Human Drivers B2B Should Steal from B2C with Ken Schmidt, Author, Speaker & Former Harley Davidson Executive
In this episode of Exploring Growth, host Lee Murray sits down with Ken Schmidt, Author, Speaker & Former Harley Davidson Executive. They discuss the differences and overlaps between B2B and B2C marketing strategies. The conversation emphasizes presenting value with pride, fostering empathy, and creating memorable customer experiences to drive loyalty and long-term success.
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Ken Schmidt
00:00:00
A simple equation is what do all human beings do to any source of delight in their life, no matter how minor the delight? And the answer is we return to it until it fails to delight us and we're joy seeking species. And what I just did as I just defined what loyalty is. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:00:18
Retention.
Ken Schmidt
00:00:19
You make me happy. Any measure of you selling me something does not please me. Yeah. I'm a corporate buyer, for God's sake. I buy a thousand items from a thousand vendors a day. Yeah, but you make a little extra effort on my behalf to be, you know, genuinely interested in me as a human being to delight me a little bit. Well, guess I can't not remember that I'm coming back.
Lee Murray
00:00:49
So there's a big difference between growing a B2B company and growing a B2C company, especially as marketers. and I've been wanting to have this conversation for some time now about what B2B can learn from B2C. And when I was introduced to today's guests, I immediately thought, this is the exact right person to go down this rabbit hole with.
Lee Murray
00:01:10
so today's guest is Ken Schmidt. Schmidt, former Harley-Davidson executive and now executive advisor and speaker. So welcome to Exploring Growth, Ken.
Ken Schmidt
00:01:20
Hey, thanks for having me, Lee.
Lee Murray
00:01:23
This will be fun. you know, I found that since B2B markers, marketers don't really have to eat what they kill, so to speak, like B2C, because B2C marketers are really have to drive a piece of the revenue. I think more so than B2B is called on to do. I think B2B tend to go a little bit, get a little bit lazy in their approach, to, to, to actual marketing. And they kind of focus on supporting sales more than anything, just kind of bottom of the funnel sales driven marketing, which is good. but I think they kind of check creativity at the door. I couldn't.
Ken Schmidt
00:02:03
Agree more. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:02:04
You know, so you have a you have a background that spans across B2B and B2C. so tell us a little bit about your pedigree and how it shaped your thinking.
Ken Schmidt
00:02:13
Well, sure. I try to give you the Reader's Digest version here. Yeah. Lee, was super fortunate to be part of the turnaround team in Harley-Davidson, from mid 80s. through most of the 90s, taking a bankrupt, self destroyed business and turning it into, you know, what the world knows and sees it as today. But, I think more important for our discussion days, what's happened since, I left there, I've been an advisor to, companies all over the planet, from every industry or any industry that you can imagine B2B, B2C household names, small to midsize businesses have written a couple of books, the most recent being Make Some Noise The Unconventional Road to Dominance, which is essentially a kind of a road book or a map to how to position your business, and your culture, to become a more dominant competitor. Yeah. I spent a lot of time out on the, on the speaking circuit and talking to cool people like you. So there's those are the bonafides, I guess.
Lee Murray
00:03:23
Yeah. That's awesome. well, you know, if you could just pull out 1 or 2 things to, to to show us, like kind of what you've been up to in or over the last decade or so. because I think that you, you know, you've, you've touched on a lot of different companies that are, again, B2B and B2C. Yeah. So the nature of this conversation, it'd be I think that'd be really good for our listeners to know, you know, just a little peek behind the curtain.
Ken Schmidt
00:03:47
Oh, sure. Just, what I always find, interestingly, when I'm working with B2B companies, and I don't know if it's strictly because, you know, people know me coming from this mega well-known brand, as people immediately make apologies for what they do. yeah. But what we do isn't cool. Like, I'll just go, like, stop right there. Like, why would you ever present your business to me in an apologetic tone? Like, well, like somebody's holding a gun to your head and making you come here to work.
