How to Grow Smarter: Laura Patterson on Strategic, Customer-Centric Growth

Freddy D: 00:00:56

Hey Superfan superstar Freddie D.

Here in this episode 111 we're joined by Laura Patterson, a powerhouse and customer centric growth strategy and a driving force behind Vision Edge marketing.

With over 30 years of experience in spanning sales, marketing, analytics and operations, Laura brings a proven, no nonsense approach to accelerating growth and driving performance. She is a widely recognized thought leader, speaker and author.

With four books and hundreds of white papers to her name, Laura has helped over 300 companies worldwide harness analytics, accountability and alignment to deliver measurable business results.

She has also been honored by the top 30 marketing influencer, Ngadi, top 200 thought leaders, Pigtail's top 100 influencers, and one of the 20 women to watch in Business by the Sales Lead Management Association. Get ready for an inspiring and insight packed conversation that blends strategic wisdom with practical, immediately applicable advice.

Welcome Laura to the Business Superfans podcast.

Freddy D: 00:02:08

We're super excited to have you here from Vision Edge Marketing.

Laura Patterson: 00:02:11

Thank you for having me, Freddie. I'm very excited to be here with you and your community.

Freddy D: 00:02:17

So tell us a little bit about the backstory. We were talking before you started recording. It turns out that we kind of started in a SaaS space roughly about the same time.

And ironically, my office was in Schaumburg for the company that I work for and you work for Motorola, which was virtually almost across the street from us. We're at Plum Grove and Algonquin Road is where the office was.

Laura Patterson: 00:02:39

Yeah, you know, it's such a small world. It's amazing. We're only a few degrees of separation, getting smaller and smaller all the time. And every time I meet with someone I'm like, oh wow.

We were right there next to each other. We just didn't know because there were so many other people right next to us too.

But yes, I started my career actually in financial services and way back when with my job being around, find, keep and grow the value of customers. So when I talk about customer centricity, it's not a new fad for me.

re product that ran on a Wang: 2200

You don't know it until you look back and you say, oh, I was part of that and it was so cool.

But that enabled me to go from that role, which I was responsible for sales, marketing, customer support, implementation, all of that, to an opportunity at A little startup here in Austin, Texas that was part of Motorola and it was a microcontroller operation. It was very small business, kind of hemorrhaging.

I didn't know that when I joined them, but we grew that business into a billion dollar entity in about seven years. And then I stayed another seven years at Motor. Oh yes, what a ride, right? I know your listeners can probably imagine what that must have been like.

It was buckle up, put your trade tables up, get ready for the ride. But it was so amazing. And then I ran the brand strategy customer marketing initiative at Motorola for another seven years.

When I left there, I left to go architect a customer loyalty product. So we're going to talk about superfans, we're talking about advocates and loyalty.

he financial services. And in: 1999

So we've been around a little over 25 years and we're all about helping our customers find, keep and grow the value of customers to, to be successful and accelerate their growth by being more customer centric, using insights from data, putting in operational excellence and knowing what to measure. So basically trying to get our customers to eliminate random acts, random acts of selling and random acts of marketing.

And I imagine you can relate to the random acts. I'm sure you've been been there and seen that, so that's just great.

Freddy D: 00:05:22

Oh absolutely. I mean, what a story. We have similar backgrounds in. You bring up Wang.

I mean, I remember we were using Wang for our word processing when the admins would be putting together proposals and stuff like that that we would be sending out. And I used to have to make presentations that we didn't have. PowerPoint didn't exist back then.

So you used clear slides and you had a Croix machine that you punched all the numbers or the text on it and then you put it on an overhead projector. Man, those were days.

Laura Patterson: 00:05:51

Yes, they were.

Freddy D: 00:05:53

People don't realize what we went through back then to get presentations and things put together.

Laura Patterson: 00:05:58

Well, I think we were a little bit more deliberate because redoing that was really a lot of work today. Like you said, we have PowerPoint. Don't like that slide, it's just a couple of clicks.

