Market Leaders Focus on the Basics

Please note this transcript is machine generated so it is not perfect and should be used for reference only, you will get the best from the podcast by listening to it in it's designed format

(00:00):
Today we're leaving the wow factor at home and knuckling down on the basics.

(00:14):
Hello, this is Jen Hall here, your business positioning coach and market leadership expert. Welcome to this episode of the Expert Unrivalled Podcast where we share all things market leading and today I am going to be delivering a stronger of an episode all around focusing in on the basics. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast, while you know that I always offer a new an invite, an invitation to come and book a call with me, now that invite is still open. Please do. If you'd like to talk about becoming a market leading business and creating a business that really shakes up your industry and really positions you as the number one business to work with, then please do book according with me. I'd absolutely love to have a chat with you to see how we can help you move that forward. However, I'd also like to offer another invitation to please do download my free ultimate guide to becoming a market leader because today I'm going to be looking at a seriously overlooked element that a lot of businesses do not focus on causing serious issues to their positioning and their success in their business.

(01:26):
But in this guide, I really do go through three seriously overlooked elements of market leading businesses that we should all be focusing on in order to ramp up your positioning quickly in the market. And also a single pivotal shift that you can make right now in your business to see a significant change and gain more traction. So please do download that is completely free, no reason why you shouldn't and it's really going to open your eyes as to what that is available. Now. I've spoken a few episodes ago around us getting our kitchen redone and we've been looking at getting that done for a while and we've gotten a few different quotes from different people, but what has really stood out from the word go, like a sore thumb is the companies that you know, are fine on the phone, very quick to sort of get your business you know, and get quotes booked in and whatever else.

(02:28):
But then a lot of things let them down along the way. So there are a lot of things, like for instance, the first guy didn't even turn up for his appointment around him 10 minutes after he was actually meant to have arrived. For him to tell me that actually he'd forgotten about it and he's very sorry. So we'll have to rearrange. So he's completely forgot about my appointment. Now. I appreciate that these things happen, but it really doesn't happen inside of my personal business because I ensure that I schedule everything and that I let people know, what's going on every stage of my businesses and if for whatever reason, I can't make something, I give people notice. So this stood out for me as something that really wasn't the best start. Anyway, in the end, I get a call back in about 10 minutes.

(03:16):
I just say, don't worry, I'm going to be around that in about 20 minutes. So he then changes his mind, finishes his dinner or whatever is doing, and then gets around my house, takes me through the process of, of getting the quote and looking at the kitchen and so on and so forth. All sounding very good. Then, he says he's going to come back to me with a design that I can look at and he's promising me these, these, there's amazing technology that can show me what the kitchen will look like and so on and so forth. Great. Wheat goes by, which is the timeline in which he had promised me this. This kind of quote designed back and nothing. So I chase and then I get another call to say, look, I'm going to send around another member of my team to come around.

(03:58):
Look at your kitchen again. They're going to go through it. They're going to look at it. Then they're going to create the design. I was like, right, okay. So I thought we'd already kind of done this. So they come around again. Again, very nice, you know, promising these amazing things give me, it gives me a ballpark figure there in that on the spot. Promises me the design as soon as they forth, then I get the quote back and the original ballpark for the figure that they gave me was all inclusive of all the works. Now when I get the quote back, the quote is then over the ballpark figure of what she told me and it was just kitchen only. Now you can imagine this point, I'm kind of losing the world to live. The whole process has been completely messed up and they've promised me things and haven't delivered on it.

(04:42):
And then I'm, you know, now being moved around in terms of goalposts on price and things just aren't looking very good for this particular company that we were going to work with. So, you know, it's really important to understand that focusing on the core reasons as to why people buy from you and what they need from you is so important. Because if you don't get these right, you will never ever make a good impression and you will never make it to market leader level. Market leaders rely on amazing feedback. They will lie on your audience talking about you to other people. Now if you can't get these simple basic things right in the beginning, then you'll never go into build that snowball effect and that traction within your market to have them all talking about you in great ways because you're not really giving them much ammunition to do that with.