Ken Schmidt
00:04:23
I mean, there's a reason that you're working here. There's a reason that this business exists, and that should be awesome to you, or it should certainly be awesome in the way that you present it to others. And I think part of that is also the, kind of the crutch that, that B2B people tend to use a lot, like we're in a different sphere than in BDC, and we're not as dramatic or as exciting. awesome. Amazing, you know, as the, the BDC world. So, you know, it's like we have this handicap. Yeah. And I am and I always, you know, work really quickly did diffuse people of that that b to b, b to C at the end of the day man we do business with people that we like. We do business with people that we choose to do business with, whether that's B to B, B to C, it doesn't matter what's being sold. If I don't like you, I'm not buying it from you. If I like you more than the other people that are doing essentially the same thing you are, guess what? You get the nod.
Ken Schmidt
00:05:26
That's a period. Now let's talk about how you market and promote your business, right?
Lee Murray
00:05:30
Yeah, yeah, you nailed it. B2B is all about relationships. It's all about trust. And the quicker you can build trust, that's genuine. you know, the more you're going to win. that's kind of kind of goes to the nature of a little bit of what we do over at Signal Media is helping people take content and build relationships quicker with, you know, certain strategic content so that they can do they can not only have credibility, you know, you're building the awareness and the nurture effect for credibility, but you're building deeper trust quicker. and I always like to say, you know, we get our, our good ideas from the B2C side. Sure. You know, because they're experimenting that's.
Ken Schmidt
00:06:11
You know, the budgets tend to be bigger and. Yep, on and on. So yeah, we know that's that's what's most visible to people. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:06:17
It's visible. It's consumer driven. Consumers need to see brand.
Lee Murray
00:06:22
you know, bigger companies typically are going to spend money on a lot of ads and they're testing, you know, if they're doing it right, they're testing and experimenting. and so that's where all the good ideas come from, I think. But I agree with you. I go back to the B2B side and I say, you know, look, you could do the same thing. You know, it's going to look a little different. But the passion can come through the drive, the the vision for what you guys are doing to connect with your audience can be the same, and that tone can come through.
Ken Schmidt
00:06:52
If there's not a human connection to a business, that business is a commodity. And that's that's really all there is to it. And you mentioned something a second ago that that always gets my attention when you talk about, human quality, you know, the, you know, the trust, the likeability, the word relationship that I hear all the time with from B2B businesses, regardless of their size.
Ken Schmidt
00:07:15
We really focus on relationships. And I, I never take that as a, as a universal truth, I think. Prove it. Yeah. Tell me what that means. Because everybody says that and you feel you have to say it make make that real for me. Show me how you do that, how you even grained that in the culture. Because if you're not doing that, that's a B.S. answer. And don't feed me that crap because I don't want to. I don't want to. I hear it too often. Yeah. you know, we we're so focused on doing what we do. Well, in building relationships with people and, like, well, that's two completely different things. So kind of let's break these down and look at them. Because if all you're known for is what you do in most businesses. because that's all they talk about. All they promote, all they glorify. Yeah. it's very, very difficult to build relationships with people because they only know you for what you do.
Lee Murray
00:08:15
Exactly.
Ken Schmidt
00:08:16
And what you do.
Lee Murray
00:08:17
About your product. They only know about your product.
Ken Schmidt
00:08:20
Amen. And the, it's amazing, though, because I know I'm preaching to the choir here how many times I talk to, you know, the owners or the, you know, executive team leading a B2B company. Yeah, no matter what they do. and I'll say, if someone that you serve is talking about your business today, Does somebody who doesn't know you that you would. That could be a dream client, a dream customer. If you could be the biggest customer you've ever had, what would you want that person to say about your business 100% of the time? Lee. That's when you get the hands behind the head. They lean back in the chair and they go, well, you know, I guess what, I just stop. We've already we've already failed the test.
Lee Murray
00:09:06
We lost it. Yeah.
Ken Schmidt
00:09:07
You guess like, dude, this is your this is everything in your world right here, condensed into one sentence.
