(EP 28) Brett Bonser (B2B Growth Expert): The Secret to Boosting Mid-Sized Revenue Now

I’d like to introduce you to Brett Bonser, co founder of Align. me, who is a specialist in B2B revenue growth strategies. I first met Brett three, four years ago when he first presented to my CEO masterclass in Melbourne and helped them figure out how to actually deal with revenue growth strategies in B2B.

challenging times because during COVID, they were seriously challenging. Since then, Brett’s actually presented to about five of my masterclasses around the country. And he’s also worked with a number of my clients, about six or seven, to help them build their revenue growth strategies, their sales and marketing capability.

And he’s achieved heaps with them. It’s been really effective. Brett, welcome. John, it’s an absolute privilege to be with you and your audience, uh, online today and have another opportunity to engage as almost an extension of our masterclass, a masterclass program. Absolutely. Um, but now in, uh, in this very different format.

So it’s good to see you. Good. Good to be here with you. So I thought today would be a really good opportunity for us to talk about the I think a unique way that you approach revenue growth strategies and help people build their sales and marketing, particularly as we’re in challenging times. So, um, can you tell me a little bit about, how do you help your clients, and particularly what sort of clients do you focus on, um, to help them build their, their, uh, sales and marketing capability?

Yeah, it’s, it’s a good question. Uh, we have the, uh, Over the last 20 years, uh, we’ve, we’ve had the, the privilege to serve, uh, over 200 plus companies from around the globe, around the globe. And they largely fit into three buckets. Um, so the, the global brands that you would know and love, um, IBM, um, SAP, uh, ANZ Bank, Australia Post, and so some very large enterprise players.

number in the mature industrial sector. So companies like Komatsu and Transfield and Hastings Deering, uh, uh, uh, examples, but probably the exciting one in terms of the clients that we serve are these high growth emerging businesses. So they’re sitting somewhere between two. 20 million in revenue and they’re at a point of their journey where they’re almost at the inflection point.

So they’ve grown by Strong product and potentially strong sales. But what they’re looking to do is take the next jump Yeah, and in in that sector more recently, it’s been a range of clients. So we’re serving Australia’s entry into You Uh, the launch of Low Earth Satellites. Right. Um, a fantastic company that’s really innovating in the space.

Um, long range, uh, carbon fiber drone technology is another, another great innovation that’s coming out of some of the incubator work out of some of the major universities, um, organizations that are building incredibly innovative, um, playground equipment, um, and, and, and serving those organizations. And then some of our longer term clients.

Um, who are manufacturing things like pit lids and access covers that I think we walked past when we came into the building today. So it’s really a range of those different types of businesses, but the thing that they have in common is that they’re looking to align their sales and marketing in a way that sort of accelerates their growth.

Yeah, and I think you you’re right about that that pivot point because at about two million the businesses are actually having to get part of the they’ve probably relied very heavily on Traditional marketing, but mainly word of mouth doing a great job having a great product. People talk about it But if you want to step from 2 to 20 Then that’s just not going to get you there.

Yeah, it’s just not effective and it certainly isn’t reliable. So so How do you see the big picture that we’re facing right now in the market? Yeah, it’s, it’s probably a really good starting point. Uh, I’m always a bit challenged talking about us and talking about our, not so much our clients, but the, the market and the, and the challenges that our clients face is, Is deeply interesting to me and we do live in, uh, uncertain and challenging times.

I think when we first started, um, running these sessions, John, we were coming into, uh, the, the uncertainties of COVID and, uh, and how do you engage the market in a way that you can’t physically, physically engage them. And we saw a massive shift to, uh, uh, leveraging digital technology. Yeah. And the world of Zoom and others.

Um, today we have some different challenges. We’ve obviously got, uh, supply chain constraints, um, brought on from, um, what’s happening in, in, in Europe and, and in our part of the region. Um, we’ve got a reserve. Bank, um, and, and inflationary, um, issues around the world that are designed to, um, drive down demand.

I think the latest forecast was, you know, 0. 3 percent GDP growth. So we’re almost, we’re teetering on the, the range, uh, you know, almost on recession territory. Um, and from a sales and marketing perspective, there’s been some significant market changes in the ways that people, um, have. Have both responded to what’s going on in the market and just the natural iteration of things.

Yeah, so perhaps I’ll share With the audience a few key data points. Yeah, and and I should sort of note that there’s we’re Referring to some slides that are going to be available on YouTube as well as in the show notes. So Whether people are listening in or watching no one’s going to miss out So a couple of key data points for the audience in terms of what’s actually changed, um, particularly, uh, the, you know, longer term changes, but even so more immediate changes.

Um, so the, the broad change, um, that’s been happening for some time, is that buying processes. And again, I should remind your audience that the world that I live in, and my clients live in, is in the world of B2B marketing and sales, where the, where the buying journey’s a more extended period of time, and there are also multiple stakeholders involved.

