Delivering Promises and Elevate Business Credibility with Gerry O’Brion

for smaller businesses many times specificity is very important getting clear what makes you special and different that's valuable to those customers is really important and then putting your effort and your money in very specific places not spreading it out uh broadly and so you got to start with who are you trying to influence and where are you trying to influence them to make sure you don't spread it out too far and too wide [Music] Gary thank you so much for joining me on the let business podcast my pleasure thanks for having me this has been so long in the making we connected first you spoke at our two 2015 let's talk business Summit it was a knock of event because you spoke about marketing you came from a background being incorporate understanding how they've done some some successful campaigns which we'll talk about and then I follows your journey afterwards and recently saw that you launched a new book and I said you know what it's we we got to bring you on the show and it we got to got some back and forth about get getting it scheduled but I'm happy we're talking now wonderful thanks for having me I appreciate it sure so for our listeners that don't remember that event or obviously a lot of a lot of listeners joined our platform since tell us a little bit about your past history as far as how you got into Marketing in the first place and ultimately what you're currently doing excellent so I started out my career in marketing actually at Proctor and Gamble I got my masters in business at University of Michigan and was lucky enough to get my first job in marketing a Proctor and Gamble and then moved on to become the brand manager of K's light and you probably are familiar with things that I launched especially like the bottle with the mountains that turn blue when it's cold enough to drink the Kors light can that turns blue when it's cold enough to drink and then went on to companies like Red Robin gourmet burgers and Quiznos and for for the last 13 years I've been a professional speaker and I've created a framework of influence how do you influence people to buy from you versus everyone else in really crowded competitive markets and this is for people that are tiny little businesses big businesses medium old businesses new businesses it doesn't matter what we started out doing is taking the strategies from billion-dollar brands and applying it to small businesses and over the last 13 years I've created this framework that has been used by hundreds of companies over time to uh figure out how to influence their customers to buy from them in really crowded competitive markets so I want to go back to a couple of things you mentioned because um a lot of a lot of times when you speak to people that started off in corporate Executives and and and PNG is one of the you know a lot of great t came out of that organization in particular in the marketing world I follow a lot the you know the CMO podcast with what's who is the host of that show I forget just the name I forgot the name in a moment but obviously he was the one of the marketing directors of PNG and there's a lot of guests that he has on the show from other now Cosmos of large companies that maybe started off in PNG but I I guess the the question I want to ask and and I think you mentioned it in in by passing when you mentioned about your frame work and the framework Works big businesses and small business alike is because a lot of small businesses say that you know I'm out bit by large companies because they have larger budgets than me and they are able to put a lot of money behind branding and marketing what is your response when a small business owner tells you that first of all the idea the question is starting at how much money do we need to spend most of the businesses that I work with they generate most of their business through referrals through being introduced from other people and honestly through specificity through narrowing their focus to who is perfect for them but the framework that I teach actually talks about well number one who are you influencing number two what are their insights number three what's the promise the outcome that you're going to deliver and number four what's the proof about why you're better well as you think about in influencing someone just because a bigger company has a bigger budget is sort of like putting the cart before the horse the first question to for a business owner to ask is okay of all the clients I already have where did where did they come from and how would I find more people like the people I already have and many times that answer isn't by doing marketing externally out to the big big broad world it's by getting into very specific niches and places where people people value what you have the bigger question I would ask is what do you what does your business bring to the table that that bigger competitor doesn't bring that they can't bring that they don't do just because they're bigger the perception might be that they're better but is that actually true and if it's not true how do you convince me so for smaller businesses many times specificity is very important getting clear what makes you special and different that's valuable to those customers is really important and then putting your effort and your money in very specific places not spreading it out broadly and so you got to start with who are you trying to influence and where are you trying to influence them to make sure you don't spread it out too far and too wide does that make sense yeah absolutely you know I like what you said about what learning from the big businesses I remember a couple of years ago I wrote an article which was called I love my junk mail and I actually in that article the premise of the article was that sometimes you could see these amazing Pieces come through your mail from these large corporations that went through so so many B accuracy and so many different hands in order to get that piece in the mail and you as a small business owners you could pivot and you could you could be so much more agile in your marketing but but you still need strategy you can't just copy somebody else's work you need to have strategy and and and so on and so forth