Ken Schmidt
00:09:15
And you don't have an answer for that? Yeah. what do you want your reputation to be? What do you want people saying about your business? Because when they're talking about your business, I guarantee they're not talking about what you do. It's who you are. Especially these people that you say that you have a relationship with. Because when they're describing your business, they're going to describe the human quality. We like these people. I like these guys. I love these guys. These guys take great care, whatever that is. Nowhere in there did they. These guys have the best product. I love the way they bolt their stuff together. You know what? Whatever that is. Because again, the product is can't be the differentiator. and products do not, no matter how well they're made, speak for themselves. You know, it's the people behind the product, the people behind the service that make the business competitive or that, you know, by default, make the business struggle in a commoditized, you know, price driven dynamic.
Lee Murray
00:10:15
Yep. And you know, this, this word relationship. And I'm no vernacular specialist, but like, I tend to think that there's a root word in there somewhere of relating. and you know, when you're relating to other humans, one human to another and the product exists or service exists in there somewhere, what you're allowed to do is what you're able to do is relate your product to those humans from another human. And in doing that, that's where the relationship really starts, I think. So, so with B2B, it's hard because they want to talk about their product. I think a good baby step for them is to say, okay, we can talk about your product, but let's let's think about it from an empathy standpoint. What is your buyer user? What are their needs? What are what are they value? Let's relate what it is that we're doing to them.
Ken Schmidt
00:11:06
The to me the basis of relationship. And it I'm sure it sounds softer corny is humanity. It's human drivers. It's empathy, it's wit, it's, curiosity.
Ken Schmidt
00:11:23
Yeah. And what I always find, in it's natural and it really predictable is I always use like a trade show as an example, because that's such a great place to see, a microcosm of how people describe their business to, you know, potential customers. And what we tend to do, especially when we're meeting, prospective partners or prospective customers. The first time is we immediately lapse into this business speak, where we feel like we immediately need to start talking about what we do. This is what we do here. I see that is so counter to human experience. It's our desire to be interesting to people that hurts us. That immediately puts us, back on our heels. Because what people want in us, the basis of relationship, is I want you to be interested in me. so, you know, it's the a great adage that somebody told me like 40 years ago that I never forgot who says, stop being interesting, start being interested. Yeah. That locks people in the feet because now they're talking about themselves.
Ken Schmidt
00:12:34
They're not talking about their business. I'm interested in you as a person. And we're having a conversation about my favorite person who happens to be me. And if I'm if you are showing an interest in me and reacting to what I'm saying, I begin immediately to like you. Yes. And there's no. It's impossible not to. right. You're asking questions about me, you know. Go to hell. Nobody's ever. Yeah, right. Wow. Okay. You notice that it's different. You notice that somebody's making an effort to be human, establish a relationship, possibly even, you know, God forbid, a friendship. Yeah, that makes discussions about the business in the in the what we do part of the equation that much easier because not the person is going to be way more receptive. I see you sell lawnmowers. I get it right. I, I know that before we have a discussion, you sell laptops, you sell carpeting, whatever. I, I know that or we wouldn't be having a conversation.
Ken Schmidt
00:13:31
It's it kind of like, what else have you got? Right? And if all I'm seeing is that business first. Hey, did I tell you? You know, we're offering 10% off this week on all of our, you know, last year's model. Whatever. You're telling me what's important to you and what's important to you is getting rid of this crap, not me. Yes, I'm what's important here, and I think.
Lee Murray
00:13:52
I think this applies to both B2B and B2C as we're talking through it. You know, it's, I think B2C can tend to get this right more than B2B, because if they don't, they fall into that sort of, race to the bottom on price. and I think when they get it right, they realize the success of it and getting it right is, is helping their buyer to envision themselves buying in their product. and, and when they do that, they're, they're essentially doing what you're saying and they're, they're, they're interested, they're showing that they were they were interested enough to know the buyer to the extent that they need to know them.
Ken Schmidt
00:14:32
The B2B business world does though. Other than the the you know, the Grangers, the the huge B2B companies about, have a advantage over most B2C in that they have to, as a result of their business, stand across from other people or talk to other people. So there's more of that dynamic or more chances for their that dynamic than there are in the, you know, the, the, the online, the heavily online driven businesses or the just pluck it off the shelf. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:15:05
Well, you know, one thing I really love about B2B and, and I see this in my business is, you know, there's a lot of face to face. There's a lot of high touch. I think there's, you know, the SaaS products and there's kind of things that are less high touch, but in a long sales cycle type of, you know, high ticket item, you're going to have to have a lot of touch with maybe multiple people in that buying process to to turn it over into a client and then continue that process.