It’s a more complex process, as opposed to the more consumer based marketing, Um, for which I’ll leave others to kind of share their expertise, but my world’s B2B and my comments are very related to that. So, uh, what we’re seeing globally as a trend is that, uh, uh, buying journeys have taken longer. The other thing that’s jumped is that the number of stakeholders involved, um, over the last, and this is a trend over the last sort of 10 years ago or so, has have jumped from sort of low fours.

to mid fives and sixes, right? But, uh, covert, uh, had a significant impact on that number and particularly in transactions of a million dollar plus. Right. So the data is showing that, um, when organizations are looking to purchase, um, deal projects of more than a million in value, Um, over the last 24 months, the number of stakeholders involved in those purchasing decisions on average has jumped from sort of 12 anywhere up to 18 individuals.

Jeez, so that’s a committee. It’s a, it’s a significant committee. And you ask yourself the question, well, why would be, why would that be the case? I don’t know the absolute answer for this, but I can hypothesize that there’s a direct correlation between the leveraging of virtual meeting technology and the number of stakeholders involved.

So historically, they couldn’t be involved. Yeah. So they opted out. And today, this is a bit of this trend of trying to regain control. And so you’re saying significantly larger numbers, which obviously it is adding. More complexity. So that’s sort of the broader trend. Um, and it must be taking quite a bit longer as well.

Yeah. And timelines have extended the other big change that we couldn’t, uh, we can’t ignore and we’re seeing the tip of that today. Um, but we, no doubt we’ll accelerate. You couldn’t have a conversation with this, like this, without talking about the impact of, um, AI on, on sales and marketing. So, um, and I’m sure many on the call, um, will have, uh, will be leveraging AI in terms of how they’re, they’re, you know, operationalizing the marketing and sales, but it’s an area that’s going to significantly grow.

Interestingly, uh, in terms of how is the market responding to that? And the answer is not as well as we would hope. Hmm. As consumers of content. Uh, have, uh, being, um, have a lower level of appetite for generically created, almost AI enabled, um, content. Yeah. Um, they’re waiting significantly longer in their buying journey, so the, and this is a longer term trend, so.

Um, anywhere up to 70 percent of your customer’s buying journey is happening without you. Um, AI enabled and mass produced content in some ways has even accentuated that. So buyers are waiting till very, very late in their journey and then coming to you and going, give me the best price. Yeah. Um, so AI I’ll tell you, they’re also very well researched by that point.

Well, they are, and they’re doing their own research independently. dependent of you, but what they’re looking for is that they’re looking for credible original sourced material, high value content. So we still need to be engaging our buyers in this kind of longer term journey. Um, and indeed, you know, what, what is the, what are, what are the, what are the change parameters?

Um, typically we’re saying that on, you know, a change of vendor is a significant decision. Yeah. So quite often companies are waiting anywhere up to five years. Um, to before they re engage to look at a, uh, an alternative provider. So the challenge is, how do you stay positioned with that market such that when they are in that small window of opportunity, which is like 5 percent of the, of the, of the available universe, that you’re front of mind, um, right now, the answer is not mass produced, uh, content.

We still need to be creating highly valuable, highly innovative, highly almost original source material. Um, so you need to be prioritizing that in terms of your, um, your marketing investment. So much so, and here’s the very, very latest, um, material and research, um, from the former farm, uh, former founder of, of Marketo, John Miller.

So John Miller shared some, some numbers, which I found startling, um, which were 24 months, companies that were prioritizing Brute force demand generation, uh, as the primary activity in their marketing versus companies that were prior prioritizing high quality nurture and engagement. So the companies prioritizing traditional brute force demand generation were less likely to hit their sales targets.

Really? And yet, that’s where most marketers, uh, go, and that’s where most sales leaders are asking marketers to go. But the market is responding very negatively to that. So if there’s one message to the audience, it’s that you need to be playing the long game, yeah? You need to be delivering really high quality, um, uh, products.

engaging content, by all means, leverage technology where you can to be, um, to deliver efficiencies, but we can’t abdicate to the technology. You’ve still got to leverage really good quality writers and original content. And the other piece to that, the other key data point that came from Miller’s research, 83 percent of buyers When they are ready to buy, so when they’re at their 5 percent window, they will buy from the first company they speak to.

So that reinforces to everyone on the call. Um, nurturing people, um, around a, uh, an extended journey, but nurturing the one with really high valuable content, you’ve got to go play the long game if you want to be successful. And then you’ve still got to be available and top of mind at the time that they’re ready miraculously in that 5 percent window.

Is the traditional approach of, to marketing of, of throwing a whole heap of money at, uh, web marketing, um, uh, trade shows, uh, getting shoe leather on the, um, footpath advertising. Um, is that still a highly successful strategy where, you know, 50 percent of the time it works and we just don’t know which 50 percent of the time, what are you seeing now?

So, so again, uh, probably to provide some additional clarity on my comments, I’m not suggesting that you need to abandon demand generation marketing. That’s not what the data is actually saying. It’s just suggesting that we probably need to have a better rebalance between those activities. that position us in the market effectively, such that we are front of mind.