But back then it was a pretty major thing to have to completely redo a slide. And we ran them through the printer, right, to heat them up and have them come Out. So yeah, a whole nother story.

I can't imagine how much money 3 I must have made on all those overhead projectors.

Freddy D: 00:06:24

Oh, geez.

Laura Patterson: 00:06:25

Must have been amazing. Yes, it must have been a really good product line for them.

Freddy D: 00:06:29

So let's talk, Laura, about what do you mean by customer centric? I really want to kind of deep dive into that a little bit because it's a unique term.

I think I know what it is, but I want our listeners to hear directly from you.

Laura Patterson: 00:06:41

Sure. So when we talk about it, we really talk about are you putting your customers at the center of your business and how you run your business?

So do your processes, your strategies, the questions that you're asking about for innovation, the measures that you're tracking, are they customer oriented or something else? Because we can be very insular in our companies and we look at a lot of measures and many of them are about us.

So here's a test I often use to helps me give it some insight into a company. When I ask them, well, what will success look for, like for you at the end, whatever the time horizon? And they give me a revenue number.

And then when I ask them, oh great, how many existing customers does that revenue number reflect? How many new customers will you have to acquire? Which of the customers do you have today will you have to grow?

And if it's deer in the headlights, they're probably not a customer centric company because they haven't really thought about the customer in, in. In terms of. That's really what we're here to do. You know, Peter Drucker said it, well, the purpose of businesses is to create a customer.

And Phil Kotler on the heels of that said, there's only one function that we have to work on and that is find, keep and grow the value of customers. Everything we do should be with that in mind. So that's the philosophy of customer centricity.

Freddy D: 00:08:00

Wow, that's a very excellent description of it because you're absolutely correct. It's really all about the customers. We're now selling a lot of different software packages.

Whether it was manufacturing, software engineering, or even construction management software. It was always about where did a customer see themselves in a couple years and what was their objectives.

And the differentiator that I would do was I would talk about business strategy and then say, hey, our product, the guys down the street's product and the other product, we all do the same stuff. Otherwise we wouldn't be in business. Okay, theirs turns left, ours turns right, whatever gets the job done.

But let's have the conversation, where do you want to be in 2 years, 4 years, 6 years, 10 years? What's the challenges you've got and everything else? And it got the conversation out of the widget and really focused on business growth.

And that would basically blow away my competitors because they were busy talking about all the functionalities and the features and everything else and how cool this thing is. And I'm talking. Yeah, it does the job. Let's talk about how we can help you grow and how this will help you achieve your growth.

To change the strategy.

Laura Patterson: 00:09:14

Exactly. I always say to our customers, do you know the answer to these three questions? And if you don't, you need to get the answer to these three questions.

What is success for your customers in very measurable, concrete terms? And in what time frame? So what is their success? Because that's why we're here, to help them be successful. Second, what is it they value?

You know, what is the problem they solve? They're trying to solve? What is it they value? And then what is it they value from you?

Because to your point, oftentimes it's got nothing to do with whatever is you're selling, Because a lot of people are selling very similar things. So what is the value you're bringing to the table? That's really an important differentiator.

In the old days in the semiconductor world, we used to say, you know, parts is parts.

Freddy D: 00:09:58

Yeah, yeah, same thing.

Laura Patterson: 00:09:59

Parts is parts. What is the value that we're bringing to the table?

Freddy D: 00:10:04

And when you help your customer accomplish the goals of how they deal with their customers, they really become super fans of you because they're looking good in front of their customers. And so now they start referring you to other people. My fastest sales was I would get a phone call and so. And so says, I need to buy this stuff.

How much is it? And how fast can you get it in here? And that was a sale. The time was just me putting together the paperwork.

And a lot of times I'd be at their facility and I'd use their fax machine to fax it the corporate the order. And my time was filling out the order form. There was no selling.

Laura Patterson: 00:10:43

Yes, exactly. And I think you bring up a really good point about if you are solving your customer's problem or helping them achieve their aspiration, right.