(05:50):
So it's really important that you give your audience the right things to talk about. And so when we kind of focus on this over-delivering this over promising of this really cool technology, the most amazing bespoke kitchen, whatever else, you know, that's fantastic. But actually if you could just turn up on time, actually, if you could just ring me back when you say you would, maybe if you could, you know, stick within, you know, the, the own giving promises that you know, you can keep and hold back or making promises that you know that you can't, if you can't give ballpark figures that are correct within the remits of what you're saying, don't give them, that's so important. So rule number one for me is delivering on what you say you're going to deliver. On. A few years ago, I hired an expert to help me with a particular element of my business.

(06:49):
And so we had a couple of calls and they were great. And I spoke to them about the fact that I really didn't feel like I wanted the kind of offerings that she was, she was putting on the table for me. And the reason being is because they weren't quite fitting the needs of what I wanted. So I wanted to make sure that they were happy to amend that and to deliver me something a little bit more bespoke that really fitted my knees, better so that I wasn't in this kind of group setting environment, which I don't work very well in. I don't know about you. I'm great in masterminds. That's fantastic. And there's more intimate settings, which is you know how I run my business now. I always think actually running the things that you enjoy being and being in is always good.

(07:38):
But in, in a kind of a group program setting where I'm prescribed a week by week thing am I have to do it by a certain time and all of those kinds of things that they just don't work for me. I'm a bit of a rebel. And you know, I want to focus on what I want to focus on for my business. I don't want to focus on what someone else wants to do. So I'm a little bit selfish like that, but that's how I like to work. And so you know, I mentioned to them that, that wasn't the quite the right setting for me. And so what I was looking for is X, Y, and Z , and they said, naps at you, no problem at all. That's something we could absolutely do. Obviously it's gonna cost you this versus this but totally happy to set out for you.

(08:18):
And so we had this rather transparent call. And you know, when you get something, you just think something just doesn't feel right. Even if they said yes, something still doesn't feel right. And this is a real lesson on trusting your gut here, guys, by the way. So I, I put another call in before the service begins and I just kind of want to chat through everything. And again, it reiterates reassures me that everything is fine and that's no problem at all. This is what you're going to be getting and whatever else. And I was like, right, okay. They've said twice now that that's what I'm getting. I need to just trust this process. So anyway I come off of these calls, the service begins great start, amazing VIP day in London, the best, venue.

(09:11):
And you know, amazing food. They bring me this incredible gift as a, as a thank you for becoming a new client. I'm not really wowed. I'm really like bowled over by this kind of like great beginning. Anyway, so we go into this day, we ha we have a fantastic day. And you know, moving forward, obviously the day was just kind of like a springboard step I guess. And you know, there was nothing particularly bad about it. It was all fine. But as the service continued I was concerned that I wasn't getting the service that I'd asked for. There were things that weren't being delivered on and I was started to be pushed into the same conveyor belt as the rest of the business model that she had originally created that she originally said she'd be fine to amend on a bespoke level for myself.

(10:09):
But really she wasn't willing to do that in practice. So she'd taken my money and then moved all the goalposts around, didn't deliver on what she said she was going to deliver on and then push me in the same direction as everybody else. Now to me that is just bang out of order and it hasn't exactly, you know, made me want to give a shout about working with this person because they completely disregarded everything that I wanted and took my money and run. Now this is a clear example. You know, it's called extreme example, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. I know I'm not the only one because I hear day in day out of companies who promise things and don't deliver on them. And you know, I'm sorry for those of you who have experienced this kind of situations, the same as I have, this is the problem.

(11:00):
These kinds of people, they paint a bad picture for the consulting and coaching industry where people say they're gonna do things and they don't do them. So that's not going to take to market the level behaving that way in business. Charging a lot of money and not delivering on your promises. Charging a lot of money is one thing. That's great and I'm happy for people charging their worth and now I'm a real advocate for that. But you have to back it up with value and you're certainly not to ever bring value. If you say you're going to do something, then you don't. So delivering on expectations and also being very clear from the outset, one of the best things I ever did in my business was to put in expectations and boundaries, transparent expectations and boundaries upfront in the contract, wherever I was communicating with them, I would reiterate those expectations and boundaries in that client on boarding.