So what are some of those positioning activities? Consistent, high quality, rhythmic content is one. Making sure that your website is highly optimized. To the problems that you solve and the categories that you’re in and the content, content is deep, enriching and engaging. So those sort of consistent positioning activities, we still need to have demand generation.

So we’re still seeing clients leverage things like AdWords or LinkedIn is obviously a powerful, incredibly powerful platform. And a number of our clients are leveraging that. And things like sales navigator and some of the tools to make that even more effective. And, uh, the other role that is, we’re seeing more and more in the marketplace is rather than brute force out, outbound, you know, traditional cold calling, we are seeing the injection of this role called a sales development resource in SDR.

Yep. And what does that do? Yeah, it’s a good question. So that role. Is there to respond to, um, inquiries and interest in a, um, in a, in a nurturing or an informative way, um, for those companies that are in that kind of exploratory nature, but to do so in a really timely fashion. There is this, um, kind of magic points that have, we have very short, um, attention spans.

You almost need to be responding within 30 minutes to someone’s request. And what we see, what the data tells us is that after 24 hours, the effectiveness of your response kind of plummets. So we are seeing, uh, you know, human resources engage really quickly through this SDR. Uh, And then you also see the evolution of, um, AI and more immersive chat bots to kind of take that role, but it’s not quite there yet.

Yeah. So can you give me a, uh, uh, an example of some of those types of approaches in the context of one of your clients? Yeah. So I talked about the three different kind of clients that we serve, the enterprise, um, businesses, um, the mature industrials and they sort of fast growth. Um, small to medium sized companies and each of them are dealing with different challenges.

Maybe I’ll, I’ll talk to a couple. So one is obviously, uh, an organization you, you know, well, um, Terra Firma Industries. So Terra Firma, um, the, the CEO of that business acquired that, um, some, you know, more than five years ago. Um, uh, and for the audience, what Terra Firma do is that they do. Composite PID lids and access covers and, and access grates for schools, um, to replace traditional steel and concrete and other alternatives.

Yeah. So stronger, more lightweight, um. Better health and safety. Significant health and safety benefits. But like any change, it, it requires. A lot of education. A lot of education and adoption. I remember the comments from one, City engineers saying, you know, if concrete was good enough for the Romans is good enough for us.

So you’re going to face that with any change. And so partly we’ve helped, um, support that organization to actually, um, educate the market in, and so much so that the composites have become the standard. Um, but in doing so they’ve had to leverage a range of tactics. So, um, there’s a heavy emphasis on.

educational content. Right. So one of the things they did was, uh, doing some, um, um, human movement studies on what it takes to lift a heavy pit lid and the impact on your back. Yep. And so that’s sort of a level of high quality content which almost, Lifts the curve or lifts the market for everyone. Yeah. Um, are some of the things that you invest in.

It’s an example of that high quality content. Yeah, yeah. Um, so, so that’s a, that’s an example. But then the range of things. Podcasts like we’re on today. Um. Um, going to trade events, but making sure that as trade events, you’re also educating your audience. Yeah. Um, and, and also the other thing is finding the right partners.

So we all, you know, we’re not islands, we’re not islands in business. So who exists within your ecosystem that it makes sense for us to collaborate with and then making sure that we’re investing in those relationships from a marketing and selling perspective. Cheers. are also some of the mechanisms that our clients are driving growth.

Right. Good. Good. So, everybody likes to talk about strategic everything pretty well. So, what is your strategic marketing approach? And how’s it different? So, probably reframe on that. AlignMe as an organisation specialises in go to market planning. B2B marketing support and sales enablement. So when we think about marketing, we never think about it in isolation.

We think about marketing in terms of how it connects to the sales process. Uh, and we also, um, think about it first and foremost from the buyer’s perspective. So my, my business partner, Hugh McFarlane, wrote the book, The Leaky Funnel. Um, and the Leaky Funnel journeys the, the story of a fictional company, um, called HardBits.

And for those of you who have read it, I’m sure you’ll see elements of your own business in that. Um, but the big difference was in the HardBits story and the clients that we serve is about thinking about things from the buyer’s perspective. You know, we, When I first started in sales 30 odd years ago, um, we were very much, um, sales, uh, focused organizations.

Um, I had the privilege of, you know, working with guys like Bob Miller who founded Bill, uh, Miller Hyman group, and it was all about our sales process and what are we doing to win a deal. Today, our buyers are far more informed. They’re looking for more from us. And so, Modern effective marketing and selling doesn’t do that.

It actually looks at things, not from your perspective, what are you trying to sell and what is your sales journey? But more specifically, what is the buyer’s journey? What’s their problem? What are they trying to fix, accomplish or avoid? Yeah. Um, having got clarity around what that problem is, how do they, Define and build their requirements.

How do they then take those requirements and seek out some, um, available alternatives? And then how do they make a preference decision? So instead of thinking about how do we sell to people, forget about that. Think about how do we help people to make really highly valuable buying decisions? What can we do?