Then they're more likely to be a great referral for you. And. And referral rate is a great measure.

It's a great indicator of whether or not you have any super fans and also helps you reduce cost of Acquisition, cost of sale, all kinds of things. So it's really important to be able to have fans or advocates or ambassadors, whatever you want to call them.

Freddy D: 00:11:13

Yeah.

And you've got to get yourself out of your own way and really focus on them because a lot of people, I think in today's world, we've become much more transactional, especially with all the online stuff. You can go, you can go try a product and put in a 10 day free trial, whatever it is.

Most of the time you don't hear from anybody and you sit there and say, you know, I can't figure this out, it looks too complicated. Bam, I'm gone.

I think we've got away from building those relationships and helping people through the onboarding process because I believe that the sale is just the paperwork. Everything else that happens after the sale is really, in my mind, the sale, that whole experience from the onboarding through the delivery.

So if you're helping your customer be successful with their customers, you want to help them be able to deliver their stuff better, to ensure that their customers are going to be appreciative of the efforts that they're doing. And that changes the whole game.

Laura Patterson: 00:12:15

Jess, do we have time for a quick story to illustrate what you're saying?

Freddy D: 00:12:19

Yes, that's just where I was going to go with yes.

Laura Patterson: 00:12:20

Well, this is a part, then we can talk about customers. Way back when, long, long time ago, I was a salesperson for an office supply company.

You have to understand that today aren't salespeople in office supply companies, but back then they were mom and pop shops, maybe regional. We didn't have Office Depot, Office Max, Staples. We didn't have those big boxes that we have today.

And so people actually would go and go to offices and meet with the office manager or the business manager in order to sell whatever it was, papers, pens, staples, whatever it might be.

And I remember when I was first taking that job, the person I was learning from was a great salesperson, said, just remember, people buy from people they know and people they know that they like, and then people they know they like and they trust and people they know they like and trust who can solve their problem. If you can keep that in mind in the conversation, you'll be a great salesperson. So I think that we have to remember it's still about people.

And I know we've gotten away from that because we text and we email, we do everything online, but still, they've got to know you like you, trust you, and you have to solve their problem.

Freddy D: 00:13:30

Absolutely correct. Absolutely. Correct. Because it's really about the relationship.

Years ago, there's times where I would deal with my customers, whether it was a distributor in Germany or distributor in Australia or wherever, and I would sit and listen to their challenges and we would just brainstorm. And sometimes it wasn't anything about selling. We'd be out at dinner.

I remember being in Australia on DY beach with my distributor and going, what am I doing wrong with getting the Japanese market? And so we'd be brainstorming. He was helping me figure out my challenges. And then really it was.

I was being too much of a sales guy and not focusing on. For that culture, on really building that relationship.

But had I not had a friend to be able to brainstorm with, and that's the relationship I had built with the guy. I ended up cracking the Japanese market for the company because I changed my whole approach.

Laura Patterson: 00:14:29

It's pretty wonderful when you. The people you start to work with actually evolve from people you're working with to people that are friends. Right. Is a very nice evolution.

Freddy D: 00:14:42

Yeah. I still have friends from those days in different parts of the world.

Laura Patterson: 00:14:45

Some of my customers are. They weren't friends when we started, but they're friends today. And I think that it says a lot.

Freddy D: 00:14:52

Yeah, it does. Says a lot. And that's the game changer, really, because competition's got zero chance.

So talk about a story of how you worked with a customer and then you really transformed that company to where today they're a super fan of what you've done for.

Laura Patterson: 00:15:09

Yeah, I'd love to share some stories. We've got a couple in different industries, I think, because you've got members of your community are in different industries.

We predominantly serve B2B companies, so our customers typically have complex products, a consultative sell, multiple people in the buying journey and buying process. So it's not like buying a chocolate candy bar.

And when they make a decision to buy something from one of our customers, they don't want to have buyer's remorse. It's one thing drop some money on a candy bar and be unhappy and never buy it again. But you really can't do that with our customers products.