Lee Murray
00:15:35
It's like dating to marry or campaigning to be elected. It's the work you have to do before the work. you know, I kind of like that because it gives you all. It gives you both the chance to really feel each other out and build that solid sort of base of trust to the degree that you can build it before you start working together and almost start working together before you're working together. and to me, I think that's the advantage that B2B has, is that the advantage is the relationship that B2C has it. You know, typically we'll have a harder time to demonstrate that they know the customer, which is where their creativity has to come from. Yeah. You know, that's where the, the heavy burden on the B2C side is. They have to be creative to influence the buyer, that they know them.
Ken Schmidt
00:16:26
What most people tend to do is believe that on the, on the B2B side and also on B2C, but real heavy in B2B, especially in the backbone type industries where we're selling parts or equipment machinery.
Ken Schmidt
00:16:43
is that that they believe, well, they believe a lot of things about the people that they serve. But what they mostly believe is that, you know, I'm here to serve you. I'm here to provide a service for you. And the faster and easier I make that for you, the more you're going to like working with our business in what you find is that's a formula for disaster. It's a very kind of myopic, short lensed view of how, you know, our our species operates. I fully expect you're going to serve me. I fully expect I'm going to get value for what you know, I'm going to get what I pay for. Sure you. Otherwise you wouldn't be in business how fast you do it, how readily you, you know, answer my question to get me off the phone. That's your you know, that's your internal knitting. That's your internal. And what I say to all people in that environment is you're blowing enormous opportunities by doing that. Is is it requires a mindset change? It's a mindset change that certainly that we went through at Harley Davidson.
Ken Schmidt
00:17:57
But most truly successful companies, if they weren't founded this way, had to evolve and say, we're not here to serve, we're not here to sell you stuff. We're here to be a source of delight for you. Now, I know when I say delight, especially to the kind of old world businesses people like. Well, you know, that's really soft. But, you know, we're not in the daylight business. We're selling asphalt. Yeah. Like that. That's what you do.
Lee Murray
00:18:25
But this kind of comes back to the relationship.
Ken Schmidt
00:18:27
It and it does. And I say like, look, anytime. Am I talking about delight? Like we have to do things for people that get them so excited that they're, you know, doing backflips, hooping for joy as anything that upends what someone expects from a relationship in a positive way. That's the someone's paying attention to me. Somebody's making an effort on my behalf. This person is enjoying what they're doing so much that I can't help but be mimicking that, enjoying it myself.
Ken Schmidt
00:18:59
When that's happening, man, we feel a little bit of delight. Now. Here's the reward part of that. It's it is so freaking simple. And why it's not taught in business schools, I have no idea. But simple equation is what do all human beings do to any source of delight in their life, no matter how minor the delight And the answer is we return to it until it fails to delight us. Yeah, we're joy seeking species. And what I just did is I just defined what loyalty is. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:19:31
Retention.
Ken Schmidt
00:19:32
You make me happy. Any measure of you selling me something does not please me. Yeah. I'm a corporate buyer, for God's sake. I buy a thousand items from a thousand vendors a day. Yeah, but you make a little extra effort on my behalf to be, you know, genuinely interested in me as a human being to delight me a little bit. Well, guess I can't not remember that I'm coming back for more of that. You get the nod.
Ken Schmidt
00:20:00
I now prefer you over somebody else. And if I prefer you, guess what? Price is now no longer my primary driver in the in the purchase equation I prefer I'm seeking you out. You keep delighting me. I'm going to keep returning. You stop delighting me. Boom! Yeah, I'll find somebody else.
Lee Murray
00:20:21
Yeah I agree. You know, it's like you think about your average day and the things that you have to deal with as, you know, the leader of your family, the leader of your business, you know, all the responsibilities you carry into to a day and any number of things can go wrong and break and, you know, be behind and, you know, so on and so forth. And so you have these responsibilities that you're trying to carry and manage and, and fires to put out. If that vendor or that company can be one less fire and in fact, maybe even encourage, you know, the solution to another fire. you're you rise very quickly in their world when it's like, okay, now I got to go do this thing, and this is going to be just like everything else.