What can our marketing do? How does it change as the buyer goes through the various steps? And then how do we bring the team together to enable that and launch that in a highly um, uh, effective and efficient way? So it’s a, it’s a much more customer centric approach. Buyer centric. It’s all about the buyer.

Fantastic. And so how does that become tactical? Yeah, great, great, great question. Um, you know, where does the rubber hit the road? Yeah. Um, so let me talk to a little bit about the first phase of that, which is the planning process. Yeah. And also what some of the data has, has, has, has told us. Mm. Um, so we’ve had the, the opportunity to work with guys like John Miller, um, and others, um, um, Marketto, Eloqua.

Um, um, um, salesprofs. com to actually do global research on what high performing companies do. And what we know is that the high performing businesses are highly aligned. And when they are aligned, they’re 38 percent more effective from proposal to closure, they’re 36 percent more effective at retaining customers, and they are 5.

4 percentage points of growth better than their nearest alternative. Right, just by making sure their marketing is tightly aligned with their sales processes. And the buyer. And the buyer. So then the question is, how do you do that? Um, well over the last 20 odd years, We, our experience is showing is the best way to do that is to get all of the stakeholders together to build the go to market plan.

Mm-hmm . And to make sure in the building of that it’s actually focused on the buyer’s journey. Yeah. It’s a hard thing to do to get people, you know, in a room together. So you need to be efficient and effective. Yeah. Um, and so we’ve been working on developing process and tools. Funnel camp is our methodology.

Funnel plan is our enabling software. And so that’s been now being used around the world. Um, and since COVID, also in a virtual environment to bring those teams together and the outcome of which is a one page plan for growth. Yep. You know, blistering clarity down on a single page. Yeah. Um, but also then the, the operationalize that as a.

Uh, through a series of sprints, um, that we’re on. So I guess the first thing in terms of the, how do you, how do you accelerate it? And what is the start of that process? It’s about making sure that you have the team aligned. Um, that you have them focused on the buyer. Um, and you have the clarity almost down to.

You know, a plan on a page. There’s something beautiful about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, that simplicity, uh, although it’s actually not simple because, you know, the the conversations I’ve had with my clients as I’ve been reflecting on the journey that they’ve been with you on is that, you know, those first three, four workshops were, um, I was going to say invasive and intent, intense, but actually.

Really thought provoking and really got them to think deeply about their buyer’s journey in a way that they hadn’t even contemplated before. Fundamentally different approach. So the plans, one thing I guess for the audience, they go, well, that’s great, but where to next? And I guess that comes into then the world of how do you then resource this up?

Yeah. Um, and resource effectively. Um, let me talk a little bit about that and hopefully the audience gets some value from this in our, in our, in our experience, um, as you’re going through that sort of maturation or growth phase, if you’re an organization that’s in the sort of sub 1 million, maybe up to 2 million mark, um, your marketing is probably best served in the early days, but almost.

a DIY approach, you know, maybe download a software tool like funnel plan, which will help you to kind of map it out, but largely try and learn and almost kind of bootstrap it up. At some point beyond that, you’re probably going to go and hire a, a sort of a one person, um, jack of all trades, a person to help you to get to the next stage.

And in our experience, that’s at about the 2 million mark. Um, that, that plays out. Yep. Beyond that though, your complexity of requirements and your customer requirements, means you actually need a very, very different setting. Yep. You need a, you need a business or a marketing agency, Yep. that’s not specialist, but who understand the B2B marketing world.

Yep. And actually had the broad range of skill sets under the tent. Web design, copy, um, uh, pure design, digital marketing, traditional marketing, sort of a wide range of things. And so find an agency, That has those great broad base of skills that can almost be your outsourced marketing department. So you can draw on those specialists as is appropriate for the buyer’s journey.

If you’re beyond that, and we’ve had the privilege of scaling businesses, um, well beyond that 20 million and above, um, then it’s a different setting. The big thing for those organizations is making sure that the. The plan is blisteringly clear because it’s a bigger stakeholder group. Making sure that you have good marketing leadership.

So at that point, find that chief marketing officer. And then you start to, um, you then start to outsource to more specialist agencies. Find the best SEO company, the best SEM company, the best copywriters. Um, uh, because you now are at a scale where you can have multiple. specialist resources engaging. Um, but at the end of the day, growth comes from, um, a lot having the aligned team.

So making sure that we start with a clear plan that everyone buys into, how you resource that will somewhat be determined about where you are on your journey. Yeah. And I guess there’s also that, there’s that, that combination of, um, outsourcing to get, um, the deep specialists process. Uh, having some internal resource to complement that and, and take ownership for the outcomes.

But also to then actually having a, a, a highly effective and skilled sales team to actually act on that. Um, how do you help with the, what are the success strategies that you’re seeing, um, for the sales teams to, Yeah, it’s a really good question because obviously if, if marketing are doing their job and they’re positioning you well.

And, um, your front of mind when they are in that 5% Mm. And or your crea uh, marketing is creating demand and it’s arming the sales team. Mm. With the, the right content and, and assets to go meet the market. Mm. You still need to have a sales force that is equipped to go engage in a way, in, in a way that the market expects them to engage.