So an example is a help desk company that we work with. They have a lot of customers and they really wanted to figure out how to expand what they do.

They had managed to get into a couple of good markets, but they wanted to get into more markets. So we really just did a lot of digging into the data. Who were their customers? Where were their opportunities? What was the competition doing?

So really answering some questions about the market and getting some real insights around the market, their own customers.

And as a result of that, we built out a plan, we executed that plan and they were able to increase engagement in their own customers by about 30% each, a conversion for by about 25%, all in about a six month time frame. So being deliberate, being intentional, being data driven can make a real difference. So that's one example.

ce for a very long time since: 2001

And I've, we've had a number of customers over the years, many customers over the years in that space. And one of those customers was an early stage company. So they already had customers of their own and they were again trying to increase traction.

As you know. That's one of those ways, right Freddie, that cybersecurity is one of those.

At the time we got started beginning to be a wave, just like what you and I were in that wave. One of the things that ends up happening is you end up with a lot of competitors. So they all begin to sound a lot alike.

So really coming up with the right value proposition, the right differentiation, the right messaging, the right processes for how to go get new customers, because that was really important to them. It is kind of a land grab, or was a land grab when we were working with this particular customer.

And so we, we had a really inefficient marketing and sales process. So a lot of the work we did was around process mapping, operational excellence.

We were able to reduce the inefficiencies by about 40% which allowed them to have their salespeople get more focused on engaging with and building relationships. Because in the cybersecurity space that's really important. And we got about a 20% increase in qualified leads also in about six months.

So again through process improvements. So that's a couple of examples. I can give you more if you're interested.

But that might give people some thoughts about whether they might want to put some energy.

Freddy D: 00:18:05

And really how important is study metrics?

Because a lot of businesses don't take the time to really study what they're doing and what's going on with their metrics of their marketing efforts, their sales efforts, their retention efforts. They go by the seat of their pants. I mean, I'm sure you've run into that many times over the years. It still goes on all the time.

Laura Patterson: 00:18:31

We talk about.

Freddy D: 00:18:33

It still goes on all the time.

Laura Patterson: 00:18:34

What we talk about every day is eliminating random acts. Because there's random acts of selling, random acts of marketing, random acts of analysis, just delivering random acts. And that's really important.

We give people sort of a little test on whether or not what you're doing is a random act. If you were to put your plan on a board and you had your whatever it is you're trying to achieve in terms of your outcomes, right?

And you think about the strategy and the objectives, whatever that group is, the sales team, the marketing team, the product team, the customer support team, whatever it is.

So thinking about their objectives and their tactics and their activities, can you draw a straight line from that outcome all the way down to the activity?

And if the answer is no, that whatever you're working on is not on the line, you probably have a random act, how to get people to eliminate those random acts, because that's what allows them to have the energy, the time and the money to focus on the things that are going to make a difference.

If those things are not on the line or the things that are going to make a difference, then you probably need to revisit what are your outcomes, what are your strategies, things like that.

Freddy D: 00:19:46

Well, the other part I'm going to add to that is I use the example of a racing rowing team, okay? You've got eight people in a boat.

Laura Patterson: 00:19:55

I love that.

Freddy D: 00:19:55

And they have a single. Or you can develop the world's greatest marketing plan and the strategy and all the metrics and KPIs and all that stuff up the wazoo.

But the reality is you gotta take it further than all that stuff, and you gotta get everybody in that rowboat in sync, in the mission, in a direction. Because if you're not, that boat's not going anyplace. It's not even going in a circle.

If everybody's doing their own thing, that boat's just kind of going like this. And you've got to get everybody into the mission.

And so that's how you get that straight line, is everybody's got to know what the objectives are, the company, what's expected out of them. And then you got to work together to get there, because it doesn't flip a switch and it's there.

It's going to take some time, it's going to take some implementation. There's going to be mistakes, there's going to be errors, and you can't chastise people because you're changing the whole process.

You've got to really elevate people and encourage people. And that's transformative.