Lee Murray
00:21:05
And then it happens to not be. It happens to be one step instead of ten. it gives you your time back. It gives you, you know, value in a very delightful way. I think that's what you're getting at, is it doesn't have to, you know, make you do backflips. It has to just matter to the person that's buying it.
Ken Schmidt
00:21:24
And and we instantly notice when that happens because we're just not used to. We're just used to getting what we want. Hit the button. It shows the brown box shows up at the door, because it always does. When something in the equation is noticeably different, it's off a little bit. I like this boom! You will get the the benefit of the nod the next time. And then the more you're talking, the deeper the relationship comes. The the deeper the trust, the more forgiving buyers are. You know, if we make a mistake, they feel like we've got their best interests at heart, all of these positive things.
Ken Schmidt
00:22:02
And also, guess what? You know, when they're at a trade show or something or at a convention, and your name comes up, they're going to say good stuff about you. I like them.
Lee Murray
00:22:13
Yeah, exactly.
Ken Schmidt
00:22:14
They rock versus they suck. Don't know them. They're okay.
Lee Murray
00:22:19
Yeah. Or yeah. It's you know they have a good price. But you have to deal with this and that and the other. So it's not really worth the headache. the best example that comes to mind is Amazon, where they, they rolled out the two day shipping and then the one day shipping. And they, you know, it's like they just upped the ante without you even asking like two days. I'm perfectly fine with two days. I don't see why I needed one day. Then one day, like, okay, I'm going to pretty much just shift all my buying to you because I know that it's for the most part, I'm going to have a one day turnaround on this. And, you know, that's delight, I think, on a grand scale.
Ken Schmidt
00:22:55
It, it, and surprised, like, in a holy crap kind of way. You know, the market. I'm in here just outside of DC. It sometimes embarrasses me or to something off Amazon. It just shows up like two hours later. I didn't need it that quick. Yes, but awesome that you could do that. Yeah, but there's another little parable on that. That story is a lot of times if I'm talking to a business, in the B2B space, I guess in B2C two, that does the majority of their business online say, tell me about your business and how you do it. I hear this. Well, you know, we're not Amazon, but and I go, why the description of your business is what you're not. Yes. And guess what. Nobody else is Amazon either. That's like comparing yourself to a god. It's like it's way too, you know, we're trying to model our business after Amazon. You can't. They already did it. Like yeah, they got it.
Ken Schmidt
00:23:51
let's talk about what you do and how is ultimately you're competing against those guys. we need to say and do things for people. That position you clearly is different and more desirable.
Lee Murray
00:24:04
Buyers may not care that you're not like Amazon. That may not be of what's value valuable.
Ken Schmidt
00:24:08
And that's that's that's not was I thinking that when I asked you about your business? Hey, are you guys Amazon? You know, so many mistake, you know, comparing yourself to somebody else? Not immediately. Yeah. having in mind a description of the business that everybody in the everybody else in the business knows and understands. Yeah. that's kind of came back to what I said earlier about how do you want somebody to talk about the business, and the leader has to, you know, put his hands behind his head and take a guess at it. Well, if you have 100 employees, that's 100 employees that are also guessing at how the business should be described. Man, that's that's and I shouldn't say this, but that's money in the bank for me.
Ken Schmidt
00:24:51
Yeah. I'm sitting across oh I'm about to make some money today.
Lee Murray
00:24:55
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. on our intro call, you were telling me about, weapons of mass Attraction as a model. Tell us about that. Sure. Well, it was in context to us talking about this topic of building demand.
Ken Schmidt
00:25:10
I'm I'm really, really a profoundly huge believer in leveraging basic drivers of human behavior, to create demand and build competitive advantage, which means, you know, not extolling the virtues of our products and services and what we do, but instead taking advantage of needs that are inherent in the entire human race. And when we meet human needs, especially in ways they don't expect, especially emotional needs, not so much the physiological, food, water, shelter stuff that's much easier to do when we are meeting someone's emotional needs. As businesspeople, we're doing something that's utterly profound. That's the entire basis of, you know, harley-davidson's business. and other, you know, consumer businesses that, that do that, understand this? we all have the deep rooted, deep need for validation to be made to feel good about ourselves.