(11:54):
I would make sure that they are in that I'm my gosh guys, client onboarding process. It doesn't have to be fancy, but my goodness, make it simple and make sure that that is one. Make sure that people have everything they need to get going with your service and have that prepared. Don't be trying to like get all, gosh, yeah, where's, where's the link to pay? Where's this? Where's that? How does simple payment system make it easy for people to get to do business with? You? Don't make it difficult because you know I've seen recently a few people who have a harder way of getting on board and in their business and the potential client who was said yes originally and then turned around and said, actually, you know what? No, it's a no, this is too difficult for me to, to try and fathom.

(12:42):
Don't make business difficult. Make it easy for your clients and your customers. That is so, so important. But having those expectations and boundaries and setting everything out transparently from the front end, makes the rest of that service deliverable so much easier because everybody knows where the ads, you know, everyone loves to do business with a care handshake and a, yeah, of course I'll do that for you. That kind of way of doing business is, is a dangerous game because people get resentful, expectations get blurred. You say something that isn't as clear as day as it needs to be and then the other person expects something different. And this is where relationships break down. Communication is absolutely key between you and the clients from the first moment where you start discussing working together, you have to be very clear on things around how it's going to work.

(13:44):
I talk about the fact that I have Fridays off. You know, I have a long weekend. I don't work Fridays or Saturdays or Sundays, so don't expect to hear from me. Now, I've broken that rule. This weekend I saw a post from a client who needed my help, who needed my emotional support and I was free and I broke my own rule, but I over delivered. This wasn't something that was expected where they're getting upset because I haven't replied to them or acknowledged their post. Because at the end of the day, I told them that I'm not there. But if I choose to do that, and I don't do it very often. That's the other caveat I give to this is that I don't do that very often because I don't want to start creating inadvertent new expectations in the contract. It's very clear, this is what I work, this is when I don't work.

(14:38):
This is when you can expect to hear from me. This is what you can expect from the service. This is what you shouldn't expect from this service. This is where I will help you. This is where I'm not qualified to help you. I won't do any Dunphy that I will do this. And so when they begin, it's very clear about what they're going to be getting. Even to the point where when I take my client call days, I want to choose day and a Thursday. This is when I take my calls. If you can't do that, you need to tell me straight away and I will see if I can amend anything in my week to be more convenient for you. Or we don't work together. But at least it's clear from the outset that those are the boundaries. Those are the expectations and everybody's happy because they agree on them to begin with.

(15:24):
And then we know where we law and I make sure that I live up to those. So not only is it about setting your expectations for your clients, it's also them knowing, you know, what can they can expect from you and you need to make sure that you deliver on that, that you turn up when you say you're going to turn up and you're going to do the things that you said you were going to do and that you can actually do those things as well. Cause I saw the thing, I see people promising stuff and I never forget this. One of my coaching buddies said that they signed up to this program, whether the coach that was running the program had said that they will show you how to run a seven figure business in her secret magic formula. Now I think the secret magic formula was a seven minute audio.

(16:12):
Well, wow, if you can show someone how to do that in seven minutes and for it to work, then she really does have a magic formula. But again, you know, that's another conversation of hype. And you know, totally blowing out what you say that you could do when it's not true. But Hey, there we go. They're going to, like I said, that is another conversation. But delivering on what you said you want to do and boundaries and expectations are so important. I'm just going to call out a few things here where for instance, I've seen and also experienced myself, you know, some, some more examples of those times where it's not quite pulled through. So, I don't know whether you guys remember, it was all over the news. An American company, Theranos.

(17:01):
They were designing blood testing machines that only required 100 to 1000 of the normal blood amount that you needed to do a test. Hopefully I'll explain that correctly. Basically a machine that will do it quicker, faster, cheaper, better than all the other blood testing machines out there. And it raised something like over $700 million and it was valued at his peak at $10 billion. And at the end of the day, the machines didn't work. When they really got behind the scenes and looked at the results that these machines were giving, it didn't work. Clear example of where you can market your business and promise all these things and it will get you a huge way it will propel you forward. This new inivative design that they're talking about, which is exactly what I've been telling you guys to do on this podcast, being innovative, make sure that you have your unique magic bullet.

