself. I mean, calling, picking up the phone and calling people. Good old-fashioned cold call. But again, using a structure to go back to. I’m calling you because. This is the sort of stuff I suspect you’ll be trying to deal with. That’s how we’re going to get through the noise is with relevance actually rather than personalization because we all know you can just do that using CleverTech. The relevance piece is what really works.
[26:11] Fred Copestake: Worst case scenario, I send them a shoe in the post.
[26:15] Participant 3: I actually did that. As somebody I really, really wanted to.
[26:18] Fred Copestake: Speak to, it’s quite an expensive version. You don’t have to spend said expensive stuff, but by sending a shoe, I put a little QR code in it. But really it was so that I really wanted this guy’s attention as a CEO of a company. So when I rang up, I. I rang up, I went to the reception. Reception. Hi. Can I speak to so and so? Big boss. They said, oh, what’s the connection with? So it’s to do with the shoe I’ve sent him. See if he thinks I’m an idiot or not.
[26:42] Fred Copestake: And they went, what? I said, it’s to do with the shoe. They said, a shoe. I said, yeah, shoe. Well, should you put on your foot? I said, yeah, should you put on your foot?
[26:50] Participant 3: And they’re just like, so this is really bizarre focal.
[26:53] Fred Copestake: I’m just going to put you through.
[26:54] Participant 3: Then I got through to him and he said, oh, yeah, I got there. Because I thought that was quite funny. It’s quite clever.
[26:59] Fred Copestake: Bang. We’re into the conversation.
[27:01] Rich Dale: Exactly.
[27:01] Fred Copestake: Lumpy mail.
[27:02] Rich Dale: Not going to forget them.
[27:03] Fred Copestake: A bit, a bit quirky, which, again, a lot of people in a more traditional industry are thinking, oh, I can’t send a shoe. Don’t send a shoe or something silly. I sent him a sample. No, that’s. What they would expect is something they wouldn’t expect. It’s the curiosity, it’s the quirk, it’s the weird thing that gets the response. Stand out and be different.
[27:23] Rich Dale: Exactly, because every channel is saturated. Even LinkedIn, which I have a sort of love-hate relationship with LinkedIn, but it’s great for connecting with people like us, we’ve got connected, it’s great for picking up on trends and so on. But it’s also like some days, you know, every other post is somebody’s attempt at a chat GPT spiel about something. And, you know, it’s a bit like those emails. You can see them a mile off. And the risk there is that, you know, the platforms allow themselves to be diluted and abused. But good content does stand out.
[28:06] Rich Dale: Personality stands out. And good stories stand out.
[28:10] Fred Copestake: Yeah, I mean if your listeners are using that or thinking of it, just a very quick way to get ahead around using it. I’ll talk about three posts a week, educate, engage and entice. Yeah, engage, picture your cat, picture your dog, selfie view, doing something interesting. And before we go, yeah, because you’re selling yourself. We want to know a little bit about the person behind. But actually that’s the stuff that drives interest. If you’re on a plane, take a photo on a plane, put some comments about where you’re going.
[28:38] Fred Copestake: People love, they’re nosy, people are nosy, they want to see what you’re up to. Make it about Rhiner, you’ll get tons of interaction, I guarantee you. Did that the weekend, we’re up to about 60,000 impressions or something stupid. Okay, that’s not really selling anything, isn’t it? So the entice is I want you to go and do this, are we to take this scorecard? Can I drop a scorecard in the end of this so people can see what it is? And then they get in touch with me.
[29:05] Participant 3: Oh, that was subtle, Fred.
[29:08] Fred Copestake: No, so go and do this. So come to my webinar, take this scorecard, DM me for information. But the one way you’ll really do a lot of benefit is with the educate post. So this is where you’re giving information and it is written for your ICP. It’s written for your customer. Half the people on LinkedIn. 99% of the people on LinkedIn won’t care about it. But that’s not the point. It’s the people that you want to talk to who go, that’s useful, that’s interesting. This guy gets his stuff. This girl gets her stuff. Three sorts.
[29:43] Fred Copestake: We can easily do those. And the easiest way to write your educate one is just on a Friday go, what’s the most interesting question I’ve answered for a customer this week? Right, okay. Right about that. You don’t say who it was or what it was, but just put okay, bang, question, that is my answer. Yeah. There’s a picture with it, great. That’s the one that’s hyper relevant.
[30:07] Rich Dale: That’s the thing. We underestimate how much gold there is in our everyday interactions with customers. You sort of take it for granted, but the inspiration is there.
[30:17] Fred Copestake: If somebody’s asked you, somebody else is.
[30:19] Participant 3: Probably thinking it, aren’t they?
[30:20] Rich Dale: Yeah. Exactly. Well Fred we’re sort of running out of time and usually I ask customers, my guests, to give us a bit of a clue.
[30:30] Participant 3: Is that a presumptive close Rich?
[30:32] Rich Dale: Yeah subtle, very subtle. More like your scorecard. But you’ve given us quite a few nuggets there but I always ask my guests to leave us with one last sort of If you’re going to do one thing as a consequence of listening to today’s episode, what would that be?
[30:54] Fred Copestake: I mean, I’ve alluded to it all the way through and so I’ll just underline that one. It’s work out what are the problems your customer has, what are the things that they’re struggling with, the issues, frustrations, concerns. It could be opportunities, it could be aspirations, but it’s those things that are going on in their world. Try to get three of them. Brain love threes. Identify those and use that.
[31:16] Fred Copestake: In the way you’re reaching out to people, in the way you structure conversations, writing your LinkedIn stuff, when you’ve got clear on that, it’ll change how you go about stuff. Because you stop talking about you, you stop talking about them, and that’s the magic.
[31:30] Rich Dale: Bingo. Perfect. And how do we connect you with listeners and how do they get your scorecard?
[31:40] Participant 3: Well, I’ll say, see, you haven’t cut the scorecard piece out, we said earlier.
[31:45] Fred Copestake: I mean, if you drop into your show notes, that’d be cool. Or there will be on my LinkedIn profile that at the top. It’ll probably say free thing for engineers or something like that. I have a couple of scorecards, one, six seconds. I’ll put the problem or prospect one in because that basically backs up the stuff I was saying. But LinkedIn, yeah, go to LinkedIn, Fred Cope’s steak, and let, you know, connect. Don’t just follow connect and send me a message saying you’d heard Rich and I speak and Yeah, give me some feedback on it.
[32:14] Rich Dale: Sounds good. Cool, Fred, thanks very much. It’s been a real pleasure chatting today. I’ve learned a lot myself, so a few actionable things for me to take away as well as hopefully our listeners. So thanks again for joining us and have a good day.
[32:27] Fred Copestake: My pleasure.