Ken Schmidt
00:26:18
Important. Special. Needed. Necessary. Awesome. And when we do that for people, squirt goes the dopamine in their brain. Someone that's that interested versus interested. Someone's paying attention to me. I like that squirt goes to dopamine. I'm coming back for more. As as long as this person or this business is doing this for me, I'm going to keep doing it. so then under that umbrella of, meeting human needs, there are simple, you know, what I, what I call weapons of mass attraction, things that we can do, behaviors that we can exhibit that make us and the businesses that we represent more attractive and more desirable. And, you know, best of all, more memorable. Sure. and the first one is the easiest one. and go back to that trade show for a minute, because this is where you don't see enough of this that the most visibly, excuse me, the most magnetically attractive human trait in in the Noah Webster dictionary says magnetically attractive. A force that pulls a person for the most magnetically attractive human trait is not a smiling face.
Ken Schmidt
00:27:30
Well, as long as we're smiling, people like know, because, you know, they smiled at Sears. There has to be more to it than that. The most magnetically attractive of all human traits is visible with the capital of passion, with a huge capital P, if you're standing across from somebody or in the shared space of somebody who's obviously very clearly digging what they're doing. Yeah, loving life at that moment in a great mood, super cheerful, focused on 100% of the human species, tilts toward that person, leans toward that person like us, where we are a joy seeking species, right? Most of us live could have been a miserable, dull life. But when there's an opportunity to feel good hurt, we lean toward it. You know? Give me some of that. Yeah, but we can't, 100% of the species notices it and reacts to it immediately. And the takeaway from that, though, there's actually a bunch of them that the person that you're meeting for the first time, or the person that's seeing you walking into a meeting or into the meeting room or at the sales booth or whatever that is, is making a judgment and literally 1/100 of a second of whether they like you or not.
Ken Schmidt
00:28:44
Yeah. So unfair. But, you know, we all do it. Hands folded, staring at the ground. Is that somebody I want to spend time with? No I don't the person who's visibly passionate, enthusiastic, you can't not get pulled toward. And here's and the magical thing is, is the dividend that this pays and that when you are in the presence of a visibly passionate, enthusiastic person, you will, in that same 1/100 of a second, start to mimic them. We don't know why it happens again. That's that's it's, you know, kind of humanity 101. You learned from the time that you're an infant, if you look joyfully and people pick you up. And yeah, I have lots of friends when you look, you know, miserable or like, there's something awful in your diaper, people stay away from you. Yeah, we learn that. And as long as we're around happy people are passionate people and we're acting that we're feeling better about ourselves. So I'm not liking you.
Ken Schmidt
00:29:42
Yes, I like you. I like the business that you represent. You may be the only first and only person from this business that I'll ever meet, but the association that I now have with your business is driven 100% by this one human being that I'm meeting. And I'm going to pluralize that and describe your business as the they're so cool. They're awesome. They're amazing. They're so, so, you know, they're so friendly. They're so great at what they whatever it is, is. Yeah. That one person's behavior became the behavior of the entire organization without anybody else knowing about it, because that's what people do. other weapons of mass attraction of is never greeting someone predictably, Or asking questions that people can answer with a one word no. Yeah. especially go back to the trade show. Go back to the a direct mail looking for a new. No, I'm not looking for Pooh. And I said, well, think somebody walking towards you. Hey, you want to see something cool? The number of people who say no to that question is zero.
Ken Schmidt
00:30:55
Yeah, sure. Shit. Show me what you got, pal. Pick up on, you know, some article of clothing. The person who were looking for some visual cue behind the person about what's important to them. Kevin, on that poof. Immediately. We've got something here that has nothing to do with our businesses. Yeah, we're just being human for a few seconds. And that's, that's what moves Marcus. Because whether it's motorcycles or carpet squares. Yeah. Every player in these market spaces are extraordinarily good at what they do. I'm not questioning the quality and the reliability of your products. You wouldn't be here if your stuff was lousy. Yeah, that's not what I'm going to like about you. That's not what I'm going to remember. Anything. Unless you've got a cure for infectious diseases. Right. You know, I'm going to. I will opt to do business with somebody that I like. Period. Why don't we think about that more? And it's because we think we're here to serve.