Yeah. So let me talk a little bit about that as well. Uh, Jeffrey Moore wrote the book Crossing the Chasm and for any of the audience would definitely recommend you read Moore’s book. It’s, it’s, it’s great. It’s one of the kind of landmark texts on, on business strategy, but more talks about how as markets mature, there are different types of buyers that emerge.

We use the term laggards, early adopters and innovators, and that’s Moore’s language. So in the, in the very early phase, and we talked, I talked about, you know, our, our satellite company and drone company, they’re engaging audiences that are very early in their buying journey and, and their, their maturation.

Rockets, drones, et cetera. And to some degree, um, terra firma was, were the same when they launched composite pit lid. So the market is expecting the sales team to be able to have those collaborative, immersive, engaging, um, conversations. So it’s not just about hiring a business development executive. It’s about hiring a business development executive that has that sort of skills.

As the market matures further and you start to see niches of adoption, Then thereafter, deep domain expertise. So do you understand schools? Do you understand hospitals? So the market evolves there as the market becomes on main street, which is where kind of most the majority of products are, is there in the mature category, then it’s more about more traditional operational efficiency.

do you know your product? Do you turn up on time? Are you’re able to do it consistently? Yeah. So the conversation around sales is not like a one size fits all? No. No. And even in terms of when is it right to engage a direct sales force versus a a reseller channel? Yeah. In very early markets they want to deal with you.

Yeah. They don’t want to go through a third party. Yeah. As the market matures, matures, and scales up. Then it’s time to engage. So that’s kind of at a strategic level in terms of sales, in terms of the individual sellers, the skills of how do you create opportunities, manage opportunities, manage customer relationships, three buckets if you like, are the skills that all modern sellers need to have, and they need to have process, process, process.

and capability across those three areas. But it’s a, it’s a very different from what it was 20 years ago, which was largely a pure product sell features and benefits. And now it’s very much about the buyer’s needs, um, how to engage with them. Well, uh, how to, how to be timely and, and, and have those good sales practices.

It is, you know, when I first started selling mainframes for Unisys Corporation, 30 odd years ago, uh, my, my client, um, Ford Motor Company, they needed me. Why? Because I was the keeper of the product knowledge. And so, um, I was highly valuable to them. Today, the market’s changed. Um, your, your buyers can go engage.

They can research absent you. Um, so they’re looking for a different type of value. Yeah. Um, and we need to, We need to equip our marketers to deliver that content. We need to equip our sellers to be engaging in that way. And then we need to bring the whole team together to build a plan that actually focuses on helping the buyers navigate their journey in a, in a consistent, repeatable, highly credible way.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good.

So when we, say, think about, let’s, let’s, um, let’s explore terra firma a little bit more. So, Six, seven years ago, it would probably be fair to say that they were, um, bringing new product into the market. Uh, the market was somewhat unsophisticated with regard to their type of product because let’s face it, you know, concrete was good enough for the Romans and, and, uh, cast iron has been pretty effective for a hundred years when it comes to pit covers or manhole covers in the middle of streets.

Um, how did you go about approaching that change? Um, of having to educate, uh, a somewhat comfortable and maybe resistant, uh, buyer. Um, to, to then actually getting them to the point, in a relatively short period of time, where, um, reinforced fiberglass covers are now effectively the standard, in fact, the mandatory solution.

So, TeraFoam is a great example of a, of a category that really educated the market that kind of led to change. Which is the most expensive part of the process, isn’t it? It can be, it can be. So, um, luckily enough, the CEO of that business is, um, again, willing to play the long game and it’s been profited. So how did we go about it, or how did they go about it?

Well, first of all, it was a finding amongst the group Um, Who, who were those innovative visionaries that wanted to be different? And once they found that it was about working with them to innovate the product in a way that then could scale. Once they did that, it was about then finding the next phase of buyers.

And so Ashley and his team started to work with the growth area corridor councils. It was a group of sort of six or seven that got together to go. Surely there must be a better way. And armed with the information around return on investment that happened with the, with the visionary buyers, they were then able to demonstrate to the leaders within those growth area corridors, the return on investment.

Um, of, of what would happen, um, if they changed the mandate. And bearing in mind the challenge in, in pit lids, was that the composite product is three times the price of the concrete alternative. So why would you change? And the answer is that the maintenance costs of the concrete alternative was significantly higher Those maintenance costs were being pushed back from the developers onto the council and as the council started to realize that they go This is crazy.

We need to change. Yeah along with the occupational health and safety challenges. Yeah Move on a few more years the markets now starting to take that up not only within Victoria, but it’s now being spread across the other states. And then it was about how do we expand the channel? How do we start to build those, um, those channels to market those paths to market to now start to engage, um, the, the shift from concrete to composite, um, um, across the country.

And having achieved that, then it was about, okay, what are the other adjacent. product categories that you can go to. And so they shifted from pit lids and access covers to walkways. And there’s a massive shift going on right now within schools where we talk about, um, accessibility to schools that’s requiring them to kind of ramp, you know, um, and change the way to provide access and, and, and almost rebuild stairways to, to those facilities.