(18:09):
Make sure that your concrete USP is groundbreaking so you can start making waves in the industry. Now these guys had that, but it didn't have integrity. It didn't have the substance behind what they were saying. And this is what I mean. We need to, sometimes we need to look at the basics in our business and get all we delivering on what we say we're going to deliver on. And the answer for that was absolutely not. But look how far they've got with their incredible marketing guys. They went out there, they were groundbreaking, they were innovative, and they really got the attention of the market but failed to deliver. And obviously they've lost every ounce of credibility, but it's not market leading. That is a flash in the pan and you know, it's not good news for them. There was another example that Dave and I were discussing in the office earlier on around fire festival, now fire festival and this documentary on Netflix.

(19:07):
But we were talking about some of the disasters within that where they, you know, they promise that this thing was going to take place in a particular Island that it didn't and it wasn't a different Island and they were going to do all these fancy things. Like they had wristbands that you could like upload money onto and they use the pay. Nothing worked. There was so many disasters and not only did not work, the basics were not there, there was no water for people to drink. Just simple things that make people so happy, but yet they don't follow up on and it doesn't happen. And that really annoys people. It really does. And you know, these are very, very catastrophic and extreme examples of where things really have gone wrong. But like in my kitchen quote, example, you know, there's a small things, but they're really big niggles and it doesn't take a lot to get those things right.

(20:07):
Just a little bit of thoughts, a bit of care, a bit of attention. And so many businesses don't get it right. So just by focusing on these basics, not only is it going to keep your customers happy, you're also going to stand out because if you're consistently good time and time again with the basics that gets talked about, you know, yes, your concrete USP will give you that amazing captivation of your audience. But, the fact that people can struggle to get good customer service and those small things, it's missing. And so by doing that, people appreciate it. It creates loyalty and people are gonna really consider, you know, working with you when people are getting consistent results for the things that you said you could deliver on. So what I see a lot of time is things being added on. So I'm taking my wow factor example of this luxury day out in London and the amazing food and this incredible gift that I got.

(21:12):
People try and pack those things in as value adding stuff. Now that's fine, but that has to be the cherry on the cake. But you need to have the cake before you can put the cherry on top. It's really important to have that substance behind what you're doing. And so when you're looking at marketing your your services, you need to start thinking about how am I doing that? Am I chocking everything at this to try and make it look far more amazing than it actually is to justify my price point? Or actually am I marketing by promising something that actually people want and that I can deliver on. By that I mean let's look at why people buy from you. What is the key core reason as to why somebody buys from me? And then instead of adding things on top, but you still can't do.

(22:09):
But remember, we need the cake first. Let's look at marketing at the impact of having that thing. You know, and when I say thing, we have to make these intangibles tangible. Okay? So you know, for the sake of an example let's use a mindset coach. Let's say a mindset coach that works with senior leaders to help them feel more confident in their abilities at that performance. Okay? So let's just use that as an example for the moment I said that's what you do. So you know, we could add in all the VIP stuff, the luxury environments and so on and so forth. But actually what do people really want and what is the impact of having that? How does that affect the rest of the organization on the productivity, the filter down through the ranks. You know, if you're working with senior leadership and you're getting that them at tip top mindset condition, imagine how that will then filter down to the rest of the teams.

(23:19):
Imagine how that's going to impact on their bottom line when they're far more productive. Now imagine how that looks from an employee perspective when they see that you're actually investing in hiring people to invest in them, to help make sure that them their mindset is healthy, and that actually your reputation for becoming a great employer. So we're actually marketing on the impacts of having that one thing. You know, we're not doing any extra work for that, but we are absolutely causing that fact. So be very clear about what you're actually delivering and make sure that you always promise what you can deliver. I'm a big fan of under promise and over deliver. So once people are in there and you're doing the basics and you've got the thing, then then pull in the wow factors and the luxury and all of those things on top.