Ken Schmidt
00:32:00
and it, it. Sorry I'm dragging this out for so long but I always.
Ken Schmidt
00:32:03
Tell people good.
Ken Schmidt
00:32:04
Yeah. Is. You've got a, you know a phone call on line one customer potential customer. And again this or standing in front of you at the trade show or the booth or you just knocked on their door. Sure. And what we immediately lapse into is the I don't want to take up too much of their time. I want to serve them, I want to get them the information that they need as quickly as possible and send them on their way, because that means I'm doing my job right. That means I'm showing respect for them. Well that might you know, all those things might be true, but none of those things move the needle. But I always tell people, if it's on the front of my laptop here, it's on the back of my phone, two letters. and If somebody's calling me. If I'm about to zoom with somebody, it's. I'm not here to serve this person.
Ken Schmidt
00:32:59
I'm here to say and do things that they will. remember in our repeat. Because what I say to this person, assuming that it's not predictable business tripe, is going to be repeated when this guy or this guy is talking about me. If I focus on that, I've got a chance to build my reputation and the reputation of this business and the likeability of this business with every human being I talk to, because they're the ones that are going to be building our reputation. Right. They're the ones going to be talking about us and hopefully remembering us and recommending them us to their friends. If I'm not focused on that, yeah, somebody else will be. And that'll be, you know, one of your competitors. We have opportunity every day to do this, but we tend to look past it, get them their information, get them off the phone. And I can't tell you how many times if you're having a somebody on there. Hey, what are you doing this weekend? What? Oh, I'm going to go to football.
Ken Schmidt
00:34:01
Well, what about you have that conference. You never once will. You hear that person trying to hustle you off the phone. Yeah I know you're busy. You know you busy but you're going to make time to talk about, you know what's important to you. Yeah. Which is your personal stuff. And the fact that I'm asking you and other people aren't. Well that that's points in my, you know in my column.
Lee Murray
00:34:23
Yep. Exactly. Yeah. As long as it's not used to manipulate because that's where you get into.
Ken Schmidt
00:34:28
Oh well sure.
Lee Murray
00:34:28
Oh the I see the marker there. It's not genuine. And now I'm out.
Ken Schmidt
00:34:33
But everybody smells lack of sincerity I mean you can't miss it. So that's a that's a really good point. it but it, it requires so little effort.
Lee Murray
00:34:45
Yeah. So it's not a gimmick is what I meant. Like, what you're saying has to be genuine. And I think for those people that are running companies and are hiring salespeople and, and, you know, putting faces in front of other faces, if they if they can harken back to the passion that they have for what they're doing, and they can really examine their product and their service and see, okay, how is this really helping people? And they can connect again to it and to what they're doing to the vision, to the that journey ahead.
Lee Murray
00:35:15
They can then muster up those emotions again, because at some point they were there, muster them up and take those to market in the ways that you're saying. And that really is a huge competitive advantage, because when you look at all the other competitors, what do they do? They do all the things you're saying not to do. They go to they go to features and benefits, and then they go to price and they end up with a pricing model, a pricing mindset, and it doesn't take them anywhere. They're their number of deals or opportunities are going to be bid, you know, based, essentially, they're not going to have real, real connections and real conversations with people that lead to real long term value clients.
Ken Schmidt
00:35:57
With what's amazing is because because you just you said features and benefits. And I go to a lot of companies. So they said this is what we're trained on. Meaning yet another feature is the benefits of the the of the product. We need to know the product inside and out.
Ken Schmidt
00:36:15
Yes you do. You absolutely need to know the product inside.
Ken Schmidt
00:36:18
Because there's a time for.
Lee Murray
00:36:19
That. There's a time.