And so a lightweight. Um, you know, stronger, more effective, um, building material has helped to shift that curve. So it’s been a, it’s been a journey of working with the market and, and kind of pivoting along the way. Um, the, the impact of which is the business has grown 10 X, um, over, over the, over the period of time.

And, uh, And has, you know, is delivering significant profits to its shareholders. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s still so many new markets for it to pursue, you know, the whole, uh, opportunity of, of refurbing, um, uh, aged care facilities and, and, um, care in the home is obviously another next market. I take it. Indeed.

Indeed. Plenty of runway to, uh, For them to prosecute now. And so now they’re looking at, you know, what are the other challenges? How do you scale production to make the market? Um, and we’ve been working with them around that process as well. Um, so our, our relationship with our clients, particularly long one is not just about.

Um, marketing or sales effectiveness, but actually working with the founders of those business are going, how do we work together across multiple areas to unlock growth? Yeah. And that’s a really intimate relationship, which, which in a lot of ways reflects exactly the strategy that you’re suggesting for your clients, which is to actually have a deep, rich and engaged relationship with the buyer.

Play the long game. Yeah. So Brett, one of the things that. SME businesses are constantly telling me is that they’re challenged by overwhelm. There is just so much for them to do. So many different things that they need to be on top of. And, you know, part of what, what we’re doing is to help them figure out, you know, what are those critical few actions that if they did nothing else would have the biggest impact.

So when we look at your approach, how does that, how do we distill that down for them in a way that isn’t overwhelming? It’s a great, it’s a great question and it’s, it’s almost that sense of anxiety, uh, that I feel when I, when I engage with particularly a lot of smaller business, two to 20 million, um, um, business leaders, um, when they’re on that inflection point for growth.

And, uh, some of them are dealing with really big market change. That’s impacting negatively quite often. We also hear them going, Brett, I’m, I’m drinking from a fire hose here. And I’m not sure, you know, which way to look to grab. Yeah. Uh, and. Our job is to help them to find clarity, blistering clarity from that.

So how do you go about doing that? Uh, and the, and the answer is number one, you don’t do it on your own. Um, so even when we do our go to market planning, we have someone external to come in and help us facilitate that. So they can, they can help run the process. Yeah. Um, whilst Um, we focused on the content, even when we have built our own plans and we, we update.

Um, and so there’s real power in having that facilitated outcome to help capture that clarity. So, so that would be my point number one. Number two, uh, what we’ve learned is that you need to do it quickly. Um, there’s the planning processes that happened. that take place more than an elapsed period of time, more than four weeks.

Um, there’s plenty of data to say that they end up being ineffectual. What we don’t want is the 20 or 30 or a hundred page PowerPoint deck because it becomes incredible to go execute and you just lose, you lose purpose. So planning, planning, having it facilitated, planning quickly. Yep. Planning together.

Yeah. I can’t reinforce that. Align Me is about alignment of the stakeholders to the buyer’s journey. So that means bringing the people together in a series of short, sharp activities. Now we do that either over, you know, four to five virtual sessions or in two days. So in two days, Um, you can move from having an unclear set of objectives, an unclear strategy, and a yet to be determined Um, set of, uh, tactics down to blistering leak, blistering clarity down to a single page.

Yep. How does that happen? There are 10 decision gates that you need to work through. And so we work with companies to facilitate those collaborative conversations. And we’re leveraging our funnel plan software to capture those insights such that when people leave that planning meeting, Hmm.

Instantaneously, the software creates a one page plan, a 20 page executive deck, and a detailed project plan. The software is enabling us to do that in an instantaneous basis. So plan together, plan fast, plan from the buyer’s perspective, and leverage technology to accelerate that. I think that’s the key to how you solve that challenge.

Yeah. And so once I’ve gotten their plan, um, how do we then distill down? What they need to do to execute it. Great. So what comes out of the planning meeting is a series of anywhere up to 200 tasks that are automated. Um, and through, uh, in the, in, historically, we used to hand the plan over and go, fantastic.

This is a great plan. It’s on one page. And we felt really good about that. Yeah. And we let the overwhelm start again. Like, yeah, there you go. And they go, great. Fantastic. It’s one page. And now what? So we don’t do that anymore. Um, today with all of our clients, whether or not it’s, um, you know, Amazon or SAP or whether or not it’s TerraFirm or LeaseEagle, some of the clients, we stay with those clients and we actually facilitate the process.

the first hundred days sprint. Right. We find that kind of in that first hundred days is really critical. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s leveraging, you know, lean thinking, um, a series of, you know, uh, fortnightly meetings where we really start to focus on the, the key actions that come out of that task and we stay with those clients.

We find after the 100 days, we then start to merge that, um, we hand over the reins back to the customers and they’re ready to run. Um, but it is almost about, you know, not when you get your license, um, being, you know, having some support. Um, I think that’s, that’s the trick. So it’s that migration from a, from a, here’s the plan, a bit of do it for you and then do it with you.