which so I like what you said on that so let me ask you because your framework and the book that you launched is called the buy you because and then closing hold hold up a pi I got it right here oh here we go buy your because there we go okay buy your because and obviously closing the sale in a crowded Market which obviously from a marketing genius like you this is carefully crafted so I want to ask you two pieces one is what's that because and second of all let's talk about closing a sale in a crowded Market because we all suffer from that good question so they buy your because the number one mistake that companies make in their marketing and sales process is and you'll see this all the time I see it with all my audiences they have a good idea of who they're trying to sell to they know some things about what those people want their insights what do they want more of or less of or what are they're frustrated about question number one who are you influencing question number two what are their insights what do they care about what are they frustrated about question number three we are really good at this one what's the outcome you promis to them what promise do you make we're going to deliver higher quality we're going to deliver a better product we're going to deliver great service we're gonna we make these promises for a restaurant our food is delicious right these SE are promises these are things that we promise to deliver we are really good at companies at businesses at making promises what we're not good at is question number four you're because our product is higher quality because we deliver better service than any of our competitors because if we make a promise and we don't finish that sentence of influence with the proof the because everything we say sounds like marketing fluff everything we say sounds like the Sea of sameness and so if you know who you're going after you know what their frustrations are you know the promise you're going to make we must figure out what do we do what does our business do differently than all the other businesses that's valuable to our customers that proves that promise the number one mistake is that we don't insert the proof and everything we say doesn't sound compelling that's your because your because is the proof about you about what you do versus what everyone else does and if you do the same things that everyone else does you haven't given me any good reason to choose you you've just made me more confused and I don't want to be confused the number one thing your customers want is certainty that they are making a good call if I'm going to buy from you versus the other company that looks a lot like you what proof are you going to give me that gives me certainty that's what I'm looking for and that's what your because delivers is the certainty that you will provide and deliver the promise that you make this is this is great and I I think it's so important because because we like you said a lot of times you could see businesses just say where number one at this and we're number who knows what at that or we you know or quality service and price meet meet meet us you know whatever all these like very yeah we have great selection yeah yeah and the problem like you said is we're already used to those things and we're live in a world that it's these things are so easy to find out you know with the Google review we could see exactly how your clients feel about your service and so on and so or your selection yeah so it's important that that we like you said the the proof that we put to that question is from from an exercise perspective and maybe some of it is in the book but maybe you could share some of it now with the audience is where do you feel is the strongest because is it is it something that we find our clients tell us about our service is it something that we feel our process gives us something different like what is it well it's great question and be careful because I could talk about this all day it's literally the whole my my whole life has spent helping businesses find their powerful thees let me give you a couple of hints and then I'm going to tell you where to find because is in your company let me start out by saying that in the book not that I'm promoting the book but the answer to your question is so interesting it varies by company by industry by whether you're a B2B company a b2c company Professional Services there are 177 ways to create bues and they're all outlined in the book with case studies and everything so let me give you a couple of really good uh ways to get started number one when I work with companies and I say well why would I buy from you what I should buy from you because well by the way this is a great exercise to do write down the first half of this sentence you should buy from US versus our competitors because that's the first half of the sentence now have your all the listeners out there write down the last half of the sentence what is your because you should buy from US versus them because and now I want you to look at what you wrote down and say any of our competitors have just said the same thing if yes you haven't helps me choose you you've just made me more confused and remember I don't want to be confused I want certainty so if the ending of your sentence sounds the same as what other people could say that's where we get to work and then we'll say well Jerry they should buy from us because we're just better right I say okay now that's not going to sell anything so let's think about that and then I ask you this question what do you do that allows you to be so good at what you do well we're just better okay well what are the things that you do in your business that allow you to be so good at what you do what are the actual things activities processes training what are what is it that you do that makes you so good and then they go well and then they start naming off because is well we do this and then so list all the things that you do that make you so good at the things that you do then write all those things down and then I want you to ask another question do any of your competitors do the same thing because if you're list you got 10 things that you do that no one else that that that you think people love in six of them other people