Laura Patterson: 00:20:58

We use that metaphor all the time. You've got to get people rowing in the same direction. Right. It's about mobilizing your team, getting them all aligned.

And one of the things that helps them get aligned is, yes, being against the same outcomes, but also really understanding what are the key measures that everyone is going to be measured against. Right. Everyone is mobilized around the same direction, the same outcomes and the same measures.

And the more you can make those be customer centric, the better, because. And everybody is mobilized around delivering value to the customer. So.

Freddy D: 00:21:33

Yeah. And everybody has the right expectations because now you know what's expected of you.

And the other thing that I wrote in my book is people will crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition.

So now that you've got that implemented, you've got to energize that team and create that culture in that company so that your team can be customer centric with your customers. And then that transcends to everybody else. And it really begins at the leadership and how they empower their team.

Laura Patterson: 00:22:04

Agree. We're on the same page.

Freddy D: 00:22:06

And that's where I think a lot of managers sometimes need some training themselves because they have a tendency to be directive versus empowerment. You need to be doing this versus hey, let's work together to make this happen. Whole different approach.

Laura Patterson: 00:22:28

Good point. I think it's an excellent point. It does start with your team. I believe that people come to work every day wanting to make a difference.

They want to do a good job. Most people, maybe not 100%, but maybe 98%. Right.

And if we don't give them guidance about what it is we want them to do to move the ball down the field, so to speak.

If we can go back to our sort of football metaphor for not really clear about what winning looks like and they understand what their job is to move the ball down the field, then they're going to do something. And so you're back to random acts. So the more we can communicate and have alignment and everyone has clarity around what we're trying to accomplish.

And there's a playbook that is the strategic plan, the operational plans. Those are the playbooks.

Might be some new place called depending on changes, a new competitor or a competitive shift or a new product or a new customer segment, whatever it might be, sometimes you do have to make new plays, but for the most part, you want to execute against the playbook for that game.

Freddy D: 00:23:31

Yeah, that's really important. One of the things I've learned over the years is my job is to make sure you do your job as best as you can and get the heck out of the way. That's it.

Laura Patterson: 00:23:43

Well, and they need to understand what success is going to look like for people to understand what is success in this role? What is success for you? What is success for our team? What is success for our company? What is success for our customers?

In very measurable, concrete terms. It can't be ambiguous and vague. It has to be very clear.

A lot of people don't understand when you say, well, we just want to drive revenue or we just want to grow our revenue or we want to increase in. I just got this just yesterday.

Freddy D: 00:24:11

That's ambiguous. It's all ambiguous.

Laura Patterson: 00:24:12

Yesterday in a conversation. We want new customers. We want to acquire new customers. Great. Love that you want to acquire new customers. How many do you want to acquire?

How many in what segments, what part of the world, what industries, what, what, what does that look like for which of your products are you wanting to acquire new customers? Right. So lots of questions.

And that goes back to really having good insights into the market, into the data, where you excel, where the market is going, where customers are going, all of those kinds of questions. Once we started talking, they didn't know the answers to those questions.

I'm like, well, we kind of need to know those answers to those questions because that's going to determine everything else. And so if you. My advice to people in your community is know the answers to those kind of questions. Quick, quick story.

If we have time for another one, a little bit different.

But when I was young, my grandfather would, who had five grandchildren, in the summer, some of us would get an opportunity to spend the weekend with him. And one of his favorite things to do was to go fishing.

And so you knew if you were going to stay over the weekend for the summer, that fishing was on the agenda.

And you know, if you're five years old and I've told this story before, so this is not a new story, maybe for some of your listeners, but you may be five years old and Papa and you are talking, it's Saturday afternoon, about going fishing on Sunday morning, and he asks you a question about fishing. And I always ask the audience when I'm telling the story, what is Papa's first question?

And I hear all kinds of things, so I'll just tell you what his question was. His question was, what kind of fish are we going fishing for? Right. This tells you everything you need to know.