Ken Schmidt
00:36:19
You should be proud of your knowledge with that. The problem comes when that's what people lead with. Yes. And I said, have you ever I'm kind of a Luddite when it comes to technology. If I am in a, any type of electronic store or computer store buying a laptop, good God, do I hate that. because. And what do you get? Well, this one's got 128. And from the get go. Not only do I not have a clue of what this terminology means, but there's a data point. There's 128 of these. There's 356 of these. And I go, I'm I'm supposed to remember this when I don't even understand it? Why are you doing this to me? I just need a freaking laptop. Yeah. Show me. I don't care if it's good, better, best. But you're leading with features and benefits and product specs.
Ken Schmidt
00:37:23
Yeah, it's like looking at product specs of a life insurance policy. Yeah. Go ahead and compare two. What is this crap. Yeah. Help me here. Understand what I'm going to do with this and what I want it for and make me like. And then I trust you. I'm going to take your recommendation. Yeah. You know what. After what you told you, you'll be happier with this. Oh, thank you very, very much. we could be pals jamming this product crap down my throat. I dislike you immediately.
Lee Murray
00:37:52
Yes, and it's cold. It's not genuine or sincere.
Ken Schmidt
00:37:55
But people think they're supposed to. I don't, and a lot of times I don't even think they're trained to do that I think. It's just the belief this is what we're here to do. It's that. Walk into a store and someone you know. Can I help you? I just got here. When are you leaving? Did you find everything you're looking for? Yeah. Seriously going to ask me that now when I'm leaving? Are they trained to do that? Probably not.
Ken Schmidt
00:38:20
They've just heard it so many times, they think they're supposed to. Yeah, always. Always leading with the wrong thing.
Lee Murray
00:38:25
That's the level of, you know, customer care. Is that front end and back end question. It's not, you know, consultative at all. It's not, you know, we know that, you know, four out of five people that come in here looking for this type of, you know, laptop or looking for the computer. They have this kind of problem and you probably don't have that problem. But, you know, a lot of people do. So. Oh no, that's exactly the problem I have. Oh okay. Well when you have that problem, how does that work?
Ken Schmidt
00:38:55
And what would it hurt.
Ken Schmidt
00:38:56
For them to say, hey, look what what's.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:00
The your.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:00
Level of knowledge on on the technology in the stuff that's inside this. And I'd say I'm an idiot. Make it easy. Let's we would have that conversation, but they never do.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:11
Yeah, this one's on sale. And this one has this, this, this and this. And I said everything you said after it's on sale, I didn't understand.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:18
That's right.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:19
make it easy for me.
Lee Murray
00:39:21
That's awesome. This has been a fun conversation. Thanks for that.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:25
Oh, I could do this stuff all day. I do.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:27
Yeah, you do, you do.
Lee Murray
00:39:28
I mean, see, and there you go. You're you're eating your own dog food, as I say. Exactly.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:32
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:39:33
Taking your passion and making it your brand.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:35
God bless America is all I can say.
Lee Murray
00:39:39
I love it. Okay, well. we don't have to end here right about the 40 minute mark. It was, Oh.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:44
Wow.
Lee Murray
00:39:45
Yeah. I mean, it was. This is what happens when you connect with people, right?
Ken Schmidt
00:39:49
I mean, it just suddenly you.
Lee Murray
00:39:51
Prioritize it and time goes by. If we want to send people your way, where do we send them?
Ken Schmidt
00:39:56
easiest place where you can go to Ken speaks.com.
Ken Schmidt
00:39:59
Okay. you can find me on LinkedIn. And please, if you've got questions, I answer 100% of everything that comes my way. Yeah, I enjoy doing that. Or you can listen to my podcast tailgating with geniuses. Okay. those are the easiest ways to find me.
Lee Murray
00:40:14
I like it. And you mentioned you had a book.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:16
Oh, yeah.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:16
book. Make some Noise. The Unconventional Road to dominance. business book. And then I was also the ghostwriter of 100 years of Harley-Davidson, the big history book, the big Harley history book.
Lee Murray
00:40:30
Cool. Yeah. Let's check that.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:32
Out. Yeah, yeah.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:33
Please do.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:34
Quite the track.
Lee Murray
00:40:34
Record. And thanks for being on and and chatting about this topic.
Ken Schmidt
00:40:37
My pleasure. Lee.