do it too then those four are the PES that start to become valuable let me ask you yeah just let me just ask you a follow-up question on this is could you have multiple because that you use in multiple different scenarios I love it you asked me the best questions yeah that's actually a really important question yes now different so I work with businesses across dozens and dozens of different types of businesses some businesses have a short sales cycle someone sees your thing and they buy it most of the businesses I work with have longer sales Cycles where they might be in a conversation from the time someone knows you exist to the time they sign the contract or give you the money it might be weeks or months and there might be multiple people involved in the sales process sometimes we're selling to someone who needs to then sell to someone else and we're not even there they need to convince someone else they need to give our because to someone else and we're not even in the room so each time you use the framework who are you influencing what are their insights what is the promise you're going to make what's the because you might have multiple different because in your company we we sometimes as companies will brainstorm 50 60 bues that we narrow them narrow them and usually a handful of them are the big valuable important ones that are unique to your business but you might use them at different parts of your sales flow you might use them in different messaging at different times sometimes people I always ask people if their website is an important component of their business some businesses no one ever goes to the website other businesses it's their whole business this is true for all your marketing materials but your website is a good example of it what do you want your whoever is visiting your website what do you want them to think and to do first second third fourth when they show up and we have to think strategically about our messaging and our journey and so your best because or because it should go first and then second and and you might have 10 more that you only get to if you're really diving in and you want to learn more right and so you can have lots of bues very good question thank you for that now one of the pitfalls I see and obviously as PEX we also have a branding marketing agency and this is something um when we work on on the brand narrative you know we work on that and one of the things like I always love hearing from our from our clients is that the conceptual development was so strong that our salespeople are using it verbally when they speak to people not only in our messaging on our website and I say that's exactly that's exactly what we intended it should be you can't have multiple messaging like it can be disconnected it is a connected message but I guess the pitfall we is when we speak when we speak to clients and we ask them about let's call it what's unique about them a lot of brands or companies will will give me the first the first version of that would be stuff that are really oh we're very Mission driven or or we our why is be we are we're not just in this business for for the money we're in this because of XYZ or we have this process and they don't connect the dots of what's in it for your customer in this process let me I would love to hear your feedback about how much of the because is related to the client buying versus the mission of the company and anything like that unbelievable you're like it's like you're asking me the questions that that I mean these questions come up all the time but here's how this one comes up because you're asking it because you experien this all the time from people and here's one of the reasons I think that that we all experience this is we're all trying to be good for the world inspirational we're we're in this world of like we're trying to I think a some of it was driven because in the last decade Simon cynic is out there saying we must start with our why why we do what we do I actually talk about this in my book and people say oh Jerry you're because that's sort of like your why your why is basically your mission statement right and cynic talks about about this in his book and it's very inspirational especially many times for your employees or for you to be the the continue the motivation but it's your mission statement here's why we're doing what we do but when you're selling something to someone who's about to give you money sign a contract make a big purchase commitment that they want certainty it's a good call you'd be lucky if people are interested in why you are in hick your unsexy industry Auto I mean I work in plumbing Auto Repair Home Building engineering accounting I mean I work across all these industries right nobody cares why you're an accountant they care what you do for them and how you do it differently than everyone else they care about the proof that you're going to deliver what's in it for me people are inspired by why you do what you do but people give you the money because of what you do for them sure and how you do that differently than everyone else and so I am 100% in agreement with you one is inspiration the other closes the sale and the because is 100% focused on closing the sale it's about what you do that's unique that is also valuable to me got it so I want to touch about the second part of the title of your book uh which is the crowded Market part because the once you could have a phenomenal because you could have multiple cuses for different parts of your of how in your sales process but the person still needs needs to still know about you that you exist and when you're competing with larger companies in the space you're competing with with so much noise out there how do you overcome that from your perspective so in now this like we've said varies because every listener is going to have a different kind of company and a different way that they're going to reach out some will reach out through social media some will be through Linkedin messages some will be through could be trade Publications could be through any number of ways we actually reach out to get new clients but you know I I'll give you an example that's just kind of food for thought for all the listeners when I was the vice president of marketing at