It's only to tell you where you're going to go when you're going to go and what kind of bait you're going to need. It tells you everything you need to know. And it's just the same question I'm asking our customers. What kind of fish are you fishing for?

I always say to them, when I was 5 years old and I'd been asked this question a couple of times already, and I thought I was kind of smart, I had this sort of smart answer from my grandfather and I would say something like, blue ones. And he would then interpret that in a way. He would say, oh, that's bluegill. Go tell grandma we need bait for bluegill. Right?

And so you get up and you head out to the lake where the bluegill are going to be, and you get out all your gear and you're heading to go fishing when papa turns and asked you a second question about fishing, right?

And so I know you can relate to this, Freddie, because being a salesperson, and I hope all the people in your community, even if they don't fish, they'll understand this question. And usually, again, I just sort of leave it open and see what kind of people, what questions people ask. And you'd be surprised what people say.

But the question was, where should we put our pole? Right? Because he'd be looking around like, where's the competition? And he'd be thinking about the fish.

He was looking at me, goes, do you think the fish likes it sunny or shady? Do you think the fish likes it in deep water or shallow? Do you think the fish likes it in clear water or reedy? Same questions about the fish, right?

I'm five years old. I haven't got a clue. But the point I'm trying to make is you need to know that those kinds of answers for about your customer, right?

What is they like?

Freddy D: 00:27:36

Absolutely correct.

Laura Patterson: 00:27:36

And so I'm just sharing this story because it's an easy one for all of us to relate to. And if you're community doesn't know the answers to those kinds of questions, that's where they need to start, right? Instead of doing things.

Because we feel like if we're just standing still, we're not doing anything, we're not making progress. But sometimes we need to take a moment to pause and answer those kinds of questions so we can do the right things instead of just do things.

Freddy D: 00:28:06

Yeah, absolutely correct. Great story.

I'm going to use that story a little bit, but I've came up with my own phraseology for that, and that is to be terrific, you need to be specific. And if you're specific, you'll be terrific.

Laura Patterson: 00:28:20

I love that. I love that. You can borrow my story and I might borrow your phrase.

Freddy D: 00:28:25

There you go. Yeah, just don't say it fast because you messed it up.

Laura Patterson: 00:28:29

I can see that.

Freddy D: 00:28:32

But it's true. If you want to be terrific, you need to be specific. And if you're specific, you'll be terrific. And that's exactly what you just outlined there.

What type of fish, what type of food that you need to get for the fish, where are you going to go, the location where they're going to be at, what's the competition? There's a lot of factors in fish. Yes, it's a good story that you shared because it's relatable. Everybody can figure that out.

So as we kind of get closer to the end here, tell me a little bit more about the different services that you guys offer. And so that our listeners can know, what is it that you do that differentiates you from a lot of other agencies?

Laura Patterson: 00:29:13

So we're a consulting firm and we do have a variety of different ways people can leverage our capabilities.

So for the do it yourselfers or the people who maybe are on really tight budgets, we have workbooks, interactive workbooks that they can use for getting their positioning right, their message maps built, building out a plan that has, that will create that direct line of sight for creating better measures and metrics for doing better segmentation, all of those kinds of things. We have a software that will help you create a plan and build out measurable outcomes and will help you create what we call outcome based budgets.

One of the things that I think is really challenging for a lot of companies is they work through sub accounts. I'll use marketing as the example since that's oftentimes where a lot of sub accounts are found.

You know, they got a PR sub account and they got an event subaccount and they've got a email sub account and a website or content sub account, whatever they've got. But they're not connected to any outcome so they don't really know which things are actually moving the ball down the field for the result.

So we actually help them create outcome based budgeting so they can really see where their money is being allocated against an outcome. And it also allows them to create an outcome based calendar and then build out the first phase of a dashboard.

And for smaller companies, that's all they really need. Mid sized companies as well, you know, when you're getting to be an enterprise company, you're investing in some pretty heavy lifting technology.

But for mid sized and Smaller companies. That doesn't make them necessarily a lot of sense. We have advisory services. So you have a question, we've got an answer.