Yeah. And so, and then for. For us, enterprise, smaller clients, the two to twenty million, um, we’re also doing the resourcing, the arms and legs. Um, and today for about a third of our enterprise clients, particularly we’re working heavily with Amazon around the world, and SAP around the world with their ecosystems.

About a third of those, we’re actually doing some of the marketing execution as well. As well, yeah. Um, where they have particular gaps. Fantastic. So, we touched on it early in the conversation. And it’s really top of mind. Artificial intelligence has created for us the ability to, I won’t say craft, but certainly draft, um, a myriad of content that appears to be, yeah, pretty good.

Um, and, I’m certainly seeing that, that there’s a huge amount of automated responses coming through my inboxes and, uh, in messages. Um, uh, if I blink, uh, at a website or talk about my need for, um, uh, a new radiator, um, my phone will start forcing stuff at me that, frankly, I’m not sure that I really want. So, tell me how you’re seeing.

Artificial intelligence enhancing the sales and marketing process. It’s a great, great question. Um, if we’re not, if you’re not looking at AI and how it can accelerate your business. Yeah. Um. You’ll be left behind. You should be. Yeah. Um, we started a project, um, Towards the middle to late last year, almost in the very early phase stages.

And so we’ve had a project team looking at this and looking at various tests as to how we go about it. Um, one. Um, early deployment of how we’re leveraging AI to serve some of our clients is in review of proposal documents. So all, all clients have a bank of proposals that they’ve, um, sent to customers over a period of time and quite, and there will be variants of style and narrative and success rate of those proposals.

In the old days, what we would do is that we would grab all of those proposals together. Um, we’d spend, you know, anywhere up to a day looking at them, trying to extract the, the, the elements around how you improve them overall, but perhaps the key insights that you might want to, um, almost make it be a standard part of how the proposals are constructed.

Today, through leveraging. Um, some very, uh, curated AI enabled questions, which are GPT and actually some hard coding in between were able to, in a matter of, you know, half an hour, take in substantial proposal documents, assess them for their, for their effectiveness, and then come back with a series of recommendations and a standardized document in under 30 minutes.

Yeah. And so that’s taken, A, the insights around the questions. Um, B, the ability to actually kind of bring, um, word documents and chat GPT together. So it’s a bit of kind of hard coding currently in between. Uh, and, and the, uh, and, and also some design capabilities such that the word document that comes out is actually fit for purpose in the market.

Yep. Um, because at the end of the day, you know, AI is it’s in, it’s interpreting what it thinks is the best, but it’s not quite smart enough yet to actually make that as 100 percent cool. So the great, great, um, you know, AI is going to change the world and, and he’s already doing so. Um, but it’s, it’s not, it doesn’t yet have this human touch.

that we as individuals have? Well, that’s right. I mean, its ability to distill vast amounts of data, um, and pull the insights from it is frankly unparalleled from an efficiency perspective. But the reality is, it actually doesn’t have the wisdom to provide a nuanced response. To the individual based on that, the wisdom of a human has, that’s been operating for 30 years and seen it in a variety of different ways.

Let me maybe give a personal experience there and a plug to, um, my wife and I have been involved for the last sort of 15 years, um, raising funds for, for charity and, uh, uh, November the 16th, Tuxedo Junction at the Plaza Ballroom. Come along. We’ve still got some tickets. Um, it will be our final event. And part of that, we’re, um, I’m chairman of the, of the committee this year.

I’ve taken that on thrall for the last, last event that we’re doing. And I had to write the forward, the forward address. So took in the, uh, previous eight forwards with the address in the chat, GPT and ask chat GPT to help me craft. Um, a forward to go into our, our, uh, our, our catalogue that we share. And, and in reading that, it was like it was well structured, it covered all the points.

It was a pretty good document. So then I compared it to my wife’s version. She was, she chaired the committee about six years ago. Yeah. And her, and what she wrote as the forward, it was completely different. It was so from the heart, it was so from a motive. It wasn’t even structured in a kind of traditional centered structure, and it was so engaging.

Mm. And so I chucked out the Chatt PT version, , and I started to handcraft again. Um, to hopefully to touch that. So I think that there’s a role for AI, um, but kind of like the conversation around nurture content. Um, we can’t lose our personality in terms of how we create things. No, absolutely not. And, and automatically already.

I think people are filtering content that they can tell is AI, sorry, they can sense is largely AI generated. Absolutely. And that was the, that was the feedback from John Miller in the research is that that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Okay. So,

so Brett, you’ve been doing this for a lot of years now. What would you say are your top three? success factors that SME businesses need to focus on right now. So right now, the data is suggesting that they need to build content that is immersive and engaging, such that they repeatedly touch their target market in a consistent, immersive way, such that when their buyers are ready to buy, They’re in the 83%.

They’re in that, that first category that they ring, um, because 83 percent of buyers buy from the first engagement. So that’s number one. So look at how you’re, um, shaping your marketing investment and invest in really high quality, consistent content. Yeah. Sorry. And an example of that would be. Um, a high quality, consistent content it’s content that actually focuses on the buyer’s problem.