Red Robin I would get I don't know 10 15 phone calls a week from people trying to sell me something cuz I the vpa marketing a billion doll brand right so that's people are reaching out all the time and this is direct one in-one Outreach right you know that's an example of how some of your listeners might be reaching out we're going to reach out through Linkedin or email or whatever and my voicemail on my phone because this is when people used to call people would say if you're uh reaching out I don't return phone calls but if you email me I will email you back 100% of people that ever emailed me to try to sell me something something I emailed them back I always emailed them back with the same question so this is where it gets good for the listeners I emailed them back I'm a marketing guy right half the people that were reaching out to me were marketing agencies research agencies they're all trying to sell me right excuse me sorry I'm just getting over being a little under the weather so I would reach out to them and I would say why would I buy from you versus the other 10 people that reached out to me this week and I would wait to see their response I was essentially asking them for their because right so I only took like three meetings ever and one of them landed me as a major client it was a research company this is actually in the book it was a research company that email now I was the head of research but I didn't have any budget but I wanted to know all these things research company emailed me back and said uh we do something that is that no other research company does we do unlimited research studies for you for one fixed price what I set up a phone call I talked to them and I became a client so my question to answer your question is do you have a because that is powerful enough unique enough and valuable enough that if your ideal customers saw it they would say well that's interesting I actually need to engage with them our problem probably isn't spreading our message far enough it's having a good enough message so those specific people that we really want think it's useful to engage with the message so I'm 100% with you you got to get the message out this is so true like I always I always tell people that when they do have to do call calls or or even Outreach sometimes you get you reach a person oh busy I don't even have five minutes and all of a sudden if there's something in it for them and they it starts becoming interesting all of a sudden they might even send their assistant hey push off my next meeting I'm having just a great conversation what happened right well can I tell you a story about this sure sure so there's a company that I I I worked with and actually this case study this is interesting this case study is in the book too they sell what's called an adant which is an additive to uh glyphosate which is Roundup right so we're talking about Farmers big farms spray weed control right well what's happened is there's been no innovation in weed control since the 1960s and there's all these weeds and pests that now can't be killed by Roundup it's a massive problem okay this company created an additive that will kill 200 things that Round Up by Sal can't kill but the co-ops which is who sells this stuff to Farmers don't want any salespeople calling them right so the question is how do you give them that message that then like you just said gets you into that conversation so they want to talk to you right so this is what your listeners might be struggling with like I can't break through I can't get to the people now my framework is who are you influencing insights outcome because okay who are we influencing we're trying to get to decision makers at Farm co-ops they won't won't let us get through and okay well what are insights they all have receptionists and the receptionists are told don't let any salespeople through don't let them talk to me right so that's what we're up against well we need more insights right what are the other insights Well turns out we learn the receptionists have been working there forever they're in small farm communities they know all the farmers they know everybody the receptionists know what's going on they've been there forever and they know their job is don't let people through so we started to get in the mindset of the receptionist Well turns out the receptionists like to be helpful they like people to think that they're smart and know what's going on because they do know what's going on so we would call up the receptionists and we created this using my framework with with this major company that that makes this stuff and they would call the receptionist and say hey what are the big like nightmare weeds that your farmers are dealing with up there and they would say oh we got May's tail and we got Pig we can't kill them can't kill them it's killing the farmers it's killing the farmers oh those have been a problem I we hear those are a problem all over the whole the whole Southwest yeah oh yeah terrible we've got a brand new patented product just got patented six months ago that will kill both of those so who would I talk to you there about coming down and running a test in your Market well you should probably talk to so and so and they passed us straight through to the decision maker because we got smarter about the mindset of the person that we were trying to influence so what do you know about the person you're trying to break through if we don't get a yes we haven't gotten smart enough about one of the parts of the framework we need better insights to understand what's on their mind what is the real problem problem that they can't solve that we that they don't think we can solve but turns out we can solve it they just didn't know it right and I tell those stories because my intention is that they will inspire the listeners to go what would be my version of that in my industry who am I getting stuck with and what do they really care about do I really know what they really care about so true so true I want to shift the conversation I think this has been amazing so whatever you mentioned now it's it's very much a applicable to service based businesses or selling oneon-one where we have the opportunity to do this obviously your background is working with these large