(24:11):
But just be really clear about the facts of what you're actually delivering of why people want your service. And when I talk about creating these kind of like market-leading USP and bringing that kind of groundbreaking element into your business, you want to make sure you're designing that around a need or want a problem that they are actually experiencing. Otherwise it's useless. Otherwise it's groundbreaking for the sake of being groundbreaking or in fact, it's not even groundbreaking because it's about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Center your USP creation around genuine problems and genuine needs. Because when that happens, then it brings back the relevancy and relevancy is going to be key to your business success and your market leadership position. Being relevant is so important. So you want to keep the relevancy right of that USP really high so that people understand the need for it and that they are compelled to buy from you and to walk what you're offering over anything else out there in the market.

(25:21):
Look at the kinds of things that your ideal clients care about. My kind of clients, they're all about the support and the help and the transformation that they receive. There are other businesses who are working as business coaches and massively promote to this kind of like a lifestyle business and look at the life that you can have and my clients, you know, as much as that they want a decent environment in which to learn. So if I'm running a VIP day or an event, I want to make sure it's of a decent standard with a little bit of luxury because I like to treat people and so forth. But that's not what they're buying. However, another type of clients, not my type of client, but another type of client who worked with those type of lifestyle businesses or the people that market to them.

(26:26):
They want the luxury. That's what they're buying, that buying that business coach's life. The bubbles is a champagne Bali, that buying there, the yacht, they want all of that stuff. That's what they're craving. It makes sense to bring those things in. They love it. They value it. My clients love it. They're not going to say no, but that's not what they're buying. They want results. They want their business to be a success. That's, important to them. That's more important than anything else is the results and the success of their business. That's what they want first and foremost. So have a look at the type of clients that you're working with and find out what's important to them. What do you need to focus on to make sure that you get that right. Because if you don't, you're going to be leaving them behind.

(27:21):
And if you're not careful, you'll become that UK well-known delivery company. When you get that email that says so and so we've got your parcel where you start to cringe and hope that it makes its way to your house. In one piece, and I'm not going to mention the name because obviously it's slander, but I don't think I need to. I think everybody in the country knows who this well-known delivery service brand is. I'm the one that they don't really want them to have it because they're petrified about what's going to happen to their parcel. They become well known for not doing their job properly. Don't let that be your business and it's very easily done. Creeping into that category isn't hard to do. But it is hard to get out of. So be really clear. What's important for your people. What do they want the most, what's important to them, what do they value?

(28:22):
And make sure you get those basic systems in place to ensure that you can consistently deliver on what you say you're going to deliver every time for every client, for every customer, that's key to becoming market-leading because that is what's talked about. That is what people love about you and then anything else that you want to throw at them, they're going to love you even more for, okay, so this isn't me saying you don't need to focus on your concrete USP. Please do. Guys, that's really important. It's one of the best ways to make a big impact very quickly and it's very necessary to differentiate yourself in the markets, but also make sure that you're following up on the basics. Because if you don't do that, does it matter how good your concrete USP is? If your reputation is damaged you're not going to concreate that market leading status that you want to have and want to achieve.

(29:22):
Now, don't forget to check out the show notes guys, because in there are two links. One to download my free ultimate guides becoming a market leader that I talked about at the beginning of the show and also a link in there that you can book a call with me if you want to chat about becoming a market leading business, creating that relevant concrete USP, unique magic bullet for your business or anything else that you need to do to really Uplevel your business to become a market leader. Then let's get on a call and let's chat about it and see what you need to do and start implementing to reach that level. The link is in the show notes, but just very quickly it's bit.ly/claritycallpodcast. I'd be really excited to speak to you and as ever please, if you've enjoyed the episode and any of the others, please can you go onto iTunes and leave us a review? It really makes a big difference, not only to my happiness, but to our rankings to make sure that we can get more, more entrepreneurs and business owners who are seriously ambitious to find this podcast and take as much value from it as possible. And I would love to hear your thoughts on, on how you found the podcast. So please pop on to iTunes and leave us a review. I would be eternally grateful. I'll see you guys in the next episode.