Yep. And unique ways that it’s being solved. It’s engaging, it’s innovating. What it’s not Is product pitch content. Right. Your customers don’t need that. They can find that out for themselves. What they need is unique insight. Yeah. Do you understand me and do you understand how to help me? And, and, and are you providing insights in the ways that they may engage the market in challenging times?

They’ll take that advice any day and they’ll continue to take it until they’re ready to take action. And if you’ve done that well, They’ll ring you and they’ll engage at high rates. So, um, nurturing them with high quality content consistently is number one. Number two, it’s a power of alignment. Teams succeed where individuals don’t.

And so bringing your team together to kind of build that plan, that structured approach to the market is, is, is common across all clients. And then the third one is find the right partners and the right resources to help you to go execute. And bearing in mind that might change depending on where you are in your growth journey.

And I would say as part of finding those right partners, it’s also, Uh, about engaging with organizations and people like you who can provide and bring to them that powerful peer group, um, such that they can bounce ideas. It can be a really lonely spot being the CEO and the founder of a business. But having a, um, like minded set of individuals, um, going through a kind of a longer term journey almost as a de facto advisory board, um, That’s also one of the real key drivers that we see in these successful businesses.

Yep, yep.

So Brett, when we now think about your journey with Align Me,

what have been some of the key challenges that you’ve faced in growing what’s now a very successful business? It’s a long time, John. It’s, uh, you know, I look at photographs of myself when I was a lot younger and, uh, and, and perhaps more athletic in my, in my younger days. And so, uh, the, the challenges and opportunities have changed over time.

Um, probably there’s one consistent thing. It’s about making sure that you get the right people in the, on the bus. Get them in the right seats and then just equip them to be successful. Yeah, so what process is important Culture is incredibly important But but bringing those right people into the organization And then guiding them Is both the challenge and the opportunity and it’s kind of what’s kept me going.

It’s what makes me tick. So yeah, that would be my answer. And that’s where the fun really is. Yeah. So knowing what you know now, what advice would you give 25 year old Brit?

That’s such a great question. My father passed away in, in February. So that was a dad passed away. He was 92. And, um, He grew up in a very challenging home. He left school at 14, was a tradie, and ended up building a very large company. He was the first Australian company to export, um, building products to the Middle East.

You know, imagine a guy that had never been on a plane, that this, that thinks about it and says, Oh, there’s a lot going on in the Arab Gulf. Um, why don’t I fly over there? He flies into Dubai and he said, I arrived in Dubai. There was only one building, which was the trade center there, but there were cranes as far as the eye could see.

He said, I knew I’d, I’d arrived at the right spot. Opportunity. So, so, so that, that was my dad and I went into business because I always aspired to be as good as my dad. I never was, but I aspired to do that. But dad said to me, um, either be very small, um, Or very big in business, um, never be in between cause being in between, in between is really hard.

So is it, would I do things differently? I wouldn’t do things differently. Um, I might’ve done, I might’ve kind of run harder or taken different tactical options to get bigger, faster. So I think we can always, always do that. Yeah. Um, uh, but. But truthfully, probably not. I’ve had the great privilege of serving hundreds of companies, thousands of businesses from around the world, delivering projects in Africa and, and Latin America and China and, and, and working with great people like you.

So I’ve had a rich and fulfilled business career, a few years left. Um, so yeah, that’s my answer. Thank you. Um, And so, thinking about the CEOs of medium businesses, which is my absolute passion.

What would you say would be their critical few actions if they did nothing else and took it away from this conversation that they should do now?

Don’t attempt to build your growth plan. in isolation. Make sure that when you build the growth plan for the business that you engage the key exec team members in that planning process and make sure it’s efficient. Because if you build the plan, then guess what? It will be your plan. But if the executive team are brought together to kind of build that strong growth plan together, you’ll get buy in.

Hmm. Uh, do things today. informed by your buyers and your market, not by what you want to do, but by where the market opportunity and where your buyers are. So in all things be buyer centric. And number three, make sure that you bring the right partner ecosystem around you. Um, your take, take time to hire the right time.

Find, The marketing and selling and and development resources that are right sized for you depending on where you are in the journey. And I think the third thing would be actually surround yourself with a peer group because it’s tough at the top, it’s tough to grow. So get that advisory group around you in a, in a structured way so that you can bounce ideas, bounce ideas.

Um, and, and for that to be a support network on your journey. Yeah. Yeah. And, and certainly that, uh, yeah. That opportunity to have peers around you who actually understand what it’s like to stare at the ceiling and look at the cracks up there at three o’clock in the morning while they’re trying to figure out the next thing is, is absolutely invaluable and, and directly addresses loneliness.

Brett, it’s been an absolute delight to have this conversation with you again. Um, I always learn something from our conversations and every interaction. Thank you. John, thank you. It’s been a privilege and it’s been a privilege to serve your many of your customers and to work with you over the journey.

Appreciate that. Hold on.