Brands which are sitting on a shelf yeah so and a lot of our listeners also have products that are sitting on shelves in in Big Box retail or now online oh nice yeah how do you how do you convert this framework when you don't have one-on-one selling but obviously your packaging or any of your marketing needs to sell well and it varies depending on how your product ends up uh being sold like for example let's say that like just as an example shoe companies are it's a very consultative sale right like if you're going to The Running Store there is a person helping you pick out which of the Hundred Shoes is the right shoe for you in others if you're at like a Walmart or something there's no consultative help right it's just shelf space so from a packaging standpoint that gets to be tricky number one is your priority of community communication just like we talked about for the website what do you want people to know and do first second and third when reading your package one mistake is that especially now depending like with food products especially there's so many things we want to say you can't say them all at once and you gotta optimize the progression of what you say and when and where and there's all these regulations around what you also have to say and where you have to say it right so there's some parameters so what do you want to say first second and third and you have to look at that in the context of the Shelf set right of what everyone else is saying in terms of the colors the messaging the everything and by the way you need to know the insights of the people looking at the shelf so it's still you're influencing these people what are their insights what are they looking for and what order do you want to put your bues in on the packaging now some people are trying to get through distribution or get the retailer to carry their product at all so the frame workor works the same regardless if you're influencing a consumer a retailer a distributor it doesn't matter who you're influencing you have to use the framework over and over individually for each one so let's say the retailer is like well I don't know if I should carry your product well we know what retailers care about this is a simple one right care about turns and they care about margin and they care about you know profitability of each foot of their shelf space and they care right so there're they're simple people they they don't care about your product at all they care about themselves right so what are you going to do to promise them or to demonstrate or to give them proof that your product is going to turn that it's going to turn without them that you're going to support it that you're going to do promotional sport that you're going to do what are you going to do outside of them to make sure that it turns what testing testing have you done to make sure that it turns in retailers like mine right so the framework is same but when it comes down to an actual package it's tough you got a limited time limited space you got color you got language you got font you got priority of communication that's pretty much what you got okay let me let me ask you another question on this topic which is on the marketing side because like you said you you have been around for a long time and we live in a world that you know to get people's attention is so hard especially if you speaking about social media with video and AD spent and so on and so forth how do you you shine in a crowded Market today's day and age and and specifically to ask you a specific question is you see especially companies with smaller budgets they don't have the opportunity to go all out multiple mediums multiple you know platforms and so on and so forth to get the message out they have to Li they have limited budgets what what is your recommendation speaking to a client that's launching a new product or a service oh I'm glad that you asked this too because and I go I talk with clients about this all the time and especially my audiences the smartest thing that business owners can do especially when they're small especially when they're launching specificity matters specificity and narrowing your focus is like magic and here's why first of all if you specialize in solving the specific problem I have if this is what you do I believe that you can solve my problem my trust for whatever you're telling me goes up my bu my you shortcut my decisionmaking if so if if you've got a a thing a product a service that could serve anybody but you narrow your focus especially at first it doesn't mean that you only can serve these people but if you narrow your focus narrow enough you will make your marketing budget more focused you will make your target you Universe more focused you'll save money and you'll increase your likelihood that they believe you because you have insights about this narrowly focused group of customers so the more you can narrow your focus the faster you will grow years ago I worked with a gentleman who was a certified auto mechanic he'd opened up a little 2bay auto repair shop and he couldn't get any customers to come in so he did a whole bunch of marketing three miles around he thought oh three miles around everyone's got get their car fixed here and he put out door hangers for a discounted oil change Dam all the people came in for an oil change and nobody came back but he said you know what I realized is a lot of people in the neighborhood Drive Audi's and Volkswagens so he narrowed his Focus he changed his entire website his whole presence social media was a big thing and he said we service Audi and Volkswagens that's it that's what we do and he tripled his business in 18 months Wow and think about the other things that specificity does it makes your business more efficient it increases your margins because people think that you're a specialist right it increases your word of mouth referrals because all the people with Volkswagen say oh you got to go over to this guy he does it cheaper than the dealership he's got certified people that go to Volkswagen training faster and more efficient if you service less kinds of cars right wow so how do you leverage specificity and narrow your focus to save money to increase your close rate to narrow your Universe to make your business more efficient