They can purchase that online with a credit card. So it's very again, designed to be something that is easy, fast, affordable and where you can get some access to expertise very quickly.

And then of course we do consulting engagements where people will come to us and say, can you help us execute a customer experience study or create a customer advisory board or implement a voice of customer? Can you help us build out a segmentation model?

Can you help us build out a strategic plan or an operational plan or a marketing plan or a growth plan? Can you help us map the customer journey? Can you help us use data and build out our Personas?

Those are heavy lifting kinds of projects and we do those and we enjoy doing those. And so those are all the things and ways that we can help in terms of actual tasks or activities.

But ultimately our process mapping is another big thing that we help people do. Ultimately our goal is to help our customers grow and whatever we can do to help them do that.

Freddy D: 00:31:51

And you brought up a couple good things here that I want to reiterate is that most businesses really don't take the time to identify what their customer Persona is. And that really needs to start there. And then the second thing is really the customer journey.

I don't think enough SMBs, small to mid sized businesses really take the time to really lay out what that customer journey looks like. And more importantly, I'm going to add another part to that is what happens after they become a customer.

Because if you look at some of the industries out there, I'm not going to name them, but you know, they do a great job, they come into your house, they do whatever needs to be done and you never hear from them again. And then a year, year and a half later you need something else done. And who was that? I don't know.

You get somebody brand new and so there's more than just that.

Customer journey needs to be not only getting them on board and getting them successful, but how do you maintain them a customer and how do you transform them into what I call a superfan? That in turn becomes your sales force promoting your business and the services that you did because you did a great job, but then you disappear.

Laura Patterson: 00:33:05

Exactly. And it's great to leave a review and get reviews, but if you don't continue the relationship, it is about the relationship that you're building.

And it doesn't matter whether that's a service that you're using in your home or a company that you're using for your business. It all really comes to the same.

They've got to have an ongoing relationship with you if you want to grow the share of wallet, grow the footprint inside a company, get referrals, all of that.

Freddy D: 00:33:32

Yeah. And it doesn't matter whether it's a B2C or B2B. The fundamentals are fundamentals. Right.

And so I think that that's important for our listeners to really understand that it goes beyond just what we've talked about. It's to transform them into a salesforce. And there's different things that you need to do.

Laura Patterson: 00:33:53

Yes. And for mid, for me, that's even more important because typically they don't have large sales forces.

Freddy D: 00:34:00

Right. And so how can people find you?

Laura Patterson: 00:34:03

Well, we would love for them to Visit us@visionedgemarketing.com We have all kinds of free resources, free blogs, which almost always give you very specific things you can do. We have free worksheets, free white papers, all kinds of things that are free.

So for people who are just trying to get their arms around something and then they can always reach out either on LinkedIn or email@laurapisionedgemarketing.com we're pretty good about keeping up to date with people who reach out to us because we do try to drink our own champagne. I think that's really important. So would love to hear from you.

Freddy D: 00:34:42

We'll make sure that that's into the show notes for our listeners and thank you so much for your time.

It's been a great conversation and we definitely would love to have you on the show down the road again because you and I could probably talk about this for hours.

Laura Patterson: 00:34:55

Yes, I would love that. And thank you for having me. And I hope everyone took away at least one good idea.

Freddy D: 00:35:01

Thank you so much, Laura.

Laura Patterson: 00:35:02

My pleasure.

Freddy D: 00:35:06

Hey, superfan superstar Freddie D. Here again.

Before we wrap, here's your three a playbook power move to attract ideal clients, turn them into advocates, and accelerate your business success. So here's the top insight from this if your team can't draw a straight line from daily actions to customer impact, you're not aligned, you're adrift.

So here's your business growth action step. Audit one department's activities this week and eliminate any that don't directly drive measurable customer value.

If today's conversation sparked an idea for you, or if you know of a fellow business leader who could benefit, share it with them. Support the show with the donation and grab the full breakdown in the show notes.

Let's accelerate together and start creating business superfans who champion your brand.