that's by far the smartest thing people can do let me ask you the a final question on our interview Pro she getting late we could speak for hours uh I think we're gonna have to do a part two on this one I know right it's good it's good what is something that you comes to mind that small businesses could learn from large Brands how they approach branding marketing the number one thing that big big companies do more effectively than small companies is they are extraordinarily purposeful about listening to their customers learning from their customers Gathering insights asking good questions especially you want a good one if you thought you were getting a customer and this would be for people that are in like more of a oneon-one and then they went with somebody else they chose someone else for their whatever Professional Services whatever go to those people find out why they chose the other person those are valuable insights if someone go to your compe people using your competitor product and find out why they're using them versus you those are valuable insights Foundation of all influence is understanding the mindset of customers that you serve it's like that additive example with the co-ops if we didn't know the mindset of the person we're influencing we never could have been influential the number one thing big companies do that small compan don't do is spend a lot of time listening and learning from their customers and it's easy all you have to do is ask them do surveys do one in-one interviews I mean there's lots of ways to get the information you're looking for this is so true and I I know that because i' I've been speaking to our team and I've been speaking to other businesses about listening and sometimes you get phenomenal insights from that potential but other times you eat yourself up why what you did wrong and you find out that's nothing about you toally is also good it's also good because sometimes you you had such a bummer like you had this sale you thought you g to get it all of a sudden well one of the partners brother does the same service and he said you know I veto everything I I just got to go with my brother yeah you know what sometimes you're gonna get up against something you can't solve sure you can't because it's a relative or it's a this or it's a that or they're not sometimes people make bad decisions in their business so and we can't stop people from making bad decisions to buy from someone who's not as good as you but the framework who are you influencing what are your insights outcomes because if you're getting a no and it's not from something outside of you that means that one of the parts of the framework is broken ex either you're not targeting the right people you don't understand their mindset you don't have a good promise outcome or your because is aren't believable right one of those things is broken so keep going through it again and again and again and eventually you'll figure it out but you got to have all those things in order to get a yes beautiful how could people find out more about the book and about yourself so it's the book is called they buy your because it's on Amazon just type it in it'll pop right up and my website is what big Brands know.com what and it's Jerry O'Brien with an o n o r i o n and comes to the website if you go to if you get the book there's a there's a whole website that goes with the book with videos and all sorts of instructional stuff and I will say if you go if you buy the book and you email me the receipt I will send you the worksheets that I use for my executive CEO Round Table groups to actually start them implementing the framework we didn't get into it but there's these 17 ways to create mouses all of those are included in in the worksheets and I'll show you exactly how to use them so I can give some freebies if you guys uh go out and and buy the book the book is an resource that you can use it is instructional it is not just a theoretical book it walks you through exactly how to use the framework it's amazing it's amazing for the links resources mentioned this episode check out the show notes at www.p group.com podcast where we'll link to the book and we'll link to the we to the websites of Our Guest today so you don't have to remember all the URLs and the domain names that we just mentioned but this is amazing you know I I remember in 2015 when you were a guest speaker at our event people were amazed at the clarity they got on the how to approach the marketing so I could imagine close 10 years almost 10 years later with the book so I definitely highly recommend people to go out and buy the book Let's close with the four rapid fire questions are you ready uh yeah number one a book that changed your life a book that changed my life good to Great loved it well researched I like examples of books that like know what they're actually talking about yeah love that book as well number two a piece of advice you got that you'll never forget uh piece of advice live in gratitude and I do it every day beautiful number three anything you wish you could go back and do differently not nothing really comes to mind that's interesting that's a good question I don't know nothing pops into my head it's so funny this question so like about 50% of the guests will say no like immediately I don't regret anything and then 50% of people people will start thinking about maybe there's something there but that's the that's the question you gave the answer nothing comes to mind yeah and last and final question what's telling your bucket list to achieve oh bucket list to achieve I know what it's going to be the last plank of my business I'm going to start to have certified presenters of the because framework it is complete now now we just need to get it out into the world because it is so when business owners use it it changes their mindset about how to influence people so I can't do it all myself so I'm going to get people out there doing it so others can use this framework and teach it and make it go beyond me that's the last phase of my business for my life that's great Gary thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners will forever be grateful for sharing some time with us today it's been a blast thank you so much have a great one my [Music] pleasure